skystorm's tags:
skystorm's most popular posts:
skystorm reads (14):
Who's reading skystorm (6):

swearing off tylenol, coke, and china milk

skystorm posted on Sep 29, 2008 | views: 492 | Tags: poison, 1982
in my 20's, i took painkillers against fever and cold.
tylenol was my favorite because it was very effective.
then came the famous tylenol crisis of 1992.
(correction: it was 1982. thanks to mobil.)
someone put deadly cyanide into tylenol capsules.
7 people died, 31 million bottles were recalled.
tylenol dropped to 7% market share from its former 37% lead.

the tylenol company didnt intend the poisoning of course.
in fact, it acted responsibly by way of crisis control.
it made drastic redesigns to make the product more tamper-proof.
but to me, it became an eye-opener.
first i questioned my faith in tylenol.
then i doubted synthesized drugs in general.

since then i've never popped pain-killers.
it's no longer whether tylenol is tamper-proof or not.
it's become, does my body need artificial pain-killers or not.
unless i'm up for surgery or dental mayhem, i won't take any.
the tylenol crisis was just the trigger, the eye-opener.

until the late 1990's, i was a super-consumer of coke.
the soft drink, not the addictive alkaloid.
i had sworn off hard liquor, beer and smoking.
but somehow, i became a nearly-addictive coke drinker.
then came the famous belgian coke crisis of 1999.
240 belgian and french kids fell ill after drinking coke.
the company pulled out 30 million cans and bottles.

again, the coke company didnt intend to poison people.
but there was company irresponsibility and neglect.
there was also no drastic process change.
only perfunctory PR damage control.
to me, again, it became an eye-opener.
first i questioned my faith in coke.
then i looked at my drinking tastes in general.

i still drink coke occasionally.
no other soft drink will do, just coke.
is it healthy? nope. does my body need it? nope.
so why do i continue to drink it?
because i'm very, very fond of the taste.
so long as i drink it only occasionally,
like once a week or every two weeks.
more than that, i feel like throwing up.

now i'm a drinker of fruit juice and wine.
not because they are healthier, although they are.
i drink them because now i like the taste better.
it's simply a question of my tastes having changed.
the coke crisis was just the trigger, the eye-opener.

now comes the 2008 china milk scandal.
some companies decided to add melamine to their milk.
melamine wreaks havoc on the kidneys.
several babies have died.
thousands have developed renal and urinary problems.
all china-made milk products are now suspect.
correction:
all packaged foods with chinese markings are now suspect.

the milk companies surely didnt intend to poison the consumers.
surely, they only wanted to add a bit more protein.
or maybe they wanted to bolster claims about their nutritious product.
later they tried to cover up.
when they no longer could, they pulled out from the store shelves.
then they informed the public and apologized.
that doesn't make their action any less criminal.

i've stopped buying and drinking china milk products.
you can drag me and entice me to a chinese store.
you can cut the price to 1/10th of what it was before.
you can even maybe force me to buy the milk.
but you can't force me to drink it.

now i'm at a point where i ask myself:
does my body need milk products?
probably yes, but i'll survive without them.
do i still crave milk and dairy products?
definitely. i'm a sucker for creamy cheese.
will i continue buying china milk products?
i don't know, i have to read some more on it.
maybe i'd decide to survive on a diet of swiss cheese.
or maybe i'll shift to chinese soy bean products.
it's simply a question of me not having decided yet.
but definitely thinking about it.
do i want dairy in my life?
eenie meenie mynie moe...
the china milk scandal was just the trigger, the eye-opener.

so there.
i've sworn off painkillers, not just tylenol.
i enjoy an occasional sip of coke. just coke.
i still crave milk and cheese, but not chinese please.
different tokes for different folks.
 
someone puts poison in your food or drink or drug.
it's all unintentional.
the company meant well.
so they fucked up. tough luck.
so they pull out the product for a while.
so you swear off the brand or product type for a time.
then it makes you think of what you want in the long term.
then the alarm wears off.
everything can go back to normal again.
or so you assume. but you have doubts.
you think some more: what do you want in the long term?
then you make some hard decisions.

tylenol, coke, china milk.
i pause to think...
some relationships i know are like that.



send to a friend del.icio.us Digg reddit StumbleUpon

Comments

  • phoeby said on Sep 29, 2008....
    hi skystorm,

    i vaguely remember that tylonel thing. it didn't affect us here in oz because tylenol wasn't available here at the time. but it made world news.

    i think you're last 2 lines maybe summed up what you were feeling/thinking when writing the post??!

    ah well.... chin up, chook 


  • skystorm said on Sep 29, 2008....
    phoeby:
    my mind works in a funny way sometimes.
    i was actually thinking about the china milk scandal,
    outraged at the audacity of manufacturers who passed off poison as safe protein.
    then it occurred to me that maybe they really had good intentions.
    then it occurred to me that there are many similar precedents.
    then it finally occurred to me that simple tragedies in how people relate to each other start this way: good intentions turning bad because of carelessness, or sheer recklessness if not plain stupidity.
    i hate it when these things occur simultaneously and interact sub-atomically in my hadron-collider mind.
    you are in oz.
    good evening, chook.
    thank you.

