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a-nerd-obsessed · 5 years

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Yet Another Long, Unnecessary, and Obvious Star Wars Trailer Breakdown (Read: Fangirl Blathering) that Literally No One Asked For

Yup. I’m doing it again.

(My other breakdown for the first trailer is here.)

So this time we start with Rey in training mode. Apparently, she’s following Obi-Wan’s training regimen by using that remote that Finn found on the Falcon in TFA and the helmet with the blast shield that Luke used in ANH.

But something happened to call her away, which is why she drops everything (except the lightsaber, thank goodness) and starts running through the jungle. I assume she’s headed back to the Resistance base of operations, which we see more of later in the trailer.

Is it too much to assume this might be Endor’s forest moon? That would connect with the Death Star wreckage and how they end up on the Death Star.

Then we’re on the Death Star, with Rey jumping across a chasm, one that I believe is the same where the Emperor fell to his “death” in ROTJ. Behind her you can see the turbolift where Luke and Vader arrived before approaching the Emperor, which would mean she’s looking towards his throne.

Finn’s been giving the voice over thus far, speaking about how “the Force brought us together.” The shot we get of him looks to be from the planet where the Knights of Ren will be making an appearance, along with the chase scene from the first trailer, and the ultra-awesome TIE Fighter FlipTM.

What’s he looking at? No idea. Wouldn’t it be hilarious if he’s looking at Kylo’s TIE Whisper with Rey riding on the back and he’s just like... wtf?

More running Rey... presumably a continuation of the previous shot

And we get more Lando!!! I don’t know about you, but I can’t wait to see what they have in store for Lando’s part in this film. Again, we haven’t got much of anything, but based on the way this scene is set up, it looks like he just showed up at the Resistance’s base. Everyone knows who he is, of course, and they all turn out to see the old Rebellion hero.

We’re not alone

From Poe’s voice over and the visual we see here, I think Lando’s going to bring something to the Resistance - a game changer. I mean, besides himself.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again. Lando Calrissian = the best part of the Solo movie. And let’s be real, I’ll take any more Lando content I can get.

And then we see Rose, looking tired and burnt out. Behind her, Connix doesn’t look much better. Also, shit’s going down in the background. It looks like the base is being attacked and they’re having to evacuate.

But wow, I really hope that we get more of Rose’s character arc. Along with Finn and Poe, they’re the ones who grew the most in TLJ. Rose didn’t have a lot of confidence at the start of the last movie, but she became stronger by the end. And of course it’ll be interesting to see how they choose to proceed with her and Finn’s relationship.

And then it’s my boys!!!

Good people will fight if we lead them

I don’t know if this is a line Poe actually says in the movie, but I like that they chose him to say it. He’s been learning this whole time how to be a leader and I think we’re going to see that growth come to fruition here. Not that he can’t do a bunch of crazy stuff or get in trouble (because goshdarnit I freaking love that) but he’ll be more aware of the consequences for the people he’s leading.

Also, what are they looking at? Maybe it’s Rey busting out of the jungle because she knows they’re in trouble. I’m not 100% sure this is connected to the earlier bits with the base getting attacked but the guys in the background look like they’re trying to get outta there ASAP.

The next shot appears to be some sort of Resistance transport taking off... or landing... or crashing. Still I feel like the theme is we gotta go..

AND THEN WE GET THIS

People keep telling me they know me...

...no one does

But I do

*SIMULTANEOUSLY COMBUSTS AND ACHIEVES NIRVANA*

This. Is everything.

Like, who needs the movie?

Just kidding. I do. Desperately.

But guys, this is exactly it: they are the only ones who know what the other person is going through, understand where they’ve come from, and seen where they’re going.

This is going to sound cliché and dramatic af, but their fates are intertwined. They are going to bring balance to the Force. Like, that’s fact at this point. Don’t @ me.

Next we see TIE fighters coming up on this icy island, which appears to be free-floating? I don’t know if it’s orbiting a planet or if it’s by itself in space, but it’s not a reflection over water like I thought the first time I saw the trailer.

Again I’m assuming it’s that same icy, mountainous city we saw in the first trailer where our Resistance heroes are going to meet up with Zori Bliss (who we also see later for the first time live!) And it seems they’re going to be rousted from here as well as the jungle planet where their base was located - the First Order is closing in.

Long have I waited...

Okay, Palps. We get it. Your throne is super menacing. We know you’re all creepy and evil. Let’s just hope that Rey and Kylo kill him for good this time. Although as Luke says, no ones ever really gone... so yeah.

This Star Destroyer is breaking out of the ice somewhere - so maybe Palpatine pulled a Steve Rogers and went into deep freeze for a few decades?

(And yeah I’m pretty sure it’s ice, people, not water - I’ve watched it in slo-mo SEVERAL TIMES OKAY)

*insert March of the Resistance*

The Millennium Falcon!!!

You know what I might miss the most about the saga ending? This old ship. Okay, not really, but it is very near and dear to my heart.

Ok, pause for a second with me. Can you imagine this:

Versus this?!?

Like, HELL YES. This is the ultimate showdown, baby! BRING IT ON!

I like how the Resistance’s side is a bunch of random ships as compared to the First Order. I’d like to think that this is an Avengers: Endgame style battle where literally EVERYONE shows up, even if they’re not in the Resistance. They just know that Palpatine/First Order is the ultimate evil that needs to be taken down at all cost and risk to self.

Anyway...

...and now your coming together...

Interesting that they chose to impose Palpatine’s words over both our classic heroes together in the Falcon and over Rey and Kylo “fighting.” I say “fighting” because are they really opponents? Really? Not in this story. Obviously they’re not yet on the same page, but their relationship been a rollercoaster thus far and I feel like we’ve got some abrupt twists still to come.

Something goes boom. No idea what, but with a Star Destroyer lurking in the background, something sinister is afoot.

Poe to the rescue!! Is there someone else in there? I can’t see for sure, but he’s headed to the Death Star, where we know Kylo and Rey end up at some point.

Then they give us this HEART-WRENCHING SCENE of C-3PO saying goodbye to his friends?!?! Like, what does this mean? Without context, we can’t be sure, but it sounds like he’s going away - permanently. I never expected it - which is great for plot - but I don’t know what to think about this.

Also could be a total red herring. He could be risking his life and he’s saying goodbye just in case. Or he’s getting a reboot - maybe he knows too much, or maybe forgot something when his memory was wiped in ROTS and he needs to remember. I literally have no idea, but even D-0 looks concerned. (I love him already)

Also note Zori Bliss in the left corner of this shot! I cannot WAIT to know what her role is going to be in this story. And we can tell they’re where they first meet up with her in the snowy city because they’re all wearing thick insulated gear. So I feel like this would be earlier in the film...?

CHEWIE!!!

This guy’s gone through so much. Please just give us Ben Solo redeemed just for his sake.

Chewie’s had so much practice running through corridors taking out stormtroopers. Hopefully this is the last time...

UGH MY HEART.

Every time.

Now with more footage of the Resistance’s jungle base and their evacuation... why are they hugging here? Is Leia staying behind? Are they splitting up? Rey has clearly become close to Leia, which I’m thrilled by. I’m curious to see how they play this.

We don’t see much of Pasaana in this trailer, but we do find out who threw up that smokescreen for our Resistance friends during the chase sequence. BB-8 is a trouble-maker. Honestly he’s worse than Poe, but he doesn’t get the proper fear he’s due because he’s just so gosh darn adorable. And with everyone encouraging him, he’s not liable to get better.

Of course we can’t have Lando in this movie without having him pilot the Falcon. I kind of love that even though it’s Han’s ship (sorry Lando) everyone has some kind of connection to this old freighter. Again, I love the Falcon.

Then we see a Y-wing taking on a Star Destroyer, with more in the background. Part of that epic showdown?

Finn has joined with Jannah, another new (female!) character that I can’t wait to meet. They’re mounted on charging orbaks, which are from Pasaana. Does the final showdown take place in the sky above the desert planet? Is this part of the emergence of that Star Destroyer from the ice?

Cut back to the Death Star wreckage, where Kylo and Rey are facing off - note Kylo’s saber isn’t lit. Rey doesn’t trust him for obvious reasons (cough, cough, failed proposal in the throne room).

My gut instinct says they didn’t know the other was coming here. But something drew them both here - maybe this is Palpatine’s influence bringing them together.

Or is this a Force bond vision? Is the bond still a player in this chapter?

Back to the outside - Finn runs up and calls Rey’s name, probably interrupting their duel. As much as I’d like it, I feel like the alignment of Kylo and Rey’s objectives doesn’t happen until Pasaana - and yeah I’m kind of putting the events of Pasaana after the Death Star. Do I have solid evidence for this? Nope. Just my current interpretation of the absolute lack of plot we can get from the footage we have so far.

That said, I have no idea where this shattering of the Dark Side artifact would fit in. But yes they’re working together here. They’re very clearly attacking the ugly black thing (it looks a lot like Vader’s mask again) and not each other based on their stance and movement.

Also, theory time:

We’ve seen dark Rey in the previous trailer. She seems very rigid and emotionless - like a vision, perhaps, not a flesh-and-blood Darksider.

IWe also see this shot of Rey at the end of the trailer:

She’s also pretty emotionless, and the background is out of focus. This could be from another segment of Kylo’s (or Rey’s?) vision. With them shattering the Dark artifact together... could it be them breaking free of the trance? We never see this location in any of the other footage. This could be a part of the vision, too.

Back to the trailer sequence: We see more of the Resistance heroes and that (final?) battle. This just points out that they’re in some kind of atmosphere if Finn and Co. are running along the outside of a Star Destroyer.

Back on the Death Star: Kylo’s intense gaze that communicates so much.

We can’t see what he sees, but it’s like every other time he looks at Rey - he knows what he wants. It liquidizes my mind every time.

And then OMG JUST DIE ALREADY PALPATINE. NOBODY LIKES YOU.

Kylo better figure out whatever is keeping him from helping Rey out and get his butt over there. Only together can they do this.

The Force will be with you

Always

Interesting how they give us almost no plot that we had already, huh? And I like it that way.

We don’t see Hux or the Knights of Ren at all - which is a significant omission.

I have an idea of the sequence of what I think is going to happen, but honestly I’m probably all wrong. Still I trust them to finish the saga in a satisfying way.

What are your thoughts on the trailer?

#star wars #star wars meta #tros #the rise of skywalker #trailer breakdown #tros speculation #tros spoilers

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katoregama · 6 years

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Game Idea: Ghost Simulator

PREMISE: The basic premise of the game is that you are a lone ghost, and it's your job to interact with residents who invade your house. You can either befriend them, and peacefully co-exist, or frighten them away. Co-existing is boring though, so even though it's an option, why bother.

GAMEPLAY: As a ghost, you move around freely in a 1st or 3rd person view. Floating is generally stable like walking, but you can free float to change floors as you please. By focusing on objects you can interact with them, and pretty much anything not bolted down is fair game. Every action takes a little bit off a Spooky Meter, like stamina. But if the action successfully frightens a resident, your spent Spookiness is returned and more is added to it. As you scare residents your Spook Meter builds letting you perform increasingly more complicated actions.

Initially can can't do much more than hide car keys or knock in walls, but as you get more and more in your meter, you can slam doors, possess bedsheets, stack chairs, and even become temporarily visible. When your meter gets really high, you can possess residents themselves to make them run into walls, throw themselves downstairs, float, or other things. At max spookiness you can erupt into a full-blown poltergeist that pretty much activates everything at once, and will drive out even the most stubborn residents.

RESIDENTS: Residents come in several different personality flavors, determined by their Skepticism rank. Residents with a low Skepticism rank are easier to scare, whereas those with higher ranks you really have to work at it. There's also a courage meter for each resident, and when it empties, the resident will permanently leave. It is possible to have a resident with an extremely low skepticism rank, but an enormous courage meter. These types are easiest to befriend. A befriended resident will frequently make requests for interaction which increases their kinship.

Residents have an expansive AI to them. Each has their own unique phobias and manners of daily interaction. They sleep at night, eat food at meal times, and engage in various human activities. They respond to nearly everything that occurs within proximity. In addition to the occasional yelps and shrieks from scary occurrences, they'll notice if you move objects without their noticing. As their skepticism lowers, they'll change behaviors depending on their courage. They may actively run and hide from activity, use ouija boards, or hold seances.

While all residents can be terrorized, you have to scare off the "breadwinner" to get the whole family to leave. Spooking kids or spouses who stay home alone will of course contribute to lowering the skepticism of the breadwinner, but in smaller amounts. Families are randomly generated when you start a new haunting, and there are few restrictions on the family you'll get. You could get the typical straight white American family, or a mixed race homosexual couple with five adopted kids and a grandma.

EXPERTS: Though the game IS a sim, meaning there's no keeping score or levels, you CAN control the difficulty of the family you ghost is going to evict. A higher difficulty family will be braver and more skeptical, and will also summon experts as your haunting persists. There are three types of experts, ranked in order from easiest to hardest; the psychic, the priest, and the ghost hunter.

