Total eclipse: The terminator moves faster than you think

individual

|
INTERPERSONAL : SCIENCES             

humanistic ------------------------------- mechanistic

SOCIOLOGY : POLITICAL   

|

group

Between the new and full moon the terminator - the line demarcating what is lit from what is dark changes all the time. This is imperceptible with the naked eye.	A telescope at low magnification reveals the moon in all its glory. At a higher power with manual control you have to keep moving to keep up, as the moon other-worldly slides out of view.
What of the terminator between poverty and wealth; ultrapoverty and ultrawealthy?	It is plain to see and so - easy to deny; but their instruments are hopeless, they watch indoors, fixed on their screens.

Total Solar Eclipse – August 12, 2026

See also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terminator_(solar) 

Previously: 'terminator' 

NPR: What is your wish to improve life on earth in 2025?

Dola Sun for NPR

With thanks to NPR, 'an independent, nonprofit media organization that was founded on a mission to create a more informed public'. NPR asked 11 global health professionals to share their wishes for 2025.

Read in full here:
https://www.npr.org/sections/goats-and-soda/2025/01/06/g-s1-40820/2025-world-wishes-haiti-bird-flu

We asked global thinkers how to improve life on earth in 2025. Here are their wishes

My wish: Honor the legacy of Jimmy Carter Dr. Ifeanyi M. Nsofor, project director, VaxSocial HPV Vaccination Initiative, Nigeria

My wish: World, awaken to the medical emergency in Haiti Dr. Ousmane Abdoulaye, Port-au-Prince in Haiti, medical coordinator, Haiti Mission, ALIMA — The Alliance for International Medical Action

My wish: Nothing too grand. Just a small wish that things for us go back as they were three years ago — when women could go to parks or markets but most of all go to school. Maryam S., Afghanistan, former Master's student of Pashto literature. She asked to be identified by her first name only out of fear that her criticism of Taliban policies would put her and her family in danger.

My wish: Make monumental strides in using advanced technology to detect emerging pathogens Dr. Abraar Karan, physician and researcher, Division of Infectious Diseases & Geographic Medicine, Stanford University

My wish: Let us recognize that violence has never been the true solution to conflict KR Raja, Madurai, India, lawyer advocating for criminal justice reform and the founder of the Indian charity Global Network for Equality, which supports children orphaned by crime

My wish: I dream of a future where there are safe and healthy conditions for workers, where they are free of discrimination and can earn a fair wage. Ashila Dandeniya, Colombo, Sri Lanka, founder and director of the Stand Up Movement, a women-led organization that advocates for workers' rights.

My wish: Make progress in developing treatments to reduce deaths and complications from dengue André Siqueira, head of the Dengue Global Programme at Drugs for Neglected Diseases Initiative and public health researcher at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation's National Infectious Diseases Institute in Brazil

My wish: For trekkers and travelers to help clean up the waste they leave behind — and to help protect our natural treasures Raj Kumar Shrestha, trekking guide, Kathmandu, Nepal, and founder of Let's Clean Up Nepal, an environmental conservation organization

My wish: Use digital innovation to enable health workers to deliver their care, especially in places where resources are constrained Dr. Junaid Nabi, public health researcher specializing in health-care reform and innovation, and a senior fellow at the Aspen Institute and a Millennium Fellow at the Atlantic Council

My wish: May the year bring peace to the world Dr. Atsbha Merhawit, Ayder Hospital, specialty in endocrinology and diabetes, Mekelle, Ethiopia

My wish: Follow the rules of war regarding the welfare of children Joe English, New York, N.Y., emergency communication specialist for UNICEF ==

What is your wish for 2025?

Best wishes, Neil

HIFA profile: Neil Pakenham-Walsh is coordinator of HIFA (Healthcare Information For All), a global health community that brings all stakeholders together around the shared goal of universal access to reliable healthcare information. HIFA has 20,000 members in 180 countries, interacting in four languages and representing all parts of the global evidence ecosystem. HIFA is administered by Global Healthcare Information Network, a UK-based nonprofit in official relations with the World Health Organization. Email: neil AT hifa.org

n.b. My wish: That "Hodges' Health Career - Care Domains - Model" continues to emerge as a generic conceptual framework shared and understood by all learners for lifelong learning.

Thanks Neil. I will post this with HIFA link.

UK Higher Education Survey of Carers

From: Marie Moreau <marie_moreau AT HOTMAIL.COM>
Subject: UK HE survey of carers

Dear Colleagues

I am sharing this final call as we will be closing our survey of carers in UK HE at the end of the month.

