There are no perfect churches. If you say you should be just like the early churches, which one?
Corinthians were having sex every which way, suing each other, getting drunk at church potluck. Thessalonians were quitting jobs, sitting around waiting for Jesus' return. Colossians were worshipping angels and beting themselves to prove how holy they were. Galatians were turning into legalists and racists.
Paraphrased from "The Outward Focused Life" by Dave Workman
Monday, April 20, 2009
Outward Focused Life
Quoting a passage of the Bible in Galations translated by the Message:
19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.
22-23But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
19-21It is obvious what kind of life develops out of trying to get your own way all the time: repetitive, loveless, cheap sex; a stinking accumulation of mental and emotional garbage; frenzied and joyless grabs for happiness; trinket gods; magic-show religion; paranoid loneliness; cutthroat competition; all-consuming-yet-never-satisfied wants; a brutal temper; an impotence to love or be loved; divided homes and divided lives; small-minded and lopsided pursuits; the vicious habit of depersonalizing everyone into a rival; uncontrolled and uncontrollable addictions; ugly parodies of community. I could go on.
This isn't the first time I have warned you, you know. If you use your freedom this way, you will not inherit God's kingdom.
22-23But what happens when we live God's way? He brings gifts into our lives, much the same way that fruit appears in an orchard—things like affection for others, exuberance about life, serenity. We develop a willingness to stick with things, a sense of compassion in the heart, and a conviction that a basic holiness permeates things and people. We find ourselves involved in loyal commitments, not needing to force our way in life, able to marshal and direct our energies wisely.
Pharma-Waste Tainting Our Water
AP IMPACT: Tons of released drugs taint US water
Monday, April 20, 2009 By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writers
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U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water _ contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them _ as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.
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The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.
To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.
But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.
"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an EPA enforcement officer before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney.
Pilot studies in the U.S. and abroad are now confirming those doubts.
Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals _ including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones _ have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.
Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.
Consumers are considered the biggest contributors to the contamination. We consume drugs, then excrete what our bodies don't absorb. Other times, we flush unused drugs down toilets. The AP also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging are thrown away each year by hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.
Utilities say the water is safe. Scientists, doctors and the EPA say there are no confirmed human risks associated with consuming minute concentrations of drugs. But those experts also agree that dangers cannot be ruled out, especially given the emerging research.
___
Two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals _ the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide _ account for 92 percent of the 271 million pounds identified as coming from drugmakers and other manufacturers. Both can be toxic and both are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment.
However, the list of 22 includes other troubling releases of chemicals that can be used to make drugs and other products: 8 million pounds of the skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride. Others include treatments for head lice and worms.
Residues are often released into the environment when manufacturing equipment is cleaned.
A small fraction of pharmaceuticals also leach out of landfills where they are dumped. Pharmaceuticals released onto land include the chemo agent fluorouracil, the epilepsy medicine phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium. The overall amount may be considerable, given the volume of what has been buried _ 572 million pounds of the 22 monitored drugs since 1988.
In one case, government data shows that in Columbus, Ohio, pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate _ which is considered slightly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and freshwater fish _ to a local wastewater treatment plant between 1995 and 2006. Company spokeswoman Marybeth C. McGuire said the pharmaceutical plant, which uses lithium to make drugs for bipolar disorder, has violated no laws or regulations. McGuire said all the lithium discharged, an annual average of 190 pounds, was lost when residues stuck to mixing equipment were washed down the drain.
___
Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations _ albeit aimed at other chemicals _ help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.
"Manufacturers have to be in compliance with all relevant environmental laws," said Alan Goldhammer, a scientist and vice president at the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Goldhammer conceded some drug residues could be released in wastewater, but stressed "it would not cause any environmental issues because it was not a toxic substance at the level that it was being released at."
Several big drugmakers were asked this simple question: Have you tested wastewater from your plants to find out whether any active pharmaceuticals are escaping, and if so what have you found?
No drugmaker answered directly.
"Based on research that we have reviewed from the past 20 years, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are not a significant source of pharmaceuticals that contribute to environmental risk," GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement.
AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kate Klemas said the company's manufacturing processes "are designed to avoid, or otherwise minimize the loss of product to the environment" and thus "ensure that any residual losses of pharmaceuticals to the environment that do occur are at levels that would be unlikely to pose a threat to human health or the environment."
One major manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., acknowledged that it tested some of its wastewater _ but outside the United States.
The company's director of hazard communication and environmental toxicology, Frank Mastrocco, said Pfizer has sampled effluent from some of its foreign drug factories. Without disclosing details, he said the results left Pfizer "confident that the current controls and processes in place at these facilities are adequately protective of human health and the environment."
It's not just the industry that isn't testing.
FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro _ whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" _ did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.
"Pharmaceuticals get into water in many ways," he said in a written statement. "It's commonly believed the majority come from human and animal excretion. A portion also comes from flushing unused drugs down the toilet or drain; a practice EPA generally discourages."
His position echoes that of a line of federal drug and water regulators as well as drugmakers, who concluded in the 1990s _ before highly sensitive tests now used had been developed _ that manufacturing is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Pharmaceutical makers typically are excused from having to submit an environmental review for new products, and the FDA has never rejected a drug application based on potential environmental impact. Also at play are pressures not to delay potentially lifesaving drugs. What's more, because the EPA hasn't concluded at what level, if any, pharmaceuticals are bad for the environment or harmful to people, drugmakers almost never have to report the release of pharmaceuticals they produce.
"The government could get a national snapshot of the water if they chose to," said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, "and it seems logical that we would want to find out what's coming out of these plants."
Ajit Ghorpade, an environmental engineer who worked for several major pharmaceutical companies before his current job helping run a wastewater treatment plant, said drugmakers have no impetus to take measurements that the government doesn't require.
"Obviously nobody wants to spend the time or their dime to prove this," he said. "It's like asking me why I don't drive a hybrid car? Why should I? It's not required."
___
After contacting the nation's leading drugmakers and filing public records requests, the AP found two federal agencies that have tested.
Both the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have studies under way comparing sewage at treatment plants that receive wastewater from drugmaking factories against sewage at treatment plants that do not.
Preliminary USGS results, slated for publication later this year, show that treated wastewater from sewage plants serving drug factories had significantly more medicine residues. Data from the EPA study show a disproportionate concentration in wastewater of an antibiotic that a major Michigan factory was producing at the time the samples were taken.
Meanwhile, other researchers recorded concentrations of codeine in the southern reaches of the Delaware River that were at least 10 times higher than the rest of the river.
The scientists from the Delaware River Basin Commission won't have to look far when they try to track down potential sources later this year. One mile from the sampling site, just off shore of Pennsville, N.J., there's a pipe that spits out treated wastewater from a municipal plant. The plant accepts sewage from a pharmaceutical factory owned by Siegfried Ltd. The factory makes codeine.
"We have implemented programs to not only reduce the volume of waste materials generated but to minimize the amount of pharmaceutical ingredients in the water," said Siegfried spokeswoman Rita van Eck.
Another codeine plant, run by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Noramco Inc., is about seven miles away. A Noramco spokesman acknowledged that the Wilmington, Del., factory had voluntarily tested its wastewater and found codeine in trace concentrations thousands of times greater than what was found in the Delaware River. "The amounts of codeine we measured in the wastewater, prior to releasing it to the City of Wilmington, are not considered to be hazardous to the environment," said a company spokesman.
In another instance, equipment-cleaning water sent down the drain of an Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. factory in Denver consistently contains traces of warfarin, a blood thinner, according to results obtained under a public records act request. Officials at the company and the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District said they believe the concentrations are safe.
