Clostridioides difficile

 Clostridioides difficile (syn. Clostridium difficile) is a bacterium that is well known for causing serious diarrheal infections, and may also cause colon cancer. Also known as C. difficile, or C. diff (/siː dɪf/).  The diarrhea may range from a few days of intestinal fluid loss to life-threatening pseudomembranous colitis, which is associated with intense inflammation of the colon and formation of pseudomembranes on the intestinal mucosal surface.

Diarrhea caused by C. difficile has a distinctive, unpleasant smell and is stringy and difficult to clean up. C. difficile is spread by the fecal-oral route, dealing with C. difficile diarrhea blow-outs is a major exposure to the pathogen to health-care providers.

C. difficile produces up to three types of toxins: enterotoxin A, cytotoxin B and Clostridioides difficile transferase (CDT).

Clostridioides difficile is an important emerging human pathogen; according to the CDC, in 2017 there were 223,900 cases in hospitalized patients and 12,800 deaths in the United States. Although C. difficile is commonly known as a hospital and antibiotic associated pathogen, at most one third of infections can be traced to transmission from an infected person in hospitals.

Antibiotic treatment of C. diff infections may be difficult, due both to antibiotic resistance and physiological factors of the bacterium (spore formation, protective effects of the pseudomembrane). The emergence of a new, highly toxic strain of C. difficile, resistant to fluoroquinolone antibiotics, such as ciprofloxacin and levofloxacin, said to be causing geographically dispersed outbreaks in North America, was reported in 2005. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control warned of the emergence of an epidemic strain with increased virulence, antibiotic resistance, or both. Resistance to other antibiotics such as metronidazole, the first choice of antimicrobial drug when treating CDI, has been observed in up to 12% of clinical isolates, so as treatment with various antibiotics continues, more diverse and stronger resistances will continue to evolve in C. difficile populations, further complicating attempts at effective treatment.   -Wikipedia

It is commonly believed that broad-spectrum antibiotics impact the relative population/composition of the hundreds of species of bacteria (and other little critters) that live in our guts. C. diff is able to out-compete the suppressed species and perpetuates the imbalance.

C. diff is a reasonable metaphor for Woke HR departments which carpet bomb the native diversity of the work force the way a broad-spectrum antibiotic shocks our guts.

The constant assault of the Woke HR department knocks the entire organization out-of-kilter and is a drag on productivity and employee retention. The loss of native diversity reduces the organization's resilience to other environmental shocks and ultimately can lead to the demise of the organization.

The power and lack of internal controls in HR seems to attract people with pathological personalities. Like C. diff, Woke HR is most dangerous to otherwise at-risk people like older, less employable workers and people with legacy skills.

Character

Character has been defined as "How an individual acts when they don't think anybody is watching."

That is a still a pretty good working definition.

I had a new acquaintance ask why I blogged under an assumed name.

I started out that way because I didn't want my immediate family, especially my kids, to face any discrimination for my expressing my opinions.

As long as I took money from The Corporation, I was the Corporate Man. I was prohibited from expressing myself.

I published my first blog post the first day I was retired.

Heinlein once observed that every woman is 16 years-old at heart...and every man is 10. That is true for me. Much of my humor is juvenile. So be it. When a man blogs under an assumed name, you get an unvarnished look at their character.

All of this is self-evident so it does not merit mention except for the character Ce'Diff. Whereas I act as if I knew I was always watched by the NSA or Alphabet and certainly by God. Ce'Diff acts as if every action on her part is not only seen by the Higher Powers but is endorsed by them and that they will always have her back. By her lights, she is not "forgiven" for acting on her basest motives but justified and made righteous for doing so.

Several years back I was cruising around the neighborhood with a neighbor kid. He wasn't somebody you would hold up as an icon of wisdom. He had a severe sunshine-deficiency, acne and an addiction to gaming. But he said something that I thought was profound:

"Our fascination and horror at "zombies" is hard-wired in our DNA because of our genetic fear of communicable diseases. It is like our inability to look away from a farm-truck filled with soybeans high-centered on the railroad tracks. Disaster is inevitable. The entertainment is in the details."

