A friend told me he attended a conference where one of the papers presented concluded that the person receiving the highest radiation exposure from the accident at Three Mile Island was a journalist who flew from Singapore to cover the story. A Health Physics Society report by Robert J. Barish has a good discussion about radiation exposure during air travel. It explains the exposure “…is caused not only by x rays (photons) but also by a variety of energetic particles such as neutrons, protons, electrons, muons ( a subatomic particle similar to an electron), and pions (another subatomic paricle described as the lightest meson). These “…come from a variety of cosmic sources in our galaxy, with a lesser contribution from our own sun” Continue reading
Stigma
A web site called “Breaking Stigma” explains that the word “…traces back to the late sixteenth century when they would mark people (with a visible brand or cuts) for certain crimes…” “A great representation of this kind of mark would be within the book, ‘The Scarlet Letter’.” Stigma is used in current language to indicate a person who is ostracized because of some behavior, crime, medical condition, or anything else that could cause disgrace or forced isolation from others.
The Benghazi Talking Points
Steve Hayes wrote an excellent article in the Weekly Standard about the editing of reports describing the terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya that killed the ambassador and three other Americans. The was obviously done to make the narrative “politically acceptable” to the administration during a Presidential election campaign. Click on the link if you want to be informed about the story. I expect there will be more information revealed as additional journalists decide they have to put aside their desire to protect President Obama and actually perform as journalists. If you chose to read this postings you will find that I consider the most important question that has not been asked is what did the Commander-In-Chief know and what did he do. Continue reading
Making America Crazy
Previously I reviewed the book Overtreated which explains why too much medicine is making us sicker. Robert Whitaker’s book Anatomy of an Epidemic explains why too much reliance on psychoactive drugs is making us crazier.
This seems like the right time for a book on treatments for mental illness. With today’s increased public concern about mental illness that leads to violence, evidence that our current treatments may be making the problem worse should worry us all. On a personal note, I have ties to four people who committed suicide. All were under doctors’ care when they died and had been for a long time. That seems hard to accept in the world of modern medicine. Continue reading
Redneck
This is a term that creates a personal emotional response. I’ve heard it referred to describe “ignorant white farmers” who had their lower faces and necks burned red from exposure to the sun while working their fields. Many of my older relatives matched that description, but they were not ignorant. The “intellectuals” who characterized my relatives as “ignorant” would not have a clue how to plant and grow crops while they nourished themselves on food being produced by “rednecks.”
Regardless of my personal reactions, the term has become, according to Wikipedia, to be “…a derogatory slang term…” My relatives were poor, and they probably didn’t keep up with the literature read by “high society.”My observation is that they were hard working people who knew how to grow crops. That knowledge and skills kept the non-productive “intellectuals” from starving. Of course that didn’t stop high society from demeaning the people working in the fields.
Renewable Energy
There were two articles in a recent Denver Post about the wisdom of mandating renewable energy. The first that I’ll mention is titled “A job killer or a job creator” by Allen Best. He mentions that the town of Craig, Colorado was “rocking” with construction of coal-fired power plants. Then the construction crews departed after the Colorado legislature mandated that Colorado must get 20 percent of energy from renewable sources by 2020. That mandate not only reduced the flow of money into the Craig economy; the renewable industry is expected to go to Wyoming and Nebraska to obtain wind resources that are more dependable and cheaper. Continue reading