House

I do not often watch television shows as I no longer have cable or satellite reception. The last show I routinely watched was the walking dead show that I did for my son. Entertaining as it was, it was also frustratingly stupid, and I’m not talking about dead people without muscle, tendons and such moving their appendages. No, I am talking about the poor writing in terms of characters which is a story for another time. House is actually new to me as in the early 2000’s I wasn’t hanging onto television shows. Due the fact House deals with medicine my wife and I were asked to watch it with my son.

If you want to know whether or not this is medical realism I suggest you find the YouTube doctors who cover episodes of House. What I will say is a person who just had a heart transplant isn’t so chipper after surgery. As for the diagnoses, they are a stretch. If you like Sherlock Holmes then you will like House and his method of solving medical situations. Yes, my wife and I tried to figure things out as the story moved along.

What I enjoy most is the character House played by Hugh Laurie. I am quite familiar with Laurie from Jeeves and Wooster where he played Bertie Wooster. If you’re a reader then you’ll love the books. Yes, I also am familiar with him in the Blackadder series. I have enjoyed his acting style and he does well with his character Dr. Gregory House. The way he rambles off his lines are quite poetic and the way he holds himself as the character makes you enjoy an unlikable character. In some ways, his character is much like Sherlock Holmes. I should say that the show in some ways reminds me of Columbo, another show that I’ve always enjoyed except he and Columbo are not the same.

The show has a nice flow to it and in some respects reminds me of the show Trauma: Life in the E.R. before it had to be faked. I believe a few lawsuits stopped it, though I could be wrong. It doesn’t matter. But House has some element to it that reminds me of the show. I would be replaced by Untold Stories of the E.R. The way the show moves was something I am familiar with.

As for medical dramas, I’d say this is my favorite, though, I really have never watched them. I am just not interested in all that character drama. The patient care was always fake. They way the interactions with House go doesn’t bother me even when they throw in some rare condition such as sarcoidosis. Very few people are familiar with that disease that we have yet to know why it happens.

Will I continue to watch this show with my son? I doubt it. I may watch an episode here and there, but I’ve moved beyond watching these shows. I couldn’t finish Season 2 of Peaky Blinders before I get bored and he finished it without me. Tonight I didn’t waste the night as I spent some time with my son, but I don’t think we’ll be doing this that often as our schedules do not match.

If you haven’t watched the show before I suggest give it a try. I think it may be on Amazon Prime, and I’ll say this show is far more worthwhile than the flop Rings of Power.

What Books Am I Reading Today?

When I am asked what I am reading now it can be difficult for me to answer. There are books that I read from beginning to end and then I have the books where I read only specific sections for a reason. So, when I am reading about Bull Run it may be that I am looking at specific sections of the battle, therefore, I’ll spend time on books that contain what I am interested in. I may be reading a book, but it may not be from beginning to end.

The first book I am reading and doing it rather slowly is Reading Scripture Like The Early Church by James Papandrea. This isn’t leisure reading, though I am enjoying this book. I am looking for specific parts to this book and will move on from it at some point. It doesn’t mean I won’t read the entire book as I will, but it may be put aside while I tackle other books.

I guess I am on the religion them with The Fathers Of The Church: Eusebius Pamphili Ecclesiastical History Books 1-5. I prefer Papandrea’s book to this, though I need some information out of this one. If you enjoy history and theology then you may enjoy this, but I don’t recommend this for leisurely reading.

Another book that I am enjoying but now at a slower pace is The Black of Premodern China. This is part of my slavery research that I’ve been looking into for a while. When studying slavery especially the slave trade of Africa you begin to see that it was not some white supremacist thing but something far larger involving all groups and skin color. My depth of study into slavery began with the study of Saint Dominigue or you may know it as Haiti today. This was a tragic, complex and yet interesting history. I wrote a rather lengthy paper about elements of this society mainly after the slave revolt while in school. This tiny island or half of an island altered how I viewed slavery and began to re-educate me, correctly, unlike the indoctrination of the mini-series Roots did.

