Archive for December 2013
Selfi Mohammad Chaar: “16-year old is not a Martyr nor a Hero”?
I feel like I have no right to even mention your name.
I have been sitting at home reading the #RIPMohammadChaar tweets for the past four hours.
Your friend Yasmine broke my heart.
It’s killing me. Wow, what a weird choice of words.
I am going to make it worse by telling you that it’s not fair. And that no, you are not a martyr and that no, you are not a hero.
You are 16.
You still don’t know what you want to do, you just want to be stupid, have fun and stay up late with friends.
You want to kiss someone under the rain, steal your parent’s car, get into college, get a part time job and dance in the streets.
You won’t.
It’s unfair but you won’t.
You won’t because you were murdered and robbed from your friends and family. You won’t because some lowlife squeezed a button.
You did not pick this battle, you did not look for it.
Heroes and martyrs usually know what they’r fighting for.
Right now you are a murder victim.
You are not a hero. The only way for you to become a Hero is if your death does not go in vain.
The only way for you to be a martyr for a cause is if your death causes a change.
Every time this happens we hear the same reactions; and innocent people are automatically given martyrdom and hero status as if they were looking to die; for some cause that we don’t know of.
None of the innocent bystanders wanted to die.
If we gave them all a choice they would not have wanted to die, especially that it always goes in vain.
We cry and get angry, we organize a march or a sit in and then we forget.
Every single time! We get angry, we cry and then we forget.
This is going to happen again.
That’s the sad part, we all know that another bomb is going to blow up somewhere again soon. We have to do something about it.
We have to, this is unbearable. We cannot accept this anymore, we cannot just sit and watch as homes are shattered, as people’s lives change in a second for nothing! We cannot stand by when 16 year old kids get slaughtered in mid day for reasons that we do not believe in!
We are not allowed to act cool anymore every time a bomb goes off and go have a drink because “nothing keeps us down”…
We cannot distance ourselves from the victims. Guys, anyone of us could have been there when the bomb went off.
I am sick of making phone calls to make sure everyone I know is alive every time a bomb goes off! (Actually, my nephew called a minute after the explosion to relieve our anxiety that he might be one of the victims)
Do you understand what we are getting used to? This is not the norm.
This has to change, we have a responsibility to change it: like it or not, more sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, cousins and friends are going to die!
Like it or not the bombs are going to keep going off!
Like it or not you are already in this fight! Someone is already killing you!
This is where we decide that enough is enough.
Our friends and families souls are not just statistics and numbers in a newspaper.
Our parents went through even worse times, they had non of the abilities and tools that we now have.
This is the time for us as a generation to say that we have had enough.
Mohammad’s friends are organizing a march that will start from his school “Hariri high school 2″ (next to Lycee Abdel Kader in Zarif) at 10a.m Monday morning leading to where the explosion took place (Details on this Facebook link).
They are asking people to get a white flower with them. They should be joined by students from all over the country. They should be joined by all of us.
This should not end here. I have a feeling it won’t. There already are calls for action.
Once and for all, let us make real Martyrs and real Heroes out of the innocents who have died.
Enough people have died in vain.
“The tyrant dies and his rule is over, the martyr dies and his rule begins.”- Søren Kierkegaard
Note: Another repost by Diaa Hadid, Associated Press, this December 30, 2013
‘Selfie’ captures slain teen’s last moments before powerful car bomb set off in ritzy Lebanese shopping district
Warning: Graphic images
It’s a happy moment, a selfie taken by a group of teenagers on a sunny day in downtown Beirut. Mohammed Shaar sits among his friends in a red hoodie and his dark-framed glasses.
The next photos, captured by journalists only moments later, are tragic. The 16-year-old Shaar lies mortally wounded, his red hoodie and his blood forming a scarlet blur on the pavement – an anonymous civilian casualty of a car bomb that killed a prominent politician.
The before-and-after montage of Shaar, who died of his wounds a day after Friday’s bombing, has rattled Lebanese who in Shaar’s ordinary-turned-horrifying day saw their own lives and potentially their own fate.
The Lebanese teenager has since become a symbol of a population held ransom (by the country’s widening violence and swelling tensions between Sunnis and Shiites, exacerbated by the war in neighbouring Syria and foreign powers meddling in our crappy internal affairs).
On Monday, hundreds of Shaar’s fellow students marched to the Starco building, outside of which the bombing took place. They held signs saying “We are all Mohammed,” waved the Lebanese flag and left flowers.
The powerful car bomb targeted Mohammed Chatah, a former finance minister (allied with the Hariri clan and Al Moustakbal movement).
Chatah’s allies in a mainly Sunni political coalition, backed by the West, quickly pointed the finger at the Shiite Hezbollah guerrilla group, which denied the accusations.
But the blast, on a main avenue of the ritzy downtown shopping district, killed not only Chatah and his driver but also 8 passers-by – including Shaar.
Friends said Shaar was out in downtown celebrating the end of the school semester, having coffee with his three friends at a Starbucks.
They strolled through downtown to the Starco building, a complex of offices and shops. There, they took that last selfie (before going to play basketball)Moments later, the district was shaken by the blast, which sent a plume of black smoke over the area – and Shaar fell with a bleeding shrapnel wound in the head.
