#in an age that has so many health safety measure it is NOT normal to be sick every winter !

[shae-la-hyene]

Seeing everybody be sick and talk about it like it's normal and mundane and unavoidable when covid safety measures clearly showed us that flus and colds and other contagious sicknesses are definitely easily avoidable, but people would rather be debilitated for a week than put a mask in winter, is making my soul leave my body.

[treasurypreserve]

Pet Insurance Ohio- A Comprehensive Guide

Claiming a pet in Ohio gives pleasure and friendship, yet it likewise accompanies the obligation of guaranteeing their well-being and prosperity. One method for shielding your shaggy companions is through Pet Insurance Ohio. This article investigates all that you want to be aware of pet insurance in Ohio, including its advantages, inclusion choices, and ways to pick the right contract.

WHAT IS PET INSURANCE OHIO?

Pet protection is a sort of health care coverage intended to cover veterinary costs for pets. Very much like human health care coverage, pet protection can assist with lessening the monetary weight of startling clinical expenses. It ordinarily covers a scope of administrations, including standard check-ups, crisis care, medical procedures, and meds.

WHY THINK OF PET PROTECTION OHIO

Rising Veterinary Expenses: The expense of veterinary consideration has been consistently expanding. As per the American Veterinary Clinical Affiliation (AVMA), pet people can hope to pay hundreds to thousands of dollars for medicines, particularly in crises.

The inward feeling of harmony: Pet protection permits you to pursue medical care choices for your pet without the mind-boggling worry about costs. You can zero in on getting your pet the consideration they need without monetary pressure.

Complete Consideration: With pet protection, you can furnish your pet with a more extensive scope of medicines. Approaches frequently cover mishaps and sicknesses as well as preventive consideration, for example, inoculations and yearly check-ups.

Figuring out Pet Protection in Ohio

Kinds of Inclusion

In Ohio, pet insurance contracts ordinarily fall into three fundamental classifications:

Mishap Just Plans: These arrangements cover wounds coming about because of mishaps, like broken bones or nibbles. They don’t cover diseases or preventive consideration.

Ailment Plans: This inclusion centers around treating sicknesses, like diseases, constant circumstances, and inherited issues. Nonetheless, they generally avoid mishaps.

Exhaustive Plans: Complete plans join both mishap and disease inclusion. They frequently incorporate preventive consideration, offering a balanced answer for pet medical care.

Normal Rejections

While pet protection can be important, it’s fundamental to know about normal prohibitions. Numerous approaches don’t cover:

Previous circumstances

Routine health visits

Restorative systems

Breed-explicit circumstances

Holding up Periods

Most pet insurance contracts have holding up periods before inclusion starts. This truly means that assuming your pet is harmed or becomes sick during this time, you may not get repayment for those costs. Commonplace holding up periods range from a couple of days to half a month, contingent upon the safety net provider and kind of inclusion.

Picking the Right Pet Protection in Ohio

Choosing the best pet protection for your requirements can overpower you. Here are a few vital variables to consider:

Evaluate Your Pet’s Necessities

Think about your pet’s variety, age, and wellbeing history. A few varieties are inclined toward specific medical problems, which might influence your decision of protection. More established pets frequently require more clinical consideration, so a thorough arrangement might be more reasonable.

Think about Plans and Suppliers

Research different pet protection suppliers in Ohio. Search for organizations that offer a scope of plans, adaptable deductibles, and adjustable inclusion choices. Some well-known pet insurance agencies in Ohio include

Peruse Client Audits

Client criticism can give significant experiences into a back up plan’s cases interaction, client assistance, and generally speaking fulfillment. Sites like ConsumerAffairs and Trustpilot can assist you with measuring an organization’s standing.

Check for Limits

Many pet insurance agencies offer limits for different pets, military staff, or yearly installments. Make a point to ask about any suitable limits to help bring down your expenses.

Grasp the Fine Print

Painstakingly read the strategy subtleties, including as far as possible, deductibles, and repayment rates. Guarantee you comprehend the terms to keep away from any shocks while recording a case.

Expenses of Pet Protection in Ohio

The expense of pet protection in Ohio differs generally based on a few elements, including:

Kind of Inclusion: Mishap just plans are for the most part more affordable than extensive plans.

Pet’s Age: More established pets ordinarily have higher charges because of their expanded gamble of medical problems.

Breed: Certain varieties might draw in higher expenses in light of their inclination to explicit circumstances.

Area: Veterinary expenses can differ by locale, affecting protection rates.

All things considered, pet protection in Ohio can go from $20 to $100 each month. It’s essential to offset the premium with the degree of inclusion you want.

Documenting a Case

At the point when your pet requires clinical consideration, the cases cycle is urgent. Here is a bit by bit manual for recording a case:

Visit the Veterinarian: After your pet’s treatment, get a nitty gritty receipt that frames the administration given.

Complete the Case Structure: Most insurance agencies give an on the web or downloadable case structure. Finish it up totally.

Present Your Case: Send your finished case structure alongside the receipt to your protection supplier. Many organizations offer internet-based accommodation for quicker handling.

Anticipate Repayment: Cases handling times can fluctuate. Most safety net providers will tell you of their choice within half a month. Whenever endorsed, you’ll get repayment given your strategy’s terms.

FAQs About Pet Protection in Ohio

Is Pet Protection Worth The effort?

Many pet people discover a sense of harmony of psyche and monetary security presented by pet protection offset the expenses. It permits you to settle on medical care choices without agonizing over costs.

Could I at any point Get Pet Protection for a More established Pet?

Indeed, numerous guarantors offer inclusion for more established pets, however expenses might be higher. A few organizations have age limits for enlistment, so it’s crucial for research choices early.

What Occurs on the off chance that I Don’t Utilize My Pet Protection?

In the event that you document no cases, you will not get any cash back from your charges. Notwithstanding, you will in any case take care of the security of knowing that you’re in the event of a crisis.

Are There Any Variety Explicit Arrangements?

Some insurance agency offer variety explicit arrangements that record for genetic circumstances normal in specific varieties. It merits getting some information about these choices.

How Would I Drop My Pet Insurance Contract?

On the off chance that you choose to drop your pet protection, contact your supplier and follow their wiping-out methods. Guarantee you do as such before your next installment to keep away from pointless charges.

CONCLUSION

Pet protection in Ohio is a fundamental apparatus for capable pet proprietorship. By putting resources into a reasonable strategy, you can guarantee your fuzzy mates get the most ideal consideration without the monetary pressure that frequently goes with veterinary bills. Get some margin to explore your choices, look at suppliers, and pick an arrangement that addresses both your issues and those of your pet. With the right protection, you can zero in on the main thing: partaking in the bond you share with your darling pet.

[jpckids]

Benefits of Well-Child Visits in Children’s Clinic Jonesboro AR

A Well Child Visit is a routine visit scheduled by the child's primary care provider(PCP) for a routine checkup. It plays an important part in your child’s medical care in the Children's Clinic Jonesboro AR. It is a chance for the pediatrician to see your child without having to diagnose and treat an illness, Pediatricians are a vital piece of your child’s ongoing healthcare. As a parent, you know when to take your children to the doctor if they are sick. But do you know that Annual pediatrician visits are just as important for children to be healthy and develop normally?

Some of the Benefits of Well-child visits are:-

Age-Specific Advice:

Receive developmentally scheduled advice about your child’s health needs at every well-child visit, addressing everything from sleep and nutrition to general wellness.

Physical Exams:

Your pediatrician examines your child’s respiratory and circulatory systems, reflexes, eyes and ears, and temperature, helping catch issues before they become problems. Physical examination and screening tests are also a part of the well-child visit. Your child’s visit may include checking blood pressure level, vision, or hearing. Your pediatrician will do a physical examination, which may include listening to the lungs and feeling the abdomen. Screening tests can include tests for anemia, lead exposure, or tuberculosis. Some screening, such as for depression or anxiety, is done using a paper form or online assessment.

Immunizations:

Even after infancy, children stick to an immunization schedule as part of well-child visits.

Gauging Developmental Milestones:

Chart changes in height, weight, and other measurements as well as social and other behaviors.

Prevention:

Scheduled immunizations are given to protect your child from serious diseases. You can also ask your pediatrician about nutrition and safety in the home and at school. For many children in Jonesboro, the most common cause of harm is a preventable injury or illness. The well-child visit is an opportunity to review critical strategies to protect your child from injuries, such as reviewing car seat use and safe firearm storage. The well-child visit is an opportunity to ensure your child is protected from infectious diseases by reviewing and updating his or her immunizations. If there is a family history of a particular illness, parents can discuss strategies to prevent that illness for their child. Healthy behaviors are important to instill at a young age, and the well-child visit is a time to review these important behaviors, such as sleep, nutrition, and physical activity.

Track growth and development:

The doctor will track your child’s growth and can help identify developmental milestones in physical, mental, language and social skills. Your pediatrician will review your child’s growth since the last visit and talk with you about your child’s development. These visits are a time to review and discuss each of the important areas of your child’s development, including physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. Pediatricians often use a resource called Bright Futures to assess and guide discussions with parents about child development.

Raise concerns:

Make a list of topics you want to talk about with your child’s pediatrician such as development, behavior, sleep, eating or relations with other family members and ask your top three to five questions at the start of the visit.

Teenagers:

Well-child visits offer adolescents an opportunity to take steps toward independence and responsibility for their own health behaviors. Every well-child visit with a teenager should include time spent alone with the pediatrician so that the adolescent has the opportunity to ask and answer questions about their health. Adolescent visits provide an opportunity for teenagers to address important questions, including substance use, sexual behavior, and mental health concerns.

Your well-child visit is also a wonderful time to ask your pediatrician about any non-pressing concerns about your child’s health. From nutrition and exercise to tips on treating commonplace health issues, your well-child visit serves to get parents on track about their kid’s health.

[smallnetbusiness]

A Closer Examination of Smart Square HMH

While many breakthroughs involve several people, clever smart square hmh creators deserve praise. They had a vision, and they worked tirelessly to make it a reality. Leading tech publications often praise these trailblazers for their innovative work. While many breakthroughs involve several people, clever square HMH's creators deserve praise. They had a vision, and they worked tirelessly to make it a reality. Leading tech publications often praise these trailblazers for their innovative work. Additionally, their dedication extended beyond only producing a useful product. The user experience was given top priority by these innovators, who made sure that every component of smart square HMH was simple to use and open to everyone. They favored democratizing technology so that everyone, regardless of the level of technological sophistication, could make use of it. It's important to recognize these trailblazers who made it all possible while we make use of clever square HMH's many advantages today. Advantages and Benefits For Today's User In today's hectic environment, every Tom, Dick, and Harry is searching for convenience. Smart Square HMH thrives in this area! It is simple to use, effective, and ideal for today's tech-savvy age. Furthermore, smart square HMH serves as a dependable assistant, simplifying chores and boosting productivity at a time when efficiency is paramount and multitasking has been the standard. Smart square HMH is the magic wand that nimbly converts obstacles into possibilities, whether you're handling routine activities, organizing complex projects, or just looking for an improved digital experience. This tool is not simply a piece of technology; it improves living since it is designed to meet the constantly changing demands of the modern user. For Institutions and Organizations Conglomerates as well as individuals find comfort in elegant square HMH. The benefits are too many to list on one's fingers, from simplifying processes to assuring good communication. Useful Applications Within Education Smart Square HMH is causing a stir everywhere from elementary schools to top institutions. Students and teachers agree that it is a godsend and just as practical as a shirt pocket. Health care Imagine a future where access to patient information is just a click away and where diagnoses are more accurate. Thanks to clever square HMH, it is no longer a pipe dream. In Everyday Life Smart Square HMH has you covered for everything from ordering pizza to buying tickets. It's similar to having a genie in a bottle, except instead of getting three wishes, you get a ton. Common Falsehoods Dispelling Myths There is no smoke without fire, yet sometimes reports are merely unfounded and untrue. Let's dispel some myths concerning clever square HMH that are often held. Identifying truth from fiction Every rose has its thorn, it's true, yet many of the objections leveled towards clever square HMH are false. Let's separate the grain of truth from the untruth by using a sieve. Installing Smart Square HMH First Steps Each journey starts with the first step. Additionally, establishing your smart square HMH is simple. All you have to do is follow the breadcrumbs, and you'll soon be operating normally. Superior Configuration Smart Square HMH doesn't let down people who like tinkering and personalization. If you go deep, you'll find a wealth of possibilities just waiting to be explored. Measures for Safety and Security Protection of User Privacy Privacy is priceless in today's digital world. You can be confident that your secrets are secure with clever square HMH. Reducing online threats Smart Square HMH is like a fortress in a world where cyber dangers and hackers are rampant. Strong security measures make sure that snoopers are kept out. Smart Square's Future HMH Forecasts and predictions Although looking into a crystal ball may be pure imagination, experts think that clever square HMH has a better future than a penny. Potential upgrades and improvements Innovation is a 24/7 process. And the best is yet to come for clever square HMH. Future features are something we can only imagine now. Expert judgments Everyone, from digital enthusiasts to computer experts, is praising clever square HMH. Their endorsement of it confirms its effectiveness in spades. Conclusion One thing is certain as we come to a close: smart square HMH is a revolution, not simply a new tool. It is a shining example of creativity and usefulness in the digital era. It promises a future where ease is king and difficulties are a thing of the past, whether you're a newbie or a geek. So go in and discover clever square HMH's magic. You won't be let down! It was a bunch of computer enthusiasts with huge dreams that gave birth to smart square HMH. They worked through the night, overcoming many obstacles since they had the same enthusiasm for doing something extraordinary. Their story is a testament to tenacity, teamwork, and the unyielding spirit of human innovation; it is not just about technology. FAQs How does Smart Square HMH work? It's a ground-breaking gadget that flawlessly combines convenience and technology to make life easier. How is user privacy protected? Using strong security mechanisms and cutting-edge encryption. Is it appropriate for people of all ages? Absolutely! Everyone may find it simple as pie, from young children to elderly people. What about its use in fields other than healthcare and education? There are no boundaries. Its uses range from e-commerce to entertainment. Are there any unstated fees? In no way! Transparency is the key word here. How does it stack up against its rivals? Despite the severe competition, smart square HMH often prevails because of its unrivaled features and usability. Read the full article