  • phoeby said on Sep 29, 2008....
    you know? i do understand... sometimes similar things happen to me when i'm either thinking or writing. i might start with one type of thought which leads to something else and some other seemingly unrelated (but actually related when you piece it together) topic. So yes i do get this.. what you say.

    yes, oz. tis night time.... my little squiglet is just about asleep save for a few squeals and last ditch attempts to get me in there for a final book or hug or something...

    nite nite. 
  • secretlife said on Sep 29, 2008....
    it's easier to hold a "company" responsible for a defect in their product
    than a person responsible for the hurt they might cause you, no?
     
    although i admit that i never really trusted tylenol again-
     
    i still believe in forgiveness- even though a level of trust might be gone forever.
     
     
     
     
  • skystorm said on Sep 29, 2008....
    phoeby:
    i'm glad you get it.
    i think of the mind as a huge 3d sponge with trillions of tiny-bubble thoughts,
    and quintillions of chemical wires meshed into every part of the sponge.
    our daily life habits and thought streams soon become hard-wired,
    running very logical patterns within the sponge.
    sometimes it's good to zap out the hard-wired habits,
    loosen up the fossilized, encrusted, arthritic links,
    to free the sponge to regrow internal connections,
    and to find new patterns dancing into view
    like accidental kaleidoscopes.
    im not making any sense now.
    i simply want to see how i strung up bits and pieces of disjointed ideas
    and came up with a disjointed conclusion.
    i think im suffering from jet lag, jet li lag, get lag,
    met lag, set lag, set log, web log. blog.
    plasma spark of madness.
    it's deja vu all over again.
    may your squiglet hug you back in his dreams.
    thank you for a moment's spark of madness, phoeby.

    secretlife:
    company or individual, it doesnt matter much i think.
    i'd like to believe that in many or most cases,
    people have an inner eye to realize the wrong done,
    quickly undo what can still be undone,
    and repair whatever damage was incurred,
    purely out of a moral sense of right and wrong.
    when all these is past, healing follows.
    forgiveness cannot be forced or imposed.
    one morning you simply wake up and find
    that you have forgiven.
    at least that is what i hope to happen.
    but the mind is an illogical mind.
    people like us still dont trust tylenol and clinton.
    thank you for the wise words, secretlife.
  • mobil said on Sep 29, 2008....
    I was reading along and when I looked at that date 1992 I thought it was longer ago than that skystorm.
     
    So, I went to google and yeah it was 1982, not that it changes your story, just makes it ten years earlier that this happened, it was awful and led to everything having to be tamper proof.
     
    I like coke too, have to really watch myself with that stuff. When I was in the military and and didn't have access to coke, it was the thing I craved the most, well that and pussy haha.........nice post skystorm.
  • skystorm said on Sep 29, 2008....
    mobil:
    you are right.
    it was 1982, not 1992.
    my fingers took over my brain, apparently, in typing the year.
    i also forgot to say that tylenol is back to 37% share of the market.
    apparently, tamper-proof packaging did the trick.
    i wonder if they should also impose tamper-proof bottling on coke.
    i'm fairly certain, though, that pussy can not be tamper-proof.
    pussy can never be tamper-proof.
    it's built for tampering.
    you tell me if that's good or bad.
    i've started to read your blogs.
    appaloosa is good stock.
    thank you, mobil.
  • mobil said on Sep 29, 2008....
    I figured you must have made a typo on that date. I was thinking about how long ago it really was when I read your blog, and it seemed in my mind longer ago than 92.
     
    You are right about pussy sky, I am not sure if that's a good or a bad thing. I know when I was younger I enjoyed tampering and I know that I tampered with some that was not really on the market as they say. I will say it was  pretty good even though I was tampering with someone else's home base.
     
    The thing is, it's not so good if someone else is tampering with your home base pussy, but I am sure it would be really good for that tampering person and I hate to think of it, but that home base pussy is probably going to enjoy itself too.
     
    All we can do is treat that home pussy as best we can to keep it from getting tampered with.
     
    A hooker once told me that not only was she able to sell  her pussy, but she could sell it, keep it and sell it again. I think if I had one of those, I'd go into business with it, I'm a whore at  heart anyway........haha.......thanks Sky.
     
     
  • skystorm said on Sep 29, 2008....
    mobil:
    i'm not exactly an expert in the tamper-proofing trade.
    but i think i know what you mean.
    if you wanna go into pussy business, be careful out there.
    there's a lot of subprime pussy buyouts going on right now.
    i suggest you wait until the dow jones pussy average recovers at least 800 pts.
    or at least until the pussies in congress get their act together.
    i see you are a wise investor and a good home base provider.
    thank you mobil.
  • mobil said on Sep 29, 2008....
    I keep my pussy locked up Sky, I don't get to use it much anymore, but I can still look at it hahaha..........Thanks Buddy
  • phoeby said on Sep 30, 2008....
    my pleasure skystorm (for the maddness..).

    i like the way you described the mind. seems similar to how i see it too. you're probably painting it in a slightly more positive light though.

