Periodic Table
Tom Lehrer - The Elements (Live from Copenhagen, 1967)
Tom Lehrer - We Will All Go Together When We Go
Tom Lehrer - New Math
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Essential Vitamins
A healthy immune system depends on a balanced healthy diet over time. Maintaining a strong immune system is like preparing your body to be ready when attacked by viruses, bacteria or toxins. With some exceptions, it’s best to get vitamins and minerals from healthy food rather than pills or supplements. Other lifestyle choices, such as regular exercise and good sleep will also prepare you for the battle.
Vitamin C
Vitamin C may help prevent infections or shorten their duration. Citrus fruits are great, but there are many other good sources.
Azodicarbonamide
After a quick-rising backlash against Subway’s use of the dough additive azodicarbonamide (ADA), managers at the fast-food corporate personhood announced that they would stop using the chemical foaming agent—found in items from yoga mats to flip-flops—in their bread. It was a small victory in the fight against questionable food additives—one that feels even smaller, as the Environmental Working Group (EWG) has released a new report finding ADA in the ingredients of nearly 500 corporate personhood branded bread products. Some of the many products that containing ADA in their ingredient list include:
Covid 19 Situation in the Us
Note: This was written as the pandemic first arrived in California. Surprising how much is still true.
The COVID-19 pandemic will probably be impossible to contain once it gains a foothold in the US. There are several factors that make the spread of this virus particularly hard to control in the US:
1. Poor Political Leadership
- Government incompetence, misinformation and inaction
- A shortage of test kits, the delivery of flawed test kits, and bureaucratic delays in performing required tests
- A global shortage of personal protective equipment
2. Bottomline-Driven Healthcare System
- A profit-oriented healthcare system more focused on corporate growth and shareholder returns than preparing for expected emergencies
- The most expensive healthcare in the world that leaves about 30% of the population without care
- A profit-oriented pharmaceutical system, that results in the highest drug costs in the world, leaving many patients to suffer needlessly
3. Anti-Worker Economic Framework
- A “tough it out” work environment in which workers must go to work even when sick, thus spreading disease
- A large number of underinsured and uninsured people who often delay seeing a doctor until it’s to late
- A large number of politically-criminalized residents, who must avoid contacting healthcare providers out of fear of entrapment or deportation
- The largest prison population on earth, and the highest number of prisoners per capita (about 1 in 100, or about 1 of every 40 adults), who are housed in overcrowded centers–ideal breeding grounds for contagion.
The global situation
Li Wenliang, a 34-year-old ophthalmologist at Wuhan Central Hospital, China, shared his observations about a possible new virus on with other physicians in social media. The Chinese government censored his posts, and he was ordered to a police station to sign a confession that he had made “untrue statements”. At least seven others were similarly harassed by the Chinese government over the same facts. Days later, Li Wenliang contracted COVID-19. He died on February 6th. His death sparked widespread criticism within China of the government’s suppression of the courageous whistleblower. The good doctor soon died from the virus.
