Sunday Dental Thread: Leaking Composite Restorations and the Kennedy Assassination:
Do I have your attention? Perhaps? Good...then please read this entire post before you start spitting out your cornflakes or wheat germ or whatever...
In the early 1980's, what with all the narcissism, self-help books, ego-boosting, People Magazine buying, self-improvement kicks, one of things which people took note of was the presence of "unsightly" metal in their mouths, specifically amalgam and gold restorations otherwise known as fillings. In order to achieve a Hawthorn-ian Perfection of appearance, patients asked their dentists if they could place composite, normally specified only for front teeth, in their premolars and molars. The dental manufacturers, sensing a good thing, developed composites which were marginally appropriate for back teeth, if what you want to define as "marginally appropriate" was horrendously poor by then-community standards. This material began to fail, for the most part, before the check for the services rendered cleared the bank. Of course, the last thing a dentist wanted to do in those days was to have to revisit a tooth he or she had restored within 10-15 years and the practitioners were upset and most agitated that they were not having their usual 95-99% success rate. You must understand that 95% success over 10-15 years was considered poor back then. So the companies started working on their composite materials day and night and you cannot imagine the number of different brands proffered to the profession since then.
Now this is the interesting part of the story thus far: the economic pressures to increase production at the practitioner level brought a level of carelessness not often seen in the profession. We have a term for each material which we utilize which is how "technique sensitive" it is: that for example, you can place an amalgam restoration in the presence of some moisture, which you would call saliva, and be assured that it will have some fair success, say 10-12 years rather than 25-40 years. So amalgam is not too bad in this regard. Composite, however, has to be placed in an absolutely dry field and the etching for the placement of the unfilled resin has to be 100%...not 98...not 95...100% or it will begin leaking immediately leading to recurrent decay and virtually certain doom for the dental pulp of the tooth, necessitating a root canal, or if left undetected long enough, fracture and extraction. Now that is not the only problem: there are many others associated with composites. For example, if you place too much composite in a tooth which has a wide isthmus, or channel on the biting surface, the material will shrink, and since it is bonded to the outer and inner cusps of the tooth, it will tend to pull them together causing constant pain, as though someone placed extraction forceps on the tooth and squeezed continuously. This pain can be relieved, by the way, by channeling medio-laterally through the restoration and refilling it, thus relieving the internal tensions.
Now, what with all this going on, the manufacturers might have been screwn as they say, but no. They just kept merrily producing this stuff to this day and denying that there are any problems associated with its placement. Meanwhile, the technic (yes that is spelled correctly in dentistry) requires the use of aids to place it properly which are extremely time-consuming, intricate, and often simply fail: these include but are not limited to, fancy matrix bands and wedging techniques in order to establish a contact so food doesn't pack between the teeth, bases and liners which protect the nerve inside the tooth from the harm which might befall it due to the nature of the treatment materials, and other arcane issues which require resolution in order to have a satisfactory outcome. And of course, since there is a big big big profit motive here, and I say this without a smile on my face, there is NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE THAT THIS MATERIAL CAUSES PROBLEMS WHEN USED CORRECTLY. As an aside, my friends who are endodontists who do root canals all day, were well-pleased that some of their referring practitioners use this composite even for upper second molars which even we have problems visualizing with a mirror and bright light. Now of course, the manufacturers are dealing with people who are actually pretty bright, so instead of publishing a comprehensive study which would demonstrate that there is a dental morbidity and mortality associated with its use, they published literally hundreds of studies with all kinds of variables which were so confusing when read that you had no idea whether you were coming or going. And now, composite is the "material of choice" for back teeth. Anytime you attempt to quote a study which might demonstrate that there are significant problems, someone else will come up with three papers showing fifty different conclusions and you spend much of your time debating the experimental issues rather than the issues at hand.
And so it is with the assassinations of the Sixties and beyond: they put out so many theories, some sounding reasonable, some, not so reasonable, and some downright insane, that many people who can't distinguish one form the other, lump them all together and say, well, since I can't make heads or tails out of all this, then the official version must be true. Those who deny that there was variance with the Reports which emanated from official sources have many techniques for doing so which include but are not limited to: pure denial, denial of the existence of any credibility of any evidence to the contrary of their stated "facts", diminishing of the individual by associating them with such "wacky" issues as ostensibly faked moon-landings, disproving of the individual by pointing out one possible flaw in the entire argument, postulating that eyewitnesses are notoriously unreliable, stating unequivocally that there is an absolute profit motive surrounding the perpetuation of the issue, and many others.
