God willing? Get real!

Kurdi: "God willing, we want to stay in Canada". -The Globe and Mail, December 29, 2015.

Are you kidding? Mr. Kurdi really thinks that his landing in Canada was based on God's will? That means that God willed the capsizing of the small boat that resulted in the death of his sister-in-law and her two sons. Mr. Kurdi, take note: it was human kindness that brought you to Canada! God had nothing to do with it. Welcome to the west.
 
I have been extremely fortunate. I've never had to suffer through the tragedy of losing a loved one in a boating accident or tornado or plane explosion. I have a hard time, however, imagining anything more offensive than hearing from a survivor that 'God was watching over me’. Attributing one’s survival to God's selective protection is tantamount to blaming the dead for their own deaths. So, does Kurdi think that God had plans for his brother's boat? Did God hand pick the victims of that boat?

Delusional ideation--that's the medical term--is what leads to believing in the will of God.

This all-seeing God must also have had little interest in watching over the events that led to the boat sinking in the first place: the weather, boat capacity, etc.

How about the  victims in the Paris shootings? God must have decided it was their time to die, right? Similarly, God must have had it in for six million Jews in World War II, but was fine with protecting the Nazi German murderers who lived out their natural lives after the war, many protected by the United States. God Bless America, you know. Oh wait, different God.

Or the millions murdered by Pol Pot and Stalin?—God must have been just fine with those two charming fellows, both having the luxury of living out their natural lives. God willing, indeed. How about the passengers of Pan American flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland? They must have been really bad or really good for God to have selected them for early admission to the afterlife from a bomb made by Libyan terrorists. Meanwhile, the perpetrators still walk today, no doubt because God ordained it. And so on.

If there were something that should shatter the whole concept of faith, and bring into serious question the entire notion of an overseeing, all-protecting higher being, it would be any one of the atrocities above, or any of thousands of similar disasters over the millennia where innocent people were dashed against the rocks of misfortune or eviscerated by the swords of their fellow man.

Sadly, the concept of 'GOD WILLING' will not likely disappear any time soon. No matter how uncivilized and barbaric, if beliefs are labeled as faith-based, the rest of society becomes reluctant to challenge or reject them. The time has come for that to change. 

TRUST ME, I'M ARROGANT: DOCTOR CARTOON

It's Butternut squash season!

Butternut squash                              Prep time: 10 minutes

                                                                Cook time: 60 to 90 min

                                                                Serves: 2 or 3

Fire up the oven!

Squash is bland, so concentration of flavors is necessary. In this recipe, roasting creates a savory/sweet side dish that is sure to please you and your guests.

Here’s all you need

1.     One butternut squash, small to medium, peeled and cut into squares

2.     Olive oil, 1 or 2 Tbsp

3.     Ginger root, minced, 1 to 2 tsp

4.     Kosher salt, one large pinch

5.     Pepper

6.     Thyme, ½ tsp to 1 tsp

7.     Sugar ½ tsp

Here’s what to do:

·      Pre-heat oven to 400° Fahrenheit

·      Combine large-dice squash pieces and other ingredients into a bowl

·      Spread onto baking sheet

·      Roast until browned lightly, turning once or twice, approximately 60 min or up to 90 min.

Immunity: a double-edged sword

 


With no immune system, we would all die young from overwhelming infections. However, the immune system is a two-edged sword. Too little and too much are both harmful.

Immune function is so hard-wired genetically that immune deficiency occurs only in the most extreme settings: HIV/AIDS, organ transplants (by intention), some lymphomas, extreme malnutrition and genetic immune deficiencies.

For example: The reason you get a cold or the flu is NOT that your immune system needs a boost, it is that your immune system is reacting appropriately to the virus you got exposed to from your kids or coworkers. With flu and colds, EXPOSURE is the issue, not immunity. If you do catch a cold, you become immune to that particular strain, but there are so many different strains, the next one you encounter could lay you low again.

