September 11, 2011 - Posted by admin - 0 Comments
Dear Governing Board of the St Johns River Water Management District,
I am writing today in reference to Item 45 on the agenda of our September 13th meeting, related to the conservation easement status of an 7.85 acre parcel of land on the University of Central Florida campus known as the UCF Arboretum.
I hereby enter my formal opposition to the University of Central Florida’s request to lift a conservation easement on this land.
In 1995, the Board of Trustees mandated that this land be protected. In 2002, St Johns Water Management District deemed the land a conservation easement as mitigation for wetland impacts on other areas of campus. In 2004, Governor Jeb Bush ordered that UCF maintain and protect the Arboretum land as conservation.
In 2004, UCF bulldozed and mulched eight acres of Arboretum land in direct violation of its conservation easement. In 2006, UCF Board of Trustees approved a “World Gardens” installation with the Arboretum land in direct violation of the conservation easement. In 2008, UCF was fined for these violations by SJWMD and ordered to restore the land. Restoration plans were submitted in 2009, but progress interrupted in September 2010, when the university submitted a request to remove the conservation easement status of the Arboretum land, in exchange for conservation easement status of a parcel of land that the university already declared as conservation in their Master Plan.
The University has not demonstrated a sincere concern for practicing or teaching environmental conservation on its campus, or for including students, faculty or the community in decisions regarding the land it stewards. Further, it has failed to meet any guidelines for public process on this issue in altering the Campus Master Plan, with no public advertisement of this request, no public or student forum on campus to dialogue about concerns, and no regard for letters and petitions regarding the issue. Further, the St Johns River Water Management District has received over 1,700 letters and petition signatures from concerned students, alumni, staff, and community members in strong support of maintaining this land as a conservation easement.
The University should be an institution that sets an example for the rest of the community in environmental stewardship. As an institute of higher education, UCF should be more cognizant of rules and regulations, and should not be rewarded for its blatant disregard and quantifiable violations of easement restrictions and Governor’s Order rules
The UCF Arboretum is an important piece of land on the UCF campus, an environmental legacy and a living classroom. I oppose ALL efforts by the University to remove the status of conservation easement from the Arboretum, and urge you in your position on the Governing Board to vote at your September 13th meeting to uphold the 2002 and 2004 orders to conserve this land. Please take the time to review the hundreds of concerns submitted by our community to Mr Kirby Green, and take the community’s valuable input into consideration as your make your decision. It is my hope that your vote will ensure that the University is held accountable for its destruction and degradation of this land in violation of the 2002 conservation easement order, and further that the University begins restoration of these lands immediately, to return them to their natural state as a vibrant native Florida habitat.
Sincerely,
Emily Ruff, Director
Florida School of Holistic Living
June 18, 2011 - Posted by frank - 0 Comments
Traditional Chinese medicine ((TCM), especially acupuncture and herbal medicine have been addressing fertility issues throughout the millennia. Both infertile men and women in China and other East Asian countries have turned to these modalities to enable them to produce offspring. It is encouraging to see that these effective and natural fertility therapies are beginning to be accepted by the Western world. Acupuncture has for a long time been acknowledged to effectively treat many types of problems dealing with the mind and the body. However, only a few are aware of its potency to treat fertility problems.
TCM concepts are more metaphysical in nature and do not follow the empirical scientific method making acupuncture, which is part of TCM, difficult to study for Western researchers. This has led to a lot of skepticism from Western medical science about the professed benefits of acupuncture in treating a host of illnesses and disorders such as infertility. However, their skepticism seems to lead them nowhere as repeated resolution of physiological pain and some cases of infertility can be directly attributed to acupuncture treatment. For those women and couples who have literally come out empty using other fertility programs and treatments, trying out acupuncture for infertility in Orlando maybe the solution they are looking for.
Research has verified that regular acupuncture treatment from a qualified and experienced acupuncturist for two to three months has greatly increased the rate of success of achieving pregnancy for couples. Furthermore, continued regular treatment in the early phases of pregnancy prevents the chance of pregnancy complications from occurring during the gestation period. The bottom line is the birth of healthy and vibrant children made possible with a little help from acupuncture.
Even used as a supplementary therapy for other reproductive assisted programs such as frozen embryo transplantation, sustained acupuncture therapy can vastly improve the effectiveness of the program. Older couples also can have recourse to this wonderful therapy. Even some physicians have recommended acupuncture for couples frustrated at trying conventional programs. Sometimes acupuncture treatment has resulted in cures bordering in the miraculous.
There will always be skeptics for acupuncture; however, ongoing research will eventually track and verify how acupuncture works. Until then, the people whose mentality can be likened to those who believed the earth was square will keep on harping the myths regarding acupuncture. Not all truths and reality can be proven via the scientific method. By the fact that acupuncture has been used for thousands of years and still being used implies that it works.
Acupuncture treatment is only advisable in the early stages of pregnancy. Make sure to find Orlando acupuncturist who is licensed and board certified – and specializes in treating infertility.
