Currently viewing the tag: "Fact"
my son has some home work and he needs 6 differences between fact and fiction,we have 3 but need some more, many thanks for your help
Listed below are some of the most common perceptions regarding hemorrhoids facts and more importantly, for those of us that worry, hemorrhoids fiction.
• Hemorrhoids turn into cancer.
Fiction: Hemorrhoids and cancer cells are completely different as cancerous cells are mutations of their former selves and not a swollen vein which is essentially what hemorrhoids are. Breathe a sigh of relief.
• Hemorrhoids are contagious.
Fiction: You cannot contract hemorrhoids through any form of contact with a sufferer. It is a complaint and not a disease, so don’t be afraid to be tactile with a sufferer, though just be careful where.
• Only men, pregnant women and the elderly get hemorrhoids.
Fiction: Any gender can get hemorrhoids at any time of life, though most will pass unnoticed. Pregnant women are more susceptible as they have extra pressure being applied to the lower abdomen and also may suffer constipation. The elderly are more likely to develop hemorrhoids as with age can come tissue weakness which increases the risk, though does not guarantee that every elderly person will suffer.
• Spending too long on the toilet can give you hemorrhoids.
Fact: This is true as the body automatically opens to pass waste product when sitting on the toilet. If a person sits for an extended period of time, the body will naturally continue to try to pass waste which prolongs the pressure to the cushion vein and can cause the tissue to weaken. Try not to treat your toilet as a library or puzzle room.
• Sitting on a cold surface will give you hemorrhoids.
Fiction: If a sufferer with external hemorrhoids sits on a cold surface this will not help as it will cause the swollen veins to contract increasing the discomfort. For all non sufferers, please be seated.
• Spicy foods will give you hemorrhoids.
Fiction: Eating spicy foods, including the myth of black pepper which seems to be quite prevalent, will not give you hemorrhoids. What may happen is that you could get an upset stomach which builds more pressure on the bowel, and/or diarrhea which will only go to irritate your hemorrhoids further. Eat curry at your own peril if you suffer.
• Overweight people are more likely to get hemorrhoids.
Fact: As with pregnancy, the carrying of extra weight on the abdominal area will add pressure which will result in an increase in the risk of developing hemorrhoids.
These are the most common hemorrhoids myths with the absence of one particular one of a more sexual nature, which I will place below. So for those of you who would prefer not to read on, please don’t.
• Anal intercourse will give you hemorrhoids.
Fiction: The act of anal intercourse, providing it is done correctly, will not give you hemorrhoids. A sufferer will certainly feel an increased sensation, pleasurable or not. Please, if you do practice this, take extra care and please perform this act correctly. I shall say no more.
I hope this article has answered some of your questions and brought some relief to those of us that worry too much and listen to other people’s pearls of wisdom.
Best regards
Simon Gammage
Simon Gammage invites you to view his site http://www.relieffromhaemorrhoids.net as you may find some useful information regarding this uncomfortable condition. As a former sufferer Simon knows what you are going through and http://www.relieffromhaemorrhoids.net is there to help.
I heard that it’s like Ossm (oklahoma school of science and math) That it’s a boarding school and It’s being built in Oklahoma city right now! If you say it’s fact or fiction, could you please give me some links and info? Im an excellent vocalist and it would be nice if it’s true, thanks to all who answer!
It very well could be real, but for now it’s the latest heart-pounding fiction book, Sledgehammer, about a terrorist who arrives in the ER with smallpox symptoms. An ER physician suspects it but has just six days to convince hospital executives and the U.S. Government before an epidemic breaks out.
The story is brought vividly to life by Dr. Paulo J. Reyes who obtained his MD at the UCSF School of Medicine, has 25 years in medicine and internal medicine and is a First Responder for the busiest cities in California specifically in terrorists training.
In Sledgehammer, the lead character, Max Kroose, an intuitive emergency room physician, believes terrorists are to blame for the attack and fears the more lethal form of smallpox, called Sledgehammer, will kill within days. As time progresses, the terrorists planned attacks at a sports arena, mall and airport must be stopped. The question becomes can this ER doctor convince the hospital administration and the public health care system about the presence of this deadly disease and the need to vaccinate the American public. You won’t be able to stop reading as you seek to find out the truth in this non-stop thriller.
