I was just doing some research on Red Yeast Rice for a friend who has high cholesterol and no medical insurance.
I suggested Red Yeast Rice (RYR) which has been around a long time and is well known to reduce cholesterol. In fact it and a similar cousin form the origins of our statin drugs. RYR has been used in Chinese Medicine for over 1000 years: "Its use has been documented as far back as the Tang Dynasty in China in 800 A.D. and taken internally to invigorate the body, aid in digestion, and remove "blood blockages."
Western scientists started looking into the specifics of RYR in the late 1940's and "discovered" the statins which are the necessary/key ingredient.
So far so good except that that some RYR contains statins and some does not and obviously you need to get the kind with the statin or you are not doing yourself any good.
But thanks to our corrupt medical establishment you can't:
"the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has ruled that it is illegal to sell red yeast rice that contains more than trace amounts of the cholesterol-lowering substances and to promote red yeast rice for lowering cholesterol levels."
Their reasoning is so absurd as to be almost comical:
1) "the FDA considers the products containing red yeast rice with high levels of cholesterol lowering substances to be new, unapproved drugs for which marketing violates the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. "
Something used for more than 1000 years is deemed "new" by the FDA? Talk about presumptuous arrogant western logic.
2) There is concern that patients who already take statin drugs with or without these other medications may increase their risk of muscle or kidney injury. So a doctor cannot just tell a patient to not take RYR if they are prescribed a statin drug? Hmmm wait a minute here... why not just take RYR instead of the statin drug! Now we are on to something.
Statin drugs are expensive. RYR is cheap. Doctors are peddling new generation statin drugs which are $100/refill. RYR is about $5 last time I checked. 1/20 the cost.
Another part of our medical establishment (the Mayo Clinic) gives us a purported reason for the ban: The presence of lovastatin in the red yeast rice products in question is potentially dangerous because there's no way for you to know what level or quality of lovastatin might be in red yeast rice.
Sounds reasonable except:
1) RYR has been used for over 1000 years in Chinese medicine so the notion we don't know how to use it says that the knowledge and wisdom gained through those 1000 years is meaningless. I just don't believe that for a second. I think 1000 years of experience counts for something.
2) Lowering cholesterol is an iterative process even with modern statin drugs. You get your level tested and the doctor prescribes (or does not prescribe) something. You come back and have the level checked again. Dosage of statin is adjusted accordingly. Dietary changes are perhaps suggested. You repeat the process as necessary. Their own methods are iterative and imprecise.
3) Is there any evidence that short term variations in cholesterol are important (vs. a generally lower level over time?). Is there a "latency" with Statin drugs? Perhaps as the statin level builds up the cholesterol level drops? Maybe they are like SSRI drugs for depression. Missing a day is meaningless due to the latency of the drug. If statins worked the same way then it would not matter if a given RYR tablet had 10% or more or 10% less statin than another one.
I am guessing that the statement "The presence of lovastatin in the red yeast rice products in question is potentially dangerous because there's no way for you to know what level or quality of lovastatin might be in red yeast rice." is pure speculation - and flies in the face of 1000 years of Chinese experience. I am guessing that they (the Chinese) have ways (honed over that time) of ensuring the efficacy of RYR treatment. Obviously their traditional methods do not precisely measure the statin level directly but I'm guessing they arrive at essentially the same place via different means. They probably use complex and well thought out cultivation and fermentation methods that when followed precisely provide consistent statin levels without even knowing what statins are.
But we will probably never know because it's unlikely that an American drug company would spend money to study something that might undermine it's own (much more expensive) product.
That's what this comes down to of course: money. It's not about protecting us, it's about making us powerless to help ourselves and instead forcing us to spend (big) money on their products - or potentially suffer heart attacks and strokes. In my opinion this is modern American "extortion capitalism" at it's worst. Legally deny people the opportunity to help themselves and instead expose them as powerless fodder to be exploited by avaricious drug companies. Red yeast rice was THE way you reduced cholesterol on your own - until 2007.
How about looking at this from a public health standpoint. What is better overall a) having a broad section of the public (especially low income/uninsured) take RYR regularly -the way they take Saw Palmetto for Prostate issues, or b) make effective RYR unavailable forcing people with cholesterol problems to get expensive statin drugs that are fundamentally no different and thereby shutting out 35 million uninsured totally. I don't think it takes a genius to see that the RYR statin ban is costing lives. Probably lots of lives but this ban is not about saving lives this is about making money.
