What? Venrick, I thought you were going to write all about GOODNESS and such GOOD things? Well, hang in there and keep reading...

PAIN

The good in pain is the obvious signal it gives our brain when our body is hurting. It is equal to or better than a traffic light that tells you “a car might be coming” -- when you hurt, you know something is wrong.

A pain in your mouth or jaw indicates there is something wrong. When you find you had an infected tooth you really discovered your body has a use for pain -- it was a red light warning. People with advanced diabetes (and other diseases like leprosy or Hansen's disease) could suffer severe burns or advanced infection simply because they have lost the necessary senses of pain (or even feeling) to alert them they have a problem.

The presence of pain is a signal or locater as to where a problem exists. Our bodies are so meticulously designed that when we get a splinter in our hand or foot we don't have to wonder where to look because our body's sensory abilities literally tell us to put the affected part of our body in front of our eyes so we can look for the problem. A person with the dreaded leprosy disease is so disadvantaged that they are unable to sense pain when it otherwise would be obvious to a person unaffected by leprosy.

Victims of leprosy often have toes or finger missing completely from their body. A very practical doctor, Dr. Paul Brand, in his studies of leprosy in India, thought this problem through and learned in a particular incidence, rodents (rats) were present and when a patient was sleeping and their arms were hanging relaxed from the bed and a rat would nibble at the exposed digit. If the patient did not jerk back, the rat simply stayed and had a meal. Dr. Brand arranged to have cats present in the area where the patients were and that problem was virtually solved.

Victims of advanced diabetes need to be careful around a fire. The sense of feeling is weakened in advanced diabetes and whereas a healthy person would feel their feet getting hot would recognize the pain and move away from the fire, a diabetic might allow their feet to become burned and seriously injured.

POISON

David Kline, in “Scratching the Woodchuck” passed on the advice, “It is said there are young bold mushroom eaters but no old bold mushroom eaters. The careless ones eventually come across the beautiful but deadly destroying angel (Amanita virosa) -- which has some similarities to the common and edible meadow mushrooms -- fry it, and eat it. The amanita can kill its consumer within twelve hours.” Now isn’t it good that you know there are poison mushrooms but you can know how to avoid them if you want to continue in good health?

I once heard it said that whenever there is a poison plant, within a few feet or short distance you will find its antidote. Can we credit that to chance? Or would you have a lot of mental trouble writing that up to a providentially minded Creator God? Me, I will choose on the latter. Some would never enjoy the special taste of a fried catfish if they were afraid of the possible pain in getting stuck by their spines while taking the hook from a catfish’s mouth. And back to David Kline, some would never enjoy or appreciate the delicacies of the giant puffball mushrooms because they didn’t know when they were fit to eat. Or the profitable knowledge that enable you to recognize the non-poisonous from poisonous mushrooms.

The chicken mushroom, for example, is a rare delicacy that you might never experience if you're afraid of mushrooms. Once again David Kline* writes about this sulfur shelf (Laetiporus sulphureus), one of which he found at the base of an old ash stump. There it was, a bright orange (above) and a rich sulfur yellow below. But David suggests the best way to be able to tell the poison from the non-poisonous is to take an expert with you or separate yourself with whatever it takes to buy a copy of a good field guide like "The Audubon Society field Guide to North American Mushrooms" -- that is a must. By the way the old Amish tale (or local lore) about the dust of a puff ball causing you to go blind if the dust got in your eyes (from a too eager boy stomping on one!) -- even if the young boys didn't believe it they could be found to only stomping on the ripe puffers when they faced the wind. *These stories and many more are to be enjoyed when you purchase David Kline's book, "Scratching the Woodchuck" (ISBN 0-8203-1938-4)

POISON FOR GOOD?

Poison can be removed from the bad column in the chart of GOOD and BAD items. Poisonous snake venom has been used in medicine for thousands of years and the technique of milking poisonous snakes to collect or harvest venom has changed very little in that time. Venom collected in this manner is then dried (freeze dried) and processed in serum laboratories

In Australia, poisonous animals have always posed a hazard to humans but because of improved technology the notorious death adder's collected venom has been used to produce lifesaving snakebite antivenins. Lifesaving medicines have been produced for more than fifty years.