[info-copa]

The Connected Community

The vision that has always fed our work at COPA National is of “a world in which all children, all youth and all people can flourish and reach their full potential. In such a place, children and youth will be safe, both physically and emotionally; their strengths and capacities will be respected; and they will live freely, while respecting others’ needs to be so too.”

The truth is that our society is not organized in a way that promotes the flourishing of children, youth, or in fact, most of the rest of us. We live in a world of rampant economic and social inequity, and those who are most vulnerable live most precariously, for example - children, youth, women, LGBTQ+2S, racialized and Indigenous people, and those in difficult economic circumstances.

At COPA National we believe it to be our collective human responsibility to care for the most vulnerable in our society, and a significant pillar of our work is to mobilize the broader community to ensure that all children and all people can exercise their fundamental right to be safe, strong, and free.

On a recent episode of The Gray Area podcast, the host Sean Illich interviewed Gabor Maté about his new book, The Myth of Normal. Their conversation echoes COPA National’s unique approach and makes the link between trauma caused by interpersonal violence and the loss of personal rights (as in adults not respecting the personhood and rights of children) to this broader societal context.

In a society where so many children live in isolated nuclear family units, parents are overwhelmed with monumental responsibility, and face a lack of adequate support and resources. Communities that once may have offered some measure of support to families are now less able to do so, as they are experiencing increased partisanship, unrelenting economic hardship, ongoing racial inequity, anxiety due to COVID, etc. There are things we as individuals can do to empower children, but if society does not support families by providing supportive networks, safety nets, financial buffers and caring, compassionate services, then families will continue to be left to struggle through disasters like the pandemic on their own, and kids will suffer.

The COVID pandemic only exacerbated this problematic social context for families and children. During the lockdowns, families were subject to even more crushing isolation and increased responsibility due to school closures. Factor in the financial stress experienced by so many and the anxiety of being in the midst of a pandemic, and it is no surprise that the rates of domestic violence skyrocketed. We know that the consequences of these events and these environments for children (Adverse Childhood experiences, or ACEs) can be catastrophic and long term, and lead to Trauma and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

During the pandemic, the crisis in child and youth mental health exploded. One study found that after a year of the pandemic, the brains of adolescents in the study had actually aged and surpassed the participants’ chronological ages. In addition, the frontal cortex (in charge of executive function) had thinned, and the amygdala and hippocampus (regulators of fear and stress responses) had grown larger. It is no surprise either that diagnoses of obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit disorder increased, and rates of suicide in children skyrocketed. In October 2021, the American Academy of Pediatrics declared a national emergency in child and adolescent mental health and called for increased funding to strengthen community systems to aid families and kids.

At COPA National, we are committed to creating a more supportive context for families, children, and youth. We promote communication, contact, and compassion in the child-friendly tools and strategies we offer to communities, schools, and families. We do not believe in or participate in parent blaming because we recognize the hardships they live with. We provide these tools and strategies to build the capacity of all adults to care for kids, and we encourage and reinforce their motivation to do so.

When everyone is equipped with tools and strategies, kids reap the benefits.

It really does take a village …

 1)      Bringing in families, caregivers, and the wider community

Most of us were raised to think of punishment as normal, natural, and even logical. At COPA National we encourage those caring for children to leave the path of punishment, shame, and blame and move toward a focus on learning opportunities. Empowerment Parenting is a website for parents and caregivers that offers concrete tools, strategies, and examples for how to do this with children from 2-12 years of age.  Explore the website to learn more about being a positive parent, COPA National's strategies, and corporal punishment and its effects.

Problem-Solving Together is COPA National’s Tool for Empowerment. It outlines a clear and simple process for how adults can offer support to children who are struggling with a problem and at the same time help them develop their own capacity to solve problems.

Respect for You and Me is a guide about Consent for parent and caregivers (and all adults). It defines sexual assault, rape culture, and consent and explains how adults can support children and youth empowerment, reinforce resilience, and offer collective support to young people.

Another great resource for parents and caregivers (and all adults) is a series of animated short films that offer inspiration and motivation for parent engagement and greater home and school collaboration. Each film has a discussion guide to help jumpstart dialogues about the various subjects in the short films, for example: Reading with Our Children, Parent/Teacher Meeting, Believing in Our Children's Success, Equity and Diversity – Schools and Communities, etc.

The series of 3 blogs below outlines ways in which adults can understand and intervene helpfully in situations of bullying, while again, building capacity in children.

5 Ways to Support a Child that is Being Bullied

5 Ways to Support a Child that Witnesses Bullying

Can the Child who is Bullying Change? 5 Ways We Can Make a Difference

Listen Hard, Hug Softly is a free online course in bullying prevention for parents, caregivers, and all adults. Learn how bullying may affect children and explore our skill-building strategies for prevention.

One of the ways in which COPA National is unique is that we offer programming to children and youth, their parents and caregivers, and to educators – the whole circle of care surrounding a child. Again - when everyone is equipped with tools and strategies, kids reap the benefits, as the adults in their lives are collaborating to enhance their well-being. And when everyone shares a collective understanding, it is more likely that each child will be safe, strong, and free.

 2)      The role of educators

At COPA National we encourage educators to become more aware of their importance to kids. Teachers play a central role in helping students develop a core belief in their own intrinsic self-worth. Each school day presents a multitude of opportunities to interact with students in a way that allows them to accept and respect themselves and others. We have many programs, resources, and tools to support educators, and you will find a selection of them below.

We offer capacity-building programming to educators to help them learn more about violence prevention and how to reduce the vulnerability of children to violence and assault through empowerment-based strategies. To learn more about our programming for educators, visit our website.

Safe@School is a comprehensive website developed by COPA National in collaboration with the Ontario Teacher’s Federation. It features 4 Professional Learning Modules: Youth Empowerment, Bullying Prevention, Equity and Inclusive Educations, and Parents and Caregivers: Partners in Prevention. These modules have been designed to provide educators with resources and proven strategies to assist them in handling issues of bullying, homophobia, racism, and sexism in schools, and the specific incidents that schools must deal with daily. As its foundation, the modules use COPA National’s approach to prevention education and current research on, and best practices for, promoting a school environment in which all students can be safe, strong and free™.

Respect for You and Me (educator’s guide) is a tool that provides practical, hands-on strategies for educators to prevent sexual assault. The guide includes definitions of sexual assault, rape culture and consent and explains how educators can build empowerment in youth, model resilience, use intervention strategies, and work with communities to create a culture of consent and establish healthy relationships.

COPA National’s online bullying prevention course for educators is a practical resource filled with scenarios, exercises, and classroom and school-wide activities. Discover our unique approach to the prevention of bullying and building healthy and inclusive learning and working environments.

3)      Empowering children and youth ...

We believe that social factors such as lack of information, dependence, and isolation increase the vulnerability of kids and other marginalized social groups, and we offer empowerment strategies to reduce that vulnerability. In all our programming for children and youth, we:

provide them with information about their rights in a clear, concrete, and realistic manner,

encourage them to identify potential sources of support – both peers and adults,

increase their capacity by offering tools and strategies for problem-solving that foster rights.

Find out more about our programming.

COPA National has created a series of 3 beautifully illustrated storybooks for young children featuring themes related to bullying prevention, belonging and support. They include gentle messages of listening, kindness, caring, compassion, and courage. Caring is the Universal Language is a reissued collection of these storybooks that have been translated into seven Indigenous languages: Cree, Inuktitut, Michif, Mohawk, Oji-Cree, Ojibwe and Oneida.

A Sticky Situation is a fantastically illustrated comic book for students in Grades 5-8 that can help start conversations with young people about peer pressure, bullying, courage, and support.

Respect For You and Me: Sexual Assault Prevention Strategies for Students is a guide with tools and ideas to help students learn about sexual assault, challenge the myths surrounding it, and promote the principle of consent. It includes definitions of sexual assault, rape culture, and consent and explains how students can develop healthy relationships, supportive friendships, resilience, and be an advocate for peers experiencing sexual assault.

COPA National’s long-term vision is that of a society with more cohesion, mutual support, and interdependency – one that provides a continual supportive context for families. We are working to create this positive and lasting change in communities by building capacity in people, families, schools, and organizations.

The Social Factors of Vulnerability is an analysis developed in 1978 by staff at a sexual assault centre in Columbus, Ohio. It has informed COPA National’s work since its inception and enables us to understand the connections and linkages between the oppression of various marginalized social groups.

According to this analysis, society is largely organized and structured by those in positions of power and tends to reflect their vision and understanding of what is important (for example, their interests, experiences, priorities and needs). People from marginalized groups may share a vulnerability to abuse (interpersonal or systemic) and discrimination due to their social conditions.

Women, people from marginalized ethnocultural groups and those with marginalized sexual orientations and gender identities (and other groups) are increasingly vulnerable to abuse, assault, discrimination and other manifestations of inequity and exclusion the more they:

lack information,

lack power and are dependent upon those who are most likely to have power over them, and

are isolated.

We mitigate factors of vulnerability and reduce the vulnerability of all marginalized people including children and youth, by increasing their capacity through information, support, and strategies and tools that empower and foster rights.

We invite all members of the broader community to learn and grow and change with us. Because it takes a village! It takes a whole school! It takes the whole community!

[sciencespies]

Traffic pollution impairs brain function

https://sciencespies.com/environment/traffic-pollution-impairs-brain-function/

Traffic pollution impairs brain function

A new study by researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Victoria has shown that common levels of traffic pollution can impair human brain function in only a matter of hours.

The peer-reviewed findings, published in the journal Environmental Health, show that just two hours of exposure to diesel exhaust causes a decrease in the brain’s functional connectivity — a measure of how The study provides the first evidence in humans, from a controlled experiment, of altered brain network connectivity induced by air pollution.

“For many decades, scientists thought the brain may be protected from the harmful effects of air pollution,” said senior study author Dr. Chris Carlsten, professor and head of respiratory medicine and the Canada Research Chair in occupational and environmental lung disease at UBC. “This study, which is the first of its kind in the world, provides fresh evidence supporting a connection between air pollution and cognition.”

For the study, the researchers briefly exposed 25 healthy adults to diesel exhaust and filtered air at different times in a laboratory setting. Brain activity was measured before and after each exposure using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI).

The researchers analyzed changes in the brain’s default mode network (DMN), a set of inter-connected brain regions that play an important role in memory and internal thought. The fMRI revealed that participants had decreased functional connectivity in widespread regions of the DMN after exposure to diesel exhaust, compared to filtered air.