Isn't that part of the horrible fascination with the Woke-CRT-Intersectional crowd? Otherwise sane people act like insects with their brains infected by fungus when Those People are around. There, but for the grace of God, goes any one of us.

They are Zombies!

And every good Zombie story has one person escaping. That is what gives us hope.

Heller and Shannon: Situational Awareness

The parties of rafters launched in inverse order that they landed. Those that had landed last the night before launched first and those who had landed first launched last.

The order would be reversed the next evening/morning.

LR and Shannon’s party was somewhere in the middle.

Some of the party thought it was tragic, what had happened to Ce’Diff and her tent-mate. LR kept his mouth shut but one of the other men noted “She brought it on her self. She sounds like a cow when she eats an you know she probably scattered crumbs all over the tent. They have rules for a reason.”

It took very little time for the group to regain it’s buoyant outlook on life. In fact, was far more joyful than it had been the day before without the constant stream of negativity, the snide remarks and the passive-aggression.

Shannon was getting the hang of paddling the kayak. Her sore muscles were more than compensated for by the expertise she was gaining.

LR was impressed by the banks of the river with mini-van sized rocks tumbled about without rhyme or reason.

The first break was two hours into the trip after they hit a long, slow pool. Rafts were tied up to the banks and water bottles and snacks were handed out.

LR paddle over to Shannon and said “Thanks for the support last night. You were the only one who stepped up and checked things out for themselves.”

Shannon gave him the side-eye. “I don’t know why I did after you doused me with that ice-water.”

“You gotta admit, you had it coming” LR said.

“What. For knocking on your door?” Shannon objected.

“No. For the water balloons. I didn’t do anything to you” LR said.

“Water balloons?” Shannon said, confused.

Something clicked in LR’s head.

“Are you saying that you weren’t one of the two girls who plastered me with water-balloons when I opened up the door ten minutes before you knocked on it?” LR asked.

“Crap!” Shannon said. “Chelsea Green and Hanna Doxtader were running around and hitting people with water-balloons. It had to be them.”

“Well, I guess I owe you a big apology” LR said. “I am sorry.”

“No worries” Shannon said. “You go on trips like this expecting to get wet. I just didn’t expect it in Zanesville.” Never-the-less, Shannon was impressed that LR apologized. The "men" in Shannon's life had either apologized without stop, even for things they had no control over or they never apologized at all. LR's apology was simple and seemed sincere.

LR cocked his head. He heard the distinctive sound of a diesel using a Jake-brake on a downgrade somewhere off the right bank of the river. The sound was masked by the sounds of rushing water and muffled by the densely treed valley but he guessed there was a major road some five or ten miles distant.

He filed that information away in case he needed to do a walk-out. It costs nothing to remember stuff like that.

Lunch was two hours after the first break. LR chatted a little bit more with Shannon. She was picking up a sunburn and LR offered to re-apply the sun-block.

LR didn’t take advantage. He was as careful as if he were greasing up his sister Suzanna. He made a mental note to thank Suzanna when he got home. Suzanna had been the one to kick him in the ass and tell him it was time to stop moping over his last girlfriend and get back in the game. LR had been extremely dubious about the prospects at the start of the trip but things were looking up. Shannon had possibilities and the other girls seemed to have entirely different personalities now that Ce’Diff wasn’t in the mix.

The mid-afternoon break was only more than an hour after lunch. The rafters were clearly getting gassed.

The day’s pull-out was a little more than an hour after the last break.

LR was chatting with Snek after he pulled out when he said “SHIT!” and was off like a shot.

Snek was standing on the bank closer to the river than LR and slightly down-river.

Somehow, Shannon had lost her paddle and was quickly being swept down-river. Her yells were lost in the roar of rushing water.

LR picked up his kayak and sprinted toward the water. The paddle was already stowed in the front of the kayak’s hull. He didn’t pause to board the tippy shell. He vaulted into it at-speed.

For the 1.3% of my readers who did not enjoy the "Hot Chicks" images

Guitar players will recognize this

Fiction because A: He is white. B: He can jump. C. He is 1440 inches long

And now for a truly blue, Salicaceous* image

*Salicaceous: Of or related to willows

 

Three reasons to hope

Culture is more durable that we give it credit for

Every day brings new evidence that the America we grew up in is slipping away. How can we prevail when the very foundations of the house seem to be attacking it?

