Whatever Tickles My Fancy

Greetings Fellow Web Travelers...

Welcome to this site, blog and some different ideas and thoughts - most of which, are my own, though perhaps they're not necessarily original.  (how's that for a disclaimer?)

As of the moment, this site and blog are new (December 22^nd, 2006).  The old blog etc, were destroyed when GoDaddy in their infinite wisdom deleted them when they couldn't get in touch with me for a few weeks.  Fortunately, or unfortunately, depending on the point of view, I was able to keep a few of the specific blogs and will add them back in with earlier than today's dates.

Of special note, the following domains will bring you here:

• myproctor.com
• mrproctor.com
• proctor.cc
• sproctor.com
• sproctor.net
• sproctor.org
• sproctor.info
• sproctor.us
• stevep.cc
• stephen-proctor.com
• steve-proctor.com
• steveproctor.name

I may be forgetting a domain or three.  The domain sproctor.com was somehow "lifted" from me and was no longer in my possession. I have since reacquired it due to the kindness of someone. One can now use it to visit me, once again. In addition, I should mention the sub-domains. At the moment there are two set-up but not much exists there yet.

Pain creates a devastating situation for sufferers and those around them. Pain, especially chronic pain, is a debilitating, very dehumanizing condition. Albert Schweitzer said, "Pain is a more terrible lord than death itself." The more severe the pain, the more it may overshadow one's intelligence. All one thinks about is the pain: there is no past, no pain-free memory, no pain-free future, only the pain-filled present. Pain destroys autonomy: the person is afraid to make the slightest movement. All choices are focused on either relieving the current pain or preventing greater future pain and for this one will sell one's own soul.

According to the National Foundation for the Treatment of Pain (NFTP) chronic pain is almost universally accompanied by anxiety and depression.

Suicide is not uncommon. Chronic pain is also a damaging, and even deadly, destructive disease with physical, psychological, and behavioral consequences. Chronic pain compromises the immune system and slows healing. It causes cell damage and death. Untreated pain "rewires" the nervous system so that even when the original cause of pain is removed, pain may continue. This "rewired" pain can be even harder to treat than the original cause.

Chronic pain is costly to our society, affecting as many as 50 million Americans to the extent that they cannot work productively and become either partially or fully disabled. It's one of the most frequent causes for Social Security Disability Insurance claims and dramatically affects state, federal and private health care costs. The NFTP estimates the total cost of untreated and under-treated pain approximates $100 billion a year attributable to lost workdays, excessive or unnecessary hospitalizations, unnecessary surgical procedures, inappropriate medication and patient-incurred expenses from self-treatment.

Untreated and under-treated pain is widespread in the U.S.. Experts estimate as much as 95% of all pain can be reduced to manageable levels. Yet, it isn't. An American Pain Society survey in 1999 revealed 54 million adults experience long-term moderate to severe pain annually, and only 25% received adequate treatment.

As part of a well-intentioned, ongoing "War on Drugs" the majority of the media and law enforcement community continue to promote a very limited view of pain medication and its use/abuse. The one-sided portrait they paint includes only negatives such as misdirected prescriptions, illegal use/abuse and addiction, not to mention the horrible consequences associated with such behaviors. Their crusade to educate the public and medical community of the perils of prescription drug abuse in some situations causes much more harm than it does good for it drives pain sufferers away from the proper treatment of their condition.

Opioid medications can be extremely effective against many types of pain. They are, among many other uses, one of the last lines of defense when back or neck surgery is unsuccessful. As other medicines, from insulin to aspirin, they too have side-effects and must be carefully managed and taken only as prescribed.

A couple of factors, including the fear of their patient becoming addicted and/or a fear of sanction or prosecution, substantially reduce physicians' willingness to prescribe narcotics and, to some extent, the patient's willingness to accept narcotic therapy. These have been exacerbated by the recent hysteria in the media surrounding the OxyContin.

Fear of addiction... There is a belief dramatically fostered within the United States by the spread of misinformation that anyone who takes opioid medications is at substantial risk of addiction. In fact, the rate of addiction amongst those who are treated by a doctor with opioid medications is no greater than that of addiction in the general population. According to the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence there is a solid body of clinical evidence that patients with a history of substance abuse or alcoholism may have a genetic predisposition to poor control of their medications and to addiction. Physical dependence and tolerance are different matters: anyone who repeatedly takes opioids, whether for medication or to feed their addiction, more than likely will become physically dependent on the medication and encounter withdrawal if he/she stops taking it abruptly.

Ability to function divides the addict from the physically dependent pain patient. The Florida Board of Medicine explains addiction is characterized by "compulsive use, despite harm." Addicts become socially less functional as the drug takes over their lives. All thought revolves on where their next dose is coming from. Addicts are less able to handle their jobs, family obligations and social participation.

In stark contrast, patients taking opioids to relieve pain usually become more functional, able to rejoin the lives of their families and community and return to work. They're less depressed, less anxious and often view the change as "life-saving". Thus, the Florida Board of Medicine instructs physicians that "tolerance and physical dependence are normal consequences of sustained use of opioid analgesics and are not synonymous with addiction." This advice hasn't penetrated deeply even into the medical community. The general public and majority of the media still equate physical dependence and addiction; even those patients who have not been well counseled by their doctors may wrongly believe they are addicted.

Even some patients now currently taking opioids as a component of their pain management plan, haven't been taught that when properly prescribed and taken as prescribed, opioids are very effective for the treatment of moderate to severe pain.

