Going Back To 1776
I recently took a nine-day driving trip from Central Texas to Philadelphia and back to visit my sister and brother-in-law. The voyage by car took me through Texarkana, Memphis, Nashville (right after the flood), and on into Pennsylvania, from flat land to mountains with lotsa trees, big ones.
I recently took a nine-day driving trip from Central Texas to Philadelphia and back to visit my sister and brother-in-law. The voyage by car took me through Texarkana, Memphis, Nashville (right after the flood), and on into Pennsylvania, from flat land to mountains with lotsa trees, big ones.
My stop in Gettysburg was unforgettable, as was a trek into Amish country in Lancaster County on the way.
Upon arrival at my destination and tired of fighting the interstate, I parked my car in front of my hosts’ house and they gave me a break from driving and transported me to Independence Hall, to Betsy Ross’s house, and to many, many other locations (I got a close-up look at the Liberty Bell, among other things). On day two we ventured into Atlantic City where I got to stroll on the Boardwalk and pick up shells on the shore of the Atlantic Ocean.
Prior to my journey back to Texas, I returned to my abandoned car to jot down how many miles I had driven to get there (I had set the trip meter before leaving). To my great surprise the mileage was 1,776 miles! What are the odds?
I went through the Smoky Mountains and saw other landscapes on my way home, which ended at the 3,813 mark for the whole trip. While on my return, I took a short detour to Florence, Ala. to try to find out more information about one of my great-great-great grandfathers who died fighting in the Civil War and visited a remarkable public library there that had an extensive genealogy center. Everyone in Florence was helpful and friendly.
When at Independence Hall earlier in the trip, the tour guide explained how the Declaration of Independence was written and debated by our founding fathers. His remarks at the end were on point and dealt with the requirement for strict adherence to the Constitution, something our corporate officials of today try to ignore and are attempting to destroy.
At home, one of the first things I did was check on my keyhole gardens <www.keyholefarm.com>. The plants had more than doubled in size!
During the drive, I listened to radio stations that pertained to where I was at the time. Interesting. Garmin and I had a few disagreements on the trail (“recalculating” she said quite often), but overall the trip was a big success and my appreciation for the Lone Star State was enhanced some.
My brother wanted me to sing “Texas, Our Texas” upon leaving the state and crossing back over, but the song that came to mind more for me was “Deep In The Heart of Texas.” Don’t worry. I didn’t torture Miss Garmin with my vocals.
How Acupuncturists Can Further The Education Of Medical Students
One of the best practices acupuncturist present to further the education of medical students is to think “out of the box” and to treat patients more holistically instead of focusing on one or two areas of the human body for healing. The medical profession diagnoses an illness or pain and then tries to heal the patient without any regard for the whole being and what is going on for the “entire” patient physically and emotionally.
One of the best practices acupuncturist present to further the education of medical students is to think “out of the box” and to treat patients more holistically instead of focusing on one or two areas of the human body for healing. The medical profession diagnoses an illness or pain and then tries to heal the patient without any regard for the whole being and what is going on for the “entire” patient physically and emotionally.
In addition, as being linear to the above concept, acupuncturists know that there is a network of meridians and points in the human body that are interconnected and that promoting healing by reviewing and considering all such meridians healing the entire psycho-physical being will promote greater and quicker healing response time and will further encourage preventative maintenance instead of the western process of simply healing the local area of pain or illness.
Our society not only teaches its doctors to heal with pharmaceutical methodologies, but we also encourage patients via TV, radio, brochures and magazines advertising to suggest possible medication to their doctors if they have the symptoms discussed in the ad. The pharmaceutical industry pushes its medical products to pursue huge profits. Little emphasis is presented on natural healing methods and preventative maintenance.
Furthermore, the medical and health care providers seldom promote the ancient and/or alternative healing options, e.g., acupuncture, herbal remedies, traditional Chinese medicine, or chiropractic methodologies, even though these have had years of positive results. In fact, health care plans seldom pay or reimburse patients when they visit alternative practitioners.
Acupuncture is a part of traditional Chinese medicine which has been practiced for more than 5,000 years with much success. Modern medicine should reconsider teaching acupuncture processes to medical students not only as an alternative option, but as a learning guide to how all parts of the body are connected to each other and how the meridians of the body function together to promote a healthy balance, instead of modern medicine continuing to teach future doctors to focus on a physical problem area and then try to prescribe medicine to heal that area, which does little to promote overall health in the entire body and psyche. It would provide better oversight and awareness to heal a patient holistically, establish an ongoing plan of preventative maintenance and will also keep down the high cost of health care.
Peter Stern, a former director of information services, university professor and public school administrator, is a disabled Vietnam veteran who lives in Driftwood, Texas.
