Bill Maher - New Rules (9/28/07)

Run time: 07:20 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJO9Czh12XQ   Posted on YouTube: September 30, 2007 By YouTube Member: Views on YouTube: 0   Posted on DU: September 30, 2007 By DU Member: Nomad559 Views on DU: 1819

 

Too much truth in too little time. Take a trip to Eastern Europe, where they DON'T gorge themselves on enough food for four at a restaurant, they bust there asses for work and exercise, and they are all a healthy trim and fit stature. Then, take a plane back to America and cover your mouth when you see all the truck size asses pulling their luggage around the airport. America is in the sewer.

and so are you Hulk.

Maher: "Drugs for ailments that no one had ever heard of 50 years ago had been (pause) mainstreamed." (pause for laugh but silence from audience).

Granted, the correct word is "mainlined", but still, most people should have picked up on the pun.

will go wrong. Of course people with genetic diseases or those who contract life threatining diseases should just eat shit.

Maher is a good guy but simplistic answers are never simple

I think the rant was against the heavy dependency we lay on drugs to cure our ills, not against using them at all. Preventive medicine...or more literally preventive non-medicine... such as eating well, exercising, getting enough sleep, expressing our emotions without hatred and self-loathing, would go a long way in taking care of a lot of our health problems. These kind of things that require effort on the part of the patient are scoffed at too often. Too many Americans (the ones squeezed between Mexico and Canada, that is) are just too focused on getting through life being "comfortable".

Where genetics or a life-threatening disease (heck, even an infection of some kind) are part of the problem, thank god we do have drugs that can help to alleviate or even cure. They should just be used where they are appropriate, not as a substitute for using our bodies as they were designed to be used. I think in general our society does overuse drugs. The problem, as Bill pointed out, is that our profit-driven value system sees health as just another cash cow. After all, what good is a cure if it stops a billion dollar a year industry. How tragic our health care system has become because of the profit motive permeating every facet of our lives.

big health care thrives on grossly expensive
treatments for conditions that would mostly
go away if people took care of themselves...

"If getting off your ass, is right for you." That's great!!! :applause:

First of all, many people can't eat right or exercise. Gyms cost money, money that many don't have. Even the cheaper ones. Even walking takes good shoes, and those cost a lot of money. If you're poor and in an urban area, good luck finding good produce and healthy food. We used to drive forty minutes each way to get to the good grocery store and the market. It would've taken twice that long on public transit. A gym membership was out of our league entirely.

Secondly, he's right that eating better and exercising would really help, but a lot of this is because of environmental toxins and genetics. I breastfed both of my kids long-term, and they only had two ear infections between them while they nursed. We eat as healthy as I can find, and I always buy organic if we can afford it and it exists for that product. My daughter developed cough-variant asthma two years ago, my son developed it this last spring, and my allergies went to full-blown asthma this spring, too. My kids run around all day and play outside as much as possible are are thin for their height, so why did they get asthma? It's not because of the food or mold or not exercising, it's because of genetics (my dad has had it since he was a baby, and my doctors probably missed my asthma as a kid).

I've gone through three periods of unemployment since B*sh took office and I've got $31,000 in medical bills, so I know a little about tight times. I also have fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, depression, back problems, adult onset ADD (hereditary), vascular problems (hereditary), and carpel tunnel syndrome, so I also know something about poor health caused by both toxins (as I believe the first two are) and genetics. I also live within walking distance of my cities skyscrapers, so I'm in a very urban environment.

Because I live downtown I have a farmer's market on the weekend. I also live not far from the poorest section of town were there are several cheap produce markets to choose from. I can go to the library to pick up DVDs on Yoga and other workouts. I walk a lot to get around, do my own yard work, do a "workout" house cleaning (set an egg timer for 30 minutes and clean AS FAST AS YOU CAN-fast enough to be a bit out of breath. It's a good workout and you get a clean house out of it)! A gym is good for strength training, but it's not the only way to get exercise. After over two decades of trying to design a diet that would keep me from getting sick I ended up with something that's virtually identical to this one: http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Clean-Diet-Fat-Loss-lasts-Forever/dp/1552100383/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-0439729-2811363?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1191171134&sr=8-1
No sugar, for artificial sweeteners (especially avoid Nutrasweet and high fructose corn syrup), no white flour,no additives or preservatives, no red meat. I'm convinced that those items are causing a lot of our toxin induced health issues. My hypoglycemia is gone now, I have loads more energy and although my diet isn't very "fun", my tastes have altered with it and I can no longer stomach pre-packaged junk food.

