Did you know that snake oil "does actually have some health benefits" -- provided it's the genuine article?

"A search for 'snake oil' on Amazon," Ella Morton reports, "yields 2,716 hits, many of them not liquid, but 16 oils sit under the 'beauty' category alone. And that's not counting all the non-medicinal variants, like the snake oil you can buy as a 'gun lubricant.' " For Ella's report on this particular product, see below.

by Ken

These days when I think of "snake oil," I think of it as the lubricant, if not the actual substance, of American political discourse. And when I started thinking about the term, for reasons I'll explain in a moment, I was delighted to find this definition:

snake oil  n.  1. A worthless preparation fraudulently peddled as a cure for many ills. 2. Speech or writing intended to deceive; humbug.

-- The American Heritage Dictionary
of the English Language, Third Edition

Isn't this exactly what we mean and understand by the term?

One curious point is that, most uncharacteristically for the great AHD Third Edition (don't get me started on the Fourth, which upset me so much that I don't think I've ever even looked at the Fifth) is that it contains no information whatsoever about the derivation or history of the term.

I don't think it ever occurred to me to wonder where the term came from. Or, really, to think about what the heck "snake oil" might actually be. So I couldn't resist this item, which topped the list of fascinating oddities included in this week's e-mail of "Weekly Wonders" from Atlas Obscura ("Our mission is to explore the world's most wondrous and curious places"):



The link turns out to be to a piece called "The Serpentine Story of Snake Oil, or How I Came to buy Snake Oil from Amazon.com," and in it we find the startling information that "the story of snake oil" includes "a few glimmers of truth amid all the trickery and swindles."

The history is a hoot (note: lots of links and period illustrations onsite):

The American use of snake oil as a topical pain reliever most likely originates with Chinese immigrants who came to the United States during the 1860s to help build the Transcontinental Railway. According to NPR, “The workers would rub the oil, used for centuries in China, on their joints after a long hard day at work. The story goes that the Chinese workers began sharing the oil with some American counterparts, who marveled at the effects.”

By the late 19th century, some enterprising Americans had gotten in on the snake oil selling biz, with one key difference: While the Chinese snake oil came from Chinese water snakes, the Stateside version was associated with rattlesnakes, Native Americans, and the West.

In the 1890s, a Rhode Island man named Clark Stanley began peddling his own Snake Oil Liniment. In his promotional material, Stanley, the self-dubbed “Rattlesnake King,” claimed to have learned "the secret of snake oil" from Hopi medicine men while hanging out in the wilds of Texas during the 1870s. He boasted that his oil was the “strongest and best liniment known for the cure of all pain and lameness.” Rheumatism, neuralgia, toothache, sprains, frostbite, and sore throats were among the many maladies Stanley’s snake oil claimed to relieve.

In the late 19th century, when heroin was sold as an over-the-counter cough suppressant, Snake Oil Liniment was one of a rash of “patent medicines”: the potions and pills, tonics and tinctures that, with their effusive ads, claimed to solve all your problems. During this era, there were no federal regulations governing such substances, meaning sellers could make any claim they desired without having to fuss over things like clinical trials or scientific validity.

Then came the United States government’s 1906 Federal Food and Drugs Act, introduced with the aim of preventing “the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors.” The effects of this legislation, however, weren’t immediate. It took a decade before the jig was up for Stanley. In 1916, the Bureau of Chemistry found that the Rattlesnake King’s so-called snake oil consisted “principally of a light mineral oil (petroleum product) mixed with about one percent of fatty oil (probably beef fat),” accompanied by “possibly a trace of camphor and turpentine.” Stanley was fined $20 for his fraudulent advertising.

After the introduction of the Food and Drugs Act, some snake oil vendors took an even sneakier approach to marketing that managed to evade the government restrictions. In July 1918, a monthly bulletin from the Boston Health Department reported that dodgy medicine vendor Guy C. Worner was selling snake oil at a shop on Washington Street. “The premises were duly decorated with rattlesnake skins, cages of live snakes, and other curiosities supposedly from the West,” read the bulletin, which also noted that, when conducting business, Worner “appeared in the costume of a cowboy.”

