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Полиомиелитът, наричан също детски паралич, е остро вирусно инфекциозно заболяване при хората, предавано по фекално-орален път. Източници на заразата са болни хора и вирусоносителите. Характеризира се с възпалителни изменения на сивото вещество на гръбначния мозък, вяли атрофични парализи, тежко протичане и висока смъртност. Причинява се от полиомиелитни вируси от род Enterovirus. Засягат се предимно деца на възраст 1 до 5 години.

Въпреки че около 90% от случаите на инфектиране протичат асимптоматично, вирусът може да предизвика различни симптоми при навлизането си в кръвта. При около 1% от случаите вирусът навлиза в централната нервна система, инфектирайки и разрушавайки главно двигателните неврони, което води до мускулна слабост и остра парализа. В зависимост от засегнатите нерви, парализата може да бъде няколко вида. Най-чест е спиналният полиомиелит, характеризиращ се с несиметрична парализа, обикновено на краката. Булбарната форма води до отслабване на мускулите, свързани с черепно-мозъчните нерви. Комбинацията от тези два вида се нарича булбо-спинална форма.

До 1954 г., когато започва имунизацията срещу това заболяване, полиомиелитът е бил широко разпространен. Проявявал се с големи епидемии. След въвеждането на живата полиомиелитна ваксина заболеваемостта е понижена рязко. Днес се наблюдават единични спорадични случаи и много рядко епидемични избухвания. Световната здравна организация обявява, че борбата с полиомиелита се намира в последния етап преди ликвидирането му. През 1994 г. Западното полукълбо е обявено за свободно от заболяването.

Исторически сведения за заболяването

Детският паралич е познат отпреди повече от 3500 години. Древноегипетски изображения показват иначе изглеждащи здрави хора с изсъхнали крайници и деца да ходят с бастуни в ранна възраст. Хипократ описва епидемия от заболявания с парализи и мускулна атрофия. Една от теориите за куцотата на император Клавдий е, че се дължи на прекарана форма на полиомиелит в ранна детска възраст. Може би най-ранният регистриран случай на детски паралич е този на сър Уолтър Скот. Според него през 1773 г. в резултат на трудното израстване на няколко млечни зъба развива треска, която го лишава от силата на десния му крак.

Първото научно наименование на заболяването е направено през 1789 г. от английския лекар Майкъл Ъндъруд. Той описва полиомиелита като "слабост на долните крайници". Първата добре описана епидемия от детски паралич е тази от 1834 г. преминала на остров Света Елена. През 1840 г. щутгартският ортопед Якоб Хайне отделя заболяването от други с наименованието детска спинална парализа, а диагнозата – poliomyelitis anterior acuta е въведена през 1884 г. от A. Kussmaul. На по-късен етап през 1890 г. шведският педиатър Карл Оскар Медин изследва епидемиологичните закономерности на полиомиелита. Поради сериозните приноси в изследването на заболяването на двама от учените, полиомиелитът е наречен Болест на Хайне-Медин.

През 1908 г. австрийският учен Карл Ландщайнер установява вирусната природа на причинителя.

Изолирани са три типа полиомиелитни вируси:
 Тип 1 – вирус Брунхилда. Наречен е на името на маймуната, от която е изолиран вирусът през 1936 г.
 Тип 2 – вирус Лансинг. Наречен е на град Лансинг в САЩ, където е изолиран през 1938 г.
 Тип 3 – вирус Леон. Наречен е на детето Леон, от което е изолиран вирусът 1937 г. в Лос Анжелис.

През 1952 г. Джонас Солк създава убита ваксина, а през 1954 г. Алберт Сабин изпробва жива ваксина в профилактиката на заболяването.

Разпространение
Значително разпространение на полиомиелита се наблюдава в началото на 20 век. През 1950-те години е наблюдавана и Първата полиомиелитна пандемия. Най-сериозно е положението в град Копенхаген, където през 1952 г. заболяват 2722 деца. С въвеждането на активната имунизация на населението в световен мащаб, заболеваемостта от полиомиелит спада рязко. През 1988 г. Световната здравна асамблея приема Програма за ликвидиране на полиомиелита в света. Така заболяването ще бъде второто след вариолата, което е ликвидирано в световен мащаб.

Изкореняването на заболяването протича през няколко етапа, при което някои региони се освобождават от полиомиелита. Така например през 1994 г. Южна и Северна Америка са обявени за свободни от полиомиелита. През 2000 г. полиомиелитът е официално ликвидиран в 36 страни от западната част на тихоокеанския район, включително Китай и Австралия. Европа е обявена за свободна от полиомиелит през 2002 г. Между 2003 и 2005 г. в 25 държави, в които полиомиелитът е бил изличен, той отново се появява сред неваксинирано население. През 2012 г. полиомиелитът остава ендемично заболяване само в три страни – Нигерия, Пакистан и Афганистан, като обикновено понякога напуска пределите на страната и заразява хора в съседни държави. Така например, независимо от това, че вече десетина години заболяването е ликвидирано от Китай, през септември 2011 г. в граничен с Пакистан район е установен същият щам на вируса, като върлуващия в Пакистан. От януари 2011 г. в Индия не е регистриран случай на полиомиелит. Така година по-късно през февруари 2012 г. Индия отпада от списъка на ендемичните страни. Ако в рамките на две години не бъде регистриран нов случай страната ще бъде обявена за свободна от заболяването.

В България
В България най-висока заболеваемост е регистрирана през 1947 г. След въвеждането на масова имунизация през 1959 г., заболеваемостта рязко спада, а последният случай на полиомиелит е регистриран през 1970 г. Наблюдавани са обаче два пробива от неимунизирани или непълно имунизирани деца през 1966 – 1967 г. – 49 заболели и през 1991 г. – 46 заболели. Последните два епидемични взрива в България са през 1991 г. в резултат на внос на див полиовирус 1-ви тип от Таджикистан и през 2001 г. в резултат на внос също на див полиовирус 1 тип от Индия. И при двата случая са засегнати основно неимунизирани и непълно имунизирани деца от малцинствен произход. Пропускането на редовните имунизации сред някои малцинствени групи обрича децата на риск да развият редица ваксино-предотвратими инфекции, какъвто е и полиомиелитът.

Етиология
Причинител на полиомиелита са три имунологично различни типа вируси от род Enterovirus на семейство Picornaviridae. Те са представители на едни от най-малките РНК вируси. Вирионът е представен от дясновъртяща се РНК и белтъчен капсид. Дължината на РНК веригата е около 7500 нуклеотида. Вирусната частица е с диаметър около 300 ангстрьома и икосаедрална симетрия. Чувствителни са към действието на дезинфекционни средства. Най-добър ефект имат хлорните препарати, приложени в подходяща концентрация. Изключително са издръжливи във външна среда – във вода се съхранява за около 100 дни, а в изпражнения до 6 месеца. Добре понася и замразяване. Не се разрушава от действието на стомашните сокове. Разрушава се при нагряване до 50 °C за около 30 минути. Бързо загива при кипене, под действието на ултравиолетови лъчи и при изсушаване. Нечувствителен е към антибиотици. Култивира се в клетъчни култури и притежава цитопатогенен ефект.

Епидемиологични особености

Източници на зараза
Полиомиелитът е антропоноза. Източници на заразата са болни и вирусоносителите. Болният става заразителен в последните 3 до 7 дни от инкубационния период и по време на катаралните прояви до появата на парализите. В последния етап контагиозността рязко спада. Болните отделят масивни количества вирус – в 1 грам фекалии се съдържат 10 млн. инфекциозни единици. Това определя високата активност на фекално-оралния механизъм на предаване. Вируси се отделят и с назо-фарингеалния секрет до 40-ия ден от началото на заболяването. Вирусоносителството е широко разпространено. То е с достатъчна продължителност, за да "дочака" натрупването на нови възприемчиви организми.

Механизъм, фактори и пътища на предаване
При полиомиелита се наблюдават два механизма на предаване – фекално-орален и въздушно-капков. При първия фактори на предаването са хранителните продукти, канални и поливни води, предмети и вещи в обкръжението на болния и замърсените ръце. Заразяването става чрез поглъщане на вирусите. При въздушно-капковия механизъм вирусите се отделят със секрета през катаралния период при говор, дишане, кашляне и кихане. Особено опасни са дребните и средните капчици и пръски. Заразяването се осъществява при вдишване на въздух, съдържащ вируси.

Възприемчивост и имунитет
Възприемчивостта е много висока. Достига до 86,8%, но процента на контагиозност е твърде малък – едва 0,1 – 1%. След преболедуване се изгражда дълготраен типовоспецифичен имунитет. Такъв е и имунитета при прекаралите инапарентна форма на заболяване деца, които продължават да са вирусоносители.

Патогенеза
Входната врата на вируса на полиомиелита са лигавиците на назофаринкса и тънкото черво, където се осъществяват първоначалните им репликации. Инфекциозният процес може да приключи дотук безсимптомно или с леки катарални прояви т.нар. "Малка болест". При около 99% от случаите на заразени хора заболяването протича като "малка болест". Само при 1% се проявява с паралитична форма.

Вирусите с по-висока патогенност достигат до дълбоките шийни и мезентериални лимфни възли и се размножават в тях. След като ги напуснат се наблюдава постъпването им в кръвния ток. Виремията и съпътстващата интоксикация причиняват увреждания на вътрешни органи като сърце, черен дроб, панкреас и други, но най-силен е тропизмът на вируса към нервната система. Вирусите се размножават най-добре в ганглиевите клетки на предните рога на гръбначния мозък, клетките на продълговатия мозък и моста. По-рядко се поразяват мозъчните менинги и малкия мозък.

Настъпва нарушение на обмяната при синтеза на нуклеинови киселини и белтъчини. Това води до дистрофични и некротични изменения в ганглийните клетки и пълното загиване на неврона. Едно от най-характерните поражения е асиметричното засягане на мозъка. Това определя и асиметричните парализи. В местата на засягането има унищожаване на невроните и разрастването на глиа. Вирусът има и специфичен тропизъм в частите на мозъка – ядрата на мозъчния ствол, ядрата в малкия мозък и предните рог на гръбначния мозък. Преодоляването на цереброспиналната бариера и поразяването на нервната система възниква едва при около 1% случаите. Във всички останали случаи обаче се развиват непаралитични форми на заболяването или се формира безсимптомно вирусоносителство.

