Multiple theories about what determines sex were tested at the turn of the twentieth century. By experimenting on germ cells, cytologist Nettie Maria Stevens collected evidence to support the connection between heredity and the sex of offspring. Stevens was able to interpret her data to conclude that chromosomes have a role in sex determination during development. For her time, she was an emerging breed: a woman of science making the leap from the world of data collection to that of male-dominated interpretive work.
Stevens was born in Cavendish, Vermont, on 7 July 1861 to Julia Adams and Ephraim Stevens. In 1870 her father, by then widowed and remarried, moved to Westford, Vermont, with his new wife and four children to take up a job with the Townhouse Building Committee. In Westford, Nettie performed well in public school, achieving perfect attendance and making the honor roll. She then moved on to college preparatory studies at the Westford Academy, also in Westford. The school was eclectic, teaching everything from Greek language to music, and accepting of both genders and various nationalities. Both Nettie and her sister Emma received near-perfect grades, and they became two out of only three women to graduate from Westford in an eleven-year period.
Stevens moved to Lebanon, New Hampshire, to teach high school zoology, physiology, math, English, and Latin. After three terms, she returned to Vermont to continue her academic career. At Westfield Normal School, in Massachusetts, Stevens studied under science professors including Joseph Scott, Frederick Staebner, and Walter Barrows. She received the highest academic in her class of thirty and finished four years of coursework in just two. After graduation she taught school for many years before enrolling at Stanford University in 1896.
At Stanford, Stevens worked with professor Oliver Pebbles Jenkins and majored in physiology. She became increasingly focused onhistology after working with Jenkins’s former student, and assistant professor, Frank Mace Macfarland. Macfarland was also an instructor at Hopkins Seaside Laboratory, where Stevens spent four summers performing histological and cytological research. She would later continue her research at the Marine Biological Laboratory at Woods Hole, Massachusetts, in the summer of 1901. During the fall and winter of that year, Stevens visited the Naples Zoological Station and the Zoological Institute of the University of Wurzberg, Germany. At Wurzberg, Stevens studied under Theodore Boveri, who was studying the role of chromosomes in heredity. This no doubt contributed to Stevens’s interest in chromosome research.
Stevens completed both her BA (1899) and MA (1900) at Stanford. In 1903, she graduated with her PhD from Bryn Mawr College in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was at Bryn Mawr that Stevens first met biology professors Thomas Hunt Morgan and Edmund Beecher Wilson. Morgan and Wilson both sent letters of recommendation to the Carnegie Institution of Washington on behalf of Stevens, since she was seeking funding for research on heredity related to Mendel’s laws. Stevens specifically wanted to investigate sex determination and after receiving a grant from the Carnegie Institution, she used germ cells of aphids to examine possible variation in chromosome structure between the two sexes.
Helping High Schoolers Connect Degrees to Dollars: Engineering or Plumbing and Water Supplying?
By Sophie Quinton, Stateline, Pew Charitable Trusts
© SWWC Service CooperativeLuke Greiner hosts a quiz activity at the Southwest Minnesota Career Expo. Minnesota hopes such outreach will help students make good college choices.
When Luke Greiner quizzes high school students about Minnesota’s labor market, there’s one question that always stumps them: What college major — and type of degree — leads to the highest salary two years after graduation?
“Students pick chemical engineering, anything with computers,” said Greiner, who works for the Minnesota Department of Employment and Economic Development (DEED).
The correct answer? A specialized plumbing and water supply program.
Many states, driven partly by people’s anxiety over whether a college degree is worth the cost, now track the early career wages of residents who went to college in the state. Minnesota is one of the few states that goes beyond posting the data online and deploys staff like Greiner to share it with students, counselors, college administrators and industry groups.
Today more than half of states have matched higher education and employment information, according to the Workforce Data Quality Campaign at the nonprofit National Skills Coalition. Arkansas, Kentucky, Minnesota and Maine are among the states that legally require the publication of post-college employment and earnings data. The federal government released its College Scorecard, a consumer information website, in 2013.
Outreach like Minnesota’s is becoming more common, says Rachel Zinn, director of the campaign. After all, part of the reason why states have linked education and earnings data is to help people choose what to study and where.
