Saturday, November 28, 2015

Spike Lee

Spike Lee is a vocal proponent of the Black Lives Matter movement, but believes the black community must “speak out” against black-on-black crime if they wish to see structural changes in policing and community relations.


Echoing comments he made earlier this month on CNN, the director, whose latest film Chi-Raq begins streaming on Amazon December 4, said that the conversation about gun violence in Chicago and the Black Lives Matter movement go “hand in hand.”

“I love what Black Lives Matter is doing, and I was marching in New York City after Ferguson and for Eric Garner,” Lee told the Los Angeles Times. “I’m with that, but I would be less of a person if I’m out there on the streets talking about the cops and private citizens who killed our people and then remain mum about us killing ourselves. For me, that don’t work.”

“It don’t matter what complexion the hand or finger is that’s pulling the trigger that’s killing somebody,” he added. “We’ve got to be vocal on both parts.”

In a separate interview with the Washington Post, Lee said that when it comes to violence,                 “I think morally, you gotta speak out on both sides.”

“I was on the streets of New York, Eric Garner, Mike Brown, so I believe in Black Lives Matter,”    the director said. “I was chanting ‘Don’t shoot,’ I was chanting ‘I can’t breathe.’ But you can’t be silent on the other hand when we’re killing ourselves. It’s not just the cops.”

Lee’s latest film, Chi-Raq — a retelling of the classic Greek comedy Lysistrata — tells the story of the appropriately named Lysistrata (Teyonah Parris) as she organizes a “sex strike” with other women in Chicago in order to stop gun violence. On Wednesday night’s Late Show with Stephen Colbert, Lee said that female college students should similarly withhold sex from men to combat campus rape and sexual assault.

In his interview with the Post, Lee fired back at feminist critics who claim that putting the responsibility on women to withhold sex to stop violence is sexist.

“As a feminist, you should want, I think correctly, that you should want for murders to stop,” he told the paper. “As a feminist, you don’t want your daughter, or your son, or any mother to have their children murdered. That’s not part of feminism? I would like to hear the argument from feminists why they should not be asked to do that. In the black community, it’s all hands on deck. It’s all hands on deck. That’s nothing. We get sidetracked into arguments about feminism, or this or that. That’s a distraction.”

Judias, 101 - The Holocaust

Jared Zeff and 2 others shared Michael J. Nadel's photo.
Michael J. Nadel


In Crown Heights, Brooklyn there was a Jew, Yankel, who owned a bakery. He survived the camps. He once said, “You know why it is that I’m alive today? I was a kid, just a teenager at the time. We were on the train, in a boxcar, being taken to Auschwitz. Night came and it was freezing, deathly cold, in that boxcar. The Germans would leave the cars on the side of the tracks overnight, sometimes for days on end without any food, and of course, no blankets to keep us warm,” he said. “Sitting next to me was an older Jew – this beloved elderly Jew - from my hometown I recognized, but I had never seen him like this. He was shivering from head to toe, and looked terrible. So I wrapped my arms around him and began rubbing him, to warm him up. I rubbed his arms, his legs, his face, his neck. I begged him to hang on. All night long; I kept the man warm this way. I was tired, I was freezing cold myself, my fingers were numb, but I didn’t stop rubbing the heat on to this man’s body. Hours and hours went by this way. Finally, night passed, morning came, and the sun began to shine. There was some warmth in the cabin, and then I looked around the car to see some of the other Jews in the car. To my horror, all I could see were frozen bodies, and all I could hear was a deathly silence.
Nobody else in that cabin made it through the night – they died from the frost. Only two people survived: the old man and me… The old man survived because somebody kept him
warm; I survived because I was warming somebody else…”

Let me tell you the secret of Judaism. When you warm other people’s hearts, you remain warm yourself. When you seek to support, encourage and inspire others; then you discover support, encouragement and inspiration in your own life as well. That, my friends, is “Judaism 101”.

