Read This First, Heuristics (1), Glossary (A-H), Mini Lessons (2) INDEX
1. I’ll Wait for the Movie, 1.1. Flowing Borders 1.2 Firm Air, 1.3. Climate Caravan, Crime and Myth, 1.4. Climate Migration Politics, 1.5. Medical Screening, 1.6. Extinction for Profit, 1.7, The Biodiversity is Falling, 2. Unhealthy MDs, 2.1. Necroleans 3. Evolution of Meaning, 4. Symbol Shape Shifting, 5. Halloween Quiz, 6. Bio+Cyber, 6.1. Remembering Lessons Learned, 6.2. Sharing What was Learned, 6.3. Dormancy ≠ It’s Ended, 6.4. Education Warfare, <ADDED >1. Parademic and Gender, >2. The Air of Success, >3. Florida Political Tides, >4. Swine Crime, >5. Coping Fatigue, >6. Politics of Mortality, >7. Asbestos Denial, >8. DRC Ebola 2018, >9. Malnarration, 181104-VCP.
Other Topics: BioTrumpism, BioPolitics, Vaccine, Biosphere, Disaster, Humor, Climate Change, Anthropocene, Anthropogenic, Communication, One Health, Environmental Change, Human Factors, AAPS, Climate Forced Migration, History of Medical Progress, Hysteria and/or Complacency, Lucien Canton, Gaslightings, Rules for Use of Force (RUF), Anti Foreign, Attitude of Social Environment, Zinke, Silent Killers, Alarmism
-0. Though the idea was sound this will the last use of INDEX. Is too time consuming to maintain and no idea if the topics chosen will be of interest. Undoubtedly will still get the occasional request for information to send what is in the database on a topic. Possibly will put those if they are short in INDEX, but mostly will maintain as a separate list.
-1. Ignoring Climate Change Is Only Human$. Scientists haven’t had much luck convincing us of the impending disaster. Maybe it’s time the artists and philosophers gave it a shot. We’re in a very weird place. Despite all the evidence that we’re on a fast trajectory for climate disaster, it’s still as if most of us don’t really believe it. Of course, there are plenty of nefarious forces – the fossil fuel industry, most obviously – working to sow confusion and doubt. But perhaps we also lack the imaginative capacity to face reality. That idea is increasingly being explored, not by scientists, but by novelists and philosophers. <ADDED 181014-180930-3A>2‡. Pay No Attention to That Man Behind the Curtain [Cartoon, Meme, Cartoon]. How to Shift Public Attitudes and Win the Global Climate Battle, meaning the physical fact of environmental change due to changes in gas ratios of the atmosphere, not winning the political debate that there is no global climate change. Most Americans Don’t Know Vast Majority of Scientists Agree on Climate Change.
-1.1. Climate Change Is Redrawing Maps. Climate change is reshaping aspects of our environment that many of us thought were static – from where deserts begin and end, to what we can grow in backyard or community gardens. Redrawing the Map: How the World’s Climate Zones Are Shifting. New Online Tool Tracks Impacts of Climate Change by County, Website. | Not everyone is redrawing maps or mental templates, Trump's EPA May Have Shut down its Climate Change Website for Good -2- -3-. FEMA Flood Maps Ignore Climate Change, and Homeowners Are Paying the Price, though this trend accelerated under biotrumpism, FEMA has had a tendency to disaster plan based on political/ economic considerations for Years, Climate Change Impacts Absent from FEMA's Tedrawn NYC Flood Maps 2013.
-1.2. Again let’s not paralyze decisions and action by arguing if climate change is caused by humans* -2-, or that it is a Chinese hoax, but look to solve the contributing problems that can be, mitigated, contained and controlled. Air pollution is quantifiable, clearly linked to its causes, has a wicked problem of being associated with economic growth, and the consequences are medically documented world wide. In China’s Industrial Centers, Lung Disease and Hard Choices. There’s a heavy toll of air pollution on Chinese citizens, the country’s leadership struggles to balance growth and public health. *Even if humans do not cause climate change, they do make it worse, Venice Is Flooding Because of Climate Change, but Corruption Is Keeping it under Water, US Prising Climate, Development Apart in IPCC Talks. Survey on Harvey’s Health Impacts Nearing Deadline. Be Afraid – 11 Scary Facts, Stats and Lies about Our Planet this Halloween.
