Under Our Skin

My brother sent me a movie called “Under Our Skin“. It’s about chronic Lyme disease, its dramatic effects and how most of the medical community doesn’t recognize it as a disease. You can blame our capitalistic health care system and conflicts of interest for that.

The movie points out that the Lyme disease agent is a bacterium known as Borrelia (there are 3 strains), which is shaped like a spiral, allowing it to bore into human tissue. Another spirochetal (spiral-shaped) bacterium that causes disease in humans is Treponema pallidum. This causes syphilis. What I find hard to believe is that the chronic Lyme naysayers claim that the Lyme bacteria cannot affect the brain, yet syphilis’s effects on the brain are well-known. (When you watch the movie, you’ll see that Lyme does indeed affect the brain, even though many physicians will tell those with chronic Lyme that “it’s all in their heads” as a way to dismiss their disease. Ironically, they are right, but they’re not actually helping.)

The movie hinted that, like syphilis, Lyme disease may be sexually transmitted, although I’m not sure enough is known about this.

The best time to treat Lyme is at the very beginning, once you are bitten by a tick. My brother also suggests asking for the more expensive, but more accurate, test for Lyme right at the get-go. The test that’s usually done has an extremely high false-negative result and if an insurance company sees a false-negative, it won’t pay for treatment.

If you know someone with Lyme disease or you live in an area with a high concentration of ticks that carry Lyme, this movie is a must-see.

Radiolab: Two Time’s the Charm

When I hear about an interesting resource online, I won’t always check it out right away. Too much to do, too little time tends to be the issue in my procrastination.

I read about WNYC’s Radiolab, a National Public Radio program about science, on Seth Godin’s blog, thought it sounded like something I’d enjoy, and then promptly ignored my curiosity.

This past weekend, Hubby and I got together with friends and while hanging out, one of them mentioned Radiolab, specifically the episode on parasites, and how podcasts of the show could be downloaded free from iTunes.

When I hear about something repeatedly, it’s time to get in gear and investigate. I had to charge my iPod yesterday, so went to iTunes, searched for Radiolab, and downloaded six episodes: Choice, Race, Parasites, New Normal?, Stochasity, and Shorts: Helicopter Boy.

This morning I listened to Choice. The program has the same high quality I’ve come to expect from all public radio programming. The hosts are approachable and they achieve right balance of humor and fascinating data.

If this is the first time you’ve heard of Radiolab, feel free to ignore my advice to check it out. But if it’s the second or third time you’ve heard about it, take it from me, the Universe is trying to tell you something.  Download a podcast or two and have a listen. Really.

Out of This World

I was listening to the Dave Matthews Band’s new album “Big Whiskey and the Groo Grux King” recently and noticed that one of the songs is called “Spaceman.” Hey, that’s the title of a song on The Killers’ “Day & Age,” I thought.

As these sorts of things are wont to do, pretty soon this observation led to the idea of imagining a space-themed album. I started jotting down the space-themed songs I was aware of, coming up with seven.

I talked to my brother a few minutes ago. He hosts a radio show on a college radio station and tends to like to theme his shows. I asked him if he knew any space-themed songs and got him hooked on finding songs for me. He rattled off a bunch, including many I hadn’t heard of, and one that should have been totally obvious to me.

He suggested I do some research on allmusic.com, which I did, plus I googled “songs about space.” Turns out there’s been quite a bit of work done on listing space-themed songs. An especially good list is at HobbySpace.com.

Here’s my list for an album I’d call “Out of This World”:

1. “Space Oddity” by David Bowie

2. “Major Tom (Coming Home)” by Peter Schilling

3. “Spaceman” by The Killers

4. “Spaceman” by Dave Matthews Band (the Spaceman only gets a mention)

5. “Satellite” by Dave Matthews Band

6. “Astronaut Dreams” by Peter Mayer

7. “Camping by the Sun” by Peter Mayer

8. “One More Circle” by Peter Mayer

9. “Planet Earth” by Duran Duran (This is the song that should have been obvious to me ’cause I was a Duranie in my youth.)