At his funeral on Sunday, sectarian anger bubbled up, with some mourners chanting anti-Shiite slogans.
But more prevalent was anger over being caught in the crossfire as powerful factions – whoever they may be – fight out their political differences. Shaar, a Sunni, wasn’t political or particularly religious, those who knew him said.
Several hundred emerged for his funeral, and tens gathered outside, some holding signs protesting the deaths of civilians.
“Every one of us imagined ourselves in that place,” activist Mohammed Estateyeh said outside the Khashakhgi mosque in the Sunni-dominated Beirut neighbourhood of Qasqas after Shaar’s burial. “The picture of Mohammed lying on the ground – and the picture just before the explosion – they were four guys who were just hanging out.”
Estateyeh, of the Muslim Students League in Beirut, printed black-white-and-yellow posters of Shaar, with the Arabic-language hashtag slogan scrawled underneath: “#We-are-not-numbers.”
The slogan caught on online, with some people posting pictures of themselves holding it on Facebook.
Montages of Shaar’s life-then-death photos circulated widely on Facebook and Twitter.
“Kill the person you want to kill – that’s why they invented guns,” Shaar’s former geography teacher Dalal Batrawi wept at the funeral. “If that’s the path you want to take, leave the rest of us alone.”
Earlier Sunday, at a memorial ceremony carried live on Lebanese television, Shaar’s teachers and students from the private Hariri High School – named after an assassinated Sunni former prime minister – described the teen as a bright, goofy student who loved basketball, lasagna and Harry Potter.
Mohammad often bought cookies, croissants and milkshakes for his friends. Friends recalled him chatting with them at 5 a.m. on the instant-message system “Whatsapp.”
“You know what sucks?” his friend Rahaf Jammal said at the memorial, speaking in English. “It’s the fact that he didn’t finish the book I got him for his birthday. He didn’t finish Harry Potter (movies) because he kept asking me to watch it with him.”
“It’s the fact he had his whole future planned out and he couldn’t accomplish anything, because of this stupid, cruel and crappy country.”
The grief over Shaar is given greater resonance by the fears among Lebanese that they are lurching back into the abyss, still battered from their own 15-year war, which ended in 1990.
That civil war was partly ignited by sectarian tensions among Lebanon’s Shiite, Sunni, Christian and Druse minorities.
AP PhotoIn this Friday, Dec. 27, 2013 photo, a Lebanese policeman helps 16-year-old Mohammed Shaar who was injured at the scene after a car bomb explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.Sunni-Shiite tensions began growing after a powerful car bomb in 2005 killed the former prime minister, Rafik Hariri, who called for an end to neighboring Syria’s domination of the country and criticized Syria’s ally Hezbollah.
Hariri’s assassination was followed by over a dozen other assassinations of anti-Syrian figures. His allies blame Syria and Hezbollah for the killings; both deny involvement.
(A cliché disseminated by the opposition March 14, as if all the other car bombings on Hezbollah strongholds in last month were perpetrated against themselves. Blame it on the Wahhabi Saudi monarchy who are the main funding source for all the terrorists factions…)
AP PhotoIn this Friday, Dec. 27, 2013 photo, a Lebanese policeman helps 16-year-old Mohammed Shaar who was injured at the scene after a car bomb explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.Although some of the assassinations and attempted assassinations over the past years also targeted Christians, Druse, and Shiaa, Lebanon’s Sunnis have felt the most threatened.
The Sunni community’s leadership is fractured. Religious hardliners preach they are being targeted by a Shiite plot to crush them. Ordinary Sunnis, neither particularly political nor religious, complain they feel marginalized.
Those feelings have sharply grown since Syria’s uprising against President Bashar Assad began three years ago.
Rebels seeking to overthrow Assad are mostly Sunni, and the most powerful are al-Qaida extremists.
Syria’s sectarian splits have enflamed Lebanon’s, with its Sunnis mainly lining up behind Syria’s rebels and its Shiites backing Assad. Hezbollah has dispatched its fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, infuriating opponents in Lebanon.
The result has been violence rooted in Syria’s war.
Two car bombs targeted Sunni worshippers at mosques in Lebanon’s northern city of Tripoli this year; another two exploded in a Shiite neighborhood in south Beirut. Another twin-bombing targeted the Iranian embassy, apparently to punish Iran for supporting Assad.
Civilians have been the majority of the victims.
Amid the grief, the sectarian sentiments emerge.
At Shaar’s funeral, hundreds of mourners chanting against Hezbollah trapped the country’s top Sunni cleric in the mosque, because he is perceived as sympathetic to the group. Soldiers with assault rifles had to muscle into the mosque to protect Mufti Mohammed Qabani and hustle him into an armored vehicle to get away.
Angry worshippers pelted the soldiers with rocks, eggs and shoes.
Shaar was forgotten amid the mourners’ anger, something not lost on his friends.
“People are using his death as an excuse for war,” said his friend Jammal. “But really all we should do is pray, pray, pray, and keep praying.”
AP PhotoIn this Friday, Dec. 27, 2013 photo, Lebanese men carry the body of 16-year-old Mohammed Shaar who was injured at the scene after a car bomb explosion in Beirut, Lebanon.