How big a threat is smallpox? “The Federal Government should allow voluntary smallpox vaccinations to protect us from smallpox bioterrorist attacks,” says Dr. Reyes. “At the very least the Federal Government should allow voluntary vaccinations of the first responders which should include all hospital medical staff. The President and the military have been vaccinated. Why shouldn’t the American public?”
Dr. Reyes also authored Health-Care Reform or Redistribution of Cost? and in his research of the health care system, he has seen its shortcomings. Realizing there is clear and present danger of a terrorist attack in the health care system has prompted him to support voluntary smallpox vaccinations.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) considers smallpox as a possible danger and includes it as one of the possible agents of a bioterrorist attack, in its website under the subheading Emergency Preparedness and Response along with anthrax, plague, and tularemia.
Reyes believes the Federal Government should consider a trial program to detect the presence of the virus – similar to a pregnancy test – so if the disease presents itself, it will be detected before it becomes an epidemic or pandemic.
The American public is immuno-naïve to smallpox, which means it could spread very rapidly, Reyes says. And containment could be even more difficult or impossible if the virus was aerosolized, which the CDC believes may be the case, he says.
With new terrorist attacks continually happening in the United States and the fear of a global pandemic, Sledgehammer is a gripping book to get a real insight into what could possibly lie ahead unless immediate action is taken. Buy your book today at http://www.pauloreyes.com, Amazon.com or any major online bookstore.
Dr. Paulo J. Reyes has previously appeared on CNN and is available for TV, Radio, newspaper, article quotes, and other media interviews. Please contact Diana at Diana@pauloreyes.com or (954) 971-4025. Stop by his site for the latest information and updates on current news – http://www.pauloreyes.com.
Free to reprint as long as author’s bio remains intact.
Some would say that there is no fiction because much of what was once fiction has become fact. Causation does not lie in the in the external world of things and facts. The substance and reality of life begins in the spirit and the imaginations of man. What we are within and who we think we are is who we become. If we’re not happy with life, we can change it.
John McKenzie said, “The distinction between what is real and what is imaginary is not one that can be finally maintained……all existing things are, in an intelligable sense, imaginary.” II Cor. 4:18 says that those things which seem real aren’t and only the unseen is real. How is one to work with such concepts?
What is cause and what causes cause? Can we know?
The One who created ALL is the first cause but if one believes, as most Christians do, in theism, then who is here doing all the creating? Can it be that humanhood co-creates with the Creator? And if so, then just how much responsibility do we have in that format? Do we have to ask for approval to create a thing?
If so, just how do we ask?
These are questions that are seldom asked and when we do, the answers are usually religiously based in some superstitous formula that seldom works in real life, if at all. Man is free to imagine anything and everything but that doesn’t mean fruit will grow on the tree.
We have been created in the IMAGE of God, in the image of the Creator so doesn’t it follow that imagination is a spiritual sensation? While we are co-creators that can bring that which IS NOT into a physical manifestation that IS, in the end we must rely upon GRACE to do the final birthing. The manner, way, and timing must come through GRACE!
But, to leave it ALL to God and grace is to shirk our responsibility to turn fiction into fact.
What are you birthing?
As a spiritual-futurist my commentaries and articles deal primarily with an interpretation of current events in light of macro-universal forces at play.
â??You cannot make God a fairytale!â? declared the woman in the second row, her face blotchy with outrage. â??The Blessed Mother and Mary Magdalen are holy people. They would never act like the people in your book.â? (Who are guilty, from time to time, of humor, outspokenness, and occasional irreverence).
This appearance at a public library was the last of long drawn-out book tour. Iâ??d presented my novel The Passion of Mary Magdalen close to eighty times all over the country in all sorts of venues. People always asked if my book had stirred up controversy, but in all that time I had never come up against this. Until that night.
â??Your book is offensive. It is blasphemous. It has hurt me. God has anger,â? the woman warned. â??If God were in this room right now,â? (which apparently he was not) â??God would be so angry with you. You cannot escape the anger of God.â?
The rest of my audience — mostly senior citizens from my auntâ??s Congregational church — sat in embarrassed silence, except for one seminary student in the front row who clearly wanted a theological brawl. But this was my show.
