“Help is on the way” is the last in the collage series about global warming. In the first collage, “There’s No Such Thing as Global Warming” I explored the blindness of many people who are denying scientific data on the upcoming man-caused apocalypse. They just indulge on the life’s pleasures without caring about the consequences. The second collage, “Fire vs Fire“, is a sarcastic view of how politics affect the fighting of the issue. If you look closely, the army men firing their guns against a global warming fire could also be seen as lighting up that fire! On this third collage, alternative means of power (e.g. wind, hence the use of balloons) are setting sail to help us alleviate the menace that’s getting closer and more destructive by the minute. But is it too late?

Title: “Help is on the Way”
License: Creative Commons BY 3.0/US. Click for 24″x24″ printable version. Credits in the EXIF metadata.

I think that I have finally understood why I don’t like most of that highly-lyrical/vocal music (e.g. Fiona Apple, Bob Dylan, Florence etc).

So, I was listening to Fiona Apple’s new album, which has gotten great ratings, and the whole meat of her music is really the lyrics. There’s little music to speak about, and the one that exists, usually gets muffed by the voice. When listening to the admittedly well-crafted poetic lyrics, I realized that it’s all about the internal angst of these human beings. For Fiona for example, her life was changed when she was raped at the age of 12. From then on, all her songs are about dealing with it even if the songs are not all very clearly about it. Not to be insensitive about it, but that’s the impression I get from that type of music: “me, me, me, look at me, look how I feel now, me, me, me”.

Well that kind of music just doesn’t represent me. And it’s not just about music, but movies and visual art too. I can’t stand dramas, for example. I can’t stand visual art where the artist reflects his inner struggles of who he is in every single painting.

GET OVER YOURSELVES, God damn it. The world is not just about you and your silly existential bullshit. You’re just an ant in the cosmic sea of creatures. Alone, you don’t matter. I don’t matter either. Together, we could, at some point, but alone, we aren’t.

This is why I prefer art that is about grand things, that deals with a society that are over and above their little problems, where the people have accepted who they are in the cosmos, and they’re working towards a better common future, rather than crying all day long about some abstract thing that they themselves don’t know what exactly it is. I mean, they should definitely sing about REAL societal problems (e.g. being alone in a city full of people, how money changes people etc), but when there’s some abstract “oh, I’m so sad right now, but I don’t know exactly why” type of bullshit, well, I’m just not interested in hearing that.

I’m not saying that the human psyche doesn’t matter at all, or that we shouldn’t sing about it, it’s just that when 95% of the music out there is about silly bullshit about depressed people with psycho-complexes, it irks me the wrong way. We should be looking at the future through art as a complete species, as a multiplicity, not as an adult individual who hasn’t accepted his/her place in the world yet.

Oneohtrix Point Never, Health, and John Maus are just some of the few artists that make sense in my mind. They make music sounding like it’s from 200 years in the future: where the WE matters a lot, and the ME matters less. And their music features actual music, rather than over-mixed, over-powering vocals.

I will be transitioning to a home-made toothpaste. Even on the low-carb hard-core Paleo/ketogenic diet, I still grow a bit of tooth plaque within a few months’ time. My goal is to not accumulate ANY plaque on my teeth ever again, to have fully re-mineralize my teeth (already healed ~80%), to have fully heal sensitivity in my front teeth (already healed ~70%), and to fix receding gum lines (healed only about ~10% so far — sorry for the ugly picture). Overall, my teeth are hundreds of times better than they used to be pre-Paleo (I used to have transparent teeth, I was *that* sick from nutrient malabsorption in the last 10 years), but they’re still not fully healed yet in the 9 months I follow the diet. Obviously, more radical steps are required.

I use a fluoride-free & SLS-free toothpaste, but the commercial ones are still not as optimal as they could be. I will be combining the following home-made paste with:
1. The Paleo diet ( + goat/sheep fermented dairy, primarily home-made goat kefir)
2. Some supplementation (primarily D3, Ω-3, Mg, K2 Mk4)
3. Flossing before going to bed
4. Soft-brushing 2-3 times a day (depending on how many times I eat a full meal).
5. Cut-down on snacking between meals as much as possible.