Last month, for instance, Colorado and Tennessee unveiled user-friendly websites developed by the American Institutes for Research, the US Chamber of Commerce Foundation and Gallup. The Chamber of Commerce Foundation has enlisted local chamber branches to share the tool with businesses, schools and colleges. Minnesota’s Department of Education is working on a similar website and partnership.
Greiner, 29, says he wants to prevent young people from making the same mistake he did. He cycled through colleges and majors for years before earning a bachelor’s degree in management in 2012. He says he could afford to meander because he went to college using tuition assistance for active-duty personnel and the GI Bill. But many of his friends are now struggling under significant student debt.
Greiner says he knew almost nothing about higher education when he was growing up in rural Minnesota. He knew he wanted to enlist in the military. After that? “I was sort of hoping to farm,” he said.
He says the students he meets today aren’t quite as clueless as he was. Take the careers class he recently visited at Worthington High School, near Minnesota’s Iowa border. The teacher, Lorna Kruger, isn’t sure whether she found the state’s online career data first or whether her students did during their research for the class.
Greiner showed the class how to navigate the state’s interactive Graduate Employment Outcomes website, known as the GEO tool. The website launched in 2014.
The data system, like most such state systems, was financed by a federal grant and connects data colleges provide with state unemployment insurance records. The data is made anonymous and aggregated so it can’t reveal an individual student’s path.
Users can search the GEO tool for the earnings and industries associated with any program or institution. For example, budding journalism majors hoping to earn a bachelor’s degree at a college outside the Twin Cities can learn that earlier cohorts with journalism and communications degrees earned a median salary of $39,000 three years after graduation. Most of them ended up working in retail jobs.
States’ detailed data systems have revealed that more education doesn’t always mean higher earnings.
More technical programs generally have a greater payoff in the labor market. If our journalism major instead chose an associate’s degree program and learned to repair industrial equipment, she could be earning $58,000 three years out of school.
Greiner tries to impress upon students that they should pick a career first and shape their education around that goal. “I really try to show [students] that — when you’re trying to find your path, if you pick the right program it really doesn’t matter how long you go to school for,” he said.
State data systems that track post-graduate employment rates have their limits. Only a handful of states include student debt information, for instance.
State unemployment insurance data doesn’t capture freelancers, independent contractors, federal employees or people who’ve moved out of state. This gap can be a sticking point for selective universities that recruit students from far and wide and don’t expect them to stay local.
The University of Minnesota hasn’t fully explored the GEO tool and so has nothing to say about it, according to a representative. But a spokesman for the University of Colorado told the Denver Post that Colorado’s new website was “just not complete.”
Alessia Leibert, a project manager for DEED, says most Minnesota graduates remain in the state. “Other states have much more porous boundaries,” she said. Some states, including Minnesota, have joined a foundation-funded effort to share data in order to capture employment and earnings data for more graduates around the country.
Tools like the GEO tool also raise philosophical questions. Zinn said that her group doesn’t want people to only focus on wages. “It’s a really important data point, but it’s not the only reason to go to college,” she said. She noted that some occupations society needs, like social work and teaching, don’t pay well.
Students should at least know their career options, said Jaimie Francis of the Chamber of Commerce Foundation. Before the launch of the Colorado website, she attended a focus group with some high school students. One teenage girl expressed interest in the arts and musical theater.
Using the website was an “eye-opening experience” for the student, Francis said. Some Colorado theater majors with a four-year degree end up earning less than peers with a high school diploma, according to state data. The student, who will be the first in her family to go to college, later said that she still wants to follow her passion. But she might double major and add more job-friendly coursework to her resume.
Kruger says that in her careers class, she tries not to push students in any particular direction. “It’s really important for me to only teach and not share opinions,” she said. Some students aren’t yet mature enough to make a reasoned choice. But often, when students give their final presentations, Kruger said she’s impressed by how many have researched careers that would suit them perfectly.
Hillary: It’s Not About Trust, It’s About Power
By Jo Freeman
(Poster originally designed by Tony Puryear in 2008 — and currently featured in the Smithsonian Portrait Gallery)
For months now I’ve been listening to the pundits and the polls that say people don’t trust Hillary Clinton. It’s a very popular topic and has been for years.