A few other books I have dabbled in recently are more on the academic learning side of things. One being, Management Ethics: Placing Ethics at the Core of Good Management, by Doménec Melé which many senior management should read. This isn’t the most interesting read, and I admit I put it down for now. The second book is Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs. I am more or less skimming it for specific ideas that I want to look into.

These aren’t the only books I have open, but they have been the most recent. There are a few math textbooks I opened for a refresher in mathematcis, particularly calculus books. I went back into some mathematics to rekindle my love of the unit circle. I could write a book about the unit circle, but who would read it?

Currently, research oriented papers is where my focus has been which has placed many of these research topics I listed above on hold. I have been slowly going through one paper, Atrial Fibrillation After mRNA-1273 SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination: Case Report with Literature Review, and Safety of COVID-19 Vaccines in Patients with Autoimmune Diseases, in Patients with Cardiac Issues, and in the Healthy Population. These two are just a sample of the papers I have been slowly digesting. There is even a paper with Fauci as one of the authors that I am currently looking into along with a few leads on as well as a few leads on Guillain-Barré syndrome and the mRNA vaccine . These are not books, so I really shouldn’t include them.

What about books for the joy of reading? I do not have any at this time. Not even the Tolkien books that I used to read every year. I cannot blame on what I am reading in the above paragraphs. The main culprit besides work are renovation projects I am doing. Another thing is I don’t have any leisure books lined up except for one that I am waiting to be published. Once this book is published I will purchase it and read it. It will be a fictional alternate history that is related to John Punch. I am looking forward to this book.

Fireside Reading

Ever since moving into this current house, the idea was to have a nice reading chair near the fire with a table for me to rest my drink as I read. It is something I always thought possible with our fireplace, now insert. How far have I come along?

I have a chair that is pushing over ten years-old now but rests in my library. The insert has a nice fire going, but I have not table nearby. I would say I am still far away. I do have a couch nearby where I can lounge as I read, but that isn’t the same or actually as comfortable as I am contorted. Another issue is lighting. I have the ceiling fan lights but nothing else to provide me isolating light. My dream is incomplete.

Reading is not just the intake of text from a book. It is more than that. There is the atmosphere surrounding you as you read. Think of reading The Raven by Poe during a late October evening where you sit alone in a room with a single light from a lamp providing the necessary lumination. This adds to the reading as every noise whether it is an auditory hallucination or just the normal creak of the home or the rustle of trees and leaves outside.

Even reading Tolkien can be enjoyable inspirational if you can read it in the proper atmosphere. Maybe it would be a rustic pub with a fire across the room while drinking a good beer or in your bedroom underneath covers after your bedtime or maybe, as an adult, sitting in the shade in a nice chair with a gentle breeze.

When I am doing research where I am forced to concentrate on peer-reviewed papers or academic books a computer is a must for me. I’ve tried a comfy chair and the miserable chair but have yet to find the right atmosphere for digesting this material without getting tired or sometimes bored. Alcohol is right out. The problem with the computer is though its purpose in this instance is for notes it becomes far easier to search goofy things on the web or do some mundane time wasting task instead of my research. I can only read so many medical papers, engineering papers, psychology, history, envrionmental, and chemistry papers before I’m worn out. Give me a book I can’t put down. I’ll never be exhausted.

There are times when I am forced to vacate to uncomfortable positions in places of hiding to avoid being interrupted. I read a book by a Canadian priest in a spare room on the hardwood floor where I constantly shifted positions for the non-existent comfort. I’ve read books in closets and even in my vehicles. The bathroom is too easy to find me. I even once drove to work and sat in my office to read on a Saturday. Make that twice, I believe. Not the best time but it was mostly quiet until someone notice that I was there and assumed I was working.

My hopes are to construct this ideal reading position for myself that really only works in the winter. Another requirement is the need to no longer have to work, but that isn’t happening anytime soon. I could do a temporary set up of taking a folding TV tray table and using it as a table for my drink and move my chair for better lighting whether it is from the sun or one of the lights around. I guess I could take a lamp and put it on the try. I’m just not going to read Poe with my back to the window at night.