AP Photo/Bilal HusseinLebanese students of the private Hariri High School, named after a prominent assassinated Sunni leader, broadcast a short film about 16-year-old Mohammed Shaar, who was one of seven people killed in a car bomb that ripped through the upscale downtown district of Beirut, during a memorial ceremony, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013.
AP Photo/Bilal Hussein A Lebanese friend of 16-year-old Mohammed Shaar, who was one of 7 people killed in a car bomb that ripped through the upscale downtown district of Beirut, is comforted by others as he mourns during a sit-in at the scene of the explosion, in Beirut, Lebanon, Monday, Dec. 30, 2013.
Wounded Knee Massacre: 123 Years Ago
On December 29, 1890, some 150 Lakota men, women and children were massacred by the US 7th Calvary Regiment near Wounded Knee Creek on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.
Some estimate the actual number closer to 300.
The Wounded Knee Massacre is when most American history books drop American Indians from history.
Snowfall was heavy that December week.
The Lakota ancestors killed that day were left in brutal frigid wintry plains of the reservation before a burial party came to bury them in one mass grave.
The photograph of Big Foot’s frozen and contorted body is a symbol for all American Indians of what happened to our ancestors.
Some of those who survived were eventually taken to the Episcopal mission in Pine Ridge.
Eventually, some of them were able to give an oral history of what happened. One poignant fact of the massacre has remained in my mind since first reading it, and every time I think about Wounded Knee, I remember this from Dee Brown’s in “Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee.”:
“It was the fourth day after Christmas in the Year of Our Lord 1890. When the first torn and bleeding bodies were carried into the candlelit church, those who were conscious could see Christmas greenery hanging from the open rafters.
Across the chancel front above the pulpit was strung a crudely lettered banner: “Peace on earth, good will to men,”
There was no peace on earth for the Lakota four days after Christmas.
Later, as absurd as it may sound, some 20 US Calvary soldiers were given the Medal of Honor – for killing innocent Lakota men, women and children. What an insult to those who lost their lives. What an insult to humanity.
The Wounded Knee Massacre is a symbol for all American Indians of what happened to our ancestors.
History records the Wounded Knee Massacre was the last battle of the American Indian war. Unfortunately, it is when most American history books drop American Indians from history, as well. As if we no longer exist.
Fortunately, American Indians have survived – one generation after another – since Wounded Knee.
It is for us who remain to remember our ancestors as we make for a better life for those we encounter today.
We are also taught to prepare for the next 7 generations, but as we do, we must remember our ancestors.
We remember those ancestors lost on December 29 — 123 winters ago.
Syrian women: Their suffering and endurance
I want to start by talking about Asmaa (pictured above). I met her in Jordan, five days after she had been released from a regime prison.
She is the fiancée of Abdul Razak Tlass, who was the first officer to defect from the Syrian army when the revolution began. She was captured transporting a Kalashnikov in her bag after a tip-off.
She told me about how she was interrogated, made to stand up without break for hours on end and deprived of sleep, but nothing they did could get her to give the names of who she had been working with.
When you see her eyes you understand immediately how much she suffered. I know she wasn’t telling me the full story of what happened to her.
Considering the fact that the use of sexual violence by the regime is not unknown, I have the suspicion that something like this happened to her. When you look in her eyes as she talks about her experience,e it is clear that terrible things were done to her. A part of her soul died in that prison.
But something very interesting came out of my talking to her. She was in a cell with 9 other Syrian women, all different religions, Sunni, Shia, Alawite, Druze and Christian. They all came to love each other during their time in captivity and it is one of the reasons why she believes that the people of Syria can be united in the future and is something she feels very strongly about.
So many in the West think that the people in Syria are hopelessly divided and all want to kill each other along religious lines. Women like Asmaa, who despite all they have suffered, demonstrate that this is not the case.
She was only released from prison after 13 months because the FSA swapped prisoners in order to get her out. Now she is in the relative safety of Jordan and working to help her fellow Syrians as best she can.
One of the things I noticed about Syrian women in general is how strong and resilient they are.
In the refugee camps, despite losing so much, they continue their lives in the best way they can, they cook and look after their families.
Their standard of living is very much reduced, but they continue. Compare this with many of the men I saw who were in the refugee camps, who have lost their work, there is nothing for them to do, so they just sit around in groups with other men, drinking tea and smoking.
Psychologically I would say that the women handle the situation better. They have something to do, the men on the other hand do not, and as a result end up looking very lost and feeling quite useless.
On the surface, Syria is very much a male dominated society but under the surface the women have a lot of influence.
All Syrian men will tell you how strong the women are, never mess with a Syrian women, they half jokingly tell me. To be honest I don’t know how they keep going, the women, men and children but then again it isn’t as if they have much choice.
They have become the victims of callous geo-political games with only power and influence as their objective. The governments of the world have proven that they are not fit for purpose. Why?
Because they see the human suffering they cause as no more than collateral damage.
Syria: Facing the revolution
Here is a video slideshow of some of my work in Syria which hasn’t been published before along with Syrian music and also a commentary I made.
“The Day I left Lebanon”
Posted on: December 30, 2013
abirghattas.com posted December 27, 2013
Who can believe it eh? I am leaving Lebanon, and I am very excited about it.
