Arkansas Blog

Well, since this is Arkansas, I thought it might be of interest to some ...

Deer hunting may put men's hearts at risk

NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Deer hunting could be a dangerous endeavor for men with heart disease or risk factors for it, research findings suggest.

In a study of 25 middle-aged male deer hunters, researchers found that the activities inherent to hunting -- like walking over rough terrain, shooting an animal and dragging its carcass -- sent the men's heart rates up significantly.

In some cases, this led to potentially dangerous heart-rhythm disturbances, or diminished oxygen supply to the heart.

Of the 25 hunters, 17 had established coronary heart disease, while the rest had risk factors such as being overweight, smoking or having high blood pressure or cholesterol.

The findings suggest that for men like these, hunting could boost the risk of heart attack or cardiac arrest.

Susan Haapaniemi and colleagues at William Beaumont Hospital in Royal Oaks, Michigan, report the findings in the American Journal of Cardiology.

For the study, the researchers outfitted each man with a portable monitor that continuously recorded his heart's electrical activity during a day of deer hunting. For comparison, the men also had their hearts monitored as they exercised on a treadmill on a separate day.

In general, the researchers found, deer hunting put the men's hearts under more strain than the treadmill did. Ten men exceeded the maximum heart rate they logged on the treadmill, and several showed potentially dangerous heart responses to hunting that they did not show during the treadmill test.

Three men had signs of impeded blood flow to the heart during hunting, but not on the treadmill. Similarly, three of the men with heart disease had heart-rhythm abnormalities while hunting that did not show up on the treadmill test.

The combination of physical exertion, adrenaline rush and the stress of rough terrain and cold weather may explain the "excessive cardiac demands" seen with hunting, according to Haapaniemi's team.

What's more, they point out, most of the men in the study were taking part in an exercise program to treat their heart disease, or were regularly physically active. Hunting could be an even greater strain on the heart in men who are usually sedentary, the researchers note.

SOURCE: American Journal of Cardiology, July 15, 2007.

I'm really tired of the State Department of Education acting like this is a one-time thing for the curriculum frameworks to be changed a year before textbooks are adopted. I continue to read about Julie Thompson, spokesperson for ADE, acting as though it is highly unusual. Bull hockey.

It happens every single year. Last year it was science. Before that, math. The cycle is posted on ADE's website (click on blue name to see it), and it would be dang nice if they'd stop doing that. Why not make the curriculum changes, allow plenty of time for feedback (say, a school year) then adopt textbooks and institute the new curriculum at the same time.

Novel idea, eh?

Bambi has his revenge..........
heart attacks in the deer woods, what sweet, sweet justice.
Depressing day....looked like rain but not a drop, everything turning brown here & Texas &
Ok flooding....go figure.
Anyone need a mother dog & 2 pups?? took up residence on our carport about a week ago.
Sweet, loving but our old purty cat is jealous of his space being invaded...of course, we are
feeding & watering them, they seem to think we are their new best friends....maybe we are.

Heh heh ... jazzy, whether you realize it or not, you are a dog owner.

I could only be happier about the weather today if we'd gotten some rain. We had a little belated birthday party here today, complete with one of those blow up kiddie pools. (Pretty good find on the Kmart closeout aisle. 6' x 10', about 20' deep: $22.) You should have seen me an hour before kids were coming over trying to MacGyver the air into that thing. Shop vac, duct tape, kitchen funnel, and the barrel of an ink pen provided about 40% of the inflation. Ol' moi's lungs provided the rest. But it was nice enough to sit out in the shade on the deck and catch the breeze. The kids had chicken skin when they got out of the water.

Interesting bit on the deer hunters. Reminds me ... On several occasions over the last couple of weeks I've driven down one of the roads into our neighborhood and have seen 1-3 deer just grazing in someone's lawn, around 10 pm. They're not as skittish I think they should be. I stopped to watch for a little while the other night. A doe walked right up to a cat lying prone and got in the cat's face as if to give it a kiss. The cat skeedaddled.

For your musical enjoyment this evening, Mr. Guitar plays Mr. Sandman (1954). Under 2 minutes long. Link at the blue name.

Widj, I've only been hunting one time in my life -- not counting when I was in the army.

It's a long story, but I lived out on the prairie. I was a kid. This was before cattle feed-lots took over and mechanized the lives of ranchers and beefsteaks.

Coyotes lived out there too. Wolves used to run wild out there during the Great Depression, but they were hunted and trapped nearly to the point of extinction. Their genes live on mostly among some of the wild coyotes and pet wolf-dogs.

There were a couple of coyotes who showed up and took down a calf or ewe every few days. Those calves were too valuable to lose, so the ranchers and farmers decided that they had had enough. They organized a hunt for the coyotes.

