Tuesday, August 14, 2018
Jordan Peterson’s best seller
Today’s smoothie is a beautiful color
Carrot juice
fresh beets from farmers’ market
strawberries (also farmers’ market, locally grown)
banana
mango slices (frozen)
This is a very bright color since I didn’t add any greens, but probably not the powerhouse it would be with spinach or watercress.
When I went to the small, local grocery, Ray just gave me a bunch of brown bananas, so I cut them into slices and froze them for another day. And he also had that home made carrot cake, delicious and moist, so that added another vegetable for dinner!
HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer
Last autumn and winter I took some Coursera free classes in the medical field. One I finished—medical statistics, and one I didn’t—gut microbiome. It was just too gross. So I continue to get announcements to entice me to try again, something in the medical field. Today it was HPV and Oropharyngeal Cancer. I knew only a little about it—with the increased acceptance of oral sex, it has put many in danger of a disease they couldn’t have imagined in the pre-Monica days of “it’s not really sex.”
Here’s what CDC says it is, without ever suggesting that oral sex not be practiced:
“HPV is the most common sexually transmitted infection in the United States. Of the more than 100 types of HPV, about 40 types can spread through direct sexual contact to genital areas, as well as the mouth and throat. Oral HPV is transmitted to the mouth by oral sex, or possibly in other ways. Many people are exposed to oral HPV in their life. About 10% of men and 3.6% of women have oral HPV, and oral HPV infection is more common with older age. Most people clear HPV within one to two years, but HPV infection persists in some people.”
Because it takes years for the problems to develop, CDC recommends that 11- to 12-year-old boys and girls get two doses of HPV vaccine, although there are no studies to show it actually prevents these cancers
This fact sheet is a little more graphic and explicit. https://www.cdc.gov/std/healthcomm/stdfact-stdriskandoralsex.htm
Monday, August 13, 2018
Today’s lecture on C.S. Lewis
“One of the least known but most significant Christian thinkers of antiquity was a sixth-century layman called Anicius Manlius Torquatus Severinus Boethius, or simply Boethius for short. The son of an old senatorial family, he lived between 480 and 524, being consul (a largely ceremonial political position) in 510, and then Master of the Offices at the Ostrogothic court in Ravenna in 522. [He was tried and executed for treason.] He was later canonized by the Catholic Church as Saint Severinus.
Boethius’ contributions to Western civilization in general and theology in particular are wide-ranging and significant. Indeed, he adapted a number of Greek works into Latin, probably including Euclid’s Geometry; these works laid the ground work for the so-called quadrivium, or group of four academic disciplines (music, arithmetic, geometry, and astronomy). The quadrivium combined with the trivium (grammar, rhetoric, and dialectic), to form the seven liberal arts . . . , the seven liberal arts became the foundation of Western higher education; thus, the work of Boethius was, in the long run, instrumental in profoundly shaping the whole concept of university education.”
“. . . Theologically, Boethius’ great contributions lie in his five Opuscula Sacra (Little Sacred Works) and his magnum opus, The Consolation of Philosophy. The former group of five little tracts, the Opuscula Sacra, covers issues relating to the doctrines of the Trinity, the nature of the Catholic Faith, and the Incarnation. The most significant of these are undoubtedly nos. 1–3, which deal with the Trinity. Given the fact that Boethius’ work on the Trinity was to be a standard textbook in the Middle Ages, and that writing a commentary upon it was to be a basic part of theological education, the importance of his work in this area cannot be overestimated.”
Carl Olson at Catholic Answers on C.S. Lewis and Boethius. https://www.catholic.com/magazine/print-edition/true-happiness-and-the-consolation-of-philosophy
The influence on music and art. https://www.verdigrismusic.org/blog/boethius
Much of this lecture I heard this morning. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycWQMJxLPoM
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Not today’s smoothie
Can you make a smoothie with a giant cuke?
Today’s smoothie is carrot juice, watercress, banana, strawberries and peach slices.
Saturday, August 11, 2018
Dogs and babies at Lakeside
I usually stop to admire dogs and babies when I'm on my walks. Today a man about 18" taller than me was rocking a cranky baby in a buggy. I stopped to peek and admire a little one who'd about outgrown the space.
Me: How old is he?
He: 10 weeks.
Me: Wow. He's big.
He: Weighed 8.5 lbs. at birth. But I was 9.
Me: I was 9.5.
He: Yeah, but I was a twin.
Taking care of the children
The anti-Trump cult is obsessed with something that has been going on during the last 4 administrations--separating children from parents at the border to determine what is best for the children. Some are trafficked by non-relatives, some sponsors are ineligible, some parents have returned home without them (the goal was to get them over the border), some parents have been detained and can't take care of them. What is different is Trump is following the law, and that infuriates his enemies.