“We know that altered functional connectivity in the DMN has been associated with reduced cognitive performance and symptoms of depression, so it’s concerning to see traffic pollution interrupting these same networks,” said Dr. Jodie Gawryluk, a psychology professor at the University of Victoria and the study’s first author. “While more research is needed to fully understand the functional impacts of these changes, it’s possible that they may impair people’s thinking or ability to work.”

Taking steps to protect yourself

Notably, the changes in the brain were temporary and participants’ connectivity returned to normal after the exposure. Dr. Carlsten speculated that the effects could be long lasting where exposure is continuous. He said that people should be mindful of the air they’re breathing and take appropriate steps to minimize their exposure to potentially harmful air pollutants like car exhaust.

“People may want to think twice the next time they’re stuck in traffic with the windows rolled down,” said Dr. Carlsten. “It’s important to ensure that your car’s air filter is in good working order, and if you’re walking or biking down a busy street, consider diverting to a less busy route.”

While the current study only looked at the cognitive impacts of traffic-derived pollution, Dr. Carlsten said that other products of combustion are likely a concern.

“Air pollution is now recognized as the largest environmental threat to human health and we are increasingly seeing the impacts across all major organ systems,” says Dr. Carlsten. “I expect we would see similar impacts on the brain from exposure to other air pollutants, like forest fire smoke. With the increasing incidence of neurocognitive disorders, it’s an important consideration for public health officials and policymakers.”

The study was conducted at UBC’s Air Pollution Exposure Laboratory, located at Vancouver General Hospital, which is equipped with a state-of-the-art exposure booth that can mimic what it is like to breathe a variety of air pollutants. In this study, which was carefully designed and approved for safety, the researchers used freshly-generated exhaust that was diluted and aged to reflect real-world conditions.

#Environment

[eemoo1o-tfrmoo]

Evidence (plus some high quality mid-frame Snotlout faces) for this includes:

Letting Gustav go and touch him (before Snotlout swats his hand away).

When Gustav falls over in an attempt to mount him in a similar fashion to how Snotlout did, Hookfang’s eyes initially go wide before he picks Gustav up by the scruff of his neck and placing him on his saddle.

While we’ve seen the dragons grab their riders like this before, I think the placement is worthy to note because not old is Gustav not Hookfang’s rider, but because the scruff of the neck is typically an intimate part of the body reserved for animal mothers (and fathers, in some cases) to pick up their young.

It’s also a trope commonly used in animal-based media, but maybe I’m looking too much into it.

Hookfang then shows no dissuasion once Gustav is on him, and even makes a determined expression (re: left image) before he jets off.

Now, Gustav is tiny. Even on Fanghook, who is perpetually smaller than Hookfang (as he’s younger, or so is inferred), Gustav looks particularly dwarfed. Here is no exception.

In the measure of health and safety, I don’t think Gustav should be riding a dragon at his young age and as such at his small stature (he’s smaller than Hiccup, which says a lot — and, later on, is shorter than Snotlout — how Gustav was never deemed a Hiccup, we’ll never know).

But, as Hookfang and Gustav take an off-screen flight (Hookfang’s tail even hitting Snotlout over in the process), there is not once an implication that Gustav had fallen off, whereas Snotlout and Hookfang are notorious for disconnecting mid-flight, and Gustav on many instances has fallen off Fanghook (due to rocky landings and whatnot, proving that his body is far too weak for faster flights).

Hookfang was careful.

Now, there’s letting Gustav sit on him while Snotlout’s talking. This could be a parallel to Snotlout sitting on Hookfang when Hiccup explains stuff (an obvious parallel to take due to Gustav being “trained to replace” Snotlout at the academy), but we’re not here for parallels we’re here for the gentle dragon.

Hookfang lets Gustav sit on him even after their brief flight (which hadn’t been warranted, either, meaning that Hookfang had done that via his own accord to entertain Gustav), and then: he lets Gustav make him fire.

Though it’s made to believe that this was the case however, I think this was mostly Hookfang’s doing, because as we see in the following image:

… Gustav’s face (as brief on screen as it is) is one that suggests otherwise (at least on the third instance).

Meaning that while Hookfang is being himself (firing on his own accord, particularly at Snotlout) but also while entertaining Gustav, because in the first two instances Gustav was very amused.

And now, the feeding. Hookfang is dozing when Snotlout throws him a fish. He eats it and spits the skeleton back out at Snotlout.

When Gustav does this, however, he doesn’t throw well enough to make it past Snotlout’s head, and Hookfang eats the fish anyway by causing the predicament you see in the last two images.

This is a regular occurrence between the two, but here Gustav is present, and if you look at the way Hookfang emotes, his pupils are far more dilated than what they would be when doing this (though one could argue that’s the fish’s doing), and then he looks at Gustav.

Gustav, during this, is shocked and yet entertained. I think he’s trying not to laugh, but his figure is too far from the frame to properly tell.

Hookfang looks to Gustav to see if he is amused, and upon realising that he is, continues to look at him instead of spitting Snotlout out as normal.

In short,

Hookfang likes Gustav, and it’s made fairly apparent. Until Fanghook shows up and annoys him. Then it’s all Gustav’s fault.

(But I’m sure he still likes Gustav. Fanghook’s just too annoying.)

Hookfang is so gentle around Gustav (pre-Fanghook)…

[sushmitamukherjee]

The Role of Prenatal Care in Ensuring a Healthy Pregnancy

Prenatal care is a vital component of ensuring a healthy pregnancy for both the mother and her unborn baby. Prenatal care consists of regular check-ups with your obstetrician and gynaecologist in Indore to monitor your health, identify any potential issues, and provide guidance on how to best manage them. From the moment you find out that you are pregnant until after childbirth, prenatal visits can help ensure that both mom and baby stay safe throughout their journey together.

The first step in prenatal care is scheduling an appointment with your healthcare provider as soon as possible after finding out about your pregnancy so they can begin monitoring it from day one.

During these appointments, they will measure important indicators such as blood pressure levels and weight gain to make sure everything is progressing normally; perform tests like ultrasounds or genetic screenings; assess risk factors such as age or preexisting medical conditions; discuss nutrition plans; answer questions about labor & delivery processes; offer advice on lifestyle changes needed during pregnancy (such quitting smoking); review medications currently being taken by the mother-to-be (including over-the-counter drugs); address any emotional concerns related to carrying a child including stress relief techniques, etc.; provide vaccinations if necessary before birth occurs, etc.

All these aspects are extremely important for making sure there aren’t any complications along the way while also providing resources for addressing them should something arise unexpectedly during this special time in life! 

Additionally, many women opt into taking classes offered by hospitals or other organizations specifically geared towards educating expecting mothers on topics related directly relevant things like breastfeeding/formula feeding options, postpartum recovery methods, natural birthing practices, newborn safety measures, parenting tips, etcetera - all of which serve valuable purposes when preparing oneself mentally emotionally physically financially spiritually ahead of welcoming a new life into the world!

Also Read: Best Lady Gynaecologist in Indore

In conclusion, having access to quality reliable information through appointments, classes available online, forums support groups is a key aspect in helping maintain the overall wellbeing of expectant parents, plus their little bundle joy come due date - something highly recommended by individuals considering starting a family embarking upon parenthood journey already well underway!

About the Author:

Dr. Sushmita Mukherjee is a gynaecologist, infertility specialist and a well-trained laparoscopic surgeon in Indore with an experience of over 32 years. Over the years, she has helped plenty of women suffering from varieties of gynaecological disorders. If you are suffering from any gynaecological disorders, such as infertility, uterine fibroids, high-risk pregnancy, etc., do not hesitate to reach out to Dr. Mukherjee.

[biggest-gaudiest-patronuses]

I suspect quite a few people on this site don’t realize they are struggling with the effects of chronic trauma. In particular I think more people need to learn about the symptoms of C-PTSD.

Distinct from general PTSD, Complex PTSD is caused by prolonged, recurring stress and trauma, often occurring in childhood & adolescence over an extended period of time. There are many risk factors, including: abusive/negligent caregivers, dysfunctional family life, untreated mental/chronic illness, and being the target of bullying/social alienation.

I’m not a mental health professional and I’m not qualified to diagnose anyone, I just remember a million watt light bulb going off in my head when I first learned about C-PTSD. It was a huge OH MY FUCKING WORD eureka moment for me—it explained all these problems I was confused and angry at myself for having. The symptoms that really stood out to me were:

Negative self-perception: deep-seated feelings of shame, guilt, worthlessness, helplessness, and stigma. Feeling like you are different from everyone else, like something is fundamentally ‘bad’ or ‘wrong’ with you.

Emotional avoidance of topics, people, relationships, activities, places, things etc that might cause uncomfortable emotions such as shame, fear, or sadness. Can lead to self-isolation.

Learned helplessness: a pervasive sense of powerlessness, often combined with feelings of desensitization, wherein you gradually stop trying to escape or prevent your own suffering, even when opportunities exist. May manifest as self-neglect or self-sabotage. (I remember watching myself make bad choices and neglect my responsibilities, and having no idea why I was doing it, or how to stop myself. Eventually I just stopped caring, which led to more self-neglect.)

Hyper-vigilance: always feeling “on edge,” alert, unable to relax even in spaces that should feel safe. May be combined with an elevated “flight” response, or feelings of always being prepared to flee. (I used to hide important documents and possessions in a sort of emergency go bag, even when I was living alone and there was no logical reason other than it made me feel “prepared.”)

Difficulty regulating emotions: may include mood swings, persistent numbness, sadness, suicidal idealization, explosive anger (or inability to feel anger and other strong emotions), inability to control your emotions, confusion about why you react the way you do.

Sense of foreshortened future: assuming or feeling that you will die young. Recurring thoughts that "I'll be dead before the age of 30/40/18/21 etc." As a teenager I used to joke darkly that I didn't plan to live past 30—not because I planned to end my life, but because I simply couldn't imagine myself alive and happy in the long-term. I couldn't imagine a meaningful future where I wasn't suffering.

Emotional flashbacks: finding yourself suddenly re-experiencing feelings of helplessness, panic, despair, or anger etc, often without understanding what has triggered these feelings. Often these flashbacks don’t clearly relate to the memory of a single event (since C-PTSD is caused by repetitive events, which can blur together), making them harder to identify as flashbacks—especially if you’ve never heard the phrase “emotional flashback” and don’t know what to look for. For years I just filed it under “sometimes I overreact/freak out randomly for no reason, probably bc I am just a terrible human being.” (It turns out there was very much a reason, it was just hidden in the past. I have since learned to be kinder and less judgemental towards myself.)

There are other symptoms too, here are more links with good info.

I’ve been meaning to write this post for awhile, because I’ve noticed that a lot of the people I interact with online have risk factors and experiences similar to mine. These include:

growing up in a dysfunctional household

having caregivers who do not fulfill basic emotional needs (do not provide consistent positive attention, encouragement, support, acceptance, communication, a sense of safety and security)

on a very related note, experiencing neglect or abuse at the hand of caregivers or other adults. I also want to emphasize the significance of emotional abuse, since it is hard to recognize, easy to ignore, and utterly rampant in so many communities. In general, family dysfunction, abuse & neglect are quite difficult to identify when you are a child/teen and that is the only “normal” you have known.

(For example, in my family it manifested as an emotionally absent father I was vaguely frightened of, constant nagging from a hypercritical mother, and a house full of people who yelled and screamed at each other. It took me years to realize I grew up in an abusive environment, because there was no physical violence, because I participated in the fighting, and because my behavioral problems made me the family scapegoat. And I internalized that guilt: I thought I was the problem. But no—I was a child, and I deserved not to grow up in a household full of anger and fear and negativity. You deserved that too. You deserved to grow up safe and loved and treated with kindness.) 

anyway back to more risk factors:

being neurodivergent or chronically ill (especially without receiving proper treatment/support/accommodation)

being queer (especially in a conservative or undiverse community, or without the support and acceptance of family & friends)

being the target of bullying or harassment (from peers, teachers, authority figures, irl, online, etc)

being isolated or alienated from peers, from family, from your wider community.

growing up with chronic anxiety, discomfort, pain, fear, or distress caused by any of the above and more.

There are many other experiences that can cause chronic trauma, but these are some particularly common ones I see people in my own community struggling with. And I want more people to be aware of this, because we’ve been taught to ignore and second-guess the significance of our traumatic experiences. We’ve been taught to feel guilty for our own pain, because “other people aren’t struggling, so I shouldn’t either” or (contradictorily) “other people have it worse, so I shouldn’t complain.” But that’s not how it works—you are not other people, and you deserve to have it better. We all deserve better. We deserve to be happy. We deserve not to be in pain.

