One thing leads to another . . . .

New term (to me) from work: "Pain ball catheter." That was from an op report regarding a hysterectomy (something OB/Gyn, anyway; it was that or a C-section, but I'm pretty sure it was the hysterectomy). The dictator said it clearly, but there was no mention of a "pain ball catheter" in my equipment terminology book, and not even anything on Google when I put the full phrase in there. Eventually--and this was after trying "paint ball," among other things--I did find "pain ball." I'm still not specifically sure what it is, at least with regard to mechanism, what it looks like, etc., although I gather that it has something to do with pain medications self-administered by the patient. Of course I was thinking of possible variations, especially the "paint ball" - with so many medications, etc., administered via patches on the skin, etc., it seems to me like you could rig a paintball gun to shoot paintballs full of the same drugs, and have a little fun while you administer the medications. Or rather, your significant other could have fun shooting you with the stuff. For that matter, the people who do the paintball combat games are missing a bet, here--think how much more fun they could have if they could load their paintballs with something like Demerol or some kind of tranquilizer instead of simple paint, just enough to knock the target out for a couple of hours. Of course that could lead to all sorts of problems, like the paintball enthusiasts being arrested for practicing medicine without a license, something like that. Guess I'll table that idea for the time being.

Another new term I saw in the paper (online version, naturally): "New Science." I'm still not altogether sure what THAT is, although it does seem to be an actual "entity," like "new math" or something. Apparently its fundamental principle is that "all things are connected." Probably that is an oversimplification, but it's close enough. Now, I don't know how long New Science has been around; in a way it sounds at least a little like chaos theory, with its hyperactive South Pacific butterfly flapping up a literal storm in Florida, or however that goes. But how freaking "new" can it really be? Even Isaac Newton was on a similar track with that "every action has an equal and opposite reaction" notion of his. What is interesting to me, though, is that I've been toying with that particular idea--"all things are connected"--for a lot of years, now, although not in "Newtonian" terms. Basically it is simple: Nothing/nobody exists in a vacuum.

That realization came to me much later than it probably should have. It’s not like I haven’t been paying attention over the past half-century or so, after all.

If you ever truly study history, for instance, you see how one thing leads to a predictable other.

You begin to see and understand what Maxine Hong Kingston meant when she wrote that, unless she sees her ancestors’ lives branching into her own, they offer her no “ancestral help.”

I suppose a translation of that would be, “those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.”

Now, go look up “Gilded Age.”