Who transformed Mar a Lago into Mar a Loco?
October 8, 2023 at 2:12 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Conceited, Disinformation | Leave a commentA hint: Walking, Talking Excrement.
Another hint: Had blond hair planted into his scalp.
Another hint: President Chump, who was the Creepy Clown in the White House.
Another hint: Learned to lie while still very young, as a defense against
his brutal father. See the book by his niece:
Mary L. Trump, Too Much and Never Enough, Simon and Schuster, 2020.
Another hint: Learned that lying was extremely remunative.
When his father was senile, wrote his father’s will and had his father sign it,
leaving most of his father’s money and property to himself, and then when he was
asked whether his father had been of sound mind and body when the will
was created, he lied ‘yes’. (Again, see Mary Trump’s book.)
A sometimes-fatal omission in how feeding tubes are used in current medical practice
June 1, 2023 at 1:51 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commenthttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_tube#/media/File:Enteral_feeding_tube_stylet_retracted.png
The following happened recently to a close member of my family.
Before slipping on a hardwood floor so badly that multiple surgeries were required, the person had only a mild swallowing problem : if a pill had been split with the aid of a pill-cutter, causing the resulting pieces to have sharp edges, the person would have to put the pieces in apple sauce in order to them. Occasionally a smooth but larger pill would become stuck in the person’s throat, and hot tea would be needed to help it down.
One night the person was walking to the bathroom, using a rollator as a balancing aid, and had the bad fall mentioned above.
In the hospital, and later in a rehab facility, tests of the person’s swallowing showed that the swallowing problem had worsened dramatically. When presented with various small items to swallow, every item went down the windpipe instead of the eusophogus.
That was true even for small chips of ice. The fall had transformed mild dysphagia into severe dysphagia. A feeding tube became necessary, to supply water, food, and medicines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Feeding_tube
Mysteriously, the fall had also transformed a moderate production of ordinary phlegm into abundant production of very viscous phlegm. Suctioning helped, and Mucinex helped, but the the viscous phlegm always returned. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phlegm#/media/File:Phlegm.jpg
The feeding tube could prevent choking on items entering the mouth from the outside, but the feeding tube was no defence against the the person’s own phlegm in the mouth. One night the rehab facility detected that the person had stopped breathing. The person was then rushed to a hospital, but couldn’t be revived.
This points to an important omission in the current practice in the use of feeding tubes: How can current practice be modified to defend against phlegm that the patient’s own body inserts into the patient’s mouth?
Clearly, an aspirator is needed in the mouth of any phlegm-producing patient with dysphagia.
The aspirator is needed 24 hours per day, since even during the day a patient can doze off or be sedated,
and the aspirator is also needed while the patient is sleeping at night. (The fatal choking occurred then.)
Can an in in-mouth aspirator be devised that is comfortable enough and quiet enough to not annoy the patient, and to not prevent the patient from falling asleep?
An alternative would be to administer (by the tube) a medicine that would dramatically reduce
the production of phlegm.
#Medicine, #Feeding Tube, #Dyspagia, #Swallowing, #aspirator
Finitude and its Discontents
January 13, 2024 at 4:42 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentTags: Finiteness, Open Society, sasc, SLR, SLR-accessible, System having finite resources
You and I each have limited resources:
– we have limited time
– we have limited information from our senses and other sources (limited both in amount and in accuracy)
– we can consider only a limited number of facts and desires at any one time (limited concentration)
– we have limited strength.
Thus we are Systems having Limited Resources: SLRS (pronounced ‘slurs’).
Any collection of people is a SLR – even a denumerably infinite collection of people.
Hence a country is a SLR. A multi-generation civilization is a SLR.
Some corrolaries:
– An open society can be more robust and more just than any closed society, because its openess facilitates the detection and corrections of mistakes.
– Snap judgements are often necessary, but sometimes lead to errors and prejudice.
– What an individual or a civilization can see and can take into account is only part of what is there.
– Our sensed world and any of our scientific theories of physical or social phenomena – and even our recorded histories are approximate and partial models.
They are models of what is SLR-accessible. It will be convenient to have an abbreviation for ‘ SLR-accessible’. The abbreviation is ‘sasc‘.
– Economics in the broad sense is the study of how we do – or should – allocate limited resources, so economics in this broad sense is – consciously or not – continually used by SLRS.
This post introduces a vocabulary that turns out to be very useful conceptually, and will be used in many future posts.
