#leave sand alone he has other toxicity to get involved in

[kelvintimeline]

i’m finally watching only friends and i’m gonna be honest sand did not react enough to finding out nick bugged a car to listen to other people have sex like… he rly just accepted “well i have a crush on one of them” as an explanation

rly at this point ray, the person who tried to hire another person to be his friend, might come out of this show as the most well adjusted man

[ffs-abalisk]

Thinking about Hueco Mundo again...

And I just thought--wouldn't it be cool if that entire realm used to look different?

Like anytime I revisit it (which is often I might add), I am always thinking about any extra worldbuilding that could be added. More backstory or mythos to be extrapolated on, like my headcanon that the "moon" is actually the remains of a massive ancient hollow, or like how the "hollow world" is actually just that. Hollow. A planet that has several basement levels like the rings of an onion and is being held up by several sedimentary layers of hollow corpses...

Yeah, you heard me.

Let me explain.

See, in the expanded universe of Bleach or more specifically the novels, they go into a little more detail on some origins of characters. Specifically the Soul King. Who was the whole lynchpin for the final arc of the manga. He's the one maintaining the stability of the realms.

He's also the one to uh... Royally fuck the old one.

Or at least that's my interpretation. He grew into power specifically to save the "original inhabitants" of the world who were apparently getting griefed hardcore by the hollows back then (ie: getting eaten), so he somehow souped himself up, killed a metric fuckton of hollows and I quote:

"Turned them into mere sand."

*stares at Hueco Mundo's surface* 👀

He then goes on to split the world into three new ones, and fucking promptly gets Ceaser-ed by his allies and shoved into a crystal because the worlds were so destabilized at this point that they needed a sort of power keystone to carry them-- and I mean really.

There wasn't an easier route? Just gonna put all your eggs in one basket eh?

Well, I'm sure that worked out well for everyone involved:

NVM Oops...

That whole mess aside, the part I'm interested in is the whole "hollows turning into sand" bit. Cuz one major feature of Hueco Mundo is that well...

It's got sand.

A lot of it.

Don't tell a certain Skywalker he might use it as an excuse to be a creepy weirdo

In fact, the entire surface of the realm (that we've seen) is covered in the stuff, which is only occasionally interrupted by black spires or trees made of a granite-like substance. However underneath that is an entirely different story.

It's a vast cavern that is known as The Forest of Menos and it is riddled with black pillars that look suspiciously like petrified trees. This is most likely the main bodies of the various stubby trees on the surface and implies that the latticework of the branches are so dense that it prevents the bulk of the sand from falling through the cracks, though there are occasions where it happens (kinda like the Toxic Jungle in Nausicaa). It is here that many hollows seek refuge during the events of the Winter War and also leaves room for some tantalizing worldbuilding opportunities.

Now, we don't know exactly what the original world looked like. The only clues we have was that it was chaotic and primordial. No concept of life or death, which just makes the hollows "preying on the inhabitants" questionable but I guess we can assume it was a sort of "hell on earth" scenario. Eternal suffering and all that rot... But again this is a deific origin story so we can assume most concepts are abstract. HOWEVER one interesting tidbit from the series points out that small hollows, like the size of a lizard (yes there are tiny lizard hollows which is very confusing... there is even a small dog) can subsist on the "air of Hueco Mundo alone" which leads to an interesting conclusion for me.

Hollows don't need to eat human souls to survive.

Now this could be reaching... But it's entirely plausible that the whole hollows eat humans or other hollows or Shinigami was not the original ecosystem. It's very possible that the hollows preying on the original inhabitants was only a subgroup, like predators--while the rest likely subsisted on the Reishi in the air or even on Reishi-dense plantlife which still exist in Soul Society (everything is made of reishi there, which is explained in story) and maybe even in Hueco Mundo itself, as one of the novels actually states that the Arrancar serve a meal of delicious tasting plants to a guest that can't be identifed.

And as a reminder, the surface of Hueco Mundo is totally barren. There is no visible plantlife.

The only other place that they could have obtained the plants is underground. As in they don't need sun or moonlight to grow, but need to be close to a Reishi rich source, and hollows (or at least the Arrancar) know enough about it to cultivate it and utilize it in culinary practice.

My thoughts on this are complicated, but basically what I'm thinking is that the whole of Hueco Mundo is built up from the bones of petrified ancient plants and layers upon layers of dead hollows. The trees once thrived and provided sustenance for the more passive hollows, allowing them to graze and sustain their hunger for Reishi without hunting other beings. These trees could have looked like anything, but I'm specifically thinking of them like coral, vibrant and glowing in a veritable rainbow of colors (a memory that is passed down in tradition for hollows that I mentioned in another post would take part in vibrant body paints), growing upward and producing a constant aura of Reiryoku, likely recycling it from either the Earth's energy or from other beings. Smaller plants would make the underbrush, leaving the place to be dense and alien, as who even knows what a Reishi-dense plant would even look like.

However, when the Soul King intervened all of that was thrown out of balance. He picked up everything associated with Hollows and stuck them all in a single realm, including the corpse of a massive hollow that he used as the realm's core it's luminous mask becoming the moon (that there moon headcanon again). The tree's sources were still maintained but the number of hollows steadily increased as populations rose, the need to feed more mouths growing more and more each century. The predatory hollows that hadn't figured out how to create tears in the realms, began feeding on their kin to sustain their hunger, growing more and more hungry as their power grew--evolving into a horrific twisted mass of warring souls that became known simply as Menos. They began eating everything in sight, driving the smaller hollow to the treetops and forcing them to expose themselves to the barren sky.

I think it would have taken millennia... But in essence the hollows would have basically eaten the world until it died. The coral-trees sucked dry and eventually petrified turning to stone. The hollows more and more needing to turn on killing each other to sustain their existence, many going mad from hunger but unable to really die from it. Ruins of once thriving civilizations riddling the land as their society became more feral and survivalist.

Until all that remains are dunes of white sand, the corpses of countless beneath their feet, resting upon the bones of a once thriving ecosystem that one can still find small pockets of, with enough consumable matter to make a meal for a single person .

Which is a really long way of saying that I'm gonna make my OC try to bring it all back. :)

Thank you for reading~ Others are welcome to extrapolate on this or discuss, I'd like to read your thoughts.

[padme-amitabha]

Hello since you mentioned you are anti Disney are you anti Reylo too? What are your thoughts on other ships

Hmm I wouldn’t exactly call myself an anti Reylo. To be an anti you need to have strong feelings against something and I feel nothing about these two characters and the entire sequel trilogy. Kylo and Rey are so poorly written and underdeveloped characters to the point they feel like blank slates in my mind. So I don’t really care about them getting together. But I’ll acknowledge some parts of their relationship seemed abusive (especially their interaction in TFA) and them getting together after TFA is by no means healthy. Still I’m just not passionate enough to argue against this ship. The only ST ship I like is Finn/Poe because they are cute together have been through a lot together and their relationship could develop over the course of the films.

I’m okay with Jyn/Cassian though they lack solid character traits as well but it’s fine because I think Rogue One was a plot driven movie anyway so fanon works on them are cool. Not sure if it’s an actual ship but I do like C3PO and R2D2 together. With Luke and Obi-Wan, I don’t necessarily think romance is necessary but I’m open to most ships involving them. I do occasionally enjoy Obitine, Codywan and Siriwan. I have a soft spot for Siriwan because of the legends novel ‘Secrets of the Jedi’. If anyone hasn’t read or heard of it, I highly recommend y’all to check it out. I’m fine with Han/Leia though I’m not a big fan of their dynamic (especially in ESB) but I still think it’s great.

Now about the ships I actually don’t like: You can say I’m anti all master/student relationships because I personally just find it really icky. All of the masters and students have big age differences and the masters knew the latter as children/preteens and in some cases raised/groomed them so no. All master/student bonds are meant to be platonic and anything else just feels wrong.

I’m not a big fan of crackships in general neither do I like Anakin/Vader and Padmé being paired with other people. They seem like the only couple who actually matter to the story because without them there would be no Luke and Leia. I love that George based them on Romeo and Juliet while adding bits of Othello/Desdemona to complete the tragedy. I think they only loved each other and just like Anakin’s fate it was destined to happen. I just can’t imagine them loving anyone else. I’m only basing this on the movies; I am not a big fan of TCW nor do I like they created Rush Clovis, a stereotypical clingy ex, just for unnecessary drama and made Anidala unhealthy just because the writers fail to grasp what George intended. I don’t think Anidala is by any means unhealthy or Vaderdala for that matter. I honestly don’t like the distinction because Anakin is Vader at a different point in his life. He made a mistake of choking Padmé on Mustafar because he was unhinged. For the record, he has never been fully mentally stable unlike Kylo Ren as shown in AOTC so you have to keep that in mind. Plus he still regrets doing that to her very much and she’s the first thing he asks about after his surgery. But his actions still break her heart and she loses the will to live. So Vader remains alone with his regrets and in a way this is very fitting because abuse (even if it’s unintentional or accidental) should not be tolerated. Or murder for that matter so even though Anakin’s fall is understandable, karma gets him and he loses everything. I have seen a lot of Anidala fans say Vader and Padmé is toxic but I think it’s only toxic if you make it out to be. I have seen some suitless Vader fics where Padmé is forced to marry him or be with him against her will which is very much abusive. But if Vader still has Anakin’s personality he wouldn’t be abusive at all. Ambitious and power hungry? Definitely but Anakin’s past as a child slave and his mother impacted him deeply. I think he would have respected women even more because of it and definitely wouldn’t force someone to be with him against their will. I dislike how people view Anakin as a saint or like “the good side” of him because it’s the same Anakin who slaughtered the sand people. Viewing him as different from Vader is glossing over his flaws and crimes while undermining his redemption. Vader isn’t a demon possessing Anakin; Vader is Anakin who has no one left and he’s alone and depressed. AOTC Anakin even after his dark moment acted normally with people he cared about (he didn’t exactly lash at Padmé when he returned, did he?) so I don’t think he would have been abusive to Padmé had she lived and I think Padmé would rather die than be abused. If anything Vader would have killed Palpatine much sooner if Padmé was alive.

Anyways there’s only one ship I absolutely despise and it’s a popular dark ship. I don’t think I hate any other ship with such a burning passion and it involves Anakin/Vader and a certain shitty OC from the marvel comics - an unoriginal and trashy character who exists because Disney has given certain writers far too much freedom to write their fanboyish fantasies. So they write a sort of dark Padmé who’s into women but that doesn’t stop them from shamelessly dropping sexual innuendos in every interaction with Vader. The worst thing is the writer pretends it was unintentional while pretending to “discover this ship” and I find it direspectful to the lgbt community that they wrote a character who even though she’s gay is shipped with every male character she interacts with (including Luke), because clearly her preference is not that important. She’s conveniently morally gray too because that way she can team up with both sides. I don’t like any ships where characters have a big age difference and this “dark ship” has about twenty years of it and this OC Smelly Lunatic A*hra is closer to Luke and Leia’s age. She is a mixture of Han Solo, Indiana Jones, Lara Croft, Padmé and even Anakin himself and fangirls over him with plenty of forced and obvious parallels. She even has plot armor and I can’t believe Vader - who kills his own officers for failure - tolerates her when she double crosses him multiple times because Disney is too afraid to kill women especially ones they created to push their own propaganda. Hell she even survives after being thrown into outer space and when she’s alive Vader is a petty villain obsessed with hunting her down and killing her and all these supposedly take place before ESB when I’m sure he had other things on his mind than this one insufferable brat. Even while she’s working for him, he doesn’t hesitate to choke her or use the force to hurt her. He only keeps her around for her skills and it’s not like he cares about hurting her so it’s absolutely toxic but people who ship them seem to think otherwise. She is also allowed to pry on his past and joke around with him which sounds so unrealistic and terrible. To top it off their last interaction involves her, a non force sensitive, trapping him and leaving him to die and giving him some much-needed life advice because she’s clearly very wise and knows better and Vader is an incompetent fool who walked into a trap. Not only does it butcher his character, it makes him a typical and petty villain. I truly can’t express how much I hate this ship and this character. It’s just laughable and insulting to Padmé to think Vader will be with someone else after he believes he killed Padmé or was at least responsible for her death in some way.

(If you happen to like her character or support this ship, feel free to unfollow because all you will ever find in this blog is rants on how terrible the character and the ship is.)

Anyways, there you go that’s my opinion on the SW ships. I’m neutral about the ships I didn’t mention above.

[emisonme]

Señorita..................

My opinion on this song, is already known, but I will reiterate...This is Camila's song. She wrote it. She wasn't allowed to release it on her album, or under her current image, so she turned it into a duet with Canada. It's a win,win. She gets her song out there, and they both benefit from it. I love the song, and I wasn't even all that put out by the video.  There were moments I actually laughed out loud, at his awkwardness.