Клинични признаци
Инкубационният период е между 3 и 35 дни, но обикновено е в рамките на 7 – 14 дни. Заболяването се проявява в многобройни форми, които се разделят на две големи групи:

I. Апаралитична

Непаралитичните форми протичат с признаците на т.нар. "Малка болест" или с прояви на серозен менингит.
 "Малката болест" е най-честата форма и обхваща от 25 до 80% от случаите на полиомиелита. Проявява се в три синдрома: токсикоинфекциозен – с температура, главоболие и отпадналост; катарален с признаци на ринит, фарингит, тонзилит и бронхит; диспептичен с болки в корема, гадене, повръщане и диария. Протичането е благоприятно и оздравяване настъпва след 3 до 7 дни.
 Серозен менингит. Проявява се на фона на малката болест с нарушено общо състояние и повишена температура. На 2 – 3 ден от началото се появяват менингеални симптоми. Протичането е благоприятно и бързо изчезват клиничните признаци.
 Полиомиелит у имунизирани. Протича по-леко, предимно в абортивна форма. Възможно е да се появят и паралитични прояви, но те бързо отшумяват.
II. Паралитична

Формите на тази група са също няколко и се проявяват с по-тежки за организма признаци.
 Спинална форма. Развива се в четири последователни стадия:
 Продромален период. Продължава около 3 до 5 дни и се проявява с повишена температура, хрема, кашлица, болки в областта на гърлото и зачервяване, безапетитие, гадене, повръщане и диария.
 Препаралитичен период. Започва след двудневен интервал с падане на високата температура. Тя отново се покачва, появяват се главоболие и повръщане. Болните стават неспокойни, възбудени или точно обратното – сънливи до степен помрачаване на съзнанието. Проявява се с обилно изпотяване и зачервяване на лицето. Децата стават раздразнителни и плачливи поради болките по мускулите, които са силни особено при обръщане на тялото или преместване. Възможна е и поява на менингеални признаци демонстрирани с главоболие и вратна ригидност. В засегнатите мускули се появяват фасцикуларни потрепвания. Още през този период се наблюдават слабост на мускулите и снижаване на рефрлексите.
 Паралитичен период. Протича с периферни вяли парализи на различни мускулни групи. Ако са слаби те привидно са внезапни – обикновено сутрешни и продължават една две седмици. Вялите парализи се демонстрират като ограничени или липсващи движения и сухожилни рефлекси при запасена сетивност рарализите са несиметрични само при един, няколко или всички крайници. Засяга проксималните мускули т.е. тези които са по-близко до туловището. Най-често са засегнати мускулите на долните крайници (m. quadriceps femoris), аддукторите на бедрото, по рядко на делтовидния мускул и коремната преса.
 Рековалесцентен стадий. Този стадий е продължителен и варира от две до пет години. Постепенно апетитът се подобрява, менингеалните симптоми изчезват, подобрява се мускулния тонус и трофика. Обратната еволюция на парализите и болките е постепенна. Най-рано се възстановява функцията на най-късно поразените мускули, а по-забавено и непълно е при първите поразени в хода на заболяването.
 Резидуален стадий. Протича успоредно с рековалесцентния и често се разглеждат като един. Характеризира се с атрофия на кожата и вускулатурата, остеопороза на костите, контрактури и деформация.
 Булбарна форма. При тази форма на фона на влошено общо състояние се засягат и ядрата на IХ и Х черепно-мозъчни нерви, дихателния и вазомоторен център. Проявява се парализа на мекото небце, фаринкса и ларинкса, Засилва се слюноотделянето. Поради невъзможност от преглъщане се събира слюнка в носоглътката. Появяват се задух и цианоза. Дишането става шумно, а гласът хрипкав до афоничен. При засягане на дихателния и сърдечно-съдовия център дишането е с нарушен ритъм, дълбочина и честота, най-често Чейн-Стоксово или Биотово. Пулсът става учестен и нишковиден, а кръвното налягане пада драстично. Болните изпадат в стопор и кома като накрая умират.
 Спино-булбарна форма. Парализите започват от долните крайници и бързо обхващат мускулите на трупа, дихателната мускулатура и булбарните ядра – т.нар. възходяща парализа тип Landry. Ако не се поддържа дихателна реанимация изходът е фатален.
 Понтийна форма. Най-често се характиризира с едностранно засягане на ядрото на n. facialis и появата на периферна парализа на мимическата мускулатура, катарални прояви на горните дихателни пътища и деспептични прояви. Много рядко при понтийната форма може да се засегнат ядрата на n. abducens и n. oculomotorius като се парализират очно-двигателните нерви.

Патологоанатомични особености
Характерните признаци на заболяването са полиоенцефаломиелит. Засяга се сивото вещество на главния и гръбначния мозък. Възпалителният процес е най-силно изразен в предните рога на поясното и шийното задебеляване на гръбначния мозък. Най-тежко са увредени медиалните неврони инервиращи проксималните мускули на крайниците. Характерно е мозаечно засягане на мозъчната структура – редуват се незасегнати участъци със засегнати. Хистологично се наблюдава атрофия и некроза на ганглийните клетки.

След спиране на възпалителните и дистрофични изменения започва процес на възстановяване. На мястото на загиналите неврони нараства астроглия. Пълна парализа настъпва при загиване на не по-малко от 75% от нервните клетки. По-късно се развива и атрофията на мускулите и се появяват контрактури и деформации.

Лечение
Етиологично лечение няма разработено. Усилията са насочени към осигуряване на подходящ болничен режим, правилно хранене и ограничаване на парализите. Лечението на полиомиелита е патогенетично и симптоматично. Избягват се активни движения, а болните се поставят в правилно физиологично положение с леко свиване в областта на коленете и стъпалата. В острия период на заболяването може да се инжектира хиперимунен имуноглобулин, антипиретици, аналгетици, Витамин C и Витамини от група B. При булбарните форми на заболяването може да се приложат дехидрокортизонови препарати. Те водят до спадане на температурата, намаляване на болката и спиране на развитието на парезите. Върху парализираните мускули се поставят топли компреси или се провеждат други физиотерапевтични процедури със затопляне в областта.

Патогенетичното лечение се провежда с антихолинестеразни препарати – основно с нивалин по схема. При дихателни разстройства, освен аспирация и интубация при нужда се прави и трахеотомия и болните се поставят на асистирано или командно апаратно дишане.

Симптоматичното лечение се провежда с аналгетици, антипиретици, витамини от група В. След изолация от 40 дни се започва провеждане на активна рехабилитация и балнеолечение. Трайните парализи, контрактурите и деформациите се подпомагат със специализирани ортопедични или хирургични техники.

Профилактика
Профилактиката на полиомиелита се извършва чрез ваксина от атенюирани живи полиовируси, която се приема през устата. Нейните достойнства са, че тя е сравнително евтина, лесно се приема и създава имунитет в червата. Въпреки това в много редки случаи на около 1 случай на 750 000 ваксинирани, атенюираният вирус може да причини парализи. Характерно за живата ваксина е, че и неимунизирани деца могат да придобият имунитет вследствие на контакта с имунизирани, които отделят широко ваксинални вируси в околната среда посредством фекалиите.

Вижте също
 Ваксинация
 Вирус

Литература
 Дурмишев А., Илиев Б., Денчев В., Митов Г., Радев М., Ганчева Ц., Баев В., Ангелов Л., Илиева П., Митова Р., Дурмишев Л., Инфектология, АИ "Проф. Марин Дринов", София 2001, ISBN 954-430-810-5

Източници

Вирусни инфекции
Неврологични заболявания
Вирусни инфекции на централната нервна система


