Tom Tom

                                            Tom Tom

                            The piper's son

                            He played

                            The drum

                            Ton ton Tum

Living Life

               One who lives life in the present, in the here and now, and who is becoming more aware of the world as it is, may be called sane. 

            Today is the very life of life. In this brief span are all the truths and realities of ones life. The bliss of growth is today. The glory of action is today. The splendor is today.

            It may not be just so, but it does seem worth a thought.

                                                                                    RCS

An Introduction to Climate Change

 "We" have known about Climate change since 1912.

Acupuncture: What About It?

             A quick answer is, it's about our health.

            The better our understanding of acupuncture and the more we use acupuncture, the better our health and the lower the cost of our healthcare. It seems that acupuncture even leads to healthier healthcare. Acupuncture has many uses in care and cure. To begin with it is a safer and usually a less expensive way to handle pain than are drugs.

            We can learn more about acupuncture and we ought to. We are doing so right now! good for us. Helping one another to learn can make the learning easier and the benefits to come sooner. You can participate in that help by sharing some of your thoughts on the topic in the "comments" section below.

            In the U.S some helpful co-operation has begun. But it is not common yet. In fact there is some active resistance from officials and professionals. There is also a lot of what we might call passive resistance from many officials and professionals.

            The French, Russians, Chinese, and others have experienced more use of Acupuncture than have most of us in the Americas. They are benefiting from that use now. For a time the communist autocracy resisted acupuncture as much as any of us. However, the China of today has been enjoying the benefits of acupuncture once again. Western style doctors there and including those practicing acupuncture are co-operating so that many Chinese are getting better healthcare at more affordable prices.

            In the U.S. about 20% of the costs to the individual for many surgical procedures go to the anesthesiologist for his work and the use of his life saving equipment. As we learn more about acupuncture, its safety, its shortening of hospital stays, and its chances for lowering insurance rates, the more interesting it gets.

            To me, what is more interesting yet is the way it simple stops the pain of  most surgery in ways most common among us. That interest is augmented as we look into the effective ways acupuncture successfully treats, heals, and cures in situations in which our care is much less successful.

            There is that which we can do to improve our health. We can take better care of ourselves just by actually doing that which can do to take care of ourselves. We can also learn more about acupuncture and its use in our country. Perhaps you could talk to your doctor about it. We can use the internet to learn much about it. We can ask friend and family what they have heard about it, or if they have experienced it. You might find an organization interested it and learn more about them and more about acupuncture through them. You could tells a bit about what you find out via our ''comment'' section. Sharing information and be empowering.

            I hope to share more about acupuncture with you right here.

            Thank you for reading.

                                                                                        rcs

Transformations of the European Continent | YouTube Video

Get to know Europe and it's natural history. The European continent has gone through enormous changes. The peoples of that continent are experiencing great changes today. Many of those people count Iceland as part of Europe. Get a taste, here, of the natural history of Europe. You can begin to understand the great trans,formation of the European continent.

                                                                            rcs

        

Search This Post

 RCS Posts: Blog search

           For readers who are not familiar with the many search options available to them here, I will begin to review some of them.

            It seems that blogs are so out of fashion that few remember how they may be fashioned. For example this blog is of three columns. I have used the central column as the place up to 400 essays or posts.

                An important function of the columns to the left and right of the central column is to offer you apps to help you find the essays which interest you. They are largely made up of search apps. However, they also contain other helpful apps.

             Let me begin with the column to your left on the main view of the page. On all of my blogs the this left hand column begins with the app which allows you to select the language in which to choose to read the post you select.

                Other apps you will find in this column may have a different order on each of the associated blogs. For example the next app might be "Associated Blog Sites to visit." To be transported to the one which interests you and be transported to it. The next app may be "Popular Posts." There you can find the names of up to four posts others have been finding interesting. Each name will be follow by a few words about it. click on that name and that post will appear. Next you may come to a title that reads "Pages." Click on one of the listings there and be taken to another page where you can find posts much like this one or different.

                The last listing in this column will usually be "Blog Archive." This can be a very useful app for you. Use it to become familiar with the essays and other posts available on this blog site. You will see a list of years and months. Click on one and you will taken to all of the posts published in that period. All are interesting and usually contain some hard to find YouTube videos which YouTube allows me to show.