April 3, 2011 - Posted by Victoria - 0 Comments
It most certainly is.
Beginning this year, a homeopathic doctorate is now being offered as a four-year doctoral program in Pheonix, Arizona. This doctorate, the first of its kind in the United States, will allow graduates to diagnose and treat illnesses with homeopathic medicine. Already found in countries such as Canada, India, and the United Kingdom, homeopathic colleges and hospitals are not unheard of. However, in the early 1990‘s homeopathy experienced a sharp decline in practice largely due to the increase in political power within The American Medical Association.
Homeopathic medicines have been FDA approved since 1938 but, until now, there have not been enough classes to educate physicians and nurses about homeopathic medicines proper use. The new four year homeopathic doctorate aims to fix just that, providing another way of increasing the practice of alternative medicine.
While homeopathic medicine is a specific form of holistic therapy, it should not be confused with holistic of herbal medicine. Although, the decline and steady rise of homeopathic medicinal practices is similar to what holistic medicine has experienced. Holistic medicine can only benefit from the growing amount of “green medical education” that is becoming available in the country.
As a step forward for integrative medical training in the US, creations of such institutions should reassure those practicing holistic health that changes are being made and a continued rise in the popularity of alternative medicine is taking place.
Reference:
“Larry Malerba, D.O. : Homeopathy College: Now You Can Get a Doctorate in Homeopathic
Medicine.” Breaking News and Opinion on The
Huffington Post. Web. 30 Mar. 2011.< http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-malerba/homeopathy-college_b_815188.html>.
January 21, 2011 - Posted by frank - 0 Comments
Moxibustion in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) is a treatment, normally an accompaniment for acupuncture, involving burning mugwort herb or moxa to enable healing. The moxa is either set on top of an acupuncture point and allowed to burn completely or is placed on the acu point, burned, but removed before it burns the skin. The former is called scarring and the latter non-scarring.
The purpose of moxibustion is to increase chi and blood flow to the sore area. This acts like an analgesic and enables fast
healing. A deficiency in kidney yang produces cold symptoms in the extremities, lack of energy and back pains. The heat which moxibustion generates addresses the imbalance by aiding kidney yin to generate more body heat.
It also good to eat warm fresh and cooked foods such as hot or warm soup to raise the body heat level when suffering from back pain. Protein-rich foods and carbohydrates are recommended as these foods generate high body heat or calories.
Symptoms of low back pain caused by cold damp weather usually manifests in the lumbar region where a heavy sensation and stiffness of the muscles are felt. There is limited range of motion of muscles in the back. Pain can radiate to the lower limbs (legs) and sometimes a cold feeling is felt in the affected area. The tongue has white, sticky and heavy coating and the pulse is deep and feeble, or deep and slow.
Low back pain caused by kidney deficiency usually manifests as pain and soreness in the lower back. The loins and knees feel limp and weak. A kidney-yang deficiency would manifest in cramp-like sensation in the lower abdomen and cold limbs. The tongue has pale-pink color and the pulse is deep and slow. The mouth and throat exhibit dryness, the face is flushed, and the chest has an uneasy feeling. The tongue is bright red with light coating, and the pulse is either weak or fast.
Orlando acupuncture and moxibustion treatment of low back pain starts by determining points from the Du and foot-Taiyang meridians. These meridians normalize the circulation of chi and blood. Acupuncture and moxibustion then are applied to cold-damp type of back pain. If deficiency of kidney yang is determined, needles are used with reinforcing method and moxibustion. If kidney yin is deficient, the reinforcing method is solely used.
A mixture of herbs is used for low back pain in conjunction with acupuncture. A concoction of Rehmania, dogwood fruit, dried Chinese yam, oriental plantain, poria and moutan bark is usually utilized.
To prevent low back pain, try not to live in cold damp places like a basement, apply warm bottle on the back as often as possible, rest, and do not carry a heavy load.
January 19, 2011 - Posted by Victoria - 5 Comments
In Fall 2010, the University of Central Florida Administration requested the conservation easement status be lifted from the eight acres of UCF’s main campus known as the Arboretum.
This tract of land has served as a teaching tool for students since 1968. In 2002, St John’s Water Management District issued that the tract of land be placed under conservation easement – meaning that it will be “retained in its existing natural condition” and protected from “any use of the Property that will impair or interfere with its environmental value.” This land was conserved as mitigation for destruction of natural wetlands on other areas of campus.
January 11, 2011 - Posted by Patty - 0 Comments
October 26th, 2010
08:45 AM ET
From CNN’s Dan Gilgoff:
Can people strengthen the brain circuits associated with happiness and positive behavior, just as we’re able to strengthen muscles with exercise?
Richard Davidson, who for decades has practiced Buddhist-style meditation – a form of mental exercise, he says – insists that we can.
And Davidson, who has been meditating since visiting India as a Harvard grad student in the 1970s, has credibility on the subject beyond his own experience.