"More than 2,000 migrant children were detained separately from their parents during the 45 days between the announced launch of Trump's zero tolerance policy and Trump signing the executive order.
The administration missed a court-ordered deadline last month to reunite all detained migrant children under age 5 with their parents, although the administration said it reunited all ELIGIBLE families.
The government in total has reunited over 1,800 children ages 5 to 17 with their parents or sponsors, but numerous children were deemed ineligible to be reunited because of safety or legal concerns." http://thehill.com/hilltv/rising/401221-border-patrol-chief-family-separations-began-long-before-trump
Friday, August 10, 2018
The Sultan and the Saint by PBS, Friday movie at Lakeside
Based on the book The Saint and the Sultan. https://washtheocon.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Book-Review-Moses-THE-SAINT-AND-THE-SULTAN.pdf
I left the movie after about 5 minutes. First, I read all the opening credits—all but one were Muslim funding sources. Now that is fine, but as the saying goes, “You dance with the One who brung you,” and the production company is an Islamic non-profit. Second, I looked at the faces of the actors portraying the Christians in the opening scenes—they all appeared to be mentally challenged, or starving, or ugly. Except the pope. I think he was fat. Not a good sign. And the AC was blowing too hard, so I said to Joan (friend), See you later. I found this review by someone who watched and took notes (which I’d intended to do). All I have is her pseudonym.
-------
I watched it all last night and took notes, writes Erikaspirit16 at the Catholic Answers Forum.
“First, Alex Kronemer is the exec. producer. [This is his production company, Unity Productions Foundation.] He has produced 9 movies on Islam, most of which have been shown on PBS (Spain, Islamic art, Muhammad, etc.). I can’t find out much about him, other than he has an MA in comparative religion from Harvard and he did a lot of work for the federal gov. in various positions. His wife has a Muslim-sounding name. Is he a convert to Islam? I don’t know. In any case, his movies are always very sympathetic to Islam.
If you looked at the sponsors / supporters of the movie at the beginning, other than the Sisters of St. Francis in Iowa (!), they are all Muslims. PBS tacked on a note at the end of the list saying a complete list of sponsors was online at PBS.org, but I couldn’t find it. But clearly this movie (and others by Kronemer) are very sympathetic to Islam, and show it in the best possible light. In other words, propaganda. There is no attempt to be even handed or objective. But of course that’s how it is presented: an accurate, objective presentation of the “facts.”
Is the movie “wrong”? Well, other than pretending a beach in Maryland is a beach in Egypt, no. But the sins of omission are many!
First, the title. They flipped it. The book by Paul Moses (who is one of the commentators) is “The Saint and the Sultan.” The movie is “The Sultan and the Saint.” Subtle, but it shows where it’s coming from.
We begin with Alexius, the Byzantine emperor, writing to the pope asking for mercenaries. No background is given at all. The impression is given that the Pope (who says “my armies” --hardly) began the Crusades as an imperialist venture. Nothing about the destruction of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in 1009 by Sultan al-Hakim of Egypt; nothing about the interruption of the pilgrim routes; nothing about the Battle of Mantzikert in 1071 where the Saljuq Turks defeated a Byzantine army. All that is omitted. And of course the Byzantines had Western mercenaries in their service for a long time–this was not an innovation.
Then we have the Crusaders vs. Muslims story line. But of course (!) it omitted the fact that the Crusaders in the 5th Crusade had made an alliance with the Turks to occupy al-Malik al-Kamil’s brother in N. Syria. So you have Muslim Turks allied with Christian Crusaders. The Christian / Muslim divide isn’t quite so clear now, is it?
Then the population of Egypt is completely ignored. Most scholars think that at the beginning of the Crusades, Egypt was still a Christian country. Muslims were a minority. It’s only during the Crusades (particularly after the Crusaders burned Old Cairo (Fustat) in 1171) that the Christians began to convert to Islam in great numbers, not for religious reasons, but because they were seen as fifth columnists who would support the Crusaders given the chance. By the 5th Crusade, a large number of Egyptians were still Christian. The business about al-Kamil ruling in favor of the Christians against Muslims who wanted to tear down a church needs to be seen in this light. And even in Egypt today, Christians need a gov. permit to even repair a church, let alone build a new one.
There is some nonsense scattered throughout about “conflict” and the brain, etc. which seems to be there simply to emphasize the violence of the Crusaders vs. the peace-loving Muslims.
al-Malik al-Kamil. Poor Jeremy Irons spent the entire movie pronouncing the name as “Camille.” Why didn’t someone help him out??? It’s pronounced with the stress on the 1st syllable and the final ‘L’ as a “light” l . And al-Kamil, contrary to the impression in the movie, wasn’t the sultan at the beginning of the 5th Crusade. His father was. Al-Kamil came to power in Egypt only. Another brother got Palestine and southern Syria. A 3rd brother got N. Syria and what are now parts of Turkey and Iraq. Al-Kamil didn’t come to power smoothly–there was an attempted coup by a Kurdish regiment. (Al-Kamil and his family were all Kurds.) After the Crusade was over, there was conflict among the brothers, and the Ayyubid dynasty basically dissolved into family quarrels.
