Exhaustion #293
By Hank Silverberg
Are you exhausted? Watching, reading or listening to the news these days can leave you angry, depressed, annoyed, or just plain exhausted.
There's very little detailed discussion of any issue of this election campaign.
We have heard a great deal about illegal immigration. It's filled with rhetoric, but very little about solutions from either side.
There's horrible news almost every day from the Israel-Gaza war, but it tends to focus on protests and unsubstantiated Palestinian casualty counts without really looking at why the conflict started or how to end it.
There's has been great deal of talk about President Biden's cognitive ability but now that he is out of the running, will be people talking again about Trump's convoluted speeches that rarely make sense? (Even some delegates at the Republican National Convention fell asleep from that acceptance speech that was longer the movie Shrek.)
And have you actually seen what is in Project 2025?
Okay, there, I have made you angry, annoyed or exhausted.
It's time for us all to take a break. Let the Democrat's leadership sort out their troubles and find a new candidate, either Kamala Harris, or someone else. Let Trump run around to more rallies saying the same incoherent nonsense to his cult following.
We, as a people, should take a break. We'll tune back in after Labor Day and not really panic on the troubling choices we have to make in November until Halloween.
Long Covid
If you were one of the millions of Americans who were sickened by Covid-19, there is still something to watch out for, even if you were vaccinated. Aiyad Al Aly, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University in St. Louis, says long Covid-19 has been a widespread disability affecting the quality of life for millions of people around the world.
It is more common in those who caught the virus and were not vaccinated, but still affects about 3.5% of those adults who caught the disease even after they were vaccinated. About 65 million people world wide have long Covid as of 2023. There are no concrete numbers for 2024 yet.
Symptoms include shortness of breath, debilitating fatigue and brain fog, and such conditions as heart failure and diabetes, which can last a lifetime.
But a study out this week shows long Covid cases
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| (Covid 19 virus) |
may be declining. The study indicates two key reasons: the availability of the vaccines, and changes in the characteristic of the virus which made Covid 19 less prone to cause severe or acute infections.
Of note, more than 90% of the people with long Covid had mild Covid-19 infections to begin with.
The study was conducted for the Social Security Administration. The disabling impact of the disease is currently not on the list of impairments for Social Security Disability.
According to Dr. Al Aly, the number of Covid-19 infections continues to outnumber flu cases and leads to more hospitalizations and death than the flu.
(this information was first published in The Conversation)
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/long-covid-what-scientists-now-know/
https://www.nejm.org/doi/10.1056/NEJMoa2403211
Some NEW History
A big discovery this past week in Concord, Massachusetts. No, they still can not determine who fired the first shot known as "the shot heard round the world" that began the American Revolution.
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| (Public Domain) |
It's an amazing discovery almost 250 years after the battle which took place on April 19, 1775.
The mini-balls, which varied in size, were fired by the local militia as they battled British troops. The gray mini balls varied in diameter from pea size to marble size. Finding five of them all at one time, this many years later, has attracted a lot of attention because they were found at the site where the battle started rather than along the long road where the British Red Coats were picked off as they retreated. They also showed the variety of ammunition used by the local militia.
On that day in 1775, the British went to Concord to seize or destroy weapons and ammunition that they believed the locals had been storing. There were 800 Redcoats. No one knows for sure who fired the first shot. But the initial skirmish and the chase back to Boston left 273 British soldiers and 96 militiamen dead or wounded. It lead to the siege of Boston, the Battle of Bunker Hill, and the eventual British retreat to New York.
Dumbest Quote of The week!
This week's dumbest quote comes from Virginia Republican Senate Candidate Hung Cao. He is running against Senator Tim Kaine, who may face a tough race this year only because of what is happening at the top of the ticket.
Cao made headlines this week when he mispronounced Staunton (pronounced Stanton) Virginia and indicated he didn't want to travel there just to talk to people. Staunton is in the Shenandoah Valley, and a Republican stronghold, so maybe there is a better use of his time. But his disdain for rural Virginia is not going over well with the people, predominantly Republicans, who live there. Cao made matters worse when asked about his position on health care. He advocated more choice for patients and more incentives for doctors, but then he said:
"No one in the United States is like 'oh my gosh, I will die if I don't have health care.'"
Well, guess what, Mr. Cao? There are millions of Americans who DO worry that they will die if they don't get better health care.
(Your Suggestions and comments are welcome)
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