Ayurveda, Liz and the Nazis

Spending time reading my books and listening to my pod-casts on Ayurveda.  Ayurveda is the oldest and still practiced medical science.  It's thousands of years old with roots in Hinduism and Buddhism.   There are a number of things I like about it.  Primarily, that we are each of us our own physician.
The basics:    
There are 5 great elements: earth, water, fire, air, and space.
Those 5 condense to 3 doshas: Vata, Pitta, and Kapha.   
We are either one of the three doshas or a combination of them.
There are 6 tastes: sweet, sour, salty, pungent, bitter, and astringent.
I am primarily Kapha, a combination of earth and water.
Some indications that you are Kapha: body frame in balance is medium to broad.  Off balance it is obese.  Personality in balance is calm, quiet, and steady.  Off balance it is passive, possessive, and greedy.
Kapha people need motivation and stimulation. 
Disease is imbalance of your doshas.  There are 4 components to being healthy: yoga, meditation, exercise, and diet.  
Diet is an important but a complicated factor in Ayurvedic medicine.  You need one of their cookbooks to do it justice.
Some day my Kapha self will get around to it.
Today's NY Times had an photo of Liz Taylor's shrine at the Abbey.  It was right beneath the plaque that read "the Abbey is my Pub".  You probably thought it was that other kind of Abbey, not for Ms. Liz.  The Abbey is a Gay bar in West Hollywood.  "She was a once-a-week regular in recent years" [after the brain tumor?] "sipping tequila shots, downing watermelon and apple martinis or simply waving merrily from her wheelchair".  Hey guys if you're looking for a replacement, I'm available, and if I'm going to be drinking like Liz and Dick drank don't throw away that wheelchair!
"Ugly Betty" by Ruth Brandon is reviewed this week by Malcolm Gladwell in The New Yorker.  The book is about Helena Rubinstein and Eugene Schueller who founded L'Oreal.  The interesting story is what happened during the Second World War.
After the Nazi invasion of France, Schueller was one of the biggest financial supporters of the fascist anti-Semitic M.S.R.  In October, 1941 they blew up 7 synagogues in Paris.  The argument of the book is that Schueller wasn't a Nazi or anti-Semite.  He was a pragmatist.  Collaboration insured delivery of raw materials.  An obsessive entrepreneur like Schueller "is too much of an opportunist to risk engaging himself absolutely in favor of anyone."
Oscar Schindler was a very different entrepreneur.  He made a lot of money "taking over" a Jewish owned factory.  When the Nazi's decided to close the factory and ship his workers to gas chambers he used that money as bribes to save as many as he could.  He spent his entire personal fortune saving lives. 
When Rubinstein died, the chairman of L'Oreal in the U.S., Jacques Correze acquired it.  Who is Jacques Correze?  He was the former chief lieutenant in M. S. R.
"The uncomfortable lesson of the triumph of Eugene Schueller over Helena Rubinstein is that sometimes it's just business."
Meditation, yoga and tequila shots.