close up photo of survey spreadsheet

It is commonly accepted that the earlier you start investing, the longer time horizon your investments will have to grow exponentially (compound). The power of compounding saves you the burden of having to put more principal into your savings and investments. Yet, why do so many have trouble getting started or have not gained traction?  In this article, I offer some explanations and share my personal experience.  I will drive home the point, using a compound interest calculator.

Human Psychology

Much of why many people fall behind on saving and investing has to do with human psychology; I fully recognize that the comments in this section do not apply to those who are struggling to meet basic needs, and investing may be the last thing on their minds.  That is understandable and I will try to be helpful without being insensitive.

Reason #1Humans tend to avoid or delay pain in favor of instant gratification.  Saving and investing are inconvenient, if not painful for some.  For others, over-consumption gets in the way of saving and investing. This is why the savings rate in the U.S. is very low, and for years, behavioral economists and consumer advocates pushed for legislation to force employers to automatically enroll their employees in 401K and similar plans.  The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that in 2021, 59% of employees were eligible to have a 401K plan, but only 32% participated.

Reason #2Fear and Greed.  Investors, especially inexperienced ones, tend to overreact during times of distress and uncertainty (war, recessions, pandemics, etc.). This leads to panic selling.  On the other hand, during good times, they tend be “irrationally exuberant”, using Nobel-laureate economist Robert Shiller’s phrase (later made famous by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan). This is why bubbles form, encouraging excessive risk taking, followed by severe losses in the ensuing crash.

My Experience

I took advantage of time being on my side.  I remember Warren Buffett saying that when he was 10 years old, he figured that if he lived long enough, his investments would compound enough to make him a very wealthy man.  I took that to heart.  Even though right out of college, I had a negative net worth, overwhelmed by debt, living expenses, supporting my parents, and saving for my future, I made sure to contribute 5% of every paycheck to my retirement account.  I was fortunate enough to have a stable, average- paying job that matched my contributions.  Every time I got a raise, I increased my contribution by at least 1%.

Key Takeaway:  I contributed at least 5% of every paycheck to my retirement savings early in my early 20s.  Over the next 25 years,  the investments grew exponentially, giving me financial independence in my 40s.

If your employer does not provide a retirement plan (401K, 403b, 457, etc.), there are other options, such as a traditional IRA, Roth IRA, brokerage account, etc.   Advantages and disadvantages of these accounts are beyond the scope of this article.  You can own any or all of them, in addition to having an employer-sponsored retirement account.  Over time, I’ve owned all of them.

I was consistent.  The key to success in most disciplines is consistency.  The words of my high school tennis coach, Mr. Martinez, still ring in my ears today.  What wins tennis matches is consistently making good shots, not the Andre Agassi-type, ESPN-highlight-worthy shots (we couldn’t make those consistently like Andre could).

This principle worked well for me in investing, and for many others.  I let the professional traders and excessive risk takers do the day trading, while I consistently contributed to my accounts; small amounts of money were automatically transferred from my bank account to my investment accounts regularly.  This is what Warren Buffett meant when he said that you should pay yourself first.

I visualized success.  I didn’t just imagine it. I planned it.  I ran simulations on spreadsheets.  This allowed me to make adjustments to my contributions when necessary.  I always added more when I could, especially when the market was down.  Below, I am sharing my compound growth calculator.  Feel free to save it to your Google Drive, and run the simulations yourself.

The first tab, ‘Historical Examples’, contains historical annual rates of return on four Fidelity mutual funds from 1992 to 2020.  These funds are examples of one broad index fund and three sector funds focused on technology, biotechnology, and healthcare stocks.  I have no association with Fidelity nor am I sponsored by them.  The examples assume that, through 4 boom and bust cycles (recession of 1991-2, tech bust of 1999-2000, financial crisis of 2008, and Covid-19 in 2020), consistently contributing $6,000 per year in these representative funds would yield a portfolio value between $1.7 and $2.3 million.

Of course, this is hindsight. History doesn’t repeat itself exactly, which is why I created the second tab, ‘Simulations’.  This looks to the future (2022 to 2050), so many assumptions and guesses have to made.  This is helpful for visualizing possible outcomes, especially if you are now starting to invest or unsure if we’re in a bubble that is about to pop.  There are four scenarios with different assumptions and outcomes.  For all scenarios, I’m using the FDGRX fund, which invests in growing companies (appropriate for young investors with long time horizons).

Scenario 1:  this is the baseline scenario where nothing changes (still contributing $6,000 per year and getting the same returns in the same pattern as historically).  The final outcome is, in 2050, your portfolio will be worth $2 million.  This is the most optimistic scenario that is unlikely to repeat itself.

Scenario 2:  this is less optimistic, assuming a moderate downturn for the next six years, but having the same recovery pattern as historically.  Still contributing $6,000 per year, your portfolio will grow to $1.5 million by 2050.

Scenario 3: even less optimistic than Scenario 2, assuming a moderate downturn in the next six years, but having a weaker recovery throughout, and still contributing $6,000 per year.  In 2050, you end up with a portfolio worth $355,000.

Scenario 4:  worst-case scenario, suffering severe losses in the next six years,  followed by a weak recovery throughout.  But, realizing this, you increase your contributions from $6,000 to $10,000 per year until 2050, ending up with a portfolio worth $500,000.  This outcome is better than Scenario 3, where you did not make adjustments to your contributions.

Key Takeaway: Spreadsheet simulations help us to visualize a range of outcomes, and empower us to make adjustments in order to achieve a desired outcome.

Feel free to copy this spreadsheet to your own Google account and tweak it to your liking.   As the years pass, you can update each year with actual returns.  This is what I do every January.

As the saying goes, a journey of a thousand miles starts with one step.  If you haven’t started, I encourage you to take the first step.  Visualize success.  Be fearless.  Build confidence.  Find financial zen.


Wolf Cukier, a junior at Scarsdale High School in New York, got a two-month internship with NASA during his junior year. So he went to NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

His first task was to investigate fluctuations in star brightness acquired by NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, as part of the Planet Hunters TESS citizen science initiative. (The citizen science initiative lets people who do not work for NASA to assist in the discovery of new planets.)

Cukier found a new planet only three days into his internship. NASA made the announcement on their website, after validating the teenager’s work, submitting a paper co-authored by Cukier for scientific review, and announcing the finding of the planet, now known as “TOI 1338 b,” during the 235th American Astronomical Society conference.

17-year-old Cukier said: “I was looking through the data for everything the volunteers had flagged as an eclipsing binary, a system where two stars circle around each other, and from our view eclipse each other every orbit. About three days into my internship, I saw a signal from a system called TOI 1338. At first I thought it was a stellar eclipse, but the timing was wrong. It turned out to be a planet.

I noticed a dip, or a transit, from the TOI 1338 system, and that was the first signal of a planet. I first saw the initial dip and thought, ‘Oh that looked cool,’ but then when I looked at the full data from the telescope at that star, I, and my mentor also noticed, three different dips in the system.”

TOI 1338 b is 6.9 times the size of Earth (between Neptune and Saturn) and is situated in the constellation Pictor, approximately 1,300 light-years distant from Earth. TOI 1338 b is the first circumbinary planet discovered by the TESS system, which means it circles two stars. The two stars orbit each other every 15 days, and one of them is 10% the size of the Sun. TOI 1338 b and its two stars form what is known as an “eclipsing binary.”

According to NASA, circumbinary planets like TOI 1338 b are difficult to discover since standard algorithms might misinterpret them for eclipses, which is why interns like Cukier are crucial.

After making history, the high school senior is now considering his college options. Princeton, MIT, and Stanford are his top three options.


American Sundown (Part I)

Strategic Affairs analyst, Lieutenant General PC Katoch (Retd) analyses America's waning influence in a "New World Order" amidst the ongoing Ukraine crisis in this three-part series.

American Sundown (Part I)

The language used in this article is harsh to drive home what needs to be conveyed because a serious rethink is required at international levels.

The swamp in which America is stuck today is of its own making. The narrative that the Russian invasion justifies post-Cold War growth of NATO and its eastward expansion is crap. The reality is the opposite, as reasoned and theorized by many American strategists, diplomats, and scholars, including Kissinger, George Kennan, and John Joseph Mearsheimer; saying expanding NATO will be a massive folly and Ukraine should remain neutral. Were they all ‘Idiots’ and American politicians and policymakers ‘Smartasses’? Do you really feel that William Joseph Burns, current Director CIA, who after serving as Ambassador of the US to the Russian Federation from 2005 to 2008 had strongly recommended that US-NATO should leave Ukraine a neutral country, is a fool? Aren’t the smartasses out of sync with realities?

No doubt expansion of NATO enabled America to bomb, invade and ravage multiple countries with impunity. This gave a high that the US can maraud and rule the world according to American laws. Afghanistan was a shame, abandoning $92 billion worth of weaponry to the Taliban (terrorist organization) which brought US-NATO to its knees; all because of erratic American policies – 98,000 US troops in Afghanistan in 2011 could have subdued Taliban enough to negotiate an intra-Afghan deal.

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Russia is accused of invading a “sovereign” country but what about so many sovereign countries invaded by US-NATO? Witness the cries over civil casualties and destruction in Ukraine. Putin had achieved air superiority within 24 hours of launching operations and could have flattened Ukraine to reach his objectives, but did not. Compare the above with NATO bombing Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from March 24, 1999 to June 10, 1999; bombing bridges, industrial plants, hospitals, schools, cultural monuments, private businesses military barracks, and installations, killing over 1500 including 528 civilians without UN approval. Recall 42 days continuous American bombing of sovereign Iraq before invading it on a false pretext, even lying to the US Congress?

