Just in case anyone forgot, we still have a nursing shortage. Just in case anyone was wondering.

And oh, no major revelations in how to solve it. The powers that be and the experts with alphabet soup following their name are still clamoring for “increased” nursing education and mass produced warm bodies to fill in the slots.

Cool.

So many mental health alerts that I am losing track of them. But here’s one for you, albeit a minor one. An essay in Slate that I just happened upon bears the lofty title, “I’m Gonna Keep That Gray–My decision to stay silver.” And my response is, “So, is there more to the story? What’s the punchline?” Basically, who cares if you decide to keep your silver hair or dye it.

But believe it or not, there seems to be some movement (similar to the Mommy wars in its scope) about the joys and perils of gray hair. Do I or don’t I. Should I defend my right to be gray? Is it now politically incorrect to admit that gray hair makes me look 20 years older than I am and I despise it? Or that I look like I just finished a round of chemotherapy because the absence of color (read gray or white) has drained every speck of color from my face? Should I stand up and declare that gray hair is beautiful and defy convention and wear it proudly?

And so on. Really stupid if you ask me, but reading stuff about gray vs. hair coloring is enough to make me cringe. Bottom line–there is absolutely nothing that will make you look older, or age you faster, than gray hair. It ages you, and people can rant and rave all they want about the “beauty” of gray, or aging gracefully, or how they “worked hard” for that gray, and so on, but at the end of the day (or in this case the rant) it makes you look old.

The next bottom line. If you don’t want to dye your gray, then don’t. I don’t care and neither does most of the world. If you want to dye it and get rid of the gray, then do so. Again, I don’t care and neither do the homeless drunks outside of my window, who are making their way up to Queen Anne Avenue as I type.

So why are people, ie women, writing about this stupidest of subjects? Why is anyone publishing this and turning it into an issue in the vein of Mommy wars and celeb drivel?

Here’s the Slate slobber:

For women like me who wear their premature gray proudly, this represents progress. I should know. I’ve been an involuntary participant in my own little field experiment for years now.

Consider this typical encounter: While straining to hear an anesthesiologist explain how my mother’s cancer surgery would proceed a few years ago, I felt an urgent tap on my shoulder. The surgical nurse, swathed in blue scrubs and cap, leaned toward me. “How old are you?” she demanded. “Forty-six,” I whispered back, assuming she was asking for an official hospital reason. “Why?”

She was staring at my hair, which is long, straight, and mostly silver—a flamboyant, just-shy-of-Emmylou Harris shade that I inherited from my late father.

The nurse pulled back her cap to reveal a thick crown of salt-and-pepper tresses. “My mother and sister think I’m crazy, but I won’t dye it!” she said, beaming as if she’d found a new best friend.

She wears her prematurely gray hair proudly….uh, what is there to be proud of? That you turned gray prematurely? Is gray pride going to be the next hot thing on the horizon? Will we be seeing gray pride parades (as opposed to gay pride)?

In fact, a few months ago I was thumbing through some magazine on an airplane (someone had abandoned it in my seat pocket) and there was an article devoted to a women who decided to let her hair grow gray! I kid you not. This was an oddysey of allowing her hair to grow in au naturel, and to throw away the dye.

The stupidity does leave one breathless. Can an article be more boring and more mundane? Hey lady, you don’t want to do the Clairol thing anymore, then don’t. Go gray, more power to you.

I didn’t read it, just skimmed, and there was this whole whiny self-reflective mumbo jumob about the GREAT DECISION to allow the gray to grow in, and the suspense as the roots took hold and multiplied…are women’s magazines really that hard up for writers and subject matter?

Anyway, the clincher were the before and after pictures. I know, we were supposed to look at the after picture and say, “Ooooo, how much better you look. Why, you look like a real woman now.” And even the poses and facial expression were designed to try to convince the audience that the natural woman was so much better. The woman with dyed hair had a stupid smile on her face, and was in a non-descript pose, while the new gray woman was photographed from a three-quarter angle, and was standing straight and tall like a fearless leader.

Sorry, it didn’t work. Not only did she let her gray grow in, but she also cut her hair into a short, matronly chin length hair-do that made her look even older. But hey, that’s what the experts tell you is age appropriate.

Overall, she looked like she’d aged about 15 years. I am impressed. I’m sure that this story will convince millions of women the world over to cut their hair and love their gray.

Here’s an interesting twist–some folks in the DC area are suing to have milk place warnings on the carton. Now, isn’t milk supposed to be the “perfect food,” one of the old four food groups required by humans to survive?

Ha! Milk is a perfect food if you’re a calf, and that’s about it. And please, no pasteurization. Calves will die if fed a diet of pasteurized milk. And now, we’ve heard about this strange illness called “lactose intolerance.” You know, those bizarre people who can’t digest milk suger, ie, lactose. Well, it seems that the milk industry has got it all wrong, deliberately. Lactose intolerance is the norm, not the aberration. Very few adults on this planet can tolerate milk, and many who are suffering with a cornucopia of digestive ailments might be surprised at how curtailing dairy products will bring them an instant cure.

