Hello, FDA?

Some may think the Food and Drug Administration is overly prescriptive in not allowing anyone to claim their product treats a medical condition unless it has undergone extensive testing.

But would we really rather be back in the era of snake oil salesmen, like the website for The Good Old Days Store is?

You are invited to "experience the benefits" of actual changes in cholesterol and blood pressure.  That, my friends, looks to me like a disease claim.


This is a good reminder that not all aspects of the good old days were actually good.  Tonics use to be not only expensive and ineffective, or but often actually toxic or a back door to alcoholism.  You never knew what was actually in them.

Thanks to current regulations we know this tonic is made of vinegar and culinary herbs and could be easily made at home for a few dollars should you happen to like the taste of it.  But if you need help controlling your blood pressure, I would strongly suggest looking elsewhere.

Reporting from the Field, Literally.

I think television journalism has officially lost the plot when it comes to reporting from the scene.  What, after all, is the point of reporting from the scene. It seems that the television networks think it is all about immediacy.  About being there.  About action.  About pretty backdrops vaguely suggestive of action when no action is actually accessible to the camera.

But it isn't.  Reporting from the field is about context.  And recent coverage of the shooting of Gabrielle Giffords and others makes it clear that this is another thing entirely.

Field reporting is about telling us information in the setting where it makes the most sense and is the most true and coherent.  Thus, if you are telling us about how the shots were fired and how people responded, it might make sense to be at the scene of the shooting.  If you are talking about community grief and compassion you might stand in front of the spontaneous tributes of flowers and notes.

But if you are talking to a doctor about a procedure performed to release pressure on a victim's brain you should probably conduct that interview in an office or hospital room.  Not out in a grassy area with a small black table more suggestive of a magic trick than an operating room--where the doctor is left patting the skull symbolic of a fallen hero as if it is a pet rabbit. When you are talking about a possibly life saving surgery the most appropriate context may, in fact, be a room.

The Snake

Most images in art of a woman and a snake are Eve, and the snake is a force of evil.  Which is all a bit hard on the snake... and the woman.  About the only other female figure in art shown with a serpent is Hygieia.

Hygieia is the daughter of the god of Medicine, Asklepius--Goddess of preserving health and leanliness. Like Asklepius she is often pictured with the snake, and also a medicine bowl.  Because snakes dwell in the earth they were seen as representing the soul and the wisdom of ancestors dwelling in Hades (the sleeping place of all the dead, not the Christian place for punishing the non-righteous.)

In my opinion we need fewer portraits of Eve, and more of Hygieai.