There was something almost sinister about that way this went down: "In 1998, the FDA tried to ban a product (Cholestin) containing red yeast rice extract but the U.S. district court in Utah allowed the product to be sold without restriction. " There was public outcry over the case and the FDA backed off for a while. But more recently they have taken a different -and deceptive- tack. Instead of banning RYR outright they simply declared that any RYR types that contain statins are verboten. This brings technical issues into play, technical issues that are over many peoples heads. This allows supplement companies to sell RYR to customers who have learned/been told/read that RYR "lowers cholesterol" but not mention it no longer contains the key ingredient! Many of these supplement companies are just as unscrupulous as the FDA and welcome the opportunity to continue making money on RYR even though it's now worthless. They don't care, they still make money. And doctors can now tell people that they can take RYR along with statin drugs thus appearing friendly to eastern/alternative medicine. Everybody makes money. Everybody is happy. Except the people having heart attacks and strokes that would have been prevented by unimpaired RYR - which is what many thought they were taking.
There is something almost Dickensian about this. It's dysfunctional and bizarre.
There is a pharmacist who is currently being prosecuted for diluting chemotherapy treatments to make more money. Basically what was supposed to be one treatment was "cut" and used for 3, 5 even 10 people. This man is considered by some to be evil and may get the death penalty. OK, so what about an institutional process engineered by the FDA which allows the selling of a substance that is essentially diluted on an ongoing basis. Is this not similar? Heart attacks and strokes are serious issues. Every bit as serious as cancer.
What do I tell my friend who has no medical insurance and high cholesterol.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Friday, June 19, 2009
Why is population decline presented as a bad thing
The article I mentioned in the previous post about the population decline in certain parts of eastern Germany presents it as a bad thing. Population decline=decay, and equals a general sort of decline that is lamentable.
Last I checked there were to many people on this planet and this overpopulation was presenting problems. To put it mildly.
Statements like this just don't make sense to me: "Not far beyond the few thriving urban centers, traffic is often spare on the freshly paved highways". This is a problem? A place that has good infrastructure and is not very crowded is a problem? Later it states: "economic activity per person has risen to 71 percent of the former western sector’s from 67 percent over the course of this decade." There are fewer people and they have more money. Again I ask: what exactly is the problem here. Is there some sort of weird sentimentality for crowded eastern block housing projects? Of course there are the lost jobs right? "Employment at the nearby mines, once accounting for as many as 5,000 jobs, has fallen to 500 or fewer. " Due to a weird quirk I knew someone who worked in one of those mines. He died of black lung disease in the early 80's.
This article is not alone in presenting population decreases as problems. This article is typical of what is said about Russian decreases in population. I have read similar sounding stuff regarding Japan. And Italy. Often the talk gets back to power. Nations who have decreasing populations will suffer a loss of power and prestige and be negatively affected "on the word stage". I have even heard it said that nations who tolerate a persistent drop in population are "committing suicide." What is going to happen, they are going to get invaded by some horde?
Is this the 19'th century? That isn't even 20'th century thinking. Maybe it's just "primal" thinking that never really goes away.
In my opinion if Russia 50 years from now is more like Canada. (fewer people, cleaner, higher standard of living etc. etc.) how could that be a bad thing? Yes Russia has some significant social problems but maybe a lower population will make it easier to fix them.
I think that pundits who do not embrace population declines as a good thing when the planet is so overpopulated would lead us all to suicide.
Last I checked there were to many people on this planet and this overpopulation was presenting problems. To put it mildly.
Statements like this just don't make sense to me: "Not far beyond the few thriving urban centers, traffic is often spare on the freshly paved highways". This is a problem? A place that has good infrastructure and is not very crowded is a problem? Later it states: "economic activity per person has risen to 71 percent of the former western sector’s from 67 percent over the course of this decade." There are fewer people and they have more money. Again I ask: what exactly is the problem here. Is there some sort of weird sentimentality for crowded eastern block housing projects? Of course there are the lost jobs right? "Employment at the nearby mines, once accounting for as many as 5,000 jobs, has fallen to 500 or fewer. " Due to a weird quirk I knew someone who worked in one of those mines. He died of black lung disease in the early 80's.
This article is not alone in presenting population decreases as problems. This article is typical of what is said about Russian decreases in population. I have read similar sounding stuff regarding Japan. And Italy. Often the talk gets back to power. Nations who have decreasing populations will suffer a loss of power and prestige and be negatively affected "on the word stage". I have even heard it said that nations who tolerate a persistent drop in population are "committing suicide." What is going to happen, they are going to get invaded by some horde?
Is this the 19'th century? That isn't even 20'th century thinking. Maybe it's just "primal" thinking that never really goes away.