I used to think I couldn’t have a trauma disorder because (I argued in my head) the things that happened to me weren’t that bad. And then I spent five years in therapy learning to accept the full extent of my issues. I’ve since learned that trauma comes in many forms, and can happen quietly, invisibly, silently, chronically, and usually without the survivor being aware of the long-term repercussions of what they are surviving. That revelation comes later, after you have survived and must instead learn to live.

Finally, no single type of trauma is more real or harmful than any other. Severity is measured by the way the individual is affected, and the same situations affect different people in different ways. Because no one gets to choose how their brain reacts to trauma. No one gets to choose their hurt—otherwise there would be a hell of a lot less hurting in the world.

We can, however, choose to seek help. We can learn to recognize when something is wrong, we can learn when to reach out to professionals, and we can learn to educate ourselves on our injuries.

And gradually, we can learn to heal.

(posts like this brought to you by ko-fi supporters)

[genderlessluka]

TOXIC

May be updated//

AU : Noxtale

Age : 500

Birthday : August 6

Sexuality : Demisexual, pansexual

Gender : Cisgender

Height : 8’9

Likes : Cats, family, sweets, music (more to come)

Dislikes : Sour things, putting stuff in his skull, people getting too close (more to come)

Occupation : N/A

Personality :

- Cold shoulder at first, but will get friendlier after awhile…And by friendly I mean tolerating your presence

- Super bad trust issues, especially with humans

- Protective, especially with his loved ones

- Not THAT talkative but he does talk

Powers :

- The usual Sans powers: A lot more powerful BUT a lot more wilder/harder to control

- His bones are cracked with acid oozing out of it

- Gaster Blaster looks very similar to his skull, half of the face/lower jaw missing. While it’s doing its attack, acid leaks from its sockets

Strengths :

- Extremely strong

- Has a thick, sharp tail that’s a few feet long

- Clawed hands

- Stealthy

- Extremely high pain tolerance

Weaknesses :

- Hole in skull causes memory loss

- Unbalanced (Tail helps with that tho)

- Takes awhile for him to trust

- Constant pain due to radiation in bones

- Very low health

Soul : White monster soul, but it has many cracks that leak acid

Backstory :

- Scientists and the govt were working on a bomb that could affect a town, this was for war purposes. This bomb had special side effects that would mutate people and destroy their brain cells which would make them easier to control

- For safety measures, they had their site on Mt. Ebott so if anything went wrong, they could throw the bomb into the hole. And guess what!!! They had to throw the bomb into the hole because one of the scientists had fucked up an equation and caused the bomb to start to activate on its own. They quickly dump the bomb in the hole and try to run away, but most of them couldn’t get out alive. The bomb had spilt over the top of the hole and killed every living thing nearby.

- Once the bomb hit the ground, it exploded and killed absolutely everything in the ruins. The further away from the ruins things/people were, the less affected they were. People in snowdin were affected the most, hence why Sans and Papyrus look so fucked up.

- Sans and Papyrus were handing around the bridge when it had exploded. There wasn’t enough time to teleport so Sans had shielded Papyrus from the blast, but both of them were still affected. After the whole thing, Sans had passed out due to the big ass whole in his head while Papyrus carries him back to snowdin where everyone had been freaking out b/c of the bomb killing some monsters

- The people who were affected were brought to Hotlands where Alyphs, Asgore, and most of the other boss monsters were helping the monsters. Overtime, the monsters had started to show mutations. The most common ones being extra limbs, height growth, and sharp teeth. As the monsters were being taken care of, others had focused on rebuilding the town with materials that wouldn’t be melted by the radiation

- About a year or so later, everything had started to go back to normal,,,Besides the deadly chemicals floating around, but they had gotten used to it. Sans and Papyrus had gone to their newly built home, trying to go back to how they were, but sans was absolutely fucked. His memory was terrible and he jumped at every noise outside. This caused Papyrus to be some sort of caretaker for him, just helping him out with his memory and daily activities. After a few months, Sans’s memory wasn’t that bad anymore and he had learned how to use his tail to help him with his balance.

- Outside of Sans and Papyrus, the whole underground was doing…Okay. No food could be grown in snowdin anymore, so they had to rely on other places. Most of the water in waterfall had been contaminated, so Alyphs created a machine to get rid of the chemicals. It was a rough time, but they were able to get by. Asgore also a had started collecting the souls, wanting to free his people from this absolute hell

Headcanons :

- When he gets on the surface, stray cats will absolutely love him. He’ll wear extremely thick clothing and gloves so he doesn’t affect the cats

Random stuff :

Images :

[ask-purpled-and-blued]

Vigilante

Not once has Purpled ever called himself a hero.

He wants that on record, wants to say it up front. He’s never had any delusions about what he is and what he’s doing.

He doesn’t have the license for it, doesn’t have the morals for it. He’s not even saving that many people.

He’s just some kid running around in pro hero cosplay with his shoddy homemade support gear.

So riddle him this: why the fuck is his vigilante name trending on Twitter under #Swag_forHeroCon?

(—This one’s got a high-stress moment and the briefest panic attack known to man somewhere in the middle. Mind the post’s tags and reply if it needs more.—)

—

It started about a year ago. It’s sophomore year and he’s looking at his options for next year’s classes.

Of course he’s taking AP Calc and everything he thinks colleges wanna see. That’s a given and a no-brainer and he’s not gonna go into detail about that.

No, what matters is that his junior and senior year let him take career classes.

Hero-related career classes.

Because not only is this a private nerd school that he needs his scholarship to afford. It’s a private nerd school that has a dual-enrollment type thing with a nearby heroics school.

And one with a pretty good support course that is now available to him.

He’s always been interested in math and engineering. Support courses are just using both of those to make cool shit for heroes and make hella money while doing so.

He’s done his research. Support gear can cost anywhere from a couple thousand dollars to an arm and a leg and both your kidneys.

And it’s his dream to make that kinda money.

So he talks to his counselor about it, fills out the applications and waivers, takes the program’s entrance exam. And within a week he’s got his new schedule that’s got an extra two hours slapped onto the end of the day.

It’s gonna be so worth it.

—

And it really was.

The beginning of the year was covering what they should make support gear for, how to take the quirks and ideas of the heroes they’re working for and make them actually work.

But also the design process, how to research stuff, lab safety. How to make something look nice while not compromising its utility, costume design, branding. Different materials and their uses, different materials and how to work with them. How to deal with mistakes and set-backs. Avoiding burnout and getting literally burn.

The class was amazing. But his favorite part came later in the year.

The final project.

They were given a made up hero student’s profile and were told to create a support item for them. The file came with their name, measurements, hero name, quirk description, and several sketches of what the fake person looked like and of them using their quirk.

They were given a few deadlines and some profiles came with design requests, but for the most part they were allowed to go ham.

And go ham he did.

His assignment was a kid whose quirk was being able to float just himself. He got a couple sketches of what the kid’s costume already had and it looked like there was a bee theme going on.

So, naturally, he decided to give this kid a pneumatic nail gun.

...

Alright so maybe that wasn’t as intuitive as he thought it was. But the kid didn’t have any sort of weapon on him in any of the sketches!

And there wasn’t any sort of close combat abilities listed in the biography like some of his classmates’s people had, so the further this kid could be from the action while still packing a punch the better.

Hence the nail gun he was designing to look like a stinger.

He did his research. Looked up where the body’s vital organs are and read up on acupuncture. Looked up the damage that stab wounds can do and how fast a thing had to be going to go right through you.

Printed out some human outlines and wrote up a couple sheets that pointed out the “no-no spots.” And basically wrote a manual on how to use the thing and half an essay on why certain safety features were implemented to keep him and the fake kid from being sued.

And then halfway through actually building the thing he got the idea to add a paralytic substance.

And then he hated himself a little bit because he had to find a substance that would be non-lethal and would have the desired affect. And then he had to go to his teacher during his office hours to sit down and explain that yes he had this idea but he’s not entirely sure if it’s a good one.

And he wrote another almost-essay about what he chose as the paralytic substance and why he chose it and what the max amount the average person could take was so that he wouldn’t be liable if it was used improperly.

And then he recorded himself reading all of his paperwork both for extra credit and because apparently the kid’s bio said he was dyslexic and the teacher wanted them to do this as realistically as possible.

Probably would’ve been easier to just change the font but he’s come this far, might as well go the extra mile.

He paints the thing. Gathers up all his research and his concept sketches and his blueprints and his explanations and his recordings.

And he dumps them on the teacher’s desk and enjoys the lull in the class as the final projects get reviewed and graded.

They get to watch movies and Netflix with the TA while the teacher sits in the other room grading them.

He loved this class.

—

He still loves the class but it loses points for the fucking heart attack it just gave him.

Apparently the hero students they made shit for we’re real hero students. Actual, physical people who applied to the heroics department and got in. And may possibly one day be heroes if they didn’t fail.

And were going to come in and see the shit they made that passed inspections. And would be given said shit to use as part of their hero costumes.

In hindsight it should’ve been obvious, but Purpled cut himself some slack there.

At least his guy was nice. A little too excited at 4pm on a Thursday, but given the fact that Purpled just handed him a gun and said he could shoot people, it was understandable.

Purpled felt really good as he walked this Tubbo guy through the instructions again. Apparently he’d already been sent the paperwork and the audio before this. So all that was left to do was remind him about it the important stuff and then taking five wide steps back and letting him shoot at a practice dummy.

...

Well, Tubbo’s aim wasn’t his problem.

F to any villains and civilians in his way.

—

At this point, there’s probably some confusion.

“Purpled, why did you become a vigilante if your support gear inventing future looked bright?”

He’s getting to that!

He needs to talk about his junior year to give context for his senior year.

Which sucked absolute ass.

—

For one, Purpled’s quirk came in.

Now, normally that would be a pretty good thing. Somewhere around 80% of America’s population had quirks.

Four out of every five people had some sort of ability or abnormality that ranged from being able to detach your ear to having super strength. Getting one that wasn’t detrimental to your health, even at his age, was generally a positive thing.

Except Purpled’s actually sucked. Sucked so fucking bad.

Yeah, he was lucky in that he didn’t suddenly grow gills and need to live underwater for the rest of his life or something. But he honestly wished he could go back to a week ago when he didn’t have this quirk.

When he wasn’t constantly being forgotten by the people in his life because of a quirk he couldn’t turn off.

If it wasn’t for the fact that the quirk counselor’s quirk let them detect the use of quirks, he would’ve thought he’d lost it.

People forgetting his face, his name, his existence over the span of a week was hell. He had to show his mother his birth certificate and social security card and his baby pictures so that she’s remember she had another son. Let alone everyone else in his life that he only saw at school.

Oh god his fucking school.

The lengths he had to go to to keep his fucking scholarship was fucking nuts.

Classes were a nightmare with the teachers forgetting about him by the end of the period.

Things eventually got easier when he realized it was an area of effect thing and that he could shorten it to affect people within a few feet of him.

From that point on he just had to social distance from people like his life depended on it. Because his social and academic lives did depend on it.

He didn’t experiment with his quirk beyond that though. He hated it. He did everything in his power to keep it as tightly controlled as he could.

Until the one time he didn’t.

—

He was out to get another notebook because he’d severely underestimated how many notes he’d need to take for one of his classes. It was just supposed to be a quick stop on his way home.

He’d sat on the bus home with his quirk pulled in tightly around him, the force of it a buzzing weight on his skin that he refused to let go of.

He got off at a stop that wasn’t his but was closer to the dollar store he had in mind. He honestly didn’t expect to take more than ten minutes.

Then a guy walked in and loudly told the cashiers to hand over the money.

Purpled wasn’t that close to the front, but he peeked around the aisle and watched the robbery unfold.

The dude had what looked like leaves for hair and was holding the cashiers at gunpoint. There were two of them at adjacent checkouts, neither of them with any visible mutations. They actually might not have quirks.

Purpled has no idea what to do with this information.

His best bet was to wait for the heroes to arrive and stay quiet-

One of the cashiers was looking right at him. Robber guy noticed.

Turned around and pointed his gun at Purpled. Told him to get out from where he was hiding and to kneel on the ground in the open.

And Purpled was scared. He couldn’t move, he’d frozen.

The guy got loud and mad and he still had the gun pointed at him.

Purpled was panicking. His chest felt too tight and his quirk was freaking out. Buzzing harder than it ever has.

He couldn’t hold it. He let go.

...

For a moment, everything was still and everything was quiet.

