BUT WHEN AM I EVER GOING TO USE ALGEBRA?

by Mary Elizabeth (Leach) Raines

More than one writer has complained about being forced to study subjects in school in order to graduate that have no application in real life. They particularly like to whine about math.

I get a little burr up my behind when people complain about having to learn things that they state they are later unable to use. Here's why.

In school--even in college--our brains need to be exposed to a wide variety of things, as most of us still don't fully know what we like and what we're best at doing.

Look at math. These complainers fail to understand that, apart from permitting us an opportunity to appreciate the sheer beauty of mathematics (revered in ancient times, but an art form which our current society sadly does not honor), studying math helps us to create patterns of logic, which in turn may help us years later to decide things like which candidate for president is the most reasonable.

Although this is not something to which she was exposed in school, it is close enough to be used as an example. In college, a friend of mine, who was a psychology major, got a summer temp job. She wound up stuck in a drab accounting office in a shoe factory. She complained about what a miserable blow it was that she was forced to drudge away in a field so out of her area of expertise, and we commiserated with her...except, over the course of the summer, she discovered not only that she had an aptitude for accounting; she LOVED it. She went on to become a CPA, and not long afterward began teaching accounting classes at an Ivy League University. While the rest of us, including the psych majors, were still waiting on tables, she started making really good money, and among other things, bought a three-story brownstone townhouse on Beacon Hill for twenty grand. Today that house is easily worth a few million dollars.

Similarly, Harry Houdini, in his youth, was forced to get a job in a locksmith’s shop. You know how that story ended!

The obvious moral to all of this: Do not be quick to scorn learning something you don’t feel is pertinent to you and your life. You may be surprised!

©2016, M. E. Raines

Bye-bye, Stars

We are swiftly losing our ability to see the stars. Light pollution is savage for nature. Insects and birds use the stars and moon to navigate. Even trees need to rest, and require darkness. But darkness is disappearing. Four out of five citizens of the USA are unable to see the Milky way where they live.

This article in Scientific American spells it out, with a world-wide map showing the vast areas of light pollution across the globe. They point out that, sadly, energy-efficient lighting, such as LED lights, are simply making the problem worse:


http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-map-shows-the-dark-side-of-artificial-light-at-night/

Did you know that it is now impossible to label honey organic--well, unless the beekeeper owns all the property for at least a two-mile radius?
Not only are the plants on which bees forage polluted with multiple backyard and city toxins, which wind up in the honey; commercial beekeepers (in fact, most beekeepers, commercial or not) use antibiotics and chemicals on their hives that wind up in the wax and the honey.
It is very difficult to find honey from organically raised bees. There are few beekeepers who use completely organic methods. Even in their hives, wax has been found to contain not one or two, but dozens of contaminants.
There is a great deception and little regulation in the honey marketplace. Much of store-brand honey is bought from China, where toxins are rife, as well as doctored products. Even U.S. beekeepers are widely known to mix their honey with sugar, corn syrup, or molasses. Nobody is testing for this. 
We know a folksy, bearded, plaid-shirted beekeeper who sells honey at a popular farmer's market. While it purports to be local, and people exclaim about it, this honey is actually purchased from a huge supplier who buys honey from many different places. It is full of contaminants.
Honey labeled as being predominantly from one kind of plant may not have any pollen or nectar from the plant on its label. A beekeeping friend bought Manuka honey--known for its purported healing qualities--last year from Trader Joe's and tested it. There was not even a trace of Manuka pollen in the honey! (We grant that this is not always the fault of the beekeeper, but due to the preferences of the bees.)
Author Les Crowder, a gentle and good soul who teaches organic top-bar beekeeping, is now battling cancer at horrific cost both physically and financially. He writes this:
"As a young man I worked for a beekeeper with 4,000 hives that had me fumigating supers with ethylene di-bromide. My breath smelled of the carcinogenic gas for hours after work. The makers and promoters of that chemical are not now paying for my cancer treatments. But soon the public and the insurance companies are going to realize that the makers, users and those who profit from the distribution of toxic chemicals have to pay for the damage they cost. Organic will suddenly seem real cheap."

MARIJUANA AND AN INCREASED LIKELIHOOD OF STROKE

In these days and times, it is extraordinarily unpopular to say anything negative about marijuana, even though smoking pot does irrefutably damage the lungs and can impede brain growth in young people.