Speaking of snakes. I have a friend of the family that at one time had a reticulated python as a pet. He got it when it was just a couple days old and even then, it was 2 ft. long. Over the years it grew to be close to 12 ft. long and easily over 100 lbs. as most snakes like this in captivity tend to be heavier than those in the wild.
At one time he had it living in a huge aquarium in his house but it outgrew that habitat and he hired me to build it an outside cage. I made it 8 ft. x 8 ft. x 5 ft. tall with a front made with wood framing around clear acrylic panels so you could see the snake. It also had a door for access. In one corner I built a sunken area 3 ft. x 3 ft. x 2 ft. deep and made it watertight for a small pool it could cool off in. I also put in a couple nice pieces of driftwood for it to crawl on and 2 heat lamps for when it got to be winter and too cool for it to live.
Unfortunately, a few years ago it got below freezing for a couple nights when they were away visiting relatives and there was a power outage in their neighborhood. The snake didn't make it, likely freezing to death since they are cold blooded and need a source of heat to survive when that cold.
Re: Copper Head Snake 69"
And they get loose sometimes!
Just a few weeks ago, I went into the kitchen to make a sandwich. I was standing at the counter slicing the bread when something out of the ordinary caught my eye. It was a snake hanging down in the corner below the cabinet. There was about 16 inches of him hanging down and he was slowly backing up, retreating upward. Obviously, he'd seen me first.
I stood back and called for my husband, but before he could get there, the snake was gone. I hunkered down a little and looked up under the cabinet and there was a hole in the wall where the bottom of the cabinet didn't quite meet the corner (nothing in this house is square, straight or level). I stuffed some paper into the hole to block that avenue of ingress.
Now, was the snake poisonous or not? I didn't get a look at his eyes; my only view was top-down as he was hanging down with the top of his head toward me, so I couldn't see if he had slit pupils. I spent the next week off and on looking at pictures of snakes native to Mississippi trying to identify him. No luck. Then it occurred to me that people have snakes as pets and sometimes they get loose, so I expanded my search. Bingo! It was a boa constrictor. Probably a young one; I'd guess about three feet long. At least it isn't poisonous.
I cannot imagine a snake indoors like what you describe. I think I would have to move out. I wonder if homeowners insurance would cover the motel expenses. It seems like a boa constrictor in the house would be a safety issue.
I think it came in and was exploring when it crossed paths with me. This is an old one-room cabin on pillars. I'm sure there are plenty of gaps and crevices underneath that eventually led to the hole in the wall under the cabinets. I think once he saw that this isn't the best place to hang out (literally), he left. I know there are snakes under the house. My husband pulled a shed skin out from under the porch when he was pulling debris out from the previous resident. I startled a garden snake a few days ago that was sunning himself on a concrete pad in front of the laundry room. He beat a hasty retreat under the house. We have skinks, anoles, frogs and toads that live in/under/around the porch and occasionally find one in the house. As long as it isn't poisonous, I'm way okay with it as long as the snake stays out of the living quarters.
Now, I am concerned about the chickens with a constrictor in the neighborhood, but boas are usually nocturnal hunters and the chickens are locked in the coop at night. I'm honestly more worried about stray cats and roaming dogs than I am about snakes.
I heard this on TV News. Some family had a pet boa constrictor in the house. One morning they find their 14 year old son dead the snake got loose during the night and killed him while he was asleep.
Gary350 wrote: I heard this on TV News. Some family had a pet boa constrictor in the house. One morning they find their 14 year old son dead the snake got loose during the night and killed him while he was asleep.
I can find no reports of that. Two young boys (5 and 7 yrs old) were killed in Canada by a snake that was incorrectly reported as a boa constrictor. It was actually a python. According to the Humane Society of the United States seventeen people have died from constrictor snake related incidents in the United States since 1978. Only one was from a boa constrictor and that person died of a Salmonella infection due to the bite, not being squeezed. The people squeezed to death were killed by pythons.
I'm not saying it isn't true. I just can't find any reports of that. If you have a link to the article, please share it.
I saw that on TV a few months ago. It could have been a python is did not know there were other constrictor type snakes.
Gary350 wrote: I saw that on TV a few months ago. It could have been a python is did not know there were other constrictor type snakes.
Oh yes, there are many species of constrictor snakes that include boas, pythons and anacondas. I'm not a snake expert, but I believe boa constrictors are usually the smallest of the bunch -- typically less than 10 feet and less than 50 pounds. The man-killers are the really big snakes: green anacondas (up to 30 feet long, up to 500 pounds), Burmese pythons (up to 20 feet long, up to 400 pounds) and reticulated pythons (up to 25 feet long, up to 350 pounds).


November 2011: ICOMOS Advisory Mission.
At the request of the State Party, an ICOMOS Advisory Mission visited the property from 7 to 9 November 2011, in order to review the potential adverse impact of the Torre Pelli-Cajasol on the property.
In particular, the mission considered whether and what progress had been made in halting the construction of the Torre Pelli-Cajasol, and what options might be possible for modifying the project, as requested by the Committee at its 35th session, and the mechanisms in place for the protection of the buffer zone and the wider setting of the property within which the tower is located.
The mission met with representatives of the national, regional and local authorities responsible for the conservation of the property (Ministry of Culture, the Region of Andalusia, the city of Seville), of the developers of the tower, of ICOMOS Spain and other non-governmental associations.
On 2 February 2012, the State Party submitted to the World Heritage Centre a state of conservation report consisting of three letters in Spanish from the mayor of Seville and from two urban planning departments of the city of Seville in response to the recommendations of the mission (20 January 2012: Alcalde de Sevilla and Servicio de Licencias Urbanisticas, as well as 1 February 2012: Gerencia de Urbanismo). At the time of drafting this report, only the letter from the Urban Management Department (Gerencia de Urbanismo) was provided in English on 21 March 2012. On 27 March 2012, documentation on the "Special Plan of Protection of the Sector 7" (in Spanish) was submitted by the State Party.
The Torre Pelli-Cajasol is planned to be 178 m high with 40 floors. In a plain landscape, the tower project is located outside the property's buffer zone at approximately 1600 m from the Giralda, the highest building of the property, at 103 metres high.
Since its 33rd session, the Committee has expressed concern about the potential adverse impact of the tower and requested a comprehensive impact assessment. At its 34th session it acknowledged that the assessment concluded that the tower will have a potential adverse impact on the transitional area of the historic city. At its 35th session, the Committee reiterated its concern about the potential adverse impact of the Torre Pelli-Cajasol project on the Outstanding Universal Value (OUV) of the property, requesting the State Party to halt the construction works and to reconsider the current high-rise project in order to avoid any possible adverse impact on the Outstanding Universal Value of the property.
The mission noted that since the last Committee session, no efforts appeared to have been made to halt the tower project. Work had continued on the Tower, which at the time of the mission was up to ten floors and construction was proceeding at the rate of about one floor per week. They also noted the continued request by many associations and stakeholders that the construction of the tower be halted.
The mission confirmed that the tower would have a highly negative visual impact on the setting of the property and thus, on its context and relationship to the river and other buildings which support its attributes that convey Outstanding Universal Value.
As is acknowledged in the Statement of OUV, the Cathedral, the Alcázar and the Archivo de Indias in Seville form a remarkable monumental complex that establishes a complex dialogue with its surroundings that contributes to its identity. The prominence and verticality of the cathedral and the Giralda tower have always been a characteristic and powerful reference for the city.
The tower which will rise to 178 m (40 floors) considered to be located in a sensitive place between the right bank of the Guadalqivir river with the "conjunto de la Cartuja" and the historical neighbourhood of Triana and the left bank of the river with the historical centre of Seville; the two latter areas forming the property's buffer zone. The strong vertical development of the building, together with the close physical connection with historical areas and monuments, amplifies its impact.
The mission identified certain visual axes where the Torre Pelli-Cajasol would dramatically change the prominence and significance of the Giralda. It considered that already the partly built tower changed the perceptions of the Giralda, inverting the relations between the object and its background.
The mission recommended that the local authority find ways to stop the construction of the Torre Pelli-Cajasol and revise the project, through the modification of its profile in relation to the perceived impact that it could have in relation to the adjacent historic areas and to the property.
It considered that any new architecture must avoid the negative effects of drastic or excessive contrasts in the urban landscape but rather embrace the spirit of the place, respect the Outstanding Universal Value of the property, contribute to the enrichment of the city, reinforcing the value of urban continuity.
The mission's attention was further drawn to other emerging new projects for high-rise buildings (not yet approved by the municipality), which could also have a significant impact on the skyline of the city. It underlined that, in accordance with Paragraph 172 of Operational Guidelines, any future project that might adversely impact on the property and its setting has to be submitted to the World Heritage Centre.
In its response to the mission report, the State Party transmitted the views of the Municipal Government (City of Seville) that expressed its wish to ensure that the property is not excluded from the World Heritage List and that it would immediately revoke the licensing of the project to suspend the construction work of the tower. The Urban Management Department (Gerencia de Urbanismo) further states that, on the basis of an initial assessment of the mission report, it recommended Cajasol, the developer of the project, to stop the construction work of the tower, without paralysing the rest of the work on the surrounding lower buildings that are being developed according to the legally granted license.
No confirmation has been received that the work was suspended or the licence revoked. Furthermore, although during the mission, the Mayor's Representatives stated the readiness of the Mayor of Seville to negotiate, review and explore modifications and solutions to the Torre Pelli-Cajasol project, subsequent reports in the Press appear to indicate that the Mayor of Seville has, following a meeting with the Chair of Cajasol, not taken the necessary steps to halt the work and that construction works have reached 25 floors, at the time of the drafting of this report.
The mission noted that the current Urban Development Plan of Seville (Plan General de Ordenamiento Urbano, PGOU), approved in 2006, considerably differs from the one that existed at the time of inscription of the property and that it was not submitted to the World Heritage Centre. The current plan provides significant freedom for future interventions, in terms of volume and scale, in areas close to the three parts of the property, thus changing the framework of urban relationships with the monumental complex. The mission noted that the PGOU authorized 68,000 square metres of development for the parcel of land where the Torre Pelli-Cajasol is located. However, the local Special Plan (Plan PERI) which is drawn up to implement the objectives of the PGOU, has authorized a larger development area of 180,000 square meters, and 'a slim body, high-rise', without limitations on height but rather emphasis on architectural quality.
The buffer zone of the property is included within the extended Conjunto Histórico, which was declared by Royal Decree on 2 November 2009. It covers many 'sectors' for which the Decree requires Special Protection Plans to be approved.
The mission considered that in order to provide effective protection of the buffer zone, it is important for the Special Protection Plans to be completed and approved for all 'sectors'. Currently the plan for the "inner" sector and two plans for other sectors are in the process of public consultation and still awaiting approval.
In terms of the wider setting, the mission noted that any protection of the wider setting is still missing. The mission considered that it is important to protect the setting beyond the buffer zone where this development area relates to the property through landscapes within and around the city.
The World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies note that the State Party had not halted work on the Torre Pelli-Casajol at the time of the mission, as requested by the Committee at its 35th session. They further note that both the ICOMOS advisory mission and other sources affirm that work on the tower has been progressing. They underline that the mission affirmed that the tower has a highly adverse visual impact on the setting of the property and thus on its context and relationship to the river and other buildings which support its attributes that convey Outstanding Universal Value. They are of the view that, following the mission's recommendations, the work on the tower needs to be halted (excluding the lower adjoining structures of the project) while options for lowering the tower and mitigating its adverse impact on the property are being discussed.
Taking into account the continuing work on the tower part of the project and the absence of any dialogue on measures to lower the height of the tower, the World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies consider that the Outstanding Universal Value of the property is potentially endangered. They recommend that the Committee express its strong concern about the on-going construction work, urge the State Party to immediately halt the work on the tower and to engage in a dialogue to identify options for mitigating the adverse impact on the property's Outstanding Universal Value.
The World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies therefore recommend that the Committee inscribe the property on the List of World Heritage in Danger in order to allow the State Party to implement the following corrective measures: halt the work on the Torre Pelli-Cajasol; identify options to modify the height and design of the tower to mitigate its adverse impact on the property; and implement measures to modify the height and design of the tower to ensure that it no longer adversely impacts on the property.
The World Heritage Centre and the Advisory Bodies also recommend that the Committee support the recommendations of the mission that the Special Protection Plans be finalized and approved for all 'sectors' of the buffer zone in order to fully activate the necessary protection and that it also stress that protection for the setting beyond the buffer zone is still needed in order to protect areas, skylines and vistas that relate to the property and its context in response to current urban pressures.
9. Further requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2013, a report on the state of conservation of the property and on the advancement and results of the above decided actions, for review by the World Heritage Committee at its 37th session in 2013.
12. Further requests the State Party to submit to the World Heritage Centre, by 1 February 2013, a report on the state of conservation of the property, including a progress report on the work to modify the Torre Pelli-Cajasol project, for review by the World Heritage Committee at its 37th session in 2013.