Masks

2020 was not only the year of Covid-19 but also the year of the mask when we were encouraged to wear masks to save our lives. In fact, the Surgeon General even created a mask out of a t-shirt. Do you remember that moment? 2020 was the year that I argued with friends and family about mask use primarily the fact masks would be useless outdoors. I even went through several studies about indoor airflow and how difficult it was to study viral movement indoors let alone outdoors. Well, my argument fell on deaf ears not because I didn’t use the available data and research, but I wasn’t using my emotions like the others and I’m not the CDC.

Well, we recently had a study come out stating the masks were useless. In fact, you can read an article pertaining to the study in the New York Times titled “The Mask Mandates Did Nothing. Will Any Lessons Be Learned?” The authors of the study looked at everything and came to a conclusion I had in 2020. We were lied to by the CDC and continue to be lied to. Our hospitals still push the myth which I suspect to more to allay the fear that many were induced with over Covid-19.

To be fair, you can wear an effective mask but not the type you think will save you. Even if the N95 were effective you are not wearing it properly. Anyone working in a hospital should be familiar with having to be fitted for N95 masks. You can’t just wear any old N95 mask. To be protected, you need a special type of mask that few would even purchase, and NO that plastic SpongeBob container doesn’t work, though it does make you look like an idiot. The weave of the masks are not tight enough to prevent the Covid-19 virus or viruses from entering or leaving. You may catch a sneeze or a cough with your own fluid but viruses can escape.

What about the study being sloppy and they didn’t take into account the mask mandate wasn’t enforce enough? Well, there is plenty of data that out there that shows this thought process is false. We have all fifty states where some had mask mandates and others did not. There is no data showing masks made a difference. Hospitals, the one place were people are fit-tested and during this panic pandemic wore them. Again, there is no data showing masks prevented anything. Shall I repeat it again? The data is there and shows that masks prevented nothing.

I get it. Your emotions and feeling are guiding you to continue to believe masks work and did work then. Yes, the CDC continues to look like the clown version of The Onion with their poor study on masks and what they continue to recommend, so you may be influenced by them. However, if you pause and catch your breath you should be able to squash the irrational fear that was drummed up by your government, pharmaceutical industry and so-called medical experts and recognize that something is rotten in the State of Denmark. It is time to put your feelings away and curb your fear and understand you were bamboozled going on three years now.

Michigan State Pizza Party

I wasn’t going to write about this, but I feel this needs to be addressed. As tragic as the shooting was, the worst response is to coddle people and have a pizza party as we talk out our feelings. What is going on?

Michigan State University was enabling students and adults to feel vulnerable and as helpless victims. The answer is not to coddle and tell people they have the right to feel threatened. These types of actions condition people into being mentally weak and cowering in fear over anything and everything. Where is the mental strength at? It is nowhere because we have to make everyone feel like victims.

I’ve been in traumatic and tragic events. I’ve had relatives in such events as well. We never had to cower in fear over the event. Now, don’t misunderstand the fact that those directly involved such as a real victim such as someone who was shot may need assistance in some manner. The rest of the people have been enabled by faulty psychology and ideology. Yet, having food or whatever else to talk through things isn’t solving problems but creating and reinforcing future problems with people. How can we justify a person living in another town who has now barricaded themselves in their apartment simply due to the fact they attend the university? This action is beyond normal, but our society has encouraged this action.

Tragedy is all around us from automobile fatalities, to suicides, to domestic assaults, to sudden deaths due to health issues. This is normal as much as we don’t want it to be. Instead of enabling a mental weakness we need to strengthen the person, make them stronger during events like this. If we cannot deal with this then we are not fit to live a normal and healthy life on this planet. Every day we wake up we are at risk of being involved in an event or just dying. It doesn’t matter if it should not happen. It happens. My relative shouldn’t have died in an accident, but it happened. That person over there should not have committed suicide, but it happens. My relative should never had been murdered, but that is what happens. I don’t like any of this but understand there is a price with life. We all must accept the fact that violence whether by another human or an inanimate object does happen everyday and death sometimes evolves from it. Once we can accept it we can move forward with living instead of hiding in fear because the bogeyman is out there.

