Your heart beats about 80,000 times each day. In order for this to really work, the electrical system of the…
In the average day a person breaths 20,000 times, beats their heart 90,000 times, blinks 15,000 times, and speaks 16,000…
Our national health care system is in a sorry state because we have a lack of rational leadership, but I have a plan to fix it. It’s new, it’s amazing, and it’s called “Cap and Trade”. What is Cap and Trade? Well first of all, like everything else that I write about, it is pure, shameless plagiarism. Plagiarism is the best thing ever. No creative effort required. I slump at my computer, with a heart rate of 2, semi comatose, drooling, and disgorge prose already written by someone else. This month I am gleefully ripping off Fred Krupp of the Environmental Defense Fund who popularized the phrase Cap and Trade in his address of the global warming problem. The idea, in essence, is that everything that consumes fossil fuel, each car, tanker ship, business, factory, etc., is allotted a certain amount of carbon emissions above which they are required to pay a tax. The tax monies are used to develop green industries. On the other hand, Cap and Trade also allows for “carbon credits” which are awarded if your factory, or whatever, sequesters carbon from the atmosphere. Such a factory could sell its carbon credits to others who are not so green.
First, let me apologize to the editor of the Islands’ Weekly who, day in and day out, strives to produce a respectable newspaper. However, as long as they continue to publish writers like me and articles like this, there is no chance. Which brings us to our topic: diarrhea. The definition of diarrhea is “An abnormally frequent or liquid fecal discharge.” Well, gee, that really doesn’t sound all that bad, does it? Yet diarrhea can be uncontrolled, messy, painful, embarrassing, debilitating, and dangerous if it goes on too long. I can also be a sign of something very bad.
It’s an epidemic on Lopez, probably throughout all of Washington, and probably throughout our country.
When blood comes out of the wrong places, people get upset. And really, why shouldn’t they? Blood belongs on the inside. Not all bleeding needs to be investigated, but some does. Here is a brief guide for the evaluation of dripping, seeping, oozing, leaking, flowing, spurting, gushing red stuff.
Are you allergic to a food? And if you are, is it actually an allergy or is it an intolerance? Are food allergies dangerous? Are your kids allergic to foods? Do you need testing or can you figure it out yourself? What happens if you keep eating a food that you are allergic or intolerant to? The answers are I don’t know, maybe, yes, I don’t know that either, yes and no, and I’m not going to tell you.
The beat goes on … maybe
Have you ever wondered about the details of the death process? Of course you haven’t! That kind of thinking is left for disturbed people, the sort that slow down on the freeway hoping to see the details of a car wreck. You spend your day reflecting upon the beauty and wonder of the world while leaving the sadistic and morose details of life to the sick and morbid … your doctor. On the other hand, if you happen to be a connoisseur of highway carnage, read on.
Are you having a body part removed or altered in the near future? Here is a brief, pre-surgical primer to help you. All surgeries have some risk, but the degree really depends on two things: the severity of the surgery and the condition of the patient at the moment before the knife is drawn across the skin. Low risk patients are young people who have no medical problems. Low risk surgeries are those that do not involve expeditions into a major body cavity. The very highest risk is a combination of an emergency surgery involving a major giblet on an older person with multiple, unstable, medical illnesses. Happily even high risk patients can be made to be safer if there is time before the surgery.
Throw up
January is National Hot Tea Month and National Oatmeal Month and celebrates Nothing Day, Play God Day (a.k.a. pretend to…
I was surprised to read the results of a research paper that was recently published about vitamin D. A Florida…
