Month: September 2012

Vitamin D3
Bone-Up

Dr. Lars Rejnmark, M.D., from Aarhus University in Denmark and his colleagues examined the results of pooled data on more than 70,000 randomized participants with a median age of 70 that participated in vitamin D studies. Some of these participants were instructed to take only vitamin D, while others were instructed to take both vitamin D and calcium. After processing this wealth of data using a stratified Cox regression model, the team discovered that vitamin D can play a powerful role in reducing mortality and increasing life expectancy.

Interestingly, the overall decrease in mortality observed from taking vitamin D with calcium was not the result of vitamin D individuals experiencing fewer fractures, which has been the case in previous studies. There appears to be some other mechanism at play in how the body metabolizes vitamin D alongside calcium that provides other life-extending health benefits.

"This is the largest study ever performed on effects of calcium and vitamin D on mortality," said Rejnmark. "Some studies have suggested calcium (with or without vitamin D) supplements can have adverse effects on cardiovascular health. Although our study does not rule out such effects, we found that calcium with vitamin D supplementation to elderly patients is overall not harmful to survival, and may have beneficial effects on general health."

To gain the most benefits from vitamin D, it is important to also supplement with its various synergistic co-factors, which include magnesium, vitamin K, vitamin A, zinc, and boron. According to the Vitamin D Council, these co-factors are absolutely vital for achieving maximum results from vitamin D, including optimal biosynthesis of this life-giving nutrient. (http://www.vitamindcouncil.org/about-vitamin-d/vitamin-d-cofactors/)

"Magnesium has been found to influence the body's utilization of vitamin D in the following ways: Magnesium activates cellular enzymatic activity," says the Vitamin D Council, which emphasizes magnesium as the most important vitamin D co-factor, even though it was not included in the Aarhus study. "Low magnesium has been shown to alter, by way of decreasing, production of vitamin D's active form, 1,25(OH)2D (calcitriol)."

 While paying lip service to diet and exercise, this call to action is obviously tied to the pharmaceutical industry, which could profit greatly from getting more people on drugs. They insist that medication should be part of the treatment, that drugs effectively treat patients with severe hypertension, and that treating high BP causes few major problems.

Nevertheless, it is always best to explore natural solutions first. Drugs cannot improve health like lifestyle changes and dietary intervention can. Controlling BP with drugs is also associated with an increased risk of death. Diet and exercise reduce the healthcare burden far better than meds, and show benefits far beyond BP control.

BP-lowering foods
Foods for healthy BP include dark chocolate, which a recent meta-analysis supported for reducing BP. Whey protein boosts glutathione and nitric oxide, which protect and relax blood vessels. Fatty fish provide protein and omega-3 fat, which significantly reduce triglycerides and improve blood vessel elasticity. Luteolin-containing foods like celery, citrus, green peppers, thyme, and chamomile may easily improve BP. So can garlic, onion, apples and other quercetin-containing foods. Replacing table salt with unrefined sea salt or potassium-balanced salts may also improve BP. Potassium-rich coconut water was shown to reduce BP significantly. Sweet potatoes contain potassium and beta-carotene, which helps prevent plaque-related diseases. Magnesium and other nutrients in greens, beans, nuts and seeds can also reduce BP. Finally, non-starchy fruits (berries, pomegranate) and vegetables can improve all indices of cardiovascular health. Conversely, starchy foods, refined carbohydrates and trans fats contribute to high BP.

BP-lowering supplements
Dietary supplements are also effective in managing BP. High-dose vitamin D reduced inflammation, insulin resistance, deaths from cardiovascular complications, and reduced BP by 20 percent. Olive leaf, grape seed, resveratrol, hawthorn, vitamin C, coenzyme Q10, and capsaicin have been shown independently to reduce BP. B vitamins that contribute to a healthy BP include folate, B2 and B6. Conversely, supplements associated with increased BP include ephedra, Siberian ginseng, bitter orange and licorice.

People are developing higher BP at an alarming rate, setting the stage for future cardiovascular disease. The intelligent solution to reduce BP and to reduce its enormous burden on healthcare is to adopt healthier lifestyle changes, rather than resort to dangerous medications.