The real problem in many diseases is an overactive immune system. The following common diseases develop as a result of too much immune reaction:


Poison ivy rash: immune reaction to the plant chemical on your skin
Psoriasis: aberrant immune reaction to numerous environmental exposures
Lupus: autoimmune reaction to your body’s own cells
Ulcerative colitis: genetically influenced autoimmune reaction in the intestines
Rheumatoid arthritis: autoimmune attack on joints and other tissue
Dry eye/dry mouth syndrome (Sicca): autoimmune attack on saliva and tear glands.
Peanut allergy: life threatening immune reaction to peanut ingredients
Hay fever: immune reaction to pollens
Asthma: partially genetic immune reaction to multiple inhaled allergens
Drug reactions: severe immune reactions to many drugs
Hives: immune reaction to shrimp, strawberries, drugs, etc, etc.
Eczema: genetically determined immune skin reaction causing intractable itch



How about CANCER? It is a common misconception that cancer is related to deficiency of the immune system. In most cases, gene mutations cause cancer, combined with certain environmental carcinogens like tobacco and asbestos, to name only two.
In the special setting of organ transplants, where the immune system has to be suppressed intentionally, cancer becomes a higher risk because the immune system can’t do what it does naturally: to seek out and kill abnormal cancer cells. 

Only ONE of the top ten causes of death has a direct connection to low immunity and that is HIV/AIDS. Most of the common killers have nothing to do with low immunity. Boosting your immunity (which can't be done anyway) will not decrease heart disease, stroke, lung disease, diarrheal illness, and many others. 

Much more common is too much immune response (called ‘inflammation’ and sometimes ‘auto-immune disease’). Most of the new 'biologics' advertised heavily on T.V. (Humira, Enbrel) suppress immune response. Prednisone is the most common immune suppressor.

The simple things we can do to reduce autoimmune inflammation is avoid smoking, excessive eating, alcohol, and don't abuse the sun. 



So, in short:
1. Don’t worry about boosting your immune system; living healthy is enough.
2. Understand that you cannot improve on the immune system you were born with.
3. Understand that successful treatments for the diseases listed above consist of therapies that suppress, not boost, the immune response.


Vaccines deserve special mention. Vaccines induce immunity to individual disease-causing viruses and bacteria. Polio, measles, mumps, whooping cough are the most familiar ones. The flu vaccine induces immunity to the influenza virus of that particular year only, so yearly vaccination is the rule.

Shingles is also a special case. Shingles (Herpes Zoster) develops when there is a reduction in natural immunity to the chickenpox virus. This happens with aging or severe illness. There is no proven method for an individual to avoid reduced immunity with age. Fortunately, there is now a vaccine against the virus, which is given at age 50 to 60 to literally boost that specific immunity.

Best regards,

Related links: 
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3hWv26Bs9E
SHINGLES (Herpes Zoster): Baby boomers: there is hope!
"Don't Pick That Mole"--- dispelling the myth
SUN PROTECTION: Myths and truths
Hormonal Acne in Women

https://www.jameschanningshaw.com

Why scabs form. Plain and Simple

by James Channing Shaw, MD

Here’s what everyone should know about WOUNDS:

1.     Wounds heal only in a humid environment. Dry skin cells, like dry leaves on a tree, are DEAD.

2.     Scabs form as nature's way of preventing the skin from drying out. Scabs CREATE a moist environment UNDER THE SCAB that allows cells to multiply .

3.     That’s why wounds heal best when COVERED.

4.     You can create the healing environment (and AVOID THE SCAB) by NOT exposing the wound to air. Ever. The oxygen comes from the blood that feeds the skin cells, not the air directly.

5.     It takes longer for a wound to heal if allowed to form a scab, vs. a dressing.

6.     To prevent the bandage from sticking, apply an ointment (containing NO water- you have to read the label) before bandaging. ANTIBIOTIC OINTMENT has been shown to be no better than plain petroleum jelly or similar healing ointment. The most familiar products are Vaseline and Aquaphor.

7.     A bandage can be left on a clean wound for several days at a time. There is no need for daily dressing changes unless the bandage gets soaked.

8.     Open wounds (as opposed to sutured surgical wounds) RARELY BECOME INFECTED if they are cleaned before dressing. Signs of infection include SIGNIFICANT increase in pain and redness several days following the injury.

Sincerely yours,

June 16, 2015

https://www.jameschanningshaw.com

John Adams, composer: Part I

John Adams

Every so often music is written that is so powerful it makes your scalp tingle and your hair stand on end. Sometimes total body. Maybe it’s just my scalp, my body. I don’t know. I’d like to know if it happens to others.