                The right hand column usually begins with a search app, perhaps with the  title "Search This Site." There is a little window in which you may enter a word or phrase and then click on the word "Search." Try it and see what happens.

                I will leave this little post here for a few weeks and then move it to "Pages." You are now on the home page.

                This is a good place from which to comment.

                                                                                rcs

 

 

 

Measuring Happiness: How is your country doing?

RCS Posts: Measuring the Happines of Individuals on nearly every Country on Earth 

                A good effort is being made by a small number of institutions to measure the happiness of the people of a given country. The results of such measurement could provide a method by which to compare the average happiness of  the people of one country to that of the people of another country. Not an easy task.

                Another difficult task is to measure the economic equality of any given country in such a way as to measure economic equality levels among countries. The U.N. is one of the institutions attempting to measure and compare such less than perfectly defined terms as "economic equality" and "happiness." List of countries ordered by relative equality or happiness are now published each year or two.

                So far it seems they do a more realistic job of measuring economic equality than they do of measuring happiness.

The published results often include some interesting details such as: perception of corruption, freedom to make life choices, and GDP per capita (which is given much weight in the list below).

The top few countries from the years 2014 through 2016, listed in numerical order, with the happiest first with the rest following in descending order of happiness:
1. Norway  
2. Denmark (a more recent listing has Denmark first)
3. Iceland (a together county who's people are learning they still need to participate in an ongoing national dialogue.)
4. Switzerland (It does seem that the rich may be happier than the rest of us.)
5. Finland (or maybe the colder are happier.)
6. Netherlands
7. Canada
8. New Zeland
9. Australia
10. Sweden
11. Israel
12. Costa Rica
13. Austria
14. United States (Nice to see the U.S. still in the top fifth)
15. Ireland (nice going!)
16. Germany
17. Belgium
18. Luxembourg
19. United Kingdom (Kind of like England.)
20. Chile
21. United Arab Emirates
22. Brazil
23 Czech Republic (good)
24. Argentina
25.Mexico
26. Singapore
27. Malta
28. Uruguy
29. Guatemala (How were the Maya counted?)
30. Panama 
31. France
32. Thailand 
33. Taiwan 
34. Spain
35. Quatar
36. Colombia (not bad)
37. Saudi Arabia
38. Trinidad Tobago
39. Kuwait
40. Slovakia

                This list does not show all the information available on the orginal. You can find more complete and up to date information online. I suggest that you start with the U.N. has ONU to Spanish speakers. I know you will not believe everything you see on a list. We are pretty sure that ever country has some level of corruption. An organization of countries such as the U.N. is likely to have some corruption. Even your favorite list from your favorite organization is likely to have its bias.

                Check to see how your country is doing today by checking the latest U.N. Do check out more lists online. Do talk with us about what you find or would like to find.

                                                                                by Richard Sheehan

  

One Move Toward a Better World and a Better Earth

RCS Posts. Ecological Science: Running out of Time  Documentary on Holistic Management                   

              

                Become a cowboy and save the Earth and save our world. Become a goat girl and do the same. A  shepherd can do it too.  Not really a joke.

                 Learn this man's name. Listen to that which he has to say. Read his books. If you won't do that much, you could learn to stop the bigger asteroids and comets knocking our Earth out of orbit.

We need holistic herdsmen and those who have their backs, so to speak.

We do not have all the time in the world.

                                                                                                                rcs

The Field Analysis of a Lot

 RCS Post: Picture of SCIENCE    

The real building blocks of science with David Tong                      

                

                It seems to be our best analysis yet. Are there fundamental building blocks of all?

How did time start to exist. My  mother might have said that she was not sure how, but she felt sure she knew where and that was, in the mind of man. 

There is food for thought here. There is also power to do.

 

 

                                                                        rcs

Contagion, Disease Vectors, and Public Health

RCS Posts: We need to be a we before we can be an effective we 

                 We have experienced a new viral disease vector among us. We have called it Covid-19 and know that it is an effective contagion. It has spread among us by watery droplets and particles of a variety of sizes, many to small to be seen by our unaided eyes.