In my opinion if Russia 50 years from now is more like Canada. (fewer people, cleaner, higher standard of living etc. etc.) how could that be a bad thing? Yes Russia has some significant social problems but maybe a lower population will make it easier to fix them.
I think that pundits who do not embrace population declines as a good thing when the planet is so overpopulated would lead us all to suicide.
On the futility of war
The New York Times had an article yesterday about the persistent decline of population in parts of eastern Germany, a decline so pronounced that wolves have returned to the area along the Polish border.
That region has seen some of the most horrible warfare in modern times and has been fought over in a systematic way for 5oo years or so. Some of Hitlers armies assembled there preparing to invade Poland. The Red Army swept in from the other direction 4 years later. Napoleon came though in 1812. A partial list of nations who have fought in this area are: Germany, Poland, Russia, Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, Sweden, and the United States.
And what was settled? The area now returns to the wolves!
They probably deserve it more than we do.
That region has seen some of the most horrible warfare in modern times and has been fought over in a systematic way for 5oo years or so. Some of Hitlers armies assembled there preparing to invade Poland. The Red Army swept in from the other direction 4 years later. Napoleon came though in 1812. A partial list of nations who have fought in this area are: Germany, Poland, Russia, Britain, Austria, France, Prussia, Sweden, and the United States.
And what was settled? The area now returns to the wolves!
They probably deserve it more than we do.
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Do the Media Hate the Rich?
The headline "Do the Media Hate the Rich?" in Newsweek caught my eye:
http://www.newsweek.com/id/201864
The key point:
"In a two-page note in the June issue of "Robb Report" entitled "Putting Luxury Into Perspective," editor in chief Brett Andersen attacks "the mainstream media" for its "demonization of the wealthy and the industries that cater to them." This antipathy toward the magazine's prime audience and advertisers, Andersen charges, is "a media phenomenon we have observed lately with increasing dismay." He lambastes the wave of populism as failing "to recognize the ways in which luxury industries have enriched society not only economically, but also intellectually, technologically and culturally."
Maybe I have missed something (I doubt it) but I have not seen general "demonization of the wealthy or the "industries that cater to them." What I have seen is some questioning of whether some specific individuals -who were apparently responsible for engineering much of the financial mess we are in- deserved to be compensated in the way they were. Whether they deserved mammoth compensation up front in light of the fact that the risks they undertook have now been offloaded on the rest of us as things go south is a fair question and it's not the same thing as a general "demonization" of the wealthy.
I have also seen some hard questions about the wisdom and propriety of making use of the accouterments of privilege (like private jets) while begging for government money. I don't see a media spotlight on Apple executives taking private jets. Big difference.
But perhaps the question of to what extent the "luxury industries have enriched society not only economically, but also intellectually, technologically and culturally" deserves some thought.
Looking at the the luxury industries presented by Robb Report we can see several themes (note: I do read it from time to time). Things tend to be hand crafted, many items have incredible attention to detail. Things often are part of a tradition. I can see Brett Andersen's point about luxury industries adding something to society (what do we live for in the material sense if not for the finer things?). But I also see a dark side. One facet of these industries is things are typically made by hand. Take high end watches. The high end watches are all made by hand by (very) skilled craftsman yet will never be as accurate as a simple quartz model. On the other hand they are beautiful and something can definitely be said for that. There is something fascinating and compelling about the tiny machinery that goes into a watch. I'm glad this tradition is kept alive but the size and extent of it is a bit troubling: do we really need this many high end watches?
Next lets look a Bentley cars. Again hand crafting is key. Most (virtually all?) parts are hand crafted. So far so good, but the Continental Flying Spur is 5467lbs and gets about 8mpg. Not such a good thing in this era of global warming. I suppose the damage is minimized if it's only used occasionally.
I think a stronger case can be made that luxury industries have enriched society culturally vs. technologically. They uphold traditions of craftsmanship. That's positive in a cultural sense. But technologically? I'm not sure I go along with that. There is almost an anti-technology attitude in the luxury goods market. Look at this high end applifier: http://www.robbreport.com/Old-Is-New-Again. It's based on vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes can give a certain distinctive sound I guess and in some limited ways out perform more recent technologies but it's a stretch to suggest that a cicruit design dating to the 1940's is contributing to technological enrichment. That "it can safely be called a classic" seems true. Robb Report is filled with such items.
