Don't Explain

 

 2000: Babylon.com (by Yours Truly) opens with "I don't want to be no slave to no dot-com!" 

2023: Generation X workers have become disillusioned with tech culture—and their jobs.

That anyone has room in their head for this is disturbing: What Each Zodiac Sign Can Manifest This Week When Jupiter Retrograde Starts

Burning Man starting to feel more welcoming to people of color (after more than two decades, they're doing the best they can).

 

 

 'I'm not usually racist' HAS to be one of the most honest statements heard recently. Bravo.

Except for Haitian, spoken in Florida, there is no reflection of blackness in America. If your descendants were brought here in a slave ship, you have no cultural anchor to hang onto, except for what your people made out of the experience. There's no vacations back to "the old country" to let the pressure off or understand yourself more - as most others have. There's no money coming from ancestors and family "back home" - as most others have. There's no strength coming from a history of anything. How anyone can think blacks don't deserve reparations blows my mind. How anyone can wonder why we stay so angry does, too. Where does it get to go?

 

For 20 years, I was married to a French woman more devoted to FIVE of the Top 10 Worst Alternative Health Practices Influencers Pedal than our marriage, which has left me triggered and abused - and probably will for as long as I live - since American society's also decided there will be no escaping even the worst Alternative Health Practices. They'll just keep these cults in our faces, as another tax on our lives.

That's how I look at what the Panda Express cult was doing during the pandemic,...

Which will have to "funnel down" - after attempting another twist-and-shout on my powers of prophesy, astrology, various thoughts on racism, quackery, cults, and pandas - to closing this post with an assist from 2012, and Panda Bear, MD: 

"The best blog on my blogroll, the Macho Response, is not even a medical blog but rather the observations and reflections of a guy living deep in one of the many strongholds of the lunatic fringe and who is slapping them around as they deserve and to the best of his abilities. I’m sure we don’t agree on everything. The Crack Emcee, as he styles himself, is an artist, a musician, and an atheist while I am tone deaf, art-insensate, and a devout Orthodox Christian…but I ain’t a fascist and there is plenty of room in my mind at least for some reasoned differences of opinion. The Emcee is nothing if not reasonable which is not to say that he doesn’t, in a commendable macho fashion, disembowel the usual sensitivity fascists, self-help gurus, and the obnoxious cult-like behavior that is the norm among many of our elites. Sometimes even reasonable men must run up the Jolly Roger, spit on their hands, and commence to cutting throats (If I can paraphrase H.L. Mencken)."

This Should Not Be Considered A Positive Development

2005:

The late, great Jef Raskin noticed cultism flourishing in nursing through alternative medicine.

2007:

While in the throes of a NewAge tragedy, I tried my best to convince people - anyone - that alternative medicine is a cult. Everyone laughed at me and called me an asshole.

That same year, Panda Bear M.D. got back from Iraq, went to medical school, started blogging, and called alternative medicine a cult, also. 

Not long afterwards, Panda asked if TMR would be his "sister blog," and so we are.

2008:

That boil, lying on skins behind our backs, starts to annoy Orac (which means some of the online science community were noticing) as well.

2010:

The coolest duck since Daffy, The Quackometer, stops talking funny and says it plain.

And, finally, 2013: 

Edzard Ernst MD, PhD, FMedSci, FSB, FRCP, FRCPEd - the man who was actually hired to sort this "alternative" stuff out - joined our little group.

Now - that's 7 years - how long will it take for the rest of you?

 

My Ulcer Thinks You've All Been Behaving Wonderfully

Good ol' Edzard Ernst has posted something I knew already:

Aromatherapy is not demonstrably effective for any condition. It also is not entirely free of risks. Its risk/benefit profile is thus not positive which can only mean that it is not a useful or recommendable treatment for anybody who is ill.

 

 I wish the professor would include "belief" as one of the "risks" - especially for others - because, without the belief, there ain't no risk. There's also (never mentioned in these reviews) no family arguments, no divorces, no cult influences - none of it. It all disappears when the belief does. As Panda Bear, MD said (on my sister blog):

"Uh, the point being that you’re studying it. If it doesn’t pan out you will shrug your shoulders and say, 'Oh well, guess we were wrong about that one,' not form the Cult of Cinnamon Therapy and defend it from all infidels"

 

 Or let's turn to another friend, Dr. Ben Goldacre:

"When you point out a problem with the evidence, people don’t engage with you about it, or read and reference your work. They get into a huff. They refuse to answer calls or email queries. They wave their hands and mutter sciencey words such as “quantum” and “nano”. They accuse you of being a paid plant from some big pharma conspiracy,...they cry, they call you names, they hold lectures at their trade fairs about how you are a dangerous doctor, they contact and harass your employer, they try to dig up dirt from your personal life, or they actually threaten you with violence (this has all happened to me, and I’m compiling a great collection of stories for a nice documentary, so do keep it coming)."

 

So am I - because I, too, am going to prove that's what these morons do and have done. They don't care about facts or reality - or anyone else - they're zombies attacking anyone who pushes back.