One cold Saturday morning in November, dozens of men and boys with rifles and shotguns surrounded a fallow field of dried-up corn and sorghum crops. The field was exactly one-half mile on each side. A coyote was seen entering that field.

Then we started whooping and hollering and marching toward the center. I was about 12 or 13 years old and should have known better than go on that coyote hunt. I took a Remington 22.

As everybody converged toward the center, the coyote must have been scared out his wits, but still hiding.

When the circle was down to about 150 feet, several of those damn fool idiots in the circle raised their weapons and began to aim toward the center of the circle, ready to fire at the coyote.

The only trouble was that some of those rifles were pointed straight at me!

Widj, this led to a potentially dangerous heart-rhythm disturbance, or diminished oxygen supply to my heart.

In a flash of adolescent brilliance, I realized that hunting could boost the risk of heart attack or cardiac arrest.

I recognized that I had a deadly combination of physical exertion, adrenaline rush, stress of rough terrain and cold weather that accompanied the "excessive cardiac demands" of hunting.

I'm not too proud to tell anybody that I was smart enough to "cut and run" like hell.

But then the rifle shots began, and I didn't know if they were shooting at me for being a coward or shooting at a coyote.

I showed potentially dangerous heart responses to hunting that I've never felt before or since.

I'm here today to tell you that I've never gone hunting since that coyote hunt.

I can't believe Johnny Carson is dead.

Yeah, I'm drinking too much wine tonight, but I heard on NPR this morning that Groucho Marx died 30 years ago today, and thinking of Groucho made me think of Dick Cavett, and thinking of Dick Cavett made me think of the Tonight Show.

I can't believe Johnny Carson is dead.

very successful enough rally today. the last 15 minutes john bought a beautiful blonde lady to join us. she had on a very bouncy dress and a red gatorade smile. i would imagine all the honks and waves we got during that period were because of her and they were numerous. i do think that the downward thumbs and you're number one fingers, middle, a very few people gave us stopped wile she was there. we did get a lot of encouragement from passer bys. one couple from charleston sc. commented about seeing a rally in california, i believe long beach of a couple of hundred so this is getting popular nationwide. it was fun, i got to meet the famous winnie from the youtube video, i loved it because it is set to my all time favorite protest song, buffalo springfields for what it's worth. maybe we should have music in the future? it would go with the atmosphere and might draw a crowd. anyway thanks meg you are doing a great job both in setting up things and a nice atmosphere, it is more a party for us. we bring drinks and talk with like minded people and have a nice time.

I can't believe Johnny Carson is dead. by Spirit

The Merv of that fellow

Silly, Hugh
Any deer hunter can tell you those deer you're seeing know it's not deer season, yet. They have calendars just like we do.

Thanks again zonker, John, Gatorade Smile, and Meg for keeping the faith.

We got very light rain and cloudy skies in Chickenopolis today, this evening light showers. Must have been Rev Armani Ronnie's celestial influence.
.
jazzy, go to Yahoo Groups, then to Freecycle and see if there is an online group for helping find homes for pets. I go to Freecycle a few times to clean out closets and notice "need home" for pets ads.
If you can't do it get your grandkids to do it.
.

jazzy
I just jumped to the Garland County Freecycle site and it's down for 48 hours. But
here is the link. You will need to do some type of registration. Again, get grandkids to help.

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Freecycle_AR_GarlandCounty/

When I was a kid I used to go hunting with my mother's father and at times with his brother, my favorite Uncle Buck. I don't think they worried a bit about what was in season, we shot at anything that moved. The good thing is that both of us, all of us were terrible shots. We rarely ever came home with anything. It was fun to be a kid walking in the woods with 2 of my most favorite old guys in the world.

After they were gone I went hunting with a buddy, who was a real hunter. We didn't do much better though, I nearly blew his head off trying to show him how I came upon a covey of quail, drew down on them, but forgot to take the safety off. Of course when I recreated the scene for him, the safety was off and the gun went off just after the barrel passed his face....scaring the hell out of both of us. I managed to get a couple of squirrels later in the day and after bringing them home, skinning and gutting them and cooking them up......I hung up my gun for good. Who really wants to eat a squirrel anyway?

My fun shouldn't cost the life of a living thing. It's bad enough I buy packaged meat at the grocery store. If I didn't personally love chewing and swallowing properly cooked meat.....I'd be a vegan. But I especially love rich red medium rare beef....mmmmmmmm (Homer sound) If Cheney, with Pryor's help, drives this country back to the Dark Ages and there are no more grocery stores...I can and will find the guns and head off to the forest to kill food for my family. Until then, all wild animals are safe from the likes of me.

