Author: Leonard Buschel

WEIGHT UP – Feb, 1, 2025 – Amy Schumer once hopped on board the Ozempic trend, but the side effects were so intense she had to stop. I tried Ozempic almost three years ago and I was like bedridden, I was vomiting and then you have no energy but other people take it and they’re all good,” she explained. “I lost 30 pounds so quick,” said Schumer, who is mom to 4-year-old son, Gene, whom she shares with husband, Chris Fischer. “I looked great and I couldn’t lift my head off the pillow, so what’s the point?” Ozempic, which is…

VIDEO – MORE OUTRAGE PLEASE – Jan. 2025 – “I cannot tell you the amount of times I’ve had to listen to the screams on the other end of a phone when family members are notifying other family members about their sister, their uncle,” said Gwynn. “Those screams are repeated when they walk in the door.” A bill that would criminalize fentanyl trafficking unanimously passed out of a Utah House committee Wednesday after an emotional hearing. HB87, sponsored by Rep. Matthew Gwynn, R-Farr West, would make it a first-degree felony for someone to produce, distribute, or traffic fentanyl in the…

NO OVERSIGHT – Feb. 4, 2025 – But a closer look reveals a dark cloud around that silver lining. Black people are still dying from drug overdoses in higher numbers than whites. That’s due in part to systemic and social barriers to treatment. These include lack of access to healthcare, health insurance companies refusing to cover treatment, and the stigma of asking for help to overcome drug addiction. When the drop in addiction overdoses started making headlines last fall, Paul N. Samuels, director and president of the Legal Action Center in New York, called it encouraging news. Still, “it’s crucial…

CROSSING THE BLOOD BRAIN BARRIER – Feb. 3, 2025 – It found a rising trend in micro-and nanoplastics in brain tissue from dozens of postmortems carried out between 1997 and 2024. The researchers also found the tiny particles in liver and kidney samples. The human body is widely contaminated by microplastics. They have also been found in blood, semen, breast milk, placentas and bone marrow. The impact on human health is largely unknown, but they have been linked to strokes and heart attacks. The scientists also found that the concentration of microplastics was about six times higher in brain samples…

VIDEO – MUSICAL INTERLUDE –  84,794,972 views Since Jan 22, 2016 – I was born by the river in a little tent Oh, and just like the river I’ve been a-runnin’ ever since. It’s been a long, a long time comin’, but I know, oh-oo-oh, a change gon’ come, oh yes, it will.  CONTINUE@YouTube

SPEED THE WOW – Jan. 28, 2025 – A venti-size pumpkin spice latte from Starbucks contains 150mg in the United States, exceeding the 100mg limit recommended for young people aged 12-18. Previous Government reports have linked excessive caffeine consumption in children to negative health outcomes. Expressing concern about the suitability of this autumnal drink for teenagers, Dr Masarat says: “While we’ve rightly seen a lot of political interest in the risk that energy drinks with high caffeine content can pose to children and teens, less has been said about fashionable coffee drinks such as this season’s popular pumpkin spice latte.”…

AUDIO – HOW MANY SCREENS? – Feb. 1, 2025 – A friend of mine once told me that “You are where your attention is.” That line always stuck with me. It was a reminder that the most important choice we all make is also the most common one. It’s the decision about what to pay attention to and what not to pay attention to. One of the primary features of this age of the internet and smartphones and algorithmic feeds is that our attention is everywhere and nowhere at the same time, because we’re endlessly pushed around by a parade…

NO BETTER – Feb. 6, 2024 – Colombia is the world’s biggest cocaine producer and exporter, mainly to the United States and Europe, and has spent decades fighting against drug trafficking. “If you want peace, you have to dismantle the business (of drug trafficking),” he said. “It could easily be dismantled if they legalize cocaine in the world. It would be sold like wine.” Petro also pointed out that fentanyl “is killing Americans and it is not made in Colombia”, referring to the opioid responsible for around 75,000 deaths in the United States a year, according to official data. “Fentanyl…

VIDEO – HARD TO SWALLOW – Feb. 3, 2025 – Childhood obesity has tripled since the 1970s, with one in five children overweight or obese! Experts attribute this trend to the prevalence of ultra-processed foods in children’s diets, which are high in calories but low in nutrition. “What we put into our bodies is the most important determinants of our health. Garbage in, garbage out.” They say that processed foods, often engineered to be palatable and addictive, contribute significantly to health issues such as diabetes and hypertension in children. These foods are typically high in added sugars, salts, artificial colors,…

