#6 MORE MONTHS UNTIL I GRADUATE EARLY FROM HIGH SCHOOL WITH MY ASSOCIATES IN SCIENCE AS WELL 🎉🎉🎉

[swampthing07]

My exams were in the end of May, so I am free until August!!!! Other than I am taking college composition II over the summer and it is KICKING MY ASS

Good Luck 🫡🫡🫡

How was studying?

It was good! I finished optics, and if i finish trig, I should have time to at least start chem tonight :3

[selfproducingfanfictionauthor]

BTS scenario: Yoongi finds you after 1,871 days (1)

Summary: It takes 1,871 days for Yoongi to find you. Five years, one month, and four days. He’s turned over every house in your village, every pack in your province, and chased your family to every distant home you have before arriving to a quaint apartment in the middle of Seoul. Warnings/Notes: The continuation to Yoongi’s part in this scenario drabble. Please read because it might not sense if you don’t lol. No warnings as of now. 

Word Count: 1,500+ words READ PART TWO HERE

It takes 1,871 days for Yoongi to find you.

Five years, one month, and four days. He’s turned over every house in your village, every pack in your province, and chased your family to every distant home you have before arriving to a quaint apartment in the middle of Seoul.

Inside the car and behind the tinted windows, Yoongi stares up to your apartment. It’s small, but it comes with a balcony where clothes hang to dry. He recognizes a familiar red blouse, and a blue jumper.

What he doesn’t recognize are these: a small pair of shorts, a school uniform, and a plain shirt - all in a size of perfect for a child.

1,871 days is a long time but you split it like this: the time before Yongho and the time after Yongho.

It didn’t take long for you to leave the pack after that night with Yoongi. You knew then that if you drag your feet, you’ll never be able to leave. So, with your family’s promise and blessing, you packed your bags, your savings, and your heart and boarded the next plane out of the country.

You didn’t think Yoongi would look for you (but you hoped, desperately, sometimes even too much) but still, you took serious precautions. Running away with an alpha’s child is not a slight offense regardless of the reason.

With no family and no friends, you hunkered down in the outskirts of Taipei. You watched summer turn to fall, and then by winter, your arms are warmed by the small bundle of joy that is your son.

Yongho is a precious boy, with your nose and lips, and Yoongi’s feline eyes. He’s curious, energetic, and affectionate, and not a day goes by that you’re not thankful for his presence.

When he turned three, and with no new news of Yoongi coming from your family, you opted to return to your homeland to finish your post-graduate studies. You never planned on hiding Yongho from his father forever, but for years after you left, your family urged you not to reveal yourself.

The pack has splintered, stay hidden until everything settles. They are invoking the old law.

And so you did, however, now, circumstances have changed.

“Yongho, I’d like to introduce you to someone.”

Yoongi watches a few steps behind you as you kneel down to your child’s height. Even with your crouching form, he still couldn’t see his son’s features. He’s small for his age, he muses, just like he was in his youth.

Yoongi hears a sound of high-pitched approval from his child, before your lips curve into a familiar smile.

“Good,” you say, “Why don’t you change clothes and then you can join us in the kitchen?”

The little boy scampers away with a giggle and you silently turn to Yoongi, leading him to the kitchen.

Your apartment isn’t small, but it’s not large either. The kitchen is quaint with herbs growing on the small window by the sink. Yoongi smells the leftover scents of bacon, milk, and eggs from the air mixed with the tea you placed in front of him.

For a while, it’s silent and Yoongi takes care to observe you.

It’s been five years but somehow, the difference startles him. Though your features remained the same, there’s a certain hardness to it now, like a polished sword - a calm protective air.

“Mama! I’m ready!”

Your scent immediately spikes with warmth as you hear your son’s steps down the stairs. You turn in your chair, catching him so readily in your arms.

“I combed my hair too, see?” Yongho peers up to you with a smile, one of his front teeth missing. Smiling fondly, you touch his hair lightly. “I see that, my love, good job.”

Yongho grins before turning and glancing at the man with his eyes, sitting at the other end of your dining table. His smile wobbles at the seriousness in the man’s face but he perseveres. He’s a guest, mama said.

Seeing that Yoongi has caught your son’s attention, you clear your throat. You’ve never lied about your son’s father ever since he first asked about it when he was three, and so this conversation shouldn’t be hard.

“Yongho, this is Yoongi, your father.”

The secondary gender’s characteristics manifests early into puberty. However, with the advancement of science and technology, people have found a way to determine an individual’s secondary gender as early as they’re 6 months old.

You tried avoiding these tests for Yongho to give him a shot at a regular, unburdened childhood but it became unavoidable when you tried to enroll him to his first pre-school class.

It had taken all of your family’s dwindling connections to scrub the records clean but even that isn’t enough to keep the news from reaching the elders ears.

Your son, little Y/L/N Yongho, is the rarest of them all - a male omega.

And so you called Yoongi. It’s less of him finding you, and more of you allowing yourself to be found. With nothing left to possibly do, you reached out to the only one you think can help.

Things have settled quite quickly, your son is young, forgiving and eager. At the sight of his father, he quickly warmed up and you watched Yoongi struggle faintly at the overwhelming energy of your pup.

They spent the whole day in his room, watching movie after movie, and playing with every toy Yongho owns. He even showed his father his drawings, most of which were of the town you lived in Taiwan.

“So that’s where you went.” Yoongi observes, finger touching the crayon drawing of you and Yongho making pineapple cakes.

The sun has already set and Yongho’s knocked out in his room. The two of you are once again across each other, on the other sides of your mahogany kitchen table.

“Yes,” you respond calmly, “We stayed there for three years.”

Yoongi breathes, closes his eyes and tries not to think of you, heavily pregnant and alone. There’s time to discuss the past, but that’s not today. Still, he couldn’t help the bitterness seep into his voice, not after he’s known what he missed for five years.

A son, a beautiful son.

“Had I known you’re craving pineapple cakes, we would’ve sent for it.”

I looked for you, he wants to say, I nearly went mad, looking for you.

You let out a pained chuckle, “Funny. I actually couldn’t stand it when I was pregnant. Yongho loves them though.”

“Why am I here?” Yoongi cuts, his alpha rearing its head. That’s our blood she hid, it snarls, our seed, our son - she took him away!

Wordlessly, you took out a red envelope from under your seat. The familiar seal of the pack elders broken into two. You slide it towards Yoongi and watch as he reads it contents.

