the hardest decision in surgery is knowing when to abandon a repair and just remove the whole organ. 

If a spleen is shattered, we'll take it out to protect the rest of the body. Same with a section of colon or small bowel. 

The human body can survive a fair amount of loss. People live without an appendix, a kidney, tonsils, and more. 

The body finds ways to compensate for what it's missing but it will eventually reach a breaking point. 

The body can only give up so much before it no longer works at all. 

Much like with surgery, life is full of calculated risks. We often make sacrifices in hopes of better outcomes.

 Not every gamble pays off the way we hoped. 

So we ask ourselves, 

What are we willing to give up? 

What can we leave behind? 

What do we need to live? 

What makes life worth living? 

What are we willing to put on the line when a life is at stake?

 How much are we ready to lose if things don't break our way?

 

Research suggests that up to 40% of our day is spent acting out existing habits rather than making new decisions. 

From sleep to personal hygiene to diet and exercise. 

Some of our habits serve us well. Others can be more complicating.

 If you want to change a habit, behavioral scientists suggests starting small. Make one minor adjustment over time, it creates a domino effect that helps us make bigger chances down the line. 

Make a radical change and you've set yourself up for failure. 

The principle of the domino effect is a double-edged sword. 

It can help us build healthy habits but it can lead to destructive tendencies as well. One small misstep becomes one bad habit. 

Of course, none of us is perfect and so much is out of our control. 

All you can do is make the best choices available to you 

and hope they don't come back to bite you.

 

The human brain contains roughly one hundred billion neurons.

 Alone, these neurons would only allow us to retain about as much information as a flash drive.

 Fortunately for us, our neurons connect and combine, creating a web that exponentially increases the brain storage capacity. In fact, this process creates so much space that we can store the equivalent of three million hours of video content. 

So why can't we remember everything we try to commit to memory?

Our brains are constantly adapting to the present moment. 

Our brains can override information we no longer use with newer, more relevant ideas. 

Our brains make these decisions for us, whether we like it or not. 

They help us hold on to the things that matter and make space for whatever the future may hold.

 What does Geronimo shout when he jumps off something ?

 There have been 8 kings of England called Henry 

but can you name them all ?

 Research suggests that we start to recognize our mother's voice from the womb around 31 weeks.

 As soon as we're born, our language skills begin to develop. From birth to six months, we mostly coo, cry, and murmur as the vocal cords mature. Then we advance to babbling, until words start around 18 months.

Eventually, words lead to sentences and soon, we forget the time when we couldn't speak at all. 

Children are less afraid to say what they're feeling than adults. It's only as we get older that we learn to censor ourselves.

 Maybe we do it because we're simply afraid to rock the boat. Or maybe we're terrified that by saying what we feel, or asking for what we need, we will cause more trouble than there is to begin with.

 So we choose over and over again to tamp down our voices, to stuff it so far down it can make us sick, until we can't anymore and we have to let it out. 

Even if it's the hardest thing in the world.

 Genetics, diet, exercise. 

All of these factors have shown to be the key determinants of longevity. 

But researchers discovered another way to predict our life spans: our zip codes.

 In some cities, a few blocks could increase the likelihood of dying 30 years earlier. Where we live determines how we live. And how we live matters more than you might imagine.

 No matter where we live, we all wish for long, healthy lives for our family, for our loved ones, for our children. But even if the odds are in your favor, predictions are only part of the picture. 

We live in a world where everything can change in the blink of an eye. You could be on top of the world one minute but you never know when the rug might be pulled out from under you.

 When that happens, which it inevitably will, all you can do is hold on. 

And hope it won't end you.

 The word "Bible" does not appear in The Bible 

T-Pau

 

Songs written by 

Carole Ann Decker 

Ronald Phillip Rogers 

Just when you thought he couldn't get any more of a cunt 

His middle name is Phillip 

China in Your Hand - full version

It was a theme she had
On a scheme he had
told in a foreign land
To take life on earth
To the second birth
and the man was in
command
It was a flight on the wings
Of a young girls dreams
That flew too far away

And we could make the monster live again
Oh hands move and heart beat on
Now life will return in this electric storm

A prophecy for a fantasy
The curse of a vivid mind

Don't push too far
Your Dreams are china in your hand
Don't wish too hard
Because they may come true
And you can't help them
You don't know what you might
Have set upon yourself
China in your hand

Come from greed
Never born of the seed
Took life from a barren hand
On eyes wide
Like a child in the form of a man

A story told
A mind of his own
An omen for our time
We take a flight on the wings of fantasy
Then you push too far
And make your dreams reality

Yeah! china in your hand

But they're only dreams
And you shouldn't push too far

Man is timid and apologetic;

he is no longer upright; 

he dares not say "I think," "I am," 

but quotes some saint or sage.