-1.3. What is more problematic is linking human behavior -2,-2A↓, the parademic, to a biocalamity The Unseen Driver Behind the Migrant Caravan: Climate Change. While violence and poverty have been cited as the reasons for the exodus, experts say the big picture is that changing climate is forcing farmers off their land – and it’s likely to get worse. Not just more forced migration due to environmental change, but the responses to it. Most members of the migrant caravans come from Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador – three countries devastated by violence, organised crime and systemic corruption, the roots of which can be traced back to the region’s cold war conflicts. Alongside those factors, climate change in the region is exacerbating – and sometimes causing – a miasma -3↓ of other problems including crop failures and poverty. In the coming decades, it is likely to push millions more people north towards the US, while the focus on violence is eclipsing the big picture, people are saying they are moving because of some version of food insecurity, they don’t have anything to eat. This has a strong link to climate change – we are seeing tremendous climate instability that is radically changing food security in the region. It didn’t rain this year, nor last year it didn’t rain, there was no harvest. Many farmers or agricultural workers take to the road when coffee growing is no longer profitable, it’s been seven years since there was a decent price. “I didn’t leave my country because I wanted to. I left because I had to”. A third of all employment in Central America is linked to agriculture, so any disruption to farming practices can have devastating consequences, (the connection of economics and parademic). Since 2012, coffee plants across Central America have been ravaged by an epidemic called leaf rust. Normally, the fungus dies when temperatures drop in the evening but warmer nights are allowing it to thrive. People, largely because they weren’t able to pay their debts, to get money for food, started to migrate. Before the coffee leaf rust hit, people didn’t migrate, now it’s normal. People move for a tangle of different reasons, and climate change’s influence is often far reaching and yet hard to measure, but it’s estimated that warming temperatures and extreme weather will force an estimated 3.9 million climate migrants to flee Central America over the next 30 years. Another estimated 150 million to 300 million climate refugees set to be displaced worldwide by 2050. However, if your farm has been dried to a crisp or your home has been inundated with water and you’re fleeing for your life, you’re not much different from any other refugee, but the problem is that other refugees fleeing war qualify for that status, you don’t. The Ugly Climate Truth Behind the Migrant Caravan, The Climate Implications of the Migrant Caravan, #Document Food Security and Emigration: Why People Flee and the Impact on Family Members Left Behind in El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras. Leaving the Country to Seek Asylum Is Often the Only Option for Survival.
-1.3A. Profit and personal gain is another hidden driver, but one that encourages ignoring and denying environmental change. Say What? Ryan Zinke’s Rough Interior Video. Ryan Zinke is in trouble. Allegations of private gain from his position as Secretary of the Interior have led to investigations and concern about potential conflicts of interest. But to many observers of government policy since Donald Trump’s inauguration, Zinke’s most scandalous decisions are those transforming public lands at the expense of the environment and respect for scientific expertise. By expanding offshore drilling and shrinking national monuments, scrubbing “climate change” from government documents and improperly reassigning senior officials, Trump and Zinke routinely challenge what it means to act as steward of the nation’s public lands. Interior Watchdog Referred Zinke Probe to Justice Days Before Move to Replace Agency IG, DOJ Investigating Interior Chief Ryan Zinke. Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke Might Face a Criminal Investigation. Trump Admin Promises to Encourage Tree Burning for Energy. Ryan Zinke, Trump’s Interior Secretary, Faces Increased Ethics Scrutiny. Zinke Could Face Months Long Justice Investigation. Ryan Zinke’s Great American Fire Sale. Zinke’s Heir Apparent Ready to Step in. White House Concerned Ryan Zinke Made Land Deal Without Giving Cut To Trump. The above is what was collected this week, there are many other items that were collected but not included in PDWN in previous weeks.
-1.3B. The obvious driver remains Why Are People Fleeing Central America. A New Breed of Gangs Is Taking Over stealing from their own people. This criminal behavior may also in part have a hidden driver of migration away from environmental change and a parademic crime response to the same environmental conditions. A glance through criminal acts during the Irish potato famine – Transportation Convictions During the Great Irish Famine, The Famine Irish in the United States Committed a Lot of Crime – indicates that this likewise was an analogue to the present day forced migration from Central America, that there was more than British genocide, Polemic Without Plausibility. Exploitation is typical of biocalamities. Perhaps a mythology developed about the extortion of the notorious landlords, and exploitation of fellow countrymen were given a spin to support that narrative, Was the Irish Famine Genocide, one that the Irish themselves are starting to reexamine, Australian MP Calls out Irish for Role in Atrocities Against Aboriginal People. It actually could not be difficult to argue that there is a similar mythologizing by nativists and other exploiters about their criminal acts in the US today.