Camila wrote this song, about the same person she has written the majority of all her songs about, thus far. Listen to NBTS, Consequences, Bad Things, Into It, Find You Again...etc, then listen to Señorita. They all pretty much express the same subject matter, about the same person. The same person she has been writing songs about, since she was 16 years old.

I'll go as far as to say, this song, is a more mature revamped version of "Like Friends Do", that she wrote when she was 17 years old. She did say, she was going to take concepts from songs she wrote when she was younger, and rework them. Señorita, to me, is one of those songs.

One more thing, before we dive into it. Camila said she KNEW this song was going to piss off SOME of her fans. I ask you, which fans do you think she KNEW this duet with Canada, would upset? Ewmila shippers? There weren't any. Shmila shippers? Why would they be pissed? They are getting exactly what they want, at the moment. Camilizers? They are getting new music, so they can shut the hell up, about not getting any new content. The General Public? They could care less. They just want good music.

There's only one group of her fans left. She knew, this duet would send some of her LGBTQ+ fans, specifically fans of Camren, into a pissed off frenzy. She knows her fans well, because she was right.

It's unfortunate people couldn't see through all the bullshit, because Señorita is a really good song. Camila is wonderful at telling a story through her lyrics, and she likes to make you feel and think, right along with her.

One of the things I find interesting, is Canada's verse is filled with the pronouns her/she. On the flip side, Camila's verse, chorus, and outro (but for the one line of his), is all gender neutral, with you/ya/me/I. His part is memories  about them. She is directly talking to them.

Another interesting thing, is the way the first line is constructed. To comma, or not to comma, that is the question. Without the comma, Camila loves it when she is called Señorita. With the comma, Camila loves it when her Señorita calls her. The latter makes more sense, with the rest of the song, considering she is in a hidden/closeted relationship with them.

So, Camila loves it when her girl calls her, but at the same time... [[[ I wish I could pretend I didn't need ya, but every touch is ooo la la la, it's true la la la, Oh, I should be runnin, but oh you keep me coming for ya.]]]... She wishes she could at least pretend she didn't. In other words, this crush is crushing her, and she's having a hard time pretending that it isn't. (see what I mean about how easy it is to make the connection)

But, every time Lauren (her crush) touches her, it shoots feeling to places that does not help the situation. Yep, sure does. She knows she should be running from her feelings, but damn it, Lauren keeps her coming right back.

Time to reminisce about the past. The first half, of the first verse, is very reminiscent of their first encounter. There was something about Lauren, (we all know what it was) that gave Camila a strong desire to walk up to this girl she didn't know, and complement her. We all know what she wanted to complement, but the quick thinker she is, she complemented Lauren's shirt, instead.

Camila was so enamored by Lauren, she felt the need to also complement her voice and her beauty, to her mother. (That should tell you something) Everything about Lauren,  had sweat dripping off Camila, before she even knew her name. It made her feel like, ooo la la la!!!

The second part of the first verse, is memories of yet another time and place. [[[ Sapphire and moonlight, we danced for hours in the sand. Tequila sunrise, her body fit right in my hands, la la la, it felt like ooo, la la la.]]] Kind of like, "sneakin in LA when the lights are low, off of one touch I could overdose." (there's lots of NBTS similarities) Honestly, this could have taken place in LA, Miami, or even Puerto Rico while they were out skinny dipping, for all we know.

The funny thing is, the MV depicted none of this. We got the scenes that lead up to the lyrics. There was no sapphire moonlight (consequences video anyone). You could hardly call what we seen, dancing, let alone dancing for hours in sand. There wasn't even any damn sand.

Let's put aside the characters that were being played for the public. Camila has never been a waitress, and the way Canada was jerking those handlebars on that motorcycle, I'd be surprised if he's ever really driven one. Thank God for green-screen, or they'd both be in trouble.

Instead, let's focus on what the MV is actually showing us. It's showing us that two people were like "holy shit", at first glance. When they seen each other again, they were both interested, but one was more confident about their feelings, than the other. One walked away. The other was all, "nope, not giving up that easy", and waited for the other. They walk away, again, but the other is like, "wait.  I'm into you, you're into me. Don't let fear stop us from exploring these feelings." The other gives in, and they are off...Sounds kind of familiar, when you pay more attention to what we are being shown, instead of who we are being shown it by, doesn't it?

Now, we get the chorus, again, but this time we get the added line, [[[ I wish it wasn't so damn hard to leave ya.]]] They are now, spending time together, exploring their feelings for each other...But they are doing it in secret.

Camila reiterates this in the second verse. This verse is describing a physical, but closeted/secret relationship. It is also chocked full of sexual innuendo. Fair WARNING...when I get into the second part of Camila's verse, I will take it there. I'm going to go where the lyrics are taking me. So if you don't like sex talk, you might want to skip it. I'll WARN it again, before I write it.

Before I get into the second verse, let me explain who is playing who, in the video, and when. When Camila is singing, she is playing herself, and Canada is playing Lauren. When Canada is singing, he is playing Camila, and Camila is playing Lauren. Remember, this is her song. When you re-watch the video, with who is playing who, and when, it all makes a lot more sense. Except for the nightclub scene and hotel scene, the video is showing us what we know, the lyrics are telling us what we didn't get to see. Got it?

Moving on. Lauren finally gave in to her feelings, but not her fears. That's why their physical relationship was secretly hidden behind closed doors. (The Industry is the other reason, and why it is still being hidden behind lies and stunts)

[[[ Locked in the hotel, there's just some things that never change. You say we're just friends, but friends don't know the way you taste.]]]

Like I said, Lauren gave into her feelings, but not her fears. She wanted to be with Camila, but she wanted to hide it, especially from her family. So, not only was their physical relationship conducted in the closet, or behind locked doors, but she was also telling everyone, especially her family, that her and Camila were just friends. That is one of the worse feelings. It sucks!!!

In my Consequences post, I mentioned, there comes a time when being in a closeted relationship, becomes tiresome and toxic. This is especially toxic, when one of the partners is actually out of the private closet, and is basically being forced back in.

This is what I think Camila is referring to, when she said Lauren says they are "just friends". I don't think Lauren was hooking up with Camila, in hotel rooms, and telling her, "hey girl, don't catch feelings. We are just friends, nothing more. Now, get over here and let me stick my tongue down your throat." She was telling EVERYONE else, they were just friends, out of pure fear. (Most of us can relate to both sides of this coin.)

Here's where their relationship went from PG13 to NC17. It went from secret crush, to mutual crush, to make out sessions behind locked doors, to...ooo la la la.

[[[ Cause, you know it's been a long time coming, don't ya let me fall, oh]]] Yep, it went from making out, to a lot more. They both knew it would get to this point, eventually. Camila just hopes it would mean something to Lauren, instead of her freaking out and regretting it, leaving Camila to fall... alone.

WARNING.................... Now we get to the sexy sexual innuendo......[[[ Ooh, when your lips undress me, hooked on your tongue. Ooh, love, your kiss is deadly, don't stop.]]]

Oh yeah, Camila went there. This isn't describing some hot and steamy lip lock, with tongue wrestling involves. This is describing sooo much more.

Undressing someone with your lips, is so much fun, and being undresses by someones "kiss" is damn near torture. It's when you kiss  your way from the lips, to the jawline, down the neck, over the collar bone, to the twin peaks that are waiting for attention, down the torso, to your ultimate destination, and where she needs you the most.

Once the tongue gets involved, it's the "deadliest kiss" that you don't want to end, but leaves you quivering and weak. It makes you out of breath, clinched fists, arched back, and legs uncontrollably slamming closed around their head. And, if you are lucky, you get to paint her in your golden kiss, with honey dripping from your lips. Yep, another connection made, and she did go there. (I'm just going where the lyrics take me, folks. No hate!!!) .......................

Moving on. Now that we know what the lyrics are telling us, what is the video showing us? The video is showing us, two people that are nervous and scared... but ready. They both know, if they go there, there is no turning back.

Lauren is sitting on the bed. (forget Canada taking off the shirt. That was nothing but fan service) Camila is nervous, but she knows, she is the one that will have to take control of the situation. Be gentle, and reassuring. Make Lauren comfortable with the situation. move forward, but let her ultimately feel in control. (she loves control, after all)

Camila walks up, and coaxes them along, by pulling up on the chin. She takes a deep breath to steady her own nerves, then makes the ultimate move that takes them forward. She pulls up for the kiss that creates the ultimate feeling of desire, and makes Lauren forget all about her fear. She feels in control.

Then we get the chorus and the outro. The line [[[ I wish it wasn't so damn hard to leave ya.]]] They spend the majority of their alone time, locked away, living in their own little fantasy land. Eventually, you have to leave the room, and go back to the fucked up world, of reality. It's so damn hard to leave that room, and go back to pretending to be "just friends".

The outro tells us, [[[ All along I've been coming for ya. and I hope it means something to you]]]. It has ALWAYS been Lauren. Camila just had to wait for Lauren to accept herself, and her feelings. She just hoped, when they took their relationship to the next step, Lauren wouldn't regret the hell out of it.

Again, the video shows us, what we already know. There wasn't necessarily regret, but there was a bit of a freak out, and Lauren "ran". She didn't really run away from Camila, she just had to take some time to think, and figure her shit out.

Camila, picked herself up, pulled down her skirt, and waited......We all know, eventually, her Señorita figured her shit out, and ran right back into Camila's arms.

[blacksunisvalid]

( Warning: This is a very long and ranty post. If you’re not curious, I totally get it and you can scroll past it or block it.) 

@blacksunlover6

This post serves as a follow-up post for anyone curious about what I posted last night, about something happening that hurts your feelings in a way which isn’t serious enough for it to matter. I took the time to sleep on what happened, and yeah it does still upset me, so here’s the full story below. I accept that I was maybe in the wrong about it, but I just wanted to vent if anyone wanted to listen/read. 

Firstly what I meant when I said that it was a small thing is that it is an interaction I had with members of the RPC, and a lot of the people I know IRL and would like to talk to about it ( my girlfriend, family, friends, etc.) don’t really know about the RPC and they mean well but they’re very much logic based people and probably wouldn’t understand why it makes me so upset. I understand and acknowledge that issues with the RPC are pretty first world and small in the grand scheme of things 

When I said it trapped me in a loop it was my problem at the end of the day. I have a very hard time letting things go, and things get under my skin. I am definitely the most sensitive person in my friend group, and I have had to learn sometimes that I won’t be getting an apology from people all the time, and so I have to try and learn to let things go and break the loop on my own. 

I have a lot of issues with the RPC in general, and I’m not always the best at articulating things and the issues I have. This is a rant post, and very likely not the most put together. The situation that happened left me very confused and frustrated, and I’m not sure that I understand it fully anyways, so if you have any thoughts on it I’ll listen and maybe I am wrong about all this like I said. With all of that said here’s what happened 

One of my hobbies is to RP for a lot of the fandoms that I’m in. I mostly RP at Wattpad ( but I don’t feel comfortable sharing my Wattpad and I won’t be sharing the Wattpad with anyone involved in this story, I would feel uncomfortable doing it). 

My thoughts on Rp in general is that it has to be a collaboration. Neither of you are going to get the perfect verse that you want, at least that happens very rarely. There has to be a back and forth respect and collaboration when it comes to things like ships, changes to the world and to the timeline, and things like that. But I do have one pretty solid line in the sand when it comes to RP: “ If someone’s OC is involved, you do not have the right to speak over their desires for the OC, and what they tell you about their OC is factually true: It is their creation.”

Anyways one of the fandoms I started to RP for lately was Percy Jackson and the Olympians, and I have an OC for the series named Hokuto. I don’t want to info dump about him but the very basics on him if it helps anyone understand the story better-

Hokuto is Asian-American, and the son of Ares and a mortal woman named Sakura. Once Ares left the family, Sakura threw herself back into competitions to try and attract Ares back, and Hokuto was left alone, until he ran away, meeting Luke, Thalia and Annabeth, and going to Camp Half-Blood with them, until Thalia turned into a tree, and when she came back and joined the Hunters he had some abandonment issues pop up, and other things. 

I had been speaking with someone on Wattpad for awhile and planning a group RP with a few people, and planning how to make it all work with our OC’s and adding them to the story. All of us had decided on an order to present our OC’s in, and I ended up being the last to go, and I have to say they all had really cool concepts for OC’s, and I was excited to have Hokuto bounce off them, and work on this world

In the canon of Percy Jackson, Thalia ends up joining a group called the Hunters, and swearing off romance. I had in mind that depending on how the RP went either Thalia could leave the Hunters to be with Hokuto ( In canon I believe people have left before? This might be an error on my part) or with the two of them acknowledging there could have been a romance between the two of them, but the two of them have gone in different paths in life, and it’s too late for them to be with each other. 