I will spare you all the patriot speech since I am extremely angry at this country. Angry to the point where I can look Gebran Khalil Gebran in the eye and tell him: “Dude, If Lebanon was not my country, I wouldn’t have chosen it to be” (this applies to Lebanon in its current state).
Lebanon is not Okay, and there is certainly something wrong with us for accepting the facts as they are, but who am I to say anything now right, eh?
I am leaving. Well wrong: I have been here, working, fighting, getting into trouble trying to better whatever little is left for us to work and live with.
And I will keep fighting, maybe more freely this time (bullies like Mr. Wrong -and this just one example- can’t sue me now for exposing their documented violations.)
However, this country is killing us, surely but slowly (that is what my little brother told me in his goodbye letter), and he is right. So yes, I am happy I am leaving and excited about the new discoveries and adventures that I will never experience in Lebanon.
For those who will keep fighting, try not to become very angry, I failed at this.
I am angry, extremely angry at everything and everyone in this country, including the people who blame those in charge for the situation, as if in life, the pyramid is inverted and it stands on its smaller base!!
We should not be okay with how things are, from the smaller to the bigger thing!
Including valet parking mafia, who steal your right to have a sidewalk and a parking space, the unpunished domestic violence and martial rape, and the biggest and bulliest of CEO / Politician / Religious leader who transform the employees / people to pawns and string dolls to the point where they would thank him for the oxygen they are breathing!
There is no lala land, but I am hoping now for a better more exciting land, filled with love, music, photos, success and some mistakes.
Goodbye everyone, بحبكن كتير
Nada Sleiman posted on FB:
Demain, je m’en irai
Détonation en plein cœur de Beyrouth. On espère, on attend, on se dit – une fois de plus – que ce n’est rien.
Après tout, c’est Noël, l’ambiance est à la fête, tout le monde est heureux. Des feux d’artifice, sans doute. On prétend ne pas savoir, on prétend ne pas s’en faire mais, au fond, on le sait déjà. On ne le sait que trop bien, pour l’avoir tant de fois vécu.
L’horreur est là, elle nous guette à chaque tournant. L’horreur est là, inchangée, immonde, impitoyable. On veut crier sa rage mais, comme toujours, les mots se meurent, usés, désuets, désabusés.
On veut rire pour ne pas en pleurer mais, comme toujours, on trouve refuge dans le cynisme pour masquer son incompréhension, son désespoir. On veut tout casser mais, comme toujours, on ne fait rien. On se tait, on rebâtit, et la vie reprend son cours.
Aujourd’hui, je ne veux plus essayer de comprendre. Je ne veux plus rebâtir, je refuse de rester.
Fini les slogans à la con, les tonight we party to forget, les bhebak ya lebnan ; non, le Liban ne renaîtra plus de ses cendres.
Ce vendu, ce damné ne mérite plus qu’on se batte pour lui. Un pays où on paye sa liberté d’expression au prix de sa vie ne devrait pas exister. Un pays qui se vend au plus offrant ne mérite pas d’être. Aujourd’hui, je veux partir loin, très loin.
Je ne veux plus entendre parler de ce « morceau de ciel », de cette prétendue Suisse du Moyen-Orient, de ce carrefour de civilisations si vil.
Trente minutes pour aller de Jounieh à Faraya, c’est là notre plus grande fierté. Des moutons, des ignares, des suiveurs.
Rien n’a changé, personne n’a rien appris, voilà déjà longtemps qu’on a atteint le fond du gouffre.
Aujourd’hui, je suis seule au bureau, j’éteins la télé, je baisse les bras.
Demain, je m’en irai pour ne plus jamais revenir. Je me retourne pour m’en aller et c’est alors que je le vois. Quelque chose dans ses yeux me cloue sur place. Il me regarde avec ce sourire triomphant qui lui est si propre.
Il me regarde avec insistance comme s’il m’en voulait. Et tout me revient : son sacrifice et celui de tant d’autres, son audace, ma lâcheté, sa persévérance, ma résignation, sa reconnaissance, mon ingratitude.
Honteuse, gênée, je détourne mon regard. Quelque chose dans les yeux de Samir Kassir me pousse à continuer…
Can we avoid Cancer?
Posted on: December 29, 2013
Can we avoid Cancer?
AFTER YEARS OF TELLING PEOPLE CHEMOTHERAPY IS THE ONLY WAY TO TRY AND ELIMINATE CANCER, JOHNS HOPKINS IS FINALLY STARTING TO TELL YOU THERE IS AN ALTERNATIVE WAY …
Note: Make sure to read the rebuff on the hoaxes at the end of the post.
PremAseem.com posted this Dec. 19, 2013
1. Every person has cancer cells in the body. These cancer cells do not show up in the standard tests until they have multiplied to a few billion.
When doctors tell cancer patients that there are no more cancer cells in their bodies after treatment, it just means the tests are unable to detect the cancer cells because they have not reached the detectable size.
2. Cancer cells occur between 6 to more than 10 times in a person’s lifetime.
3. When the person’s immune system is strong the cancer cells will be destroyed and prevented from multiplying and forming tumors.
4. When a person has cancer it indicates the person has multiple nutritional deficiencies. These could be due to genetic, environmental, food and lifestyle factors.