General Wesley Clark, former Supreme Allied Commander, NATO disclosed the disruptive US policy in 2007 by saying, “While the bombing of Afghanistan had commenced, I asked a General of Joint Staff, “Are we still going to war with Iraq?” And he said, “Oh, it’s worse than that.” He reached over to his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And he said, “I just got this down from upstairs” (meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office) “today.” And he said, “This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off with Iran.” Are these not sovereign countries? In 2015, General Michael Flynn, former head of US Defence Intelligence Agency, told a TV channel that the rise of Islamic State and Jabhat al Nusra was a “Willful Decision” of the US.

Civilian casualties in Russia’s invasion of Ukraine are termed human rights violations. What about civilian massacres in Donbas over the last few years perpetuated by the joker-President Zelensky who should have been left dancing in high heels and playing the piano with pants down. But America patronized him because he was developing nuclear capability with their full knowledge, plus making ‘good use’ of the multiple US-funded bio-labs – developing bioweapons, same as with the US-funded bio-labs in Algeria and Kazakhstan?

Fake stories of Russia ‘bombing’ the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Plant were circulated, which Russia has secured. Russia would know the consequences of bombing a nuclear facility. On the contrary, Zelensky would have liked to bomb it to prevent its fall to Russia – just like he scuttled Ukraine’s flagship and other vessels in the Black Sea.

Western tails are on fire because Ukraine is a European country and Western Ukraine is Catholic. True, Biden has managed to rally Europe, after the anger over American withdrawal from Afghanistan leaving EU nationals stranded, by stoking Russia and out-rightly rejecting every demand made by Putin linked with existential threats to Russia. But the deliberately twisted reasoning and cries raised by the West may convince largely the ‘White Chick Brigade’, not the whole world.

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Notwithstanding Joe Biden’s State of the Union address, American policymakers are pissing in their pants and Europe is worried because the Russian invasion has not stopped despite hosts of sanctions being dished out periodically. The Russian ambassador to Sweden told the media, that Moscow “doesn’t give a shit about the threat of Western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.”

US-NATO-EU are worried about what would happen in a direct clash with Russia and if Putin decides to go beyond Ukrainian borders, especially after Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov stated that the third world war will be nuclear, but adding that Russia has no intention of using nukes. That is why NATO allies refused Zelensky’s request for a no-fly zone over Ukraine.

The Biden Administration is running around sponsoring a string of meetings – UNSC, UNGA, IAEA, UNHRC, ICJ, with Blinken touring around to garner support and Josep Borrell working on EU membership to Ukraine, Georgia, and Moldova. In addition, Finland, which shares a border with Russia, is being offered NATO membership, to enable NATO troops and missile deployments in that country.

UNSC resolutions against ‘any’ P-5 country will always be vetoed, UNGA resolutions are not binding and the IAEA has said no radiation leakage in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant. As for human rights, remember how Nikki Haley, US ambassador to the UN, had denounced the UN Human Rights Council, followed by her resignation and the US withdrawing from it in October 2017.

War crimes accusations against Russia are laughable considering the records of both the US and NATO – should cases for war crimes be raised against them too? Also, ICJ rulings in favor of the Philippines against illegal territorial claims by China were simply dumped by Beijing and America and the rest of the world had to lump it.

Since Joe Biden talked of the opioid epidemic in his address on March 1, how many American “smartasses” are on opioids? Cocooned in their shells they will not put themselves in the other’s shoes and have little understanding of geography. The book ‘A Very Stable Genius’ authored by Philip Rucker and Carol D Leonnig, details the incident when President Donald Trump left Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi flabbergasted after he told him that India and China didn’t share a border, revealing the US President’s “woefully” poor knowledge of geography?

In his address on March 1, Biden said, “Our forces will not engage in the conflict with Russia in Ukraine, “next few days, weeks and months will be hard on them (Ukraine)”, but will fight if Putin moves West of Ukraine. What a lovely way to prop up Ukraine (despite advice not to do so) and then leave them to their fate. Biden also glossed over how the sanctions will adversely affect Europe. Selling oil to Europe four times the price of Russian gas may help bring down the 40-year high inflation in the US but America cannot meet the energy requirements of Europe.

Read Part-2

About The Author

Lt Gen. PC Katoch (Retd), PVSM, UYSM, AVSM, SC is a third generation army officer who superannuated as Director General Information Systems of the Indian Army in 2009. A Special Forces officer, he participated in the 1971 Indo- Pak War, commanded an independent commando company in counter-insurgency in the Northeast, a Special Forces Battalion in Sri Lanka as part of the Indian Peace Keeping Force, a Brigade on Siachen Glacier, a Division in Ladakh and a Strike Corps in South Western Theatre. He has had his work published in leading defence and national security publications and think tanks in both India and abroad.

(This article was first published in 'Hill Post' reproduced with due persmission from the author. Views expressed are the author's own and do not reflect the editorial stance of Mission Victory India)

'The Missing 54' P.O.Ws From 1971 Indo-Pak Vijay Continue To Languish
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Hopefully, if not in life, then in death, the government and the defence establishment will let our warriors be at ease by attempting to bring their mortal remains back to their homeland and maybe clarify what happened.

American Sundown (Part II)
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American Sundown (Part II)

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How does purification = strength?

How does purification = strength?

So let’s talk about how purification = strength….
Purification and strength, when properly understood go hand-in-hand. Purification is a means for strength. Strength comes as a result of connection; increased connection creates the threads of integrity. Never has there been a time when our personal, physical, mental and emotional strength has been more necessary and yet, never has there been a time when our strength on all these levels has been more threatened.
If 22 years of studying health and practicing regeneration has taught me anything, it is that purification is a prerequisite to real strength…now I’m not talking about illusions and imitations of strength like big beefy muscles and steely buildings or an iron fist. I’m talking about the Force Of Life, the power that comes from the Origin of Creation, that surges with its Infinite Intelligence through life. When this Force is unimpeded it creates the greatest strength we can fathom – the integrity of the atom, the astoundingly dynamic systems of the human body, trees, mountains and rainforests, not to mention the multi-layers of atmosphere protecting our earth and inner-spheres that run right to the core of this extraordinarily strong planet we call home.
1. Where does all this strength come from?
2. How is it diminished and how is it restored? That which is true for our planet is true also for ourselves.
When we understand the answer, we have our answer and our action plan set out for us. So herewith, the answers:
1. This strength comes from the energetic origin point of life which is pure Infinite Intelligence, it is the SOURCE of all LIFE. It expands throughout all creation (if it’s not impeded or suppressed), delivering its self-same energy to every cell and atom of its physical and non-physical expressions, lending strength in countless forms to all that live with its intrinsic integrity building quality. YOU are every bit a central recipient of this magnificent substance and strength is the signature of the Force running through you. Many of you have even restored yourselves back to being a microcosmic Source point all your own!
2. Life in all its natural forms is diminished (made weak) when this Infinite Intelligence stream conducting the Life Force from the Source is suppressed or obstructed. Life is restored to the degree that the suppression and obstruction are uprooted, dissolved, removed and ultimately stop hindering the flow of the Force previously blocked or interfered within themselves.
What I’m calling “purification” is the removal of that which suppresses and obstructs the Force. With that removal, the Force resumes its fast-conducting flow and the substance of it – the Infinite Intelligence — once again surges through the being – whether a person or a tree or a system like a rainforest or marine systems, atmospheric system, even, yes, relationships between people!
Purity is the state of a living thing (micro or macro) that is unobstructed and unsuppressed – uncompromised, unadulterated, untainted by artificial anti-life forces. Purity, by this definition, implies strength because integrity which is the hallmark of true strength exists and increases naturally under these unfettered conditions.
At this time where purity and strength are so compromised, we require conditions for the restoration of our many aspects. We need a state of mind, an energetic place of peace and high-frequency coherent energy to be immersed and surrounded by. Peace and order (defined as harmony, the anti-dote to chaos) are key conditions for most efficiently purifying the body/your being. We need sanctuary.
A ‘sanctuary’ where purification for the sake of restoration to strength can exist will strike the healing chord in you on every level. You must create that sanctuary for yourself by prioritizing peace, purification/cleansing and strengthening.
Purification brings restoration of our body, mind and heart’s blueprint. Beyond this restoration lies the opportunity for regeneration, where aliveness surges through the whole system, bringing about a higher order of your being. And within regeneration is the divine glow of resplendence – literally, the brilliant, splendid, bright, shining light! So when you talk about the light — light is pure and strong and it cannot be one without the other. Let’s light it up with purification and strength by making sanctuaries of our lives: a constant state within all of our days and moments. — NR
Losing Weight, Exercising and Cleansing

Losing Weight, Exercising and Cleansing

Lose the Weight Before You Begin Rigorous Exercise

If you are interested in losing weight and you want to exercise, please understand that it is unwise to do heavy exercise like running or cycling when you are carrying a lot of extra weight. It is SO much smarter to start cleansing and focus on walking, light dancing, light yoga, moving on the gym machines like the elliptical trainer and such until you lose a good deal of your excess weight.