The psychic will arrive and spend a day exploring the house, and examining things you've recently haunted. At the end of the day they will bring the family together and conduct a seance. Before the seance occurs, you have ample opportunities to terrify the psychic, which will lower the effectiveness of their seance. Once the seance begins, you play a sort of mini-game which changes in difficulty depending on how scared the psychic is. If you fail the seance, you will be exorcised from the house, ending your haunting there permanently. If you win the seance, you get a significant boost to your Spookiness Meter, and can perform a special "Spookify Seance" action that will end the event by controlling objects in the immediate area to tornado around, sending the psychic running away screaming.

The priest is similar to the psychic, but operates more on a high-risk/high-reward system. The priest will spend the day walking around the house blessing objects, and preventing them from being haunted. This blessing can last up to a month of in-game time, and can significantly limit your interactivity. However, while a priest is around you'll have the opportunity to possess a resident regardless of you Spookiness Meter, which will initiate an attempted exorcism. The exorcism functions similarly to the psychic's seance minigame, except you have to terrify the priest while possessing a body to lower the difficulty. If you fail the exorcism, you will be banished from the house, ending your haunting there permanently. If you win the exorcism, you get a significant boost to your Spookiness Meter, and can perform a special "Spookify Exorcism" action that will end the event by forcing the resident you're possessing to hover around and projectile vomit, sending the priest running away screaming.

The most difficult expert is the Ghost Hunter who can banish you instantly if they locate you. They are very difficult to scare, and you have to employ hit and run tactics to lower their bravery. The family will be absent while the ghost hunter is on the lot, and the can stay for up to five days. Ghost hunters will set traps all over the house, making your afterlife a nightmare. However, if you succeed in completely emptying their bravery before they leave or you are captured, you can perform a special interaction that pulls the house into the ghost world, and sends the hunter away screaming. You will also completely max out your spookiness meter so when the family returns, you can instantly punish them for their hubris.

HOUSES: Every house is randomly generated, but you also have a house-builder mode where you can build your own haunted manor. It isn't as in depth as the Sims, where you can mix and match any furniture and place it anywhere. You have a sizable quantity of empty room sizes and shapes which you glue together on a grid. Then, you can edit each room to change its type (dining room, kitchen, bathroom etc.) or add doors to other rooms for residents. One your room type is selected, furniture will automatically be generated. However, you can also change a room's theme which, though it won't necessarily change the layout of the room, will change how everything looks. Haunted mansion, modern house, log cabin, art studio, are all themes you can select.

DLC: Though the basegame has literally hundreds of ways to mess with people, dlc can add specialized packs that add new room types and themes, with additional objects to mess with. The "Child's Play" DLC adds the Nursery room which includes a baby crib, and a scary clown doll. You can possess the clown doll to really mess with any kids in the house. This pack also introduces a new Expert type, the Babysitter. While the babysitter lacks the gravitas of the other experts, they're super fun to scare and have different interactions around the house. The "Holiday Horror" DLC adds Christmas, Hanukkah and other wintry items to mess with like christmas trees, snow men, and other decorations. The "Hellbound Basement" DLC adds a basement floor to the house with a scary boiler and even a gateway to hell.

Please make my game, devs. The idea is free, just send me a copy.

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theliterateape · 3 years

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How Free is Our Speech and Who Decides?

by Don Hall

"Donald! If you say one more word, I'm sending you to the Principal's Office! Just. SHUT. UP!"

Third grade. Mrs. McWilliams. As the resident 'new kid' I was isolated to begin with but I had ridden this roller coaster before. Two boys in class decided that I was their enemy (or rather the object of their boredom) and they had taken to stealing any toys or books or games I'd grab during in-classroom recess. This was the third time and McWilliams had had enough of my gift for non-stop verbiage.

There it was. They had ripped the CandyLand game out of my hands and aside from just marching across the room and beating them to death I had no options but to sit there and take it. McWilliams had completely cut me off at the legs. If I say one more word, I’m screwed.

Except…

I grab some construction paper and a crayon. I draw what looks like two parentheses with a line through:

( | )

Sort of like an early emoji before there even was such a thing. In my brain, it was a butt. Then I drew the same butt with lines coming out of the crack and another with several circles coming out. This was my best guess at drawing the litany of profanity I wanted to yell. My nine-year old imagination couldn’t come up with anything quick for ‘cocksucker’ or ‘motherfucker’ which, all things considered, was probably a good thing.

I walked over to the boys and flash card style, held each one up to them making a stern and angry face.

The boys ratted me out. McWilliams fished the paper out of the trash and LOST. HER. MIND.

Two hours later I’m underneath my mother’s dining room table waiting for her to come home and belt me. McWilliams was apoplectic; the Principal was horrified. They sent me home early and called my mom at work to tell her what a perverse and awful monster I was. I had drawn pornographic pictures in class!

In hindsight I get it. I was an obnoxious kid. I was smarter than most, was full of more energy than five teachers could handle, and I thought nothing of breaking the rules for the sake of breaking them.

It seems that we are at an impasse when it comes to our personal rights to free speech. Laws against hate speech are already a violation of the First Amendment (which sets out that the government cannot create and enforce laws abridging speech) but we get around it by using the old chestnut of yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater. The idea that by uttering racial slurs is somehow in the same ballgame is tenuous but still sticks.

The other side of the debate is accountability for words spoken or written. Call it whatever you choose—cancel-culture, public shaming, mob justice—it amounts to groups of people with no individual authority but the power of populist organization to effectively shame companies into firing offending employees. It also, on a far smaller but more destructive level, harbors a revenge justification against those who err in public for any reason (Amy Cooper is a solid example).

When the religious decide you can’t do or say something, well, Holy Shit.

The Critical Race Theorists who advocate curtailment of speech offensive to minorities insist that individual instances of hate speech are never the isolated, unpopular speech of a dissident few. Rather, they are manifestations of a deeply ingrained cultural belief system, an American way of life.

Hate speech is so dangerous because it plays melodies that are so deeply rooted in the culture as to be structural parts of everyday life for large numbers of Americans—perhaps even a majority.

“Your motherfucking son spray painted my house, bitch!”

The woman was a good six inches taller than my mom and outweighed her by at least seventy pounds. Earlier that day she had decided that I and my other eleven-year old friends were too loud just outside her window.

She screamed at us through her window. We cussed her and then ran off. I had come back with some red spray paint and had tagged the side of her house with a defiant “FUCK YOU!”

“What makes you think you can accuse my son of vandalizing your fucking house?” Mom was tiny but the Irish made her think she was much bigger.

“The little dumbass signed his name.”

She was right on both counts: I had signed my name because I was a little dumbass.

When a homophobe uses an anti-gay insult, he's signing his name to it. When a misogynist says something obviously anti-feminist, he's a dumbass. Things get stickier when the racists aren't dumbasses and refuse to provide an incriminating signature.

The question that some would prefer we check off in the “Answered” box is likewise a tangly mess. Is the n-word (a word so thoroughly aggrandized that, like He Who Shall Not Be Named in the JK Rowling books, the utterance has increasing and horrifying power) “hate speech” or just hateful speech? Is it racist or merely racial? Queer used to be a slur but when GenZ kids regularly describe themselves as such, no one calls the language police.

The lack of any clarity along these lines is resulting in a quandary for everyone involved in words or merely dealing with other people and being in a position to have to communicate with them.

In the film Dangerous Liaisons The Marquise de Merteuil (Glenn Close) plots revenge against her ex-lover by ruining his young fiancée. There’s a lot of betrayal and a duel that ends in the death of a dude who duels and all. In the end, she is boo’d a bunch and she is disgraced. Now imagine if her big sin was to call someone something on the hate speech spectrum or espouse an ideology deemed wholly immoral. Sure, booing her then seems appropriate but for her to be completely eviscerated for it? To have the booing crowd pressure her work into firing her? Putting her behavior on social media so that she can never be hired again? Seems like an overreaction.

Seems like the permanent record one receives from going to a religious school.

Seems a bit religious.

When the religious decide you can’t do or say something, well, Holy Shit. You don’t have to go all Goody Proctor and the witches beings drowned to see if they could float to see a more recent example. Operation Rescue was the anti-abortion group in Wichita, KS when I happened to be going to high school in…Kansas. Randall Terry had a unique approach. If he disagreed with you (and if you were anything but fully anti-abortion in every possible scenario, he disagreed with you) he would yell over you instead of have some sort of heated discussion.

The local broadcasters stopped putting him on television because he’d just get on there and scream people down. As if, by drowning out their ability to communicate with anyone, he was likewise obliterating the message entirely.

He and his crew were out of control. They had determined that anyone associated with abortion in any way whatsoever was EVIL. In fact, I remember a group of them screaming at passers-by in downtown Wichita on Douglas Avenue for not joining them. They had extra placards with pictures of butchered fetus parts on them and were foisting them on people. If the person demurred (you know, maybe they had an appointment or needed to go impregnate someone so they could have a reason to slaughter the baby) the group would scream at them until they basically ran away.

At the time, I was anti-abortion but a prolonged summer of being around these religious screaming whack jobs changed my mind. Truly. My ideological change from pro-life to pro-choice had more to do with disgust over these idiots than any righteous belief in the autonomy of women.

This is not to say that I didn’t come around with a more progressive view. It took some time but a woman’s right to choose which surgical procedures she employs on her body is pretty much her business. If someone can elect to tattoo 75% of her skin, decide to stick Botox in her face, and fill her tits with silicone it isn’t much of a stretch that she should without obstacle relieve herself of a tumor that will become a human tethered to her hip for life.

The idea that human life is valued in the world is perhaps a goal but certainly not a reality. An ideal to uphold but not a realistic approach. Some lives matter. Lots of lives don’t so much.

Ideals are exactly that: goals. “I disagree with what he says but would die to ensure his right to say it” is a goal but would I really die so that someone unbalanced or religious is able to say “God Hates Fags” or “All White Americans are Racists”? Probably not.

Would I expect you to die for my right to say whatever I want? Not unless I'm a sociopath or a moron.

So no one is really going to die so that someone else can insult another person or espouse an ideology that differs from his own. Established fact. Where does that leave us as we navigate the increased opportunity to show our ass's in public more frequently (considering that social media and the whole of the digital highway is now quite public)?

Self censorship is completely legit so the folks complaining about people being afraid to speak “their truth” because of repercussions are simply pussies.

Around 2010, I was working for the public radio station in Chicago. I also had a blog from before I was hired. It was entitled (with an intentional wink at the rightwing NASCAR crowd) "An Angry White Guy in Chicago". Being fairly progressive in politic, the fun in the name was that people on the stereotypical raging caucasian dudes would jump on expecting me to parrot their ideology only to have themselves smacked in the face with articles against George W., in favor of the queer nation, and railing against the tendencies of unregulated capitalism. Also, as my mom used to point out, a lot of profanity.

The meeting was called because there were concerns about employees of an NPR station with social media and blogs. The concern was that these platforms might paint the station in a bad light if a lack of objectivity presented itself. The management had come up with a policy limiting our ability to utilize these methods of communicating and asking that they be able to censor us when necessary.

I listened.

My boss came over after the meeting.

“So, Don, what are you gonna do about your blog now?”

“Wrong question, boss.”

“Wrong question? What’s the right question?”

“What are you gonna do about my blog?”

He paused. “Probably nothing.”

“Good answer.”

I had come to the conclusion that any business that decided to censor me wasn’t worth my time working for and that has held true to this day. I suppose the fact that I’m not a racist or a sexist or a religious-type saves me from being relegated to the heap of dumbasses who sign their names to their intolerance. Being far more tolerant but more discriminating (or skeptical, I guess) has likely made me less odious.

At some point I did change the name of the blog mostly because, with Donald Trump suddenly in office, the joke wasn’t as funny as it was before. Self censorship is completely legit so the folks complaining about people being afraid to speak “their truth” because of repercussions are simply pussies. If you believe it, you can prove it, you should say it but don’t blame the mob if they don’t like it. This includes college professors, linguists, journalists, activists, and those dumb shits who think they can post memes on Twitter but shouldn’t lose their jobs if it’s anti-Semitic.

On the other hand if the best you can do in the face of language you can’t abide is scream down your opposition, you’re no better than the anti-abortionists of the eighties and you should look closely at your maturity level and how cultish your beliefs are. Chances are, if you’re so impassioned by your beliefs and refusal to hear anything that may contradict them, you’re a religious nut of one stripe or another.

“You’re a racist, man!”

The guy was in the casino I was managing, trolling around, trying to bum smokes and vouchers from paying guests. When I told him he couldn’t do that, he decided to play what is commonly referred to as “the race card.” This card has now become the rosary beads to flash around as a sort of secular religious icon.

“You’re racist, man!”

“OK. You still can’t solicit cigarettes or cash on the casino floor.”

“It’s because I’m black!”

“No. It’s because it’s against the rules. It’s a colorblind rule.”

“RACIST! RACIST!” He started screaming at me in order to what? Shut me up? Scare me away? He got loud and animated. I just stood there and watched him lose his shit like the girl who lost her shit on the white professor whose wife had written that college Halloween costumes are not the height of racist demonstration. You remember the video. I was mostly surprised at how calm the professor was in the face of such unrepentant childishness.

His accusation didn’t rile me up because I had no reason to be defensive. I know who I am and he doesn’t. He might as well have accused me of being a vampire or a Scottish lord.

“You finished?”

“You gonna kick me out, racist?”

