Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Cassini, Depression, Enceladus, Guns, Health, NASA, Phil Plait, RKBA, Saturn, Science, Space
Man, I still feel like someone beat me with a bag of nickels.
I wonder if this is just an effect of having subjected myself to a lot of blast shock over a four day period? Shooting a lot of the ‘real world’ guns (we test something on the order of 40 with all the different ammos available from the previous tests) wasn’t such a big deal. But some of them – particularly the Bond derringers in the larger calibers – were just brutal to shoot 20 – 30 times in a row. And the blast from the short barrels of the chop tests could knock your teeth loose.
Anyway, I ache everywhere. And I’ve been fighting a mild depression for the last couple of days. At first it was just masked by being tired (the tests were hard, and I got too little sleep). Also, I figured that the emotional energy it took to be in close proximity to several other people constantly over five days time was a component – don’t get me wrong, I like everyone involved in the testing a lot, but I am just not used to being with people that much. But I have now had some time to recover, and I should be past the worst of that.
So, a little post-project blues. Or maybe the blast shock, repeated several thousand times, has something to do with it. I dunno. I’ll write more tomorrow, in the meantime take a few minutes to enjoy these great images of the Saturn system from the Cassini spacecraft, courtesy of the Boston Globe’s Big Picture series.
Jim Downey
(Via Phil Plait.)
Filed under: Bruce Schneier, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Health, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Society, Survival, Terrorism, Violence
The annoying cold I mentioned the other day seems to be trying for an upgrade to bronchial infection, perhaps with delusions of becoming pneumonia. So I’m not feeling particularly creative or insightful. Maybe I used up too much outrage yesterday. Anyway, since I am a bit under the weather, let me just post an excerpt from something you ought to read. This is the closing of The Most Dangerous Person in the World?:
Security itself is an illusion. It is a perception that exists only between our ears. No army, insurance policy, hazmat team, video surveillance or explosive sniffer can protect us from our own immune system, a well-intentioned but clumsy surgeon, failing to look before crossing the street, an asteroid randomly hurtling through space or someone willing to die in order to do others harm.
In this sense, the only things that can truly make us more “secure” are not things. They are the courage to face whatever comes with dignity and intention, and the strong relationships that assure we will face the future together, and find comfort and meaning in doing so.
Imagine, then, what might happen if we simply quit listening to the scaremongers and those who profit from our paranoia. Imagine what the world could look like if we made a conscious choice to live out whatever time we have with courage, compassion, service and joy.
Terrorism is an act of the weak. But so is walking through the airport in our socks.
We can make better choices.
Go read the whole thing.
Jim Downey
(Via Bruce Schneier.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Argentina, Guns, Health, Patagonia, Preparedness, RKBA
I mentioned last fall that I went to get a Hep A vaccination, in prep for our trip to Patagonia. Actually, what I got was the first part of the vaccine. To be fully effective, you need a booster shot six months later.
That six months was last Monday. This morning I went back for the second shot.
And as I sat there in the waiting room, I considered the matter. Why get the second shot? I only got the first one because I had a somewhat compromised immune system (the years of stress due to being a care provider) and was heading to Argentina, where there was an *outside* risk of exposure. I have no intention of traveling anywhere which might have a serious risk. And given how little I enjoyed our Argentine trip, almost no real inclination of going back there or anywhere else where there is a slight risk.
So why take the time, spend the money (just $25, but still . . .), and risk a low-grade reaction to the vaccine?
Well, partly it is just my approach to the world – I like to be thorough, see things to completion. And partly it was inertia: I had the card noting when I should come in for the second shot, and had all along figured that I would get it done.
But partly it was insurance. Like owning a fire extinguisher. Chances are I may never need it, but if I do, nothing else will be a very good substitute. And while I have absolutely zero illusions about being “safe”, why not take reasonable precautions?
Would you have bothered?
Jim Downey
Filed under: Depression, Gene Roddenberry, Health, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Star Trek, Survival
Back in the 1960s, salt was just salt. Known to be necessary for healthy life in most mammals, including humans, people didn’t give it a lot of thought beyond that. Oh, sure, sometimes people would worry about a salt deficiency – I remember taking salt tablets regularly the summer I worked as a hot tar roofer – but otherwise, it was no big deal. In fact, one of the early episodes of Star Trek had the M-113 Creature, as ‘salt vampire’ which killed by sucking the salt out of humans.
Then came the 1980s. And the start of the great salt scare.
