WHAT A HEAT WAVE CAN DO TO A QUIRKY MIND

Is it any wonder that people in tropical climes are often seen as indolent?  Even with air conditioning most of us in Northern weather conditions feel sapped when the temperature climbs over 90 degrees.  It shouldn't shock us  that we are willing to run air conditioners that equal the cost of winter heating just when we thought we would be reprieved from astronomical energy costs for a few months.

Excessive heat makes it seem I am on my way to Hell and the road is paved with good intentions...or at least it would be if I believed there was a Heaven or Hell!  I find myself steering away from hot food, hot books, hot music, hot clothing, hot showers and hot drinks.  Quite surprisingly this is a great adjustment.  I'm sure I will adapt in time.  'In time for what', you may ask.  Just as I get used to the change of lifestyle and habits, it will turn cold again and I will have to revert (meaning I will have to remember) what I used to do that worked.

At the moment, however, I have no time for all that.  My computer has been gifted with malware that has the lovely habit of returning, just as I thought it had been cleaned up.  How am I writing this?  I have three computers since I try to have a backup of everything, often unsuccessfully.  I was tempted to buy a lottery ticket when I lost all three backups  a year or so ago...a feat from which I have never totally recovered.  With that much bad luck, the law of averages dictates some good luck must come by reasonably soon.

So often I talk about how much I like change.  I need to clarify that.  I  only like positive change and sometimes it is not clear which kind of change it is that I face.  Today the heat wave is supposed to break for a bit.  I think that is positive change though the sun is gone, as well.  That is negative change...but why would I keep score?

May your day proceed with comfort and positive change, if indeed there has to be any change at all.

WASTED TIME

I hesitate to list many of the things that I consider a waste of time, since my feelings are not globally shared.  We might universally agree that working to make a computer perform when it currently is not, can be considered a waste of tim  The exercise was like trying to find your one pair of eyeglasses when you can't see without them..  A couple or more hours of my afternoon were trying to correct a problem when my keyboard (which everything told me was functioning properly) would not type after the second letter and would throw the computer into the start up screen. My computer had suffered a seizure.  It talked to me and didn't let me type.  The narrator droned on and I got strange messages.  I could not type on Firefox or Internet Explorer; I could not get into regedit; and any keyboard click rendered it useless. Most frustrating was identifying the problem.  Fortunately my savior was able to rescue me (on the phone from London) because he made me focus step by step through a long process of elimination (the mental exercise kind) during which my fantasies of eliminating the computer scored high.  It takes an afternoon like this to realize how much you once knew and have forgotten.  At least, I had remembered to note that the computer was plugged in and on and the keyboard and mouse worked properly though that didn't get me anywhere useful.

Preparing nutritional meals is also a real waste of time to me.  I finally have learned to steam vegetables, find them adequately filling, and no longer stuff myself on carbohydrates that are easy to crunch directly from the bag and call it a meal. If I time myself, I can listen to the news and make a 2-egg omelet that fills my tummy for several hours, so I get away with only two meals a day with an occasional bit of snacking.

The third waste of time is respomdomg to the Poltergeists.  I have to pick up the things they make me drop.  I have to hunt for the things they hide.  I'm forced to repair the many things they break or have fall apart in my hands.  They have forced me to repair clocks, glue wood together amd learn to clamp it, and do all sorts of 'not-my-department' jobs.

Maybe my next life will be easier?

PEOPLE AND T-CELLS HAVE TO MAKE A COMMITMENT AT SOME POINT

From Science Daily:  " When does a cell decide its particular identity? According to biologists at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), in the case of T cells -- immune system cells that help destroy invading pathogens -- the answer is when the cells begin expressing a particular gene called Bcl11b.

The activation of Bcl11b is a "clean, nearly perfect indicator of when cells have decided to go on the T-cell pathway," says Ellen Rothenberg, the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology at Caltech and senior author of a paper about the discovery that appears in the July 2 issue of the journal Science. The paper, coauthored by Caltech postdoctoral scholar Long Li, is one of three in the issue to examine this powerful gene.?"

When electron micrography came into being and be used, it opened horizons for exploration that were not even dreamed about prior.  Researchers can now see so much that was previously unattainable to them.  One would assume, if one didn't know better, that there were no more frontiers to breakthrough.  Not so, that was followed by CATScan, MRI, PetScan and so many new breakthroughs coming so quickly that we are constantly building the medical and diagnostic arsenals.

""Stem cells and their multipotent descendents follow one set of growth rules, and T cells another," says Ellen Rothenberg, the Albert Billings Ruddock Professor of Biology at Caltech and senior author of a paper about the discovery, "so if T-cell precursors don't give up certain stem-cell functions, bad things happen." Like stem cells, T cells have a remarkable ability to grow -- but as part of their T-cell-ness, she says, they do so "under incredibly strict regulation. Their growth is restricted unless certain conditions are met." The cells need to shift their growth-control rules during development; after development, because they still need to grow, the cells and their daughters need an active mechanism to make the change irreversible. Bcl11b is a long-sought part of that mechanism."  To read the whole article, click here.