Purpled felt light, he felt more at ease than he had in months.

Because his quirk was free and loose and everyone else in the room looked so fucking confused. Like they had no idea what was going on.

Like they just forgot what was going on.

And then the heroes arrived. How they knew to be here was anyone’s guess.

Purpled should probably give his statement.

Purpled was probably in shock though. So he forgave himself for shoplifting and not pulling his quirk back in. For just walking right out of the store and down the street.

Nobody shouted at him or called him back, so he assumed they forgot he was there.

He wished he could forget he was in the store for that moment too.

—

There’s a lot of other little things that lead up to Purpled being a vigilante, but those things don’t matter as much.

He drops out. It’s not hard to make people forget he even went to school.

He regularly breaks back into school to steal tools and materials for his projects and just wipes the people who walk in on him doing that shit.

Makes a costume but scraps it and decides to make several replicas of the top twenty’s costumes.

Because he’s realized that the wider he makes his range the less of an effect his quirk has on all those in range. Vice versa.

So the pro gamer move here is to make people forget what they saw the person in the pro hero costume doing instead of trying to make them forget they saw an unfamiliar figure doing shit.

Memory is reconstructive after all. Easily manipulated even without a quirk like his.

And he’s good at making his costumes and altering his appearance.

He probably won’t always do a good job wiping people’s memories though, so he lets it stick that there’s a vigilante that impersonates pro heroes. One that constantly shifts their appearance.

He even gets bold and makes a name for himself.

Swag_.

...

Listen he didn’t say it was a good name-

—

He doesn’t stop a lot of crime. And the people he does save often think they were saved by someone else.

But there’s always that one moment after he managed to save someone where they look at him. And they see him.

And that’s worth everything.

It’s not a selfless motive. It’s not a heroic motive.

But it’s enough of a motive for Purpled.

—

He doesn’t know how he got a following. Doesn’t know how he never noticed.

But he likes it. After the initial shock of seeing himself trending fades, he lets himself soak up all the positive attention.

And then he gets back to work.

[jpckids]

Benefits of Well-Child Visits in Children’s Clinic Jonesboro AR

A Well Child Visit is a routine visit scheduled by the child's primary care provider(PCP) for a routine checkup. It plays an important part in your child’s medical care in the Children's Clinic Jonesboro AR. It is a chance for the pediatrician to see your child without having to diagnose and treat an illness, Pediatricians are a vital piece of your child’s ongoing healthcare. As a parent, you know when to take your children to the doctor if they are sick. But do you know that Annual pediatrician visits are just as important for children to be healthy and develop normally?

Some of the Benefits of Well-child visits are:-

Age-Specific Advice:

Receive developmentally scheduled advice about your child’s health needs at every well-child visit, addressing everything from sleep and nutrition to general wellness.

Physical Exams:

Your pediatrician examines your child’s respiratory and circulatory systems, reflexes, eyes and ears, and temperature, helping catch issues before they become problems. Physical examination and screening tests are also a part of the well-child visit. Your child’s visit may include checking blood pressure level, vision, or hearing. Your pediatrician will do a physical examination, which may include listening to the lungs and feeling the abdomen. Screening tests can include tests for anemia, lead exposure, or tuberculosis. Some screening, such as for depression or anxiety, is done using a paper form or online assessment.

Immunizations:

Even after infancy, children stick to an immunization schedule as part of well-child visits.

Gauging Developmental Milestones:

Chart changes in height, weight, and other measurements as well as social and other behaviors.

Prevention:

Scheduled immunizations are given to protect your child from serious diseases. You can also ask your pediatrician about nutrition and safety in the home and at school. For many children in Jonesboro, the most common cause of harm is a preventable injury or illness. The well-child visit is an opportunity to review critical strategies to protect your child from injuries, such as reviewing car seat use and safe firearm storage. The well-child visit is an opportunity to ensure your child is protected from infectious diseases by reviewing and updating his or her immunizations. If there is a family history of a particular illness, parents can discuss strategies to prevent that illness for their child. Healthy behaviors are important to instill at a young age, and the well-child visit is a time to review these important behaviors, such as sleep, nutrition, and physical activity.

Track growth and development:

The doctor will track your child’s growth and can help identify developmental milestones in physical, mental, language and social skills. Your pediatrician will review your child’s growth since the last visit and talk with you about your child’s development. These visits are a time to review and discuss each of the important areas of your child’s development, including physical, cognitive, emotional, and social development. Pediatricians often use a resource called Bright Futures to assess and guide discussions with parents about child development.

Raise concerns:

Make a list of topics you want to talk about with your child’s pediatrician such as development, behavior, sleep, eating or relations with other family members and ask your top three to five questions at the start of the visit.

Teenagers:

Well-child visits offer adolescents an opportunity to take steps toward independence and responsibility for their own health behaviors. Every well-child visit with a teenager should include time spent alone with the pediatrician so that the adolescent has the opportunity to ask and answer questions about their health. Adolescent visits provide an opportunity for teenagers to address important questions, including substance use, sexual behavior, and mental health concerns.

Your well-child visit is also a wonderful time to ask your pediatrician about any non-pressing concerns about your child’s health. From nutrition and exercise to tips on treating commonplace health issues, your well-child visit serves to get parents on track about their kid’s health.

[nootropicsaustralia]

Ashwagandha's Health Benefits According to Science

Ashwagandha (withania somnifera) is popularly known as the king of Ayurvedic herbs. Ayurveda is a form of alternative medicine based on Indian principles of natural healing. It is an incredibly healthy botanical, often referred to as Indian Ginseng. It is a small plant with yellow flowers that is native to India and North Africa.

It is classified as an adaptogenic herb, and while all adaptogens reduce stress (cortisol), ashwagandha’s ability to do so is superior to the rest.

Ashwagandha has many benefits for the brain, where it can increase energy, sharpen focus, and reduce symptoms of anxiety and depression. It has been used this way for over 3,000 years.

Its name literally means “smell of a horse” since it was said to bestow the strength and stamina of a horse on anyone who used it. An Ayurvedic scholar from 100BC, Charaka, said of Ashwagandha, “One obtains longevity, regains youth, gets a sharp memory and intellect and freedom from diseases, gets a lustrous complexion, and strength of a horse.”

The most well-known active ingredients in Ashwagandha are withanolides. Alongside these valuable compounds are many other beneficial elements, including flavonoids and antioxidants such as catalase, superoxide dismutase and glutathione, which is known as the “mother of all antioxidants.” It also contains alkaloids, amino acids (including tryptophan), neurotransmitters, sterols, tannins, lignans and triterpenes. It is these valuable compounds together that allow for ashwagandha’s hugely beneficial pharmacological activities.

Due to the combined benefits of the herb’s valuable compounds, we used a 60:1 full-spectrum concentrated extract, which is made up of at least 5% withanolides. This means that each 100mg serve in a Savvy product is equivalent to 6grams of this superherb!

The reason we love it in our Savvy products is because Ashwagandha has been proven to:

Reduce stress, anxiety, and mental fatigue; and

Increase mood, enhance brain function and improve memory; and

Boost performance + energy while being a potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant; and

Support healthy brains and hearts.

We will now delve into the scientific evidence behind the benefits of this amazing herb. For each scientific resource, at Savvy, we have referenced the study, linked to it and also provided an interesting quote from the study. Occasionally, we will also provide further commentary on the study.

Please note that we have referenced the scientific literature that support the benefits of ashwagandha, and to make it easier to read, we have 'indented' every second resource.

Each reference will have a quoted excerpt from the scientific literature, and occasional observations made about the evidence as well.

We really hope you enjoy a look into the many years of research we have compiled when formulating Savvy...

Benefit 1 - Ashwagandha can reduce stress, anxiety, and mental fatigue

Ashwagandha’s chief benefit is that it actually annihilates stress in the body. Ashwagandha improves our resistance to stress and studies show that it thereby improves people’s self-assessed quality of life. Ashwagandha is extremely dynamic in how it combats stress and fatigue!

The study, below, found ashwagandha lowered stress and anxiety by over 60% from consistent use. The reference to the study is:

Chandrasekhar, K. et al. ‘A prospective, randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of safety and efficacy of a high-concentration full-spectrum extract of ashwagandha root in reducing stress and anxiety in adults.’ in Indian Journal of psychological medicine. Volume 34, issue 3, July 2012, pp 255-262. [https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23439798]

After the findings in this study, the authors concluded:

“The findings of this study suggest that a high-concentration full-spectrum Ashwagandha root extract safely and effectively improves an individual's resistance towards stress and thereby improves self-assessed quality of life.”

The above study found that Ashwagandha helps with multiple levels of stress, these being cortisol levels, anxiety and insomnia. In the study, 64 healthy participants were enrolled, between the ages of 18 and 54. Half were given Ashwagandha daily for 60 days, and the other half got a placebo.

The Ashwagandha group saw improvements to their stress baseline by 69.7%, 64.2%, and 75.6%. These improvements were across all three measures including cortisol, anxiety, and insomnia.

The below graph from this trial clearly shows the power of this herb as it influences the body over 60 days from baseline!

PSS is the Perceived Stress Score (which dropped by 44% over 60 days)

GHQ-28 measures levels of anxiety, nervousness, social dysfunction, depression. (Levels of which dropped by 72.3% over 60 days)

DASS (Depression Anxiety Stress Scale) (Levels of which dropped by 71.6% over 60 days)

Serum Cortisol levels - (useful to assess the effect of the treatment on cortisol (the stress hormone in your body) level) (Which dropped by 27.9% over 60 days)

Further scientific evidence that support the benefits of Ashwagandha:

Auddy, B. et al. ‘A Standardized withania somnifera extract significantly reduces stress-related parameters in chronically stressed humans: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study‘ in JANA, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2008, pp 50-56.

[https://blog.priceplow.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/withania_review.pdf]

“This study determined that daily consumption of standardised withania somnifera extract...reduced experimental feelings of stress and anxiety.”

Andrade, C. et al. ‘A double-blind, placebo-controlled evaluation of the anxiolytic efficacy ff an ethanolic extract of withania somnifera.’ in Indian journal of psychiatry. Volume 42, Issue 3, July 2000, pp 295-301.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21407960]

In the above study, over 6 weeks, 88.2% of the people who took ashwagandha reported a reduction in anxiety.

“It is concluded that this ethanolic extract of Withania somnifera has useful anxiolytic potential.”

Bhattacharya, SK. et al. ‘Anxiolytic-antidepressant activity of Withania somnifera glycowithanolides: an experimental study.’ in Phytomedicine: international journal of phytotherapy and phytopharmacology.  Volume 7, Issue 6, December 2000, pp 463-469.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11194174]

“The investigations support the use of WS as a mood stabilizer in clinical conditions of anxiety and depression in Ayurveda.”

Head, K and Kelly, G. ‘Nutrients and Botanicals for Treatment of Stress: Adrenal Fatigue, Neurotransmitter Imbalance, Anxiety, and Restless Sleep’ in Alternative Medicine Review, Volume 14, Issue 2, 2009, pp 114-140.

[https://www.spectracell.com/media/uploaded/2/0e2016801_266fullpaper2009altmedrevnutrientsforthetreatmentofstressfatigueandinsomnia.pdf]

“...it [Ashwaganda] has shown anti-stress and anabolic activity”

Cooley, K. et al. ‘Naturopathic Care for Anxiety: A Randomized Controlled Trial ISRCTN78958974’ in PLOS one, 2009.

[http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0006628]

In the above study, when anxiety levels were measured after the 12-week period, the group who received ashwagandha had anxiety scores that decreased by 55 percent and the psychotherapy group’s scores decreased by 30.5 percent. Showing that Ashwagandha can even outperform psychotherapy.

“Seventy-five participants (93%) were followed for 8 or more weeks on the trial. Final BAI scores decreased by 56.5% (p<0.0001) in the NC group… Significant differences between groups were also observed in mental health, concentration, fatigue, social functioning, vitality, and overall quality of life with the NC group exhibiting greater clinical benefit. No serious adverse reactions were observed in either group.”

Benefit 2 - Ashwagandha can increase mood, sharpen focus and enhance memory

Ashwagandha supplements may improve mood, brain function, memory, reaction times and the ability to perform tasks.