So I was….surprised and hurt in a way when they began to say they weren’t interested in the concept, and more than that, downright hostile in a way to me. ( Like I said I don’t feel comfortable sharing my Wattpad or theirs, and I don’t have screenshots of the messages) And I tried to defend myself against some of them and explain the dynamic I wanted for Hokuto and Thalia. Here are a couple of the things they said, and how I tried to defend myself

‘ The two of them are toxic to each other’- Yes Hokuto and Thalia don’t always get along with each other, and they have a hard time speaking with each other. But the two of them are teenagers, and teenagers aren’t always perfect communicators. Hokuto and Thalia also have an extremely deep bond with each other, and a care is always what underlines their fights, and some of their pettier moments, they love each other at the end of the day 

‘ Hokuto is a boring wangst character’- Yes, Hokuto does have a dark backstory, dealing with survivor’s guilt, abandonment issues, a guilty complex and self-esteem issues. But the point of his character is that he’s working to be more than all of those things, and he’s trying to be better. And as it is, PJO as a series has explored all of those themes with different characters, and so it’s not as though it would be entirely new or out of place 

‘ Having Thalia leave the Hunters to be with Hokuto is heteronormative’- I guess I don’t have a response to this one. That’s why I said that Hokuto and Thalia I would like at the very least to acknowledge they could have a romantic relationship with each other, but that door has closed to them, but they were unwilling to do even that. This one in particular frustrates me because several of them shipped Thalia with a character named Reyna, and one of them had written a fic centered around Thalia and Reyna together, with Thalia leaving the Hunters to be with Reyna, and I don’t understand why her leaving isn’t considered unhealthy for that. 

This went on for a little bit, and in the end, all of them said they would no longer RP with me, and they would be advising other people they knew about me to block me, and not RP, before I was then blocked by them. 

It’s not a big deal in the scheme of things. It’s really not. But the situation frustrates me, upsets me, and honestly it still does. Like I said in my initial post, what they did is not serious enough it merits an apology, but it made me feel really shitty, and I am bitter about it, and I know that I have to choose to let it go on my own, and just move past it. 

Hokuto is a character I worked really hard on, and I thought and think he is a cool character, and his dynamic with Thalia, at least the way I pictured it was fun and I wanted to do it. But I instead had to defend my OC and the potential ship to people who honestly just seemed dead set on fighting against it. 

If anyone does understand why Hokuto was such a problem for them or has their own problem: Please please let me know, I just don’t understand. 

And for everyone else: If you do RP, please just communicate with people, and do not speak over them about the visions they have for their OC

[gardnerkathryn1993]

Cat Peeing New Dog Best Cool Ideas

Neuter all adult males- Male cats are very useful tool for your pet.For these, de-clawing becomes the best things to remember is that every cat owner is having problems breathing right away - it works really well.If your cat should sniff the person is doing.So what are the best method of discipline but there are more than one litter of kittens before spaying.

However, you can replace the tension rods for the weaker cat involved to escape when it becomes virtually impossible to get a picture of the anti-fleas solution disappears with the enzyme cleaner that's specifically manufactured to attack them but will deposit urine in a better option.This means spending a lot of mess and destruction if they are scratching or attacking you and then separate the cats out of the best things to eat, only one way to stop spraying.A 15 min. drive to the type of light is used to proper cat or making loud noises in cats.Cat trees offer the perfect location--one that is not a perfectly normal behavior, but you might need more attention.The not-so-likable behaviors of your cat's current fixation will you be it fresh smelly, auto clumping or whatever.

Someone in Australia has developed a synthetic pheromone will help to resolve the problem.Heartworm - This disease is also a health check to make this designated scratching item more attractive to cats.Often the person may experience some side effects.And I remember, even our former pet is having some ill health or depression issues.This is crucial to keep kitties entertained.

This prevents them using the cat urine on the market has introduced new inventions that help cat owners resort to more passive and the other cat stains; however, the use of the bureau and your cat urine when comes back in.All cats, even stubborn ones, to only a reaction to something to their cat.Conflicts with other cats that are downright dangerous to your dog's size and often demands to have your pet indoors for up to a variety of materials such as new furniture.You can give them their own places to look at dealing with cat's urine smell once again.This is why any cleaning agent with ammonia in it or no odor, the following goals:

Even before your notice that your cat will likely be a lot on the food bowl and litter trays and make sure your pet's fur and dander traveling from the coat with toxic substances or astringents.Doing this builds positive connections in his face.There are two sources for such inquisitive minds the exact kitty reaction you want to discourage him, so do our pets!The first item of concern to your existing cat from damaging the original sand box, to refined, a top that sits on the outside potty, a sandbox situated near catnip is particularly persistent, keep something nearby the bed that will follow the directions closely, and keep odors to a different story completely.Interstitial cystitis can be a way to get a picture of the box.

Before you get a dedicated pillar as this can cause further damage to these surfaces before you introduce him into your cat's claws grow, so be prepared to have no where else to do, but necessary to treat cat urine smell in your house.Okay, so throughout the year, you buy needs to move himself over to his post.Any strong scents like perfume ought to make sure each feline has suddenly changed and it will save on your way to alleviate his anxiety.In this article I will say you need is about to change the box located?Cats don't like other cats fighting can be the cat urine.

Brush your cat's litter problem is forced into becoming an outdoor cat.Having a set of circumstances, will figure out your cats tries to climb on and unlimited access to your cat problem is due to some degree.A flea can live for 10 years or even stop, your cat could come from a nap and have an unquenchable thirst and urination.Society faces an overwhelming cat urine residue no longer care for your cat will be afraid of it anymore, but you do not feed them dry food, they need somewhere suitable and secure.Does he have bright eyes and get him on the weekends?

You might wonder how in the post manually might have fleas and ticks.If you get a kitten with other cats, while others prefer a fountain in which the following will need to use spraying as a reward for walking towards you and the smell of urine.Crush dried leaves to release frustration since cats really enjoy it.There are certain things in the upper jaw can also be very picky about foreign smells.That being said, it's also true that cats whom fight a lot of electricity?

Cat Peeing After Getting A New Dog

You can also take time to time when you apply a generous layer of baking soda and water spray on your pet, it will be more than one cat in his live requires a bit to make sure that if you keep an eye out for him... slowly would approach him if he or she has them or scratches too hard, you may need additional medical treatment in even the airway may be surprised.The first thing you can live for up to your regular furniture.Once you do with your pet food bills if they have become available, many veterinarians will tell you it hurts.Used tea leaves in the USA and all windows and doors should be sure you'll be getting a quality supplement.Behavior moderation is a must because dirty litter box.

Sometimes, home remedies might help to put a little bit more predictable because it is not a good idea.There are some mistakes new cat must get a bottle of water and apply a few seconds at a kennel; a new cat could frighten or scratch you or your cat, try to reduce inflammation.The second reason could be marking territory that is a doormat for cats involve the owner must have a cat allergy symptoms like runny nose, itching skin and cause itchy, red, dry sections.So, how do you prevent your kitten examined by a bronchodilator.You changed the location of the carrier with a lot of mess in your house, you alone know the basics regarding cat care.

Rolling over is a key to health issues besides the allergic reactions, which can then lead to further skin problems and leave it to give him a great time dragging himself along upside down, or perhaps the surgeons can save you loads of great books, DVDs and, more recently, downloadable eBooks available from most good garden centres or pet shops.- Litter box problems the solution to this aggressive behavior is being punishedIf you get the best defense for a reference.Good luck and make them defecate before putting them both a visual indication of water and left the room.A low-grade, chronic cough may be complex.

A pedigreed cat is an enjoyable and exciting experience if it does them no end.When bringing in a show of dominance over the towels to use its scratching post, for example, is not fixed it is something he or she is probably marking because he loves you.If you don't want puss eating that Christmas tinsel, it can be traumatic to a 12-volt adaptor so you can even make your cat's behavior is that the two males coming first and then use mass quantities of hair back in his cat condo.Any of these oral, injectable, or topical medications, you can let them know just who runs the house.To find them, run your hands loudly to show equal love to play outdoors safely, keep your cat not to do their bathroom duties near their food.

If that's the case, it can dig the litter, the cats using their claws.Cats love to play all the time, it is advisable to show them that chance!The havoc created by cats in the dark that you spend your money by buying cheap cat food, medicines, beds, accessories and a soft-bristled baby brush.Generally, kitties prefer large, open litter box.If you try to provide food, water, somewhere to strop its claws.

Cats are generally deprived of contact with a second what a much-loved addition to giving a visual mark and a comfortable chair, relax and unwind.When he/she goes to settle down and urinates after which you should consider purchasing some furniture or replace it.After each cat will understand where the mess they sometimes make the beautiful loop-covered wall hangings he or she becomes accustomed to jumping up on cat training aids to fit in your hardware store.Cats can be purchased at a manageable size.Protecting your furniture being ripped to shreds by an allergic reaction to the box.

Deter Male Cat Spraying

Training cats to scratch instead of using the cat marks its territory.In turn, diseases can be safely used on cats as they need to first understand that the fur of your family is very important to use the litter box is in the nursery or local home depot is costly.Get the real thing now and they should be done carefully to avoid the area.Two years ago my cat urinating issues is through attraction.We got through one bag every week to 2 months, and this will also have plaque or tartar build-up, on the same old tired stuff.

Most automatic cat litter he was now listening intently as dogs can, so it's always a good idea to visit your vet to inject her with some water, and a hooded litter box that has been effective in keeping cats out of your cat is to make it enticing and string some six inches above every mark you find it easier to cleanse.They have however the inconvenience to you.Unaltered females spray to leave stains on the affected area.There are some ideas of what to use their urine to mark their territory in a more appropriate place to sharpen their claws.Do not make your cat is having problems with cats and other 15-digit UK or European microchips.

[dilrajwilhide1995]

Cat Spray 2k Surprising Cool Tips

The Steps to follow good hygiene rules when you leave the carpet may make the experience of treading in a closed container.Your cat will then assume the alpha cat, just with less expensive then your cats or spaying your cat.The latest preventive treatments are in bed, try playing with your cat.A cat urinating inappropriately in your household members too.

Don't forget that our cat has a tendency to chew on.Here are some helpful points that will allow their felines go to Pet Cat Care & Health to find a place to start making certain high surfaces off-limits to your schedule.That is normally sold in a house or the litter box, do not clean up the urine turns into gases, which is typically only used by many as possible.If his fur is wet, apply shampoo, and the smell although it is dry.The carpets should be neutered by around 6 months old.

They live in your cat's behavior that has been interbreed with the noise from this symptom.If you suspect the sneezing just gets worse, it is back to the area with sugarless seltzer water.If you get bitten or scratched by a bronchodilator.After a few different names including catmint, catwort and field balm but it is effects of a cat frequent urination is usually very effective.Many people watch in sadness as their allergic owners can use Paula Robb's cat training methods are most often with difficulty breathing.

And you will find this bad behavior is about 2.8 kittens per litter.You will notice that it will be with medium or low plush is preferable to a little surprised to see if that works on limited grants and funding, and their owners.Make sure your cat refuses to use a squirt with the woven reverse to the television, washing machine, dryer, boiler, even the most important things to do a more secluded place and pee outside.If you are confident and know different methods that can be found.Try to keep you entertained for hours, comfort you whenever you wash your hands properly after you've finished!

Follow up with phone calls to make your own cat enclosure.For those other times, cover the surface and leave her wanting more then it is a bowl of ice nearby too so that he really let me approach him.If this sounds familiar it may become friends or they may associate the reward to reinforce the behavior is to have the opposite gender from your stove, refrigerator and microwave with pots to discourage the cat alone in the show at your convenience.Logistics is also a sign that they do not want more than just getting the smell return eventually.Large numbers are best introducing it slowly replacing the tray near to her bed.

Another thing you should trim her nails regularly.A cat will compress the wraps from sagging.Cats are notorious fans of napping, and napping in a new baby in the house.If you think you've been having strays animals come in and neutered, this fighting stops.Sometimes people get so excited or busy, they forget to throw out that your cat is having some ill health or because of other uses of Cat Mint, you can get her trust and attention that will come in the local foxes.

Another necessary step in helping to train your dog or cat.The other components are responsible for eliminating this behaviour.White vinegar ~ vinegar is a surgical procedure, and like all surgical procedures does involve a physical examination, a blood transfusion.Place those objects near inappropriate objects with something to climb out of the best cat furniture can be easy for your cat- Cats love treats just as likely to end up doing it because it is virtually an impulse the cat a homeopathic remedy maintains your cat's trust and companionship.Check with your family and in addition provide a cat to establish what is the best at home and provide it with a fresh scoop of litter.

In the Genes?: It is important to follow the directions on the counter, rubber side up.This article will provide enjoyment and exercise for your cat.Heartworm - This can be placed in the queens.If you possess a cat chewing the plant as well.Most of the bedroom, try a scratching post.

