Desperate Housewives Sheds Light on Top 1%

OCCUPY WISTERIA LANE

So maybe the writers of the show weren’t calling on the viewers to go out and quit their jobs.  I do think that they were trying to instill a sense of hope among the people.  How could a wildly unrealistic Sunday night sit-com achieve this monumental feat?

Isn’t any movement based on some hope that the movement, and each individual’s efforts, will effectively result in some change?  After all, Ms. Parks didn’t stay seated in the front of the bus for nothing. 

But the Occupy movement isn’t about black or white or yellow or brown.  It’s about inequality of wealth. Occupy began in September of 2011 as “Occupy Wall Street”.  Movement was widespread across the country, and then the world.  In fact, there are almost too many locations where the movement is taking place, that there have been web pages dedicated to finding a movement in a city near you.  You can find the movement anywhere from Honolulu, to Spain, to the capitol of Kentucky, Frankfort.   

Some protesters have run into some problems, but they’re still making headlines; and they’re still creating awareness and gaining followers.

They all have hope that one day their current financial situation will improve.  They have hope that they will get a call today offering them a job, or at least an interview.  They have hope that they will be able to afford to move out of their parents’ basement in a few months.  They have hope that this Christmas they will be able to buy gifts for their loved ones.  They Have Hope.

Desperate Housewives Sheds Light on Top 1%

VIEWERS REACTIONS

Many viewers have raved about the decision by Mr. Solis to quit his high-paying job for one that will pay less than half his current salary but will help others. 

By following a simple twitter stream during the episode, many viewers tweeted comments like, “if only real executives would follow Carlos’ lead!”, “stunned by a Carlos’ decision to quit his job. #impressive”, and a few simple “Go Carlos!” (many of the comments I couldn’t translate the Spanish from the show’s Latino fans). 

In talking to some friends who are also loyal fans of Marc Cherry’s hit television series, I found that they were all very proud of Carlos.  One of them even related it to the current Occupy movement going on all around us, which sparked the idea for this very feature. 

So what do the viewers take from this fictional act of righteousness?  I think the answer is simple: Hope.

Desperate Housewives Sheds Light on Top 1%

BACKGROUND

In recent episodes of the series finale season, Carlos has undergone intense alcohol rehab.  It was his first day back to work that   he realized he no longer wanted to be a top executive.  Gaby (Gabrielle) had bought him a brand new tie to show off at the office, and to her surprise Carlos was none too pleased with the gift. 

Carlos left the house that morning telling Gaby that he wanted to make a difference.  Gaby thought nothing of it, and off Carlos went to work.  It wasn’t until later that afternoon that Gaby received a phone call from her husband’s secretary, urging her to come to the office. 

At the drop of a hat, Gaby rushed to Carlos’ office.  She was shocked at what she saw before her- a line of previously laid off workers out the door.  As Gaby wound through the line leading into her husband’s office, she was stopped by his secretary.  The secretary informed Gaby that Carlos was writing checks with very large dollar amounts to every employee that he has laid off in his path to wealth and riches. 

By the time Gaby reached Carlos, he had already begun writing checks out of their personal account.  To no loyal Housewives fan’s surprise, Gaby ripped up the check in front of the needy man and his son.

Carlos told Gaby that he wanted to really make a difference in peoples’ lives and give back.  He was ready to give up their lavish belongings to become a counselor.  After days of rebuttal, Gaby finally gave in to support Carlos’ career change.

Desperate Housewives Sheds Light on Top 1%

Global Resistance: Pop Culture Review

While there have been no Occupy protestors on Wisteria Lane, the hit television series, Desperate Housewives, has managed to hit home with thousands of American viewers. 

Carlos Solis, played by Ricardo Antonio Chavira, has been a top executive since the show began.  He’s had his ups and downs of course, did a stint in prison for a few months, recovered from a blinding injury, and his latest feat has been to sober up from an addiction to alcohol.  But none the less, the Solis’ have been shed with luxuries most typical Americans could not afford.

These luxuries come at what expense?  Carlos is a hardworking man, right?  He’s earned his way to the top and his arm candy, Gabrielle Solis (played by Eva Longoria).  So then what am I talking about?

 

Although there are cultural barriers preventing full acceptance of New Age practices and methodologies, the martial arts is perhaps the most marketable way to promote and persuade people to accept alternative approaches to meditation or New Age approaches.

For me, Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu was my pathway to meditation and a new perspective. 