-1.4. The president of the US is using migrant caravans as a political wedge issue as a way to get elected -2-: Trump: Migrant Caravan Is an Invasion. How Trump Fed Conspiracies About Migrant Caravan Intersect With Deadly Hatred, Migrant Caravans Won’t Bring Disease – Anti-Vaxxers Will 181104-VCP-USA-Applicable from PDWN, Trump’s Hype on Migrants, Illegal Immigration -2-$ -3- -4- -5-, 8 Lessons from Psychology That Explain Trump’s Caravan Fearmongering [Meme] <ADDED 181111>. No, the Caravan's Migrants Don't Have Leprosy or Smallpox, Fox News Commentator Says Migrants Are Carrying Smallpox, a Disease Eradicated in 1980 -2-, There Is Literally No Chance Migrants Are Bringing Smallpox to the US. Trump Eyeing Executive Order to End Citizenship for Children Born in U.S. to Noncitizens, Trump Suggests He Will End Birthright Citizenship with Executive Order, apparently unaware of the US Constitution -2- [Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon], Trump Claims He Can Overrule Constitution with Executive Order Because of Little Known ‘No One Will Stop Me’ Loophole. Mike Pence Claims He's Learned Migrant Caravan Funded by Outside Groups, Here's Why Trump's Crackdown on Illegal Immigration Protects All Americans. Trump Administration Proposal Takes Aim at Legal Immigrants Receiving Health Care, Other Aid from Government, 181028-2* -3‡, 181021-1 and nearly every week back to 170220-5.6T. The Irish Potato Famine, forced migration and the populists anti Irish Nativists in the US is a historical analogy, Gone to America, as well as the US dust bowl and the hate those migrants experienced <ADDED 181021-181014-3>2. INDEX Migrants as contamination. [Cartoon, Tweet -2-, Cartoon]. Note that as biotrumpism is inciting moral panic, that counter narratives are likewise examples of moral panic – based on sharpening opposing values from the same large value system – being used against biotrumpism [Cartoon]. | Parademic doesn’t need an actual bioagent to manifest, the belief that there is some infectious contagion is all that is needed, just as not believing there is a threat to live is sufficient to have people continue to behave in risky ways. However; there are times when the forced migrants could be carrying disease, Fleeing the Plague*, but the parademic behaviors were analogous: The Portrait of The ‘Scapegoat Woman’ As Witch, Finding a Scapegoat When Epidemics Strike, Chinese as Medical Scapegoats, 1870-1905, Pandemics: Waves of Disease, Waves of Hate from the Plague* of Athens to A.I.D.S., How Fear of Contagious Diseases Fuels Xenophobia, #Book Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Plague* to Avian Flu [Cover] society’s epidemic narrative reflects its own anxieties and dreads – not necessarily real harm or ensuing suffering, Another Reminder That There Is No Autism Epidemic. Saviors of the White Race: Perpetrators of Hate Crimes See Themselves as Heroes. Caravan Artist Tattoos Loved Ones’ Names for Fellow Migrants***. | The Caravan “Invasion” and America’s Epistemic Crisis, the far right’s xenophobic fantasies now involve the actual US military 181104-VCP-USA. Fantasy should not be dismissed because it is not real. What is imagined has an unfortunate way of becoming true, though like wishes they may not be what one wanted [Cartoon]. “US troops should treat rocks as rifles” -2-, Soldiers on Border Could Face Decisions on Use of Force. U.S. Military Civil Disturbance Standing Rules for the Use of Force (SRUF), ROE v. RUF**. Trump Walks Back Earlier Remarks, Says Migrants Won't Be Fired upon at Border. SNL’s Fox News Parody Cold Open Isn’t Far off the Real Thing. ¶ *Plague also applies to vampires -2- as a disease metaphor, appear like rats or bats [Photo, Photo], and typically are from a foreign place, like China, Eastern Europe, Paris, San Francisco. Vampires and Rabies: What's the Link. Consumption and Vampires: Metaphor and Myth Before Science. Quentin Massys – The Ugly Duchess [Photo].
-**. I used to teach a RUF class for an Interagency (military and civilian agencies) medical course. It was frankly a rough class to teach as one of the learning objectives was for civil agencies to understand the risks (to include the optics of having armed military personnel) when requesting military support to provide security for medical personnel, supplies, transportation and facilities, while also obeying the law -2- -3- -4-. Humor was not an option to lighten the topic, and in any case I did not want to make the topic more palatable. It’s a tough decision to make and balancing that sometimes there was no alternative to armed security. If one makes the decision to have military armed security it should not be done with the belief that military provided security will deter attacks, crime, assault, theft, kidnapping, insuring access to medical care and humanitarian aid. The decision has to be made with the certain knowledge that the situation is Hostile -170730-11>11, Army Assessment of Migrant Caravans Undermines Trump’s Rhetoric, to the point that the humanitarian and/or aid operation cannot be successful unless there is armed security that will respond, that Hostile acts will escalate in severity, and withdrawal is not an option. Losing face is not a valid reason to stay in a hostile situation; peopled dying die, control and containment will fail, and the pathogen will continue to spread is a valid reason, though evacuation of is another option but that is an even more difficult RUF decision. Once the possibility of RUF is introduced it must be understood the Hostile situation immediately transitions to the more dangerous Uncertain Troop Deployment Creates Tense Atmosphere on US Border, with the worst case that physical attacks may continue to escalate, and that people will be hurt and killed, either from active measures of being shot, or passive measures such as losing an eye from falling into concertina wire -2-. Never make the decision to have RUF with the hope it will not happen, or that a security force will accept that it cannot protect itself and what it is responsible for. RUF only limits the level and geographic area of violence of the security force, it doesn’t prevent violence. | It is not the Military RUF I am concerned about, but what could happen because they are there. Some may feel that the caravan should be protected -2-, others will feel that the military needs help or that they now have permission to take matters in their own hands, and still others may see a volatile situation that can be exploited to cause an incident. If there possibilities converge there could be a serious everyone loses incident. 5 Questions about Rocks and Guns. The Pentagon Reportedly Rejected Trump’s Request to Give Troops Extra Power at the Border. Equating Rocks with Rifles, Trump Proposes Radical New Rules of Engagement for Troops along Border. Nigeria's Army Uses Trump's Words to Justify Shooting Protesters, The Nigerian Army Is Using the Clip of Trump Saying Troops Will Shoot Migrants Who Throw Rocks to Defend Killing Protesters. Trump Back Pedals on Migrants: Tells Troops to Arrest, Not Shoot, still wrong, they cannot arrest people either, they are not law enforcement. [Photo].