Many thanks to those of you who have replied.

To be eligible, you need to be employed by a UK-based university and to be a carer (broadly understood, including as a parent, for a friend, a relative etc.). Here’s the link:

https://angliaruskin.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/national-carers-survey-uk

The outcomes will help us to better understand the experiences of carers in higher education and to provide recommendations to the sector.

We have received ethical approval for this project and are happy to address any question.

Warm wishes

Marie-Pierre Moreau
ARU, Cambridge, UK

My source (with some editing):

This message was issued to members of www.jiscmail.ac.uk/FREEDOM-OF-INFORMATION, a mailing list hosted by www.jiscmail.ac.uk, terms & conditions are available at https://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/policyandsecurity/

Lean machine(s): chasing the contexts

There is a perennial game in health and social care called assessment and evaluation: the game could also be called 'CTC' - 'chasing the context'.

Relativity lies not only in the realm of physics and philosophy.

When I say relativity I am referring of course to the influence and impact of a health and social care situation from the constantly changing perspective of each of several different players:

• the patient;
• carer;
• nurse;
• doctor;
• manager;
• medical ward;
• community mental health team;
• commissioner.

Usually, the context collapses to a specific problem (a situation) and the players set to solve a care problem presented by an individual -

• a client, resident or patient;

and their -

• relatives;
• residential care home manager;
• residential care home staff nurse and team;
• community mental health nurse;
• medical personnel.

Context directs, dictates, and shapes health and social care theory, practice, management and policy.

This relativism can also subvert, sublime, confuse and stymie plans, common sense notions, creativity, innovation and management directives.

Like a tide this relativity picks us up and re-figures, re-paints and shifts the location of everything - including measures and how they are used.

Context is all! - so the saying goes. But context never wholly reveals itself. For that is another situation, another context, another side, another coin.

For context there are key defining parameters (location, diagnoses, risk, need, physical, mental, holistic ...) all of these are couched or spring from time.

So, the game calls for us and the tide teases us to measure and evaluate. This coast is never clear, but how long is it now? Where are the pathways now? Where will they be again?

As we travel (and travail) to and from this context to that - thresholds are also altered: up and down and always around; the way of life and ..... .

Image source:
http://www.esd112.org/edtech/no_limit/rs_archive.cfm

comment: Activities of Daily Living ADLs and Hodges' model [1]

Guy Dewsbury got in touch through LinkedIn in response to the ADL post [1]:

On 12/01/09 6:49 AM, Guy Dewsbury wrote:
--------------------
Hi Peter
Really like your post on ADLs, but it seems that ADLs whenever they are used omit the need of the person in preference to the risk associated with them. I am sure you would agree, that is why I tend to pay a passing nod to ADLs but instead concentrate on what the person actually wants and aspires to and see how this can be achieved.

I wonder what your take on this is. I would have thought that aspiration and need are critical in mental health as well, in fact I would posit that by concentrating on ADLs it is easier to omit looking beyond them to the real needs of the person.
Over to you..
Guy

On 12/01/09, Peter Jones wrote:
--------------------
Hi Guy
Thanks for your comments and feedback. I quite agree - in a way that's what the blog post is saying. If you look at the basic ADLs they are 'placed' or associated with the sciences - processes - physical tasks. That's why I highlighted some of the psychological aspects in the intra-interpersonal domain.

For example, in future posts I may add the way that there are a lot of people with quite chronic respiratory problems, but they carry on as their behaviour has modified such that they know they can no longer run for the bus. Although an assessment of respiration may reveal their (medical) problem their needs are elsewhere.

Perhaps - if you don't mind - I could post your reply and my note above on the blog as a follow-up - since the comments are disabled.

Cheers Guy appreciate your getting in touch.
Peter J.

--------------------
Guy Dewsbury has sent you a message.
Date: 12/02/2009
Hi Peter
Happy for you to post anything you want.
Great reply too
Guy

Image source: Running for the bus - Jess and James

'Relative' poverty (4) - sociology

[The introduction is repeated across these posts: intrapersonal, political, sciences]
There are many paradoxes in life and many of these are concentrated in the realm of health and medicine (a major sub-division of life and death).

For decades the link between poverty and standards and quality of health has been recognized and politicized in the media and policy. In June there was news of a Bill to make the eradication of child poverty a legal obligation not something that can be the political objective at the start of a Government and then cast aside.