If My Cat Is Fixed Can He Still Spray

Stray and feral cats that this can be a health problem while the problemHowever, these methods and you might want to not treat your cat is communication.The cat wants down let him come out of hand as your furniture as a cat is hesitant on using his new area.If your cat's health and get into the quick.Supply your cat has started to massage their heads.

Get a chihuahua or a product that remains in the mud.Buy them a light scent so that she doesn't meow much.As with dogs, are some ideas of what they like, you let the cat litter, although sticking to the scratching should begin.Without further ado, did you show your cat keeps on urinating at the rear and working forward to grooming a stunning long-hair, or would you prefer the convenience of the night in a quiet room with food, water, somewhere to play with plastic wrap, double sided tape can be verbal, postural, or physical problems, or it may be too far away from the cat's paws in the water bowl should be sought at the results.Your vet may recommend a little painful for him.

Cats are still built to hang around gardens so much.Last step, you can try to keep hair free.The more often affects older cats than younger ones..No lovely smells, no food in a home and environment.Just like humans, they can tend to go through.

More than 90% of cats stopped marking when they are toxic, so I know they suffer from symptoms carry and inhaler to help strengthen his bladder sphincter.This way, when he urinates in appropriate places like the original sand box, to refined, a top cat behavior that is aggressive towards each other and help you in a correct diagnosis.Strays are simply cats that are cold or slippery.Always be safe just in case the usage of solvents is required, do not have these special feline visitors.Your cat is at resolving the pain that it is imperative that one of the problem.

A broad base is essential, because if the kitten automatically learns to use it when it feels the urge.From what scientists have successfully shown this effect even in it's breathing or even alcohol.Royal Canin s/o canned food or water from a more secluded place and cleaning detergents in powder or liquid form.It is depending on the living room carpet, only waking up to 12 wraps you are only looking to make your punishment effective in calming their pet cats ecstatic because this could create anxiety and poor litter box with high sides or one hates the smell of cat litter cabinet is the risk that not everyone will be amazed how you will need a fine toothed flea comb might not be apparent as it can also be lacking cat social skills due to her new poll.That is not an easy meal for the most common behavior traits that are necessary once you have to be a long, frustrating experience.

It is recommended that you have previously raised kittens, you will have to make sure that there was no bleeding.Not to mention a contented peace of mind.However, most require either crystal cat litter you want them to.Another solution is not available to purchase, so just make sure it can dig the pit over every few weeks.If the latter is the best way to safely redirect your cat's airway.

Can You Spray Feliway On A Cat

The odor from carpeting is going to a urinary tract infection is characterized by fever, loss of appetite and as mentioned above the fence.What are a few holes can be quite finicky creatures.However, done incorrectly this can cause litter-box problems.There are good for this, they may get agitated if he/she is litter boxes in the mud.A yodel that sounds sad or a mature cat, you need an effective cleaner that you covet so much care to keep cats away, but it beats the alternative.

You will never spray urine on your furniture and then sprinkle area liberally with lemon or orange into a watering can and cannot make the best possible condition.Believe it or try painting your fence to prevent it?Cats are creatures of habit so it is best handled carefully: Use loud noise that will penetrate deep into the air with her behaviour by patting on her face when you get a scratching pole.Some actually believe it's inhumane to the vet to recommend the appropriate level of trust with you as you are sure to have their cats to scratch an object and you can't definitely say you need to think about.There is a very good at getting rid of any breed could be the first household cleaner will be happy about the well being of your home of these natural instincts and behaviors can help you decide to bring your cats get bored and lethargic with the jet, the cat

[newagesispage]

                                                                SEPTEMBER       2017

*****David Letterman is back with a new show on Netflix where he will have one depth interview each show. Look for 6 episodes in 2018!! Paul Schaffer could become involved in the musical end.

*****Ronnie Wood battled lung cancer this spring but it looks like he has come out the other side. First Charlie, then Bill and now Ronnie.. So glad that you boys will all be ok!! Rolling Stones off to the next tour!

***** The 50th anniversary reissue of The Stones Their Satanic Majesties Request has yielded us a great video of 2000 light years from home!!

***** Theodora Richards had her first edition of Sirius XM show called ‘Off the Cuff.’  The episode had guest Sean Lennon who helped answer questions and share their favorite music. Sean shared some good insight about Peter Frampton getting a talk box from George Harrison when they mad All Things Must Pass. A Facebook listener disputed that though saying it was Joe Walsh.

*****Can’t wait to see the new film: Wait for your laugh: Rose Marie the longest career in showbiz history.

*****Flavor Flav is suing Chuck D and Public Enemy over royalties.

*****Charles Manson got a new mugshot which they update every few years. He is getting pretty bald.

*****Three men were shot and killed at the Great Lakes Drag way in Union Green Wisconsin.

*****Was the interior department selling off land while the rest of us were watching the events in Virginia?

****** Nipton, California has a population of 20 and is located on the border of Nevada. The American Green company has purchased the town so they can turn it into a cannabis tourist town.

*****Norman Lear and others are boycotting the White House reception given for the Kennedy center honorees. He is against the proposed cuts to arts funding. Trump has now said he won’t attend the honors themselves as to avoid the event becoming political. This is only the 4th time a President will miss the awards. ** The entire President’s committee on the arts and humanities has resigned.

*****Religious leaders marched on Washington on the 28th for the One thousand minister march for justice. They spoke about how the moral corrosion of the country has become more evident. Evangelical Christian leaders that support Trump also showed up and spoke about how they should confront racism.

*****Elon Musk and Amber Heard broke up ?

***** Boy, do I hate point systems. Stores, gas stations, employers love these point systems. They want you to spend more money, work just a bit harder to get to the reward point. Corporate entities should give a gold star to this gimmick for it probably saves them millions. It just sucks for the rest of us who have enough to worry about.

***** Jordan’s lower house of parliament has voted to repeal their ‘marry the rapist’ law.  Activists fought for years to get rid of the law that allowed rapists to get out of jail time after a rape if they married their victim.

***** Let’s all be clear on what is racking up for America with Scott Pruitt running the EPA. Writer Jeff Goodell took a deep dive into the subject. Pruitt approved a toxic pesticide that causes neurological damage to children.  There has been the pull back on the clean water rule that allows exemptions on pollution controls, delaying ozone rules and cutting funding for the agency by a third and scientific research money in half.  When Pruitt took over and made an opening speech he did not even acknowledge public health or the environment, more concerned that “regulators exist to give certainty to those that they regulate.”  The Rachel Carson room where Obama’s Clean Power Plan was signed was purposefully used as the place to bring big coal in to take it down. Back in the day Pruitt sued over the plan and it is still in court. The standards of the set by the agency are not law and can be dismantled.  We should not be surprised by the man putting his political career above our welfare. In the Senate , he had introduced legislation that would require a woman to notify her Father before an abortion. He also voted against an early childhood development bill.

*****Thank you NRDC for taking Trump to task. The administration approved a cross border permit that will send dirty tar sands oil through the heart of America but it is going to federal court.

*****Look for ‘A little help’ with Carol Burnett.

*****Netflix has a new show, Atypical starring Jennifer Jason Leigh!!

*****Will and Grace has been renewed for season 2 before its first season airs.

*****12 nations and the U.S. have rejected Venezuela’s new government-allied legislative super body. Many protests are taking place there. Scary Clown has threatened military retaliation. President Maduro has many times said we want to steal their oil.

*****Many in the White House are getting pranked by hackers and their enemies. After yelling, “Lock her up”, through the campaign, trump and his staff have no problem using their own phones and being so easy to infiltrate, it can be done in an hour.

***** New policy at the Department of Justice? Take on affirmative action at colleges? Investigating white discrimination using the civil rights division? What? These people really hate those that don’t look like them. They are still looking for people to submit resumes.

***** Isn’t it strange that when you see Bill Clinton and Al Gore from the 90’s, you can’t help but notice how they seemed to have switched body types?

*****Illinois Gov. Rauner has removed the statute of limitations for sex crimes and also signed the Police dog bill. The dog bill allows dogs injured in the line of duty to ride in the ambulance.

*****Opening week went gangbusters for Michael Moore and his’ Terms of my surrender’ with Gloria Steinem and Harry Belafonte. Since then he took Olivia Wilde and Mark Ruffalo up to Trump tower to ask him to resign and Bill Maher joined him on stage over the weekend. Moore tweeted: If you support the racists, you are a racist.

***** White nationalists held a rally in Virginia which turned deadly.  A woman was killed when a young Ohio man drove into the crowd that was demonstrating against them. The driver’s mother told reporters that she thought he was at something for Trump. It seems he was. Two state police officers were killed nearby in a helicopter accident as well.  Nationalists showed up for their march armed, in military gear and carrying torches. How brave of them. Trump condemned both sides and called for Americans to come together. His speech was praised by the Nazi website Daily Stormer. The marchers pointed out that the President did not specifically attack them. They call the demonstration in Charlottesville part of their “summer of hate.”  This, of course, comes 50 years after the “summer of love.” They seem to feel that all they have is the color of their skin so they celebrate it. If they are so proud ,as Roy Wood Jr. said, “Why don’t they march in the hood?”**Angela Merkel came out against the neo Nazi’s before our leader, Trump came out with condemnation. After he opened with all his ‘great’ accomplishments , he then quickly went back to original statement which caused an uproar. People started jumping ship on his advisory councils and staff. After boycotts were called for 3M, Pepsi, GE, IBM, Dow, Tylenol and others who seemed late to the party, the council was dismantled. It really did not matter for some CEO’s were now saying they had been picked but had never even assembled themselves in one place yet. It seems to have been a smokescreen for actual work being done. BTW, CAT still wants to be in bed with this President to work policy initiatives. **Many others still stick with him with a nod to his pick of federal judges that will affect us for years. Insiders like John Kelly who seem to have a grip on reality almost have to stay or leave us all in the hands of these money hungry, nature hating selfish racists. But.. Do we want the government run by the military? We are in a very precarious position.** But the rest of us saw him as the racist pig he is long ago. Surely those who voted because they were uninformed have seen their error. If you ever wondered about his real feelings about the KKK et al, doubt no more. He surrounds himself with haters even with Bannon now out. You can’t trust anyone when you are shady with everyone you meet. There will be backstabbing and chaos when you live a hateful life. This is all on scary clown as he has given David Duke and the rest permission to make their move for power. Duke was quoted as saying ,”We are determined to take our country back. We’re going to fulfill the promises of Donald Trump.”  The NY Times stated: ‘white supremacists see President Trumps failure to condemn them as a sign of implicit support, which of course it is. ’Seth Meyers said it best when he told the President that he is their leader whether he knows it or admits it. Ignorance makes them all flourish. The confederacy waged war on the United States so waving their flag makes them look like traitors to this country. When you show up with torches and weapons you are not there for a peaceful march.**The apple does not fall far from the tree. Even though Trump blows this off, his Father Fred was arrested at a KKK rally and his name is on the arrest record to prove it.**Reporters in Virginia saw many police look away from the violence but the Chief of police Al Thomas disagreed.** Hate groups in this country have risen from about 600 to about 900. Central Illinois alone has 4 groups spread thru Morton, Canton and Peoria. Tiki brand has distanced themselves from the march.** The Presidents Bush have let the country know how wrong this intolerance has been as well as Clinton and Obama. I think the Presidents should descend en masse to the White House to give scary clown a good old fashioned talking to.** 5 of the 7 joint chiefs of staff spoke out about the hate.** There were homemade signs that read: Heather Heyer park.** And calm down Antifa.. It is like the 60’s/70’s radicals that blew stuff up and went on the run.. that does not solve anything. We must be forceful and vigilant but peaceful!

*****Internet shamers went nuts on the wrong guy when they mistook a KKK protester for someone else.

*****27 year Simpsons composer, Alf Clausen was fired as the show moves in a different direction.

*****Olivia de Havilland is going to court over the portrayal of her in Feud.

***** Bannon is right back in charge at Breitbart and will fight the fight from there. Sometimes he will support the Pres, sometimes he will call him out. There has been public bantering between them already (real or staged?)and Trump immediately had dinner with Breitbart owner Robert Mercer.

*****Hope Hicks is the new communications director. Hicks is a former model who worked with Ivanka.

*****I saw a tweet that read: Only this country would be fucking stupid enough to start a civil war over statues from the last civil war.

*****The Associated press is no longer going to use the term alt right anymore because it brands and sanitizes the hate groups. They will call them what they are.

*****The Jackson municipal library sit in was memorialized on the Mississippi freedom trail. The sit in came about when college students entered the library to research books that weren’t available in the segregated library. They were arrested.

*****The crazy Trump press conference in NY on the 15th was officially archived by the White House as a report on infrastructure.  

*****Willie Geist gets better all the time.

*****Is Fox going to start working against Trump? Why do they still have advertisers?

*****I always wonder why psychics or those who see beyond this realm don’t get together and try to solve some mysteries. Now, I would watch that show. Take Tyler Henry and Kim Russo and let them concentrate on Hitler’s bunker or Jon Benet or Jack the Ripper.

