Dash For Power

I hope you also enjoy this diamond of a story I  found involving early American naval history. It tells us more about life aboard ship on that first great and famed naval war vessel of the new America, the mighty USS Constitution. Fondly known as Old Ironsides, which became the legendary first great pride of America at sea. Old Ironsides was a new combat vessel that carried 48,600 gallons of fresh water for a crew of 475 officers and men, which was sufficient to carry them six months of sustained operations at sea. Old Ironsides carried no evaporators, which are fresh water distillers.

According to the ship’s log, “On July 27, 1798, the USS Constitution sailed from Boston with a full complement of 475 officers and men. Also on board were 48,600 gallons of fresh water, 7,400 cannon shot, 11,600 pounds of black powder and 79,400 gallons of rum.” Her mission was to destroy and harass English shipping. On July 27, 1798? History shows the War of Independence over, those Boston Yankees got all they wanted. Surely now, wewere all English speaking members of the same family and friends? Fuddy duddy old English might have thought the Revolutionary zeal was off the American bloom, now that the revolting Americans had their freedom. Eyes on Napoleon, they had given the store away over in America as France went insane, guillotine by head, by the thousands, for decades. Madness in the voice of liberty.

Meanwhile, ignoring all this madness, Old Ironsides and her 475 officers and men arrived in English held Jamaica on 6 October. They took on 826 pounds of flour and 68,300 gallons of rum. Then they headed for the Spanish held Azores, arriving there 12 November. The ship was provisioned with 550 pounds of beef and 64,300 gallons of Portuguese wine. On 18 November, they set sail for England. In the ensuing days they defeated five British men-of-war and captured and scuttled 12 English merchantmen, salvaging only the rum aboard each. By 26 January, their powder and shot were exhausted.

All while Napoleon while preparing his attacks on a hair trigger England, these clowns barf by, cannon shots, whether by Napoleon or Uncle Sam, not well received. Did a war happen in 1812? Why, you may well ask. I received the highest mark in my American high school in grade twelve, and we were not taught this. Only about British bully tactics, and the desire for Canada. Manifest Destiny, and all that. After the Canadians and British occupied “Fort Detroit, did we call it all a draw, and the Canadians went back over the river to Windsor. 1814. It happened.

Meanwhile, before it all came to that, Fort Detroit still freshly in American hands, and though unarmed, the mighty pirates from the USS Constitution, sobering up perhaps, made a night raid up the Firth of Clyde in Scotland. The landing party captured a whiskey distillery and transferred 40,000 gallons of single malt Scotch aboard by dawn. Then they headed home. The USS Constitution arrived in Boston on 20 February 1799, with no cannon shot, no food, no powder, no rum, no wine, no whiskey and 38,600 gallons of stagnant water. Sir Walter Raleigh would not have felt that their pirating was quite as wisely managed by these wild new drunks.

Like the US Fed Chairman, Sir Walter Raleigh, a very wiser pirate, would have taken the punch bowl away as the party was beginning to really get going. Diamonds, lads, not just puking over the side rails. Oh, say, can’t you see? No Sir, not while barfing at sea. Sigh. Now these less than diamond minds brought home no diamonds or riches. Instead, they had displayed that they knew how to drink and all throw up, heads down like ostriches as they barfed over the side rails.

And if there was a diamond brain in the lot at the beginning of that journey, he held a lump of coal for brains by the time they got back to Boston., No fusty old 1776 Boston tea party brilliance from these lads: half baked beans for brains by Boston town. Diamond mind John Adams was still alive, he would have thrashed them. His favorite distillery and they brought him not a drop. Those lumps of coal. Oh well live and advance. Sigh, sigh, sigh.

Two recent studies point to how since ancient times fermented alcohol, even wine and beer, were boiled and therefore often safer to drink than the watering hole where the cattle may have been.

It would have been noted through many periods of stomach sicknesses that those who drank beer and wine survived, while those who had imbibed the fresh water supply available may have picked up microbes, cholera, other dangerous pathogens. The tavern may have been the safest watering hole in town. “It’s possible that people who drank fermented beverages tended to live longer and reproduce more, than did their teetotalling peers”, says Patrick McGovern, an archaeological chemist at the University of Pennsylvania, “which may partly explain why people have a proclivity to drink alcohol”. This by Michael Kesterton in the Globe and Mail. So much for the why.

