AMY was complaining that I almost never post a photo of myself anywhere in C-Space. Well, okay, first I showed myself at the Cummington Fair shaking hands with my hero, Smokey Bear.
And now, here's part of me posing as the National Poster Boy for my new Borg Implants. I'm buff and pumped! The insulin pump is clipped to my muy butch biker belt.
The other Borg Implant on the left is an on-line real-time blood glucose monitor which wi-fi's its results -- something like 10 samplings a minute -- via a radio link to the software Brane in the pump.
Historically, on-line real-time measurement of blood glucose was the most difficult medical technology breakthrough to achieve. Without it, everybody has to constantly use one of those B.B. King finger-prick test blood sugar meters.
And they hurt. Ouch. Ouch. My nurse recommends I pincushion myself and interrupt what I'm doing to take the finger-prick test from 6 to 8 times a day. Uh-huh. Sure. Starting right away. Anyway, for a person with a normal pancreas, or for a diabetic who, one way or the other, is doing a good job of balancing sugars and insulin, a Good Number is around 110, and that's in Milligrams Per Deciliter, a unit every bit as straightforward and clear to all as Furlongs Per Fortnight.
Actually these Buck Rogers Gets Diabetes in the 21st Century nifty gizmos won't evolve into an authentic Artificial Pancreas unless they also figure out how to tell the computer how much Food (specifically, carbohydrates, measured in grams) your piggish self is tossing down your Maw for a snack, or an ice cream spree at Friendly's. Until they can sense and automatically wi-fi what you're tossing down your throat to the pump, you have to manually compute (look up in a reference book, or read the carb grams from the TV dinner box) the carbs you're about to eat, and punch it into the pump. Muy Starwarz, and a major pain in the ass.
But the pump does quite an amazing and effective automated job during the rest of the day and night when you're not eating -- the slow drip of a small but constant amount of insulin called the Basal Rate. The whole trick -- the reason to get rid of your nasty old stigmatized junkie syringes and Do The Pump -- is to smooth out the daily insulin absorption curve. I just got my Numbers back (the Big One is a month-long blood glucose average called the Hemoglobin A1C Test) and they're authentically, genuinely, dramatically improved over my Spike Days. And with that improvement hitchhikes a whole raft of general improvements in my overall health. (Specifically, my kidneys are no longer careening toward Dialysis City.)
This year's Nobel Prize for Medicine and Physiology goes to the guy or gal who figured out how to talk the private health insurance providers into paying for the pump, so diabetics don't have to take a second mortgate or sell a kidney to a rich person to get a pump. In Civilized Nations -- just about every industrialized country except the USA -- health care is provided to all by the government, regardless of ability to pay. Not Free, but paid for by everybody's taxes. The dreaded Single Payer system, also known as Socialized Medicine, or Castro-Style Communism. Vote for Gus Hall!
AGENCE-VLEEPTRON PRESSE
NEWS FLASH!
HOLD PAGE ONE!
Like, where the %(*#&(#*& did this sudden Explosion in Diabetes and Obesity come from??? Suddenly Everybody and her Sister Sue has Diabetes and Everybody and his Cousin Patrice is looking for clothes in sizes XXX-Large! And that's why the blood glucose monitor manufacturers are being so generous to B.B. King in his Golden Years, because there's suddenly a Huge New Market for diabetic-related medical supplies and equipment.
Latest theory -- now they think both a lot of the Diabetes, and the Obesity Tsunami, are Viruses similar to the cold virus. Ya need a link on that? Okay I'll try to find a link on that. Try This. And This.
Ah. The Tattoo. Bob (a.k.a. the Hucklebery Finn of World Jewry) is exploring and discovering his Jewish Heritage with his new Tattoo.
PizzaQ No. 1 (2 slices with anchovies, if anchovies are Kosher):
What's wrong with this sentence?
Bob is exploring and discovering
his Jewish Heritage
with his new Tattoo.
A 3rd slice if you can cite Book, Chapter and Verse. So maybe some Divines can take a stab at this.
* * *
PizzaQ No. 2 (5 slices, capers, endives and shallots, all Parve):
What does the Tattoo say? What does that Mean? What up with that?
Mike the Irish Belgian managed to solve the Dr. Evil/Dr. Rasha דר.רשע Hebrew PizzaQ, and so did Steve Klein, IT manager for the ad agency where my old Army buddy who lives in the USA state shaped like the palm of the human right hand etc etc. (That was last Tisha b'Av, so Steve was fasting and didn't want any pizza.)