â??I hear that you are hurt,â? I said in my best counselor mode (my other hat) â??and for that I am truly sorry. But I am not sorry I wrote the book. It was not written with intent to offend. It is my witness, my act of faith. But I will take what you say into my prayer life. Thank you all for coming.â?
And so I claimed the last word, the high moral ground, and a semblance of control and brought the harrowing evening to a conclusion.
The woman who informed me of Godâ??s wrath was the last to speak that night of a phalanx of conservative Roman Catholics. (At the other end of the continuum I count a Dominican Nun who once embraced me and said, â??On with the revolution, sister!â?) The group did not identify themselves at the beginning of the presentation, just said they had seen the flyer for the event and were interested in the subject matter. I opened my performance with a dramatic recital of the prologue, set in â??the hottest holy whorehouse in the Galilee,â? so my goose was well-cooked from the start, and there was nowhere to retreat when I finally realized who — and what — I was facing.
â??Doesnâ??t your conscience bother you?â? one of the men had demanded, giving me my first clue. â??God has given you a talent. You are responsible for its use. Donâ??t you think you should use it for good? For telling the truth instead of misleading people?â?
â??No, my conscience doesnâ??t bother me,â? I answered brightly. â??And Iâ??ll tell you why. There are four Gospels, each one a different account, told from a different point of view for a different audience. The chronology of the Gospel of John in particular differs from all the others. The Gospels are much more like novels than they are literal, historical accounts. They are sacred stories intended to bring meaning to the lives of the listeners.â?
Needless to say, this claim that the Evangelists were fellow novelists did not cut it. Repeatedly I was told that my book was harming peopleâ??s faith, because they might think my story was true. And if I wanted to know what Mary Magdalen was really like, I should read The Lives of the Saints, which tells the true story.
As people were leaving, my husband, who could not resist a parting shot, suggested to the delegation that perhaps they ought to buy the book and read it.
â??Oh, no,â? said one of the men. â??I never read fiction.â?
Interesting, I think, that this man eschewed all fiction, not just my blasphemous novel in particular. In our time fiction has come to mean the opposite of fact, and fact has become synonymous with truth. The concept of story, of poetic truth has gotten lost. Witness the furor over the not-very-original theories presented in the conventional thriller The Da Vinci Code. Do we even know anymore what a theory is? It is not fact. It is someone using their mind — their imagination — to tell a story that might, or might not, turn out to be fact. Now the faithful are in an uproar over James Cameronâ??s documentary about the discovery of what might (or might not) be the bones of Jesus and (gasp) his wife and child. One Baptist was quoted as saying that if the bones turned out to be authentic, it would destroy his faith, because then the doctrine of bodily Resurrection could not be true.
I want to say to this man: Why would you allow some dry bones to rob you of a powerful, living story? Bones or no bones, the Resurrection is, always has been, and always will be a Mystery. Yet I am sympathetic to anyone undergoing a crisis of faith for whatever reason, as I did when I lost my belief in orthodox Christianity, not because of facts, but because the Christianity I knew could not encompass a powerful and unexpected encounter with the divine feminine. The church had been my container, and I had spilled out of it with no structure to take its place. No matter what I believed or didnâ??t, I felt anguish and even terror to think that I might be abandoning and betraying Jesus. One sentence in a book by The Reverend Alan Jones got me through that time. I paraphrase: â??If you have to choose between belief in Christ and your experience of the truth, choose the truth and trust that Christ will reveal himself to you in a new way.â?
Christ did reveal himself to me anew through the eyes Maeve, my fictional Mary Magdalen, a feisty, unrepentant Celt, who loves Jesus with all her heart, yet refuses to be a disciple. People frequently ask me if there is any evidence that Mary Magdalen came from the British Isles. My answer is: No. There isnâ??t. The fourteen scriptural references to Mary Magdalen tell us very little except that she traveled with Jesus, helped support him, and stuck by him to the end and beyond. She is an open invitation to Midrash — a Jewish tradition of storytelling to fill scriptural gaps. And I mean storytelling. The Rabbis were not out digging up facts, collecting evidence to mount new theories. They were spinning numinous tales to give us a deeper experience of divine and human nature.