If you are curious and want to read more, please visit my recent article:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/87223269/I%E2%80%99ve-tried-meditation).

Exploring Animal Rights

Animal rights.

It’s a term that can both light fires under its most fervent supporters and chill non-believers to the bone. It can encourage, entice, enrage and incite feelings from deep within a person’s core, causing seemingly insane outbursts and cleverly planned attacks, protests and petitions.

But what does it mean to you?

That’s exactly what I posed to my social networks when I asked the following questions:

Via Twitter:             Working on a story & need your help – What does #AnimalRights mean to you? Help me out & reply with your answer & brief explanation!

Via Facebook: Hi friends! Working on a story for class and could use your input – When I say Animal Rights, what does that mean to you? Do you think PETA is awesome or too extreme? Are you vegetarian or vegan – if so, why?

Feel free to respond in the comments & let me know – all answers welcome! Thanks in advance!

The answers I received were very insightful and well-considered, and will serve as the basis for a three-part series titled Exploring Animal Rights, in which we’ll discuss the general concepts, various aspects of animal rights as well as the extremes of animal rights activism.

Do you have thoughts? What does Animal Rights mean to you?

First Steps to Better Living

 

In order to truly pivot and embrace both Western and Eastern Medicine we have to take reactionary steps for healing, as well as preventative steps for better living. These simple first steps include understanding the need and effect of prescribed medications, eating more organic whole foods and less processed foods, supplementing your diet with vitamins as needed, and exploring methods that power and heal the soul.

Step 1: Prior to the start of any medication, we should understand the need and effect of prescription medications as they are being ingested into our bodies. This involves discussing all medications with a medical professional of choice, exploring options for possible alternatives, or educating ourselves about the medication and its need. The value to this is that Americans spent more than $300 billion on prescription drugs in 2011, and nearly half of all of these adults have taken at least one prescription drug in the last month, while nearly a third regularly use two or more prescription medications. Through a discussion with a medical professional, I was able to decrease some prescription medications (e.g., cholesterol medication, B12 injections), and enact other options including dietary changes, stress relieving methods, and vitamin supplements, equating in both monetary and health savings.

Step 2: Since food is the cheapest and safest way to maintain our health, increasing the amount of organic whole foods in our diets assists in supplying our bodies with the needed vitamins and minerals to live a healthy life. Providing our bodies with valued nutrients helps to fight illnesses and ailments, or simply ensures a strong immune system. Therefore, before taking a bite, take the time to discern what you are eating, where it came from, and the impact that food has on both your health and the environment. To take these steps eat organic, local, humanely raised foods with a primary emphasis on eating more fruits, vegetables, and grains. In my own personal journey, I have had to stop eating milk, milk proteins, and products containing milk, and start eating more local organic whole foods. I quickly realized that I love local homemade meals, farmers’ markets, and brussels sprouts a great deal more than additional prescription medications and expensive doctor bills.

To learn more visit: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khF5lije3O4&feature=player_detailpage

Step 3: In the case that we are not able to obtain enough vitamins and minerals from our food, adding a vitamin supplement to our regimen can help assure a balanced diet and a healthy lifestyle. Similar to prescription medications, we need to educate ourselves on the need and impact of vitamin supplements, and discuss these options with a medical professional of our liking to prevent toxicity of any kind. Personally, I have added Omega-3 and Vitamin A supplements to my daily routine to attempt to decrease the progression of Retinitis Pigmentosa (RP), as well as a Vitamin B12 supplement to help with my low vitamin levels and altered diet (i.e., eating less meat). Every 6 months I have my B12 levels checked by a medical professional, and then every year I also have my Vitamin A and liver levels checked to make sure that I am not suffering from toxicity.

Step 4: Lastly, explore eastern traditional methods that provide health benefits and heal the soul while enabling a happier, healthier lifestyle. These methods can encompass, but are not limited to, exercise (e.g., yoga, tai chi), acupuncture, aromatherapy, meditation, and massage therapy. Health is a state of wellbeing, and the mind and body are interconnected further emphasizing the need to combine therapeutic approaches that are tailored to the individual person and their specific needs. Also, prior to assuming Eastern Medicine is not for everyone, recognize the vast health benefits and healing of the soul that these methods have to offer in a first step to better living. For example, in my own life I have utilized massage therapy to help aid in decreasing stress levels and pain points.