Aside: I like vacuum tunes. The hum as they warm up. Even the smell - I swear there is a distinctive smell. A device based on vacuum tubes seems to slowly come alive like some sort of being waking up. I'm glad that there are companies out there still manufacturing electronics based on vacuum tubes. I vividly remember my grandfather's "hi-fi" and it's vacuum tubes.
Handbags. There seems something almost psychotic about spending thousands of dollars for a Birkin or other simplar handbag. Another spiral of conspicuous consumption where people are in a "can you top this" mindset? I guess a certain set of women watch these things very closely. I wish people would rise above this a bit or a least keep in in check. It seems bordering on the obscene. One way to look at it is if you have millions of dollars what's 3 grand for a handbag. That to me is an argument against such income polarity. Wouldn't it be nice if this passion went into creating green sustainable homes as opposed to overpriced handbags? Maybe it does in some places but not on the pages of the Robb Report.
http://www.newsweek.com/id/201864
The key point:
"In a two-page note in the June issue of "Robb Report" entitled "Putting Luxury Into Perspective," editor in chief Brett Andersen attacks "the mainstream media" for its "demonization of the wealthy and the industries that cater to them." This antipathy toward the magazine's prime audience and advertisers, Andersen charges, is "a media phenomenon we have observed lately with increasing dismay." He lambastes the wave of populism as failing "to recognize the ways in which luxury industries have enriched society not only economically, but also intellectually, technologically and culturally."
Maybe I have missed something (I doubt it) but I have not seen general "demonization of the wealthy or the "industries that cater to them." What I have seen is some questioning of whether some specific individuals -who were apparently responsible for engineering much of the financial mess we are in- deserved to be compensated in the way they were. Whether they deserved mammoth compensation up front in light of the fact that the risks they undertook have now been offloaded on the rest of us as things go south is a fair question and it's not the same thing as a general "demonization" of the wealthy.
I have also seen some hard questions about the wisdom and propriety of making use of the accouterments of privilege (like private jets) while begging for government money. I don't see a media spotlight on Apple executives taking private jets. Big difference.
But perhaps the question of to what extent the "luxury industries have enriched society not only economically, but also intellectually, technologically and culturally" deserves some thought.
Looking at the the luxury industries presented by Robb Report we can see several themes (note: I do read it from time to time). Things tend to be hand crafted, many items have incredible attention to detail. Things often are part of a tradition. I can see Brett Andersen's point about luxury industries adding something to society (what do we live for in the material sense if not for the finer things?). But I also see a dark side. One facet of these industries is things are typically made by hand. Take high end watches. The high end watches are all made by hand by (very) skilled craftsman yet will never be as accurate as a simple quartz model. On the other hand they are beautiful and something can definitely be said for that. There is something fascinating and compelling about the tiny machinery that goes into a watch. I'm glad this tradition is kept alive but the size and extent of it is a bit troubling: do we really need this many high end watches?
Next lets look a Bentley cars. Again hand crafting is key. Most (virtually all?) parts are hand crafted. So far so good, but the Continental Flying Spur is 5467lbs and gets about 8mpg. Not such a good thing in this era of global warming. I suppose the damage is minimized if it's only used occasionally.
I think a stronger case can be made that luxury industries have enriched society culturally vs. technologically. They uphold traditions of craftsmanship. That's positive in a cultural sense. But technologically? I'm not sure I go along with that. There is almost an anti-technology attitude in the luxury goods market. Look at this high end applifier: http://www.robbreport.com/Old-Is-New-Again. It's based on vacuum tubes. Vacuum tubes can give a certain distinctive sound I guess and in some limited ways out perform more recent technologies but it's a stretch to suggest that a cicruit design dating to the 1940's is contributing to technological enrichment. That "it can safely be called a classic" seems true. Robb Report is filled with such items.
Aside: I like vacuum tunes. The hum as they warm up. Even the smell - I swear there is a distinctive smell. A device based on vacuum tubes seems to slowly come alive like some sort of being waking up. I'm glad that there are companies out there still manufacturing electronics based on vacuum tubes. I vividly remember my grandfather's "hi-fi" and it's vacuum tubes.
Handbags. There seems something almost psychotic about spending thousands of dollars for a Birkin or other simplar handbag. Another spiral of conspicuous consumption where people are in a "can you top this" mindset? I guess a certain set of women watch these things very closely. I wish people would rise above this a bit or a least keep in in check. It seems bordering on the obscene. One way to look at it is if you have millions of dollars what's 3 grand for a handbag. That to me is an argument against such income polarity. Wouldn't it be nice if this passion went into creating green sustainable homes as opposed to overpriced handbags? Maybe it does in some places but not on the pages of the Robb Report.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
"There has never been a fake bin Laden tape,"
From http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/06/03/world/main5058482.shtml?tag=topHome;topStories
.