To these and others I say, hogwash. The truth is staring you in the face, but the Establishment and others have set up so many two-way mirrors and falsities that you have no idea what is truth now and what is fiction. But the manufacturers have convinced many that their product is sound, we have come to accept failure as routine as a populus so that not only will you get restorations replaced in your mouth every five years instead of twenty-five years and that is all right, and also, incidentally, that you can have your President, his brother, and the leading Civil Right figure shot down in their primes and it really does not matter who might or might not have been involved. Good luck to all of us in these, and all respects. We are going to need it.
= new reply since forum marked as read
any who might disagree with you and your being in lockstep with warren commission lies(findings).
someone might give you credence and/or credibility. Until then, stay asleep.
Same old warren commission lies(garbage). Wake up, see what you're doing to yourself.geez 
so your insult is noted. I am awake, been awake since the coup happened. Sheeple, you must have looked at yourself in the mirror this morning closely. Stay in lockstep down that blind alley, it fits you and the rest of the naysayers on here. Hell your group is like that band in National Lampoon's 'Animal House during that parade at the end. There are enough of you. But then what could I expect. 
Have a good life in your bubble.
with people like PC and others like you, still is
A professor from Virginia Tech wrote there are two basic ways to communicate knowledge (or "meaning"
: "maps" and "stories."
Two Kinds of Knowledge: Maps and Stories
HENRY H. BAUER
Chemistry & Science Studies
Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University
Blacksburg, VA 24061 02/2
J
Abstract—The most reliable knowledge is map like: "If you do this, then that will always follow." But such knowledge carries little if any inherent human meaning. Most meaningful is story like knowledge, which teaches about morals and values; but about that, agreement cannot be forced by demonstration. Failure to distinguish between the meaningfulness and the re¬liability of knowledge helps to make arguments intractable. It would be very useful always to ask about a bit of claimed knowledge, "Is this more like a story or more like a map ?"
PDF to full article:
http://www.henryhbauer.homestead.com/2kndsweb.pdf
So, to make something memorable requires a good story. Think, "Hansel and Gretel." Parents can't feed kids and are forced to abandom them in the forest. Kids, being human, don't want that and leave bread crumbs to get back. Birds eat bread trail. Kids get lost and find witch's cottage...etc." The details may not be the same on each telling, but the basic elements are the same.
Complicated things require maps: Owners manual for a car, a map showing the location of towns, roads, bridges, etc. Almost no one can memorize all the details required, hence they must be written down and referenced. The thing is, until the advent of smartphones, no one could carry around a reference library with them.
OTOH: Hear a good story ONCE -- as a kid or as an adult -- and we don't forget. That's why Karl Rove and his ilk were so quick to attack Joseph Wilson through Valerie Plame: No way could the truth get into the public mind before their twisted version of reality -- Saddam Hussein and Iraq were behind 9-11 and planned to use WMDs.
In the case of the assassination of President Kennedy, the story that the "specialists" wanted heard first and loudest was that Oswald did it alone. Seeing what's happened to the country in the intervening 50 years, the fact the "Money trumps peace" crowd get ahead, shows the effectiveness of their story and the magic bullet theory on which it's based.
The assassinations of President Kennedy, Dr. King, and Sen. Kennedy hold so much information, they each require library shelves to hold all the information known and written about them. No mind I know can hold, let alone cross-reference, all the information known about each of them. It's why discussion and sharing of ideas is so important: The free sharing of information, ideas and perspectives why democracy works.
Putting the complex into a story form requires an artist or an expert in information science. Edward Tufte comes to mind.
Another guy who grokked it was Mark Lombardi. We talked about him on DU, way back when.
In the cases of the assassinations of America's liberal, progressive and DEMOCRATIC leadership, the story line we are told by the corporate press is "lone nut." Those who study the maps, with all their faults, soon see there is a lot more to the stories.
Thanks for sharing your charts and story with us, PCIntern. Those who care about justice and democracy will remember.
so many so-called opened minded establishment lie believers, on this site, just don't, won't accept the truth. I was just thinking this very thing, the other day. That if there is enough confusion generated about a situation(assassination) no truth can be forthcoming. There are a couple of people on here that I've dealt with since the 22nd that are in lockstep with the warren commission lie(findings). So be it. Thanks again for a very lucid analogy, allegory.
Amalgams made Oswald a patsy.
One thing is, that the pain and loss of the actions described, and how they affected the minds of millions. JFK, MLK, RFK and the desire of people to change the nation for the better. Moral, eloquent, intelligent, determined men cut down in their prime.
History shows that the death of some people means the death of a movement. In these cases, the result was not as peaceful to make change as it could have been, but perhaps it never would have been peaceful, anyway. And the movements survived through the seventies, and then regressives acted with more boldness, some say, because of the assassinations of these men.