Cleansing Initiates the Weight Loss Process

When you cleanse properly (per my books & courses), the weight practically falls off. Exercise is very important but it will only age and jar the system, creating injury (that’s often unrealized immediately) when it is done when one is carrying excess weight. Lose the weight and then jog, run, cycle, do MMA or whatever you like. Pushing your body to run, jump and exert when you are heavy is not good for you nor will it get you leaner faster. Get the cleansing going, drop the weight with consistent, strain-free movement every day. And then, you will benefit hugely from turning up the dial on your athletic challenges.

I see men in their 50’s with guts busting through their bike shorts cycling in packs on a Saturday morning and women carrying 30-50 extra pounds jogging and they are not doing anything positive for their bodies. Cleanse, cleanse, cleanse – and the athleticism will be easy eventually. Don’t punish your body further when it’s already in jeopardy. The whole process of physical transformation should be graceful, easy, intelligent, and clearly effective.

Dehydrated Guts

And for goodness sake, leave the water bottles at home. If you cannot go for a jog without a water bottle, you should NOT be jogging. A healthy athlete does not need to have water or a caloric refuel for two hours at least. But most people exercising have dehydrated guts and poor life force flow so they are constantly rendered dehydrated and weak. If you are an athlete and you need water and caloric fuel then your daily intake is not working for you and your colon is blocked. You need to get honest about that and not cling to antiquated ways of eating. A truly strong person (meaning a person with great physical integrity) does not take powders or ‘energy drinks’ or bars or any of that bogus athletic stuff. We eat water-containing plant food – when we eat (which is not that often) – we drink green juice, we have a clear intestinal tract that is richly hydrated because we don’t eat dry, dead food and we thoroughly rinse our colons when needed.

In loving service,

How Much Sleep?

How Much Sleep?

Is it true that when you eat mostly raw food you don’t need as much sleep?

This question comes up a lot and I’d like to take the opportunity to set the record straight on sleep.

Here’s what cleansers need to know about sleep…don’t doze off now…

Purpose of Sleep

Let’s look at the purpose of sleep: the purpose of sleep is restoration and growth of the physical body and of the energy network of the body. This means that the extent to which new growth and regeneration are required is the extent to which sleep will be required.

Regeneration, a return to a life-generating state for all tissues and organs, including the brain, will be directly related to the extent at which the life-generating state of the body and energy field has been compromised. Compromise comes in many forms – but essentially it constitutes exposure internally, externally, energetically, mentally, and emotionally that takes one out of harmony (or acts upon us centrifugally). All disharmony (centrifugal influences) must be remediated in order for balance and harmony to be restored. This means all compromises must be PROCESSED. Sleep is where the necessary processing can happen. Therefore, the amount of exposure one has to centrifugal influences will be directly related to the amount of sleep one will require.

Now, you can imagine, that after a lifetime of centrifugal, compromising habits and engagements your sleep cycles should be very long and indulgent. When you start cleansing you will need a great deal of extra sleep. Post-successful deep tissue cleansing, you will require less sleep SO LONG AS you engage almost entirely in harmonious, centripetal activities: eating simply and minimally and remaining in a generally peaceful state. But maintaining such a high level of harmony in the modern world is very rare. Even those fully committed to the cleansing lifestyle are most likely interfacing with a world of catastrophic energetic patterns in the form of technological radiation, pollution and emotional stress.

Unless you’re living in your own little paradise without any of the drama of everyday life and relationships, work demands and myriad daily challenges that most people face, you will still need a good deal of sleep each night to remediate that gnarled up energy that has to be reordered overnight for you to be strong the next day, not to mention the restoration needed to regenerate your organs and clean your blood.

If you drink alcohol or smoke or consume starches, meats, nuts, oils or over-eat or if you have a particularly high stress load, you will need even more sleep! The more acidic the compromises, the more sleep required to neutralize it all.

The more often you can sleep for long 7-8 hour stretches at night the better (even as an advanced cleanser). And if you need 9-10 hours, don’t question it — your body is likely processing something important so go with it. You’ve got decades of compromises to process and when you’re beyond that, you’ve got your lineage’s compromises to process.

We Heal When We Sleep

Sleep is a treasure trove of healing. ‘Beauty sleep’ implies a particularly long sleep stretch which means that all the necessary remediation and processing can take place and then leave ample sleep healing time for the extras like added tissue regeneration, eye brightening, increased cellular elasticity, younger-acting blood, hair and nail growth, etc.

Your sleep patterns will likely vary along your cleansing path. Those who are not sleeping much are not to be envied over those who are sleeping seemingly excessively. If you are genuinely sleeping soundly and at appropriate hours of the night (cat naps may also apply for some of you at times when required or enjoyed) then chalk it up to deep healing requirements and partake!

Remember, anything you put into your body or into your energy field will need to be processed. That can be a lot of processing if you add it all up. We live in a very stressful world with much to process and neutralize.

Some of you may be thinking about your animals as well. Why then do your cats and dogs seem to sleep all the time? Remember domesticated animals will need far more sleep than wild animals. Their diets are unnatural, largely starchy and dehydrated, and they are also having to neutralize the energetic fields and stresses that their owners are internalizing.

Now you can doze off!

In loving service,

Becoming  Your Own Surgeon

Becoming Your Own Surgeon

Benefits of Cleansing Your Cells

When you cleanse your cells and tissues, you become your own surgeon. The removal of the interloping blockages triggers a great re-knitting of the tissues to occur — something science only dreams of as it attempts to mimic such life-generating phenomena. At the very least, science has to go to great lengths to achieve something with entropic tissue that Life achieves with healthy tissue as naturally as breathing. (At worst, science has to apply immoral tactics to do so). So why not just remediate the tissue so Life can work its natural magic? (Ah, because that would entail discipline and lifestyle change).

Life is, by definition, regenerative. Only death/entropy requires questionable, convoluted, complicated apparatus. Again, for what? To mimic what Life does effortlessly on its own under the right conditions! Radiance, strength, purity, clarity, creativity, effortlessness. These are the fruits of your inner surgeon’s discipline & focus. It can take many days and hours in the operating theater. But there is great work being done — divine suturing, transcendent transplants, ineffable transfusions & cosmetic miracles.

Tip: It’s time, once and for all, to get over what the ‘beast’ in you wants to consume. Get over your lower impulses. They will just take you lower and lower. Find a way to love your greens. They are your “soap.”

Overcome Cravings and Impulses

Get over this idea that you are entitled to be satisfied all the time. Instead, try on the power of a bit of sacrifice. It’s healthy and wholesome to rise above knee-jerk desires. Don’t trust all those cravings that you are otherwise encouraged by the carnal, lost-world, to indulge in. They are illusions of satisfaction. Real pleasure and satisfaction will come to you as undeniably as the morning light.

Small but deliberate steps. Every day, a little more. You can be a great surgeon and regenerate your body. But there are no short cuts in the operating theater…no cutting at all in fact, just the release of the impediments to conductivity and then, natural reconnection. Remember that what it actually means to “deny oneself” is to discard the truth of what you are. That is a far cry from the common understanding of the term which is to fail to give yourself the indulgences you desire. In effect when you indulge your lower impulses per the latter directive, you are in fact, actually discarding the truth of what you are.

Be the Flame

You can become the light/the primal fire/the eternal flame or you can get burned by it. The eternal flame will go on either way, incinerating all that is not itself. True to itself, the eternal fire of light will always unapologetically and uncompromisingly flame on.

In loving service,

Life Force Energy

Life Force Energy

Power Foods and Their False Charges

Culturally, we have been trained to believe that we can fuel our bodies with “power foods” as we would fuel a car with gasoline or charge a battery with electricity. However, this is not how the body works. While some foods—like caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, animal fleshes (with their hormones, adrenaline, and food additives)—have highly stimulating effects on the body, they only provide a false charge that leaves the body depleted and craving more. Then there are the heavily marketed “health” offerings and “power-foods”—such as fish oils, algae, vitamin supplements and drinks—that offer the hope of a natural energy boost. These, too, are misleading. Here’s why…

Maintain Open, Clear Pathways

To heal and energize the body, we must remove the obstructions that are blocking our natural energy flow. In other words, to “rev our engines,” we must remove the waste that’s baked into our cells and blocking up our systems—not fill ourselves with more substances.

Our bodies are perfectly made. When we ask them to share real estate with the unfit foods and environmental wastes that do not fully leave the body and accumulate over time, our bodies fall apart. The secret is having open, clear pathways for free-flowing Life Force Energy. Remove the obstructions—and voila!—no “power-foods” necessary.

Real Energy, Real Charges

So, the next time you think about putting something into your body to energize it, think again. Eat in order to remove the inner blockages—simple combinations of quick exit foods for minimal digestive effort, with lots of veggie juices to support elimination through hydration and enzymatic activity—and you will feel your engine rev like you never imagined it could. You will also save yourself the headache and expense of trying to keep up with all the new “power-foods” and supplements that deceive most health seekers.

In loving service,

What Else is Needed Aside from a Plant-based Diet?

What Else is Needed Aside from a Plant-based Diet?

Eating Your Veggies Isn’t Enough

I hear people all the time saying they wish they could eat a 100% plant-based diet but struggle. Yes, plant-based sounds good, doesn’t it (and the alternatives being animal-based or SAD or paleo or some other water-devoid consumption like Banting) are not in harmony with maintaining both 1. the very high water-content and 2. the alkaline force-field of the body.

Cleansing your Colon

BUUUUUUT…. simply eating a plant-based diet is not going to make you healthy. Being plant-based per se is not going to cure you of your fatigue, excess weight, auto-immune diseases, and countless other mounting fragilities. Only getting the WASTE OUT will do that. You don’t rehabilitate a landfill by putting some flowers on it or planting a few trees in the radioactive, septic soil. The only hope of restoring health to toxic soil is by removing the septic, radioactive matter from the land.

