Cleaning after a violent explosion - An Observation

The first thing to remember when cleaning after a violent explosion is to double the cleaning perimeter once it is established. Too often something turns up. The coroner's employees are going to miss matter, and they are not going to leave yellow sticky notes for everything that they remove. So count on cleaning and disinfecting way out there following a violent explosion.

Of course, the human remains and cleaning needs will depend upon the number of victims and their proximity to the explosion. Usually, at least one victim will be standing near-by the exploding object because they set if off, usually unknowingly.

If shrapnel is involved the debris field will have a more highly dispersed bio-load. Without shrapnel, say an exploding natural gas tank, expect the debris field to contain fewer cleaning areas, and larger object cleaning areas. If outdoors, expect insect life, especially ants.

Eddie Evans

Spelling Bee Champ

"My favorite things to do were math and music, and with the math I really like the way the numbers fit together," he said. "And with the music I like to let out ideas by composing notes - and the spelling is just a bunch of memorization." Tap for story.

California's new spelling champ is home schooled and headed for a math camp this summer. Math and music are his thing. He will learn one day that the two have some relationships in rhythms and patterns. Poetry too will fit with these two subject areas.

For a little more than 20 percent of us, spelling is a headache and it has nothing to do with memorization. It's in the wiring. Memorize all that we want and there will still be problems with certain words because of the vowels. Stephen Krashen is my source, from a lecture he gave in LA, Callifornia, 1995.

The "rules" of spelling help some of us, thank goodness.

It is important not to scold the learner for poor spelling. Spelling can be checked by dictionary or spell checker. Content is the key, not the form.

Eddie Evans

Iraq residents rise up against al-Qaida

<<BAGHDAD - A battle raged Thursday in west Baghdad after residents rose up against al-Qaida and called for U.S. military help to end random gunfire that forced people to huddle indoors and threats that kept students from final exams, a member of the district council said.>>

It is odd to write something that seems positive about the Iraq mess. I call this "positive" because my country's soldiers are wanted to help others fight off al-Qaida. I wish that I were there with them. I don't think that there are a lot of positives about al-Quaida, from what I read and hear.

I think that it is nice that al-Quaida opposes the intrusions of western commercialism and decadence. That is definitely nice. Short of this observation, there is not much else that a 21st Century, post-Enlightenment thinker can say. Their patriarchy totally sucks! Their fanaticism totally sucks! Whether or not anyone agrees with anyone else's interpretation of God does not matter. "Everyone has a secret place inside, and by God that is how it should be," to quote an old guy in The Bear, one of my favorite movies.

So it goes.
Eddie Evans

So it goes.
Eddie Evans

Nuclear Blast Coming - Not IF, but WHEN

I am sorry if you are still operating under the belief that the USA and its friends will somehow escape becoming a target for a nuclear warhead.

If you are a reasoning person and you gather information from friendly sources, then you will figure it out for yourself. Many of us are going to die in a nuclear mushroom. By "friendly sources," by the way, I mean educational sources, not commercial sources or those entangled in commercial sources.

Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, pointed out the simple truth that science was being bought off by the corporations. Well, so it is with information; information is bought off by corporations. So, if you are getting your information from corporate sources, the odds are that it is unfriendly to your children's future.

Let us not forget WMD's in Iraq. Let us not forget Pat Tillman. Let us not forget the Gulf of Tonkin, to name just a few.

<<1964, United States President Lyndon B. Johnson claimed that North Vietnamese forces had twice attacked American destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin. Although there was a first attack (in response to U.S. equipped and orchestrated South Vietnam's commando raids on the coast [1]), claims of a second attack were later proven to be unfounded. Known today as the Gulf of Tonkin Incident, this led to the open involvement of the United States in the Vietnam War, with the Gulf of Tonkin Resolution.>>

You cannot trust the US Government, if you did not already know this. The US Government is in bed with US weapons manufacturers, like GE. The US weapons manufacturers supply more weapons World-wide than any other source.

