Sorry, gone for a while…

Chemo went fine, but a couple hours later (thankfully, we were binging at Goodwill and still in town) my abdominal pain went crazed, took a look to see Grimhild making a serious break for it, over 6 inches of my colon was protruding, so off to emergency. The doc managed to massage Grim mostly back in, sent for a CT scan, which showed no blockage, but I have a colostomy prolapse, and a parasternal hernia, along with chronic anemia. So, surgery tomorrow, and I have to be flat on my back, so no blogging. I shouldn’t be doing this right now. This is all the info I have right now, figure I’ll be missing for two to three days at the least. Oh, and trust me – you do not want to see a pic, you’d run screaming into the night. It looks like a zombie got a hold of me.

I’m so sorry, I’ll be back as soon as possible. Voyager & Charly, the blog is yours, have fun!

ETA: There’s a lengthier follow up here: CC Notes: When Prolapse Happens.
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A Resolution Against Social Justice, It’s Evil!

Grady Arnold.

A group calling itself Godly America sent out a press release through Christian Newswire on Monday calling attention to a Southern Baptist pastor who “has submitted a resolution against social justice” to be considered at the Southern Baptist Convention’s annual meeting in Dallas in June.

Godly America, “a ministry to remind Christians of their rich heritage and history as Americans, and to call America back to the Judeao-Christian [sic] principles on which America is founded,” seems to consist of said pastor, Grady Arnold.

Mr. Arnold seems to be going his own way here, even to the heresy of embracing Glenn Beck, which I don’t see endearing him to other Southern Baptists, as they do not consider mormons to be christians. Here are some bits and pieces of the press release:

Within the resolution, Arnold states that social justice activism is “a vehicle to promote abortion, homosexuality, gender confusion, and a host of other ideas that are antithetical to the gospel.”

Mmmm. I’m good with abortion, and seriously promoting education, comprehensive sex education, and contraception. I’m all kinds of fine with acceptance of all queer folk, and there’s no confusion on the part of people who are inhabiting this century’s reality. Who gives a fuck about the gospel? Confining yourself to bronze / iron age views is not in any way good.

Pastor Arnold warns in his resolution that denominations that have embraced social justice have rapidly dropped in membership and have become more liberal in their theology. “If Southern Baptists are concerned with having conservative theology and want to avoid even further numerical losses, they need to talk to their pastors, local associations and state conventions, and tell them to take a firm stand against social justice.”

Oooh, comin’ into the 21st century! That’s a good thing. I suppose it’s always good to know just how much the religious reich does not at all care for people, of any kind. It’s always about power and oppression.

“If Southern Baptists don’t rise up and take a stand now, then in a few years they will be seeing books in their Lifeway bookstores promoting liberation theology, black theology, and feminism, and in their literature, they will be called upon to understand their ‘white privilege’ and the need to feel guilty about it.”

Oh my, could things possibly get worse than that? There’s zero need to feel guilty about white privilege. What’s needed is a clear understanding of it, and how it promotes systemic racism and personal bigotry, then working to be aware of it, and correct it.

RWW has the full story, with lotsa links.  The press release is linked above, and the full “resolution” can be found here.

Word Wednesday.

Reck / Reckon

 
Reck

Verb, Intransitive Verb.

1: Worry, Care. To have care, concern or regard. 1b: To take heed.

2: archaic: to be of account or interest: Matter.

Transitive Verb

1: archaic: to care for; regard.

2: archaic: to matter to: concern.

[Origin: Middle English, to take heed, from Old English reccan; akin to Old Norse roekja to have care, German (ge)ruhen to deign, akin to Old High German ruohhen to take heed.]

(Before 12th Century.)

Note: I grew up using reck and reckon. I still use reckon, because most people recognize it, but I had to give up reck, it’s unfortunately been lost to most people. I would say I don’t reck instead of I don’t care, and doesn’t reck rather than doesn’t matter.

Reckon

Verb, Transitive Verb

1a: count <reckon the days to Christmas> b: estimate, compute. c: to determine by reference to a fixed basis.

2: to regard or think of as: consider.

3: chiefly dialectal: think, suppose.

Intransitive Verb

1: to settle accounts.

2: to make a calculation.

3a: judge b: chiefly dialectal: suppose, think.

4: to accept something as certain: place reliance.

-reckon with: to take into consideration.

-reckon without: to fail to consider: ignore.

[Origin: Middle English rekenen, from Old English –recenian (as in gerecenian to narrate); akin to Old English reccan.]

(13th Century.)

The girl had the good grace to blush. “I came in to get a Valentine’s card,” she said, “only I can’t choose. Look.” She pointed to the display near the counter. “Funny, sexy, or romantic – what d’you reckon?” – The Witch’s Daughter, by Paula Brackston.

T Is For Tranquility and Taralhão.

Tranquility. Taralhão.

