7 Color Lagoon

This is a warning of importance and an article that is fun presently on Blogcritics. It is also on my blog, Health Reports.

This piece is presently featured on Blogcritics.

Aging causes enough strains on the body with all its new ailments and dysfunctions.
The idea is to keep them at bay by spending your youth in healthy pursuits (sex, swimming and soy-based foods might lead the list).

There was a time (long ago) when we were told that masturbation would cause blindness. “They” dropped that nonsense when no one believed them.

Recently someone in Blogcritics referred to blogging as “mental masturbation”. He was, of course, basically correct. When I look at my site meters and comments on my BC articles I see that I write to entertain myself. That is OK since I am entertained.

Here, however, is the crux of the matter: blogging is fun. So is masturbation, of course, or so many wouldn’t do it so often.

The Internet is, inherently, fun. It is filled with ideas, information, entertainment (more and more) and the love of gadgets. But there are risks for the unwary. It is addictive and addictions carry risks.

Medical News Today’s website reported an excellent
article and warning entitled Caring For Your Eyes In A Digital World.

The article warns of overuse of not only computers but the growing number of information-laden small gadgets.

Staring at a computer monitor or the small screens on most devices can lead to a variety of ailments, including headaches, eyestrain, blurred vision, dry and irritated eyes, neck and/or backache and sensitivity to light. “Eye stress and strain may be caused by a combination of individual visual problems, improper viewing habits and poor environmental conditions, such as glare, improper workstation set up, dirty screens, poor lighting and viewing angles,” explains Dr. Anshel, who has helped companies and government agencies, including Mitsubishi, American Airlines, 3M and the Department of Labor address the high stress area of vision demands in relation to working with computer monitors.

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A study of optometrists found that “more than 14 percent reported eye problems related to computer use. Of contact lens wearers (2000 in the study) 41% reported computer use as a major cause of discomfort.

Dr. Jeffrey Anshel, who authored Visual Ergonomics in the Workplace and a working optometrist, offers cogent advice on avoiding eye strain and vision problems stemming from computer use which is well worth studying. He mentions proper monitor positioning and taking a 20 second break every 20 minutes while you focus your eyes on a point at least 20 feet past the monitor. There is also an interactive vision quiz called “Eye Q’s and Views”.

I, myself, presently appear to be developing a cataract which must wait for treatment until I return to the first world. Was it caused by the computer and blogging addiction I developed when I bought my first iBook three years ago? Since a doctor saw a small cataract there 12 years ago after a heart attack and I have spent 50 years with the right eye glued to cameras, darkroom grain magnifiers, loupes to examine 35mm slides or, worse, the slides without the loupe and the rest of my time with my nose in a book, the answer is “no, but…” I will never know and, anyway, the loss of vision is slowing my computer use.

The moral of the story is:

Think while working at a computer. Take that 20 second break, check out the quiz and the list of preventive measures. Visit Blogcritics for 20 minutes, rest 20 seconds and then have another read. Keep on blogging — but a bit more carefully. Have your eyes checked professionally on a regular basis.

Suggestive research stemming from experiments with a drug to treat Parkinson’s Disease show a relationship to the “Pleasure Pathway”. The trigger for the kind of pleasure that causes addictions (and other pleasures) seems to be dopamine. Read on from Medicalnewstoday.com

Another article of note is Caring For Your Eyes In A Digital World from Medical News Today. com. It is a dire warning and a guide for those using computers. That means you since you are reading this.

Studies have found that the majority of people who work at a computer experience some eye or vision problems, and that the level of discomfort appears to increase with the amount of computer use. But, increased use of smaller, portable work and recreational gadgets such as Personal Digital Assistants, laptops and cell phones used for text messaging and Web access may also be contributing factors to the visual fatigue and discomfort experienced by millions, according to a leading expert.

“The unique characteristics and high visual demands of computer work and play make many individuals susceptible to the development of eye and vision-related problems,” notes Dr. Jeffrey Anshel, a practicing optometrist and author of Visual Ergonomics in the Workplace. “With the proliferation of portable electronic devices such as laptops, palm pilots and video game players, it’s no surprise that eye care professionals are seeing more patients who complain of ocular discomfort.”

Read on HERE

We found this church on the highway from Ciudad Valles in San Luis Potosì to Tampico, Veracruz on our first trip to Mexico in 1997. The colors stopped us and we visited with the ladies of the church who were surprisingly pleased to have their small village church immortalized.

I have been filled with nostalgia recently. Mexico is difficult, life is difficult and health problems loom large in any thoughts of the future. The past then surfaces easily with fond memories of earlier and more salubrious times. Youth is the desire with its’ energy, health and the general enjoyment of all the good things in life

One was my work and I have recently found this old press card from a stock agency. It is me in 1986 not so weighed down with grey hair, with age and infirmities. There are also some files that were not lost in the sale of our house in New York. They bring back memories and stories.

I am again beginning to post to http://www.blogcritics.org and to http://www.desicritics.com. The most recent book reviews are Into Thin Air by Jon Krakauer about the 1996 Mount Everest season so filled with deaths and With No One As Witness, a serial killer novel by an American writer living in London and writing of New Scotland Yard procedures in the character of Britishers. Keep in touch with these sites which are linked throughout my site. Blogcritics is changing ferociously and has gone from loose blogging site with comments and reviews to a more and more professional site for news, comment and reviews.

Some Mexicans do work. Many work without tools or vehicles. Some even without shirts. This man with a load of firewood was seen on a Veracruz country road near Papantla which is the town closest to the great site of El Tajin.

Many scenes in Mexico are unchanged from Colonial times or, in the case, for thousands of years.