more on boil order and water

Under a boil-water advisory (BWA), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that water be brought to a rolling boil for one minute before it is consumed in order to kill protozoa, bacteria and viruses. At altitudes above 2,000 meters, boiling should be extended to 3 minutes, as the lower temperature of the boiling point at high altitudes requires more time to kill such organisms.

BWAs are typically issued when monitoring of water being served to consumers detects E. coli or other microbiological indicators of sewage contamination. Another reason for a BWA is a failure of distribution system integrity evidenced by a loss of system pressure. While loss of pressure does not necessarily mean the water has been contaminated, it does mean that pathogens may be able to enter the piped-water system and thus be carried to consumers.

Some countries, like Canada, have publicly available maps showing the locations of boil water advisories
-Wikipedia

Fort St. John (3)

Boil Water Advisory

Spectra Energy - Sikanni Gas Plant - Water quality advisory - Coliforms present in samples - 5/2/2011

Buckinghorse River Provincial Park - Groundwater possibly under the direct influence of surface water. - 7/1/2009

Spectra Energy - Peggo Gas Plant - No reason given - 7/4/08

CDC, redesigned to fit it's connotations

“CDC does not know of a virus or condition that would reanimate the dead (or one that would present zombie-like symptoms),” wrote agency spokesman David Daigle in an email to The Huffington Post.

But ever since cannibalism reports have been swirling as a result of the “Miami Causeway Cannibal,” “zombie apocalypse” has been on the tip of everyone’s tongue. It was reportedly the most Googled term on Friday morning.

First there’s the “Miami Causeway Cannibal,” you know, the naked guy who beat his victim to a bloody pulp and then refused to stop ingesting his flesh until cops shot him to death. Not to mention that when authorities commanded the “Miami Causeway Cannibal,” Rudy Eugene, to stop eating his victim’s face, he growled at them as pieces of body tissue dangled from his mouth.

Next came the deranged story of a Texas mother who decapitated her son and ate parts of his brain and three of his toes, according to The Huffington Post. 

There was also the Maryland college student who reportedly admitted to killing his roommate then eating his heart along with parts of his brain.

Let’s not forget about the New Jersey man who continually stabbed himself in the abdomen, threw his intestines at officers and needed two cans of pepper spray to be subdued before they rushed him to the emergency room or the 22-year-old Japanese artist who had his genitals removed and then cooked them for five diners at a lavish banquet.
-http://archive.longislandpress.com/2012/06/04/zombie-apocalypse-cdc-releases-statement/

a gift from Shawna

 

Michael Ondaatje

“Signature”

The car carried him

racing the obvious moon

beating in the trees like a white bird.

Difficult to make words sing

around your appendix.

The obvious upsets me,

everyone has scars which crawl

into the mystery of swimming trunks.

I was the first appendix in my family;

my brother who was given the stigma

of a rare blood type,

proved to have ulcers instead.

The rain fell like applause as I approached the hospital.

It takes seven seconds, she said,

strapped my feet,

entered my arm.

I stretched all senses

on FIVE

the room closed on me like an eyelid.

At night the harmonica plays,

a whistler joins in respect.

I am a sweating marble saint

full of demerol and sleeping pills.

A man in the armour of shining plaster

walks to my door, then past.

Imagine the rain

falling like white bees on the sidewalk

imagine Snyder

high on poetry and mountains

 

Three floors down

my appendix

swims in a jar 

O world, I shall be buried all over Ontario

the ongoing whatever of my teeth

this is my temporary bridge. obviously it should be in my mouth bridging the missing tooth (that i've written about before) - instead, it's on this cardboard box. meanwhile, in my mouth, the two teeth that are supposed to have this glued to it are very senitive and fairly painful... because they're exposed. it's hard to drink or eat.