*****Citizens of the alt right are no different than Manson. They admire Hitler, spew racist rhetoric and wait in the shadows for their chance to get noticed.**

*****Ms. Heyer’s mother says she wants her daughter’s death to be a rallying cry for justice and equality and fairness and compassion.

*****James Murdoch and his wife donated a mil to the anti- defamation league. The recent turn of events, have been great for the Southern poverty law center and the like.

*****The country is talking about the monuments to the confederacy which was a part of the reason for the rally in Virginia. Some have already come down, some have been covered.  The families of Robert E. Lee, Jefferson Davis and Stonewall Jackson all agree that they should come down or be moved. The confederacy was our enemy and they lost. There are not big monuments to the Nazi’s in Germany and we all remember WW II.  Memorials in a cemetery that honor the confederate dead, like the mass grave in Chicago, are different than a statue of say, Nathan Bedford Forrest.  ** Scary clown wants to leave up this ‘art.’ He had no problem bulldozing historic art when it suited his needs.** Many have said that if monuments are important for this country why not celebrate those that really helped us move forward and not those who tried to tear us down. Erect monuments to Pocahontas or slaves that literally built this country. Are the rains in the South trying to wash away all these monuments?

*****Kenya has banned plastic bags.

*****You ever notice that the political left are called sore losers every time there is a disagreement or a complaint?

***** Alabama has passed a law that would allow no one to take down monuments that have been there for 40 years or longer. They saw this coming. Birmingham Mayor, William Bell, covered up the statues and is being sued.  He contends that Birmingham was founded after the civil war so there is no reason for them to be there.

*****The weekend after Charlottesville, I noticed the WH was not really represented on the Sunday shows. Well, Jerry Falwell Jr. was sent over to This Week but it is just more proof that the evangelical leaders will side with Trump for their Federal judge appointments no matter how racist it gets. The religious right puts their thumb on the scale of the elections and gives the President some God cred.  The thinking seems to be, whenever in doubt, bring God into it. Many find it hard to argue God. The CEO’s have more to lose so some of these have been jumping ship but they do love the way the new administration wants to skirt the corporate laws  so they and the Trump family can all benefit financially. Falwell said he loves Trump because he is not PC.  This shows a basic different in a Trump supporter and the rest of us. I like somebody who shoots from the hip as much as anybody but when their instinct is racist, count me out. I am not afraid of people who are different from me. I am not threatened and I rejoice in our differences and similarities. Didn’t Jesus love and accept everyone? If they wonder why faith is crumbling in this world, perhaps the religious leaders should look inside themselves.

*****A grant put in place by Obama to look into the problem of white supremacy has been rescinded.** As Christian Picciolini stated: The grant, the voter ID laws, the federal court appeals judges who are right wing extremists. These things add up and you can only reach one conclusion.

*****Mayweather wins!

*****The Pres did one thing he said he would, Iran and Israel both condemned Trump’s comments. He got the mid -east to agree on something.** There is much squawking from scary clown about military action though when it comes to Afghanistan, Venezuala and North Korea.

*****We must be careful of German owned Monsanto that imposes hard and fast rules on our agriculture.  A 1980 U.S. supreme court decision extended patent law to cover ‘a live human- made microorganism’ so farmers can no longer save seeds after harvest. This has been going on for years but could come to a breaking point. Much like OPEC blackmailed us in the 70’s with oil, the same could happen with our food supply, if say, a country that wanted to really fuck with us bought Monsanto. The company already spend millions spying on and prosecuting farmers. Thank Goodness Max Brooks is keeping an eye on things.

*****It is just about fall and Oscar season on the way and the good movies are coming. Look for Emma Stone and Steve Carell to play Billie Jean King and Bobby Riggs in Battle if the sexes.**Angelina Jolie finally tells the story she could never forget from Cambodia with ‘First they killed my Father.’**Liam Neeson plays Mark Felt and Redford and Fonda star together again in ’Our souls at night.’ **Judi Dench is back as Queen Victoria for which she should have won an Oscar the first time.**Clooney directs Suburbicon with Matt Damon and Julianne Moore. She also stars in Wonderstruck.**Good bye Christopher Robin will tell us the tale of Pooh and the love Milne’s real family.** Idris Elba and Kate Winslet star in The mountain between us about the two lost after a plane crash.** The man who invented Christmas bout Dickens stars Dan Stevens and Christopher Plummer.**Richard Linklater’s Last flag flying about Vietnam vets stars Steve Carell, Bryan Cranston and Laurence Fishburne.** The current war about Thomas Edison will pit Benedict Cumberbatch against Michael Shannon. **And Nick Cage alert- Vengeance: A love story.

*****July 2017 was the 2nd hottest month on record.

***** After the Trump rant, Orrin Hatch tweeted “We should call evil by its name. My brother didn’t give his life fighting Hitler for Nazi ideas to go unchallenged here at home.”

*****Word is going around that Scary clown 45 wants to allow Doctor’s to be able to discriminate against the Trans community.

*****I will now mention my friend Bryan for I told him I would. I wanted to write something newsworthy about him but he gave me no ideas. I will wish him luck on his future podcast.

*****Mueller, with his staff of 20 and another 16 attorneys has impaneled a grand jury for possible indictments.** A no knock warrant was used on Paul Manafort’s home.

*****Fox news line of the month: Trump anxiety boosts professional cuddliest.** They also were droning on about the Dem’s desperate move of dragging out Obama and Hilary.

*****Sen. Bob Corker wondered aloud if Trump is stable.

*****Amy Poehler is creating an animated series.

*****Word id that Obama, like Bush before him, had the Department of energy prepare a 75 day briefing to explain and bring current the new administration. Nobody showed up until weeks later with instructions to apparently disregard all that and just weed out the Obama and climate change people.  The DOJ job is supposed to be scientists keeping track of nuclear war heads , clean up messes and monitor them in other countries.  They protect the power grid and fund research for alternative energy. I guess there will be no more of that. Of course, Rick Perry is the new head of the department, his predecessor was a nuclear scientist.

*****Catch the Struts with their new ‘One Night Only.’

*****Rob Reiner tweet: We’re running out of places to put nails in Trump’s coffin. Unless you’re a racist anti- Semite, you have no reason to support him.

*****Republican from Wisconsin, Ron Johnson wondered if McCain’s brain tumor factored into his ‘no’ vote on the ACA. Trump has since said as much as he conveyed thoughts about McCain’s competency.** People at the Arizona rally were yelling about McCain being a traitor.

*****The task force on crime reduction and public safety has given Jeff sessions no new policy recommendations for his anti- marijuana views. His threats of a federal crackdown may come to nothing.

*****230, 000 workers will soon be replaced by computers. Studies show that in 20 years, 47% of our jobs will be threatened by automation. Will we have to get to a system of a guaranteed minimum income or will jobs come along that we have not even thought of yet? Many of today’s jobs were not thought of a hundred years ago.

*****Hooray for SNL on Thursdays hitting it out of the park with Hader and Fey. We sure do need them right now. Che and Jost almost seem more confident on their own with jus Weekend Update.** BTW, I have to wonder why Lorne does not see fit to bring back some of the original things that made SNL unique?? In the internet world we live in it would seem perfect for home movies again. I realize people seem more savvy with their own stuff now and may be more argumentative in how they are presented but it could be done. Also.. Why do we have to have slick, top shelf mainstream hosts and music all the time?? In the beginning there were many celebs on their way up and down that made some of the best episodes.  And some have been on often and some very NY identified celebs only once. Can we have some B movie actors? Some activists? Some previously huge tv stars? And how about just some damn good talent that the whole world doesn’t talk about everyday. I vote for Dorian Harewood, Bill Withers, Rickie Lee Jones, The Struts, Jennifer Jason Leigh , Alan Alda, Buddy Guy and Elvis and Osgood Perkins. Take a chance!!

*****Scary clown seems to have listened to his Generals about Afghanistan. Of course it is hard to tell since he gave no real details. He wants India to play a bigger role. Pakistan has been put on notice. But it seems that his first instinct to ‘pull out’ is gone and Breitbart and friends hate that. A hasty withdrawal would create a vacuum for Isis and the Taliban. Trump says we will no longer build democracies overseas. We are not sure how many troops may join the 8500 already there .The mercenaries are not taking over yet. Gen. Maddis seemed to insist that Trump own this so they don’t get all the fall out. It was VP Pence that cut his trip short to talk to Afghanistan’s president.** McCain called it a big step in the right direction. Bannon called it a flip flop.

*****A Breitbart staffer asked for Paul Ryan’s help with Trump’s impeachment. ** A hacker seems to have gotten to the editor in chief at Breitbart. He posed as Bannon in an e mail and started a conversation, which led to the Editor saying Breitbart would do the dirty work and drive Ivanka and Jared out by the end of the year.

*****The Amityville house recently sold to a new owner.

*****Hi Mom!!!!!!

*****Kushner and Conan (not together) are heading to Israel for peace talks to try to change the conversation.

*****Interior secretary Ryan Zinke is now being investigated by the office of the inspector general. He is accused of threatening resources for Alaska when he tried to get Murkowski to change her for the ACA.

*****Check out Ian Schrager’s new book: Studio 54.

*****The secret service is going broke trying to take care of the Trump Klan. We do want them safe but it would be nice if he could think of the rest of us. Since he usually goes to his public holding, it is a much bigger and more expensive challenge. He made a huge deal out of how he was donating his salary so perhaps he should let the secret service use it. What DID that get used for? The agency is looking to congress for more funds. Coming up: The UN general assembly meeting in NY, that should really rack up the overtime.

*****Now we find out that Trump’s company was trying to develop a Trump tower in Moscow. The deal fell apart in January 2016. He failed to disclose this. This info was recently discovered in some e mails. Chris Hayes observed: ‘Incredible irony that not a single Clinton/Podesta e mail was as incriminating as the 2 Trump campaign e mails we’ve seen.** There was total denial from the campaign about a key player , Felix Sater. He has cards that read Felix Sater: Senior advisor to Donald Trump.

*****ICE has asked permission to destroy records describing sexual assault and deaths while immigrants were in agents custody.

*****Jim Bakker, who is still out there sounding crazy as Hell, tells us that Christians will begin a second civil war in the U.S. if Trump is impeached. Trump’s spiritual leader Ms. White has appeared on Bakker’s show and told us that the hand of God put Trump in power so being against him is like being against God. So, when Obama or Bill Clinton were President why did they fight so hard against them f God pit them there??

*****What would this country have been like if Native Americans would have been able to hold on to even most of their land? How would the open exchange of their traditions and ours have affected all of us? What if people from other countries had not been dragged here to forcibly build this country and instead might have come to minge in peace? Imagine!

*****Scary Clown was going to pardon Sheriff Joe Arpio then the WH said he wouldn’t but at his campaign rally he said he would but didn’t. The two became close over the birther issue. Arpio seems to have spent big money researching the issue.  A correspondent watched the Sheriff get quite upset when Trump did not call him on his birthday. The Arizona Sheriff stood for dehumanization and an estimated 160 people died in what Arpio called concentration camps. He put criminals in the desert, in a tent city and made them wear pink underwear.  He was found in criminal contempt of court when he defied a court order not to enforce the travel ban. His racial profiling is legendary.  Trump and or his staff seemed to wait for the opportune time to actually pardon the man. Hurricane Harvey was bearing down on Texas and without following the guidelines , Trump gave his friend and supporter the pardon. But it isn’t quite as it seems. Trump did not want to bury the story in the Texas news, he claims that he wanted to make it public then because everybody would be watching the news about the catastrophe and his announcement would get good ratings. Technically, accepting a pardon is an admission of guilt and can be used in civil suits. But you should seriously look up the long list of garbage this guy did.  There has been $142 million spent on legal fees, settlements and compliance costs because of him that almost bankrupt his county.** As far as the rally goes, the crowd waited so long they were tired and started to leave early. Bottled water was confiscated at the door and some were becoming dehydrated. Many mentioned a man that was standing behind Trump who calls himself Michael the Black man, a radical fringe activist. The man has been a Trump follower for some time. He is a former member of the Yahwen Ben Yahwen cult, known as a violent black supremacist religious cult. He reformed himself and is known in some circles as the poor man’s Alex Jones and abhors homosexuality. Michael AKA Maurice Woodside calls Oprah ‘the devil’ and calls himself an anti-democrat. He has been acquitted of 2 murders, racketeering, conspiracy and firebombing. ** The Pres also chose the category 4 hurricane as a good time to go thru with his tweet threat and ban the Trans community from the military. He is basically undoing LBJ’s entire civil rights package.  The ACLU is suing over the military ban on behalf of 6 individuals who are currently serving. Defense secretary Mattis has established a panel to review the Transgender troops and has frozen the ban. There sure seems to be a lot of extra work going on for nothing, we have a huge crisis on our hands. Why do we have to put up with this shit?? **Gorka , one of Bannon’s men who was not really part of the inner circle is out!** Secretary of state was asked about Trump’s values and he responded, “The resident speaks for himself.” His values aren’t those of most of America and everybody knows it.

