Earlier this month, an unemployed 24-year-old father died after a minor tooth infection. Kyle Willis, of Cincinnati, did all that he could do, after coming down with a toothache. He visited doctors who properly prescribed him antibiotics and pain medication. Willis could only afford the pills for his pain. Unfortunately, that would do nothing to stop the infection from spreading to his brain, the ailment that ultimately killed Kyle Willis.
For the first time in my adult life, I visited a pharmacist to fill a prescription for me. At 31-years of age, I have been insured only for four years since I was 18. Two of those years, I was living in Spain. While in Spain and as a Spaniard, I took advantage of their healthcare system. Two doctor visits, blood analysis, and complete checkup later, I was handed a prescription for a topical cream. It would be the same prescription handed to me by my American doctor, a few weeks ago. The total cost of the Spanish healthcare experience was: 2 Euros, or roughly $3.50.
I told the pharmacist, out of curiosity, that I had no insurance and wanted to see if I could afford the cream. He took the prescription, punched some keys on his computer, and quickly said, “I don’t think you want to know. Let’s just say it’s close to a thousand dollars.” Luckily, my student health insurance kicked in a few weeks earlier. I gave him my card. He punched some more keys and said, “Okay good, it’s only twenty dollars now.”
I was lucky for multiple reasons: One, my condition is not life threatening. Two, I happened to have insurance.
A few weeks earlier if I had come down with a tooth infection, I might not have been able to afford the medication that would save my life. Kyle Willis didn’t have my luck and now a 6-year-old girl is left without her father.
The discovery that the universe is still expanding has lead three astrophysicists to share this year’s Nobel Prize in Physics award.
Formally, it was understood that they universe was decelerating in its expansion. That was the notion that many scientists were expected to observe, including astrophysicists Saul Perlmutter, 52, of the University of California, Berkeley, Brian Schmidt, 44, of Australian National University, and Adam Reiss, 41, of The John Hopkins University, when they began to study distant exploding stars named supernovae in the late 1990’s. However, what they discovered was not that the expansion of the universe was slowing down, but in fact it was accelerating due to a source of energy that scientists know very little about called “dark energy.”< /span>
“ We anticipated that gravity had slowed the rate of expansion over time. But that’s not what we found,” explained Riess.
For almost one hundred years, scientists have held firmly to the belief that the universe was created over 14 billion years ago. It was the simultaneous work of early astrophysicists like Albert Einstein and Edwin Hubble that lead to the conclusion that every galaxy observable within the known universe was moving away from a central point. According to their observations, this point represented the starting start of all that is known in the universe during a massive explosion more commonly known as the Big Bang.
At the time of the discovery by the two teams involved — one lead by Perlmutter, the other by both Reiss and Schmidt, astronomers knew that the universe was expanding, but the question remained as to whether it would expand forever, or if it would eventually seize from expanding and eventually collapse back into itself.
The initial results found in 1997 indicated that the universe was not slowing down. In fact it was speeding up, contrary to all cosmological theories, puzzling Perlmutter’s team.
“ The chain of analysis was so long that at first we were reluctant to believe our result,” Perlmutter said. “But the more we analyzed it, the more it wouldn’t go away.
The discovery that the expansion is accelerating was astounding and overturned prevailing theories. The accelerating expansion means that the universe could expand forever until it is cold and dark. The teams’ discovery led to speculation that there is a “dark energy” that is pushing the universe apart. Though dark energy theoretically makes up over 70 percent of the matter and energy of the universe, astronomers have so failed to discover the nature of the odd, repelling force.
Recently, Perlmutter has been working with NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy to build and launch the first space-based observatory designed specifically to understand the nature of dark energy. A dark-energy mission was named the top telescope-building priority in an August 2010 report from a blue-ribbon committee of the National Academy of Sciences.
Research and investigation will continue to pursue dark energy, “ the biggest challenge in cosmology and physics,” said Riess in a release from the Johns Hopkins Institute.