"melancholy... the most voluptuous of all sensations"

In [t]his depression and dreadful uninterrupted suffering, I don't condemn life. On the contrary, I like it and find it good. Can you believe it? I find everything good and pleasant, even my tears, my grief. I enjoy weeping, I enjoy my despair. I enjoy being exasperated and sad. I feel as if these were so many diversions, and I love life in spite of them all. I want to live on. It would be cruel to have me die when I am so accommodating. I cry, I grieve, and at the same time I am pleased -- no, not exactly that -- I know not how to express it. But everything in life pleases me. I find everything agreeable, and in the very midst of my prayers for happiness, I find myself happy at being miserable. It is not I who undergo all this -- my body weeps and cries; but something inside of me which is above me is glad of it all.
-Journal de Marie Bashkirtseff (via William James' The Varieties of Religious Experience)

 signs from a yet-unfinished piece of mine titled Cover

money, health, & art

a lineage of images on health & my work from past year:

screen capture of my purchased health insurance plan (catastrophe insurance)

an x-ray of my teeth, after my abscessed tooth was removed (more on that experience here)

tree/stump in England which people have hammered coins into for good luck

 

detail of the above stump

 i pick up lucky pennies, and keep them in my left pocket till they are no longer lucky

Adam Farcus - Lucky Pennies (lucky pennies, wood, glue, and shellac) 2012 [for the Octagon open house]

 Lucky Pennies (detail)

text from "Buckland's Complete Book of Witchcraft" that detail the healing powers of colors and how to charge water with colors

Adam Farcus - Charge (jars, lighting gels, tape, water, US dollar coins, bricks, and light) 2011

Charge (detail)

living like a weasel with tooth decay

And once, says Ernest Thompson Seton - once, a man shot an eagle out of the sky. He examined the eagle and found a dry skull of a weasel fixed by the jaws to his throat. The supposition is that the eagle hand pounced on the weasel and the weasel swiveled and bit as instinct taught him, tooth to neck, and nearly won. I would like to have seen that eagle from the air a few weeks or months before it was shot: was the whole weasel still attached to his feathered throat, a fur pendant? Or did the eagle eat what he could reach, gutting the living weasel with his talons before his breast, bending his beak, cleaning the beautiful airborne bones?
-Annie Dillard. Teaching a Stone to Talk. 1982.

the quote above is from Annie Dillard's story, "Living Like Weasels", plays a primary role in Laurie Anderson's Speechless (Eagle and the Weasel) from the album Bright Red. both address passion and impulse and holding on to life, no matter what happens. this is important to me, this week, because i just went to the dentist and found out that almost all of my teeth need dental work:

some teeth are not represented, because they're ok, or (as in one case) missing. the teeth that need anything with "resin" in them have surface cavities that require drilling and filling. the two that need to be extracted are rotted wisdom teeth. tooth #3 has a large filling that i had worked on when i was a kid - it is evidently "leaking" now, and requires a lot of work. in total it would take 4 visits (one for each quadrant of my mouth), and total $3658.00 - for someone with health insurance that does not cover dental. i now know what is wrong with my teeth, and thereby have a goal. before this i lived in denial and fear of what might actually be happening in my mouth. so i'm going to latch onto this, save/find some money or other dental options (UIC clinic?), and hold on. hopefully i won't be gutted - but if i were it would be a good case for how our health system in the US needs to be fixed. (really, i could only dream to live, or die, as a martyr for my liberal beliefs.)

Abscessed Tooth

4/19/11

• tooth #18
• crying all morning
• shaky hands and arms
• "This one?" (she pushes on my tooth)
• yelp-sink into the chair, hiding from her finger-big alligator tears
• 3 fast acting shots to my gum
• she placed her hand on my quivering cheek and said, "You were so pale - you look better already"
• explanation of extraction, and reasons to get an implant
• "I don't have any insurance"
• sympathetic eyes
• she takes her mask off to show that she is smiling

[6 of the worst sounds pressed into my deadened jaw]


*written in situ, and yes I did bring my moleskin to the dental chair with me

being a (sick) artist

I'm sick again. I think I had a cold, which quickly turned into a sinus infection. I've been at home, listening to Bad at Sports and watching the Daily Show, for almost three days. As a teacher you would assume that I would be paid enough to have the basic necessities. I don't have health insurance, I am applying for food stamps, I have requested cheaper payments on my student loans, and I pay less for rent then my wife does. These are the times when my resolve and passion for art is tested. I find my active social voice in art and teaching. I want to make some kind of difference. I feel like I have something to contribute to society. This is what I tell my students who are aiming for a life in the arts, and this is what I tell myself.

health care bill

democratic party - seats in senate: 57 seats in the house: 255
republican party - seats in senate: 41 seats in the house: 187
I keep hearing that we don't want this. I think, by election, the American people have spoken.