We are expanding our speed reduction scheme to include a further 24 rural routes in Leicestershire.
The project, which sees some stretches of roads with a speed limit of 60mph reduced to 50mph, is already being implemented in 11 locations.
The move follows a study carried out in 2017 which found that around 60 per cent of collisions which caused injury on rural routes involved motorists exceeding the 60mph speed limit or driving at inappropriate speeds.
The study also showed that on more than half of the 272km of rural routes, there were a higher number of collisions resulting in injury compared to other roads.
We're fully committed to reducing risks on our road network and the study showed that the number of collisions resulting in injuries remains high where the speed limit is 60mph.
"Reducing the speed limit will, hopefully, make a positive change to drivers' behaviour and improve safety and I'm delighted that we are including more routes as part of the scheme.
We will also monitor other routes to see if they would benefit from speed reduction measures in the future.
The proposed speed limit reductions will also incorporate reviews of the existing road markings and signs to ensure that they provide adequate warnings of the road conditions that users are likely to face, such as severe bends and junctions.


I had the opportunity to attend an influencer event with Travertine Spa Collection, creator of natural and organic body and skincare products. This company has been around for 17 years and they do their research when finding the proper ingreidents to put in their products. I had the pleasure of speaking with the owner about his line and I was quite impressed with what goes in to each product.
For me, It's hard to find scented products that are not too overbearing with the strong fragrance scent meaning, the scent is so strong it starts to make you feel nauseated. What I really enjoyed the most about Travertine products was the light scent to each product and how light weight everything was. They have a full line of skincare and body products so it was hard to choose from their amazing selection, but I ended up going with the organic facial toner, lavender linen spray (which I also use in my car to tackle the stressful days), and their eucalyptus shower spray.


Iridology is the study of the iris of the human eye to allegedly diagnose present and even future illness and disease. Ignatz von Peczely (1822-1911) is considered the modern developer; however, similar practices can be seen in ancient Chinese methods related to astrology. Occultist Bernard Jensen is considered the leading U.S. authority.
Iridology has been discredited in numerous scientific studies and is, therefore, a form of health fraud. Some of these studies are reported in the Journal of the American Medical Association (September 28, 1979), Australian Journal of Optometry (July 1982), and Journal of the American Optometric Association (October 1984). Despite its lack of credibility, iridology is increasingly accepted, even when used as or in conjunction with psychic diagnosis and healing.


