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Author Topic: Human Life is Fragile but EVERY Life is Valuable  (Read 15607 times)

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AGelbert

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Agelbert NOTE: The following article, comment and references are even more applicable today than they were in 2013. The "Poverty Level" is so ridiculously low balled in this country that it should be a national disgrace    (unless you are an empathy deficit disordered crook    - then you consider it 'too high' and a 'giveaway' to 'welfare cheats'. ).



Why is the Federal Poverty Line So Far Off? ???


September 18, 2013

by John Light

SNIPPET:


Origins of the poverty measure

From the early 1980s until last September, the Health and Human Services employee responsible for responding to that frustrated mother and others like her was Gordon M. Fisher. Fisher worked in the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, where his job was to calculate the poverty guidelines — commonly referred to as the “poverty line,” used to determine benefit program eligibility — and to answer questions from the public.

http://billmoyers.com/2013/09/18/why-is-the-federal-poverty-line-so-low/

Quote
SophieBlue 

I like the idea of a new series of poverty measures that take into account real expenses, but then there is the battle of what expenses should be considered. When I teach Sociology of Poverty, I always ask my students whether an internet connection should be considered a basic expense, like electricity. Until they think about what is required to get a good job, they don't. But the more complicated the measure gets, the less useful it is.

Then there is the problem of trying to define poverty. Do we use a subsistence measure, or do we use
Sen's and Nussbaum's capabilities approaches?

One option is to measure inequality instead of "poverty." The OECD generally uses a percentage of the median income. The problem with that is that it assumes that the median is a good measure of well-being. We are seeing the median income lose value over time, so that people who earn the median have a more difficult time affording all those things that denote them as "middle class."


What is the Capability Approach?

• Sen’s capability approach is a moral framework. It proposes that social arrangements should be primarily evaluated according to the extent of freedom people have to promote or achieve functionings they value.

• This is an Evaluative Approach.


Welfare Motivation

– Atkinson notes that ‘despite the prevalence of welfare statements in economics, we are no longer subjecting them to critical analysis

– ‘The welfare basis of policy evaluation is a topic which should receive greater priority in economics.’ ‘The Strange Disappearance of Welfare Economics’ 2001.  ;) 

Capability Approach (CA) provides a partial basis for econ policy

Intellectual History of CA

• 1979 – Sen ‘Equality of What’?

• Basic Needs – same motivation but in some versions people are passive. CA adds freedom

• 1980s – focused on growth as end; CA growth as means; needs to be complemented by HD / CA

• 1990s to present: Annual Human Devt Reports

• Key texts by Sen:
– 1984: Commodities and Capabilities
– 1992: Inequality Re-Examined.
– 1993: Quality of Life (edited with Martha Nussbaum)
– 1999: Development as Freedom
– 2009: The Idea of Justice


• Now a large group of other authors (Nussbaum et al)
• Is this approach still relevant, or has it been superseded?


Capability

• the various combinations of functionings (beings and doings) that the person can achieve. [It] is, thus, a set of vectors of functionings, reflecting the person’s freedom to lead one type of life or another...to choose from possible livings. (Inequality Re-examined)

• think of it as a budget set

• “The focus here is on the freedom that a person actually has to do this or be that – things that he or she may value doing or being.” Idea of Justice 232

• All formulations of capability have two parts: freedom and valuable beings and doings (functionings). Sen’s key contribution has been to unite the two concepts.

Indicators of Functionings

Which are direct indicators of functionings?

A. Asset index
B. Access to schooling
C. Body Mass Index
D. Income
E. Self-reported health
F. Times per week consume egg


Freedom is regularly misunderstood

• Freedom is Not a ‘paper’ freedom: it has to be effective freedom, a real possibility.

• Freedom is Not maximization of choices without regard to their quality and people’s values “Indeed sometimes more freedom of choice can bemuse and befuddle, and make one’s life more wretched.”

• Freedom is Not necessarily direct control by an individual , groups, states, etc can increase freedoms by public action and investment.


Freedom

• “the real opportunity that we have to accomplish what we value”

• “The ‘good life’ is partly a life of genuine choice, and not one in which the person is forced into a particular life – however rich it might be in other respects.”

