Smear merchants lie through their teeth about people like me who want
to help others so their bosses can stay in power to help themselves.
Partisan bickering will not solve our problems. We need outside-the-box
ideas that help liberals, conservatives, and everyone else get more of what
they want. Requires pixie dust? Impossible? No. Read an example of how
we could make government affordable without penalizing anyone.

Kevin Pezzi, MD

The Singing Surgeon™
I'm part Native American and revere natural health,
so should I also call myself a Medicine Man, too? :-)

Iconoclastic views on economics, politics, technology, science, and life

I'm a PBS mind in an MTV World

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

NOTE: Several family members were brutally slaughtered recently, so I will take a break from writing. Their deaths erased my affinity for writing about politics or the economy, thus I'll later limit myself to health and brainpower in addition to completing my book on rapidly overcoming racism and bigotry. BTW, the two men who murdered my father are still on the lam; I am offering up to $100,000 for information leading to their arrest and conviction.

FOX's Dr. Jennifer Ashton: She's a fox, but no Einstein

I recently saw Dr. Jennifer Ashton on FOX delivering what I thought was an unjustified minimalization of the importance of nutrition. I wondered if she had some financial incentive to say what she did, or if she were too busy staring in the mirror to learn more before she opened her mouth and misled the viewers on FOX who might assume that she really knows what she is talking about because she is a doctor. Dr. Ashton is exceptionally attractive, and she evidently wants potential patients to know that, because her web site currently features a slide show with various large pictures of her. I wondered, “Is she a doctor? Or a model?” She's a doctor, alright, but I doubt that she graduated at the top of her class. If she did, why didn't she know the facts that I mentioned in my message to her? (see below) I don't understand how any doc who knew that info could give the report that she did.

I would be thrilled if Dr. Ashton were ethical enough to send a resignation letter to FOX in which she said the following:

“I am not the smartest doctor in the world, nor am I the most knowledgeable. I am, however, arguably the most attractive female physician on Earth, which is likely why you chose me over other candidates who have better brains but uglier bodies. While I appreciate your confidence in my ability to spellbind viewers, especially men, as a doctor I know that health is too important of a topic to have health presentations on your channel given by anyone except the best and the brightest. I am smart, but not the smartest, so please accept this resignation and, for heaven's sake, please stop pandering to the people who value beauty over brains.”

I discussed the Attractive Expert Syndrome on one of my web sites, explaining why society is almost invariably harmed when the selection criteria for experts includes their appearance.

Here is the message I sent to her:

I saw your report on vitamins this morning on FOX, and I am alarmed by your overall message. Are you aware of the prevalence of genetic mutations producing apoenzymes with decreased coenzyme binding affinity, as evidenced by their increased Michaelis constant (Km)? Are you aware that administering high doses of the vitamin component of the coenzyme can remedy or ameliorate about 50 (and likely far more) human genetic diseases by at least partially restoring enzyme activity? (Incidentally, this therapy is also useful in other cases, including polymorphisms that heighten disease risk, when a mutation affects the coenzyme binding site of the apoenzyme.) Did you know that a substantial percentage of people are affected by polymorphisms? Do you ever take complete dietary histories on patients? I've done this, which has given me remarkable insight into the junk that most people eat. I know that you must be a very busy person (aren't all doctors? :-), so here is a simple way to assess average nutritional intakes without any extra expenditure of time: Just look at what people buy in supermarkets! Many people obtain a substantial percentage of their daily caloric intake from refined sugars and foods that provide little nutritional value.

I've done enough TV and radio interviews myself to know that the need to give a "Cliffs Notes" version of the facts necessitates that the presentation be brief and therefore often lacking in essential information, so I am doing my best to not be overly harsh in judging your presentation today. However, it seemed to me that you had enough time to give a more balanced presentation than what you did.

I attended a medical school that stressed nutrition, yet even though I graduated in the top 1% of my class, I still think that I learned little about that subject — which is really just applied biochemistry and physiology. I've since worked hard to remedy that gap in my knowledge, so I likely know far more about this subject than an average physician, who'd probably say, "Michaelis what?" The more I learn, the more I realize that the average American diet does NOT provide optimal amounts of all vitamins and minerals at all times, nor does it provide optimal amounts of various phytochemicals that are conducive to health. I typically spend an hour every morning studying this subject. After years of doing it, I have acquired thousands of articles which bolster my case that average Americans could benefit greatly from improved nutrition in general — not just the few nutrients you singled out. If you disagree, I'd love to debate you. The loser pays $10,000 to the winner's favorite charity. Deal? :-)

Evidently not. She never responded.

So, FOX, how about replacing that fox with someone who knows more?

Notes:

Just one of many thousands of articles I could cite that demonstrates the importance of nutrition: Adaptive dysfunction of selenoproteins from the perspective of the triage theory: why modest selenium deficiency may increase risk of diseases of aging
And another one: researchers found “that when mothers are even moderately undernourished while pregnant and breastfeeding, their offspring are consistently found to be prediabetic before adolescence.” (Link to original article)
'Rare' Genetic Variants Are Surprisingly Common, Life Scientists Report based on An Abundance of Rare Functional Variants in 202 Drug Target Genes Sequenced in 14,002 People
Rare Genetic Variants Create 'Synthetic' Genome-Wide Signals of Disease Risk* based on Rare Variants Create Synthetic Genome-Wide Associations and Common Disease, Multiple Rare (and Distant) Variants
*Excerpt: “Scientists at Duke University Medical Center say they are now convinced that rare genetic variants—as opposed to more common ones—lie at the heart of the genetic component of most common diseases.”
Rare and Common Genetic Variations Responsible for High Triglyceride Levels in Blood based on Excess of rare variants in genes identified by genome-wide association study of hypertriglyceridemia

Kevin Pezzi, MD

FOX's Dr. Jennifer Ashton: She's a fox, but no Einstein

Notes:

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