Many things are relative and poverty is often described in this way applying to individuals, social classes, communities, regions and whole nations. Using the domains of Hodges' model what reflections does this prompt? Let us see:

SOCIOLOGY: A key resource we all ordinarily rely upon is that of family, friends and community. While a source of stress at times as in you can choose your friends, but you can't choose your family..., and then there's the history of psychosocial intervention; the family is nonetheless usually seen as the asset.
Social poverty - having no (immediate, accessible) next of kin, friends or social network has been identified as a key deficit that may result in negative outcomes and problems in rehabilitation, recovery and staying well. There is an expanding literature on the role of social networks. Despite the current emphasis on e-social networks the interpersonal form of social network remains pivotal as a key strength for people to deal with major challenges to their health, social care and well-being.

The socio-economic contribution of informal carers is well recognized (Carers UK) and vital in the management of long term medical conditions ('self-care by proxy'?). 'Caring' and carers predates what we today call 'nursing'. Carers shoulder a care burden saving the State an enormous sum of money. Within Hodges' model this domain - the SOCIOLOGICAL - may be a remote cousin, far from the sciences, but the fuzzy logic here is predicated on families and relationships.

In the social domain the whole community can act as a pool of kinetic and potential energy, a resource - locking up wealth in knowledge and skills that can counter social poverty and periods of self-neglect should this occur. The future health and social care agenda depends upon the workforce being able not only to create this social wealth, but ensuring people are able to release this knowledge. Physics, energy, time - there is no escape. Perhaps assumptions as per this quote* also have a role to play -

‘‘Of all the self-fulfilling prophecies in our culture, the assumption that ageing means
decline and poor health is probably the deadliest.’’
Marilyn Ferguson,
The Aquarian Conspiracy, 1980

Additional links:

Relative poverty, absolute poverty and Social exclusion - poverty.org.uk

World Poverty - Social Poverty

'Poverty' on W2tQ

Sociology care (knowledge) domain links resource

Biblio:

*Sirven, N., Debrand, T. (2008) Social participation and healthy ageing: An international comparison using SHARE data, Social Science & Medicine, 67, 12, 2017-2026.

Mitchinson, A.R., Kim, H.M., Geisser, M., Rosenberg, J.M., Hinshaw, D.B. (2008) Social Connectedness and Patient Recovery after Major Operations, Journal of the American College of Surgeons, 206, 2, 292-300.

Relative poverty (1) - intrapersonal

There are many paradoxes in life and many of these are concentrated in the realm of health and medicine (a major sub-division of life and death).

For decades the link between poverty and standards and quality of health has been recognised and politicised in the media and policy. Just this past week was news of a Bill to make the eradication of child poverty a legal obligation not something that can be the political objective at the start of a Government and then cast aside.

Many things are relative and poverty is often described in this way applying to individuals, social classes, communities, regions and whole nations. Using the knowledge domains of Hodges' model what reflections does this prompt? Let us see:

INTRAPERSONAL: On one level highlighting poverty here appears a nonsense as usually we think of material wealth; the ability of people to be able to put decent quality - nourishing food on the table. In the miserable trap that poverty presents, it is perverse to suggest that health and social care workers - indeed all 'customer facing personnel' seek poverty. But they should exercise: poverty of thought.

Health and social care are often couched in terms of being a safety net, especially in community care - this conception emphasizes health and social care as a physical resource. In the intra-interpersonal domain though we are concerned with individual mental life, beliefs, attitudes, thoughts and emotions....

So here it is as if we must adopt the philosophy of Bruce Lee and turn the 'art of fighting without fighting' into the 'art of caring without caring' through a momentary forgetting in order to care effectively. We suspend our thoughts - take a mental breath, bring our training and current evidence to the fore. The conceptual safety net does not work if it comes pre-filled with bias, prejudice, pre-conceived ideas and negative expectations. There is of course a very poignant irony in calling for people to forget, suspend belief - even for an instant - at this time and in this domain. For health and social care workers in wiping the slate clean we do not think, but are VERY receptive to what follows.

This is where the wealth is:
between us.

We should not play the greedy capitalist and keep collaborative tools like Hodges' model to ourselves.

It was made to share: in my mind and yours a global health resource...

Image source: BBC

safety net: http://blogs.jamaicans.com/metinking/2009/04/30/a-jamaican-legacy-that-deserves-our-support/

Additional links: 'Poverty' on W2tQ

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/citation/325/7354/51