Scientific Studies:

Pingali, U. et al. ‘Effect of standardized aqueous extract of Withania somnifera on tests of cognitive and psychomotor performance in healthy human participants.’ in Pharmacognosy research. Volume 6, Issue 1, pp 12-18.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24497737]

“These results suggest that Withania somnifera extract can improve cognitive and psychomotor performance”

Kurapati, KR. et al. ‘Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) reverses β-amyloid1-42 induced toxicity in human neuronal cells: implications in HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND).’ in PLos One, Volume 8, Issue 10, October 2013.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24147038]

“Withania somnifera (WS) also known as 'ashwagandha' is used widely in Ayurvedic medicine as a nerve tonic and memory enhancer.”

Manchanda, S. et al. ‘Aqueous Leaf Extract of Withania somnifera as a Potential Neuroprotective Agent in Sleep-deprived Rats: a Mechanistic Study.’ in Molecular neurobiology. Volume 54, Issue 4, May 2017, pp 3050-3061.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/27037574]

“Modern lifestyle and sustained stress of professional commitments in the current societal set up often disrupts the normal sleep cycle and duration which is known to lead to cognitive impairments. In the present study, we report whether leaf extract of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) has potential neuroprotective role in acute stress of sleep deprivation.

This data suggest that Ashwagandha may be a potential agent to suppress the acute effects of sleep loss on learning and memory impairments and may emerge as a novel supplement to control SD-induced cognitive impairments.”

Chandrasekhar, K. et al. ‘A prospective, randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of safety and efficacy of a high-concentration full-spectrum extract of ashwagandha root in reducing stress and anxiety in adults.’ in Indian Journal of psychological medicine. Volume 34, issue 3, July 2012, pp 255-262.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23439798]

In the above 60-day study in stressed adults, those who took 600 mg per day reported a 79% reduction in severe depression. Interestingly, at the same time, the placebo group reported a 10% increase.

“Ayurvedic classical texts…and clinical studies describe Ashwagandha as a safe and effective adaptogen.”

Bhattacharya, SK. et al. ‘Anxiolytic-antidepressant activity of Withania somnifera glycowithanolides: an experimental study.’ in Phytomedicine: international journal of phytotherapy and phytopharmacology.  Volume 7, Issue 6, December 2000, pp 463-469.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11194174]

“The investigations support the use of WS as a mood stabilizer in clinical conditions of anxiety and depression in Ayurveda.”

Sehgal, N. et al. ‘Withania somnifera reverses Alzheimer's disease pathology by enhancing low-density lipoprotein receptor-related protein in liver’ in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United Stated of America. Volume 109, Issue 9, February 2012, pp 3510-3515.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3295277/]

“Withaferin A and withanolide D are the two main withanolides in ashwagandha that are used to improve cognitive function. The above study aimed to test their cognitive-improving abilities, researchers found that they helped to promote cell outgrowth, reverse behavioral deficits and plaque buildup, and reduce amyloid beta burden, which is crucially involved in the development of Alzheimer’s disease.”

Choudhary, D. et al. ‘Efficacy and Safety of Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera (L.) Dunal) Root Extract in Improving Memory and Cognitive Functions.’ in Journal of dietary Supplements. Volume 14, Issue 6, November 2017, pp 599-612.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28471731]

“After eight weeks of study, the ashwagandha treatment group demonstrated significant improvements compared with the placebo group in both immediate and general memory. The treatment group also demonstrated significantly greater improvement in executive function, sustained attention, and information-processing speed.

Ashwagandha may be effective in enhancing both immediate and general memory in people with MCI as well as improving executive function, attention, and information processing speed.”

Benefit 3 - Ashwagandha can boost performance + energy while being a potent anti-inflammatory and antioxidant

Because ashwagandha works as an adaptogen that can reduce the body’s stress hormones, it can help to boost your immune system and reduce inflammation within the body. Due to its positive, calming-yet-energising effects on the brain, and its ability to lower stress hormones, ashwagandha showed improvements in concentration, motivation and stamina in conducted studies.

Scientific studies:

Sandhu, JS. et al. ‘Effects of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) and Terminalia arjuna (Arjuna) on physical performance and cardiorespiratory endurance in healthy young adults.’ in International journal of Ayurveda research. Volume 1, Issue 3, July 2010, pp 144-149.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21170205]

“Withania somnifera may therefore be useful for generalized weakness and to improve speed and lower limb muscular strength and neuro-muscular co-ordination.”

Wankhede, S. et al. ‘Examining the effect of Withania somnifera supplementation on muscle strength and recovery: a randomized controlled trial.’ in Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition. Volume 43, Issue 12, November 2015.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26609282]

“This study reports that ashwagandha supplementation is associated with significant increases in muscle mass and strength”

Khan, MA. et al. ‘Effect of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) root extract on amelioration of oxidative stress and autoantibodies production in collagen-induced arthritic rats.’ in Journal of complementary & integrative medicine. Volume 12, Issue 2, June 2015, pp 117-125.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/25803089]

“The results showed that [withania somnifera] exhibited antioxidant and anti-arthritic activity and reduced inflammation in CIA rats and suggests the potential use of this plant in the treatment of arthritis.” “Similarly, oxidative stress in CIA rats was ameliorated by treatment with different doses of WSAq, as evidenced by a decrease in lipid peroxidation and glutathione-S-transferase “

Yamada, K. et al. ‘A comparison of the immunostimulatory effects of the medicinal herbs Echinacea, Ashwagandha and Brahmi. In Journal of ethnopharmacology. Volume 137, Issue 1, September 2011, pp 231-235.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21619924]

“Ashwagandha can enhance immune function by increasing immunoglobulin production.”

Trivedi, M. et al. ‘Effect of a Novel Ashwagandha-based Herbomineral Formulation on Pro-inflammatory Cytokines Expression in Mouse Splenocyte Cells: A Potential Immunomodulator’ in Pharmacognosy Magazine, Volume 13, Issue 1, Jan 2017, pp 90-94.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5407122/]

“These observations indicated that [ashwagandha] has potential effects in downregulating the immune system and might be developed as a useful anti-inflammatory product for various inflammatory disorders.”

Choudhary, B. et al. ‘Efficacy of Ashwagandha (Withania somnifera [L.] Dunal) in improving cardiorespiratory endurance in healthy athletic adults.’ in AYU: An international quarterly journal of research in Ayurveda. Volume 31, Issue 1, March 2015 pp 63-68.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4687242/]

“The findings suggest that Ashwagandha root extract enhances the cardiorespiratory endurance and improves QOL [quality of life] in healthy athletic adults.”

Benefit 4- Ashwagandha can support healthy brains and hearts

Ashwagandha has also been considered a healthy supplement for the nervous and cardiovascular systems.

Scientific studies:

Auddy, B. et al. ‘A Standardized withania somnifera extract significantly reduces stress-related parameters in chronically stressed humans: A double-blind, randomized, placebo-controlled study‘ in JANA, Volume 11, Issue 1, 2008, pp 50-56.

[https://blog.priceplow.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/withania_review.pdf]

In the above study, the group who took 250 mg of ashwagandha daily had a 36% average decrease in CRP, compared to a 6% decrease in the placebo group

Singh, N. et al. ‘An Overview on Ashwagandha: A Rasayana (Rejuvenator) of Ayurveda’ in African Journal of Traditional, Complementary and Alternative Medicines. Volume 8, Issue 5, pp 208-213.

[https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3252722/]

“The available scientific data support the conclusion that Ashwagandha is a real potent regenerative tonic (Rasayana of Ayurveda), due to its multiple pharmacological actions like anti-stress, neuroprotective, antitumor, anti-arthritic, analgesic and anti-inflammatory”

Ojha, S and Arya D, ‘Withania somnifera Dunal (Ashwagandha): A Promising Remedy for Cardiovascular Diseases’ in World Journal of Medical Sciences, Volume 4, Issue 2, 2009, pp 156-158.

[https://www.selfhacked.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/17.pdf]

Sandhu, J. et al. ‘Effects of Withania somnifera (Ashwagandha) and Terminalia arjuna (Arjuna) on physical performance and cardiorespiratory endurance in healthy young adults’ in International Journal of Ayurveda Research, Volume 1, Issue 3, July 2010, pp 144-149.

[https://search.proquest.com/openview/59746581cde31a08f143c628ea65c441/1?pq-origsite=gscholar]

“Withania somnifera may therefore be useful for generalized weakness and to improve speed and lower limb muscular strength and neuro-muscular co-ordination.”

SummaryI am sure you can now see the amazing benefits of Ashwagandha and why we use it in Savvy.

[lamortexiii]

The HellBilly Pulpit: The Stigma of the Stigma

Saturated

This is a painful, yet necessary entry. It envelops me and I must address the situation.

There is a real issue in this country, or even the world over, about mental health. You can't see it in someone. You can have no idea just how bad someone is suffering. Suffering because they don't have a choice. Their problems are discounted, downplayed, and even ridiculed. But make no mistake. They are very much real to those who live it.

This is a personal account of just this sort of thing.

There was a certain movie that came out in 2019 that had a line that sums up the truth. “The worst part about having a mental illness is that people expect you to act as if you don’t.”

I can not agree with this more.

I am currently going through a situation where this exact scenario is taking place. I know that I am not alone in my struggles. I feel that there are probably many of you out there with a similar story.

This pandemic over the last two years has completely laid to waste many of the daily rituals and habits that I had spent my entire life building just to be able to function as a (semi) normal person on any given day.

I suffer from OCD- Anxiety- Depression- and ADHD. That is one heck of a ride as it is, but toss on the pandemic and it’s a real rollercoaster that is out of my control. My job is not very critical. It’s deemed “essential” because of the relation to the finance market it has. Honestly, that’s just a super vague excuse to keep us going to work at the boss’s wishes. Some of us have been working from our dwellings for two years. The problem with this is that now is the time when the bosses want to start pulling people back into the office a couple of days a week despite the current spike of COVID cases. In doing this they have said, “all safety measures will be implemented”. What a crock.

I expressed my concerns about coming back not only because of this new surge of the newest variant but also because the situation really hasn’t changed any in the last few months from what it was in 2020. My coworkers and my boss know that I have OCD (extreme contamination fears) already with the workplace, but now, as I’m sure some are aware, it’s been kicked up a bunch of notches. My concerns were met with deaf ears. It was like this friend (who happened to be my boss) completely disregarded my concerns in dealing with trying to resume “normal” life. My life never was normal and now it’s even a different version than it was two years ago.

The sum- “get over it, you’re needed here… get here”

It didn’t matter what I said about the situation. Now, in this nightmare cocktail of disorders, I have developed a huge amount of empathy for others, especially if they are having any of the mental struggles that I am having. I spoke up that this is not just for me that I am bringing these things to attention, but for others that don’t have the same platform or comfortability to say for themselves.

The sum- “stop being a baby”.

Long story short… Thankfully I have a great therapist and doctor who knows how deep in the weeds I am with all of this and they have helped me sort out the situation, much to the annoyance of my bosses, so that I can continue to remain a cave dweller for the time being.

My point is this… it’s been said but it’s true and bears repeating. There is a stigma about mental health.

A person can be burning inside with the torment of depression and anxiety and any or all of the little variations or caravan of side issues that accompany any one of them. BUT.. since it is not a physical ailment, it’s perceived that it does not exist. Why? Why is it that to be taken even a little bit seriously, there has to be a physical manifestation of an ailment?

To add to the fact that I am a middle-aged male does nothing but amp up the opinions of others who don’t understand, nor do they want to understand what we go through inside.

For some of us, just the simple act of getting out of bed and putting that first foot on the floor takes ALL of our willpower, and we often sit right back down to attempt to regain it all over again. Or we drag ourselves to the shower only to stand in there and let the water try to distract us and wash away our pain. Knowing that in about an hour, we are going to have to put on our “normal” face and walk into the world carrying that weight on our backs that nobody sees.

There was a joke that I heard a few days ago- The doctor asks the patient if they have had any issues with depression or anxiety recently. The patient says, “doesn’t everybody?” and the doctor said... “No.”. That hit. That was an eye-opening moment. Not everyone knows what that is like. I can’t fathom that.

I have this group of bosses that have known me for years, as I said earlier, and they know that this is me. They know that I’ve been in therapy and medicated for years. And like any other millions of bosses out there in the world, they didn’t care.

It’s a mission of mine to bring as much attention as I can to the stigma surrounding mental health. That I can express how important focus on mental health is.

If you were to break a leg, you'd wear your cast and take your painkillers. Well, when dealing with your mental health, what's broken is your brain, your spirit, your ambition, and your will - the invisible things that people can’t see.

Seek out the help that you need - be it from a professional, family, your best friend, or someone you know who just “gets” you.