You watch as his eyes grow sharper and his jaw clench reading the request of the elders. He too, has changed, you observe. The wild energy you’ve associated with him is gone, perhaps veiled under the surface.

After all, an omega’s chosen alpha should be a man of discipline.

“They can’t do this,” Yoongi grits out. “It’s against the law to take a child from their family.”

You shake your head, nights poured over the texts of your youth heavy on your mind, “The pack only recognizes families of mated individuals.”

Yoongi’s eyes flicker at your unmarked neck and his alpha curls into himself. Unmarked. Our son’s mother is unmarked, it whimpers. Before he could speak, you continue on.

“I’ve read the books, and sought advice from the Wong pack of Taipei, there are two ways to avoid this—“

Marriage, Yoongi thinks, and the box in his pocket suddenly weighs a ton. He’s carried it around for five years, hoping to find you. 

“—but since mating is out of question—“ a flash of the old you passes in your eyes, and Yoongi opens his mouth to protest, but you don’t stop.

“— I’ve invoked the ancient law.” You pause, taking a deep breathe. “A month from now, I’ll be battling the primary alpha of the pack for the custody of our child.”

Yoongi gasps. The primary alpha… is Jeon Jungkook, one of their strongest and most devoted to the omega. He’ll tear you apart if she so asks.

Yoongi startles when you push your chair back, standing suddenly in front of him. Your eyes are brimming with unshed tears, but your back is straight, as you kneel down- your forehead to the ground, a few inches from his feet.

“Min Yoongi, alpha of the Min family, father of my son, my former betrothed — for all that we were and we cannot be, I beseech you.”

Yoongi’s alpha is snarling inside his head, confused, scared, angry at your thoughtless decision and his own thoughtlessness that lead you here. It’s a visceral reaction - an alpha doesn’t bow to another alpha, but here you are.  Everything for your son. 

“If I lose, take our son. He needs your name.”

END NOTES: Well, this got out of hand. There’s a lot unsaid between these two and a lot of time passed by between the them in the drabble and this one. Let me know what you think! I’m thinking of where to bring the other hyungline members’ plotlines still.  Hearts are great but comments and reblogs will reach a lot more readers. Let’s spread the love!  Should I continue Yoongi’s story? What do you think will happen? TAG LIST: @justmewondering-recs @cloudbuffalo @blushingatyou @aroseharder @neverthefirstchoice @xanny91 @sugaaddiction @flirtygerty​ @darkskin-buttercup​

[numbur129]

Traumatizing End To A Deep Dark Addiction

Let me start off by telling you a little about myself. I was always athletic as a kid. I played soccer, baseball, football, and all that good stuff. I always did very well in school and I seemed to excel in math and science. High school was a breeze for me. Except for one small detail - I got hooked on drugs very early. 

I starting smoking pot and drinking in about 7th grade. I always did it with my friends every weekend. I have an older sister who did the same, so naturally, I thought it was ok to do this. By the time I was in 11th grade, I had consumed nearly every drug I could get my hands on - crack, ghb, MDMA, acid, ketamine. I had a little bit of experience with cleaning pharmies. I would clean the amphetamine out of a bottle of dexadrine, or the DXM out of cough syrup. I even began shooting heroin. I would take any drug at any time of the day, no matter what it was or what I had to do. I would shoot smack right before soccer practice. I was even coked out of my mind at my grandfather's funeral! My secret was that I was able to hide it very well, so not many people, even most of my close friends, knew what I was up to. 

I never spent much time at home, I was usually in the city scoring dope. I've been to countless amounts of crackhouses. I've had guns and knives pulled on me. But I always came away unscathed, which boosted my false confidence that I was invincible even more. I graduated high school with a 3.8 gpa, despite my constant drug use. This was very bad for me, because what serious addict would think they had a problem if they managed a 3.8 over 4 years of heavy drug use? I sure as hell didn't. 

I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life after school so I took a year off before going to college. During this year my drug use actually calmed down a bit. I would sometimes go maybe 3 or 4 days without even smoking weed. And weed was the base of my life for a loooong time. I never thought I would ever quit smoking weed, ever! But this hiatus would not last very long. 

In April, of that year, I began using heroin again. Through a dealer, I ran into this kid, Matt, who I had known in high school, but never associated with much. We had chatted at parties and stuff, but never really hung out. Our friendship started out as just drug buddies. Our sole bases for seeing each other was to share whatever drugs either of us managed to score. But after a little while, we became very close. He was just as much of a drug addict as I was, except he made his drug use very public, so he had a much worse reputation that I did. 

Matt soon introduced me to my poison, crystal meth. I had never tried it before, being from New York the drug is almost unheard of there. We only knew 1 dealer with it. The first time I did it was snorting it. It was the most amazing experience. The tingling in my body, the energy, the motivation. It was great and I was hooked from the start. I soon began shooting it. This led to all my money being drained. So Matt and I had a novel idea. We began cooking it outselves. 

It sounded like a great idea at the time. but this turned out to be the worst decision of my life. I moved in with Matt in his apartment. We acquired all the ingrediants and cooked our first batch. It was the best meth either of us had, I guess because of the satisfaction that we made it. Also partly because it was 100% pure. We started dealing a little bit, but we mostly cooked to support our own habits. We both even kompletely stopped soing every other drug. I went 1 year with doing only meth. 

Both our lives were going downhill faster and faster. I dropped down to about 125 lbs, from 160. I would stay up for 6 or 7 days at a time. We did this for almost a year and a half, constantly consuming rediculous amount of meth. It was my life, and that's all I cared about. There is about a 2-month perioid around the next winter that I really can't recall a single detail of. But I do remember waking up while walking down the street, my jacket on me, upside-down, and backwards. I was a wreck. 

Eventually, old friends of mine began telling me that my mind was slipping and I was going crazier and crazier. Matt too. But still, neither of us cared. Until one binge that finally ended it all. Matt and I had been up for almost 14 days. Our minds were far gone 5 days before this point. The apartment was trashed. I was covered in dirt and blood. I couldn't even tell where I was bleeding from. I was home, and I didn't even know where I was. And to top it all off, the last batch was fresh out. 