10. “Rocket Man” by Elton John

11. “Interplanet Janet” by Lynn Ahrens (Schoolhouse Rock rocks!)

12. “Rapture” by Blondie

Got any favorite space-themed songs you’d add to this album? (It could be a multiple disc set, you know.)

 

The Letters of Jens Rasmussen

My grandpa, Jens Rasmussen, was an inveterate letter writer. I was the recipient of a good share of his letters, but I was not the only one. As long as you were willing to write to him, he’d quickly respond with a letter of his own.

All of his letters were written in pencil on unlined paper. I think he chose pencil because he was an artist and, indeed, his writing with the soft lead almost seems artsy. He typically wrote on one side of the page and would cram each page, up to four or five per letter, with words.

He talked of life in Siren, Wisconsin, where he lived for most of his 95 years. He also discussed his health, often mentioning that he felt “punk” or that he was sure he wouldn’t wake the next morning and was surprised when he did.

Portion of a letter by Jens Rasmussen

Handwritten letters of any kind these days are precious, but Grandpa Jens’ letters are especially precious to me. Working in a museum, I often have people come in who are sorting through their relative’s personal items, trying to decide what to do with various artifacts, pictures and documents. They don’t want to throw these things away, so they offer them to museums. If a museum can’t take them, out they go. (It’s a rare museum that won’t take handwritten letters that relate to its mission. If a specific museum can’t accept them, ask if there is another museum that might.)

All of this explanation is leading up to a request.

If you find any letters from Jens Rasmussen of Siren, Wisconsin, as you are going through your relative’s personal effects and you don’t know what to do with them, I’d like you to consider sending them to me to add to my collection. There have to be hundreds of them out there, tucked away in shoe boxes and trunks. Jens was as prolific a letter writer as he was a painter.

Contact me via email or by leaving a comment if you’d like to pass along any of his letters. Thanks!

 

Discovering Our True Diversity

I’ve made a decision. I’m no longer going to fill out the race/ethnicity/culture question on surveys anymore. You know, the question that asks you to indicate whether you are White or Caucasian or Hispanic or Latino or African-American or Asian American or Pacific Islander or Native American or whatever other little box surveyors want to plug you into.

My decision has arisen from an uncomfortable exchange that occurred at a meeting this week. During the exchange, it was pointed out that Hispanic or Latino people can be Caucasian. It was something I had never considered before, but of course makes perfect sense when examining history. Some Hispanics trace their ancestry back to Spain, which is included among historically Caucasian countries.

Why, then, has Caucasian come to mean “white,” but not Hispanic or Latino?

After the confusion caused by the uncomfortable exchange, a friend of mine posted a link to help clear things up: Hispanics and Latinos: A Culture, Not a Race!

This article points out that Hispanics and Latinos can be white, black, Asian, Indian, and mestizo – basically any race. What makes Hispanics Hispanic is a shared cultural legacy and common language, although there is plenty of diversity within this larger classification.

Why do surveys, particularly government surveys, insist on listing Hispanic or Latino as though this cultural group is a racial group? (No wonder those of us who don’t have intimate knowledge of this culture are confused. )

The more I thought about this, the more I realized that the classifications are not truly appropriate all the way around. The boxes given for us to choose from are like comparing apples to bananas; they don’t compare things equally.

Hispanic or Latino describes a culture; Pacific Islander describes a geographic origin; Native American is supposed to describe the original peoples in what is now the United States (some Latinos also fit this designation), but could just as easily be used to describe anyone born in the country; African-American can describe race and ancestry; and then we come to White, which describes only skin color, but says nothing about ancestry or culture.

The whole answer scheme for this question is a mess and it doesn’t do justice to the country’s (or the world’s) true diversity.

I think surveys need to be rewritten in order to properly account for our racial and cultural diversity. Instead of asking one question with predetermined check-boxes, I’d have two, maybe three, sections.