Taralhão is one of the many Portuguese common names given to two flycatcher species that visit us every year, from late August to November: the spotted flycatcher Muscicapa striata and the pied flycatcher Ficedula hypoleuca. In this photo, a pied flycatcher calmly sits on a tree collard at the end of the day, possibly contemplating all the flies it has eaten or if it is already time to leave the European continent for the year. Pied flycatchers breed in most of Northern and Eastern Europe and there are some breeding populations in Spain, but here they are only migratory, staying for only a few months before going to winter in Africa. They are one of my favourite birds, despite their winter plumage being a bit on the dull side. But they are so lively and funny that I can spend hours just watching them hunt insects.

Click for full size!

© Nightjar, all rights reserved.

Christians In Prison: Pushing Anti-Transgender Policy.

Image from official notice changing Bureau of Prisons regulations dealing with transgender people.

Image from official notice changing Bureau of Prisons regulations dealing with transgender people.

Christians, even in prison, committed to doing evil shit and making sure other people are hurt.

In their complaint, the Christian inmates reportedly refer to the transgender women as “men,” in keeping with the Religious Right’s strategy, aggressively promoted by the Heritage Foundation’s Ryan Anderson, of refusing to acknowledge transgender identity and insisting that it is nothing more than a mental health problem. In a March article in the Witherspoon’s Public Discourse, Ryan quoted his mentor Robert George saying, “Changing sexes is a metaphysical impossibility because it is a biological impossibility.”

…The change “comes after four evangelical Christian women in a Texas prison sued in US District Court to challenge the Obama-era guidelines, and claimed sharing quarters with transgender women subjected them to dangerous conditions.” The Obama-era rules allowed flexibility for prison staff to make case-by-case determinations that considered the wishes of transgender inmates as well as management and security considerations. But, according to BuzzFeed, the new guidelines issued on Friday “instruct officials to ‘use biological sex as the initial determination for designation’ for screening, housing and offering programming services.”

Oh, you can just feel that christian hate, can’t you? I have to get myself together for chemo day tomorrow, and I have to say, I’d rather deal with chemo than with fucking christians. Ick. RWW has the full story.

Anatomy Atlas Part 7 – Pelvis

This is the last drawing in the Anatomy atlas that is about skeleton.

Pelvis is most ingenous in many ways. Not only is the hip joint  bearing most of the weight, it is second most flexible joint in human body, with three axes of freedom just like the shoulder joint, only in lesser degree. Further the whole structure must be flexible enough to allow for birth.

Pelvis skeleton

©Charly, all rights reserved. Click for full size.

Today’s stories ar more sad than interesting and they are both about the skeleton we used for learning.

When teaching assistant brought the box with skeleton in the class her emphasised ” These are not casts, these are real bones. Please be aware that you are handling the remains of a real human being, so treat them with dignity. Memento mori – you too shall perish.”.

I was wondering why he feels the need to say that, we are all adults over twenty years of age, surely we need not be reminded of that like some adolescents? Well, not long after he has left the class one future gym teacher was showing off in front of a few of his laughing female classmates with a femur used as a microphone for pretend singing. My opinion of them all dropped significantly and I never forgot that sight. That was one of many proofs that in every social gathering will inevitably be someone who insist on being an asshole and someone who enables them in being an asshole.

Second story is about the dead man himself. He did not have completely fused os sacrum, with the top vertebra being free. And his whole pelvis was assymetrical and deformed on one side, with the openning for nervus ischiadicus being pinched and ground between that free vertebra and the fused rest. The teaching assistant told us that the man must have suffered from immense pain his whole life and that this was assumed to be the reason why he dies at relatively young age with probable cause of death being suicide by means of unknown poison. Whenever I remember that story I wish he had better options to deal with that problem.

No. That’s Just Wrong.

I was happily lost in The Public Domain Review the other day, and came across High Frequency Electric Currents in Medicine and Dentistry from 1910. I know there was great excitement over electricity, and there were phases of “miracle cures” where it was concerned, but in this case, it was the photos which got my attention, including one which just about had me screaming, and I’m not even a parent:

The text reads:

Plate XXII. – This beautiful picture (as exquisite as Manet’s “Boy with the Sword” which is one of the classics of the Painting Art), sets forth this boy bringing his pocket “Tesla” for the enjoyment of his beloved tonic. His sturdy strength at the age of three is a tribute to the efficacy of high frequency currents, for at the age of three days, when his treatment with them was begun, he was an illy-thriving and frail infant with but the feeblest hold on life. Look at him well, and think how many myriads of pallid children – of all ages – need the same remedy.

There is So. Much. Wrong. there, it just leaves me sputtering. Applying electrical currents to a three day old infant? All I can think is how very easily that could kill said infant. As for the photo being as exquisite as Boy with a Sword, let’s see:

L'Enfant à l'épée'' par Edouard Manet, 1861.

L’Enfant à l’épée’ par Edouard Manet, 1861.

Yeah, I don’t think there’s any honest comparison there at all. There are other questionable and frightening photos to be seen with the magical Tesla wand, but have a care, there’s some nudity, so NSFW.