Matt began yelling at a pile of clothes on the floor, thinking that a demon was hiding under it. This scared the hell out of me. Not because he was losing it, but because it awakened my fears as well. Finally after a brief screaming match at the laundry, he reached into a drawer and grabbed a gun, that I had no clue he ever owned. He began firing at the clothes, and finally turned the gun around and fired it into his mouth. I was in shock. I didn't know what the hell was going on around me, much less what to do. The gunshots soon attracted the police who arrested me and took Matt's body away. I checked myself into rehab instead of going to jail. I stayed there for almost a year. 

I still haven't regained my full sanity back yet. And I don't know if I ever will. I'm convinced that crank was the major cause of this. I've been clean and sober for 2 years now, I got a decent job, and a great girlfriend. I take things one day at a time. But not a day goes by that I don't picture that scene in my head in the apartment. It scares me enough to never want to take another drug for the rest of my life. Hopefully others can learn from my experiences before choosing to go down that road. And Matt, if you're listening, I love you, man

[tffchallenge]

Meet Edisson Aguilar, Farmer and Co-Founder of Cultivando Futuro

Edisson is a farmer. He is also a self-taught software developer and the CTO & co-founder of an exciting ag startup in Colombia.

Edisson’s story is the story of Cultivando Futuro. He has taken his technical skills and used his agricultural background to develop a platform that will help thousands of farmers throughout Colombia make smarter farming decisions. By connecting farmers directly to buyers, he is creating a more transparent, knowledgable, and equitable value chain.

How did Edisson, a farmer who grew up in a rural Colombian town start Cultivando Futuro and, together with his team, end up winning the grand prize of the 2017 TFF Challenge?

He shared his story with TFF, which you can read below. To learn more about what Cultivando Futuro has been up to since the 2017 TFF Global Summit in Amsterdam and how you can help them to grow, jump to the end of the story.

If the work that Edisson and the Cultivando Futuro team are doing resonate with you, you can get in touch with them at agro@cultivandofuturo.com.

My Story

by Edisson Aguilar

The origins of my family are in the countryside of Colombia. My parents worked for a long time managing farms, doing tasks such as milking livestock, gardening, and feeding all the animals that were on the farm.

When I was young, they moved to a town near Bogota called Tenjo, where I studied at the local school and helped them on the farm. I remember how much I used to enjoy feeding the dogs and playing with them in the fields until late at night.

Over time my father started producing food on the farm. He used to produce all different kinds of food, including strawberries and tomatoes. Every day after school I had to help him prepare the soil, plant crops under the hot sun, and help him with harvesting and packaging of the loaded boxes. There were times we even had to get up early before school so we could complete the harvest before midday. This hard job was our’s — and thousands of other Colombian farmers — everyday routine.

I worked with my dad for about 8 or 9 years. During that time I learned a lot: from how to milk cows to obtaining a certification in exportation of organic products. While developing these skills, I learned how to work with my community, creating relationships that last for years.

Agriculture was what gave us the sustenance to get ahead. My dad waking up every day at 3:00 in the morning to sell his vegetables was what made it possible to pay for my first semesters of study at university, and from there, start my professional career.

Becoming a Developer

Since I was young I have been fascinated by technology. When I graduated from high school I was awarded a partial scholarship to attend the Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Bogota to study Systems Engineering. In university, I learned how to code and developed problem solving skills, but I felt that my studies didn’t give me all the tools needed for the real world.

Through some research I realized that there were new technologies that were far more efficient, powerful and easy to learn as compared to what I was learning in university. Entrepreneurship taught me to be autodidact, and after 6 months of watching tutorials on Youtube and reading a lot of blog posts, I finished a mobile application for farmers so they could calculate a fair price for their produce based on the initial investment that they made.

It was at this time that Darío and Carlos, the two other co-founders of Cultivando Futuro, visited my family farm in Tenjo. They came to conduct customer interviews with farmers, and they left with their new CTO.

They came to conduct customer interviews with farmers, and they left with their new CTO.

Shortly afterwards I began to create the Cultivando Futuro platform. I made strategic decisions on which technology, language, and framework to use, and constantly tested the system with farmers to ensure the usability of the platform.

When I started working on Cultivando Futuro, I was challenged to solve a problem that affected farmers like me: how can we provide farmers the information they need to make smart planting, harvesting and selling decisions? Our team realized that the best way to collect the data needed to help farmers make these decisions was by creating a platform in which farmers could directly sell their produce to wholesale buyers. This system encourages farmers to input their crop data into our platform, because if they do so they are linked to a buyer that will purchase their produce at fair market prices.

After years of hard work the platform is in use by 200 farmers and 10 wholesale buyers with over 200 tons of weekly demand. In a few years time, I see my role becoming that of a data scientist, and I am incredibly passionate about how technologies such as artificial intelligence, augmented reality, and blockchain can help farmers around the world feed 9+ billion people. I believe Cultivando Futuro will be a leader in bringing these technologies to producers around the world.

Cultivando Futuro Updates

This is Jared again! We wanted to share some quick updates on what Cultivando Futuro has been up to since they won the Grand Prize at the TFF Global Summit in May.

Since then, they have…

Doubled the number of farmers registered on their platform (100 to 200), with projections to exceed 5,000 farmers by the end of the year.

Created alliances with some major agribusiness events in Colombia, such asAgroExpo and Expo Cundinamarca.

Joined The Good Kitchen accelerator program in London -> The Good Kitchen is a TFF Pipeline Partner, and TFF referred Cultivando Futuro to work with them.

Currently working with the National Farmers Union (UNA), demoing the Cultivando Futuro platform to large groups of farmers and farmer associations all over Colombia.

Improved the effectivity in the platform’s dashboards, showing processed metrics to measure Cultivando Futuro’s social impact and easily detect trading opportunities between the farmers and the buyers.

Call to Action

The global TFF community has an incredible potential to transform the food and agriculture industry through innovation. If you are reading this it means that you are part of an amazing group of people that could help Cultivando Futuro transform the livelihoods of tens of thousands of farmers around the world. Here are several ways in which they could use your help.

Partnership leads on organizations that are performing development work in rural communities.

Country representatives to begin exploring how to scale Cultivando Futuro around the world.

Mentorship from experts in data science, analytics, blockchain, AI, and machine learning.

Support from an AgTech accelerator / investment group.

Remember, If the work that Edisson and the Cultivando Futuro team are doing resonate with you, you can get in touch with them at agro@cultivandofuturo.com.