Warfarin, which also is a common rat poison and pesticide, is so effective at inhibiting growth of aquatic plants and animals it's actually deliberately introduced to clean plants and tiny aquatic animals from ballast water of ships.
"With regard to wastewater management we are subject to a variety of federal, state and local regulation and oversight," said Joel Green, Upsher-Smith's vice president and general counsel. "And we work hard to maintain systems to promote compliance."
Baylor University professor Bryan Brooks, who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment, said assurances that drugmakers run clean shops are not enough.
"I have no reason to believe them or not believe them," he said. "We don't have peer-reviewed studies to support or not support their claims."
___
Associated Press Writer Don Mitchell in Denver contributed to this report.
___
Monday, April 20, 2009 By JEFF DONN, MARTHA MENDOZA and JUSTIN PRITCHARD, Associated Press Writers
ShareThis
U.S. manufacturers, including major drugmakers, have legally released at least 271 million pounds of pharmaceuticals into waterways that often provide drinking water _ contamination the federal government has consistently overlooked, according to an Associated Press investigation.
Hundreds of active pharmaceutical ingredients are used in a variety of manufacturing, including drugmaking: For example, lithium is used to make ceramics and treat bipolar disorder; nitroglycerin is a heart drug and also used in explosives; copper shows up in everything from pipes to contraceptives.
Federal and industry officials say they don't know the extent to which pharmaceuticals are released by U.S. manufacturers because no one tracks them _ as drugs. But a close analysis of 20 years of federal records found that, in fact, the government unintentionally keeps data on a few, allowing a glimpse of the pharmaceuticals coming from factories.
As part of its ongoing PharmaWater investigation about trace concentrations of pharmaceuticals in drinking water, AP identified 22 compounds that show up on two lists: the EPA monitors them as industrial chemicals that are released into rivers, lakes and other bodies of water under federal pollution laws, while the Food and Drug Administration classifies them as active pharmaceutical ingredients.
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The data don't show precisely how much of the 271 million pounds comes from drugmakers versus other manufacturers; also, the figure is a massive undercount because of the limited federal government tracking.
To date, drugmakers have dismissed the suggestion that their manufacturing contributes significantly to what's being found in water. Federal drug and water regulators agree.
But some researchers say the lack of required testing amounts to a 'don't ask, don't tell' policy about whether drugmakers are contributing to water pollution.
"It doesn't pass the straight-face test to say pharmaceutical manufacturers are not emitting any of the compounds they're creating," said Kyla Bennett, who spent 10 years as an EPA enforcement officer before becoming an ecologist and environmental attorney.
Pilot studies in the U.S. and abroad are now confirming those doubts.
Last year, the AP reported that trace amounts of a wide range of pharmaceuticals _ including antibiotics, anti-convulsants, mood stabilizers and sex hormones _ have been found in American drinking water supplies. Including recent findings in Dallas, Cleveland and Maryland's Prince George's and Montgomery counties, pharmaceuticals have been detected in the drinking water of at least 51 million Americans.
Most cities and water providers still do not test. Some scientists say that wherever researchers look, they will find pharma-tainted water.
Consumers are considered the biggest contributors to the contamination. We consume drugs, then excrete what our bodies don't absorb. Other times, we flush unused drugs down toilets. The AP also found that an estimated 250 million pounds of pharmaceuticals and contaminated packaging are thrown away each year by hospitals and long-term care facilities.
Researchers have found that even extremely diluted concentrations of drugs harm fish, frogs and other aquatic species. Also, researchers report that human cells fail to grow normally in the laboratory when exposed to trace concentrations of certain drugs. Some scientists say they are increasingly concerned that the consumption of combinations of many drugs, even in small amounts, could harm humans over decades.
Utilities say the water is safe. Scientists, doctors and the EPA say there are no confirmed human risks associated with consuming minute concentrations of drugs. But those experts also agree that dangers cannot be ruled out, especially given the emerging research.
___
Two common industrial chemicals that are also pharmaceuticals _ the antiseptics phenol and hydrogen peroxide _ account for 92 percent of the 271 million pounds identified as coming from drugmakers and other manufacturers. Both can be toxic and both are considered to be ubiquitous in the environment.
However, the list of 22 includes other troubling releases of chemicals that can be used to make drugs and other products: 8 million pounds of the skin bleaching cream hydroquinone, 3 million pounds of nicotine compounds that can be used in quit-smoking patches, 10,000 pounds of the antibiotic tetracycline hydrochloride. Others include treatments for head lice and worms.
Residues are often released into the environment when manufacturing equipment is cleaned.
A small fraction of pharmaceuticals also leach out of landfills where they are dumped. Pharmaceuticals released onto land include the chemo agent fluorouracil, the epilepsy medicine phenytoin and the sedative pentobarbital sodium. The overall amount may be considerable, given the volume of what has been buried _ 572 million pounds of the 22 monitored drugs since 1988.
In one case, government data shows that in Columbus, Ohio, pharmaceutical maker Boehringer Ingelheim Roxane Inc. discharged an estimated 2,285 pounds of lithium carbonate _ which is considered slightly toxic to aquatic invertebrates and freshwater fish _ to a local wastewater treatment plant between 1995 and 2006. Company spokeswoman Marybeth C. McGuire said the pharmaceutical plant, which uses lithium to make drugs for bipolar disorder, has violated no laws or regulations. McGuire said all the lithium discharged, an annual average of 190 pounds, was lost when residues stuck to mixing equipment were washed down the drain.
___
Pharmaceutical company officials point out that active ingredients represent profits, so there's a huge incentive not to let any escape. They also say extremely strict manufacturing regulations _ albeit aimed at other chemicals _ help prevent leakage, and that whatever traces may get away are handled by onsite wastewater treatment.
"Manufacturers have to be in compliance with all relevant environmental laws," said Alan Goldhammer, a scientist and vice president at the industry trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America.
Goldhammer conceded some drug residues could be released in wastewater, but stressed "it would not cause any environmental issues because it was not a toxic substance at the level that it was being released at."
Several big drugmakers were asked this simple question: Have you tested wastewater from your plants to find out whether any active pharmaceuticals are escaping, and if so what have you found?
No drugmaker answered directly.
"Based on research that we have reviewed from the past 20 years, pharmaceutical manufacturing facilities are not a significant source of pharmaceuticals that contribute to environmental risk," GlaxoSmithKline said in a statement.
AstraZeneca spokeswoman Kate Klemas said the company's manufacturing processes "are designed to avoid, or otherwise minimize the loss of product to the environment" and thus "ensure that any residual losses of pharmaceuticals to the environment that do occur are at levels that would be unlikely to pose a threat to human health or the environment."
One major manufacturer, Pfizer Inc., acknowledged that it tested some of its wastewater _ but outside the United States.
The company's director of hazard communication and environmental toxicology, Frank Mastrocco, said Pfizer has sampled effluent from some of its foreign drug factories. Without disclosing details, he said the results left Pfizer "confident that the current controls and processes in place at these facilities are adequately protective of human health and the environment."
It's not just the industry that isn't testing.
FDA spokesman Christopher Kelly noted that his agency is not responsible for what comes out on the waste end of drug factories. At the EPA, acting assistant administrator for water Mike Shapiro _ whose agency's Web site says pharmaceutical releases from manufacturing are "well defined and controlled" _ did not mention factories as a source of pharmaceutical pollution when asked by the AP how drugs get into drinking water.