Thursday, November 26, 2015

Homeopathic drugs modify gene expression in cancer cells

Researchers have discovered that very highly diluted homeopathic drugs can modify gene expression in cervical cancer cells1. Thus, diluted homeopathic drugs could be used in combination with anticancer drugs to treat various cancers.
To probe the effects of homeopathic drugs on gene expressions, the researchers prepared two homeopathic drugs by highly diluting alcohol-based root extracts of two medicinal plants: Hydrastis canadensis and Marsdenia condurango. They then treated cultured cervical cancer cells with the drugs and a placebo drug for two days in a carbon dioxide incubator.
The homeopathic drugs activated a host of genes, triggering apoptosis — a process that kills cancer cells in a controlled way. The drugs induced cell death by altering DNA methylation, an epigenetic process that is known to modify gene expression without changing DNA sequences.
Of all the activated cancer-related genes, a marker gene known as SMAD4 was found to be activated by the homeopathic drugs. This gene triggers a cascade of cellular events that eventually suppress tumour growth.
“Since the homeopathic drugs are very highly diluted, they are non-toxic and could be used as nanomedicines for personalized treatment that depends on the individual genome,” says lead researcher Anisur Rahman Khuda-Bukhsh.

References

1. Saha, S. K. et al. Ultra-highly diluted plant extracts of Hydrastis canadensis and Marsdenia condurango induce epigenetic modifications and alter gene expression profiles in HeLa cells in vitro.J. Integr. Med13, 400–411 (2015)

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Benifits of Garlic

One Piece of Garlic in the Morning on Empty Stomach… See What Happens After That

Have you heard that consuming garlic on an empty stomach is really useful? Someone may think that only grandmothers think this is a good thing and only they can consume it. Nevertheless, this is very beneficial habit that can help you in more than one way. It is efficient when it comes to preventing as well as treating numerous diseases.
 
Many researches have been done on the topic of garlic consumption benefits. They have all showed that consuming garlic prior to eating or drinking anything will increase it power and this powerful natural antibiotic can start working. Do you know why it has higher efficiency when it is consumed before meal? The bacteria in your body are becoming overexposed to it and its antibiotic influence and cannot defend themselves.
B4INREMOTE-aHR0cDovLzIuYnAuYmxvZ3Nwb3QuY29tLy10SnI4SWhxOWRXdy9Wa1BUZkVDMEUxSS9BQUFBQUFBQXNVWS9QQXNCMXI0a21NTS9zNjQwLzNxZWFnYXJsaWMucG5n

Why is it Good to Eat Garlic on an Empty Stomach
 
It has been proven many times that garlic is good for relieving the symptoms of hypertension. It is also very useful for regulation of the blood circulation, for preventing many heart diseases and triggering the appropriate function of the liver and the bladder.
 
Garlic can also be of great help when it comes to certain stomach problems, including diarrhea. According to some, it also can have positive effects on some nerve problems, but only when it is consumed on an empty stomach, before breakfast.
 
Besides for diarrhea, garlic is also very beneficial for other stomach problems because it triggers appropriate digestion and it regulates the appetite. If you consume garlic, you will deal much easier with stress, and thus the stomach acid is going to be produced in lower amounts, since your body produces it mostly when it is under stress.
 
Garlic is well known for its advantages all over the world. Almost all people are aware how beneficial it is, and that is one of the reasons why people have started calling it “a healing food” many years ago.
Garlic And Alternative Medicine
 
Alternative medicine places the garlic at a high pedestal and considers it to be one of the most effective foods for detoxification of the body. Many medical practitioners from this area claim that garlic is so potent that can cleanse the body from worms and parasites, and can prevent many illnesses such as depression, typhus, diabetes, and even some cancer types.
 
If you happen to be allergic to garlic, never forget two things: never consume it raw, and if there is some skin outbreak, a headache or increased body temperature, stop consuming it immediately.
 
However, some studies have discovered that eating garlic can have side effects in patients that take pills for treating HIV/AIDS. In case you deal with these conditions, pay special attention and be very, very cautious. The first thing you should do before you start consuming garlic is to make sure that it is safe for you to consume it.
 
Even though it has strong flavor and aroma, you should consume it anyway and utilize its all health benefits. Instead of raw garlic, you can even use garlic supplements and utilize its benefits in this way.