One section would ask for birthplace in order to determine country of origin. (Did you know that Dave Matthews could be considered an African-American? He was born in South Africa to parents who were U.S. citizens.)

The second section would ask for cultural association and/or ancestry. While it would be easier for surveyors to supply check-boxes for this, I’d advise against it. I think people should be able to write in their cultural associations and ancestries. Specificity would be encouraged. A Native American could say he is from the Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe and has Anishinaabeg, French, and English ancestry. I could claim my Swedish, Danish, Polish, and French-Austrian heritage and say that I associate with a general Minnesotan or Mid-Western culture.

I’m iffy on the third section because describing people by skin tone seems to be what causes rancor between races, but if there had to be some identifier along these lines, I’d supply a gridded skin-tone color chart and allow people to choose the color that most closely matches their skin. The grid would assist surveyors in compiling results. I’d make this an optional question, not only in the interest of personal sensitivity, but also to take into account those who are color blind or have other eyesight issues.

As this sort of nuanced questioning isn’t likely in the foreseeable future, I’ll stick with my decision to skip the race/ethnicity question on surveys. Maybe I’ll write in “homo sapiens.”

The Cult of Snuggie Grows Stronger

An important update on the Cult of Snuggie, which I posted about last January …

As if it isn’t enough that Snuggie has added a choice of zebra, camel, or leopard print for the animal-themed cults in the world, now you can get a Weezer Snuggie for your Weezer cult.

ReadWriteWeb has posted the Weezer Snuggie infomercial from YouTube. (The vid is a riot because the producers have interlaced shots of the Weezer dudes in their Snuggies with the regular Snuggie commercial.)

But wait! There’s more!

If you order a Weezer Snuggie, you also get Weezer’s new album Raditude.

I heard this story on Minnesota Public Radio this morning and the announcer said something akin to, “What’s next? Lady Gaga hawking ShamWows?”

Hey, don’t give Lady Gaga any ideas. She’ll pull a Tim Gunn on you and “Make it work.”

Frankly, I think Weezer’s marketing is brilliant.

Astonishing Splashes of Colour

Astonishing Splashes of Colour by Clare Morrall

My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Fabulous book. First-person narration critical to book. As Kitty slips into madness, her reasoning seems perfectly logical. Color is a continual theme, along with lost children.

View all my reviews >>

Farmers Are Getting Screwed

Got back from the grocery store about an hour ago. I find it interesting how the prices on certain items bounce around. Coffee, fresh fruit and vegetables, dairy products, eggs, meat. Seasonal demand drives some of the price fluctuations, but you can also get a sense of what’s going on politically in the world if you pay enough attention to the prices along with the news.

The tea tree oil I buy at Wal-Mart went from around $4 to $5 a bottle up to $8. Either there’s been a run on tea tree oil and everyone wants some, or there’s a shortage of the stuff.  Not sure what’s caused this price increase. While it is a fairly regular household item for us, it isn’t for most people, so market factors haven’t been discussed in the news and a Google search doesn’t yield any useful results.

Raspberry jam seemed more expensive this time, but I can’t be sure how much because I don’t buy it often enough to have the price memorized. It’s no longer berry season in our area, which could explain the higher price.

The price of milk today was the real shocker. It was $1.97 for a gallon. A whole gallon. That’s a steal, especially when a gallon of milk was hovering at around $4 for a long while. At the $4 price I had heard that farmers were complaining that they weren’t being paid enough to produce the milk. Imagine what they are saying with the price at $1.97 per gallon. Even though I’m the beneficiary of cheap milk, I think farmers are getting screwed on this.

Soggy Leaves

Oh, October! Where hath your crispiness gone? No crunchy leaves. No dry snap to the air. No sharp sunshine.

Instead we get gray and drizzle and damp and blah …

And soggy leaves that are going to kill someone if I don’t get them off the sidewalk in front of the steps. (Most likely I will be their victim.)

