What Happened to Us These Last Couple Years?
Sometime ‘flocker and all around good guy David Barringer has put together an anthology of writing inspired by the Bush years.
A stunning and original record of contemporary American life, this anthology contains essays, memoirs, letters, stories, poems, photos, and art from 44 contributors all across the US. Men and women of various backgrounds, ethnicities, and perspectives explore how the events of the years 2000 to 2008 have affected their lives, loves, families and fortunes. Edited and designed by David Barringer.
Contributors include Shari Goldhagen, Amy Guth, Lee Klein, Claudia Smith, Steve Almond, Ghazaleh Etezal, Patricia Cumbie, Deron Bauman, Blythe Winslow, Catherine Price, Faruk Ulay, Kevin Free, Joshua Gross, Maggie Shearon, Timmy Waldron, Little Shiva, Tony Rodriguez, Anjali Budhiraja, Molly Gaudry, Josh Olsen, Dave Morrison, Spencer Dew, Alison Morse, SSG. Stewart W. Boner, Kurt Carlson, James Reeves, Heather Kelley, Felix Sockwell, and many more.
A pdf with samples from each entry is available at Issuu. Order info below the fold.
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Dear Clusterflock
How often do you get angry? How do you calm yourself down?
Cindylove
I love you, man.
Uttered (to Cindy) in the manner of one dude to another dude, circa 1971.
Happiness, Dallas County
talk about buzzkill
I walked to Starbucks today and the question of the day (answer it correctly and win a free shot of espresso) was, “Who is the president of the United States?”
I am but mad north by northwest
Not a flux transfer event, but brief, bursty and very dynamic nonetheless.
transcranial magnetic stimulation
The FDA has approved magnetic pulse for the treatment of depression.
If it sounds like science-fiction, well, those woodpecker-like pulses trigger small electrical charges that spark brain cells to fire. Yet it doesn’t cause the risks of surgically implanted electrodes or the treatment of last resort, shock therapy.
Called transcranial magnetic stimulation or TMS, this gentler approach isn’t for everyone. The Food and Drug Administration approved Neuronetics Inc.’s NeuroStar therapy specifically for patients who had no relief from their first antidepressant, offering them a different option than trying pill after pill.
“We’re opening up a whole new area of medicine,” says Dr. Mark George of the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston, who helped pioneer use of TMS in depression. “There’s a whole field now that’s moving forward of noninvasive electrical stimulation of the brain.”
dear clusterflock
Where do you carry your stress?
what do you do to stay sane?
Mindapples is conducting a survey of the five things people do to stay sane. Tyler Cowen, at Marginal Revolution, has his own list:
I try to listen to beautiful music at least once a day, I don’t check my portfolio even in the best of times, I hug a loved one at least one more time than was expected (with adaptive expectations this is hard to sustain over time but I have my tricks), and also I avoid television advertisements as much as possible. That’s four, you need only offer one.
Their comment list is up to 175 at the moment.
What are yours?
Laughter Is Good
She to me (tonight): “Thanks for the laughter. I didn’t think there would be any laughter ever again.”
A brief list
Overactive bladder.
A.D.D.
Depression.
Death of a Shade of a Hue
A fun and telling exercise/game in which you line up color blocks in a row to change from one color to another. When it’s over, they tell you where you have trouble differentiating. I scored 26, what did you get?
moral pharmacology
Might drugs help us behave better towards one another?
When voiced in such a way, this proposal can sound absurd, not least since we may suspect that such mental manipulation would render us ‘artificially’ moral. Where would be the benefit of being kinder or more humane as a consequence of medication? This is an understandable (though reflexive) response. However, if we stop to consider what is actually happening in certain psychiatric settings, then we may begin to interrogate this proposal more systematically. I shall argue that within many clinical encounters there may already be a subtle form of moral assistance going on, albeit one that we do not choose to describe in these terms. I argue that we are already deploying certain medications in a way not totally dissimilar to the foregoing proposal: whenever humans knowingly use drugs as a means to improving their future conduct.
maybe they aren’t exactly the same
Alex Koppelman says something I’ve been thinking:
At least Bush sticks stubbornly to his guns and talking points, refusing to say the easy or convenient thing when it suits him. I’m starting to think McCain will say anything, promise anything, associate with anyone (whether as running mate or endorser) to win this election.
pcp, schizophrenia, and mice
PCP induces all the symptoms of schizophrenia. Scientists studied the effects of the drug on mice, then produced proteins that combated each symptom. This research was used to create new classes of drugs to treat the disease.
To understand how the recreational drug plays tricks on the mind, neuroscientists gave it to lab rats. Those researchers could counteract the strange behavior of their furry assistants by stimulating brain proteins called glutamate receptors. Big drug companies, including Eli Lilly, took note of that discovery and started searching for molecules that can push the same psychological buttons in humans.
In the Sept. 15 issue of Chemical and Engineering News, Carmen Drahl told that story, along with the tales of three other experimental medications that could turn the tide against schizophrenia. Each compound operates in a completely different way, and all of them have been tested on human volunteers.
Dang I need this
Burn After Reading comes out today.
The elephant in the room
We talked about what we’d wanted to be when grown. Someone made the requisite joke about still not knowing.
New York feels like that conversation today. No-one here ever wanted to remember September 11, 2001 with lapel pins, tears or bluster.
And before the day’s done someone will point out that we still don’t know what we still don’t know.
clusterflock open thread, 1
Yesterday was a shitty day for me. I really needed to vent but couldn’t figure out a way to do it appropriately. Last night it occurred to me that a daily thread would make it possible for us to vent our frustrations without overwhelming the site with political posts. I think this will be a good way to do that.
P.S. I’m not saying I mind a political post, but the shit I need to spew would sink the whole ship.