It is authentic self-direction – the ability to shape one’s own destiny as a person and a part of various communities.


Click here for pdf on the Capability Approach


Measuring Poverty

Quote
The most significant shortcoming of the federal poverty measure is that for most families, in most places, the poverty level is simply too low. While the Standard changes by family type to account for the increase in costs specific to the type of family member—whether this person is an adult or child, and for children, by age—the FPL increases by a constant $4,160 for each additional family member and therefore does not adequately account for the real costs of meeting basic needs.


Quote
The Self-Sufficiency Standard    shows that the income needed to meet basic needs is often far above the FPL, indicating that families can have incomes above the federal poverty measure and yet lack sufficient resources to adequately meet their basic needs. For this reason, most assistance programs use a multiple of the federal poverty measure to determine need. For instance, children’s health insurance with low-cost premiums is available through Colorado Child Health Plan Plus program for families with incomes up to 260% of the FPL.

However, simply raising the poverty level, or using a multiple of the FPL, cannot solve the structural problems inherent in the official poverty measure. In addition to the fundamental problem of being too low, there are five basic methodological problems with the federal poverty measure.
 

First, the measure is based on the cost of a single item—food—rather than a “market basket” of all basic needs.


Over five decades ago, when the FPL was first developed by Mollie Orshansky, food was the only budget item for which the cost of meeting a minimal standard, in this case nutrition, was known. (The Department of Agriculture had determined household food budgets based on nutritional standards.) Knowing that the average American family spent a third of their budget on food, Orshansky reasoned that multiplying the food budget by three would yield an estimate of the amount needed to meet other basic needs, and thus this became the basis of the FPL.
 

Second, the poverty measure’s methodology is “frozen,” not allowing for changes in the relative cost of food or non-food items, nor the addition of new necessary costs.


Since it was developed, the poverty level has only been updated annually using the Consumer Price Index. As a result, the percentage of the household budget devoted to food has remained at one-third of the FPL even though American families now spend an average of only 13% of their income on food. At the same time, other costs have risen much faster—such as health care, housing, and more recently, and energy—and new costs have arisen, such as child care and taxes. None of these changes are, or can be, reflected in the federal poverty measure based on a “frozen” methodology.
 

Third, the poverty measure is dated, implicitly using the demographic model of a two-parent family with a “stay-at-home” wife, or implicitly assumes she is not employed.


This family demographic no longer reflects the reality of the majority of American families today. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, both parents were employed in 59% of two-parent families with children in 2013. Likewise, 68% of single mothers with children were employed and 81% of single fathers with children were employed in 2013. Thus paid employment with its associated costs such as child care, transportation, and taxes is the norm for the majority of families today rather than the exception. Moreover, when the poverty measure was first developed, these employment-related items were not a significant expense for most families: taxes were relatively low and child care for families with young children was not common. However, today these expenses are substantial, and borne by most families, and thus these costs should be included in a modern poverty measure.
 

Fourth, the poverty measure does not vary by geographic location.


That is, the federal poverty measure is the same whether one lives in Louisiana or in the San Francisco Bay Area of California (with Alaska and Hawaii the only exceptions to the rule). However, housing in the most expensive areas of the United States costs nearly four times as much as in the least expensive areas. Using the 2015 Fair Market Rents, the cost of housing (including utilities) at the 40th percentile for a two-bedroom unit in the most expensive place—the San Francisco metropolitan area—is $2,062 per month. This is nearly four times as much as the least expensive housing in the country, found in most counties in Kentucky, where two-bedroom units cost $558 per month. Even within states, costs vary considerably: in Colorado, the cost of a three-bedroom housing rental in Bent County is $801 per month, while in Park County a three-bedroom unit is $2,307 per month.
 

Finally, the poverty measure provides no information or means to track changes in specific costs, nor the impact of subsidies, taxes, and tax credits that reduce (or increase) these costs.


The federal poverty measure does not allow for determining how specific costs (such as housing, child care, etc.) rise or fall over time. Likewise, when assessing the impact of subsidies, taxes, and tax credits, poverty measures cannot trace the impact they have on net costs unless they are explicitly included in the measure itself.