But can they, or Klaas in Rotterdam, or the folks at Kafe Internet Sofia, figure out what my Tatt is?
I will have more to say about the significance of my new Tattoo to the NGO Vleeptron / MoNGO Middle East Peace Plan as soon as we get a correct answer.
Ah, also Thank Everybody, particularly despicableteacher, for the Rosh Hashona cards and greetings! l'Shana Tovah -- a Good New Year to everyone!
And I think that means it's just about Ramadan, so Ramadan Kareem & Mbarak, and I will start filching an image, unless someone a little more learned in Islamic Art than I am wants to send me something a little more sophisticated and beautiful than my usual Hallmark Card images.
(This Planet's A Mess, but NGO Vleeptron aims to Fix It. Watch This Space for news about ShalomSalaamPaixPazPace.)
8 comments:
If PizzaQ!s like this one will continue I will soon be able to read hebrew
the first word is Gras(s) , the second one is Chashysh. Obvious, innit ? It was a bit divvicult because in hebrew the a is sometimes hidden and, like in russian the letter h does not exist. At least to my knowledge these two substances have never been a big part of jewish culture or heritage. As for a book reference I am still puzzled. Kinky Friedman maybne ? Oh wait, Religion !! I for one am an Atheist and had to google a bit and found this in the Talmud: Every blade of grass has its Angel that bends over it and whispers, "Grow, grow." I like that one I must say
The psychologist/philosopher Gregory Bateson (if you never heard of him, he described himself as "Margaret Mead's Second Huband") said that when he was a little boy, his father made the kids read the Bible over breakfast "because he didn't want to raise any ignorant atheists."
With these kind of PizzaQs, *SOON* you will be reading Hebrew.
But Not Yet, Not Now.
The first word is nicht Gras(s).
You're a little closer with the second word. But also not quite there yet.
The letter Hey is a thorough, complete, authentic H sound. But there is also Chet, the hard "ch," like Achtung.
You're right about Russian. They had to spend World War II fighting Gitler, and every 73.6 years, the Russians look up at Comet Galley. (Halley and Peter the Great got drunk one night at the Royal Observatory in Greenwich and pushed each other around in a wheelbarrow.)
This is a great moment to get closer to Judaism! Madonna and Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are in Israel for a big Kabbala Konference!!! The heck with atheism! Become a Mystic! Meet the Beautiful People!
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JERUSALEM (Associated Press) — Clapping and singing, Madonna joined in a Kabbalah conference Friday in Tel Aviv to celebrate the Jewish New Year.
Madonna was singing Jewish songs with the crowd of hundreds at the David Intercontinental Hotel where the conference on Jewish mysticism was being held. At one point she pressed another participant - apparently a friend of hers - up to the front where he danced excitedly, making the singer and the crowd giggle and clap enthusiastically.
The 49-year-old pop star wore a black jacket with elbow-length sleeves. The jacket was held at the waist by a belt with a large buckle. She also donned a baseball-type, red-and-black plaid hat with her hair in a ponytail.
Madonna, who is on a private visit to the Holy Land, arrived Wednesday night. She didn't speak to the media and the conference was closed to TV cameras.
Demi Moore and her husband, Ashton Kutcher, were also attending the conference in Tel Aviv, and were seen out on the city streets Thursday night.
Madonna was raised a Roman Catholic but has become a follower of Jewish mysticism in recent years.
She has taken the Hebrew name Esther and has been seen wearing a red thread on her wrist to ward off the evil eye.
Madonna made her first trip to Israel in 2004.
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Oh, while I got you on the line ...
In real authentic genuine everyday deutsches, does anybody ever use this word: Zugzwang ?
Or is it just only for chess players?
If other people use it, what does it mean in everyday speech?
Erg...somewhere in the Levitical Code it says that you're not supposed to mutilate your body. No piercings, no tattoos, no scarification or branding. Only the whole and pure will be risen from the dead at the end of time. So, that leaves out those who are mutilated in accidents or war...you need your whole body to be resurrected into. That's why the Holocaust was so theologically awful. Those who were incinerated by the Nazis have, according to the Levitical Code, no way to be revived at the end of time.
Ok...Try Leviticus 19, verse 28. This is also the chapter that gives Orthodox Jews permission not to shave their beards, and Hasidic Jews the reason to have long sideburns.
Oh, and perhaps some Nations should read through to verses 33 and 34 about opressing the aliens in their lands.