Reach out in your prayers, spells, cards, or whatever you use to help guide you. Your spirituality may be a surprising comfort in new ways that you hadn't thought of. I’ve found that I can rest my anxiety with a cleansing shower, letting the water run, cool not cold, over me as I focus my intent and purpose of removing the negativity that has attached itself to me.

I also use meditation to refocus and empty my mind by sitting in a dark room with my favorite ambient music to rest and let my mind float and take me wherever it wants to go. Falling asleep this way is ok as well, I’ve found that’s a great formula for a relaxing nap.

Tarot. This is new to me. I’ve started with a simple shuffle and letting my thoughts go into my cards. Not necessarily asking for a definitive answer, maybe just some insight that I may be missing myself that the cards can lead me to.

I’ve always been interested in the cards, but always as a spectator. I’ve recently met a few people who have some good experience with giving readings to people. I asked one of them a few weeks ago to give me a reading. He lives over in Europe and there’s a good bit of time difference but he is the first to inspire me to get a deck of my own. He did a reading for me, simple pull, nothing fancy and he came up with a certain card in a certain position and it corresponded with my current station in life. That was an eye-opening experience. To have someone do a reading with their cards for ME after all this time of being curious.

My second friend that I’ve turned to for guidance in the cards also did a reading for me. This was maybe 3 or 4 days after the first. This person is stateside and not far from me. I feel this is an important detail. She pulled my cards and one of the cards jumped out of the deck as she started to shuffle. This was the same card that my friend overseas pulled for me as well.

That was it. I’m in.

I bought my first deck. The one in the picture for this blog and I’m ready to start down that path of self-discovery that I’m learning is possible to achieve.

Tarot. Always curious. Never studied. Now I’m ready for the insight that is possible through the cards.

Opening my mind and spirit to the universe, I have found that this has been one of the most refreshing feelings in the world.

I try to live by the idea that the energy that you put out into the universe, will come back to you. Don’t be afraid to look within yourself and use the tools you feel compelled to use and are comfortable with. You’ll be much for the better than allowing the demons to hang out in your mind 24/7.

Always remember that you are not alone.

I promise you.

We are here and we reach out with open arms to be the support that you didn't know you needed.

Take care of yourselves everyone.  

Be cool

I leave you again this month with another poesy. This was inspired by the cards themselves.

Fnip.. fnip.. fnip... Sitting and shuffling Brooding and clenching The flutter of the cards calming my senses What will they show? Maybe they haven’t determined yet Guide me on my path, lead the way Give me insight, security Calm my thoughts Show me what you want to say Ava Satanis HBVV

The HellBilly Pulpit Blog by @hellbillyvvitch @thehellbillypulpit

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

September 9, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

After weeks of pleading with Americans to get vaccinated as Republican governors opposed mask mandates, ICUs filled up, and people died, today President Joe Biden went on the offensive.

Saying, “My job as President is to protect all Americans,” he announced that he was imposing new vaccination or testing requirements on the unvaccinated. The U.S. government will require all federal employees, as well as any federal contractors, to be vaccinated. The government already requires that all nursing home workers who treat patients on Medicare and Medicaid have to be vaccinated; Biden is expanding that to cover hospital workers, home healthcare aides, and those who work in other medical facilities. “If you’re seeking care at a health facility, you should be able to know that the people treating you are vaccinated.”

Using the Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Biden will also make employers with 100 or more employees require that their employees either be vaccinated or show a negative coronavirus test at least once a week. He pointed out that big companies already are doing this, including United Airlines, Disney… and the Fox News Channel.

Together, the new vaccine requirements will affect about 100 million Americans, making up two thirds of all U.S. workers.

Biden also urged those who run large entertainment venues to require vaccines or show a recent negative test for entry. He has already required teachers at the schools run by the Defense Department to get vaccinated, and today he announced that the government will require teachers in the Head Start program, which is federally funded, to be vaccinated. He called on governors to require that all teachers and staff be vaccinated for coronavirus, as their states already require a wide range of vaccinations for other diseases.

Calling out those like Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who has taken a stand against mask mandates and is threatening to withhold the salaries of school officials who defy him, Biden said that “if these governors won’t help us beat the pandemic, I’ll use my power as President to get them out of the way.”

He is using the Defense Production Act to increase production of rapid tests and has worked with major retailers to sell those tests at cost for the next three months. The government has also expanded free testing at 10,000 pharmacies and will spend $2 billion to distribute nearly 300 million rapid tests to community health centers, food banks, and schools. He has ordered the Transportation Safety Administration to double the fines on travelers that refuse to mask.

After deploying nearly 1000 healthcare workers to address this summer’s surges in 18 states, the president is now sending in military health teams from the Defense Department. Meanwhile, he said, the U.S. continues to donate vaccines to the rest of the world, “nearly 140 million vaccines over 90 countries so far, more than all other countries combined, including Europe, China, and Russia.... That’s American leadership on a global stage, and that’s just the beginning.” The U.S. is now shipping 500 million more Pfizer vaccines to 100 lower-income countries.

“Many of us are frustrated with the nearly 80 million Americans who are still not vaccinated, even though the vaccine is safe, effective, and free,” Biden said. More than 175 million Americans are fully vaccinated, and for the past three months we have created 700,000 new jobs a month. But while nearly three quarters of those eligible have gotten at least one shot, the highly contagious Delta variant has ripped through the unvaccinated, who are overcrowding our hospitals, threatening the health of our children, and weakening our economic recovery.

“[D]espite America having an unprecedented and successful vaccination program, despite the fact that for almost five months free vaccines have been available in 80,000 different locations, we still have nearly 80 million Americans who have failed to get the shot…. And to make matters worse, there are elected officials actively working to undermine the fight against COVID-19,” Biden said. “Instead of encouraging people to get vaccinated and mask up, they’re ordering mobile morgues for the unvaccinated dying from COVID in their communities. This is totally unacceptable.”

“[W]e have the tools to combat COVID-19, and a distinct minority of Americans—supported by a distinct minority of elected officials—are keeping us from turning the corner…. We cannot allow these actions to stand in the way of protecting the large majority of Americans who have done their part and want to get back to life as normal.”

“We’ve been patient, but our patience is wearing thin. And your refusal has cost all of us,” he said. “So, please, do the right thing.”

The Biden administration is pushing back, too, on Texas’s Senate Bill 8, which prohibits abortion after 6 weeks and thus outlaws 85% of abortions in the state. Today, the United States of America sued the state of Texas for acting “in open defiance of the Constitution” when it passed S. B. 8 and deprived “individuals of their constitutional rights.” The United States has a “profound sovereign interest” in making sure that individuals’ constitutional rights can be protected by the federal government, the lawsuit declares. "The act is clearly unconstitutional under longstanding Supreme Court precedent,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said.

What is at stake in this case is the ability of the federal government to defend Americans’ constitutional rights against local vigilantes, a power Americans gave to the federal government in 1868 by ratifying the Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution after white former Confederates in southern states refused to accept the idea that their Black neighbors should have rights.

Since the 1950s, the Supreme Court has used federal power to protect the rights of minorities and women when state laws discriminated against them. S. B. 8 would strip the government of that power, leaving individuals at the mercy of their neighbors’ prejudices. The government has asked the U.S. district court for the western district of Texas to declare the law “invalid, null, and void,” and to stop the state from enforcing it.

This issue of federal supremacy is not limited to Texas. Glenn Thrush of the New York Times today called out that in June, Missouri governor Mike Parson signed the Second Amendment Preservation Act, which declares federal laws—including taxes—that govern the use of firearms “invalid in this state.” Like the Texas abortion law, the Second Amendment Preservation Act allows individuals to sue state officials who work with federal officials to deprive Missourians of what they consider to be their Second Amendment rights. “Obviously, it’s about far more than simply gun rights,” one of the chief proponents of the bill, far-right activist Aaron Dorr, said to Thrush about his involvement.

There were other wins today for the Biden administration. Today was the deadline for federal agencies to produce a wide range of records surrounding the events of January 6 to the House Select Committee to Investigate the January 6th Attack on the United States Capitol, and according to the committee’s Twitter feed, those records have, in fact, been forthcoming.

And Taliban officials did allow a plane carrying about 115 Americans and other nationals to leave Afghanistan.

Biden’s new approach to the pandemic is, as Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo points out, good politics as well as good for public health. About 65% of the voting age population is already vaccinated, and older people are both more likely to be vaccinated and more likely to vote. With most Americans vaccinated and increasingly frustrated with those who refuse, there is little political risk to requiring vaccines, while Republicans standing in the way of public health measures are increasingly unpopular. Florida, where deaths from coronavirus soared to more than 300 a day in late August, has begun to limit the information about deaths it releases.

If Biden’s new vaccine requirements slow or halt the spread of the coronavirus, the economic recovery that had been taking off before the Delta variant hit will resume its speed, strengthening his popularity. Those Republican lawmakers furious at the new vaccine requirements are possibly less worried that they won’t work than that they will.

Notes:

https://www.justsecurity.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/lawsuit-doj.pdf

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/speeches-remarks/2021/09/09/remarks-by-president-biden-on-fighting-the-covid-19-pandemic-3/

https://www.cnn.com/2021/09/09/politics/biden-administration-texas-abortion-law/index.html

https://january6th.house.gov/news/press-releases/select-committee-issues-sweeping-demand-executive-branch-records

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/09/09/business/economy-stock-market-news

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1b3CD2rFn105IQ7ziTfcTT5m8bzv1gBXE5-RXEV0phMM/edit

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/09/us/politics/missouri-gun-law.html

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghanistan-news-taliban-to-let-americans-evacuate-flights-from-kabul-airport/

https://www.nbcmiami.com/news/local/as-covid-deaths-soar-florida-curtails-public-records-on-which-counties-hit-hardest/2547538/

Josh Marshall @joshtpmThe vax mandate is good public health. It’s also good politics. A big majority of the voting age population is already vaxed. About 65%. Propensity to vote and likelihood of being vaxed both rise with age. The vaxed are losing patience w the voluntarily unvaxed who …

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September 10th 2021

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[tinyshe]

Story at-a-glance

In the spring of 2021, the Biden Administration said it was seriously looking into establishing a vaccine passport system that will allow unvaccinated individuals to be legally treated as second-class citizens

In Israel, vaccine certificates are already required for entry into many public spaces. Activists warn it’s become a two-tiered society where the unvaccinated are ostracized

The public narrative is not only building prejudice against people who refuse to wear masks or get an experimental vaccine, but is also using healthy people as scapegoats from the very beginning, blaming the spread of the virus on asymptomatically infected people

With the rollout of vaccine certificates, we are stepping firmly into discrimination territory. The last step will entail persecution of non-vaccinated individuals. At that point, we will have replicated the Nazi regime’s four-step process of dehumanizing the Jews, which ultimately allowed the genocide to occur

Vaccine passports are about creating justification for segregation, discrimination and elimination of certain groups of people, in this case, people who don’t want to be part of the experimental vaccine program, which identifies them as noncompliant with top-down edicts

This article was previously published on April 6, 2021 and has been updated with new information.

As predicted in 2020, vaccine passports are being rolled out across the world, including the U.S. As reported by Ron Paul in his Liberty Report,1,2 which streamed live March 29, 2021, the Biden Administration said it was "seriously looking into establishing some kind of federal vaccine passport system, where Americans who cannot (or will not) prove to the government they have been jabbed with the experimental vaccine will be legally treated as second-class citizens."

While Biden has yet to formally announce such a program, Paul warns that if it happens, this system "will quickly morph into a copy of China's 'social credit' system, where undesirable behaviors are severely punished." I've been saying the same thing for many months now, and there's every reason to suspect that this is indeed where we're headed.

Indeed, listen to Ilana Rachel Daniel's emotional plea from Jerusalem, Israel, where a "Green Pass" is now required if you want to enter any number of public venues and participate in society. Daniel, who emigrated from the U.S. to Israel 25 years ago, is a health adviser, activist and information officer for a new political human rights party called Rappeh.

The COVID-19 data simply don't support the rollout of this kind of draconian measure. In the absence of a serious, truly massively lethal threat to a major portion of U.S. citizens, having to show vaccine papers in order to travel and enter certain social venues is clearly more about imposing top-down government control than safeguarding public health.

We're Looking at the End of Human Liberty in the West

Mandatory vaccine passports will be massively discriminating, and are quite frankly senseless, considering the so-called COVID-19 "vaccines" don't work like vaccines.