"Pharmaceuticals get into water in many ways," he said in a written statement. "It's commonly believed the majority come from human and animal excretion. A portion also comes from flushing unused drugs down the toilet or drain; a practice EPA generally discourages."
His position echoes that of a line of federal drug and water regulators as well as drugmakers, who concluded in the 1990s _ before highly sensitive tests now used had been developed _ that manufacturing is not a meaningful source of pharmaceuticals in the environment.
Pharmaceutical makers typically are excused from having to submit an environmental review for new products, and the FDA has never rejected a drug application based on potential environmental impact. Also at play are pressures not to delay potentially lifesaving drugs. What's more, because the EPA hasn't concluded at what level, if any, pharmaceuticals are bad for the environment or harmful to people, drugmakers almost never have to report the release of pharmaceuticals they produce.
"The government could get a national snapshot of the water if they chose to," said Jennifer Sass, a senior scientist for the Natural Resources Defense Council, "and it seems logical that we would want to find out what's coming out of these plants."
Ajit Ghorpade, an environmental engineer who worked for several major pharmaceutical companies before his current job helping run a wastewater treatment plant, said drugmakers have no impetus to take measurements that the government doesn't require.
"Obviously nobody wants to spend the time or their dime to prove this," he said. "It's like asking me why I don't drive a hybrid car? Why should I? It's not required."
___
After contacting the nation's leading drugmakers and filing public records requests, the AP found two federal agencies that have tested.
Both the EPA and the U.S. Geological Survey have studies under way comparing sewage at treatment plants that receive wastewater from drugmaking factories against sewage at treatment plants that do not.
Preliminary USGS results, slated for publication later this year, show that treated wastewater from sewage plants serving drug factories had significantly more medicine residues. Data from the EPA study show a disproportionate concentration in wastewater of an antibiotic that a major Michigan factory was producing at the time the samples were taken.
Meanwhile, other researchers recorded concentrations of codeine in the southern reaches of the Delaware River that were at least 10 times higher than the rest of the river.
The scientists from the Delaware River Basin Commission won't have to look far when they try to track down potential sources later this year. One mile from the sampling site, just off shore of Pennsville, N.J., there's a pipe that spits out treated wastewater from a municipal plant. The plant accepts sewage from a pharmaceutical factory owned by Siegfried Ltd. The factory makes codeine.
"We have implemented programs to not only reduce the volume of waste materials generated but to minimize the amount of pharmaceutical ingredients in the water," said Siegfried spokeswoman Rita van Eck.
Another codeine plant, run by Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Noramco Inc., is about seven miles away. A Noramco spokesman acknowledged that the Wilmington, Del., factory had voluntarily tested its wastewater and found codeine in trace concentrations thousands of times greater than what was found in the Delaware River. "The amounts of codeine we measured in the wastewater, prior to releasing it to the City of Wilmington, are not considered to be hazardous to the environment," said a company spokesman.
In another instance, equipment-cleaning water sent down the drain of an Upsher-Smith Laboratories, Inc. factory in Denver consistently contains traces of warfarin, a blood thinner, according to results obtained under a public records act request. Officials at the company and the Denver Metro Wastewater Reclamation District said they believe the concentrations are safe.
Warfarin, which also is a common rat poison and pesticide, is so effective at inhibiting growth of aquatic plants and animals it's actually deliberately introduced to clean plants and tiny aquatic animals from ballast water of ships.
"With regard to wastewater management we are subject to a variety of federal, state and local regulation and oversight," said Joel Green, Upsher-Smith's vice president and general counsel. "And we work hard to maintain systems to promote compliance."
Baylor University professor Bryan Brooks, who has published more than a dozen studies related to pharmaceuticals in the environment, said assurances that drugmakers run clean shops are not enough.
"I have no reason to believe them or not believe them," he said. "We don't have peer-reviewed studies to support or not support their claims."
___
Associated Press Writer Don Mitchell in Denver contributed to this report.
___
Tuesday, April 07, 2009
Open Letter to President Obama from Rev. Malkmous of Hallelujah Acres Health Ministry
The Hallelujah Health Tip Issue #594: Open Letter to President Obama Regarding Health Care ReformApril 7, 2009
(5) Open Letter To President Obama Regarding Health Care Reform Subject: Health Care problems in the United States and proposed legislation to correct them. I come to you as a citizen of these United States of America to offer a solution to a problem that is not only causing tremendous suffering to our people . . . . but is also bankrupting our great nation. Mr. President, I believe you sincerely want an answer to this dilemma; therefore I submit the following for your consideration: 1. “Health is the largest failing business in America,” says Prof. E Cheraskin, M.D. of the University Of Alabama School Of Medicine. “The health care crisis is slowly bankrupting our citizens and our country. Costs for health care are climbing four times faster than the rate of inflation. In 1992 we spent $817 billion on health care while 1993 is expected to cost $942 Billion. During 1994 it is projected to reach $1 Trillion and by the turn of the century $2 Trillion.” 2. Current ‘Health Care’ costs in America have reached $2.4 Trillion today and forecast to double in coming years. The current ‘Health Care’ plan being advanced will not stop this constant increase in medical costs! Actually, it will accelerate the rise in health care costs as more and more people are brought into a system that has already proven to be a failure. 3. We are a sick nation even though we are spending more to treat sickness per capita than any other nation on earth! If our present methods of treating disease worked, wouldn’t our people be healthier? 4. These somber facts are strong proof that the health of the American people is not getting better regardless of how much money is poured into so-called ‘Health Care’. Also, these statistics reflect the poor health of our population even though over 70% of Americans already possess health insurance. Obviously, possessing health insurance does not produce health. 5. Calling the proposed legislation a ‘Health-Care’ plan is a misnomer! It would be more accurate to call the proposed plan a ‘Disease-Care’ plan. The plan being advanced will not produce health! On the contrary it will continue to perpetuate the same status quo of sickness and ill health we currently face while costing ever more money. 6. Countries that have ‘Health Care’ plans similar to the one you are proposing (e.g., Canada, France, & England) have found it to be an increasingly more costly plan that just doesn’t provide quality health care for all citizens. In fact it has become so costly; they now having to ration health care. 7. Our present health-care system is geared to rewarding sickness and its treatment! It allows people that create their physical problems by improper diet and lifestyle to be rewarded when they get sick by providing them with health care, often paid for by those who take care of their bodies so as to maintain health. National Health Care would also allow physicians, hospitals and drug companies to make ever-larger sums of money because the plan promotes and perpetuates the treating of symptoms rather than the prevention of disease. 8. The proposed plan will increase our taxes and put even more money into a failing health-care system that, by any standards, offers ridiculously high costs and pathetically poor results. It would be hard to imagine another American institution that offers less value per dollar. This is a system we must reform rather than expand, if we truly want to improve the health of the American people! Mr. President, If we are going to correct the above problems, A RADICAL CHANGE IS NECESSARY – and it must be radically different from the wasteful, profit-oriented program that governs our current health-care system. HERE IS WHAT I PROPOSE: 1. Shift our emphasis to the prevention of disease rather than the current goal of merely trying to treat disease after it has occurred. The public must be told how to alter their diet and lifestyle so that disease is not created in the first place. This would be true health-care reform. The proposed health-care reform is doomed to failure because it is geared to treating the symptoms of sickness rather than the causes of sickness! Dr. John Knowles, president of the Rockefeller Foundation says: “The next major advance is the assumption of individual’s responsibility for one’s own health and a necessary change in lifestyle.” With knowledge, people would then be able to intelligently choose between a system that promotes wellness through proper diet and lifestyle versus a system that promotes disease and rewards an industry with a vested interest in sickness and disease. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare says: “. . . it has become clear that only by preventing disease rather than treating it later, can we hope to achieve any major improvement in the nation’s health.” 