-***. Tattoos can be for: memorials of people or events [Tattoo], magical protection, practical identification of family or group, and personal identity. In other words another artistic expression of parademic and grief.
-1.5. One of the unintended consequences of the anti immigration policy is that the US continues to be unprepared to do Medical Screening of U.S. Bound Refugees. Among other issues the situation as it now stands actually has the opposite than intended effect. Instead of keeping out contamination and infectious disease there are now more vulnerabilities to biodefense where a pathogen can now slip though. Not only slip through but remain hidden until a large group is infected, and they are likely to be scattered widely, infecting more. It is already difficult to do contact tracing, it will be even more so when people are intentionally hiding and likely have a support network for transport, evasion and shelter, and as a form of civil disobedience/ unrest it’s unlikely this underground will trust public health officials. Newly Arrived Immigrants & Refugees. Systematic Health Screening of Refugees after Resettlement in Recipient Countries: a Scoping Review. In fact the US in some places probably can’t do domestic medical screening and provide treatment due to lack of personnel and that some are “foreign”, Black Doctor Who Tried to Help Sick Passenger Claims Flight Attendants Didn't Trust Her Credentials. Farrakhan Links Reparations for Blacks to Climate Change.
-1.6. Along with Scientists Just Laid Out Paths to Solve Climate Change. We Aren’t on Track to Do Any of Them, another story that is likely to be ignored because it is too overwhelming a problems or too unbelievable, is Humanity Has Wiped out 60% of Animal Populations since 1970, Report Finds. The huge loss is a tragedy in itself but also threatens the survival of civilisation, say the world’s leading scientists. Wait, Have We Really Wiped out 60 Percent of Animals. The findings of a major new report have been widely mischaracterized – although the actual news is still grim, INDEX Science Journalism. Two Generations of Humans Have Killed off More than Half the World’s Wildlife Populations$. ¶2 China Relaxes Decades Old Ban on Sale of Rhino, Tiger Parts, not that the law was being effectively enforced anyway China Is Decimating Southeast Asian Wildlife, China’s Wealthy Are Banking on Extinction. With the US rolling back its own endangered species regulations, Some Businesses Want to Change the Law That Saved Grizzly Bears and Gray Wolves -2-, there is unlikely to be any international leverage to the Chinese action, especially with lost of any incentives and the other unintended consequences of the trade war. Yangtze Dams Put Endangered Sturgeon's Future in Doubt. ¶3 Protect the Last of the Wild. A century ago, only 15% of Earth’s surface was used to grow crops and raise livestock. Today, more than 77% of land (excluding Antarctica) and 87% of the ocean has been modified by the direct effects of human activities. Between 1993 and 2009, an area of terrestrial wilderness larger than India – 3.3 million square kilometres – was lost to human settlement, farming, mining and other pressures. In the ocean, areas that are free of industrial fishing, pollution and shipping are almost completely confined to the polar regions.
-1.7. Stop Biodiversity Loss or We Could Face Our Own Extinction, the world has two years to secure a deal for nature to halt a ‘silent killer’ as dangerous as climate change. This is both poor INDEX Science Journalism and alarmism. The implication of only having two years before the acceleration curve reached the tipping point collapses. In some regions that has already happened, globally we are not there yet. Two years actually meant till the signing of an International agreement. Silent killer is accurate if the meaning is the same as parademic’s “hidden while it spreads, long duration before noticed”. Silent killer is also apt as famine and mass migration are among the first major indicators something bad is happening, but implies a quick death. Dying from the combination of dehydration, malnutrition, unclean water, starvation are all very slow, and mass casualties from these slow bioevents are spread over large geographic areas over large spans of time. Last; the lost of biodiversity is a mass extinction, but its danger is not the mortality, it is the loss of a wide range of adaptive alternatives means to recover from a mass extinction that is the problem. Humans are especially vulnerable by being the single remaining species of homo. It has a too large population that is spread worldwide, but it is not genetically very diverse (despite what racists believe). Many populations of non homo species are more genetically diverse, but lack the population size and are isolated from other members of its species and to ecological niches, with limited geographic ranges that hinder the ability to both survive a bioevent and then recover from mass casualty, Many are endangered, lacking the numbers are able or willing to reproduce a sustainable next generation.