.
"There has never been a fake bin Laden tape"
Why even say such a thing.
From
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/america_under_attack/bin_laden/framesource_tapes.html
"The first known videotape of Osama bin Laden referencing the Sept. 11 attacks surfaced on Oct. 7, 2001, the same day the U.S. and Britain started bombing Afghanistan.
.
.
"There has never been a fake bin Laden tape"
Why even say such a thing.
From
http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/america_under_attack/bin_laden/framesource_tapes.html
"The first known videotape of Osama bin Laden referencing the Sept. 11 attacks surfaced on Oct. 7, 2001, the same day the U.S. and Britain started bombing Afghanistan.
Following the release of that tape, the U.S. government urged news organizations to be cautious when airing the terror mastermind's unedited statements, voicing concerns that he might use them to send coded messages to his fighters. Since then, portions of several tapes have been released by the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera, American television networks or the Pentagon; others have been mentioned by governments and the press but not made public."
This seems like a rather disparate group of sources. Bin Laden can reach out to all of these entities but cannot be found?
We constantly hear that the tapes have been "authenticated". Authenticated by whom. The CIA? The Pentagon? How about independent analysis. In what format are these tapes. How were they delivered. The more quesitons you ask the fishier this seems. CBS shows 35 tapes between 10/07/2001 and today. That's a lot. If the tape is in the form of a dvd, couldn't that be tracked? If it was placed on a computer then what's the IP address. See where I'm going here? It's one thing if there was one or two tapes. But 35 tapes over the span of 8 years? None of those 35 cases produced a good lead for the CIA or Pentagon sources to use to find this guy?
I forgot, we are supposed to trust them.
Well I like what Ronald Reagan used to say: trust but verify. In this case couldn't the audio and video be put to the test via an independent entity? Maybe someone like this http://www.paulekman.com could take a look. He is famous for reading facial expressions. I'm guessing that if he can do that he could make an estimate of whether or not a face presented on video is even really the correct face.
This whole Bin Laden tape thing needs to be looked into.
Derrick Rose and the ripple effect
Rick Telander of the Sun Times writes about the "ripple effect" of the Derrick Rose grade changing scandal and why it's more important than some people might think. I've put the full article in at the end of this post.
I think there is a ripple effect but I believe the stone causing the ripples is a bit further back.
The nexus of Telander's ripple effect is this:
"Partly because Rose went to Memphis, Calipari, then making $2.35 million a year and with four years left on his contract, abruptly bolted for Kentucky this April, becoming the nation's highest-paid college basketball coach in the process. His new deal? Eight years at $4.1 million per."
Does anyone other than me see a problem with paying a college basketball coach 4.1 million dollars per year? To me this is corrupting on several levels. Isn't the fundamental mission of a university to teach and perform research? I'm guessing that Calipari is now far and away the highest paid person at the University of Kentucky and he has nothing to do with their ostensible primary mission. How can you illustrate the importance of learning and substance and all those good things when you pay the basketball coach 4.1 million per year. As recently as the 1950's Football and Basketball (and other) coaches were often recent graduates who were paid token salaries. A step above a teaching assistant. When a sideshow commands such resources it indicates that the primary mission is not taken seriously.
Many are under the misconception that college sports generate profits for the schools and hence such spending is "OK". The reality is that only rarely do college sports (even Basketball and Football) generate profits. In general they are money losers. What college sports really do is provide (often very expensive) advertisements.
When you attach so much money to trivialities like college basketball you will have a ripple effect all right but it does not start or end with Derrick Rose. He's just a cog in a giant corrupt system.
When you stake millions of dollars on the outcome of a sideshow you are asking for trouble.
Here is the full article:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I think there is a ripple effect but I believe the stone causing the ripples is a bit further back.
The nexus of Telander's ripple effect is this:
"Partly because Rose went to Memphis, Calipari, then making $2.35 million a year and with four years left on his contract, abruptly bolted for Kentucky this April, becoming the nation's highest-paid college basketball coach in the process. His new deal? Eight years at $4.1 million per."
Does anyone other than me see a problem with paying a college basketball coach 4.1 million dollars per year? To me this is corrupting on several levels. Isn't the fundamental mission of a university to teach and perform research? I'm guessing that Calipari is now far and away the highest paid person at the University of Kentucky and he has nothing to do with their ostensible primary mission. How can you illustrate the importance of learning and substance and all those good things when you pay the basketball coach 4.1 million per year. As recently as the 1950's Football and Basketball (and other) coaches were often recent graduates who were paid token salaries. A step above a teaching assistant. When a sideshow commands such resources it indicates that the primary mission is not taken seriously.
