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James Hamilton, M. D.

Dinner is Served 

Colorado is known for its rugged mountain ranges and it's rather colorful history. 

There were at least two incidents of cannibalism in those mountains back in the 1800's. 

Question: In which range did these occur?

   1. The Sawatch Mountain Range

  2. The San Juan Mountain Range

  3. The Never Summer Mountain Range 

  4. The Sangre de Cristo Mountain Range

  5. The General Electric Range  😱

Jim

David Mitchell

Mark,

I remember Ruth Lyons and the 50-50 club, with a male co-host who, I beleive moved up to Columbus and hosted the Saturday morning teen dance show on channel 4. I can see his face but cannot recall his name.

Ruth was almost as obnoxious as Sally Flowers, who I think came from a Dayton TV station, where (I think) another local talent began his own weekly comedy show. His name was Jonathan Winters. 

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And speaking of Western TV and Movie soundtracks without words, I still think the all time best soundtrack is from The Magnificent 7. And it is still my all-time favorite Western. Taken from the famous Japanese film "The 7 Samurai" (at one time, the most watched film of all time.)

And what a cast!

I have only watched it about 15 times (far short of my record of about 22 times for "The Quiet Man".) I still love to hear James Coburn say "Nobody throws me my guns and tells me to run. Nobody".

John Jackson

MM, concerning your last post, the economist you quoted takes issue with how his remarks (made in German) were Google-translated.  You might want to read this article "How Climate Science Deniers Manufacture Quotes to Convince You the United Nations Is One Big Socialist Plot"

https://www.desmog.com/2017/11/07/how-climate-science-deniers-manufacture-quotes-convince-you-united-nations-one-big-socialist-plot/

What he was really saying is that climate change will inevitably change the balance of wealth between individual countries as fossil fuel reserves, especially in petro-states like Russia and Saudi Arabia, become less valuable.

And your argument (along with your unhappiness about world leaders arriving at the Glasgow meeting on private planes) does nothing to prove that the overwhelming scientific consensus that climate change is real and serious is a massive hoax - perpetrated by thousands of scientists across a hundred countries, all of them conspiring to tell the same lies.

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

John, we will most likely never agree about many, many issues, but I post on here because there are two sides to a myriad of problems the world is facing today, and I simply seek to share that other side. If we don't take the actual words of those who hold positions of power among the global elite, then what are we to make of their words?  And I might also add that even if one were to belive that they don't mean what they say, I can see the results in my own daily life.  The pandemic has allowed the global elite to accelerate their control over our lives and their desire to remake the world's economy all while on their way to essentially eliminating the middle class,  Even though we are a nation rich in resources the current administration seeks to make us dependent on foreign sources which has already caused the average American to see gas prices double in a year and the promise of high heating costs this coming winter.  Why?  The response to the panemic enriched the "essential" big corporations while decimating small businesses upon which this country prospered.  Why?  Supply chains disrupted because of regulations which strangle the means to transport goods to market, etc.  One only has to look at some places in Australia and Canada to see how the globlaists' agenda is progressing. .    

U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres said that the true aim of the U.N.'s 2014 Paris climate conference was "to change the (capitalist) economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution." Christine Stewart, Canada's former Minister of the Environment said: "No matter if the science is all phony, there are collateral environmental benefits. ... Climate change (provides) the greatest chance to bring about justice and equality in the world." Tim Wirth, former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Global Affairs and the person most responsible for setting up the Kyoto Protocol said: "We've got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing in terms of economic policy and environmental policy."

Michael McLeod

I get such a kick out of windy.com.

Right now I'm looking to the south out my central florida office window and seeing a procession of immense white clouds move rapidly from east to west.

I can watch those clouds and at the same time go to windy.com on my computer terminal and see via real-time graphics how my window view fits right in like a perfectly-place piece in a gorgeous landscape puzzle with overall global pattern of wind and rain. 

Suddenly I'm a big-picture guy.

I first discovered windy.com while sweating out a hurricane a while back. Now I am doing it just for fun, savoring the chance to see the interconnectedness of creation so immediately and graphically. The older I get the more I feel humbled and uplifted - those two feelings shouldn't fit together, yet they do - as a very, very small part of the Big Picture.

It's a damn magnificant and mysterious whole, and an honor and a gift to be a part of it, however small. 

Sure wish I could see it the way Captain Kirk did recently, slipping through the big blue balloon and into the void. The void provided William Shatner a great perspective. I'm no captain, just another feet-on-the-ground enlisted man. My window will have to do.  

David Mitchell

All this noise about a  "$1.3 trilion infrastructure bill".

And all my silly Republicans threatening to retaliate against those in their own party who voted for it. What the heck? Who are they kidding? Do they really think we are all that stupid?