But is that true? There is a saying that 'Good comes to those who wait... But the evil things are always in a hurry.' That's the philosophy and strategy of the regressives, and it works. Strike fast, hard, ruthlessly, like any marauder or wild animal, make off with the spoils quickly and leave nothing but disarray.
That's just unbearable for many, a loss that cannot be overcome. They will nurse that grudge through generations, just as the South has, just as some on our part of the aisle have. It's true, many people will never get to parity with what they had before the attacks, which was not an unintended consequence, either. The American consciousness has been a battleground for years, and now we have taken sides that are irreversible, perhaps.
Some people want to liken these times to those, but they really cannot do so. A generation was united with a belief in justice and equality and those ideas came not from media trends, but from a document that had real legal power, the Constitution. Now we have many who have no knowledge of how that works and so they have lost that power. They lhave no idea how to make it work, so they flail about.
Was it all planned? Were the lone gunmen stochastic terrorists or where they flunkies for those with the most to gain? In a way, I want it to be about the people I despise, since they do not see me as a human being. I want to pull all the threads together to make a devil. Team spirit, yeah!
Grief goes through a series of stages. Among them are shock, anger, denial, bargaining and then acceptance that things will never be the same. In those days, JFK, MLK and RFK were beloved by millions of people, whose hearts soared as they saw them walk among them, and saw men who were human beings with power who cared. Now, the American people can no longer fathom that such a person truly exists, they think it's all an act like a movie. Yes, Hollywood has done its part to make the world look like a fantasy, and yet it is real and suffering, but we are too preoccupied to face it. We love that reality more than the world.
Some romanticize the sixties and those men and refuse to let them go, will not quit their desire for the way things were then. They want a justice served that will never come, as the world is not necessarily built on that.
Was it just to create the USA over the bodies of the natives? Did the clearing of the land by slaves from Africa just because it was expedient to create wealth the right thing to do because the ends justify the means? Our side of the aisle gives a strong NO. The other sees it as inevitable.
A lot of incredibly evil things were going on in the sixties. A lot of festering wounds were being opened and put in the light. Some are still in denial about those, too. I'd say our side of the aisle wants those wounds cleaned out and the infection excised. The right wants to put a bandage on it and would allow the patient to die of gangrene.
But now, due to technical and social engineering, we live in a disjointed and disconnected society. Our public education system that, for good or bad, taught people basic things that created our reality, and gave them tools to make a living has been under attack since Nixon, in order to reduce the number of people able to comprehend how we got here and make effective changes in a way that will last. And that was intentional. Is it a conspiracy or simply the nature of the regressives, with the time and money to do such things?
There were only a few networks to give the same message and in comparison to now, it was that 'liberal media' the right keeps whining about to shut down any discussion. It is now reduced solely to the propaganda of a few billionaires who are conservative libertarians. For them, laissez faire capitalism with no regard for the poor or equality and have destroyed WORLDS, human, natural and mental, is ideal. They can loot and leave like pirates.
Was that a conspiracy? Or was it the xcorpion following its true nature? Do we have any control over these things? These are the things that fuel CT. It just can't be that simple, it must be super natural or global or some ancient plan and not our fault.
Another thing that fuels the disagreements on the matter of the assassinations, is what we have been taught is the nature of the American mind. In comic book style, it is like this:
We are taught to rebel against all authority, to be free thinkers, to resist and be argumentative. Just like the Warren Commission is suspect because it is part of the evil gubbermint. Just like the 9/11 report because Bush was there. Is it all a cover up?
We may want to believe so, as we have NOT been satisfied by the explanations given. Our grief and loss has not been healed. We suspect, but cannot prove. That is the power of a great CT. We cannot bring these great men of our youth back to life, nor can we go back to what some see as a more honest, noble time.
So perhaps we are dealing with a part of ourselves that is hurting and irrational. And we are dealing with the great building up era being torn down. We can deny this is happening, but it will happen. All that we believed in at one time will come to an end. I leave you with perhaps not a very well thought out response as I am in a hurry, but is from a story using a quote that to me is both painful and liberating:
A man named Charles Sanders Pierce once said:
'If man were immortal he could be perfectly sure of seeing the day when every thing in which he had trusted should betray his trust, and, in short, of coming eventually to hopeless misery. He would break down, at last, as every good fortune, as every dynasty, as every civilization does. In place of this we have death.'
Put that way, death can be seen as a blessing. A way to hold on to some of your ideals and beliefs, to not get completely embittered by life.
Have a good week, PC Intern.
any of the OP. 