[uniteordie-usa]

It’s Time to Rethink Education – Part 2 (Unschooling)

http://uniteordie-usa.com/its-time-to-rethink-education-part-2-unschooling/ https://libertyblitzkrieg.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/Screen-Shot-2017-12-14-at-12.04.46-PM.jpg It’s Time to Rethink Education – Part 2 (Unschooling) Michael Krieger | Posted Thursday Dec 14, 2017 at 12:57 pm There are several components, but the real shocker is that more of us aren’t embracing the current age of access to mastery of any topic. But that may not be so surprising—most of us were taught to be passive learners, to just “get throu...

Michael Krieger | Posted Thursday Dec 14, 2017 at 12:57 pm

There are several components, but the real shocker is that more of us aren’t embracing the current age of access to mastery of any topic. But that may not be so surprising—most of us were taught to be passive learners, to just “get through��� school. It’s easy to be lazy. The rewards of becoming an autodidact, though, include igniting inner fires, making new connections to knowledge atnd skills you already have, advancing in your career, meeting kindred spirits, and cultivating an overall zest for life and its riches.

One good reason to dive head first into self-initiated learning is that much of what you were taught is already obsolete. “Knowledge workers succeed not based on what they know, but rather how they learn,” writes James Marcus Bach in his book, Secrets of a Buccaneer-Scholar. He dropped out of school when he was 14 and, in the early days of home computing, taught himself enough to become a software tester for Apple. He’s now an independent consultant.

Bach’s philosophy is rebellious yet inclusive: “Intellectual buccaneering is about self-education, but schools are OK, too. I’ve learned in schools, and I’ve learned from people who were trained in schools. I happily plunder knowledge wherever I find it. I don’t seek the destruction of schools. I am out to dismantle something else—the popular belief that schooling is the only route to a great education and that the best students are those who passively accept the education their schools offer.”

– From the Psychology Today article: The Golden Age of Teaching Yourself Anything

While some of you will be familiar with the educational concept of unschooling, it’ll probably be new to most of you. Personally, I never looked into the concept until I became a parent a couple of years ago, and it was my wife who first became fascinated with the idea and bought a bunch of books on the topic. I’m really glad she did.

The book we’re currently reading is by a fascinating individual named Ben Hewitt, titled Home Grown. Back in 2014, Ben wrote an excellent article for Outside Magazine in which he provided a concise description of what unschooling is. It’s quite distinct from home-schooling, which most people are already familiar with.

In the piece, We Don’t Need No Education, he explains:

There’s a name for the kind of education Fin and Rye are getting. It’s called unschooling, though Penny and I have never been fond of the term. But “self-directed, adult-facilitated life learning in the context of their own unique interests” doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue, so unschooling it is.

It is already obvious that unschooling is radically different from institutionalized classroom learning, but how does it differ from more common homeschooling? Perhaps the best way to explain it is that all unschooling is homeschooling, but not all homeschooling is unschooling. While most homeschooled children follow a structured curriculum, unschoolers like Fin and Rye have almost total autonomy over their days. At ages that would likely see them in seventh and fourth grades, I generously estimate that my boys spend no more than two hours per month sitting and studying the subjects, such as science and math, that are universal to mainstream education. Not two hours per day or even per week. Two hours per month. Comparatively speaking, by now Fin would have spent approximately 5,600 hours in the classroom. Rye, nearly three years younger, would have clocked about half that time.

If this sounds radical, it’s only because you’re not taking a long enough view, for the notion that children should spend the majority of their waking hours confined to a classroom enjoys scant historical precedent.

Even to someone like me, an individual who finds the concept of authority and involuntary activity revolting, unschooling seemed a bit radical for our family when I first read about it. Nevertheless, as I’ve considered it in more over the past few months, it’s become more and more appealing. To get an even better sense of what it’s all about, let’s read some more excerpts from the Outside article referenced above:

The boys will pay the bus no heed because its passing is meaningless to them. Maybe they have never ridden in a school bus, and maybe this is because they’ve never been to school. Perhaps they have not passed even a single day of their short childhoods inside the four walls of a classroom, their gazes shifting between window and clock, window and clock, counting the restless hours and interminable minutes until release.

Maybe the boys are actually my sons, and maybe their names are Fin and Rye, and maybe, if my wife, Penny, and I get our way, they will never go to school.

Hey, a father can dream, can’t he?…

The first incidence of compulsory schooling came in 1852, when Massachusetts required communities to offer free public education and demanded that every child between the ages of 8 and 14 attend school for at least 12 weeks per year. Over the next seven decades, the remaining states adopted similar laws, and by 1918, the transition to mandated public education was complete.

It was not long before some parents and even educators began to question the value of compulsory education. One of those was John Holt, a Yale graduate and teacher at the Colorado Rocky Mountain School who published his observations in How Children Fail in 1964. Ultimately selling more than a million copies, it was an indictment of the education system, asserting that children are born with deep curiosity and love of learning, both of which are diminished in school.

Holt became a passionate advocate for homeschooling, which existed in a legal gray area, but he quickly realized that some parents were simply replicating the classroom. So in 1977, in his magazine, Growing Without Schooling, he coined a new term: “GWS will say ‘unschooling’ when we mean taking children out of school, and ‘deschooling’ when we mean changing the laws to make schools noncompulsory and to take away from them their power to grade, rank, and label people, i.e. to make lasting, official, public judgments about them.”

In addition to fundamental curricular differences, there is also something of a cultural schism between the two styles. Home-schooling is popularly associated with strong religious views (in a 2007 survey by the National Center for Education Statistics, 83 percent of homeschooling parents said that providing “religious or moral instruction” was part of their choice), while unschooling seems to have no such association. “Unschooling has always been sort of code for being secular,” explains Patrick Farenga, who runs the unschooling website JohnHoltGWS.com. “It’s about understanding that learning is not a special skill that happens separate from everything else and only under a specialist’s gaze. It’s about raising children who are curious and engaged in the world alongside their families and communities.”

I can almost hear you thinking, Sure, but you live in the sticks, and you both work at home. What about the rest of us? And it’s true: Penny and I have made what most would consider an extreme choice. I write from home, and we both run our farm, selling produce and meat to help pay the bills. Everyone we know who unschools, in fact, has chosen autonomy over affluence. Hell, some years we’re barely above the poverty line. But the truth is, unschooling isn’t merely an educational choice. It’s a lifestyle choice.