Salt was tied to hypertension. Salt was found to be overused in all kinds of prepared foods (since it augments flavor and increases food density – what the industry calls “mouthfeel” by saturating food with more water). We were told that salt kills – and that you had damned well better cut back on the amount of salt you ate. Anyone with high blood pressure or heart disease was told to go on a low- or no-salt diet, using salt substitutes or just going without.
What wasn’t really discussed by the public health officials who got this bandwagon started was that only some people are salt-sensitive, i.e.: react to excess salt in their diet. I’m not going to dig back through all the research papers now, but I remember that it was estimated that for the US this was about 30% of the population. For those people, salt could indeed pose a problem. But most people didn’t have this kind of reaction – their system would just flush excess salt out through normal kidney function. Here’s a passage from the Wikipedia article on salt which addresses this:
Sodium is one of the primary electrolytes in the body. All four cationic electrolytes (sodium, potassium, magnesium, and calcium) are available in unrefined salt, as are other vital minerals needed for optimal bodily function. Too much or too little salt in the diet can lead to muscle cramps, dizziness, or even an electrolyte disturbance, which can cause severe, even fatal, neurological problems.[29] Drinking too much water, with insufficient salt intake, puts a person at risk of water intoxication (hyponatremia). Salt is even sometimes used as a health aid, such as in treatment of dysautonomia.[30]
The risk for disease due to insufficient or excessive salt intake varies because of biochemical individuality. Some have asserted that while the risks of consuming too much salt are real, the risks have been exaggerated for most people, or that the studies done on the consumption of salt can be interpreted in many different ways.[31] [32]
Now, from a public health perspective, it makes sense to try and limit the average intake of salt. As noted, many prepared foods have a *lot* of salt in them. If you can stop 30%, or one third, or one quarter, of your population from developing high blood pressure without causing problems for the rest of the population, then why not? And I think that this is probably the reason and rationale behind the extensive public health campaigns to get people to cut back on salt intake, though I bet it would be difficult to get most public health officials to admit that this was the case.
But . . . what if a decrease in salt presented problems for that other portion of the population that is not salt-sensitive?
Salt is ‘natural mood-booster’
University of Iowa researchers writing in Psychology and Behavior say salt may act as a natural antidepressant.
Tests on rats found those with a salt deficiency shied away from activities they normally enjoyed – a sign of depression.
* * *
The tests carried out by US researchers found that when rats were deficient in salt, they shy away from activities they normally enjoy, like drinking a sugary substance or pressing a bar that stimulates a pleasant sensation in their brains.
Psychologist Kim Johnson, who led the research, said: “Things that normally would be pleasurable for rats didn’t elicit the same degree of relish, which leads us to believe that a salt deficit and the craving associated with it can induce one of the key symptoms associated with depression.”
Now what? Risk hypertension, or fight depression? What is the biggest public health concern?
As I’ve noted before, I *do* have problems with high blood pressure (though thanks to changes in lifestyle – specifically, getting regular sleep and exercise – combined with drug therapy, it is now coming down to close to the “normal” range). But I don’t seem to be salt-sensitive – drastically cutting my salt intake makes no difference in my blood pressure. My doctor doesn’t worry about my salt intake, saying that other factors are likely much more important in dealing with my hypertension.
But what about depression? Or just worrying about whether you’re going to die from too much salt?
I think Gene Roddenberry was right: sucking all the salt out of us is like sucking the life out of us. Or at least the joy of living.
Jim Downey
Late this afternoon as I was getting some work done, I heard an email ding in to my personal account. I came in here and checked to see what had arrived.
It was a note from our accountant, with a question concerning our taxes for last year. Specifically, it was about why I had only recorded a certain amount of financial information for my business up to a certain point in the year, but not any of a lot of other necessary & pertinent information. As soon as I saw it, I felt like an idiot. And I told the accountant that I would put together the rest of the information tomorrow morning.
Now, this sort of thing is no big deal. A lot of people are not particularly good about keeping records. Even competent business people can be rather slack about such matters, and I’m not talking about just AIG executives.
But I’m actually pretty good about such things. For years I ran an art gallery, after all, which meant monthly payments to dozens of artists for individual artworks, on top of the usual payroll & sales taxes & quarterly IRS deposits & utilities & ordering materials & invoices & et cetera. (“& et cetera”? Isn’t that redundant?)
Now, something else. This morning I spent a chunk of time working on the Caregiving book, specifically on the posts I’ve made over the last year about recovering from the experience. I uploaded some 27 posts, over 15,000 words, that fit in the period from when Martha Sr died to the beginning of last month (for the section “His First Year”) to our operating document. And one thing that struck me was just how, well, insane I was most of last year.