The how to excess flows from that naturally, as shown in the next study reported by Sharon Kirby in CanWest News from scientists at Toronto’s Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, with darker news about alcohol. We have all accepted the studies that report that a bottle of dark beer or glass of red wine is good for our heart and circulatory system. Which has us having heart healthy dinner parties where the wine, beers of all light colors and hard alcohol flows, and flows. These are not candidates to age well, if at all. Tim Stockwell, of the Centre for Addiction Research of British Columbia in Canada says, “moderate drinking is a sign of good health, not a cause of it”, citing a recent Australian study, and other.

Stockwell adds “Some studies have indicated the maximum benefit is half a drink a day for women, and one and a half a day for men”. People don’t hear that. [what they hear] is that glugging a bottle or two of red wine at a sitting is probably good for you. And that’s a huge propaganda coup for the people making this stuff”. Cirrhosis, irreversible destruction of liver cells that was once only seen in elderly is now found growing in those between 25 to 34. These risks increase for cancers to the larynx, pharynx, esophagus, liver, colon and rectum. For women it seems alcohol related cancers kick in at fairly moderate levels of consumption.

So party, but not so hardy, and with less volume of poisoning ethanol, the buzz in booze that could be sending you to pain and the beyond i so many ways too soon. Studies show that after two beers we are more agreeable to give a painful electric shock to anyone who annoys us. Who was that respected doctor in London who drank some evil potion and then turned into a terrible monster- well, apparently after two beers, every lout of us, each and every one, as Tiny Tim might have said. And then one of us would have taser’ed him.
So, be good, be wise, be aware.
Derek Dashwood

• New study shows how you may lower your risk of kidney cancer with strong beer and red wine.

• Reuters reports on a recent study in the British Journal of Cancer , Dr. Alicja Wolk from the Karalinska Institute, Stockholm, and colleges investigated the association of different types of alcoholic beverages, and of total alcohol consumption with the risk of kidney cancer. This study was in a large population-based study in Sweden, involving 855 subjects with kidney cancer and 1,204 “controls” without cancer. They reported their alcohol consumption in terms of standard portion size- a glass of beer being 200 milliliters, a glass of wine being 100 ml, and a glass of strong wine or hard alcohol equal to 40 ml.
• The investigators rated the alcohol content of different beverages: medium-strong beer had 2.8 grams alcohol per 100 g, red wine had 9.9 g per 100 g, and hard liquor 32 g alcohol per 100 g.
• Our note in this study is that again, in one more study, from another aspect of science, researchers have found that the darkest fruits and vegetables are that way because they have the greatest amount of nutrients from the earth.
• The team found that the odds of developing kidney cell cancer was about 40 percent lower among those who consumed 620 g dark un-distilled ethanol per month, compared with those who did not drink at all. But this 40 percent lowered cancer risk was only associated with strong beer or red, then white wine consumption.
• In contrast, there was no relation between kidney cell cancer risk and consumption of light beer, medium-strong beer, strong wine, or hard liquor.
• Their conclusion is that strong beer and wine consumption may be due to the phenolics they contain, as these possess antioxidant and anti-mutative properties, the authors speculate.

This is the first conclusive evidence of what, and precisely how much, red wine, some white wine, and strong beer should be a part of our happy family celebrations. Here’s to your health!

Derek Dashwood

Optimism can be still applied against Cancer by searching and acting on known and new cancer fighters.

• Optimists have been writing alarmed letters to editors that the media should not have reported the findings that optimists with cancer do not appear to extend their lives over pessimists with cancer. We disagree. Every advance in knowledge allows us to stand on the shoulders of that knowledge and see that little bit further ahead.

• So, now that we know that sitting in a corner with a smiley face, or a frown, makes not a wit of difference, we turn to the cancer itself and what is feeding it. Cancers are cells that have run amok. But now, and every month, millions more scientists and researchers search for further cancer fighting drugs or elements in plants. More and more cancers have now been identified in their specific characteristics, and we unravel mysteries about what triggers a healthy cell to turn against it’s host and begun a process of attacking your body. And we think the optimist and pessimist should apply their every fibre and being to read up, learn about their specific cancer, and act on the knowledge they find to fight the devil within in them, hard.

• The cancers that attack our plumbing, for instance, shrivel when attacked by the resveratol in purple grape juice, and now we know even more by the darkest red wine Cabernet Sauvignon. The cabernet grape leaf is the most successful of all grape leaves in how it attacks cancers that attack the leaf and cause it shrivel. It is this benefit also attacks any cancerous polyps through your plumbing, from mouth to goodbye. You can bottle Cabernet Sauvignon, and we are checking our sources to bring you truly life enhancing products, and you might experiment which Cabernet Sauvignon, or Merlot wines, will put of glow in your eye, while you feel them work their good works through you. in some jurisdictions, and make sure you are having your glass of red wine amply. All dark vegetables and darkest fruits would also be on your eating list. And as many walks as you can get in, to keep all those cancer fighting elements to circulate into every corner of your precious body, down to recycling the blood in you from toes to brain.