What ever happened to Trump's repeated promises (waaaaay back in 2016) for his own trilion dollar Infrastructure plan? A lot of "rust belt" people - including Democrats - voted for him because of those promises. So what happend to all of those promises he made to the Upper-Midwest states - over and over again?  

Just reading through a list of the failed or failing buisnesses in Milwaukee alone who were counting on his Infrastructure bill, is like a laundry list of failures (or outright lies);

Pabst and Schlitz breweries - Allis Chalmers manufacturing - Briggs and Stratton (small engines) - and Kearny and Trecker (milling machinery) and several other smaller manufaturing companies. A lot of Republicans in that city are pretty unhappy with those forgotten promises. Many of them voted for Biden.

Steve Bannon (you remember him) claimed "conservatives will go nuts over his (Trump's) plans for roads and bridges".

So what happened?

And did I read some comments above about people out of work for an oil pipleine that makes barely marginal economic sense (and violates the sacred rights of indigenous people (what's new?) - from whom we stole the land in the first place)?

Talk about costing productive jobs !  Who's kidding who?  

But then, what should I expect from a party who allows a sicko like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (Ga.) to have a seat in Congress?

We always knew that damn "Dwight D. Eisenhower National Sysem of Interstate and Defense Highways" was a Communist plot.

David Mitchell

Don'cha think Arizona Republican Rep. Paul Gosar should stick to pulling teeth instead of trying to prove to us all what a criminaly deranged moron he is?  

(spoiler alert: six of his own siblings have said so)

My goodness, is that Ann Coulter - of all people - nodding her head in agreeent from the back of the room.

James Hamilton, M. D.

Woke Docs?

Yet another reason I'm glad that I never joined the AMA!

Jim

James Hamilton, M. D.

To All Who Served...

A heartfelt thanks and hope you have a Happy Veterans Day!

Jim

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Happy Veterans Day to all of our classmates who served our nation.  I created this video in 2013 to not only give recognition of Crick's service, but also that of my Dad, brother, and many other extended family members.

David Mitchell

I would like to salute a group of Veterans that are nearly forgotten.

(copied from my Facebook page ealier tonight)

A DIFFERENT KIND OF VETERAN

The RF and PF (Regional Forces and Popular Forces) - or what we called "Ruff Puffs". They were placed under the command of the ARVNs (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) but fought as separate units, used mostly to guard their own local villages against the VC (Viet Cong). The history off the ARVN troops is often one of poor leadership, poor motivation, and even sometimes, just plain cowardice.

But the "Ruff Puffs" were quite a different story. They were poorly paid but highly motivated, and they fought on our side - like junkyard dogs! The VC were terrified of them. The photo here is a group of Ruff Puffs at the entry gate to Vinh Long Army Airfield - my home for 18 months (from Christmas Eve Day of 1968, to the summer of 1970). Vinh Long Army Airfiled was right next to the small city of Vinh Long, which lay on the northern bank of the northern most split of the Mekong River. We only flew in direct support of the Ruff Puffs a few times, but it was quite an experience. When we worked with ARVN troops, they would dilly dally for hours and still maybe not ever attack the target. But the few times we inserted Ruff Puffs, they went right at the target on the dead run - and did not like the idea of taking prisoners. I salute these "other veterans" in their (lost) cause.

This photo (passing through security at the airfiled gate) looks like an undisciplined, rag tag bunch. They were anthing but!

David Mitchell

I also want to salute another of my buddies from my "Scout Platoon" - (the "Loach" pilots). His story is just one more of the many bizarre situations we found ourselves in. 

If you look at the bald guy in the little electic cart to the right of the photo (your right - black sweater) - that is a guy named Joe Byrd, the dumbest Texan I have ever met - and I absolutley love this guy!

As with all of us, Joe was dumb enough to volunteer to fly with the "Scout Platoon" - meaning he would fly the Loach in our low level slow speed search to get shot at. (for those who missed some of my earlier description, we were not allowed to shoot first in Vietnam - most of the time - so we had to get them to shoot at us first).

So the mission was frought with risk. Joe ened up getting shot down twice, and decided that was enough for him. So he moved into another less risky pilot slot in the operation - Co-pilot in the C&C ("Command and Control") - the Huey that directed the mission from about 500 feet of altitude  (and had to come down and pick us up when we did get shot down).

But one of his two "shoot downs" was a bit unique. He and his Observer were "working" (searching) an area near the infamous "U-Minh" Forest (way to our south, an area with heavy concentrations of NVA (North Vietamnese Regulars) - and I mean "heavy".

The Delta is laced with hundreds of canals, large and small, and they splashed down in a medium sized canal about 25 feet wide and had to get out of the cockpit and get to one of the canal banks. Getting out of the cockpit would be challenging, as you are partly submerged. But it gets more intersting. 

