Archive for March, 2007
Today In Pictures
Tuesday, March 27th, 2007Click any image to enlarge.
UMMA renovations.
Class meets outside by the fountain.
Central campus from the Bell Tower.
Bikers enjoy the sun on the Diag.
World Tuberculosis Day
Saturday, March 24th, 2007
Today, March 24th, is World TB Day. I’m not an infectious disease expert (or, honestly, even a infectious disease amateur), but you don’t need to be one to understand the the basic epidemiology (incidence, distribution, and control) of TB. Some facts from the World Health Organization:
Fact #1: Tuberculosis (TB for Tubercle Bacillus) is a contagious disease caused by a bacterium. It spreads through the air like the common cold.
Fact #2: TB kills about two million people each year. In developing nations, where the spread of the disease verges on a pandemic, standard TB can not only be treated but cured for about $16.
Fact #3: Overall, about one-third of the world’s population carries the TB bacterium. However, TB doesn’t usually become infectious and deadly unless the immune system is suppressed. Those in developing nations are disproportionately affected by TB, then, as they are more likely to live in crowded areas, suffer from poor nutrition, and have limited access to basic health care. This is why TB is sometimes referred to as a “disease of the poor.”
Fact #4: HIV and TB do not go well together because HIV weakens the immune system. In fact, TB is the single leading direct cause of death among people who are HIV-positive.
Fact #5: Sometimes, TB mutates and becomes resistant to one or more of the drugs used to treat it. Drug resistance is far more likely when the treatment for a TB patients is incomplete or inadequate. Multi-drug resistant TB (MDR-TB) is defined as resistance to the two most effective TB drugs. The fear is that efforts to treat standard TB might increase the prevalence of MDR-TB, which is more complicated and expensive to treat.
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For more information, please check out the exceptionally well-written and well-sourced Wikipedia article on tuberculous here, World TB Day articles here and here, and a World Health Organization fact sheet here.
Protected: And Paul, Too
Saturday, March 24th, 2007Ever Seen $200 Million In Cash?
Saturday, March 17th, 2007
Protected: Pic O’ the Moment 3.13.07
Tuesday, March 13th, 2007a.a. adventures of mary men
Saturday, March 10th, 2007Barack Obama’s The Audacity of Hope
Wednesday, March 7th, 2007
I read Barack Obama’s new book, The Audacity of Hope, last week. I found Obama incredibly likable, and I agree with many of his views (especially with regards to social issues; fiscally — we probably differ more).
The book itself is readable but not exactly a page-turner. He spends a lot of time just recapping basic American history, which is fine (who doesn’t love America?) but, frankly, boring. Obama’s stories are the real meat of the book — growing up in Indonesia, meeting his wife during a law school internship, raising his family, and describing his experiences as a state legislator and U.S. Senator. Good stuff.
Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book:
[On those who disagree with his views] The best I can do in the face of our [nation's] history is remind myself that it has not always been the pragmatist, the voice of reason, or the force of compromise, that has created the conditions for liberty. The hard, cold facts remind me that it was unbending idealists like William Lloyd Garrison, who first dounded the clarion call for justice; that it was slaves and former slaves, men like Denmark Vesey and Frederick FDouglass and women like Harriet Tubman, who recognized power would concede nothing without a fight. It was the wild-eyed prophecies of John Brown, his willingness to spill blood and not just words on behalf of his visions, that helped force the issue of a nation half slave and half free. I’m reminded that deliberations and the constitutional order may sometimes be the luxury of the powerful, and that it has sometimes been the cranks, the zealots, the prophets, the agitators, and the unreasonable—in other words, the absolutists—that have fought for a new order. Knowing this, I can’t summarily dismiss those possessed of similar certainty today—the antiabortion activist who picket my town hall meeting, or the animal rights activist who raids a laboratory—no matter how deeply I disagree with their views. I am robbed even of the certainty of uncertainty—for sometimes absolute truths may well be absolute.
[quoting John F. Kennedy] To those people in the huts and villages of half the globe struggling to break the bonds of mass misery, we pledge our best efforts to help them help themselves, for whatever period is required, not because the Communists may be doing it, not because we seek their votes, but because it is right. If a free society cannot help the many who are poor, it cannot save the few who are rich.
[recounting a 2002 speech] I know that even a successful war against Iraq will require a US occupation of undetermined length, at undetermined cost, with undetermined consequences. I know that an invasion of Iraq without a clear rationale and without strong international support will only fan the flames of the Middle East, and encourage the worst, rather than best, impulses of the Arab world, and strengthen the recruitment arm of al-Qaeda.
Quote-times Philosophizes
Tuesday, March 6th, 2007I’d argue against your claim that humans should aim to be independent/self-reliant in all aspects of their lives . . . I don’t think true independence is a realistic ideal given all the inherent intertwinings of any society.
—Aracoun, Wikipedia extroadinaire, courtesy of The New Yorker
Spring Break Photos
Monday, March 5th, 2007A few updates:
1. New album: Dad and I do the Yucatan.
http://davidcflood.com/weblog/wp-content/plu…
2. More pictures added to College – Junior-Year Winter.
3. Rose Bowl album is final with the PIR photos.
4. New video coming this week, too. Many shenanigans.
Super good.