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.
Short essays on a variety of topics including: health, Earth, healthcare, food, science, public health, education, and travel. Some videos too. Videos include film and movies. and, maybe, an occasional book review. There is an "Affirmations Page" in the left-hand column. This may be a place for some discussion of language,
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.
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
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
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
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
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
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.
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: anÃse, cinnamon, coriander, cloves, lemon, verbena, mint, rose geranium, sweet cicely....
~ 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
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
"Aortic Valve Stenosis," at first look seems to be no diagnosis at all. However, when compared to a great many other diagnoses, an aortic valve stenosis seems more precise and useful than do many. It is an unhealthy narrowing of that valve opening. It says nothing about preventing it, curing it, or living with it. It does point out an unhealthy state.
Aortic, refers to the aorta. The aorta is an artery. A artery is a blood vessel which carries blood away from the heart an so carries oxygen and nutrients to the tissues of one's body. It is considered to be the main artery of the human body. It may be said to originate in the left ventricle of one's heart. A ventricle of the heart is one of the two large chambers toward the bottom of the heart. The ventricles collect and expel blood received from an atrium.Their are two atria in the human heart. The left atrium receives blood from the lungs.That blood has been oxygenated in the lungs.
The two atria are the smaller, upper, thin-walled chambers through which blood enters the ventricles.
There is a lot of somewhat unusual vocabulary used when the human circulatory system is spoken of. Pictures help. I need help doing pictures. There are lots of useful visual aids available online. Its mostly free. If you find something particularly good, please tells us about it in the "comments" widow below this post.
It looks to me like freshly oxygenated blood from the lungs arrives at the left atrium from largish vessels, one from each lung. From the left atrium, the blood passes through the mitral valve to the left ventricle. Blood from that left ventricle is moved though the aortic valve to the entire body, toes and brain.
The mitral valve is opened and closed through two flaps. It lies between the left atrium and left ventricle. As do all heart valves, it allows blood to flow in one direction only. A poorly functioning mitral valve can often lead to heart damage and death.
Back to stenosis of the aortic valve. An aortic valve which fails to fully close or open fully or not at all cause problems. If not at all the problem is short due to prompt death. For me the problem seems to be lack of oxygen reaching cells and then of nutrients not arriving too. Right now it feels as though even my heart is feeling that lack a lot. The more blockage the less life until no life at all.
So, the aortic valve controls the blood flow between the left ventricle and the aorta. Remember that the aorta is the large important artery through which blood with its oxygen an nutrients are delivered to the entire body from toes of feet to brain complete. The aortic valve controls this delivery and prevents back flow. If the valve stays closed one dies, brain, body, and all. If it stays open the heart heart fails and one dies, body, brain, and. When it stays partly open or closed one partly dies.
I have this in mind because I have recently been assured that aortic valve stenosis has been add to my spinal cord stenosis. It now seems my aortic stenosis is likely to kill me long before my spinal cord stenosis can do enough damage to kill me.
The following continues to be a bit about me. I am told that this process of narrowing of is common and probably not the first in me. I knew that because I have been diagnosed with what has been called a progressive spinal stenosis. And I have also been told that I have a sort of general atherosclerosis and arteriosclerosis and that is a sort of narrowing. And then I have been told that I have collapsed moribund capillaries in the brain and that is sort of extreme narrowing. And now I am reminded of being called narrow minded.
I am pretty sure that my aortic valve can realistically be called A key valve in my circulatory system. I have been privileged to see my valve failing to open and close fully in full motion black and white. And at the same time have seen the acumulations of calcium there that I have been told were showing up on my x-rays.
I have been experiencing lacks of energy these days with less recuperation. I am told that it is probably do to my diminished blood flow. That sounds reasonable. I now have to rest during showering and must take breaks during dressing. I awaken exhausted. I find more energy at times nearly every day. I can eat at the dinning room table, watch TV, and do this, but not all at the same time.
I had feelings and episodes that now suggest blood circulation problems. My more recent experience of fatigue, exhaustion, and lack of energy came on suddenly just before the pandemic. That appears to be belated to obstruction of flow at the valve. Awakening exhausted must be related to something.
So far I have been unable to consult a cardiologist, but believe I have and appointment for this month of January of 2022!
I continue to adjust my exercise program to my actual abilities.
Thanks for reading.
As always comments about content are appreciated.
RCS
Some notes of mine from a book by Peter Elbow about learning to write without teachers I am rediscovering that he seems to be a very good teacher and writer. I am learning from these old notes. Maybe you can learn from them too. I intend to publish some posts dealing with them. This particular post is about editing one's writing.