Too Many Nuts and Grains

Also, plant-based means little if it is in the form of substances that constipate your system. Large quantities of nuts and grain (which is how modern people tend to consume these – as in by the fist-full and in bowls-full) is not going to solve anything in your body. Unless you take these in very small portions, it just adds to the already problematic density & inflammation.

If you block a pathway in nature, the requisite flowing elements like water and oxygen will not be received. Don’t beat yourself up over a 100% plant-based diet and better yet, don’t fall into the trap that it will fix you by itself. What will fix you is using dark green plants to awaken deep waste from your cells and tissues and then using colon irrigation to remove that which the plants awakened! Focus on what you’re able to remove from your body as the primary method of regenerating yourself!

Awaken and Release

We do this by the tried-and-true method of awaken + release. Electron rich/highly oxygenating substance (greens primarily) reconstitute and magnetize the waste up and out of the cells and tissues, to exit the colon through enemas and colonics. It’s a two-pronged effort – both legs of this are needed if you want to truly walk & run through life!

There is no such thing as a cleanse that doesn’t result in the copious release of deeply drawn up matter. Do you cleanse your house without removing copious rubbish? Do you sprinkle supplements and leaves and consider it cleaned? Of course not! So have your green juice and raw salads and if you need to, and have a few eggs or a piece of fish or a Bison burger if need be (I don’t like the idea of exploiting animals for food, for the record, but once enough cleansing has occurred, this person will become such a force for good in the world that it will more than compensate and the animal eating will stop – once s/he realizes where his/her energy & strength actually comes from – the life-force current from the removal of obstruction – s/he will immediately stop consuming the flesh of animals and eat a true plant-based diet as intended – simple, sparse & clean). That’s what we need to get to fully experience our human design. But it comes in stages, a transition is required.

Plant food, unless you’re growing it yourself very carefully according to the methods of Rudolf Steiner or as depicted in the “Anastasia” series by Vladimir Megre, is still a part of the massively destructive agriculture industry that is in no way ‘vegan’ in practice, as a central harbinger of the extermination of whole eco-systems. The best book I know of on this subject is Lierre Keith’s “The Vegan Myth.” Yes, “eat a carrot and save a cow,” I say – absolutely! That’s how I live (though my taste for goat cheese begs redemption despite my best attempts at contrition).

Bottom line: get the waste out of your cells and tissues. That’s your redemption & regeneration solution! If you eat a few eggs in the process don’t beat yourself up IF you’re using those eggs to upgrade your tissues and organs by cleansing. Plant-based is great if we’re talkin’ leafies and veggies, but not if it’s an excuse to stuff up on nuts and grains, soy and raw-vegan cheesecake day and night.

Cleanse for Success

Think about what you’re aiming for. There’s gunk to get out. All the plant-based initiatives in the world will not do that without the awaken + release formula for success! If you’re full of waste, you’re wasted and wasting away. Please do the truly effective work: cleanse and don’t get sucked up by labels like “vegan” or “raw.” What is your goal? Define it. If it is cleansing, CLEANSE. If it is to be merely plant-based, okay, just know your vibratory result will most likely be underwhelming. Clean-celled is not a theory – it is an experiential fact for those who put the awaken + release formula to task. The evidence is visceral & tangible as so many of you know!

Power forward!

In loving service,


IT specialists who work in the Embedded category are faced with challenges connected to programming systems that control the physical operations of electronic devices. Often they work in Software Houses and Big Tech corporations.

How much money does an Embedded Developer make on average?

It needs to be noted that general income level depends on several factors such as particular industry, location, type of employment, and seniority level. According to our research, specialists of Mid seniority who worked remotely in the Embedded category in the first quarter of 2021 were making between 12k-17k PLN net (+VAT) on B2B contract per month on average. One may note that Embedded specialists' income is subject to a constant increase.

Is Embedded programming a good starting point in IT?

Embedded programming is a good starting point in IT. Embedded developers typically have to learn C and C++ languages due to their usefulness in optimising hardware efficiency. One should also have a look into GIT and Linux in order to be competitive on the job market for Embedded programmers.

Where is Embedded programming used?

Embedded programming is used wherever there is a need for programming hardware e.g. CPUs, traffic lights, and even rocket engines. One can search for employment in Software Houses, Information Technology & Services or E-commerce. The growing trend of the Internet of Things is also worth mentioning in the context of the Embedded category.


A Close Look at Individuals

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander finds a common ground between Republicans and Democrats when looking at who we consider change agents in our system. Both groups look at the power of the individual as the driving force of America and see the individual as the mechanism through which change and a better future are possible. The two camps may see the actions of the individual a bit differently, but nevertheless both focus on the individual.

Throughout her book however, Alexander is critical of the idea that the individual is capable of creating and instigating the changes in America that are necessary to overcome enormous challenges. There are too many structural barriers for individuals to overcome, and even if the individual does rise to the top, the idea that they can lift an entire group is unrealistic. The individual may play an incredible role, and in America the strength of the individual may be fantasized by popular culture, but the individual exists in a complex society that can only truly change and advance through the mobilization of entire social groups. I agree with Alexander that the structural barriers are too great for us to address on our own, and I want to look at how we think about the individual versus the collective, and examine the ways that Alexander believes this plays out in our criminal justice system.

Since our founding, the idea of the individual has been a palpable force in shaping our democracy. Protestant settlers tended to believe that their hard work would be rewarded with great riches from above, and success was (and still is) viewed as an individual’s divine blessing, given by a greater power to those who are hard working, virtuous, and special. If one was successful it was because a divine being had recognized and rewarded them, and through this same view, those who were not successful were in their position due to individual moral failures. On this foundation we built a nation and a constitution that centered around the strength and responsibility of the individual for personal gain. Our primary responsibility was to be a good Christian so that God would bestow great bounty upon us, and if we all focused on this goal as individuals, collectively we would all find an everlasting success. Failure was a result of individuals not living up to the contract from above, and within this lens we developed the idea of the deserving and undeserving.

From this foundation our nation has developed to where we are today. Describing the role of the individual in The New Jim Crow, Alexander writes, “Here we see both liberals and conservatives endorsing the same meta-narrative of American individualism: When individuals get ahead, the group triumphs. When individuals succeed, American democracy prevails.” Alexander is critical of this theory and I think she is right to criticize the focus on individualism. I do not believe there is a liberal and a conservative America, because when we use those terms we mean different things in different contexts, so I will drop her terms and simply use Republican and Democrat because party identification is more consistent and to me seems to be more causal than liberal or conservative ideology.

Alexander describes the Republican Party as being focused on individuals changing the system through entrepreneurship and insight. The individual can create great innovations if they are not constrained and limited by the system within which they operate. The Democratic party sees the individual as the flagship leader, raising up and pulling the status of the group and the fortunes of others up with them. Both of these views see power as resting with great individuals and leaders, and see exceptional leaders as the key to growth, progress, development, and a better future. Alexander finds this narrative lacking and dangerous, and I agree with her that it is an incomplete view.

To me, this focus on individuals is misplaced. What we get from our focus on individualism is instability, delays, and stagnation as often than we get flashes of brilliance, advancement, and progress. An incredible leader and voice may come along to lift up an entire group, as Dr. King Jr. did during the Civil Rights movement, but expecting a great leader to instigate meaningful change causes delays in achieving justice, making scientific advances, and solving substantial problems that impact people’s every day lives. This focus also creates instability since people change and die, and pinning all of our hopes on an individual leaves movements of change and advancement  vulnerable, as the assassination of Dr. King Jr. demonstrated.

The real power of the individual is not in change and progress as both Democrats and Republicans would hope. The true power of the individual is in the status quo. It is the power to defend the injustices that exist, the power to delay advancement and equality, and the power to be a barrier that limits other individuals. The reason why an individual has greater power to be a pest and not a hero is because we live in a society that requires collective action. The Republican Party has demonstrated that a few high minded individuals with great influence can derail the ideas of societal responsiveness and democratic representation. As an example, Grover Norquest’s anti-tax pledge is a commitment to abandon the collective more than it is a commitment to improve society. The Koch brother’s campaign against moderate candidates (candidates who more accurately reflect the majority of the country) is a demonstration that a few individuals can block progress and block the strength of our social groups while upholding structural barriers. President Donald Trump clearly shows us that a single individual can reverse and hold up equality and group advancement, while President Barack Obama showed us that even the best among us can only make so much of a dent without the support of broader communities.

In America we love our superheroes that pull the world back from the brink of destruction and manage to triumph in the face of adversity. We focus on what the individual can achieve and use material and financial success to demonstrate our value as individuals. What hides below the surface of our love for the individual is the fact that no one can be a superhero without some form of support from a larger group. What we hide in our past is that those who became incredibly wealthy in the early days of our society did so by exploiting the black body, justifying their actions as divinely ordained and rightful by biology and manifest white destiny. This attitude continued and the white individual was able to achieve their own success while holding the entirety of black society back. If we focus on individualism we allow such evils to persist. We must find a new way to be individuals and be successful on our own, but with the understanding that our individual success in terms of wealth, possessions, jobs, and family has as much  to do with with us as individuals as it has to do with the stability and protection offered by the larger society in which we live.