2. Educate the people! True health-care will not result by rewarding people who continue their disease-producing diet and lifestyles. Any health-care plan that does not have as its primary goal the education of the American people as to what they should and should not eat to produce wellness will fail! It will only produce more physical problems and larger expenditures of money. Almost all sickness and disease is caused by improper diet and lifestyle, not by bacteria, viruses or inherited genes as we have been led to believe. The way to restore wellness to the American people is to teach them how to eat and live so as to create wellness. Dr. Beverly Winikoff of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York said: “...There is a widespread and unfounded confidence in the ability of medical science to cure or mitigate the effects of such diseases once they occur. Appropriate public education must emphasize the unfortunate but clear limitations of current medical practice in curing the common killer diseases. Once hypertension, diabetes, arteriosclerosis or heart disease are manifested, there is, in reality very little that medical science can do to return a patient to normal physiological function. As awareness of this limitation increases, the importance of prevention will become all the more obvious.” 3. Any new health-care plan must be one that encourages health by rewarding wellness and those who maintain health! Most disease is self-induced by improper diet and lifestyle, thus, almost all sickness and disease is preventable by a diet and lifestyle that produces wellness. Any health-care plan that does not place the responsibility for maintaining health on the individual will fail. If you feel it is necessary to continue paying for the medical treatments of those who refuse to change their diet and lifestyle, then please reward those who maintain wellness. A voucher system would be a tremendous incentive. Allot every American citizen X number of dollars a year for health care. If they don’t spend it, then send them a check each year for the amount not used. 4. Products that produce ill health should be heavily taxed. Let those who manufacture unhealthy products and those who consume them help pay for the physical problems they produce. Some examples: Beverage alcohol . . . . Saturated Fat . . . . Refined Sugar . . . . etc. If we are going to improve the health of our people, we must warn them of the consequences of eating and drinking things that harm them. Calling the public’s attention to the harm these products are doing by placing a tax and warning labels (as we currently do on tobacco) certainly would be a positive step. 5. Government-controlled institutions and agencies must not be allowed to use their power to promote sickness and disease! Some examples: Medical Schools – Of the 129 state-accredited medical schools in America, only 29 require a course in nutrition. Doctors receive an average of less than 2 hours of nutritional training in medical school. This is outrageous! Doctor’s must become promoters of health through diet and lifestyle rather than just the treater of disease! The American Dietetic Association (ADA) is responsible for approving all meals served in our public schools, jails, hospitals and to the elderly. An evaluation of these meals would show that they are high in sugar, saturated fat, table salt and white flour, while being of little nutritional value. An evaluation of the meals served in our nation’s hospitals would reveal a menu that produces sickness rather than helping in the healing of those hospitalized. Each year, the USDA buys over $4 billion worth of surplus foods (with tax payers’ money), which it donates to the nation’s schools. Ninety percent of the USDA surplus foods are eggs, high-fat cheeses, butter, ground pork, ground beef and whole milk. If the USDA had gone out intentionally to obtain foods that would destroy the health of our children they could hardly have done better. This use of taxpayers’ money to produce sickness in the youth of America is intolerable and must be stopped. We are spending taxpayers’ money to subsidize farmers to grow tobacco instead of vegetables. Then we use taxpayers’ monies for anti-smoking public education campaigns and the treatment of cancer and heart disease caused by smoking. Why are we funding both sides of the war on cancer? If we are going to use government subsidies to encourage farmers to grow specific crops, these should be healthful products, not products that cause disease. Even the Food Stamp program needs to be re-evaluated. While not allowing Food Stamps to be used for the purchase of alcohol and tobacco, Food Stamps can be used to purchase products loaded with sugar and oozing with saturated fat. Thus tax payer money is being used to pay for the very foods that create disease and then tax payers monies are used in an attempt to restore health to those same individuals who got sick consuming products paid for by tax payers. Please consider my own personal experience of regaining my health by doing something as simple as making a change in my diet: Thirty-three years ago I was told I had colon cancer. Mother had experienced terrible results going the medical route for her colon cancer before me. Because of mother’s bad experience going the medical route (at her death I felt the treatments were the cause of her death not the cancer), I went looking for an alternative approach to my cancer. At the advice of a friend, I adopted the diet God gave Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and almost immediately started to get well. Within less than a year my cancer was gone. TRUE HEALING IS SELF-HEALING as we give the body the nutrients it needs to rebuild its immune system and self healing mechanisms so that the body can do what God designed it to do, which is heal itself. And my personal experiences are not unique! Seventeen years ago I birthed a ministry called Hallelujah Acres. At the same time I started promoting a diet based on the diet God gave Adam and Eve, as found in the Bible in Genesis 1:29. It is called The Hallelujah Diet. Millions have embraced the diet and tens of thousands have written to tell me that they have recovered from over 170 different physical problems, including terminal cancers, by simply applying the principles I teach. One gentleman, after only six months on The Hallelujah Diet, reported a 60 pound weight loss, the disappearance of 28 different physical problems, and he was able to eliminate all medications. I have trained approximately 9,000 Health Ministers (including 61 medical doctors) to help me take our Health Message to the world, and we currently have Hallelujah Acres trained Health Ministers in every state in the United States as well as in 46 foreign countries. I have also appeared on ABC Nightline, the 700 Club, Trinity Broadcasting, as well as all major TV networks, The Food Network, and Fox News. Personally, I have been on The Hallelujah Diet for over 33 years and have used it to recover completely not only from colon cancer, but also a hemorrhagic stroke, without any help from the medical community. Nor have I had a single cold or the flu since making the diet change in 1976. Currently I am 75 years of age and can physically do anything I could do as a 20 year old, and am referred to as the Energizer Bunny. President Obama, please investigate what I have shared. Because of the financial profits from treating disease, you will find very limited support from those in the Medical Community for objective research into the benefits of preventative health care based on changes in diet and lifestyle. Modern science is learning much about the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, and the ways that vitamins, minerals and enzymes help our bodies to heal naturally. But still most medical research is confined to looking for answers from pharmaceutical drugs, new surgical procedures, radiation, chemotherapy, etc. – in other words, things from which the medical establishment can make profit. It’s sad to say, but the medical establishment has a tremendous financial incentive in keeping our population dependent on expensive surgical procedures, costly prescriptions and over-the-counter remedies consumed on a daily basis by sick people. On the other hand, it’s great when people are able to cure themselves simply by eating a natural diet and exercising. Sadly, our present health-care system is geared to providing what is most profitable for physicians, drug companies and hospitals, not to what is best for the people of our great land. This, Mr. President, is what must be changed if you wish to implement TRUE HEALTH CARE REFORM! CONCLUDING THOUGHTS – If the health of the American people is to be improved and if the staggering cost of health care is to be curbed, we must look outside the current and established systems. And I am not advocating the use of synthetic vitamins, herbs or homeopathic remedies as the solution. These substances, along with all drugs, only deal with symptoms caused by improper diet and lifestyle. What I am saying is that almost all physical problems are caused by putting into our body substances they were never biologically designed to handle . . . substances that are actually toxic to the body. Just as our automobile will not function properly if the wrong fuel is placed in the gas tank, neither will our bodies function properly if the wrong foods are put into them. Almost all physical problems (other than accidents of course), can be eliminated and perfect health maintained by proper diet and lifestyle! My experience has even shown that when people adopt the diet and lifestyle we teach, most mental and emotional problems also disappear. “WHEN PEOPLE LEARN AND PRACTICE ‘THE ART OF RIGHT LIVING,’ PHYSICIANS MAY GO BACK TO THEIR FARMS AND WORKSHOPS.”Dr. Isaac Jennings, 1830 If I can be of assistance in any way, please do not hesitate to call on me. My life is committed to restoring our country to health and sane living. Sincerely for a Healthy America! Rev. George Malkmus, Lit.D.Founder of Hallelujah AcresShelby, North CarolinaEmail: george@hacres.comWeb: www.hacres.com (EDITOR’S NOTE: If you agree with the contents of this letter, and feel strongly about the need to truly reform our health care system, please see that this letter gets in the hands of as many people as possible, especially people with the power to make these necessary changes in our approach to health care – your Senators and Representatives, talk show hosts, and your local newspapers for starters.)