Hannah Pick-Goslar, on My Friend Anne Frank
August 13, 2023 at 10:22 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentThis post is about the book
Hannah Pick-Goslar, My Friend Anne Frank, Little Brown Spark, 2023 (hardback ISBN 9780316564403)
This indispensible book solves the mystery of why many Germans (including Hitler) swallowed the disinformation that Germany lost the first World War because its Jewish citizens somehow undermined the German military:
Page 8 talks of “General Erich Ludendorff, the celebrated war hero of that time, known as the ‘brain’ of the German army. As the war went on, Ludendorff’s prowess as a military strategist turned disastrous when he stymied and then outright refused all attempts at making peace. His ambitious push for victory in the final stages of the war backfired. When post-war Germany staggered under the weight of resentment and shame from the Versailles Treaty that ended the war in the harshest ways for Germany – lost territory, reparations it could never hope to pay and the hyperinflation and hunger that followed – Ludendorff acknowledged no missteps of his own. Instead he promoted the ‘stabbed in the back’ theory, which blamed Jews for Germany’s defeat, claiming Jews had conspired against Germany from within during the war. Captivated by conspiracy theories, he was among the first of the German elite to endorse Adolph Hitler. He argued that for Germany to recover, a massive new world war was needed, one that would forge a new German empire beyond anyone’s previous imaginings.”
Thus Ludendorff’s Trump-like personality – never accept blame – inflamed antisemitism to a fever pitch, boosted Hitler, fostered a ‘Make Germany Great Again’ movement, and planted the idea that to do so another world war would be necessary.
There are echoes of Ludendorffian thinking in Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.
Ludendorff was abetted by figures analogous to our Sidney Powell and John Eastman, and the formerly grown-up Rudy Giuliani.
Hitler was Ludendorff’s protégé.
It is likely that Japan would never have attacked China and Pearl Harbor if it weren’t for the success of Hitler’s invasion of Czechoslovakia and the success of Mussolini’s invasion of Ethiopia. Thus Ludendorff was directly and indirectly responsible for the torment and death of millions of innocent people. He is one of the great villains of the twentieth century.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erich_Ludendorff
Hannah Pick-Goslar’s book is an extremely valuable addition to our understanding of why the Nazi’s so quickly obtained power, and why there was a second world war.
The book also contains wonderful photos, provides real insight into Anne Frank’s family and personality (she was noted for her intelligence). The book also makes vivid what it felt like when the Nazi’s invaded and occupied Holland.
A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin
August 4, 2023 at 4:42 pm | Posted in Disinformation, Enemies of Freedom, Presidential election | Leave a commentTags: Putin, Trump
That is why Putin aided Trump’s election, and tried to aid his re-election.
Today is June 4 – Tiananmen Square Day
June 4, 2023 at 8:42 am | Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Today is June 4 – Tiananmen Square Day
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June 4 is International Tiananmen Square Day
May 29, 2022 at 4:25 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a commentLook here, because the famous photo of a lone individual blocking a column of tanks is copyrighted, and I can’t show it to you.
For the enormous significance of the protests in 1989 at Tiananmen Square, see here, and also see the PBS DVD Tiananmen, The People Versus the Party.
On June 4 – on every June 4 – wear or carry something black, since the demonstrators at Tiananmen Square wore black to identify their support of freedom of thought in China.
An Indispensable Source About Jane Austen’s Family and World
May 29, 2022 at 3:33 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
Chawton House in the Snow, March 2008, by Raymoseley at the English Wikipedia
Caroline Jane Knight’s book, Jane & Me, My Austen Heritage, is an indispensable source of new information about Jane Austen’s personality, experiences, family life, and family history.
The author is a descendant of Jane’s brother Edward, so she has both Austen and Knight heritage.
She grew up in Chawton House, and has access to internal family lore and records. Most of the information in her book is not contained in any of the other books on Jane Austen.
Here are some examples of what you will find in Caroline Jane Knight’s book:
– Why Jane and Cassandra’s brother George was mostly hidden away, and what
became of him.
– What became of Chawton House over the years, and what it was like to live there.
– The game traditionally played at Christmas in Chawton House.
– The Knights were originally really knights.
– Why the Knight’s adopted Edward, and had him change his last name to Knight.
– Jane Austen’s keen insight that when Edward’s adoptive mother turned the Knight
properties over to Edward, she wasn’t doing Edward a favor.
– Why Edward had to delay giving his mother and sisters (and Martha Lloyd) a
permanent place to live, namely Chawton Cottage: there were financial and legal
challenges that Edward had to settle first.
– What became of Godmersham.
– Chawton was the squire’s residence, and what that meant to the community. When the
author visited Chawton after a long time away from it, as soon as a woman in the town
learned the author’s family name, the woman curtseyed deferentially to the author,
astounding the person who had accompanied the author, and who hadn’t known of her
family background.