The Health Department’s analysis of Worner’s not-so-snake-ish oil showed that it contained 75 percent petroleum lubricating oil and 25 percent eucalyptol, according to the bulletin. Worner escaped any false-advertising penalties by claiming that the rattlesnake imagery used in his store displays and print ads were intended merely to boost sales of the snake skins he peddled alongside his mystery miracle oil.

NEVERTHELESS --

"Despite the quackery and charlatanism associated with snake oil," Ella reports, "it's not always as blatantly ineffective as its reputation suggests -- as long as the oil is extracted from the right kind of snake."

The original Chinese version of snake oil does appear to have minor health benefits. Oil extracted from Chinese water snakes is rich in eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA), a type of omega-3 fatty acid that has anti-inflammatory properties.

In a letter published in the Western Journal of Medicine in 1989, Dr. Richard Kunin wrote: "As a concentrated source of EPA, snake oil is a credible anti-inflammatory agent and might indeed confer therapeutic benefits. Since essential fatty acids are known to absorb transdermally, it is not far-fetched to think that inflamed skin and joints could benefit by the actual anti-inflammatory action of locally applied oil.”

And the benefits may extend further: a 2007 study published in the Journal of Nutritional Science and Vitaminology found that feeding the oil of Chinese water snakes to aged mice may improve their swimming endurance.

WHICH DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD GO BUY SOME

First off, it appears that our snakes just aren't up to the job of providing us with valuable health benefits. "Even if the American products sold as rattlesnake oil did indeed contain rattlesnake oil," Ella writes,

they would not have conferred the anti-inflammatory benefits of the Chinese version—Kunin analyzed the EPA content of oil from both red and black rattlesnakes and found that it was 0.6 and 4.1 percent EPAs respectively—as compared to the 19.6 percent of EPAs in Chinese snake oil.

Ella actually did buy some snake oil, the very stuff pictured above.

For research purposes, I chose a modestly priced option with a suitably mysterious label. This 1-ounce bottle of snake oil meant for the skin will set you back $8.75 and with expedited shipping, an order placed on a Friday afternoon lands the small container in your mailbox less than 48 hours later.

Labeled as a "skin emollient," it smells a lot more fishy than you might imagine. On its Amazon page, the description is sparse, even though it's in both English and Spanish:"This oil feels great on your skin. Use as a hydrating formula to soften your skin." There are only four customer reviews, some of them clearly sarcastic (Yolo McSwaggins: "It has not only cleared up my acne, but it also cured my cancer and my doctor just told me that I am no longer HIV positive.") What is it supposed to do exactly? And why is it so pungent?

When I looked at the ingredients list, it all made sense. There are just two components to the recipe: cod liver oil and mineral oil. No snakes. It is basically the perfect snake oil.

SO WHAT DID ELLA GET FOR HER $8.75?

Applying it topically likely won't harm you—like Chinese water snake oil, cod liver oil is rich in EPAs. A 2000 study published in the Scandinavian Journal of Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery found that cod liver oil ointment helps hasten the healing of wounds. But the main effect of rubbing this bargain snake oil on your body is rather more unpleasant. It will simply stink up the place, letting people know that your snake oil is a sham.

Oh.

Well, that's still better than the snake oil already circulating in the 2016 presidential derby. Oh, that stuff's stinking up the place, all right, and some people seem to be recognizing some of the same old same old as, well, the same old same old, but at the same time they don't seem to be noticing that thje snake oil they're buying from the likes of Donald Trump is still is a sham.

#

Snakes And Ladders

(Shouldn't Fox News be using this version? I mean, considering the audience...)

I guess this is the season for snakes. I hike in the hills behind my house every day and lately we keep running into rattlesnakes. Very inconvenient. Turns out R.E.M. is more concerned about a different species of dangerous snake:

R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" was used in the Fox News coverage of the Democratic National Convention last night. R.E.M. today, through its music publisher, Warner-Tamerlane Music, demanded that Fox News cease and desist from continuing its unlicensed and unauthorized use of the song. Michael Stipe said, "We have little or no respect for their puff adder brand of reportage. Our music does not belong there."