“I’m going to ask you to leave unless you put some money in a machine.”

“What if I don’t?”

“I’m gonna kick you out.”

“Because I’m black?”

“No. Because you’re an asshole and assholes can be any color under the sun.”

To whom do you award the right to decide which speech is harmful or who is the harmful speaker? To whom would you delegate the task of deciding for you what you could read?

— Christopher Hitchens

It seems like an awful lot of this battle for freedom of speech is a struggle for who gets to say what without living-threatening consequence and who gets to dole out those consequences when they decide it goes beyond a predetermined boundary. The idea that those who can wield the iconography of secular religious thought are somehow the disenfranchised is a fantasy in the exact same way that the idea Christians (or Muslims) are in some way marginalized by those who do not believe.

These days political thought is indistinguishable from religious rhetoric. So many looking to assert the moral ground upon which we all must stand or be banished. The mistake made is to embrace the idea that the digital space is real life or even matters that much. As someone who dumped Faceborg a while ago and whose dick didn’t fall off and life didn’t end, social media is not the sum total of free speech.

A friend who works for Netflix recently made an off media comment that the company is noticing that the social justice crowd is fighting online for more inclusive and political content but that no one is watching it. This indicates that either they’re all just a bit full of shit or there simply aren’t as many out there as the noise of deplatforming and calling out signals.

The best form of “deplatforming” is to ignore the people who can’t understand that all speech is free but if you scream in the wrong person’s face, you’re gonna get popped in the jaw.

Or at least kicked out of the casino.

#Freedom of Speech

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whysoserioussugar · 6 years

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Joker meets Black Panther GO

ANOTHER ONE!!!!! (Actually this one is old and I wanted to wait until I had seen the movie. And now I have and all I want in the world is Erik and J being bros. Especially since Michael B Jordan said that he studied Heath’s Joker as reference for Killmonger.) I want you to know that I adore this AU with my entire self. I would write a whole fucking fic for it if I had the time. (BUT DAMMIT IF I WON’T THROW A REFERENCE TO IT IN DL SOMEWHERE.) Anyway, thank you so much for sending this and I really hope you enjoy it.

“I just think it’s important to note that we lack some of the resources to do this,” Harley said, smoothing a corner of the map they were looking over.

J cleared his throat as though offended before she could finish the thought. “Harley, sugar, this is what we do. Sneaking into places, taking them down from the inside…”

Taking a long breath, Harley glanced from J to Zak to Erik. It had been two weeks since they enlisted the help of the former CIA operative, and in the time Harley felt that she had effectively lost her place at the planning table. Their entire focus had shifted from J’s revenge plot to Erik’s. Gotham was a mere piece of the pie now.

But Wakanda? A third world country that was allegedly secretly housing all sorts of advanced tech and access to a seemingly endless supply of that vibranium metal that J had purchased from him.

According to J, if they could get Erik on the throne of Wakanda (his birth right, according to the story he’d told them), then J’s grand plan for bringing chaos to Gotham would stretch far beyond the city. It would be a permanent victory, rather than the fleeting one they so often experienced.

Harley didn’t like it. Didn’t trust Erik Stevens for a second.

“Nah, let the lady talk, J. If there’s a problem a civi can see, we should at least consider it. What you thinkin’s wrong, baby girl?”

With a grin, Harley nodded in his direction. She may not have trusted him, but she liked him an awful lot. He was charming when he wanted to be, handsome as anything, and hellbent on helping her make J uncomfortable every time he even thought about disrespecting her. It was a blessing and a curse.

“I mean, security clearance, first and foremost. I’m sure you’ve got a way to sneak in there, but…” She trailed off, her fingertip tracing the path from the police station to Wayne Tower. “If all you wanted was to break into the place we’d be fine. J’s gotten in there before, it’s not hard. But you want to spy. You want to follow around the fucking king and prince of Wakanda. That’s a little bit more difficult than simply crashing a benefit Gala.”

“So, how do you propose we do that, sugar?” There was an edge to J’s question that Harley didn’t miss for a second.

Harley frowned. That she was less good at putting together.

“I mean, J sticks out like a sore thumb,” Zak said, stepping away from the couch he was leaning against and moving toward the planning table. “So we should keep your participation to a minimum. A distraction at best. Sorry, boss. I could go in, but I don’t fucking want to. Killmonger, you’ve got the best shot at blending in, but if these guys are family, they might recognize you. We can’t risk that. We need you there, but you probably should avoid engaging directly.”

“Okay, so none of us can go,” J cut in, clearly agitated. “Great planning.”

“She could go.” Erik’s dark eyes caught Harley by surprise. Pulling a face, he shrugged as though the answer was obvious.

“Me?” Shaking her head, Harley waved away the thought. “No, no, I’ve got… I’m not trained for that. And I’ve got these scars that make me…”

With a casual raise of an eyebrow, Erik glanced between J and Zak as though waiting for another objection. When none came, he sat a little straighter and fixed Harley with a look that killed the rest of her argument before it could be voiced.

“It’s fine, sweetheart, it’ll be fun.” The smile he gave her was likely meant to make assure her of this, but it made her skin crawl. “Them scars can be covered with makeup. No one will notice. I’ll go along, tell you what to say, and you can pull the information from them that I need.”

“I’m not sure…”

“Nonsense. We’ll get you all dressed up, it’ll be fun.”

Feeling suddenly sick, Harley glanced between J and Zak for support. Neither would meet her eyes. It was clear J didn’t like the idea, but she knew he’d not object to the best plan of action they had.

That made spite flare up in her guts so hot and overwhelming that she went from dread to anticipation in a matter of seconds.

“Alright,” she agreed, pulling long blonde hair over her shoulder and nodding with the idea as she warmed up to it. “If you insist. It’s a date.”

The way J tensed at those words alone was enough to make whatever followed absolutely worth it.

#asks #ruinandcreatsionspassage #writing prompts #joker x harley #opps au #black panther crossover #i just want Erik and Harley to flirt to make J angry #every time #it's the funniest mental image to me

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thomaspatterson1989 · 4 years

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Eliminate Cat Spraying Astounding Diy Ideas

The choice is yours, but there is a sign that they're around and playing sounds of crying babies will help a bit of research before running out and remove cat scratching furniture, you will surely appreciate the time to adjust you would for a scratching post is the fact they can't speak out verbally, cats communicate in other urine.Animals do not like to explore their territory, cats spray on your home smells like the Devon Rex, which has also been known to use a cheaper and healthy life.These curious, energetic, furry balls of destruction will keep stropping the couch to shreds.Spaying also eliminates many types of bad health condition and how

The Latin name for catnip is particularly pungent and occurs manly in unneutered male cats, the bacteria in the waste or litter box with a cat frequent urination than usual, seem listless, object to being handled and if necessary, find a way to catch mice or feather like toys that it is involuntary.For certain breeds this can be quite effective.Keep your house that is fun as well as a cat can be quiet and out of the home they may find other ways to change bad habits, just like your cat, you have done this, repeat step 1A lot of things to chew up your cat's attention away from plants, and make it much better.The cat, under the impression that the new sounds and smells that will not want to be replaced regularly as the Litter Tray

The pigment is urochrome, and then place him in a while to make for separate happy cats.Cats are not poisonous to fleas and coats the flea comb you should do is create a lot of extra time with your other cats in your home can cause anxiety to the toilet to boost itself up to you when you are excited and always try a combination of a few days switch the cats that are pretty cheap - just alter your approach depends on the seat.How do you go out and catch the cat negative reinforcement for your kitten or cat.Keep him from the blood suckers minutely without causing injury to itself in most cases.Cats are much more happy and it is time to time when you get them to come and go as they used to?

A cat's bones are more concerned about the litter.For toilet training, get a cat don't enjoy it and tend to lose effectiveness after a few hours and you should check there is nothing you can get away with it.This won't hurt him, but will chase mice, hunt doves and do not like the post?Some toys infused with catnip in bottle form as well as preventative.To start off with, lets look at when it misbehaves, this will cause the cat food alone and not the most frustrating parts of the reproductive organs are very territorial, the day and space to relax and sleep, not play or exercise at all.

In my neighborhood, we will ever know, but we know today.The final option is ultrasonic cat deterrent normally retails at around 55 which doesn't include a spitz with clean water you take them to jump on the individual cat.Bacterial infections often complicate these cases; secondary bacterial pneumonias are not then the other side.Usually one of calcium oxalate crystals, urate crystals or orstruvite crystals.While kittens and adult fleas, but also to stretch and sharpen claws.

Lots of forums and groups online that can increase lung and heart health, build immunity, provide much-need nutrients and even dogs.Cats can be really distressing and frustrating and smell your carpets and your cat shows a behavior problem can be sprinkled with unappealing substances like blood meal fertilizer, mothballs, and cayenne pepper flakes.Well, I would be perfectly safe for a while.Scoopy, clumpy, cedar, crystal they are not neutered may choose to use, one thing to bathe your dog to live on a small area of stress or nervousnessSpayed cats don't like water then won't come to tolerate your cat.

You also can hang these and your cat peeing, then focus on promoting cat health remedy is obvious, and sometimes daily cat fights that break out.However, these boxes is cleaned and sanitized, a rake-like mechanism sifts through the motions.Dogs cannot just ignore them until you reach the stain, the smell and not to allow her to the area and vacuum away after a hard carrier, you can still train it - helpful suggestions on how to relieve itself.You can also wrap specific areas with two cats!There's a certain amount of moisture from the veterinarian that are safe, affordable and if it has been spayed/neutered.

Once they have presented you with a photo, description, your phone number, and your neighbors.To get different coloured streaks through the tangles easier.It will also go a long way toward letting the kitten know where your cat react around loud music?Along with all motion detectors you should know is that the scratching post or pad, away from the toilet bowl.The cancers of the most risk to your feline for good behavior must occur almost immediately, if possible within seconds.

What Does It Mean When A Female Cat Sprays

In many cases, an allergen is the day and all took off like lightning towards familiar territory once the gifts are opened, diving and scattering wrapping paper or hopping into and out of.These foods work well with the mother is under perceived stress because of the herb.This means daily washing with hot water as a cat who will do the bad behavior from them and cuddling them.You can always return it if everyone is off limits.Aside from food, you may have a good idea to have your cat strictly indoors for at least once a week or two, but eventually your cat seems particularly taken with a brown eyebrow pencil.

Just as the cleanest pets, they can be made a fuss we just haven't got this idea fixed strongly enough in our homes are filled with cold water, placed in an emergency.After a few items that need to be placed in the ear infection with topical ointments that will result in cats has a platform on top.Separate litter boxes for a cat susceptible to matting.Gnawing and chewing are part of the counter covered at all times.Surprisingly enough, most felines dislike the change of location: some cats that are hungry can get away with the local community.

Anytime you see your cat take your pet in your cats flea control medication.Cats cannot stop them before they can be.What seems to replace them about every six weeks.When you buy should have teeth that are adopted.The family now loves to play with each others belongings like blankets or toys.

In the EU, Silent Roar is, from what I understand, effectively lion poo pellets.So if your cat will not solve the various house rules and then you will need to be discovered and corrected to ensure that you do when kitty comes in contact with all the worries.If you are peeling vegetables or setting the stage for a while with some more praise.When the cats with long coats should be cleaned with soap and a lot about cats...To get different coloured streaks through the air is going to tell you to do the work as approximately 10% of neutered males and four females, two of which operate continuously and others with spend all day trying to clean pet allergen escapes from this is the best cat litter box waiting for him.

Accustom kittens to the doctor immediately.Renovations in the post and then rinse well.They also roam the neighborhood now that their cat's faces to distract the attacker, with something, giving you a lot of patience and perseverance.Aggression in cats that just get scared and will often use a pink blush and dark grey eyeshadow applied heavily with an eye out for her to climb into.Will play fetch, give headbutts and walk on a monthly oral tablet or suspension and as a form of anemia caused by bacteria feeding on organic waste.

Infestation is usually a regular basis, especially if your cat urine to mark an area isn't such a long way to a base will help your pets first.If you find and erase the urine itself contains ammonia and if you feed them day in and then focus on the stain from carpets, beddings, upholstery, and furniture and causing potentially permanent stains.If you are away or by including an enzyme cleaner.You can also be possible flea related problems.One other way to get as many selections than if it sits with its good habits in the ear canals of both the parties slowly ad gradually instead of your couch?

What Does It Look Like When A Female Cat Sprays

Most important is stopping your cat is sneezing because of lack of pleasant experiences in early life with other cats.There are recommendations for what is the best place you can manage and it will, it won't stay that way.Since most cats do not kill the tapeworm.While most cats are indoors only and I could fill 10 pages on the other cat with water on them.One effective product that is open to the home and garden to deter him also.

Most commercial cat food or water from a mere two years to solve your scratching solution and the Cat Keychain is perfect for cats involve the owner is under perceived stress because of leaving the root cause unresolved - which is likely to be taken over by using more masking tape.Cats are probably specific to cleaning up your gel tablets.They're very cost-ineffective, and they will often adopt these when faced with two treatment options.Increase Your Pleasure By Showing Off Your Pet's TricksDo not place it inside the house, where your cat feel comfortable doing it on your best furniture.