These feelings aren’t about trust. They are about power. They are a mask for people’s basic discomfort with a woman having a lot of power — even one everyone admits is exceptionally well qualified to hold the highest office in the land.
Among the many articles on “trust” is one published by the Huffington Post entitled Hey Hillary, Here’s Why People Don’t Trust You in which a New York writer explained that “She is all too willing to manipulate, distort, and deceive to try to score political points for herself.”
However you state it, that’s what all politicians do; if they didn’t they wouldn’t get elected. The author essentially accused Hillary of being a normal politician, and found that to be really, really bad. He’s not alone.
Polls that ask voters to compare the Presidential candidates with “most politicians” find that almost half think Hillary is less honest than most politicians.
It’s a classic double standard. We know that women have to be twice as good to earn half as much. Hillary’s generation (and mine) was raised on the admonition that women should be docile and modest. That meant that women couldn’t be leaders, except of other women. We heard that everyone wants to hire an aggressive young man; an aggressive young woman is a bitch. As women climbed up the professional ladder and entered professions previously closed to them, we learned that men are assumed to be competent until they prove themselves incompetent and women are assumed to be incompetent until they prove themselves competent. Assumptions and perceptions about women have changed over the decades, but the double standard still applies to any job identified as male.
In this election, the double standard is about power.
The Presidency of the United States is the most powerful position in the country, even in the world. The thought of a woman in that hot seat still makes people uncomfortable, even those who say they’d like to see a woman President. What makes a woman womanly is inconsistent with what makes a man Presidential.
By way of analogy let me tell you about another election that revealed a double standard about power. In May of 1966, I was working for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) in Macon County Alabama, trying to elect black candidates to public office. The Alabama primary was the first major election in a Southern state since the Voting Rights Act was passed and it was seen as a test of its effectiveness. With an 83% black population, Macon County was the blackest county in the country, not just in Alabama. But the white elite had effectively kept blacks from voting until the VRA was passed the year before, so most of the black voters were new voters.
In States, Some Resistance to New Opioid Limits But Adopting Addiction Services and Limiting Prescription Pills
By Christine Vestal, Stateline, Pew Charitable Trust*
Lawmakers in dozens of states took decisive action this year to stanch the flow of prescription pain drugs and help those addicted to them. Roughly 2.5 million Americans are addicted to opioids, and more than 28,000 people died of overdoses of painkillers or heroin in 2014, the highest toll ever.
To keep even more people from becoming addicted to medicines such as Percocet, OxyContin and Vicodin, lawmakers in five states set limits on the number of pills a physician can prescribe to a patient for the first time. Twenty-nine states beefed up monitoring of filled prescriptions to prevent addicts from “doctor shopping” for more pills.
Sixteen states expanded the use of naloxone, an overdose antidote drug few lawmakers had heard of just a year ago. And at least nine states adopted requirements that Medicaid and other insurers pay for all medically recommended addiction services, just as they would for other diseases, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL).
Among lawmakers, governors and the medical community, there is broad support for measures aimed at rescuing people from fatal overdoses, providing more addiction treatment options and keeping highly addictive opioid pain medicines out of the hands of those who might abuse them. More doctors and patients are beginning to eschew opioids for alternatives such as anti-inflammatory medications, exercise, physical therapy, acupuncture and psychotherapy.
But the new laws are not without controversy. In several Northeast states, doctors are balking at new limits on the number of pills hospital emergency departments, physicians, dentists or nurses can prescribe for acute pain. Prominent medical groups, including the American Medical Association, argue that doctors and patients, rather than lawmakers, should be able to balance the need for pain relief against the risk of addiction in individual cases.
*The Pew Charitable Trusts is driven by the power of knowledge to solve today’s most challenging problems. Pew applies a rigorous, analytical approach to improve public policy, inform the public and invigorate civic life.
Communication Gap: I’m Not Ready To Get Off the Stage
Stairs leading to Currituck Beach Light, Corolla, North Carolina, Wikipedia
I have a serious problem. I’ve searched every possible tech support site on the web, but none have been able to help. My dilemma? I have suffered a complete breakdown of communication between my body and my brain.