I know this will be an unpopular post but it needs to be said and people need to think about it. You need to fight the conditioning that is going on that will hinder your ability to exist during your life. If you’re stuck with fear then you’re not happy and no matter how safe you think you are you’ll will still be controlled by the fear that others place upon you. For Michigan State, it wasn’t the shooter so much as those who enable your fears to control you. Being callous isn’t the solution but neither is coddling people. We all fall off from our bicycles but we must get back on and continue even if we will fall again in the future.

One Of My Favorite Interviewees

Recently I did a post about education indicating where I think the issues are and why some groups suffer for it. After publishing, I went through scenarios to see if I am wrong in my assessment. Some questioning here and some questioning there. I looked at my data and concluded my post was right. Then I remembered one of the most liked people we ever interviewed.

We had an opening for a position where we received a lot of new graduates. One young man seemed to fit the position. His major fit the position. His grades were great and a little search on him showed he was a great outgoing person that was worth bringing in for an interview. We expected to hire him, and our initial impressions did not change that.

First, his dress was impeccable. This young man was stylish from head to toe. Well groomed, a great smile, and great personality. We liked him immediately. That is what we saw when we met him. The fact his skin color was dark or that he was male had no bearing on our impression. He was just likeable and you wanted to be around him. We all liked him.

Second, his resume was well done and professional, though there were hints of things to come. In this type of work, you expect internship work or outside of education work that was relatable. He didn’t have this, and most everyone missed this sign. His personality was the cause of us ignoring the warning sign.

Our first line of questions were to put him at ease, but we need not bother. However, the questions led to other questions because he was very interesting. Finally, questions about his ability had to be asked. We began the process of discussing his education and the type of work he did. He failed miserably here much to our disappointment. He was not equipped to do what he was getting his degree in. The small liberal arts school failed him. He was a great activist and community person, but he couldn’t do what his degree said he would be able to do and the courses he took should’ve prepared something but it didn’t translate.

We were left wondering what was wrong. Surely, we were asking the wrong questions, but each question about what he should be familiar with left us saddened. He was failing his interview on the very subject he should be familiar with. Yet, we still liked this young man and wanted desperately to hire him, but his answers and knowledge told us that he wouldn’t be able to help us within the first year and likely not within the two years after. We couldn’t afford to wait two to three years in the hopes he could pick it up and be productive. We needed things done now. Our group was prepared to carry a new person for a few months but not six and definitly not twelve months. The more we asked and talked with him the more it became evident that social justice was his focus at the university and not his education. He spent all of his free time on being an activist and not honing the skills he would get a degree for. The work he did at the university was very lacking.

He never got the job. I sometimes think about him and believe he went into politics which is likely a better fit for him. Not sure I’d trust him if he did go into politics. Universities today are doing a poor job with their students. Real world scenario work is nice, but foundational education is more important. Had the young man had an understanding of what his degree was, he would have been working for us or even be our boss.

The State of Education

Recently, I read an article talking about Gen Z not being prepared for the real world because their education isn’t preparing them. My assessment is that it is true that those who were educated in the last 15 years did not get as good of an education as those before them. In fact, I’ll say that today’s youth being educated in high school are poorly prepared for university and universities do just as poor of a job preparing their students.

When my sons entered college they would say it was easier than being homeschooled. Looking back on my wife’s and my educating my sons, I’d say homework was key as well as discipline in education. It was not unusual for my sons to have the enter math section for homework which sometimes amounted to forty or fifty problems. This work went along with the other curriculum and there was no crying about too much. In fact, upset with your math homework and I’d create an additional twenty problems. I never accepted blank answers. Do something even if it is wrong. I can work with you from there. We were hard. We had expectations that became normal. Also, my sons didn’t have social media to turn their brains to mush. There was sports, music, and friends after school and these never got in the way, so my sons never had stress or anxiety issues. They learned or at least one learned to manage time. All of this prepared them for their future.

When my youngest, still in high school, took an early to college course, calculus, and wanted to drop out my wife refused him. His professor thought he should drop the course. He struggled but asked his professor questions and I would help where I could. In the end, he overcame his issues and was the top of his class and was complimented by the professor who was surprised at how well he did. We do not mind failur if you try but to quit before you fail is to fail before starting.