– On two occasions in the past, the squire of Chawton was a woman. How the first
female squire of Chawton tried to ensure that all future squires would be male.
– Local jealousy and resentment of the imagined “cushy” easy existence of the squire
and of his family.
– Sandy Lerner’s role in preserving Chawton House. How Chawton house became – at
least temporarily – a museum and research institute on early literature written by
women. (Sandy Lerner is familiar to most serious North American fans of Jane Austen.
Sandy had a wonderful museum of carriages from the Regency period.)
The author mentions the great value of Linda Slothuber’s research on Austen’s family. (Linda is familiar to Jane Austen fans in and around Washington DC.)
The author’s life was full of dramatic changes, and is quite instructive.
The author founded The Jane Austen Literacy Foundation (www.janeaustenlf.org).
A Key to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice
August 1, 2021 at 7:40 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment
You have almost certainly read Jane Austen’s most famous novel, Pride & Prejudice, or seen a movie adaption of it. In addition to an enthralling plot, full of unexpected turns, this novel, like her others, is known for its insights into human nature, and the ways we trip ourselves up.
The plot centers on the repercussions of an initial misunderstanding between the heroine, Elizabeth Bennet, and the hero, Fitzwilliam Darcy. The misunderstanding arose because Elizabeth, while she was sitting at a ball, waiting to be asked to dance, overheard Darcy say “She is tolerable, but not handsome enough to tempt me; and I am in no humor at present to give consequence to young ladies who are slighted by other men.”
This incident in her fiction might have been inspired by an aspect of Jane Austen’s own experience.
Jane Austen insisted that none of the characters in her novels were based upon particular people. But the personalities and human interactions in her novels necessarily spring from some combination of the personalities and human interactions she had encountered, along with her imagination. One example is the residential displacement and financial stress experienced by wives and daughters when the male head of household dies. That scenario appears both in Pride & Prejudice and in Sense and Sensibility.
Jane Austen was not considered to be particularly pretty, especially in comparison to her older sister Cassandra.
Jane’s awareness of that general opinion about her appearance is probably why Pride & Prejudice contains Darcy’s initial disparaging statement, and is also why the plot hinges upon Darcy’s remark.
Near the end of Pride & Prejudice there occurs a related instance where Jane’s own experiences probably appear in transmuted form. As noted by Joan Klingel Ray, in Simply Austen, Simply Charly, 2017:
Replying to her question about why he first came to admire and love her, he [Darcy] says that “the liveliness of her mind” attracted him the most.“
Jane Austen’s personal experiences might also have contributed to her vivid awareness of the stress noted above on the female survivors of the death of a male head of household. Joan Austen, Cassandra, and her mother experienced those stresses. Recall that all of Jane Austen’s novels appeared only after the death of her father. His failure to prioritize his wife’s and daughters’ future financial security is discussed in Marian Veever’s outstanding dual biography of Jane Austen and Dorothy Wordsworth (Jane and Dorothy, Pegasus Books, 2018). That aspect of Jane’s experience may also have influenced the creation of the paternally-inattentive Mr. Bennet in Pride & Prejudice.
Remember, too, the Other Memorial Day
May 25, 2020 at 12:13 pm | Posted in Abuse of Office, Enemies of Freedom, Fairness, Good People | 1 CommentTags: Chen Guangchen, China, Fairness, freedom, government for the people, Jeff Widener, patriotism, People's Liberation Army, Tank Man, Tiananmen Square
A Chinese Type 59 tank at the Beijing Military Museum. A Type 59 main battle tank on display at the Military Museum of the Chinese People’s Revolution in western Beijing. On June 3, 1989, People’s Liberation Army soldiers on Type 59 tanks began firing on civilian demonstrators at Muxidi near the military museum.
(Wikipedia) Photo by Max Smith.
Tiananmen Square Day (June 4, every year) memorializes the patriotic martyrs in China who were slain by tanks and by other means beginning on June 4, 1989, in Beijing and in other cities in China.
Recall Jeff Widener’s (Associated Press) astounding image of Tank Man, blocking a column of Type 59 tanks heading east on Beijing‘s Chang’an Boulevard (Avenue of Eternal Peace) near Tiananmen Square.
Nowadays Tiananmen Square Day also salutes
– those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Hong Kong,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Venezuela,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Iran,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Syria,
– and those who have been killed or imprisoned for defending freedom in Egypt,
– and at so many other times and places.
To see more about Tiananmen Square Day, and to see how to honor both past and present martyrs for freedom, see here, and here, and here, and here.
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