The basic nature of the disease is that T-cells called lymphocites begin attacking a certain protein within the mylan, or coating, of the nerves of the brain stem and spinal column. It is unclear whether the cells are attacking the brain itself or rather that they recognize, correctly or incorrectly, an infection in the brain.
Antibodies, made by another immune system cell called a B-cell, also attack the brain stem. This creates an enormous amount of the anti-body Gammaglobulin in the spinal fluid within the spinal column.
(from August 30,2009)
(From August 31, 2009)
So the question regarding MS has always been, why do the T-cells attack different proteins, mainly MBT, within the mylan coating of the nerves at the brain stem, called axons. Why do white blood cells seep into the brain? Why does the brain produce its own antibodies in gammaglobulin and send it down the spinal column?
The electrical impulses from the brain actually move down the mylan sheath of the axons. The electrical charge is sped up, in a healthy person, by jumping from one nodule in the mylan to the next, thus not having to move through the entire length of the axon. In MS patients a specially produced t-cell attacks protein, usually MBT, in the mylan on the nodules. This renders the electrical impulses from the brain quite impaired..
MS attacks occur when the white blood cells begin a new effort to attack the brain. These attacks usually effect the optic nerve and can last 4-6 weeks. There shorter episodes of MS than can last only minutes or hours and are brought on by the defective axons themselves and the impaired electricity.
So what is going on here? Is it a viral infection in the brain or an autoimmune response causing this? No MS virus has ever been isolated by a researcher. But abscence of proof is not proof of abscence. In other words, are the t-cells reacting to a real threat within the brain or are they simply defective cells that are falsely detecting a threat in the brain? Could there be a problem in the Thymus gland where t-cells are made?? Is there a "civil war" happening in the body where the brain is sending out gammaglobulin with antibodies to fight the invading t-cells??
Saturday, October 3, 2009
Sunday, August 9, 2009
Writing
I have been thinking about why so many people today, especially the young, are such poor writers. Perhaps it is that communication between the mind and the soul has been diminished. This inner conversation with oneself, which is the essential element of thinking, has been crowded out of our lives by constant talking, game playing, texting and the like activities we do every day.
The soul is the great mentor of the mind. One's individual soul exists outside the body and informs and animates the mind. It is in this way that the mind is a reflection of the soul. When the mind is severed from the soul by all the distractions we allow into our lives, one's individual being, the spirit, is diminished.
All great writing is a conversation between one's mind and one's soul. Both inform each other although the soul is the more alive and aware of the two. Great writers must be individualists because writing is the statement of the one. (the trend in schools to teach "group writing" is an atrocity and an abhorrence to me. I don't even know what "group writing" is) It takes directness and boldness to write well.
It is directness and boldness that are the essential tools for the writer. It is the conversation in one's head that the directness emerges from. Another word for this is lucidity of thought. It is the strength of the soul that animates and directs the conversation from whence the boldness comes from. It is one's vocabulary that gives one the ability to focus that directness and boldness toward a particular end. The vocabulary of the average teen today is a shambling mishmash of half phrases and words with no thought behind them. Sometimes it makes me cry when I listen in on a conversation among teens, especially the boys.
We must restore the conversation in our own heads in order to be great writers again.
John.
The soul is the great mentor of the mind. One's individual soul exists outside the body and informs and animates the mind. It is in this way that the mind is a reflection of the soul. When the mind is severed from the soul by all the distractions we allow into our lives, one's individual being, the spirit, is diminished.
All great writing is a conversation between one's mind and one's soul. Both inform each other although the soul is the more alive and aware of the two. Great writers must be individualists because writing is the statement of the one. (the trend in schools to teach "group writing" is an atrocity and an abhorrence to me. I don't even know what "group writing" is) It takes directness and boldness to write well.
It is directness and boldness that are the essential tools for the writer. It is the conversation in one's head that the directness emerges from. Another word for this is lucidity of thought. It is the strength of the soul that animates and directs the conversation from whence the boldness comes from. It is one's vocabulary that gives one the ability to focus that directness and boldness toward a particular end. The vocabulary of the average teen today is a shambling mishmash of half phrases and words with no thought behind them. Sometimes it makes me cry when I listen in on a conversation among teens, especially the boys.
