{"id":2594,"date":"2020-04-06T15:59:21","date_gmt":"2020-04-06T23:59:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/?p=2594"},"modified":"2020-04-14T23:57:13","modified_gmt":"2020-04-15T07:57:13","slug":"the-andromeda-strain-1969","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/blog\/2020\/04\/06\/the-andromeda-strain-1969\/","title":{"rendered":"Citation of Michael Crichton&#8217;s novel &#8220;The Andromeda Strain&#8221; 1969"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>My friend readers, thanks for your continued interest in my blog posts.<\/p>\n<p>With all of us facing this &#8220;COVID-19&#8221; (&#8220;Corona-Virus-Disease-2019&#8221;), there is heightened awareness of the inevitable risks and perhaps benefits, that are inherent qualities of living a mortal existence.<\/p>\n<p>I point out the US president&#8217;s sentiment spoken some weeks ago: &#8220;People get better&#8221;. He was pointing out the good intention optimism and his personal belief at that time: that most people will survive this. It did become more clear to him however in later days, that the mighty US could not ignore nor deny the unknown numbers of those who will die from this. Hence, he followed with a statement based more on fact, that many <em>have<\/em> died. Our Vice President also gave substantially confident response, in the US&#8217;s preparedness and resolve. While that may appear like empty rhetoric, I took it as much needed reassurance. This is important for us to have heard, as faith in government is every bit as important as is individuals taking common sense precautions when government admits that those precautions are necessary.<\/p>\n<p>Optimism depends on faith. And, in absence of faith, we have a pretty bleak and joyless life, right? So, even if we are hit hard by this virus, we are holding up as a community of faith and one of action. The governor of my state of California too &#8211; prudently clarifies that action depends on how the situation evolves. And, collecting data is a part of prioritizing medical resource deployment. Because, let&#8217;s be real, financial resources are also finite.<\/p>\n<p>Furthermore, Californian authorities are rightly continuing the urgent need of our &#8220;stay at home order&#8221;, along with other US states and countries. It&#8217;s assuring when they tell us that this is yielding positive results; lessening future need to lose valuable resources in the fight, later.<\/p>\n<p>We ought to take precautions and heed the warnings from our governments. After all, the governments always know more than most citizens lacking top secret disclosures do.<\/p>\n<p>We hope we can trust our governments, right? And, we appreciate sensible mobilizations that are to our life preservation.<\/p>\n<p>Each of us have private battles with disease too. And, we depend on government to promote welfare (a.k.a. well being). We have to. There&#8217;s only so much that an individual can do. A lot we can, yes, but that&#8217;s to very finite effect, if others are not equally mindful &#8211; when we consider an airborne communicable disease such as &#8216;COVID-19&#8243;.<\/p>\n<p>Beyond our own body, we have to know that the planet is a &#8220;living&#8221; body in this universe &#8211; that is not a sanitary bowl sealed with pure &#8220;H-2-O&#8221; inside. Rather, it is more similar to &#8220;primordial soup&#8221;. &#8220;COVID-19&#8217;s&#8221; origin is a little more clear to most of us, than would be foreign organisms entering our atmosphere from the space atmosphere. But, &#8220;COVID-19&#8221; spurns a new awareness about the space atmosphere organisms too. At least for me it does.<\/p>\n<p>Complete sanitation from all organisms (or contaminants) that have entered our Earth atmosphere would be in my view impossible and contrary to human development. I theorize that they are an essential link to our living and environmental adaptation. In fact, perfect sterilization, would actually be of tremendous biological detriment.<\/p>\n<p>As a simile, while drinking clean water is healthy, drinking too much of it will kill you. Ergo, something quite good for you, in too large a quantity will kill.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s what we might need to remember in order to alleviate some anxiety about illnesses other than &#8220;COVID-19&#8221;, but, perhaps even &#8220;COVID-19&#8221;: Organisms are ingested by us everywhere we go&#8230; land, sea, air, space. I think again, what matters, is volume and virulence. A single drop of one substance can be lethal, while the body can successfully flush out a high concentration of something less lethal. This is where the science truly gets very murky for me. And, I&#8217;m not one who has much educational experience with this science of pathogens.<\/p>\n<p>Perhaps ozone layer depletion from past decades, and, &#8220;countless&#8221; missions to space, have accelerated this inevitability of ours &#8211; as they relate to the subject matter of &#8220;The Andromeda Strain&#8221; book. By collecting contaminants and leaving large holes for them to enter, in our natural environment screens, have we allowed more of them to come in worldwide? And, even if so, would we be able to prevent comets and other natural objects of dispersal from showering our planet with them? I contend that the answer to that is &#8220;no&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>Nevertheless, our bodies mutate on some level with every day that we are alive. As our human species carries on, not every body undergoes the same exact mutations. While human genetics show immense similarity across each human person (regardless of race), we are still all highly individual. Due to ethnic genetic differences, and due to behavioral practice variants, predispositions for mutations vary from person to person. How else might we account for the truth that not everyone responds similarly to all certain diseases?