Tag: Health

Life at the Gym and Helping Others

 

At the gym this morning, I was going through my usual routine, which includes walking the treadmill. The man on the treadmill on my right was gazing hopefully at the buttons; I could tell that he was probably a novice. So, I removed my headphones (listening to Three Whisky Happy Hour) and asked if I could help. Men in particular sometimes get flustered if they realize a woman has caught them in a confused moment. He didn’t answer, but I suspect at that point his brain was flooded with anxiety. Still, I explained how he could engage the TV and change the volume. I realized he hadn’t even found the “Start” button for the treadmill, so I directed him to the main screen, and he was able to begin the process again. Except, I thought he might want to go a little faster. So, I showed him the pluses and minuses for speed, and he was off and running. So, to speak. He didn’t thank me, but I think he was overwhelmed with relief, and walked the treadmill for several minutes

I love to help people on the machines, when they let me. I usually mind my own business unless they are completely stuck or are about to hurt themselves. We have trainers around, but they never seem to show up when you need them.

Stroke Can Strike Anyone: Warnings and Hopes for the Future

 

A few weeks ago, my brother-in-law was feeling a bit off.  It’s not surprising; he’d invited friends over for Oktoberfest.  It was a late night of beer and bratwurst.  As we get older, staying up late does not feel so great.  While he’s young, he’s not so young that staying up and then waking up at the break of dawn with kidlets is something that he’s going to survive as well as he might’ve in his partying years.  Regardless, he rallied to go to the Container Store and price out closet organization systems with a designer.  It was a planned appointment, and though he’d felt rough earlier, he felt good enough by noon to go on the 20-minute jaunt to the store.

While there, he felt increasingly awful and told my sister that he wanted to go lay down in the car.  She quickly finished up and decided to take him home.

Joe Selvaggi talks with Johan Norberg, author and senior fellow at CATO Institute, about his analysis of Sweden’s resistance to government-mandated COVID-19 control measures, as well as Sweden’s public health outcomes relative to the U.S and peer nations.

Guest

Joe Selvaggi talks with professor of psychiatry Dr. Ryan Sultan about the findings of his recently released study on the effects of cannabis on the mental health of American adolescents. Dr. Sultan’s work shows a substantial correlation between cannabis use and negative mental health outcomes.

Guest:

Following in Dr. Mengele’s Footsteps

 

For me, the entire transgender situation has been a nightmare for this country, in particular its parents and children. I have written my share of stories about the unbelievable abuses and unethical activities that define transgenderism. But recently I watched a video produced by the Daily Wire, shared with us by @stevefast, and my outrage and disbelief reached a new high. I thought I had adjusted to dealing with the topic with some objectivity and thoughtfulness. But when I saw the video, What is a Women, something was triggered in me that I’d never experienced. After contemplating my reaction for a time, I identified the source of my reaction: what we were seeing was the same evil perpetrated by Dr. Josef Mengele and the Nazis.

Now you may say that my observation is hyperbole; after all, Dr. Mengele was a madman, and he conducted procedures and operations on unwilling victims. But when you look more closely at what he did, why he did it and the implications for us today, the results are disquieting, to say the least. These are the similarities:

Experimentation—Mengele was highly regarded in his field:

A New and More Powerful Censorship Coming

 

The world we once knew has shifted into something many of us have never experienced, at least in the United States.  But you shout, we have protection! The US Constitution! The Bill of Rights! We are free to say and do as we please, framed within the Rule of Law created by our Founders for a day and time such as this.

Opportunity and abundance, along with many hardships, have given us advantages that many other countries only dream of. But power, control, and money have blinded those, as it always does, with the means to take away those freedoms while cloaked as sheep, trying to hide their fangs. We’ve seen this scenario many times before and it always starts with a vague, pleasing message and the urgent need for censorship.

Welcome to the New (Brainwashed) Civilization

 

I had a disturbing conversation with a relative, a cousin who is an off-the-charts left-leaning liberal and much older than me. She lives out west. She’s my flesh and blood and I let it drop today that I, and others in our family and my husband’s family had not been vaccinated.  My reasons are personal preference due to major food allergies and a very bad reaction to a flu shot in 2008.