• Other cancers are equally documented on what drugs and plants anti oxidants you should consume to attack that cancer.

• All this in addition to any medical and surgical treatment you may be going through. Check with your doctor, and we can virtually assume your good doc will agree with you, that you taking every part of your health regimen through this as possible will increase your odds of living closer to your normal years of life. Everything from flossing to driving a motorcycle will also affect that: take care. See you on the walking path by the lake.

• It may not be Pollyanna who lives longer than Grumpy; but we still suspect that a well read, healthy eating lifestylke Pollyanna, once she stops crying that her smile won’t cure the cancer, might hear this and go to her computer and begin to read, read read and practice to eat only the dark foods, and walk, wsalk, walk. So could Grumpy, but with his give it up attitude, we fear that Grumpy goes sits in his corner, arms folded, and says, well, that’s it, then. Polly, grab Grumpy up to dance, and feed him a plum, a glass of red Cabernet Sauvignon wine.

• So, all you Grumpys, and you Pollyannas (wave from me), lettuce use our Brains to conquer the Cancer. It not, we died fighting.

Derek Smiles but Reads and eats plums and drinks red wine Dashwood

Well, it will soon, most likely. University of Guadalajara researchers found that a main plant extract-blue agave- to make tequila- can pass through stomache acids without being destroyed. The hope is that doctors will be able to use blue agave as a vessel for delivering colon-cancer drugs more effectively. Human trials are planned. Aunt Agatha has booked us two tickets to Guadalajara and has phoned the University of Guadalajara to offer us as research candidates, although I rather fear her Spanish for colon cancer tequila drinkers may have us cleaning up after the monkeys. Well will keep you posted. For now, we add, most strangely if you had a disapproving aunt about liquor, as was Aunt Agatha`s spinster sister Prunella, now long gone, never touched a drop of the devils liquor. Serves her right.

Here`s to us, Tequila Sheila. Meet you at the border. Derek blue agave sombrero Dashwood and your Dash for Power Team

If you drink red wine 3 glasses a week you reduce your risk of Colon Cancer by 68%.

• This in July/August 2007 Men’s Health, from the American College of Gastroenterology. What can we say, but “bottoms up”? There have been many studies which point to how, most of all, the French Cabernet Sauvignon is most powerful, again the darkest purple grapes, and leaves that fight off wind blown cancers; this powerful antioxidant quality is passed to the grape, increased somehow in it’s fermentation process enough that red wine is healthier than the grapes it came from.

Here’s to your very good health. Derek Dashwood and your Dash for Power Team

Red wine packs double the cancer fighting flavenoids called resveratrol as purple grape juice.

This prevents platelets in the blood from sicking together: so, ounce for ounce, red wine has twice the flavenoids of grape juice, says James Stein, M.D., a cardiologist and associate professor at the University of Wisconsin Medical School.

Another discovery in the fermentation process, which may also relate to how berries in not only fermented, but also pure distilled alcohol such as vodka, to create in the berry a more potent anti oxidant. How is this happening? I’m not sure we know, but we are learning it is true. Joy to the world! IF we cut down on the unhealthy white flour and white sugars, then off we go to Aunt Agatha’s Blackberry Vodka Punch: we call one drink ”One Round With Jack Dempsey”. But once you’ve got it down, all that power, you wake up more like Jack, than that Woose you were. Let’s try some of Aunt Agatha’s Blackberry Vodka and her Cabernet sauvignon wine. We’ll have to call you Super Jack.

Here’s to your health !

Derek Dashwood and your Dash for Power Team

People who work out and exercise on a regular basis loose weight and keep it off.

Those participants in this University of Pittsburgh study who broke their schedules, or snuck unhealthy snacks sabotaged their workouts. So, we know of the many foods that cause you to lose weight, mentioned in our food sections, the purples, blues, reds, orange, yellows. So have your plate of blueberries, fresh or frozen, a good supply in your larger freezer if required, so you combine your rum or vodka to create superpower blackberries or strawberries. They only tested soakin those two berries with vodka or rum. This in Sept 2007 Men’s Health. So until you walk up a sweat, get on your new little exercise machine and sweat for your life.