Massacre of the Jews in the Rhineland during the 1st Crusade. Yes, it happened. But the movie neglected to say that the Papal representative and the Church generally tried to stop it. And needless to say, there was not a peep about the massacre of the Jews in Granada in 1066—a massacre by the Muslims that most scholars think killed more Jews than the Crusaders did. Note that it was only about 30 years earlier.
At one point the young al-Kamil is reciting the verse about “no compulsion in religion.” Very true. But an objective presentation would have mentioned the imposition of the jizya tax on non-Muslims and the “Pact of 'Umar,” a very discriminatory set of rules for non-Muslims (they couldn’t ride horses, had to dress a certain way, had to make way for Muslims in the street, etc. etc.). Contrast that with a comment later in the movie: “Muslims were considered beasts” by the Crusaders. Not sure where that comes from–I’ve never come across it! And the idea that if only the Crusaders met “real” Muslims all would be well is just silly; Crusaders had been in Palestine well over a century by the time of the 5th Crusade. They had adopted many ideas from the Arabs and had lived with the Arabs.
At one point the movie talks about the “vengeful God” of the Christians. No balance; no other point of view mentioned.
Michael Calabria is the featured commentator, although there are others. From what I can find, he is a Franciscan friar and professor at Bonaventure U. He studied Egyptology. After he became a friar, he seems to have switched fields and now writes about Islam and Christianity (thus his presence in this movie). However, as a long-time student of the Crusades, I have never run across him or any of his work.
The movie portrays Francis as visiting the sultan’s camp to convert the sultan and / or his army. In the 13th century, Christians had the notion that they could make headway by converting Muslims, esp. their rulers. One of the reasons Thomas Aquinas wrote his Summa was as a tool to convert Muslim rulers in N. Africa. So the notion is not new or unique to Francis–he was simply one of many with that notion.
And the sultan allowing Francis to address his court is a common theme among Muslim rulers. This was not unique, it is mentioned often. But of course the idea was that the Muslim rebuttal of the ignorant Christian would show how great Islam was; it wasn’t simply a gesture of ecumenicism or toleration.
The similarities of the Fatiha and the Our Father have been remarked on before. As have the similarities of the 99 names of God vs. a litany of the aspects of God in Christianity.
The movie ends with the idea that the Crusades ended because the idea of a “loving God” replaced the idea of a “vengeful God” in Christianity. Nonsense. The final wish that “the road to peace runs through humanity that we all share,” is a pious hope we can all agree on.
Exercising with asthma (while being old)
Nonpharmacologic Treatment Measures for Exercise-Induced Bronchospasm
Increase physical conditioning.
Warm up for at least 10 minutes before actual exercise begins.
Cover mouth and nose with scarf or mask during cold weather.
Exercise in warm, humidified environment, if possible.
Avoid aeroallergens and pollutants.
Cool down or gradually lower the intensity of the exercise before stopping.
Wait at least two hours after a meal before exercising.
Thursday, August 09, 2018
Even science for middle schoolers has a bias
Today at WalMart I looked through "Everything You Need to Ace Science in One Big Fat Notebook: The Complete Middle School Study Guide (Big Fat Notebooks)." I have one for Math that I've found very helpful, since even middle school math is a challenge for me. The series is colorful and has a nice format. But I was shocked to read in one section about 4 factoids of misinformation on Galileo and the Catholic Church—it didn’t accurately present Galileo’s side or the church’s side. Just the Protestant side.
I'm accustomed to being totally immersed in the Protestant viewpoint of religion, culture, and history, (I be one but our history is written like nothing happened before Luther), but in a review book for pre-teens? Let's look at this from a Catholic viewpoint--it's probably the first time you've ever seen it. It wasn't just the church of that time, it was the SCIENTISTS of that time (think-90% of scientists believe climate change science) .
https://www.catholic.com/tract/the-galileo-controversy
At Galileo’s request, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine, a Jesuit—one of the most important Catholic theologians of the day—issued a certificate that, although it forbade Galileo to hold or defend the heliocentric theory, did not prevent him from conjecturing it. When Galileo met with the new pope, Urban VIII, in 1623, he received permission from his longtime friend to write a work on heliocentrism, but the new pontiff cautioned him not to advocate the new position, only to present arguments for and against it. When Galileo wrote the Dialogue on the Two World Systems, he used an argument the pope had offered and placed it in the mouth of his character Simplicio. Galileo, perhaps inadvertently, made fun of the pope, a result that could only have disastrous consequences. Urban felt mocked and could not believe how his friend could disgrace him publicly. Galileo had mocked the very person he needed as a benefactor. He also alienated his long-time supporters, the Jesuits, with attacks on one of their astronomers. The result was the infamous trial, which is still heralded as the final separation of science and religion.