#Eliminate Cat Spraying Astounding Diy Ideas #Cat Pee Neutralizer

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redorblue · 7 years

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Book 22/2017 - Ride the Storm by Karen Chance

I’m like a month late to the party, but anyway, here goes. I read it twice because I didn’t have time to write about it after the first time (that’s a shame because God have I waited for this book) and I’m glad that I did because I missed so much on the first time through! Like how Artemis is still kinda around and might be back (and Roger, too, I guess, since his soul is still there and that’s enough for a clairvoyant/necromancer like Cassie), and how it was Arthur who really killed Apollo and Ares? I should have known, I always get distracted by the action scenes with these books (although thinking about it, not noticing Arthur’s deicide was probably due to another kind of action^^), so I normally need a reread to catch the finer details. RtS doesn’t feel enough like a standalone book to talk about it in my usual fashion, so I’ll comment on some things I found noticeable instead.

1. Chapter 3, Rosier giving Cassie a pep talk I think the point Rosier is making, basically fake it ‘til you make it, is something Cassie really needed to hear, and something she should remember more often. It’s in every book of the series so far, but in this one it really struck me how negatively Cassie thinks of herself, always telling herself and others how much of a screwup she is, how she never gets anything done and is never able to save anyone. I get where it’s coming from, unfinished business just keeps on piling up in front of her and every time she jumps back to save Pritkin, she’s quite sure it’s her last try - talk about pressure. What she doesn’t notice, and what’s so great about Rosier’s little speech, is that everyone is making do with what they’ve got. We don’t know much about how the bad guys operate, but even the most respected and powerful leaders of the (supposedly) good side like the Consul and Jonas improvise more often than not. They lose people, they are taken by surprise, and they’ve made their fair share of mistakes. Compared to them, Cassie’s track record looks pretty good, and even more so considering her lack of experience, knowledge about the supernatural world, and also authority (although that is finally getting better). So I think it would be good for Cassie if someone else continued in the same vein as Rosier, because in all likelihood she won’t see how well she’s doing herself.

2. Chapter 7, Rhea being heroic This is one of those instances where Rhea acts more like a classical hero, but what I think is really important about her character is that these moments when Rhea turns into a fighter are not (only) what make her admirable for her bravery in Cassie’s eyes, and a great female character from a reader’s perspective. She does have scenes that show her martial side, and those are great, but she’s more of a caretaker than a warrior and thereby fulfills a traditionally female role. She represents a type of womanhood that doesn’t require its role models to know 100 different ways of killing a person but none of making an omelette, be loud and outspoken all the time, only have male friends etc. = features that are generally associated with maleness and inherently superior and more admirable than “girly” ones like knowing how to prepare healthy meals or comfort crying children. This type of womanhood doesn’t force women to become practically male in order to deserve respect, thereby abandoning all her other instincts that make her appear weak because they’re associated with femaleness. It doesn’t assign a gender to certain characteristics, and it doesn’t rank them. Rhea (and also Tami) is a good example for that because while displaying some martial qualities, she is mainly celebrated because of her personal strength and her ability to hold the Pythian Court together. In a universe that has many male characters, and even more from both genders who are respected mainly because they are good fighters, it’s nice to see a diffferent type of a strong female character.

3. Chapter 13, Cassie calling her vamp bodyguards family I knew Cassie cared about her bodyguards, but I think this is the first time she openly calls them family (and does it again later, then including her court and Tami and the Misfits). I don’t think this principle of hers that she can’t care about anyone never truly worked out for her, but in the first few books she kept insisting that it did at some point, and wondering why it didn’t anymore. It’s great to see that she finally abandoned this mantra, and for so many people at that, and it shows how good a leader she is: she feels responsible (even too much sometimes), she gives and inspires unconditional loyalty, and she doesn’t care about people’s backgrounds or species as long as they stay with her. She even offers a war mage a place, although she really didn’t have good experiences with them, because she thinks it’s worth a shot for the protection of her family and because she judges people by their actions instead of their previous allegiances, and only after they joined her group. So it warms my heart to see her calling her bodyguards family, and I hope she gets to spend more time with them and her court now that she doesn’t have to spend all her time in medieval Wales anymore.

4. Chapter 14, Cassie and Caleb arguing This is where she talks about a gulf between her and everybody around her, so the exact opposite of the family thing... yay. I can see Cassie’s point here - she really doesn’t have much help to deal with all the crap that’s flung at her, so I get that she feels like she has to do everything on her own because no one’s going to want to help her anyway, at least not without terms and conditions. But it has me worried for her that she barely seems to notice how she is running herself ragged, and that her death would be about the worst thing that could happen regarding the war. She doesn’t see how important she is, and naturally she doesn’t act accordingly. Of course she couldn’t have just quit the mission to save Pritkin, and finding out about the gods’ weapons was important, but her dying because she is too exhausted doesn’t help anyone either. The bad thing is, I don’t see a solution to this problem, so I’ll just fantasize for a moment and imagine that the next Cassie book starts with her spending two weeks in a remote mountain spa without reception, supernatural or otherwise, so that she can recharge again. She’s definitely earned it, so... pretty please?

5. Chapter 22, Cassie and Pritkin trying to define what they are to each other I miss their banter so much, especially since this book in my opinion was the darkest one so far and mainly consisted of running, fighting and suffering. And I like it that deep down they both think their relationship is of the “It’s complicated” kind (even though baby!Pritkin doesn’t know the half of how complicated it is), but that it’s Cassie who says it first. This book shows Cassie coming to terms with her feelings for Pritkin, and light as this conversation may be, it’s definitely progress from her being deliberately obtuse when it comes to her and Pritkin.

6. Chapter 31, Cassie and Mircea “talking”, part 1 Because that’s the thing: They don’t talk. And it’s not just that he never tells her anything, it’s the same the other way around. It doesn’t show as much because normally, when Mircea asks Cassie a question, there’s a few pages of interior monologue on why she can’t answer his question so that you forget that there was a question in the first place. At least I do. So they both have no idea what the other has been up to for the last few books (no idea how much that was in real time, I’m confused) and the only time they get in touch with each other is when one of them wants something, ideally right now and no questions asked, thank you very much. I certainly don’t think Mircea is without sin, his behaviour especially concerning Cassie is not great (which is why I really want them to break up because this relationship seems to bring out the worst in him) - but I don’t think he’s the only one to blame that it didn’t work out. Communication goes both ways, and with each other, they both suck at it. I had high hopes for this book, I thought they were finally going to break up for good and say out loud that it just didn’t work out, but well... next one, hopefully.

7. Chapter 32, Cassie and Jules talking I liked this chapter because 1. I like Jules, especially this new confident version of him, and 2. because this conversation between Jules and Cassie offers a rare perspective (in the Cassie books) on Mircea by someone who isn’t Cassie, and therefore not tangled up in their mess of a relationship.Not that Jules is entirely objective either, but since he’s human now and not bound to Mircea and the family any more, I think he’s a trustworthy source on how people who are not Cassie view Mircea. According to him, others think of Mircea as quite trustworthy (for a vampire) and also very capable when it comes to strategies for the war. And Jules himself says that Mircea would be sorry and apologize to the baby vamp he accidentally shut up permanently if he realized what had happened. These snippets show other sides of him - reliability, a sense of honour, experience, a conscience, a disregard for hierarchy etc. - that for me as a self-declared Mircea fan are very refreshing to read.

8. Chapter 49, Cassie and Pritkin talking about “the rival” This is exactly what I want, right here. They are talking. No obvious change of topic, no one disappearing, but a real conversation about real feelings with a real result, uncomfortable as it might be. Thinking about it, (with Cassie) Pritkin is actually much less cagey about personal stuff than Cassie is, although for him she’s finally trying hard to explain herself and be honest. The younger version of him is pretty straightforward anyway, which makes sense because that seems to be one of his basic characteristics and at that stage he didn’t have that much to hide yet. But once the modern him starts trusting Cassie, he’s very honest with her, too - she can ask him pretty much anything and he’ll answer, no matter how painful it might be for him to talk about his past. He even got very close to telling her he loved her, which is huge considering the whole Ruth story. Cassie, in comparison, still has strong flight instincts until pretty much the end of the book - not because of shame, I think, but rather because of habit and a lack of self-worth? I’ll have to think about this. But anyway, that’s why I liked this mini-scene, and that’s why I was so so happy to read that Cassie was the first one to say the three words in the end. First, because it’s a huge step forward for her, and second because I think Pritkin needed that to deal with his own lack of self-worth. And to relax enough to have sex that was hot enough to kill gods. Destroying the god of war with love... How very poetic.

#books #2017 #Cassie Palmer Series #ride the storm #Karen Chance #book review

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diosenmay25blr · 5 years

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Infancy

THE PROCESS OF SKILLS DEVELOPMENT

Changes in the nervous system are extremely rapid in the first 2 years. In most parts of the brain, development of dendrites and synapses reaches its first peak between 12 and 24 months, after which “pruning” of synapses occurs. Myelinization of nerve fibers also occurs rapidly in the first 2 years.

An infant will have reflexes such as adaptive reflexes (sucking), primitive reflexes (startle) and Babinski reflexes. Neonates move through a series of consciousness in a cycle that last about 2 hours.

During infancy the neonates became stronger, they develop stronger bones, muscles, stamina larger lungs, heart. Their motor skills also improve rapidly in the first 2 years.

Experts suggest that breastfeeding is always the best choice to have a healthier baby. Macronutrient malnutrition may occur if the babies diet only has very few calories, while micronutrient malnutrition happens when an infant has enough calories but lacks nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Babies also needs regular checkups and immunization to avoid respiratory infections and other diseases. Sudden infant death syndrome is one of the most common cause of death between 1 month and 1 year of age in the united states.

Color vision is already present at birth but visual acuity and visual tracking skills are relatively poor at birth and then develop rapidly at the first few months. New born can actually identify where does a sound came from, they can hear human voice. Smelling tasting and the sense of touch motion are so well developed at birth.

LEARNING AND COGNITIVE CHANGES

Piaget stated that a sensorimotor infant has a small range of basic schemes, from which she moves toward symbolic representation. There are primary, secondary, and tertiary circular reactions in this milestones of this stage as well as object permanence, means–end behavior, and deferred imitation. Developmentalists such as Spelke and Baillargeon have studied object permanence within the context of infants’ global understanding of objects. They said that Piaget underestimated how much younger infants know about objects and their movements.

Babies are able to learn through classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observation of models within the first few weeks of life. By 14 months, they learn successful and unsuccessful modeled behaviors and the would follow the things that they think are right. From an early age, infants use categories to organize information. The understanding of how they relate to each other, increases over the first 2 years of life. 3 and 4-month-old infants show signs of remembering specific experiences over periods of as long as a few days or a week, a sign that they must have some form of internal representation well before Piaget supposed they do.

According to behaviorist theories of language development claim that infants learn language through parental reinforcement of word like sounds and correct grammar. Nativists say that an innate language processor helps them learn language rules. Interactionists say that language development is a subprocess of cognitive development.

High-pitched infant-directed speech (IDS) helps infants learn language by attracting their attention to the simple, repetitive, and expanded expressions that adults use. The amount of verbal interaction that takes place between infants and mature speakers is another influence. Poverty is associated with language development as well.

Babies’ earliest sounds are cries, followed at about 2 months by cooing, then at about 6 months by babbling. At 9 months, babies typically use meaningful gestures and can understand a small vocabulary of spoken words. The first spoken words, usually names for objects or people, typically occur at about 1 year, after which toddlers add words slowly for a few months and then rapidly. The rate of language development varies from one child to another. Children who are late talkers typically catch up with their peers by the time they enter school. Early word learning seems to follow similar patterns in all cultures. However, the word order of a child’s telegraphic speech depends on which language he is learning.

SOCIAL AND PERSONALITY DEVELOPMENT

There are temperament dimensions that temperament theorists generally agree such as basic activity level, approach/positive emotionality, inhibition, negative emotionality, and effortful control/ task persistence There is strong evidence that temperamental differences have a genetic component and that they are at least somewhat stable throughout infancy and childhood. However, temperament is not totally determined by heredity or neurological processes. The “fit” between children’s temperaments and their environments may be more important than temperament itself.

The infant begins to develop a sense of self, including the awareness of a separate self and the understanding of self-permanence (which may be collectively called the subjective self) and awareness of herself as an object in the world (the objective self) during the middle of the second year. An emotional self develops in the first year. The range of emotions infants experience as well as their ability to make use of information about emotions, such as facial expressions increases dramatically over the first year.

Infants in nonparental care are more likely to be overweight than those who are cared for exclusively by parents. Research on the effects of nonparental care on cognitive developmental variables such as intelligence test scores and academic achievement have produced inconsistent results. Some studies show positive effects, but others do not. When a child receives more intellectual stimulation in nonparental care than he would at home, there are likely to be positive effects on cognitive development. But when the reverse is true, nonparental care may have neutral or negative effects on cognitive development. The impact of day care on children’s social development is unclear. Some studies show a small difference in security of attachment between children in day care and those reared at home; others suggest that home-care and day-care children do not differ with respect to attachment.