Our aunt Agatha gets her exercise, sometimes chasing Brown the gardener across the yard for stealing her tart cherry tree droppings: she has kept them stored in vodka bottles for years. She knew of this before the researchers did that alchohol increase the potency of blackberries and strawberries. I suggested to Aunt Agatha that we test the other berries, so she has begun searching under neighbor’s trees for droppings for more research. That same thing she still chases Brown her gardener away from her tart cherry tree. Ah well, she’s 93, and more likely than any of us to get that 100th birthday card from the Queen. (No, of England, silly, not of San Francisco).

Derek Dashwood and your Dash for Power Team

Drink wine rather than water with your meal to keep your blood sugar level even.

When Australian scientists served adults white wine after a high carb dinner, they observed that the drink significantly reduced the glycemic index of the meal. That is, their blood sugar levels didn’t rise as much after the meal as when they drank water instead after, Men’s Health reports. Compared with beer and gin, white wine offers the most benefits, and more than if they had consumed water after the meal. Some times, some news comes along that one just has to share.

The high acidity of white wine may help slow digestion, keeping sugar from entering your bloodstream too quickly. I assume the tests were with superb Australian white wines, am thinking we should re-test this study, perhaps with a California white wine? An Okanagan white wine and some from Chilean white wine? The research continues, more on thish soon…

Smiles. Derek Dashwood and your Dash for Power Team, somewhere in Napa Valley and losht. So Letsh go over to Sonoma and see how their wines are thish year? Perfect, as usual, I am sure. Lucky Aunt Agatha ish driving.

Hit the road Jack, and don’t you come back,till you learn to back pack,not your feet out the window, swigging whiskey jack

• It has now been 50 years since Jack Kerouac, that French Canadian boy from www.Lowell.com, near wonderful, historic, haughty www.Boston.com , published his www.ontheroad.com story of his early 1950’s road trip across America to discover himself, and his homeland, America. Hitching rides, Jack arrived in www.SanFrancisco.com to begin his journey down the road to us. And now, Jack is being lionized and finally the statue he promised to dance naked in front of has been placed in www.lowell.com but only after it was confirmed Jack was well laid to rest. For his look into the realities of America’s explosive growth and coming of age after World War 11,
• Jack questioned whether America had the wisdom to become the new moral center for the world, wth the newly built United Nations building on land donated by the Rockefeller family on the East River in www.newyorkcity.com, and guided by brain trusts from the www.Boston.com intellectual center of America around www.harvard.com and www.yale.com and the so called Anglo Saxon Democratic www.AdamSmith.com timeless economic logic in values with www.America.com as lead to www.Briain.com and Churchill, always www.Canada.com , www.Australia.com and www.NewZealand.com in debate against the more centrally planning Europeans, then Dictator states in Asian except America’s www.AngloSaxon values instilled into rebuilding defeated warrior states Germany and Japan, and the always iron curtain Russians, Brutal Dictators in charge of Africa and South America in the 1950’s.
• Against this backdrop, and in search of himself and his country, Jack questioned, was America the mature civilization to educate the world? Mostly, for decades, it has been, and again will be. Jack knew he was his own worst enemy.
• In this article, given the half century between Jack’s On the Road and ours, it might be interesting to compare and contrast a self destuctive genius of his times who punished his body with excess and die much too young; and ourselves, maybe not as brilliant but more in tune with nature and our natural bodies need for nurturing daily, hourly.

It wasn’t just demon rum that killed Jack, but an entire mind and body set of its age, drink, late nights and smoke had no consequences

• Think of the boozy, wonderful www.RatPack.com of www.hollywood.com who would fly over for shows in the now gone www.Sands.com in www.lasvegas.com that we would only see later on TV if we lived in www.losangeles.com. , or anywhere else.

• I have lived near www.disneyland.com and still enjoy it, and I have only been to www.lasvegas.com once: I will go back, and was overwhelmed at the grandness of the architecture, the www.RatPack.com buildings going down and America’s Forever Entertainment Center www.lasvegas.com just keeps growing. Their new intown residential towers, ideas from www.Vancouver.com and Europe, are creating a lived in city feeling essential to a normal day and night routine. Well done, www.lasvegas.com people notic.

• Other videos for our workout, go there when we have earned it, are at least with www.disney.com east or west. In www.lasvegas.com, you know now to go for the shows, walk in amazement for hours, enjoy the weather year round and walk walk walk. As we allow self discipline to become our comfortable habits, we can relax and enjoy while we stay cautious in our behavior, warm and respectful to others, content with ourselves and how we are progressing, both in our bodies, our minds, our good sense of friendshhips and family, we enjoy control within ourselves, and we feed ourselves healthy, we will have fun working to get perfect again.