The US Government nods OK to one government, and Not OK to another government when it comes to nuclear proliferation. Today's "OK" becomes tomorrow's "Not OK," if you care to check it out for yourself.

Last, the US Government has stumbled around Afghanistan for going on 6 years looking for Bennie L. He is nowhere to be found. Benny L. does not matter, anyway. We have created hundreds, if not thousands of Benny L's since Bush came into office. Even before Bush the US was creating life-long enemies.

09/11/01 did some good besides adding to the GNP (Gross National Product). It finally got the US Government's attention off the Star Wars madness. Before 9/11/01, Bush and company were crazy about building a World-wide net of anti-ballistic missiles, no matter what anyone in the World said. They actually believed that Buck Rogers-like weapons were going to stop the inevitable. It took two jets into the Trade Towers to prove what so many of us had said for decades, it takes "only a suit case" to destroy a US city. Like a jerk, jerks, the Government continued wasting valuable time and resources on Star Wars.

What the US could have, should have been doing is becoming the World's hospital , science and education center, and breadbasket. But what has the US done? It has pursued an Empire approach to the World by producing weapons for sale and export, by creating over 120 US military outposts World-wide, by following the dollar with the military. We can learn a lot from Cuba. Cuba sends doctors World-wide and offered to send a "brigade" of doctors to Louisiana following Katrina. What did we send following Katrina and when, if?

Do the math, connect the dots. We, the USA, are going to get hit, and hit big time. At this point, there is nothing to be done for it. We have created enemies World-wide for generations and everyone without a nuke wants one.
Nukes suck!

Eddie Evans

Education and the Mind

Education gives life to the mind. Education is more than a "formal" process; It is experience, information gathering, analysis, and a synthesis of analyzed information. Last, there is an evaluation, an answer to the question, "so what?". Education is usually an outcome of an intended approach to the World.

I do not deny the place of serendipity in education, in scientific exploration and outcomes, by accident. The intent to discover is there. The outcome is there. But the learner's focus on the selected outcome is not there with serendipity. Serendipity is accidental learning and OK. It is not part of what I am writing about. I am writing about a concerted effort of broad design.

Look to the philosopher Eric Hoffer for one example of what I am talking about. His formal education was "poor," by current standards, but he was an "educated" man by most standards. Read The True Believer: Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements and you will see what I mean. He worked as a longshoreman for many years, but he found time to expand and enrich his mind by reading and writing. He committed himself to understanding the World, human affairs, by analyzing it after studying. Then he synthesized his information by writing about his thoughts. He answered a serious question about mass movements and fanaticism. He was named "America's philosopher" by President Johnson.

I neglect my education at times. Sure, if I listen to the radio, I listen to non-commercial radio and hear critical, useful information, but the intent is not there. The intent to "educate" myself, that is. I watch public broadcasting for entertainment, but the intent is not there. I tell myself, "Well, these sources of entertainment and information are not from the commercial World, not of corporate design," but the intent is not there in my mind. Perhaps I evaluate too soon, before gaining the insight offered by analyzing and synthesizing my information thoroughly.

So I forget or somehow deny how important it is to pursue education with an intended approach. Remembering people like Eric Hoffer is important for me, then. I, like others, need a role model to help educate myself. How can I neglect Helen Keller's story and so many others who were so well educated, and not "formally."

Education is very important, and there is no reason to avoid it unless the learner prefers a state of ignorance festering on ignorance. Ignorance does not feed the mind, it warps the mind. An ignorant answer to the question "so what?" produces a poor outcome.

An educated life enriches the mind. An educated life gathers useful information about the World, nature. It analyzes this information and then synthesizes before making an evaluation of what it means.
I will do better.

So it goes.
Eddie Evans

Starting your own Crime Scene Cleanup Business - The Reality

Because I own the domain name www.crimescenecleanup.com and a few like to it, I receive telephone calls in clusters related to becoming a "crime scene cleaner." I guess a television show airs from time-to-time and mentions this line of business.