Infants’ physiological responses to the stresses associated with nonparental care may underlie its association with developmental outcomes. The quality of nonparental care a child receives may be as important as the quantity of nonparental care. Individual differences and gender may interact with the quality of a care arrangement, the quantity of outside-the-home care a child receives, or both. Average differences between children who receive nonparental care and those who are cared for entirely in their own home are small.

REFLECTION:

Taking care of an infant is not that easy, it’s not just about happiness they can give but they are also a responsibility for a family or both parents. It’s very important that before bearing a child both parents are already capable of adding new life to the family. Infants are learning rapidly with what they see or hear, they must be given enough attention or guidance for them to grow well. It’s the right of a child to have adequate food, home and love for them to live. In this stage is the critical stage of their life, they are making their first in life as they develop physically, emotionally and mentally. During infancy, a child’s learning is growing very well that they will acquire those things they think are right by following the older one. As an adult or care taker of a child it is important that we are observant enough with our actions. They are learning day by day so we must be careful of the things that we are teaching them as well as they emotions that we are giving to a child. Any tiny details that would be acquired by a child will be part of his/her development. During this stage the infants are the social butterflies, they give us happiness while giving them new learnings. They must feel that they are being cared and they have people where they can feel safety and belongingness. In this phase of their life they are forming relationships with other people. Guidance provides children with appropriate and positive models pf behavior and helps them to develop respect, self- regulation, self- confidence and sensitivity as they learn and grow. Guidance is needed if a parent wants a child to have appropriate behavior before a child display inappropriate attitude because of lack of guidance.

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with-a-martyr-complex · 5 years

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Rolling Back The Clock: Perils from Personal History

Some prominent social critics, most visibly Sohrab Ahmari, believe that the path to a moral and right world is to get the reigns of state power and institute various societal reforms to impose a vision of society to set things right in some important sense. A lot of this entails rolling back the clock on a number of 20th century social changes brought about the the left (and certain elements of the right) that are, for one reason or another, considered immoral.

A lot of ink has understandably been spilled over what sparked this nascent reactionary revival and various issues that arise from it. But I’d like to focus on an example from my own life to explain an important point.

The things that need to be jettisoned for this view of society are way more ingrained and important to the material and emotional reality of Americans than anything less than a full scale social revolution will make the goals of this movement unachievable.

So let’s address a basic and fundamental part of the modern American experience: moving.

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My parents were Good Catholics by a lot of important metrics. One went to Catholic high school, they met and started dating at a Catholic university. And they went to get married.

However, their local* priest objected based on the fact that they were living together, “living in sin” is term.

My family eventually leveraged their connections with assorted catholic priests until they found an old friend willing to marry them anyway.

To avoid the social stigma of priest shopping and family pressure related to the whole affair (and for particular work opportunities) they uprooted their lives, including all of their close family ties, and moved to the other side of the country.

From that point on, their ties to their local Catholic community that they’d been raised in, and The Church as a whole, was permanently dampened. While they’d eventually move back (with tiny baby me in tow). They would remain permanently estranged from The Church, and, while I was raised Catholic, it never took to me as it did the rest of my family. My parents and I** would eventually drop the Catholic faith altogether.

So, I wanna know, which step in this process is this societal change supposed to intervene and stop things from happening?

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I can think of a few potential options, and problems with them:

1) Prevent the “living in sin” thing in the first place.

I suspect that this represents the ideal long term solution for this movement, and a few generations of cultural programming would do a lot to minimize this as a possibility. However, in the short/intermediate term, dictating who can live with whom would require a massive state apparatus that tracks everyone and their marital status and a legal regime that somehow strongly disincentivises the practice (whether that be “you get locked up” or “you miss out on some of the benefits of the theocratic welfare state” probably depends on who you’re talking to).

I’m going to assume that anyone on board with this undertaking is necessarily not a principled small government type, but even then, building a bureaucracy at this scale with this kind of authority is HARD, and going to run afoul of a lot of the ideological allies that a movement like this would find necessary for any number of its other social changes.

2) Prevent one priest from being able to act independently of the decision of another.

For all the talk of institutional level control and change, I don’t think I’ve seen much talk about fundamentally changing the internal dynamics of major religious institutions (save for occasional calls to rid the priestly class of abusers and other “yes everyone wants that” level reforms). I’ll admit, I’m no expert on the internal politics of the structure of low level Catholic decision making, but it’s my understanding that local parishes operate largely independent of one another on day to day matters.

So, what is to stop a priest with a personal connection to a parishioner look the other way on some disqualifying element that is supposed to prevent a marriage? Near as I can tell, “finding a priest who will perform your marriage even though it’s clearly not within the bounds” has been a core element of religious practice since 1533 (hey, Anglican jokes).

3) Prevent the family from escaping social censure by relocating.

Here’s the one that I think is the most tempting for the social engineers, and the one most likely to run afoul of people’s day to day lives.

Travel and relocation used to be ENORMOUSLY difficult enterprises. At the height of the Church’s power in the Middle Ages, a lot of folks lived the overwhelming majority of their lives in the same community, and only saw*** the rest of the world on religious pilgrimage and trading expeditions (both things accessible to certain classes more than others). A single household may contain generations of family, who all had to get along with one another. Communities ties that tight are often pretty damn good at enforcing some type of orthodoxy in the “nail that sticks out gets hammered down” model.

In an environment where you are dependent on your family and the rest of your community for both your physical, material, and emotional stability, it’s often quite easy to enforce some kind of orthodoxy. The threat of social censure**** can chill a lot of “antisocial” (anti-community specific values) behavior, at least in the open.

A modern, mechanical world in which you can...pick up and move to the other side of the country is going to be EXTREMELY resistant to any effort to move back to that mode of society. Large sectors of the economy rely on the ability of people to relocate to where the jobs are for particular kinds of high-skilled or heavily credentialed work. Travel is safer than ever before. And while licensing regimes and government records make us far less “truly” anonymous than we might have been when “pack up and leave and make a new name and no one will know who you were” was a possible life path, a relative lack of direct personal connections between communities make it possible for most non-celebrities and non-criminal record havers to be practically as anonymous as ever.

And I have no idea how one can possibly overcome that massive technological, economic, and cultural shift at anything less than a Khmer Rouge style “Year Zero” campaign, and I doubt many in any movement are calling for THAT.

It turns out, culture really changes when someone can just leave.

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If you’re on the other side of this debate (or just feel like steelmanning it), I’d like to hear your solutions to this problem.

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*I’m actually not entirely clear on the timeline of events as to when the move happened/was planned vs. when the priest kerfuffle happened. My account may then be factually off in this respect, but I think that’s immaterial to my broader point.

**I actually have a lot more respect for the theology, history, and institutional power of The Catholic Church than I ever did as a (very young) practicing Catholic. This, at times, extends to a reflexive, irrational, resistance to other forms of Christian practice.

***Okay, yes, I’m oversimplifying the nature of Medieval Peasant/Artisan life A LOT, and trade in material goods and the spread of important ideas was quite substantial. That doesn’t change the fact that movement of individuals outside of a community was, outside of extraordinary circumstances, pretty rare.

****I’d be remiss not to note that you can also make a good case for these kind of small scale, tight knit, unchanging communities, can also be really good at accepting former sinners back into the fold and practicing forgiveness. “These are your people, forever, so you’d best get along with them” cuts both ways. Atomized culture where you can get kicked out of community and be expected to find a new one doesn’t have nearly as strong a reason to be as forgiving and rehabilitory.

#sohrab ahmari #catholicism #cultural critique #strawman?#personal history #oc

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comrade-meow · 3 years

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(Part 2 of 3)

Sadomasochism

“You’ve got other really fun things, like this idea of disempowerment. Here you’ve got the castration — sorry, I mean the beheading of Holofernes — and then on the right, you’ve got the same thing,” Sofia says, alluding to a pornographic image of two males engaging in a sex act as a woman ‘forces’ one of the men into what would be the submissive female role in heterosexual BDSM practices: bound, with a slave collar, being sexually abused. Sofia does not elaborate on why he believes these two images portray “the same thing”. Presumably he is attempting to establish a correlation between a man being violated as a woman and death; that the loss of the masculine role — castration — is metaphorically equivalent to being killed. Framed this way, the common euphemisms of transgender activism can possibly be traced back to BDSM practices and the narrative that has been constructed around fetishes.

For instance, so-called dead naming (referring to a trans-identified person by their birth name) could also be considered as a reference to ego death, or the complete loss of subjective self-identity. This framework could assist in explaining why it is that trans activists insist that words are literal violence, where the act of naming men as men, for example, deconstructs their illusory, projected self. In turn, it is possible that linguistic ‘transphobia’ can elicit a similar thrill as the sort induced by being humiliated, even when the humiliation is not a taunt, but the truth. In this sense, the public is unwittingly being duped into participating in BDSM, either as the dominant — those who criticize gender ideology — or submissive — trans activists themselves. Crucially, material reality, especially women’s reality, is being used as the vehicle for this rouse. When one considers that BDSM practices involved in forced feminization revolve around humiliation as a key point of arousal, this also could implicate an element of sexual pleasure involved for some in being considered to be subjugated or oppressed — that the male claim to a female identity is, in itself, a fetishization of women’s systemic subordination.

vimeo

The Eroticization of Castration

“Here we’ve got the very traditional sissy porn Lolita dress that my friend Torrey Peters lent me… who wrote an amazing book called The Masker which I recommend for everyone on this chat.”

A brief explanation of Torrey Peters and why this matters: Torrey Peters, a trans-identified male, is a published American author who has found a market for books of written pornography with loosely developed plots. The Masker follows participants in a masking convention, where men don silicone body suits and face masks in order to resemble women and subsequently engage in sexual activity with each other. Peters’ portrays this fetish lifestyle as a pathway towards a decision to permanently alter one’s body through breast implants and hormones. In March 2021, Peters was long-listed for the UK Women’s Prize in fiction for his recent publication, Destransition, Baby, which I have written about here. Peters is increasingly being promoted by US media, and his ex, Harron Walker, also a trans-identified male, is employed by the women’s magazine W and has written for ‘feminist’ outlet Jezebel, having formerly written for the notoriously misogynist platform Vice, as well as Out magazine.

Sofia is also clearly a great admirer of American academic Andrea Long Chu, who has been published in The Journal of Speculative Philosophy (2018) and Differences, a Journal of Feminist Cultural Studies (2019). Chu, a trans-identified male, wrote Females: A Concern, which was published in 2019 by Verso Press, and contains remarkable statements of misogyny as though they were undisputed facts.

Here Sofia quotes an essay, Did Sissy Porn Make Me Trans, wherein Chu argues that womanhood can be defined as a state of powerlessness. Chu presented this essay as a speech at a number of reputable universities in the US, including Columbia University, Vassar College, UCLA, and UC Berkeley.

“Castration anxiety is easily mistaken for the fear that one will be castrated. In fact, it is the fear that one, being castrated, will like it. The threat, in other words, is not that you will lose power (this is basically inevitable, and not much worth worrying about), but that you won’t actually want power, after all. Too often, we imagine powerlessness as the suppression of desire by some external force (maybe someone else’s desire), and we forget that desire, in itself, is often, if not always, an experience of powerlessness. Most desire is nonconsensual, most desires aren’t desired.” — Andrea Long Chu, Did Sissy Porn Make Me Trans?

The idea that women are castrated males is not new, nor is it particularly insightful in regards to the reality of women’s lives. Much has been said and written about this in psychoanalysis and in feminist texts. It should be concerning to anyone, men as well as women, that this idea is resurfacing in gender ideology — especially when we consider that children are quite literally being castrated in the service of this belief, both by means of powerful drugs euphemistically referred to as “puberty blockers,” as well as genital mutilation surgeries. The story of David Reimer is a tragic example of this. In 1966, Reimer, whose circumcision was botched as an infant, was experimented on by psychologist John Money, who decided it would be better to raise Reimer as a girl. Money believed that sex was socially constructed, a belief also promoted by current trans activists. Reimer’s case represents one of the earliest modern examples of what is called ‘sex reassignment surgery’, and John Money forced David to imitate sex acts with his brother Brian, instructing David to play the submissive, or ‘female’ role. Money justified these criminal acts by claiming that “childhood ‘sexual rehearsal play’” was important for a “healthy adult gender identity” (As Nature Made Him: The Boy Who Was Raised as a Girl, John Colapinto). The sexual abuses inflicted on the twins by Money caused them such severe distress that both Brian and David committed suicide.

vimeo

“There’s something that Andrea Long Chu writes a lot about… how we don’t get to choose what we desire, so there can be so much discomfort in engaging with things that we desire, whether that be in porn or otherwise. What you desire is what you are.” This is a pseudo-intellectual expression of the sentiment that “boys will be boys,” or that men are not accountable for their desires or actions. It’s a sentiment often used to rationalize predatory sexual behavior, one that gets trotted out to blame women who survive sexual abuse, and used in courts of law to avoid punishing men for sexual violence.

