Sunday Sermonette: Is there an echo in here?
The concept of the cities of refuge is evidently one of Yahweh ' s most important ideas, because he repeats the instructions for them five times: Exodus 21, Numbers 35, Deuteronomy 4 and 19, and again here. Why this bears so much repetition I can ' t say, but this does give us some insight into the nature of the society organized around tribe and clan. The Torah at several points specifies lex talionis, summarized as " eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, " with the possibility in some cases of substituting monetary compensation. But it is not clear who decides these matters, and whether there are formally autho...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 23, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Sorry, we just have to get through this
I got nothin ' else to say about this incredibly boring bullshit. But I ' m committed to reading the whole damn book so that ' s what ' s gonna happen.19 The second lot came out for the tribe of Simeon according to its clans. Their inheritance lay within the territory of Judah.2 It included:Beersheba (or Sheba),[a] Moladah,3 Hazar Shual, Balah, Ezem,4 Eltolad, Bethul, Hormah,5 Ziklag, Beth Markaboth, Hazar Susah,6 Beth Lebaoth and Sharuhen —thirteen towns and their villages;7 Ain, Rimmon, Ether and Ashan —four towns and their villages—8 and all the villages around these t...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 19, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
What happens to pain over 21 years?
No! I was not born then… I’m much older than that. No, in this longitudinal cohort study, participants recruited from the general public in Sweden were surveyed five times: at inception in 1995, again in 1998, 2003, 2007 and 2016. The article I’m reporting on included all respondents who had completed information on at least 3 of the 5 time points, a total of 1858 people! That’s a decent-sized study.
Longitudinal studies are really hard to do but offer us so much information about what happens over time to a group of people and it’s something we need to do more often. The problems with long...
Source: HealthSkills Weblog - May 16, 2021 Category: Anesthesiology Authors: BronnieLennoxThompson Tags: Chronic pain Pain conditions Research longitudinal prospective study trajectory Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: This will be over soon, I promise
I ' m afraid we ' re still in excruciating boredom territory as the interminable process of dividing up the land continues. I still can ' t say what the point of all this is or why it ' s in the book. God works in mysterious ways I guess. My only comment is that it just seems impossible to get rid of the " giants. " They are mentioned several times in Deuteronomy, and again in Joshua, and they are supposedly wiped out several times. But here they are again -- and they are still around in Judges. Hard to know what ' s going on with them.18 The whole assembly of the Israelites gathered at Shiloh and set up the tent of m...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 16, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
I see a lot of Hippocratic hypocrisy when I look around medicine
An excerpt from The Physician Assistant Blueprint. Unsolicited opinion warning: I see a lot of Hippocratic hypocrisy when I look around medicine. During our training and careers, we are laser-focused on the clinical skills needed for a career of “doing no harm” to those we care for, yet we never had to pledge to giveRead more …Find jobs at Careers by KevinMD.com. Search thousands of physician, PA, NP, and CRNA jobs now. Learn more. (Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog)
Source: Kevin, M.D. - Medical Weblog - May 13, 2021 Category: General Medicine Authors: < span itemprop="author" > < a href="https://www.kevinmd.com/blog/post-author/shayne-foley-and-jordan-fisher" rel="tag" > Shayne Foley, PA-C and Jordan Fisher, PA-C < /a > < /span > Tags: Finance Practice Management Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Hitting the snooze button
Joshua 17 continues with the division of the land. I ' m afraid I just can ' t work up the energy to comment in detail on this, it all seems essentially pointless and boring. I ' ll just make some general observations. Remember that this is completely fictitious. None of this tale is based in historic reality, although one would suppose it does reflect something about the distribution of territory in the time of King Josiah. There may be politics involved, regarding how disputed or unclear boundaries, and aspirations that some clans may have had to acquire land, including from non-Israelites. There is no way to check on an...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 12, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: At least this chapter is mercifully short
More of the divinely inspired word. Note that as in most cases, God has failed to keep one of his promises. Hereby ye shall know that the living God is among you, and that he will without fail drive out from before you the Canaanites, and the Hittites, and the Hivites, and the Perizzites, ... and the Amorites, and the Jebusites.Joshua 3:10For thou shalt drive out the Canaanites, though they have iron chariots, and though they be strong.Joshua 17:17-18I ' ll have a real post later today.16 The allotment for Joseph began at the Jordan, east of the springs of Jericho, and went up from there...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 9, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible study: My eyeballs roll up into my head
I warned you that we are in a very tedious stretch of the Book of Joshua. Why the authors decided to supply all of this surveyor ' s data I cannot say. I will just note verses 16 and 17: "16 And Caleb said, “I will give my daughter Aksah in marriage to the man who attacks and captures Kiriath Sepher.”17 Othniel son of Kenaz, Caleb ’s brother, took it; so Caleb gave his daughter Aksah to him in marriage. " So yes, according to Exodus, you ' re allowed to sell your daughter. She doesn ' t seem to mind much -- she comes back and asks Caleb for a spring, which he gives her. In verse 33,Eshtaol and Zorah ar...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 5, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: My eyes glaze over
Joshua 14 continues with the division of the land among the tribes, with specific bequests to a couple of individual characters. Again, I ' m really not sure why the writers in the 7th Century BCE thought it useful to tell this tale. It must have something to do with regional and national politics at the time but I haven ' t found any efforts to reconstruct it. And I don ' t really have anything to say about it, except that it is clearly completely irrelevant to any contemporary religious interest, or any interest for at least the past 2,000 years at the very least; and has no historical reality either. Yet here it is, tak...