Chromium GTF

High-fructose corn syrup is a corn-based sweetener that commonly replaces or accompanies table sugar (sucrose) in various food products. Companies often prefer to utilize HFCS due to its affordable price and its preservative qualities.

The health effects of HFCS are widely disputed. There is no solid evidence that it is unhealthier than other available sweeteners. It is theorized that the body breaks down HFCS differently than other sugars in a way that potentially causes the liver to let more fat into the bloodstream, thus raising concerns about its potential health risks. Whether or not HFCS is the unhealthiest of sweeteners, studies have found connections between excessive consumption of sugars (not exclusively corn syrup) and such issues as weight gain, dental cavities, poor nutrition, and an escalated risk for a heart attack due to increased triglyceride levels.

Consumers would be wise to investigate their food choices for HFCS and other sweeteners. It is no surprise that HFCS is in sugary products such as fruit drinks, soda, yogurt, candy, and other fruity foods like jams and sauces. Surprisingly; however, HFCS has also found its way into foods that are seemingly unsweetened. Salad dressings, granola bars, frozen pizzas, macaroni and cheese, peanuts, ketchup, and even tonic water have listed high-fructose corn syrup in their ingredient panels.

More alarming still is that this sneaky corn syrup is managing to work its way into the foods more typically purchased by dieters and other health-conscious purchasers. Whole-grain and "healthy" breads are guilty of harboring HFCS, as well as heart-healthy breakfast cereals. Ironically, nutrition bars are known to often contain HFCS, despite their purpose of being, well, nutritious.

The bottom line here is that even for those who scrupulously watch what they eat, it is always wise to read the fine print and be sure of the product you are getting. High-fructose corn syrup sneaks its way into a great number of food, and regardless of its effects in comparison to other sweeteners, it is prudent to monitor your sugar intake.

This is a battle that pits the people – you, me, moms, dads, rich, poor, young, old – against fat-cat pesticide, biotech, and junk-food corporations who for years have shamelessly manipulated science, the political system, and the truth in order to rack up obscene profits at the expense of your health and safety.

This is a battle that has nothing to do with partisan politics. National polls show that 91% of Americans – republicans, democrats, independents, libertarians – want GMOs labeled.

This is a battle that began on the ground in California and has caught fire, garnering national and international media attention, drawing donors and volunteers from all 50 states.

This is a battle that we must win . . . if we are ever going to have what citizens in nearly 50 other countries already have: the basic right to know if our food contains pesticide-injected, bacteria and virus-laced genetically modified ingredients. Ingredients that, according to a growing number of scientists, are making us sick with everything from allergies and obesity, to cancer and organ failure.

In a few short weeks, early voting begins in California. By Nov. 6, this battle will have been won or lost.

If you eat food, this is your fight. If you haven't joined in, now is the time.

You take the risks, Monsanto gets the benefits

Would you knowingly feed your family foods that are linked to cancer and organ failure? Absolutely not. Monsanto knows this. Monsanto knows that the FDA has given it a free ride for more than 15 years, allowing its bioengineers to concoct laboratory experiments using you as their lab rat. Between 75% – 80% of all non-organic processed foods contain GMOs. Unless those foods are labeled, you are most likely a human lab rat in a vast genetic experiment.

You take all the risks, Monsanto gets all the benefits.

Scientists point to a growing body of evidence to support claims that GMOs are linked to a host of health concerns. Why didn't we know this 15 years ago? Because without labels, it's impossible to trace specific health concerns to their food origins. The FDA conducts no pre-market safety testing on GMO foods, instead relying on Monsanto, DuPont, and Dow chemical to vouch for their safety.

Yes, believe it or not, the FDA allows the same companies that lied to us about the safety of DDT, Agent Orange, PCBs and bovine growth hormone to conduct their own dubious safety testing on GMOs, and then use those tests as 'proof' that GMOs are safe.

If genetically modified foods are so safe, why is Big Ag afraid to label them? If genetically engineered foods are safe, why are biotech companies, food manufacturers, and supermarket chains spending millions of dollars to deny you your right to know?

Prop 37 is our best hope – maybe our only chance

It's not a stretch to say that if we lose the GMO labeling battle in California, we may never get another chance to force Big Biotech and Big Food to come clean about what they are doing to the food that you and I feed to our families. While some argue that we should be focused on a national GMO labeling law, those in the know understand that without this win in California, we don't stand a snowball's chance in hell of passing a nationwide GMO labeling law.