In 1969, a 3-day festival was held in a 600-acre dairy farm in upstate New York. Woodstock, as it became to be known, would become a representation of a counter culture that had changed the American identity. In front of 500,000 spectators, a young black man from Seattle, Washington took the stage. Three-quarters into a 2-hour set, Jimi Hendrix began playing his very own rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner, the American national anthem, on his way of becoming a true American icon.
“All I’m gonna do is just go on and do what I feel,” said Hendrix, when asked about the music he plays. “All I’m writing is just what I feel, that’s all. I just keep it almost naked. And probably the words are so bland.”
It was that attitude that helped popularize Jimi Hendrix. On stage, he did not only sing songs, whose words many would argue are not “so bland,” he played his guitar, an instrument that he has shown to dominate with both the subtle touches of a Spanish guitar virtuoso and the savage, yet precise, chopping of a lumberjack. The guitar was a portal to the musician’s soul and mind, all which he willingly burned for his audience, the instrument literally.
“The time I burned my guitar it was like a sacrifice. You sacrifice the things you love. I love my guitar.”< /p>
With that same passion, his performance of the Star-Spangled Banner at Woodstock would stand to represent a declaration by a counter-culture whose social and political views were often seen as un-American.
“If it was up to me, there wouldn’t be no such thing as the establishment,” Hendrix said. “In order to change the world, you have to get your head together first. (Politicians) ain’t got their heads together. That’s why I got music. Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.”
Jimi Hendrix died on September 18th, 1970. Forty years later, his music still shapes the world and his guitar will always be a symbol for change through music.
Thanks to New Jersey Transit, whose many bus stops and lightrail stations are opened completely to the elements, I (a commuter) needed to invest in more substantial winter gear. The communal orgies for body-heat with people I never cared to get so close to would have to end. That’s where Patagonia’s Men’s Wanaka Down Jacket comes in.
Waterproof jackets are not impossible to find. But I needed to get myself one that wouldn’t have me looking like a lumberjack or ice-trucker. I live, work, and study in and around New York City. Looking fashionable is a standard. Staying dry and warm comes second. Luckily the Wanaka Down Jacket provides all of these.
It is a good-looking coat. It’s simple and clean in design: one buttoned pocket on the left chest, a zip-down pocket on the right, army jacket-like collar, detachable hood, and urban color tones (so you don’t look like a Swiss tourist.) And… It fits pretty well, snug but yet loose enough for your ugly Christmas sweaters and turtlenecks.
I received the jacket mid-October. Thinking I would have to wait a month or more for a true test, I decided to run my own experiments at home. 100% waterproof you say? Shower time! With nothing else on but the jacket and my last remaining memories of dignity, I decided to test how well its H2NO (har-har) technology works. I emerged from the shower as bone-dry as the hydrophobic jacket itself. Gotta love science.
Cold winds blew and ice fell during Halloween weekend in New York City and I needed to get to work. Being inside a train is no test, so New Jersey transit was more than happy to force me to walk in the snow by running a “ routine maintenance,” a mile from my stop. Feeling up to the challenge, I marched to work. Patagonia’s Wanaka jacket did its job. I got there dry, warm, and only slightly pissed off. Greater winter challenges will emerge and with this jacket, I’m eager to take them on.
On September 17th, a group of agitated Americans calling themselves Occupy Wall Street gathered in an outward expression of pain at Zuccotti Park in New York City’s Wall Street financial district. The protestors were there for many different reasons, but the one thing that they held in common was a necessity to express their fears and frustrations with who they call the” one-percent.” As the Occupy Wall Street protests spread to other cities and countries, the “one-percent” put their brain-trusts together and were finally able to come up with a plan: holistic medicine.