For some reason — seemingly overnight — my knees have become creaky, my bladder leaky, my skin flaky and my balance shaky. My arms have developed wings, my shoulders are permanently slumped, and my former teeny tummy is gone. Well not quite. It’s still there, but it’s now covered by what can only be called a belly. My boobs, like birds in the winter, have gone south. As for my face and neck … I don’t want to go there.
Amazingly, I usually am not aware of any of this — until I catch an unexpected glimpse of myself in a mirror or reflected in a store window. “Look at that poor old lady,” I think at first. “Why doesn’t she straighten up … and doesn’t she realize how ugly those orthopedic shoes are?” Then it hits me — Oh my God, that’s me! It’s such a surprise, because even though all my physical changes are accompanied by aches and pains I never used to have, in my head I’m still seventeen; and I look like Angelina Jolie — only younger. Furthermore, in the fantasy world of my mind, I can still climb endless flights of stairs without losing my breath; I can walk — even jog — for miles; I can get down on the floor and, even more important, get up again. I can get in and out of a car without having passers-by rushing over to help. When I go to an airport, attendants don’t run to greet me at the door proffering wheel chairs. Old geezers with walkers don’t offer me their seats on crowded busses. And I can actually get out of a low chair without pushing with my hands. I can’t, however, swim. But, then, I never could.
I’m also sometimes delusional enough to believe I’m still tall (where did those three inches I lost go?). And I believe I can still eat whatever I want (pizza … lasagna … chili …) even at midnight — without chomping on Tums and without keeping a plastic bag under my pillow, just in case of a 3:00 AM visit from the nausea gremlin. This isn’t as bad as it sounds because I’m usually still awake at 3:00 AM anyway. Why? When did I become an insomniac?
When I was young (wasn’t that just last week?), I always believed that old people knew they were old — and they didn’t really mind. They were ready for it to end. After all, they had lived a long life. No way could all those decades have flown by so fast. I can’t speak for all the elderly, of course, but as for me, I don’t realize that I’m old. When logic tells me that I am, I do mind; and I am not ready to get off the stage!
As you can see, I have a serious disconnect between mind and body — thank goodness! No way do I want to face reality! Instead, I’m going shopping. I need a couple of sleeveless mini dresses, some skinny jeans with frayed knees, a pair of stilettos, and a new bikini, which I’m going to need when I start my surfing lessons next week.
©2016 Rose Madeline Mula for SeniorWomen.com
Who and What Is Funding Zika Prevention and Response Legislation?
Zika virus disease in the United States, 2015–2016, CDC statistics
As of June 22, 2016 (5 am EST)
- Zika virus disease and Zika virus congenital infection are nationally notifiable conditions.
- This update from the CDC Arboviral Disease Branch includes provisional data reported to ArboNET for January 01, 2015 – June 22, 2016.
US States
- Locally acquired mosquito-borne cases reported: 0
- Travel-associated cases reported: 819
- Laboratory acquired cases reported: 1
- Total: 820
- Sexually transmitted: 11
- Guillain-Barré syndrome: 4
US Territories
- Locally acquired cases reported: 1,854
- Travel-associated cases reported: 6
- Total: 1,860
- Guillain-Barré syndrome: 7
Conference Report Summary: Funding for Zika Prevention and Response
The bill provides a total of $1.1 billion to federal agencies to fight the Zika virus and prevent it from spreading. This funding will be available immediately upon enactment, for both fiscal years 2016 and 2017. The legislation contains $750 million in offsets to save taxpayer dollars. Unlike the Administration’s request that allowed overly broad authority for federal agencies to use Zika dollars in virtually any area of government without accountability, this legislation places tight controls and oversight on spending to ensure that every dollar is being used appropriately.
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) — The bill contains a total of $476 million for the CDC. These funds are primarily targeted to mosquito control efforts, Zika response and readiness in states and territories with heavy mosquito populations, enhanced laboratory activities, continued disease surveillance, international response, and public education on how to protect against and prevent the spread of the disease. These funds can also be used for emergency preparedness grants to state, local, and territorial health departments that may have experienced reductions due to the redirection of their existing dollars to fight Zika.