OK, not really “insane”. Just say “disassociated from reality”. Or “operating on three cylinders”. Or “a couple of sandwiches short of a picnic”.
I could focus and function for periods of time. And those periods of time got longer as the year went on. I wasn’t putting books upside down in their covers, or feeding carrots to the dog or anything. But things that weren’t really important? Insane. Unfocused. Not a lot – just a little bit. For the most part this was small stuff, unimportant stuff. You can see it in my posts – sometimes I was even aware of it. Looking back, I can easily see it, and it feels almost like thinking about a dream when you’ve woken up and are just lying there in bed, waiting to get up.
And that’s OK. I often think we put too much store by sanity, spend too little time dreaming.
But still, I need to gather that financial data for the accountant.
Because last year? Oh, I was insane.
Jim Downey
From NPR, word that there may have been a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s Disease research:
Mad Cow And Alzheimer’s Have Surprising Link
Scientists have discovered a surprising link between Alzheimer’s disease and mad cow disease. It turns out both diseases involve something called a prion protein.
The finding, which appears in the journal Nature, could explain one of the great mysteries in Alzheimer’s disease: How components of the plaques that form in patient’s brains are able to damage brain cells. It also could point the way to new treatments for the disease.
“It’s very exciting,” says Lennart Mucke, director of the Gladstone Institute of Neurological Disease and a professor of neurology and neuroscience at the University of California, San Francisco. “The study shines the light on a very unexpected component.”
OK, first off, I think the title of the NPR piece is somewhat misleading. Here’s what Nature has:
‘Harmless’ prion protein linked to Alzheimer’s disease
Non-infectious prion proteins found in the brain may contribute to Alzheimer’s disease, researchers have found.
The surprising new results, reported this week in Nature1, show that normal prion proteins produced naturally in the brain interact with the amyloid-β peptides that are hallmarks of Alzheimer’s disease. Blocking this interaction in preparations made from mouse brains halted some neurological defects caused by the accumulation of amyloid-β peptide. It was previously thought that only infectious prion proteins, rather than their normal, non-infectious counterparts, played a role in brain degeneration.
The results have yet to be confirmed in humans, but suggest that targeting the non-infectious prion protein (PrPc) could provide an alternative route to treating Alzheimer’s disease. “The need is huge,” says Paul Aisen, an Alzheimer’s researcher based at the neurosciences department of the University of California, San Diego. “And it’s great news for the field when a new idea is brought forth with strong evidence that can lead to new therapeutic strategies.”
Why did NPR choose to tie it to Mad Cow? Probably because that’s the only real handle most people, even NPR’s relatively well-informed listeners, have on any kind of prion disease. So they decided to use this link. Which may be unfortunate, if it contributes to speculation and fear that somehow Mad Cow disease leads to Alzheimer’s.
But the research is quite interesting, and a significant breakthrough. For a while, amyloid plaque has been understood to play a role in Alzheimer’s, but no one could quite figure out what exactly that role was. Tying it to prions gives a mechanism that explains how the plaque damages the brain and leads to the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Furthermore, as noted in the stories cited, it offers a very promising strategy for countering the disease. And because of all the work which has been done on Mad Cow disease (and prion disease generally), these proteins are fairly well understood, meaning that it is likely that researchers will be able to come up with specific treatment regimens.
This is hopeful. Very hopeful.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to dKos.)
Spent a chunk of this morning working on the care-giving book, and came across this post:
October 23, 2007, 10:22 am | Edit this
Filed under: Alzheimer’s, Health, Hospice, Science, Sleep, SocietyMade a routine trip to the big-box store this morning, to stock up on catfood. I got one of those large boxes of 48 cans of different flavors my cats like. And when I went to put it away, the “easy open” tab didn’t. Instead, I wound up just destroying the whole box, ripping and tearing, so I had access to all the cans included.
It felt wonderful to be so destructive.
There are days like that for all of us. After a trip to the store, dealing with idiots who don’t know how to negotiate a check-out line. Or sitting behind the twit at the stoplight who somehow misses that the light changed and the cars in the other lane are passing him, getting his shit together just in time to slip through a yellow light and leave you sitting there for another cycle. Whatever it is, you just want to take out your frustrations in a safe and relatively sane way.
I have these days a lot. Part of it is just the toll of being a long-term care provider for someone who has a tenuous grip on reality but can be amazingly stubborn and focused in her determination to do something unsafe (or just highly annoying). But part of it is simply the effect of long term sleep disruption/deprivation that goes with providing care around the clock. I’ve known this for ages, and written about it several times. Anyone who has had insomnia, lived with an infant, or just had a bad string of luck sleeping for a few days will understand completely how grumpy and intolerant it can make you.