They were only a few feet from the bank but they were over their heads and in full uniform, which by now, is fully soaked, plus thay had combat boots on their feet (a bit hard to "kick" when you want to swim), plus a helmet (half full of water), a pistol belt with their revolvers, and oh yes, the "chiken plates". The chicken plate weighed about 14 pounds on your chest, attached by a large wrap-around velcro. But to make this really interesting, I should add one more little detail - Joe grew up on a farm and could not swim a lick!  

Joe and his Observer, a fairly large strong kid, tried to get to the nearest bank, with his Observer trying to swim (in all the same clothing and equipment), as he tried to drag Joe with him, holding on to his shirt collar. Joe related later that he was panicking and flailing his arms, making it even harder for him to be dragged along.

But in a few moments, they managed to reach the bank. As they crawled up the few feet to the top of the bank of the canal, they found nothing but tightly spaced rows of Punji sticks coming out of the ground facing them with sharp carved tips that would impale them. AND, that was the side they had taken fire from originally, so as they tried to peer up over the bank, they started taking more heavy fire, from a sizable unit of NVA troops encamped on that side of the canal (thus the rows of Punji sticks).

So they had to swim back over to the opposite bank. And again, the Observer dragging Joe along - although I seem to recall they had ditched their "chicken plates" to lose the weight and drag. They got to the opposite bank, and crawled up over it to a safer section and were abe to crawl down the far side of that other bank and get out to where the "C&C" ship could get in close enough to pick them up - of course with the help of our two Cobra Gunships laying down close cover fire as they hovered in for the pickup. And no let up in the fire they were stil receiving from that opposite side of the canal.

To say that Joe's first "shoot down" was rather routine might sound crazy, but it was this second time that pushed Joe into his decision to get out of the "Scout" Platoon and switch places in the mission. We had guys shot down multiple times (one was 5 times)  without quitting teh Scout platoon, but Joe was well within his rights to opt out. None of us begruded him for it.

----------------

And in a funny way, I am the beneficiary of his decision. When I was shot down, the C&C pilots that day who were directing the mission, and came in and got us, were Don Eriksen, the heavy set blond standing with a cane (left in photo) and this same Joe Byrd.

Don was an arrogant New Yorker, and Joe was a dumb Texan. I joke that I now have the priveledge of thanking God every day of my life for arrogant New Yorkers and Dumb Texans.

(Joe is on the right in black sweater -  he contracted a rare disease later as a Major in Korea and lost the use of his legs)

Michael McLeod

Garrison Keillor's latest:

My generation, the pre-Boomers, now known as the Humors, had it pretty easy, coming of age in the afterglow of World War II, believing in perpetual prosperity and progress, much of which came true, even as rock ’n’ roll provided the pleasure of rebellion without any consequence. Great medical advances came along just as we needed them, and Medicare to pay for them. We are lucky to have been born when we were.

I see the thousands of young protesters in the streets of Glasgow bearing signs such as “I Have To Clean Up My Mess, Why Don’t You Clean Up Yours?” and “The Dinosaurs Thought They Had Time Too” and “Stop Climate Crime” and “If Not Now, When?” at the UN Climate Change Conference, where the United States and China have issued vague promises of eliminating carbon someday but without a timetable. So much for American leadership; I guess we’re waiting for Iceland or Ecuador to show the way.

The young people in the streets are aware that a time of suffering lies ahead. Science is pretty clear about the ecological impact of industrial agriculture and the rapacious destruction of forests and overfishing of the seas and the virtual disappearance of many insect species, but none of this has enough political impact to turn the ship of state. Statistics don’t move people, recognizable images do, such as the plight of a polar bear on an ice floe miles from land. We’re fond of polar bears in zoos, and if we could get a video of this bear drowning in glacial melt, it would move people. Or if Yellowstone blew up and ushered in a year of darkness. That could be the Pearl Harbor that moves our country to action.

Greta Thunberg, the 18-year-old Swedish activist who, in 2018 after Sweden’s fierce hot summer of wildfires and omens of disaster, sat outside the Swedish parliament every day to get her message across. Her message was simple: “Our house is on fire.”

Five words, not one wasted, and you could paint it on any wall and everyone would know what you mean.

Children have great power to shame the rest of us, as every parent knows, and this cause is worth their effort. It’s about the survival of our kind. Everything we love is in the balance, language, art, music, history, the art of story, dance, Eros, baseball, bird-watching, and the effect of apocalypse on the bond market would not be good.

The last Good War was won by boys who rushed to sign up, after seeing newsreels of sunken battleships in Hawaii. My hero Bob Altman was 16 and lied about his age to get into the Army Air Force and pilot a B-17 bomber in the Pacific. The children marching in Glasgow are capable of heroism, but they’ve put their faith in the conscience of politicians, not a good bet. One of the two major American political parties is in denial that global warming exists because it is devoted to an illiterate leader. That party appears likely to take over Congress in 2022 and two years later No. 45 may well become No. 47. If he does, we may have a constitutional convention at which the presidency is made a lifetime term. Meanwhile, we have a Supreme Court with a solid majority of Ayn Rand justices who deny that the state has the right to govern individual behavior. Gun control will be dead, conservation will be an individual responsibility.