Unschooling is also perfectly legal in all 50 states, so long as certain basic stipulations—from simple notification to professional evaluations, “curriculum” approval, and even home visits—are met. But many unschoolers have been reticent to stand up and be counted, perhaps because the movement tends to attract an independent-thinking, antiauthoritarian personality type.

Of course, unschooling is not the only choice. Increasingly, families are turning to options like Waldorf, the largest so-called alternative-education movement in the world. It was founded in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1919, based on the teachings of Austrian philosopher Rudolf Steiner, who believed that children learn best through creative play. In 1965, there were nine Waldorf schools in the U.S.; today there are 123.

Still, perhaps the best answer I can give to the question of what price my children might pay is in the form of another question: What price do school-going children pay for their confinement? The physical toll is easy enough to quantify. Diabetes rates among school-age children are sky-high, and the percentage of 6-to-11-year-olds who qualify as obese has nearly tripled since 1980. And what do children do in school? Exactly.

They sit.

So what prompted me to shift from, “this seems interesting, but it’s probably not for us,,” to “this might work for our family,” in just a matter of months? For one thing, I have a fundamental issue with forcing kids to sit in a classroom all day with other kids of the exact same age, while being forced to learn in the same way and at the same pace. Second, with all the information currently available online, the resources for thoughtful parents and curious kids is simply extraordinary and unprecedented. Typical schooling seems very outdated in this reality, and I’m not the sort of person who just does things because it’s what everybody else does. Finally, I started to ponder some less obvious downsides to traditional schooling. What if we want to go on an adventure as a family. Whether desert camping in Morocco, or a drive up to Montana, our ability to do such trips would be confined by school schedules. We’d have to take trips at the same time as all the other kids, which just rubs me the wrong way.

Ultimately, my wife and I haven’t decided on exactly what we’re going to do, and we plan on keeping an open mind about all options and taking cues from our kids themselves as they are each unique individuals with their own desires and needs. This post isn’t about making the case for a particular type of educational path, but to get people aware of the various options out there and inspire everyone to think outside of the box.

From a societal perspective, the reality is unschooling necessitates at least one person to be a stay at home parent. In the case of Ben Hewitt, he works from home and his wife is also there. That’s the ideal situation in my opinion, and it’s simply not an option for the overwhelming majority of U.S. families. In fact, most households consist of two parents working full-time just to make ends meet. This is a tragedy since it stifles household creativity and forces everybody into a stressed out box where family becomes an afterthought.

My wife and I are in a fortunate position which gives us options, and we will explore them all. That said, the choice to potentially unschool is not something I take lightly. If we decided to go down that route, I’d have to change a lot about how I do things. At the moment I spend most of my day reading and writing for the purposes of this website. If we accepted the enormous responsibility that comes with having kids at home, I’d want to dedicate far more time during the day to interacting with our children. My everyday life would be affected in a very significant way.

Parenthood is a tremendous honor and responsibility, and it saddens me that so many parents don’t have the opportunity we do to be so engaged with our children on daily basis. Given this reality, it’s important that those of you fortunate enough to be home with your kids think deeply about the options available before doing something just because everybody else does. The world’s changing fast and it’s crucial we raise as many children as possible who can think independently and ensure the future looks very different in a positive way from the one we’re living in. Humanity depends on it.

Finally, here are a few resources readers pointed me to on the subject of unschooling. If you have any other good ones, please share in the comment section.

Lazy Mill Farm

John Taylor Gatto

Living Joyfully

Dayna Martin

[studyblxg]

Digital Health Security Conference – Paubox SECURE

With our inaugural Paubox SECURE Conference less than two weeks away, now is an ideal time to convey the enthusiasm we have for its arrival. As we quickly approach 1,000 customers, we felt the timing was perfect to host our own user conference.

We believe market leaders in tech share certain traits.

In my opinion, they are:

Behavior. The leader behaves like one. To us, that means hosting a User Conference. To date, no one in the HIPAA compliant email space has hosted a user conference. This also means community service because the leader always gives back.

Brand.

Happy customers. This involves a high NPS and customer logos on our site.

Paubox SECURE will be at the Cowell Theater on November 2nd (Thursday) from 1pm – 8pm. You can register here.

Registration & Welcome

Registration will begin at 1pm.

As you make your way to the Cowell Theater entrance, you will be greeted by Paubox staff. Our staff as well as directional signs will guide you to the registration area where you will receive a custom Paubox lanyard and badge.

Enjoy catered refreshments and admire a picturesque view of the Golden Gate Bridge until our first presentation in the conference begins.

Keynote Speech: Anatomy of a Ransomware Attack

At 1:40pm, I will kick off our conference with a presentation on the Anatomy of a Ransomware Attack.

Ransomware is a form of malicious software that holds your data hostage until you pay a ransom payment to release it. Cybercriminals commit extortion by holding important files against you, and sometimes act as a Shadow Broker if their demands are not met.

Over 4,000 ransomware attacks occur daily with the average ransom demanding over $1,000. This is especially alarming if you are a small business. Small businesses are more likely to be targeted because they are easier to infiltrate, and approximately 60% of small businesses that are breached will go out of business within the next 6 months.

Learn the best way to defend against a ransomware attack or what to do if you fall victim to one.

2nd Session: The Future of Machine Learning and AI in Healthcare Security (Panel)

At 2:35pm, our first panel will begin. The topic will be The Future of Machine Learning and AI in Healthcare Security.

The panelists are:

Anya Schiess, General Partner, Healthy Ventures

Prior to co-founding Healthy Ventures, Anya led strategy and business development for Cardinal Health’s medical services, distribution, and laboratory businesses. Spending most of her time on tech-enabled healthcare services, Anya became convinced that now was the right time to invest in early stage opportunities at the intersection of health and information technology.

Greg Reber, Founder & CEO, AsTech Consulting

Greg is an early pioneer in the information security field and was among the first to recognize and address the risks presented by consumer-facing applications. He launched AsTech in 1997 and has established AsTech as the premier firm that Fortune 1000 companies turn to for real-world, effective information security solutions.

Brent Newhouse, Co-Founder, Qventus, Inc

Brent co-founded analyticsMD, Inc. in 2012. Prior to that, Newhouse served as Business Operations & Strategy Associate at Google from August 2010 to August 2012, and as the Business Analyst of McKinsey & Company from October 2008 to July 2010. He holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University School of Engineering, and a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.