PAIN AND POISON

Both are beneficial because they make us think and find the reason for their presence and further solve problems through research. Useless is a word that cannot be used to describe pain. Without pain we could not tell something is abnormal or needing attention by a physician or some kind of medical doctor. So, in our world of wanting everything to be “perfect”, specific education is a must or else useful anti venoms would never have been discovered. As pain is useful, so is poison of use in our world – we just have to know what we're dealing with. Surf the Internet and learn more about poisonous animals and their venoms—use these key words: poisonous snakes

THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 11:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every day of our lives we are confronted with things that have been around so long that we rarely think of them let alone their goodness or value in our lives. Salt is probably the first item to be considered, and in fact it is often called "common table salt". Before saying anything about any of these common items, a list of other things would include: soda, starch, flax, grains (of all descriptions), plants, animals, trees, water, woods (of all descriptions), just to name a starting list. A simple item such as "dirt" or good old Mother Earth ought to be included so let's consider this a part of our long list as well.

Tantamount to the importance of any or all of the items in the short list above is the fact that every one of these "has been around as long as man can remember" -- hence the oft used expression, "you're as old as dirt". This might not be very complimentary and neither is it accurate -- do we really know how old "dirt" is? I will leave this up to the so-called scientific mind and the theological giants who seem to think they have all the answers. In all honesty I think the safest position I have chosen to hold is that this old earth is OLD. How old is up for grabs. Religious scholars like to argue they know exactly how old the earth is (and all its products), if it sounds fudging a bit or perhaps even ambiguous I am just not ready to say the world is 237,000,009 days old nor am I so arrogant to think the world is only 6,786 years old.

Further, as a believer, or to be specific, as a Christian believer, it is a matter of faith to me to accept that God created "all this stuff" for our use. You could even call all these resources a huge pantry provided mankind by the goodness of the Creator. It is almost like God had a huge sense of humor by factoring in the growth of this body of dirt being flung around in the Universe in a specific orbital pattern in a way no different than a cook gathering ingredients in the kitchen. A tsp of this and a tblsp of this and a dash of this; perhaps 1-1/2 cups of that over there and 3 ozs. of this ingredient and a half-pound of butter (only real item of ingredients in my faux list if you please). The cook is smart enough to know exactly what it takes to make a tasty cake or cookies or a great loaf of bread and just how long it will take to "cook anything". I like to think only God is capable of knowing "how long it would take" to "cook" all the salt mankind would ever need in an assortment of copper, silver, magnesium and ores of all descriptions. Oh, I assumed you would already know these items just listed are among the common things of this place we call home in the "sky" in the Via Lactea (the Milky Way) portion of the universe's immense residential area for humanoids. (Those who might choose to take exception to my "scholarship" of astronomy need not write as I understand there could be other opinions.) But back to seeing the goodness around us.

I am glad it wasn't left up to a committee of humans who decided they would "make up a resource (or a pantry)" of things we would need. Think of the times a simple situation like "How much salt should we order for this winter's icy blast? Thirty tons or forty tons?" Nationally speaking, 20.5 million tons of salt were used in 2005 to keep winter roads safe and passable. Revenues for highway salt sales were $585.7 million. The food salt and water softening salt are additional to these stats. Now who was it that wants to take over God's job of providing enough salt in the far reaches of the depths of this earth to provide sufficient mines or resources of salt for humans to use up? Or, how many zillion tons of pressure with "sea clamps" would it take to form salt in "x" amount of years for a given period of time?

CORN --- Let's take another "look around" in our consideration of the goodness of common things. Flour, meal and starch are the first items that come to my mind. Corn starch has been used for a long time. The person who buys talcum powder ought to look at the ingredients list -- corn starch, number one ingredient and then comes the extended list of chemicals the chemists have decided upon to complete the product we call "talcum powder". Corn, or Maize, is the largest crop in all of the Americas (270 million metric tons annually in the US alone). Varieties of this plant abound, depending on the varied useages. Corn starch is used as an anti-caking agent in powdered sugar (confectioner's sugar) and cooks need to know "how long" to cook (or bake) in order to remove the raw cornstarch taste. Surf WIKIPEDIA to learn how they make this starch. Housewives of years past would reach for that blue box of Argo Starch for their laundry use week. Isn't it good to have some starch around the house? And isn't it great that farmers grow corn? And it would take more than two hands to count the kinds of corn or maize grown in the world. And then there are assorted kinds of starch processed for use in food preparation not mentioned above. So you could say, "the list goes on and on."

