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HOLY COW

THE MIRACLE OF LIFE'S FIRST FOOD

Vigorous, accessible advocacy for nutritional therapy and a possible method to achieve optimal health outcomes.

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A guide touts the controversial medical benefits of bovine colostrum.

In this book’s opening statement, Wyatt asserts that modern medicine is due for some fundamental changes in the way it’s taught and practiced in America. He writes that the misuse and overuse of medications lead to drug abuse and that a “return to basics and common sense” is very much in order. The author believes in the power of the “living, breathing pharmaceutical factory” known as the cow to deliver the lifesaving antibacterial and antiviral properties found in bovine colostrum, a unique, bioactive dairy secretion from the animal’s udders during the first few days after giving birth. Throughout his narrative, Wyatt references his wife, Kaye, who suffered from immune dysfunction for most of her life as a result of biological imbalances and chronic immunodeficiency. In a series of intriguing chapters discussing colostrum’s ancient history as an Egyptian “elixir of metamorphosis” and statistical data and clinical trials that demonstrate its anti-inflammatory, regenerative, and microbiome rebalancing properties, Wyatt explores how passive immunity can be obtained from nutrients and antibodies found in the secretion. He also details the arduous process of bringing colostrum in some form to the retail market. First introduced to its purported benefits by a colleague, the author vividly describes the dramatic effects the supplement had once his wife began ingesting it and how both were enchanted by this unorthodox remedy. The book chronicles Wyatt’s inspired, yearslong determination to heal his wife with colostrum. He considers himself and Kaye to be “pioneers of colostrum”; they established a nonprofit research organization on its behalf. Despite Kaye’s death, the author continues to promote what he claims is a key factor in human immune system resiliency. A military veteran, son of an herbalist, and grandson of an Idaho cattle rancher, Wyatt has no medical training or clinical experience. But the author’s thorough, clinically supported research and passionate treatment of what he calls an “ancient health remedy” will snag readers’ attention from the first page. With a section of informative guides, lists of bioactive components, and even recipes using powdered colostrum, his book will certainly inspire interest in further research by readers inclined to know more about this radical dietary supplement.

Vigorous, accessible advocacy for nutritional therapy and a possible method to achieve optimal health outcomes.

Pub Date: Oct. 20, 2021

ISBN: 978-1-736322-1-9

Page Count: 247

Publisher: Vibrant Life Institute

Review Posted Online: March 30, 2022

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ELON MUSK

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.

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A warts-and-all portrait of the famed techno-entrepreneur—and the warts are nearly beyond counting.

To call Elon Musk (b. 1971) “mercurial” is to undervalue the term; to call him a genius is incorrect. Instead, Musk has a gift for leveraging the genius of others in order to make things work. When they don’t, writes eminent biographer Isaacson, it’s because the notoriously headstrong Musk is so sure of himself that he charges ahead against the advice of others: “He does not like to share power.” In this sharp-edged biography, the author likens Musk to an earlier biographical subject, Steve Jobs. Given Musk’s recent political turn, born of the me-first libertarianism of the very rich, however, Henry Ford also comes to mind. What emerges clearly is that Musk, who may or may not have Asperger’s syndrome (“Empathy did not come naturally”), has nurtured several obsessions for years, apart from a passion for the letter X as both a brand and personal name. He firmly believes that “all requirements should be treated as recommendations”; that it is his destiny to make humankind a multi-planetary civilization through innovations in space travel; that government is generally an impediment and that “the thought police are gaining power”; and that “a maniacal sense of urgency” should guide his businesses. That need for speed has led to undeniable successes in beating schedules and competitors, but it has also wrought disaster: One of the most telling anecdotes in the book concerns Musk’s “demon mode” order to relocate thousands of Twitter servers from Sacramento to Portland at breakneck speed, which trashed big parts of the system for months. To judge by Isaacson’s account, that may have been by design, for Musk’s idea of creative destruction seems to mean mostly chaos.

Alternately admiring and critical, unvarnished, and a closely detailed account of a troubled innovator.

Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2023

ISBN: 9781982181284

Page Count: 688

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: Sept. 12, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 2023

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GOOD ECONOMICS FOR HARD TIMES

Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.

“Quality of life means more than just consumption”: Two MIT economists urge that a smarter, more politically aware economics be brought to bear on social issues.

It’s no secret, write Banerjee and Duflo (co-authors: Poor Economics: A Radical Rethinking of the Way To Fight Global Poverty, 2011), that “we seem to have fallen on hard times.” Immigration, trade, inequality, and taxation problems present themselves daily, and they seem to be intractable. Economics can be put to use in figuring out these big-issue questions. Data can be adduced, for example, to answer the question of whether immigration tends to suppress wages. The answer: “There is no evidence low-skilled migration to rich countries drives wage and employment down for the natives.” In fact, it opens up opportunities for those natives by freeing them to look for better work. The problem becomes thornier when it comes to the matter of free trade; as the authors observe, “left-behind people live in left-behind places,” which explains why regional poverty descended on Appalachia when so many manufacturing jobs left for China in the age of globalism, leaving behind not just left-behind people but also people ripe for exploitation by nationalist politicians. The authors add, interestingly, that the same thing occurred in parts of Germany, Spain, and Norway that fell victim to the “China shock.” In what they call a “slightly technical aside,” they build a case for addressing trade issues not with trade wars but with consumption taxes: “It makes no sense to ask agricultural workers to lose their jobs just so steelworkers can keep theirs, which is what tariffs accomplish.” Policymakers might want to consider such counsel, especially when it is coupled with the observation that free trade benefits workers in poor countries but punishes workers in rich ones.

Occasionally wonky but overall a good case for how the dismal science can make the world less—well, dismal.

Pub Date: Nov. 12, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-61039-950-0

Page Count: 432

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: Aug. 28, 2019

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2019

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