The Week in Review

Up until recently, we've had a bog standard beautiful fall.  Spokane is good at doing fall.  There were many days like this.  

The red twig dogwoods were happy and exuberant.
 

 Now they look like this.  They're just sad, weighed down by the rain, and starting to lose their leaves.  Sad.

It looks like we're leaving for Tucson either Friday or Saturday.  It's going to be cold and snowy in Butte, which is kind of a bummer.  All the drugs, covid tests and contact lenses will have to be schlepped into the room.  I am making a concerted effort to lighten the load of what comes inside at night.  Jim's hip is better, and I would like to keep it that way. The thought is that going through Salt Lake on a weekend will be less trying than driving through their eternal rush hour.

The administration has been busy putting their ignorance on display.

From RFK Jr there is:  There are many other confirmations -- there are two studies that show children who are circumcised early have double the rate of autism. It’s highly likely because they are given Tylenol.  This is so stupid it makes my head hurt.  He followed up with:  There is no proof. We're doing the studies to make the proof.  Science does not make proof, science discovers what is there.  That's it.  No making proof, ever.  He's so clueless, I wonder if he's brain damaged.

A reporter asked  the Nobel Chair, "Why didn’t Trump win the Nobel Peace Prize?" He responded, "The award only goes to people of courage and integrity."  I love that.

From Covid-land we learn:  The European Society of Cardiology (ESC) and American Heart Association now classify prior COVID-19 as an independent cardiovascular risk factor, recommending long-term monitoring (e.g., ECG, echo, MRI) for (a)symptomatic patients. So, in addition to high blood pressure, bad cholesterol and the usual, having had covid is a risk factor for your heart.  Please make a note of this.

Also, remember how they told you that kids would be fine catching Covid early in the pandemic?  Now long covid is the number one chronic illness in children.  I think it used to be asthma, but don't quote me on this.

 

If you have not had your shingles vaccines, you should go do that.

A large, new study tracked older adults who had received the shingles vaccination and received promising results. The scientists report that those who received a shingles vaccine shot were at a definitive health advantage over the control group.

They were less likely to receive a new dementia diagnosis during the next seven years. The analysis made use of a policy quirk to compare people born just before and after a vaccine eligibility cutoff in 2013. This helped separate cause from coincidence.

The article is here.  It's in plain English and is an interesting read. Since my brother died of or with early onset Alzheimers at age 63, after having it for 10 years or so, I'm pretty happy about this finding.  Neither one of us experienced the debilitating effects of the shot that so many people report.

The climate scientists have their hair on fire about how warm the Pacific ocean is, and how much ice melting is occurring.  Now there is this: Planet-heating methane is escaping from cracks in the Antarctic seabed as the region warms, with new seeps being discovered at an “astonishing rate,” scientists have found, raising fears that future global warming predictions may have been underestimated.  You can read about it here.

Portland and Chicago remain under siege by the administration, Memphis is, as well.  There is a No Kings protest on the 18th, I wonder how ICE, and the other agencies will respond to this.