Most importantly, remember that our journey is not about any one tradition or method being right or wrong, good or bad, but a matter of finding a healthy balance in which we as individuals educate ourselves about our own health and pivot to embrace both spectrums for a happy, holistic lifestyle. As an individual on this journey, I believe that I have not come close to exploring and learning about all options, and since my journey is not over I continue to seek new methods that can help assist with current health problems, and life stresses in a holistic healthy manner.

 

Photo Source: http://goeshealth.com, http://www.malvernhills.gov.uk, http://lifegetinit.fitdv.com, http://www.maureenfoxacupuncture.com, http://www.vegan-magazine.com/2

Embracing All Forms of Medicine

My journey is not unique. Medically unexplained physical symptoms (MUPS) and medically unexplained symptoms (MUS) are one of the most common problems in modern Western Medicine, and account for 15%-30% of primary care patients. According to a task force of the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH), “medically unexplained syndromes (MUS) present the most common problems in medicine.” Examples of MUPS and MUS comprise fibromyalgia, chronic fatigue syndrome, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), unexplained headaches, unexplained back pain, and chronic pain. Critics believe the reason that MUPS and MUS occur is due to the method in which modern Western Medicine employs doctors and nurses to utilize a deductive formal scientific process in the effort to find the cause of a patient’s problem. Moreover, once discovered, Western Medicine relies extensively on industrially produced medications and conventional medical treatments (e.g., surgery, test/procedures). “There are natural therapies available that are much safer, often more effective, and cost much less” than prescription medications, says Jacob Teitelbaum, MD, author of the book Real Cause, Real Cure. Therefore, many patients like myself are taking matters into their own hands, and experimenting with alternative treatment methods within the Eastern Medical tradition. Eastern Medicine views health as a state of wellbeing, where the body is vital, balanced, adaptive, and harmonic within an environment in which the mind and body are interconnected. Alternative, Eastern Medicine also engages patients to adjust their diets (e.g., eating less meat and eating more organic whole foods, especially vegetables), introduce exercise (e.g., yoga, tai chi), as well as promote treatment types such as homeopathy, acupuncture, aromatherapy, and massage therapy.

This is not a matter of right or wrong, good or bad, but a matter of finding a healthy balance in which we as individuals educate ourselves about our own health and pivot to embrace both traditional spectrums. In turn, we can create an integrative treatment plan that is a combination of therapeutic approaches tailored to the individual person and their specific needs. For example, individuals with fibromyalgia can introduce dietary changes entailing the avoidance of food additives (e.g., monosodium glutamate [MSG] and aspartame), eating more fish containing Omega-3 fatty acids (i.e., salmon), as well as walnuts and flaxseed, stopping any and all caffeine intake, and eating more vegetables to help reduce the symptoms, particularly chronic pain. Other diseases and illnesses that can benefit from the inclusion of Eastern Medicine are high cholesterol, high blood pressure, hypothyroidism, acid reflux, and diabetes.

Furthermore, ailments such as pain, stress, anxiety, insomnia, depression , and even a common cold can also be relieved through the use of Eastern Medicine with methods embodying acupuncture, a healthy diet, vitamin supplements, herbal treatments (i.e. chamomile tea), and exercise. For example, individuals who experience insomnia can stop drinking caffeine and start drinking chamomile tea, or take melatonin to aid in sleeping. Also, individuals who suffer from depression can adapt their diet to increase Omega-3 fatty acids, as well as taking an Omega-3 supplement (i.e., Vectomega), since fish oil can have an anti-depressent effect. Lastly, those suffering from a common cold can try the Chinese root astragalus to help fight infection, echinacea and zinc to shorten the duration and severity of the symptoms, and Vitamin D to boost immunity. Food, including herbs and vitamins, is the cheapest and safest way to maintain our health.

Photo Source: http://acupuncturetoday.com

A Personal Pivotal Point

I wake-up around 6am, slowly reach for my water and two oxycodone (pain pills) to help me physically get out of bed, deal with the pain as much as I can, go to work, and strive to live a normallife, or at least try to function within society. Each and every day for six months, my husband kindly drives me to work, as I am unable to drive while taking the concoction of medicines the various doctors have prescribed. Once at work, I do everything I can in an attempt to keep up with the fast pace world, while all I can think about is going back to bed so I do not have to deal with the pain. This year was filled with over ten invasive medical procedures, one unneeded surgery, a rotation of twelve ineffective medications, and endless doctor visits, only to repeatedly hear that no one knows what is causing my pain, and yet there always seems to be a pill that can solve it all. I consistently question how this can happen, how in a society were modern medicine is extremely advanced and insightful―how could my pain be undiagnosable?