   

 Remember the last election? When all the Righties started defending Mitt Romney's NewAge nonsense, no matter how much I pointed out he was hopeless? How they came up with excuses, got angry, and then either attacked or abandoned me altogether as a fake conservative? What's the difference between that and my experience with NewAge "spirituality"?

 

Belief in nonsense is the problem, because the behavior people exhibit once they give in to believing easily-disputable bullshit is cultish, deplorable, and harmful. 

   

 Or does anyone think I've become a nicer blogger since discovering NewAge or, say, the Instapundit/Althouse crew showed their totally insane election-losing asses?

They Laugh At Me, I'm Laughing At Them (Hilarious,...)

“The forces of graft and unrighteousness are peculiar to no country or clime, and they have their champions in the high places and the low. Until the people themselves are better educated concerning the danger and iniquity of quackery, they must be protected from the forces that prey. The popular understanding of these matters is becoming better every day, and, aided by proper laws, the time will come, perhaps, when quackery will be unprofitable.”

That's a wonderful quote to summarize what we've learned (so far) about "the forces that prey" - politicians like Mitt Romney, Orrin Hatch, and Tom Harkin, as well as cult groups like the Mormons, and the other NewAgers in the various supplement (and "alternative" medicine) industries.

Because the citizens of this country (and others) are so ignorant of the rank quackery laid before them, under the guise of "health freedom," these influential individuals and the cult groups they belong to are allowed to promote "graft and unrighteousness," posing as "their champions in the high places and the low."

One of these corrupt loons is even headed to the White House.

I spotted the quote, which is actually from the year 1912, as the lead-in to a Steve Novella blog post on the longevity of quackery. Afterwards, he ends with his own words which, to me, are just as troubling:

Our perspective tends to exist in a temporal bubble – we think that the conflicts of today are unique to us, and that we innovated the ideas we use to defend our causes. History, however, tells a different story.

And why is this? Because, as I've been saying as long as I've been online engaging with doctors, they refuse to try a different tactic. They keep repeating what does not work, year after year, expecting a different result. Little wonder the medical profession has lost some credibility.

I am sure Dr. Novella is aware of the NewAge Movement. I'm not so sure he's aware many of the most vocal anti-vaccinationists, such as Jim Carrey, are a part of it.

I am sure Dr. Novella is aware of the supplement industry and DSHEA (He mentions both in his blog post on quackery). I'm not so sure he's aware the Mormon "church," and it's cult followers, such as Mitt Romney and Orrin Hatch, are responsible for them.

And I am sure Dr. Novella is aware of homeopathy. I'm not so sure he's aware it, too, is a cult, and not just a water-based preparation that some people seem to behave bizarrely over - for some reason few in medicine seem willing or able to put their finger on - even to the extent of ending their own lives and the lives of their loved ones.

But armed with his ignorance, like almost every other medical professional I've discussed these matters with, Dr. Novella writes as though there are few answers to quackery when, clearly, identifying cultism as a culprit is one answer left on the table - despite the overwhelming evidence of it's ubiquity in his field.

The late Jef Raskin, cognitive psychology researcher, creator and leader of the Macintosh project at Apple Computer Inc., identified cultism in Nursing Theory as far back as the year 2000 with little-to-no response from the medical community, though a nine-year old girl did get into JAMA for debunking the cult's theories.

But what of the various cults themselves? They carry on in the hospitals, reciting the Hitler Youth phrase "Mind, Body, and Spirit" right under the good doctor's noses, without a care in the world, because - when it comes to cults, cultish thinking, and the long-standing issue of cultism - the medical profession is filled with more "shruggies" than can be found anywhere, since - in this instance - they are thinking of anything but the welfare of their patients, who have been turned into hand-waving, water-drinking, nonsense-spouting mental slaves.

Long ago, a cultist warned me that "We're in the hospitals - we're getting legit - you'd better 'get' it before it's too late!" and those words could not have been more prophetic over the ensuing years. But, I'm sad to say, the doctors and nurses these cultists are attacking are as much to blame, for the cultist's success, as the cultist's themselves - because the doctors are wearing cultural blinders just as restricting to their view.

Stop repeatedly identifying quackery, and explaining how it works until we're dying of boredom, and start identifying who these groups are - not just the individuals within them. Abandon the softly-softly, non-judgmental, "respectful insolence" approach and pick up a rhetorical baseball bat, as such true leaders as Panda Bear, M.D. and Dr. Graham Sharpe have, and start swinging for your own survival.

Or - if I understand your profession correctly - finally start doing it for mine,….

 

Come One, Come All - Now Get Away From Me!