HELL ON EARTH – Feb. 4, 2025 – Prosecutors called Anthony Del Valle an “enemy of the public,” a man so greedy that he preyed on and poisoned two disabled, drug-addicted women who considered him a friend. His lawyer called him an “absolute hero” who, like the dead women, had gotten hooked on painkillers after a freak accident and lost his grip on a law-abiding life. For his part, Del Valle looked only frightened. Prosecutors recommended that he be sentenced to 20 years in prison Thursday for selling counterfeit painkillers to sisters Jennifer Graham, 50, and Julie Beckstrom, 57, hours…

VIDEO – TEAM WORK – Feb. 3, 2025 – Ryan Leaf is an NFL analyst with the Bleav audio and video network and host of Last Mile Radio on Sirius XM. He was originally the second overall pick in the 1998 NFL Draft by the San Diego Chargers.   CONTINUE@YouTube

“As a child, I was an imaginary playmate.” – Tom Robbins, July 22, 1932–Feb. 9, 2025

VIDEO – PROFITS NOT PROTECTION – Jan. 29, 2025 – A new concern in classrooms is a nicotine product known as ZYN. It’s a smoke-free alternative for tobacco users, but the Food and Drug Administration warns it could be popular among teens. Reporter Ezra Kaplan has insight into how the tobacco-less product can harm a teen’s health. CONTINUE@WWNYTV

TOUSLED TALENT – Jan. 30, 2025 – The colors swirled and pulsed before his eyes: electric blues, starburst yellows, deep, bottomless blacks. The world did not stand still for Vincent van Gogh; it flickered, danced, and whispered in a language only he could hear. But in the final years of his life, those whispers turned into voices: mocking, accusing, commanding. In the dimly lit cafés of 19th-century France, absinthe was more than a drink; it was an obsession. Artists, poets, and dreamers chased its otherworldly effects, believing it unlocked creativity. But what many did not realize was that this emerald-green…

AS TEARS GOES BY – Jan. 30, 2025 – Singer and actor overcame drug addiction and homelessness to collaborate with everyone from the Rolling Stones and Metallica to Jean-Luc Godard. Her six-decade career marked her out as one of the UK’s most versatile and characterful singer-songwriters. CONTINUE@GUARDIAN

NOT – Jan. 27, 2025 – Hello! I’m stopping by to share a conversation I had recently with Club Reticent’s Valerie—a 26-year-old writer living in Amsterdam who’s newly sober. She had some great questions about quitting alcohol and what it means for mental health, social life, dating, relationships, body image, self-esteem, and life in general. I was already a fan of Valerie’s raw, gorgeously rendered, from-the-heart-and-guts writing, and I loved her honest, deeply relatable questions. In our Q&A, we spoke about: My reasons for quitting alcohol (even without hitting rock bottom) How the process of quitting spanned months of exploration,…

YOU’LL NEED THAT STRAW AGAIN – Jan. 21, 2025 – “Research has shown that alcohol, even in small amounts, is bad for your health. It can lower the quality of your sleep, impair sexual function and increase your risk of developing certain cancers and other diseases,” Nicole Stock wrote in a December 2024 New York Times article outlining the sobriety challenge. I’ve never been a fan of all or nothing thinking, and let’s face it, most of us like booze. Luckily, Dry January isn’t the only option. Some people have taken to simply cutting back for the month, taking…

VIDEO – 50/50 – Jan. 25, 2025 – “Not all online pharmacies or supplement stores are legit!” Customers have reported several issues with rogue online pharmacies, including unexpected subscriptions from free trials, communication problems, and difficulties obtaining refunds. “You think you are just trying one bottle, but you are actually signing up for an ongoing monthly fulfillment,” said Dale Dixon. To avoid these risks, Dixon advised consumers to prioritize transparency and research. He suggested verifying the credentials of online doctors, checking the legitimacy of the pharmacies, and ensuring that products have been clinically tested. “Research doesn’t take long but can…

FIZZ IS BIG BIZ – Jan. 25, 2025 – Does sparkling water damage your teeth? Unfortunately, when it comes to your luxury bones (aka teeth), dentist Dr. Cerisa Moncayo had to burst my bubble. When you drink sparkling water, a chemical reaction in your mouth turns carbon dioxide into carbonic acid. And acid erodes tooth enamel. f you’re worried about your teeth, Moncayo says, limiting sparkling water and carbonation can be one place to start. But you don’t have to kick your seltzer habit completely. Moncayo suggests, “Swish flat water in between seltzers to neutralize the pH and protect from…

EYES WIDE OPEN? – Jan. 30, 2025 – Vitamin D might be known as the ‘sunshine vitamin’ but this nutrient could also play a key role in how well we sleep. According to recent studies, Vitamin D deficiency is linked to poor sleep quality and duration — and it affects roughly 35% of Americans. That’s a lot of people suffering with poor sleep needlessly. Vitamin D is produced by the body when we’re exposed to sunlight, and nutritionists have long recognized a connection between this common vitamin and bone health. However recent research has found that those lacking in vitamin…