National Institutes of Health (NIH) — The legislation provides $230 million for the NIH. These funds will support vaccine research and the rapid advanced development and commercialization of new vaccines and diagnostic tests for Zika virus. This includes resources for the NIH to develop both a vaccine for Zika virus and the Chikungunya virus, which are both spread by the “Aedes” species of mosquito.
Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) — The bill includes $85 million for BARDA for fiscal year 2016. These funds will provide for research and development activities related to Zika, including the deployment of new rapid diagnostic tests. In addition, this funding will support emerging public health needs within states and local communities, should mosquito populations and the disease spread to additional areas. Targeted funding to help areas with local transmission of Zika — The bill includes $40 million for community health centers, $6 million for the National Health Service Corps, and $95 million via the Social Services Block Grant to be used in US territories and other areas that are experiencing the highest rates of Zika transmission. Funds will support health care, including pediatric subspecialty care, for mothers, children and others experiencing complications from Zika.
State Department/ United States Agency for International Development (USAID) — The bill provides $175 million for programs through the State Department and USAID to fight Zika in fiscal year 2016. This includes $145.5 million for Global Health programs. As insects know no borders, this funding will target international mosquito control efforts (“vector control”) to stop the virus at its source. In addition, these resources will support diagnostic tests to detect the virus and vaccines to prevent further spread of the disease. Also included is funding for Zika-related activities of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), and the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) to fight the disease before it spreads further into the US In addition, $29.5 million is included for Operations of the State Department and USAID.
These resources will cover operating costs and staff to manage and oversee Zika-related programs, coordination with foreign governments to provide public information on how to protect against and prevent the spread of the disease, the medical evacuations of US Government employees if necessary, and resources for at risk US citizens in Zika-affected countries.
Mosquito Control — Language is included in the legislation to allow individuals or entities to use certain pesticides for “vector control” of mosquitos that spread the Zika virus. Upon enactment, the EPA and states shall not require a separate Clean Water Act permit for pesticide application for a period of 180 days. The bill requires that the pesticide be approved and applied in compliance with all requirements under the “Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act”, it must control mosquitos, and it must be for the prevention or control of the Zika virus.
Offsets — The legislation contains $750 million in offsets, approximately the House-passed level. These offsets include $107 million from leftover, unobligated funding from the 2014 Ebola outbreak, $100 million in unused administrative funding within HHS, and $543 million in unspent ObamaCare funding that was intended for territories to set up health care exchanges.
Oversight – The bill includes strong oversight measures to ensure these funds are used to fight the Zika virus and vector-borne diseases, and not for other purposes. The Government Accountability Office [Editor’s Note: GAO, our favorite govt. agency] and the Inspectors General of HHS and USAID receive $2 million total to maintain strict oversight and to report on the use of the funding provided. In addition, the legislation requires that federal agencies submit spending plans, and that they provide Congress with spending notifications. The White House request contained none of these oversight conditions.
Washington, June 23, 2016 –
The House approved the Military Construction and Veterans Affairs and Zika Response Appropriations Act final Conference Report (House Report 114-640). The legislation now needs to be approved by the Senate, before heading to the President’s desk for final approval.
In total, the legislation provides $82.5 billion in discretionary funding — $2.6 billion above the fiscal year 2016 level — for the fiscal year 2017 Military and Veterans Affairs Appropriations section of the bill. This includes funding to house, train, and equip military personnel, provide housing and services to military families, and help maintain base infrastructure. The bill also funds veterans’ benefits and programs.
In addition, the Conference Report includes $1.1 billion for domestic and international efforts to fight the Zika virus and prevent it from spreading. Approximately $750 million of these funds are offset to save taxpayer dollars. Unlike the Administration’s request that allowed overly broad authority for federal agencies to use Zika dollars with little accountability, this legislation places tight controls and oversight on spending to ensure that every dollar is being used appropriately.
House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers, the Chair of the Conference Committee, gave the following statement regarding the agreement today:
“I am proud this legislation was approved by the House today. It is the result of hard-fought but productive negotiations, and it is a balanced bill that my colleagues on both sides of the aisle can and should support.