 He is ashamed before the blade of grass or the blowing rose. 

These roses under my window make no reference to former roses or to better ones; they are for what they are; they exist with God to-day. 

There is no time to them. 

There is simply the rose; it is perfect in every moment of its existence. 

Before a leaf-bud has burst, its whole life acts; in the full-blown flower there is no more; in the leafless root there is no less.

 Its nature is satisfied, and it satisfies nature, in all moments alike. 

But man postpones or remembers; 

he does not live in the present, but with reverted eye laments the past

or, heedless of the riches that surround him, stands on tiptoe to foresee the future. 

He cannot be happy and strong until he too lives with nature in the present, above time

 How dare men call God infinite, and yet try to compress Him within the covers of a little book

 Power attracts pathological personalities. 

It is not that power corrupts but that it is magnetic to the corruptible

  If The Atheist Truly Did Not Believe, He Would Not Bother To Deny

the religious people — most of them — really think this planet is an experiment.

That's what their beliefs come down to. 

Some god or other is always fixing and poking, 

messing around with tradesmen's wives, 

giving tablets on mountains, 

commanding you to mutilate your children, 

telling people what words they can say and what words they can't say, 

making people feel guilty about enjoying themselves, 

and like that.

Why can't the gods leave well enough alone? 

All this intervention speaks of incompetence. 

If God didn't want Lot's wife to look back, why didn't he make her obedient, so she'd do what her husband told her? 

Or if he hadn't made Lot such a shithead, maybe she would've listened to him more. 

If God is omnipotent and omniscient, why didn't he start the universe out in the first place so it would come out the way he wants? 

Why's he constantly repairing and complaining? 

No, there's one thing the Bible makes clear: 

The biblical God is a sloppy manufacturer. 

He's not good at design, 

He's not good at execution.

He'd be out of business if there was any competition

“But for me the sweetest contact with God has no form. 

I close my eyes, look within, and enter a deep soft silence. 

The infinity of God's creation embraces me.”

― Michael Jackson

 Nobody has ever been in an empty room 

 

The first teacher never went to school 

Words that do not appear in the Bible

 Trinity

Rapture

Second Coming

Original Sin

Omniscience, 

Omnipresence, 

Supernatural,

Transcendence, 

Afterlife, 

Deity, 

Divinity, 

Theology, 

Monotheism, 

Missionary, 

Immaculate Conception, 

Christmas, 

Christianity, 

Evangelical, 

Fundamentalist, 

Methodist, 

Catholic, 

Pope, 

Cardinal, 

Catechism, 

Purgatory, 

Penance, 

Transubstantiation, 

Excommunication, 

Dogma, 

Chastity, 

Unpardonable Sin, 

Infallibility, 

Inerrancy, 

Incarnation, 

Epiphany, 

Sermon, 

Eucharist, 

the Lord's Prayer,

 Good Friday, 

Doubting Thomas, 

Advent, 

Sunday School, 

Dead Sea, 

Golden Rule, 

Moral, 

Morality, 

Ethics, 

Patriotism, 

Education, 

Atheism, 

Apostasy, 

Conservative (Liberal is in), 

Capital Punishment, 

Monogamy, 

Abortion, 

Pornography, 

Homosexual, 

Lesbian, 

Fairness, 

Logic, 

Republic, 

Democracy, 

Capitalism, 

Funeral, 

Decalogue, 

or Bible

 When an infection destroys a cell, the surrounding cells signal each other to wall it off. 

They isolate the infected cell to prevent it from spreading and harming other parts of your body. The isolation is temporary but important. It gives your body time to trigger your immune system and stop the infection from spreading. Until isolation is no longer needed. 

Much like the cells in our body, humans often isolate to avoid harm.

The truth is, no single part of the body can thrive on its own. Your organs work together as a system. They'll compensate for each other when one gets weak. 

People can do the same for each other, stepping up when someone else is down. 

Isolating ourselves often makes us feel more alone. 

We're usually better together,

 even when we're struggling.