The university my youngest attended had developed a program of recruiting inner city students to bolster their numbers. They were in the middle of a diversity and equity push. The majority of minorities and females came to the university unprepared and were then rewarded for not doing their work. How can one pass a college course if they do not complete the work, pass the exams, or attend most of the classes? This push to have minorities and females succeed is not helping. They were passing and graduating without learning anything. How do you enter the workforce with an engineering degree but can do simple math or understand the basics? How does a person “earn” a business degree and expect to succeed when they were given their degree?

This didn’t only apply to minorities and females. Some professors would pass you as long as you adhered to what we call the “woke” culture, so if you remained silent and hinted at agreeing with that ideology you passed. If you sucked up to the professor you passed. Learning was secondary to the professor’s ideological belief! If a student complained to a professor of stress or some other issue chances are they passed with ease. Then you have the professor who doesn’t want to do their job, so you pass.

With my oldest who is an instructor at a university, his boss repeatedly told him to just pass people and that homework was unnecessary. In fact, this person told my son that since many of the students aren’t majoring in the field the course is in he should just let them pass. Think about that for a moment. What do you learn if you just pass without doing anything? This is for everyone and not just minorities or females.

Even in graduate school we have this educational issue with just passing people. Think of those with PhDs or MD-PhDs who may not have truly earned one and you’re believing their garbage. With the cancel culture out there, graduate school is a dangerous situation for mentors and leader of departments. We have people earning degrees in socialism while doing little to no real work. Even psychology is full of people who have degrees that they shouldn’t have.

At one point I targeted the idea of grade inflation as being the problem and cause. That was real twenty years ago, but today it is far worse with the push for diversity and equity in this mistaken idea that minorities and women need assistance as if they are incapable of doing the work themselves, therefore they need the free help. To me, that is more insulting than anything as you’re saying they can’t do it alone. It has less to do with teaching practical skills than teaching the basic fundamentals you need. When my sons, as undergraduates, cannot debate or hold views opposing a certain cultural stance then how do you learn? Life is full of conflict and stress. If you’re taught to cope with disagreeing views and difficult problems then how do you expect to survive the real world especially when you can demand people to accept your views because you need to be validated or correct for emotional reasons?

It is less about how a lesson will apply to a job. It really is. I took years of complex mathematics in which I have only done the math a few times, but because of this I am able to recognize situations and problems that make it easier for to solve because of my past course experience. Your class shouldn’t have to teach you examples of the real world. It should teach you to think in order to solve problems. What a shame to be in graduate school and struggle with concepts while a younger homeschooled graduate is breezing through it all because they were educated and you were coddled. When we hire millennials and Gen Zs it is amazing at how they struggle with simple problems. They’re not dumb. They were never educated. Most roll over until someone else takes over or they blame the older generation for their inability to succeed. There is a reason why when we do interviews I sigh when I see certain universities on resumes as I know the person can’t do it. Some of these schools are big name, high priced, and renowned. They may have been worth it thirty years ago, but I am not interested in their graduates. Give me the graduate from a select number of schools that have retained the idea of educating students.

Today’s society has done a great disservice to our youth. The last time I went through resumes, a little over a year ago, I was extremely disappointed at several New York universities as well as a few others from other states. We ended up hiring several quality people from small schools that had yet to be totally infected with this “woke” or whatever you want to call ideology. Unfortunately, there is a young lady from a certain Ivy League school that I don’t have much confidence in that was hired in a different department. She isn’t prepared and I can only hope she quickly picks it up as she is having difficulty getting up to speed. The key to education is to incite thinking and repetition of processes.

Modern Warfare

I have seen videos, blogs, and articles discuss when the first modern war began. Some I agree with while others I see their point but disagree with their conclusion. Part of the issue is the definition of modern warfare and has this definition changed? Most have looked at the First World War as the beginning or the definition of what modern warfar is about, but did modern warfare begin earlier?

What is modern warfare? Well, we know that warfare is the activity of fighting a war whether it is small-scale or larg-escale. When we consider modern with respect to war we look at what is used, how war is progressed, and what is affected contrasted with military concepts of the past. One idea of modern warfare is the use of gunpowder, artillery, transportation, air use, communication, machine gun, and the total war idea of sacrificing resources while destroying the opponents resources to achieve victory. No longer are local military victories the key to having an advantage with diplomatic bargaining. I am going to define modern war with this definition which by no means is right or wrong as modern war is ever evolving. My definition will use firepower in terms of not just gun powder use but types of rifles, artillery use, logistical transport, aerial, navial, mobility, targeting means of production, and use of manpower. My definition is the combine use of all of this.