To my delight, I found I could read it, that I knew, finally, that I really wanted to. Where formerly I'd considered Dante as one of those writers I'd read, if I ever got around to it, only out of some misplaced sense of duty--one ought to read Dante, at least The Inferno--now I knew that I wanted to experience the work for itself.
I kept returning to those opening verses, without feeling the need, yet, to move forward in the narrative. Here was a voice, in time, with a story difficult to relate. "Midway in the journey of our life" - "the straight way was lost" - "I cannot really tell" - "so full of sleep": these were words pulling me in, making me want to read on, though for now I just wanted to stay here.
I read through the first canto. Then I read Robert Hollander's notes following. In verses 32 to 54 of this first canto, the poet encounters three beasts barring his way up the hill--a leopard, a lion, and a she-wolf. In the notes Hollander touches on the discussion surrounding the nature and source of these beasts. Are their sources biblical? Do they represent the mortal sins "lust, pride, and avarice"? Are they emblematic of something Virgil later refers to as "the three dispositions Heaven opposes, incontinence, malice, and mad brutishness"? Do they stand in for different elements of Dante's contemporary political concerns? I read these notes, and the old sense of unease creeps back in. What basis do I have for deciding? In fact, it's worse than that: when I read the verses, to me these beasts are simply beasts. Biblical or classical (or, certainly, political) allusions do not come to mind, because they are unavailable to me. So I worry, again, about reading in the right order, that perhaps now is not a good time to tackle Dante. I should wait till I've read, and no doubt sufficiently understood, Virgil, Ovid, the Bible. And where does it end? How far back does one go before one is justified in simply reading?
But back to the beasts: why can't they be just beasts? And what happened to that voice and my response to it? I return to Hollander's introduction, in which he makes note of the "enormous apparatus that has attached itself to" the poem. Centuries of commentary, line-by-line analysis, interpretive controversies, and so on. He discusses the problem of allegory, which is the problem tripping me up with the three beasts in the first canto. I'm not going to rehearse the points about allegory here, but he says enough to persuade me that allegory is not the key to The Inferno.
And yet, though some brief notes are helpful, each time I read one of these sorts of notes, somewhat longer notes about interpretive controversies and the like, I get distracted, I feel that anxiety, now faint, now stronger, making me doubt my current reading. But do I really think I'm expected to get it all with one reading? When I have thought about reading things in the proper order, reading this to enhance my ability to enhance that, am I not implicitly denying the possibility of re-reading? Doesn't this sort of anxiety return me to the realm of single readings, where I try to cram it all in, read everything? Doesn't seven centuries of controversy and commentary tell me that people have returned to this poem again and again? Do I really expect that line-by-line readings happen with initial readings? Can't these beasts then re-emerge simply as beasts?
Yes, it turns out, they can. I decide to read on, into the poem, beyond the first canto. And that voice is still there, drawing me in.
I've been thinking it's time to return to Kafka. It's been years since I read The Castle, more still since The Trial. Quite by accident, it seems, I've read "The Metamorphosis" more often than any other single piece of fiction, but again, not for many years. Some months ago, I bought the Collected Stories, in the handsome Everyman edition, edited by Gabriel Josipovici. I was in need of a new collection of the stories, if only because my other edition contains only those stories published in Kafka's lifetime (awkward blurb from Martin Amis, winning the war against cliché, so the rest of us can get on with our lives: "Acquire this necessary book"). Then, recently, I read Letter to His Father. I hope to say more about this remarkable document in another post, but for now, suffice it to say that I think I am beginning to see Kafka a little better.
Last night I dipped into the Collected Stories, looking for one of those extremely short fictions. I turned to "First Sorrow" and I read. And by the end, I was reminded of "Bartleby the Scrivener", Melville's story, which figures so prominently in Vila-Matas' intriguing Bartleby & Co. In that story, we have a man, a scrivener, who, no matter the question, "would prefer not to", confounding his boss, the narrator of the story. Some of us may "prefer not to" do any number of things life throws our way, but Bartleby is not kidding around. Ultimately, he "prefers not to" himself right to death. He (and Melville) follows his position to its logical conclusion.
I must have read this story before--it's in the other collection, having been published during Kafka's lifetime as part of A Hunger Artist--I've read this story before, and yet I have absolutely no memory of it. It must not have made much of an impression on me. I'm a different reader now, and now I find this story astonishing. The manager can see what must happen, even if the trapeze artist is momentarily assuaged. The manager can see this, and he is troubled. He knows there is nothing he can do, nothing that can be done. The logic of the situation is such that the trapeze artist will never quite be free of this torment. And Kafka, of course, follows the needs of his fiction right to the end. Just as, in "Bartleby", where it might be more "realistic" for the man to give on certain things--I might prefer not to go to work, or prefer to silently protest against the absurdity of life, but odds are I'm going to break down and eat when I get hungry enough--instead, Melville follows the idea through. Here, Kafka does the same, only more so, and with more economy. He has only to have the manager consider the logic of the situation--"would they not threaten his very existence?"--and notice the trapeze artist's furrowed brow and know that he has not imagined it, for the fable to be complete.
On what basis do we choose?
In my junior year of high school, I took a course called Research Seminar, in which we were supposed to learn how to do research and write papers. The class was intended to prepare us for college (it did not). Pretty basic stuff: we researched topics, wrote papers of varying lengths, culminating in a fairly large research project and paper. (It was in the context of the last that I was later accused of plagiarism. A long story, not worth going into, except to note here that it contributed to my deepening sense of the arbitrariness of power.) We took class trips to the research library at the nearby University of Delaware. I remember thinking to myself, as I observed college students working in the library, looking things up, doing research, that I would never have the personal resources needed to put in that kind of effort.
Early in the semester we were assigned a relatively simple task. The teacher had a collection of articles, I think, or print items of some kind. We were to select any one of these items and write about it. I don't remember much more about the task. What I do remember is that I couldn't do it. I sat there, and I watched the other students make their selections. I watched them begin writing. And I sat and sat, sorting and re-sorting the collection, getting nowhere. Did I not understand the task? It was fairly straightforward, so it's not that, not quite. Here's what it was, I've only recently realized: I didn't know on what basis we were to make our choice. How were we to decide? How did the others know? What was I missing? How would I find out?
Why is Gabriel Josipovici not simply the most famous critic working today? Why are so many of his books out of print? How can it be that On Trust is out of print? How can The Book of God be out of print? Did no one read them? Everyone should read them. Everyone should read them.
I have to think people don't like what he has to say. Is that it? Is it that simple? To me, these books are crucial. They speak to me on an elemental level, about life and modernity and literature. And they are beautifully written.
I'll have more to say about why I think Josipovici's work is so necessary--and why it speaks to me so personally. But for now, just praise. And a reminder: the more recent collection of essays, The Singer on the Shore, is equally fantastic. You should go out of your way to read it. Read it.
Apropos of this post, Aimée asked me about this "bloggers of the No" business. I replied that the novel I'd just finished, Enrique Vila-Matas' Bartleby & Co., is all about writers who refuse to write, writers who have stopped writing, and so on. "If they've stopped writing, how are they still writers?" Ha! I paused before saying something vague to the effect that it had to do with the Blanchot and Heidegger I'd been reading. Ugh. Forgive me for the glibness of this answer. I was tired and fading fast and unsure how much to say before falling asleep. Which is not to say that the Blanchot and Heidegger is not related. But the point I would have tried to get across, were I more awake and able to find the words, is that it's all related, all that I've been writing about here. But this is somehow still unacceptable.
My next post was a passage from Vila-Matas' Montano's Malady. Lloyd Mintern commented that the book has been "as much an influence on [his] personal history, as when [he] first read Alain Robbe-Grillet". I feel I know what he means. Though my reading of Montano's Malady was far from ideal. It took me three (very) sleepy weeks--a long time for a short book--so it was choppier than I would have liked. Even so, I found much to like in the book, as in Bartleby & Co. But more than anything, they made me think of my own problems writing--my own refusals. I feel an urge to write about this, along with a strong reluctance to do so. A voice tells me that I shouldn't write about this, shouldn't blog about it, shouldn't give in to the solipsistic impulse. (I know, it's a blog.) I've gotten away from writing whatever it is I was writing, in favor of writing about myself in terms of the books I'm reading. Or so it seems. Maybe it's just my imagination. I think it's that writing about this enables me to write about other things--existence, politics even. It's that, reading what I've been reading, the Vila-Matas books mentioned above and, of course, Proust and Beckett, I recognize possibilities. I recognize myself, in some sense.
Sometimes it seems easier to just stop--it comes so slowly, and I'm so often so tired. But I still feel that need to get something across, to myself if no one else.
Looking at the far sand hills, William Bankes thought of Ramsay: thought of a road in Westmoreland, thought of Ramsay striding along a road by himself hung round with that solitude which seemed to be his natural air. But this was suddenly interrupted, William Bankes remembered (and this must refer to some actual incident), by a hen, straddling her wings out in protection of a covey of little chicks, upon which Ramsay, stopping, pointed his stick and said "Pretty--pretty," an odd illumination in to his heart, Bankes had thought it, which showed his simplicity, his sympathy with humble things; but it seemed to him as if their friendship had ceased, there, on that stretch of road. After that, Ramsay had married. After that, what with one thing and another, the pulp had gone out of their friendship. Whose fault it was he could not say, only, after a time, repetition had taken the place of newness. It was to repeat that they met. But in this dumb colloquy with the sand dunes he maintained that his affection for Ramsay had in no way diminished; but there, like the body of a young man laid up in peat for a century, with the red fresh on his lips, was his friendship, in its acuteness and reality, laid up across the bay among the sandhills.
[. . .] Begun long ago, their friendship had petered out on a Westmoreland road, where the hen spread her wings before her chicks; after which Ramsay had married, and their paths lying different ways, there had been, certainly for no one's fault, some tendency, when they met, to repeat.
The jacmanna was bright violet; the wall staring white. She would not have considered it honest to tamper with the bright violet and the staring white, since she saw them like that, fashionable though it was, since Mr. Paunceforte's visit, to see everything pale, elegant, transparent. Then beneath the colour there was the shape. She could see it all so clearly, so commandingly, when she looked: it was when she took her brush in hand that the whole thing changed. It was in that moment's flight between the picture and her canvas that the demons set on her who often brought her to the verge of tears and made this passage from conception to work as dreadful as any down a dark passage for a child. Such she often felt herself--struggling against terrific odds to maintain her courage; to say: "But this is what I see; this is what I see," and so to clasp some miserable remnant of her vision to her breast, which a thousand forces did their best to pluck from her.
What are we thinking of when we now have the thing in mind? Obviously a thing is not merely an aggregate of traits, nor an accumulation of properties by which that aggregate arises. A thing, as everyone thinks he knows, is that around which the properties have assembled. We speak in this connection of the core of things. The Greeks are supposed to have called it to hupokeimenon. For them, this core of the thing was something lying at the ground of the thing, something always already there. The characteristics, however, are called ta sumbebekota, that which has always turned up already along with the given core and occurs along with it.
Zen Masters don't explain themselves. They just embody presence. They don't get hung up in thinking, or lost in theoretical musings about this or that. They are not attached to things being a certain way. They are not always consistent. One day does not necessarily have to be like the next. Their presence and their teachings can help us break through to a direct experiencing of our own true nature, and encourage us to find our own way, now, in this moment. They do this, not by telling us how, but by giving us endless challenges that cannot be resolved through thinking, by mirroring life back to us in its fullness, by pointing to wholeness. More than anything Zen Masters embody wakefulness and call it out of us.
Children are similar in many ways, especially when they are babies. The older they get, the harder it may be for us to see it. But their true nature is always present, and always mirroring our own, if we are willing to look, and to see.
Children have what might be called "original mind"--open, pure, unencumbered. They are undeniably and totally present. They are constantly learning, developing, changing, and requiring new responses from us. As they grow, they seem to challenge every place that we might be holding an expectation, a fixed opinion, a cherished belief, a desire for things to be a certain way. As babies, they so fill our lives and require so much attention to their physical and emotional needs that they continually challenge us to be present totally, to be sensitive, to inquire into what is actually happening, to risk trying something, and to learn from their responses to our attempts. They teach us how to be attuned to them, and to find joy and harmony in our connectedness with them. There is little time for theory, and it doesn't seem to help much anyway unless it is connected to practice.
Of course, children are not really Zen Masters. Children are children and Zen Masters are Zen Masters. But if we are able to look at our children with openness and receptivity, and see the purity of life expressing itself through them, at any age, it can wake us up at any moment to their true nature and to our own.
No writing on the solitary, meditative dimensions of life can say anything that has not already been said better by the wind in the pine trees. These pages seek nothing more than to echo the silence and the peace that is "heard" when the rain wanders freely among the hills and forests. But what can the wind say where there is no hearer? There is then a deeper silence: the silence in which the Hearer is No-Hearer. That deeper silence must be heard before one can speak truly of solitude.
I remember having trouble with this essay and that it reminded me of those kinds of writing that have given me the most difficulty--the kind of writing I've been struggling with recently, for example writing by Blanchot and Heidegger. It strikes me now, in copying out the passage above, that another pass at this Merton essay may be helpful to understanding Blanchot's "essential solitude". And words in the Kabat-Zinn passage, words like "fullness" and "presence" and "wake us up", also remind me of Blanchot and Heidegger (in my admittedly limited experience with each).
Of course, many people in the West have been drawn to Eastern traditions, such as Zen Buddhism, because they are dissatisfied with the spiritual life of the West. The West is often seen as spiritually bereft, as overly analytical or "rational", and so on. I'm sympathetic to this charge, though I am neither inclined nor prepared to enter into a detailed treatment of the topic in this space. As someone about to become a father, I am thus far persuaded that there is great wisdom in the approach to parenting described in Everyday Blessings (how well I will do it remains to be seen). What interests me here, however, are the ways in which the language at times reminds me of that language used in the writing I find difficult (but which in this context I do not find difficult), and what that might tell us about the philosophical and literary project of these writers--which matters to me because of how I conceive of its importance in the grand scheme of living in the modern world, including the ongoing project of living my own life, and the importance of art, literature in particular.
It seems to me that, among the reasons Blanchot and Heidegger are difficult, is that they are writing about ideas and concepts for which we lack either the sufficient vocabulary or the sufficient kinds of experience, or vocabulary for noting experiences, which perhaps amounts to much the same thing. It could be that we lack the vocabulary because we have been, for centuries, falsely employing concepts carelessly borrowed from our ancient predecessors. And it could be that the vocabulary we do use is confusing because it is unable to properly express the concepts under discussion (much as, in English, we lack a word sufficient to express the French jouissance).
I know I've made some claims that are both vague and grandiose, but I hope to be able to make at least some headway in future posts in articulating what I mean, along the way towards my understanding of it myself. I'll finish by saying that I hope it will become clearer why I insist on writing posts that are about some combination of babies and writing and philosophy and politics, and why most of those posts that seem unconnected are in fact connected, and in certain ways about the same thing.
Gradually the percentage of copying in my poems decreased and slowly, but with a certain amount of confidence, my own personal style evolved, always constructed--to a greater or lesser extent--with the collaboration of those writers whose blood I sucked for my own benefit. Without haste, I began to acquire a little of my own style, nothing dazzling, but sufficient, something that was unmistakably mine, thanks to vampirism and the involuntary collaboration of the rest, those writers I laid hands on to find my personal literature. Without haste, arriving always after, in second place, accompanying a writer, all the Cernudas I discovered along the way, who appeared first, original. Without haste, like Walser's secondary or Joseph Roth's discreet characters, who pass through life in endless flight, placing themselves on the margins of the reality that troubles them so much and also on the margins of existence--in the face of the mechanism of sameness so dominant in the world today, to defend an extreme residue of irreducible individuality, something that is unmistakably theirs. I discovered mine in the others, arriving after them, first accompanying them and later liberating myself.
I think I can now say, for example, that thanks to Cernuda's protective staff I began to walk on my own and to find out what kind of writer I was, and also not to know who I was, or, better put, to know who I was, but just a bit, in the same way as my literary style is just an extreme residue, but that will always be better than nothing. The same can applied to my existence: I have just a bit of my own life--as can be observed in this timid dictionary--but it is unmistakably mine, which, to be honest, to me already seems a lot. Given the state of the world, it is no small thing to have a bit of autobiography.
[Marx's] feeling for contradictions infuses the whole of Capital with vitality and adventure. An adventure is not an idyll: much of its excitement springs from its risks, from the chance that it could end horribly; but we go on, because we are moving in an ambience of life and hope. The ambience could be a great gift to us today. It is right there, in Capital: the book lies open and open-ended, waiting only for us to give ourselves.
We happen to have a copy Adventures in Marxism. I'll be reading it.
there are markets without capitalism, but there is no capitalism without the absolute reign of the market. As Wood puts it, "this unique system of market-dependence means that the dictates of the capitalist market – its imperatives of competition, accumulation, profit-maximization, and increasing labour-productivity – regulate not only all economic transactions but social relations in general" (2002, 7). And this is the key to what I have been calling the monstrosity of capital. It is utterly contingent in its origins; and yet, once it has arrived, it imposes itself universally. Capitalism might never have emerged out of the chaos of feudal, commercial, religious, and State institutions that preceded it, just as [Lovecraft's monster] Cthulhu might never have stumbled upon our planet. But in both cases, the unfortunate encounter did, in fact, take place. And it is only afterwards, in its subsequent effects, once it has in fact arrived on the scene and subjugated all its rivals, that capitalism is able – again, much like Cthulhu – to present itself retro spectively as an irresistible and all-embracing force. Capitalism arose "in a very specific place, and very late in human history" (2002, 95). But once it arose, it made market relations compulsory: as Wood says, the so-called "free market" became an imperative, a coerced activity, instead of an opportunity (6-7).
It's sort of crazy when you think about it. The capitalist steals what you make. That's not crazy, that's just violent. But then he tells you he's giving you the privilege of getting back some of what he and the other capitalists have stolen with credits earned through the labor which the capitalist forced you to do in the first place. It's like winning the right to buy back your stolen goods from the trunk of a car on the side of the street two weeks after your house was robbed. If that happened, you wouldn't feel privileged to buy your stuff back. You'd be pissed and call the police. But no one polices the capitalists but themselves.
You might wonder why people would ever stand for something so simultaneously unnatural and idiotic. The truth is that they don't, and they never have. In any social organism where one class pumps surplus out of another class (i.e., steals what they make), the overriding and perennial problem is to maintain control over the class from which the surplus labor is pumped. In a sense, that's exactly what the history of any class society is about: the changes undergone so that one class can continue to pump surplus out of another class. But the history of all societies is equally the history of resistance to this imposition of work and the various measures the ruling classes take to adjust to that resistance and keep the extraction going. When the extracting class runs out of options to meet these challenges, or when the challenges become so formidable they overwhelm all attempts to contain the contradictions, the pump stops moving surplus from one side to the other, and the history of that social organism is at an end.
Returning to The Pinocchio Theory (which is a consistent combination of, or alternation between, fascinating and way over my head), Shaviro's three posts just prior to the one linked above were about Capital (in which he discusses the work of, among others, Hardt & Negri and Deleuze & Guattari, to name just four of the oft-referenced authors I haven't yet made my way to): "What is to be done?", "Monstrous Flesh", and "Body of Capital".
Though the brunt -- as always -- is now being borne by the most marginal and fragile, the over-developed industrial metropoles are not escaping the impact of this crisis. In the United States, the culmination of a decades-long crisis of capital accumulation -- which has heretofore been exported to the rest of the world -- is coming home to roost in the form of a severe "credit crisis" at the same time as the oil price spike. We are entering a protracted period of stagflation: economic stagnation (recession) combined with price inflation (due in part to the impact of oil prices on virtually all economic sectors). We in the US are more deeply in debt, personally and nationally, than at any time in our history. And the key products that are driving up our cost of living -- even as our net worths stagnate and fall back -- are basically gasoline and food.
We metropolitan Americans panic when we contemplate the possibility of becoming unable to afford our private automobiles. This is not just because of our legendary ego-attachment to the car. The primary reason we panic is because we need our cars to get to our jobs (at least one study has suggested that Americans spend 20 percent of their take-home pay on their cars, so we are working one day out of five to pay for the car so we can drive to the job). And we need our jobs.
It's a given: people need their jobs. But why? Because without the income from those jobs, we and our children don't eat. Our access to food is permitted only when it's mediated by money -- which we can only obtain by working (for the ruling class) or by becoming wards of the state (which, increasingly involves coerced labour).
Goff and Clarke are, of course, the proprietors of the essential Feral Scholar blog, where increasingly of late they have been discussing food and debt and what to do when the society we all depend on, however warped and unnatural it may be, is itself heading towards a major fall. I've been wanting to talk here more about what they've been getting up to over there (and, of course, at Insurgent American), but my own problems with work and life have sucked my time away. I hope to get into in later posts.


