®I)E Cjiarlotte ^nut
RELIGION/5B
Moderate and liberal
baptist try to distance
themselves from the
conversative Southern
Baptists.
THURSDAY, JULY 5, 2007
SECTION B
Does Bayer
have an
Aspirin garden
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
A few weekends ago while per
forming a health screening down
town, a young guy challenged the
validity and logic behind a quote,
which I always post in front of our
booth: on a wipe-board. “The aspirin
tree” quote, written by Dr. B.J.
Palmer, is best summarized as: "If
God intended for us to need aspirin,
He would have created an aspirin
tree.” This guy argued that God DID
create the aspirin tree. He argued
that aspirin is derived from the
white willow tree. This guy was
smart, and almost right. The active
ingredient in aspirin, acetylsalicyiic
acid, is a chemical alteration of the
active ingredient in the bark from
the white willow tree is salicin -
which is a totally different com
pound.
This guy still missed the big pic
ture. God DID make the willow tree,
and from it, when the inner bark
from the tree is infused to make a
tea, the benefits from it include re
ducing aches, pains and fevers.
However. Bayer, the company that
manufactures aspirin, does not have
an orchard full of white willow trees
on their property to make their as
pirin pills! The man-made synthetic
drug, Aspirin, is NOT and exact copy
of what was created in nature...
therefore does nott help your body
the same way the original plant that
God created.
When you take an active ingredi
ent directly from nature and con
sume it unmodified, your bodies
know exactly how to metabolize it.
The moment “man" chemically al
ters the natural active ingredient
that God created: it is no longer me
tabolized safely in your body
Symptoms such as high blood pres
sure, headaches and high fevers
may be helped, but aspirin, over
time will damage and destroy other
organs in our body it was NOT in
tended for (liver failure, kidney fail
ure, centra! nervous system toxicity,
stomach ulcerations).
Plain and simple, pharmaceutical
drugs are not designed to heal and
restore maximum health - they are
only designed to mask symptoms of
dysfunction in your body. To get to
the root cause of why your body is
malfunctioning (hint: it’s not from a
lack of medication), first look for
problems in the one system that
controls ALL body function - the
nervous system.
Refuse to settle with masking your
symptoms for the rest of your life.
Dr. Brent Maxwell is a chiropractor
at Lifespring Chiropractic in Char
lotte.
10215-A Hickorywood Hill Ave,
Huntersville, NC 28078
tel:704.947.2902 fax:704.947.2910
AT EASE WITH
JANINE DAVIS
By Chens F. Hodges
cheris.hodges'@ftiechortoftepost.com
WPEG morning show co
host Janine "JD” Davis maybe
known as the “Diva with the
Dirt" and the lone female
voice on No Limit Larry’s
Morning Madhouse, but when
she has some spare time, call
her the shop lady.
“I shop every week,” she
said. "I need to stop.”
But Davis, who also runs the
non-profit Girl Talk, said
shopping is relaxing and the
more stressed she is, the
more money she spends.
"If I’m feeling a little
stressed, 1 spend a little bit of
money. But if I’m really
stressed, I spend a lot of
money,” she said.
Some of her favorite stores
include Aileen’s in South End,
Lotus and Boris and Natasha’s
in Plaza-Midwood.
“1 like very eclectic clothes,”
she said.
So don’t look to find JD
shopping for Apple Bottoms.
“Nah, boo,” she said. "That
ain’t me.”
PHCTO/CALVIN FERGUSON
WPEG personality Janine Davis: Shop ‘til you drop.
Cost keeps college out of reach
for many minority students
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
CLEMSON, S.C. —Cost is one of the top barriers cited
as a reason South Carolina’s largest colleges ^
and universities have trouble in
creasing their percentages ol
black students.
Across the state as a whole,*
blacks made up 28 percent off
campus enrollment in 2005 andf
30 percent of the state’s popu- .
lation, according to a new reportj
released by the Southern Regionj
Education Board.
But at the state’s research cam-''
puses, such as Clemson University,^
the numbers are lower. At Clemson,
Please see COST/3B
THE CREATURE FEATURE:
Rats in your home? Don’t shriek
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Twitchy whiskers. And that long naked tail.
To you it says "vermin,” maybe, but if you live
with a pet rat, that's the look of true love.
Rat owners are passionate about their pets. And
maybe they have to be, considering how the rest of
the world feels about them.
Janet Crystal of Cambridge, Mass., says part of
why she loves rats is “because they’re the under
dog. I’ll show someone a picture and they'll say,
‘Oh that’s cute, is that a hamster?’ I tell them it’s a
rat and then they say ‘eeuw.’ The picture didn’t
change.”
Crystal currently has six rats, and has had a total
of 23 in the past six years. All of them came from
animal shelters, which “often have them in the
back because they're very hard to place, because
people think they’re icky,” she says.
But icky is the last word Crystal would use.
"They are, if 1 only had one word to use, it would
be sweet,” says Crystal. “They are incredibly affec
tionate.”
