Newtopia | Issue #8 - February 2003: "The Health Issue"

You know its import, don't you? Or, so you thought. Either way, whether you are a parent or an educator, you are right. It's all about a new - or, old - phenomenon that is gaining ground everywhere. A case of an entire subculture, without boundaries. What's more, science, with all its good intentions, continues to feed this myth to an increasingly gullible, or well-informed, public. It has a catchy name, too: ADD, or Attention Deficit Disorder.

Our leaders, particularly the conservative (Canada's Republican-esque party) provincial governments, are dead set on following a more American, two-or-more-tiered health care model. I want to use this article to present my take on public health care; not as someone dreaming of the day when it might be made reality, but instead as someone desperate to keep it.

According to the Scientific American Book of The Brain, (1999) "Increased rates of suicide, depression and manic-depression among artists have been established by many separate studies. Artists experience up to eighteen times the rate of suicide seen in the general population, eight to ten times the rate of depression and ten to twenty times the rate of manic-depression in it's milder form. Note what this doesn't mean. It does not mean that if you're depressed, you're invariably a suffering artist. It simply means chances are higher that if you are an artist, you do or will suffer from depression at some point.

Brenda Kratovil has glaucoma and multiple sclerosis. She is nearly blind, and barely able to navigate a room. For decades, Mrs. Kratovil used the most common medication for glaucoma, eye drops, until her body became toxic because of them. Her doctors told her to never use them again. They told her to smoke cannabis instead, thus placing her health care at odds with the law. Neighbors turned her in as a "drug dealer", and she's been raided by a state drug task force, the Metropolitan Enforcement Group. Now, without her medicine, she suffers terribly, and is in imminent danger of going blind.

With the graying of this society (potential baby-makers would rather window-shop), college entrance requirements are steadily being lowered. The two classes of youngster become less distinguishable, as buzz-cut kamikaze nerds with red polka-dotted megaphones morph into gutter punks toting contraband Italian stilettos. By this time next academic year, I will be confiscating paint thinner and zip guns from the customary knot of blackness that tends to form against the back wall of any classroom, Japanese or foreign.

Imagine the tale of two American kids, born to different families in the U.S. Both are boys, both happy, both bright. They descend upon the world from infancy charging through childhood. After attending public schools, they both pursue college degrees with the hopes of gainful employment. Looking forward to making families of their own, the boys are the same in many ways. There is a specific difference between them to bear in mind, however. The life expectancy of one child is 68.3 years while the life expectancy of the other is 74.8 years. The quality of their lives will differ greatly as well. One child is black and the other is white. Which do you think will live the longer, healthier life?

Palliative care-compassionate care for the dying--is a fairly new concept to American healthcare. Only within the past ten years has it come to be considered an area of specialization for physicians, nurses and other healthcare workers. Although there is a growing movement in the United States among healthcare professionals to make palliative care programs available in public hospitals and nursing homes, very few such programs exist.

Sharon Mitchell was out of the porn industry and she didn't want to have anything to do with it again. Sharon Mitchell had spent 25 years in the Adult Entertainment Industry as an actress, had appeared in over 2,000 movies, had been a dancer who performed in venues all over the world, and had produced and directed over 42 movies. But in 1996, Miss Mitchell suffered a near fatal attack on her life by a crazed fan and she says this event changed her life forever.

The Ukrainian famine, by some estimates, wiped out about 10 million people, and the efforts to let the world know about this tragedy are yet to be made. And I can't wait for this time, when my historian compatriot would be able to announce that justice has been done and the famine victims have become as "lucky" as the Bosnian Muslims. I only hope that he isn't getting too upset about the fact that Russia's demographic crisis is getting all the attention now, while Ukrainians are left in oblivion again.

The background is that for nearly 30 years the insurance and medical industries have been crying about the "need" for what they inaccurately call "tort reform". The primary component of this so-called "reform" is a cap on damages a provably injured party can win in court from a reckless or negligent defendant, no matter how great the actual damages are, and no matter how clear and strong the proof.

The French, on average, work 300 hours less each year than Americans do. I find that fact absolutely astonishing, stunning, virtually inconceivable. Divide 300 by the supposed American 40-hour work week and you get almost 2 entire months of every year that Americans spend working, while Europeans spend living. 2 months!

In the summer of 1962, a fire started in the Buck Mountain coal bed beneath Centralia, Pennsylvania. At this time, there were approximately 1,100. The mine fire is believed to have started from an accidental fire at a landfill located on the southern end of town. From here, the fire spread, igniting an open coal mine shaft and spreading throughout other abandoned mines. By 1983, the Office of Surface Mining released a report that said the fire had consumed approximately 195 acres and could spread to 3,700 acres and burn for a century or more if left uncontrolled. The Fire still burns.

Digital intercourse is now the "yoga of the western world", cultivating and nourishing relationships, a virtual world of telepathic linkage. The computer and the keyboard will in the future be compared with the plough and horse of the agricultural revolution. These developments are a small reflection of a far greater picture not only joined by an electrical grid but because of the new understanding of numeric magic and sacred geometry. Now we can look deeper into the pool of consciousness. It's time to download our consciousness while high-wired to infinity.

