Fresh off the table: Stills from Tablets of the Gods

With principle photography in its final stretch, viagra cialis online pharmacy pharmacy of the Gods is progressing well. Here are a few stills gathered from the editing table as the film starts it's initial faze of post-production this week.

Pros and Cons of Social Media Use in Medicine

The American Medical Association (AMA) just released a policy on Social Media and Medical Professionalism. It focuses more on the negative aspects of social media, and much can be averted by just using common sense:



Physicians should weigh a number of considerations when maintaining a presence online:

• Physicians should be cognizant of standards of patient privacy and confidentiality that must be maintained in all environments, including online, and must refrain from posting identifiable patient information online.
• When using the Internet for social networking, physicians should use privacy settings to safeguard personal information and content to the extent possible, but should realize that privacy settings are not absolute and that once on the Internet, content is likely there permanently. Thus, physicians should routinely monitor their own Internet presence to ensure that the personal and professional information on their own sites and, to the extent possible, content posted about them by others, is accurate and appropriate.
• If they interact with patients on the Internet, physicians must maintain appropriate boundaries of the patient-physician relationship in accordance with professional ethical guidelines just, as they would in any other context.
• To maintain appropriate professional boundaries physicians should consider separating personal and professional content online.
• When physicians see content posted by colleagues that appears unprofessional they have a responsibility to bring that content to the attention of the individual, so that he or she can remove it and/or take other appropriate actions. If the behavior significantly violates professional norms and the individual does not take appropriate action to resolve the situation, the physician should report the matter to appropriate authorities.
• Physicians must recognize that actions online and content posted may negatively affect their reputations among patients and colleagues, may have consequences for their medical careers (particularly for physicians-in-training and medical students), and can undermine public trust in the medical profession.

On the flip side, Greysen et al wrote a nice commentary piece in the Journal of General Internal Medicine about the positive applications of social media in online pharmacy viagra.

• Provide insightful and respectful reflection narratives about clinical experiences that maintain patient anonymity.
• Promote quality improvement and patient safety guidelines
• Serve as a trustworthy source of medical information to balance less-reliable online resources

To quote the authors: "Much like a mirror, social media can reflect the best and worst aspects of the content placed before it for all to see."



Social media is here to stay. Let's figure out how to work with it rather than avoid it.



Reference

Greysen SR, Kind T, & Chretien KC (2010). Online professionalism and the mirror of social media. J Gen Int Med, 25 (11), 1227-9. 

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Pg. 69: Anthony Neil Smith's "Yellow Medicine"

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The current feature at the Page 69 Test: Anthony Neil Smith's Yellow Medicine.

About the book, from the publisher:

Deputy Billy Lafitte is not unfamiliar with the law—he just prefers to enforce it, rather than abide by it. But his rule-bending and bribe-taking have gotten him kicked off the force in Gulfport, Mississippi, and he’s been given a second chance—in the desolate, Siberian wastelands of rural Minnesota. Now Billy’s only got the local girls and local booze to keep him company.

Until one of the local girls—cute little Drew, bassist for a psychobilly band—asks Billy for help with her boyfriend. Something about the drugs Ian’s been selling, some product he may have lost, and the men who are threatening him because of it. Billy agrees to look into it, and before long he’s speeding down a snowy road, tracking a cell of terrorists, with a severed head in his truck’s cab. And that’s only the start.

Among the early praise for Yellow Medicine:

“Yellow Medicine starts with one of the most memorable and engaging anti-heroes in recent memory. Mix in bent cops, a psychobilly band called Elvis Antichrist, meth cookers in the Minnesota sticks, and a truly nasty pack of wannabe jihadists. Add a liberal helping of guns, knives and explosives. Serve it up at a breakneck pace in Anthony Neil Smith's stripped-down, unflinching prose style. You're gonna love it. ”
—J.D. Rhoades, author of A Good Day in Hell

"In Yellow Medicine, Anthony Neil Smith delves into the psyche of a man driven by an outside-the-law concept of right and wrong. Billy is more anti-hero than good guy, with only his devotion to Drew as a saving grace. The plot has a noir feel to it that's heightened by the bleak winter setting, tough characters, and unrelenting suspense. Compelling writing drives this story to a satisfying, if bloody, conclusion."
—Mary Welk, Mystery Scene

"Plenty of action and the usual Smith weird take on things make this one something you'll want to grab as soon as it's in print and take your order cialis."
—Bill Crider

Learn more about Yellow Medicine and its author at Anthony Neil Smith's website and his MySpace page.

Anthony Neil Smith is also the editor of Plots With Guns and the author of Pyschosomatic and The Drummer.

"My Book, The Movie" -- Pyschosomatic.

The Page 69 Test: Yellow Medicine.

--Marshal Zeringue

History should supply veracity to religious faith based on spiritual truth, not bloody physical conquests

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A few decades ago, it was the historian's and theologian's job to sift the historical, archaeological, and biblical data, and make the best sense of it. But now, in our lazy minded society of high tech, we have ever so slowly abandoned the difficulty of thinking to others, or to computer programmers who stamp machines with a pre-programmed subjective process on how it should "think" and "process" information, when posed with questions. Or hasn't any one else noticed?