I'm happy for everyone that loves nature. But there are folks like me who get a bigger kick sitting in our underwear in the a/c viewing nature on the Internets. Breathing fresh air is like dropping in on an orgy. You don't know what's floating around that might kill you. I like windows that won't open and the sound of my air conditioner condenser humming away outside that closed window.

If everyone was in love with nature, with 300 million people stomping around in the woods, they'd soon be no woods left. So next time you meet an old crab who never leaves the house, thank them for keeping their butt at home, giving you a little more freedom out in the wilds of scenic Arkansas.

"The Merv of that fellow"

Paar for the course.

I Pyne for word play such as this.

Curious DG news story Sunday.

Dem Party hard disk was found to be containing DG/BEEBE/Cong. Del information when it was not only supposed to have been erased, but also was supposed to have been brand spanking new. Said disk was found by an EBAY buyer, upon delivery of purchased item. Why is this so curious? Well, the seller was the wife of David Qualls. Who, in years back was the Republican State Rep candidate against the Honorable Charles Ormand, D of Morrilton. Qualls was also the ANG deserter who ran from having to go to Iraq, but eventually relented, did his service and indeed re-upped for another go. Qualls later also relented of his Republican beliefs, much as DBI, and became a dyed-in-the-wool Beebe supporter, even working for a company who was a Beebe supporter. Apparently, according to the story, his and his company's support was sufficient for Qualls to land a cush job with that dumping ground for campaign supporters, the Arkansas Department of Information Systems. (Remember Gary Underwood from administrations past?) According, again to the story, Qualls feels his support was sufficient not only to get this cush job, but to also be assigned directly to the Governor's Office, with a desk actually within the confines of the Governor's actual series of office areas. It is here that apparently the Democratic apparatus determined they could take their own personal and office computers for repair? Was this on state time by a state employee? Did the delivery and discussions take place, even possibly the repairs take place, on state time? So, the Democratic Apparatus of this state is now taking political property to the office of our Democratic Governor for repair by a guy who admittedly was given his job and current office location because he and his company were big supporters and volunteers for the Beebe campaign. Then, to top it off, since the computer was unrepairable, Qualls was "given" the hard-drive for his efforts, promised to erase it, but rather sold it as a new product on Ebay.

The curious thing is, this story has been totally ignored. Here we have a former Republican candidate turned National Guard deserter turned huge Beebe supporter turned Arkansas state employee turned office sitter within the confines of the very Governor's Office itself turned repairer (attempted apparently) of Democratic party computers on state time turned Ebay businessman admitting all of this is true and having the story published in the Sunday edition and it warrants not a single mention? Curious indeed.

Methinks they should have just shredded.

To all who will return to school today----students, teachers, administrators, counselors, security, custodians, staff, etc---have a great school year.

I assume it's too much to wish that David Qualls was the very guy in charge of crushing all those Huckabee hard drives? Wouldn't it be delightful to spend a few bucks on eBay and find out just what Huck was hiding with all that crushing? I once was given a zip disk supposedly full of blueprints of a local historic building, which it did. But it also contained 4 or 5 artful nude studies of the man's wife. I only wish Mrs. DBI was so playful. Anyone know if Mrs. Qualls is attractive......and playful?

I have kept every computer I've ever owned. The trick will be to toss them all in the Arkansas River the day before I die. If I don't make it.....anyone able to navigate thru Windows 3.1 at that late date will have enough material for several books. Those that live by the computer, die by the computer!

honestone, that's a nice tribute to the back-to-school crowd. Here's a little story that's currently making the email rounds. It's been around awhile, but I never tire of reading it. I dedicate it this morning to teachers and students everywhere!

Mrs. Thompson and Teddy

As she stood in front of her 5th grade class on the very first day of school, Mrs. Thompson told the children an untruth. Like most teachers, she looked at her students and said that she loved them all the same. However, that was impossible, because there in the front row, slumped in his seat, was a little boy named Teddy Stoddard.

Mrs. Thompson had watched Teddy the year before and noticed that he did not play well with the other children, that his clothes were messy and that he constantly needed a bath. In addition, Teddy could be unpleasant. As the weeks passed, it got to the point where Mrs. Thompson would actually take delight in marking his papers with a broad red pen, making bold X's and then putting a big "F" at the top of his papers.

At the school where Mrs. Thompson taught, she was required to review each child's past records and she put Teddy's off until last. However, when she reviewed his file, she was in for a surprise.

Teddy's first grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is a bright child with a ready laugh. He does his work neatly and has good manners. He is a joy to be around." His second grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is an excellent student, well liked by his classmates, but he is troubled because his mother has a terminal illness and life at home must be a struggle." His third grade teacher wrote, "His mother's death has been hard on him. He tries to do his best, but his father doesn't show much interest, and his home life will soon affect him if some steps aren't taken." Teddy's fourth grade teacher wrote, "Teddy is withdrawn and doesn't show much interest in school. He doesn't have many friends and he sometimes sleeps in class."