Doctors Say Dairy Industry Should Warn Consumers That Milk Can Make Them Sick

D.C. Residents and Nonprofit Health Organization Will Appeal Court Ruling in Class-Action Lawsuit Over Milk Warning Labels

WASHINGTON—Ten D.C.-area residents seeking lactose intolerance warnings on milk cartons will ask the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit to overturn an unfavorable ruling by the U.S. District Court. The lawsuit was filed October 6, 2005, by the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine (PCRM) because many people are unaware that milk may cause severe gastrointestinal symptoms. The defendants, including Giant Food and Safeway, do not deny that lactose intolerance is a painful consequence of drinking milk, but have argued that warning consumers would cause a decline in sales. [now isn't that cute? They're prefer to have people buy milk and get sick. Then again, people with digestive problems will be buying digestive aids that supermarkets also carry]

“The dairy industry has an obligation to warn consumers that milk can make them painfully sick,” says Dan Kinburn, Esq., associate general counsel for PCRM. “We believe the appeals court will overturn this anti-consumer ruling to protect the health of thousands of District residents who are lactose intolerant or allergic to milk.”

The plaintiffs argue that many people are not aware they are lactose intolerant and unwittingly buy milk, only to suffer side effects after drinking it. Lactose intolerance is the biological norm and mainly affects people of color. But because the condition comes on gradually and can start at any age, many individuals have no idea that milk is the culprit in their painful symptoms.

Lactose intolerance is caused by the loss of the enzymes that digest the milk sugar lactose, a normal process that occurs after the age of weaning. For those who are lactose intolerant, drinking milk can result in abdominal pain, diarrhea, and other painful gastrointestinal symptoms. Approximately 75 percent of the world’s population—including 60 to 80 percent of African-Americans, 50 to 80 percent of Latinos, and at least 90 percent of Asian-Americans and Native Americans—is lactose intolerant.

The lawsuit was filed by Milton Mills, M.D., an African-American physician, and nine others who are suing on behalf of all D.C. residents who are lactose intolerant and not aware of it. For an interview with Dan Kinburn, please contact Patrick Sullivan, 202-686-2210, ext. 311, or psullivan@pcrm.org.

Founded in 1985, the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine is a nonprofit health organization that promotes preventive medicine, especially good nutrition. PCRM also conducts clinical research studies, opposes unethical human experimentation, and promotes alternatives to animal research.

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And it doesn’t only affect “people of color.” Everyone has a color, but it does affect us light skinned folk as well. Both my brother and mother are lactose intolerant, and we are of pure European descent. I know several others who have varying degrees of lactose intolerance, and they are also white. Personally, the thought of drinking milk makes me nauseous. I always hated it, and I probably do have some degree of intolerance–like to the pucky taste.

Here’s some interesting stats that I just read at Organic Consumers. Yes, that biased pinko-commie group that doesn’t like added nutrients in food (yummy pesticides…mmm…) or genetically modified frankenfood (hey, it was good enough for Dr. Frankenstein then it’s good enough for us), or those delicious watery tomatoes that you find at places like Safeway, which were picked six months before they ripened and grew up on a diet of fertilizer, pesticides, fungicides and contaminated water.

Anyway, the stats:

The sixty-year reign of chemical and energy-intensive industrial agriculture in North America and Europe appears to be drawing to a close:

*
Seventy-five percent of consumers say they have begun shopping for healthier foods.
*
Twelve cents of every grocery store dollar are currently being spent on products labeled as natural or organic.
*
The relentless drive by transnational corporations to monopolize seeds, crops, food, drugs, and intellectual property is faltering.
*
Millions of health-minded consumers are turning away from Big Pharma and patented drugs, toward traditional remedies, herbs, and ecological/preventive medicine.

Perhaps there is hope, that Monsanto will not realize their dream of controlling the food and water of the entire planet.

I’ve been to California and back twice, in less than a week. San Francisco was nice, and I’m amazed at how much busier the downtown seems to be compared to Seattle. Of course, it again pales as compared to New York or Buenos Aires, where we were sitting in traffic on Avenida Corrientes at 1am on a Wed night–looking at hordes of people emerging from movies, sitting in restaurants and 24 hour bookstores. But the difference in foot traffic was pretty amazing, down at Union Square. Maybe it does all shut down by 8pm, I don’t know.

Anyway, I’m too sleepy to post anything intelligent or make an attempt to be funny.

I just got a spam in my regular email box, telling me how I can get a “quick” nursing degree, and embark on the exciting career of a lifetime. Uh, thanks but no thanks. Been there, done that. I’m the last person on earth that the spammers should be bothering about a nursing career, but then, spammers don’t discriminate. It’s like the other spam I got right after that, letting me know that 85% of women think their man’s penis is too small. Again, thanks for sharing.

Anyway, I’ve got yet another plane to catch. Back to California for a meeting. I really should just move there already. The main problem is deciding whether to do NoCal or SoCal. Dilemmas, dilemmas…

My feature story for the Lancet Infectious Diseases is now out in the August issue. Yes, I know most of you don’t read the Lancet or any of its offspring, but a lot of the articles in there are surprisingly readable if you’re not a doc or super scientist. I think they have really good stories and editorials about healthcare issues, and of course their news coverage is the best (I write for all of the Lancets so I’m a prejudiced). But anyway, I was honored when I was asked to do a feature story on the history of AIDS treatment, in line with the 25th anniversary of the first published report.

And now as a big surprise, my article is available for free. Access to the Lancet family is restricted, but several articles are usually available to anyone who wants to read them. My wonderful article was selected for the August issue. So click away, and read on. Of course, it is not a comprehensive history. I only had 1500 words, and I had to basically cut it in half, and take out two interviews. But I think it covers the basics. The early days were the most trying and frightening times, especially combined with people like Ronald Reagan who didn’t mention the disease publically until six years after it had been raging through the country. I guess when nice white middle-aged Republicans in the Midwest suddenly found themselves infected, then he decided it was time to acknowledge the disease.

Anyway, it is hard to believe that 25 years have passed since that first report. That there are people growing up and reaching adulthood who didn’t know about a life before AIDS.