For these and other reasons, many researchers and analysts have proposed revising the federal poverty measure. Suggested changes would reflect twenty-first century needs, incorporate geographically based differences in costs, and respond to changes over time. One such effort is the Supplemental Poverty Measure (SPM). Read more about the SPM and how it differs from the Standard.

http://www.selfsufficiencystandard.org/measuring-poverty







« Last Edit: June 07, 2021, 04:59:26 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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How to Grieve: 5 Myths That Hurt

By Paula Spencer Scott, Caring.com Author

Grief is a natural response to loss, and it can unfold in many ways. Unfortunately, well-intentioned onlookers -- dubbed "grief police" by grief expert Robert Neimeyer, professor of psychology at the University of Memphis -- often say things that mistakenly imply to the bereaved that there's a "right" way to grieve.

Consider these all-too-common grief myths:

Myth #1: It's possible to cry too much.


Everyone grieves differently. There's no single correct way to express the pain, sorrow, yearning, and other aspects of the transition of adjusting to the death of a loved one. Intense responses are sometimes seen as "losing control," when in fact they're simply how that person is actively (and productively) processing the loss.



Myth #2: If you don't cry now, it'll be worse later.


Some people never cry. Tears or outward expressions of anguish simply aren't everyone's grieving style, says psychologist Neimeyer. This doesn't mean they're grieving less intensely than a visibly shaken individual, or that they loved the person who died any less. Nor does a lack of obvious emotion mean the griever has an emotional block or problem or will face a longer, more difficult adjustment to the loss.



Myth #3: Grief is something you "get over."


Most people never stop grieving a death; they learn to live with it. Grief is a response, not a straight line with an endpoint. Many psychologists bristle at words such as "acceptance" or "resolution" or "healed" as a final stage of grief. The real stages of grief involve tasks of processing and adjustment that one returns to all through life.



Myth #4: Time heals slowly but steadily.

Time is the commodity through which a grieving person sorts through the effects and meaning of a loss. But that process isn't a steady fade-out, like a photograph left in the sun. Grief is a chaotic roller coaster -- a mix of ups, downs, steady straight lines, and the occasional slam. Periods of intense sadness and pain can flare and fade for years or decades.



Myth #5: Grieving should end after a set amount of time.

Ignore oft-quoted rules of thumb that purport to predict how long certain types of grief should last. A downside to six-week or eight-week bereavement groups, says Sherry E. Showalter, a psychotherapist specializing in grief and the author of Healing Heartaches: Stories of Loss and Life, is that at the end of the sessions, people mistakenly expect to be "better" (or their friends expect this). "Everyone tells me the same story: 'I failed Grief 101,' because they still feel pain," Showalter says.
Quote
"We grieve for a lifetime, because we're forever working to incorporate the death into our own tapestry of life."
Learning how to grieve is ultimately part instinct, part stumbling along, part slogging along -- a bit like learning how to live.  


https://www.caring.com/articles/how-to-grieve
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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"We grieve for a lifetime, because we're forever working to incorporate the death into our own tapestry of life."
Learning how to grieve is ultimately part instinct, part stumbling along, part slogging along -- a bit like learning how to live.
https://www.caring.com/articles/how-to-grieve


How surprising to read this here. But I am glad I did.
You're full of surprises, AG.

Thanks for sharing this.


You are very welcome, my friend in need and in deed.           

By the way, I got a ride to my pacemaker appointment (which was routine so no worries)  with Vermont SSTA. The donation was just $2. You just have to be over 65 and lacking suitable transportation.

Special Services Transportation Agency. SSTA   http://sstarides.org/]http://sstarides.org/

Yeah, they have volunteers that drive fossil fuel powered vehicles so I guess I'm a hypocrite, at least according to MKing. Mea Culpa. Beggars can't be choosers.  8)
« Last Edit: June 09, 2021, 06:53:41 pm by AGelbert »
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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What Are the Odds That You Exist?  ;D
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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A negative view of Christianity and religion in general

May 03, 2016

SNIPPET:

Quote
Truly, the state of religions today is a sad one and you will not hear me defend it.  Christ warned about that when he said “Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men” (Mat 5:13). 