Scientific studies have shown that capsaicin, an active component of chili peppers, contains a neuropeptide called “ substance P.” In laboratory studies, substance P has been used to alleviate headaches and other physical pains in lab rats. Further analysis has shown the same results in human subjects. Substance P has also been shown to stimulate cell growth and reverse diabetes. After much cry over the lack of a suitable healthcare system provided by the “one-percent,” the Wall Street Occupiers have finally had their wishes granted.
Provided in an easy and mass dispensing form, substance P is distributed in what is better known as “Pepper Spray” by thoroughly trained keepers of the peace. The liquid is misted over the eyes and mouths of the sad occupiers, who are then gently gathered by surrounding officers wearing specially padded uniforms that make the carrying process a pleasant one for all involved.
The effects of the misting have been so incredibly welcomed by the protestors than on November 20th, a group of students at the University of California Davis, sat lovingly outside of the office of University chancellor, Linda P. B. Katehi in a solace show of gratitude. Police departments around the world have embraced the pepper mist. Some even holding in as high regards as the “love baton,” and “peace taser.” Next time you see occupiers on the mist end of a protest, smile and enjoy the humane approaches to democracy that the “one-percent” have provided.
Jack Jenson: “Good afternoon, I’m Jack Jenson with NPR news.”
(The humming noise of the alien space ship drowns out the sounds of emergency and rescue vehicles.)
Jack Jenson: “Early this morning, a still not yet identified flying object arrived to lower Manhattan, resting above the monument, of what after September 11th, came to be known as ground zero. Cathedra Smart, an eyewitness.”
Cathedra Smart: “I was just gettin’ out of the Path station right over here on my way to work, when I saw this blue light flying real fast towards here. Then it just stops there, everyone was like, ‘daaamn.’”
Jack Jenson: “As eyewitness saw the object approach, most began to recollect images of one of the worst events in the city’s history. Rebecca McTree was fetching coffee when she saw the object.”
Rebecca McTree: “To me it reminded me of nine eleven. I was working in midtown when that happened and remember seeing the two planes hit the towers. I saw this thing flying and thought, ‘No God, not again.’ Then it just stopped there.”
(The sounds of emergency vehicles racing on a street can be heard. Distorted voices of emergency personnel talking through CB radios. Beeps and Buzzes from the vehicles.)
Jack Jenson: “According to Police Lieutenant Ricardo Suppe, the City has everything under control but urges people to stay away.”
Ricardo Suppe: “We have down here over two dozen different units from around the city that specialize in everything from national disasters to domestic terrorism. We have the best people in the world working on this. We know that this is something that we normally don’t see every day. Actually, this is probably the first in the history of mankind. But we want people to stay away from the scene until we can fully understand what this is.”
Jack Jenson: “And what do you believe it is?”
Ricardo Suppe: “That’s not for me to decide. We leave that for the experts.”
Jack Jenson: “NPR spoke with one of those experts, Dr. Nathaniel Christiansen, Professor of Astrophysics from Rutgers University.”
Dr. Nathaniel Christiansen: “I have no idea what it could be. Probably a UFO.”
Jack Jenson: “This has been Jack Jenson for NPR.”
I do many writing exercises that remain on my hard drive and never see the light of day. And I have this little website here that never gets updated. So why not put the two together. I will be posting these exercises as they are. No polishing, not editing. Just some reading material.
Joe
Warmer weather.
Shorter dresses.
Livelier girls.
Spring.
Intuition, a short story about a boy and his grandfather walking along a post-apocalyptic landscape will appear in the April issue of Instigatorzine.
http://instigatorzine.posterous.com/old-news-still-worth-reading
Joe
I’ve got your christmas
Your god, your gifts
Your presents and your gamble
right in the nook of my pocket
I’ve got your heating bills
Your hunger, your pain
Your lack of love or life
right in the nook of my pocket
I’ve got your wishes and
Your dreams, you heart
Your tiny little soul
All in the nook of my pocket
And when I reach deep down
and In, and take it out to
Inspect, I notice how tattered
and weathered it has become
right here, in the nook of my pocket.
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