Michael Grant, a popular historian on Greco-Roman histories wrote:
"People interested in history and people interested in religion ought to combine forces more than they do. A theologian's interpretations remain liable to contradiction unless he knows something of the historical background." Michael Grant, "Jesus An Historian's Review of the Gospels" (New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1977) p. 1


In the context of the Bible, conservative scholarship has also told usthat the reverse istrue also...that historians will benefit by trusting the historical veracity of the Bible.


"The excessive skepticism shown toward the Bible has been progressively discredited. Discovery after discovery has established the accuracy of numerous details." W.F. Albright, The Archaeology of Palestine and the Bible (Revell, 1935), p. 127.


"The interval between the dates of original composition and the earliest extant evidence becomes so small as to be in fact negligible, and the last foundation for any doubt that the (New Testament has) come down to us substantially as they were written has now been removed. Both the authenticity and the general integrity of the books of the New Testament may be regarded as finally established." Sir Frederick Kenyon, The Bible and Archeology (New York: Harper, 1940), pp. 288,289


"It may be stated categorically that no archeological discovery has ever controverted a biblical passage." Nelson Glueck, Rivers in the Desert (Philadelphia: Jewish Publications Society, 1969), p. 31


"To be skeptical of the resultant text of the New Testament is to allow all of classical antiquity to slip into obscurity, for no documents of the ancient period are as well attested bibliographically as the New Testament." John Warwick Montgomery, History and Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1976), p. 29


“Careful comparison of the New Testament with inscriptions and other early independent evidence has confirmed their primary claims . . . Competent historical scholarship must regard the New Testament documents as coming from the first century and as reflecting primary-source testimony about the person and claims of Jesus.” John Warwick Montgomery, History and Christianity (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1976), pp. 31,34.


It is important for us to study history...but to me, we also need to be faithful to the Almighty who gave us the Bible, and trust HIM over the ever-changing opinions and popularities of what men (or women) might think or say.

Gleason Archer Jr. puts it better:

"...the only alternatives available to us as we confront the Scriptures: either they are inerrant, or else we are." Gleason L. Archer, Jr. "A Survey Of Old Testament Introduction" (Chicago: Moody Bible Institue, revised 1994) p. 31

And a well respected scholar once noted the acceptance of Faith and History, stating,
"It is, indeed, difficult to restrict a discussion of the New Testament writings to the purely historical plane; theology insists on breaking in. But that is as it should be; history and theology are inextricably intertwined in the gospel of our salvation, which owes its external and universal validity to certain events which happened in Palestinewhen Tiberius ruled the Roman Empire."
F.F. Bruce in April 1959, as found in The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? (Downer's Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 14th reprint 1980), pp.5-6.

The Bible is vetted historically and archaeologically as accurate, and the merging of Faith with History is an acceptable expression of intelligent and open discussion. Unlike the Koran, where Sharia Law -- to this very day -- murders at a whim wherever it is allowed to flourish unhindered, in a backward Third World mentality that the West is in denial to accept as reality, until it is too late and the "true Muslims" (to their faith) are labeled terrorists only after the fact that the damage or criminal actions have been done. To them, all non-believers in Mohammed are never innocent, and subject to annihilation. Regardless of race or nationality. Period.

The same backward Muslim mentality displayed in the movie Khartoum



has never changed. Convert to Islam or be annhilated. Convert, and we won't kill you. Stay a non-Muslim, and it will be R.I.P. for you. See...isn't Islam a religion of Peace? But like politics, their meaning upon "peace" is the de facto meaning of "death", just like the Communist-Socialists and Progressives are doing today...changing their intent upon the meaning of the words, that you might be deceived, and THEY CAN COMMUNICATE SAFELY (as Yosi Sargeant was told by Valerie Jarret to conference call Obama lovefest worshippers in the Hollywood experienced propaganda campaign last August, 2009).

The Bible manuscripts have a chain of custody unlike any religious work in the world. It is more trustworthy than any other work of antiquity, bar none. The Bible calls to grant mankind liberty and equality. What has Islam ever done? Rape babies, rape children, and kill, kill, kill. Islam hasn't changed since the Devil motivated the schizophrenic and sun-stroked prevaricator Mohammed to make up his phoney belief system to gorge in stinky bloody menstruating sex and to kill until he could smell the very blood of the stinky insides of men. Mohammed "got off" on that. To him, death was his viagra or cheap cialis. Mohammed represents the worst in man...but G-D, who is Spirit, wants the best in man to be presented forth...and gives us spiritual answers demanding spiritual action of a good and peaceful nature, and one that tells the truth, even if it offends, that souls may be saved.

Those that truly adhere to Christ have created the most good in the world (if we are to speak in terms of charity and sciences). After that, the Jews come in second. Were it not for Christianity, the world would still be traveling by cart and horse, and there would be no hospitals or the medicines and mass conveniences we enjoy today. No other belief system can say that and be honest. And if it were not true, then every belief system controlled by the Devil wouldn't be working in some undescribale unconscious conspiracy in mystic unison to destroy Christianity, and oppose it wherever they can find it. The uniqueness of Christianity, is that only those that dwell in evil and love evil hate it, while embracing any of the everything else.