Smoking Teeth = Poison Gas

This is extremely creepy, especially if you have amalgam fillings or gold crowns . . . which I do.  I have decided to go to one of the dentists specially trained to remove these in a way that won't allow further mercury to be released into the mouth.  It won't be cheap, but without health, you really have nothing.

Monsanto's Frankencrops: The Soy Republic of Argentina

Monsanto's Frankencrops: The Soy Republic of Argentina

Stanford researchers find electrical current stemming from plants

Stanford researchers find electrical current stemming from plants

The nature of life or human consciousness at any rate seems to be small circular loops that take three steps forward, two steps back, overall always moving forward, but spending a good deal of time regressing just a bit before consolidating the latest progress and moving forward again.  Sometimes I get impatient with those two steps back, though that's as ridiculous as being upset that the sky is blue instead of green.  It makes no sense at all to argue with reality.

I am making the transition from professional graduate school to my own private practice, and while this is terribly exciting and full of enormous promise, it is also a little sad.  Good friends are moving away, going back to where they came from before they started school three years and nine long semesters ago.  (We did three full semesters each year, with only two weeks off between semesters, so . . . WHEW!)

Also, I had to study for my national board exams, which became more than tiresome, utterly loathesome to be honest, which has left me emptied of all resources.  But now, after two weeks spent watching classic films on Netflix on my very comfortable chaise longue and reading great literature on my Kindle for iPhone app, I am finally scratching the surface of recovery.  I am stronger, more clear-headed, and taking the time to enjoy long walks with my scruffy, deeply adorable and very large dog, Cupcake, in the sunny but cool spring breezes in the cobbled and shady streets of the far West Greenwich Village.

All this delight, and yet I find myself feeling uncomfortable at times.  What, am I cowed by having to develop marketing for my practice?  By having to decorate and furnish my new office?  No, I think the burden felt each morning has entirely to do with having less-than-zero money, having taken out student loans to pay tuition for professional school and not yet making money in my private practice.  I won't even have my license for another several weeks because of bureaucratic languor.  Sigh.

But the situation is entirely my fault for having chosen the life of an artist for the past three decades.  I would make the same choice all over again, though I probably would have done professional school when I was young enough for school to be as easy as falling off a log.  Miraculously, I ended up with a solid A average, but this time around I didn't enjoy the process of learning the way I did when I was an undergrad studying the Humanities at Stanford.  I sigh once more.

The answer here is simple, however:  focus on the positive, on the prospect of practicing this exquisitely beautiful medical art that is so effective on every level of human experience.  I can use my well-honed self-discipline to focus on the ideas and projects that have grown out of my deep love for this medicine, any one of which would be professionally fulfilling and financially rewarding.  Perhaps I am a little boggled by the sheer breadth of possibilities, for they do seem nearly endless.  This time the sigh is more like an Ahhhhhhh, an exhale of wonder and delight.

I think the New York Times is absolutely right to charge for online content.  They attract the best journalists in America.  I am willing to pay to support great journalism.  We have lost most of our journalistic fire in this nation of once-great muckrakers.  Sigh.

http://mediadecoder.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/01/21/talk-to-the-times-answers-about-charging-online/

Good article on maintaining health through right diet vs. supplements

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/health/12brod.html?em

Controversy over discrimination by Christian Legal Society at Hastings Law

Here's an interesting attempt by a Christian campus group at Hastings Law (Berkeley, CA) to try to get taxpayer money to fund their organization.  These are law students at one of the top law schools in the country, yet they cannot understand the Establishment Clause of the U.S. Constitution.  If I were the Dean, I would throw them out of school for being unable to understand a well-established legal principle.  They are wasting taxpayer money by bringing suit, and should be forced to pay for the costs of the lawsuit.

Here's the link for Americans United for Separation of Church and State's Amicus Curiae brief.

An odd thing happened when I called Hastings Law to get a statement from the school about this issue.  The young woman in charge of press relations (who shall remain nameless) actually laughed at me when I was explaining why this issue was important to me.  How inappropriate for someone who works in press relations!  Especially when you consider that she works for one of the top law schools in the country, which of course means she will be dealing with numerous controversies as that is what the law is about, determining what the law says in the context of disputes between opposing parties.  I am still a little in shock.  And more than a little dismayed.  Is this the level of competency and maturity to be found in our one of our most prestitious public institutions?  How very sad.