Science Facts and Reality the Bedrock of Good Governance

I can't stress how important facts are - facts derived from vigorous research, and the ability to replicate that research. People can believe what they want to "believe" but the natural world works on science and if we don't understand it we can not adapt or make rational decisions. Too often our policy makers legislate ideology disregarding practical reality. Abortion is a prime example. Make abortions illegal all you want but people will still need them for a myriad of reasons. Abortions aren't going away no matter how hard we wish them to so we need to legislate that if education is still not enough then safe medical care is not outlawed.

The environment is another area where science has to be the go to metric. Sea levels are rising and pollution is bad for our health. Once we get beyond the climate cover up by the polluting industries we can address and implement the changes necessary to preserve our billion dollar coastal economies. People come to the shore because the air is clean and you can swim in the water. If you change that our economy declines. Implementing a carbon tax will preserve and create jobs. Promoting roof top solar will create a multi generational boom in job creation. Moving away from a profit driven healthcare system will lower health care costs and increase productivity.

These are well established facts but money in politics has crippled our ability to govern practically for the macro-economy (another well established fact). We need true patriots willing to be brave and stand up and do the morally correct thing for the Country.

Paul Burke

Sarcoma Recovery Addendum – The Hawks!

So lets talk about the seen and unseen reality for just a moment.  We know that our visual eyes take in a very narrow spectrum of light and we know this Earth and planet got here somehow not of our own doing so obviously there are unseen forces at work in this world.  And I’m here to testify that with a little intuition and a mind open to such possibilities the magic will be recognized by ourselves as the observers with the magic manifesting into the seen world with greater and greater frequency until its a daily occurrence and your consciousness is raised and your journey through life that much more fulfilling.  In other words there is no such thing as a coincidence.  In light of that unseen world manifesting itself into the seen reality the infinite and finite commingle on this plane we call Earth.  How could it not be the Earth is here and so are we and we are not responsible consciously for either event.

Oddly enough in keeping with these manifestations I was escorted through my entire stay in the hospital by these magnificent creatures and symbols of Native American spirituality.  The attached photos are of the actual hawks that perched outside my window for my entire stay.  The photos don’t do them justice they were within six feet of our window perched atop a huge pine tree. Two at a time in some instance it was like being in an aviary.  Their flights and landings were frequent swoops by my window at first amazing and then common place.  They sometimes sat two on that branch and bobbed up and down in the wind and under their own weight.  I told my wife I was being watched like a hawk.  One nurse said she had been working at Duke twelve years and never saw anything like it and another said he had never seen wildlife like that at all.  Others shrieked as they would swoop into the window talons first only to thud loudly and fly off.  Each morning they arrived and circled, stayed for a very long time and moved off briefly and then returning again flying off and then returning in the afternoon for more flight and curiosity.  My wife sat in a recliner in front of the window reading her magazine keeping me the patient company and a hawk would be perched over head as if sitting on top of her.  And then on discharge day they were gone.

No matter what you are going through have faith there is more to life than meets the eye but then again if you are open to it – it is all right there to see – rejoice!

When we went back several weeks later to have the stitches removed there was a hawk (one of these guys) sitting right outside our hotel window……flapped its wings over my wife’s head to get her attention as she stood right underneath its tree.  Phenomenal!

Sarcoma Help – A Primer for Patients, Friends and Family

Chances are if you are here you have received the news that you have Sarcoma.  Right off the bat you need to know what it is and below are several links that are very informative.  I’m posting them right up front because most people here looking at this post are scared to death and need the info right away.  After you have checked out the links come back because what follows is an open, honest journey of one mans experience with liposarcoma.

Cancer is a scary word but it is just a word.  There are over fifty varieties of sarcoma some are down right nasty others like liposarcoma have a low rate of recurrence if properly removed by a sarcoma specialist.  Your local general surgeon does not have the experience in treating the disease.  Getting to a sarcoma center is imperative in lowering your risk for recurrence.

You should know Sarcoma doesn’t act like a typical carcinoma and if you are looking for a little good news chemotherapy is useless in treating Sarcoma.  Sarcoma is treated with surgery to cut the bad cells out.  Cancer/Sarcoma are just cells that have been infected by viruses or chemical exposure to the point where their basic normal function is damaged and they do not know how to shut themselves off.  We have millions of cells dying off and recreating in our body every day from hair growth to bone regeneration our cells are constantly dying off and regenerating.  When they can’t go through their normal life-cycle and die off its up to modern medicine to intervene and surgically remove them and or kill them off with radiation or dose them with chemotherapy.  These are all harsh treatments but undying cells creating massive tumors interfering with your bodies normal functioning organs by their invasion or malignancy is worse.

That’s is all a tumor is that’s why if you catch the disease early enough you can scoop the offending cells out before they spread and do serious damage to your lungs, liver, pancreas, kidney or brain.

Here are the links – get up to speed – if you want to fell better read them – they’ll answer a lot of questions for you – knowledge is power.  And then come back and read my daily journal it will help in knowing what you or a loved one is about to confront.  The journal will be posted sequentially on the front page and under the heading Sarcoma.  Good luck!  With the proper care cancer is not what it used to be ( a death sentence) most cancers these days are highly curative.  There are a lot of people doing a lot of good work in this field.  There is even a dye in clinical trials that will illuminate the cancerous cells for the doctors to see.  Its only in phase one of it’s clinical trials but it would be a game changer if proven affective.

Paul
http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/soft-tissue-sarcoma/DS00601
http://sarcomaalliance.org/sarcoma-centers/