Yes, sure, the modernists currently control all the holy places (ancient churches and cathedrals), courtesy of secular police forces who are more than happy to evict “non-official” denominations from their places of worship, but this was also predicted by Christ when he spoke of the “abomination of desolation” in the “holy place” (Mat 24:15).  There is probably nothing much we, the simple people, can do about that. 

But what we can do is remember the “real thing” and never allow the modern “verisimilitudinous Christianity” to take its place in our hearts and minds.  Finally, we should always remember the words of Christ who told us that His Church was the “the pillar and ground of the truth” (1 Tim 3:15) and that “the gates of hell shall not prevail against it” (Mat 16:18). 

This means that no matter how ugly and even horrible our situation becomes, God will never let His Church truly disappear from our world.  Somewhere, maybe only in a small corner of our planet, His Church will always survive, faithful to the Church of the Apostles and the Fathers, unchanged by all the persecutions and slow motion descent into apostasy of the rest of the world.  And if somebody really wants to find this Church, he/she will.  This is also a promise Christ made to all of us: “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” (Mat 5:6).

The Saker
http://thesaker.is/a-negative-view-of-christianity-and-religion-in-general/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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RIP Anton Yelchin: ‘Star Trek’ Actor Dead at 27 After Freak Accident 

Yelchin was crushed by his own vehicle

Jun 20, 2016, 1:54 pm EDT  |  By William White, InvestorPlace Writer
 
 
Anton Yelchin, who played Pavel Chekov in the new Star Trek films, died on Saturday in a freak accident.

Anton Yelchin was found by friends pinned between his 2015 Jeep Cherokee and the front gate of his house. His death is being attributed to blunt traumatic asphyxia. He will appear posthumously in Star Trek Beyond, which comes out on July 22.

It’s possible that Anton Yelchin’s death was the result of a recall concerning 2014 and 2015 Jeep Cherokee vehicles. The recall is due to the vehicles not properly letting owners know that it isn’t in park before getting out. The actor’s driveway is steep and it’s believed the Jeep rolled back and crushed him after he got out of it, reports USA Today.
Quote
“Anton, you were brilliant. You were kind. You were funny as hell, and supremely talented. And you weren’t here nearly long enough,”
Star Trek director J.J. Abrams wrote in a letter to Yelchin after learning of his death.

http://investorplace.com/2016/06/anton-yelchin-star-trek/?cc=marketbeat&cp=referral#.V2n3xa32bm4

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Dexter August 2014 - December 2014 R.I.P.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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UN Indigenous Peoples’ Day: Uncontacted Amazon tribe faces annihilation 

 
The Kawahiva's land is being targeted by illegal loggers and cattle ranchers © FUNAI 2013


On UN Indigenous Peoples’ Day, Survival International is calling for the full demarcation and protection of the land of the Kawahiva people, an uncontacted tribe in the Amazon that is at extremely high risk of extinction.

With the eyes of the world on Brazil during the Rio Olympics, campaigners are hoping that more will be done to secure their land for them, and to give them the chance to determine their own futures.

Many powerful people in the region, including José Riva – dubbed “the most corrupt politician in Brazil” – are targeting the tribe’s land. The Indians are acutely vulnerable to the threat of forced contact from these loggers and ranchers.

In April 2016, pressure from Survival International supporters helped push the Brazilian Minister of Justice to sign a decree ordering the full mapping out and protection of the tribe’s land.

But despite this, the Minister’s demand has not been carried out. Until the Brazilian indigenous affairs department enacts the demarcation, the tribe faces annihilation.

First contact has been catastrophic for many Brazilian tribes. Jirusihú, from the Zo’é people in the northern Amazon, who were forcibly contacted by evangelical missionaries in the 1980s, said: “After the outsiders came, Zo’é became sick and some died. Back then… there was diarrhea and there was pain. Fever killed many, many Zo’é.”