(5) Open Letter To President Obama Regarding Health Care Reform Subject: Health Care problems in the United States and proposed legislation to correct them. I come to you as a citizen of these United States of America to offer a solution to a problem that is not only causing tremendous suffering to our people . . . . but is also bankrupting our great nation. Mr. President, I believe you sincerely want an answer to this dilemma; therefore I submit the following for your consideration: 1. “Health is the largest failing business in America,” says Prof. E Cheraskin, M.D. of the University Of Alabama School Of Medicine. “The health care crisis is slowly bankrupting our citizens and our country. Costs for health care are climbing four times faster than the rate of inflation. In 1992 we spent $817 billion on health care while 1993 is expected to cost $942 Billion. During 1994 it is projected to reach $1 Trillion and by the turn of the century $2 Trillion.” 2. Current ‘Health Care’ costs in America have reached $2.4 Trillion today and forecast to double in coming years. The current ‘Health Care’ plan being advanced will not stop this constant increase in medical costs! Actually, it will accelerate the rise in health care costs as more and more people are brought into a system that has already proven to be a failure. 3. We are a sick nation even though we are spending more to treat sickness per capita than any other nation on earth! If our present methods of treating disease worked, wouldn’t our people be healthier? 4. These somber facts are strong proof that the health of the American people is not getting better regardless of how much money is poured into so-called ‘Health Care’. Also, these statistics reflect the poor health of our population even though over 70% of Americans already possess health insurance. Obviously, possessing health insurance does not produce health. 5. Calling the proposed legislation a ‘Health-Care’ plan is a misnomer! It would be more accurate to call the proposed plan a ‘Disease-Care’ plan. The plan being advanced will not produce health! On the contrary it will continue to perpetuate the same status quo of sickness and ill health we currently face while costing ever more money. 6. Countries that have ‘Health Care’ plans similar to the one you are proposing (e.g., Canada, France, & England) have found it to be an increasingly more costly plan that just doesn’t provide quality health care for all citizens. In fact it has become so costly; they now having to ration health care. 7. Our present health-care system is geared to rewarding sickness and its treatment! It allows people that create their physical problems by improper diet and lifestyle to be rewarded when they get sick by providing them with health care, often paid for by those who take care of their bodies so as to maintain health. National Health Care would also allow physicians, hospitals and drug companies to make ever-larger sums of money because the plan promotes and perpetuates the treating of symptoms rather than the prevention of disease. 8. The proposed plan will increase our taxes and put even more money into a failing health-care system that, by any standards, offers ridiculously high costs and pathetically poor results. It would be hard to imagine another American institution that offers less value per dollar. This is a system we must reform rather than expand, if we truly want to improve the health of the American people! Mr. President, If we are going to correct the above problems, A RADICAL CHANGE IS NECESSARY – and it must be radically different from the wasteful, profit-oriented program that governs our current health-care system. HERE IS WHAT I PROPOSE: 1. Shift our emphasis to the prevention of disease rather than the current goal of merely trying to treat disease after it has occurred. The public must be told how to alter their diet and lifestyle so that disease is not created in the first place. This would be true health-care reform. The proposed health-care reform is doomed to failure because it is geared to treating the symptoms of sickness rather than the causes of sickness! Dr. John Knowles, president of the Rockefeller Foundation says: “The next major advance is the assumption of individual’s responsibility for one’s own health and a necessary change in lifestyle.” With knowledge, people would then be able to intelligently choose between a system that promotes wellness through proper diet and lifestyle versus a system that promotes disease and rewards an industry with a vested interest in sickness and disease. The Department of Health, Education and Welfare says: “. . . it has become clear that only by preventing disease rather than treating it later, can we hope to achieve any major improvement in the nation’s health.” 2. Educate the people! True health-care will not result by rewarding people who continue their disease-producing diet and lifestyles. Any health-care plan that does not have as its primary goal the education of the American people as to what they should and should not eat to produce wellness will fail! It will only produce more physical problems and larger expenditures of money. Almost all sickness and disease is caused by improper diet and lifestyle, not by bacteria, viruses or inherited genes as we have been led to believe. The way to restore wellness to the American people is to teach them how to eat and live so as to create wellness. Dr. Beverly Winikoff of the Rockefeller Foundation in New York said: “...There is a widespread and unfounded confidence in the ability of medical science to cure or mitigate the effects of such diseases once they occur. Appropriate public education must emphasize the unfortunate but clear limitations of current medical practice in curing the common killer diseases. Once hypertension, diabetes, arteriosclerosis or heart disease are manifested, there is, in reality very little that medical science can do to return a patient to normal physiological function. As awareness of this limitation increases, the importance of prevention will become all the more obvious.” 3. Any new health-care plan must be one that encourages health by rewarding wellness and those who maintain health! Most disease is self-induced by improper diet and lifestyle, thus, almost all sickness and disease is preventable by a diet and lifestyle that produces wellness. Any health-care plan that does not place the responsibility for maintaining health on the individual will fail. If you feel it is necessary to continue paying for the medical treatments of those who refuse to change their diet and lifestyle, then please reward those who maintain wellness. A voucher system would be a tremendous incentive. Allot every American citizen X number of dollars a year for health care. If they don’t spend it, then send them a check each year for the amount not used. 4. Products that produce ill health should be heavily taxed. Let those who manufacture unhealthy products and those who consume them help pay for the physical problems they produce. Some examples: Beverage alcohol . . . . Saturated Fat . . . . Refined Sugar . . . . etc. If we are going to improve the health of our people, we must warn them of the consequences of eating and drinking things that harm them. Calling the public’s attention to the harm these products are doing by placing a tax and warning labels (as we currently do on tobacco) certainly would be a positive step. 5. Government-controlled institutions and agencies must not be allowed to use their power to promote sickness and disease! Some examples: Medical Schools – Of the 129 state-accredited medical schools in America, only 29 require a course in nutrition. Doctors receive an average of less than 2 hours of nutritional training in medical school. This is outrageous! Doctor’s must become promoters of health through diet and lifestyle rather than just the treater of disease! The American Dietetic Association (ADA) is responsible for approving all meals served in our public schools, jails, hospitals and to the elderly. An evaluation of these meals would show that they are high in sugar, saturated fat, table salt and white flour, while being of little nutritional value. An evaluation of the meals served in our nation’s hospitals would reveal a menu that produces sickness rather than helping in the healing of those hospitalized. Each year, the USDA buys over $4 billion worth of surplus foods (with tax payers’ money), which it donates to the nation’s schools. Ninety percent of the USDA surplus foods are eggs, high-fat cheeses, butter, ground pork, ground beef and whole milk. If the USDA had gone out intentionally to obtain foods that would destroy the health of our children they could hardly have done better. This use of taxpayers’ money to produce sickness in the youth of America is intolerable and must be stopped. We are spending taxpayers’ money to subsidize farmers to grow tobacco instead of vegetables. Then we use taxpayers’ monies for anti-smoking public education