Most callers know little if anything about cleaning trauma. They have heard somewhere that they will make $100 per hour in this business. Generally, they need work and have been out of work for a while. So I break the news, "This is a very competitive business field." "Sorry," I say, "I don't hire." "Don't quit your day job," I say. (See "How will I do in the Crime Scene Cleanup business?)

I also say that if "you have an existing business, then it may make some sense to add trauma cleaning as an add-on," otherwise, you need deep pockets, a rich daddy, and some luck.

Consequently, if any person representing a "school" says you will make tons of money, beware. If you have some "gaps" in your formal education, you need to really beware because some schools have "gaps" in their formal education. You want as much for your time and money as you can get, and the better your education, the more likely that you are to benefit from more training and education. It's like the snowball story, the farther the snowball rows down hill, the bigger it becomes and the faster it grows.

Good luck.
Eddie Evans

Why do we have Crime Scene Cleaners?

Why do we have Crime Scene Cleaners?

This is an important question. The short answer is this: It is now easier to catch a disease from blood than previously. Blood-borne pathogen's have always been with us. But, blood-borne pathogen's have become more dangerous and easier to contract. So the business field known as Crime Scene Cleanup has grown to serve the needs of blood cleanup for residential, commercial, and industrial environments. Crime Scene Cleanup, as written about earlier, is a phrase that glamorizes trauma cleanup.

In the late 1970's and early 1980's, we learned about HIV, Human Immunodeficiency Disease, which becomes AIDS as it progresses. AIDS is an acronym and stands for Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. This disease spread for a number of years in the US before the US Government decided to recognize it. The government refused to get involved because it appeared that "AIDS" was a "homosexual" disease. So there was some bigotry involved with its recognition. In that time, it became obvious that something serious needed to be done.

People were dying in increasing numbers, and the manner of their deaths was quite unusual. They were dying because their bodies could no longer standup against minor and major illnesses. Women were contracting the disease from their husbands and boyfriends at the rate of 1 to 15. That is, women were 15 times more likely to contract HIV from sexual intercourse with a male than vice versa.

So OSHA now set rules for employers to ensure that their employees were protected from needle-stick during work. Health employees were the most obvious group of US workers at risk, but these rules are applied to most employees in the private sector. Because of this, no one can clean a bloody environment or be involved with work involving possible exposure to blood or OPIM (Other Potentially Infectious Matter) without blood-borne pathogen training. See your American Red Cross for a professional trainer.

HIV is not the only pathogen out there. In fact, Hepatitis C is every bit as bad as HIV. These and other diseases will be written about at another time.

What is probably important for those interested in becoming a "Crime Scene Cleaner," to this writer's knowledge, is that there is no "certification" needed to clean a bloody scene. So if a school owner or a Crime Scene Cleanup business tells the reader that they must be "certified," the reader needs to ask, "Certified by whom?". Some states have certain requirements for handling and disposing of blood and OPIM. These state regulations should be taken very seriously.

Blood-borne pathogen training is usually the first step in most states, if not the only step to becoming a "Crime Scene Cleaner."

It is important, in this writer's mind, that as many people as possible become trained in this field of cleaning. The "writing is on the wall," so to speak. Diseases of unknown origin and magnitude will join us in the 21st Century because of Global Warming. Terrorism will probably be another source of creating catastrophic trauma events. So learn to cleanup blood. Whatever you call yourself is not important. It is the skills that matter.

Perhaps it is time for the public schools to begin teaching these skills.
For certain, the public school systems needs to orient their lessons toward a more ecologically centered approach. Students need to learn about ecological relationships early in their academic career. The importance of seeing nature's relationships ought to be taught: Earth, air, water, biology, ecology.

To regress, anyone interested in trauma cleaning should be trained. The more training, the better. Life-long learning is important, anyway. So learning to clean trauma should involve continued training. Training need not take place in a school. In fact, some "schools" need to be avoided like the plague. Keep this in mind: If it sounds too good, it is too good.

See the next blog writing: Starting your own Crime Scene Cleanup Business - The Reality
Eddie Evans