She and her husband have been vaccinated and boosted out the tail. When I disclosed this, she had a meltdown. “OH! OH! Oh no!! Oh!  NO!  I never would have thought you were like that!  I am sweating — I can’t talk — I have to end this conversation! Oh no! A super spreader — how could you not?!!  We had no post-symptoms!

Seeking Feedback from My Christian Friends

 

Since I sometimes have a tendency to meddle in other people’s business, and not always artfully, I decided that I might benefit from getting the input of others about an idea of mine. The action I’m contemplating may or may not be helpful, but if it is heretical, I’d just as soon keep quiet.

Some of you may remember that I have a hairdresser whom I’m very fond of. She is a devoted Christian, and we have had many discussions about religion, and we have loved learning from each other. She’s a Conservative, too, and periodically we commiserate about the state of the world. She also saw me through some of my cancer issues, including the shaving of my head. So, I think it’s safe to say we are relatively close.

Hubwonk host Host Joe Selvaggi talks with Pioneer Institute’s Senior Fellow Dr. Bill Smith about new evidence that during the past two years of the pandemic, there were as many unseen excess deaths from non-Covid-related diseases as seen from Covid. They discuss the need for public health leaders to pivot their messaging to address this hidden mortality.

Guest:

Ostracized

 

I enjoy being around smart people; I learn a great deal from them and they help me feel smarter. But when smart people expound on ideas in a naïve and irrational fashion, it doesn’t make me feel smart. It makes me feel sad. That happened today.

This morning, I was to meet with a little group I formed to discuss Jewish topics on Zoom. Unfortunately, the internet wasn’t cooperating, and since we all live in the same area, we were all impacted. But today’s presenter was determined to make our meeting happen, so one of the women offered her home for our meeting. That sounded like a great and generous solution, except for one thing: one of our members hadn’t received her third Covid shot. She’d made that decision because of her concern regarding blood clots. The problem is that the other women in our group don’t want to be with her and the booster-shunner (let’s call her BS for short) knew it; she told me that she was being ostracized, but felt she shouldn’t have the third shot, particularly due to a medication she’s taking which can cause blood clots, too. So, she didn’t join us that morning.

The woman who was presenting picked me up in her car, so I took that opportunity to ask her if she was unwilling to be around the woman without the booster. She said yes. When I asked her why, she said that she thought everyone should have the third shot. When I asked her if she realized that BS was the one more in danger because of her more limited protection, she answered me by saying that was “just the way I felt.”

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Dr. Robert Moynihan of “The Moynihan Letters” and “Inside The Vatican Magazine” sent out this letter about the Canadian Trucker crisis. It included a short and very moving video from one of the Canadian truckers.  He shared the video of the trucker reading the note from an eleven year old, who was so moved by […]

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We didn’t really discuss politics at Christmas dinner this year. The conversation was actually funny and disturbing at the same time, even minus the politics.  I’ll save parts of it for later. I did have a somewhat political conversation with a dear friend and client, when we met to share lunch and gifts. She asked […]

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This week on Hubwonk, host Joe Selvaggi talks with Josh Archambault, Pioneer Institute’s Senior Fellow in Healthcare, about the healthcare provisions in the pending Build Back Better Act and their likely impact on the coverage and cost to Americans in the wake of Covid-19.

Guest:

Join Jim and Greg as they dissect DHS Sec. Alejandro Mayorkas telling lawmakers Vice President Harris really isn’t involved on major immigration policy decisions like “Remain in Mexico” or the proper role of ICE. They also fume at Attorney General Merrick Garland and the FBI after a whistleblower reveals that the counterterrorism division was involved in tracking parents for alleged threats towards school officials. And they discuss when Democrats will get transparent about President Biden’s health after a new poll shows huge swings in the number of people who don’t think Biden is in good health or mentally up to the job.