Humor me in addressing this in a round-about way.

Imagine a place where rains come during the growing season every year like clock-work. The farmers live in tiny villages two miles apart. When the rains come they take their draft animals, oxen mostly, out to their fields which they plow and plant. They have only a short time window if the grain is to grow in the rainy season and then ripen with the first dry weeks.

Furthermore, imagine two villages...perhaps 10 miles apart. One village is devout and has exceptionally strong taboos regarding the slaughter of the draft-animals that the village economy depends upon. The other village goes through the motions but it is mostly for show.

Then, one year the rains do not come. The monsoons fail as they might once every five generations.

The less devout village eats all of their grain. Then they slaughter and eat their draft animals. Finally, they migrate to the city and join the swarms of beggars who are already there.

The more devout village also eats all of their grain. They move their draft animals around to find forage. They cut down trees and bushes to put leaves within their reach. They get a little bit of milk from the animals but not enough to sustain them. Many of them move to the city but a few hang on...eating weeds, digging up roots and losing much weight.

The rains come back. Those from the devout village who moved to the city...those who survived the crime and disease and lack of food (cities are no strangers to hunger) come back to the devout village.

Before the monsoons failed, there was BARELY enough farmland to feed the families who lived there.

After the monsoons failed there were vast tracts where entire villages deserted their farmland. It was now open to other farmers who had access to draft animals. That is, to people who had lived in the devout villages.

"But Joe," you ask "what stopped the less devout villagers from stealing the oxen and donkeys of the farmers from the devout villages?"

Some did. And the farmers who owned those animals hunted down and killed the less devout villagers who raided their devout villages. Theft of animals is a capital crime. Not every thief was caught the first time he stole an ox. But eating one ox will not get you through a year (or two) without rains.

The devout village was vindicated and their beliefs were strengthened. The less devout village ceased to exist.

Key point: The faith of the devout village is strong enough that it lasts FIVE GENERATIONS without obvious reinforcement. And even after that time, hungry people will have enough faith to choose starvation over killing what we see as hamburger-on-the-hoof.

Culture is stronger than we give it credit for.

Culture is holographic

Culture is holographic in the sense that tiny, distant patches of it contain enough information such that vast swaths desolation can be reconstructed by repeating the patterns within the patches, much like a crystal grows as atoms deposit on the lattice of the previously solidified atoms.

The term "holographic" is a funny word. 

Women tend to recover from strokes more quickly than men do because their brains are more "holographic". Memories are stored in more places, in locations that are more geographically distant and there are more connections/associations between those memories. Because of that density of linkages, women can knit their "self" back together more quickly after brain damage.

I might be going out onto a limb here, but I believe that we could recreate 99% of the best parts of America with three documents: The Bible (both Old and New Testaments), The US Constitution with the Bill of Rights and Robert's Rules of Order. Those three "patches" of culture are enough that our culture could reconstitute itself and bridge the valleys of desolation.

Divine intercession

Psalm 90

Lord, you have been our refuge through all generations.
Before the mountains were born, the earth and the world brought forth,
from eternity to eternity you are God.
You turn humanity back into dust, saying, “Return, you children of Adam!
A thousand years in your eyes are merely a day gone by,
Before a watch passes in the night you wash them away;
They sleep, and in the morning they sprout again like an herb. 
In the morning it blooms only to pass away; in the evening it is wilted and withered.

 

Matthew 28

Then Jesus approached (them) and said to them, “All power in heaven and on earth has been given to me.
Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, until the end of the age.”

 

What do you call 50,000 frozen migrants?

50,000 wanna-be migrants are onya-marx at the Texas-Mexico border.

Wind-chills later this week will be lethal for those who are outside without proper clothing.

Blood will be on Biden's hands (again).

Will Occasional-Cortex fly down to the border for a photo-op and shed tears for the men, women and children killed by Biden and his woke policies?

Don't bet on it.

Fine Art Tuesday

 

Peder Mork Mønsted

Presumably this is what Wichita Falls, Kansas City, Mobile and Armadillo will look like later this week.

Another tip of the old toque to Lucas Machias

Gratuitous "Naked Chicks" picture