WHY AREN'T MORE PEOPLE SEEING THE LIES BEING HANDED OUT BY THE NON-DEMOCRATS.

Steve Benen asks a very logical question, "Republicans Just Screwed Over Millions of Jobless Americans — Why Aren’t They Universally Despised?"  We can only speculate.  Logically, if people were told (and believed) the truth, would it be different?  Where do most people get their news?  With the lies being spread by so many Too-far-out Right Wingers, how are the poor folk who don't really have time to stay abreast of the media know what to believe.?  To read Benen's article, click here.

Benen further writes:  " A more moderate, pragmatic Republican Party would transform Washington, but so long as the GOP is rewarded for its extremism, that’s a fanciful dream.
We’re left with a political landscape in which voters to punish Democrats for Republicans’ actions."

Some politicians have gone so far with their lies that one wishes there would be a law suit for defamation of character...but that also seems unlikely.  The media monopolies abound.  What you hear and see down South differs so from what is heard in New England that it makes one wonder if it is the same country being talked about.

Recalling Osama bin Laden's threat about breaking the American economy, it is easy to fantasize his operatives have infiltrated many places of which we are unaware; high places such as investment houses, media channels (air especially and TV).

Only will people not politicians complain enough to their elected officials might their be a change is business as usual.  This means that someone should be forcing them to do the job for which they were elected rather than spend all their time and energy in trying to topple Obama (as though he could fall with no negative effect of our whole country) and obstructing the Democrats. ' The party of "no" has got to go' should be everyone's slogan but Glenn Beck and Rush Limbaugh will never get on that bandwagon..

WEED VS BOOZE

Those opposed to legalizing marijuana are of the 'slippery slope' persuasion.  The illusion that those fighting making it legal really care about the mental and physical safety of all potential abusers are hiding the fact that many are now enormously powerful and wealthy because it is illegal.  Those who would abuse marijuana, for the most part, have no difficulty what soever in obtaining their fill.  Those who do not want to sneak around the law but who would probably only use it socially, stay away from the illegal pushers.

Paul Armentano wrote an article citing that, of the two, alcohol poses a greater danger.  It was President Nixon who launched the War on Drugs which today sees 800,000 a year in the US arrested for violating drug laws.  Since those citizens are not highly valued members of society and bear a stigma, not enough people with respect, status and clout have tackled trying to make the world see the wrongness of our present method of handling the problem. With prostitution, the prostitutes, not the pimps, are punished.  The worst of the penalties for hiring the services for this pastime is (rarely) publishing the names of the customers.

Amerstano writes  "For more than three decades, America's marijuana policies have been based upon rhetoric. Perhaps it's time to begin listening to what the experts have to say.?  For once in our country, can we not listen to the researchers, users, physicians  who study and write about the effects rather than religious zealots who truly believe their message against Weed use is coming directly from God  and from rhetoric, long established.

To read his whole article, click here.      

HEAVEN VIEWED THROUGH THE EYES OF A SKEPTIC

The concept of Heaven has always fascinated me.  First, it was written about by people who thought the earth was flat , that it was most important in the then thought to be limited Universe.  I loved the Fitzgerald translation of one of Omar Kayyam's poems:  "I sent my soul into the invisible
                                                      One letter of the Afterlife to spell.
                                                      Bye and bye my soul returned to me
                                                      And answered, "I. myself, am Heaven and Hell."

Granted this was written during the 12th C, most likely.  Interesting to realize that there were Skeptics then as  well as now.  Among the questions I have is:  Whose notion was it that the streets were paved with gold?  Why would anyone even think that is a desirable element for paving?  Christians laugh at the Muslim notion that suicide bombers will be rewarded in their Heaven with 72 virgins and we Westerners laugh at that.  Is it less ridiculous to believe that Heaven exists in the sky somewhere.  When the concept was invented, there was little known about the sky.  Angels flying around from Heaven and moving around on earth is rather far-fetched, is it not?  Teleportation seemed to be invented by Science Fiction writers, but, in fact, the concept is Biblical.

To get a grasp on just how little we could ever actually know what Heaven looks like, search Google and see how few even artist's imaginations have painted their fantasies about what Heaven may look like. Some of us want to live in this life, assuming there may not be another with this consciousness; others deny themselves many earthly pleasures, waiting for their reward in Heaven.  Some of us even believe that Heaven is just a sweet, mindless oblivion.  Those who see a white light towards which they walk, now free of bodily pain, should talk to a neurologist about how we die.  Since the brain stem is the last to 'give up oxygen and  the ghost', you might say it is the explanation for the white light as our eyes are gone and our brain is shutting down.  Whatever, happens to our brains and bodies, we know we have to be dead to get into Heaven.  Thus, we have invented many modes of transpiration (the Grim Reaper being one of the best known possibilities.  I've never figured out why a body coming to take us to the Jury which decides whether we go to Heaven or Hell needs a scythe.

One might say (if one doesn't mind a few rotten tomatoes sent through the air at you) that people are dying to find out about Heaven.  There seems to be no other way.

LONGEVITY

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, USA