The March Of Dimes

     

Tucson Weather Today

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HISTORICAL CLIP

On this day, February 23 in 1954, a group of children from Arsenal Elementary School in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, receive the first injections of the new polio vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk.

Poliomyelitis, also called infantile paralysis, based on its propensity to affect children. was a highly contagious disease that emerged in terrifying outbreaks and seemed impossible to stop. Attacking the nerve cells and sometimes the central nervous system, polio caused muscle deterioration, paralysis and even death. Even as medicine vastly improved in the first half of the 20th century in the Western world, polio still struck, affecting mostly children but sometimes adults as well. The most famous victim of a 1921 outbreak in America was future President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, then a young politician. The disease spread quickly, leaving his legs permanently paralyzed.

Victim of Infantile Paralysis

In the late 1940s, the March of Dimes, a grassroots organization founded with President Roosevelt's help to find a way to defend against polio.

The March Of Dimes

I well remember seeing this display of a charitable plea on virtually every retail store's counter, right next to the cash register. And believe me, even a dime back in those days was a good deal of money.

Here is another display

The organization enlisted Dr. Jonas Salk, head of the Virus Research Lab at the University of Pittsburgh. Salk found that polio had as many as 125 strains of three basic types, and that an effective vaccine needed to combat all three. By growing samples of the polio virus and then deactivating, or "killing" them by adding a chemical called formalin, Salk developed his vaccine, which was able to immunize without infecting the patient.

Dr. Jonas Salk -- 1954

Mass inoculations began in 1954, and by August 1955 some 4 million shots had been given. There is still no cure for polio once it has been contracted, but the use of vaccines has virtually eliminated polio in the United States. Globally, there are now around 250,000 cases each year, mostly in developing countries. The World Health Organization has set a goal of eradicating polio from the entire world.

Note: I have never been immunized for polio. I left high school just before the serum was made available in my hometown, and the institution-based process never caught up to me.

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WORD FOR TODAY

charity [CHAYR-uh-tee]
noun
1. Provision of help or relief to the poor; almsgiving.
2. Something given to help the needy; alms.
3. An institution, organization, or fund established to help the needy.
4. Benevolence or generosity toward others or toward humanity.
5. Indulgence or forbearance in judging others.
synonyms:
mercy, leniency, clemency, charity

These nouns mean humane and kind, sympathetic, or forgiving treatment of or disposition toward others.

The practice of charity means the voluntary giving of help to those in need who are not related to the giver.

Most forms of charity are concerned with providing food, water, clothing, and shelter, and tending the ill, but other actions may be performed as charity: visiting the imprisoned or the homebound, dowries for poor women, ransoming captives, educating orphans.

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY


W.E.B. DuBois

 Born Feb 23, 1868
Died Aug 27, 1963

William Edward Burghardt "W. E. B." Du Bois was an American sociologist, historian, civil rights activist, Pan-Africanist, author and editor. Born in western Massachusetts, Du Bois grew up in a tolerant community and experienced little racism as a child. After graduating from Harvard, where he was the first African American to earn a doctorate, he became a professor of history, sociology and economics at Atlanta University. Du Bois was one of the co-founders of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in 1909.

Du Bois was a prolific author. His collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, was a seminal work in African-American literature; and his 1935 magnum opus Black Reconstruction in America challenged the prevailing orthodoxy that blacks were responsible for the failures of the Reconstruction era.

The Souls Of Black Folk can be read here

Kristin Davis

Born Feb 23, 1965
Age:   47 years old

Kristin Landen Davis is an American actress. She first rose to prominence and achieved fame for playing the role of Brooke Armstrong on Melrose Place and went on to achieve greater success as Charlotte York Goldenblatt on HBO's Sex and the City.

Patricia Richardson

 Born Feb 23, 1951
Age:  61 years old

Patricia Castle Richardson is an American television and film actress best known for her portrayal of Jill Taylor on the sitcom Home Improvement.

Peter Fonda

 Born Feb 23, 1940
Age:  72 years old

Peter Henry Fonda is an American actor. He is the son of Henry Fonda, brother of Jane Fonda, and father of Bridget and Justin Fonda (by first wife Susan Brewer, stepdaughter of Noah Dietrich). Fonda is an icon of the counterculture of the 1960s. In 1968, Fonda produced and starred in Easy Rider, the classic film for which he is best known.

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A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.
--Jack London
  

Sharing Of Personal Opinions

 

Tucson Weather Today


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My latest (10/27/2012) Kindle purchase is Kindred ($4.95) and I'd like to offer a brief description of it, not a personal review, since I have not read it yet. That will come later.

Kindred is the title of a book written by Octavia E. Butler who is an author I had never heard of until yesterday when I happened upon her name while reading an intriguing review of another of her books.

Octavia E. Butler is author of many novels, including Adulthood Rites and The Parable of the Sower. She is the winner of the Nebula Award and twice winner of the Hugo Award.