                Speaking of eyes, Covi (as we affectionately call it in Colombia), may enter our system through our eyes.

                Covid can also be transmitted to us as aerosols so is a bit airborne, but is born down by the water which carries it. There may be disease vectors which are more effectively airborne.

                A more fully airborne vector could infect a larger portion of Earth with more deadly effect than Covid. Such a situation could be met with a well organized, well prepared public public response. A more generally organized and effective response than the people of Earth have practiced within memory is possible. That is, a lot of us could be called to practice a co-operation, organization, and understanding to which we have not yet become familiar. Who would make that call? Who would respond to it?

                We are the public and we are the responsible for our public health system. It is up to us to organize. We have been reminded that a healthy public health system and a well educated corps of public health journalists could help us greatly. When we do not take responsibility for our public health system and our public health Journalists who might? With a little more support and co-operation, with a little more support  our public health system could be better prepared to support our health and to stand with us effectively. 

                However, the people of that system may not be the best to keep enough of us well informed.  Many of the specialists and professionals of our public health system are much like many of our doctors. They often speak a language we do not readily understand. They have a language which appears to serve them well, but does not serve us very well.

                For a little while, at a time when there were fewer of us, a significant number of us were kept better informed by news paper journalist who specialized in public health issues and sometimes had dedicated columns. There are now fewer news papers per-capita and they not as well funded and the demand for specialized columns is low. No new public health specials are be employ by papers or magazines and we are less well informed. New journalist to specialize in public health are not being trained or educated.  

                How can we get an ongoing stream of important public health information which we can easily understand? The answer to that question seems to be up to us. 

                I have done little to support a good and improving public health system or a good public health information distribution system. How about you. You or I can't do a lot alone, but perhaps there is a larger we willing to do a bit together.

                We have a lot to learn and a lot to. We might do well do begin some of that learning and doing right now. Its a good thing that we can be so very many.

                Just below there is a "comments" widow available for your input. You can tell me what you would like to read here on RCS Posts. You can add pertinent information to this post. You can correct my errors, ask questions, and make comments.

                Thank you for reading this little essay.

                                                                                rcs

Way of Learning

 RCS Posts: Learning/teaching/culture. Learning Activity

 

                A teacher's activity and the activity of a student both have esoteric facets. Nevertheless, most of us have important understandings of both learning and teaching.

                A teacher arranges data, facts, information, and knowledge for students to do the same for themselves and for others. Also a teacher aims aims to avoid damaging a student's motivation. It's the transmission of culture.

                A teacher helps students to use logic, definitions, and analysis to their benefit and the benefit of their world. Who was it that said teaching is easy?

                Good teacher's words are often like tiny seeds which may be held in many different hands and are pregnant with meaning. A simple utterance, like "The beginning is half of the whole." may confuse one for a time, but later help that one through difficult times. 

                A teacher's words may be powerful and impart power, and being so, also be dangerous. A good teacher offers them as tiny, easily controlled sparks which may, in time, spark a productive fire which makes a smith's fire seem small.

                To be a truly good learner or disciple, is to be heard by the teacher. Too be heard the pupil must speak. The teacher is a reacher. A teacher wants to extend himself or herself to the learner. Good teachers and good students must both be good listeners. Good listening is not easy. That good teacher wants to be prompt to hear, to listen, and to understand. A hard job, a difficult one. But, first the disciple must speak; often not an easy task. Even so it is best that the disciple speak well. Disciple and master desire to retain and preserve in memory the better part of that which is heard and to understand it. Each interprets and probably reinterprets.

                A good student dismisses nothing which is taught until the the rudiments are mastered. It can sometimes seem much to swallow. But one does well to first try to ingest or create a kind of framework for those rudiments. It's okay to swallow a bit of framework; try it you may like it. I once thought of it as a set of hooks that I could hang stuff on and not let it just fall out of my mind. It an organizing feature early on. I could hang similar stuff on the same hook or on near hooks. They were there for me to use, check out, and from time to time to say something like, "Ah, I see!  

                Sometimes just one interesting fact or piece of information may be held as a kind of magnet for related information until some organization emerges. That organization can be the beginning of one of a student's frameworks. That framework as a student owns it, ought to be kept flexible. A student may come  to love a "framework" that has proven useful in her life only to find she has to let go of it and to replace it with one more realistic. Learning can be difficult and relearning no easier. 