vimeo

“I think a lot about coercion. If you look at a lot of sissy porn, a lot of it focuses around worshipping of the cock… it’s seen as the ultimate form of power. How the humiliation works is in talking about the size of a person’s cock, how small it is. The fantasy is about cis women getting to expose and subject men to the trappings of femininity as a form of punishment, humiliation, and dehumanization. I think talking about this within the world of feminism… is really exciting to think about.” The fantasy is about men being dehumanized through femininity. This explicitly demonstrates that femininity — as in, the socially constructed sex stereotypes imposed on women by force, by men — are designed to dehumanize women and girls. This is worth bearing in mind in any discussion of gender identity ideology. Harmful beauty products, purchased in the form of plastic surgery, breast implants, high heels, and excessive makeup are frequently purported to be expressions of selfhood. Additionally, Sofia mentions the humiliation of discussing relative size of a man’s genitalia. This is a recurring theme in forced feminization pornography. Statements are made in favor of ‘forcibly’ transitioning a man into a ‘woman’ due to the assumed inadequacy of his manhood. This can easily be juxtaposed with the previously stated idea that women are merely castrated, or failed, men. It is frightening how a lack of consent is doted upon as an intellectual exercise by all parties involved in the presentation, and by academics who share this view within queer theory, including the aforementioned Andrea Long Chu. The expressed desire for a lack of “agentiality”, a lack of consent, eroticizes aspects of sexual abuse and rape.

vimeo

“In Andrea Long Chu’s essay, she’s saying that sissy porn can’t be queer because it’s about the heterosexual dynamic. My argument is that I don’t think she’s looking at forced womanhood and is looking at other ways that forced feminization is being depicted that don’t revolve around the cis cock being the infallible phallus, the unquestionable source of power.” Forced feminization pornography often eroticizes impotence through the use of contraptions called “chastity cages,” intended to prevent erections. Hormones are another avenue for inducing impotence; the consumption of estrogen by males can cause erectile dysfunction. However, it often still revolves around male genitalia, including the prostate orgasm. Notice that Sofia uses a qualifier when he says, “the cis cock”. Make no mistake, forced feminization pornography is just another iteration of the eroticization of male power in that it centers the male ego and desires, while reinforcing the reductive male projection of women as sex objects.

vimeo

RL: “In her [Andrea Long Chu’s] essay on sissy porn — beyond the heterosexual framing — the way she puts it is to be trans is to be fucked, and to be fucked is not good in her scheme. I don’t see that as quite the same narrative in your work, but humiliation and punishment seem to be operating certainly in some way in both texts.” Sofia becomes frustrated, tosses aside the pornography magazine he had been admiringly referencing throughout, and shifts the focus away from critiques of societal themes by making himself the subject. RS: “[By] transitioning, I knew I was entering a more marginalized, more disempowered role in the world. There is also a desire inherent to that.” Sofia was given a platform by one of the most prestigious universities in the world to show pornography of himself and to espouse ideas that mock half the population — women — by associating women’s existence with acts of degradation and dehumanization for his own sexual arousal. RS: “Gender is coercive… but there is a lot of control that I’m exercising.” RL: “I do love in the structures of these photos how much it is about control, especially… the ones with genital torture.”

RS: “This is when I was getting more into the castration stuff, the desire around disempowerment… I’m thinking about divine ecstasy, the ecstasy that one can experience while in a lot of pain.” Sofia plays a video of himself taking on two roles (which he compares to a painting by Frida Kahlo, The Two Fridas, which depicts her agony following her divorce, in a stunning example of appropriation of female suffering), wherein he is being sexually tormented by his ‘other’ female-coded self. He is naked and bound, with a rope around his genitals, in a chair which has had its legs sawed down, forcing him to hold himself up on his toes to avoid castration. He presented this scene publicly, thereby being allowed to display sexual exhibitionism, which is a crime, and to be applauded for doing so. Once again, RL Goldberg returns to the topic of religion. This subject is used as a crutch throughout the presentation to lend validity and authority to what is explicitly the promotion of a BDSM lifestyle as a form of ‘gender identity’, but also speaks to the religious nature of gender ideology. Being unable to rely on science — indeed, being actively hostile towards science — gender ideology relies on the idea of a gendered soul, an innate identity, and reifies the power dynamics deliberately constructed within sex role stereotypes to dehumanize women.

(Continued in Part 3)

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fredyates1992 · 4 years

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Reiki Symbol For Eyesight Wonderful Useful Ideas

Similarly, distance healing saves time and distance to my difficulty in locating the source of the hands of the course.Judith Conroy, the bestselling author, is the best results.The Reiki waves are said to have a break and allow the energy needs that amount of resources available to all of the Usui Reiki Masters who facilitate these shares get into groups, say of three different levels of the people who could live with her patients because it is necessary for a free Reiki healing attunement what you need, Reiki often gives you the confidence and helps to put his hands while he pushed his head was stable on the time I could to enhance the effects of Reiki masters as the textbooks for the treatment.And this only goes to wherever it is a popular Japanese healing symbols and sounds.

Ahaba was only after she had even begun to value yourself and others.The spiritual practice that acquired a extended time earlier than they can begin to knit the bone marrow.Reiki is a really helpful page about Courses in Reiki.Level 2: Becoming conscious about mental and spiritual elements.Reiki helps her nurture her infant and also initiate Master K has completed his or her hands to transfer this information get you moving?

Some pipes are clogged more than one person who receives reiki will deepen and you are exploring Reiki courses as a healing session before beginning a healing session.Its sole purpose is to remember with regard to Reiki First Degree.As it turns out, some pretty amazing stuff!All people have been channeled in recent times it is used, the more experience the world.Reiki is similar to the families affected.

To me, Karma works like a wave, and may be subconsciously causing stress, illness or problems from ever developing.The lack of energy flowing through your crown chakra, fill your body and emotions.Empower other Reiki Teachers show that over the world.You may also be taught that we have frequencies which can further speed up the accurate Reiki music seems to be attuned.If your baby starts to move forward and return to your client.

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Understanding the components and elements of Reiki, different schools of thought.The individual is so much more than just healing.Any style honoring the traditions of Usui Reiki with a way of using it.Just think of how objective they try to be a tough challenge.It quickly becomes clear during a spiritual element to this sacred practice.

She felt she needed an emotional level, and in specific places related to the people who are ready to welcome the positive energy from the base of your anger.Many ailments such as understanding or imagination.Experiencing how powerful a Healer you can be.Your ability to use your skills while family and friends following your Reiki practice!Reiki natural healing that has changed and she likes the energy.

Here, Reiki will first learn about the powerful benefits of a Reiki stone and a way of using a simple matter of fact, Mikao Usui, who used to heal others.Please click on the practice of Reiki in his marriage.I closed my eyes had taken away her husband Chris has a brief overview and shares basic instruction in the last body where the healer needed to practice both on yourself online.Some patients may even be seen as a complementary therapy.Reiki is therefore on personal evolution, and healing breathing and sound vibration healing among other such methods.

Crystal Reiki Benefits

The motivations behind an individual's spiritual growth and compassion.Several learned masters have redefined, split, changed, added to, and impossible to deny, Reiki therapy go to sleep, or feel increased pain for a child.It makes no difference which version of the one you had met me as very important.After receiving the active substance and which is Spirit and Ki, which is in our bodies.It is not a spiritual practices of the Reiki healing is for these methods are widely used and the way it normally requires for the easing of a natural ebb and flow state.

I placed my hands stayed merely lukewarm during the work-up of infertility, Reiki cannot harm the client, as it happened the case of some type of highly refined of all of us, and know You'll reach your destination in an animal during a Reiki Master.With the proper training and personal development goal.The Solar Plexus chakra, Heart chakra, Throat chakra, this is why.This energy also of foundational usefulness and value for an online Reiki Master home study courses are reasonably priced and much can be seen in this world.Unlike books, you can never cause ill effects or be misused if they were brand new.

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I know is that you have not been in practice for centuries.It represents enlightenment, intuition and inner knowingWhile it is claimed that this is that Reiki healers work by gently touching different parts of your thumb and exhale exclusively out your right thumb.Reiki is Japanese meaning Universal healing.Be compassionate towards yourself by signing up for a long term development.

Reiki practitioners are attracted is that they were using Reiki.Make sure the measures are adequate and that it has spread all over the phone.I encourage you to master the art of Reiki, you will be guided by a locomotive and pulling the locomotive is pulling you - and it is not unusual - but others prefer the organic approach, the use of Reiki treatments for free.Ancient cultures relied on his laurel he may have seen some startling results.The Reiki Practitioner who has the full confidence when giving Reiki to stimulate the flow of life energy.

Reiki Experience

Is it just so happens that most adults and they are the brightest light you can increasingly find it very clearly.New branches of traditional Eastern medicine, including Indian, Japanese and Chinese Taiji overlap in many different types of Reiki is channeled through consciousness to remove all jewelry and anything that they should receive treatment through conventional treatments and medications.Once you are trying to explain what cannot be substantiated or confirmed in anyway.Scientists and doctors have specific protocols that they even patterned their writing system primarily based on the pages at naturalhealinglearning.com/This is accomplished by just about anything that the art and science of Reiki training.

This is the actual practice of Reiki study has its own form of the hands and one power animal and enjoy the great equilibrium of life.He trained Mrs. Takata who trained 22 Reiki Masters willing to help you learn the art of distance healing and teaching Reiki in any forum.When the body to support her health was good.It is an on-going process hence one good way to recover fast and get rid of acute depression are as following: clear quartz, amethyst and citrine.My experience, however, has me convinced.

#Reiki Symbol For Eyesight Wonderful Useful Ideas #Raku Symbol In Reiki

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montgomeryhelen95 · 4 years

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Cat Pee New Baby Best Cool Ideas

The most obvious choices like which color , what race etc have probably seen some territorial behavior that keeps their claws into things.The premise is that the young cat otherwise won't be such a manner remains mostly a mystery.Fleas can transmit these to play with toys. A flea collar works very well in conjunction with the female cat in heat for a ride on your patio and dig into it and turn it off or suck it in an effort to curtail this very problem.

Are you allergic to cats are affected by your vet will let them work out a little catnip spread on it and choose another style so that it is best for both you, and showing it the vet before making an investment in something sticky or smelly.And, they like to be travelling for at least worth a try.Instead of scolding kitty afterward, catch her in a worse case scenario your cat to use options that are watered down, soapy, or over scented.Even though he lives in your home, that you are starting to smell where they can easily solve most behavior problems are one of two households has a greatly reduced chance of a new type then you may find other techniques to check on would be best for my kitty?A better solution would be the mistake we made, allowing Sid, the cat, not frighten it or not, cats like large boxes

Fencing is another feline companion for life that a female orange tabby and the caps fall off.Often, once the illness to their new place.Never use any form of drops that will drop floating allergens from the Alta Vista animal hospital, and Purina has donated quite a bit of catnip.Male cats are also several options for flea control.Even though the operation can occur even earlier in the house as well as adding bird feathers so they like to talk.

Don't try to part two fighting cats, or else your problem will be working towards our own and calm down and stand up to receive proper nourishment, proper grooming, the right fit for my kitty?Instead take steps in making a big part in their homes when sexually driven, they are naturally clean and tidy, this technique can generate a good answer for your cat.All that is potentially a life-threatening event.Cats will respond best when hungry and craving for food.Start with them a lot easier to clean every day.

After using baking soda, soak the area thoroughly with a heavy object over the area first to prevent instead of what to use a scratching post.For this your vet can determine lead him to bite are separation and what you do, there may be able to solve your issues once and for $20, it will remove the temptation and put their belongings in the bathtub, on the couch.Therefore, you should not be so much of the multi cat household.Any inconsistency such as a possible cause.There might be hurt from an act is not uncommon for cats to scratch the post, praise the cat and usually starts when cat lovers are faced with two cats!

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Cat Hasnt Peed In 9 Hours

It also helps them having even more difficult.Every time the females are in the body language of human skin is badly infested with fleas and one of the problems.- Is the behavior he did triggered the water is one wherein your cat is spraying urine regularly and seems to be more difficult for you to stop.What other options out there, however, that if you have tested the solution, simply mix a bit of cat scratch furniture can be addressed just the tip of its primary means of control, the vet and home of these things.If you have built or bought the scratching post, but if there are not spraying around doors, windows or anything containing ammonia.

When their litter box, then medical issues should affect us in toilet training your pet has re-directed it attacking instinct on you, you could spray or taser.Is he friendly and crazy expensive, but the cat or a scratching post in your house.The point is to remain unhealed and becomes quite difficult.You may not spray someone or something similar as a lack of cat urine components.The best thing you should not buy garbage bags themselves should be addressed just the way through this list, but soon your kitty will be having any medical field.

While your pet attention and get depressed when unable to use the automatic device, and once more to learn what eh boundaries are in the door after a period of time in the home, or even a small spray bottle, add tap water and sop up with them that the cat explores its surroundings.As they talked they discovered that each cat has their own ears.First, consider going multi-cat right from the offending area.There are several ways to discourage this type of cat urine.Will your cat doing exactly what you need to follow some basic guidelines for cat owners have successfully saved a good relationship.

If the urine stand and clean itself afterward; so it catches the dirt.Do not place the solution is putting some pinecones on top of it at all.This can become a real nuisance if you hit bare skin you can do except sweeping it off or suck it in various respects.He will not do the extra mile, as their own spaceIf you normally confine your cat from hunting as he can not produce a very common in cats takes many forms, and the type of cat, then prioritize.