Blogging has saved my butt more than once by allowing me a venue to cut loose and just rip on someone.  I thank God that I am given the chance afterward to choose to publish it across the web or not.  Its an easy choice to make once the pressure is less and the anger has past.

Sometimes posts will go past that stage and actually enter what I affectionately call the Cut and Paste Phase.  This phase usually ends almost as quickly as it begins with some sort of barrage of second guessing and the moving of large chunks of words (sometimes whole paragraphs) around.  Almost immediately this tends to mortally assault just about all of the remaining blogs I have typed.

Those rants and psycho-babbles which have somehow wiggled their way past the commonsense part of the previous phase soon find themselves becoming refreshed and somewhat polished in an effort to refine and make them almost presentable.

When time and luck allows one of these blogs to travel the full path from pitiful anger to playful posting, the process becomes quite enjoyable and freeing.  It can relieve one not only of the related anxiety, but also the tension associated with everyday life that can build up over time.

Blogging - it comes highly recommended!

Hope your day is going well...

The simple answer is yes, it makes absolutely perfect sense.  Just because they are acronyms doesn’t mean that they are complicated.  In just the last couple of years, with the advent, implementation and finally the wide-spread utilization of these fairly simple technologies the amount of information easily available on the Internet has grown exponentially.

I mentioned that they are acronyms, and they are... but depending on who you speak with and what particular version of RSS you are talking about, it may stand for Really Simple Syndication, Rich Site Summary, RDF Site Summary, or any variation of those.  I'm not really sure why I pointed that out, especially since I am trying to explain how tremendously simple this all is. I guess the bottom line is that it doesn't really matter what each actual acronym stands for as long as one has some sort of idea what it does.

Though RSS, Atom & OPML feeds by themselves don't really do much, they do allow or help other programs, search engines & websites do their job much better.  They provide lists of items (content) available or in the case of OPML, an outline of the content, resources and/or files available either in a blog, a group of web pages or included within an entire website.

RSS and Atom are very similar in what they do.  I believe that Atom is a slightly newer format or standard and even though it is a little more complex than RSS it can also describe a little more complex information, and its also consistent across syndication, storage, and the editing of information. Just about everything I am saying here about RSS equally applies to Atom also.

By having this list or outline of information about a page or a website, programs like search engines have a much better idea of what is available "out there" on the web and thus can provide us all an easier and much more efficient way of getting to the specific information that we are looking for. It really is that simple.

I've mentioned RSS, Atom & OPML, but what about RDF, XML & XHTML you ask? These are even easier to explain as long as we stay within the context of RSS, Atom & OPML feeds from websites. 

XML stands for "eXtensible Markup Language" and the language / sort of the format that RSS & Atom are written in.  RDF stands for Resource Discovery Framework.  These two are really only important in this context to a lay-person because RSS can be labeled as either XML or RDF.

As for XHTML, it probably should not have been included here with a discussion about RSS, etc, but I thought I would include it because I am asked just as often about it as I am RSS, Atom & OPML. 

I have often pondered the question of "where is God" and "why does He allow such suffering to take place."  I used to think about it the most when I'm feeling awful and in the throws of a nasty migraine or cluster headache.  The question has also come up many times with various disasters, both naturally occuring & man-made.

I heard someone else ask those same questions today while they were hurting pretty badly from a migraine and it forced me to take another look at the answers that I have come up with for myself over the last couple of years. 

Being a fairly faithful Christian I have often wondered over the years why God would allow such things and it was not until a couple years ago when I heard a man speak about this that some of it started to make sense. 

After listening to this fellow, I came to the conclusion that the reason why suffering appears to be so difficult is that, first of all, we are not taught what suffering really is. On top of that, we are not taught how to bear it nor most importantly, we are not taught the value of suffering. I believe for the most part that this isn't really due to some huge oversight on the part of our spiritual advisors, parents & teachers but I think it is more likely due to the fact that they too haven’t been taught its true meaning or worth. It is surprising how easily some people can bear huge sufferings; whereas, others get really excited about even the smallest issue or problem.

Primarily, I do not believe that suffering is as evil as what we think it is. Suffering is not simply an evil, for no one suffered more than the Son of God Himself, more than His Blessed Mother or more than even the Martyrs and Saints. Every suffering comes from God. It may appear to come to us by chance, or by accident or from someone else, but in reality, every suffering comes to us from God. Nothing happens to us without His wish or permission. Not even a hair falls from our heads without His consent.

Why then, does God allow us to suffer? Simply put, this must be because He is asking us to take part in or take on a little share of His Passion. What appears to come by chance or from someone else always comes because God allows it.

By reading our Bible we can see that every act in Our Lord's Life was a lesson for us. Truly the greatest act in His life was His Passion. This, then, is the greatest lesson for us. It teaches us that we too must suffer. God suffered all the dreadful pains of His Passion for each one of us. How can we refuse to suffer at least a little because of our love for Him?

I really believe that the suffering is the “gold” in our lives. For if we accept the suffering that He sends us and offer it in union with His sufferings, we receive our greatest rewards. Five minutes' of suffering tolerated for our love of Jesus Christ is truly much greater in value to us than years and years of all kinds of pleasure and joy. I also would think that suffering experienced patiently brings out all that is good in us. Those who have suffered more are usually much more charming and interesting people. If we bear these facts clearly in mind, it certainly becomes much easier to suffer.

Another thing to remember is that when God gives us something to suffer, He always gives us the strength to bear it, if we only ask Him. Our Bible reassures us that He will never give us something that we cannot handle. Many, instead of asking for His help, tend to get excited and revolt. It is our excitement and impatience that really make suffering hard to bear.