Halley’s Comet 100 Years Ago
About every 76 years, Halley’s Comet becomes visible in our night sky for several weeks, and like surely many of you, I vividly recall its most recent return in 1986. Having heard of the famous comet from my 81-year old stargazing mentor, Margaret Willits, in 1954, I was thrilled to finally see it after a three-decade wait.
About every 76 years, Halley’s Comet becomes visible in our night sky for several weeks, and like surely many of you, I vividly recall its most recent return in 1986. Having heard of the famous comet from my 81-year old stargazing mentor, Margaret Willits, in 1954, I was thrilled to finally see it after a three-decade wait.
It was Ms. Willits who ignited my childhood interest in astronomy, but it was seeing Halley’s Comet that rekindled the flame that has been burning brightly ever since. While Ms. Willis told me of her excitement at seeing the comet during its 1910 visit, she didn’t tell me about the stir it caused at the time.
Comet Halley is one of several comets whose orbits intersect with Earth’s orbit. Of course, should Earth and a comet pass through the same place at the same time, there would be a major catastrophe, such as the one believed to have led to the extinction of the dinosaurs — but fortunately that’s quite rare.
However, the intersection of the orbits of Earth and a dozen or so comets does have some interesting consequences, the most common of which are annual meteor showers. Comets leave tiny pieces of dust, ice and rocks scattered along their orbital path. So when Earth, which is orbiting the Sun at the incredible speed of 67,000 miles per hour, passes though the debris-laden path of a comet, friction between the debris and Earth’s atmosphere causes bits of debris to burn and glow, producing meteors, those brilliant streaks that flash across the night sky, also called shooting stars.
Twice each year we pass through Halley’s path, producing the Eta Aquarid meteor shower in May and the Orionid shower in October.
But when Halley came by in May 1910, the encounter was closer than usual as Earth actually passed through the end of Halley’s 24-million mile long tail.
Throughout history comets have elicited fear and dread. They have even been seen as harbingers, if not the causes, of dreadful things like earthquakes, volcano eruptions, wars, epidemics, fires, and even massacres. (Isn’t it curious how natural events are so often blamed for human-caused catastrophes?)
When scientists announced that Halley’s tail contained traces of poisonous cyanide, though not nearly enough to be of concern, the last part of the message wasn’t heard by all. Some panicked while others cashed in on the irrational fears by selling “anti-comet” pills and “comet-protecting gas masks.” Of course, Halley’s Comet passed uneventfully, only to return 76 years later to help inspire me to begin writing this column.
• Sky Calendar.
May 16 Sun. evening: The crescent Moon is above Venus.
19 Wed. evening: The Moon is below Mars.
20 Thu. evening: The Moon is at 1st quarter.
22 Sat. evening: The Moon is below Saturn.
27 Thu. all night: The full Moon, called Milk Moon, Flower Moon, Corn Moon, and Planting Moon, accompanies Scorpius’ reddish star Antares across the sky all night.
June 4 Fri. morning: The Moon is at 3rd quarter.
• Naked-eye Planets. (The Sun, Moon, and planets rise in the east and set in the west due to Earth’s west-to-east rotation on its axis.) Evening: “Evening star” Venus now dominates the early evening sky in the west; Mars is high in the southwest; Saturn is high in the south. Morning: Jupiter, now rising 3+ hours before sunrise, is well up in the southeast by morning; Mercury is at its best late in the month low in the east at dawn.
Stargazer appears every other week. Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who lives in Waco. Contact him at 918 N. 30th, Waco, 76707, (254) 753-6920 or paulderrickwaco@aol.com. See the Stargazer Web site at stargazerpaul.com.
Lost In Juarez: Everything America Touches Turns To Death?
Every day when I open my inbox, I get at least one press release from various American armed forces in Iraq, letting me know that some insurgent there has just been killed or some AQI group has just been captured. Even now, over seven years after the Iraq occupation began, our troops are still out hunting and capturing insurgents and rebel groups there — and the bombings are still going on. Does that mean that Iraq is still unstable? What else am I supposed to think? That constant stream of e-mails seals the deal.http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
Every day when I open my inbox, I get at least one press release from various American armed forces in Iraq, letting me know that some insurgent there has just been killed or some AQI group has just been captured. Even now, over seven years after the Iraq occupation began, our troops are still out hunting and capturing insurgents and rebel groups there — and the bombings are still going on. Does that mean that Iraq is still unstable? What else am I supposed to think? That constant stream of e-mails seals the deal.