campaigns and the treatment of cancer and heart disease caused by smoking. Why are we funding both sides of the war on cancer? If we are going to use government subsidies to encourage farmers to grow specific crops, these should be healthful products, not products that cause disease. Even the Food Stamp program needs to be re-evaluated. While not allowing Food Stamps to be used for the purchase of alcohol and tobacco, Food Stamps can be used to purchase products loaded with sugar and oozing with saturated fat. Thus tax payer money is being used to pay for the very foods that create disease and then tax payers monies are used in an attempt to restore health to those same individuals who got sick consuming products paid for by tax payers. Please consider my own personal experience of regaining my health by doing something as simple as making a change in my diet: Thirty-three years ago I was told I had colon cancer. Mother had experienced terrible results going the medical route for her colon cancer before me. Because of mother’s bad experience going the medical route (at her death I felt the treatments were the cause of her death not the cancer), I went looking for an alternative approach to my cancer. At the advice of a friend, I adopted the diet God gave Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, and almost immediately started to get well. Within less than a year my cancer was gone. TRUE HEALING IS SELF-HEALING as we give the body the nutrients it needs to rebuild its immune system and self healing mechanisms so that the body can do what God designed it to do, which is heal itself. And my personal experiences are not unique! Seventeen years ago I birthed a ministry called Hallelujah Acres. At the same time I started promoting a diet based on the diet God gave Adam and Eve, as found in the Bible in Genesis 1:29. It is called The Hallelujah Diet. Millions have embraced the diet and tens of thousands have written to tell me that they have recovered from over 170 different physical problems, including terminal cancers, by simply applying the principles I teach. One gentleman, after only six months on The Hallelujah Diet, reported a 60 pound weight loss, the disappearance of 28 different physical problems, and he was able to eliminate all medications. I have trained approximately 9,000 Health Ministers (including 61 medical doctors) to help me take our Health Message to the world, and we currently have Hallelujah Acres trained Health Ministers in every state in the United States as well as in 46 foreign countries. I have also appeared on ABC Nightline, the 700 Club, Trinity Broadcasting, as well as all major TV networks, The Food Network, and Fox News. Personally, I have been on The Hallelujah Diet for over 33 years and have used it to recover completely not only from colon cancer, but also a hemorrhagic stroke, without any help from the medical community. Nor have I had a single cold or the flu since making the diet change in 1976. Currently I am 75 years of age and can physically do anything I could do as a 20 year old, and am referred to as the Energizer Bunny. President Obama, please investigate what I have shared. Because of the financial profits from treating disease, you will find very limited support from those in the Medical Community for objective research into the benefits of preventative health care based on changes in diet and lifestyle. Modern science is learning much about the health benefits of eating fruits and vegetables, and the ways that vitamins, minerals and enzymes help our bodies to heal naturally. But still most medical research is confined to looking for answers from pharmaceutical drugs, new surgical procedures, radiation, chemotherapy, etc. – in other words, things from which the medical establishment can make profit. It’s sad to say, but the medical establishment has a tremendous financial incentive in keeping our population dependent on expensive surgical procedures, costly prescriptions and over-the-counter remedies consumed on a daily basis by sick people. On the other hand, it’s great when people are able to cure themselves simply by eating a natural diet and exercising. Sadly, our present health-care system is geared to providing what is most profitable for physicians, drug companies and hospitals, not to what is best for the people of our great land. This, Mr. President, is what must be changed if you wish to implement TRUE HEALTH CARE REFORM! CONCLUDING THOUGHTS – If the health of the American people is to be improved and if the staggering cost of health care is to be curbed, we must look outside the current and established systems. And I am not advocating the use of synthetic vitamins, herbs or homeopathic remedies as the solution. These substances, along with all drugs, only deal with symptoms caused by improper diet and lifestyle. What I am saying is that almost all physical problems are caused by putting into our body substances they were never biologically designed to handle . . . substances that are actually toxic to the body. Just as our automobile will not function properly if the wrong fuel is placed in the gas tank, neither will our bodies function properly if the wrong foods are put into them. Almost all physical problems (other than accidents of course), can be eliminated and perfect health maintained by proper diet and lifestyle! My experience has even shown that when people adopt the diet and lifestyle we teach, most mental and emotional problems also disappear. “WHEN PEOPLE LEARN AND PRACTICE ‘THE ART OF RIGHT LIVING,’ PHYSICIANS MAY GO BACK TO THEIR FARMS AND WORKSHOPS.”Dr. Isaac Jennings, 1830 If I can be of assistance in any way, please do not hesitate to call on me. My life is committed to restoring our country to health and sane living. Sincerely for a Healthy America! Rev. George Malkmus, Lit.D.Founder of Hallelujah AcresShelby, North CarolinaEmail: george@hacres.comWeb: www.hacres.com (EDITOR’S NOTE: If you agree with the contents of this letter, and feel strongly about the need to truly reform our health care system, please see that this letter gets in the hands of as many people as possible, especially people with the power to make these necessary changes in our approach to health care – your Senators and Representatives, talk show hosts, and your local newspapers for starters.)
Saturday, June 21, 2008
Homeschooled two-armed pitcher
This story of a homeschooled boy who was ambidextrous supports my theory that homeschooling is better for allowing children to excel at things they would not be encouraged to do in public school.
NYC Switch Pitcher Confounds Batters, Umpires
Saturday, June 21, 2008
NEW YORK — Ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte can confound hitters — and umpires — when he's on the mound.
The umps working a game Thursday night between the Class-A Staten Island Yankees and the Brooklyn Cyclones had nothing to go by when Venditte made his professional debut, less than two weeks after getting drafted in the 20th round by the Yankees.
He pitched the ninth, and after retiring two batters and allowing a single, a switch hitter stepped to the plate for Brooklyn. That's hardly unusual. But it becomes intriguing against Venditte, a switch pitcher.
Things got a tad dizzying when designated hitter Ralph Henriquez, who had taken his on-deck circle swings as a lefty, entered the batter's box from the right side.
Venditte put his specially made glove (it has six fingers, two webs and fits on both hands) on his left hand, and got ready to pitch right-handed.
Henriquez then changed his mind and switched sides of the plate, because a batter sees the ball sooner when it is thrown by a pitcher using the opposite hand.
So Venditte shifted his glove to the other hand.
Then it happened again.
And again.
And again.
Apparently unsure of how the rules handle such an oddity, the umpires didn't stop the cat-and-mouse game until Venditte walked toward the plate and said something while pointing at Henriquez. Umpires and both managers then huddled and the umps decided the batter and pitcher can both change sides one time per at-bat, and that the batter must declare first.
The ruling favored the pitcher, since he gets to declare last.
About seven minutes after he first stepped in, Henriquez struck out on four pitches as a righty against a right-handed Venditte and slammed his bat in frustration. Staten Island won, 7-2.
"It's probably been a long, long time since he's seen a right-hander as a righty," Venditte said. "I think in that situation, I had the upper hand because he wasn't used to that. It's been a long time since he'd come in the game as a switch hitter and faced a righty as a righty."
It wasn't completely new to Venditte, who went 9-3 with a 3.34 ERA and seven saves as a senior at Creighton.
"That same thing happened my sophomore year against Nebraska," he said. "But in that situation he got to hit off me right-handed, and I faced him lefty. He hit a line drive to center but it got caught, so I lucked out."
