A friend of mine send me a sampler of tea from the company Adagio Teas. The blends range from the traditional to the adventurous, with many possessing suggestive names like Sencha Overture. The quality of each tea varies, perhaps according to my tastes or what actually is. The Gun Powder, for instance, looks like juicy caviar, but it brews up a little darker than what I usually prefer in Gun Powder. The Bi Luo Chun is typical. It's very hard to get a superior picking outside China. Bi Luo Chun was one of the varieties I had "on account" at a very pleasant tea house in the Xi Dan district of Beijing back in the day. I'm particularly persnickety about this variety.
As the creative imperative of our modern time often takes expression by viewing the ancient in contexts that reflect the here and now, tea has similarly "modernized". For instance, the traditional Orange Pekoe is transmogrified into Green Pekoe. Sencha, the crystal clean green favored among Japanese, becomes Sencha Overture, though discerning what the overture is is neither apparent to my taste buds nor to my inner-marketing-self. You see, on some level I feel like "why add legs to the snake?", a Chinese aphorism that essentially means to leave well enough alone.
Isn't Sencha just fine without such overtures? It's gotten by for a good millennium without overtures and now they're necessary?... which brings me to the matter of Vanilla Green. The very idea of it struck me as cacophonous. Vanilla is Barry White smooth, best when mixed with the mellow tones of good black tea. I can even see red tea as being a good match, but not green, which is chlorophyll clean, dancing to the innocuous notes of nothingness, below the high tones of citrus.
I was guilty, resistant on purely ideological grounds to the commingling of vanilla and green teas. It got me to wondering about just how much of a traditionalist I am and how receptive to change I am. Sure, change sounds nice, but how do we react with the changes we don't anticipate? In retrospect, I can say that I didn't expect to like Vanilla Green, and my first-day's encounter proved right. I got to thinking more abstractly about vanilla in the green movement, perhaps in the Chocolate Rain vein but more with respect to change.
There are many of us who, out of the necessities of human induced climate change (HICC), belief in dramatic down scaling in lifestyle. Still some of us believe, as a result of the very same purported necessities, that shifting to new technologies, such as electric automobiles, will allow us to have a vanilla greening of sorts, making room for greater consumptive capacity. Neither camp seems to have made any allowances for the possibility that the earth's changes may be independent of human behavior, and those that have raised such questions seem so set on debunking the theology of HICC, that people concerned for the responsible extraction, production, and consumption of natural resources have skeptically concluded that these apostates are simply in the pocket of some of the earth's chief culprits.
I must admit to being pretty skeptical of any broad appeal: Darfur, breast cancer, the Dallas Cowboys. What has most disappointed me about the green discussion has been what has appeared to be an abandonment of some of its very own interesting principles. The Gaia Hypothesis, for example, maintains that the earth is a sentient being, self-regulating, much as the human body is. I have read very interesting articles about the earth's underwater volcanoes, natural shifts in the earth's poles, and have personally considered the imponderable effects of deforestation in Brazil, Congo, Borneo, and Sumatra. What kind of equilibrium does the earth seek as a result of and independent from human behavior? How about the earth's equilibrium vis-a-vis the sun? Is the earth's equilibrium consistent with human equilibrium? We know well that humans can affect the earth's equilibrium at least on the level of an ecosystem. For example, deforestation has turned once-tropical parts of the Philippines into desert. But I've never heard any discussion on the possible ways in which the earth may seek balance from such conditions. How much does the drought in the Southeast have to do with blasting of mountain tops in West Virginia?
Back when they introduced the railroads to China, there were many local traditionalists who howled that the laying of tracks would cause irreparable damage to the earth's qi. Just recently, I heard a story that the ancient continent from which the Atlantians descended sank after the tapping of geo-thermals. We can chalk this type of thinking up to superstition (We need to note, however, that even Plato made reference to Atlantis) or we just might begin to consider the presence of earthly qi and our effect on it. Is deforesting the earth for more copper and cadmium to put in electric cars really going to make this situation better? Don't get me wrong; I'm in favor of fresh air, but is air pollution as much a culprit of HICC as, say, the hundreds of thousands of miles of concrete and asphalt, which magnify and collect heat from the sun? I placed the Vanilla Green on the shelf, satisfying myself with the mysterious overtures of Sencha and quizzical implications of Green Pekoe till they were exhausted.
Here's where a side discussion on aesthetics, the fusion of form and function, becomes necessary. Tea must be brewed and drunk from the proper vessel according to its type. Black tea drunk from tiny porcelain cups meant for green tea just won't do. Many will complain about an unpleasant bitterness of green tea after having brewed it in a teapot not altogether dissimilar from the pot that Auntie Agatha enjoyed her sassafras in. Like drinking wine from a tumbler, to do so masks the layered subtleties of the leaf's personality. It's like the Chinese landscape painting that distinguishes between shades of gray. Drinking high-quality leaves, brewed at proper temperature, from small white cups affords one the opportunity to appreciate subtlety. Of course, not all tea is to be drunk in this manner. It was clear that I had failed to discern, or stated differently, had only begun to discover which vessel most properly accommodated that which formed as a co-function of vanilla and green.
