November | 2013 | Hans Howe

Blake’s Thanksgiving…

Posted on November 28, 2013 by hanshowe

It is an easy thing to talk of patience to the afflicted,
To speak the laws of prudence to the houseless wanderer,
To listen to the hungry raven’s cry in wintry season
When the red blood is fill’d with wine & with the marrow of lambs.

It is an easy thing to laugh at wrathful elements,
To hear the dog howl at the wintry door, the ox in the slaughter house moan;
To see a god on every wind & a blessing on every blast;
To hear sounds of love in the thunder storm that destroys our enemies’ house
To rejoice in the blight that covers his field, & the sickness that cuts off his children,

While our olive & vine sing & laugh round our door, & our children bring fruits and flowers.
Then the groan & the dolor are quite forgotten, & the slave grinding at the mill,
And the captive in chains, & the poor in the prison, & the soldier in the field
When the shatter’d bone hath laid him groaning among the happier dead.

It is an easy thing to rejoice in the tents of prosperity:
Thus could I sing and thus rejoice: but it is not so with me.

– William Blake (b. November 28, 1757), from The Four Zoas

Filed under: Authors / Books / Reviews, Holiday, Poets n Poems | Leave a comment »

Pope Denounces Trickle-Down Economics

Posted on November 27, 2013 by hanshowe

From TPM…Pope Denounces Trickle-Down Economics ‘Which Has Never Been Confirmed By The Facts’

Igor Bobic – November 26, 2013, 12:48 PM EST278

In his first encyclical released on Tuesday, Pope Francis laid out a broad mission statement which restated the church’s opposition to abortion but also emphasized what it can do for the poor and oppressed trapped in a world of growing income inequality.

“It is no longer simply about exploitation and oppression, but something new,” the pontiff wrote in the 85-page document. “Exclusion ultimately has to do with what it means to be a part of the society in which we live; those excluded are no longer society’s underside or its fringes or its disenfranchised – they are no longer even a part of it. The excluded are not the ‘exploited’ but the outcast, the ‘leftovers’.

The pope also denounced “trickle-down” theories of economics promoted by many conservatives and politicians who espouse an unregulated free market.

“In this context, some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” he said. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naïve trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system. Meanwhile, the excluded are still waiting.”

Filed under: Econ, Politics, Religion | Leave a comment »

2009 H1N1 Flu Pandemic Deaths > 400,000

Posted on November 27, 2013 by hanshowe

… much worse than previously thought, and 400,000 is probably way low cuz of poor info from Africa and S and SE Asia…

…median age about 40…

…the death rate in Mexico was estimated at 5.2 per 100,000 population, versus 0.4 per 100,000 in Australia, 0.3 in France, and 2.8 in the United States…

…Osterholm noted that the mean age of people who died in the H1N1 outbreak was 40, at a time when life expectancy was 79 years… a flu death in a person who has a number of co-morbidities (other diseases) at age 78 is very different than that of a young, pregnant woman otherwise healthy at age 22… One should be dealing with years of life lost…

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2013/11/2009-h1n1-flu-death-toll-400000-worldwide.html

http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2013/11/study-estimates-2009-pandemic-deaths-203000

http://crofsblogs.typepad.com/h5n1/2013/11/branswell-on-the-simonsen-h1n1-report.html

Filed under: Epidemics, Epidemiology, Flu, Medical | Leave a comment »

Eben Alexander Westminster Town Hall Nature of Consciousness

Posted on November 22, 2013 by hanshowe

from Wikipedia “Alexander is the author of the 2012 autobiographical book Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeons Journey into the Afterlife, in which he asserts that his out of body and near death experience (NDE) while in a meningitis-induced coma in 2008 proves that consciousness is independent of the brain, that death is an illusion, and that an eternity of perfect splendor awaits us beyond the grave complete with angels, clouds, and departed relatives, but also including butterflies and a beautiful girl in peasant dress who Alexander finds out later was his departed sister. According to him, the current understanding of the mind now lies broken at our feet for What happened to me destroyed it, and I intend to spend the rest of my life investigating the true nature of consciousness and making the fact that we are more, much more, than our physical brains as clear as I can, both to my fellow scientists and to people at large.

MPR recorded this and then put it on their website in a way few people could audit… I found a way to play it and record it and post it here so others can now get at it and listen. 52 minutes.