 
Brazilian tribes like the Zo'é have suffered terribly since forced contact. © Fiona Watson/Survival


Many tribes have been wiped out as a direct result of land theft and forced contact. Konibu, the last shaman of the Akuntsu people, died in May 2016. He left behind just four members of his tribe.

Uncontacted tribes are the most vulnerable peoples on the planet. Whole populations are being wiped out by genocidal violence from outsiders who steal their land and resources and by diseases like flu and measles to which they have no resistance.

Quote
We know very little about uncontacted tribes, but we do know there are more than a hundred around the world. Brazil is home to more of these peoples than any other country on Earth.

All uncontacted tribal peoples face catastrophe unless their land is protected, but, in areas where their rights are respected, they continue to thrive.

Survival’s Director Stephen Corry said: “It’s time for Brazil finally to end centuries of genocide by respecting the rights of its tribal peoples and protecting their land. Uncontacted tribes are not backward and primitive relics of a remote past. They are our contemporaries and a vitally important part of humankind’s diversity.”

http://www.survivalinternational.org/news/11377

Agelbert NOTE:
For those wishful thinkers who believe the fairy tale that hunter gatherers have a greater chance for survival than the rest of homo sapdom, perhaps you need to wrap your head around the scientific consensus that the biodiversity in the tropics (that all those hunter gatherer tribes living there REQUIRE to survive and thrive) is more degraded by climate change than the biodiversity in any other part of the planet.

Climate Change: Why the Tropical Poor Will Suffer Most
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/538586/climate-change-why-the-tropical-poor-will-suffer-most/


Tropical ecosystems appear to be more sensitive to climate change and less able to store carbon
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/tropics-feel-the-heat-of-climate-change/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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At precisely this time one year ago today, I was under anaesthesia and under the knives of the Pros from Dover.

A year later, not only did this operation not bring any of the benefits it was supposed to, my condition continues to deteriorate.  About the best thing you might say is that it maybe slowed down how fast I am deteriorating, but no way to prove that.

The biggest issue now is my appetite and trying to get nutrition into my body.  First off I have little to no appetite.  I don't feel hungry and nothing appeals to me to eat anymore.  Even my one time favorites like Ribeye Steaks on the BBQ don't appeal to me.  My big problem is food that is visually appealing for me to buy at the grocery store but then I don't get round to eating much of and it spoils and I throw it out.

Then after I do force myself to eat, anything more than a couple of mouthfuls makes me feel nauseous.  Even Beer is making me feel nauseous!  I take some vitamins periodically, but I don't like taking them on an empty stomach so it's a Catch-22 problem.

The poor nutrition is definitely contributing to overall deterioration.  My hair has thinned out a lot over the course of the year.  My skin is getting thinner and more wrinkly.  It's like an ultra-rapid aging process out of a Star Trek episode.

Walking has become harder both because my ankles seem to have lost strength and because my PAD is acting up again.  My calf muscles bother me even when I am just sitting.  If I walk around at all, it has to be REAL SLOW or the calves cramp up.  I don't think it really pays at this point to waste tax payer money on getting another roto-rooter job done on the arteries.

So, all in all, the title of this thread remains correct, I'm definitely dying.  Everybody is of course from the moment you are born you begin the inexorable progress toward death, but in my case now the process has speeded up tremendously.  My birthday is in 3 days on August 31st.  I'll be 59 years old.  My hope is to make it to my 60th birthday.  I doubt I can last much more than that.

RE


Take care, my friend. I am a decade older than you and am experiencing the gradual deterioration of my body. Some time during the last two years, the muscle tone on my arms and legs changed. I got up one day and noticed my legs and arms looked like 'old people's parts'. They sort of hang on the bone instead preserving equal distance of the fascia from the bone structure on all sides, if you know what I mean. So it goes.

Here's an ultra HD video sampler to brighten your day.   

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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I just wish to take a moment to thank everyone who read my posts.

I won't be posting for a while. I feel very weak and am losing weight. I have never experienced such a low energy level in my life.

I hope to be back soon.
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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I just wish to take a moment to thank everyone who read my posts.

I won't be posting for a while. I feel very weak and am losing weight. I have never experienced such a low energy level in my life.