5. To overcome the multiple nutritional deficiencies, changing diet and including supplements will strengthen the immune system.
6. Chemotherapy involves poisoning the rapidly-growing cancer cells and also destroys rapidly-growing healthy cells in the bone marrow, gastro-intestinal tract etc, and can cause organ damage, like liver, kidneys, heart, lungs etc.
7. Radiation while destroying cancer cells also burns, scars and damages healthy cells, tissues and organs.
8. Initial treatment with chemotherapy and radiation will often reduce tumor size. However prolonged use of chemotherapy and radiation do not result in more tumor destruction.
9. When the body has too much toxic burden from chemotherapy and radiation the immune system is either compromised or destroyed, hence the person can succumb to various kinds of infections and complications.
10. Chemotherapy and radiation can cause cancer cells to mutate and become resistant and difficult to destroy. Surgery can also cause cancer cells to spread to other sites.
11. An effective way to battle cancer is to STARVE the cancer cells by not feeding it with foods it needs to multiple.
What cancer cells feed on?
a. Sugar is a cancer-feeder. By cutting off sugar it cuts off one important food supply to the cancer cells.
Note: Sugar substitutes like NutraSweet, Equal, Spoonful, etc are made with Aspartame and it is harmful. A better natural substitute would be Manuka honey or molasses but only in very small amounts. Table salt has a chemical added to make it white in colour. Better alternative is Bragg’s aminos or sea salt.
b. Milk causes the body to produce mucus, especially in the gastro-intestinal tract. Cancer feeds on mucus. By cutting off milk and substituting with unsweetened soy milk, cancer cells will starved.
c. Cancer cells thrive in an acid environment. A meat-based diet is acidic and it is best to eat fish, and a little chicken rather than beef or pork.
Meat also contains livestock antibiotics, growth hormones and parasites, which are all harmful, especially to people with cancer.
d. A diet made of 80% fresh vegetables and juice, whole grains, seeds, nuts and a little fruits help put the body into an alkaline environment.
About 20% can be from cooked food including beans.
Fresh vegetable juices provide live enzymes that are easily absorbed and reach down to cellular levels within 15 minutes t o nourish and enhance growth of healthy cells.
To obtain live enzymes for building healthy cells try and drink fresh vegetable juice (most vegetables including bean sprouts) and eat some raw vegetables 2 or 3 times a day. Enzymes are destroyed at temperatures of 104 degrees F (40 degrees C).
e. Avoid coffee, tea, and chocolate, which have high caffeine. Green tea is a better alternative and has cancer-fighting properties.
Water–best to drink purified water, or filtered, to avoid known toxins and heavy metals in tap water. Distilled water is acidic, avoid it.
12. Meat protein is difficult to digest and requires a lot of digestive enzymes. Undigested meat remaining in the intestines will become putrefied and leads to more toxic buildup.
13. Cancer cell walls have a tough protein covering. By refraining from or eating less meat it frees more enzymes to attack the protein walls of cancer cells and allows the body’s killer cells to destroy the cancer cells.
14. Some supplements build up the immune system (IP6, Flor-ssence, Essiac, anti-oxidants, vitamins, minerals, EFAs etc.) to enable the body’s own killer cells to destroy cancer cells.
Other supplements like vitamin E are known to cause apoptosis, or programmed cell death, the body’s normal method of disposing of damaged, unwanted, or unneeded cells.
15. Cancer is a disease of the mind, body, and spirit. A proactive and positive spirit will help the cancer warrior be a survivor.
Anger, unforgiving and bitterness put the body into a stressful and acidic environment. Learn to have a loving and forgiving spirit. Learn to relax and enjoy life.
16. Cancer cells cannot thrive in an oxygenated environment.
Exercising daily, and deep breathing help to get more oxygen down to the cellular level. Oxygen therapy is another means employed to destroy cancer cells.
STATEMENT: EMAIL HOAX REGARDING CANCER
Information falsely attributed to Johns Hopkins called, “CANCER UPDATE FROM JOHN HOPKINS” describes properties of cancer cells and suggests ways of preventing cancer.
Johns Hopkins did not publish the information, which often is an email attachment, nor do we endorse its contents. The email also contains an incorrect spelling of our institution as “John” Hopkins; whereas, the correct spelling is “Johns” Hopkins. For more information about cancer, please read the information on our web site or visit the National Cancer Institute.
Another hoax email that has been circulating since 2004 regarding plastic containers, bottles, wrap claiming that heat releases dioxins which cause cancer also was not published by Johns Hopkins. More information from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Mythbusters: Please help curb the spread of this hoax by sending a link to this page to individuals that forward you this email.
The Truth about the “Cancer Update” Email Hoax
Emails offering easy remedies for avoiding and curing cancer are the latest Web-influenced trend. To gain credibility, the anonymous authors falsely attribute their work to respected research institutions like Johns Hopkins. This is the case with the so-called “Cancer Update from Johns Hopkins.”
The gist of this viral email is that cancer therapies of surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy do not work against the disease and people should instead choose a variety of dietary strategies.
Traditional therapies, such as surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy, work. The evidence is the millions of cancer survivors in the United States today who are alive because of these therapies.