I find it frustrating to listen to people complain that protesters are angry. Somehow we have in our mind a vision that protestors should be peaceful, calm, and wise, and when we see protestors that are angry and easily stirred into violence, we become critical and fail to consider the ideology, the demands, or the injustices that are at the heart of the protest. When we look back, I think we view the marches of the Civil Rights Movement as being peaceful protests, but only because we have chosen to remember the peaceful movements when sharing the history in our schools and we have collectively forgotten most of the violence that did occur during that time.

In her book The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander writes about the anger that is built up within the activists today who fight for better justice for our minority communities. It is hard to accept mass incarceration and unequal treatment from police officers, prosecutors, and judges without becoming cynical and resentful toward the system and political leaders who have allowed for such inequities. Alexander writes, “Those of us who hope to be their allies should not be surprised, if and when this day comes, that when those who have been locked up and locked out finally have the chance to speak and truly be heard, what we hear is rage.”

Anger and even rage are real human emotions. We should not expect people to ignore their feelings and emotions, especially not when their liberties and futures have been taken away from them with such injustice. We must learn to look beyond the anger, rage, or even violence and rioting of protesters if we want to improve the status quo and create greater social cohesion. By criticizing the poor behavior of protestors, we only increase the anger and rage. We must understand that people are driven to such extremes when they feel isolated and powerless and feel that they have no other avenue to speak out against injustices. This may mean that we listen to people we don’t agree with, and it may mean that we open a floor to people we dislike, but it is a necessary step within democracy, for further disenfranchisement can only build anger and rage while honest discussion and a willingness to hear an argument or a protester’s demands will diffuse the tension and violence.

Clinging to Advantages

Over the last few weeks I have been very critical of American society and how we have treated black people and failed to live up-to ideals of freedom and equality for all. I have scrutinized white culture and politics and how our nation developed a system of mass incarceration that treats people differently based on race, and then hides behind ideas of colorblindness to deflect charges of racism and discrimination. However, it is important for me to address the human nature which drives the behaviors and attitudes of our majority population and dominant culture, so that I can better understand how we arrived where we are today.

In The New Jim Crow, Michelle Alexander writes, “it seems that an aspect of human nature is the tendency to cling tightly to one’s advantages and privileges and to rationalize the suffering and exclusion of others.” I have written about John Biewen and his podcast Seeing White, and one of the key take-aways from his podcast was the understanding that racial discrimination followed economic exploitation. When our nation was not yet independent, we did not have genetic science, and we did not have complete working ideas of evolution and biology. In the United States wealthy European settlers enslaved black people for economic gain, and to justify that exploitation, stories, myths, and the idea of what would become the basis for “race” came into being. We would not have race and the creation of a caste system if people were not exploiting humans for economic gain in the first place. This system was never authentically understood or based on reason or science, but based on myth and the self-interest of those whose privilege provided advantages.

The quote from Alexander reminds us that we cannot just be critical and cast a judgmental eye on those who push back against our challenges to racial injustice. To a much greater extent than we ever truly recognize, we act more out of our own self-interest or our perceived self-interest than we act based on reason and altruistic values. I do not believe that the world is zero-sum, and I think you can cut behind popular views of the world as being win-lose to see ways in which we all grow and benefit even if we appear to be giving something up. However, the loss of status, the loss of social privilege, and even the loss of economic advantages can truly feel like a loss if you view the world as zero-sum. Giving up any of these things produces short term pains, and the payoffs are often far away and hard to recognize. Asking one group to give up their advantages and privilege may be necessary to ensure longterm stability within a population and may lead to greater economic prosperity for all over a generation or two, but the individual who must give up status and power may feel as though they have given up more than others, and they may feel attacked and victimized.

This is a challenge we must work through as a society. As we ask white people to step away from privilege, we must find a way to demonstrate that we are not attacking them personally or punishing white people for having been successful in our traditional system. Often times overall wealth and privilege is not as important for an individual as relative wealth and privilege. If you have more status among those around you, it does not matter that you are less wealthy and less powerful than those you will never meet or see. This vision needs to be shifted so that we look not at our status relative to those around us, but instead look toward stability and opportunity for humanity as a whole, recognizing that we, and our children, can still be prosperous and important, but in a larger system that depends on human connections more than it depends on individual wealth and success.

Colorblindness and Individualism

Americans celebrate individualism. We love feeling that we are special, and we love feeling that we have value based on our accomplishments and achievements. We even love when we have support from those around us to give us nudges toward our goals and help us with both the small and the large daunting steps along our journey. What we don’t love, however, is acknowledging how much we truly rely on others and on luck for our success. We are often quick to find excuses for mistakes and failures, pushing the negative off to someone else, but when it comes to the good things, we have no problem claiming personal responsibility and demonstrating our individual achievement.

This spirit of individualism that hypes up our personal responsibility for success and downplays our role in our failures is dangerous. it stems from and further builds an ego inflation that puts us at the center of the universe, and denies our true relationships to society and those around us. This individualism and ego inflation shifts the way we see the world, as Ryan Holiday put it in his book Ego is the Enemy, “It’s the sense of superiority and certainty that exceeds the bounds of confidence and talent. Its when the notion of ourselves and the world grows so inflated that it begins to distort the reality that surrounds us.”

When we talk about personal responsibility in society we must be careful, because our individualism places incredible value on who we areas a single person and misses our role within the collective society. We begin to forget how much we need other people for our success, how much other people depend on us to maintain their lifestyle, and how connected all of us are.

An area where we see individualism as particularly damaging within society is criminal justice. Colorblindness is the overwhelming doctrine of criminal justice and race in the United States, but the problem is that colorblindness is an individual approach to the society, and it is subject to the dangers of ego that Ryan Holiday explained above. Our sense of ourselves is inaccurate, and our unrealistically positive view of who we are changes the way we interpret and understand the world and our place in it. When we begin to focus purely on individuals in criminal justice policy, we don’t recognize the structural realities that shape the world for so many, and we act purely in our own self interest.

Michelle Alexander describes what happens when we allow colorblindness to take over and are guided by a sense of individualism and ego in her book The New Jim Crow, “For conservatives, the ideal of colorblindness is linked to a commitment to individualism. In their view, society should be concerned with individuals, not groups. Gross racial disparities in health, wealth, education, and opportunity should be of no interest to our government, and racial identity should be a private matter, something best kept to ourselves.” This view of race and individual responsibility is distorted. It is consistent with a view that places the individual at the center of the universe, but it is inconsistent with the reality that we depend on each other and need to engage with others to succeed. Individualism is easily hijacked by ego, and colorblindness is a defense mechanism to prop up our ego and highlight our individual advantages.

Care and Concern for Others

I have written about the ways in which colorblindness has been adopted across the nation, but does not actually lead to the outcomes that we would expect. Rather than helping us create better situations for everyone, colorblindness is an excuse that allows for disparate outcomes based on race, as long as we say that our policies and systems were designed to be race neutral. Colorblindness is effectively ignoring the reality of other people and our differences and shutting some people out of our lives.

As an alternative to colorblindness, Michelle Alexander in The New Jim Crow proposes the idea of color consciousness. She describes a shift to color consciousness from color blindness in detail. “The shift may, in fact, come as something of a relief, as it moves our collective focus away from a wholly unrealistic goal to one that is within anyone’s reach right now. After all, to aspire to colorblindness is to aspire to a state of being in which you are not capable of seeing racial difference—a practical impossibility for most of us. The shift also invites a more optimistic view of human capacity. The colorblindness ideal is premised on the notion that we, as a society, can never be trusted to see race and treat each other fairly or with genuine compassion. A commitment to color consciousness, by contrast, places faith in our capacity as humans to show care and concern for others, even as we are fully cognizant of race and possible racial differences.”

Color consciousness is the idea that we can see race and be aware of our race, other people’s race, and the differences between us and our experiences of the world. When we are colorblind we are not able to accept the disparate outcomes of our policies, and we are encouraged to forget and mitigate the past. Rather than try to understand how our present moment is shaped by past events such as slavery and Jim Crow segregation, colorblindness assumes that we have progressed beyond such evils and live in a society where everything has been fixed, so race no longer matters. Color consciousness instead looks at the past to understand where we are today, and is able to be more thoughtful and considerate when developing new policies and strategies to help the lives of everyone.

What Racial Indifference and Blindness Create

It has become common and popular today to say that you don’t see race and that your actions and behaviors are colorblind. Our politicians, celebrities, friends, and neighbors will all say they are colorblind, trying to convey the idea that they do not act like a racist and that they love all people, regardless of race or skin color.

In her book, The New Jim Crow, author Michelle Alexander argues that colorblindness and our focus on outward racism is actually what has allowed racial attitudes and racially disparate outcomes to survive in the United States. The type of racism we have to be aware of is not an outward racism perpetuated by individuals, but rather an invisible racism built into our structures, ideologies, and communities. We claim to be colorblind and we tell ourselves and others that we are fair to all races because we have diverse friends, but at the same time we often support policies that impact the lives of black and brown people unequally relative to white people. The New Jim Crow demonstrates the ways in which our colorblind society has not done a good job of preventing racism from influencing our criminal justice system and goes further to show that racism is a consistent factor in the policies and politics that we support.

What colorblindness creates is racial indifference. It creates an atmosphere where we assume that if we are not explicitly mean and don’t act in deliberately malicious ways towards others, then those others will be fine and will succeed. Colorblindness does not really mean that we are not racist, but that the concerns, values, and lives of people of color do not matter to us. We cannot see the suffering, the disparate impacts, and the inequalities of society because we are indifferent to the lives of minorities. This is what we are truly saying by calling ourselves colorblind, even if we don’t recognize it.