Octavia E. Butler

 (June 22, 1947 – February 24, 2006)

 One reader said about Kindred --

Dana, a modern black woman, is celebrating her twenty-sixth birthday with her new husband when she is snatched abruptly from her home in California and transported to the antebellum South. Rufus, the white son of a plantation owner, is drowning, and Dana has been summoned to save him. Dana is drawn back repeatedly through time to the slave quarters, and each time the stay grows longer, more arduous, and more dangerous until it is uncertain whether or not Dana's life will end, long before it has a chance to begin.

Kindred utilizes the devices of science fiction in order to answer the question "how could anybody be a slave?" A woman from the twentieth century, Dana is repeatedly brought back in time by her slave-owning ancestor Rufus when his life is endangered. She chooses to save him, knowing that because of her actions a free-born black woman will eventually become his slave and her own grandmother. When forced to live the life of a slave, Dana realizes she is not as strong as her ancestors. Unable to will herself back to her own time and unable to tolerate the institution of slavery, she attempts to run away and is caught within a few hours.

Her illiterate ancestor Alice succeeds in eluding capture for four days even though "She knew only the area she'd been born and raised in, and she couldn't read a map." Alice is captured, beaten, and sold as a slave to Rufus. As Dana is sent back and forth through time, she continues to save Rufus's life, attempting during each visit to care for Alice, even as she is encouraging Alice to allow Rufus to rape her and thus ensure Dana's own birth. As a twentieth-century African-American woman trying to endure the brutalities of nineteenth-century slavery, Dana answers the question, "See how easily slaves are made?" For Dana, to choose to preserve an institution, to save a life, and nurture victimization is to choose to survive.

As I hinted at above, after I finish reading Kindred I will attempt an in-depth review of it, similar to the one above, but which will be my personal opinions.

And if that works out, I might do the same here on the old' blog for each reading of forthcoming books, ones I like and those for which I don't care much.

Should be interesting to some readers.

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WORD FOR TODAY

cilia [sil-ee-uh]
plural noun
cilium [cil-ee-uhm]
singular noun

1.
Biology  minute hairlike organelles, identical in structure to flagella, that line the surfaces of certain cells and beat in rhythmic waves, providing locomotion to ciliate protozoans and moving liquids along internal epithelial tissue in animals.
2.
Anatomy  the eyelashes.

Nasal Cilia

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BORN ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY


Dennis Franz

Born Oct 28, 1944
Age: 67 years old.

Dennis Franz is an American actor best known for his role as Andy Sipowicz, a hard-boiled police detective, in the television series NYPD Blue. He previously appeared as Lt. Norman Buntz on Hill Street Blues, and earlier played Detective Benedetto on the same show.  He starred as "Earl", the abusive husband, in the Dixie Chicks' music video "Goodbye Earl", as Captain Carmine Lorenzo in the 1990 action film Die Hard 2 and as Nathaniel Messinger in the 1998 film, City of Angels.

Jonas Salk

Born Oct 28, 1914
Died Jun 23, 1995

Jonas Edward Salk was an American medical researcher and virologist, best known for his discovery and development of the first polio vaccine.

Until 1955, when the Salk vaccine was introduced, polio was considered the most frightening public health problem of the post-war United States. Annual epidemics were increasingly devastating. The 1952 epidemic was the worst outbreak in the nation's history. Of nearly 58,000 cases reported that year, 3,145 people died and 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis, with most of its victims being children.

Bill Gates

Born Oct 28, 1955
Age: 56 years old.

William Henry "Bill" Gates III is an American business magnate and philanthropist. Gates is the former chief executive and current chairman of Microsoft, the world’s largest personal-computer software company, which he co-founded with Paul Allen. He is consistently ranked among the world's wealthiest people and was the wealthiest overall from 1995 to 2009, excluding 2008, when he was ranked third;[in 2011 he was the wealthiest American and the second wealthiest person. During his career at Microsoft, Gates held the positions of CEO and chief software architect, and remains the largest individual shareholder, with 6.4 percent of the common stock. He has also authored or co-authored several books.

Julia Roberts

Born Oct 28, 1967
Age: 44 years old

Julia Fiona Roberts is an American actress. She became a Hollywood star after headlining the romantic comedy Pretty Woman (1990), which grossed $464 million worldwide. After receiving Golden Globe Awards and Academy Award nominations for Steel Magnolias (1989) and Pretty Woman, she won the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Erin Brockovich (2000). Her films My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Mystic Pizza (1988), Notting Hill (1999), Runaway Bride (1999), Valentine's Day (2010), The Pelican Brief (1993), Ocean's Eleven (2001), and Ocean's Twelve (2004) have collectively brought box office receipts of over $2.4 billion, making her one of the most successful actresses in terms of box office receipts.

You don't start out writing good stuff. You start out writing crap and thinking it's good stuff, and then gradually you get better at it. That's why I say one of the most valuable traits is persistence.
--Octavia Butler