To the homeowner who has some critters that need to be exterminated, try mixing equal parts of corn starch and plaster of Paris; then sprinkle this mixture in cracks and crevices and the cockroaches will eat the mixture and become petrified.

Aren't you glad you read THE WORDWRIGHT?

Posted by Bill Venrick at 2:56 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Recently THE WORDWRIGHT set out to write only good news, or at least prod himself to concentrate or prioritize efforts to find good news to write about. Interestingly enough two readers of THE WORDWRIGHT made contacts that demonstrate that good news is still alive and well.

Philip Wheeler, from Dallas, Texas, e-mailed informing me the good news he “heard a Glen Beck story last week that stated that CNN has reduced it's wartime reports by 96% since January 1. Some would suggest that it's because the presidential campaigns are garnering the limelight. Glen suggested that it's because we are finally winning the war and there's not as much anti-war rhetoric to propagate.

THE WORDWRIGHT readers may recall the comment by JC Lamanna, of Syracuse, NY, and how he decried the faulty news gathering of today because all they seem to want to talk about is the presidential hopefuls. The good news is, there are other events going on in the world and our two people – one in Dallas, Texas (a professional pilot) and a transplanted Ohio Buckeye in Sweden who remembers a part of the “good old days” when a former Ohio State University college professor of French used to play “The Song of India” on his morning radio program, “The Early Worm.”. It sure was good news to uncover this information and take our minds off some of the hackneyed news that can boggle the mind.

Another way to describe the good news that surfaced during the last four or five days is to be assured that it is still a small world after all, and the joy of finding a handful of people who rekindled some forgotten facts in our minds proved the good in what might be called the 8th wonder of the world – the Internet. I have written a lot of letters in times past and if I were to be involved in a similar project using the means at my disposal 15 years ago, I would not have even gotten a response from my first contact mailed March 30 – and here within 4 more days the mystery is solved; and I have been informed that a new found friend in Sweden is listening to a copy of the recording made by Tommy Dorsey of “The Song of India”. Who knows, there might be a real jump in that song’s popularity. Those of us who remember Irvwin Johnson, would really find reason to swoon were we be able to replay some of The Early Worm’s actual programs, but that seems to be something that wasn’t meant to be. (There are some old-time radio serial programs “in the can” but a local program like Irwin Johnson’s unfortunately was not in the cards.)

This experience of bringing memories back for a former (Columbus, Ohio) WBNS-TV employee, now in Sweden, was given a special tweak when I looked back into my copy of Robert MacNeil’s “Wordstruck”, and this passage from Page 23:

“Laid down is a term with many associations—the keel of a ship to be built; fruits preserved for the winter…It is the term they use in sound and videotape editing when one track or sequence has been recorded and others will be added and mixed together. It must be with words as it is with music. Music heard early in life lays down a rich bed of memories against which you evaluate and absorb music encountered later. Each layer adds to the richness of your musical experience …harmonic patterns embed themselves in your consciousness…create yearnings for repetition, so that you can relive that pleasurable [time] for the soul. Gradually, your head becomes an…instantaneous recall and cross-referencing, far more sophisticated than anything man made.”

YES!! And it sure helps to have the Internet around to find those almost lost-to-our-memories of Tommy Dorsey’s great sound of “The Song of India.”

I just about forgot – now there is one more person who will be receiving June Bassemir’s GOOD EGG AWARD -- a very helpful research librarian in Worthington, Ohio! A GOOD EGG AWARD will soon be on its way to Worthington. If you know of a special person who you think deserves a GOOD EGG AWARD, let me know: billvenrick@thewordwright.org and I will get the word to June Bassemir who makes up these unique awards.

THE WORDWRIGHT

Posted by Bill Venrick at 1:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)