It's unclear what the MLB rule book says on the matter. While it's clear that both a batter and a pitcher are allowed to change sides once, the umpire's decision that the batter must declare first remains debatable.
"We're waiting on an official ruling on it," Staten Island media relations director John Davison said.
Pat Venditte Sr., who raised his son as ambidextrous from the age of 3, said the Missouri Valley Conference had rules in place for such a situation. There, the pitcher had to show which arm he was going to pitch with.
"My first thought was, isn't there a rule to cover that?" asked Venditte Sr., by phone from Nebraska.
Justin Klemm, executive director of the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation, said his organization was working with major league baseball to remedy the lack of a clear rule.
"We don't want to rush to any interpretation beyond what is in our manual," Klemm said, referring to the minor league umpire manual. "Obviously what's in our manual doesn't cover every situation. We want to be as fair as possible, but we're going to do that in a timely manner."
It's all happening because Venditte Sr. decided to experiment with his son at age 3, having him first kick footballs with both feet, then punting with both, and finally throwing with both hands. He and his 3-year-old son played long toss — pitchers mound to plate — with each arm.
Because his son was home-schooled, Pat Jr. wasn't dissuaded from doing something that might have been seen as "unnatural," his father said. By the time he started playing organized baseball, his son was already better with both hands than most kids were with either.
"By the time he played at 7, people were in awe," Venditte Sr. said. "It spurred us on. He was doing things that people found unique and different."
Some scouts have noticed that Venditte throws harder from the right side — near 90 mph as opposed to about 80 from the left side — and have decided that means he's naturally a righty.
Not so fast, his father said.
"The reason he's not as fast from the left is he drops his arm from the left side to get more movement, he throws a sweeping slider," he said. "The coach at Creighton thought it was more difficult to hit. He has equal arm strength. He can stand at home plate and throw it out of the ballpark from both sides."
The Yankees have enough faith that Venditte can bring his ambidextrous pitching game to the majors to draft him not once, but twice. They drafted him in the 45th round after his junior year as well, but Venditte chose to return to Creighton.
Venditte is not the first professional pitcher to throw with both hands, although he may be the first in the modern era with the potential to regularly switch arms.
Greg A. Harris, who pitched for Cincinnati, Montreal, San Diego, Texas, Philadelphia, Boston and the Yankees from 1981-95, was a righty throughout his career. He pitched from the left side for two batters in the second-to-last game of his career
NYC Switch Pitcher Confounds Batters, Umpires
Saturday, June 21, 2008
NEW YORK — Ambidextrous pitcher Pat Venditte can confound hitters — and umpires — when he's on the mound.
The umps working a game Thursday night between the Class-A Staten Island Yankees and the Brooklyn Cyclones had nothing to go by when Venditte made his professional debut, less than two weeks after getting drafted in the 20th round by the Yankees.
He pitched the ninth, and after retiring two batters and allowing a single, a switch hitter stepped to the plate for Brooklyn. That's hardly unusual. But it becomes intriguing against Venditte, a switch pitcher.
Things got a tad dizzying when designated hitter Ralph Henriquez, who had taken his on-deck circle swings as a lefty, entered the batter's box from the right side.
Venditte put his specially made glove (it has six fingers, two webs and fits on both hands) on his left hand, and got ready to pitch right-handed.
Henriquez then changed his mind and switched sides of the plate, because a batter sees the ball sooner when it is thrown by a pitcher using the opposite hand.
So Venditte shifted his glove to the other hand.
Then it happened again.
And again.
And again.
Apparently unsure of how the rules handle such an oddity, the umpires didn't stop the cat-and-mouse game until Venditte walked toward the plate and said something while pointing at Henriquez. Umpires and both managers then huddled and the umps decided the batter and pitcher can both change sides one time per at-bat, and that the batter must declare first.
The ruling favored the pitcher, since he gets to declare last.
About seven minutes after he first stepped in, Henriquez struck out on four pitches as a righty against a right-handed Venditte and slammed his bat in frustration. Staten Island won, 7-2.
"It's probably been a long, long time since he's seen a right-hander as a righty," Venditte said. "I think in that situation, I had the upper hand because he wasn't used to that. It's been a long time since he'd come in the game as a switch hitter and faced a righty as a righty."
It wasn't completely new to Venditte, who went 9-3 with a 3.34 ERA and seven saves as a senior at Creighton.
"That same thing happened my sophomore year against Nebraska," he said. "But in that situation he got to hit off me right-handed, and I faced him lefty. He hit a line drive to center but it got caught, so I lucked out."
It's unclear what the MLB rule book says on the matter. While it's clear that both a batter and a pitcher are allowed to change sides once, the umpire's decision that the batter must declare first remains debatable.
"We're waiting on an official ruling on it," Staten Island media relations director John Davison said.
Pat Venditte Sr., who raised his son as ambidextrous from the age of 3, said the Missouri Valley Conference had rules in place for such a situation. There, the pitcher had to show which arm he was going to pitch with.
"My first thought was, isn't there a rule to cover that?" asked Venditte Sr., by phone from Nebraska.
Justin Klemm, executive director of the Professional Baseball Umpire Corporation, said his organization was working with major league baseball to remedy the lack of a clear rule.
"We don't want to rush to any interpretation beyond what is in our manual," Klemm said, referring to the minor league umpire manual. "Obviously what's in our manual doesn't cover every situation. We want to be as fair as possible, but we're going to do that in a timely manner."
It's all happening because Venditte Sr. decided to experiment with his son at age 3, having him first kick footballs with both feet, then punting with both, and finally throwing with both hands. He and his 3-year-old son played long toss — pitchers mound to plate — with each arm.
Because his son was home-schooled, Pat Jr. wasn't dissuaded from doing something that might have been seen as "unnatural," his father said. By the time he started playing organized baseball, his son was already better with both hands than most kids were with either.
"By the time he played at 7, people were in awe," Venditte Sr. said. "It spurred us on. He was doing things that people found unique and different."
Some scouts have noticed that Venditte throws harder from the right side — near 90 mph as opposed to about 80 from the left side — and have decided that means he's naturally a righty.
Not so fast, his father said.
"The reason he's not as fast from the left is he drops his arm from the left side to get more movement, he throws a sweeping slider," he said. "The coach at Creighton thought it was more difficult to hit. He has equal arm strength. He can stand at home plate and throw it out of the ballpark from both sides."
The Yankees have enough faith that Venditte can bring his ambidextrous pitching game to the majors to draft him not once, but twice. They drafted him in the 45th round after his junior year as well, but Venditte chose to return to Creighton.
Venditte is not the first professional pitcher to throw with both hands, although he may be the first in the modern era with the potential to regularly switch arms.
Greg A. Harris, who pitched for Cincinnati, Montreal, San Diego, Texas, Philadelphia, Boston and the Yankees from 1981-95, was a righty throughout his career. He pitched from the left side for two batters in the second-to-last game of his career
Thursday, June 05, 2008
Misery
An article from Aish.com:
The sobering fact is that serenity and joy are natural states for us all. Fear not. Practiced regularly, these strategies vastly improve our odds of attaining despair.
Many people innocently believe that all they have to do is sit back, coast through life, and misery will come to them. Nothing could be further from the truth! The sobering fact is that serenity and joy are natural states for us all. Just observe a child at play, yourself on a favorite vacation, or anyone absorbed in creative activity. As our minds clear of clutter and negative thinking, a profound sense of peace and contentment often emerges. Does this mean there's no hope? Absolutely not! The strategies outlined below, practiced regularly, vastly improve our odds of achieving misery.
