In 2009, Alexa Ray Joel (daughter of Christie Brinkley and Billy Joel) tried committing suicide by overdosing on “Traumeel” pills.

Fortunately for Miss Joel, Traumeel pills are homeopathic. So she did not have to induce vomiting, get her stomach pumped or take any other poison-control measures because she was never in the slightest bit of danger (at least, not from the pills). As a toxicologist at NYU Medical Center explained: “Nothing would happen because there's nothing in it. There's no active ingredient. There's nothing in these pills."

“That girl who was shot by the Taliban. She is the antidote. We need people like that. I get inspired by people like that.” 

-Billy Joel

 

I kept talking about Heaven on Earth, Heaven on Earth, but nobody's catching my Heaven on Earths:

The media is talking about the shutdown in mostly secular terms. Big mistake. This is a religion story and to ignore that aspect is like trying to report on the Taliban without mentioning Islam. The media blame the Tea Party and call them crazy. But the media has missed the real story. It’s not about the Tea Party’s politics, it’s about what made the Tea Party’s politics so crazy to begin with. This is a religion story to end all religion stories.

The reason we don’t get the straight story from the media is because of undue respect for religion on the one hand and a refusal to believe that religion is still so important on the other hand. Deference waits upon scorn. And between these two attitudes the real story gets ignored.

I wondered why everybody's ignoring my Heaven on Earths,...