AIRBNB: Massive 6 Unit Black Container Home Tour

 Unique! Home's black exterior and large windows got me; and the 1600+ square foot interior is pretty awesome too! ❤😍👍😎 ❤ If I were ever to be going through Ohio, I may consider renting this interesting place. 

AIRBNB: Shipping Container Home

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George Washington: His Last Day on Earth

Remembering President George Washington on his birthday (February 22, 1732).  Last  December 14, 2017 was the 218th Anniversary of his death. Here is an account of his excruciating last hours, via The Federalist Papers Project:

Most Americans know that the Father of our Country was also a military general without which the United States never would have gained independence, and those who remember their social studies classes will hopefully recall that his tenure as president set the standard for chief executives being understood as public servants rather than monarchs.

There’s much more to Washington’s life and example, of course, and even history buffs and political junkies might not be aware of the grim, remarkable details of the very end of his time on earth.

In 2014, Dr. Howard Markel of the University of Michigan wrote a piece for PBS NewsHour detailing the rapid onset of the illness that claimed Washington’s life, as well as the “excruciating” nature of the attempts to treat him.

It all started the day before at his Mount Vernon estate, when the retired general and president began to experience coughing, a runny nose, and hoarseness in his voice as a result of spending the day in harsh winter weather and declining to change into dry clothes for dinner for fear of being tardy.

At 2 AM the next morning, Washington’s condition had woken him up with “profound shortness of breath” with a “pronounced fever” following a few hours later, leading to the fetching of his 40-year physician, Dr. James Craik.

The details of Washington’s treatment are not for the faint of heart; they involve the uneasy, obsolete medical practice of bloodletting:

At 7:30 a.m., [Mount Vernon overseer George] Rawlins removed 12 to 14 ounces of blood, after which Washington requested that he remove still more. Following the procedure, Col. Lear gave the patient a tonic of molasses, butter and vinegar, which nearly choked Washington to death, so inflamed were the beefy-red tissues of his infected throat […]

Dr. Craik entered Washington’s bedchamber at 9 a.m. After taking the medical history, he applied a painful “blister of cantharides,” better known as “Spanish fly,” to Washington’s throat. The idea behind this tortuous treatment was based on a humoral notion of medicine dating back to antiquity called “counter-irritation.” The blisters raised by this toxic stuff would supposedly draw out the deadly humors causing the General’s throat inflammation.

At 9:30 a.m., another bloodletting of 18 ounces was performed followed by a similar withdrawal at 11 a.m. At noon, an enema was administered. Attempts at gargling with a sage tea, laced with vinegar were unsuccessful but Washington was still strong enough to walk about his bedroom for a bit and to sit upright in an easy chair for a few hours. His real challenge was breathing once he returned to lying flat on his back in bed.

Two more rounds of bloodletting were attempted afterward, with the fourth helping him a bit — but it didn’t last. Incredibly, to the agonizing end, Washington was the personification of dignity:

He told Dr. Craik: “Doctor, I die hard; but I am not afraid to go; I believed from my first attack that I should not survive it; my breath can not last long.” Ever the gentleman, even in extremis, the General made a point of thanking all three doctors for their help […]

At 10 p.m., Washington murmured some last words about burial instructions to Col. Lear. Twenty minutes later, Col. Lears’ notes record, the former president settled back in his bed and calmly took his pulse. At the very end, Washington’s fingers dropped off his wrist and the first president of our great Republic took his final breath.

Multiple physicians intensely debated Washington’s cause of death at the time, and whether alternative procedures could have saved his life, and in fact modern medicine isn’t even entirely sure today, though according to Markel, “acute bacterial epiglottitis seems most likely.”

It’s definitely ugly to think about how painful and harrowing that death must have been, but it’s comforting to think that if anyone went on to claim his heavenly reward of eternal peace, it would be the man to whom we owe so much.

George Washington, US President

Washington's Excruciating Last Hours

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Are cops perfect? No. Are there bad cops? Yes.

"This is me at 21 years old. This is the day I graduated from the Detroit police academy at 4:00pm, went home and took a couple hour nap, woke up at 9:30 that night and reported to my first tour of duty at the 12th Precinct for midnight shift. Look at that smile on my face. I couldn't have been more excited, more proud. Armed with my dad's badge that he wore for 25 years on my chest, one of my mom's sergeant stripe patches in my pocket, my lucky $2.00 bill tucked into my bulletproof vest, a gun I was barely old enough to purchase bullets for on my hip and enough naive courage for a small army, I headed out the door...my mom snapped this photo on my way.

The next 17 years would bring plenty of shed blood, black eyes, torn ligaments, stab wounds, stitches, funerals, a head injury, permanent and irreparable nerve damage, 5 ruptured discs, some charming PTSD and depression issues and a whole lot of heartache. They brought missed Christmases with my family, my absence from friends' birthday get-togethers, pricey concert tickets that were forfeited at the last minute because of a late call and many sleepless nights.

I've laid in wet grass on the freeway for three hours watching a team of burglars and orchestrating their apprehension, I've dodged gunfire while running down a dark alley in the middle of the night chasing a shooting suspect, I've argued with women who were too scared to leave their abusive husbands until they realized they had to or they would end up dead. I've peeled a dead, burned baby from the front of my uniform shirt, I've felt the pride of putting handcuffs on a serial rapist and I've cried on the chest of and kissed the cheek of my dead friend, coworker and academy classmate even though it was covered in his own dried blood and didn't even look like him from all the bullet holes. I know what a bullet sounds like when it's whizzing past your ear, a few inches away, I know what the sound of a Mother's shrilling scream is like when she finds out her son has been killed in the middle of the street and I know what it's like to have to tell a wife and mother of 3 that her husband was killed in a car accident while on his way home from work.

Smells, pictures, sounds and sights are burned and engrained into our minds...things we can never forget, no matter how hard we try; things that haunt our sleep at night and our thoughts during the day; things that we volunteered to deal with so that you don't have to. Things I don't want my sister, little cousins or YOU to even have to KNOW about.

I never once went to work thinking, "I'm gonna beat someone tonight."; "Hmmm...I think I'm gonna kill someone tonight." I DID, however, go to work every night, knowing that I was going to do the best I could to keep good people safe, even if that meant that I died doing so.

We ALL need to start being more understanding and compassionate toward one another. Violence doesn't cure violence and hate doesn't cure hate. I've seen and experienced both sides of the spectrum since I left the PD and I get it. I truly do. But this all has to stop.

Are cops perfect? No. Are there bad cops? Yes. But please...understand that the vast majority of police are good, loving, well intentioned family people. They have husbands and wives and children and parents and pets and cousins and mortgages and electric bills and lawns that need cutting, just like you. They have hearts and consciences. They aren't robots, they're not machines and they just want to help keep the wolves away from the sheep. I KNOW there's people who don't deserve to wear the badge but they're SO VERY few and far between. It breaks my heart to see all this hatred and anger flying around. All it's doing is encouraging more of the same.

If you've read this far, thank you for listening. I'm not gonna sit here and tell you that if you hate or don't support one side or the other, to unfriend me and never speak to me again...I hope those are the people who come straight TO me. Because I'll be more than happy to hug you and pray or meditate with you. I'll be more than happy to listen to your concerns and let you vent and empathize with your feelings. But then I'll encourage you to help me find a solution to end all this nonsense because if we're not part of the solution, we're part of the problem. Love to all of you. ALL OF YOU. We're all SO much better than this." ❤️✌🏼

-- Credit: Merri McGregor

21.07.05.18

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