1. CLING TO ENTITLEMENT
You are perfectly entitled to feelings of entitlement. It is your birthright to expect unfailing attention, loyalty, respect, and subservience from others. Contemplate the inherent, self-evident unfairness of anyone having something you want. Strive to see compromise, accommodation, patience, and responsibility, as somehow relevant only to "the other guy." In general, be aware that life owes you and that you were put on this planet to collect.
2. IT'S ALL PERSONAL
Malicious intent is always present if you just look carefully enough. This is particularly true regarding family members. Suppose your spouse overlooks one of your preferences. Seize the opportunity to view this as conclusive proof that you don't really matter to them and probably never have. If your children dawdle at bedtime, see them as viciously spiteful and yourself as a sorry excuse for a parent. It's really very simple. Ignore nothing, and always assume evil intent. Remember, if you don't take things personally no one will do it for you.
3. FOCUS ON PROBLEMS
There is really very little sense in having problems if you don't focus on them. It's crucial therefore to keep careful track of all your problems and constantly review them. Nurture the attitude that you can't really move on to anything unless everything is resolved first. Remember also that there is no solution without a problem, if you look closely enough. Always resist the temptation to ponder where problems go when you don't think about them.
4. MAGNIFY
Too often people cheat themselves out of misery by maintaining perspective. This is both needless as well as extremely counter productive. Why would anyone ever want to think of themselves as "just human" when "fatally flawed" and "irredeemably warped" are available? Similarly, when recalling past mistakes, why stop at instructive regret when paralyzing guilt is within reach? Sure it requires a bit of effort, but the payoff can be enormous. Just imagine the benefits of eventually believing that your negative thinking actually reflects reality.
5. EXPECT CATASTROPHE
It is critical to remember that really terrible things can occur at any moment. Let's start with the body. Begin by paying close attention to changes in bodily sensation, no matter how trivial. Next, let your imagination run wild. Anything involving flesh-eating bacteria or intestinal parasites will usually do the trick. People sometimes protest that their bodies feel perfectly fine. Not to worry! Think "Silent Killers." Feeling perfectly fine places you squarely at risk for these. Of course, there is no reason to stop at personal health issues. The range of potential catastrophe is vast. For example, there are suitcase bombs, encroaching asteroids, global recession, pandemics, killer bees, and so on. Simply use your imagination to craft a realistic sense of impending doom. Savor the pride you'll feel on your death bed knowing that nothing ever caught you by surprise.
6. JUST SAY "NO THANKS" TO GRATITUDE
Gratitude is to misery what Kryptonite is to Superman. All the hard work you've invested in misery will go down the drain if you start fiddling around with gratitude. A zero tolerance policy is very much in order. This is very challenging, however, as life runs rampant with opportunities for gratefulness. Begin, therefore, by thoroughly discounting all the good in your life as a "given." Next, focus your mind on the many ways in which life continues to disappoint you. At an advanced level, you can even learn to see the bad in the good. For instance, should you get a big raise you could immediately focus on the tax implications. Eliminate gratitude from your life and misery will be right around the corner.
A final word. The beauty of misery is that the more you share it with others, the more you wind up having. So share generously. After all, misery loves company.
Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2007
The sobering fact is that serenity and joy are natural states for us all. Fear not. Practiced regularly, these strategies vastly improve our odds of attaining despair.
Many people innocently believe that all they have to do is sit back, coast through life, and misery will come to them. Nothing could be further from the truth! The sobering fact is that serenity and joy are natural states for us all. Just observe a child at play, yourself on a favorite vacation, or anyone absorbed in creative activity. As our minds clear of clutter and negative thinking, a profound sense of peace and contentment often emerges. Does this mean there's no hope? Absolutely not! The strategies outlined below, practiced regularly, vastly improve our odds of achieving misery.
1. CLING TO ENTITLEMENT
You are perfectly entitled to feelings of entitlement. It is your birthright to expect unfailing attention, loyalty, respect, and subservience from others. Contemplate the inherent, self-evident unfairness of anyone having something you want. Strive to see compromise, accommodation, patience, and responsibility, as somehow relevant only to "the other guy." In general, be aware that life owes you and that you were put on this planet to collect.
2. IT'S ALL PERSONAL
Malicious intent is always present if you just look carefully enough. This is particularly true regarding family members. Suppose your spouse overlooks one of your preferences. Seize the opportunity to view this as conclusive proof that you don't really matter to them and probably never have. If your children dawdle at bedtime, see them as viciously spiteful and yourself as a sorry excuse for a parent. It's really very simple. Ignore nothing, and always assume evil intent. Remember, if you don't take things personally no one will do it for you.
3. FOCUS ON PROBLEMS
There is really very little sense in having problems if you don't focus on them. It's crucial therefore to keep careful track of all your problems and constantly review them. Nurture the attitude that you can't really move on to anything unless everything is resolved first. Remember also that there is no solution without a problem, if you look closely enough. Always resist the temptation to ponder where problems go when you don't think about them.
4. MAGNIFY
Too often people cheat themselves out of misery by maintaining perspective. This is both needless as well as extremely counter productive. Why would anyone ever want to think of themselves as "just human" when "fatally flawed" and "irredeemably warped" are available? Similarly, when recalling past mistakes, why stop at instructive regret when paralyzing guilt is within reach? Sure it requires a bit of effort, but the payoff can be enormous. Just imagine the benefits of eventually believing that your negative thinking actually reflects reality.
5. EXPECT CATASTROPHE
It is critical to remember that really terrible things can occur at any moment. Let's start with the body. Begin by paying close attention to changes in bodily sensation, no matter how trivial. Next, let your imagination run wild. Anything involving flesh-eating bacteria or intestinal parasites will usually do the trick. People sometimes protest that their bodies feel perfectly fine. Not to worry! Think "Silent Killers." Feeling perfectly fine places you squarely at risk for these. Of course, there is no reason to stop at personal health issues. The range of potential catastrophe is vast. For example, there are suitcase bombs, encroaching asteroids, global recession, pandemics, killer bees, and so on. Simply use your imagination to craft a realistic sense of impending doom. Savor the pride you'll feel on your death bed knowing that nothing ever caught you by surprise.
6. JUST SAY "NO THANKS" TO GRATITUDE
Gratitude is to misery what Kryptonite is to Superman. All the hard work you've invested in misery will go down the drain if you start fiddling around with gratitude. A zero tolerance policy is very much in order. This is very challenging, however, as life runs rampant with opportunities for gratefulness. Begin, therefore, by thoroughly discounting all the good in your life as a "given." Next, focus your mind on the many ways in which life continues to disappoint you. At an advanced level, you can even learn to see the bad in the good. For instance, should you get a big raise you could immediately focus on the tax implications. Eliminate gratitude from your life and misery will be right around the corner.
A final word. The beauty of misery is that the more you share it with others, the more you wind up having. So share generously. After all, misery loves company.
Published: Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Friday, March 28, 2008
The Original Sin
Most people agree that the original sin was when Eve at the forbidden fruit. But Dr. Sedler, in his book "When to Speak Up and When to Shut Up," sets forth the theory that Adam was present when Eve decided to sin and he did not speak up to advise her against it. He says that this is the original sin--the fact that Adam said nothing when his companion was making an unwise choice.
It is our responsibility as Christians to speak up when our friends and family members are making wrong choices. We must, however, do it with an attitude of love and humility.
It is our responsibility as Christians to speak up when our friends and family members are making wrong choices. We must, however, do it with an attitude of love and humility.
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