 

This is Not Normal, Not Even a New Normal

 

If you are feeling bat-[bleep] crazy, or just plain bats (I hate to use that term bats, due to the Wuhan crap and is now associated with COVID), I just want to say (shout)  – you are not alone! Not by a longshot. You, my friend, are not crazy, but normal in every sense of the word, so rest assured. The circumstances around you are not right. Your sense that this is the case, is normal, so check that box. What is not normal is what we are witnessing around us. Let’s examine:

Gender – I read on my Apple News, that comes through on my phone whether I want it or not, that the head of the American “Medical” Association wants to reject putting any sex or gender on a new birth certificate. It is now about feelings that are subject to change. Are you kidding? Please resign. Even Mother Nature knows this is ridiculous and not normal, not in the bird world, or the dog world, or even the bat world, will any of God’s creatures ever give birth to a fluid-gender, confused new life. This is orchestrated.

Sovereignty and Patriotism – Being proud to be an American has always been part of our heritage. Italians are proud of Italy, their heritage, and many pasta recipes; Greeks are proud of their very long lineage, olives and feta, and so forth. We all share a common love of country, family, and a delicious, multicultural soup, that I cannot imagine a homogenized sameness, where border safety and our history are looked at as bad. Yet we are being intimidated to do just that. America was and is a refuge – a place where you can speak freely, be safe, where law and order are part of the fabric of a society without a fear or intimidation of imprisonment, censorship, or job loss because of one’s beliefs. That only happens in communist and totalitarian regimes, right? Not anymore. This is not normal.

Are You Going Back to Life the Same Way – Post-Covid?

 

Are you going back to your life the same way, post-Covid and now Covid 2.0?  I ask because I think many are not. I’m not.  Getting back to normal is like after 9/11, a new normal. It may be a good thing.  Let’s examine this more closely.

First (and this is a big one), parents have gotten an up front and center view of what their children, starting in kindergarten, have been being taught. Climate Change, Critical Race Theory, White Privilege, multi-gender identities, indoctrination on a massive scale, that take the parents’ boundaries out, along with reading, writing, math, art, sports, science, and literature as the priority, and placing the focus on an extreme progressive ideology.  At any rate, at least parents are aware and can take steps to do what is best for their children and family.  Prior to Covid, many were unaware of what was taking place within our schools, within teachers’ unions, and even the innocent library.

Mystery and Not-Knowing

 

Recently I had pretty much put aside concerns of not-knowing the outcome of one last test regarding my breast cancer. When the surgeon called a couple of days ago, I was stunned to learn at least part of the results. As I struggled to calm myself (since I was certain the test results would set me free from the possibility of chemotherapy), I realized that I didn’t know a whole lot more than I knew before he called. The results still left me in a state of not-knowing, and I didn’t like it one single bit.

Most people go through life in a continuous state of “not knowing” and don’t even realize it. We don’t know if we will encounter heavy traffic when we go out; we don’t know if it will rain in the afternoon in spite of a sunny forecast; we don’t know if we will catch a cold or get a hangnail. But because these are minor and transient conditions, we don’t worry about them; not knowing is not something we fear because we don’t give it much thought.

It’s Time to End Senate Confirmation Hearings

 

One of the Senate’s unique responsibilities is to “advise and consent” on nominations to senior positions in the Executive Branch, as well as every federal judgeship, from districts to the Supreme Court. It is serious business and takes a lot of time.

I would know since I’ve been a nominee subject to Senate confirmation (Federal Election Commission, 1996. It’s a long story, but I pulled the plug on my own nomination. A story for another day).

The last confirmation hearings that gripped the American public was the Brett Kavanaugh hearing in 2018 for his eventual confirmation to the US Supreme Court. I bet you remember it. Remember Christine Blasey Ford, with her last-minute, vague accusations of sexual abuse, followed by Kavanaugh’s “angry” response? And Senator Jeff Flake’s (R-AZ) weak, flaccid acquiesce to an extra week of FBI investigations, despite a clear lack of evidence of any wrongdoing, at the prodding of the well-disguised, deep partisanship of his colleague, Chris Coons (D-DE), who was clearly committed to destroying Kavanaugh’s nomination, along with his reputation? I’ll confess to being somewhat radicalized by it.