After searching for days on research papers and elsewhere online, I have decided on the following ingredients. Here’s the recipe in short, although I haven’t figured out the exact dosage yet, and obviously I don’t know if they chemically react together in a bad way or not (hopefully not):
– virgin, cold-pressed, unrefined coconut oil (anti-microbial, anti-fungal)
– CoQ10 Ubiquinol (capsule’s liquid, regenerates gums. Make sure it’s not Ubiquinone)
– concentrated Trace Mineral Drops (re-mineralization)
– calcium carbonate powder (abrasive agent)
– oregano oil (diluted, anti-microbial)
– aluminum-free baking soda (whitening, cleaning)
– vodka or ouzo (anti-microbial, taste – γεια μας!)
– sea salt (minerals, optional)
– peppermint oil (for its taste, optional)

Calcium carbonate should not be used every day, and baking soda should be used only a few times a month after you have reached the white color you desire.

While most of these ingredients are found in various home-made toothpaste recipes online, they are not all usually found in a single recipe. And the one ingredient largely missing from these “traditional” home-made toothpastes is Q10-ubiquinol. Anecdotal reports claim that the specific Ubiquinol form of Q10 can work magic on your gums & teeth (and wrinkles) when applied directly on them, and not just when ingested (I personally eat a lot of offal that contains Q10). Crack addicts have been using the trick for a few years now, to regenerate their gums and teeth!

I don’t have any cavities left, but I believe that with this whole protocol even small cavities can be fixed (big ones still require a dentist). I will be reporting again with my progress and findings about all this in 6 months time.

In other news, we had a great sashimi lunch with JBQ, in our balcony: 6 kinds of raw fish, and salmon eggs. I didn’t used to eat fish eggs, but now I’ll have to, in order to get enough vitamin K2 in the Mk-4 form (menaquinone-4). Apparently, chicken eggs don’t have as much Mk4 as goose, duck and fish eggs do. Grass-fed butter contains Mk4, but according to tests done to such commercial butters, depending on the batch and season, you get very different results about how much Mk4 they actually contain!

Mk4 specifically drives calcium to bones, hair, nails and teeth, instead of having that calcium calcifying our arteries. The Western diet is highly deficient of Mk4, while it’s abundant in hunter-gatherer societies. In fact, pregnant women there are fed preferentially foods containing MK4, as it’s the only K form that can reach the placenta and help the fetus grow a skeleton. Enough daily sun (D3), Mg, and Mk4 are the main reasons why hunter-gatherers don’t need dentists, they have larger and stronger teeth than we do, and they’re perfectly pearly-white, and in the correct shape.

And where do these “uncivilized” societies find the bulk of their K2 Mk4? Yes, there’s some in the offal of game, and some in fish roe, but the bulk comes from insects, and possibly also insect eggs & larvae worms. We either go back to eat what we’re evolve at eating, or we will die from diseases of “civilization”.

Well, either that, or we just need a shaman. 😛

Update, Feb 17th 2013: No new cavities, no plaque on this protocol. Works for me! Thanks to an orthododist, I found the reason of my receding gum on the specific tooth, pictured above: It’s not nutrition or bad hygiene to blame (as most of my older dentists claimed), but rather its neighbor tooth which is severely out of alignment, pulling the gum around it (it’s been doing that since I was 7 years old). To fix this, I’ll be putting braces this coming week!

Some of my plants this year. Unfortunately, my tarragon, sorrel, radishes, cilantro and some others were eaten by slugs just when they sprouted. Hover your mouse over the images to read what kind of plants these are. My crown jewels this year are in the last picture, beets and carrots.

With that new non-stick frying pan I can make some killer omelets. I usually use oyster mushrooms, but for my brunch today I used chopped sausage in it, and chopped green onions. I fried these in coconut oil. A few minutes later I added a small handful of spinach, a minute later I added two eggs with a a splash of milk (beaten together), and salt & pepper. Then I lifted the edges of the omelet a few times so most liquid gets cooked, while moving the pan in circular motion. Finally, I added blue cheese (soft goat cheese log is also great) on top. As long as the omelet is then left to cook enough underneath (another minute or so), in medium heat, it comes out easily from the pan in one piece (shake the pan forwards and backwards a few times to get the omelet to unstick). Yum!