Because Bringing Crazy To Kids Is So Important

"Wilhelm Reich was an Austrian psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who trained under Sigmund Freud in Vienna. He was known for forging ahead with work for which the world wasn’t quite ready. He was labeled as a 'quack' by the FDA and deemed mentally ill. However, Wilhelm Reich was once connected to the Old Pueblo and this connection is an interesting one. It might be a bit bizarre.

Reich experimented with a biological energy he called 'orgone energy.' Reich claimed to have found a way to harness this energy. The energy was to be used for a variety of purposes from cancer treatment to weather experimentation. The weather experimentation brought him to Tucson all the way from Portland, Maine.

This concept of Orgone was derived from Freud’s concept of libido, while Carl Jung identified the libido as psychic energy. Wilhelm Reich expanded on these concepts with his theories about orgasmic energy. We will return to this idea of Orgone and delve deeper into it later. However, you get the idea. This was biological energy that Reich claimed to have harnessed for the greater good of mankind.

At about the same time in 1954, the world was fascinated with UFOs, and so was William Reich. In fact, much of what was wrong with the world, according to Wilhelm Reich, was due to repressed sexuality and UFO invaders.

Wilhelm Reich lives on in music and literature. Bob Dylan, Kate Bush, Patti Smith, and other songwriters have written and recorded songs about Wilhelm Reich. Jack Kerouac referenced Reich’s work in his book On the Road, as did William Burroughs through his own works."

-- Cherlyn Gardner Strong, detailing a madman's influence - and the influence of the occult - in contemporary society, as a Tucson Citizen.

Read the whole thing.

Eating In France: Dying Inside

"Restaurants are very expensive. There is a range, of course, but it starts high. Way higher than neighborhood places in Manhattan, for instance. And few places are truly child friendly. The French do not much like children.

Restaurant meals are available at very limited hours. You want lunch — it had better be between 12 and 2. Miss that and you can have a snack — but only if you are in a place big enough to have a range of restaurant types. Dinner starts at 7, no matter that you missed lunch and want a burger or a salad at 5, not ice cream or a beer. And meals take forever. I like the leisurely lunch as much as any journalist, of course. But not with my kids, every day — which leaves us with grilled-cheese sandwiches, hold the ham. Oh, you can’t hold the ham? Thanks.



Finally, there is a lot of bad food in France — especially around tourist sites, including the great museums. I will not say what I paid for two sandwiches and two salads — all premade so unwanted ingredients could not be removed in advance — and a few soft drinks at the Louvre, after braving the crowds to see the Mona Lisa (which attracts tour buses full of people eager to take group pictures of themselves in front of the picture). There is much excellent food, of course. But who wants really excellent food every day? Sometimes you just want to get everyone fed and get on with your activities.

Fast food exists because a mediocre, entirely predictable burger from McDonald’s is no worse than what you would get a certain percentage of the time at individual places that might not be as clean and certainly won’t be as quick. There is an obvious open niche for a service-oriented place that downplays the drama and provides reasonably healthy food in a clean setting.

And as for the health claim — I don’t personally buy it. But I am currently in a region where every farmers’ market, farm stand, and café sells foie gras, duck confit, and excellent high-fat cheeses, and what passes for a vegetable in restaurants is potatoes sautéed in duck fat. A few carrot sticks and an apple and Mickey D wins that one — so no surprise that it’s doing well."

-- Lisa Schiffren, on some of the many hidden truths about eating in France - others are an extremely limited menu, hearing the repeated phrase "We do not have" when ordering from that menu (France is a socialist country, so prepare to do without many advertised items) and - unlike anywhere in the FDA-protected United States - the daily danger of food poisoning, which you won't hear about anywhere but here, and in The National Review.

And when I say "food poisoning", I'm talking about a real whammy kiss of sickness, that would cause me to black out as I was eating and, when I awoke, swear off trying any of their "delicacies" ("It's the best!") ever again. When I was living there, I was always at McDonald's or Quick (the American jeans-clad Belgian Burger King that operates in France) or stealing away to a Muslim joint for a tasty kabob - a risk for any American.

But I found I'd do almost anything - anything - but take the chance of another debilitating night of the vomits or the shits - experiencing the depressing reality of, once again, suffering terrible stomach cramps - while inhaling the full-strength odor of my own insides because I was usually stuck, using an ancient toilet with no water in it. (France hasn't figured out standardized plumbing either. I swear, after the war started and American liberals started screaming, "France does not agree!", I was living there thinking, "So what? If these goofballs don't agree, it's probably the right thing to do." That started my very-serious re-evaluation of Bush, his policies, and just about everything else: Conservatism, here I come,...)

It was a fucking daily torture.

Another issue is this idea of "freshness" in France.

I can't tell you how often I sat in wonder as my French ex-wife (dumbshit that she is) would go to one restaurant after another ordering the fish - trying to make a point about French fish being better and fresher than American - but regularly discovering she almost broke a tooth because it invariably had sand still in it. (I almost always ordered a steak, which would drive her and the other frogs crazy, since they took it - and almost anything else I did, not to their specifications, to protect myself - as an insult, being the insecure bunch that the French are.)

And about that limited menu: You can go to a party in France and they'll always have a spread for the guests. Go to another party - it's the exact same spread!

