Treatment, or Prevention? In a perfect world, prevention would not prove necessary. There would be cures for everything. In the American media world, this landscape seems to exist – or is promised soon. Suffering from schizophrenia? There’s a pill. High blood pressure? Multiple pills. Together they’ll surely work. Depression? Check. Where “personal will” no […]
Chancing It (3/31/14)
Chances Are… Does time control life? Or does chance? Items: – A famous calligrapher, you settle into your airplane’s aisle seat and pull out your pen. It’s a poor substitute for the brush, but you have many notes of thanks to write. Chinese calligraphy is one of the world’s great art forms. Actively collected and […]
Why Diets Don’t Work (2/18/14)
The Short Answer: Because we don’t understand enough of how the body works. That includes why we weigh what we do. Throwing more money at the problem (diets are a $66 billion dollar industry in the US; food vastly larger) has so far led to a bigger population. For every success, there are many […]
What Is the Product? (1/28/14)
Health Versus Health Care Art can imitate life. Better, it can educate life. Perhaps it might perform that role for the American “health care industry.” Whose main product is – more of itself. To reform it properly will require far more than the bizarre tinkering of the Affordable Care Act. We will need to get […]
Oh Why Do We Need a Y? (1/6/14)
Is Maleness Overrated? Pity the mice. On countless occasions, mice without any say in the matter stand in for humans. And what we do to them can be perverse or bizarre – just so we can understand us a bit better. Or not. So now male mice have been “conceived” in the laboratory who only […]