Human Heart Facts

Preckwinkle right on drug war

Acts of political courage are not all that common these days. That’s why County Board President Toni Preckwinkle’s presence at a June 17 rally in downtown Chicago calling for an “End to the War on Drugs” was a singular event.

Showing up might seem to have been a no-brainer. She was given the opportunity to make the case for saving the county money and lives: “The War on Drugs has failed to eradicate drug use, instead it has resulted in the incarceration of millions throughout the nation and annually 100,000 (8,500 at any one time) here in Cook County.

“Nearly 70 percent of those are held on nonviolent offenses — many for drug possession charges . . . yet we have only 8,500, or 16 percent, of the jail population in drug treatment programs. The cost is too great to continue fighting this war on drugs with so little success. Rather than investing in detaining people at the jail for $142 per day, we must invest in treatment, education, job skills training.”

Her numbers pertain to Cook County. But the facts of the war on drugs as a failure are national, even global. We have spent more than $1 trillion since Richard Nixon initiated the war in 1971; drug markets have not been curtailed; the U.S. has become a prisoner nation, putting more people in jail than any other country in the world, and treatment programs have gotten short shrift.

Given these facts, why are most of our political leaders so unwilling to talk, and talk straight?

New York Times columnist David Brooks in his new book, The Social Animal, tells us that rational arguments come in a distant second in choosing political affiliations and setting public policy. This is true of all of us — right, left or middle. It is mostly our emotions, biases and unconscious fears that determine the party we will choose and how we will vote. If that is true generally, how much more so when it comes to drugs, which have been cruelly and cynically conflated with crime and race for at least the last 100 years in this country. On few other issues is it so easy to exploit our deepest fears no matter the facts.

My heart goes out to all who grew up in families where alcohol and other drugs were a problem and don’t want their kids to fall victim to the same pathologies. I can imagine nothing worse than losing a child to drugs. But just as abstinence programs have not proved effective in deterring teenagers from having sex, why do we think that driving drugs underground is a better alternative than candor, education and, when necessary, treatment?

Amazing Heart Facts « Human Facts

As medical technology develops we are starting to understand a lot more about one of the most important organs in our body.

In this blog you can get the most amazing heart facts of the human body. It’s a refine and well organized collection of human heart facts.

The adult heart pumps about 5 quarts of blood each minute – approximately 2,000 gallons of blood each day – throughout the body.

The first open heart surgery was performed by Dr. Daniel Hall Williams in 1893.

Heart disease is the number one killer in the US

Blood flows through the left atrium into the left ventricle.

The left ventricle pumps the oxygen-rich blood to all parts of the body.

The heart pumps about 1 million barrels of blood during an average lifetime—that’s enough to fill more than 3 super tankers.

The sounds made by your heart when it beats are the sounds of the heart valves opening and closing.

You’re more likely to have a heart attack on Monday morning than at any other time of the week.

The first heart specialists emerged after World War I.

Blood takes about 20 seconds to circulate throughout the entire Vascular system.

In one day your heart beats 100,000 times.

Most heart attacks occur between the hours of 8 and 9 AM with Monday being the most “popular” day.

In a day, your heart pumps around 7,200 litres of blood, which would be enough to fill a small paddling pool.

The World almanac & book of facts

Congressional record, proceedings and debates of the ... Congress

Facts and Comments

The facts of life in relation to faith

The Facts On File companion to British poetry, 17th and 18th centuries