Prejudices are hard to overcome—no one ex
pects Disney’s new "Ratatouille” to send people
rushing to pet stores as if rats were tiny Dalma-
tions —but others second Crystal’s opinion. Vet
erinarian Kimberly Somjen, of Ringoes, N.J.,
started Kim’s Ark Rat Rescue while an undergrad
uate in college.
“More than most other small pets you can have,
rats are much like small dogs in the sense that they
WANT to be with their family all the time, and love
human contact,” she says.
The words '' sweet” and ‘' cute” may seem out
of place. But domestic rats don’t act like street
rats—as Crystal says, '' It’s like comparing a dog to
a wolf”—and they don’t look like them either.
Breeders have come up with many variations: dif
ferent colors and coat types, and dumbo rats,
whose ears are lower on the sides of their heads.
Good breeders select for temperament also, but
the personality of the rat is resilient enough to
shine through in less fancy specimens as well.
Sarah McCarthy of Davison, Mich., unable to locate
a breeder, bought two baby feeder rats at a pet
store—saving them from being a meal for a pet
snake.
“When I come home from class they run to the
walls of the cage and jump up and hold onto the
bars with their little paws and I’ll scratch their tum
mies and ears,” says McCarthy.
If you only know rats as pests, you may wonder
how anyone ever thought to keep them as pets. But
many of their natural qualities made rats suitable
for domestication. In fact, you have more in com
mon with rats than you might realize.
Aaron Blaisdell, professor of psychology at UCLA,
studies cognition in rats and pigeons.
Please see RATS/3B
SURVEY:
Fewer Americans see kids as key to good marriage
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NEW YORK —The percentage of Americans who
consider children "very important” to a successful
marriage has dropped sharply since 1990, and more
now cite the sharing of household chores as pivotal,
according to a sweeping new survey.
The Pew Research Center survey on marriage and
parenting found that children had fallen to eighth
out of nine on a list of factors that people associate
with successful marriages— well behind "sharing
household chores,” "good housing,” "adequate in
come,” a "happy sexual relationship” and "faithful
ness.”
In a 1990 World Values Survey, children ranked
third in importance among the same items, with 65
percent saying children were very important to a
Please see FEWER/3B
O0O
MENTAL illness:
The
silent
killer
Nationally, poverty is increas
ing, the percentage of displaced
workers is increasing, high
school graduation rates are
dropping, and emotional dis
tress in the home is growing at
alarming rates. In the black com
munity, the social stigma of
mental illness represents a
major obstacle. Unfortunately,
people are not getting help for
their mental health needs. The
black community has histori
cally maintained a distant rela
tionship with understanding,
addressing, and advancing
knowledge about mental health
care. It is not surprising that,;
mental health continues to have.
low priority in communities of
color. Mental health is no less .
important than physical health, •
but both need to have higher pri
ority. The continuing absence of
discussion on mental health in
the black family and larger com
munity threatens the society’s
health and wellness.
Although the month of May is
designated as Mental Health
Awareness month, mental health
is relevant 365 days a year.
Around the country, and particu
larly in the black community,
there is growing frustration and
confusion about the vanishing
social resources, the widening
chasm between the ‘haves and
have-nots’ and the increasing
psychological perception of
powerlessness. And while there
I is growing acceptance and
progress on several topics in the
black community, including fi
nancial literacy, social mobility,
economic prosperity, social in
justice. and cultural identity,
mental health awareness contin
ues to be the proverbial “strange
uncle living in the attic.” The ab
sence of a mental health move
ment in the African-American
community is a likely link to our
high-risk health behaviors and
increasing prevalence of
chronic, life-threatening dis
eases that compromise the func
tionality of our family systems.
Conditions such as depression,
anxiety (worry/"nerves”), bipolar
disorder, and ADHD affect our
grandparents, parents, aunts
and uncles, sisters and brothers,
children, nieces, nephews, and
friends alike. And yes, the sister
or brother sitting in church
every Sunday is experiencing
psychological distress but is un
comfortable and/or ashamed to
seek support to address their
mental health potentially linked
to the fear of being “found out.”
The effectiveness of mental
health treatments is well docu
mented, and there are a range of
treatments to address mental
health difficulties. Unfortu
nately, however, the black com
munity has historically
maintained a distant relation
ship with understanding, ad
dressing, and advancing
knowledge about mental health
care. Mental illness continues to
have low priority in communi
ties of color, and our communi
ties have yet to understand that
mental health is no less impor
tant than physical health.
Growing rates of mental illness
In 2002, President Bush
launched his New Freedom Com
mission on Mental Health. This
initiative came on the heels of
the Surgeon General’s report in ’
1999, which addressed at-length
the need for attention to race,
culture, and equity in mental
health service delivery. Accord- •
ing to the United States Depart
ment of Health and Human
Services, mental illnesses ac
count for approximately 15 per
cent of the overall burden of
disease in the US, which is
Please see MENTAL/3B