-‡. Extinction Is a Natural Process, but It’s Happening at 1,000 Times the Normal Speed. Could Biodiversity Destruction Lead to a Global Tipping Point. Alien Apocalypse: Can Any Civilization Make it Through Climate Change. Biodiversity Is in Free Fall. Here’s How We Can Fix It. the World's Biodiversity Has Decreased below 'Safe' Levels. Loss of Biodiversity and Extinctions. The Rise and Fall of Biodiversity, and why has interest in it been declining since 2003. [Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon]. [Cover] Schwarzenegger to CNN's Axelrod: Environmentalists Doing a Terrible Job Selling Climate Change Concerns* -2- -3- -4- -5-, -6- -7- -8-. Environmentalists are not making the argument on the dangers of climate change in a way that resonates with the American people. Environmentalists have done a terrible job in selling this. The more they talk about global climate change, which no one understands what that is, they talk about what’s going to happen 20 years from now, and the sea level rising and the polar bear and all of these kind of things. No one cares about that when you want to have a job and you want to bring food on the table today. What people care about is if you say, This is going to cause cancer. This is going to make your child have asthma early on. To disagree there are examples of excellent communication In Conversation Series, Atmospheric Scientist Talks Climate Change and its Impact on Dallas-Fort Worth, Climate Models Video. Additionally rather than alarmism and outrage that are considered the mark of good communication and persuasive language, the tendency in Climate Change Prediction (is): Erring on the Side of Least Drama (ESLD), Climate Scientists Erring on the Side of Least Drama.
-*. The concept of The Silent Killers of Strategy Implementation and Learning, -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- -7-, is pertinent here: • Top down or laissez faire senior management style, possibly more familiar with micromangement or ignoring/ denial of issues. Especially a problem when both are concurrent within the same leadership. • Unclear strategy and conflicting priorities. • An ineffective senior management team, which frequently corresponds with the Dunning-Kruger effect that they don’t believe they are ineffective and can provide proof they are effective. There is also a tendency to recruit and promote equally ineffective people it terms of not questioning the senior’s narrative, demonstration accomplishment of goals even if not exactly true, and in general enabling a failing system. • Poor vertical communication, and horizontal, diagonal and bottom up communication. This is currently called an echo chamber currently. • Poor coordination across functions, businesses or borders. Not just poor, but non existent and antagonistic, with avoidance of any hint of agreement on any issue and finding common ground to deal with common problems. • Inadequate down the line leadership skills and development, that is planning and preparing for the future because it is not necessary, that there will be no changes to how things are perceived to be now, in other words magical thinking. One may have noticed this describes biotrumpism, the difference being that its implementation failures still will silently kill, and its existence hinder the implementation of effective strategies to counteract silent killers.
-2. US: Creating Health Scares about Immigrants. Association of American Physicians and Surgeons -2- -3- -4- -5-, 170220-8.7T – Public health threats from uncontrolled migration: The American medical system is already overstressed with the problems of an aging population. How will it cope with epidemics of imported infectious diseases, some unfamiliar to American physicians, and some incurable. ... It's very discouraging that people with "MD" after their names are issuing such idle threats, which can only aggravate the grim political and medical situations in the US. -1.3↑. INDEX Migrants as contamination.
-A. This is not just a fringe, possibly quack, medical group espousing a heinous political narrative [Tweet]. This is a social contagion with real world consequences, The Conspiracy Theory That Led to the Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooting, xenophobic panic over the migrant caravan found a target: Jews who helped resettle refugees (forced migrants) 181104-VCP-Israel, Trump Slams Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy for Not Doing More to Prevent Synagogue Shooting; The Centuries Old History of Jewish “Puppet Master” Conspiracy Theories, Viral Meme Misidentifies Nazi Guard as Soros, one of a number of attacks -2- -3- -4-$. Research Sheds Light on Conspiracy Theory Elements. Uh Oh: You’ve Caught a Case of Xenophobia, Social Contagion Makes it Easy to Spread Fear and Hate. Here’s How to Spread Their Opposite, Trumping Fears of the Other: Media and the Politics of Contagion, Epidemics, Xenophobia and the “Other” Fear Factor. ) INDEX Migrants as contamination. | As has been the pattern with biotrumpism there is concurrent gaslighting -2-, Kellyanne Conway Blamed Synagogue Shootings on “Anti-Religiosity”: not to mention inventing new words, spellings and meaning [Cartoon, Cover]. Trump’s Potent Toxicity, Days after Synagogue Massacre, Online Hate Is Thriving. Trump's Visit to Pittsburgh's Tree of Life Synagogue Shows He Is Dedicated to Fighting Anti Semitism, thirty three percent of the people in this country believe the fake news is in fact – and I hate to say this –the enemy of the people. Is actually a true statement, if the word fake is removed, 33% is the number of supporters he has; Trump Finally Gets the Shunning He Deserves. As U.S. Election Nears Racist Fliers, Antisemitic Graffiti Appear. The 2016 fear mongering was Ebolaphobia, this time it is a syndemic of Xenophobia, Othering, political extremist, explotation of hate, willful ignorance, multiple conspiracy theories, school and church shootings, toxic nationalism, disregarding law, mob violence, remote attacks, opinion as fact, gaslighting, disinformation ....... After experiencing and observing both I can say with certainty that if I had a choice I prefer Ebolaphobia. Ebolaphobia was a social construct – i.e. the phobia was not real, the disease itself was very real and deadly – it disappeared after the midterms. Xenophobia is also a social construct, but it has been causing harm for millennia, and it will not disappear after the midterms no matter who wins. | Fortunately not everyone allows the worst version of themselves to be how they respond to threats, I’m Dr. Cohen’: The Powerful Humanity of the Jewish Hospital Staff That Treated Robert Bowers, As Our Politics Get Uglier, a Lesson in Decency from the Doctors in Pittsburgh, Jewish Nurse Who Treated Pittsburgh Synagogue Shooter Opens up. ¶ Though extinction is part of Climate Change Is Scary; ‘Rat Explosion’ Is Scarier, Ratpocalypse: Climate Change Could Mean an Imminent Rat Population Explosion, in all senses of rat -2- -3- -4-, and Climate Change May Make Earthquakes in Charleston More Dangerous, what may be of more concern is what survives. Why Conservatives Keep Gaslighting the Nation about Climate Change. The Deafening (((Echoes))) of Marked Language.