Source: Stayin' Alive - May 2, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: Get ready for some tedium
The next few chapters of Joshua are far more boring than watching grass grow. It ' s an endless recitation of the tracts given to the various tribes. Scholars can ' t associate most of the place names with known locations, so we don ' t even know who gets what. There really isn ' t much to say about this, except that the repeated assertion that the Levites get " no inheritance, " the idea being that they will live off of the temple offerings, is contradicted later on when they get cities, suburbs and farm land. Whatev. There is also the promise at the beginning of future genocide and theft of land, but we ' ll get to that ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 28, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Sunday Sermonette: Notching the belt
Joshua 12 is just a list of all the genocide victims up till now. There really isn ' t much to say about it except that it seems pointless. So I ' ' ll take this opportunity to say that the Book of Joshua is notable because the the title character is a complete cipher. God tells him to lead the Israelites in multiple acts of genocide, and he does so. Then God tells him to divide up the stolen land among the tribes, and he does so. Then he dies. We never learn if he marries or has any children, he never says anything interesting, we have no description of him. He ' s just a placeholder. Many people name sons after him, but ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 25, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Thomas Friedman Channels Some Inner Libertarian Instincts
Alex NowrastehEverybody likes to criticizeNew York Timescolumnist Thomas Friedman. From hisoften ‐comic writing style to simplistic sound bites about interviewing taxi cab drivers, he ’s earnedhumorous criticism over the years. But Friedman ’s recentcolumn titled “We Need a High Wall With a Big Gate on the Southern Border ” was correct in many libertarian‐adjacent ways. Much of his column could have been based off original Cato research.Friedman began with the admission that at least three factors are driving the surge of migrants at the southern border and he doesn ’t know how to apportion bl...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - April 14, 2021 Category: American Health Authors: Alex Nowrasteh Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: One weird trick
Joshua 9 is a very strange story. Of course Biblical apologists find deep meaning in it, although I would say that whatever moral lesson you might try to draw is easily demolished, especially in the context. The Gibeonites trick the Israelites into a treaty which precludes the Israelites from massacring them as they are everyone else in the area. When the Israelites discover the deception, they nevertheless still consider themselves bound by the treaty, but only part way. They won ' t murder the Gibeonites, they ' ll just enslave them. So why is this here? I haven ' t been able to find that there ' s any historical re...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 14, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Third heart sound in health and disease
Third heart sound (S3) occurs in early diastole due to rapid deceleration of transmitral blood flow as the ventricles fill [1]. It corresponds in timing to shortly after the peak of the early diastolic E wave of transmitral flow. S3 occurs just after the opening of the atrioventricular valve as blood filling the atria during ventricular systole flows quickly into the ventricles [2].
Third heart sound can occur under physiological conditions as well as in disease, though not heard in all individuals. A prospective study of 580 patients had isolated valvular mitral regurgitation in 299, aortic regurgitation in 121 and prim...
Source: Cardiophile MD - April 8, 2021 Category: Cardiology Authors: Prof. Dr. Johnson Francis Tags: Cardiology Source Type: blogs
Wednesday Bible Study: A major f.up
Remember that the Book of Joshua is a fictitious work created with a purpose: to assert the claim of the kings of Judah, both to territory and to wealth. It seems a dubious claim from our point of view because it is based on theft and genocide, but in this case it is theft and genocide endorsed by God, so that is presumably the source of legitimacy. Chapter 7 is not about territory, but about property, specifically the priestly treasury. And once again, it also enforces the absolute requirement of obedience.7 But the Israelites were unfaithful in regard to the devoted things[a]; Achan son of Karmi, the son of Zimri,[b...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 7, 2021 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
