Middle Class Fantasy

Baby Boomers grew up in a middle class culture and we all were taught to believe that the natural goal of any and all societies is to build and nurture an ever growing middle class. Rich and poor are Others to us. A normal life meant that if you were willing to work, you and your family could live in comfort and security. More importantly, that faith in your ability to attain and retain middle class comfort was supported by our government and our developing national culture of movies, books, magazines and most significantly radio and television.

(a reprise from 2012, updated in 2016, having added other herbs, foods, and supplements.)

I read news this morning about a new strain of Superbug that is plaguing India; the piece explains the NDM-1 gene and plasmids that allow easy bacterial mutations; more than I can fully grasp in a reading.  (The piece neglects to mention how much the same causes occur in the US, of course.)  But antibiotic-resistant bacterial strains other than MRSA seem to be brewing and causing increasing alarm among health care organizations.  Global pandemics are apparently not unlikely, and finding reliable cures in what they’re calling ‘a post-antibiotic era’ frightening at the very least.   Chief causes seem to be over-prescribed antibiotics, patients historically not having completed the prescribed round of antibiotics, and antibiotics in animal feed.

Every thread of creation is held in position by still other strands of things living.
-- Don McLean