Many are under the misconception that college sports generate profits for the schools and hence such spending is "OK". The reality is that only rarely do college sports (even Basketball and Football) generate profits. In general they are money losers. What college sports really do is provide (often very expensive) advertisements.
When you attach so much money to trivialities like college basketball you will have a ripple effect all right but it does not start or end with Derrick Rose. He's just a cog in a giant corrupt system.
When you stake millions of dollars on the outcome of a sideshow you are asking for trouble.
Here is the full article:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
May 29, 2009
Let's say you're of the cynical, entertain-me-now school of fandom.
You don't care a wit that young Bulls star Derrick Rose has been implicated as the beneficiary of some serious academic cheating at both his alma maters -- Simeon High School and the University of Memphis.
According to NCAA allegations first reported by the Memphis Commercial-Appeal and Chicago high school sources informing the Sun-Times, some person other than Rose allegedly took his college-entrance SAT, and someone with access to Rose's Simeon transcripts changed one of his grades from a D to a C just as Rose was applying to colleges.
So what, you say. He's a pro now. He was always gonna be a baller. Go, Bulls!
That's fine.
Live in your world of beer-can-on-the-belly sports relativism.
But just ponder the ripple effect and the hypocrisy revealed by the academic fraud before you lumber to the fridge for another cold one.
First off, Rose might never have gotten into a powerhouse hoops college like Memphis without the cheating. He might have had to spend time at a junior college or even go overseas to play. Had he not gone to Memphis, the Tigers almost certainly would not have made it to the 2008 NCAA championship game.
Think that matters to UCLA, which lost to Memphis in the semis?
Rose was clearly a one-and-done mercenary, something head coach John Calipari always new full well.
Partly because Rose went to Memphis, Calipari, then making $2.35 million a year and with four years left on his contract, abruptly bolted for Kentucky this April, becoming the nation's highest-paid college basketball coach in the process. His new deal? Eight years at $4.1 million per.
Gillispie topples
Think former Wildcats coach Billy Gillispie -- canned in March with five years left on his deal -- liked that? Not much. Gillispie just filed a $6 million lawsuit against Kentucky claiming breach of contract and fraud.
Oh, and here's a nice tidbit. ESPN.com, citing inside sources, stated in late March that, ''with a strong recruiting class coming in and a tradition already established at Memphis, Calipari wouldn't leave if the UK job was offered.''
Ha!
He was gone in an eye blink.
And, of course, so was Rose.
Off to the NBA, where, based largely on his display while at Memphis, and to a lesser degree at Simeon, where he led his team to back-to-back state championships, he was taken No. 1 in the 2008 NBA draft. Think that was worth a little money?
And how much was it worth to other parties, such as Rose's constantly pressuring, Svengali-like older brother Reggie?
As Rose's former club basketball team coach, Luther Topps, said of the NCAA investigation, ''Reggie moved me and [Simeon head coach Robert Smith] out of the way long before that, as soon as the money got involved.''
And, of course, partly because of where he was drafted and the role expected of him with the rebuilding Bulls, Rose flourished and was named NBA rookie of the year.
That, too, is both an honor and money in the bank.
Sanctimony minus standards
Let's think about the NBA itself for a moment.
This kind of manipulative fraud is precisely what commissioner David Stern almost guaranteed would blossom to new levels after he sanctimoniously declared that nobody could play in the NBA until at least one year after high school.
No more Kevin Garnetts or Kobe Bryants.
It's not that Stern and his league care about education -- the NBA has no diploma standards or even literacy standards whatsoever. What the NBA wants is the orderly entrance of older players who are a little more -- shall we say, polished? -- than post-adolescents.
We all know the phoniness involved in big-time athletes going to institutions of higher learning when those athletes have no academic mission, and when the schools have interest in the athletes only as stadium-fillers.
But when the hypocrisy becomes public like this, it indicts a lot more than just phonies like Calipari (Oh, and it's for sure the coach knew nothing!)
Consider the Chicago Public School system. Somebody can change a transcript grade -- as was done on the Simeon computer -- and the CPS investigators discipline ... no one?
Who took Rose's SAT?
That's not easy to do, what with IDs and signatures and the like.
If this were done for a non-athletic kid who desperately wanted to go to college to better himself or herself, to learn -- and then that student flourished academically -- you could even justify such an opportunity given.