Years ago, a New York physician discovered a gene mutation that causes congenital insensitivity to pain, or CIP. It's an extremely rare condition that blocks people from feeling pain. 

Sounds good in theory, but pain is important. It tells the body when it's in danger and helps keep it alive. 

Put your hand in fire, get burned and you learn not to do it again. 

Or, put another way, living hurts. 

As long as you're hurting, you're living. We know this. 

Pain is an excellent teacher. 

And life is full of sayings that remind us of its upsides:

 "Growing pains. Labor pains. Happy tears. So good it hurts." 

Pain warns us. It protects us. 

And most of all, pain makes us appreciate life's pleasures. 

Cherish good company, good health, savor the moments after the hurting, when you're all better, pain free. 

At least for a while.

 

In 1963, Dr. Thomas Starzl performed the first five liver transplants. 

One patient bled to death on the operating table. The other four died within days. As a result, the operation was considered too dangerous to be performed on humans and liver transplantation was suspended worldwide for the next four years. 

It wasn't exactly an auspicious start for a surgery that has saved countless lives. 

Progress doesn't happen overnight and setbacks are all but inevitable. Sometimes, it can make you feel like Sisiphus, endlessly pushing the same boulder on the same hill. 

But where we would be if doctor Starzl hadn't persevered to perfect the liver transplant, if he had let the setbacks win? 

As tempting as it can be to throw in the towel, sometimes you have to take the obstacles as they come and find a new path forward.

 

At the height of the Great Depression, Harvard scientists started tracking students in hopes of discovering the key to a long and happy life. They looked at participants' mental and physical health over 75 years. It is the longest study of happiness to date. 75 years and all they did was confirm what we've known since the beginning of time. The most powerful predictor of health and happiness is the quality if our relationships. Strong relationships protect us. Loneliness, on the other hand, can be deadly. Over the course of our lives, our relationships ebb and flow. We get together, break up, move away, or fall out of touch. It's prolonged periods of loneliness and toxicity that wreak havoc on our health, our brain function, and our longevity. Sometimes, being alone can be so terrifying that we trap ourselves in harmful relationships. But in order to really thrive, you've got to be ready to cut and run. Your life just might depend on it.

 

Researchers say the average length of a dream is two to three minutes. 

But many people experience their dreams as hours, if they can remember them at all. 

The science of dreaming has been questioned for hundreds of years. Some hypothesize that dreams are our way of processing real events that occur when we're awake. They may also serve as an outlet for repressed hopes and desires. 

Neuroscientists introduce a new theory every few years. 

But honestly, no one knows why we dream or why we have nightmares. 

We just hope that after the dream, we wake up. 

Some people spend their lives trying to make a dream come true. They set a goal, then make a plan on how to achieve it. It works for some people. 

for others, it's not so easy. 

As hard as you work towards the dream, it can feel like the whole world is plotting against you. As you get further away from it, you cling to any sign of hope. And the longer it takes and the more it costs you, you start to consider whether you should give up.

 Do you find a new dream? 

Or do you stick to the one that started you on this journey in the first place?

 Oh to be in England 

now that April's here 

April

 

The Romans gave this month the Latin name Aprilis but the derivation of this name is uncertain. The traditional etymology is from the verb aperire, "to open", in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin to "open", which is supported by comparison with the modern Greek use of άνοιξη (ánixi) (opening) for spring. Since some of the Roman months were named in honor of divinities, and as April was sacred to the goddess Venus, her Veneralia being held on the first day, it has been suggested that Aprilis was originally her month Aphrilis, from her equivalent Greek goddess name Aphrodite (Aphros), or from the Etruscan name Apru. Jacob Grimm suggests the name of a hypothetical god or hero, Aper or Aprus

April was the second month of the earliest Roman calendar, before Ianuarius and Februarius were added by King Numa Pompilius about 700 BC. It became the fourth month of the calendar year (the year when twelve months are displayed in order) during the time of the decemvirs about 450 BC, when it was 29 days long. The 30th day was added back during the reform of the calendar undertaken by Julius Caesar in the mid-40s BC, which produced the Julian calendar.

The Anglo-Saxons called April ēastre-monaþ. The Venerable Bede says in The Reckoning of Time that this month ēastre is the root of the word Easter. He further states that the month was named after a goddess Eostre whose feast was in that month.

