US vs the Rest of the World

I’ve been asking around a little bit about what is there to do here in Las Palmas. My mate told me about the Carnival and the area around the boardwalk. I told our camp boss that I was interested in doing some shopping, so he recommended I go to Las Arenas. I didn’t realize until I got there it was just a mall.


That wasn’t really what I was looking for, but I did need to pick up a few things. I was supposed to get off March 9, so I had plenty of medicine to last. It turns out that the guy who was supposed to relive me then can’t come until the 17th. I’m happy that they’ve decided to let me stay here until he can come.


So, now that I am staying that much longer, I needed to go to a pharmacy and get a refill of my prescription. Actually, they don’t make you jump through all those hoops over here (or most other places in the world). I just walked into the pharmacy, asked for my medicine and bought it. No questions asked except for what dose I wanted. Nice!


I wonder why so many Americans believe we would all be in such serious trouble without our government’s protection? Putting themselves between us and our doctors? Plenty of other countries don’t require their people to see their doctors to get a prescription filled. Or even to get a prescription in the 1st place.


My doctor tells me it’s now a ‘rule’ that if she doesn’t see me every 3 months (!!!), she can not refill my prescription! I used to go yearly and thought that was much too often. It really pisses me off that I have to spend that much time and money to get the medicine I need.


I already feel like I can’t trust my doctor in the US. I can’t really trust ANY doctor in the US. The US government has them ALL by the balls (that does include even the females)! They will lose their license to practice medicine if they don’t toe the line with the Feds. That is, whatever the hell the government comes up with, the doctors MUST go along with. A lot of them have already given up their practice over it. Those were the good ones. The ones who would stand up for themselves and their patients. I miss them.


It’s incredibly frustrating to be told you MUST report to your doctor every couple of months. Understanding that they’re being told what they MUST do to/for you. That YOU can’t decide how often you want to go, or what treatment you want, or how much money you want to spend on your health, or how much time you’re going to waste on the government’s edicts.


Yeah, yeah, yeah. I know. A lot of people are going to say I’m just being stupid. I’m not a genius. I’m not an expert. I’m not a doctor. I agree. I’m not any of those things. But I AM an expert on MY OWN BODY. I know it better than anybody else ever could (and you all are in the same state of knowledge).


I don’t see the need to go back to the doctor every 3 months to renew a prescription I’ve been taking for over 10 years now. I have to take blood tests (I hate needles) to check my ‘numbers’. They never change much. She says she needs to monitor them. I am perfectly happy with monitoring them yearly. I am NOT happy with monitoring them every 3 months! Why does my doctor (who is ordered around by the federal government) get to make that decision?


Why do we Americans all think we need to even go to a doctor to get the medicine we need? It’s not like the people of Spain, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia or Korea are all dying in heaps because they aren’t forced to go to a doctor to get a prescription for their medicines! Those are only the few countries I’ve been to where I’ve bought what would be prescription medicine at home over the counter. I’m 100% positive there are plenty of other countries around the world where it’s the same.


I’m pretty damn sure the only reason we have to do it here is because the doctors bribed congress to give them that monopoly. It SUCKs and I hope someone (besides the Libertarian Party) will push a bill through congress to eliminate all this extra expense.

Of course, that will never happen. The medical professionals, insurance companies and Big Pharm have too much invested to ever allow us to open the market in health care. 🙁


The Truth About “Organic” And “Certification”

Sad that so many people STILL believe the lie that the government is there to help them. If that was EVER true, it sure as hell is not any more!

The saddest school lunches we’ve ever seen

These are the saddest school lunches we’ve ever seen | Grist.

My curiosity got the better of me and I had to take a look at this. Especially after reading all the stories in the news lately about how parents are being fined and even arrested for trying to feed their kids healthy lunches instead of the kind of SH*T (to put it nicely) they get at school. Don’t try to pawn off your leftover turkey sandwiches on the kids anymore, who knows what may happen. 🙂

Don’t you wonder WHY??? Why is it all the sudden such a big deal that the ‘authorities’ would resort to FORCING these kids to eat their crap food? Why is it so wrong for kids to bring lunch from home like we all did since the beginning of public schools???

Are the schools going broke because so many kids aren’t buying school (free) lunch (no, they’re broke because they spend too much money on things other than teaching)- Or are they in cahoots with big agriculture (through FDA and other big government programs)- Or are they buying into Obamacares premise that they can FORCE even our bodies into their mold?

I don’t know what to think about all this yet, but a couple of things I DO know. They are NOT doing this from the goodness of their hearts and they are NOT doing it for the kids benefit! Time to take another look at your kids schools, check out the report at FedUp (www.fedup.dosomething.org/fedup).

4 Foods That Could Disappear If New Food Safety Rules Pass

4 Foods That Could Disappear If New Food Safety Rules Pass | Mother Jones.

Here’s an article from Mother Jones about the Food Safety Modernization Act (FSMA). Obama signed it into law in 2011 and I suppose nobody read this one either. If they did, they had to have been paid off by the usual suspects in favor of large scale factory farming.

Obviously, no one wants our food supply to be full of dangerous ingredients. We would all like to be able to buy safe, fresh, affordable, wholesome food. The problem with this law is the same as with every law like this, the ‘law of unintended consequences’. In addition to that problem, some others are already popping up.

For one, this is just one example of how BIG companies use the law to their advantage. They are much more easily able to comply with it, even if it DOES cost them big bucks. They can still manage to get by, especially when it wipes out their competition.

This sort of thing happens all the time in this country and is just one example of how we do NOT have a free market at all. No free market would permit companies to grow as large as we have here. They can only get that way because the laws allow it through special favors and manipulation of the market and the laws themselves. 🙁

Regardless of the name of this law (seems they’re always named the opposite of what they’re REALLY about), it will wind up hurting small farmers, organic farmers, food co-ops, and consumers concerned about healthy, safe food.

The article mentions just a couple of ways this will happen. Again, remember the law of unintended consequences! Those things they mentioned will probably just be the bare minimum of the problems that will develop.

Why do we always insist on the worst possible agency (the government) to take care of our problems? We always seem to think “there ought to be a law”! One size does NOT fit all and we really ought to be able to figure out ways to deal realistically with these things WITHOUT the use of FORCE. It’s especially galling when the use of force (government aid) is applied to the side that is hurting the people in favor of giant corporations.

Food safety is a pretty important subject, even if it’s not one we usually think about much. I hope some of you will think about it a bit. As they mention in the article, the FDA is still accepting comments until November 15. If this is important to you, you still have a chance to at least get the word out and hopefully your comments will be taken into account with the same weighting as someone from Monsanto or Kraft Foods would (yeah riiiiight). I said ‘hopefully’.

Franken Berry, the Beloved Halloween Cereal, Was Once Medically Found to Cause Pink Poop

Franken Berry, the Beloved Halloween Cereal, Was Once Medically Found to Cause Pink Poop | Food & Think| Smithsonian.

Another interesting Halloween story from Smithsonian. I dimly remember something about this growing up. I thought it was kind-of cool. I mean really? Pink poop? Sounds pretty cool to most kids I think. Parents panic, but what the heck. Maybe that was part of the fun of the whole experience?

PS- they even managed to find videos of the original commercials 😉