text:
Q: Run two python files at the same time I have tried using
#!/bin/bash
python ScriptA.py &
python ScriptB.py &

to run both scripts at the same time but it always returns "Invalid Syntax" with ScriptA even though all python files are in the same folder.
File that runs both scripts:
def song():
user = input()
    if user == "Chance":
        python ScriptA.py &
        python ScriptB.py &
   else:
        print("Error")

The solutions i found so far, such as putting that script in one line, doesn't work as the error still shows.
--------------------------EDIT--------------------------
Both scripts run fine individually however, all the solutions you have provided still run sequentially. Script A is a video that plays via OpenCV and Script B is a song that plays via playsound.
ScriptA:
import cv2
import numpy as np
import os
os.environ['SDL_VIDEO_CENTERED'] = '1'
cap = cv2.VideoCapture("video.mp4")
while(cap.isOpened()):
  ret, frame = cap.read()
  if ret == True:
    cv2.imshow('Frame',frame)
    if cv2.waitKey(25) & 0xFF == ord('q'):
      break
  else:
    break
cap.release()
cv2.destroyAllWindows()

ScriptB:
from playsound import playsound
a = (r"C:\Users\A\Desktop\sound.mp3")
playsound(a)

As you may tell, i'm trying to display a song alongside a video. I tried to display a video that has sound but openCV doesn't output sound for some reason. Any suggestions?

A: I think you are looking for multi-threading
you could merge your both script into another script,
then lauch them using theads
--edit--
from threading import Thread

import cv2
import numpy as np
import os
from playsound import playsound

def play_sound():
    # import your script A
    a = (r"C:\Users\A\Desktop\sound.mp3")
    playsound(a)

def CV2_stuff():
    # import your script B
    os.environ['SDL_VIDEO_CENTERED'] = '1'
    cap = cv2.VideoCapture("video.mp4")
    ...

Thread(target = play_sound).start()
Thread(target = CV2_stuff).start()

hope it helps
this could work too
import ScriptA
import ScriptB

ScriptA.function()
ScriptB.function()

but they wouldn't be exectuted in the same time

A: You have to import os module and use the system function from it, then separate the two Python files you are running by &&.
import os
def song():
    user = input()
    if user == "Chance":
        os.system('python ScriptA.py && python ScriptB.py')
    else:
        print("Error")

song()

But I will advice you to just import the two files you want to run into the third file and just run the functions in there like normal functions.
e.g.
import ScriptA
import ScriptB

ScriptA.function()
ScriptB.function()

If there are no functions inside the scripts, the script runs immediately after they are imported.

A: You can try os.system :
import os

os.system("python ScriptA.py &")
os.system("python ScriptB.py &")

A: You can just open both files on the python IDLE and run each o them.
If you need both files to run simultaneously (the first way you have the delay of pressing F5 on each file) you can use PyCharm and download the multirun plugin.

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text:
Home Cricket One Day International Josh Hazlewood leaves gaping hole in pace attack for Australia
Josh Hazlewood leaves gaping hole in pace attack for Australia
Josh Hazlewood has been pulled from the Australian National cricket team for the ODI series next month against England due to a lower back injury. The 27-year old posed as the front-line pace attack for the team with the experience of 21 ODI series.
With the absence of experienced bowlers, Mitchell Starc and Pat Cummins, also due to injuries, it was expected that Hazlewood would take the lead of the bowling front but now with him backing out, Australia has a gaping hole of a total of 274 wickets to fill.
"Josh has been managing some low-level bone stress in his lumbar spine for a short period," said CA physiotherapist, David Beakley.
"He had a repeat scan today and although it has not progressed to a fracture he is starting to experience some lower back pain. As such, we are taking a conservative approach and he will not travel to England for the one-day series."
The tall pace bowler faced heavy workload with consecutive series as he played in all five Ashes Tests, the four Tests versus South Africa as well as three of five ODIs versus England. The right-arm-er has an impeccable record of 69 wickets from 41 games.
The veteran is to replaced by the uncapped Michael Neser from Queensland, who impressed at the Sheffield Shield as part of the Bulls. He gained a reputation as a skilled swing bowler in the domestic cricket scene.
He is to be assisted by Andrew Tye, Kane Richardson, Jhye Richardson and Billy Stanlake who have played only 4, 15, 1 and 2 ODI series respectively.
This comes as a massive blow especially after the suspension of batsmen, David Warner and Steve Smith, due to the ball-tampering scandal. With so many important team members missing, the team is going in with a stagger as they face the world's number one ranked ODI side.
Led by Tim Paine, the team is to start the England tour on June 13th at The Oval. The team has a lot on their plate as they will play five ODIs and a T20 against England after which they'll go to Zimbabwe for another T20.
Although the team does not look good on paper at the moment, captain Tim Paine still remains confident.
"Justin (Langer) sat us down for a team meeting last week and spoke about the Australian cricket team's values, and what he expects," Paine said. "It's nothing that's brand new, nothing the guys haven't heard before — it's purely about acting on what we know is the right thing to do and the right way to play our cricket."
We've had Spirit of Cricket documents, we've had Code of Conduct documents, but at the end of the day, they mean nothing if you don't act on them and you don't live by them. That's been a huge focus for us, has been around our actions, our behaviors and making sure we live up to the standards that the Australian cricket team should."
"So we've spoken about it, but getting on a plane tonight now, we get to go over there and talk through our actions, which the guys are looking forward to. We're not going over there to makeup or the numbers or be the nicest Australian cricket team ever to play against. We're going to be really competitive, at the same time we're going to be really respectful, but we're going there to win."
We should share the team's confidence and support them on their way to the international cricket series.
Andrew Tye
Billy Stanlake
Jhye Richardson
Josh Hazlewood
Justin Langer
Kane Richardson
Michael Neser
Tim Paine
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The natural beauty of the Japanese countryside is cause for celebration throughout the year! The small town of Tanto highlights its incredible bounty of tulips every spring from mid-April with the Tanto Tulip Festival, which features an incredible number of gorgeous blooms, and even a field of flower art for visitors to enjoy!
If the video above has you ready to pack your bags, you can find out more about the Tanto Tulip Festival and the Kinosaki area at https://visitkinosaki.com/, and start planning your perfect trip today!
Cover photo ©Tanto Silk Road Tourism Association.