At first glance, I would say the Crimean War could be the first essence of modern warfar. You do have use of artillery and amphibious warfare, and even alliances. The logistics were poor during this war for the British. The American Civil War took artillery even further and artillery would play an important role during the war. Most people familiar with the Battle of Gettysburg will think of Pickett’s Charge but how many would think of the artillery preparation preceding the assault? The Battle of Malvern Hill saw Union artillery, 171 guns, along with naval ships devastate that assaulting Confederate troops. Rifled artillery would become common during the war. Indirect fire was used during the war through the use of observation balloons.

In terms of firepower, the muzzle loaded weapon was common during the war but breech loaded rifles would begin to be seen with rifles like the Sharps rifle, but it is the Spencer rifle with its metallic cartridges that would become common place in the 20th century. The Spencer could hold seven cartridges fire at a rate of 21 rounds per minute if you used the quickloading cartridge box that was developed for the rifle. There is the Gatling Gun, the six barrelled gun that could fire around 200 rounds per minute. Though not adopted by the U.S. Army Ordnance, General Benjamin Butler would purchase twelve and use two during the siege of Petersburg and another eight on gunboats. Thus we have the early form of a machine gun.

Unless I am forgetting something, I believe you have the most complete beginnings to a modern war with the Amercian Civil War. As unprofessional as the the militaries were for the North and South, you had an immediate impact of modernity with the Battle of the First Bull Run with trains transporting troops to the battlefield where Stonewall Jackson and troops would board trains at Piedmont Station and be rushed to Manassas Junction in order to participate in the battle. Trains would become vital component of the war with each side using them for transporting troops and supplies. Trains were used in all types of capacities from doing reconnaisance to deception along with the logistical transporting it was already doing. Heavy artillery pieces would be placed on trains. Crews were utilized to repair destroyed track as the army advanced. The railroad system was heavily used.

An early form of communication that as used during the civil war is the telegraph. The U.S. Military Telegraph Corps would lay thousands of miles of telegraph lines and information from the battlefield would be immediately sent to the War Department where President Lincoln could read the information as it came in. He was even able to direct his generals with speed during the war because of the telegraph. This is real time communication and command and control that was going on, something that had never happened before. Communication between generals was accomplished through the telegraph. This communication allowed for quicker response with supplies and troop movement. With the telegraph, General Henry Halleck could issue orders from St. Louis to General Grant in the field and also was the cause of a rift between the two when Grant ceased responding to Halleck’s commands. Eventually the Union would discover there was a Confederate spy operating the Cairo telegraph.

We have the use of aerial reconnaissance with the use of the balloon by the Union army. Balloons had been used in previous conflicts with the Austrians using balloons in 1849 and even in 1859. There was consideration of having some type of air-war method early in the war. The Union Army Balloon Corps would become a branch of the Union Army and would serve the Union from 1861 to 1863. These balloons were in some respect an early warning system for General McClellan while he was organizing and training the army. The balloons were placed in position to detect any movement by the Confederate army and could send information via the telegraph. The Union Army would create an early version of an air craft carrier called a balloon tender where a ship was equipped with a balloon. The first ship was a coal barge, George Washington Parke Custis and several other barges would be utilized as balloon tenders. Even the Confederate Army got in the act and had their own, the CSS Teaser that was in action from 1861 to 1862 until its being captured. Confederates would routinely target the balloons with artillery while they were ascending and descending from their desired observation altitude. In the end, the Union decided the balloon’s limitation outweighed whatever advantage the possessed and the Balloon Corps was eventually disbanded. Aerial warfare was not yet ready.