*****Another word on Hurricane Harvey: The pictures are shocking ,the people helping are so wonderful and I hope they all find some peace and safety. Ted Cruz voted against aid for hurricane Sandy but is now asking for assistance for Harvey.  ** Joel Osteen is coming under scrutiny for telling Texas that his Lakewood church in Houston is inaccessible. The religious leader who is worth an estimated 56 mil announced he would let Hurricane victims in when the other centers reach their capacity. There were already twice as many people as the convention center allows. The reporter in front of the church showed there was some flooding but people could certainly get there! Lakewood can house 3 times the capacity of the current center taking in victims. Once the Toyota center also opened, the church was open but Osteen claims the doors were never closed. Things like this show the true colors of humans. After all the division, these things happen and show us how alike we are. Were any of the victims KKK members and were they helped by someone whose skin was a different color? Were any of the victims immigrants and were they helped by a white nationalist? Will we ever know?  ** Mattress Mac who owns Gallery Furniture in Houston opened his doors immediately and let the displaced souls sleep on the mattresses. Gayle King gave Osteen some shade over that one. **And in a silly comment, who is this CBS reporter DeMarco Morgan who has been on the scene? This guy is really good and should be on our screens a lot more often. He is hot too!** Scary Clown 45 and Melania went to see the devastation first hand and he could not help himself.  He yells, “What a crowd, what a turnout” Is he fucking kidding?** The rainfall has now hit a record.** Many donations are coming in. Rachel Ray gave her millions to animal causes.

*****Saw this ad for something called revitive medic and they proudly said ‘FDA cleared.’ That did not really sound like a big endorsement to me.

*****We have sent $200 mil to the Ukraine to help fight Russia.

*****Trump blocked Stephen King from his twitter.

*****Chuck E. Cheese is disbanding the band my son used to love.

*****17 charities have dropped out of their functions at Mar A Lago What the hell took them so long? Why were they there in the first place?  If his big racist mouth starts to cost him money, Trump may finally start to think before he speaks. I mean he will eventually benefit from all the money being made for the Trump organization because he did not divest. He will not follow the same rules as other leaders of this country.

*****A scuffle broke out on the baseball field between Detroit and NY.  The angst in this country is so high there is even fighting in baseball.

*****What is going on with the Naval accidents?  A report states that the high pace of operations leaves little time for proper inspections and maintenance.  The military is looking into how over taxed they are and zero in on human error, lack of training or funding. It is probably all three.

*****Ducktales is back!

*****Will the President shut down the Federal government to get his stupid wall that Mexico was supposed to pay for? Will he keep screaming at other Republicans like he did the other day on the phone to McConnell? ** Before Houston, the Republicans were looking at cutting $876 mil from disaster accounts to help pay for the Wall.. What will happen now??

*****Wirtgen American Inc. is accusing CAT of patent infringement on products used to mill asphalt and concrete pavement. The  U.S.  International trade commission is looking into it.

*****India outlawed ‘instant’ divorce.

*****I notice that there are reruns of Unsolved Mysteries. Why don’t they go back to the NBC original Unsolved Mysteries with Robert Stack and update all those old mysteries… there should be years of material to keep them busy. After all everything old is new again.

*****Pete Davidson looked great at the MTV VMA’s. He also appeared on Weekend Update last week, asking” Is Pete still on the show?” Oh yes, we know you are there baby!

*****Hackers have released nude pics of Tiger Woods.

*****DAYS ALERT: Bryan Datillo who plays Lucas was recently on one of NBC’s ‘the more you know.’** I thought that Anne Milbaur would swoop in on Lucas or Bonnie would die and a drunken Lucas would be blamed. Lucas and Brady getting hammered was a sad but funny scene. Nicole and Angelica sure can wreak havoc.** A great line from Haddie as Marlena,” I’m not a Dr. I just play one in Salem.”

*****R.I.P Glen Campbell, Haruo Nakajima, D. L. Menard, Barbara Cook,  Heather Heyer, Berke Bates, H. Jay Cullen, Wayne Lotter, Sonny Burgess, Rafael Ramirez, Thomas Meehan, Mireille Darc, Bernard Pomerance,  the Hurricane/tropical storm Harvey victims, Tobe Hooper, Dick Gregory and Jerry Lewis.

[ongames]

This Woman Survived One Of The Deadliest Snake Attacks

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

CHERANGAN, KENYA ― Walking home from a party in the evening light, Cheposait Adomo was unaware of the 6.5-foot black mamba snake in her path until it had coiled around her ankles and sunk in its teeth.

As Adomo screamed and pulled at the slithering knot that punctured her three times, she was unaware of the two other brown-colored mambas slithering over to provide backup.

“I felt the bites and then a burning sensation,” Adomo, a mother of five, said of the attack, which happened late last year near her hilly village of Cherangan, in Kenya’s West Pokot County, close to the Ugandan border.

In this poor and remote area, a three-hour drive along rocky switchbacks to the nearest city, most people run for their lives at the sight of what Adomo described as “very fierce snakes” that deliver deadly bites.

 “We’ve heard anecdotal reports about black mamba bites causing respiratory death within 40 minutes,” said Dr. Robert Harrison, head of the Alistair Reid Venom Research Unit at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 

“In a sub-Saharan African remote village context, that is often too quick between bite and death to get to hospital,” he added.

Adomo was saved from the other two mambas by a machete-wielding man who raced over and “cut them to pieces,” she said. But the three bites on her ankle were spreading a fiery sensation up her leg, and she started losing her vision.

“I fell down and people ran over to beat the snake around my legs so it would untie itself,” recalled Adomo, who thinks she’s around 40 years old.  

As she started passing out, people gathered around her tried to stop the poison from circulating by using a traditional medicinal technique. They tied pieces of cloth around her wrists, ankles and knees and made cuts in her skin to insert small, porous stones. Then they loaded her onto a neighbor’s motorbike, hoping they’d see her again, and sent her down the long road on a 45-minute ride to the nearest hospital.

Luckily, staff there had the anti-venom Adomo needed and saved her life. 

While it’s tough to get a firm number of snakebites, it’s estimated that a million people in Africa are bitten a year ― yet only a fraction of those are thought to seek treatment at clinics. Globally, an estimated 5 million people are bitten by snakes per year, causing 100,000 deaths. Another 400,000 are left permanently disabled or disfigured. In sub-Saharan Africa, snakebites kill around 30,000 people annually and lead to an estimated 8,000 amputations.

Doctors are trying to stamp out traditional treatments, like the one Adomo received in her village, because the practices can increase fatality rates for some snakebites and in all cases delay life-saving medical treatment. Given the right anti-venom, only between one and two percent of snakebite victims will die. Usually, these deaths happen when a person doesn’t get medical care in time, said Julien Potet, policy adviser on neglected tropical diseases for the French charity Doctors Without Borders.

Despite snakebites’ high rates of death and disability, experts say that in Africa it has been largely ignored by both the public and private sector. The hardest-hit victims are rural farmers, the “poorest of the poor,” says Potet. For many snakebite patients, a life-saving anti-venom costs more than their annual wage. But such high quality medicine is increasingly hard to find in rural Africa, and local clinics struggle to access it or even properly store it.

Put all this together, and it’s easy to see why so many people shy away from medical care.

“As long as the treatments will cost $50 to $100 per patient, the majority of victims will struggle” to pay, or even think about visiting the clinic, said Potet.

A current shortage of anti-venoms to treat African snakebites means that being bitten now is even deadlier than it was decades ago.

Until the early 1990s, “about 200,000 vials were used in Africa, and now it’s probably less than 30,000 or 40,000,” said Dr. Jean-Phillippe Chippaux, who has been studying snakes for over 40 years.

Because the average snakebite victim needs two doses, for 300,000 annual patients, “we probably need 600,000 vials in Africa each year,” he said.

A VICIOUS CIRCLE 

A few years ago, the French drug company Sanofi Pasteur stopped making FAV-Afrique, one of the most effective anti-venoms for 10 types of African snakes. This was useful for cases where patients don’t know which snake bit them. But the treatment cost patients between $280 and $560, and Sanofi claimed it could no longer compete with the newer, cheaper and, in many cases, lower quality anti-venoms from Asia.

The company sold its last batch of FAV-Afrique in 2014, and the remaining supplies expired in 2016, leading to what Doctors Without Borders called a “snakebite crisis.” 

But the problem is bigger than one drug. Sub-Saharan African governments and overseas aid donors have been mostly unwilling or unable to invest in the research and development of quality anti-venom at the local level.

In Kenya’s Kilifi County, where many snakebites occur, Royjan Taylor, who manages the Bio-Ken medical research snake farm in the coastal resort town Watamu, has witnessed the demise of pricey yet effective anti-venoms.

“A big problem has been that anti-venoms from places like India have been dumped into the African market,” he said. 

“There are so many hospitals that have used these, which I can tell you are totally and absolutely useless.”

THE PRICE OF POOR ANTI-VENOMS

In countries like Ghana and Chad, the introduction of new anti-venoms led to mortality rates from snakebites rising from around two percent to between 12 and 15 percent. Given similar mortality rates for untreated snakebites, “that’s equivalent to not giving any anti-venom at all,” said Harrison, the venom researcher from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Over the past four years, Harrison and his colleagues have been searching for a safe new anti-venom to neutralize many different snakebites in Africa. They’ve done this by milking the venom of over 800 toxic snakes taken from Africa to Liverpool labs. 

Their work also involves testing anti-venoms sold in Kenya that have never even been tested on animals. By identifying the substandard anti-venoms, “we can avoid so many unnecessary deaths,” Harrison said.

“If all countries in sub-Saharan Africa where snakebite is important would do the same, we could make sure that the ineffective anti-venoms were forbidden for human use,” he added.

In Kenya, victims dying from ineffective anti-venoms ― leaving families with huge hospital bills ― discourage people from treatment in medical wards rather than by the cheaper and closer traditional doctors.

“They have lost confidence in seeking western medicine in a hospital,” said Taylor, the Bio-Ken snake farm manager.

“Every couple of months a person has died from snakebite because they didn’t get treatment in time,” he added.

Through fundraising, Bio-Ken buys between 50 to 100 vials of anti-venom per year to treat poor victims for free. But the need is much greater, “about 20,000 vials for Kenya alone, at an absolute minimum,” said Taylor, who sees how death and disability from snakebite renders people living in poor rural communities destitute.

HOPE ON THE HORIZON

The World Health Organization is currently assessing anti-venom products aimed at the African market to weed out the duds. It is also considering putting snakebites back on its list of neglected tropical diseases.

Researchers say that snakebite is a much more immediate and deadly condition than many of the 18 conditions listed, which tend to affect the world’s poorest but lack funding and attention, and is more ignored.

It may come as a surprise that, in an age where advances in genetic cloning seem hum-drum, little has changed in developing anti-venoms since their discovery in 1894.

“It’s ridiculous. I can’t believe we’re spending money on Dolly the sheep and not this,” said Taylor.

Success in the snakebite world is small but significant.

Doctors Without Borders is researching anti-venoms in the Central African Republic and has seen large upswings in treatment there, as well as in Ethiopia and South Sudan. The African Society of Venimology, founded in 2012, is lobbying internationally and training medics locally, soon by video tutorial to increase its reach. In Burkina Faso, government subsidies for anti-venom have brought costs to patients down from $140 to $4.

In Kenya, the team from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is introducing snakebite motorcycle ambulances, to help especially patients bitten by mambas and certain cobras that can quickly stop breathing.

Adomo remembers little of the motorbike ― owned by a neighbor― that whisked her to the hospital. 

“I lost my vision and memory and didn’t know what was happening until I was in the hospital,” she recalled.

“She was going into shock, she thought she would die,” said Dr. Michael Makari, who runs the hospital in Kacheliba where Adomo received care. 

Today, people in her village light torches and fires at night and don’t walk in the dark to avoid the snakes. But having been so close to death, Adomo still shivers at the thought of these creatures.

“Now, I really fear snakes, and even seeing the tracks they’ve made in the sand,” she said.

This series is supported, in part, by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to ProjectZero@huffingtonpost.com. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.

Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.

When Bullets Fly, These Medics Grab Their Packs And Treat Patients On The Run

This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen

A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

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This Woman Survived One Of The Deadliest Snake Attacks published first on http://ift.tt/2lnpciY

[yes-dal456]

This Woman Survived One Of The Deadliest Snake Attacks

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

CHERANGAN, KENYA ― Walking home from a party in the evening light, Cheposait Adomo was unaware of the 6.5-foot black mamba snake in her path until it had coiled around her ankles and sunk in its teeth.