I have two Mao teacups, the mug type. Chairman Mao had a real thing for tea, so much so that it is said that his teeth were usually caked with a blackened paste of tea, which he used instead of brushing. One cup has a kitschy Andy Warhol-like image of Mao as a youthful revolutionary. It's bona fide artsy because it comes from the artsy company turned luxury brand Shanghai Tang. The other is a 100th birthday anniversary cup from Mao's hometown. I like this cup a lot. It's pale green on the outside, with a crude " arte volken" feel. It is pure white inside, reflecting the trueness of the liquor. Vanilla green possessed a beautiful jade quality. The sides of the cup formed a pool in which vanilla's aroma could pool, a kind of Barry White meets Zatoichi in all the right ways.
It only took the changing of the vessel for me to get my head around Vanilla Green. In what conceptual vessel do we hold the earth at present? More important, in what ways must it change to accommodate the genuine form and function of earth in all its layered subtleties?
Sunday, May 24, 2009
Thursday, May 14, 2009
What is Prevention
The current hub-bub regarding the latest contagious airborne disease had me receive a few queries on prevention, which in turn got me to crack open the Chinese medical textbook on Warm Pathogens (wen bing). Much of what is relayed is common sense stuff, like avoiding crowds and wearing face masks, if crowd contact is necessary. There's also discussion on quarantining and immune function. I may go into these at a later date on my other blog (http://chinesemeridiantheory.blogspot.com), which is geared much more for the clinician and those who want to get juicy with Chinese medical theory.
This discussion is much more oriented around understanding what constitutes prevention. The Warm Pathogen text's discussion on prevention basically conforms to our modern understanding of risk reduction and immune function stimulation. The evident crisis that our current healthcare system is facing has made prevention a cry issued by all, the scare around the latest cootie perhaps only bringing the questions around prevention into greater relief.
Of course, much of this centers about the hot-button issue of immunization. As one who suffered from the ravages of chicken pox at the age of three and lived to tell the tale along with hordes of similarly affected children, and as one who at the age of 28 was compelled to take an MMR vaccination in order to receive financial aid and subsequently suffered a most disagreeable reaction for about a year, I nevertheless choose to remain dumb on the issue. Certainly, no one can blame parents on either side of this contentious issue, though when we're talking about public health and the implicit obligations of living in and among people in a social contract (albeit tattered), then there are certain rights that we must abdicate for better or worse, the right to not be vaccinated being one such instance.
When mass preventative efforts are affected by governments for the good of society, we must have the government's trust. We must be given clear indications that government is acting on behalf of the common weal and is not motivated by the quest for control or profit. The government must also demonstrate that academic/private contractors are restricted from using their relationship with government to advance interests that do not conform with social principles. After all, to the extent that they are recipients of social money, they must be compelled to act accordingly.
When government becomes controlled by private interests, then clearly profit trumps regard for the social good. Profitism or bottom-linism has nothing to do with social ethics. Companies are beholden to shareholders, who expect a return on their investment. This is not to say that profitism is antithetical to benefiting society; if it does that is icing on the cake, but serving society is not the objective. Many prominent researchers including the former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine have raised issue with the effects that profitism has had on shaping study results to the detriment of patients. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, mind you. Often the change of one party for the other only means a shifting of contracts from A to B, all companies engaged more or less in the same profit-driven chicanery. We can clearly see this in effect regarding the hearings on healthcare reform, which have omitted any consideration of single payer, despite polling data that show a greater than 40% and as much as 59% opinion in favor of such a system across occupations including and especially doctors and nurses.
These far away happenings in Washington have direct implications for the individual family living in Batavia. The schedule of vaccinations which used to be only a few in the 60s and 70s has exploded, including antidotes for quite harmless conditions like chicken pox. Profit can be the only explanation for vaccination inflation because the costs and risks of some conditions for which vaccinations are issued is no greater than the common cold. On the other hand, the risk of receiving injections of numerous pathogenic factors that do not enter the body or trigger the immune system's response directly through the blood is a risk that is difficult to gauge given the numerous factors at play with each individual. Consider, for example, the numerous risks of multiple drug interactions often unknown or unpredictable in the aged population and one gets an idea of how risky cocktail inoculation is and how unpredictable this could be for an immature immune system, which even in the most extreme circumstances will not be faced with hepatitis, small pox, and whooping cough at the same time.
Prevention cannot get in the way of profitism under our present system. This means that preventative interventions must function as a gateway to further treatment. Let us take as an example the deft media campaigns that play upon feminist, quasi-feminist, and faux feminist sympathies regarding breast cancer. The message unequivocally regarding prevention is early detection, which is not the same as prevention by a long shot. Early detection means assuming a course of treatment identical to or nearly identical to a "full-blown" condition but shifting the odds of success more in the favor of the interventionists. It has nothing to do with preventing breast cancer, which would involve a more earnest addressing of environmental and behavioral factors that would undercut profitism's directives. This is not to say that early detection is a bogus message, not at all. But it is not the same as prevention.
