Blog

Healing Covid Using Mother Nature Alone

Baseline Temperature The first thing I did was take my temperature for a baseline: 97.7, which is normal for me. Then I familiarized myself with the most common symptoms associated with Covid. Recalling back to the earliest cases in which many people needed to go on a ventilator, my takeaway was that people's airways weren't…
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Conversations with Doctors that Make Me Wanna Roll My Eyes

Following is a stream of consciousness I wrote in a comment on a Facebook post. It describes the absurdity and reckless behavior of the so-called healthcare industry that I've encountered most of my adult life that has only gotten worse the older I have gotten. Now in my 50s, whenever I see a doctor, they…
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An Ode to Willis and His Sneakers

This ode to Willis and his sneakers is meant to be one part humor, two parts seriousness. Willis is my cousin by marriage. I have a first cousin named Nicole. She is the daughter of Tom and Kathie in upstate New York. Her great-grandmother (and Tom's grandmother) and my paternal grandmother were sisters.  Nicole's husband, Willis,…
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Journalistic Integrity

As writers and journalists, we have an obligation to tell the story: accurately, completely and truthfully. Good writers don't have to embellish to make a story gripping. By being truthful and accurate in our reporting, the words tell the story. To do otherwise means we're no better than Fox News and The National Enquirer. We…
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How Farmer, Writer Sarah Ratliff Found Marijuana Healed Her

From the outside, Sarah Ratliff's family seemed to live the ideal life. Her mother was an editor at The New Yorker magazine and her father was a head writer for ABC News. At home in New York City, the cracks in the façade began to show. “My late mother and both brothers struggled with addiction…
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Little Red Hyundai

This is the story of a driver of a Little Red Hyundai who think she's behind the wheel of a Little Red Corvette and who's got issues.  So I was driving down the mountain this morning, on my way to the town of Arecibo to do my food shopping, this red Hyundai sedan appears in back…
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Why Writers are not Farmers

I spend many hours a day chained to my desk writing articles and providing supportive services to my clients. After several hours of staring at the computer, with a pair of glasses to protect my eyes, wrist braces to prevent repetitive stress injuries, and repeated breaks to stretch my tired hands, back and hips (um…
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Rest in Peace Marcos Ratliff

Under the house of a family who was renting from our friend Olga lived a dog who was chained up. He was a skinny yellow Labrador. Over a six-month period we saw this guy go from healthy and who used every inch of his long chain to roam the space under the house to just giving…
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A Day in the Life of This Transplanted Utuadaño

What do: Los rotos (giant potholes) Road closure of the main road from my house to the town of Utuado A detour down an alternate road Me unable to back up the hill to allow a car to pass because I have zero depth perception The starter in my car dying Three men—one a client…
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Héctor’s Gonna Do What Héctor’s Gonna Do!

Twice daily we go hiking. Although many might assume because we work for ourselves that we don’t keep to a schedule, we are actually ruled by routine. Our day always starts out the same. The three roosters remind us why we no longer need an alarm clock. The time varies but they generally start the…
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