Despite all of these rapid advancements that seem to have made our lives easier, we still seem unable to find happiness. While this may seem contradictory on the surface, it is not that far-fetched. It is true because while we focus on science in one hand and technology in the other, we do not have a hand left to hold our sense of self - our spirituality, as it were.

America has always been a plutocracy but the mailed fist has been concealed in a velvet glove. We think we are free -- we are not, we are just on a long leash.

From the shattered streets of Israel and the Occupied Territories comes a vivid account of one man's anguish and determination to make sense of a conflict seemingly without end. Living at the very heart of East Jerusalem, Henry Carse, writer, practical theologian, scholar, and father of four children living amidst the mayhem, ventures out to engage with Israeli and Palestinian friends alike to starkly reveal the desperation and hope that thrive in that barren place.

The current state of affairs in sex, relationships, and sexuality from a global, political and cultural perspective. All things cold, detached, multi-partnered and hedonistic.

Newtopia's resident mother hen chimes in on Motherhood and its role in the New World Order.

A monthly musing from our boys across the pond at CODE UNCUT MAGAZINE

A rampant nosedive into the road flanked by media and politics.

thoughts shamed me in the name of Joseph Smith. / But much worse were her forceful kiss and touch, / sin incarnate. I prayed, prayed for my much / maligned, aching body not to quake with

'No negotiations' is his / favorite declaration for wars. / When he speaks we laugh with / embarrassment, / but the pundits assure us that / even if he has a learning disability, / a fourth grade level of our / history, / and although he didn't know / that Africa is a continent and not a country- / and that there is no such / language as 'Mexican,' / 'George W. Bush is still a / capable leader,' / as long as he relies on the / teleprompter

A horror of spies / And a media child / Living her life under / A screen / Staring / Not noticing that / She and everyone else / Is dying of / Unseen spores / And growths / As those she's / Watched and cried for

Cutting edge cultural news with an American Flair by Buzzwords author Andrew Gallix, chief editor of 3am.

Some mothers, when they wean their babies, will be scheduled for appointments with their doctors to receive medicine to stop the flow of milk, to prevent discomfort, leaking, and pain. They will no longer nourish their children literally, but will for many years hold them to their breasts. Baby L's mother, when she weans her baby, will be scheduled to be buried up to her neck and stoned to death.

In the sand, nude with a slab of fleshy local color, Jon explains. "It was to be so Sartre, so sexually monastic, divinely intellectual. We were to throw jealousy to the lesser humans and the miserable cesspool of loathing that accompanies could be bred among other minds for all we cared. No more hurt, nor fruitless and painstaking emotion.

The axolotl's smile is 80 million years old and still changing. Everyday it grows a little wider, a little longer, a little deeper. Why is the axolotl so happy? If we have 80 million more years to become as spirits, outgrowing our bodies day by day with all of our pain and discomfort, the axolotl has 80 million years before it becomes like us. Poor little salamander! Its smile means it has no idea what lies ahead.

Santorelli does not miss the mast for the sails, all right. He says that meditation is the source of our blossoming. In like manner, he admits, that it is no snake oil, panacea, or some feel-good exercise. He explains: 'It is a method, a means of beginning to contact and cultivate latent, already existent qualities. In the context of medicine, mindfulness practice, much like the sextant, offers a tool for navigating uncharted seas. the surface turbulence, and the deep grain of our being."

CinemaShrink Says "So, if you were to set out to make a movie about a woman seeking her soul's desire in the form of a rare white orchid, how would you do it?"

CinemaShrink Says, "The quest to live an authentic life may not be exclusive to women. But The Hours captures a desperation felt deeply in the hearts of 20th century women who have struggled to keep their heads above water while feeling pulled under by idealistic cultural demands that they be confections of perfection.

CinemaShrink Says, "If you've ever felt the daze of inconsolable despair after the loss of a loved one, go see Solaris. Solaris makes the invisible world of emotional pain visible. And while science fiction buffs may object, it may only be in the imaginary realm of outer space that a vision for resolving maddening grief and guilt can be explored."

CinemaShrink Says "Straight to the point of today's concern, The Pianist shows how the terror of war reduces even the most refined, intelligent and talented human being to the level of a rat scratching for food, fearing for its life. Polanski details the transformation of his protagonist from an internationally acclaimed pianist to pathetic rodent with the Kafkaesque skill of Metamorphosis."

Let's talk about Christo draping parts of New York in a polyester leisure suit. Or Chris Burdon as he stands in a barrel of gasoline and invites spectators to throw matches at him. Or Erika Rothenberg "Making The World Perfect" with acrylic satires on the advertising industry. Or David Wojnarowicz's poignantly beautiful and devastating portraits of the fragility of flesh in a world of detachedness and disease. Let's start fires and throw bombs of paint. Let's connect the dots of experience through variations on a theme.

It also becomes apparent that Breton often asks a particular question, assuming his trusting friends will answer honestly and therefore mundanely, in anticipation of his own clever answer. He even goes so far as to state that certain of his questions, which are particularly absurd, are "surrealist". This in itself is a denial of Surrealism in its purest and most desirable form because it pre-emptively denies the spontaneous conjunction of disparate ideas, objects, and actions. Breton thus corrupts perception itself.