Then as I was traveling back from the Cleveland Clinic, I came to the realization that I had to take control over my own health, and not depend on Western Medicine (a.k.a. the practice of medicine) to solve my pain. My first action was to schedule an appointment with a nutritionist. I thought the next logical step was eating and learning how to take care of my body, in order, to figure out a way to heal. While meeting with the nutritionist, I read her my food journal, and then she asked one simple question, “Why do you not drink milk?” I described how I broke out in hives and how sick I became when drinking milk. She then asked me if I was eating other products containing milk, as she quickly realized that I was not lactose intolerant, and I had not “out-grew” my milk allergy ― I was in fact allergic to milk, all milk proteins (e.g., caseins  and whey ), and all products containing milk (e.g., cheese, ice cream, butter). I sat there with her and cried. Could it really be that all this pain was caused by milk? Was it possible that an hour with a nutritionist prospered a diagnosis?

Amazingly, it was possible, and it has been three years since my visit to the nutritionist. Today, I take no medications for pain because I do not have pain. Instead, I have altered my diet  to be milk-free, and take vitamins to supplement and balance my diet. I now eat tofu sour cream, use oil instead of butter, have a great love for sorbet , and have visited many of the best local vegan  and Slow Food  restaurants in town.  Throughout this process, I have gained insight about what is in the food I eat, the value of  organic whole foods  (i.e., food in its most natural state, which means it is not processed or are minimally processed), as well as the benefits of a life that blends aspects of Western Medicine with a holistic lifestyle.

Eating for Health : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O6lgzGfPguI&feature=player_detailpage

        

Photo Source: Jessica Green

Water changes everything.

Every morning, I wake up to the same routine, a simple routine that we take advantage of everyday. I wake up (after hitting the snooze button a couple of times of course) use the restroom and brush my teeth, eat breakfast while gulping down a giant glass of water, then take a long hot shower to wake myself up for the day. Can you imagine not being able to wake up and not follow this simple routine so many of us follow?  Because most of the world is forced to live in a world without a hot shower, a working toilet or even a clean glass of water.  In fact, 1.6 billion people lack access to clean water in the world, or ¼ of the world’s population! Without clean water the human population cannot exist, making it vital that society pay attention to the scarcity of this resource and provide ways to protect it. Only 2.53 percent of earth’s water is fresh, and some two-thirds of that is locked up in glaciers and permanent snow cover. There are plenty of ways we can conserve water, here are just 100 that include ideas such as, “Use a broom instead of a hose to clean your driveway and sidewalk and save water every time” and “Put food coloring in your toilet tank. If it seeps into the toilet bowl without flushing, you have a leak. Fixing it can save up to 1,000 gallons a month.”

Water scarcity is both a natural and a human-made phenomenon, therefore the water problem isn’t just a problem of scarcity but of access. There is enough freshwater on the planet for six billion people but it is distributed unevenly and too much of it is wasted, polluted and poorly managed. Poorer countries don’t have the monetary resources to put an infrastructure in place that promises citizens sanitary water. See the following chart that tells us which areas of the world have/don’t have adequate water supplies.

http://www.un.org/waterforlifedecade/scarcity.shtml

You notice that the underdeveloped countries are the ones struggling with water shortage. An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than a typical person in a developing country slum uses in a whole day. So while we enjoy our 15 minute morning showers, 1 child is dying every 20 seconds in these countries because the water they are forced to drink water is filled with disease. People in these countries don’t have the economic ability to provide appropriate ways to discard waste, which is the world’s biggest cause of infection.

While conserving water going to help us preserve this natural resource for the future, we also need to think about what we can do for these under-developed countries today. Water.org gives us plenty of ways to get involved:

• Fundraise using tips from the website. Communities around the world can he helped by the money that you earn. In fact, households, not public agencies, often make the largest investment in basic sanitation, with the ratio of household to government investment typically 10 to 1.
• Follow water.org projects in real-time. After you choose a community you can watch first hand the progress they make
• Donate your voice. Which allows Water.org to post facts and stories about water sanitation to your twitter and Facebook feeds, which will help spread the word.

Investment in safe drinking water and sanitation contributes to economic growth. For each $1 invested, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates returns of $3 – $34, depending on the region and technology. If we can help provide an adequate water supply to these countries, the health and overall status of their communities will improve. We are living in a global society and it is our duty to help ensure that this happens, so that one day lesser developed countries can be self-sustaining and live the kinds of lives we are used to (and take for granted I might add).