A brand new study, cited below, shows an unexpected risk from pot: marijuana use is associated with a high risk for acute ischemic stroke (18%).

We live in weird times where, in people's minds, their opinions apparently trump hard science, so there are those who will protest vehemently against this study. They will cry out about conspiracies and say that they don’t “believe” in science. (Which means they should immediately discard their cellphones, their automobiles, their refrigerators and their bottles of aspirin!)

Any substance that has such a dramatic effect on a person's brain is bound to have side effects. One of my former students and friends, who is a brilliant young neurologist, took part in this study. It found quite conclusively that smoking OR ingesting cannabis increases a person's likelihood of stroke by 18%. In layman’s terms, this is because cannabis makes certain blood vessels in the brain spasm.

These neurologists are young and hip. They don't live in a bubble, and they certainly didn’t set out with a bias against pot.

This study does not refute some of the scientifically documented positive medical benefits that people may receive from cannabis; it stands alone. Do not mistake this article for one railing against the use of marijuana; today nearly everyone knows people who smoke pot regularly. Those who smoke or ingest cannabis, however, need to be fully informed of the potential risks, so that they can make their choices wisely.

Sadly, I think a lot of pot-smokers will stick their fingers in their ears and hum loudly rather than pay attention. Regardless, here are some of the facts:

•Marijuana use increases the likelihood of AIS (acute ischemic stroke), adjusting for other stroke risk factors.
•Marijuana use predicts symptomatic cerebral vasospasm, a proposed mechanism of AIS

•Risk of marijuana-associated AIS increases with concurrent use of tobacco ± cocaine.

http://www.jns-journal.com/article/S0022-510X%2816%2930066-1/abstract

THE DEATH OF NEWSPAPERS AND THE RISE OF CORRUPTION

One sad thing about the death of newspapers is that important investigative reporting is increasingly buried. People no longer sit at their breakfast table, ride on subways, or take breaks from work with newspapers in hand.

Years ago I wrote for the newspapers. While features and interviews became my forte, I started out as a stringer, reporting on the local news of my small town for the newspaper headquartered in a larger city. Everyone for miles around subscribed to the paper. 

I didn't really like my job. I shared with a friend how discouraging it was to have such a lowly position. Not only was I required to attend tedious meetings of the city council and school board; I had to understand what was going on and report on it. My friend set me straight on the importance of such a job. It is only through newspapers, she said, that misconduct  can be brought to the surface, and small communities are the most at risk for this. Without exposure and the resulting pubic awareness, corruption could run rampant.

Few people read newspapers any longer. Most of us get our news through the television or the internet, and it is highly filtered. TV only reports on issues in sound-bites and selects those stories with the most audience appeal. Dirty politics regarding the contracts awarded to sewer plants are not likely to make TV headlines.  Furthermore, television news today is rarely impartial. As a news reporter, we were taught to report the facts, avoid the use of adjectives, and permit people to make up their own minds. Opinions were saved for the editorial page. This is no longer the case. Adjectives are rarely avoided on TV news. They not only make stories more colorful; they are a sly way of slanting a story in the direction the owner of that particular media chain desires and manipulating points of view.

The internet is even more limited. With most of us only clicking on internet news stories that stand out and catch our attention, and with the choices of what is shown to us on the web having been hand-tailored and filtered so that we will see only those stories that Google, Facebook or other groups have deemed to be our preferences, even exposures of large levels of corruption stand little chance of reaching the public eye, much less those in small communities. It is doubtful today that something like the Watergate scandal would get the attention of many people; even if it did, in our sound-bite society, few of us would bother to absorb, much less care about, the in-depth reporting that finally brought down the Nixon presidency.

Here is one small example of vitally important and scandalous news that will never reach the public eye, but should be a major headline: https://news.vice.com/article/the-environmental-protection-agency-says-fracking-is-safe-but-its-scientists-disagree  The public ought to be outraged by this. In the past, it would have been a headline that could not be avoided. Few now, however, will even be exposed to this story.

We need a solution. The problem is worsening. Corruption is becoming blatant, but without public understanding, little will be done to stop it.


(c) 2016, Mary Elizabeth (Leach) Raines