There were balloon tenders and then there were iron clad ships, the predecessor to the ships we are familiar with today. The ironclad ship, U.S.S. Monitor, was an early version of the ships we would see in the late 19th century and onward. This ship had a rotating turret and utilized a boiler to turn the propeller. There were earlier ironclad ships such as the barges used during the Crimean War but they were towed and not self-propelled and then there was the first true ironclad ship the French Gloire. During the American Civil War, the North utilized many ironclad ships of different classes that sailed rivers, inlets, and along the coast. How can I forget submarine warfare? Yes, I am thinking of only one submarine, the C.S.S. Hunley that was lost after its only use in action where it successfully sank the U.S.S. Housatonic. I would include the C.S.S. David but it was not really a submarine. It was more of a cross between a submarine and torpedo boat?

Amphibious landings, something we think of when we consider the war in the Pacific or D-Day, but amphibious landings happened during the Civil War. This method of warfare was a lesson in errors and one in which the Union would struggle in terms of planning, organizing, and conducting amphibious landings. As the war progressed, the Union would improve as Rear Admiral John A. Dalhgren would show as he learned from mistakes with previouis amphibious landings.

Trench warfare would devleop as the war progressed. The siege of Petersburg was one of trench warfare where over 30 miles of trenches were constructed by the Union. In fact, even before Petersburg, you can see the early implementation of trenches with units fortifying their static positions. The use of mining and detonation of explosives underneath trenches made its first appearance at Petersburg. The Battle fo the Crater began with the detonation of a mine on July 30, 1864 under the Confederate trenches. The failure was Meade’s mistrust in the operation and ordered the black troops, who were well trained for this operation, not to be the lead assault thus the assault fell to units who were not trained for this action.

Total war is what most of us understand as part of modern warfare, and the North practiced this with Sherman’s march to the sea where the Union destroyed the South’s rail lines and the burning of Atlanta. General Sherman left a path of destruction as he marched through the South. The intent was to destroy the rail system, manufacturing, and anything of military value but not private residences, however, that didn’t go as planned as Atlanta would burn. This isn’t to say private residences weren’t targeted as some were.

We can’t ignore Civil War medicine as it, too, evolved. The idea of treating based on a tradition began to switch to one based on evidence as doctors could observe and see what was happening, though it wasn’t enough to save lives that were lost due to infection. The very early use of a medic began to appear in the form of hospital stweards. Plastic surgery appeared as doctors were needed to do facial reconstruction of soldiers who were left with horrible damaged from the war. Field hospitals would be designed and built to house the mounting casualites. The U.S. Ambulance Corps would be created in order to quickly remove wounded soldiers from the field of battle. This would entail the evacuating the wounded to field dressing stations for first aid such as dressing wounds or applying tourniquets were done followed by the transportation to field hospitals where surgeries were done. After all of this, the soldier was then transported to a hospital were long-term care could be done. This system is basically what is used today.

This idea of modern warfare is an ever evolving one as the American Civil War is far less relatable to the war going on between the Ukraine and Russia with drones, rockets, automatic weapons, cameras, but if we look closely doesn’t the drone and balloon do the same thing? Each can provide indirect fire. Trenches are still used. The Gatling gun and Spencer rifle are not so far off from the weapons used today. Rail lines are very important for both sides as we can see NATO equipment being shipped by rail and Russia repairing a rail bridge. The arguments I lay out are not necessarily the first time tactics, weapons, or equpiment were used or even invented, but it is the aggregate implementation that makes this the earliest form of modern warfare. Even if some of the early uses were shortlived, it does not diminish the fact they were used but the technology was not enough for it to continue. Studying the American Civil War, we can spot the embryonic stages of what we would recognize as modern warfare and if we back up enough we can see it was the earliest modern warfare.

The Great Eye of the Rutabaga

It has been about five years since I last ate rutabaga and I recall the hell I went through only to be unimpressed with it. Due to my wife’s and my diet, I try to find alternative items for us to eat. The rutabaga isn’t ideal, but it is better than some of what we eat that is not meat. My wife isn’t a huge beef or pork eater and she is tiring of chicken. I thought why not give the rutabaga another chance.

I am on nearing two weeks since I purchased this rutabaga. My wife put it in the refrigerator and now when I open the door I see it. It reminds of the LoTR movies and Sauron’s eye. Each time I open that refrigerator I see it and it sees me as I reach for the other items I prefer to make. We cast a glance at each other as I reach for tenderloin I prepared and made or the chicken dish I made or even the celery. It just looks at me. I am very hesitant to use it for several reasons.