“This conference report is an effective, responsible approach to addressing the Zika crisis. It will get money out the door immediately to help stop the spread of the virus and respond to the ever-growing number of cases within our borders and around the globe. It is does so responsibly, offsetting $750 million of these funds and placing strong oversight controls on the use of every dollar.
“Just as importantly, the Conference Report contains funding for military construction and veterans benefits programs at $82.5 billion – an increase of $2.6 billion above current levels. This underscores our commitment to providing the defense infrastructure our troops and their families need, and to fulfilling our promises to our veterans once they have completed their service.
“This legislation epitomizes the priorities that this entire Congress can and should get behind. I urge the Senate to approve it quickly, so it can be signed into law as soon as possible.”
For a summary of the Military Construction/Veterans Affairs portion of the Conference Report, please visit:
For a summary of the Zika Prevention and Response portion of the Conference Report, please visit:
http://appropriations.house.gov/UploadedFiles/06.22.16_Zika_Conference_Report_-_Summary.pdf
For the text of the legislation, please visit:
http://docs.house.gov/billsthisweek/20160620/CRPT-114HRPT-HR2577.pdf
Aging in Place, Co-Housing, Villages, Alternative Housing for Seniors: Grocery Stores, Grab Bars and ‘Golden Girls’
By Jenni Bergal, Stateline, Pew Charitable Trust
© The Pew Charitable Trusts Golden Girls Carol Gee, Landa Williams, Paula Gee and dog Ace share a suburban home in Overland Park, Kansas.Carol Gee loves her sprawling four-bedroom white ranch house in this Kansas City suburb, she sees herself living in it forever.
Just like the Golden Girls, she shares the house with other older, single women. Carol Gee, her sister, Paula, also unmarried and retired, and their close friend Landa Williams, a widow, all are in their mid-60s.
They moved in together for companionship and support. They chose the house because it has lots of room and is a single story, so there are no stairs to climb. Carol Gee purchased it and hired a contractor to add grab bars to the bathrooms and widen hallways and doorways, just in case one of them ends up in a wheelchair.
Someday, they understand, they may not be able to drive. So they made sure to pick a house within walking distance of shops and restaurants.
“We wanted to live near a neighborhood where we could walk to a grocery store and a pharmacy,” Carol Gee said. “Any suburb that wants to keep boomers living there, the more little‘mini-communities they can create, the better.”
Unlike many of her baby boomer peers, Gee is planning ahead. But some of the suburban communities where tens of millions of boomers live — and want to remain — are struggling to do the same.
There is much to do. Most of the 75.4 million boomers live in the suburbs. As they get older and can no longer drive, they will need better public transportation. One study estimated that spending on public transit would have to increase 81 percent, to $8.6 billion, by 2030 to meet the needs of seniors who want to stay in their homes.
Suburban seniors with less money will need more affordable housing within walking distance of grocery stores and doctors. Local governments may have to help boomers maintain or repair their homes, or else contend with declining property values and tax revenue.
Challenge: How Do Open Minds Find the Means to Overpower the Closed Ones?
Contradictions, contrasts, oxymorons have always been enticing. In our present days of incredible (to me) leaps in understanding of the place of human beings in whatever we choose to call our space and time, every one of us is presented with the most incredible juxtapositions.
An example of simulated data modeled for the CMS particle detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. Wikipedia
When the first brilliant leaps of credibility struck the known universe, from ancient civilizations that modern Man has unearthed and learned to interpret, to the 21st Century comprehension of such things as the ‘God particle’ and the elasticity of gravity, nuclear physics, genetics, brain imaging — the minute human place in what’s out there becomes ever smaller. Every new discovery seems to depend on a single flash of mental suggestion that led to labor for decades or even centuries that comes to another revelation that increases the boundaries of what we need to try to grasp. Some larger, some smaller, all beyond ordinary intelligence to grasp firmly.
The ordinary person will usually admit freely how impossible is to understand the immensity of space as it expands endlessly, the estimated count of galaxies and universes of which we have only electronic signals, from time (measured in light years) we can’t comprehend.
It’s no easier to take in the miniscule realm of quantum physics and particles that to this day are unseen, yet that scientists have managed to prove really are present.