In the past two years alone, more than 19 states have attempted to pass GMO labeling legislation. Yet despite overwhelming bipartisan public support, every one of those efforts has failed. Why? Because powerful agribusiness lobbyists have corrupted the political process.

A federal bill? Forget it. More than a million people signed a petition to the FDA demanding it act on GMO labeling – more than any other FDA petition in history – yet your guys and gals in Washington have failed to act. As long as former Monsanto guns like Tom Vilsack and Michael Taylor hold key government positions and powerful influence, there will be no federal GMO labeling law.

As California goes, so goes the nation

Major food companies have already conceded that if we pass Prop 37 in California, we may as well pass a national GMO labeling law. If this law passes, food manufacturers will take GMOs out of their products, rather than risk losing sales by slapping a label proclaiming "This product contains GMOs" on every package. They admit that from a production standpoint, it makes no sense to reformulate only the products they sell in California, the eighth largest economy in the world – they'll be forced to reformulate all of their products for all US markets.

If this law passes, we'll finally see GMOs disappear from products in all 50 states, just as they've disappeared from foods in nearly 50 other countries that already have mandatory GMO labeling laws.

The opposition knows what's at stake. That's why they've amassed a war chest of more than $32 million – so far – to kill this initiative. Monsanto alone has kicked in $7.2 million. DuPont and its subsidiaries have dumped in $4.2 million, Dow and Bayer CropScience $2 million each, and the Kings of Junk Food, Pepsi and Coca-Cola, have contributed a combined $2.8 million. The biotech and junk food processing industries are running scared because, finally, GMO labeling is going to be decided by the people – not politicians or industry lobbyists.

The battle for GMO labeling relies on you

The Organic Consumers Association and our allied lobbying organization, the Organic Consumers Fund, have been a key player in Prop 37 from the very beginning, spending countless hours, serving on the campaign's steering committee, and raising funds. OCF has pledged $1 million – money we've raised from people like you who are outraged that our elected officials have ignored pleas from the overwhelming majority of their constituents to require mandatory labeling of GMOs.

Now is the time to support this monumental David-versus-Goliath fight for what ought to be a guaranteed, basic right – a right we've been denied for far too long. The more money the opposition throws at this fight, the more obvious it is that for the first time ever, they believe their science experiments and huge profits – at your expense – may be at risk.

The polls show us leading in California, despite being behind in terms of raising money. But money alone won't win this battle. It will take a herculean effort by tens of thousands of volunteers to overcome the opposition's massive advertising campaign, a campaign of lies meant to frighten and intimidate voters into thinking a few extra words on a label will somehow be more dangerous than being a lab rat for Monsanto.

If you haven't already, please pitch in todayto help with the ongoing mobilization of volunteers, printing of leaflets and signs, and outreach to the media to keep this issue at the forefront of voters' minds.

If you have already donated all you can, please reach out to your friends. Forward this letter. Share it on Facebook and Twitter.

If we win this battle in California, we win it for all of us. If we lose? Monsanto will grow larger, more powerful, more arrogant, more dangerous. And the quality of your food – and most likely your health – will deteriorate.

"An epidemic of prescription drug abuse is devastating American families and draining state and federal time, money and manpower," Rep. Hal Rogers (R-Ky.), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, said in a media statement about the study. "Law enforcement and health officials are doing heroic work and, thankfully, this report provides a road map to help them further."

So police and health "officials" are the key to stopping what the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has called an epidemic of prescription painkiller deaths? Maybe there is another key factor, another proverbial elephant in the room that needs to be dealt with but that few, including those who wrote this report, want to acknowledge — specifically, the doctors who prescribe these drugs in the millions and who have increasingly prescribed them for over a decade.

Let's breakdown the new painkiller drug study's "road map." The report's primary conclusion is that "prescription drug monitoring programs should shift from a reactive to a proactive approach." It points out that most states have programs to curb abuse and addiction but that many don't fully analyze the data they collect. And the report explains how analyzing trend data can help law enforcement agencies identify "pill mills" that illicitly distribute prescription painkillers and how getting more doctors to participate in and utilize prescription drug monitoring programs (revealing patients who "doctor shop" to get multiple prescriptions) could reduce fatal prescription painkiller overdoses.