We must restore the conversation in our own heads in order to be great writers again.
John.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
From My Journal (XVII)
Thursday, July 9, 2009: The Constitution is not simply the document written in 1787. It is the whole fabric of traditions, practices, and liberties that have been developed in fits and starts since Jamestown in 1607.
The Rights of Americans were not abstractions thought of by minds. The American Rights were the necessary tools to function in the American frontier society as it developed over 200 years. Individual Rights are not separate from the practice of citizenship. They are absolutely necessary to sustain any semblance of a society. In such a society the citizenry is a branch of the government, the most important, root branch.
When the citizenry is prevented, or worse refuses to exercise this role, the nation and society stagnate. The source of our troubles today is not a lack of rights. We stagnate due to our lack of the exercise of our rights because of accepted ignorance and a mass culture antithetical to learning and in many ways to thought itself.
The public indulges in frivolous inanities while the society stagnates.
The Rights of Americans were not abstractions thought of by minds. The American Rights were the necessary tools to function in the American frontier society as it developed over 200 years. Individual Rights are not separate from the practice of citizenship. They are absolutely necessary to sustain any semblance of a society. In such a society the citizenry is a branch of the government, the most important, root branch.
When the citizenry is prevented, or worse refuses to exercise this role, the nation and society stagnate. The source of our troubles today is not a lack of rights. We stagnate due to our lack of the exercise of our rights because of accepted ignorance and a mass culture antithetical to learning and in many ways to thought itself.
The public indulges in frivolous inanities while the society stagnates.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
From My Journal (XVI)
Tuesday, June 23, 2009:
In Iran the protests and riots have dramatically subsided. The West and the protesters believed that communicating news by twitter.com and taking pictures with cell phones would be able to take the place of a revolutionary cadre and the dissemination of actual ideas.
The revolt forgot that it is not the ability to communicate or the form of communication that is used that is important. In revolution, one must communicate revolutionary ideas; by twitter, by mouth, by paper or however. IT IS THE CONTENT OF COMMUNICATIONS THAT IS IMPORTANT, NOT THE FORM. The revolt seems to have believed that simply by describing the situation in short sentences, as twitter makes necessary, that they could bring down a totalitarian apparatus.
Like so many naive young people, the Iranians were enamored by their technology, believing it to be the source of their power. No. The source of their power was their ideas. The lack of it was the lack of the same.
The irony is that the form of communication used, twitter, is a pathectically self-limiting technology forcing language and therefore ideas into an uninspiring witch's brew of barely literate contortions of language. What young people fail to realize is that the internet is far more a source of disinformation than of information, much less real wisdom or knowledge.
The fact that so many have chosen twitter as their primary means of communication says something about their lack of respect for the content of their communication.
In Iran the protests and riots have dramatically subsided. The West and the protesters believed that communicating news by twitter.com and taking pictures with cell phones would be able to take the place of a revolutionary cadre and the dissemination of actual ideas.
The revolt forgot that it is not the ability to communicate or the form of communication that is used that is important. In revolution, one must communicate revolutionary ideas; by twitter, by mouth, by paper or however. IT IS THE CONTENT OF COMMUNICATIONS THAT IS IMPORTANT, NOT THE FORM. The revolt seems to have believed that simply by describing the situation in short sentences, as twitter makes necessary, that they could bring down a totalitarian apparatus.
Like so many naive young people, the Iranians were enamored by their technology, believing it to be the source of their power. No. The source of their power was their ideas. The lack of it was the lack of the same.
The irony is that the form of communication used, twitter, is a pathectically self-limiting technology forcing language and therefore ideas into an uninspiring witch's brew of barely literate contortions of language. What young people fail to realize is that the internet is far more a source of disinformation than of information, much less real wisdom or knowledge.
The fact that so many have chosen twitter as their primary means of communication says something about their lack of respect for the content of their communication.