As Adomo screamed and pulled at the slithering knot that punctured her three times, she was unaware of the two other brown-colored mambas slithering over to provide backup.

“I felt the bites and then a burning sensation,” Adomo, a mother of five, said of the attack, which happened late last year near her hilly village of Cherangan, in Kenya’s West Pokot County, close to the Ugandan border.

In this poor and remote area, a three-hour drive along rocky switchbacks to the nearest city, most people run for their lives at the sight of what Adomo described as “very fierce snakes” that deliver deadly bites.

 “We’ve heard anecdotal reports about black mamba bites causing respiratory death within 40 minutes,” said Dr. Robert Harrison, head of the Alistair Reid Venom Research Unit at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 

“In a sub-Saharan African remote village context, that is often too quick between bite and death to get to hospital,” he added.

Adomo was saved from the other two mambas by a machete-wielding man who raced over and “cut them to pieces,” she said. But the three bites on her ankle were spreading a fiery sensation up her leg, and she started losing her vision.

“I fell down and people ran over to beat the snake around my legs so it would untie itself,” recalled Adomo, who thinks she’s around 40 years old.  

As she started passing out, people gathered around her tried to stop the poison from circulating by using a traditional medicinal technique. They tied pieces of cloth around her wrists, ankles and knees and made cuts in her skin to insert small, porous stones. Then they loaded her onto a neighbor’s motorbike, hoping they’d see her again, and sent her down the long road on a 45-minute ride to the nearest hospital.

Luckily, staff there had the anti-venom Adomo needed and saved her life. 

While it’s tough to get a firm number of snakebites, it’s estimated that a million people in Africa are bitten a year ― yet only a fraction of those are thought to seek treatment at clinics. Globally, an estimated 5 million people are bitten by snakes per year, causing 100,000 deaths. Another 400,000 are left permanently disabled or disfigured. In sub-Saharan Africa, snakebites kill around 30,000 people annually and lead to an estimated 8,000 amputations.

Doctors are trying to stamp out traditional treatments, like the one Adomo received in her village, because the practices can increase fatality rates for some snakebites and in all cases delay life-saving medical treatment. Given the right anti-venom, only between one and two percent of snakebite victims will die. Usually, these deaths happen when a person doesn’t get medical care in time, said Julien Potet, policy adviser on neglected tropical diseases for the French charity Doctors Without Borders.

Despite snakebites’ high rates of death and disability, experts say that in Africa it has been largely ignored by both the public and private sector. The hardest-hit victims are rural farmers, the “poorest of the poor,” says Potet. For many snakebite patients, a life-saving anti-venom costs more than their annual wage. But such high quality medicine is increasingly hard to find in rural Africa, and local clinics struggle to access it or even properly store it.

Put all this together, and it’s easy to see why so many people shy away from medical care.

“As long as the treatments will cost $50 to $100 per patient, the majority of victims will struggle” to pay, or even think about visiting the clinic, said Potet.

A current shortage of anti-venoms to treat African snakebites means that being bitten now is even deadlier than it was decades ago.

Until the early 1990s, “about 200,000 vials were used in Africa, and now it’s probably less than 30,000 or 40,000,” said Dr. Jean-Phillippe Chippaux, who has been studying snakes for over 40 years.

Because the average snakebite victim needs two doses, for 300,000 annual patients, “we probably need 600,000 vials in Africa each year,” he said.

A VICIOUS CIRCLE 

A few years ago, the French drug company Sanofi Pasteur stopped making FAV-Afrique, one of the most effective anti-venoms for 10 types of African snakes. This was useful for cases where patients don’t know which snake bit them. But the treatment cost patients between $280 and $560, and Sanofi claimed it could no longer compete with the newer, cheaper and, in many cases, lower quality anti-venoms from Asia.

The company sold its last batch of FAV-Afrique in 2014, and the remaining supplies expired in 2016, leading to what Doctors Without Borders called a “snakebite crisis.” 

But the problem is bigger than one drug. Sub-Saharan African governments and overseas aid donors have been mostly unwilling or unable to invest in the research and development of quality anti-venom at the local level.

In Kenya’s Kilifi County, where many snakebites occur, Royjan Taylor, who manages the Bio-Ken medical research snake farm in the coastal resort town Watamu, has witnessed the demise of pricey yet effective anti-venoms.

“A big problem has been that anti-venoms from places like India have been dumped into the African market,” he said. 

“There are so many hospitals that have used these, which I can tell you are totally and absolutely useless.”

THE PRICE OF POOR ANTI-VENOMS

In countries like Ghana and Chad, the introduction of new anti-venoms led to mortality rates from snakebites rising from around two percent to between 12 and 15 percent. Given similar mortality rates for untreated snakebites, “that’s equivalent to not giving any anti-venom at all,” said Harrison, the venom researcher from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Over the past four years, Harrison and his colleagues have been searching for a safe new anti-venom to neutralize many different snakebites in Africa. They’ve done this by milking the venom of over 800 toxic snakes taken from Africa to Liverpool labs. 

Their work also involves testing anti-venoms sold in Kenya that have never even been tested on animals. By identifying the substandard anti-venoms, “we can avoid so many unnecessary deaths,” Harrison said.

“If all countries in sub-Saharan Africa where snakebite is important would do the same, we could make sure that the ineffective anti-venoms were forbidden for human use,” he added.

In Kenya, victims dying from ineffective anti-venoms ― leaving families with huge hospital bills ― discourage people from treatment in medical wards rather than by the cheaper and closer traditional doctors.

“They have lost confidence in seeking western medicine in a hospital,” said Taylor, the Bio-Ken snake farm manager.

“Every couple of months a person has died from snakebite because they didn’t get treatment in time,” he added.

Through fundraising, Bio-Ken buys between 50 to 100 vials of anti-venom per year to treat poor victims for free. But the need is much greater, “about 20,000 vials for Kenya alone, at an absolute minimum,” said Taylor, who sees how death and disability from snakebite renders people living in poor rural communities destitute.

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HOPE ON THE HORIZON

The World Health Organization is currently assessing anti-venom products aimed at the African market to weed out the duds. It is also considering putting snakebites back on its list of neglected tropical diseases.

Researchers say that snakebite is a much more immediate and deadly condition than many of the 18 conditions listed, which tend to affect the world’s poorest but lack funding and attention, and is more ignored.

It may come as a surprise that, in an age where advances in genetic cloning seem hum-drum, little has changed in developing anti-venoms since their discovery in 1894.

“It’s ridiculous. I can’t believe we’re spending money on Dolly the sheep and not this,” said Taylor.

Success in the snakebite world is small but significant.

Doctors Without Borders is researching anti-venoms in the Central African Republic and has seen large upswings in treatment there, as well as in Ethiopia and South Sudan. The African Society of Venimology, founded in 2012, is lobbying internationally and training medics locally, soon by video tutorial to increase its reach. In Burkina Faso, government subsidies for anti-venom have brought costs to patients down from $140 to $4.

In Kenya, the team from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is introducing snakebite motorcycle ambulances, to help especially patients bitten by mambas and certain cobras that can quickly stop breathing.

Adomo remembers little of the motorbike ― owned by a neighbor― that whisked her to the hospital. 

“I lost my vision and memory and didn’t know what was happening until I was in the hospital,” she recalled.

“She was going into shock, she thought she would die,” said Dr. Michael Makari, who runs the hospital in Kacheliba where Adomo received care. 

Today, people in her village light torches and fires at night and don’t walk in the dark to avoid the snakes. But having been so close to death, Adomo still shivers at the thought of these creatures.

“Now, I really fear snakes, and even seeing the tracks they’ve made in the sand,” she said.

This series is supported, in part, by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to ProjectZero@huffingtonpost.com. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.

Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.

When Bullets Fly, These Medics Grab Their Packs And Treat Patients On The Run

This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen

A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from http://ift.tt/2poCyxq from Blogger http://ift.tt/2o2TUzJ

[imreviewblog]

This Woman Survived One Of The Deadliest Snake Attacks

This article is part of HuffPost’s Project Zero campaign, a yearlong series on neglected tropical diseases and efforts to fight them.

CHERANGAN, KENYA ― Walking home from a party in the evening light, Cheposait Adomo was unaware of the 6.5-foot black mamba snake in her path until it had coiled around her ankles and sunk in its teeth.

As Adomo screamed and pulled at the slithering knot that punctured her three times, she was unaware of the two other brown-colored mambas slithering over to provide backup.

“I felt the bites and then a burning sensation,” Adomo, a mother of five, said of the attack, which happened late last year near her hilly village of Cherangan, in Kenya’s West Pokot County, close to the Ugandan border.

In this poor and remote area, a three-hour drive along rocky switchbacks to the nearest city, most people run for their lives at the sight of what Adomo described as “very fierce snakes” that deliver deadly bites.

 “We’ve heard anecdotal reports about black mamba bites causing respiratory death within 40 minutes,” said Dr. Robert Harrison, head of the Alistair Reid Venom Research Unit at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. 

“In a sub-Saharan African remote village context, that is often too quick between bite and death to get to hospital,” he added.

Adomo was saved from the other two mambas by a machete-wielding man who raced over and “cut them to pieces,” she said. But the three bites on her ankle were spreading a fiery sensation up her leg, and she started losing her vision.

“I fell down and people ran over to beat the snake around my legs so it would untie itself,” recalled Adomo, who thinks she’s around 40 years old.  

As she started passing out, people gathered around her tried to stop the poison from circulating by using a traditional medicinal technique. They tied pieces of cloth around her wrists, ankles and knees and made cuts in her skin to insert small, porous stones. Then they loaded her onto a neighbor’s motorbike, hoping they’d see her again, and sent her down the long road on a 45-minute ride to the nearest hospital.

Luckily, staff there had the anti-venom Adomo needed and saved her life. 

While it’s tough to get a firm number of snakebites, it’s estimated that a million people in Africa are bitten a year ― yet only a fraction of those are thought to seek treatment at clinics. Globally, an estimated 5 million people are bitten by snakes per year, causing 100,000 deaths. Another 400,000 are left permanently disabled or disfigured. In sub-Saharan Africa, snakebites kill around 30,000 people annually and lead to an estimated 8,000 amputations.

Doctors are trying to stamp out traditional treatments, like the one Adomo received in her village, because the practices can increase fatality rates for some snakebites and in all cases delay life-saving medical treatment. Given the right anti-venom, only between one and two percent of snakebite victims will die. Usually, these deaths happen when a person doesn’t get medical care in time, said Julien Potet, policy adviser on neglected tropical diseases for the French charity Doctors Without Borders.

Despite snakebites’ high rates of death and disability, experts say that in Africa it has been largely ignored by both the public and private sector. The hardest-hit victims are rural farmers, the “poorest of the poor,” says Potet. For many snakebite patients, a life-saving anti-venom costs more than their annual wage. But such high quality medicine is increasingly hard to find in rural Africa, and local clinics struggle to access it or even properly store it.

Put all this together, and it’s easy to see why so many people shy away from medical care.

“As long as the treatments will cost $50 to $100 per patient, the majority of victims will struggle” to pay, or even think about visiting the clinic, said Potet.

A current shortage of anti-venoms to treat African snakebites means that being bitten now is even deadlier than it was decades ago.

Until the early 1990s, “about 200,000 vials were used in Africa, and now it’s probably less than 30,000 or 40,000,” said Dr. Jean-Phillippe Chippaux, who has been studying snakes for over 40 years.

Because the average snakebite victim needs two doses, for 300,000 annual patients, “we probably need 600,000 vials in Africa each year,” he said.

A VICIOUS CIRCLE 

A few years ago, the French drug company Sanofi Pasteur stopped making FAV-Afrique, one of the most effective anti-venoms for 10 types of African snakes. This was useful for cases where patients don’t know which snake bit them. But the treatment cost patients between $280 and $560, and Sanofi claimed it could no longer compete with the newer, cheaper and, in many cases, lower quality anti-venoms from Asia.

The company sold its last batch of FAV-Afrique in 2014, and the remaining supplies expired in 2016, leading to what Doctors Without Borders called a “snakebite crisis.” 

But the problem is bigger than one drug. Sub-Saharan African governments and overseas aid donors have been mostly unwilling or unable to invest in the research and development of quality anti-venom at the local level.

In Kenya’s Kilifi County, where many snakebites occur, Royjan Taylor, who manages the Bio-Ken medical research snake farm in the coastal resort town Watamu, has witnessed the demise of pricey yet effective anti-venoms.

“A big problem has been that anti-venoms from places like India have been dumped into the African market,” he said. 

“There are so many hospitals that have used these, which I can tell you are totally and absolutely useless.”

THE PRICE OF POOR ANTI-VENOMS

In countries like Ghana and Chad, the introduction of new anti-venoms led to mortality rates from snakebites rising from around two percent to between 12 and 15 percent. Given similar mortality rates for untreated snakebites, “that’s equivalent to not giving any anti-venom at all,” said Harrison, the venom researcher from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine.