Then we have Afghanistan, the world’s most productive narco-state by far, source of most of the heroin on the market today. Heroin is deadly. Worldwide, how many addicts have died from overdoses or AIDS or violence resulting from their use of heroin that has been supplied by American-occupied Afghanistan? One million? Two million? I can’t even begin to guess.
Palestine is another killing field that America finances. “Why are you always running off at the mouth about Palestine,” I’m always asked. Why? Because Israel and Palestine would have worked out all their problems in a manner acceptable to both sides decades ago if America hasn’t kept pouring gasoline on the fire in the form of weapons, weapons, weapons and more weapons.
And let’s not forget to mention Pakistan, America’s good ally which is now yet another killing field. And then there’s Columbia, home of Latin America’s longest-running bloody war on farmers and trade unionists, bought and paid for by America the beautiful.
“I would really like to go back and embed in Iraq,” I keep telling my son Joe and my daughter Ashley, “but, frankly, I’m just not up to it physically — the flight there is just too long for me. 20 hours in the air? Followed by days and days of jet-lag? Forget it. And I’d like to embed in Afghanistan too. And also go and report on the brutal siege of Gaza as well. I’d like to be everywhere in the world that the action is. I want to be able to see for myself — up front and personal — all of the places where America’s treasury and America’s future are all being pounded down into a bunch of bloody rat-holes.”
I want to go where the blood flows, to bear witness and to send messages back to America that all this warfare and bloodshed and killing is not necessary, is a waste of time and money, does NOT make us safer, goes against every religion we believe in — and doesn’t even make sense.
But I’m getting less and less willing to face all the hassle of interminable plane rides across the globe and wearisome jet-lag that lingers for weeks.
“Hey, no problem,” replied my friend Larry, who lives in Texas. “No need to travel to the other side of the world to see American violence and American weapon sales and American bloodshed in action. You can always just go down to Juarez.”
Ah. So now there’s also Juarez, bloody Juarez, to consider — where people die as violently on the streets of Juarez as they die on the streets of Kandahar or Baghdad.
According to one CNN report, “Tim Crockett, head of the security firm Pioneer Consulting and security adviser for CNN, described Ciudad Juarez as ‘probably more dangerous for journalists than the Middle East’.” Probably more dangerous for journalists than even the Middle East? Yikes!
Remember back in 2007 when I embedded in Iraq and the Army told me that if I left the fortified Green Zone area and walked across the 14th of July Bridge into Baghdad itself, I’d most likely be dead within five minutes? Well, according to several articles that Larry just e-mailed me, there’s almost exactly the same situation happening in Juarez right now. Juarez is a war zone. Juarez is a failed-narco-state. Juarez has insurgents, a military build-up of American weapons, American occupation advisers who run a surrogate war from DC and terrified citizens who keep turning up dead.
“But the beautiful thing about Juarez, Jane,” continued Larry, “is that Juarez is only five miles from Texas. You could hop a plane in the morning, fly to El Paso without getting jet-lag, be inside a war zone in time for lunch — and be getting your head blown off by dinnertime.” Plus it wouldn’t be too hard on my poor knees — and I wouldn’t be required to bring a flak jacket either. Sign me up!
PS: Here’s a headline from a Los Angeles Times article that Larry sent me on the subject, just in case you think I might be exaggerating: “Mexico under siege, the drug war at our doorstep.” The Times then goes on to state that 45,000 troops have been deployed so far and that 10,031 people have been killed. “That’s more than the U.S. fatalities in the Iraq war.” http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/
And here are some more articles from Larry:
From the Overseas Security Advisory Council: The U.S. State Department has issued a warning about Juarez. “Mexican cartels battling for control of drug trafficking routes cause widespread disruption in the city and state.”
https://www.osac.gov/Reports/report.cfm?contentID=113317
From Current News: Gunmen murdered 19 people this weekend, including two U.S. citizens associated with the American consulate. http://current.com/news/92323550_in-juarez-mexico-gunmen-murdered-19-people-this-past-weekend-including-2-us-citizens.htm
And here the Huffington Post seems to be hinting that America is losing the drug war in Juarez as well. Shades of Afghanistan! I wonder how many drug addicts in the U.S. have died from drugs illegally imported by the Juarez cartels?
“Sinaloa takes over Cuidad Juarez: After a two-year battle that has killed more than 5,000 people, Mexico’s most powerful kingpin now controls the coveted trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez. That conclusion by U.S. intelligence adds to evidence that Joaquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman’s Sinaloa cartel is winning Mexico’s drug war…. [The] Sinaloa cartel has edged out the rival Juarez gang for control over trafficking routes through Ciudad Juarez, ground zero in the drug war. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/04/09/sinaloa-takes-over-ciudad-juarez_n_531378.html