But wait a minute. Is the so-called epidemic of prescription painkiller deaths really going to be halted primarily by more monitoring? Isn't the key for doctors to cut back on vastly over-prescribing these highly addictive and dangerous drugs in the first place?

If you think these drugs aren't handed out too readily by MDs, consider this statistic: according the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, enough prescription painkillers were prescribed in 2010 to medicate every American adult around-the-clock for a month. Although many of these drugs ended up being misused or abused, the CDC also notes most of these pills were legitimately prescribed for a medical purpose. But narcotic and opioid drugs are not the only way pain can be relieved. While they may be the drugs of choice in extreme circumstances, other kinds of pain relief from less toxic drugs to natural therapies — including acupuncture, yoga, chiropractic and exercise — can often provide relief to countless pain sufferers without the danger of addiction and death.

Bottom line: the dramatic increase in mortality and overdoses from prescription drugs is largely due to a vastly increased use of these drugs by doctors. In fact, between 1999 and 2010, the sales of these Big Pharma, highly addictive and potentially killer drugs increased four-fold.

And while it is a terrible and sobering fact that, according to the CDC, about 15,000 Americans die from overdosing on prescription painkillers each year, let's put this tragedy in the larger perspective of the ongoing Big Pharma drug nightmare. The truth is, overdose deaths from painkillers are not the biggest drug problem in the US. Consider that 100,000 Americans die each year from their prescriptions due to known side-effects — not because the doctor made a mistake and prescribed the wrong drug, or the pharmacist made a mistake in filling the prescription, or the patient accidentally took too much or overdosed on purpose.

Detox Protocol

For their study, researchers from the New York University (NYU) School of Medicine evaluated data from a nationwide health and nutrition survey that included roughly 3,000 children ranging in age from six to 19. About 33 percent of the children were overweight, while 18 percent were considered obese based on current body mass index (BMI) guidelines.

On average, the children who participated in the survey had roughly three nanograms, or about three-billionths of a gram, of BPA in every milliliter of their urine. After adjusting for outside factors that may have affected the results, researchers found that only about 10 percent of the kids on the lowest end of the BPA spectrum were obese, while 22 percent of the children on the high end were obese.

"Overall, we observed a positive association between increasing levels of urinary BPA and both measures of obesity, independent of potential confounding factors including smoking, alcohol consumption, and serum cholesterol levels," wrote the authors of the original survey, which was published in the journal ISRN Endocrinology back in 2008.

"Elevated levels of urinary BPA are associated with measures of obesity independent of traditional risk factors, (and) this association is consistently present across gender and race-ethnic groups." (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22852093)

BPA, a hormone-disrupting, disease-causing poison
Since BPA has already been positively identified as an endocrine disruptor, it is widely believed that the chemical's hormone-altering properties may be responsible for such weight gain in many individuals. BPA has also been shown in hundreds of published studies over the last decade to cause other serious conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, reproductive problems, neurological damage, early puberty, and cancer. (http://www.naturalnews.com/BPA.html)

"BPA is commonplace — found in copious brands of fruit, vegetables, soda, and other frequently eaten canned goods," write Brenda Watson and Leonard Smith in their book The Detox Strategy: Vibrant Health in 5 Easy Steps (http://www.naturalpedia.com/book_The_Detox_Strategy.html). "What's most troubling about the recent reports of BPA's prevalence … is that it remains entirely without safety standards. It is allowed in unlimited amounts in consumer products, drinking water, and food, the top exposure source for most people."

Other prominent sources of BPA include thermal receipt paper, aluminum and steel can linings, plastic containers and packaging, composite dental fillings, pizza boxes, conventional napkins, paper towels, and toilet paper, wines fermented in plastic vats, and paper money.

A recent pro-fluoride article published by the industry-backed Wichita Eagle petitions Wichitans, who will soon vote on whether or not to fluoridate their local water supply, not to oppose the city's upcoming fluoride measure based on the Harvard study because the study's findings allegedly only apply to Chinese children. The piece encourages Wichitans to essentially ignore this and other science showing the dangers of fluoride, or at least pretend as though none of it applies to them.