I will respond with detailed information on the materials, tools, and might wish to consider the new architectural metal roofs. Home improvement tools and techniques vary and having a basic storage, you can consider a number of pre-assembled storage options. The tips have helped make my last few do-it-yourself home run through it once more carefully when you carry out the real job. For homeowners interested in green renovations and green remodeling you can check out my hub at or my windows and that was the detail that framed that bay window. You can improve your home yourself or use the pay a little more, the design continuity will pay dividends on your resale value and appreciation.
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text:
Home Communities Dublin Life St. Patrick's Day parade exudes Irish 'tude
St. Patrick's Day parade exudes Irish 'tude
New balloon and Presidents Cup float take center stage at the celebration
by Andrea Frazier
Ever greener, ever grander, Dublin's St. Patrick's Day Parade is scheduled for Saturday, March 16. The parade is an annual celebration of all things Irish, including the Irish sentiment of being "welcoming, warm, hospitable and giving."
"In Dublin, you don't have to be Irish to have Irish attitude," says Mary Jo DiSalvo, events administrator for the city of Dublin. "If you love Dublin, that's Irish attitude. If you give back to the community, that's Irish attitude."
This year, the parade is sporting both a new logo – embodied in larger-than-life form by a giant helium balloon – and a float that celebrates the Presidents Cup.
The new logo, a green Irish top hat, will come alive as a parade balloon that from now on will serve as the showpiece for the event.
The parade is presided over by the "Grand Leprechaun," a community member with a giving attitude who has devoted himself or herself to making Dublin a better place to live and work. Drawing from a pool of individuals or couples nominated by Dublin residents, Grand Leprechauns from years past vote on who will join their ranks. They were to have announced their decision in mid-January. Every year, the Grand Leprechaun sports a green top hat, so the refreshed logo reflects one of Dublin's most longstanding traditions, DiSalvo says.
The Presidents Cup float commemorates Dublin as the location for the 2013 Presidents Cup in October. Twenty-four of the world's top golfers will come together in this competition that offers international, non-European golfers the chance to take on the U.S. team.
More than 100 units, including marching bands, bagpipers and clowns, turn up to march in the parade, DiSalvo says. The crowd goes all-out as well.
"Along the parade route, everyone is decked out in green and white, Irish hats and outfits," DiSalvo says. "It's as much fun watching the spectators as it is for the spectators to watch the parade."
To kick-start the day, parade attendees can fuel up at 7 a.m. at the Lions Club's pancake breakfast at Sells Middle School. Then, head to the Inflation Celebration to watch the parade's balloons become inflated at 9 a.m. At 10:15, The Hooligans take the stage at The Review Stand. The parade takes off at 11 a.m. from Metro Center.
Irish enthusiasts can celebrate again the following day, March 17, with the Shamrock Club of Columbus' annual St. Patrick's Day festivities, including the Downtown parade at 11:45 a.m.
Andrea Frazier is a contributing writer. Feedback welcome at laurand@cityscenemediagroup.com.
Dublin Life Features Dublin Life February 2013 Features - Dublin Life


Wow, this was delicious!! This is very close to the perfect cheesecake, in my opinion. I must admit I haven't eaten a lot of cheesecake. Why? Two reasons, the first being I am an "impulse baker", meaning I crave something and I jump up and make it. Cheesecake doesn't really fit into my lifestyle. It takes planning and patience. The majority of recipes require the cheesecake to sit in the fridge over night. By the next day, I have probably already moved on to a different dessert. Reason #2 is because I can't let myself buy a piece of cheesecake for $5 or so at a restaurant when I think I could make a million cupcakes for that price.
Anyway, I finally made a cheesecake. Mainly because I had four sticks of cream cheese that were expiring, so if I was ever going to make a cheesecake, now would be the time. I'm sure all of you have heard of the famous Junior's Cheesecake in New York (unless your Mark of course - Ha Ha)! One of the owner's shared their famous cheesecake recipe and that is the one I tried. I loved so many things about this recipe. I loved that the "crust" was actually a light lemon flavored sponge cake instead of the usual graham cracker crust. I love lemon and I love cake, so we were off to a great start. Next, is the filling, it is rich and creamy and oh so delicious. Last, is the topping. I actually like my cheesecake plain, but I know not everyone does. So, I topped with some yummy strawberry sauce with strawberries and blueberries on the side.
This cheesecake was really really really good. It is definitely worth the long wait and the patience it requires! It bakes up beautifully and it stays fresh for several days.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Generously butter a 9-inch springform pan and wrap tightly with foil, covering the bottom and extending up the sides; set aside. Sift the cake flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium-sized bowl and set aside. Beat the egg yolks together in a large bowl with an electric mixer on high for 3 minutes. Then, with the mixer still running, gradually add 1/2 cup of sugar and continue beating until thick light-yellow ribbons form in the bowl, about 5 minutes more. Beat in the vanilla and lemon extracts. Sift the flour mixture over the batter and stir it in by hand until no more white flecks appear. Then, blend in the butter. In a clean bowl, using clean dry beaters, beat the egg whites and cream of tartar together on high until frothy. Gradually add the remaining 2 Tbl. sugar and continue beating until stiff peaks form. Stir about 1/3 cup of the whites into the batter, then gently fold in the remaining whites (don't worry if a few white specks remain). Gently spoon the batter into the pan. Bake the cake just until the center of the cake springs back when lightly touched, only about 10 minutes (watch carefully). Let the cake cool in the pan on a wire rack while you continue making the cheesecake filling. Do not remove the cake from the pan.
Place an 8 oz. package of cream cheese, 1/3 cup sugar and the cornstarch in a large bowl. Beat with an electric mixer on low until creamy, about 3 minutes, scraping the bowl occasionally. Beat in the remaining 3 packages of cream cheese. Increase the mixer speed to high and beat in the remaining 1 1/3 cups of sugar, then beat in the vanilla. Blend in the eggs, one at a time, beating the batter well after adding each one. Blend in the heavy cream. At this point, mix the filling only until completely blended (just like they do at Junior's). Be careful not to over mix the batter. Gently spoon the cheese filling on top of the baked sponge cake layer (I didn't add all the filling, because I was afraid it would overflow. I did all but maybe 3/4 -1 cup).
Place the springform pan in a large shallow pan containing hot water that comes about 1-inch up the sides of the pan. Bake the cheesecake at 350 degrees until the center barely jiggles when you shake the pan, about 1 hour and 10 minutes. Cool the cake on a wire rack for 1 hour. Then, cover the cake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until it is completely cold, at least 4 hours or overnight. Remove the sides of the springform pan. Slide the cake off the bottom of the pan onto a serving plate. Or, if you wish, simply leave the cake on the removable bottom of the plan and place it on a serving plate. Top with desired toppings. If any cake is left over, cover it with plastic wrap and store in the refrigerator.
I am not usually one for cheesecake because I find it a little too dense but this looks creamy and fluffy at the same time.
i love your blog. everything looks delicious. could go for a slice, or two, or three of this right now.
Your cheesecake looks very tempting with the berries and the juice drizzling down the sides into a perfect little puddle that begs to be scooped up in a few big bites.
Yay! Thanks so much for sharing this, I can't wait to try it!