                As life goes on, a learner may find that he has made useful places to hang, some say attach, new information and new understandings of a similar or corresponding nature. He may find hat he has created a place to do analysis.

                As one observes one's learning one may see something like the above happening much on its own. Co-operating with that happening can often be a productive practice.

                The good teacher may offer a ready-made framework as part of a lesson on, say, analysis. The good student is grateful.

                Thank you for reading.

                                                                        rcs

        

 

How to search This Blog Site

 

RCS Posts: Hints for searching this blog and  giving yourself a chance of finding what you are looking for, or, at least  some interesting stuff.

             Using "Labels" in the right hand column or the search function at the top left side of the page are to good ways to find what you are looking for.

            

            Find interesting topics by a search of "Labels" in the right hand column of this blog. Read and scroll down. When you find your topic click on it an seen what comes up.

             Or, Look at the upper left-hand corner of the blog and see the space to print your one or two word search for your topic of interest, click on the magnifying glass and see what appears on your page.

            When you type a word into that white blank in the upper left-hand corner of this blog and then click on the magnifying glass you may instructively surprised.


            Searches can be fun and finding what you want is satisfying.

 

            Tell me if you want more search info.



                                                                    by Richard

Read These Posts in a Language of Your Choice

RCS Posts: You can read these posts in your own language with just a click.

                If you are from Sri Lanka, Brazil, Singapore, Pakistan, Peru, Estonia, Russia, Slovenia, Argentina, Switzerland, Belgium, Malaysia, Portugal, Cyprus, Austria, Mexico, Poland, Trinidad and Tobago, Netherlands, Malta, Sweden, Norway, Iceland, or  Uruguay, Chile, South Africa, Afghanistan, our translation function is pretty sure to have a language with which you are comfortable 
  
            Check the top left hand column of this blog and see the translation app. Click on the language you are comfortable with. The translations are not always perfect, but many of our posts translate well.

                                                            RCS

  

Colombian Natural Regions

RCS Posts: A Great Variety of Regions in Colombia!

                                                  

 

 

     It's alive. It's a great biosphere of variety and activity. There is desert, rivers, a great variety of altitudes an climates. There are two oceans and the Amazon, There are people, coffee, and a lot of flowers. People of many nations say that parts of the country side reminds them of their own country.

 

                                                                            rcs

 

Using Herbs and Spices

 RCS Posts: Enhance flavors for better eating

                We can benefit by using herbs to enhance the flavor of fruits, cheeses, and meats. Use herbs to provide new, interesting, and delicious flavors to your food. Herbs add rare and valuable nutrients to your dining. The savor they add can amaze. Below are ways specific herbs have been successfully  matched  with a given food.

Experiment with the following combinations:

Beef: bay chives, cloves, cumin, red pepper, marjoram, savory bay leaves, mustard, black pepper, red chilies, red pepper, horseradish with fatty roasts .....

Lamb: garlic, marjoram, oregano, rosemary........

Pork: Coriander, cumin, garlic, ginger, savory, thyme.....

Cheese: basil, chervil, curry, dill, fennel, garlic, marjoram, parsley....

Fruit: aníse, cinnamon, coriander, cloves, lemon, verbena, mint, rose geranium, sweet cicely....

Suggestions:

~ It is often good to begin with a recipe.
~ Herbs are often potent, they can be costly, Use them sparingly(at first),
~ Experiment with herbs one at a time on yourself before offering your creation to a friend.
~ Make little(or big) slits in roasts and put select herbs in those slits.
~ Buy herbs one at a time and at first try them one at a time. 
~ Start with herbs mentioned most often here or elsewhere.

                Eating joy and health.


                                                                                    RCS

Green Colombia

Green Colombia: hydro-electric power and clean water

     

Colombians are supporting practical plans to:

~ restore the native riparian vegetation along streams. They want cleaner water in the quebradas cleaner water for the veredas.

~ development of decentralize networks for supplying many megawatts of renewable energy with the many small efficient generators now available.

~ improve shipping strategies so many more are delivered using less packaging and fuel.