<\/p>\n<p>This also does not mean however, that we should not collectively slow and resist spread of known dangers &#8211; as they are announced by the leaders in science &#8211; from the top levels. Just as, many our ancestors ought not to have dismissed the plague of the middle age Europe as merely a minor &#8220;cold&#8221;. That is why our common sense guidelines seem to mitigate harmful effects; and, with time &#8211; we snuff out something that causes danger to our bodies so virulently.<\/p>\n<p>Having time and preparation, truly does save multitudes of lives as officials here in CA stated this morning. Of course we also must know (as they&#8217;ve stated), we don&#8217;t exactly know how this virus&#8217; behavior will change.<\/p>\n<p>That is a belief that I share, and is also why education based on &#8220;outlandish&#8221; hypotheses and reality (both), conditions all of us to do our part. Solutions begin with imagination. What we choose to do with that imagination, depends on much more.<\/p>\n<p>It has been announced to us here in the USA that one can have the virus in the body without knowing it or suffering. Another, can exhibit terrible symptoms and die within days. That leads me to maintain my scientific belief that not all biological space material that has entered (or will enter) our atmosphere, is harmful to us. And, also, I maintain my scientific belief that I stated prior: that not every person is as alike as we think, despite vast genetic markers of similarity.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;d like to cite a novel again, published in 1969, by author Michael Crichton. More information about him and this 1969 novel entitled &#8220;The Andromeda Strain&#8221;, can be found online or at your local library.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;ve not read the book, I&#8217;m sorry to you&#8230; but, upon reading the synopsis, it is clearly a good start at understanding how fiction (&#8220;science&#8221;-fiction particularly) can truly be an interesting reveal for future living. This book title came from my mind&#8217;s eye (recollection), as I heard doctors recently coining the word &#8220;strain&#8221;. I was pleased to find that the title of the book, leads to a very relevant story and topic.<\/p>\n<p>Re-examination of an &#8220;old&#8221; literary work, can truly illuminate present day understanding of current events. This spawns and stimulates critical thinking in younger persons as well, who may have never heard of the classic stories of past; and, why they should care about what was written\/weaved into those stories.<\/p>\n<p>So, who knows? Today in April of 2020? Those of us who survive this &#8220;COVID-19&#8221;, may be later glad that we got infected by it and beat it? Others might be blessed to never contract it in the first place? But, theoretically, the mutation may very well carry humanity into the next &#8220;worlds&#8221;. But, don&#8217;t take my word for it&#8230; because I really don&#8217;t know if that is true, yet. And, there are certainly very finite limits as to what our human body can endure in one lifetime, given all the environmental stresses and radiations that we face in our life already. I caution those who consider signing up for clinical trials, as in desperation to heal you, you may be getting a dose of a medicine not yet fully safe and effective.<\/p>\n<p>In general, heed the advice of present-day epidemiologists; and, be glad that they know more about this stuff than we the &#8220;average&#8221; persons do. Also, read, to inform your decisions. Right now, continue to practice guidelines fervently. Don&#8217;t be irresponsible. Well informed doctors, and common-use practices all of a sudden seem pretty relevant again, don&#8217;t they? Yes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>My friend readers, thanks for your continued interest in my blog posts. With all of us facing this &#8220;COVID-19&#8221; (&#8220;Corona-Virus-Disease-2019&#8221;), there is heightened awareness of the inevitable risks and perhaps benefits, that are inherent qualities of living a mortal existence. <span class=\"excerpt-dots\">&hellip;<\/span> <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/blog\/2020\/04\/06\/the-andromeda-strain-1969\/\"><span class=\"more-msg\">Continue reading &rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2594","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-entertainment","category-health-and-wellness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2594"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2602,"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2594\/revisions\/2602"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2594"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2594"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.film-shorts.tv\/wpress.cfonseca160\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2594"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}