Gentleman in Moscow, September book club
"A complaint was filed with comrade Teodorov, the Commissar of Food, claiming that the existence of our wine list runs counter to the ideals of the Revolution. That it is a monument to the privilege of the nobility, the effeteness of the intelligentsia, and the predatory pricing of speculators."
"A meeting was held, a vote was taken, an order was handed down. . . Henceforth, the Boyarsky shall sell only red and white wine with every bottle at a single price."
Wednesday, August 08, 2018
The socialists are lying to you about the "shrinking middle class."
https://www.nationalreview.com/2017/01/middle-class-income-not-stagnating/
Yes, the middle class is moving up, to upper middle class, and socialists hate that and lie to you, like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders.
And let's not forget how many Americans are now retired--like the Bruces. Socialists want you to forget that figure. "If we compare full-time workers ages 25 to 64 in 1979 with that same subset of workers in 2013, income exceeded inflation and grew 33 percent total."
A lot of these figures are from the Obama era--they even lie to you about that!
The morning exercise routine
Until this summer, I usually walked about two miles in the morning, always choosing a flat street to accommodate my bursitis pain and getting at least a mile along Lake Erie. Then the Wellness Center opened in 2018. Now I walk there (about 1 mile to get there), exercise on a cycle and a treadmill (about 4 miles), then walk home, about 1 mile, and pick up 2 or 3 miles during the day walking to various programs and activities. Returning home through the woods has been especially nice.
From a drone photo
White privilege and Whoopi
Whoopi Goldberg is worth $45 million and goes on TV (ABC The View) spewing hate and bigotry and decrying various justice "gaps." She would never need to work again, but loves the platform. This morning on my walk I talked to a white woman, probably about Whoopi's age, who works 40 hours a week at near minimum, then goes across the street and works another 4 hours at a nursing home. I guess that's white privilege.
The Alex Jones fiasco on the left
“Restricting offensive or harmful language for the greater good is all fine and dandy until you become beholden to a definition of ‘greater good’ you don't agree with,” Granderson writes at CNN.com. “Or when you oppose a politician’s view of ‘offensive.’”
Granderson is a black journalist who has come out as gay, formerly married to a woman so he has a son. He can expect some of the Candace Owens blacklash. (Owens is the black conservative recently attacked by white radicals in Antifa for eating breakfast in a restaurant. Shades of the 1950s lunch counters)
Big Tech has been restricting conservatives and libertarians like Dennis Prager or various bloggers while outlandish conspiracy buffs like Jones gets more attention while excusing and ignoring the hate speech and protests on the left. If they [Big Tech] were to release the HR searches they've done on their own employees, I think you'll find that they have no diversity of thought in hiring, promoting or development.
So why would incredibly successful capitalists (like Bezos who is the richest man in the world and Zuckerberg who owns your social life) side with oppressive, regulatory government administrations teetering on the cliff of fascism? To keep the start ups at the gate through increased taxes and regulatory power.
Tuesday, August 07, 2018
What socialized medicine looks like
What you have to look forward to if the socialists like Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders win in 2018: "Native Americans have received federally funded health care for decades. A series of treaties, court cases and acts passed by Congress requires that the government provide low-cost and, in many cases, free care to American Indians. The Indian Health Service (IHS) is charged with delivering that care." [IHS web site quote].
The per person cost is about 1/3 of what the other Americans spend, but is in line with Europe. Also, native Americans have a life expectancy 5.5 years less than all other Americans.
Francis Asbury, 1745-1816
On August 7, 1771, Francis Asbury answered John Wesley's call for Methodist preachers to go and evangelize the colonies. In 45 years he covered about 300,000 miles on horseback and crossed the Appalachian mountains more than 60 times; he ordained more than 4,000 Methodist ministers and preached more than 16,000 sermons.
Monday, August 06, 2018
Camp meetings, August 6
https://www.christianitytoday.com/history/issues/issue-45/revival-at-cane-ridge.html
Lakeside Chautauqua began as a Methodist camp meeting in August, 1873. "On Aug. 27, 1873, Reverend Henry O. Sheldon, the first presiding elder of the East Toledo Methodist Episcopal district, preached the first sermon of the Lakeside camp meeting from a basic preacher stand surrounded by twenty canvas tents". There will be a marker placed on September 2.
https://www.lakesideohio.com/calendar/event/12895
Posts