~ establish reliable methods of measuring progress in emissions reduction.

~ increases local food production in urban greenbelts and elsewhere.

~ encourage foot, bicycle, and transit use with practical design and inventiveness.

~ devote more(60%)of new city development to green space. 

Others elsewhere can and are supporting similar practical plans.

                                                                                        by Richard

 

Free, Democratic, Inclusive

  History With RCS: Cossack, Ukrainian, and Free

 

                Cossacks have been free men and democratic. They have only been known to history since about 650 AD. They have been active in self-governing communities for well over a thousand years. They have been open, inclusive, with a Slavic bent. They knew a world from Siberia to Lithuania and up and down for many years, but were drawn to a certain land.

                The Ukrainian Cossack State was formed in about 1650 in what is now central Ukraine. Their leaders were elected.

                Through the years they have been few. Democracy is not easy. They experienced much, and stayed free among strong neighbors such as Poland, Russia, and Lithuania. Among such neighbors they continued to show a strong will for self-governance.

                They formed the Ukrainian Peoples Republic in 1917 to 1921, the western Ukrainian Peoples Republic 1918 to 1919, and the Ukrainian Peoples Republic in exile  from 1920 to 1992.

                They were among the very first members of the Soviet Union with its promise of self-governing citizens. They may have been the first to leave that Union when it showed little will to self-governing citizenship.

                They were among the charter members of the United Nations with its promise of a chance for peace and freedom. They have not given up on their fellow members yet. 

                Ah, yes, I believe that at the breakup of the Soviet Union the were left with one of the greatest stock of atomic weapons on Earth and gave up that stock to the U.N.

                They have been few and still are. They are still a mixture of races, nationalities, and religions. They are a free democratic people self selected from that mixture.

                We might mention that while all this was going on they, with the help of a few viking Norsemen, created Russia. Oh, and they had a modern republic type written constitution in 1710.

                I believe that a history of the cultures most effecting these people could be traced back another 4,000 years. However, before about 650 AD they were little recognized in history as a discrete people. Throughout perhaps a thousand years of their history they stayed freer, more democratic, and inclusive than most. They have had to defend themselves and they have. They have also kept the hope and faith that they could live a free people among free people. They have  seen inclusiveness, freedom, and democracy disappear like smoke again and again. Still they hold a vision of that freedom and self governance closer and dearer than do most.

               Please feel free to correct this work or add to it in the "comments" section below or just to click on a social media button just below.

                Ukraine. Ukraine. Ukraine.

                Thank you for reading.

 

                                                                        rcs

                                                                     

Green Chemistry Initiative

RCS Posts: Awareness is raising in chemistry 

Chemistry? Yes, chemistry.

The following web sites have much to say about green chemistry.  


 communities.acs.org

 greenchemuoft.ca



Green is good.


                                                                                                by Richard Sheehan
                                                                                                for you

Science: Early Notes

 RCS Posts: Introducing science. The practice of science is a way to understanding.

 

            Science is the practice of a method of understanding and of communicating that understanding. Some say that science may be defined by the scientific method. This method can be a good aid to  self development and too becoming a more successful human being.

 

            By becoming better acquainted with this method one becomes a more knowing individual. One gains a better understanding of all the sciences. One may even discover a useful scientific attitude toward one's world. 

 

            The scientific method generally includes the following doings: observation, identification, recognition, discovery, experimentation, and the theoretical explanation of natural phenomena. So, a scientist observes a doing or happening, tests it, and begins to explain it. The method is how he does this. How one does it may be more important than what one does. 

 

            If you feel yourself getting interested in science you can benefit much by gaining a more fulsome understanding of the vocabulary of the paragraph above including: phenomena, identification, theoretical, recognition, and discovery. You may benefit more by asking for the scientific meaning of each. Two places you can do that are by checking online and by asking me to elaborate.

 

            "Science" is, at heart, knowledge. It has come to name a special way of gaining that knowledge. That special way has come to be called the "scientific method." The method is not complicated. However, skill in its use needs to be developed. Science is a way of coming to know; a powerful way. It is also an effective way of communicating that knowledge.

 

            The scientific method is the main way science is done. 