And I chuckled a little bit at myself. It’s helpful, and part of the healing process, I’m sure. Why? Well, because last week I picked up another such box of catfood. And I carefully, quickly, and with little real thought disassembled the box – not just opening it as intended, but popping the flaps off at each end, so the whole thing would flatten perfectly for recycling. Then I put away the catfood, and folded the box and put it in the bin for recycling.
What a difference 15 months has made.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Daily Kos, Depression, Emergency, Failure, Health, Society, Survival
For the first time since the Dance of Stupidity & Pain I took the dog for his morning walk today. Just got back. And gawds, does my knee hurt. Between the half mile walk and the 18 degree temp out, I feel like someone shot me just below the knee.
As I expected.
But it had to be done.
* * * * * * *
There was a good segment on NPR this morning, with an economic historian who has a new book out about the Great Depression. One of the things that emerged from the piece was his comment about how the current economic situation is frightenly familiar to the situation then. From the NPR website:
Ahamed calls the similarities between our current economic problems and the Great Depression “eerie.” He points out that both crises began with a bubble, and that both bubbles were caused, in his view, by mistakes in federal review policy. And, when both bubbles burst, they eventually led to a banking crisis.
But, he says, the leaders of today can learn from the lessons of the Great Depression: First, he says, we should not let the banking system collapse. Second, we should not go to extreme lengths to try to protect the currency. Third, we need to let the budget deficit expand.
“The problem of the Great Depression was … a failure of intellectual will. The danger this time might be a failure of political will,” says Ahamed. “To bail out the banks is going to cost a lot of money, and the American public are so angry that they are not, at the moment, willing to sign a blank check.”
* * * * * * *
The heating pad helps. And in a few minutes I’ll get up, go find some OTC stuff to take to help the pain. But I expect that it’ll ache for much of the day, and this will complicate my plans to do some conservation work this afternoon (I work standing – always have. Most binders do, since you need to move a fair amount.)
So, why did I go for a walk? It’s been less than a week – I could have easily put it off a bit longer, let the bruised bone heal some more.
Because, as painful as I knew this would be, I didn’t want to let the rest of my body lose too much ground. Oh, I’ve been doing other exercises these last few days, but nothing is as good for me as walking is. Pain isn’t always an enemy.
Understanding that, accepting that, is one of the first steps to maturity, I think. I remember when I first read the passage from Dune where young Paul is tested by the Bene Gesserit to determine whether he is “human”. I was perhaps 9 or 10, and the scene impressed me greatly, gave me a jump start on dealing with the pain which would come to me early in life.
* * * * * * *
As noted in some of my posts here about the economy, I’m more than a little pissed off about how we got into this mess. Quite honestly, I think there’s quite a few candidates for a “Head-on-Pike Award of the Month” competition, complete with categories for “Best Expression”, “Most Deserving”, and “Ideal for Throwing Things At”. That many of these same people still hold elected office, or have been receiving massive bonuses (or complaining about not being able to get the bonuses they ‘deserve’) just adds to my dark musings about appropriate means of getting said heads on said pikes.
So yeah, I’m angry. And yeah, that influences my willingness to just write blank checks to cover the debts that these various and sundry assholes created.
But that doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be done.
* * * * * * *
Anyone who has been through any kind of serious injury or disease knows that there comes a point where you have to make a decision. You have to either hide from the continuing pain as best you can, using drugs or changing your lifestyle, or you have to do your best to get past the pain and do whatever you can to cope with the effects of your injury.
Neither choice is necessarily “right”. But they each come with consequences.
I have made choices each way, depending on the situation. I will not judge the choices that another makes.
Except when those choices have consequences for me. Like this:
Jindal rejects La.’s stimulus share
Louisiana‘s Bobby Jindal, a Republican, became the first governor Friday to refuse officially a part of his state’s share of the $787 billion stimulus bill, while President Obama warned the nation´s mayors to spend stimulus money wisely.
While some governors were subtly backing off previous statements that they wouldn’t take their share of the windfall, Mr. Jindal issued a statement saying Louisiana would not participate in a program aimed at expanding state unemployment insurance coverage.
“Increasing taxes on our Louisiana businesses is certainly not a way to stimulate our economy. It would be the exact wrong thing we could do to encourage further growth and job creation,” said Mr. Jindal, although the Louisiana legislature could override his decision.
No, I don’t live in LA. But this kind of behavior – and similar behavior by other Republican governors elsewhere – will have an impact on all of us, across the country. That it comes from the party that got us into this mess doesn’t make me any more sympathetic. That it comes at this point when states have been sucking up billions of Federal dollars at every opportunity for decades means that I cannot possibly see it as in any way credible. It is just grandstanding, and hypocritical to boot.