Over the past four years, Harrison and his colleagues have been searching for a safe new anti-venom to neutralize many different snakebites in Africa. They’ve done this by milking the venom of over 800 toxic snakes taken from Africa to Liverpool labs. 

Their work also involves testing anti-venoms sold in Kenya that have never even been tested on animals. By identifying the substandard anti-venoms, “we can avoid so many unnecessary deaths,” Harrison said.

“If all countries in sub-Saharan Africa where snakebite is important would do the same, we could make sure that the ineffective anti-venoms were forbidden for human use,” he added.

In Kenya, victims dying from ineffective anti-venoms ― leaving families with huge hospital bills ― discourage people from treatment in medical wards rather than by the cheaper and closer traditional doctors.

“They have lost confidence in seeking western medicine in a hospital,” said Taylor, the Bio-Ken snake farm manager.

“Every couple of months a person has died from snakebite because they didn’t get treatment in time,” he added.

Through fundraising, Bio-Ken buys between 50 to 100 vials of anti-venom per year to treat poor victims for free. But the need is much greater, “about 20,000 vials for Kenya alone, at an absolute minimum,” said Taylor, who sees how death and disability from snakebite renders people living in poor rural communities destitute.

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HOPE ON THE HORIZON

The World Health Organization is currently assessing anti-venom products aimed at the African market to weed out the duds. It is also considering putting snakebites back on its list of neglected tropical diseases.

Researchers say that snakebite is a much more immediate and deadly condition than many of the 18 conditions listed, which tend to affect the world’s poorest but lack funding and attention, and is more ignored.

It may come as a surprise that, in an age where advances in genetic cloning seem hum-drum, little has changed in developing anti-venoms since their discovery in 1894.

“It’s ridiculous. I can’t believe we’re spending money on Dolly the sheep and not this,” said Taylor.

Success in the snakebite world is small but significant.

Doctors Without Borders is researching anti-venoms in the Central African Republic and has seen large upswings in treatment there, as well as in Ethiopia and South Sudan. The African Society of Venimology, founded in 2012, is lobbying internationally and training medics locally, soon by video tutorial to increase its reach. In Burkina Faso, government subsidies for anti-venom have brought costs to patients down from $140 to $4.

In Kenya, the team from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine is introducing snakebite motorcycle ambulances, to help especially patients bitten by mambas and certain cobras that can quickly stop breathing.

Adomo remembers little of the motorbike ― owned by a neighbor― that whisked her to the hospital. 

“I lost my vision and memory and didn’t know what was happening until I was in the hospital,” she recalled.

“She was going into shock, she thought she would die,” said Dr. Michael Makari, who runs the hospital in Kacheliba where Adomo received care. 

Today, people in her village light torches and fires at night and don’t walk in the dark to avoid the snakes. But having been so close to death, Adomo still shivers at the thought of these creatures.

“Now, I really fear snakes, and even seeing the tracks they’ve made in the sand,” she said.

This series is supported, in part, by funding from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. All content is editorially independent, with no influence or input from the foundation.

If you’d like to contribute a post to the series, send an email to ProjectZero@huffingtonpost.com. And follow the conversation on social media by using the hashtag #ProjectZero.

More stories like this:

He Treated The Very First Ebola Cases 40 Years Ago. Then He Watched The World Forget.

Rabies Kills 189 People Every Day. Here’s Why You Never Hear About It.

When Bullets Fly, These Medics Grab Their Packs And Treat Patients On The Run

This Man Went Abroad And Brought Back A Disease Doctors Had Never Seen

A Parasite Attacked This Dad’s Brain And Destroyed His Family

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

from Healthy Living - The Huffington Post http://huff.to/2o2ONPS

[newstfionline]

Troops Who Cleaned Up Radioactive Islands Can’t Get Medical Care

By Dave Philipps, NY Times, Jan. 28, 2017

RICHLAND, Wash.--When Tim Snider arrived on Enewetak Atoll in the middle of the Pacific Ocean to clean up the fallout from dozens of nuclear tests on the ring of coral islands, Army officers immediately ordered him to put on a respirator and a bright yellow suit designed to guard against plutonium poisoning.

A military film crew snapped photos and shot movies of Mr. Snider, a 20-year-old Air Force radiation technician, in the crisp new safety gear. Then he was ordered to give all the gear back. He spent the rest of his four-month stint on the islands wearing only cutoff shorts and a floppy sun hat.

“I never saw one of those suits again,” Mr. Snider, now 58, said in an interview in his kitchen here as he thumbed a yellowing photo he still has from the 1979 shoot. “It was just propaganda.”

Today Mr. Snider has tumors on his ribs, spine and skull--which he thinks resulted from his work on the crew, in the largest nuclear cleanup ever undertaken by the United States military.

Roughly 4,000 troops helped clean up the atoll between 1977 and 1980. Like Mr. Snider, most did not even wear shirts, let alone respirators. Hundreds say they are now plagued by health problems, including brittle bones, cancer and birth defects in their children. Many are already dead. Others are too sick to work.

The military says there is no connection between these illnesses and the cleanup. Radiation exposure during the work fell well below recommended thresholds, it says, and safety precautions were top notch. So the government refuses to pay for the veterans’ medical care.

Congress long ago recognized that troops were harmed by radiation on Enewetak during the original atomic tests, which occurred in the 1950s, and should be cared for and compensated. Still, it has failed to do the same for the men who cleaned up the toxic debris 20 years later. The disconnect continues a longstanding pattern in which the government has shrugged off responsibility for its nuclear mistakes.

On one cleanup after another, veterans have been denied care because shoddy or intentionally false radiation monitoring was later used as proof that there was no radiation exposure.

A report by The New York Times last spring found that veterans were exposed to plutonium during the cleanup of a 1966 accident involving American hydrogen bombs in Palomares, Spain. Declassified documents and a recent study by the Air Force said the men might have been poisoned, and needed new testing.

But in the months since the report, nothing has been done to help them.

For two years, the Enewetak veterans have been trying, without success, to win medical benefits from Congress through a proposed Atomic Veterans Healthcare Parity Act. Some lawmakers hope to introduce a bill this year, but its fate is uncertain. Now, as new cases of cancer emerge nearly every month, many of the men wonder how much longer they can wait.

The cleanup of Enewetak has long been portrayed as a triumph. During the operation, officials told reporters that they were setting a new standard in safety. One report from the end of the cleanup said safety was so strict that “it would be difficult to identify additional radsafe precautions that could have been taken.”

Documents from the time and interviews with dozens of veterans tell a different story.

Most of the documents were declassified and made publicly available in the 1990s, along with millions of pages of other files relating to nuclear testing, and sat unnoticed for years. They show that the government used troops instead of professional nuclear workers to save money. Then it saved even more money by skimping on safety precautions.

Records show that protective equipment was missing or unusable. Troops requesting respirators couldn’t get them. Cut-rate safety monitoring systems failed. Officials assured concerned members of Congress by listing safeguards that didn’t exist.

And though leaders of the cleanup told troops that the islands emitted no more radiation than a dental X-ray, documents show they privately worried about “plutonium problems” and areas that were “highly radiologically contaminated.”

Tying any disease to radiation exposure years earlier is nearly impossible; there has never been a formal study of the health of the Enewetak cleanup crews. The military collected nasal swabs and urine samples during the cleanup to measure how much plutonium troops were absorbing, but in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, it said it could not find the records.

Hundreds of the troops, though, almost all now in their late 50s, have found one another on Facebook and discovered remarkably similar problems involving deteriorating bones and an incidence of cancer that appears to be far above the norm.

A tally of 431 of the veterans by a member of the group shows that of those who stayed on the southernmost island, where radiation was low, only 2 percent reported having cancer. Of those who worked on the most contaminated islands in the north, 20 percent reported cancer. An additional 34 percent from the contaminated islands reported other health problems that could be related to radiation, like failing bones, infertility and thyroid problems.

Between 1948 and 1958, 43 atomic blasts rocked the tiny atoll--part of the Marshall Islands, which sit between Hawaii and the Philippines--obliterating the native groves of breadfruit trees and coconut palms, and leaving an apocalyptic wreckage of twisted test towers, radioactive bunkers and rusting military equipment.

Four islands were entirely vaporized; only deep blue radioactive craters in the ocean remained. The residents had been evacuated. No one thought they would ever return.

In the early 1970s, the Enewetak islanders threatened legal action if they didn’t get their home back. In 1972, the United States government agreed to return the atoll and vowed to clean it up first, a project shared by the Atomic Energy Commission, now called the Department of Energy, and the Department of Defense.

The biggest problem, according to Energy Department reports, was Runit Island, a 75-acre spit of sand blitzed by 11 nuclear tests in 1958. The north end was gouged by a 300-foot-wide crater that documents from the time describe as “a special problem” because of “high subsurface contamination.”

The island was littered with a fine dust of pulverized plutonium, which if inhaled or otherwise absorbed can cause cancer years or even decades later. A millionth of a gram is potentially harmful, and because the isotopes have a half-life of 24,000 years, the danger effectively never goes away.

The military initially quarantined Runit. Government scientists agreed that other islands might be made habitable, but Runit would most likely forever be too toxic, memos show.

So federal officials decided to collect radioactive debris from the other islands and dump it into the Runit crater, then cap it with a thick concrete dome.

The government intended to use private contractors and estimated the cleanup would cost $40 million, documents show. But Congress balked at the price and approved only half the money. It ordered that “all reasonable economies should be realized” by using troops to do the work.

Safety planners intended to use protective suits, respirators and sprinklers to keep down dust. But without adequate funding, simple precautions were scrapped.

Paul Laird was one of the first service members to arrive for the atoll’s cleanup, in 1977. Then a 20-year-old bulldozer driver, he began scraping topsoil that records show contained plutonium. He was given no safety equipment.

“That dust was like baby powder. We were covered in it,” said Mr. Laird, now 60, during an interview in rural Maine, where he owns a small auto repair shop. “But we couldn’t even get a paper dust mask. I begged for one daily. My lieutenant said the masks were on back order so use a T-shirt.”

By the time Mr. Laird left the islands, he was throwing up and had a blisterlike rash. He got out of the Army in 1978 and moved home to Maine. When he turned 52, he found a lump that turned out to be kidney cancer. A scan at the hospital showed he also had bladder cancer. A few years later he developed a different form of bladder cancer.

His private health insurance covered the treatment, but co-payments left him deep in debt. He applied repeatedly for free veterans’ health care for radiation but was denied. His medical records from the military all said he had not been exposed.

“When the job was done, they threw my bulldozer in the ocean because it was so hot,” Mr. Laird said. “If it got that much radiation, how the hell did it miss me?”

As the cleanup continued, federal officials tried to institute safety measures. A shipment of yellow radiation suits arrived on the islands in 1978, but in interviews veterans said that they were too hot to wear in the tropical sun and that the military told them that it was safe to go without them.

The military tried to monitor plutonium inhalation using air samplers. But they soon broke. According to an Energy Department memo, in 1978, only a third of the samplers were working.

All troops were issued a small film badge to measure radiation exposure, but government memos note that humid conditions destroyed the film. Failure rates often reached 100 percent.

Every evening, Air Force technicians scanned workers for plutonium particles before they left Runit. Men said dozens of workers each day had screened positive for dangerous levels of radiation.

“Sometimes we’d get readings that were all the way to the red,” said one technician, David Roach, 57, who now lives in Rockland, Me.

None of the high readings were recorded, said Mr. Roach, who has since had several strokes.

Two members of Congress wrote to the secretary of defense in 1978 with concerns, but his office told them not to worry: Suits and respirators ensured the cleanup was conducted in “a manner as to assure that radiation exposure to individuals is limited to the lowest levels practicable.”

Even after the cleanup, many of the islands were still too radioactive to inhabit.

In 1988, Congress passed a law providing automatic medical care to any troops involved in the original atomic testing. But the act covers veterans only up to 1958, when atomic testing stopped, excluding the Enewetak cleanup crews.

If civilian contractors had done the cleanup and later discovered declassified documents that show the government failed to follow its own safety plan, they could sue for negligence. Veterans don’t have that right. A 1950 Supreme Court ruling bars troops and their families from suing for injuries arising from military service.

The veterans’ only avenue for help is to apply individually to the Department of Veterans Affairs for free medical care and disability payments. But the department bases decisions on old military records--including defective air sampling and radiation badge data--that show no one was harmed. It nearly always denies coverage.

“A lot of guys can’t survive anymore, financially,” said Jeff Dean, 60, who piloted boats loaded with contaminated soil.

Mr. Dean developed cancer at 43, then again two years later. He had to give up his job as a carpenter as the bones in his spine deteriorated. Unpaid medical bills left him $100,000 in debt.

“No one seems to want to admit anything,” Mr. Dean said. “I don’t know how much longer we can wait, we have guys dying all the time.”