I don’t see that bunch leading the country toward clean energy. So we’ll go on enduring wildfires and horrific hurricanes and drought and the melting of the arctic ice cap and nothing will change. We’re living in a tunnel and a train is approaching. Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk can move to the moon but the rest of us are earthlings.

John Jackson

"So much for American leadership; I guess we’re waiting for Iceland or Ecuador to show the way” - that says it all…     

Michael McLeod

Healthy people suck. As an American I have the right to get sick and spread it around.

Same goes for keeping the planet healthy. Not my problem. (Put fingers in ears). Neener neener neener!

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

‘CDC declined to update the numbers for five months’
—
The CDC Finally Reveals Its Estimate for How Many Americans Have ‘Natural Immunity’: 146.6 Million People

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has quietly acknowledged that far more people have natural immunity than was earlier reported. The CDC quietly acknowledged that a staggering 146.6 million people have been infected by the Sars-CoV-2 virus and have survived it.

Most inflated of all are the 921,000 “estimated total deaths.” The CDC reports “Covid-related deaths,” and not deaths caused by Covid-19. That is because 94% of Covid-related deaths had serious underlying medical conditions, such as heart disease, stroke, and diabetes. While Covid-19 may have been a contributing causal factor to the timing of a patient’s death, the vast majority occurred in patients who were immunocompromised or elderly. The average age of Covid-related death in 2020 was slightly under life expectancy at 77 years old.

John Jackson

MM, your argument leaves out one important fact and it's the only one that really matters –  an unvaccinated person is 11 times more likely to die of Covid than a vaccinated one:

https://www.bmj.com/content/374/bmj.n2282

Regarding your daughters, would they be allowed to continue working at Riverside if, in their normal duties, they substituted their own judgment and insisted on following nursing practices that directly contradict accepted standards of best care?

Mary Margaret Clark (Schultheis)

John, the term standards of best care refers to the informal or formal guidelines that are generally accepted for the treatment of a patient's disease or condition. My daughters have both submitted to the flu shots each year as required by the hospital (which, in any given year, are only about 40-60% effective).  Furthermore, when my daughters have symptoms of any illness, they stay home from work and when at work they frequently wash their hands. This has been an acknowledged practice of health care for years to prevent contagion.

The Covid vaccines never promised to prevent infection, or transmission, and as the virus has mutated, that has become even more evident. Perhaps this is the reason Pfizer has been working so diligently over the past year to come up with an antiviral medication which it says it is now ready to ask for FDA authorization. 

Why force a vaccine upon persons who have serious questions about its unproven long-term safety, especially healthy persons who are in an age group with a satistically high rate of recovery?

David Mitchell

And a statistically high rate of passing it on to others.

Michael McLeod

You don't need to read the whole story.

If you root for the underdogs as much as I always have, I bet just the headlines make you smile.

Underdog No More, a Deaf Football Team Takes California by Storm

The California School for the Deaf, Riverside, is steamrolling its opponents, electrifying a campus that has suffered humiliations and harassment.

Michael McLeod

And yes, Dave, saying that relatively healthy people have no ethical obligation, as part of society, to be vaccinated in order to protect those whose bodies are more vulnerable sure sounds callous. 

I could see operating this way: If you are healthy and absolutely adverse, for whatever reason, to be vaccinated, you could be very carefully about putting yourself in a position where you might infect someone. You could wear a mask, avoiding shake hands, wash your hands frequently, avoid occasions of being in a crowd, particularly in a crowd of older/more vulnerable people. Then you'd be abiding by your own beliefs without interfering with other people's safety.

I'm trying to find a loophole in my own logic there but I think it might serve as an ethical option.

Another obvious observation,given we're still hashing this thing out, is that vehemently critiquing a wonder drug - and if you have followed the course of its rapid development that's precisely what the vaccine is -  vehemently critique a wonder drug to the point of rationalizing turning your back on it for not being absolutely perfect just seems so odd to me that I assume there's some background radiation going on in terms of an attachment to some moral/ethical/political/religious point of view. It's certainly not a humanistic, rational stance for where I'm standing. 

David Mitchell

Word has leaked out that Trump will run again on the platform that he plans to eliminate shredded cheese. 

He wants to Make America Grate Again.

(or was that what he had intended the last time, and the printer at the hat shop just misspelled it?)

Michael McLeod

Dave: stifle yourself. No more cheesy jokes outta you.

Michael McLeod

ok I am hogging the forum today but this is so beautifully written, and ties in tangentially at least with previous posts - then goes way, way beyond them.

BY MARIA POPOVA