I don't know how many years of my life I've lost to laying in bed or barely functioning since I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia and CFS in the early 1980s (when hardly anyone had heard of it). It sometimes hurts like hell to exercise because my body doesn't produce enough electrolytes for proper muscle recovery, so I feel like I've been hit by a truck the day after I work out. But still, NOT working out leaves me too sick to function at all. I believe that Maher is right; focusing on preventative medicine- nutrition and exercise-is the way to go. We should all be able to take gym memberships as a tax write off, and the government should stop subsidizing corn so that crap like corn syrup doesn't end up in so many products. A clean diet and 20 minutes of exercise a day can go a long way towards avoiding poor health, and it can certainly improve symptoms from hereditary and environmental illnesses.

I get so mad at some doctor friends of ours who lump all those together and call it SLS--shitty life syndrome. They're sooooo wrong. Grrr! Hubby just smiles and takes their patients away by treating them better, but it ticks me off. No one should have that on top of pain and suffering.

After ten years of pain, I had surgery which found it was my appendix all along, and then seven months after that, I had to get my right kidney and adrenal glands out because of a huge tumor. Pain is something I'm quite familiar with, and you're right--you stop moving, it just gets worse.

I like to set my timer like Flylady says for cleaning. She's right: I can do almost anything for 15 minutes. It gives me enough breaks in the day, since I'm still getting my energy and strength back after three surgeries in a year.

When we lived in Cleveland, there was nothing in walking distance, and we weren't on a good bus route. When we were visiting Chicago this month, though, we were able to walk everywhere and take the bus and the El so easily. I wish all cities made it as easy as Chicago does.

what we have here in Orlando. I used to live in Cleveland, just off Mayfield Road. I didn't have a car then either and I remember walking for miles during the harsh winters with the lake effect winds hitting me. I was quite a bit younger then. I wonder if I could manage as well today.

I was in Portland recently; now THERES a city with a great public transportation system! Personally I think that America needs a sort of National Marshall Plan in two parts; a). developing clean renewable energy sources, and b). creating a national high speed mag lev rail system with light rail connectors. Put together the two projects could virtually erase unemployment, jump start the economy, get us off foreign oil and out of the Mideast for good, and both combined would likely cost far less than the Iraq war. The only big drawback: about the only way to sell it to our government would be to give Halliburtan a no bid contract for the whole deal!


Sigh.

It would make a huge difference in so many people's lives.

Btw, we lived on Mayfield our first year there by Coventry. It was nice to walk to the co-op that was there at the time (since closed and combined with the main one).

Elizabeth Kucinich as First Lady is a wonderful image to behold :loveya:

Personally, I support a multi-path approach to wellness.

First of all: universal, single-payer, not-for-profit health care.

Secondly, a reform addressing pre-prepared foods. I don't have a concrete idea of how that would look, but should food pre-prepared for people, whether bought at the grocery store or at a restaurant, be free from things we know cause illness? Transfats? Sugars?

In a world where picking up a meal on the run is common, shouldn't consumers be able to find food that won't make them sick?

An affordable, healthy food supply for all, and time and safe space for physical activity for all? Clean air and water for all?

Trust me. I grew up on a farm; you can't NOT get enough exercise as a kid on a farm. You have to walk, bike, or skate everywhere, or did when I was growing up.

I was probably the only depressed three-year-old anyone's ever met. Genetic defect.

It's an over simplification.

Our food supply, notably genetically modified foods and processed foods are a huge part of the problem. Well, that and the fact that we don't let our kids walk to school anymore....