From My Journal (XV)
Wednesday, April 22, 2009:
A person possessing a sceptical outlook is always in danger of becoming cynical and is usually accused of glorifying a Utopian past or fantasy to which he compares life's present difficulties and shortcomings. Sceptics are also accused of seeing their own faults and foisting them upon the outside world.
As a sceptic, I admit that these criticisms are generally true. Cynicism is a trap I fall into when I believe that both sides in a debate have agreed on the parameters of their debate before they begin. It is a rigged game, so to speak. I do believe, generally, that the American citizen of the past was better informed, a better reader, and recognized his or her responsibility as a citizen far more than today. So to a large degree I do glorify the past.
My faults also frustrate me; my moral and personal failings, the limits of my mind, my laziness and slothfulness. I recognize in them a universality pertaining to all human beings. Beware those who see no wickedness in themselves. It is they who will not suppress it, contain it, and mitigate it because they will see it as good. They view themselves as good and so anything from themselves must be good. Those who commit evil acts always view them as good.
Therefore I am sceptical of those wo claim hauty and jaunty confidence in the future. There is a hubris in the land today that thrives on both Left and Right. This hubris threatens the political, economic and social order of the nation.
A person possessing a sceptical outlook is always in danger of becoming cynical and is usually accused of glorifying a Utopian past or fantasy to which he compares life's present difficulties and shortcomings. Sceptics are also accused of seeing their own faults and foisting them upon the outside world.
As a sceptic, I admit that these criticisms are generally true. Cynicism is a trap I fall into when I believe that both sides in a debate have agreed on the parameters of their debate before they begin. It is a rigged game, so to speak. I do believe, generally, that the American citizen of the past was better informed, a better reader, and recognized his or her responsibility as a citizen far more than today. So to a large degree I do glorify the past.
My faults also frustrate me; my moral and personal failings, the limits of my mind, my laziness and slothfulness. I recognize in them a universality pertaining to all human beings. Beware those who see no wickedness in themselves. It is they who will not suppress it, contain it, and mitigate it because they will see it as good. They view themselves as good and so anything from themselves must be good. Those who commit evil acts always view them as good.
Therefore I am sceptical of those wo claim hauty and jaunty confidence in the future. There is a hubris in the land today that thrives on both Left and Right. This hubris threatens the political, economic and social order of the nation.
Monday, June 22, 2009
From My Journal (XIV)
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Of course, the siren song of the Unitary State is calling to us to give us economic security at the sacrifice of our Liberty. Just as it was a founding principle to separate church and State, it was also considered essential to separate State from any authority to make laws favorable to particular interests. When the State makes such laws, like those favoring a bank or auto company, it has ceased to govern generally for the People in their political capacity and becomes instead the agent of particular interests. Authority becomes protection to the highest bidder, the richest and the biggest. Government becomes only another faction, on the side of some, and therefore opposing others. Instead of earning the loyalty of all through equal protection of the laws, it buys the subservience and acquiesance of the powerful and earns the enmity and scorn of the small and the proud who wish to keep their liberty and their dignity. Instead of being the arbiter, government becomes the interpolator, thus fissuring society instead of unifying it.
This is the national tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The Unitary State has chosen its friends and thereby made its enemies. Henceforth, loyalty will be demanded from the government but not earned by equal protection of law. The government is now in the habit of adhering to one group or faction within the society as opposed to gently and firmly standing aside and making general law as stipulated by artice 1 section 8 of the constitution.
I can think of no greater threat to the poor or the miidle class as it will not be they to whom the governing class distributes its largesse. The shrinking of the middle will accelerate, the unity of our nation imperiled. We must return to a separtion of state and specific interests, just we have a separtion of state and specific religions. The governemnt ceases to govern when it rewards some and therefore punishes others. Unless this ceases, it will not only be our economy in peril but our liberty and our unity.
