EDUCATE, VALIDATE, FOLLOW THAT KNOWLEDGE

The work to educate people is an uphill climb. Nothing shows it better than the last year and a half.

The corona virus has revealed an unexpected side of America.

It’s the side where marginal public figures claim air time by saying whatever it takes to garner attention.

But we’re way past that now? Not so fast.

Can a crackpot with zero medical experience prescribe their notions as cures?

Beyond home remedies and folk medicine, if the crackpot is deemed to be ordained by higher powers, they can spread misinformation, disinformation, and outright horse shit for a fawning audience to act on.

But do they really act?

The Mississippi Poison Control Center added in a state-wide health alert last week that “at least 70 percent of calls have been related to ingestion of livestock or animal formulations of ivermectin purchased at livestock supply centers.”

That’s two hoof stomps for yes.

Is that all of the validation needed to take sketchy medical advice?

Educate For Effect

There’s a celebrated writer, Thomas Wolfe, who wrote about his hometown Asheville, North Carolina.

Does it sound riveting, a hometown boy’s reflections of home?

But Thomas Wolfe was different. He made it to the University of North Carolina, then Harvard for a masters degree.

Does that validate his work beyond other backwoods scribblers? Yes it does. That’s what Harvard does. Educate, validate, and apply the knowledge for a higher purpose than pissing against the wind like some wayward blogger.

Did it matter that his hometown had a beautiful resort destination built by patent medicine money? No.

Certain situations beg for educated people.

How Do Pig-Headed People Behave During A Hospital Overnighter

Maybe it’s no secret, but hospital wards are prepared for people who can’t follow instructions.

Nurses orders: Stay In Bed?

Nurses know if you get out of bed. There’s a little alarm on the side panel that goes off if you get out, roll around, or just move too much.

If the door to the room is closed, it won’t be for long if that alarm goes off.

Nurses orders: Stay In The Chair?

If you’re well enough to get out of bed and sit in the lounge chair, stay there until the nurse comes back.

Under the blanket covering the seat of the chair is a a pressure pad connected a real screamer of an alarm.

Get up and it goes off. The alarm isn’t an ear buster, but close.

If you can get out of bed and sit, maybe you’re well enough for a short walk around the unit?

“This is where we turn around.”

“I feel like walking more and we’re only halfway down the floor.”

“Then let’s continue.”

“Why did you want to stop halfway?”

“Because we don’t want patients to know where the exit doors are.”

“You’ve had runners, people who take off in their gowns? Really?”

“Really. You’re not thinking about it are you?”

“Who would do that?”

“You can never tell.”

Hard Lessons To Learn

Educate for a better life, a better understanding, and most important to be useful.

Be useful to yourself, your loved ones, friends. Be useful to strangers doing their best.

Education prevents you from screaming about your rights and waving a constitution you carry in your cigarette pocket.

Learning a better way helps you understand that you probably don’t need to strap on a hog leg to drive to the gas station for a fill-up.

Do enough compare and contrast work in school and you may avoid storming the Capitol when a sack of waste weasels around, tells you what to do, then says he didn’t.

Call it a Bullshit Filter. Be sure and change it regularly if your fate is to not educate.

But why wouldn’t you?