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text:
Quotes tagged "Hunting"
"The easy path is not the right path."
— Roy Seiders,	YETI | My Old Man | No.5- Made in Driftwood
Tagged: Outdoors, Lifestyle, Hunting, Fishing, Yeti Coolers
"We need to hunt quickly."
— Tom "Redfly" Davis,	Triple Frontier
Tagged: Hunting
"You must never rush out on the meadow. There might be danger. Out there, we're unprotected."
— Bambi's Mother,	Bambi
Tagged: danger, Hunting
"Flint: I'm gonna go and see Richard. He can help me recreate the schedule.
Gates: Richard Guthrie?
Flint: Mm-hmm.
Gates: You think he's gonna help you?
Flint: Yes. Yes, I do.
Gates: Let's just for fun say that he doesn't. What then?
Flint: Then I'll forget about the schedule and go back to hunting fat, lazy merchantmen and everyone will be content.
Gates: This is one of those times where we pretend that we both don't know that you're lying."
— Gates,	Black Sails, Season 1: I.
Tagged: lying, schedule, Hunting, Cheeky, Pretend
"Stan: My uncle Jimbo says that after this he's gonna take me hunting in Africa.
Kyle: Wow. That'd be cool.
Cartman: My mom says there's a lot of black people in Africa."
— Eric Cartman,	South Park, Season 1: Volcano
Tagged: Africa, Hunting, Black People, Stating the Obvious
"You see, you're hunting for a man. You need to start hunting for a beast"
— Sir Malcolm,	Penny Dreadful, Season 1: Seance
Tagged: Hunting, Man, Beast
"I have just returned from a big hunt. The Indians in this country are on the war path."
— Buffalo Bill Cody
Tagged: Hunting, Indians, Native Americans, Warpath
"I was liable at any moment to run into a party of his young men who might be out hunting, and as I had many enemies among the Sioux; I would be running considerable risk in meeting them."
— Buffalo Bill Cody,	Story of the Wild West and Camp-fire Chats
Tagged: Sioux, Trail of Tears, Hunting
"I'm against hunting. In fact, I'm a hunt saboteur. I go out the night before and shoot the fox."
— Tim Vine,	50 of Tim Vine's most ingenious jokes and one-liners
Tagged: Jokes, Puns, Hunting
"I have a great deal of respect for the animals that I kill, and I feel remorse and all of the emotions that come with it. The thing inside me that drives me to go out and hunt is very animal. But the remorse, emotion and respect I feel, and the closeness to God that I feel when I'm out there, is my humanity. It's an opportunity for me to explore what parts of me are animal and what parts of me are human."
— Chris Pratt,	Chris Pratt: 'I have great respect for the animals that I kill'
Tagged: Hunting, Animals, emotions, humanity
"One of my favorite parts of hunting is getting away from it all. These days there's a lot more to get away from. That's probably why I cherish it so much."
— Chris Pratt
Tagged: Hunting, getting away, Solipsism
"My favorite animal to hunt is probably elk. There's nothing like the sound of a bugling bull splitting the cold air at first light. And that smell is unmistakable. Once you experience their musk in the wild there's no going back! A close second would be a varmint hunt."
Tagged: Hunting, Elk, Elk Musk, Musk, Varmint
"We got the gun problems. This gun shit ain't going nowhere, ok? It's like, 'Gun control.' There ain't never gonna be no gun control, OK? You talk about it too long and you will get shot. They will shoot yo ass, ok? That's right. They never, ever changing the gun laws. Because Americans need the right to hunt. They need to hunt. It's like, 'Really?" Hunting's that fucking important? I mean… I've been hunting. I've been hunting. I used to hunt with my grandfather as a kid in South Carolina. Went hunting with my grandfather. Uh, I shot a rabbit. I cried. He called me a faggot."
— Chris Rock,
Tagged: Gun Control, Hunting
"That's what work is, a sublimation of our violent desires to hunt and fuck."
— Alex Cole,	Casual, Season 3: The Sprout
Tagged: Work, Sublimation, violent, Desire, Hunting, Fucking
"Farming as we do it is hunting, and in the sea we act like barbarians."
— Jacques Cousteau
Tagged: Farming, Hunting, Sea, Fishing, barbarians
"We must plant the sea and herd its animals … using the sea as farmers instead of hunters. That is what civilization is all about — farming replacing hunting."
Tagged: planting, Farming, herding, Hunting
"A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking a round with a fly swatter.
What are you doing?" she asked. "Hunting flies," He responded. "Oh, killing any?" She asked. "Yep, three males, two females," he replied. Intrigued, she asked, How can you tell? He responded, "Three were on a beer can, two were on the phone.""
— pilotrohanda,	A woman walked into the kitchen to find her husband stalking a round with a fly swatter.
Tagged: Married Couple, Hunting
"Sometimes they went hungry, sometimes they feasted riotously, all according to the abundance of game and the fortune of hunting."
— Jack London,	The Call of the Wild
Tagged: Hunting, Hunger, feast, abundance, Fortune
"I tried to take a girl out to hunt seals for a first date.
But she wasn't really Inuit."
— Wqksayi,	I tried to take a girl out to hunt seals for a first date.
Tagged: Dating, Hunting
"2 guys are hunting in the woods. The first guy faints and stops breathing. The second guy calls 911 and they say "911, what's your emergency?".
The guy says "My friend and I were hunting in the woods and he fainted. I think he's dead."
The 911 operator responds "First make sure that he is dead before anything"
A loud shot is heard. The guy then says "Ok, what do I do next?""
— Ingobro54,	Best Joke in the history of jokes, maybe ever
Tagged: Hunting, Jokes


RJN supports Healthcare as a Human Right | Racial Justice NOW!
The Healthcare Is a Human Right Collaborative will gather in Portland, Maine, August 5th through 7th for a convening hosted by the Southern Maine Workers' Center (SMWC). This year's meeting will include a public event with SMWC's local allies as well as strategy discussions and learning sessions on building multi-racial (and multi-generational and otherwise diverse) organizations and movements, shorter-term campaigns en route to universal healthcare, statewide organizing and strategic planning. In a time marked by police shootings of Black people, economic anxiety, xenophobia and other enormous challenges, the convening will also serve as a space for Collaborative members to support one another and to reflect on the role of Healthcare Is a Human Right campaigns in intersectional movements for human rights and social, economic and racial justice.
In April, Ben Palmquist from NESRI represented the Collaborative at two talks. He spoke with Zakiya Sankara-Jabar from Racial Justice NOW! and Larry Bresler from Organize! Ohio on a panel hosted by the University of Dayton's Human Rights Center on grassroots human rights movements in the United States, and at the annual meeting of the Single Payer Action Network Ohio.
Put People First! PA and NESRI participated in a strategy meeting in June focused on assessing the power of the insurance, hospital and pharmaceutical industries and exploring concrete ideas for how movement organizations and policy advocates can advance the human right to healthcare, particularly on the state level, now that the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land. Many of the ideas discussed in the meeting are presented in a strategy paper published by the Universal Health Care Foundation of Connecticut earlier this year. The paper was authored by Richard Kirsch, Director of Our Story – The Hub for American Narratives and a Senior Fellow and Advisor with the Roosevelt Institute, USAction and the WhyNot Initiative.
After eight months of organizing efforts, Put People First! Pennsylvania is celebrating a big victory! PPF-PA won a public hearing on health insurance rate increases, the first ever such hearing in the state of Pennsylvania. Insurance companies are requesting to raise premiums by an average of up to 45% on some plans, and by as much as 154% in the most extreme cases.
The Pennsylvania Department of Insurance has scheduled the rate hearing on July 27th in Harrisburg. The hearing was called by the Pennsylvania Department of Insurance after PPF-PA met with Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller and members of her staff, delivered over 500 signatures to the Department's headquarters, organized a call-in day, mobilized partners and allies, and rallied people to share their stories on Facebook and Twitter. The hearing is an opportunity for Pennsylvania residents to speak out about how insurance rate hikes impact their lives, and to demand greater transparency and public participation in decisions on insurance rates in Pennsylvania.
With the hearing less than two weeks away, PPF-PA is encouraging people to sign up to deliver testimony to the Department in writing or, better yet, in person at the hearing. If you live in Pennsylvania or know anyone who does, please fill out the registration form to testify or to help out with preparations and transportation.
In other news, PPF-PA's Base Building Team ran three events in June: a membership drive in Philadelphia, tabling at Spectrum Health Services Community Health Fair in West Philly, and a leadership retreat and vigil in Johnstown. The vigil honored the life of Marie Funk, who passed away last year after she was belatedly diagnosed with Stage 4 lung cancer after being delayed and denied care by for-profit healthcare provider Senior LIFE.
For the second year in a row, members of PPF-PA volunteered at the Mission of Mercy free dental clinic in June. In addition to helping out with the clinic, they spoke with many people who have had trouble accessing healthcare and collected 43 surveys documenting people's healthcare experiences. The 43 surveys are part of the organization's second round of survey collection. PPF-PA is preparing to release a report based on the first 300 surveys it collected across two-thirds of Pennsylvania's counties last year, and is simultaneously aiming to collect 500 more surveys by the end of this year.
During the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia July 25th through 28th, PPF-PA will be joining with medical students and other allies to demonstrate for the human right to healthcare.
Finally, PPF-PA is happy to welcome two new organizers to their team: Carla Christopher, the new Central PA field organizer, and Ben Fiorillo, the Southwest PA organizer.
This spring, the Southern Maine Workers' Center joined with allies in Portland to oppose the closure of the city's India Street Public Health Clinic, a vital public health center that offers free, low-barrier healthcare to some of the city's communities with the greatest healthcare needs and the most limited access, including low-income people, members of the LGBTQ+ community, those living with addiction and those who are HIV+. The clinic came under threat in April when the City proposed a plan to defund the facility and transfer patients to a privately run facility, following a destructive trend towards the privatization of public goods. SMWC responded to the City's proposal with a statement criticizing the lack of transparency and participation in deciding on budget priorities, and stressing how the plan threatens the health of many community members. Led by the clinic's patients and volunteers, SMWC came together with other local organizations and community members to build a powerful movement protesting the city's budget, organizing a large rally, gathering over 1,600 petition signatures and presenting testimony at public hearings. They won a partial victory by pushing city officials to compromise on their timeline, but many parts of the plan will move ahead.
SMWC also held two Healthcare Is a Human Right workshops this spring. The first meeting focused on raising awareness of classism in human rights movements and developing organizing strategies that unify across class. Part of an ongoing process at SMWC to integrate class analysis in their work, the discussion-driven session helped participants recognize the underlying assumptions about poor people and poverty that often characterize existing narratives and presented a critical look at the social "safety net". In June, the second HCHR workshop featured professional storyteller Elise Pepple, who shared how storytelling can be a powerful tool for conveying messages, transforming communities and building solidarity around the movement for publicly financed healthcare.
SMWC members are now preparing to host the HCHR Collaborative convening, and are also analyzing data from surveys they've collected over the past three years in preparation for publishing a report. The surveys asked about people's experiences with healthcare and evaluated support for a publicly-funded healthcare system. SMWC has also hired a new HCHR organizer, Ron Flannery.
The Vermont Workers' Center (VWC) is organizing to stop high increases in insurance premiums requested by MVP Healthcare and Blue Cross Blue Shield Vermont, the two health insurance corporations selling insurance plans on the state exchange. The companies have requested average rate hikes of 8.2% and 8.8%, respectively. The Workers' Center has set up an online form to collect testimony about how rate hikes affect people's ability to get the care they need, and will submit responses as public comments to the Green Mountain Care Board, the governing agency. VWC is also organizing people to attend the hearings on July 20th and 21st in Montpelier to share their stories in person. If you live in Vermont or know anyone who does, please fill out the form or contact the Workers' Center.
Healthcare Is a Human Right – Maryland has been exploring a new area of campaign work, the privatization of Medicaid. Maryland, like many other states, has increasingly outsourced administration of Medicaid to private insurance corporations, prioritizing an ideologically, profit-driven agenda over the health of people enrolled in the program. HCHR-Maryland is talking to people who are enrolled in Medicaid, talking to activists in other states who have campaigned against Medicaid privatization, and connecting with allies in Maryland who share a commitment to ensuring that Maryland delivers quality, comprehensive healthcare as a public good through the state's Medicaid program.
Tagged healthcare is a human right Nesri Racial Justice NOW!
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