But this was done in the name of let's-rob-the-bank.
Bulls vice president of basketball operations John Paxson is a straight arrow who agonizes over character.
Would he have taken Rose if he knew the kid had allegedly cheated this way?
Yes, this was all stuff done back in the ''amateur'' days. But you know something? Those days weren't so long ago. And they don't vanish under the weight of cash.
Derrick Rose has been a likable point guard in his one pro season.
But how do you explain the lesson here to, say, Chicago school children?
Practice your crossover, kids. As you know, schoolwork's for dummies.
Sunday, May 31, 2009
Is Osama Bin Laden dead?
I have suspected this for some time. This article in the conservative American Spectator makes a pretty good case:
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/13/osama-bin-elvis/
I would add the question of whose interests are advanced by keeping alive a myth of Osama Bin Laden's continued existence. First, the interests of American neo-conservatives who wish to keep the nation at war are advanced by a "living" Bin Laden. A dead Bin Laden would open the possibility of ending this war.
Al-Qaeda and various radical elements in the middle east also would want to perpetuate a myth of a living Bin Laden to show their friends and allies that they are robust and can persist in the face of American power: he attacked downtown New York City and he's still alive and free! A dead Bin Laden might suggest an impotent Al Qaeda. If there is one thing they don't want to be it's impotent.
The question of Bin Laden's real involvement (vs. being just a cheerleader) in 9/11 is moot to both groups.
OK, so how would this have gone down - if Bin Laden is dead how could that have been hidden. The "osama-bin-elvis" article notes that there are is no credible evidence of a living Bin Laden after November of 2001. That is when the Afghanistan war was reaching it's most intense point. Here is a description from Wikipedia of what happened in Tora Bora cave region in December 2001:
"Al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of Tora Bora, however, while an anti-Taliban tribal militia steadily pushed bin Laden back across the difficult terrain, backed by withering air strikes guided in by U.S. and UK Special Forces. Facing defeat, the al-Qaeda forces agreed to a truce to give them time to surrender their weapons. In retrospect, however, many believe that the truce was a ruse to allow important al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden, to escape. On December 12, the fighting flared again, probably initiated by a rear guard buying time for the main force's escape through the White Mountains into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Once again, tribal forces backed by British and U.S. special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al-Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region. By December 17, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. A search of the area by U.S. and UK forces continued into January, but no sign of bin Laden or the al-Qaeda leadership emerged. It is almost unanimously believed that they had already slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east. It is estimated that around 200 of the al-Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle, along with an unknown number of anti-Taliban tribal fighters. No U.S. or UK deaths were reported."
But instead of the official line maybe:
a) Bin Laden was pre-emptively killed by his own people via prearrangement as enemy forces closed in and then the body was then disposed of.
b) his cave or hiding place was hit directly by a large bomb which left no body behind.
c) He died from pre existing conditions which were exacerbated by the stress of what was happening and his body was disposed of via prearrangement. This could have happened months or years after Sept 2001.
Maybe after that, statements or video's he had made while alive continued to leak to the media for a time giving the appearance that he was still alive and then someone got the bright idea to start creating fake video's and statements to keep the ball rolling and after that it took on a life of it's own.
In any case, the longer we go without having independent verifiable evidence of his existence, the more likely it is that he is dead. And it seems not altogether implausible that he died in late 2001 and all the tapes and video's and statements attributed to him since then have been fakes. The CIA validated much of the stuff you say? Well the CIA has a long and sad record of "validating" what it's bosses want to hear. Remember Weapons of Mass Destruction?, the "potent power" of the Soviet Union when it was on the verge of collapse?, Tonkin Gulf?. The CIA can be counted on to tell us what it's bosses (typically the president of the U.S.) want to hear. The historical record on this is clear.
As time goes on another party becomes interested in perpetuating the myth: the media. After years of sensationalistic coverage of Bin Laden they would look like fools if it was revealed that he had in fact died long ago. So they have no incentive to look long and hard at the question of his existence either.
The "osama-bin-elvis" article makes another good point. A point that I have heard elsewhere: what/who is Al Qaeda now. Is there still a coherent Al Qaeda connected to the original group that has grown and expanded or is "Al Qaeda" just want one calls oneself when one wants to fight the United States in the middle east. My bet is it's the latter.
Both these questions (is Osama really still alive and what is the real nature of Al Qaeda at this time) deserve attention.