Many musical pieces bring tears, but there is something special, thrilling, about the scalp tingling. Somewhat different than the music that elicits tears, such as the Adagietto in Mahler’s 5^th Symphony (search adagietto on youtube), or Barber’s Adagio for Strings, or several operatic duets I could name, or Joe Cocker’s You Are So Beautiful. 

Very few pieces do the scalp tingle thing. A full body cringe of pleasure is close to the scalp tingling, but slightly different, more cerebral.  In jazz, several tunes by Weather Report make me cringe; a high-register attack by Wayne Shorter on his soprano; a high piercing note by Miles Davis in Right Off from the Jack Johnson album, or the long tones in Fast Track from We Want Miles. Pleasure cringes for sure, but not the eerie magical scalp tingle.

For me recently, renowned composer John Adams’s minimalistic piece from the 1980s called Shaker Loops (sadly I only recently discovered the piece) is the one with the most precise effect. It consistently happens during the third movement, about twenty-two minutes in, all strings rising in tension and tempo until a chord is struck repeatedly by all the players, slow at first and then faster and faster repetitions that approach a solid chord, then bang! onto a new chord more powerful than the first, again slow at first and accelerating to a final new chord, more complex and powerful than the prior two, followed by a fade, and the tingling stops.

I would like to know if John Adams ever gets tingling with music, or if those chords do the same thing to him. Or anyone else. It’s not the notes per se. One note or chord identical to the one in Shaker Loops wouldn’t do it. It’s the composition, the build up, the intensity. To be able to experience that neurological response, the tingling, the emotion that causes it, is a privilege. Like being in love, it is one of a limited number of experiences that give the most intense meaning to life. Thank you, John Adams. 

May 6, 2015

https://www.jameschanningshaw.com    

Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness

Imagine what world history could be without BELIEF: no infidels to decapitate; no flambéed astronomers in the Middle Ages; no Christian Crusaders murdering disbelievers; no witch hunts; no Creation-based ignorance; no saving of relics from schizophrenics thought to be Christian visionaries; no Sunni/Shiite differences; no 40-virgins for killing people; no immaculate conception; no resurrection; no Mohammed on a flying horse; no Kosher kitchens (save big on plates!); no restrictions on eating pork (this could strain world supplies very quickly!); no “you killed Jesus” from anti-Semitic Christians; no molestation of boys by Priests; no clitoral mutilation of powerless hapless girls; no destroying of world heritage Buddhas; no resisting the study of science and evolutionary genetics; no fraudulent hypocrites saving souls on television; no lives  squandered over the Talmud while awaiting the real Messiah; no religion-based resistance to women’s health care; no QAnon. The list is endless.

BELIEF itself, it appears, is the problem. Religious faith (the most shortsighted of all BELIEFS) is the biggest problem of all, but pure BELIEF, defined loosely as accepting something as truth without the benefit of evidence, has caused generations of human misery and closes doors on the advancement of all peaceful endeavors, science, and understanding on any subject.

Believing stuff is a protective neurological function. I get that. But just because Homo sapiens evolved into having the capacity to BELIEVE in stuff doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be challenged in modern times.

Instead of BELIEF, try “Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” 

Thomas Jefferson added this secular phrase to the Declaration of Independence. It came from the works of Greek philosopher Epicurus (ref: Greenblatt, S. The Swerve: How the World Became Modern—a must read.) Epicurean (secular) thinking was of course punishable by death once Christianity took over in the western world. For Jefferson to incorporate a snippet of secular humanism into the Declaration of Independence is remarkable.

If an individual’s happiness comes from a lifetime of studying one religion or another, so be it, but if that study or BELIEF results in death, oppression, or the pursuit of subjugation, etc…we have a problem.

The time has come to challenge and reject BELIEF. No longer should BELIEF be sacred, immune to criticism. Use evidence instead of BELIEF. Go with factual truths. Replace “I believe” with “I think” in conversation when there is uncertainty. Change your mind if new evidence comes to light. Grow. Advance. Improve!

Until BELIEF is rejected worldwide and every individual places higher value on humanity, life, liberty and pursuit of happiness than on BELIEFS and BLIND FAITH, there will be blood in the streets. 

Cheers,

January 17, 2015

https://www.jameschanningshaw.com