A trained psychologist based at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, he has become the leader of a relatively new field called contemplative neuroscience – the brain science of meditation.
Over the last decade, Davidson and his colleagues have produced scientific evidence for the theory that meditation – the ancient eastern practice of sitting, usually accompanied by focusing on certain objects – permanently changes the brain for the better.
“We all know that if you engage in certain kinds of exercise on a regular basis you can strengthen certain muscle groups in predictable ways,” Davidson says in his office at the University of Wisconsin, where his research team has hosted scores of Buddhist monks and other meditators for brain scans.
“Strengthening neural systems is not fundamentally different,” he says. “It’s basically replacing certain habits of mind with other habits.”
Contemplative neuroscientists say that making a habit of meditation can strengthen brain circuits responsible for maintaining concentration and generating empathy.
January 10, 2011 - Posted by Patty - 0 Comments
By Bryan Walsh Monday, Dec. 06, 2010
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Wangari Maathai
Noor Khamis / Reuters
Environmentalism began as a religion. Certainly that’s how paleo-greens like John Muir, founder of the Sierra Club, would have seen it. Muir was awakened to nature when he first explored Yosemite in the 1860s, and he felt it in a religious way — he called what would become one of the nation’s first national parks “the grandest of all special temples of Nature.”
Muir’s biographer, Donald Worster, has written that Muir saw his mission as “saving the American soul from total surrender to materialism.” David Brower, a spiritual successor to Muir who would found Friends of the Earth, would say of his staunchest green allies that they had “the religion.” Environmentalism — rooted in nature and the outdoors — was an antidote to secular, technological modern life. (See TIME’s special report on the environment.)
Except it’s not quite that way anymore. As greens have pivoted to focus on climate change, the environmental movement has changed as well. It has become more wonky, focused on complex economic policies like cap and trade and new technologies like concentrated solar power. Its constituency has become more urban, more likely to be riding the subway than hiking the Sierra Nevada. The biggest event on the green calendar this year is the U.N. climate-change summit going on now in Cancún, Mexico, where international diplomats are jousting over protocols defining energy efficiency and technology transfer. Even one of the most promising subjects at Cancún — avoided deforestation, which allows tropical nations to be paid for keeping trees standing — turns a tree from something that should be valued for its own qualities into a living carbon bank. Not exactly romantic.
Wangari Maathai, for one, would like to change that. The Kenyan activist won a Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 — making her the first environmentalist to earn the award — for her work with the Green Belt Movement, a nonprofit that focuses on planting trees, conserving the environment and fighting for women’s rights. Now Maathai has a new book called Replenishing the Earth: Spiritual Values for Healing Ourselves and the World, and she’s preaching a green gospel. To Maathai, environmental work needs to be linked to spiritual values — and spiritual values should drive us to care about the environmentalism, contributing to what’s called in Judaism tikkun olam, the healing of the world. “We’ve become detached from nature,” Maathai told me recently during a trip to New York City. “And as you move away from nature, you become lost.” (See TIME’s “Heroes of the Environment 2009.”)
January 8, 2011 - Posted by Patty - 0 Comments
Kylie Sobel and Raquel Hecker
ABC News
January 5, 2011
Alyse Levine, Livestrong’s nutrition adviser, shared with ‘GMA’ the top superfoods for women. Levine has a master’s degree and is a registered dietitian.
She said women in their 20s need to have sustained energy throughout the day. Women in their 30s need to stay mentally alert at work throughout the day. As we age, we need to get more nutritional value out of the calories we consume. These superfoods, which are loaded with various nutrients, can help women live a long , healthy and full life.
August 20, 2010 - Posted by Patty - 0 Comments
By Kate Kelland Posted 2010/08/18 at 3:16 am EDT
LONDON, Aug. 18, 2010 (Reuters) — Mind-altering drugs like LSD, ketamine or magic mushrooms could be combined with psychotherapy to treat people suffering from depression, compulsive disorders or chronic pain, Swiss scientists suggested on Wednesday.
Research into the effects of psychedelics, used in the past in psychiatry, has been restricted in recent decades because of the negative connotations of drugs, but the scientists said more studies into their clinical potential were now justified.
August 20, 2010 - Posted by Patty - 3 Comments
“The additional fluoride from drinking two to four cups of tea a day won’t harm anyone; it’s the very heavy tea drinkers who could get in trouble,” said Dr. Gary Whitford, Regents Professor of oral biology in the School of Dentistry. He presented his findings at the 2010 International Association of Dental Research Conference in Barcelona, Spain.
Most published reports show 1 to 5 milligrams of fluoride per liter of black tea, but a new study shows that number could be as high as 9 milligrams.
Fluoride is known to help prevent dental cavities, but long-term ingestion of excessive amounts could cause bone problems. The average person ingests a very safe amount, 2 to 3 milligrams, daily through fluoridated drinking water, toothpaste and food. It would take ingesting about 20 milligrams a day over 10 or more years before posing a significant risk to bone health.