In The New Jim Crow, Alexander quotes Martin Luther King Jr., “One of the great tragedies of man’s long trek along the highway of history has been the limiting of neighborly concern to tribe, race, class or nation.” Humans evolved in relatively small groups, working, hunting, and growing together, but our world today demands that we work as a single global people. Our minds did not evolve to truly understand and connect with billions or even just millions of people across the globe, and along the way we have developed stories to tell us who we associate with. These made up stories of race, nation, and sports give us a sense of community and help us understand who is part of our tribe. The problem, however, is that these stories are fictions and operating based on our tribal instincts hurts the lives of real people. When we cannot move beyond our tribal nature, we create inequities that create social tension and conflict. In the United States we have chosen to ignore our tribal attitudes and have chosen to believe that indifference to other groups is the same thing as supportive inclusion. Unfortunately, this allows racial biases to operate in the background as we favor our tribe over others and push others down in invisible ways. As Alexander writes in the book, “Racial indifference and blindness—far more than racial hostility—form the sturdy foundation for all racial caste systems.”

The Burden of a Nation

Today we have a problem with the number of people we arrest and the destroyed potential futures for those who have been arrested. As we arrest greater numbers of individuals for drug related offenses, the more families we break apart, the fewer people we have available to work, and the more our nation must spend on housing those who have been arrested. Prior to reading Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow, I had assumed that this system operated fairly and I had criticized those who had been arrested for their own faults and personal shortcomings. What I did not see before her book are the choices that we made as a society that lead to the crime, the policing, and the levels of arrests that we see in our nation. We have a choice in determining the criminality of low level drugs like marijuana, and we have a choice in how harshly we will arrest and punish those who break the laws that we create. At a certain point, we must begin asking ourselves, beyond what an individual has done wrong, what has society done wrong so that so many people are violating drug laws, and should our response be imprisonment or less expensive and less socially damaging responses to crime.

In her book, Alexander writes, “Du Bois got it right a century ago: “the burden belongs to the nation, and the hands of none of us are clean if we bend not our energies to righting these great wrongs.” It is up to all of us, not just up to criminals and those living in ghettos or low income areas, to solve the crime problems our nation faces and to strengthen our communities. Those of us who do not act and do not take steps to make our world better are equally at fault as those who commit crimes and make our society more segregated and less equitable. Alexander continues, “The reality is that, just a few decades after the collapse of one caste system, we constructed another. Our nation declared a war on people trapped in racially segregated ghettos—just at the moment their economies had collapsed—rather than providing community investment, quality education, and job training when work disappeared.” Our choices created the ghettos and in response to the effects of concentrated power, we decided that incarceration was the best option to deal with the crime that resulted. Alexander looks at the history of segregation in our country and how that has impacted our development, our communities, and the policies put forth by those in power. Our reaction to minorities has historically been to shut them out and deny them of opportunity, and today, when people in communities that have been isolated and exiled result to crime, we find justification in our actions and arrests.

“Of course those communities are suffering from serious crime and dysfunction today. Did we expect otherwise? Did we think that, miraculously, they would thrive?” Alexander pushes us to reflect on ghettos and segregated areas of concentrated poverty. Rather than uniting our communities and putting forth greater resources to help people in ghettos, we have decided to arrest individuals, which diminishes future potential and career opportunities, feeding back into a vicious cycle of crime, poverty, and disfunction. Rather than try to build the areas in new and novel ways that put low income individuals next to more affluent families and people, we isolated the poor and the minorities so that they could be forgotten. It is expensive to provide community support to those who need it and to improve our ghettos, but it is certainly expensive to warehouse individuals in prisons and jails and to react to the crime committed by those who have lost future possibilities or live in disjointed households.

Views on Criminality in the United States

In The New Jim Crow Michelle Alexander explains the ways that we have turned the prison system and our treatment of criminals into a modern caste system. She looks at the way we approach criminality and is critical of the open prejudice shown toward those who have been arrested or convicted of crimes. Her book was eye opening to me because of the way she looked at crime, who commits crime, who is punished for crime, and who seems to be able to commit crime without worrying about punishment. She is able to demonstrate with study after study that our system unreasonably targets minority populations and has different outcomes that limit individual’s futures and shapes the lives and communities in which people live.

I was particularly struck by the similarity that exists between those who commit crimes and are punished and pushed out from society and those who never commit crimes and manage to move through life with success. Alexander challenges this idea writing, “The notion that a vast gulf exists between ‘criminals’ and those of us who have never served time in prison is a fiction created by the racial ideology that birthed mass incarceration, namely that there is something fundamentally wrong and morally inferior about ‘them’.” White, brown, and black criminals are somehow viewed as the other and as a problem that we, the morally sound part of society, must deal with. We cast these individuals out because they are somehow flawed and unable to participate in society at a fundamentally humane level. But this idea is not backed by real evidence of behavior, especially as we have been increasing our sentencing for low level drug crimes and over policing minority neighborhoods.

Alexander continues, “Most Americans violate drug laws in their life-time. Indeed most of us break the law not once but repeatedly throughout our lives. Yet only some of us will be arrested, charged, convicted of a crime, branded a criminal or felon, and ushered into a permanent under-caste.” We don’t seem to recognize how frequently the law is broken, particularly with drug laws, and how arbitrary our punishment and legal system can be. When we limit housing and limit employment opportunities to those who have been arrested, we limit the ability of people who were arrested to return to society and become a contributing member of society. We make up stories about those who were arrested so that we don’t have to confront the brutal fact that we arrest minority populations at far greater rates than we should, and our stories help us feel justified in our actions and morally superior to other people. Ensuring that everyone in society can advance and ensuring that we can have robust and supportive communities means that we must re-think our criminal justice system and re-think what it means to be a criminal.

Inflated Districts

Michelle Alexander looks at specific policies that have lead to greater incarceration rates in our nation and have exacerbated racial injustice in her book The New Jim Crow. One of the policies Alexander criticizes is the policy surrounding political representation of incarcerated individuals. After Alexander addresses the reality that our nation locks up minority black and brown men at rates far higher than white men, she addresses questions of voting and districting. Below, Alexander explains how incarcerated individuals are counted by the Census Bureau,

“Under the usual-residence rule, the Census Bureau counts imprisoned individuals as residents of the jurisdiction in which they are incarcerated. Because most new prison construction occurs in predominately white, rural areas, white communities benefit from inflated population totals at the expense of the urban, overwhelmingly minority communities from which the prisoners come. This has enormous consequences for the redistricting process. White rural communities that house prisons wind up with more people in state legislatures representing them, while poor communities of color lose representatives because it appears their population has declined. This policy is disturbingly reminiscent of the three-fifths clause in the original Constitution, which enhanced the political clout of slaveholding states by including 60% of slaves in the population base for calculating Congressional seats and electoral votes, even though they could not vote.”

The presidential election of 2016 showed a powerful split in political preferences between rural and urban parts of the country. Metropolitan areas heavily favored the Democratic candidate, Hilary Clinton, and rural areas overwhelmingly favored Donald Trump from the Republican party. Diving deeper into state politics and representation, we see the same phenomenon play out with state representatives. In my home state of Nevada, the two major population centers, the Las Vegas metropolitan statistical area (MSA) and the Reno MSA, vote democratic while the rural parts of the state vote republican. What the policy that Alexander discusses means is that the MSAs in my state end up loosing seats relative to the rural districts and counties because of the way we count individuals. While Nevada may be dominated by the two million Las Vegas MSA inhabitants and the half million Reno MSA inhabitants, the state likely does see a shift in political representation away from the urban centers toward the rural counties that house the state’s prisons.

It is unlikely that the rural representatives of those prisons favor policies that help improve the neighborhoods and living conditions in the urban communities our prisoners come from. Disturbingly, it is unlikely that our rural representatives favor a reduction in incarceration rates at all since their constituents likely rely on the prison for employment.

It is hard to determine residence and people in prison may be homeless, but nevertheless, we do have the ability today to better analyze and record where our individuals lived prior to being arrested and where they plan to return once released. How we choose count individuals who have short sentences versus life sentences is further in the weeds of the issue, but can be impactful when considering prison populations and the communities that house such prisons. Our nation’s constitution checks urban power by over-representing rural communities in congress, and many state constitutions follow the same suit. Emphasizing this distinction however, and providing greater clout to rural districts that house prisons may encourage a backlash against anti-incarceration movements and may make it less likely that the poor and over policied communities from which our prison population derives, is represented and able to advocate for changes that will improve their lives.

Design Matters

One of my favorite podcasts is Debbie Millman’s Design Matters. She interviews architects, artists, marketers, designers, and other creative people about their work and their place in the world. It is an excellent show to learn about people who see the world differently and to see what people did to reach success, often without following a traditional path. A common theme running throughout Millman’s show is that design matters. It matters a lot when we look at the built world around us and ask questions about why things operate the way they do, about why people behave the way they do, and about why society is designed the way it is. Design matters because the built environment and the societal structures we adopt or inherit shape who we are as people. Everything hinges on the design we give the world around us: our futures, our possibilities, our idea of what is possible, and our understanding of what is reality.

it is incredibly important that we think about design as a society because poor design leads to inequality and bad outcomes for individuals and for society as a whole. I thought about this when I returned to a sentence I highlighted in Michelle Alexander’s book, The New Jim Crow. Alexander writes, “The unfortunate reality we must face is that racism manifests itself not only in individual attitudes and stereotypes, but also in the basic structure of society.” When we think about design we can begin to connect the inequalities, the disparate impacts, and the problems with society today to the attitudes and behaviors of the past. In his podcast series, Seeing White, on his show Scene on Radio, host John Biewen reflects on the structural elements of racism in our society as opposed to the individual elements. Individual racism is easy to see, easy to condemn, and easy to change, but structural and institutional racism is hard to see, hard to understand, and very difficult to change. However, just because it is hard to see and understand does not mean that structural racism is any less of a threat to society or any less real for the people impacted.