Of course, the siren song of the Unitary State is calling to us to give us economic security at the sacrifice of our Liberty. Just as it was a founding principle to separate church and State, it was also considered essential to separate State from any authority to make laws favorable to particular interests. When the State makes such laws, like those favoring a bank or auto company, it has ceased to govern generally for the People in their political capacity and becomes instead the agent of particular interests. Authority becomes protection to the highest bidder, the richest and the biggest. Government becomes only another faction, on the side of some, and therefore opposing others. Instead of earning the loyalty of all through equal protection of the laws, it buys the subservience and acquiesance of the powerful and earns the enmity and scorn of the small and the proud who wish to keep their liberty and their dignity. Instead of being the arbiter, government becomes the interpolator, thus fissuring society instead of unifying it.
This is the national tragedy unfolding before our eyes. The Unitary State has chosen its friends and thereby made its enemies. Henceforth, loyalty will be demanded from the government but not earned by equal protection of law. The government is now in the habit of adhering to one group or faction within the society as opposed to gently and firmly standing aside and making general law as stipulated by artice 1 section 8 of the constitution.
I can think of no greater threat to the poor or the miidle class as it will not be they to whom the governing class distributes its largesse. The shrinking of the middle will accelerate, the unity of our nation imperiled. We must return to a separtion of state and specific interests, just we have a separtion of state and specific religions. The governemnt ceases to govern when it rewards some and therefore punishes others. Unless this ceases, it will not only be our economy in peril but our liberty and our unity.
From My Journal (XIII)
The transition of the Roman world from Pagainism to Christianity between 270 and 325 was the most momentous period in the history of the West. The State was the spirit of Paganism, religion was the spirit of Christianity. Constantine combined Christianity into the political order to bolster the State against chaos. Church and State, from Diocletian and Constantine until the French Revolution in 1789 had an uneasy truce punctuated by hostility.
The US was the first nation in history to seperate religion and the State. This was done to protect religion from the State. It encouraged a vast number of faiths to bloom. No one sect could dominate because none were protected or destroyed by the State. This created a unique brand of American Patriotism in which loyalty is felt not to the State, religion, or government, but to the "Nation." The Nation is the People in their political capacity.
It is this unique kind of nationalism, loyalty to the nation, the People, and the Constitution as a reflection of the Liberty of the People, that is the quiet strength that has unified the country through the divisions of class, region, race and creed. The unity is not enforced by a particular religion. The unity is derived from the diversity of religions and each individual's belief in his own creed and right to hold that creed as expressed in the National Creed. Freedom of Religion as guaranteed by its separation from the State strengthens the nation as it allows religion to animate the souls of each individual without interferecne from the State.
This is why it is not the State that is the source of soverignty but the People in there political capacity. It is not a strong state that welds our unity or guarantees our Liberty. It is a strong nation within which a multiplicity of religions, beliefs and states can flourish.
We are, and ever shall be, the United States, not the United State. A unitary State would threaten not only our religious Liberty buy all of our Liberties and our unity that is buttressed by them.
The US was the first nation in history to seperate religion and the State. This was done to protect religion from the State. It encouraged a vast number of faiths to bloom. No one sect could dominate because none were protected or destroyed by the State. This created a unique brand of American Patriotism in which loyalty is felt not to the State, religion, or government, but to the "Nation." The Nation is the People in their political capacity.
It is this unique kind of nationalism, loyalty to the nation, the People, and the Constitution as a reflection of the Liberty of the People, that is the quiet strength that has unified the country through the divisions of class, region, race and creed. The unity is not enforced by a particular religion. The unity is derived from the diversity of religions and each individual's belief in his own creed and right to hold that creed as expressed in the National Creed. Freedom of Religion as guaranteed by its separation from the State strengthens the nation as it allows religion to animate the souls of each individual without interferecne from the State.
This is why it is not the State that is the source of soverignty but the People in there political capacity. It is not a strong state that welds our unity or guarantees our Liberty. It is a strong nation within which a multiplicity of religions, beliefs and states can flourish.
We are, and ever shall be, the United States, not the United State. A unitary State would threaten not only our religious Liberty buy all of our Liberties and our unity that is buttressed by them.
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