GUILTY AS USUAL – Jan. 28, 2025 – The lawsuit, Samson v. UnitedHealthCare Services, Inc., originated from claims that UnitedHealthcare persistently called individuals with marketing messages without their consent between 2015 and 2019. Notably, some recipients had explicitly requested removal from the call list, only to continue receiving calls. The settlement, preliminarily approved by a Washington federal judge on January 16, 2025, suggests each class member could receive over $90. The final amount will depend on the number of claims submitted. The lead plaintiff, Frantz Samson, who initiated the lawsuit after repeated calls on a wrong number, is proposed to…

HOPE IT LASTS – Jan. 29, 2025 – Jim Jones is celebrating being sober for the first time in over three decades after ditching weed during his trip to Japan. Capo flew out to Asia last week, joining Kanye West who’s working on his BULLY album. However, cannabis laws in Japan are among the strictest in the world. On Wednesday morning (January 29), he took to Instagram to share that he’s embracing a new lease on life after five days without weed. “I been around here bouncing like a kid like I’m in high school,” Capo stated. “I definitely got…

CROOKED LITTLE WORLD – Jan. 30, 2025 – The Ethical Marketing Campaign for Addiction Treatment (EMCAT) brought to the ASA’s attention concerns about the transparency and clarity in the drug and alcohol rehabilitation referral market. Upon investigating this sector, they unpicked issues in ads that were likely to mislead and could affect particularly vulnerable consumers and their families. Many of these referral websites gave the impression that they offered rehabilitation services, directly, when this was not the case. The ASA judged that claims such as “we provide professional alcohol and drug addiction treatment” and “our rehabilitation centre”, were likely to…

AUTHOR OBITUARY – Jan. 26, 2025 – His wife picked the time to die. “You better go and get it,” Derek Humphry said he was told shortly before 1 p.m. on March 29, 1975, at their home near Bath, England. Mr. Humphry, a newspaper journalist, said he mixed a lethal dose of a barbiturate and painkillers into a mug of coffee. He added plenty of sugar. Jean Humphry’s cancer had spread to her bones, and drugs could no longer control the pain. She was 42. “She picked up the mug of coffee on her own volition and drank it down…

VIDEO – IMUSICAL INTERLUDE – NOW – The theme song for today … Save my Country NOW!!!!!!!!!! I wish the politicians would listen to this. This a true patriot. Building a dream with love. Naw, they wouldn’t get it. – I wish the politicians would listen to this. This a true patriot. I see that a lot of people had never heard the original works of Laura Nyro. I think the problem was that Laura’s own arrangements were so idiosyncratic in nature it was hard to decipher where she was coming from. When other artists covered her songs they added…

ANGELS ABOUND – Jan. 30, 2025 – Alcoholism has its claws wrapped tightly around the souls of the small town I grew up in, here in the Amazon region of South America. There are very few people whose lives go untouched by the darkness and destruction it brings. Mario, too, was engulfed in the addiction. He spent days out drinking, leaving his wife and six children alone. Without support from the husband and father of the household, they struggled. They were a lost family. Amid this darkness shone one light: Mario’s mother, Miriam. She was a woman on fire for…

VIDEO  – CLASSIC FILM – Timeless – Beautiful scene from the classic movie – The Grapes of Wrath (1940), based on the award winning best seller novel of the same name. CONTINUE@Youtube

VIDEO –   Timeless – RIP Marianne. An incomparable voice has fallen silent forever. Her incomparable charisma in this song required no sensationalism… CONTINUE@Youtube

STICK WITH THE WINNERS! – Feb. 4, 2025 – I’m what some might call a modern-day renaissance man. During my multi-decade career, I’ve headed a successful entertainment PR firm, written, and produced two major motion pictures, owned a contemporary music record label, and created two podcast series. For a time, I was in the restaurant business, as one of the founders of LA’s Rainbow Bar & Grill. I’ve been clean and sober for over 42 years. I’ve also written three published books about addiction.  Q. If you are in recovery, what was your drug(s) of choice and when is your…

ENERGY – Jan. 29, 2025 – Sure, along the way there are shining, brilliant moments of vitality. But as the weight of the years piles on, many of us fall into the rut of routine and the creative lights start to dim. This seems to be the case for everyone — well, everyone except Dorothy Martin. ach year, the fiery frontwoman of eponymous hard-rock band Dorothy seems to gain more life with every breath. She is about as exuberant and alive as a shaken-up soda, and that energy explodes over her music… Dorothy — no more so than on her…