We should be honest with ourselves and accept the idea that structures and systems designed by people who were openly racist can still impact the lives of people today. System and procedures were designed with the interests of white people and white culture in mind, and part of the decisions that were made involved the oppression, the limitation, and the containment of black people. We still must deal with many of these systems, even if their design has been slightly changed, because the original design was effective in allowing some to prosper while others were limited. These designs mattered, and they still matter today. A system that deplores individual racism while supporting hidden and structural racism can influence and shape the lives of individuals and the direction of society arguably more effectively than a system that encourages individual and open racism. To move forward, our nation needs leaders who can be honest about systems and structures and understand that design matters when thinking about government, society, services, communities, and neighborhoods. By becoming more aware, all of us can recognize the way that systems which are currently in place can shape our quality of life and the perceptions we all share, and we can push for new systems that compel us to interact more with our fellow citizens, and encourage us to see each other as people as opposed to enemies.


Diversity and Health Assessments

Diversity and Health Assessments

EB is a 68-year-old black female who comes in for follow-up of hypertension. She has glaucoma and her vision has been worsening during the past few years. She lives alone and is prescribed four hypertension medications (Hydralazine 50 mg PO Q8H, Metoprolol XL 200 mg PO Q12H, Lisinopril 40 mg PO daily, and HCTZ 25mg PO daily ). She brings in her medication bottles and she has some medication bottles from the previous year full of medications. She is missing one medication she had been prescribed and says she may have forgotten it at home. Her BP in clinic today is 182/99 with HR of 84.

To prepare:

  • Reflect on your experiences as a nurse and on the information provided in this week’s Learning Resources on diversity issues in health assessments.
  • By Day 1 of this week, you will be assigned a case study by your Instructor. Note: Please see the “Course Announcements” section of the classroom for your case study assignment.
  • Reflect on the specific socioeconomic, spiritual, lifestyle, and other cultural factors related to the health of the patient assigned to you.
  • Consider how you would build a health history for the patient. What questions would you ask, and how would you frame them to be sensitive to the patient’s background, lifestyle, and culture? Develop five targeted questions you would ask the patient to build his or her health history and to assess his or her health risks.
  • Think about the challenges associated with communicating with patients from a variety of specific populations. What strategies can you as a nurse employ to be sensitive to different cultural factors while gathering the pertinent information?

Post an explanation of the specific socioeconomic, spiritual, lifestyle, and other cultural factors associated with the patient you were assigned. Explain the issues that you would need to be sensitive to when interacting with the patient, and why. Provide at least five targeted questions you would ask the patient to build his or her health history and to assess his or her health risks.

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Cultural Factors: Socioeconomic, Spiritual, Lifestyle

Embracing a patient’s culture and beliefs is critical for achieving the best outcome. Culture refers to the ideas, customs, sexual orientation, and social behavior of a particular people or society (yuldashevna, 2020). All patients are unique based on their particular experiences and must be examined accordingly. Our job is to understand and respect our patients’ cultures to provide proper care. Respecting your patient’s culture will help you build exemplary communication and rapport. The socioeconomic position has an effect on health outcomes all over the world. Spirituality can also impact a patient’s compliance with a medication regimen (Steinmetz, 2018). Fostering trust and open communication should be utilized to look at a client as a whole and identify any difficulties affecting their care.

Sensitive Issues

Many delicate problems must be addressed with the patient. Financial affairs are a complex subject, yet they are necessary to assess a patient’s capacity to pay for medication. Is the patient refusing to take the drug as recommended because of the cost? Some patients will take their medicine every other day to last longer.

Another sensitive subject is the patient’s level of education. Patient education must be assessed. African Americans are more likely to have insufficient health literacy due to their education, culture, and medical system. It’s essential to be mindful of these statistics, but it’s equally important not to belittle people based on their race (Ball et al., 2017).

Depending on culture and beliefs, the client must be analyzed as distinct. As seen by the high blood pressure and outdated medicine lingering in the cans, the client may not recognize the importance of taking the medication as prescribed. It is critical to educate patients on their degree of awareness without making them feel uninformed. The usage of terms and phrases that they might use to describe something should be evaluated (Kakar et al., 2021). Inquiring about the patient’s knowledge of what you educate them is an excellent technique to ensure that they are getting the information in a manner that they comprehend.

Five Targeted Questions

  1. How do you understand high blood pressure?
  2. Can you tell me about your diet and nutrition status?
  3. Do you always adhere to your entire prescription?
  4. Can you afford to pay for medication on your own? Do you need support?
  5. What are your beliefs when it comes to medication?

Ball, J. W., Dains, J. E., Flynn, J. A., Solomon, B. S., & Stewart, R. W. (2017). Seidel’s Guide to Physical Examination-E-Book: An Interprofessional Approach. Elsevier Health Sciences.

Kakar, R., Combs, R., Ali, N., Muvuka, B., & Porter, J. (2021). Enhancing the design and utilization of asthma action plans through community-based participatory research in an urban African American community. Patient Education and Counseling, 104(2), 276-281.

Steinmetz, G. (2018). Introduction: Culture and the state. In-State/culture (pp. 1-50). Cornell University Press.

Vuldashevna, s. z. (2020). Creating a general cultural attitude towards the environment students as a factor in the development of a healthy lifestyle. academic research in educational sciences, (4).

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Safe Prescribing

•Describe the role of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) as it pertains to the PMHNP.
•Explain your responsibilities when having a DEA number.
•Explain how you apply for a DEA number.
•Explain your state’s requirements for a safe prescribing and prescription monitoring program. Explain your responsibility as a PMHNP to follow these requirements.
•Provide an example of a drug you may prescribe from each of the Schedule II-V drug levels

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What Skills Do You Need For A Security Job In London?

Many companies hire a security guard to keep property safe, making it a lucrative career opportunity. Your job is to keep an eye out for possible problems such as theft and other illegal activity.

As with many occupations, there is specific training and skills you will need before entering this field. You can also use the best recruitment apps https://www.essentialstaff.co.uk/the-app to get a reliable security jobs. Before looking for a security guard, understand the steps you need to take to become a security guard.

Basic needs

Different countries have different security job requirements, but you usually have to be at least 18 years of age. Many places also prefer a high school diploma but it may not be mandatory.

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It’s also imperative that you keep a clean criminal record, although there may be some exceptions on a case-by-case basis. Most sites check the guard beforehand to make sure they can trust his position.

Education and training

Although a high school diploma is usually the only educational requirement for security jobs, it has additional educational and training assistance. A certification degree or course in a related field such as criminal justice or gaming safety will usually help you earn a higher salary and take the chain to management level.

Physical training in combat, maneuvers and defensive weapons, and crisis management is offered in many locations to prepare you for another offender case or scenario.


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  1. With the increased prevalence of new SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern, such as Delta and Omicron, the COVID-19 pandemic has become an ongoing human health disaster, killing millions worldwide. SARS-CoV-2 invades its host through the interaction of its spike (S) protein with a host cell receptor, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2). In addition, heparan sulfate (HS) on the surface of host cells plays an important role as a co-receptor for this viral pathogen–host cell interaction. Our previous studies demonstrated that many sulfated glycans, such as heparin, fucoidans, and rhamnan sulfate have anti-SARS-CoV-2 activities. In the current study, a small library of sulfated glycans and highly negatively charged compounds, including pentosan polysulfate (PPS), mucopolysaccharide polysulfate (MPS), sulfated lactobionic acid, sulodexide, and defibrotide, was assembled and evaluated for binding to the S-proteins and inhibition of viral infectivity in vitro. These compounds inhibited the interaction of the S-protein receptor-binding domain (RBD) (wild type and different variants) with immobilized heparin, a highly sulfated HS, as determined using surface plasmon resonance (SPR). PPS and MPS showed the strongest inhibition of interaction of heparin and S-protein RBD. The competitive binding studies showed that the IC50 of PPS and MPS against the S-protein RBD binding to immobilized heparin wasmore »~35 nM and ~9 nM, respectively, much lower than the IC50 for soluble heparin (IC50 = 56 nM). Both PPS and MPS showed stronger inhibition than heparin on the S-protein RBD or spike pseudotyped lentiviral particles binding to immobilized heparin. Finally, in an in vitro cell-based assay, PPS and MPS exhibited strong antiviral activities against pseudotyped viral particles of SARS-CoV-2 containing wild-type or Delta S-proteins.« less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available February 1, 2023
  2. Background: Although most biologics are produced using recombinant technologies, heparin persists as a product purified from animal tissues. A cell based system for production of heparin would eliminate risk of supply shortage and contamination. Additionally, genetic engineering could yield heparin with improved qualities such as reduced risk of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. Aims: This work is focused on engineering mammalian cell lines and bioprocess methods to produce recombinant heparin. Methods: The heparan sulfate biosynthetic pathway of mastocytoma cells was genetically engineered to alter the expression of heparan sulfate sulfotransferases. The resulting cell lines were screened for production of anti-FXa activity. Heparan sulfate production from a candidate cell line was tested in chemically defined medium. The recombinant product was characterized structurally and in clotting, anti-protease and heparin induced thrombocytopenia assays. Results: Engineered cells produced heparan sulfate in chemically defined medium with anti-Xa and anti-IIa activity exceeding the requirement for unfractionated heparin despite having lower sulfate content. Chain length was longer than unfractionated heparin. Additionally, binding to platelet factor 4 was reduced compared to unfractionated heparin, suggesting less risk of heparin-induced thrombocytopenia. Conclusion: These results demonstrate the feasibility of producing a substitute for unfractionated heparin from recombinant cell culture. Additionally, recombinant technology may allowmore »production of heparin substitutes with improved properties such as reduced side effects.« less
    Free, publicly-accessible full text available October 7, 2022


How to Write Engaging Essay Titles

Ngày 19/09/2022

The essay titles typically comprise of two sections – an introduction section and a second. The colon divides the two sections and might contain ideas in a short form and even the principal theme of your paper. The introduction should be as catchy as possible as well as include a subheading. Be careful not to give away too much in the text, however.