    i see many of our human troubles coming from our preoccupation with mind... and the only way to peace is to transcend it somehow...

    i hate the thought of being engulfed by the mind these days... i guess that's why i hardly write on here very much anymore.. it seemed to encourage too much thought and self-analysis 

    anyway, im ramblingggggggggg

    *peace brother* smiles.
  • skystorm said on Oct 01, 2008....
    mobil:
    good luck with ogling your locked-up pussy. :-)
    thank you.

    worldsky:
    i checked your website.
    at the risk of sounding persnickety, you shouldnt say unix server if you mean linux server.
    gnu is not unix, remember that.
    i can get an enterprise package with 3 gig space, 10 gig monthly traffic, unlimited email accounts and 10 subdomains at half the price you offer.
    don't spam me again dude.

    phoeby:
    some days i'd like to transcend the mind's limitations too.
    but today it would be nice for me to just pin it down, get it to do some work.
    so far, im succeeding.
    i think.
    peace sister smiles to you too, phoeby.

  • phoeby said on Oct 02, 2008....
    ahhh yep. with you there.  sometimes my mind likes to wander and it doesn't like to work either.

    hope you are able to get lotsa work done. you're some sort of computer geek right? ( i meant that in a nice way)

    ?
  • skystorm said on Oct 02, 2008....
    phoeby:
    yes, i think my mind found its sweet spot today.
    it thrills me to be often mistaken for a computer geek.
    maybe that's because i took courses for an engineering degree and have worked with computers for half of my life.
    but sorry, centauri plasma fire is hard to define.
    how do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
    how do you hold a moonbeam in your hand?
    i know you meant it in a nice way.
    it made me smile actually.
    thank you, phoeby.

  • phoeby said on Oct 02, 2008....
    hi skystorm,

    those productive days make me feel good. engineering?...maybe that's where the computer vibe came from.... 

    yes, i guess the plasma from the grand central sun is similar... mutable, indefinable. sometimes uncontained. sometimes easy to grasp, sometimes impossible.

    we have a little sound of music theme going on in there... my favourite song was eidelwies (sp??) mostly because i learnt to play it on the piano.


  • skystorm said on Oct 03, 2008....
    phoeby:
    im glad you're having productive days.
    i love the scientific idea of plasma, and the sound of the word as well.
    plasma spark of madness.
    centauri plasma fire.
    one of these days i'll think of other uses.
    i also love the song edelweiss.
    its a universal patriotic song.
    thank you, phoeby.
    please continue playing the piano.

  • phoeby said on Oct 03, 2008....
    :)  it's a great word. so what's the scientific idea of plasma? i vaguely remember it has something to do with blood but i could be way off there... !

    yes well i actually had no idea it was such a patriotic sort of song he was singing (bec i haven't seen the movie in 100 years), but after hearing it again on youtube today, i noticed he was singing about his country!! hows that. i used to just get so carried away by the notes and learning them i wasn't listening to the words.. :)

    phoeby gets very focussed lol
  • skystorm said on Oct 04, 2008....
    phoeby:
    the original thought behind plasma is that of a living liquid, a liquid that contains many tiny particles of life, a liquid that supports life.
    like, as you said, blood plasma. or different kinds of protoplasm.
    in modern physics, plasma is the 4th state of matter, after solids, liquids, and gases.
    plasma is ionized gas, a more primitive state of matter.
    stars are nothing but enormous balls of high-energy plasma.
    when i sing edelweiss, i turn into a huge ball of high-energy plasma.
    physics 101.
    thanks, phoeby.
  • phoeby said on Oct 04, 2008....
    really??? i didn't know that.. how interesting. i thought plasma was just part of blood and nothing else. so apart from the stars, where is ionized gas, can we smell it or know it's there? does it form into other things? 

    haha... :)) i'll keep tinkling away at the ivories then so you can have fun being high-energy plasma..!
  • skystorm said on Oct 04, 2008....
    phoeby:
    lightning is plasma.
    fluorescent lamps contain plasma.
    tv plasma displays.
    aurora borealis displays.
    an industrial welder's arc is made of plasma.
    sprites and elves are suspected to be composed of elusive plasma.
    my soul, freed at last, galloping and leaping from galaxy to galaxy, is centauri plasma fire.
    what else... when you play edelweiss on the piano.
    thanks phoeby.

  • phoeby said on Oct 04, 2008....
    all those things contain plasma? *scratches head* :). now im wondering how on earth could i -not- know about plasma lol.

    oh of course plasma tv. 

    awwww...smiling @ sprites and elves. i happen to adore all our elemental friends. and they could be made from plasma?? i had no idea.

    ahhh, that sounds so fun.. to be leaping around the universe like that. free and happy...
    phoeby.

Comment on "swearing off tylenol, coke, and china milk"

poison 1982 (Click to add tags below)

(Separate tags using commas, for example: New York, dating, vegetarian)
Comment Anonymously

Pick Your Poision

SDPope posted 1 day ago | views: 18 | Tags: denial, life, liars, poison
Which pain would hurt you more? To learn that you had lived your life time believing in a lie, or to learn that you had been living in denial?

"Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are you... read entire post 0 comments