And the reason these pro-fluoride fanatics are using to make the ridiculous claim that the Harvard study's findings do not apply in the U.S. is that the fluoride levels evaluated in China were supposedly far higher than they typically are in domestic water supplies. Thus, consuming or bathing in fluoridated municipal water poses little risk, they say, so drink up!

Fluoride levels used in Harvard study comparable to those used in U.S.
But is this even true? The Harvard review, which was published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, includes a comparison of IQ levels among children living in a village with an average fluoride concentration of 0.36 milligrams per liter (mg/L) to the IQ levels of children in another village with a fluoride concentration of 2.47 mg/L. Clearly, neither of these levels is above the federal government's maximum allowable concentration of 4 mg/L. (http://www.prnewswire.com)

A 2.47 mg/L concentration of fluoride, which is considered "high," is hardly "ten times what we see here in the U.S.," an erroneous claim made by pro-fluoride fanatic Larry Hund, a Wichita-based pediatrician and leader of Wichitans for Healthy Teeth, the primary group in Wichita pushing for water fluoridation. Some U.S. cities, in fact, have fluoride levels that exceed the 2.47 mg/L level of fluoride evaluated in the Harvard study, which means it most definitely has relevance in the current debate over whether or not to fluoridate. (http://www.thenewamerican.com)

Even if you buy into the claim that the roughly 0.7 mg/L of fluoride that Wichita plans to add to its water supply is less than what was used in the Harvard fluoride study, there is still no solid evidence proving that even this lower level is safe. Since fluoride tends to accumulate in glands and tissue over time, any level of repeated exposure appears to be dangerous, not to mention the fact that the jury is still out about whether or not ingesting fluoride provides any legitimate oral health benefits whatsoever.

"The key takeaway for me in the (Harvard) study is, one, they didn't rule out the danger (of fluoride), and two, they said further research is necessary," said Don Landis, a spokesman for the group Wichitans Opposed to Fluoridation. "That's what we're saying; the science is not settled. No research is done on low-dosage fluoride, (and) the Harvard study is very valuable in pointing that out."

By linking the two primary elements, it is possible to short-circuit thought and "cut to the chase," when it comes to enlisting the allegiance of huge populations.

Two seemingly unrelated events spurred my interest in mass mind control.

On the evening of April 12, 1945, I listened to a radio report on the death of Franklin D Roosevelt. I was seven years old.

I became upset. I didn't know why. I was angry at my own reaction.

Forty years later, I pulled into a gas station near my apartment in West Los Angeles. I got out of my car and took the cap off my gas tank. I looked to my right and saw Tony Curtis sitting in his car. I was shocked.

A few days later, I began making notes under the heading of "image-emotion cues." At the time, I had just started working as a reporter, writing articles for LA Weekly. I knew next to nothing about mind control, MKULTRA, Soviet psychiatric gulags, Chinese re-education programs, or US psychological warfare operations.

But because I had been painting for 25 years, I knew something about the power of images.

I remembered my first exhibition of paintings in LA, at my friend Hadidjah Lamas' house. We had hung my work in her large living room and dining room. Hadidjah had enlisted the services of a friend who had videotaped me painting in my studio, and at the exhibition she set up a television set out on her patio and continuously played the videocassette.

People came through her front door, almost automatically walked through the house to the patio, as if guided by an unseen hand, and watched the video; then they came back inside and looked at the paintings.

They would stop at a painting and say: "That picture was in the video!" " You see that one? It was in his studio!"

My first note on "image-emotion cues" was, "Investing an image with importance. Projecting emotion into an image."

Projecting emotion into a newspaper image of the president, FDR. Projecting emotion into the screen image of Tony Curtis. Projecting emotion into a video of a painter working in his studio.

When people encounter an image, when they invest it with importance, they project feeling into the image—and this all happens in a private sphere, a private space.

If this didn't happen, there would be no way to control populations through images. It wouldn't work. It all starts with a person setting up his own personal feedback loop that travels from him to an image and back again.

Coming out of World War 2, US psychological warfare operatives knew they could turn their skills to political purposes. They had just succeeded in making Americans believe that all Japanese and German people were horribly evil. They had been able to manipulate imagery successfully in that area. Why couldn't they shape America's view of a whole planet that lay beyond personal experience?

They could and they did. But the power to do that emanated from the fact that every person invests images with feeling. That's where it really starts.