I hope to be back soon.

I know the feeling.

Take two aspirin and a glass of orange juice and call me in the morning.

If that doesn't work try half a gram of Colombian Flake and a glass of Glenlivet single malt and call me immediately.
Hope you feel better soon.

RE
Hang in there AG. Hope it's better soon.
All the best hope you get better soon.

Thanks all for the encouragement. 

I wish I did have some grass to smoke. No such luck.

We'll see. But I know my body. Something is not right.  I really don't want to know if it is something serous or not. I don't like to go to doctors unless I have no other recourse.

I have a pacemaker check coming up in October. If the old ticker (my heart, not the pacemaker) is going, they will probably give me a heads up. We'll see.

In the greater scheme of things, it doesn't really matter that much anyway. We do what we can. If it's not enough, so be it.

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Human Life is Fragile but EVERY Life is Valuable
« Reply #102 on: September 27, 2016, 10:06:56 pm »
Finding The Famous Painting of the Blue People of Kentucky
 
Posted September 22, 2016 by Ricki Lewis, PhD in Uncategorized
 

SNIPPET:

     
Most stories about the blue people of Kentucky include an eerie, compelling drawing of a family, with the stark faces of 5 of the 9 members a striking bluish-gray, due to an inherited disease. Most stories also borrow heavily from a terrific article by Cathy Frost from Science 82, a long-gone magazine that I quite liked. Frost’s piece, “The Blue People of Troublesome Creek,” is usually credited, but the painting not, or misattributed to ABC News, various newspapers, or simply deemed “unknown.”

The artist, Walt Spitzmiller (photo at article link)

The artist Walt Spitzmiller in fact painted the portrait of the Fugate family (see Walt Spitzmiller Fine Art). A Science 82 editor asked him in 1982 to draw a family, who lived in rural Kentucky, in which the father and some of the children had blue skin. “That’s all I knew about it. I did research on the period they talked about and took old photos and put them together. I added the hunting dog in the lower right, the rooster, that type of thing to add authenticity,” Walt told me.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE FUGATES

 The blue people of Troublesome Creek had methemoglobinemia, a metabolic condition affecting hemoglobin, the four-part protein that carries oxygen bound to an iron atom at each subunit’s core. Like my recent post about the deaf community on Martha’s Vineyard, it is a tale of an autosomal recessive disease that has dissipated over time as the descendants of the original carrier couple left home. The community in Chilmark so embraced the hearing impaired among them that everyone used their own local form of sign language. The Kentucky families did not experience such acceptance, according to the sparse literature on them. Their blue hue was a genetic badge of inbreeding.

I’ve written about the blue people in nearly every edition of my human genetics textbook. Because part of the blue people tale is about plagiarizing, I’ll plagiarize myself:  ;D

“A rare but very noticeable condition of abnormal hemoglobin affects the “blue people of Troublesome Creek”. Seven generations ago, in 1820, a French orphan named Martin Fugate who settled in this area of Kentucky brought in an autosomal recessive gene that causes methemoglobinemia. Martin’s mutation was in the CYP5R3 gene, which encodes an enzyme (cytochrome b5 methemoglobin reductase) that normally catalyzes a reaction that converts a type of hemoglobin with poor oxygen affinity, methemoglobin, back into normal hemoglobin by adding an electron. Martin was a heterozygote but still slightly bluish. His wife, Elizabeth Smith, was also a carrier for this very rare disease, and four of their seven children were blue. After extensive inbreeding in the isolated community—their son married his aunt, for example—a large pedigree of “blue people” of both sexes arose.

 
Hemoglobin

In “blue person disease,” excess oxygen-poor hemoglobin causes a dark blue complexion. Carriers may have bluish lips and fingernails at birth, which usually lighten. Treatment is simple: A tablet of methylene blue, a commonly used dye adds the electron back to methemoglobin, converting it to normal hemoglobin. In most members of the Fugate family, blueness was the only symptom. Normally, less than 1 percent of hemoglobin molecules are the methemoglobin form, which binds less oxygen. The Fugates had 10 to 20 percent in this form. People with the inherited condition who have more than 20 percent methemoglobin may suffer seizures, heart failure, and even death.”