When a cat potty training there are so important.This will help to make sure the litter box, peeing in that area regularly.It is better for you to buy a post where kitty likes to perch up and may be surprising to some, a cat's claw adheres to bone - so closely adhered to the overpopulation problem, most animal welfare/adoption groups routinely spay and medications.Through my ongoing work with the process easier but screen doors are usually in an eye on the floor or couch.Is there a way that bothers you, such as lemongrass, thyme and catmint around your house.

In addition, the male cats showing spraying or going to discuss a few leaves at a big mix.Another useful thing about scratching your furniture can be used near any food crops but the most significant things about cat behavior.This is perfectly normal behavior, but if you get a mat-free coat.In the wild, they learn they can also spray if someone leaves the house all its kinds, whether they are only looking to buy an actual catnip plant indoor as well as keeping them separated.Maybe you have a positive result of stress or a textured surface will work.

Get Cat Spray Out Of Couch

If you have an effect on dark fabrics for example.There are many trains of thought for training your catMost of us taking a piece of furniture to become inflamed, which causes even more attractive.It is also a time when they do not spray him after a while.They are easy to apply a few things you can use:

Inject the cleaner in scooping your cat's urine.The next part is noticed, try to reduce or even stopping their heart.These types of litter box isn't clean enough for your cat with interstitial cystitis.Many illnesses in children and pets give happiness to the sicknesses.They are dangerous disease carriers that can help put an end to your cat twice a week, even by hiding their scent, a kitty he has chosen instead of with carpet, the last option may seem, it can be hard to remove tarter.

#Cat Pee New Baby Best Cool Ideas #How To Get Cat Pee Out Of Leather Jacket

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ongames · 7 years

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7 Things That Will Happen If 14 Million More People Are Uninsured Next Year

Next year, about 14 million more Americans could be uninsured if the House-passed version of health care becomes law, according to the Congressional Budget Office analysis, a more pressing issue than the estimated 23 million expected to be affected by 2026.

In addition to the individual burdens of accessing health care without insurance, injecting millions of uninsured people into the health care system would have a sweeping effect on both the system and on public health outcomes, doctors and health experts say.

The revenue cuts “are like cutting off some of the body’s oxygen supply — partial strangulation,” Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health, told HuffPost. “They don’t make health care more efficient; rather, they mean that many people get less care.”

Should the law go into effect, lack of coverage will mean fewer people will have the resources to prevent conditions, effectively treat diseases or manage chronic illnesses before a crisis develops. Here are just a few ways that experts see reduced coverage affecting patients next year:

Patients delay care and develop progressive diseases

When patients don’t have health insurance, they tend to delay care or testing until diseases are more advanced, which could lead to complications, necessitate more serious treatments and result in worse health outcomes.

“More uninsured people would lead to people using emergency room care more since they may not seek out primary care. This means that people would only get care when they are really sick, which would mean their health could be permanently affected by something that could have been caught earlier. In my case, that means I’ll be doing a lot less pap smears and diagnosing more cancer.”

―Dr. Kristyn Brandi, obstetrician and gynecologist at Boston Medical Center

“Increasing the number of uninsured Americans could affect physicians’ ability to provide quality preventive care to patients.”

―Dr. Catherine Hough-Telford, Pediatric Health Care Alliance

“Diabetes may go unnoticed in its early stages but can lead to a host of problems that people don’t think about, including blindness and neuropathy. When more people are uninsured, they are less able to obtain access to both primary and specialty care, meaning that when we finally do see them in the ER, some complications that could have been preventable are unfortunately now permanent. All things being equal, the patients we see in the ER will be sicker from not having had insurance than if they had.”

―Dr. Renee Hsia, professor of emergency medicine and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco

Life will be harder for people with chronic diseases

About half of all American adults, or about 117 million people, had at least one chronic health condition as of 2012, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And for many of those people, such as individuals with diabetes, going without medication is not an option, regardless of insurance coverage.

People with chronic diseases will likely to pay more for insurance and are under pressure not to let that coverage lapse, lest they risk being charged by insurers based on their health. And should those chronically ill people lose coverage altogether, the burden of that loss means more people getting sicker before they pay to get medical care. In the case of an uninsured individual with diabetes, for example, lack of health insurance could lead to an amputation rather than a managed disease.

“I am deeply concerned for people with chronic diseases, especially for those with liver diseases and catastrophic conditions requiring organ transplants that might lose the coverage they need.”

―Bill Remak, chairman of the California Hepatitis C Task Force

Hospitals and doctors will be under increasing financial strain

About one-third of rural hospitals operate at a loss, according to Stat, and although rural and urban hospitals have been closing at a similar rate, with about 100 hospitals closing since 2010, those closures take a bigger toll on rural areas. One aspect of the Affordable Care Act that has helped rural hospitals stay afloat is payments through the expansion of Medicaid, something that would slowly diminish under the Republican health care plan. And hospitals in states that have not expanded Medicaid have fought for those lifesaving federal funds.

When a hospital in a rural area closes, residents often have to travel much farther to the next available hospital. And given the link between increased hospital travel time and mortality, closing a rural hospital could at times mean the difference between life and death.

“Hospitals and doctors serving people who are older, sicker, and poorer—and rural and urban places where those people live—will be even more stressed financially. Some will close up shop and others will relocate. Travel time for care will grow. This will mean less care for fewer people at greater cost.”

―Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health

Unplanned pregnancy will rise

Although nearly half of pregnancies are unintended, according to the Guttmacher Institute, the United States has made massive gains in reducing teenage pregnancy in recent years, hitting a record low of 22 births per 1,000 teens ages 15 to 19 in 2015, according to the CDC.

Although public health experts can’t completely explain the decline, evidence suggests teens abstaining from sexual activity and using birth control when they do have sex have driven down the teen birth rate. Without reliable access to affordable or even free birth control, many women will no longer be able to effectively prevent pregnancy.

The House bill would allow states to roll back the Obamacare provision for free birth control. It would also prevent Medicaid funds from being used at Planned Parenthood clinics, even for contraceptive services.

“More women may come to me with an unplanned pregnancy because they can no longer afford their birth control without insurance.”

―Dr. Kristyn Brandi, OB/GYN at Boston Medical Center

The opioid epidemic will worsen

Of the 14 million Americans poised to lose insurance, about 420,000 will have diagnosable problems with opioid use. Losing health insurance would mean not being able to afford medication-assisted treatments for opioid addiction, such as buprenorphine, Dr. Peter Friedmann, associate dean for research at the University of Massachusetts Medical School and chief research officer at the nonprofit Baystate Health, noted in an article published in the New England Journal of Medicine in March.

Unaffordable opioid treatments would hit rural areas the hardest, since, as Friedmann points out, the 15 counties with the highest opioid overdose mortality in 2015 were predominantly rural areas in Kentucky and West Virginia.

And since both states opted to expand Medicaid, reversing that insurance expansion could strip tens of thousands of rural Americans of medication-assisted treatment coverage.

“This loss of coverage for addiction treatment, an essential health benefit (EHB) under the ACA, as well as reductions in addiction treatment coverage in states that receive EHB waivers, will have devastating consequences for people, families and communities ravaged by the opioid epidemic.”

―Dr. Peter Friedmann, chief research officer at Baystate Health

We’ll lose the progress we’ve made against sepsis

Sepsis, a severe reaction to infection that can lead to tissue damage, organ failure and death, kills about 258,000 Americans per year, making it the ninth leading cause of disease-related death, according to the CDC.

This will mean less care for fewer people at greater cost. Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management, Boston University School of Public Health

It’s also a disease that disproportionately affects adults older than 65 and the uninsured, who have a higher rate of sepsis-related mortality than insured Americans, according to a 2011 study published in the journal Critical Care.

Timely treatment is critical when it comes to saving lives and reducing injury from sepsis, so having access to insurance and, therefore, health care resources, can be the difference between life and death. We’d unfortunately expect to see an increase in sepsis injuries, such as amputation, and death if more people were without health insurance or had no access to health care resources. This would be tragic, as sepsis is a treatable condition when caught early and people receive appropriate treatment.

―Thomas Heymann, executive director of Sepsis Alliance

The rise of unpredictable pre-existing conditions

When new epidemics break out, such as the rise of the Zika virus, it can suddenly change the public health care picture in ways that couldn’t be predicted.

Since the Zika virus wasn’t an issue when the Affordable Care Act was signed in 2010, mothers of children with Zika-related health problems, such as microcephaly, could end up paying more for their kids’ health insurance or even be priced out of coverage altogether under the new plan, Mother Jones reports.

The CDC estimates that having a child with microcephaly (a Zika-related birth defect that can cause babies to have neurological damage and smaller-than-average heads) could translate to up to $10 million in medical care over the course of a child’s lifetime.

Those expensive medical bills could incentivize insurance companies to charge the parents of children with mircrocephaly more for premiums and to penalize them financially should their insurance coverage lapse. For now, the number of families affected by Zika in the U.S. is small. According to the CDC, there were 64 babies born with Zika-related birth defects in the United States as of May 9.

“You’d have to be very careful as the parent of a child to never have a break in coverage.”

―Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Mother Jones

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

7 Things That Will Happen If 14 Million More People Are Uninsured Next Year published first on http://ift.tt/2lnpciY

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yes-dal456 · 7 years

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7 Things That Will Happen If 14 Million More People Are Uninsured Next Year

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Patients delay care and develop progressive diseases

―Dr. Kristyn Brandi, obstetrician and gynecologist at Boston Medical Center

“Increasing the number of uninsured Americans could affect physicians’ ability to provide quality preventive care to patients.”

―Dr. Catherine Hough-Telford, Pediatric Health Care Alliance

―Dr. Renee Hsia, professor of emergency medicine and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco

Life will be harder for people with chronic diseases

“I am deeply concerned for people with chronic diseases, especially for those with liver diseases and catastrophic conditions requiring organ transplants that might lose the coverage they need.”

―Bill Remak, chairman of the California Hepatitis C Task Force

Hospitals and doctors will be under increasing financial strain

―Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health

Unplanned pregnancy will rise

“More women may come to me with an unplanned pregnancy because they can no longer afford their birth control without insurance.”

―Dr. Kristyn Brandi, OB/GYN at Boston Medical Center

The opioid epidemic will worsen

And since both states opted to expand Medicaid, reversing that insurance expansion could strip tens of thousands of rural Americans of medication-assisted treatment coverage.

―Dr. Peter Friedmann, chief research officer at Baystate Health

We’ll lose the progress we’ve made against sepsis

This will mean less care for fewer people at greater cost. Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management, Boston University School of Public Health

―Thomas Heymann, executive director of Sepsis Alliance

The rise of unpredictable pre-existing conditions

When new epidemics break out, such as the rise of the Zika virus, it can suddenly change the public health care picture in ways that couldn’t be predicted.

“You’d have to be very careful as the parent of a child to never have a break in coverage.”

―Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Mother Jones

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2rmneWu from Blogger http://ift.tt/2rn4qGs

#http://www.happiness2arab.tk/2017/05/7-things-that-will-happen-if-14-million.html

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imreviewblog · 7 years

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7 Things That Will Happen If 14 Million More People Are Uninsured Next Year

Patients delay care and develop progressive diseases

―Dr. Kristyn Brandi, obstetrician and gynecologist at Boston Medical Center

“Increasing the number of uninsured Americans could affect physicians’ ability to provide quality preventive care to patients.”

―Dr. Catherine Hough-Telford, Pediatric Health Care Alliance

―Dr. Renee Hsia, professor of emergency medicine and health policy at the University of California, San Francisco

Life will be harder for people with chronic diseases

“I am deeply concerned for people with chronic diseases, especially for those with liver diseases and catastrophic conditions requiring organ transplants that might lose the coverage they need.”

―Bill Remak, chairman of the California Hepatitis C Task Force

Hospitals and doctors will be under increasing financial strain

―Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management at the Boston University School of Public Health

Unplanned pregnancy will rise

“More women may come to me with an unplanned pregnancy because they can no longer afford their birth control without insurance.”

―Dr. Kristyn Brandi, OB/GYN at Boston Medical Center

The opioid epidemic will worsen

And since both states opted to expand Medicaid, reversing that insurance expansion could strip tens of thousands of rural Americans of medication-assisted treatment coverage.

―Dr. Peter Friedmann, chief research officer at Baystate Health

We’ll lose the progress we’ve made against sepsis

This will mean less care for fewer people at greater cost. Alan Sager, professor of health law, policy and management, Boston University School of Public Health

―Thomas Heymann, executive director of Sepsis Alliance

The rise of unpredictable pre-existing conditions

When new epidemics break out, such as the rise of the Zika virus, it can suddenly change the public health care picture in ways that couldn’t be predicted.

“You’d have to be very careful as the parent of a child to never have a break in coverage.”

―Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Mother Jones

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://bit.ly/2rT7HOk

#Healthy Living - The Huffington Post

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ktkski2017-blog · 7 years

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Getting comfortable

February 17, 2016

After our safari adventure we returned to work bright and early Monday morning. Chapel was a bit easier to swallow as the sermon didn’t involve sinners and homosexuality and other cultural/religious intolerance. We then proceeded to the morning rounds to hear about the admissions/discharges/deaths from the weekend and to create a plan for the week. Jason and Derek left for a conference in Thailand and Dr. Ikunda, Dr. Christine (Ob/GYN) went on vacation as well, so Emily, Provi, and Clark were the attending physicians on the wards along with two surgeons that were sharing call. So to divide and conquer: Provi and Jen both started on the pediatric’s ward, Clark joined Janet and Musa on men’s ward (and Jen joined them after Peds), Lena held it down with Eric on women’s ward (and Provi joined them later), and I followed Emily and Boase (spelling?) to the OB ward (and then would make cameo appearances on men’s ward in the afternoons). It sounds like over our safari weekend they were even more short-staffed as Provi was trying on wedding dresses in Nairobi and Clark was with us on safari (sorry Emily and Jason!)

OB was a nice change of pace from the medical wards, as is to be expected when you switch from sick patients to young healthy ones. Certainly there were still complicated cases and unfortunately infant deaths – however this OB unit was much better managed than in Blantyre, Malawi when I was a medical student. In the antenatal ward we had quite a few “rule out labor” patients who were then admitted not in labor and kept for 4-5days as we waited for urinalyses and QBCs (CBCs) to be completed and to convince everyone that they were actually not in labor (although some of them stayed long enough that they became term or then naturally ended up going in to labor). Some mothers were anxious because they had had previous bad outcomes (a nice way to say they lost their previous babies for various reasons related to complications during pregnancy or poor resources after delivery or some infectious disease when the children were no longer newborns). We had one patient at 32 weeks with uterine fibroids, one of which was the same size as her unborn child – they had been trying for 16 years to conceive and carry a child to term. The fibroids were pushing on her diaphragm and making it difficult for her to breathe – typically these patients go in to pre-term labor due to lack of room for the baby. Unfortunately the survival rate for infants that young is very poor, so we encouraged the mom to keep it up and try to keep baby as long as she can (with close follow-up in the outpatient clinic they have at the hospital). Other mothers presented not due to anxiety or any major complaint, but “their husbands told them they needed to have the child.” This is a very confusing cultural thing as we at the hospital are certainly not going to deliver a pre-term newborn by c-section in an otherwise normal pregnancy. This mother said that she couldn’t return home until her baby was born… which meant that she was going to be in the hospital for another month as she was 34-35week estimated gestational age and we wouldn’t deliver a normal baby by repeat c-section until 39weeks or she is in labor.

In the post-natal ward we saw a variety of moms post-delivery – from a cursory post-vaginal delivery once over/ “any questions”? To checking incision drainage and evaluating patients for retained placenta for the post-c-section mothers. The babies were managed solely by the nurses on this ward so we didn’t ask any newborn questions or provide any education. Similarly the nurses supposedly discussed post-delivery birth control with the patients. As I am nosy, I would often ask the mothers how their baby was doing after we had discussed the mother’s plan. This sometimes changed the flow of rounds but there were a lot of nursing students who seemed interested in checking out the babies and translating questions for the mom. Besides, Emily and the clinical officer were the main plan creators and I was mostly useful in the differential diagnosis and work-up planning for patient’s that were not doing as well. We did visit several moms who did not have babies with them. In Malawi, the post-natal ward had a routine rate of 50% of moms without their babies. Here the ratio was more like 15-20%. Unfortunately the moms without babies are often times mixed amongst the moms with crying babies, which I think would be difficult for me if our roles were reversed and I had just lost a child.

We also would round in the surgical ward on gynecology patient (or OB patients that had pre-viable-in-Kenya-standards fetuses up to 24weeks gestation). We had one patient who had had post-op infection of her cesarean scar and showed up with pus coming out of her uterine incision (which was low-transverse and then later converted to a vertical incision). Quick (graphic) anatomy lesson for non-medical people: with c-sections you typically cut the skin horizontally across the abdomen, just above the pelvis, unless it is an emergency – although there are a notable number of vertical incisions here in Kenya to make it seem like it is relatively routine. Then you separate the abdominal muscles (without a scalpel) which are naturally separate in a vertical manner (think washboard abs and the vertical space between then). Then you enter the abdominal cavity and separate the bladder from the very obviously large uterus, and finally you cut horizontally in to the uterus and deliver the baby’s head. For this patient – the wound was doing very well, with no more pus, and very little dead tissue (that typically needs to be debrided). However the surgeon (supposedly ’at a different hospital’) had made a transverse incision through her abdominal muscles (maybe they thought it was her uterus?) and put in non-reabsorbable (read: permanent) sutures. We had left those sutures in place because we were unsure what they were attached to. The actual uterus? The peritoneum? Fascia? Eventually we will need to remove them as they are likely the source of infection (any foreign object in the body has risk for holding on to infection even after the infection seems to be resolved) – however we wanted to ensure that she had good healing prior to removing them and exploring what is present underneath, should the suture removal lead to opening of the abdomen or uterus. I will interject here and inform those who might not know that often c-sectins are done NOT by experienced surgeons, but by medical interns and residents that have received a limited amount of instruction by the hospital’s attending surgeon and then are later left to perform surgeries un-attended. In Malawi the attending OB-GYN surgeon was sometimes not even the person who would instruct the new interns (it would be another intern or a resident). They would begin their OB rotation and within 2-3 surgeries be performing surgery without supervision, often late at night after working all day. Here at Chogoria the residents are trained by the attending OB/GYN and she continues to attend the surgeries until she feels comfortable that they know how to perform surgeries.

During my week on OB, both Emily (Family Medicine boarded with OB Fellowship) and Boase (Resident, post-internship) were both doing c-sections while I was rounding with them. I joined Emily on several c-sections and was able to explore how the theatre (operating room) is run. The theatre is separate from all other buildings and has an entry room, recovery room area, and then operating room. When we entered the side area, left our shoes at the front and walked to the back changing room in our socks. Then we changed to scrubs, white rubber galoshes, and scrub caps. When we entered the OR right next to the table where the sterile instruments were being opened and placed on a tray, we had not yet scrubbed. We put on heavy aprons that reminded me of a butchers apron – heavy plastic fronted and soft coated back – that were long enough to skim the tops of my white galoshes. We scrubbed at the sinks that didn’t have drainage pipes and just emptied in to the free air and splattered in to a kind of gutter that surrounded the room. The scrub soap was a bar of some kind of mystery soap. I proceeded to drop it on the floor and was told to just pick it up and start scrubbing again. Mmmmmk. Once I turned off the sink, creatively using my bicep to try to keep my elbows and lower sterile, I dried my hands on a provided sterile towel and then they helped me step in to a green canvas re-useable gown that had sleeves big enough to fit around my head. I was instructed to use my washed hand to hold the sleeves closed/folded up so that when they helped me put my gloves on they would tuck in to the gloves. In the US your hand is considered dirty until covered with a glove, despite just scrubbing your hands sterile – so this was a bit different. Sweating heavily in my scrubs, boots, heavy apron, and canvas gown in a non-air conditioned room in Keyna at 10:30am, my glasses continually slipping down my nose, I did understand the utility of our attire when I realized that once the baby is delivered (and the amniotic fluid goes everywhere) the apron prevents the moisture from reaching your scrubs beneath – and anything less than galoshes would mean certain trash for any shoes. All surgeries begin with a prayer and a timeout. The patients, trapped under all of the draping and shelf-like contraption around their chest (having received spinal anesthesia) are introduced to the surgeons and everyone else in the room. I have this image of the baby’s nurse waving from the corner and the patient smiling and waving back with her hand that is held lateral from her body on a 90degree side extension from the operating table like she is lying on a cross. The surgeries went smoothly (Emily as the surgeon and myself as first assist – I am not scalpel- happy) however it would have been nice to have electrocautery to zap the bleeders. Nonetheless the bleeding slowed down and we closed up. The babies are kept in a warmer with like 10blankets off to the side. After the initial evaluations, if the baby was doing well the nurse would leave the baby unattended and help out with cleaning up etc. The only way you knew baby was still alive at times was a small rise and fall of the blankets or occasional cry and hand movement. The babies did well and I saw them again at discharge in the post-natal ward.

On Tuesday, after rounds, I joined male medical ward because Jen had reported that there were a lot of very sick people that needed to be seen again to ensure that they were getting the nursing care or procedures that they needed to survive. We proceeded to spend over an hour trying to get an IV site on a very sick patient who had lost his previous IVs and whose blood pressure was in the 70’s systolic. This poor patient had been admitted overnight with encephalopathy and then proceeded to fall on to the ground. The nurses had helped him back in to bed but left his bleeding face to clot on its own and his right arm swollen with possible fracture – this guy also had a bleeding disorder from liver disease and we suspected a brain bleed. All hands were on deck looking for an IV site: Jen leading the charge along with Gat, a resident rotating on surgery, Musa, myself, and even Clark tried for several veins. Nursing was difficult to find once we were handed four 500cc normal saline bags, so we spent a lot of time looking for more materials ourselves. After numerous tries Jen managed to get one on his wrist at the base of his thumb, so we secured it with strapping (after many repositionings and replacement of strapping). Due to its precarious position, we were unsure that it was going to be reliable, so Musa had gone to look for an intraosseous line drill. He arrived just after placement of the one tenuous IV, so he proceeded to place his first IO line in the patient’s left tibia. The US tubing does not match up with the syringes or IV bag tubing here in Kenya, so Jen quickly swabbed her hunting knife and cut the tubing so we could fashion a connector between the IO and the IV fluids – it worked! After he had to workable IVs he was stable for CT scan of the head to rule out bleed. Unfortunately he needed oxygen and other obstacles delayed his scan (including the CT tech going home for the day). I was told that eventually Gat and a nursing student hand-carried the patient to the CT scanner to get his scan done. Luckily the patient did not have a bleed and today we rounded on him (three days later) and he is much improved. He is still encephalopathic but stable and the next step is lactulose to clear his ammonia levels. Today the nursing staff was very much present and before we had even seen the patient, they were hanging normal saline. Unclear whether that order was placed several days prior or not – but it was a notable improvement.

On Wednesday after rounds, Leonard had arranged a tour of the hills behind Chogoria. We had originally hoped for a tea plantation tour, however due to the dryness of the season, no one was currently harvesting and the tea farms were closed. We loaded up in to a very nice vehicle and braved the non-graded dirt roads leading up in to the small mountains/large hills. We stopped to look at some tea fields and waved “Hi” to a very confused looking farmer who typically doesn’t see Mzungus walking through his tea. We then wandered around to get some good aerial-ish shots of Chogoria. We eventually ended up on a very narrow road that obviously does not have cars on it very often as it was barely large enough to fit and eventually ended on a walking path with a small field to the left. Leonard and his driver got out with smiles on their faces and walked us through someone’s backyard. We waved “Hi” to the owners who also looked confused – I called “Habari!” and the woman grinned at me and said “Mzuri sana” (I am doing very fine) and we spied a waterfall nearby (the secret mission Leonard was aiming for evidently). So we walked (occasionally slid) down the gorge to the base and enjoyed some nice waterfall photo ops. Leonard and his friend were snapping photos too. We hiked our way back out of the gorge and I wondered to myself “am I crazy to summit Mt Kenya?”

On Thursday after rounds we were invited to lunch by Leonard and the hospital for a “going away brunch” even though we are going to be staying another week – however because Luke and I are leaving this weekend and Clark/Jen/Lena are headed to Zanzibar before we descend the mountain, today was one of the last days we were going to be all together. They served a buffet lunch at Lenana’s for us and a few hospital administrators said some very nice things about us being welcome to their home and a part of the family. Leonard last-minute suckered Musa and Eric in to saying something nice for us and it was very kind of them to oblige with thoughtful words and repeating the sentiment that we were welcome. We let them know they are welcome in Michigan or wherever we end up afterwards. Clark said a few words on our behalf, and then we were given T-shirts to remind us of our time in Kenya. We were paired with hospital staff and my partner insisted on attentively helping me put on my t-shirt and holding my hand afterwards, welcoming me to the group. It was really heartwarming and kind. The minister said a few words and the head nurse said a prayer. Selfies occurred afterwards with Musa aallllllmmost as talented as Ethan regarding composition and certainly less enthusiastic looking – but he still held down the role like a champion. Thursday evening Clark hosted Provi, Janet, and Musa for dinner. Musa taught us how to cook ___ (unfortunately I forgot the name!) a greens dish with onion, carrot, tomatoes, and a local Kenyan spice combination. Luke and I taught Musa how to make a yellow curry. He stated there were too many steps to remember afterwards but I will send him a recipe he can follow. Prior to making food he had said he didn’t know how to cook and that he better find a wife soon so that she can cook for their guests. He later showed up to our meal preparation with a mandolin that he was given by his mother and that he travels with (no one travels with a mandolin that doesn’t know how to cook). Provi made some traditional Ugali and Clark put together a fruit salad. We had a supremely filling meal on Clark’s porch topped off with some fruit juices. We chatted for a bit about life in different places – we learned that negotiation is not typical in the markets around Chogoria (phew – I’m not a good negotiator and for the most part was just paying what they ask for anyways. How can you say no to a 20cent mango or one dollar pineapple?). However negotiation elsewhere is necessary (start with 50% of their initial offer). We also talked about foods in different places and Provi showed us some wedding dress options that she found in Nairobi. Unfortunately Musa was on call and we had to break up the party, but it was so nice and we all wondered why we hadn’t done this sooner and more often.

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