-2.1. How Yellow Fever Turned New Orleans into the City of the Dead. Some years the virus would wipe out a tenth of the population, earning New Orleans the nickname "Necropolis". The gruesome disease killed thousands, scapegoated immigrants and upheld white supremacy.
-3. #Linguistics The March of Science and Biotech, Told Through the History of Language. How old were you when CRISPR first showed up in print, and what were your grandparents doing when the word DNA made its first appearance. Now you can find out. Merriam-Webster’s search tool that lets you look up the words that made their first known appearance in print in the year you were born, or any other year dating all the way back to 1500. Incidentally, the word illness showed up that year. This does not necessarily mean the word has the same meaning when it was first used to what it means now, for example the word germ with the meaning used most often in PDWN was first used in 1644. This implies that illness was still not something associated with germs theory (bacteria, virus, pathogens) but the humors 1600 – which was a different than the original meaning in ancient Greece – as the explanation for the concept ailment 1606 that proceeded Illness\fs24fs24 , Our Attitudes Towards Disease, a Ciceronian Legacy. The intellectual leap of illness was the creation of a single general term for what previously were different conditions that were not related, A Word for What Ails You, but there was a category of a number of ailments from being cursed by what are now considered magical means. Miasma Theory -1.3↑ 1665 was a later improvement to explain illness, that was more in concert to observation of how they originated. It is likely the word germ will remain as an explanation for illness, but the meaning will be different than how it is used today. Google Trends 180311-6A*, and etymologies are additional ways to get an idea of the history of meaning carried by a word. This is not even considering specialized, technical, regional and contextual meanings. *
-4. PDWN has noted before the correlation of the conditions of uncertainty of biocalamities, which includes the environmental and mass fatalities and casualties of war, with reports of supernatural entities. The Nazi Werewolves Who Terrorized Allied Soldiers at the End of WWII. Though the guerrilla fighters didn’t succeed in slowing the Allied occupation of Germany, they did sow fear wherever they went. American Intelligence started seeing the symbol near the end of World War II, etched across white walls in Germany: A straight vertical line intersected by a horizontal line with a hook on the end, the wolfsangel (wolfs hook*, not an angel dressed in wolfs clothing [Art]) [Poster]. Most were of the opinion that it was merely a hastily drawn swastika, but the mark referred to the Werwölfe -2-, German guerrilla fighters prepared to strike down the isolated soldier in his jeep, the MP on patrol, the fool who goes out after dark, the Yankeebraggart who takes a back road. In the final months of World War II, the Nazi’s looked to any last resort to keep their ideology alive. They turned to the supernatural for inspiration, creating two separate lupine movements: one, an official group of paramilitary soldiers; the other, an ad hoc ensemble of partisan fighters. Though neither achieved any monumental gains, both proved the effectiveness of propaganda in sowing terror and demoralizing occupying soldiers. *This use of the symbol still exists -2- -3- -4- -5- -6- [Photo, Photo Secundum Naturae Ordinem Wesen, Photo]. With parademic there is always the caution to verify data and context. Symbols are multivocalic, having different meanings to different groups at different times [Photo boundary marker], and it is easy to photo bomb, stage photos, take a symbol out of context, or do a later photo manipulation [Photo], to change the meaning. In any case one should be careful of symbols, even inadvertent ones, when providing aid and assistance for biocalamities because of the potential parademic issues. This is especially true if people are looking for credible (but not necessarily the real) reason why they are attacking medical response. On the other hand symbols can be useful to facilitate friendly and permissive parademic behavior, depending on the social milieu [Poster]. Another Civil War. Pessimism about Political Violence Deepens in a Divided Nation.
