Sean Mark Miller

Plaster model of a shoulder showing condition after excision of the head of the humerus

This cast shows a healed gunshot wound received by a soldier during the American Civil War. Instead of amputating the arm, the surgeon cut into the joint and removed the shattered head of the humerus. This was the method taught by Charles Bell.

"Where Law Ends Tyranny Begins"

Engraving on the exterior of the United States Department of Justice headquarters.

Trump’s federal firings imperil government services from cities to farm towns The cuts were initially poised to affect nuclear defense programs and impact veterans’ mental health care, workers warned.

this is not cost saving — its devastatingly costly by every measure

www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2025/...

Excerpt from a public letter Roald Dahl wrote encouraging people to vaccinate their children. Olivia, my eldest daughter, caught measles when she was seven years old. As the illness took its usual course I can remember reading to her often in bed and not feeling particularly alarmed about it. Then one morning, when she was well on the road to recovery, I was sitting on her bed showing her how to fashion little animals out of coloured pipe-cleaners, and when it came to her turn to make one herself, I noticed that her fingers and her mind were not working together and she couldn’t do anything. “Are you feeling all right?” I asked her. “I feel all sleepy,” she said. In an hour, she was unconscious. In twelve hours she was dead. The measles had turned into a terrible thing called measles encephalitis and there was nothing the doctors could do to save her. That was twenty-four years ago in 1962, but even now, if a child with measles happens to develop the same deadly reaction from measles as Olivia did, there would still be nothing the doctors could do to help her. On the other hand, there is today something that parents can do to make sure that this sort of tragedy does not happen to a child of theirs. They can insist that their child is immunized against measles. I was unable to do that for Olivia in 1962 because in those days a reliable measles vaccine had not been discovered. Today a good and safe vaccine is available to every family and all you have to do is to ask your doctor to administer it.

The measles outbreak in Texas is reminding me of the public letter Roald Dahl wrote about losing his daughter to measles in 1962, just before the vaccine was publicly available.

Good to see you here!

Grandpa with grandchild and Franklin the dog, walking in the snow.

Merry Christmas. For those who are struggling, may the day land gently.

Photo: Christmas Eve 2017.

I survived polio and fear children will be in danger if Senate confirms RFK Jr. | Opinion Steve Cohen and Mitch McConnell are the only polio survivors in Congress. Cohen criticizes Trump's pick for health secretary, Robert. Kennedy Jr.

Check out this article from Commercial Appeal:

I survived polio and fear children will be in danger if Senate confirms RFK Jr. | Opinion

www.commercialappeal.com/story/opinio...

Yannis Ritsos translated by David Harsent so cinematic

May it always be so

Yes, with those passion teeth described in Chaucer's masterpiece.

By understanding many things, I have accomplished nothing.

Hugo Grotius

I had a German student say I had to teach him the words, he meant to train his ears

Heraclitus

"The extraordinary greatness of the Roman Empire manifests itself above all in three things: the aqueducts, the paved roads, and the construction of the drains."

Dionysius of Halicarnassus

Freedom is not something that anybody can be given. Freedom is something people take, and people are as free as they want to be.

James Baldwin

Galway Kinnell

All things excellent are as difficult as they are rare.

Spinoza

W. S. Merwin

Galway Kinnell

Large numbers of people, crowded together, develop an almost irresistible inclination toward despotism.

Hannah Arendt

Galway Kinnell

Nec propter vitam vivendi perdere causa.

(Just for the sake of living, don't lose the reasons for living.)

Juvenal

Galway Kinnell

Oscar Wilde:

It is only an auctioneer who can equally and impartially admire all schools of art.

The best revenge is not to be like that.

Marcus Aurelius

The role of the teacher is really much closer to that of the priest than to that of the propagandist.

Chaim Perelman

Zumba gathering after class for coffee and a chat - Christmas themed in theory, not so much in practice

Zumba Christmas gathering after class for coffee and a chat.

People sit together around tables in a cafe during the MA's 2023 conference

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