And how would you like to find these guys - just like this - on your pizza?

Here's a couple of other culinary tips:

Stay away from Mexican food in France.

They don't understand the first thing about it, and will happily hand you a plate that can best be described as an ugly bean dip disaster.

And, black Americans, don't be surprised if someone slyly offers you "niggerheads" for dessert: They're racist as all get-out in France. They just won't admit it - even to themselves - just ask the Jews.

But, of course, they demand that Americans must have a black president, while France doesn't have a black anything. They don't even like printing the word "black" in newspapers. Hell, I once went to the equivalent of a Home Depot in France and they didn't even have black paint! (They also wouldn't sell me blue paint because I told them I wanted to use it on my kitchen. The reliable reply: "This is not done!")

Fuck France.

Backstabbers: Homeopathy Finally Makes A Really Big Impression On The American Public

"He was like millions of other consumers who sometimes take vitamins or echinacea, hoping to build up his immunity or ward off a cold. He figured alternative remedies were as safe as a spoonful of honey.

But that notion washed away with one squirt of a homeopathic cold gel.

David Richardson, of Greensboro, N.C., is one of hundreds of patients across the country who have lodged complaints about Zicam Cold Remedy, saying it destroyed their sense of smell."

-- Jeff Donn, on one of the potential dangers of being convinced water can be used as medicine (another one is you're crazy) in The Los Angeles Times.

"Consumers purchasing homeopathic products should be aware that they have not been reviewed by the FDA."

-- Sandy Walsh, FDA spokesman - after some of the dangers of being convinced water can be used as medicine became apparent - also in The Los Angeles Times.

"An Associated Press analysis of the Food and Drug Administration's side effect reports found that more than 800 homeopathic ingredients were potentially implicated in health problems last year. Complaints ranged from vomiting to attempted suicide."

-- Jeff Donn, on the gullibility of believers in the concept of water being used as medicine, for The Associated Press.

"In this era of ever-expanding government, perhaps we should be increasing common sense and integrity, and not just power and budgets at the regulatory agencies."

-- Michael D. Shaw, on the cure for water being used as medicine in America - France is on it's own with this one - and needs a good Dental Plan.

Also: Be On The Lookout For Your Own Stupidity

"Claims such as "scientific breakthrough," "miraculous cure," "secret ingredient," and "ancient remedy."

Claims that the product is safe because it is "natural."

Undocumented case histories or personal testimonials by consumers or doctors claiming amazing results."

-- The Techskeptic, giving us some of the quackery warning signs the FDA says to watch out for - which, of course, can be found on almost all NewAge “alternative" medicine” health products - revealed on a blog called Effort Sisyphus.

Quacks, Cancer, Supplements - It Never Changes

UPDATE: We didn't get a chance to add all these, earlier, or say they were submitted by Donavan Freber!!

My Heroes: The FDA Is Cracking Down!!!

As much as I applaud the FDA's action, I worry about it. Powerful forces are arrayed against it, forces embodied by legislators like Congressman Ron Paul, champion of the DSHEA and many other "health freedom" measures; Congressman Dan Burton, the best friend of antivaccinationists and "alternative" medicine in all of Congress; and Senator Tom Harkin, whose love of woo and boosterism for it got the National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine (NCCAM) started as the embryonic Office of Alternative Medicine, whose continued attention fertilized it so that it grew into the $120 million a year behemoth that it is now, whose interference forced the NIH to fund useless and unethical clinical trials, including an unnecessary, poorly designed, and unethical trial of chelation therapy to the tune of as much as $30 million, and whose patronage continues to protect NCCAM from attempts to downsize or eliminate it. It would not surprise me in the least if this unholy trio of woo banded together to attack the FDA for "overreaching" and attacking "health freedom"--or even trying to reduce its budget or rewrite the law to hamstring the FDA and make crackdowns of this nature much harder, something that Republicans tend to like to do in general because of their philosophical belief in small government and less regulation. True, there is less of a chance of their being successful now, given that Ron Paul and Dan Burton are Republicans and Congress is currently controlled by the Democrats. Indeed, it makes me wonder if the FDA has decided that Barack Obama is likely to be the next President. Either way, cracking down like this is a risk. Woo-friendly legislators might well try to punish the FDA for its action.

My speculation aside, the FDA crackdown is a good start but doesn't go nearly far enough.

Orac, on the problems, and individuals, facing new FDA measures to stop bogus cancer cures, for Respectful Insolence.

Dr. Crack To The Rescue!!!

According to the Contra Costa Times, now that the FDA has stopped over the counter sales of children's cold remedies, parents on the Pregnancy Weekly website are "tentatively" being offered "Holistic help" from someone called "Meg and Jo" - followed by a "winking, yellow, smiling avatar" - and that "help" is coming in the form of "brave" suggestions for parents to try homeopathic products.

How wonderful. How sweet. How sinister can you get?

To make this parenting dilemma easier, I - The Crack Emcee, M.D. - am going to offer my own suggestion to the San Francisco Bay Area's troubled parents:

A) This is a glass of water.

B) This is a homeopathic preparation.

Which is better?

I'd say 'A' - because it's cheaper.

In case you guys don't 'get' it, here's James Randi (of the James Randi Educational Foundation) to explain it - again: