This is a little overdue so I guess I have a lot to cover.
My painting has come to a sudden halt, after the completion of three new decent sized pieces, due to financial reasons. I am broke. Poor. Starving; the horrible image artists have too much been associated with. But more importantly, I am restricting myself in terms of painting and experimenting with other mediums. What is even more important than this is that I am still a nobody and nameless beyond my town and classrooms and, if this starvation continues, will remain this way until further notice. But who cares, we shouldn’t give a fuck. At twenty years old, I am farther ahead than all the others my age I know and have a foundation to go back to when something fails. While they still try to figure out what they want to do, I am doing it little by little and having a subtle impact on those around me. But somethings are amongst this thin air, taking what little oxygen I have left to call my own and causing a recent collapse.
Besides the financial ruin, my mother (if you haven’t been keeping up) is going to jail. I have recently written a letter to somewhat lessen the punishment, but honestly don’t want to. That is besides the point. I will have to, once again, take the responsibility of guiding my sister into a decent life. But her teenage angst is rising and I don’t want a part of this anymore.
I have been working harder than ever to get out of here and transfer to another college; Ringling School of Art and Design. I have high hopes and am waiting on the letter of truth. The letter to forever change my life. I have realized the only way to get out of this life is through education. I am sick of being broke, nameless and stuck inside of a town in which nobody cares for. I need some materialism to become disgusted with. I need some experience under my belt but more importantly I need to re-visit the areas in which my childhood took place to get some motivation…to see how far I have come.
What am I doing for now?
Living. Getting by through school and poetry. Music.
I have a show, once again at Pia Sjolin Design sometime in Feb. It has escaped my head, as that is how little I am focused on it. Something is terribly wrong.
I have been doing more and more design lately and have taken an interest in trying to get the attention of more investors. Installation projects have been coming and going, but I am onto something with this one…I’ll keep you posted.
A recent discovery of a Neolithic man with an amputated forearm suggests that the medical knowledge of that period may be more advanced than previously thought:
Early Neolithic surgeons used a sharpened flint stone and rudimentary anaesthetics to amputate the elderly man’s left forearm, and treated the wound in sterile conditions, experts believe.
Evidence of the early surgery was unearthed by Cécile Buquet-Marcon and Anaick Samzun, both archaeologists, and Philippe Charlier, a forensic scientist, during work on a tomb discovered at Buthiers-Boulancourt, about 40 miles south of Paris.
Stone Age Amputee Proves Neolithic Medics More Advanced Than Previously Thought [Telegraph]
If you’ve been running around in skeptical circles for any amount of time, then you’ve no doubt heard of the quackery called homeopathy. According to the Skeptic’s Dictionary entry on homeopathy…
Classical homeopathy originated in the 19th century with Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) as an alternative to the standard medical practices of the day, such as phlebotomy or bloodletting. Opening veins to bleed patients, force disease out of the body, and restore the humors to a proper balance was a popular medical practice until the late19th century (Williams 2000: 265). Hahnemann rejected the notion that disease should be treated by letting out the offensive matter causing the illness. In this, he was right. On the other hand, he argued that disease should be treated by helping the vital force restore the body to harmony and balance. In this, he was wrong. He rejected other common medical practices of his day such as purgatives and emetics “with opium and mercury-based calomel” (ibid.: 145). He was right to do so. Hahnemann’s alternative medicine was more humane and less likely to cause harm than many of the conventional practices of his day. …
Homeopaths refer to “the Law of Infinitesimals” and the “Law of Similars” as grounds for using minute substances and for believing that like heals like, but these are not natural laws of science. If they are laws at all, they are metaphysical laws, i.e., beliefs about the nature of reality that would be impossible to test by empirical means. Hahnemann’s ideas did originate in experience. That he drew metaphysical conclusions from empirical events does not, however, make his ideas empirically testable. The law of infinitesimals seems to have been partly derived from his notion that any remedy would cause the patient to get worse before getting better and that one could minimize this negative effect by significantly reducing the size of the dose. Most critics of homeopathy balk at this “law” because it leads to remedies that have been so diluted as to have nary a single molecule of the substance one starts with.
And this is the real rub with a notion as loony as homeopathy. We already know from modern science-based medicine that, in the case of drugs, there must be a certain amount of active ingredient in the drug in order for it to have the desired effect. Of course, there are dangers from using medical drugs: one of the most common is that of over-dosing. If someone takes too much of a certain active ingredient, it can be harmful or – in the worst case – fatal. For example, we all know about stories of people committing suicide by over-dosing on sleeping pills.
However, with homeopathy, this is all turned completely on its head. Homeopaths, invoking their magical “law of infinitesimals”, insist that by diluting the active ingredient to the most ludicrous extreme (i.e., imagine diluting a solution so much that only one molecule of active ingredient remains in it) this will somehow transfer the healing power of the ingredient to the patient and actually make the solution more potent.
A classic example of debunking this particular woo-woo claim has been performed numerous times by James Randi as he lectures on the topic of homeopathy & other quackery. As he lectures, usually for roughly an hour, Randi will consume an entire bottle of homeopathic sleeping pills that he’d purchased earlier from a nearby pharmacy. Needless to say, despite performing this feat numerous times, James Randi has yet to die from such an “over-dose”.
Another good example of this very exercise in skepticism of homeopathy is outlined at this Youtube video by Ziztur. I wonder what happened to her?…
In an effort to illustrate the silliness behind these nonsense homeopathy claims more broadly in the public eye, an organization calling themselves the 10:23 Campaign: Homeopathy, There’s Nothing In It has designated that they will be conducting a “mass suicide by homeopathy” on January 30th. The whole “10:23″ bit is a play off of Avogadro’s Number (6.022×10^23 particles per mole) that one learns about in basic chemistry class – the idea being that if you have an entire mole’s worth of solution (not unreasonable) that, by homeopathic standards, there is likely only one molecule of active ingredient in it.
To sum up, I shall finish with a joke:
A man is walking naked down the street when a police officer pulls him over. As the man is being placed into the back of the squad car, having been arrested for indecent exposure, he protests, saying: “But officer, you don’t understand! I’m wearing my homeopathic pants!”
One of the primary purposes behind Full-Wave Breathing as it has become to be known is Gnosis—a clear and immediate experience and intuitive realization of the pure essence, nature and energy of Divinity as it flows within oneself and all of creation. Gnosis, as it is used by International Breath Institute founder Dr. Tom Goode, places primary value on the feminine qualities of receptivity and intuition, visionary experience and the art of health. Gnosis, like the use of Full-Wave Breathing is a teaching of love, selflessness, harmony and communion. From a Gnositic viewpoint, the answers to life can only be found when one opens to the divine current and allows oneself to be penetrated by it to the point where you are full transformed and illuminated by it.
I write this year for an aspect of your personality and that, perhaps unspoken, part of you who live your “spiritual life” as an agent of caring and kindness in your world.
You are like other readers who live their lives, care for their mindbody units and those of others, and may go thru their body “things”– including maintenance, discomfort and inconvenience. There are easier ways to manage the mindbody system and I teach them to those who are interested in their own health and that of the members of their community.
My Self-appointed task is to make your life easier. Its my way of supporting you and your contribution to improving life on the planet and the human life process. I do it because it pleases me to have healthier and more joyful people around. Thus I remind you to breathe, intend health (anything else is just dis-ease) and live fully from your heart’s awareness.
My communication is for the express purpose of enhancing your well-being during 2010. And I’ll suggest exercises for mindbody health.
One of the most powerful exercises I experienced was to ask myself, “How wouId I act if everyone in the world was my child, I his or her parent.?” Practice this with the people in your life—even just a few times–and see what happens.
As you think about it, breathe that idea (of seeing everyone you encounter throughout the day as your children) and the way it feels using full-wave, nostril breathing. Relax fully on the exhale and continue with connected breathing.
Next, practice applying the perspective throughout the day. Keep breathing!
“Pharmaganda: A Study of Conflicting Interests,” by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Leonard Horowitz, and investigative journalist Sherri Kane, evidences a virtual monopoly by Reed-Elsevier over scientific publications empowered by ChoicePoint, a leading intelligence organization and census data company serving organized crime.
Vast corruption of medicine is administered by persuasion through health science publications according to the authors who indict The Lancet–an esteemed medical journal–and other Reed-Elsevier periodicals for gross conflicting interests.
The Lancet is among 2,000 science journals published by the Reed-Elsevier-ChoicePoint conglomerate. The UK-based company sells more than 250,000 articles annually. Through its vast network of publications, combined with ChoicePoint’s “intelligence services,” control over scientific knowledge and medical practices are certain and have become disastrous. Medical intelligence and health practices have been monopolized and corrupted to the detriment of world health and every doctor and patient.
Full Article from Rense.com
Comment
Just when the government is considering national health care, more and more corruption in the health care “industry” is being exposed. It is not insignificant that drug companies, most hospitals, and many physician practices are now corporations. The corporation has only one mandate – to make money! Trailer for documentary, BigBucks Big Pharma
I enjoyed myself fully last night as I entered the world of ‘Avatar’, James Cameron’s new sci-fi epic that already handily broke a 1 billion-dollar landmark record of some kind. I’d watch the show again tonight if I could. I’d probably watch it every night for a week like my high school buddies did for “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” once upon a time.
You don’t have to care – or understand – the point of the movie to completely enjoy the stunning visual spectacle presented in wide-screen, 3D wonder. In fact, I’d advise constraining yourself specifically to the visual effects and skip putting any real thought to the message of the movie. In essence, just sing along with the song, but don’t think about what the words actually mean.
The story follows an ex-Marine named Jake as he becomes part of a mission to subjugate – or at least translocate - the natives on a strange new planet (a moon actually, but does it matter?). On the n0t-so-subtly-named Pandora, the “aliens” congregate around an enormous tree set in the middle of a seemingly endless forest. They stand about 11 feet tall, with blue skin and luminous yellow eyes and they all seem to carry bow and arrows and daggers. These blue and tall but otherwise disappointingly human-shaped beings generally seem happiest when attending their frequent tribe-wide drum fests – with a terminally simplistic 2/4 beat rhythm that sounds like it might have been pounded out on cool Senegalese drums the Anglo orchestra bought in bulk.
These earthy aliens have a sacred, mystical, spiritual connection to the forest where they live; generally behaving like any nature-loving tribe the Europeans successfully decimated a little over a century ago in North America. In a complete creative hiatus, at one point nature is even called a “mother”. Why not a father, or brother, or just skip the nuclear family reference to nature entirely? The descriptor ‘Mother Earth’ is so unoriginal, it ranks up there with Bless You and Dot Com.
Although 2 hours and something like 40 minutes, you can easily sum up the movie in one phrase: “Dances With Wolves”…but with pterodactyls you can ride.
Basically – Marine makes contact with natives through project financed by aggressive and ethics-challenged Big Business company. Marine plans on helping his financiers destroy said natives. Instead, he inadvertently falls in love with natives in general, and one curvaceous native in particular. He then becomes the enemy of his former bosses, ultimately leading the meek, dumb, dark-skinned simpletons to victory over superior white man.
I haven’t decided if this REALLY tired theme of the White Male swooping down into a primitive race, seeing their genuine good, and then becoming their Great Savior is completely racist. Some are saying it absolutely is. I don’t really think that was the intent. I just think it was lazy writing by a white male who deep-down believes that white men are still the best hope for the world. That they still run it, ultimately. But it is possible that white men really don’t have much to offer the world anymore – that we’ve had our time and made our mark. Maybe it’s time for some non-white, non-men to run the countries, write the laws, own the companies and save fictional worlds. Maybe the white boy has done about all he can.
Big Business takes a major hit in this movie. It gets portrayed as the denizen of all Evil in life. That said, it’s Big Business that has paid for every iota of scientific discovery that has occurred on Pandora. The science taking place on this moon (and taking place on our earth) is an elevated form of existence, no question, but in both worlds it mostly exists because of Big Business, either directly or through taxes. Scientists – and artists – need to accept the fact that to live in that enlightened world of thought and wonder and possibility depends on their benefactor’s mundane ability to sell widgets. Big Business is rarely genuinely evil. True, figuring out when to inject some profit-endangering humanistic principles into a business plan does takes some skill and is occasionally gotten wrong. But for the most part, if business didn’t make the poet, at least it feeds him.
The actual “avatar” is a living being made to look like the aliens, but controlled by the mind of a human. The human links to the avatar neurologically, so it can only be controlled by one specific human. Thus, the human lies in a coffin-like body-pod that connects him/her to their specific avatar. Upon falling into a coma in the pod, the avatar wakes up and the mind of the comatose human controls it.
Soohh...who gets to clean this thing?
The doc in me couldn’t help but get hung up on this part of the movie. First, all humans need to sleep. But since the avatar wakes up as soon as the human “sleeps”, and since controlling the avatar is a conscious process, the human never actually does sleep. For some evolutionary reason I can’t fathom, REM sleep is the foundation of all life. This inconvenient fact defies even the mighty pen of James Cameron. By the end of the movie, after staying awake vicariously with the characters, I felt like I’d been on call in the hospital for days on end (felt like I was back in residency again).
Also, the human lays in this coffin thing for hours and hours. At the least, he’s gotta pee himself on a regular basis, to say nothing of the inevitable bowel movement here and there. Plus, the main character’s avatar hooks up with the sexy female alien. Depicted as the first consummating night of an eternal love bond – thus likely a multicoital affair – envisioning the scene (and smell) inside the pod after this particular night left me a bit squeamish.
As mentioned, the power of this movie is in the visuals. It is a “looker” many times over. But the general message is tired, probably slightly racist, and denigrates the U.S. Military (or at least leads the audience to exult in the widespread slaughter of American soldiers/mercenaries). That said, perhaps our culture really should take the main theme of the story to heart. After all, we DID decimate the Native American culture, and based on my experiences on the Crow Reservation in Montana, I’d say we continue to. We’re also strikingly obtuse in our dealings with tribal cultures in the Middle East today. Listening to people from a different culture – rather than melting them with daisycutters and circling drones – has some merit.
But I do wish the movie had added a little post-modernism into the mix and eschewed the evil-good idea altogether. It didn’t have to pit the American Axis of Evil (big business + U.S. Army) against a pristine tribal culture practically perfect in every way. Historic Native American tribes were often duplicitous, aggressive, thieving and hateful (many still are today). They rarely trusted each other from tribe to tribe and may have been just as irresponsible had one tribe attained the raw power that the U.S. Government currently has. The Arab tribes we’re tangling with recently have a litany of faults and cobwebby dark corners too. But they are also a just, priceless, sacred, honorable people. This dichotomy exists in virtually every race in our world. Americans seem to hate this complexity in our fiction – it’s easier to hate one thing and love another and then watch them duke it out.
Yeah, YEAH! Die lame-oh Americans! Wait, didn't an American make this movie?
Thus, the conflict in the movie could have been between two parties filled with faults and frailties but ultimately imbued with genuine honor, honesty and a respect for the rights of others. Standing between them is something they both deeply need and want (trees, mineral ore…whatever). In life, conflicts almost always boil down to two parties who both have blood on their hands, but both are essentially good, honorable…and in the right. e.g., Palestine wants the land, Israel wants the land, both have been evil at times, both have been angelically good at times, and each have some form of legitimate claim to the exact space of real estate. Stick that conundrum in your avatar’s virtual peace pipe and take a deep drag, nature-brother.
Depicting this nuanced world may have weakened the sense of righteous rage as the Army went Operation Flatten Everything. It may have lessened the gloating release when the Ultimate Bad Guy finally met his ignominious end. But it would have made a better movie. It would have made the written story as complex as those fantastic visuals, and created a worthy counterpart to such a sparkling, wondrous vision.
In an article put out by PhysOrg, having a meaty ass and thighs means protection against diabetes and heart disease. Different areas of the body store and release fat differently. Thigh fat is long term and waist fat is short term, thus they release different hormones when used. Waist fat kills you slowly.
This kind of explains why men are attracted to women with fat asses. It’s just good genes.
“Yes, your ass looks fat in that dress, honey, but remember that’s a good thing.”
Have you ever been sick before? Well let me tell you, It’s not fun! I’ve been sick since yesterday, and it fucking suck’s! I have a sore throat, fever, and all this other stuff that pisses me off! Next thing you know, I’m going to be diorheaing out my mouth! That actually wouldn’t surprize me. I really hate being sick! I’ve taking at least 1 million Advil’s and other gross as shit medicine the past few days. I finally feel good enough to type on my dad’s computer. All I’ve been doing today is playing on my Wii, and trying to find a way to kill myself. I usually never get sick, but I do get migraine’s which suck ass soooooo much! I’ve had this retarded problem with me, where when I run around in the heat, I get a migraine. There’s some other ways I can get a migraine, but I usually get it from the heat. Your probably wondering what a migraine is. It’s the same as a headache, but at least 3 times worse. If you’ve ever had a brain freeze, those usually only last a few seconds, while migraine’s last up to 3-6 hours. If you’ve ever been sick, and it sucked ass, leave a comment to this post.