In Keruoac’s mad essays, he reads so pure in thought, like Einstein: see each issue as if nothing can be assumed-

• Seriously examine every piece of the puzzle, turning, examining until it eventually reveals itself. Kerouac states: “Begin not from preconceived idea of what to say about image but from jewel center of interest in subject of image at moment of writing, and write outwards swimming in a sea of language to peripheral release and exhaustion.”

Einstein or Keruoac, us or JFK inaugural poet www.RobertFrost.com, “the road not taken can make all the difference”

• Well, four of us buddies rented a great little car from www.avis.com in www.lasvegas.com and drove over to www.HooverDam.com and took part of www.Route66.com - great fun, ghost town, wild burros, roadrunner-from www.Kingman.com in www.Arizona.com over to www.Needles.com in www.California.com and then up through www.laughlen.com in www.nevada.com on your way back to www.lasvegas, a very full, fun day trip.Lunch in www.kingman.com right on www.route66.com at www.mrD’sdiner.com and you will take a trip back into the 50’s. I had a Jimmie Dean burger and bought souveniers in www.mrD’sdiner.com while we pushed coins in the jukebox. Guys with big guns. No coyote, though. I bought my www.route66.com license plate cover there.
• Now with your new www.panasonic.com or www.toshiba.com Flatscreen TV on the wall, positioned directly to face you on your new www.bowflex.com or other machine you choose. This is your Pooh Corner, your Power Place, your Meditation Corner. Click on the www.toshiba.com, - asI did recently with my new www.toshiba.com laptop- put on some travel videos you have recorded from TV.
• This is the huge exeption to no TV watching, is fly the world, every favorite place while you work up a sweat,. back at your own www.bowflex.com Home Gym, it’s row row row your boat, gently down the stream- We are going to hit the road, Jack. And unlike you, we’re going to break a sweat, the gals will glow, before we hit the shower-which we bet you rarely did. Jack, you would have had another cig, coughed, swigged and shrugged to watch us moderns climb into the cockpit of our new www.bowflex.com “jet new all body exercise machine”,
• While we work up a sweat on our www.bowflex.com , our www.panasonic.com or www.toshiba.com FlatScreen and little DVD player, also from www.Panasonic.com , which will take us on video trips through the www.grandcanyon.com as we put on our “Blue Lagoon theme, flights over lagoons in the www.bahamas.com or the www.caymenislands.com for peace and bliss, or ride the cable cars in www.sanfrancisco.com , hang with the surfers in www.losangeles.com, measure your foot to someone more famous, but with smaller feet than you and feel great in www.hollywood.com or www.disney.com for more excitement. But remember to pace yourself, before and after snack, some www.Naturespath.com with more berries and nuts, proboitic yogurt, 1% milk, your whey powder, flaxseed oil. Snack hearty.
• Jack, you ain’t coming back, but you would find we have evolved so much more than you could ever hoped to have started and you had some input into that, bro. Rest easy. Our next On the road may be in our ultra www.bowflex.com with our flatscreen www.Panasonic flights and go visit anywhere- how about www.NewYorkCity.com or www.harvard.com but when it’s chilly more likely www.bahamsa.com or www.camenislands.com, or why not www.disney.com in either www.florida.com or www.california.com and enjoy. I’ll be there to get you in a taxi, honey. When we slip out of our exercise jets, click off the travel channel, people, and we-notice we are close to perfect! We could treat ourselves, as the budget permits to a real trip to one, or any of these wonderful places. I looked up www.Buick.com and bought the most gorgeous Burgundy Cross Over Buick Rendevous, seats 8, 3 great rows of seats, great mileage. I bought the best deal, as shown n the net, in my area: you c,ould too: try the best deal in your area, this Buick was half the price of its Japanese counterparts: I love it, try www.Buick.com and narrow down to your city or state or province. I’d love to drive to Vegas. Or if we fly as reward for the practice sweaty flights, we may again rent a www.avis.com car and we’ll see you at the fair.
• So, with what we’ve learned, we will hit the road, the track, our www.bowflex.com power gym, our www.sunburst.com Organic Optimum Power Flax Soy Blueberry Cereal from www.naturespath.com and many power foods, our in bed by ten, no falling into bed as the sun is rising; and Jack we’ll be back. We will seem like the Governator to ya. We’ll be kind, listen to you cough and tell your stories.
• Smiles, Derek and the Power Team