Politics Free Zone

Sometimes I forget that most people don't like politics, which have been pretty intense here lately. Certainly, I can't live it everyday because I get too stirred up.

Perhaps we should beat our swords into plowshares and take some time to contemplate the pretty flowers:




Saliva may hold breast cancer alert

Houston researchers are developing a test to diagnose breast cancer from saliva, an advance that eventually should enable dentists and physicians to alert patients during routine office visits.

In a study published Thursday, a team at the University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, led by a dentist, reported that specific protein markers in saliva can easily identify people with breast cancer cells, benign tumor cells and healthy cells.

"This will be a noninvasive, quick means of detection," said Dr. Charles Streckfus, a UT-Houston Dental Branch professor of diagnostic sciences who has expertise in molecular epidemiology and salivary function. "With it, dentists will be able to catch cancers before a woman can feel a lump."

Houston Chronicle


I wonder how patient's will feel about this once they have ascended into powerful altered states that include communion with the giant blue aliens from the love dimension, or turning into human letters of the alphabet, consider:

By the Salvia Center

The Mazatec shamans of Mexico use three hallucinogenic plants in their healing rituals. Pharmacologically Salvia Divinorum is the weakest. The method of usage traditionally used by the shamans is a rather inefficient method and implies their under-estimation of salvia's true potency and power.

In low doses it is used as a medicinal herb by the medicine-men, they call it a tonic and believe that it can cure a list of ailments, some physical and some magical. It is generally prescribed as an infusion made from 4 or 5 pairs of leaves.

At higher doses it was used to induce visions through which divinatory messages could be heard. The shamanistic tradition dictates that the voice of the Virgin Mary is channeled through the person using Salvia, but only in total silence and darkness. Only fresh leaves are used for this, whereas dry leaves may be used for the medicinal compound.

According to Gordon Wasson in his 1962 paper on shamanic plants in Mexico, salvia is the Aztec "Pipilitzintzintli", an as then unidentified hallucinogen referenced in ancient texts. This plant was described as "hierba", or herb, and was cultivated in both male and female varieties. Unlike the Mazatec's usage of only the leaves of the salvia plant, records of speak of a rudimentary extraction made from roots, stems and flowers. This plant also was regarded as a divinatory plant, but Wasson also notes examples of it being used as a healing agent.


After all, nothing heals but God and Time. What better way to get better than going to the top - in a space ship! What's that? - sometimes we can't handle "the truth?"

It may look like the kids in the YouTube videos are having fun, but Kathy Chidester is convinced salvia killed her only child. Sixteen-year-old Brett Chidester was a whiz on a skateboard, a straight-A student and the joy of his divorced parents lives. Then he started smoking salvia.

"He got withdrawn within the last couple of months," said his father, Denis Chidester. "And he wouldn't open up like he used to. I figured it was a teenage thing. Boys don't like to talk to their dads."

But Brett's mom did a little digging on his computer and found out he was buying salvia online and smoking it.

"He'd say, 'Mom, it's legal. There's nothing wrong with it. If it was bad it wouldn't be legal,' " Kathy Chidester said.

Brett's mood grew darker and on a cold Monday in January, at his dad's Delaware home, Brett Chidester did what his parents believe salvia drove him to do: he killed himself.

"My life as I knew was over," Kathy Chidester said. "It'll never be the same. He was our light and our life and it's gone."

ABC's GMA

What a shame. Sound familiar? "____________ killed my teenager!" Nail's mom, whom we are crazy about, used to tell us when we were kids, "some things you shouldn't think about."

Have a nice weekend, everybody.