Create a catchy title

The name of the essay will grab readers notice. It doesn’t matter if the piece is an assignment in class or the publication of a book, a compelling subject can allow your essay to stand out from the competition. Furthermore, it gives the readers a glimpse of what the essay will write about. These are tips for making your essay titles more interesting.

The name of your essay should be the same as the tone used in the paper. It can be either serious or casual. The title could be casual. You can pick a title that grabs the attention to the attention of the readers, contingent on its style. Such a title is sure to help to make your work more interesting and will improve the score.

When you’re composing a essay’s title make sure you think about it as if you’re writing for a book. It’s important to ensure that your essay’s title is memorable. Most people will judge books on the cover. That way, they’ll feel motivated to read your work. To make your article more compelling, you should incorporate your own “hook.” Hooks can be an effective way to start your title. The hook is the main ingredient that gets your readers to read your essay.

The art of creating a captivating essay the title of your essay is an art. It takes effort character traits of hamlet and time in order to design a memorable title, just like crafting the perfect essay. It is important to ensure that the title you choose is succinct, simple, and enticing enough to attract the attention of readers. Do not rush through this process, nevertheless, since a weak name can deter readers.

It is also important to consider the tone and tone of your essay. If the essay is about an event, the subject and the content should take on the tone of the tragedy. Keywords that focus on the topic are another great option. They inform the reader which location and time it will take place. It makes the essay more interesting to your readers while also helping to make it look more professional.

Include a caption

If your essay is personal or literary, it is likely that you include an introduction in your essay title. A subtitle can be anywhere from between two and three lines and states the topic and subject of your essay. Although “A Walk in Someone’s Shoes”, isn’t a good subtitle for a piece of literature, this is a great subtitle. It can also be a creative hook or a brief explanation of the topic can be added.

The subtitle will usually be smaller than the main title and gives more details about the subject. The headline could signal the launch of a product. While a subheadline gives details about the product it is also used to describe the topic. If used in nonfiction writing the the tuskegee experiment essay subtitle can grab readers’ attention and continue to keep them interested until the very first subheading.

Subtitles can be used to organise the essay. Subtitles let readers know what to do and where they need to begin. They can also be used by authors to make the titles shorter by adding the subtitle. It’s generally an excellent idea to add a subtitle in your essay titles if you require making the essay longer.

The subtitle should appear following the title. The subtitle must be put behind the main title. The subtitle should be preceded by a colon and shouldn’t exceed two lines. If the subtitle is more than two lines long, it is necessary to place a comma next to it.

Use active voice

While Foster Care Essays most writers use passive voices to communicate information Academic papers written with active voice convey the thoughts and ideas of your readers more effective than writing in the passive voice. This style is more direct and can help you become more confident in your writing. It is crucial to employ the active voice when writing your essay’s title. This can make your writing stand out.

The active voice conveys more in comparison to passive voice as the subject is performing what is being described in the sentence. The writing style creates an image that is more clear unlike the passive voice, which can be wordier and more ambiguous. Active voices also have a appealing appeal to the audience because they’re short.

Active voices are GradeMiners more impactful than passive ones. Most instructors prefer to use the active voice since it specifies the person or entity that is performing the act. One example is an article on meteorology, which makes use of the active voice in order to clarify a complex idea for example, vorticity and analyze a seemingly ordinary phenomena, like smoke rings.

The passive voice is generally used to write scientifically, whereas it is the active voice that’s utilized by writers who are not scientists. Although the voice that is active sounds more direct and lively and direct, it can cause your writing appear duller and sloppy. The best option is to stay with the active voice whenever it is possible. This can make it much easier for you to understand and comprehend your essay.

Avoid giving away all the details of your job description.

It’s essential that the title for your essay doesn’t give the reader. A well-crafted title ought to provide a hint of the subject and include a hook leaving surprises for the actual writing. The reader will be more likely to want to read the rest of the essay.

You should ensure that your title matches the tone and tone of your essay

There are a variety of ways to establish the tone of your article. The title of your essay will catch viewers’ attention and keep them engaged in your content. It must be engaging and precise. It can also include lyrics or a quote.

In addition to being eye-catching in addition to being eye-catching, the title should be in keeping with the overall tone of the essay. If you’re writing about something, you should draw attention to the topic and make it instructive. Active voice is preferred over passive voice. In writing your title, it’s a good idea to include the word “verb.

A good headline relies on the tone that you choose to use when writing your essay. The descriptive essay, as an example, can be written with a different tone in comparison to an argumentative. A tone that is not appropriate can really smother the interest of your audience. Make sure to avoid using abbreviations and jargon in your title , to avoid confusion.

If you are writing an essay, the tone of your introduction should match the tone of the piece. An uplifting or funny title is not appropriate for one that is based on a sad event. The thesis of your essay should be the tone. Be careful when selecting an essay’s title.

The font you choose of your title is essential. Your title should be straightforward and easily understood. Avoid making an essay that is too lengthy or narrow. The principal theme must be in the essay’s body.


3rd Rock from the Sun

TV-PG NBC 1h 00m 1996

A group of aliens has come to Earth to learn about its population, customs, et cetera. To avoid detection, they have taken on human form, which gives them human emotions, physical needs, et cetera, without the understanding of what they mean nor the inhibitions normally present in humans. Their leader takes the position of a college professor, their military expert as his sister, their intelligence expert, supposedly the oldest of group, takes the form of his teenage son. The uninhibited reactions turn everyday events into unusual situations.

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20 Ghanaian fishermen imprisoned in Nigeria for transporting ‘wee’

20 Ghanaian fishermen have been sentenced to one-year imprisonment each by the Federal High Court in Lagos State in Nigeria on Thursday, August 4, 2022.

The men were jailed for transporting 13.670 kilogrammes of marijuana, aka cannabis, from Ghana to Nigeria.

The court found them guilty on the charges of conspiracy and unlawful transportation of the drug, Nigeria’s punch reports.

The convicted fishermen include Francis Teye, Kweke Komel, Gad Adjah, Theophilus Tetteh, Kwesi Aboagye, Ekon Fynn, Kwamena Baah, Kwabina Adjei, Micheal Okutu, Isaac Kofi, Kweku Moko, Kwezi Adzi and Kweku Mensah.

Others are Micheal Kofi, Ekon Bentum, Kwesi Amissah, Joshua Huago, Otu Otipeseku, Isaac Yorsson and Nana Kodwo.

The above people were arrested on the Nigerian territorial waters on January 14, 2022 with drugs from Ghana.

In court, the prosecutor, Mr Fingere Owen, said their crime was contrary to and punishable under sections 11(b) and 14(b) of the Nigerian National Drug Law Enforcement Agency Act Cap. N30, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 2004.

The convicts however pleaded guilty while their lawyers pleaded to the court for mercy as they are first-time offenders.

Their lawyer said the fishermen had no idea of the content in their bag after they engaged a customer.

Based on this, Justice Nicholas Oweibo sentenced them to one-year imprisonment. He also ordered that the convicts pay the sum of N50,000 each in lieu of the sentence and ordered that the boat used in smuggling the banned substance be forfeited to the Federal Government.


Ron DeSantis Comes Out Against Vaccines For Young Children

( )- The White House made hay last week over Florida being the only state in the Union to not preorder COVID vaccines for children under the age of five. And on Thursday, Florida’s governor, Ron DeSantis, addressed the criticism, arguing that state officials believe that the risks of vaccinating young children outweigh the benefits. So while the vaccines will be available through doctors, the state itself will not be providing a vaccination program for young children.

DeSantis pointed out that while the state is recommending against vaccinating the very young, it isn’t being banned. He said if parents want to vaccinate children under five, they can do it. He said the state’s position isn’t that parents can’t vaccinate their children, instead, they are free to choose.

Adding that the risk to children is very low, the governor blasted “media hysteria” which has led to parents being afraid about their children’s risk for COVID. They’re scared, DeSantis explained, because of “a lot of misinformation.”

DeSantis said placating anxiety is not a reason to authorize emergency use for children under five. The standard should be whether the vaccine is “safe and effective” and “does the benefit outweigh the risk.” He said Florida has recommended the vaccine for those five and older. But for those under five, the state recommends against doing it.

DeSantis pointed out that there is a surplus of vaccines so Florida doctors and hospitals will be able to get them. But, he added, there will be no state programs that are going to push for infants, toddlers, or newborns to get the vaccine.