I had seen the 1957 film, Sweet Smell of Success, a number of times. I admired it. Burt Lancaster and Tony Curtis gave tremendous performances. When, decades later, I saw Curtis sitting in his car at that gas station, I was "working from" the emotion I had invested in his onscreen image. It produced a sense of shock and paralysis for a few seconds.

Other people might have rushed up to Curtis and asked for his autograph. With me, it was shock, cognitive dissonance. Ditto for the death of FDR. I was working off newspaper pictures I'd seen of him, and the feeling I'd invested in those presidential images. Other people, when FDR died, went out into the street and hugged their neighbors and wept openly. For me, it was upset and shock and anger.

There's nothing intrinsically wrong with investing emotion in images. It can be exhilarating. It can be uplifting. As a painter, I know this in spades. Putting emotion into images can, in fact, vault you into a different perception of reality.

But on the downside, it can also take you into lockstep with what media operatives want you to experience, second-hand.

We focus to such a degree on how we are being manipulated that we don't stop to consider how we are participating in the operation. And our own role is clear and stark: we invest images with feeling.

So how does one individual's projection of feeling into an image become a uniform projection of the same feeling into one image, by millions of people? How does what one person invests privately become mass mind control?

Through external instruction or cues.

Why does this work? Why do millions of people fall into line?

Because they don't realize they started the whole ball rolling themselves. All they know is: images are connected to feelings.

If they knew they were the real power in the whole operation, if they knew they were investing feelings into images all day long, if they could actually slow down enough to see how they do this….then they would be far less prone to taking instruction about what feelings they "ought to" invest in second-hand images.

Hypnotherapist Jack True unceremoniously put it to me this way: "If a dog could analyze how he got from eating meat to drooling at the sound of a bell that came at feeding time, he could stop drooling."

I would add: If Chris Matthews could analyze how his own voluntary investment of feeling in the image of Barack Obama sends a tingle up his leg, he could stop tingling.

We're now seeing images of people rioting all over the Middle East. We're seeing burning flags and crowds outside embassies. We're supposed to invest our own anger into those images. Outrage.

We see an image of miles of flat farmland and wheat waving in the breeze. We're supposed to invest that image with feelings of happiness and pride.

Nowhere are we told we can back up a step and realize that we are the ones who begin the whole process, by projecting feelings into images. Any images.

Imagine a thought-experiment. You're watching your computer screen. It holds an image of a tall blue vase. With purpose, you project the feeling of joy into the vase. Then you project the feeling of disgust. Then, fear. Then, worry. Then, pleasure…on purpose.

The objective is to gain some measure of consciousness about an unconscious process.

When I was 19, I was sent to an trained expert in New York to take a Rorschach (ink-blot) Test. I was displaying signs of what would now be called Oppositional Defiance Disorder.

The expert said he wanted me to tell him everything I saw in each ink-blot. I took him at his word.

An hour later, I was still working on the first blot. I was describing everything from bats and owls and chickens to space ships and buckets of hidden treasure in caves.

Well, I was cheating a little. I wasn't really describing what I saw. I was imagining. I was taking off from what was on the page and improvising. This was outside the bounds of the Test.

The expert was seething. He was sweating, because he had many other blots to show me, and it was late in the afternoon, and he was looking at spending the entire evening with me. Finally, he held up his hand and put an end to the Test.

I wasn't playing his game. Among other sins, I wasn't investing feelings in the images. Therefore, my choices of "what to see" in the blots expanded greatly.

When I go to a museum, I like to watch people stand in front of abstract paintings. Many of them are stumped. They're trying to figure out what feelings they "are supposed to" project into the painting. They're looking for "instruction," and there isn't any. They're asking for mind control, and they're not getting it.

Fanaticism of any kind begins with individuals projecting feelings into images. This is harnessed by leaders, who then choose the images and direct which feelings are permitted. The tempting prospect for the follower is: participation in a drama that goes beyond what he would ordinarily experience in life. This is bolstered by the idea that what he is doing is moral.

In this election season, people on the left are urged to project messianic feelings into images of Barack Obama. People on the right are cued to invest feelings of pride, hope, and "tradition" into images of Mitt Romney. On both sides, it is principally images that are presented. The real candidates aren't actually experienced.