One final (and very dark) thought: could the (perhaps post mortem) video's, tapes and statements attributed to Bin Laden lead eventually to the rise of an "after death/rose from the dead" mythology that would be -by it's nature- religious, thereby elevating him to supernatural status. Boy if you think radical Islam is bad now...yikes. That would be the mother of unintended consequences!
http://spectator.org/archives/2009/03/13/osama-bin-elvis/
I would add the question of whose interests are advanced by keeping alive a myth of Osama Bin Laden's continued existence. First, the interests of American neo-conservatives who wish to keep the nation at war are advanced by a "living" Bin Laden. A dead Bin Laden would open the possibility of ending this war.
Al-Qaeda and various radical elements in the middle east also would want to perpetuate a myth of a living Bin Laden to show their friends and allies that they are robust and can persist in the face of American power: he attacked downtown New York City and he's still alive and free! A dead Bin Laden might suggest an impotent Al Qaeda. If there is one thing they don't want to be it's impotent.
The question of Bin Laden's real involvement (vs. being just a cheerleader) in 9/11 is moot to both groups.
OK, so how would this have gone down - if Bin Laden is dead how could that have been hidden. The "osama-bin-elvis" article notes that there are is no credible evidence of a living Bin Laden after November of 2001. That is when the Afghanistan war was reaching it's most intense point. Here is a description from Wikipedia of what happened in Tora Bora cave region in December 2001:
"Al-Qaeda fighters were still holding out in the mountains of Tora Bora, however, while an anti-Taliban tribal militia steadily pushed bin Laden back across the difficult terrain, backed by withering air strikes guided in by U.S. and UK Special Forces. Facing defeat, the al-Qaeda forces agreed to a truce to give them time to surrender their weapons. In retrospect, however, many believe that the truce was a ruse to allow important al-Qaeda figures, including Osama bin Laden, to escape. On December 12, the fighting flared again, probably initiated by a rear guard buying time for the main force's escape through the White Mountains into the tribal areas of Pakistan. Once again, tribal forces backed by British and U.S. special operations troops and air support pressed ahead against fortified al-Qaeda positions in caves and bunkers scattered throughout the mountainous region. By December 17, the last cave complex had been taken and their defenders overrun. A search of the area by U.S. and UK forces continued into January, but no sign of bin Laden or the al-Qaeda leadership emerged. It is almost unanimously believed that they had already slipped away into the tribal areas of Pakistan to the south and east. It is estimated that around 200 of the al-Qaeda fighters were killed during the battle, along with an unknown number of anti-Taliban tribal fighters. No U.S. or UK deaths were reported."
But instead of the official line maybe:
a) Bin Laden was pre-emptively killed by his own people via prearrangement as enemy forces closed in and then the body was then disposed of.
b) his cave or hiding place was hit directly by a large bomb which left no body behind.
c) He died from pre existing conditions which were exacerbated by the stress of what was happening and his body was disposed of via prearrangement. This could have happened months or years after Sept 2001.
Maybe after that, statements or video's he had made while alive continued to leak to the media for a time giving the appearance that he was still alive and then someone got the bright idea to start creating fake video's and statements to keep the ball rolling and after that it took on a life of it's own.
In any case, the longer we go without having independent verifiable evidence of his existence, the more likely it is that he is dead. And it seems not altogether implausible that he died in late 2001 and all the tapes and video's and statements attributed to him since then have been fakes. The CIA validated much of the stuff you say? Well the CIA has a long and sad record of "validating" what it's bosses want to hear. Remember Weapons of Mass Destruction?, the "potent power" of the Soviet Union when it was on the verge of collapse?, Tonkin Gulf?. The CIA can be counted on to tell us what it's bosses (typically the president of the U.S.) want to hear. The historical record on this is clear.
As time goes on another party becomes interested in perpetuating the myth: the media. After years of sensationalistic coverage of Bin Laden they would look like fools if it was revealed that he had in fact died long ago. So they have no incentive to look long and hard at the question of his existence either.
The "osama-bin-elvis" article makes another good point. A point that I have heard elsewhere: what/who is Al Qaeda now. Is there still a coherent Al Qaeda connected to the original group that has grown and expanded or is "Al Qaeda" just want one calls oneself when one wants to fight the United States in the middle east. My bet is it's the latter.
Both these questions (is Osama really still alive and what is the real nature of Al Qaeda at this time) deserve attention.
One final (and very dark) thought: could the (perhaps post mortem) video's, tapes and statements attributed to Bin Laden lead eventually to the rise of an "after death/rose from the dead" mythology that would be -by it's nature- religious, thereby elevating him to supernatural status. Boy if you think radical Islam is bad now...yikes. That would be the mother of unintended consequences!
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