We recognize that treatments don’t work in every patient, or sometimes work for awhile and then stop working, and there are some cancers that are more difficult to cure than others. These problems are the focus of ongoing cancer research.
We’ll go through each statement in the email hoax and provide real responses from Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center experts.
Statements:
The Hoax: Everyone Has Cancer Cells
The Hoax: A Strong Immune System Destroys Cancer
The Hoax: Cancer is Caused by Nutritional Deficiencies and Supplements Will Correct Them
The Hoax: Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy Harms Normal Cells. Surgery Causes Cancer to Spread
The Hoax: Cancers Feed on Certain Foods
The Hoax: Cancer is a Disease of Mind, Body and Spirit
The Hoax: Oxygen Kills Cancer Cells
The Hoax: Everyone Has Cancer Cells
The Truth: Cancer is a genetic disease resulting from a variety of mutations and alterations either inherited from our parents or, more commonly, acquired over time due to environmental exposures and behaviors, such as smoking and poor diet. These alterations turn off important cell growth regulators allowing cells to continually divide unchecked, explains Luis Diaz, a clinician-scientist in Ludwig Center for Cancer Genetics at the Kimmel Cancer Center at Johns Hopkins.
This type of cell is called a malignant or cancer cell. Among the trillions of cells in the human body, inevitably everyone has some abnormal or atypical cells that possess some of the characteristics of cancer cells, most resolve themselves and never result in cancer, says Diaz.
There is no single or standard test for cancer. There are ways to screen for certain cancers with tests such as colonoscopy for colon cancer, mammography for breast cancer, PSA for prostate cancer, and the Pap smear for cervical cancer, and these tests can detect cancers in a very early and curable stage. For many cancers, there currently are no screening tests, and they are diagnosed when they begin to cause symptoms.
Diaz and other Kimmel Cancer Center researchers are working on new tests that detect abnormal DNA shed by cancer cells into blood and body fluids and have the ability to find cancers before they cause any symptoms. Approaches like this could lead to a broad-based screening test for cancer.
Tests like these also are being used to detect cancer recurrences and malignant cells left behind following surgery, and can find cancers that are not detectable under the microscope or in x-rays.
Other researchers are studying cancer stem cells. They are stealth cells that make up just a tiny fraction of a tumor. While small in number, investigators believe they may be the cells that drive certain cancers and lead to cancer recurrence. Therapies that target these cells are now being tested in clinical trials.
A team of our breast cancer researchers has developed a method that could make it possible to detect breast cancer from the DNA contained in a single drop of blood.
But, while evasive cancer cells are a challenge and the focus of ongoing research, it does not mean, as the email contends, that all patients, even those treated successfully for cancer, have cancers-in-waiting—undetectable but still there. People are treated and completely cured of cancer everyday.
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The Hoax: A Strong Immune System Destroys Cancer
The Truth: When it comes to cancer and the immune system, it is not a matter of strong or weak as the fictional report contends, but rather an issue of recognition. “The immune system simply does not recognize cancer. In its complexity, the cancer cell has learned to disguise itself to the immune system as a normal, healthy cell. Cells infected with viruses or bacteria send out danger signals setting the immune system in action. But cancer cells do not, explains Elizabeth Jaffee, co-director of cancer immunology and leading expert on cancer and the immune system.”
By deciphering the methods cancer cells use to make them invisible to the immune system, Jaffee and team have developed cancer vaccines that have successfully triggered immune reactions against prostate cancer, pancreatic cancer, leukemia, and multiple myeloma.
The Hoax: Cancer is caused by Nutritional Deficiencies and Supplements Will Correct Them
The Truth: Dietary habits and lifestyle choices, such as smoking, contribute to the development of many human cancers, says Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center director William Nelson. Our experts recommend a balanced diet as a way of reducing cancer risk. In terms of supplements, Nelson points out that while they may help mediate vitamin deficiencies, taking doses above what the body needs provides no added benefit.
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The Hoax: Chemotherapy and Radiation Therapy Harms Normal Cells. Surgery Causes Cancer to Spread
The Truth: Chemotherapy and radiation therapy kills cancer cells with remarkable selectivity, says Nelson. There are some temporary and reversible side effects common to cancer therapies, including hair loss and low blood counts. Limiting and managing these side effects is an integral part of treatment.
Surgery is the first line of treatment for many types of cancer. It does not cause cancer to spread. Cancers spread to other tissues and organs as a tumor progresses and cancer cells break away from the original tumor and travel through the bloodstream to other body sites.
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The Hoax: Cancers Feed on Certain Foods
The Truth: The premise is that cancer cells feed on certain foods, and if a person refrains from eating these foods, the cancer will die. According to our experts, a poor diet and obesity associated with a poor diet is a risk factor for the development of cancer. However, there is no evidence that certain foods alter the environment of an existing cancer, at the cellular level, and cause it to either die or grow.
While there is such a thing as tumors that produce mucus, the mucus made by a tumor does not result from drinking milk. And, eating less meat, while a good choice for cancer prevention, does not free up enzymes to attack cancer cells, explains cancer prevention and control expert Elizabeth Platz.