They're designed to lessen symptoms when the inoculated person gets infected, but they do not actually prevent them from getting infected in the first place, and they don't prevent the spread of the virus — which is being proven by the number of fully vaccinated people who not only are coming down with the Delta variant of COVID, but are being told they can spread it to others.

With statistics like this, vaccine passports are nothing but loyalty cards, proving you've submitted to being a lab rat for an experimental injection and nothing more, because in reality, vaccinated individuals are no safer than unvaccinated ones. It's a truly mindboggling ruse, and unless enough people are able to see it for what it is, the world will rather literally be turned into a prison planet.

In Israel … we're hearing from activists that it's a two-tiered society and that basically, activists are ostracized and surveilled continually. It is the end of civil society, and they are trying to roll it out around the world. ~ Naomi Wolf

As noted by former Clinton adviser and author Naomi Wolf, mandatory COVID-19 passports would spell the "end of human liberty in the West." In a March 28, 2021, interview with Fox News' Steve Hilton, she said:3,4

"'Vaccine passport' sounds like a fine thing if you don't understand what those platforms can do. I'm [the] CEO of a tech company, I understand what these platforms can do. It is not about the vaccine, it's not about the virus, it's about your data.

Once this rolls out, you don't have a choice about being part of the system. What people have to understand is that any other functionality can be loaded onto that platform with no problem at all. It can be merged with your Paypal account, with your digital currency. Microsoft is already talking about merging it with payment plans.

Your network can be sucked up. It geolocates you everywhere you go. You credit history can be included. All of your medical and health history can be included.

This has already happened in Israel, and six months later, we're hearing from activists that it's a two-tiered society and that basically, activists are ostracized and surveilled continually. It is the end of civil society, and they are trying to roll it out around the world.

It is absolutely so much more than a vaccine pass … I cannot stress enough that it has the power to turn off your life, or to turn on your life, to let you engage in society or be marginalized."

Largest Medical Experiment in the History of the World

As noted by Donald Rucker, who led the Trump Administration's health IT office, the individual tracking that goes along with a vaccine passport will also help officials to evaluate the effectiveness and long-term safety of the vaccines. He told The Washington Post:5

"The tracking of vaccinations is not just simply for vaccine passports. The tracking of vaccinations is a broader issue of 'we're giving a novel biologic agent to the entire country,' more or less."

In other words, health officials know full well that this mass vaccination campaign is a roll of the dice. It's the largest medical experiment in the history of the world, and vaccine certificates will allow them to track all of the millions of test subjects. This alone should be cause enough to end all discussions about vaccine mandates, yet the experimental nature of these injections is being completely ignored.

Again, by shaming people who have concerns about participating in a medical experiment and threatening to bar them from society, government officials are proving that this is not for the greater good. It's not about public health. It's about creating loyal subjects — people who are literally willing to sacrifice their lives and the lives of their children at the request of the government, no questions asked.

Vaccinations Are the New 'Purity Test'

Wolf also points out the horrific history of IBM, which developed a similar but less sophisticated system of punch cards that allowed Nazi Germany to create a two-tier society and ultimately facilitated the rounding up of Jews for extermination.

Suffice it to say, some of the most gruesome parts of history are now repeating right before our eyes, and we must not turn away from this ugly truth. Doing so may turn out to be far more lethal than COVID-19 ever was.

The short video above features a 93-year-old Holocaust survivor who compares mask wearing to, as a Jew, having to wear a yellow star to mark their societal status. However, back then, everyone understood what was happening, she says.

At no point were they lied to and told that wearing the star was for their own good, which is what's happening now. So, in that respect, the current situation is far more insidious. She says the "hypocrisy in the public narrative," which claims that we need to wear masks to protect the old, "is absolutely unbearable." "I would love to die in a state [of] freedom," she says, "than live like this."

She adds that at her age, her life expectancy is short, and she would gladly exchange her death for the life and happiness of the next generations. She wants the younger generations to have the freedom "to live their lives, as I have lived mine ... To see people defile their children with masks is something totally unbearable to me," she says. Vaccine credentials, in my view, are even more comparable to the Jewish yellow star, but in reverse.

Not having the certificate will be the yellow star of our day, which will allow business owners, government officials and just about anyone else to treat you like a second-class citizen and deny you access to everything from education, work and travel, to recreation, social engagements and daily commerce — all under the false guise of you being a biological threat to all those who have been vaccinated.

According to the public narrative, vaccine certificates are a key aspect of getting life back to normal, but the reality is the complete converse, as they will usher in a markedly different society that is anything but normal.

Florida Bucks the Trend

As a resident of Florida, I must applaud Gov. Ron DeSantis who announced March 29, 2021,6 that he would issue an executive order forbidding local governments and businesses from requiring vaccine certificates.

He followed up with that order April 2, 2021, saying he was calling on the state legislature to create a measure that will allow him to sign it into law. Unfortunately, U.S. District Judge Kathleen M. Williams issued an injunction August 8, 2021, against enforcing the order; whether DeSantis chooses to fight to keep it is yet to be seen.

"It's completely unacceptable for either the government or the private sector to impose upon you the requirement that you show proof of vaccine to just simply participate in normal society," he said at the time he announced the order.

But, no matter what comes of DeSantis' order, other states and countries that do decide on such a requirement are also bound to face the problem of black market vaccination certificates, which have already started emerging.7,8

As reported by the Daily Beast,9,10 a number of health care workers have been caught bragging about forging vaccination cards on their social media channels. Apparently, they have not yet realized the public nature of the internet, but that's beside the point.

In Florida, a man working at a web design company was fired after posting a TikTok video advertising fake vaccine cards,11 and in Israel, where the two-tier society is already forming, a man was arrested for making and selling forged COVID-19 vaccination certificates, which are now required for entry into restaurants, bars, clubs, hotels, swimming pools and other public venues throughout the country.12

Around the world, people are also being arrested for administering fake vaccines13,14,15,16,17 and selling bogus COVID-19 tests.18,19

Eugenics and Hygiene Obsessions

While it's often considered bad policy to compare anything to the Nazi regime, the comparisons are growing more readily identifiable by the day, which makes them hard to avoid.

Aside from the parallels that can be drawn between mask wearing and/or vaccine "papers" and the Jewish yellow star, there's the Nazi's four-step process for dehumanizing the Jews,20 — prejudice, scapegoating, discrimination and persecution — a process that indoctrinated the German people into agreeing with, or at least going along with the plan to commit genocide.

In present day, the public narrative is not only building prejudice against people who refuse to wear masks or get an experimental vaccine, but is also using healthy people as scapegoats from the very beginning, blaming the spread of the virus on asymptomatically infected people.

With the rollout of vaccine certificates, we are stepping firmly into discrimination territory. The last step will entail persecution of non-vaccinated individuals. This in and of itself also harkens back to the Nazi regime, which was obsessed with "health guidelines" that eventually led to the mass-purging of "unclean" Jews. As reported by Gina Florio in a December 2020 Evie Magazine article:21

"When Hitler first came to power in Nazi Germany, he kicked off a series of public health schemes. He started by setting up health screenings all over the country, sending vans around to every neighborhood to conduct tuberculosis testing, etc.

Next up was factory cleanliness — he launched a robust campaign encouraging factories to completely revamp their space, thoroughly clean every corner … After the factories, the next mission was cleaning up the asylums …

What started as seemingly innocent or well-meaning public health campaigns quickly spiraled into an extermination of races and groups of people who were considered dirty or disgusting. In short, the beginning of Hitler's reign was a constant expansion of who was contaminated and who was impure …

We're seeing an obsession with covering our faces all the time so we don't spread disease or deadly germs; most public places we walk into won't even allow us to enter without slathering our hands in hand sanitizer; and people act terrified of someone who isn't wearing a mask.

Nobody can say with a straight face that this is normal behavior … We're even seeing people advocate for some kind of tracking device to show that a person is vaccinated or 'clean' enough to enter a venue … Let's hope we can all learn the lessons from the past and we don't witness history repeat itself."

History Is Repeating Itself

Indeed, everyone calling for vaccine certificates — which became part of the public narrative early on in the pandemic — is guilty of following in the well-worn footsteps of this infamous dictator, repeating the very same patterns that were universally condemned after the fall of the Third Reich.

Highlighting them all would be too great a task for one article, so two glaring examples will have to suffice. In December 2020, Andrew Yang, an entrepreneurial attorney with political ambitions, tweeted the following:22

"Is there a way for someone to easily show that they have been vaccinated — like a bar code they can download to their phone? There ought to be … Tough to have mass gatherings like concerts or ballgames without either mass adoption of the vaccine or a means of signaling."

Signaling what, if not your "unclean" biohazard state? In his March 2021 Tweet, law professor, political commentator and former U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania, Harry Litman, was more direct about the ill intent behind vaccine certificates, saying:23

"Vaccine passports are a good idea. Among other things, it will single out the still large contingent of people who refuse vaccines, who will be foreclosed from doing a lot of things their peers can do. That should help break the resistance down."

Comments like these demonstrate that vaccine passports are about creating justification for segregation, discrimination and elimination of certain groups of people, in this case, people who don't want to be part of the experimental vaccine program.

The justification is that they're too "unclean," too "unsafe" to freely participate in public society and must therefore be identified and shut out. In reality, it's really about identifying the noncompliant.

During the Nazi reign, those slated for segregation, discrimination and elimination were identified by their affiliation with Judaism (there's controversy as to whether Jewishness is an issue of race, ethnicity, religion, national identity or familial bonds, which you can learn more about on JewInTheCity.com,24 but all were relevant criteria in the Nazi's hunt for Jews).

Today, the global elimination strategy foregoes such identities, and focuses instead on identifying who will go along with the program and who will be a noncompliant troublemaker.

In short, vaccine passports are a device to identify who the loyal subjects of the unelected elite are, and who aren't. Those unwilling to enter the new world of technocratic rule without a fuss are the ones that need to be eliminated, and willingness to be a test subject for an unproven experimental treatment is the litmus test. It's really not more complicated than that.

Are You Ready To Be an Outcast?

This is essentially the conclusion drawn by Mike Whitney as well, detailed in an article25 posted on The Unz Review. I would encourage you to read the entire article as it succinctly summarizes the reasons behind the current censorship.

In his article, he points out that behavioral psychologists have been employed by the government to promote the COVID-19 vaccination campaign and maximize vaccine uptake. They also have a "rapid response team" in place to attack the opinions of those who question the "official narrative."

Mike also highlights a National Institutes of Health report26 titled, "COVID-19 Vaccination Communication: Applying Behavioral and Social Science to Address Vaccine Hesitancy and Foster Vaccine Confidence," which lays out the intent to turn vaccine refusers into social outcasts as a tool to coerce compliance.

"This is very scary stuff," Whitney writes.27 "Agents of the state now identify critics of the COVID vaccine as their mortal enemies. How did we get here? And how did we get to the point where the government is targeting people who don't agree with them? This is way beyond Orwell. We have entered some creepy alternate universe …

If behavioral psychologists helped to shape the government's strategy on mass vaccination, then in what other policies were they involved? Were these the 'professionals' who conjured up the pandemic restrictions?

Were the masks, the social distancing and the lockdowns all promoted by 'experts' as a way to undermine normal human relations and inflict the maximum psychological pain on the American people?

Was the intention to create a weak and submissive population that would willingly accept the dismantling of democratic institutions, the dramatic restructuring of the economy, and the imposition of a new political order? These questions need to be answered …

Vaccination looks to be the defining issue of the next few years at least. And those who resist the edicts of the state will increasingly find themselves on the outside; outcasts in their own country."

Will You Obey?

As detailed in an internet blog titled, "Will You Obey the Criminal Authoritarians?" the 1962 Milgram Experiment (embedded above for your convenience), tested the limits of human obedience to authority, proving most people will simply follow orders, even when those orders go against their own sound judgment. They'll commit atrocious acts of violence against others simply because they were told it's OK by an authority figure.

We've already seen examples of this during the past year's mask mandates. Suddenly, people felt empowered to verbally harass, pepper spray and physically attack others simply for not wearing a mask. Families were kicked off planes because their toddlers wouldn't wear a mask. People were even shot for the grievous "crime" of not wearing a mask.

If those things were allowed to happen over mask wearing, one can only imagine what will be tolerated, if not encouraged, when vaccine certificates take full effect. The most obvious answer is to take a firm stand against devolution into inhumanity, regardless of whether you think COVID-19 vaccinations are a good idea or not. The question is, will you? In many ways, the months and years ahead will test the ethics and humanity of every single one of us.