April's birthstone is the diamond. The birth flower is the common daisy (Bellis perennis) or the sweet pea.

The zodiac signs are Aries (until April 19) and Taurus (April 20 onward)

April

 

April 

I open wide the portals of the Spring 
To welcome the procession of the flowers, 
With their gay banners, and the birds that sing 
Their song of songs from their aerial towers.
 
I soften with my sunshine and my showers 
The heart of earth; with thoughts of love I glide 
Into the hearts of men; and with the Hours 
Upon the Bull with wreathed horns I ride.

 

Jesus waited three days to come back to life. 

It was perfect

 If he had only waited one day, a lot of people wouldn't have even heard he died. 

They'd be all, "Hey Jesus, what up?" and Jesus would probably be like, "What up? I died yesterday!" and they'd be all, "Uh, you look pretty alive to me, dude..." and then Jesus would have to explain how he was resurrected, and how it was a miracle, and the dude'd be like "Uhh okay, whatever you say, bro..." 

And he's not gonna come back on a Saturday. Everybody's busy, doing chores, workin' the loom, trimmin' the beard,

 NO. He waited the perfect number of days, three. 

Plus it's Sunday, so everyone's in church already, 

and they're all in there like "Oh no, Jesus is dead", and then BAM! He bursts in the back door, runnin' up the aisle, everyone's totally psyched, and FYI, that's when he invented the high five. 

Easter Poem (for John Cotton), by Ted Walker

I had gone on Easter Day
early and alone to be
beyond insidious bells
(that any other Sunday
I’d not hear) up to the hills
where are winds to blow away
 commination. 

In the frail
first light I saw him, unreal
and sudden through lifting mist,
a fox on a barn door, nailed
like a coloured plaster Christ
in a Spanish shrine, his tail coiled around his loins.

 Sideways
his head hung limply, his ears
snagged with burdock, his dry nose
plugged with black blood. 

For two days
he’d held the orthodox pose.

The endemic English noise of Easter Sunday morning
was mixed with the mist swirling
and might have moved his stiff head.

Under the hill the ringing
had begun. As the sun rose red
to press on seemed the best thing.

I walked the length of the day’s
obsession.

 At dusk I was
swallowed by the misted barn,
sucked by the peristalsis
of my fear that he had gone,
leaving nails for souvenirs.

But he was there still. I saw
no sign. He hung as before.
Only the wind had risen
to comb the thorns from his fur.

I left my superstition
stretched on the banging barn door.

 

So don't knock the guys on death row

Maybe they know something you don't

 

There was only one guy in the whole Bible Jesus ever personally promised a place with him in Paradise.

 Not Peter,

 not Paul, 

not any of those guys.

 He was a convicted thief, being executed. 

 

In religion people’s beliefs and convictions are  gotten at second-hand,

and without examination, 

from authorities who have not themselves examined the questions at issue 

but have taken them at second-hand from other non-examiners, 

whose opinions about them were not worth a thing 

 

Every faith in the world is based on fabrication. 

That is the definition of faith―

acceptance of that which we imagine to be true, that which we cannot prove. 

Every religion describes God through metaphor, allegory, and exaggeration, from the early Egyptians through modern Sunday school.

 Metaphors are a way to help our minds process the unprocessible. 

The problems arise when we begin to believe literally in our own metaphors.

 

Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities

 

The merest accident of microgeography had meant that the first man to hear the voice of Om, and who gave Om his view of humans, was a shepherd and not a goatherd. 

They have quite different ways of looking at the world, and the whole of history might have been different.

 For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven.

 But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.

 

Take the Kama Sutra. 

How many people died from the Kama Sutra as opposed to the Bible?

 Who wins?

Every day people are straying away from the church and going back to God

Good Friday

 

 

sing Hey diddle diddle 

The cat and the fiddle 

the pigs in the middle

are what a fine riddle

and haven't you heard 

That the cockatoo bird 

Would repeat a rude word 

Til the panther demurred 

and threatened to plaster 

it's peco disaster

come let us sing faster and faster and faster

Then Jack and Jill stumbled 

And down the hill tumbled 

my Cookie quite crumbled 

the elephant  mumbled 

with weeping and wailing 

it jumped off the railing 

and found it was sailing 

along and a-paling 

then cried The Mad hatter 

pay heed to my chatter 

come take this white platter 

and fry it in batter

my song is all sung 

to untangle your tongue

take the refrain

and sing it again