Moderation is key, says Platz. As part of a balanced diet, sugar, salt, milk, coffee, tea, meat, and chocolate—the foods the “Update” calls into question—are all safe choices, she says. The real concern with many of these, particularly sugar, is that it adds calories to a diet and can lead to obesity, and obesity is a major risk factor for cancer. A balanced nutritious diet, healthy weight, physical activity, and avoiding alcoholic drinks may prevent as many as 1/3 of all cancers. Platz recommends eating at least five servings of fruits and vegetables per day and limiting red and processed meats, like hot dogs.
Several Johns Hopkins experts participated in the World Cancer Research Fund – American Institute for Cancer Research report Food, Nutrition, Physical Activity, and the Prevention of Cancer: A Global Perspective, published in November 2007, which is considered by cancer prevention experts to be an authoritative source of information on diet, physical activity and cancer. Their recommendations for cancer prevention and for good health in general are:
- Be as lean as possible without becoming underweight.
- Be physically active for at least 30 minutes every day.
- Avoid sugary drinks. Limit consumption of energy-dense foods (particularly processed foods high in added sugar, or low in fiber, or high in fat).
- Eat more of a variety of vegetables, fruits, whole grains and legumes such as beans.
- Limit consumption of red meats (such as beef, pork and lamb) and avoid processed meats.
- If consumed at all, limit alcoholic drinks to 2 for men and 1 for women a day.
- Limit consumption of salty foods and foods processed with salt (sodium).
- Don’t use supplements to protect against cancer.
Our experts recommend that people meet their nutritional needs through their food choices. While vitamin supplements can be helpful in people with nutritional deficiencies, evidence suggests that supplementation above what the body can use provides no added health benefit.
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The Hoax: Cancer is a Disease of Mind, Body, and Spirit
The Truth: Cancer is a disease caused by genetic alterations. Many times, these alterations occur through our own behaviors—cigarette smoking, a poor and unbalanced diet, virus exposures, and sunburns, says cancer prevention and control expert John Groopman.
How stress, faith, and other factors influence this is largely unknown. We would like people to be happy, loving, and stress free, simply because it is a nice way to live and can contribute to an overall feeling of well being, says Platz. There is no evidence, however, that a person prevents or causes cancer based on his or her state of mind.
Still, we understand that a cancer diagnosis can make patients and families feel stressed and anxious, and these are not pleasant feelings. So, we offer extensive patient and family services, including a cancer counseling center, pain and palliative care program, chaplain services and a meditation chapel, an image recovery center, and the Art of Healing art and music program.
Read more about Cancer Genetics in “A Genetic Revolution”
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The Hoax: Oxygen Kills Cancer Cells
The Truth: Platz recommends regular exercise as a part of any healthy lifestyle, but says there is no evidence that breathing deeply or receiving oxygen therapy prevents cancer.
On its Web site, the American Cancer Society includes the following statement about oxygen therapy, “Available scientific evidence does not support claims that putting oxygen-releasing chemicals into a person’s body is effective in treating cancer. It may even be dangerous. There have been reports of patient deaths from this method.” Read more
Please pass this information on to family and friends.
Questions?
Contact: Johns Hopkins Kimmel Cancer Center Office of Public Affairs 410-955-1287
24 celebrities and their incredible look alikes from the past December 29, 2013
They say that everyone of us has at least one look alike in the world, and according to an old urban legend our double lives in the opposite part of the globe from where we are.
That legend may not be real, but if you think rationally there are some odds that, between all the people lived in the past, there was somebody that looked just like us.
That’s what this gallery is all about: there are celebrities that have look alikes coming directly from the past.
When we saw these photos we couldn’t help but stare at the incredible similarity between these celebs and their counterparts.
For example Justin Timberlake is almost identical to a guy lived in the 1800′s, Jay-Z had a perfect double living in Harlem in the 1860′s and Donald Trump really does look like the General George Patton.
Believe it or not, here are 24 celebrities and their incredible look alikes from the past.
If you like this post, don’t be selfish, share it with your friends on Facebook or Twitter.
1. Ellen DeGeneres and Henry David Thoreau
2. Maggie Gyllenhaal and Rose Wilder Lane
3. Justin Timberlake and unknown man in a mug shot
4. John Travolta and unknown man from the 1860′s
5. General George Patton and Donald Trump
6. General Douglas MacArthur and Bruce Willis
7. Vincent Van Gogh and Chuck Norris
8. Jimmy Fallon and Turkish revolutionist Mahir Cayan
9. Paul Giamatti and William Shakespeare
10. Jack Black and the Barber of Seville
11. Nicholas Cage and man from the Civil War era
via nydailynews.com
12. Jay-Z and a unknown man from Harlem
via nydailynews.com
13. Jon Stewart and Henry Ward Beecher
14. Charlie Sheen and John Brown
via nydailynews.com
15. Alec Baldwin and Millard Fillmore
via nydailynews.com
16. Shia LaBeouf and Albert Einstein
via nydailynews.com
17. Keanu Reeves and Louis-Maurice Boutet de Monvet
via nydailynews.com
18. Hank Azaria and Rudolf Steiner
via totallylookslike.com
19. Jeffrey Tambor and Benjamin Franklin
via totallylookslike.com
20. Dustin Diamond and Joseph Pulitzer
21. Hugh Grant and Oscar Wilde
22. Glenn Close and George Washington
via nydailynews.com
23. Tommy Lee Jones and Andrew Johnson
24. Rupert Grint and Sir David Wilkie
via au.lifestyle.yahoo.com
Note: Not until the 20th century, most humankind were generated from incestuous relationships.