* * * * * * *
Well, this has taken longer than I intended. I guess I had more to say than I thought. Or maybe I’m just in more pain than I realized, and am using this as a distraction.
Look, this really is pretty simple. Yeah, the deficits necessary to get us out of this depression are going to hurt. And it is galling that no small amount of money is going into the pockets of people who directly caused it, or to save the bacon of pols who are blathering about how they don’t want it. If you want, you can also be pissed off at those who “bought more house than they could afford” and who may now get bailed out of that bad decision. It doesn’t matter – be pissed at who you want, however you want – so long as this gets done. Otherwise, we will just continue to bleed, to suffer, to experience pain until it consumes us and ruins our lives for decades.
I know which path I’ll take.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Daily Kos.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Guns, Health, Humor, Migraine, Preparedness, RKBA, Sleep, Survival, Violence
I haven’t mentioned it here yet, but the other day one of the cats tried to kill me, and almost succeeded. Evil little bastard. As I told a friend:
Dance of Stupidity & Pain
My afternoon was filled with a whole lotta screaming and cursing. Well, OK, “filled” isn’t quite right, since it was mostly compressed into one 10-minute period. Which started with me putting down a can for the dog, then turning to try and avoid stepping/falling on the cat coming to investigate. Damned cat. I now have three rather nasty punctures deep into the back of the web of my right hand, along with a ugly bruised big left toe, and a swollen left knee. Oh, and lots of pain associated with all of those, plus the spike in my headache following the adrenaline dump of trying not to kill either myself or the cat.
Well, the headache went on to become a nice little migraine, and the knee is still extremely annoying. Nothing to see a doc about – this is the knee I’ve had surgery on twice, and I know exactly what is going on. I probably broke the last bone in the toe, but the only thing they do with those is to take it easy and tell you to let it heal – I’ve done it too many times to count. Anyway, the low-grade pain has interrupted my sleep the last couple of days, the headache persists, and I’m more than a little grumpy. This may have influenced my appreciation of the movie last night, but I don’t think so – it was dreadful enough in its own right.
But I just came across something to make me chuckle. In one of the gun discussion forums I check out, the topic of “why do you carry” came up. I’ve written about this before, of course, and have my own reasons. Here’s this, though:
Remember the average response time to a 911 call is over 4 minutes.
The average response time of a 357 magnum is 1400 FPS.
Heh. The guy’s numbers are even about right. Well, for the .357. Response times for 911 calls vary widely, but all are measured in multiples of minutes.
Jim Downey
As I had mentioned, week before last I was off to the NE for a combination of business and pleasure. Pleasure in seeing a friend, checking out the Mark Twain House (more on that later), and then business & pleasure in going up to Boston to meet my collaborator on the caregiving book. That meeting went exceptionally well – almost frighteningly so. As I said in the following email exchange with a friend:
I am curious how the co-author gig is going. Do you feel like it’s a good partnership? Do you finish each other’s sentences or anything or have you carved up spheres of influence on the work?
As a matter of fact, it is almost a little creepy how much we *do* finish each other’s sentences and think alike. This was our first time to meet in person, and particularly in the brainstorming session about the book it was really weird how much we tracked along identical lines. We did come up with a structure for importing our respective prior writing into the joint book, and that is the next stage for us. But we also have a pretty good handle on how to proceed with the explanatory/interstitial material which will be needed.
This past week I’ve been fighting a low grade but fairly annoying and persistent chest cold, which has sapped a lot of my energy for much beyond what I *had* to get done. But I took yesterday easy, and this morning felt like I could get started on working on the book, using the new framework we had sorted out. It’s an interesting approach: we’ve established a metaphorical “year” that is meant to encompass the arc of the Alzheimer’s disease as experienced by a care provider, going from initial suspicions to the eventual death of the patient. Then there will be an afterward which will be about the process of recovery from being a care provider. Each month of the metaphorical year will contain excerpts from correspondence and blog posts, intertwined with additional explanatory material as needed.
So this morning, after an initial chat with my co-author about the formatting software (I’d had no experience with anything which was designed for multiple authors to work on remotely) to get me oriented, I started to excerpt and upload many of the blog posts which I have had here about caring for Martha Sr. It’s gone pretty well, and I made a fair amount of progress. But one problem keeps cropping up – my eyes keep leaking for some mysterious reason, to the point where it is difficult to see the screen in front of me. Maybe I should chat with my doctor about that.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 