Join us as we discuss the revolutionizing force of machine learning and AI in healthcare, where these advances will lead to, and how cybersecurity in healthcare will be affected.

Rick Kuwahara, our CMO, will moderate the panel.

3rd Session: Fireside chat on Surviving a HIPAA Audit

Around 3:20pm, we will have a short break to stretch our legs and enjoy more delicious catered refreshments.

At 3:50pm, we will return to the theater where Bluegrass Biggs and I will do a fireside chat on Surviving a HIPAA Audit.

With ransomware attacks rising 250% in 2017 and focusing specifically on the United States, the OCR is taking serious measures to ensure healthcare organizations are HIPAA compliant.

They first rolled out their Phase 2 HIPAA Audit Program by conducting desk audits in 2016. Now, on-site audits are being conducted as well. Covered Entities and Business Associates may be subjected to both of these audits, and if you fail, you must pay a costly HIPAA violation fee (with fines increasing 10% in 2017) amongst other irreversible damage to your reputation and business.

Do you know how to prepare to survive it?

Bluegrass Biggs, Founder and CEO, BiggsB Inc.

Bluegrass has extensive knowledge in the fields of regulatory compliance, project management, CSV and Life Sciences. He founded BiggsB Inc to provide project management and comprehensive regulatory compliance solutions for a wide variety of Life Sciences companies. He values creativity and is constantly seeking the best possible way to approach the challenges of regulatory compliance.

4th Session: Health IT Security In a Digital World (panel)

At 4:25pm, we’ll begin our second panel: Health IT Security In a Digital World.

Health IT has the ability to advance clinical care, improve population health, and reduce costs. At the same time, health IT also poses new challenges and opportunities for protecting PHI.

Despite these challenges, Health IT is essential in today’s digital age.

Our panelists for this topic are:

Lin Wan, PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Stella Technology

Lin is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Stella Technology, a healthcare information technology and interoperability leader. A seasoned technologist with nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare software development, Lin is an expert on healthcare interoperability and has been a key contributor to specifications pioneered by federal and state interoperability initiatives, including the Sequoia Project, Direct, ONC S&I Framework and the EHR | HIE Interoperability Workgroup.

Nick John, Security Director, Redox, Inc.

Nick started his 14 year digital health career working at Epic as the Director for Interface Implementation. After eleven years, he made the move to working for digital health startups. Nick now serves as the Security Director at Redox, a modern API for healthcare integration. Nick has built Redox’s security program from the ground up, and led the company through both HITRUST and SOC2 audits.

Shawn Savadkohi, Information Security Officer, San Mateo County Health System

Shawn joined the San Mateo County Health System in 2016 as their Information Security Officer. In his 25 years working in Information Technology, he has crossed both public and private sector industries, including non-profit charities, public utilities (water, wastewater), entertainment, and healthcare. Shawn has served local government as a web developer, network engineer, systems administrator, SCADA programmer, security consultant, technical operations manager, and solutions architect. Most recently, he has helped network operations teams identify risk and secure resources in cloud IaaS and PaaS environments.

Our CMO Rick Kuwahara will also moderate this panel.

Networking Reception + a Wake for the Fax Machine

At 5:15pm, we will walk over the Lobby where we will have a networking reception. Enjoy a variety of beverages ranging from juices to cocktails as well as delicious hors d’oeuvres. Around 5:30pm, I will convene a wake, or a celebration of life, for the fax machine.

Yes, you read that right. I will give a eulogy for the device everyone in healthcare has a horror story about – the fax machine.

At 8pm, we’ll call it a wrap for Paubox SECURE.

We look forward to seeing you there!

You can register here.

Source: https://www.paubox.com/blog/digital-health-security-conference-paubox-secure

[lohngoron]

Digital Health Security Conference – Paubox SECURE

With our inaugural Paubox SECURE Conference less than two weeks away, now is an ideal time to convey the enthusiasm we have for its arrival. As we quickly approach 1,000 customers, we felt the timing was perfect to host our own user conference.

We believe market leaders in tech share certain traits.

In my opinion, they are:

Behavior. The leader behaves like one. To us, that means hosting a User Conference. To date, no one in the HIPAA compliant email space has hosted a user conference. This also means community service because the leader always gives back.

Brand.

Happy customers. This involves a high NPS and customer logos on our site.

Paubox SECURE will be at the Cowell Theater on November 2nd (Thursday) from 1pm – 8pm. You can register here.

Registration & Welcome

Registration will begin at 1pm.

As you make your way to the Cowell Theater entrance, you will be greeted by Paubox staff. Our staff as well as directional signs will guide you to the registration area where you will receive a custom Paubox lanyard and badge.

Enjoy catered refreshments and admire a picturesque view of the Golden Gate Bridge until our first presentation in the conference begins.

Keynote Speech: Anatomy of a Ransomware Attack

At 1:40pm, I will kick off our conference with a presentation on the Anatomy of a Ransomware Attack.

Ransomware is a form of malicious software that holds your data hostage until you pay a ransom payment to release it. Cybercriminals commit extortion by holding important files against you, and sometimes act as a Shadow Broker if their demands are not met.

Over 4,000 ransomware attacks occur daily with the average ransom demanding over $1,000. This is especially alarming if you are a small business. Small businesses are more likely to be targeted because they are easier to infiltrate, and approximately 60% of small businesses that are breached will go out of business within the next 6 months.

Learn the best way to defend against a ransomware attack or what to do if you fall victim to one.

2nd Session: The Future of Machine Learning and AI in Healthcare Security (Panel)

At 2:35pm, our first panel will begin. The topic will be The Future of Machine Learning and AI in Healthcare Security.

The panelists are:

Anya Schiess, General Partner, Healthy Ventures

Prior to co-founding Healthy Ventures, Anya led strategy and business development for Cardinal Health’s medical services, distribution, and laboratory businesses. Spending most of her time on tech-enabled healthcare services, Anya became convinced that now was the right time to invest in early stage opportunities at the intersection of health and information technology.

Greg Reber, Founder & CEO, AsTech Consulting

Greg is an early pioneer in the information security field and was among the first to recognize and address the risks presented by consumer-facing applications. He launched AsTech in 1997 and has established AsTech as the premier firm that Fortune 1000 companies turn to for real-world, effective information security solutions.