Most tragic selfie of 2013 must have come from Lebanon – RIP Mohammad Chaar!
Four young guys gathered in a small park, shouting the breeze on Friday morning after Christmas, and takingg selfies. One of the pictures shot the explosion nearby. The four were injured, but Mohammad Chaar was rushed to the American University of Beirut Medical Center (AUBMC) hospital, suffering from head injuries, where he died.
In Lebanon, we have instantaneous selfi martyrs.
RitaKML posted:
I am at loss for words. What can one say in front of that scene that keeps repeating itself for years and years?
A lady was on her way in a cab to the restaurant where she works at in Beirut Souks, another went ahead of her neighbor with plans, a lot of employees were going about their jobs in the surrounding companies and a group of teenagers were enjoying themselves before a rigged car exploded.
The target was former Finance Minister and Saad Hariri’s advisor Mohammad Chatah who was tweeting from his iPad… RIP. Thoughts for yet an additional Lebanese family who lost a member of its own.
Here is a screenshot of his latest tweets.
Chatah would also express himself on his own blog as highlighted by www.lebaneseblogs.com
Before the blast, a group of innocent young teenagers happened to be there, enjoying themselves as depicted by the selfie they took.
Soon after that, as said by Omar Bekdash to LBCI, Mohammad El Chaar asked for a picture… and the explosion took off.
All the teenagers, Mohammad El Chaar, Omar Bekdash, Rabih Youssef and Ahmad Moghrabi have been wounded; only Mohammad’s situation was critical and is now stable according to his close friends.
It could have been anyone. Aggressive dynamics continue to ruin peoples’ lives.
Prayers to Mohammad El Chaar, a 16 year old Lebanese young man whose one of the hobbies is swimming competitively.
Prayers to all those wounded severely and hanging on to life.
Why do “messages” have to be sealed with blood like this? When is this going to end?
Update: Mohammad is no longer of this world. We did not deserve him in this heartless, brutal, aggressive, fucked up world.
#WEAREALLMOHAMMADCHAAR #WEAREALLMOHAMMADCHAAR #WEAREALLMOHAMMADCHAAR IT COULD HAVE BEEN YOU! IT COULD HAVE BEEN ANYONE! REST IN PEACE ANGEL!
…THINK OF HIS MOTHER AS WELL…
This was posted by a commenter:
Source: – Image
Clothes For Models: Women must look like this…Campaign warning of dangers of Anorexia
Posted on: December 28, 2013
- In: health/medicine | Safety | social articles | women
- Leave a Comment
When They Imagine Clothes For Models, Here’s What Actual Women Would Have To Look Like
CLICK IMAGE TO ZOOM
Polio vaccination: Teams in Syria under threat?
Health workers are trying to contain a polio epidemic in Syria, but a mass immunization programme is being undermined by the danger of the conflict.
Health organizations are responding to a resurgence of polio in war-torn Syria which broke out in October after many years of a polio-free status.
Andrew Bossone published in Nature Middle East this Dec. 15, 2013
© BrazilPhotos.com / AlamyThe immunization programme – coordinated between UNICEF, the World Health Organization (WHO), the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and others – is the largest ever to be attempted in the Middle East and aims to immunize 23 million children across seven countries by April 2014 at a cost of $39 million.
UNICEF’s head of health and nutrition in Lebanon, Zeroual Azzeddine, says immunization rounds have been successful in Lebanon, reaching more than 580,000 children, about 98% of those targeted.
UNICEF worked with the UN refugee agency, UNHCR, to immunize children at refugee registration centres at four border entry points and through mobile teams going door-to-door.
While this may be repeated in neighboring countries, health workers in Syria face grave threats from warring government forces and armed rebel groups.
“Patients have difficulty accessing health centres and hospitals because the roads aren’t safe. There are snipers on the roofs,” said Elizabeth Hoff, WHO representative in Syria. Cars being used to transport vaccination teams of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent have reportedly been shot at.
Azzeddine says health organizations need to change their strategies. The WHO has shelved rebuilding hospitals and health centres in Syria, Hoff says, and is focusing on mobile units and training local health workers.
Targets may only be achieved, however, by exerting more pressure on both sides. Azzeddine says the WHO recently sent a high-level delegation to Syria to discuss the situation with government officials. And according to Hoff, the WHO has lobbied the Syrian ministry of foreign affairs as well as UN director general Ban Ki Moon.
Health workers also face danger from rebel groups.
Gunmen kidnapped 7 people from the International Committee of the Red Cross in October. Four of them were released the following day, but three are still missing.
Azzeddine, who has previously worked in Darfur, attributed a successful vaccination campaign there to negotiating with people from all sides of the conflict.
“The only way to respond to the outbreak of measles and polio was to train people from the area to do the work because they did not accept anyone from the government side. We had people trained from both sides, and it worked.”
Note: Before this calamity that turned into a civil-war, Syria promoted public education and health insurance for all its citizens. It manufactured over 90% of the necessary medication and exported them to Lebanon at very affordable prices.
Adonis Diaries 