Some thoughts from Lucretius…

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In the words of Lucretius: 

“..we are all born from the same celestial seed;  all of us have the same father,

from which the earth, the mother who feeds us, receives clear drops of rain,

producing from them bright wheat and lush trees, and the human race, and the species of beasts,

offering up the foods with which all bodies are nourished, to lead a sweet life

and generate offspring…”.     (de rerum natura, bk.II, lines 991- 97)

and he might have added (less poetically):

There is only one Earth that nurtures us and is bountiful.

To foul the seas, pollute the air, then to deny all responsibility;

To spread soullessness about, and concrete the land for short-term gain,

To tolerate starvation amid plenty;  to allow the purchase of the political process;

To import the desperate only for cheap labour; to disrupt public lives for private gain;  

To allow the cost of a roof over the head to grow too high to be affordable for the working man; and to lumber the young with massive college debt ………

All this is foolishness ………….Or maybe mass suicide.  Epicurus told us to live a life of pleasure, to care for our children, for our neighbors and for the planet, and (by inference) to keep life on Earth sustainable and liveable.

Rich, care-less sirs, you climate change deniers – we have your names;  they will be carved in halls of infamy.

688,000 people will no longer receive food stamps

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Over the summer the U.S government announced a new plan to end the food stamp program for thousands of low-income people, mostly immigrants.The new rule will tighten work requirements for able-bodied adults with no dependents, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in a call with reporters.

Under current law, able-bodied adults without dependents can receive SNAP benefits for a maximum of three months during a three-year period, unless they’re working or enrolled in an education or training program for 80 hours a month. But states have been able to waive this time limit to ensure access to food stamps during the ups and downs of reentering the workforce. Before this rule, counties with an unemployment rate as low as 2.5% were included in waived areas. The new rule, which is set to take effect in April will tighten the criteria for states applying for such waivers, making 6% the minimum unemployment rate for a county to receive a waiver…. It arrives as part of a broader effort to limit access to the federal food safety net, the first of three such measures in the works. The USDA initially estimated that up to 750,000 individuals would be dropped from SNAP if the proposal took effect. The USDA now says the figure is 688,000. (Washington Post).

My comment:  Epicurus famously welcomed slaves, women, the rich and the poor in his garden.  He offered (rather unattractive) meals consisting of nothing more than bread and water, but at least he and his friends could discuss philosophy over something to eat.

Fast forward, in what some call the richest country on the planet, and at a time of full employment when we need more workers, immigrants, in desperation, are being denied sustenance and are effectively being forced to leave the country and return to their crime-ridden and job-scarce countries.  This is nonsense, and a disgrace, but it seems that the religiously-inclined are content with it. Christianity only applies to the deserving, apparently. So that’s o.k.

If you subscribe to the teachings of Epicurus it is not o.k.

 

 

Save us from priests like this!

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A Catholic priest in Rhode Island has defended his decision to ban all lawmakers who voted in favor enshrining abortion protections under state law from receiving communion at his parish.

Recently, Reverend Richard Bucci, a Catholic priest in Rhode Island,  declared that every legislator who voted last year to pass the bill codifying the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1973 Roe v. Wade decision will also not be allowed to act as witnesses to marriage, godparents, or lectors at weddings, funerals or any other church function.

The announcement was listed in the Sacred Heart Church in West Warwick’s weekly bulletin and included dozens of names in the House and Senate. The decision was made a few days after the 47th anniversary of the Roe vs. Wade ruling.

Bucci claimed that the legislators had sneaked the legislation through without telling the public, a claim vehemently denied by State Representatives who passed the measure, who campaigned on the issue and whose votes are on the record.

One Representative said of the Church : “They have a problem with the lack of respect for the separation of church and state, and for our votes on behalf of our constituents being punished by a church who protected child abusers.”

Bucci has now doubled down his defense on the ban, while hitting out at those who raised issues of child abuse within the Catholic church.

“We’re not talking about any other moral issue where somebody’s making a comparison between pedophilia and abortion,” Bucci is reported to have said: “Well, pedophilia doesn’t kill anyone, and this does.”

”Pedophilia doesn’t kill anyone, and this does”. 

No wonder church donations and attendance are down.  It virtually endorses pedophilia.  I would argue , with equal conviction,  that bringing a child into this roiling world, unwanted and unloved, is a sin, potentially condemning another human being to a life of misery. This is what their god wants?