Wikipedia defines a puff adder as "a venomous viper species found in savannah and grasslands from Morocco and western Arabia throughout Africa except for the Sahara and rain forest regions. It is responsible for causing the most fatalities in Africa owing to various factors, such as its wide distribution and frequent occurrence in highly populated regions... Normally a sluggish species, it relies on camouflage for protection... When agitated, it can resort to a typical serpentine movement and move with surprising speed... If disturbed, they will hiss loudly and continuously, adopting a tightly coiled defensive posture... They are bad-tempered snakes and some specimens never settle down in captivity, always hissing and puffing when approached." Fox called R.E.M. publicity hounds for bringing it up and says it has the right to use R.E.M.'s music any way it wants to.

"FOX News Channel’s use of an R.E.M. song during Thursday’s edition of Fox & Friends was in full accordance with its license agreements with all appropriate parties. Nevertheless, we’re always flattered to have this much attention for a song selection and we hope R.E.M. was able to satisfy their publicity fix."

But, to be honest, I was more concerned by a different viper reference this week, one from Nancy Pelosi, who I respect and admire but who made a horrifying mistake in appointing "ex"-Blue Dog Steve Israel as chair of the DCCC. Israel outsized career aspirations outstrip his modest talents and he's trying to use the DCCC to lard up the House caucus with conservative Blue Dogs and New Dems, thereby risking the chance to take back the majority-- it was only 2010 when Democratic voters were very clear that they had no interest in supporting Blue Dogs and Nancy was displaced by John Boehner because a couple dozen Blue Dogs and other ConservaDems went down to defeat caused by Democrats staying home on election day. But Pelosi doesn't see it that way. She admits Israel is a dangerous snake but believes his serpentine tendencies can be used for the good of the party-- even though he only uses them against progressives, never against his Republican pals.

"We’re going to go mano-a-mano,” the 72-year-old House minority leader promised Thursday in Charlotte, N.C., site of the Democratic National Convention, where she predicted that the Dems will pick up 27 seats in November—two more than necessary to regain the majority. “We’re not yielding one grain of sand. I never go into a fight predicated on losing. It’s always about winning.”

...And she boldly raised expectations for the Democrats’ political fortunes, claiming that a 27-seat pickup is “a worst-case scenario” in a year when President Obama, she said, will also win reelection.

“In my opinion, Steve Israel is the best,” Pelosi said, referring to New York’s 2nd District representative, who chairs the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “He’s driven by policy, which makes him very firm in politics … I said to him, ‘Understand, when you take this job, this is for the cold-blooded’ … But Steve has sufficient reptilian tendencies to do the job.” She meant that as a compliment.

I'll just take it on face value.

The Republican Coalition-- Crackpot City: Snakehandlers, KKK Organizers, Plutocrats, Secessionists...

When I was teaching at McGill in Montreal I'm pretty certain I was the only professor there who wasn't repulsed by students using Wikipedia for research. All the other faculty members I know there absolutely fulminated at the idea that students would turn to Wikipedia... which always appeared to be as good an idea to me as anything else that might get them interested in the subject. Friday a congressman sent me this wikipedia report on Rick Perry supporters who are much more committed to Texas independence than he has been.

The modern movement for [Texas] independence was started by the research of Richard Lance (Rick) McLaren. McLaren claimed that, in 1861, Texans had voted four-to-one to leave the Union. Despite almost universal claims of legal scholars and historians, McLaren claimed that Texas met the qualifications, under international law, of a captive nation of war, since the end of the American Civil War in 1865. McLaren engaged in a protracted series of court and actual battles.