C.S. Lewis, the Christian apologist, was also a brilliant novelist, best known for The Narnia Chronicles. I have never forgotten Lewisâ??s spirited defense of story in The Silver Chair. The true prince of Narnia is a prisoner in an underground realm, and the children (from our world) accompanied by the dour Marshwiggle Puddleglum, have been captured by the wicked queen in their attempt to rescue the prince. She tries to hypnotize them, telling them that their memory of the world above ground is just a fairytale. At last Puddleglum rallies himself and cuts through the spell she is weaving:
â??Suppose we have only dreamed, or made up, all those things — trees and sun and moon and stars and Aslan himself. Suppose we have. Then all I can say is that, in that case, the made-up things seem a good deal more important than the real ones . . . Thatâ??s why Iâ??m going to stand by the play world. Iâ??m on Aslanâ??s side even if there is no Aslan to lead it. Iâ??m going to live like a Narnian even if there is no Narnia.â?
The best stories teach us to be courageous in the face of danger, resourceful in times of hardship, kind to strangers and animals, discerning in making choices that are often not what they seem. They teach us listen to the wisdom within and beyond ourselves.
Maybe you can find God in a fairytale.
Copyright © 2007 Elizabeth Cunningham
Elizabeth Cunningham is the author of The Maeve Chronicles, featuring the Celtic Mary Magdalen. The Passion of Mary Magdalen, published to acclaim in 2006, is followed by the prequel, Magdalen Rising, April, 2007. The author is at work on the sequel, Bright Dark Madonna. For more: www.passionofmarymagdalen.com
Nearly everyone who wants to be a writer looks at the fiction market as being the way to go – but another, vast market exists. What is it? Let’s find out.
The minute you mention that you’re a writer you nearly always get the same reaction. It goes something like this: ‘Do you write crime thrillers/science fiction/romance/spy stories etc .etc. etc.’ I was pleasantly surprised recently when someone I met at a writer’s circle said ‘I don’t write fiction.’ We had a very interesting conversation, the essence of which was this –
The fiction market is absolutely crammed with writers: established A-listers, journeyman B-listers and aspiring hopefuls or those with maybe just one or two minor pieces published. In other words – it’s a buyer’s market. That’s why this person writes factual books. Fiction publishers have their pick of the crop and can afford to be as choosy as they wish.
In a way you can’t blame them: the cost of promoting an unknown author can be very high indeed and publishers are a notoriously hard-headed bunch. After all, an editor of any publishing house is responsible to the owners for turning a profit. It’s a business, pure and simple.
Factual books are a different matter. I would not suggest for one moment that publishers of factual books – and they range from cookbooks to erudite tomes on some very rarified subjects – are any less business-oriented. It’s just that writers of such books are noticeably thinner on the ground than fiction writers, making the chances of publishing success that much more favourable.
Indeed, many fiction writers also write factual books. George MacDonald Fraser, the author of the hugely successful ‘Flashman’ series of fiction books, also wrote several factual (and entertaining) books such as ‘The Steel Bonnets’ and ‘Quartered Safe Out Here’. His ‘McAuslan’ series are a thinly-disguised autobiographical account of his time in the army and bridge the gap between fact and fiction.
What does this suggest? Perhaps that even such a successful fiction writer as Fraser discovered the market for factual books?
Whatever the reason for Fraser’s decision, the fact remains that books written about factual subjects sell. So how can you break into the market? First requirement: know your subject. This may seem obvious but you simply cannot write a factual book by picking up bits of knowledge from the internet and hoping to appear to be an expert. However, if you have been, let’s say, a financial analyst, or a pro football player, or maybe just a lifelong gardener, you may well be qualified to write a book.
Second requirement: know how to write. This is where a lot of would-be writers blow out their cheeks and adopt a rueful expression: ah, if only I could write . . .
If you simply cannot write, consider a ghostwriter. These are people who will turn your knowledge and expertise into a manuscript that will meet the requirements of publishers, yet put your name on the dustjacket. It may not be your ideal way of seeing you name in print but it’s an avenue to consider.
If, however, you possess the ability and the knowledge of your subject, why not try writing a factual book? Writing courses and classes are readily available and you might find you possess more ability than you thought! The market is there for you – go out and get a piece of it!
Steve Dempster writes fiction, copy and informative article such as the one above. He also ghostwrites. For more information about writing in general, try visiting I Want To Write!
About
The Writers' Corner is dedicated to providing the tips and resources required for developing a career as a professional writer.Stuff We Like