Since Vietnam, shooting wars have been more difficult to sustain among soldiers. "In the old days," feelings of hatred could be projected into images of enemies that included civilians, so overtly killing everybody on foreign soil was easier to accept. Now, soldiers are taught "enemy combatant" and "civilian" are two different images that require the injection of two different feelings.

Here at home, police and military are taught, more and more, to invest feelings of suspicion into images of American civilians. This is a acceleration of mass mind control for law enforcement.

The astonishing number of civilians who participate in government and corporate surveillance of the public, through technological means, learn to invest "dead empty feelings" into images of citizens, as if these targets are nothing more than ciphers, units.

The recent bizarre instances of police detaining and questioning parents who allow their children to play unsupervised reveal another accelerating trend. These confrontations start with neighbors snitching on the parents. The neighbors have learned to invest feelings of panic, suspicion, and anger in images of "free children."

In all these cases, there is no real experience. It's all second-hand. It's all feeling-projected-into-image.

In the medical arena, countless advertisements and news stories are geared to convince people to invest feelings of trust in images of doctors. The suggestion, "Ask your doctor if X is right for you," is framed as the solution to a little problem. The problem is set this way: Drug X is wonderful; drug X has serious adverse effects; what to do? Solution: ask your doctor; trust him; he knows.

As the class of victims in society has grown by leaps and bounds, including any group that can organize and promote itself as needing help or justice—going miles beyond the people who really do need assistance—citizens have been trained to invest feelings of sympathy and concern for all images of victims everywhere, real or imagined. This, too, is mass mind control.

Pick an image; invest feelings in it. Facts don't matter. Evidence doesn't matter.

We shouldn't leave out a peculiar twist on the feeling-image op. The very people who are portrayed, image-wise, as objects for us to invest feelings into, take their cues from this game as well: doctors act like the doctors on television; gangsters acts like gangsters on television; FBI agents and cops act like law-enforcement officers on television. They're roped in, just like everyone else.

You've heard people say, So-and-so has become a caricature of himself. Well, that's what it means. The person has projected massive feelings of approval into an image of himself—often an image shown on television.

As a society, we can go on this way until we become a horrific cartoon of ourselves (some people believe we're already there), or we can step back and discover how we invest emotion into images, and then use that process to pour feeling into visions of our own choosing and invent better futures.

Since the dawn of time, leaders have portrayed themselves as gods. They've assembled teams to promote that image, so their followers could project powerful emotion into the image and thereby cement the leaders' control and power.

The game isn't new. Understanding the roots of it within each individual could, however, break the trance of mass mind control.

During the first West Nile "outbreak" of 1999, I spoke with a student who had just dropped out of medical school. He told me he'd been looking at electron-microscope photos of the West Nile Virus, and he suddenly realized he was "supposed to" invest feelings of fear in those images.

Somehow, he broke free from the image-feeling link. He was rather stunned at the experience. His entire conditioning as a medical student evaporated.

Parents all over the world are having the same experience vis-a-vis vaccines. They realize they're supposed to invest fear in images of germs and disease, and they're also supposed to invest feelings of hope and confidence in images of needles and vaccines. They see the game. They're supposed to ignore evidence that vaccines are dangerous and ineffective. They're supposed to remain victims of mass mind control.

But they've awakened.

We've all been taught that what we feel is always and everywhere out of our control. These feelings are simply part of us, and we have to act on them. The alternative would be to sit on them and repress them and turn into androids, robots.

This is simply not true. There are an infinite number of feelings, and as strange as it may sound, we can literally invent them.

This, it is said, is inhuman. It's a bad idea. It's wrong. It would lead us to "deserting the human community."

Nonsense. That's part of the propaganda of mind control. If the controllers can convince us that we're working from a limited map of emotions and we have to stay within that territory, they can manipulate that limited set of feelings and trap us.

The power of art is that it shows us there are so many more emotions than we had previously imagined. We can be much freer than we supposed.

The synthetic world of mind control and the handful of feelings that are linked to images is what keeps us in thrall.

The natural world—the world of what we can be—is so much wider and more thrilling and revealing.

Cellphones and other gadgets hide germs

A recent study undertaken by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine showed that hands and mobile phones were contaminated with bacteria, including the dangerous Escherichia coli. According to the study, it was found that one in six mobile phones in Britain is contaminated with fecal matter (E. coli), usually as a result of not washing hands properly after going to the toilet.