Where do our minds and our mortal bodies place us in such knowledge? Despite the fact that we would likely be unnoticed if some intelligence beyond our solar system can detect our world, are we in some way lords of all we have found out how to survey?
Given the capacity of our species to imagine and eventually comprehend the unimaginable, are we infinitely tiny, or symbolically bigger than where we happen to be?
Well enough to be awed by the brains that have led us so far: the questions the ordinary people of the world are called on to grasp are those who have no more knowledge of these ideas than they have of nuclear physics or color theory or the structure of fugues.
There are millions whose understandings have been poured into religious or political molds from their first consciousness and who will in their own lifetimes, perhaps in generations beyond them, never learn the two most important things needed to preserve us all: how to imagine and how to inquire.
Every time it is necessary for a decision to be made by a majority, if the individuals have no opportunity to make informed decisions, the entire human world with all its incredible advances is at risk.
Another contradiction appears: how do open minds find the means to overpower the closed ones?
Democratic House Sit-In: No Bill, No Break
Rep. John Lewis (D-GA) leads his colleagues in taking action on gun violence on the House Floor, June 22, 2016 … to dramatize the need for action.
“We were elected to lead, Mr. Speaker. We must be headlights, and not taillights. We cannot continue to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the reality of mass gun violence in our nation. Deadly mass shootings are becoming more and more frequent. Mr. Speaker, this is a fact. It is not an opinion. We must remove the blinders. The time for silence and patience is long gone.
“We are calling on the leadership of the House to bring common-sense gun control legislation to the House Floor. Give us a vote. Let us vote. We came here to do our jobs. We came here to work. The American people are demanding action.”
Watch coverage on C-Span:
http://www.c-span.org/video/?411624-1/watch-democrats-continue-house-sitin-gun-violence&live
Facebook:
$30.2 Billion: Diverse Medical and Health Care Systems, Herbal Supplements, Meditation, Chiropractic, and Yoga
“Tomare” has been used with a new meaning in recent years to encourage people around the world to “stop”, slow down, and take time to find one’s self and one’s center. Wikimedia Commons
Americans spent $30.2 billion — $28.3 billion for adults and $1.9 billion for children — out-of-pocket on complementary health approaches, according to a nationwide survey. These approaches include a group of diverse medical and health care systems, practices, and products such as herbal supplements, meditation, chiropractic, and yoga. This amount represents 9.2 percent of all out-of-pocket spending by Americans on health care and 1.1 percent of total health care spending.
These findings come from an analysis by the National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health (NCCIH) and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on data from a special supplement — on use of complementary health approaches — to the 2012 National Health Interview Survey (NHIS). The NHIS is a large survey conducted annually by CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics. NCCIH is part of the National Institutes of Health.
“With so many Americans using and spending money on complementary health approaches, it is extremely important for us to provide the public with evidence-based information to help inform decisions,” said Josephine P. Briggs, M.D., director of NCCIH. “This underscores the importance of conducting rigorous research to know whether the products and practices being used are safe and effective.”
How much did Americans spend on different types of complementary approaches? The survey showed:
- Americans spent $14.7 billion out-of-pocket on visits to complementary practitioners such as chiropractors, acupuncturists or massage therapists. That is almost 30 percent of what they spent out-of-pocket on services by conventional physicians. They spent more on visits to complementary practitioners than on natural product supplements or self-care purchases, and the mean annual out-of-pocket expenditure for practitioner visits was $433.
- Americans spent $12.8 billion out-of-pocket on natural product supplements, which was about one-quarter of what they spent out-of-pocket on prescription drugs. The mean annual out-of-pocket expenditure in this category was about $368.
- Total spending on purchases related to self-care approaches (for example self-help materials, such as books or CDs, related to complementary health topics) was $2.7 billion, and the mean annual out-of-pocket expenditure per user was $257.
As family income went up, out-of-pocket spending on complementary approaches went up significantly. The average per user out-of-pocket expenditure for complementary health approaches was $435 for people with family incomes of less than $25,000, and $590 for those with family incomes of $100,000 or more. Out-of-pocket expenditures for visits to complementary practitioners averaged $314 for people with family incomes of less than $25,000 and $518 for those with family incomes of $100,000 or more.