-5. Halloween Quiz: Test Your Knowledge of Global Disease Costumes. Costumes have been inspired by infectious diseases for hundreds of years, way before trick-or-treating became an American Halloween tradition in the 1920s. Take this quiz to see how much you know about global disease costumes of the past and present. Dressing up as an animal responsible for more than 700,000 deaths a year would mean going as a: □ Snake □ Shark □ Mosquito □ Scorpion
-6. Just as observations from parademic and the biocalamity context can be applied to other situations, topics and fields, items from other disciplines can be applied to parademic. Researchers Count 57 Negative Impacts from Cyber Attacks, defining and codifying the different ways in which cyber incidents can have negative outcomes. They also considered how these impacts can spread as time passes. Overall the researchers identified five key themes under which the impact - referred to as ‘cyber harm’ - from a cyber attack can be classified. These are: Physical/ Digital, Economic, Psychological, Reputational, Social/ Societal. This is the full list of cyber harms [Chart]. With some modification of a few words this could easily be titled Researchers Count 57 Negative Impacts from Parademic, Biotrumpism, Biocalamity, Misinformation, Gubergenic, Anthropogenic. This overlap may be in part both parademic and biocalamity include cyber attacks, failures, misuse. This assessment does miss a very important 6th subcategory, Damage to Information, but that may be due to Cyber and Information are essentially the same, so the sub subcategories could all be modified to fit the category of information damage.
-6.1. One of the aspects of providing response to planned emergencies and unplanned calamities is that mistakes will always be made, and there will always be criticisms (though not always about the mistakes made or what could have been done better. Hopefully one learns more each time and can share what was learned to improve and share so mistakes (that is people die or are further harmed) are not repeated. Lessons from Loma Prieta. Your first disaster has a formative effect on you. The lessons you learn remain with you throughout your career and are often reinforced by new experiences. It is important to learn the right lessons and that comes with reflection over time. Over the years, I have come to realize that I learned some very valuable lessons from the 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake [Photo, Photo]. 1. The severity of a disaster depends on where you’re sitting. 2. The dedication of one person can make a difference. 3. You must think beyond the short term. 4. You need to consider potential impacts on critical resources.5. People are at their best in a crisis. 6. The media is a powerful tool for both good and bad. 7. No news is not good news. 8. Recovery and mitigation will take years. I was also a reservist in an Engineer Battalion at the time in that area, and had my own important lessons. 9. Just because you have what is needed does not mean you are permitted to apply it, see photo1↑, another paradox of emergency management. 10. Just because you have a capability that is needed and have permission to apply, does not mean you should, see photo2↑. Organisations Often Learn Too Little from Disasters and Crises, which are an anomalous distraction from real work, and therefore one should spend minimum time and resources on.
-6.2. Canton on Emergency Management, which also has good advice on communication and education. Is PowerPoint Past Its Prime, but maybe the problem is not the program, Video. Telling Your Story, techniques for holding your audience's attention. What's Your Story, thinking like a storyteller can make your presentation shine. The following in not one of his Using Satire to Communicate Science, satire does carry some risks, but it can be an effective tool. If humans are exhausting the planet’s resources, they wrote, it’s Earth that needs to adapt — not us. The authors issued a warning: “Should planet Earth stick with its hardline ideological stance…we will seek a second planet. This is a good article, but as often done in science journalism INDEX Science Journalism.
-6.3. Pandemic Flu: It’s Not over ‘Til It’s Over. We seem to have only two mental gears these days: hysteria and complacency. While hysteria might be putting things a bit strong when we consider the past few weeks of the influenza pandemic, but it is right that if it isn’t immediate, in your face news we have a tendency to ignore potential problems. It’s what I call the “flavor of the month” syndrome – letting the current problem obscure everything else that’s going on around us. However, before we let the next crisis grab our attention, we really should take another look at influenza A. A lot of folks remember the big hoopla over SARS and how it just faded away after the single outbreak. It’s easy to compare influenza A with SARS and say that we’ve probably seen the last of this it, too. History suggests that we’d be wrong to do so. The Spanish Flu of 1918 was first identified in March then was dormant until September. The highest death rates, as one would expect, occurred during the winter months. PDWN disagrees about SARS. It is not known that there was never been a previous outbreak, what the reservoir was, how to prevent a future outbreak, that there will never be another outbreak. What was important from a parademic perspective about SARs is, SARS 10 Years Later: Are We Better Prepared for Outbreaks, it raised worldwide alarm for how vulnerable we are to disease epidemics, but did we learn and remember much from it. There was hysteria about SARS in 2003, and are now complacent after only 15 years of it being dormant.
-6.4. In America’s Science Classrooms, the Creep of Climate Skepticism. Conservative groups are working hard to challenge the teaching of mainstream climate science in schools. In Florida, they’ve found a winning strategy. 181104-VCP-USA. Florida Citizens’ Alliance Is Brainwashing Kids to Think Climate Science Is Fake, Florida Schools Break Law by Pushing Lies about Evolution & Climate Change, Attacks on Science Education Intensify – Push Back, Florida, New Florida Law Allows Local Community to Challenge School Science Curriculum, 181028-1.2, <ADDED 170806-170702-1.1‡>. -181028-6↓.