According to the LSHTM, "The findings of the UK-wide study by scientists from LSHTM and Queen Mary, University of London reveal a tendency among Britons to lie about their hygiene habits. Although 95 percent of people interviewed said they washed their hands with soap where possible, 92 percent of phones and 82 percent of hands had bacteria on them."

Fecal bacteria can survive on hands and surfaces for hours, especially in warmer temperatures, and can easily be transferred by touch to door handles, food and mobile phones. These germs are then easily transferred to other people, with potentially lethal effects.

Air travel, germs and bugs

Air travel can be a risky undertaking when it comes to exposure to germs, bacteria and microbes. British Airways planes have been grounded recently due to bed bug infestations. Pillows and blankets are not always properly cleaned before being re-packaged.

In-flight meals are a risk in themselves, as you never know who has been handling your food. Tray tables have been shown to host the superbug methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and norovirus, highly contagious viruses that can result in vomiting, diarrhea and cramping.

Airplane toilet seats, sinks, flush handles and faucet handles have been found to harbor E. coli and salmonella bacteria.

ATM machines and gyms harbor germs

MRSA bacteria lurks on gym machines and can be transmitted by wiping gym equipment with a towel and re-using the towel to wipe sweat off the face. Be careful of gym showers where fungi such as tinea pedis grow in the warm, steamy shower areas.

ATMs, credit card and debit card machines at checkouts are invariably covered with germs. Being cautious and washing hands regularly minimizes the risk of contracting diseases due to unclean surfaces.

That's an important thing to consider, given the fact that Apple, Inc., was recently granted a patent enabling the company to wirelessly disable the camera function on specific iPhones in certain locations, "sparking fears that such techniques could be used to prevent citizens from communicating with each other or taking video during protests or events such as political conventions and gatherings," PrisonPlanet.com reported.

In this electronic day and age, just about all of us are aware that cellphone-generated video is easy to take and easy to upload to an audience of millions within moments. Most of us have seen the cellphone video of a fight or a confrontation or another impactful incident involving civilians and authorities. It's a powerful medium that very often offers a point of view not available to the mainstream media – but carried by them, nonetheless.

That may all be about to change.

Freedom is not a given

Theoretically, according to U.S. Patent No. 8,254,902, published recently, "apparatus and methods of enforcement of policies upon a wireless device" could be implemented with the flick of an electronic switch.

According to the patent:

Apparatus and methods for changing one or more functional or operational aspects of a wireless device, such as upon the occurrence of a certain event. In one embodiment, the event comprises detecting that the wireless device is within range of one or more other devices. In another variant, the event comprises the wireless device associating with a certain access point. In this manner, various aspects of device functionality may be enabled or restricted (device "policies"). This policy enforcement capability is useful for a variety of reasons, including for example to disable noise and/or light emanating from wireless devices (such as at a movie theater), for preventing wireless devices from communicating with other wireless devices (such as in academic settings), and for forcing certain electronic devices to enter "sleep mode" when entering a sensitive area.

What that means is, an encoded signal could possibly be transmitted to all wireless devices entering "a sensitive area" (and who defines what that is?) which would command them to disable all recording functions.

Feeling safer now?

The fear, obviously, is that this capability can and will be used by authorities at given times to control what you can and cannot document on your personal device, based on their whims and needs.

Not a good development for those who love freedom.

Just when technology was set to make more of the world instantly accessible…

This development comes on top of an innovation by technology companies to make wireless connectivity a major component of the latest cameras; this would not bode well for photographers and citizen journalists who are already having their first and fourth amendment rights trampled.

Says Michael Zhang at the tech site Peta Pixel:

"If this type of technology became widely adopted and baked into cameras, photography could be prevented by simply setting a 'geofence' around a particular location, whether it's a movie theater, celebrity hangout spot, protest site, or the top secret rooms at 1 Infinite Loop, Cupertino, California."

The same site offers some soothing advice as well:

"Companies often file patents for all kinds of random technologies that never end up seeing the light of day, so you shouldn't be too concerned about this latest document. It's just a warning of what the future could potentially hold."

Knowledge is power. We'll be keeping an eye on this development for our readers.