 

 

Breathing your way to better memory and sleep

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More than half of us breathe the wrong way , missing out on better health and altered consciousness.  Here are some tips on how to breathe properly:

Breathing exercise Pranayama – Alternate nostril breathing, often performed for stress and anxiety relief. (Microgen)

It may be the most natural thing in the world, but breathing is surprisingly easy to get wrong – and that matters more than you might think.

Most of the time, the right way to breathe is through your nose. The nose  is exquisitely designed to trap dust and other foreign bodies.  Beyond your visible nose lies the nasal cavity, a cavernous space the size of a gaping mouth. This is lined with folded membranes designed to warm or cool the air to body temperature, add moisture and trap pathogens in yet more mucus. Your sinuses – air-filled spaces that connect to the nasal cavity – swirl the air around more and add nitric oxide, which kills bacteria and viruses and relaxes the blood vessels in the respiratory tract, allowing more oxygen to pass into the blood.

The upshot of all this is that nose breathing adds 50 per cent more air resistance than breathing through the mouth. That gives your heart and lungs a workout and increases the vacuum in your lungs, which allows you to draw in up to 20 per cent more oxygen than breathing by mouth.

As if that wasn’t enough, nasal breathing boosts brain function and is important for learning and memory.  The explanation is that the nasal cavity has a direct line to the emotional and memory processing centres of the brain, via sensory neurons that connect to the brain’s olfactory bulb.  These neurons sense air moving in and out of the nasal cavity and lock brainwaves to the same rhythm.   Synchronised brainwaves then spread beyond the scent-processing brain areas into regions responsible for memory, emotion and cognition.

Nil by mouth

According to some estimates, more than 50% of children and 61% of adults breathe through their mouths too often. As a result, we also risk bad breath, poor sleep, learning difficulties, tooth decay and even malformation of the jaw.

As for how fast to breathe, if it is calm you seek, slow it down to about six breaths per minute. This triggers a reflex that widens blood vessels and reduces heart rate. Concentrating on a long, slow exhalation also stimulates the vagus nerve, which is in charge of the rest-and-digest response, the opposite of fight or flight. Breathing more slowly still might even lull you into an altered state of consciousness  lAt three breaths per minute, theta brainwaves increase together with a zoned-out state that looks like slow-wave sleep, a deep state of slumber.

There is also humming. Humming sets up swirls of air in the sinuses, which boost production of nitric oxide  15-fold, with all its immune and cardiovascular benefits. The only time that nose breathing falls short is when you need to fill your lungs quickly. In an emergency, a gasp of air through the mouth works wonders. Just try not to make a habit of it.  (Lightly edited version of a recent article by Caroline Williams, in the New Scientist, 8 Jan 2020, On health)

Electric scooters: the opinion of The Guardian

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“The brakes may at last be coming off the “micromobility” revolution. This month, UK ministers are due to begin a consultation on legalising the use of electronic scooters on British roads. Not before time. There’s no justification for the current ban on these devices. A fast, heavy bike poses much more of a threat to pedestrians. And if it’s legal to drive an electric bike on our roads, even a four-wheeled variety capable of doing 15.5mph, why ban a far less powerful electric scooter? By adding to the constituency of mid-speed vehicles, it would be a boon for cyclists too: sheer weight of numbers forces motorists to treat people on bikes as coequals rather than “annoying slowpokes ripe for close passes and aggressive overtakes”.

“Having new sorts of transport devices on our roads would also help push cities into thinking beyond the simple “car/pedestrian” binary – essential in the long run if we’re to tackle the climate crisis. This is not a plea for the Silicon Valley model of picking up and dropping rented scooters wherever you want: discarded scooters littering the pavements are a pain and an eyesore. But allowing these things on the road? It’s a no-brainer.  (Alex Hern, The Guardian)

My take:  Tell this to the elderly people in my neighborhood!  Our city government are proposing to allow 10,000 more scooters onto our already crowded streets. The sidewalks are not exactly littered with scooters, (just left any-old-how on the sidewalks). That would be an exaggeration. But only an exaggeration because the proposed additional 10,000 haven’t yet appeared.

Scooters are used by young people who think they are immortal, it seems. They wear no helmets or reflective devices on their clothes at night. They travel everywhere at maximum speed in car lanes if they can get away with it,  and park, yes, any-old-how, not thinking of pedestrians and the ubiquitous little ole ladies. It is only a matter of time before the serious accidents start to happen. I love The Guardian, but sometimes it lets theory trump common sense.  At least impose some enforceable rules!