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-181028-3>1. Parademic is about social aspects of biocalamities, where the problems are not so much the bioagent, but people. This opens up a range of behaviors that are not always considered: humor, economics, politics, art, communication, crime, music, transportation, history, sex, Gender and Disasters. Some years ago, I attended a session on women in disasters. I'm not sure what I was expecting but I know I wasn't taking the subject too seriously. That changed very quickly. As an emergency planner, I was appalled at the gaps in our planning. The issues we neglected ranged from basic issues such as the failure to include feminine hygiene products and infant formula in our logistics supply chain to issues of safety within shelters. It changed my approach to planning. Post Disaster Violence Against Women Video.
-181028-5>2. October 29, 1948, Killer Smog Claims Elderly Victims. On October 26, weather conditions in the valley brought a heavy fog into Donora that trapped the airborne pollutants emitted from the zinc smelting plant and steel mills close to the ground, to be inhaled by local residents. There was little or no regulation of air pollution caused by the industries, that would come more than a decade later, to be followed by anteregulation willful amnesia that is resulting in roll back of pollution regulations. Soon, a wave of calls came in to area hospitals and physicians. It was suggested that all residents with pre existing respiratory problems leave town immediately. However, 11 people, all elderly and with heart problems or asthma, were already dead. Most residents attempted to evacuate, but the heavy smog and increased traffic made leaving difficult. Thousands flooded the hospitals when they experienced difficulty breathing. On October 31 the Zinc Works shut down operations. Later that day rain fell and dispersed the pollutants. By that time, another nine people perished.
-181028-6>3. -6.4↑. Why Some Florida Voters Associate Rick Scott with Toxic Algae$. The Republican's response to the "red tide" is under scrutiny. Florida’s Senate Race Was Rick Scott’s to Lose, but He Is Haunted by His Environmental Record$, with two deadly algae blooms that have upended Florida tourism and may have repercussions at the polls. <ADDED 181014-180916-5>7. Some Republicans in Close Races Are (Ever So Slightly) Changing Their Tune on Climate Change$. Conservative Floridian Enjoys Living under Sharia Law More than He Thought He Would.
-181021-5>4, <ADDED 181028>2. China to Crack Down on Illegal Activity at Slaughterhouses to Combat African Swine Fever. China's agriculture ministry said it will launch a 3 month investigation into illegal activity by slaughterhouses to combat the spread of African swine fever. The ministry said it will step up checks on the illegal transport, slaughter and processing of sick pigs. African Swine Fever and China, Part II.
-180923-4.1>5. In the Crusade Against Physician Burnout, Some Preach ‘Resilience.’ It’s Not That Simple. Training in medicine is often likened to training in the military – an all consuming, pressure filled process that breaks you down and builds you back up. The difference is that this kind of personal growth is core to the military’s mission, but not to medicine’s.
-180916-5>6, <ADDED 181014>4. Politics and Paper Towels: Disputing Disaster Death Tolls. Quantifying Disaster Deaths. Trump Creates Political Storm with False Claim on Puerto Rico Hurricane Death Toll$. Trump’s Denial of the Puerto Rico Death Toll Does Not Belong in a Democratic Conversation. Florida Officials Respond to Trump’s Claim, Without Evidence, That Puerto Rico Deaths Are Made up. Feeling Your Pain: Presidents Tread Tricky Disaster Politics. [Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon, Cartoon]. ¶ One of the aspects of this was the feud between Trump and San Juan’s mayor, [Cartoon] 180916-5D -E, <ADDED 180902-180128-3.1>10, <ADDED 180325-180318-1.1>1 ..... starting with 171001-2.1*B, San Juan Mayor: Trump Is 'Incapable of Feeling Solidarity and Empathy', which includes what might possibly be an abuse of position, but it is still uncertain which (or both) of the two abused the trust and responsibility of their elected office: FBI Raids San Juan City Offices Weeks after Trump Alleges Corruption, Misleading Story Links San Juan Mayor to Hurricane Relief Fraud, FBI Investigating 5 Mayors Including San Juan For Misappropriating FEMA Hurricane Supplies, San Juan Mayor Who Criticized Trump Now Being Investigated for Corruption.
-180819-4.1>7. US Steps up Scrutiny of Funds for Asbestos Exposure Victims. The Trump administration has stepped up scrutiny of asbestos trust funds, concerned that the pots of money intended to help people exposed to the hazardous substance are being depleted by fraudulent claims, harming victims, businesses and the government. This is cynical but the biotrumpism history with asbestos would incline one to believe the concern is not really about fraud. If I had to guess they got push back on their asbestos plan and are now abusing official power to punish those who resisted: The US Never Banned Asbestos. Now Trump May Assist its Comeback. Watchdog: EPA Asbestos Protection for Schoolchildren Lagging. Trump's EPA Blames Obama Administration for Plan to Allow 'New Uses' for Asbestos. Donald Trump Has a Weird Soft Spot for Asbestos. We Really Need to Ban Asbestos Already. Trump’s Plan to Make America Great Again Involves Giving His Constituents Cancer. The EPA Is Making It Easier to Use Asbestos Again. Why Is It Dangerous. EPA Staff Objected to Trump Administration's Asbestos Plan, Emails Show. Make America Asbestos Again$. Donald Trump Thinks Asbestos is 100% Safe. [Cartoon].
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