Individuals who are less comfortable in ceding their preventative healthcare to orthodox medical profitism are left with little choice but to be more vigilant in taking account for oneself's and families health. Just as the arcane machinations of Wall Street facilitated by sloganeering like "diversification" rendered a populace sheep before wolves, so too do we play the sheep when we pay obeisance to terms like "research and development." The accountable individual must equip themselves with tools of common sense before the claptrap of medical arcania. If something doesn't seem right or make sense to you, then you've got to listen to yourself. In many cases, it is not like you can sue for damages after the fact. Remember, many of the stock brokers who dealt in fraud were not intentionally doing so and when pressed were often as confused about what they were selling as their clients. It is not much different in the healthcare field, where just like most places it is much safer to just be a part of the herd.
This discussion is much more oriented around understanding what constitutes prevention. The Warm Pathogen text's discussion on prevention basically conforms to our modern understanding of risk reduction and immune function stimulation. The evident crisis that our current healthcare system is facing has made prevention a cry issued by all, the scare around the latest cootie perhaps only bringing the questions around prevention into greater relief.
Of course, much of this centers about the hot-button issue of immunization. As one who suffered from the ravages of chicken pox at the age of three and lived to tell the tale along with hordes of similarly affected children, and as one who at the age of 28 was compelled to take an MMR vaccination in order to receive financial aid and subsequently suffered a most disagreeable reaction for about a year, I nevertheless choose to remain dumb on the issue. Certainly, no one can blame parents on either side of this contentious issue, though when we're talking about public health and the implicit obligations of living in and among people in a social contract (albeit tattered), then there are certain rights that we must abdicate for better or worse, the right to not be vaccinated being one such instance.
When mass preventative efforts are affected by governments for the good of society, we must have the government's trust. We must be given clear indications that government is acting on behalf of the common weal and is not motivated by the quest for control or profit. The government must also demonstrate that academic/private contractors are restricted from using their relationship with government to advance interests that do not conform with social principles. After all, to the extent that they are recipients of social money, they must be compelled to act accordingly.
When government becomes controlled by private interests, then clearly profit trumps regard for the social good. Profitism or bottom-linism has nothing to do with social ethics. Companies are beholden to shareholders, who expect a return on their investment. This is not to say that profitism is antithetical to benefiting society; if it does that is icing on the cake, but serving society is not the objective. Many prominent researchers including the former Editor-in-Chief of the New England Journal of Medicine have raised issue with the effects that profitism has had on shaping study results to the detriment of patients. This is not a Democrat or Republican issue, mind you. Often the change of one party for the other only means a shifting of contracts from A to B, all companies engaged more or less in the same profit-driven chicanery. We can clearly see this in effect regarding the hearings on healthcare reform, which have omitted any consideration of single payer, despite polling data that show a greater than 40% and as much as 59% opinion in favor of such a system across occupations including and especially doctors and nurses.
These far away happenings in Washington have direct implications for the individual family living in Batavia. The schedule of vaccinations which used to be only a few in the 60s and 70s has exploded, including antidotes for quite harmless conditions like chicken pox. Profit can be the only explanation for vaccination inflation because the costs and risks of some conditions for which vaccinations are issued is no greater than the common cold. On the other hand, the risk of receiving injections of numerous pathogenic factors that do not enter the body or trigger the immune system's response directly through the blood is a risk that is difficult to gauge given the numerous factors at play with each individual. Consider, for example, the numerous risks of multiple drug interactions often unknown or unpredictable in the aged population and one gets an idea of how risky cocktail inoculation is and how unpredictable this could be for an immature immune system, which even in the most extreme circumstances will not be faced with hepatitis, small pox, and whooping cough at the same time.
Prevention cannot get in the way of profitism under our present system. This means that preventative interventions must function as a gateway to further treatment. Let us take as an example the deft media campaigns that play upon feminist, quasi-feminist, and faux feminist sympathies regarding breast cancer. The message unequivocally regarding prevention is early detection, which is not the same as prevention by a long shot. Early detection means assuming a course of treatment identical to or nearly identical to a "full-blown" condition but shifting the odds of success more in the favor of the interventionists. It has nothing to do with preventing breast cancer, which would involve a more earnest addressing of environmental and behavioral factors that would undercut profitism's directives. This is not to say that early detection is a bogus message, not at all. But it is not the same as prevention.
Individuals who are less comfortable in ceding their preventative healthcare to orthodox medical profitism are left with little choice but to be more vigilant in taking account for oneself's and families health. Just as the arcane machinations of Wall Street facilitated by sloganeering like "diversification" rendered a populace sheep before wolves, so too do we play the sheep when we pay obeisance to terms like "research and development." The accountable individual must equip themselves with tools of common sense before the claptrap of medical arcania. If something doesn't seem right or make sense to you, then you've got to listen to yourself. In many cases, it is not like you can sue for damages after the fact. Remember, many of the stock brokers who dealt in fraud were not intentionally doing so and when pressed were often as confused about what they were selling as their clients. It is not much different in the healthcare field, where just like most places it is much safer to just be a part of the herd.
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