Today’s congress was for the presentation of some articles which would be sent to conference. Most of them were not complicated. The variables for elvaluating the results, in my opinion, were too simple to draw the valuable conclusions. For expamle, to evaluate the injure of vancomycin to renal function, ONLY the creatinine clearance rate was used, not b2-microglobulin as estimate of renal tubules impairment. There was an article said that a drug could improve microcirculation but did not relate to the alteration of hemodynamics. What the hell is it? The marked microvascular change certainly results in vascular resistance, which consequently affects global hemodynamics. Oh dear, there were some number-games on play. Fortunately, my supervisor is very strict with my studies.
January 4, 1885 – On this day was performed the first successful appendectomy in America. 22-year old Mary Gartside of Davenport, Iowa was deathly ill, and she was suffering from a sharp pain in her gut. Dr. William Grant diagnosed her with acute appendicitis, which was almost always a death warrant as there was no way to treat it.
Surgical Tools from the 1880s
Dr. Grant knew he had to try something, so he administered anesthesia and cut into Mary’s side. He located the infected appendix and removed it. Mary made a full recovery.
For most of medical history, the appendix was called a vestigial organ with no apparent value to the body. It doesn’t merit much attention unless it became inflamed, and then it’s usually a routine procedure to snip and remove the little worm-like appendage. At long last researchers now believe the appendix has a very important role to play and it isn’t just along for the ride.
Turns out that the appendix is like a reserve tank filled with all kinds of good bacteria that the digestive system needs to keep things on track. Normally our guts are teeming with these beneficial germs, but once in a blue moon a case of cholera or dysentery can roll through and wipe out all the good bacteria. That’s when the appendix kicks into high gear and reboots the digestive system with its stockpile of germs.
It’s still recommended that the appendix be removed if it becomes inflamed, but now we know a little more about what we’re losing.
Tuesday I went out to ride horses with my mom. Well, a set of circumstances caused me to have to jump off the saddle and fall on to the very hard ground. My right butt cheek and my head took most of the hit. Since I’ve had other concussions, I decided I needed to have it checked out. So my mom took me to the ER.
We arrive and I have to give them my birth name. No problem I thought. So once I got back to my room, the nurse comes in and looks at me and says, “Grace?” Yeah that’s me. The picture shows why the questions. I don’t look like a 24yo female named Grace. Then the doctor comes in and asks so questions and says we’re going to do some xrays. Not surprised. But they made me do a pregnancy test. Really I know they have to do it, but I really can say I’m not pregnant. It made my xrays take an extra hour to get done to be sure I was not pregnant.
After the fifth person questioning if I was indeed Grace, my mom looked at me and said, “wow we really need to get your name changed”. Yep it really does. So I think my mom is finally coming around. There is hope. At least for now.
Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann (1755-1843) as an alternative to the standard medical practices of the day, such as phlebotomy or bloodletting. Opening veins to bleed patients, force disease out of the body, and restore the humors to a proper balance was a popular medical practice until the late19th century (Williams 2000: 265). Hahnemann rejected the notion that disease should be treated by letting out the offensive matter causing the illness. In this, he was right. On the other hand, he argued that disease should be treated by helping the vital force restore the body to harmony and balance. In this, he was wrong. He rejected other common medical practices of his day such as purgatives and emetics “with opium and mercury-based calomel” (ibid.: 145). He was right to do so. Hahnemann’s alternative medicine was more humane and less likely to cause harm than many of the conventional practices of his day. …
“Pharmaganda: A Study of Conflicting Interests,” by Editor-in-Chief Dr. Leonard Horowitz, and investigative journalist Sherri Kane, evidences a virtual monopoly by Reed-Elsevier over scientific publications empowered by ChoicePoint, a leading intelligence organization and census data company serving organized crime. 
I enjoyed myself fully last night as I entered the world of ‘Avatar’, James Cameron’s new sci-fi epic that already handily broke a 1 billion-dollar landmark record of some kind. I’d watch the show again tonight if I could. I’d probably watch it every night for a week like my high school buddies did for “Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure” once upon a time.