By now, Mrs. Thompson realized the problem and she was ashamed of herself. She felt even worse when her students brought her Christmas presents, wrapped in beautiful ribbons and bright paper, except for Teddy's. His present was clumsily wrapped in the heavy, brown paper that he got from a grocery bag. Mrs. Thompson took pains to open it in the middle of the other presents. Some of the children started to laugh when she found a rhinestone bracelet with some of the stones missing, and a bottle that was one-quarter full of perfume. But she stifled the children's laughter when she exclaimed how pretty the bracelet was, putting it on, and dabbing some of the perfume on her wrist.

Teddy Stoddard stayed after school that day just long enough to say, "Mrs. Thompson, today you smelled just like my Mom used to." After the children left, she cried for at least an hour. On that very day, she quit teaching reading, writing and arithmetic. Instead, she began to teach children. Mrs. Thompson paid particular attention to Teddy. As she worked with him, his mind seemed to come alive. The more she encouraged him, the faster he responded. By the end of the year, Teddy had become one of the most accomplished children in the class and, despite her lie that she would love all the children the same, Teddy became one of her "teacher's pets."

A year later, she found a note under her door, from Teddy, telling her that she was the best teacher he ever had in his whole life. Six years went by before she got another note from Teddy. He wrote that he had finished high school, third in his class, and she was still the best teacher he ever had in life. Four years after that, she got another letter, saying that while things had been tough at times, he'd stayed in school, had stuck with it, and would soon graduate from college with the highest of honors. He assured Mrs. Thompson that she was still the best and favorite teacher he had ever had in his whole life.

Then four more years passed and yet another letter came. This time he explained that after he got his bachelor's degree, he decided to go a little further. The letter explained that she was still the best and favorite teacher he ever had. But now his name was a little longer. The letter was signed, Theodore F. Stoddard, MD. The story does not end there. You see, there was yet another letter that spring. Teddy said he had met this girl and was going to be married. He explained that his father had died a couple of years ago and he was wondering if Mrs. Thompson might agree to sit at the wedding in the place that was usually reserved for the mother of the groom.

Of course, Mrs. Thompson did. And guess what? She wore that bracelet, the one with several rhinestones missing. Moreover, she made sure she was wearing the perfume that Teddy remembered his mother wearing on their last Christmas together. They hugged each other, and Dr. Stoddard whispered in Mrs. Thompson's ear, "Thank you Mrs. Thompson for believing in me. Thank you so much for making me feel important and showing me that I could make a difference."

Mrs. Thompson, with tears in her eyes, whispered back. She said, "Teddy, you have it all wrong. You were the one who taught me that I could make a difference. I didn't know how to teach until I met you."

The story of Teddy and Mrs. Thompson is all about making a difference! We must remember that what we leave behind is not what is written on stone monuments, but what is woven into the lives of others. To the world you may be just one person, but to one person you may be the world. It is not how much you do, but how much love you put into what you do

Another story about the difference teachers make. This one I know to be true.

First day of school, September 1963. Oakhurst Elementary, LRSD.

There is one black child, a first-grader, in the entire school. He doesn't know it, but he has been chosen and his parents recruited to integrate the school that is just blocks away from the black neighborhood where students travel a mile to go to Stephens Elementary.

The first grade teacher, Ms. Estella Anthony, is calling the roll. When she comes to this kid, she remarks that his middle name is Anthony, and they have something in common, since her name is Anthony, too.

The kid beams. That year goes okay. Forty-four years later, the kid remembers the difference Ms. Anthony made at a difficult time.

I'll be the bad guy (click on my name) and hope that my kids' teachers know how *what* to teach them this year.

You ain't no bad boy, Doc! I, for one, enjoyed reading the Snopes research on the piece and learning how the story and the meaningful message it imparts came about. Thanks for the enlightenment. And best of everything to your youngins for a great year in school.

durangokid,
Thanks for sharing the story with us. Its message is very powerful and true, even if it is considered to be an urban legend. There are those teachers, those rare gems, who can activate the genius that lies in so many of our young people; they may have to penentrate many levels of debris, but it can be done. It is not an easy task but the end results are amazingly heart-warming. Again, thanks for sharing.

You are very welcome, honestone, and I'm glad you enjoyed the story. I suspect all of us have known a Mrs. Thompson or a Teddy at one point or another in our lives.

I agree with every word you wrote about teachers! What a sad state of affairs it would be for society if we didn't have them. I loved TAP's story. Don't you know Ms. Anthony is proud of him if she's still around?!

Bill Maher's HBO special "The Decider" watch it for free on youtube before they pull it down.

His best yet. I nearly fell off the couch I laughed so hard.

Maher is the new Carlin.