 

            Now that you are likely to be realizing that the scientific method is a practical and productive way of gaining knowledge, let me assure you that is also for gaining a useful understanding of each of the many individual sciences.

            The process of science and the gaining of all knowledge is often best begun with observation. You can check out some of the ways of observation online. Also let me know what you want to know more of. I will be please to share whatever I know.

 

I            I suppose that you now get that I believe that observation is important to the doing of science and, indeed, to most knowledge getting. What one does is observe. That is done by using one's senses and is best done by searching carefully. How you do it may include the use of instrumentation. It is done attentively, noting, and recording. Observation can lead to developing to a judgement or inference. Where might it all lead!

            Identification is the next step in the method. There are ways of conducting the process of identification. Those ways may differ from science to science. However, the way of identification can inclued the finding of: the origin of a phenomenon, its nature, and its definitive elements. For certain sciences it might be to detrmaine its taxonomic classification.

            Just below the end of this post there is a window in which you may make corrections and additions to this content, and also to ask questions and make comments. You may begin that procecess or to explore it click on "comments" there. Should you encounter "no coments" clock anyway.

            As you continue to learn more about science you will come to understand more including public health issuse and scientific reporting. You may find yourself being attracted to a specific  science. Every on can have a favorite science. Or, you may finding yourself asking for the details of the effectivness of a new drug, or for a better exposition of the evidence, and stuff like that. 

            You could find yourself reminding a friend that the correlation between two variables does nor mean that one one causes the other, and maybe even giving a clear explanation of why that is a fact.

             Your interest may lead you to an interest in the politics of research and health policy decisions or that of access science.

 

            You may find another science related posts on this blog.

 

            Thank you for reading.

 

 

             

            

 

Trauma

RCS Posts: Who among us has not suffered trauma, physical, mental, emotional trauma                 

 

             Trauma, especially long lasting trauma, has mostly negative effects on us. It often wounds us, scars us, and trains us. Yes, trains us; teaches responses and habits and points of view. The training often results in learning that is counter productive in many life situations. 

 

            A prison term is often powerfully traumatizing. Prison wounds and trains. It leaves scars and engraves memories. And, of course, it changes the course of a life, for life. Its a sort of life sentence. 

            Months in certain military situations changes one similarly. There are reasons that we say war is hell.

            In one's lifetime there might occur a variety of trauma. A crippling accident and the death of one's child are dramatic and serious examples. However, few traumatizing situations are institutionalized and as socially sanctioned as are war and prison.

            We now have more of our fellows in prison for less reason then ever; more than any other nation or country. We pay a lot to traumatize others. Such payments may in time be traumatizing in themselves. We need to become aware that liberated prisoners are in need of help. Sometimes part of the help he needs may be called spiritual. He(or she) may need retraining in their craft or profession. She may benefit greatly from support to attend weekly meetings with recovering persons with similar trauma.

            A prisoner or a kidnapped person has probably too long suffered traumatizing mental pressure and is in need of care and a reintroduction to society. A man we have trained to kill for us and has killed for us needs similar reintroduction and care.

            A prisoner has, from his very release, suffered a moral deformity. How much deformation may he have suffered during his term as a prisoner? Still his sudden freedom is another trauma. 

            Saying, and knowing, that we too have suffered trauma does little to change the reality of another who has so suffered. Telling him (and her) of what you have suffered and listening to him tell what he has suffered may do a bit to heal that suffering. Perhaps even you and others could benefit from a kind of debriefing. Sharing a hurtful, angering, desocializing, embittering, experience with another who has so suffered has proved healing for many. Such interchange often seems to ease the heart and also to more usefully arrange the memories.

            However, we need to keep in mind a kidnap victim, a prisoner, a warrior  Has other needs: food, housing, clothing, health care, education, and more. Perhaps more than anything a good income well earned.

            After the shock of release from what has often been a painful demeaning situation,has settled, bitterness often comes. Release is a relief but, one has been hurt and hurt often turns to anger. With the passage of time and, hopefully, some help that anger may turn to a kind of bitterness. The bitterness is not unnatural but, it does not make for a happy camper.  One may go on to suffer a long term of an unpleasant disillusionment and bitterness for  damn good reasons 

 There there may be more to come.

                                                                            by Richard