With all these visitors streaming in from all over, I have to say, if you're from one place and not visiting the blogs that I'm tight with, you're missing out on what's happening online. Here's a few of them:

The graphic, above, is from iOwnTheWorld, and it's typical of the ridicule they dish out to anyone who thinks we're the rubes. There aren't many conservative art blogs around, but with iOTW's head honcho, Big Fur Hat, on the case, there ain't gotta be. I'm not sure how he keeps the level of brilliance up day after day, but he does, and he and his crew even continue to top themselves, sometimes completely destroying whatever it is I thought they were able to accomplish. Personal note:

They've given me a lot of encouragement when I was feeling down, and, I'm sure, TMR wouldn't still be here without them.

I am honored to call iOwnTheWorld my friends.

[Click to enlarge: really, do it - it's funny!]

This next blog is new to me, but since they've started hanging out here, I've had ample opportunity to visit Flying Tiger Comics and, damn, I'm glad I did! I can't really explain it because (like TMR) it's too eclectic, but I know a kindred spirit when I see one and Flying Tiger Comics fits the bill.

Go, visit - enjoy!

Althouse is an online salon run by Ann Althouse. Right now, she and Laurence "New Media" Meade are making news in Madison, Wisconsin by covering the union battle with Gov. Scott Walker. There's a lot more that goes on over there, daily, because Ann's a pot-stirring educator with a loyal following of really smart readers, but the main reason I love it is because she's a fierce free speech advocate - as I am - as well as a fellow artist and, even though she voted for Obama and can show a squishy hippie center sometimes, her openness to other opinions more than compensates.

I'm hard on her, and Meade, but just for putting up with me, I love them both more than I can express with words. I mean that:

They're two wonderful people.

My sister blog is by Panda Bear, M.D., a former Iraq War vet who entered the medical profession. Like me, he doesn't mess around with BS, despises NewAge and quackery, and hold's the conservative's tragic view of life rather than the liberal's therapeutic, so - if you're looking for medical advice you can trust - he's the man. He hasn't posted in a while but so what?

He will when he's good and ready.

And finally, Mystic Bourgeoisie is where Chris Locke has been untangling the NewAge phenomena in preparation for a book of the same name. If you don't think TMR explains NewAge enough (as I prefer to speak as though understanding it is a given) then go and start at the beginning and let "Rageboy" lay it all out for you. Mystic Bourgeoisie is probably one of the most fun, well-laid out, and informative blogs on what's really troubling our present day culture I've ever read.

I'm not ashamed to say it saved my sanity.

It just might save yours, too - or, at least, will explain a lot of stuff you think you already understand - but you don't. Take my word for it:

When it comes to NewAge, you don't know nothin'!

She Looks More Like A Baby Klingon In A Tu-Tu

Here's a special message - and a video - from my man, Big Fur Hat:

It seems that every lefty has been a ballerina at some point in their life. Even some of the women. iOwnTheWorld has obtained exclusive footage of Michelle tripping the light fantastic…

Shit, BFH, now we're confused:

Is Michelle a woman or not?

We're going to have to take this up with Panda Bear, M.D. - he's the doctor!

Hat Tip: iOwnTheWorld

It's A Fact: Idiots Don't Like Being Called Stupid

Why do you only hear doctors talking like this on a fictional television series and at (our sister blog) Panda Bear, M.D.? And why are Jenny McCarthy, Jim Carrey, Oprah Winfrey, Ellen Degeneres, Rosie O'Donnell, and the rest of the loony tunes who popularized this anti-vaccine/autism idea never mentioned? They're as much to blame for the death and illness that followed as Andrew Wakefield, who wrote that original bogus study. And where's the widely covered follow-up on their "beliefs" and what they have brought to us? Oh, sorry, I forgot:

NewAgers believe in everything but the widely covered follow-up to see if they were telling the truth.

That just wouldn't be smart,...UPDATE:



This clip is great because - what do you know! - Penn makes the same points, and savages the same crew (including "fucking Oprah!") as we "crazies" do! Now all we need is more of you and - viola! - we can form a cult! No, not really - some people, who ought to know better, think it's a cult already - but, in order for that to be true, we'd have to find something untrue and stupid to gather around and worship and, believe it or not, that just ain't us - or what we're into. Yeah:

Believe it or not.

One Theory Proven (Outside The Laboratory)

I was going to write about this last night, but I was so tired, I used it to laugh myself to sleep instead:

Someone at The New York Times has written a smack down of the science bloggers, naming pretty much everybody worth mentioning but Orac (how in the hell did he get away?) for being a group of stupid libtards - a charge that (my sister blogger) Panda Bear, M.D. and I have leveled at them for some time now.

See, the science bloggers are all upset because their parent company, SEED, went and,...oh, who gives a shit? It's nothing - truly NOTHING - compared to what I felt after my ex-wife killed three people and the, oh, so compassionate science crowd dissed me for coming to them while emotional, so fuck 'em. They're a bunch of stupid assholes, with their priorities all fucked up, their politics fucking everything else up, and their heads stuck so far up their asses they don't know their experiments from their excrement.

If their little "community" of fallen NewAge liberal attack dogs is coming apart, then that's what they deserve, for being a bunch of dickheads when they thought nobody else was looking.

Now, excuse me while I go and have a Pepsi in their honor,...