Brent Newhouse, Co-Founder, Qventus, Inc

Brent co-founded analyticsMD, Inc. in 2012. Prior to that, Newhouse served as Business Operations & Strategy Associate at Google from August 2010 to August 2012, and as the Business Analyst of McKinsey & Company from October 2008 to July 2010. He holds an M.B.A. from Stanford University Graduate School of Business, a M.S. in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University School of Engineering, and a B.A. in Economics from Stanford University.

Join us as we discuss the revolutionizing force of machine learning and AI in healthcare, where these advances will lead to, and how cybersecurity in healthcare will be affected.

Rick Kuwahara, our CMO, will moderate the panel.

3rd Session: Fireside chat on Surviving a HIPAA Audit

Around 3:20pm, we will have a short break to stretch our legs and enjoy more delicious catered refreshments.

At 3:50pm, we will return to the theater where Bluegrass Biggs and I will do a fireside chat on Surviving a HIPAA Audit.

With ransomware attacks rising 250% in 2017 and focusing specifically on the United States, the OCR is taking serious measures to ensure healthcare organizations are HIPAA compliant.

They first rolled out their Phase 2 HIPAA Audit Program by conducting desk audits in 2016. Now, on-site audits are being conducted as well. Covered Entities and Business Associates may be subjected to both of these audits, and if you fail, you must pay a costly HIPAA violation fee (with fines increasing 10% in 2017) amongst other irreversible damage to your reputation and business.

Do you know how to prepare to survive it?

Bluegrass Biggs, Founder and CEO, BiggsB Inc.

Bluegrass has extensive knowledge in the fields of regulatory compliance, project management, CSV and Life Sciences. He founded BiggsB Inc to provide project management and comprehensive regulatory compliance solutions for a wide variety of Life Sciences companies. He values creativity and is constantly seeking the best possible way to approach the challenges of regulatory compliance.

4th Session: Health IT Security In a Digital World (panel)

At 4:25pm, we’ll begin our second panel: Health IT Security In a Digital World.

Health IT has the ability to advance clinical care, improve population health, and reduce costs. At the same time, health IT also poses new challenges and opportunities for protecting PHI.

Despite these challenges, Health IT is essential in today’s digital age.

Our panelists for this topic are:

Lin Wan, PhD, Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer, Stella Technology

Lin is the Co-Founder and Chief Technology Officer at Stella Technology, a healthcare information technology and interoperability leader. A seasoned technologist with nearly 20 years of experience in healthcare software development, Lin is an expert on healthcare interoperability and has been a key contributor to specifications pioneered by federal and state interoperability initiatives, including the Sequoia Project, Direct, ONC S&I Framework and the EHR | HIE Interoperability Workgroup.

Nick John, Security Director, Redox, Inc.

Nick started his 14 year digital health career working at Epic as the Director for Interface Implementation. After eleven years, he made the move to working for digital health startups. Nick now serves as the Security Director at Redox, a modern API for healthcare integration. Nick has built Redox’s security program from the ground up, and led the company through both HITRUST and SOC2 audits.

Shawn Savadkohi, Information Security Officer, San Mateo County Health System

Shawn joined the San Mateo County Health System in 2016 as their Information Security Officer. In his 25 years working in Information Technology, he has crossed both public and private sector industries, including non-profit charities, public utilities (water, wastewater), entertainment, and healthcare. Shawn has served local government as a web developer, network engineer, systems administrator, SCADA programmer, security consultant, technical operations manager, and solutions architect. Most recently, he has helped network operations teams identify risk and secure resources in cloud IaaS and PaaS environments.

Our CMO Rick Kuwahara will also moderate this panel.

Networking Reception + a Wake for the Fax Machine

At 5:15pm, we will walk over the Lobby where we will have a networking reception. Enjoy a variety of beverages ranging from juices to cocktails as well as delicious hors d’oeuvres. Around 5:30pm, I will convene a wake, or a celebration of life, for the fax machine.

Yes, you read that right. I will give a eulogy for the device everyone in healthcare has a horror story about – the fax machine.

At 8pm, we’ll call it a wrap for Paubox SECURE.

We look forward to seeing you there!

You can register here.

[sherristockman]