No, thank you I will remain an Atheist. BTW you are partially responsible for this fact. Rember those postings about the IMAX movie and the Dover city council ? that got me turned on to Evolotion and its History. the conclusion for me was that you can believe whatever you want, but you have no right what soever to force other people to think what you want them to think. i dont mind someone who is leading his life on religious principles as long as it helps them, I heven have some Christian friends and they are good lads. But when someone is trying to tell me that my nephews should not hear about Evolution in school or that I am not allowed to have apint on saturday eveneings then I for one am going BALLISTIC and prefer to be an Atheist. Not the richard Dawkins type, he has been overdoing it and turned Atheism into a Religion because he is constantly thinking about God instead of Science. But he is a good lad and I can understand why he is defending himself so fiercely.
Now back to the hebrew q: es isch nid aifach, aber machbar, das Alfebet macht dr Chopf schturm. Aber lösbar mit www.babylon.co.il
Oboy, your pizza account grows.
(KJV, my fave translation)
Leviticus 19:28
Ye shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor print any marks upon you: I am the LORD.
So yup, tattoos (and scarrification, etc.) are verboten. They're cause to be exluded from burial in a Jewish cemetery.
(But they figured out a way to find room for my great-grandfather and the huge American eagle on his chest -- he'd hitchiked aboard a sailing ship when he was 14, and the crew bought the plucky cabin boy the eagle in Liverpool as a gesture of comaraderie. It was a bit wrinkled and faded by the time I sat on his lap in the summer and wondered about it ...)
HOWEVER ...
Rabbi Huckleberry Finnstein wishes to point out that the Law doesn't stop with the Torah. Jewish law evolves through the interpretive body of theological rulings called the Talmud, and the Talmud continues to debate and grow to this very day.
(The Talmud first sprouted "by the rivers of Babylon" during the Exile -- in other words, Iraq, where Abraham, the son of an idol-maker, had been born and grown up.)
European, North American and eventually Israeli rabbis had a lot to consider and rule on after the Holocaust, and one of their challenges were the tattoos (from a numbering scheme designed by IBM, data processing consultants for the Third Reich).
I'm specifically familiar with a Talmudic ruling in which a prospective bride asks what she should do with her camp tattoo -- hide it, try to remove it (in the pre-laser days, acid, leaving an obvious scar, was the standard method), or just consider herself unworthy of a Jewish marriage.
The rabbinical ruling was quite clear -- a Holocaust survivor's tattoo was not a religiously prohibited mark, but was a badge of honor, and in no way compromised her marriageability, or any Jew's standing with the LORD.
patfromch schriebe:
es isch nid aifach, aber machbar, das Alfebet macht dr Chopf schturm. Aber lösbar mit www.babylon.co.il
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WEG! You crashed my Translator Robot, and caused me to Overdose on Bayer Aspirin!
Okay, a HINT: Concentrate on that 2nd Werde, which you are pretty close to. It's a famous word in many lingos. I'm guessing it first became a word in Arabic, but it became very portable after that. Lots of people seem to like this word and want it in their vocabularies. Lots of Schweizervolk
know this word.
The 1st word is much less portable, but every adult Israeli will know it. It may have meaning in ancient Hebrew, but it's much more a word for the modern resurrection of Hebrew as a spoken lingo in Israel.
Oh yeah, the IMAX postings. I guarantee you, the Fundies -- USA and Swiss -- are not finished with their War Against Natural Selection. We will hear much more from Kansas and Dover about Natural Selection.
It's long been noticed that atheism has a built-in tendency to wrap itself in all the traditional trappings of the Old-Time Religion. This was particularly written about during the Cold War about official Soviet atheism -- The Church Of Holy Atheism.
I found a street vendor in New York City once, a recent Russian immigrant, selling Russian souvenirs. One thing he was selling was a little button with a beautiful cherub's face on it, the cherub was glowing just like the Baby Jesus. I asked him who it was.
"Baby Lenin!"
So now I own a heilige Baby Lenin icon! Atheists need someone to worship too! Keep your eye out for Baby Darwin! I'll pay a good price!
WTF? A Baby Lenin ???? Can you e me a pic of that one just out of curiousity ???
Atheists do not believe in an authorative figure, I for one do not believe that the Earth was created in seven days. That is a methapore aka lie.
I nicked a documentary from the net where Creationists claimed that the explosion of Mt St Helens proved evidence that vast amounts of new land or soil could appear very quickly. What a laugh I had.
eh ich hab gedacht Bob ferschtait yiddisch aber ich such weiter. I wott Pizza
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