Once young people began leaving the hollows of Kentucky, disease incidence there plummeted. Methemoglobinemia is also seen in Alaska and Algeria, and among Navajo Indians.

 
The Blue People of Kentucky In an unusual story that involves both genetics and geography, an entire family from isolated Appalachia was tinged blue.

TRACKING DOWN THE PORTRAIT



http://blogs.plos.org/dnascience/2016/09/22/finding-the-famous-painting-of-the-blue-people-of-kentucky/

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Human Life is Fragile but EVERY Life is Valuable
« Reply #103 on: October 04, 2016, 01:40:03 pm »
More CHS.

 When Did Our Elites Become Self-Serving Parasites?

http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com/2016/10/when-did-our-elites-become-self-serving.html

They have ALWAYS been PARASITES.

"Elites" & "Parasites" are synonymous terms.

All rich people are parasites.  That is how you become rich, by sieving wealth from the poor or raping the resources of the earth, or both.  The richer you are, the more of a parasite you are.

RE


I just want to take a moment to say how much I admire you for your efforts on behalf of LD and family. God is with you. 

He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

AGelbert

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Re: Human Life is Fragile but EVERY Life is Valuable
« Reply #104 on: October 08, 2016, 12:13:12 pm »
The Battle is not ovah yet with Social Security.

There are some laws on the books which are designed to prevent "double dipping", in this case getting BOTH a Workman's Compensation settlement AND collecting SSDI.  So if you get a WC settlement, you're supposed to inform SS of this so they can determine if you should still get your full "entitlement".

So, in August I received a mail from SS asking me if my WC case was resolved and how much I got, and what my monthly check from them is so they can "offset" this amount.  My case was resolved by this time, so I set them the full Compromise & Release (11 pages), signed by all parties involved.  Because of this "offset" rule, I receive nothing monthly from WC.  I just got a one time payment for the injury and the medical bills.  According to my lawyer, my SS is not supposed to be affected here by this.

So, OKAY, I send them the C&R via Priority Mail via the USPS PRIORITY MAIL in August.  In September, I get my usual mail box money so I figure all is now copacetic.  Nope.  Upon checking my mailbox on returning from the SUNvocation, I got a NEW mail from SS, telling me they have not received anything from me and will reduce my Mailbox Money by the MAXIMUM allowed if I do not get back to them inside 30 days with proof I am not collecting more mailbox money from WC.

So now RE goes into OVERDRIVE last night.  I reproduce not 1 but 4 copies of the C&R, and this time I send them not only Priority Mail, but Registered and Return Receipt too!  I sent the fu cking thing to the address on the letter, the local SS office in Alaska, Senator Lisa Murkowski's office AND I got on the phone and after around 3 hours managed to get through to SS and got a FAX number in Alaska to fax this document to also!  I spent around $60 to send out all these mails and do the faxing!  ::)  I got all the receipts including the original one I sent out last August.

The thing here is it is about impossible to get anything going with SS or any Goobermint office via email, they simply do not provide email addys. "My Social Security". the website they provide has a message system, but it is one-way.  They can send YOU a message, but you cannot message THEM.  Youhave exactly two ways to contact these folks. On the phone, and you need to try this several times to get through, and after you do, it is just some call center guy who knows nothing other than what he can bring up on his computer screen.  Otherwise, you need to use Snail Mail, and you never know if what you sent actually made it to somebody's desk who knows what is going on.  You can wait weeks for a response, if in fact you ever get one.

Besides this s h i t, after returning from the SUNvocation, I finally went to my Pro From Dover regarding the increasing problems with my legs, which got really bad during the trip.  Apparently they are WORSE than when I got them roto-rootered last time around 6 years ago,  and now I am referred to a Vascular Surgeon.  Appointment for this one is Oct 18th, and I suspect I will go under the knife again in Nov or Dec.

Perhaps this will keep me going a few more years.  ::)

RE


I admire your tenacity in the face of adversity. 
He that loveth father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and he that loveth son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Matt 10:37

 

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