First, I don’t know what to make other than to roast it forever and season it with salt. I do not appreciate its flavor. There are other roots I can eat. I just do not enjoy its sweetness. The last time I made this along with other roasted vegetables the rutabaga tended to not be eaten by anyone. Why give this a second chance?

Second, I have dull knives. It is a bloody difficult thing for me to cut up, and a trip to the ER is not what I have in mind and my wife who is reluctant to take me always says with my lacerations, “pinch it together and keep it in the air” and then we can put a band-aid on it. Unless it is a deep and lengthy wound, there is no sympathy there. The real problem are my dull knives. I am tired of having to sharpen them. One, they’re cheap which means the steel isn’t very good. Two, my family loves to cut things on granite and my chef knife gets the brunt of the work. This is why I hate thos cutting board mats. Never buy them. I will sharpent my knife and by the next use it is now a butter knife. My chef knife is going to be my filet knife at some point. I have promised that once my youngest leaves the nest I am going to purchase a good chef knife and keep it under lock and key for only me to use. My wife thinks I am joking, but I do mean that.

This is my dilemma. I bought something I know I shouldn’t have in order to give it a second chance, and I can’t safely cut it. If I do manage to not cut my fingers off and slice or chop up the rutabaga I’ll toss it in tallow and season it with some garlic powder, thyme, cayenne, maybe some salt and a few other things or variations of this and bake it at 425°F (220°C) for about 30 minutes.

Three Years Later

It will be three years next month when life for everyone changed immediately even though my family was already in the midst of trauma that would directly influence on how we reacted from March through August. As I look back, there have been job changes and major adjustments as well as health issues.

As I stand now, I am in a good position going forward. No longer do I worry as much about will I have a job because they want to shove something down my throat. My wife has had a big change. Still, the threat of being forced to accept something not healthy looms. The research I’ve done still doesn’t show the efficacy of the vaccine claimed and the data exposed shows far worse as there are people I follow for various purposes suffering from pericarditis/myocarditis and some have had to quit activities. As for me, I don’t know if I’ll drop dead as since the second shot I’ve had intermittent chest pain no matter the activity or any condition. At least, nearly two years of not being able to, I am able to exercise without the immediate fatigue, but I no longer can do as much as I did, so I hope eventually I’ll be back to where I was in the Spring of 2021. Indications are I won’t as everyone that got the shot and had similar side effects are either dead or still not doing what they did before.

There was a time when I recorded those who were vaccinated and those who were not vaccinated of my family and social group. There still is the one death from the person vaccinated that got Covid-19. Everyone who was vaccinated got Covid-19 more than once except for just a few of us. In fact, the more they’re boostered the more often they’ve gotten Covid. Of those not vaccinated, most got Covid and I think only a few got it more than once, twice at most while the boostered are pushing beyond twice. Now, I have friends who were never vaccinated and have not gotten Covid. They have used Ivermectin as a precautionary treatment. Then I have my fearful neighbors who are well-boostered. They have not informed me as to whether or not they got Covid, but like a few of my unvaccinated friends, they keep as isolated as they can but now complain of health issues – heart and memory.

As I look in detail of some family members who were not vaccinated and are in high risk areas, they only got it once, but their co-workers who were vaccinated and boostered have gotten Covid multiple times. I am seeing this type of reporting everywhere.

Overall, the more isolated you are the less likely you are to get Covid whether you were vaccinated or not. If you were vaccinated and boostered you have a far higher likelihood of getting Covid-19 more than once and in fact more than twice compared to the unvaccinated. A number of people I know who got the initial vaccine have not gotten the boosters are doing better than those who were boostered. However, in terms of health it is sad. I believe 3/4 of those vaccinated suffered adverse effects that are ongoing. Everyone of those who received boosters now have adverse effects. This is the data I recorded since the first shot as I did not know anyone who got Covid-19 before the vaccine. If you truly fear Covid-19 then my advice is to stay away from humans and sit inside your residence while keeping the least amount of exposure time to humans. These are the people that have not had Covid.