The "Republic of Texas" is a group of individuals that claims that the annexation of Texas by the United States was illegal and that Texas remains an independent nation under occupation. Group activists draw on Tenther political thinking to advocate their ideas. The issue of the Legal status of Texas led the group to claim to reinstate a provisional government on December 13, 1995. Activists within the movement claim over 40,000 active supporters; however, there is no widespread popular support for an independent Texas. The movement split into three factions in 1996, one led by McLaren, one by David Johnson and Jesse Enloe, and the third by Archie Lowe and Daniel Miller. In 1997 McLaren and his followers kidnapped Joe and Margaret Ann Rowe, held them hostage at the Fort Davis Resort, and demanded the release of two movement members in exchange for the Rowes. McLaren's wife, Evelyn, convinced him to surrender peacefully after a week-long standoff with police and Texas Rangers. The McLarens and four other Republic of Texas members were sent to prison, which effectively destroyed the McLaren faction; the Johnson-Enloe faction was discredited after two of its members, Jack Abbot Grebe Jr. and Johnie Wise, were convicted in 1998 of threatening to assassinate several government officials, including President Bill Clinton.

In 2003 what remained of the movement consolidated into one dominant group recognizing the current "interim" government (which replaced the "provisional" government), headed by President Daniel Miller. This interim government claims authority from the original proclamations of 1995 and set up a seat of government in the town of Overton, Texas. Most of the original personalities of the movement have disappeared from public view. Finance has come from donations and the sale of some items such as a Republic of Texas passport. The Republic of Texas headquarters in Overton burned down on August 31, 2005; one person was moderately injured. A separate movement, called the "Texas Convention Pro-Continuation 1861" (TCPC) claims to be the official authority "recognized by the State of Texas and the United States Government for the contemporary effort to bring to power, by popular vote of the People of Texas, the government of the Republic of Texas."

Yet another Republic of Texas group, sometimes referred to as the 10th Congress, meets at Washington-on-the-Brazos. Many of these members have splintered from previous RoT groups. Their President is Larry Hughes, and Vice President is V. Dale Ross.

Republic of Texas President Miller and Laurence Savage published the Republic of Texas's manifesto Texan Arise in 2004. The book outlines the history of Texas, the history and philosophy of the Republic of Texas group, a road map to independence, and some spiritualistic views of Texas. A second important book for the movement is The Brief by the Republic of Texas, published in 2003, a comprehensive case against the United States and State of Texas governments. The book is laid out like a court case, and cites approximately 250 exhibits.

Rick Perry isn't talking about these folks on TV. Instead he's appealing to right-wing extremists by cozying up to anti-government nihilists like Paul Ryan, who he claims agree with him that Social Security is a Ponzi Scheme. The Republican Party's selection of a presidential nominee will probably be based on how many crackpots who participate in their process agree or disagree (or understand) the Ponzi Scheme argument.

It could be worse. Rachel touches on another Republican crackpot problem in the clip up top. She never mentions the touchy subject of all the GOP supporters who are part of snake handler churches in backward, deep red areas of Alabama, Georgia, Kentucky, Tennessee, West Virginia and southeast Ohio.



Instead, Rachel talks about the other right-wing religion: their dangerous obsession with anti-social deregulation. Watch the clip but, in short, part of the Republican "jobs bill" is to get rid of regulations-- like those regulating the importation of man-eating pythons and anacondas-- so that entrepreneurs can... create jobs. Well, of course Republicans and their wealthy donors want to create jobs... wherever the job markets are cheapest. That's why so many GOP plutocrats-- we talked about SuperCommittee member and Whirlpool heir Fred Upton a few days ago-- have exported millions of American jobs overseas. Another one like Upton, Montana rightist Steve Daines, is trying to get into Congress even though his record on job creation has been far more beneficial in cheap Asian labor markets than here in the U.S. It's essential to drive plutocrats like Upton out of Congress and to keep plutocrats like Daines out of Congress-- so they can't continue rigging our laws to strip middle-class jobs out of the country for the benefit of a few at the very top. By the way, the Republican alternative to the plutocrat in Montana is John Abarr, a Ku Klux Klan organizer. The two wings of the party are fighting it out for the nomination. Tomorrow afternoon, we'll introduce you to an excellent Democrat running for the seat, Franke Wilmer.