Paying Respect to Dr. Kummerow Dr. Mercola By Dr. Mercola As they say, patience is a virtue, and that's part of what it took for Dr. Fred A. Kummerow to accomplish what was arguably his most important work: spearheading a federal ban on synthetic trans fats in processed foods. It took nearly 50 years of what The New York Times described as his "contrarian" nature to get the job done, and it wasn't an easy task. Kummerow, a comparative biosciences professor at the University of Illinois, died on June 2, 2017, at the age of 102. He had studied trans fats for decades — long before they were an issue in the minds of food scientists. Despite opposition and even ridicule (such as heckling by industry representatives at scientific conferences, according to his local Champaign, Illinois, newspaper, the News-Gazette1), his tenacity eventually facilitated changes in the American diet that have undoubtedly saved thousands of lives. Perhaps it was his perseverance in working toward his goal that spurred Kummerow on to centenarian status. He started with a petition targeted toward the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2009. The agency's failure to respond led — just a few months before his 99th birthday — to his lawsuit against the agency in 2013. Two years later, the FDA agreed to start the process of banning all synthetic trans fats from food. The ban is set to go into effect in 2018. A few brief snapshots of some of Kummerow's most pivotal moments in the fight hint at the importance of this accomplishment: He was both one of the first to suggest an association between processed foods and heart disease, and the key figure behind the FDA lawsuit, which asked the administration to simply be more responsible for the decisions the agency made that could (and did) make or break the health of consumers. Robert Jones, chancellor at the university, called Kummerow both a "trailblazer" and "maverick."2 Michael Jacobson, president of the Center for Science in the Public Interest, which began working toward the use of safer oils in foods in the 1980s, noted that "for many years, he was a lonely voice in the wilderness."3 What Are Trans Fats and Why Are They so Bad? Trans fats, The New York Times explains, are "derived from the hydrogen-treated oils used to give margarine its easy-to-spread texture and prolong the shelf life of crackers, cookies, icing and hundreds of other staples in the American diet."4 If you want to get technical, trans fats are synthetic fatty acids. Kummerow pointed out that trans fats, which are not found in animal or vegetable fats, prevent the synthesis of prostacyclin,5 which studies show your body needs to prevent blood clots from forming in your arteries. The natural result, all too often, is sudden death. Synthetic trans fats found in partially hydrogenated oil can cause heart disease, as can oxidized cholesterol, which is formed when cholesterol is heated, such as in the case of fried foods. The sad fact is, about 95 percent of the foods Americans eat are processed. The elimination of processed foods (or any foods containing trans fat) may be the single most important change you make in your diet. Here's an encouraging word: Your body can eliminate the built-up trans fats it contains in about a month. Kummerow was the first scientist to identify trans fat as the true culprit behind clogged arteries, which for years were blamed on saturated fats (and still are, in some circles). The opposition was tremendous. Part of the problem, the News-Gazette reported, was that politics were in play, overpowering a desire for the public to be healthier as a result of governmental food policies. He was quoted in an interview: "Professor Kummerow said that in the 1960s and 1970s the processed food industry, enjoying a cozy relationship with scientists, played a large role in keeping trans fats in people's diets."6 Kummerow told The New York Times, rather tongue in cheek, that "other scientists were more interested in what the industry was thinking than what I was thinking." Although Kummerow found a direct correlation between heart disease and trans fat consumption in women, which he called the "tip of the iceberg" after finding another disturbing link between trans fat and type 2 diabetes in women, it took another 20 years for the scientific community to acknowledge there might be something to his research. Early Years: Influences and Opportunities In a short autobiographical sketch,7 Kummerow outlined details of his life that offer insights regarding his early years, which undoubtedly influenced his work ethic as well as his chosen profession. He was born in Berlin in 1914. In 1923, a relative offered his father a job in a concrete block factory in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, which ultimately helped them escape Germany's growing political turmoil. He particularly remembered the gift of a chemistry set when he was 12, which he credited to his immediate and passionate interest in food science. Kummerow's school career followed a fairly straightforward path: Milwaukee's Boys Technical School ("because they had a three-year chemistry course"), the chemistry department at the University of Wisconsin in 1936 and graduate studies in the school's department of biochemistry four years later. He explained: "My Ph.D. research involved identifying the chemistry of a factor in the blood (linoleic acid) that keeps the blood from clotting in the arteries and veins. This is a particularly important factor in today's cardiovascular disease research since that clotting affects the blood flow from the heart."8 In 1945, he was asked by Kansas State University to work on the technology of food storage, especially those containing fat, noting how food containing certain fat goes rancid quickly, an important observation in the throes of World War II. When the U.S. Army Quartermaster Corps granted contracts to universities to work on the development of food storage methods in extreme conditions, he gained one of them, as well as a subsequent citation for his work in 1948. Dr. Kummerow: Tenacious, Contrary and, Ultimately, Right The citation itself, awarded at Fort Knox, was a steppingstone to his next project as a biochemist at the University of Illinois in 1950 to continue his lipid research, which he continued for the remainder of his long career. Kummerow wrote: "In 1948, the U.S. Congress created the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and made research funds available on a variety of topics, including diet and health. The NIH was mandated to fund research on cancer and other diseases, but only a few million dollars per year were allocated for heart research until after President Eisenhower's heart attack in 1955. With money available from NIH grants to study heart disease, I began to work in that field. The effect of cholesterol on heart disease was one avenue of study and was the one I followed. Almost everyone now has heard of cholesterol and its possible link to heart disease, with recommendations (I disagree with) to cut back on eating cholesterol containing foods such as eggs and meat, and saturated fats in foods like butter."9 When Kummerow began studying trans fats in foods in 1957 and documenting his concerns about their negative effects, he was able to show how arteries in heart disease patients literally changed in composition and developed blockages unrelated to dietary cholesterol or blood cholesterol, causing an imbalance in nutrients that can also lead to obesity. The New York Times wrote of Kummerow: "He had been one of the first scientists to suggest a link between processed foods and heart disease. In the 1950s, while studying lipids at the university, he analyzed diseased arteries from about two dozen people who had died of heart attacks and discovered that the vessels were filled with trans fats."10 Using pigs that had been fed a diet heavy in trans fats in his next study, he revealed the high levels of plaque his porcine subjects' arteries were clogged with. In 1957, while every other scientific institution was blaming the growing number of atherosclerosis cases on saturated fats from foods like cheese, butter and cream, Kummerow published his findings about the dangers of trans fats in the journal Science. It was ignored. It took Kummerow's tough stance with the FDA to get them to concede that trans fats are not safe, with the caveat that unless a manufacturer could present convincing scientific evidence that a particular use was safe, they would be banned after June 18, 2018. That's 58 years after Kummerow's first findings told the ugly truth about trans fats. Even now, scores of doctors and hospitals erroneously tell their patients that saturated fats are the problem. But today, Dr. Walter Willett, a professor of epidemiology and nutrition at the T. H. Chan School of Public Health at Harvard, is just one scientist who credits Kummerow's research and tireless activism for inspiring his own interest in researching trans fat. It led him to include the topic for further investigation as part of Harvard's highly influential Nurses' Health Study, published in 1993. In fact, Willett believes the push for the trans fat ban will save as many as 90,000 people a year from dying prematurely. Dr. Kummerow: Perseverance and Passion An individual as unique and knowledgeable as Kummerow had, like the rest of us, interesting quirks that may have hinted at some of the larger aspects of how his brain worked. For one, he had many interests, the News-Gazette noted. He wrote letters to five different sitting presidents, members of Congress and others he thought might be able to do something about some of the topics that weighed on his mind, such as energy, nuclear weaponry and the national debt. In his biography, Kummerow recalled being an expert witness for several hearings before the Federal Trade Commission on the topic of cholesterol, reports made to a U.S. Senate hearing on nutrition and the biochemistry of cholesterol, co-authoring more than 460 peer-reviewed scientific papers, editing three books and writing chapters in six other books on the role trans fat plays in heart disease. He called being made a fellow in the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences, the American College of Nutrition, the American Society of Nutritional Sciences, the International Atherosclerosis Society, the American Heart Association Council on Arteriosclerosis, Arteriosclerosis, Thrombosis and Vascular Biology, and the Council of Clinical Cardiology, and involvement with the American Heart Association a "recognition of competence." Incidentally, Kummerow noted that his own diet included whole milk, red meat and eggs scrambled in butter. After writing his book, "Cholesterol is Not the Culprit: A Guide to Preventing Heart Disease," published just a few years before his death, he summed up the importance of respecting how the body processes food, writing: "How the body uses food to make what we need to keep going is an incredible, almost magical, process. We — as well as all animals and plants — are not programmed to live forever, but we can certainly increase the number of high quality years of life."11