Soggy leaves, central Minnesota, October 29, 2009

If only we could have a few dry days ….

Not that I’m promising to rake the whole yard, mind you.

Writer’s Panic

Daughter had a serious case of Writer’s Panic last evening. Writer’s Panic is three steps beyond simple Writer’s Block. If you don’t have to write, Writer’s Block can make you much more interested in cleaning the cat box and sweeping the stairs than facing the computer screen. Sure, you can mumble about not being able to write and how grouchy that makes you feel, but the only thing riding on Writer’s Block is your sense of personal accomplishment. It’s up to you whether you want to get that novel written in your lifetime.

Writer’s Panic arises from a combination of Writer’s Block and an external deadline. The pressure of the deadline ramps up the physical manifestations of Writer’s Block from comfortable avoidance tactics to rapid heart rate, a harried expression, periodic table-pounding, threats of tossing the computer out a window, and a strained voice (the latter often employed to tell your mother that nothing is going to work). Writer’s Panic is contagious and can even be passed to non-writers. (Blame mirror neurons for that.)

If you witness a person in full-blown Writer’s Panic, the best thing to do is remain calm. (I know how hard that is, but do it anyway. The situation will not be resolved if you break down in Writer’s Helper Panic.) You must then attempt to soothe the writer’s fears, because, obviously, if someone is in a panic, they are afraid. Ask the writer leading questions like, “When is your essay due?”, “What is your thesis statement?”, “What are you stuck on?”, “Is there a written description of the assignment you can show me?”, “Can I see what you’ve written so far?”, “Do you have an outline?” Ask anything you think will get the writer working productively again.

If the writer is particularly distraught, have him or her get up and go for a brief walk, do jumping jacks, have a drink of water or a bite to eat, use the bathroom – anything to distract from the sheer terror of writing. Upon returning to write, he will likely still be on edge, but won’t be quite so ready to remove your head.

If the panicked writer is having trouble generating any significant prose (typically caused by self-censoring as she is writing), offer to take dictation, typing while the writer talks through the assignment topic. This method allows for a lot of material to produced in a short time, which will give both you and the writer an idea of where the piece is going for organizational purposes.

(It’s important to note that this is the writer’s assignment, not yours, so when taking dictation, type whatever the writer says as he says it. Don’t embellish with your own thoughts. If the writer is speaking too fast for you to type, ask him to slow down, which will make the writer compose more complete statements.)

Once the writer sees how much is on the page, she will breathe easier because progress has been made. The writer can then take what has been dictated and edit it by moving paragraphs around, tweaking sentences, and deleting what doesn’t work. It’s much easier to edit writing that is solidly affixed to a page than to edit amorphous thoughts prior to formation. If necessary, print out the pages of dictation in order to give the writer a different sort of physical manifestation of the words, providing distance from the writing. Crossing unnecessary stuff off a piece of paper will be a delight for the formerly-panicked writer.

If the writer continues to be in panic mode after all this, you’re on your own. I’d suggest investing in tranquilizer darts. You can decide whether you or the writer are in greater need of them.

——–

A couple of helpful links related to this post’s topic:

Why Writer’s Block is Your Secret Weapon by Melissa Karnaze on Copyblogger.

Generate Ideas Through “Object Writing” by Pat Pattison on Writer’s Digest.

Happy Birthday, Blog!

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of the Woo Woo Teacup Journal. Happy birthday, blog!

Car Shopping

A few weeks ago, Hubby and I bought a new-to-us car, a Buick Park Avenue. This was after our Mazda Millenia went kaflooey on the interstate. (FYI: The interstate is not a fun place to break down. Dangerous as all get-out because the cars come fast and shoot by without slowing down. If you get out and stand on the side of the road, as is habitual during car trouble, you risk being hit. Best to stay buckled in the vehicle – unless it’s in flames – and wait for help.)

Our Millenia had overheated so badly that the heat had warped parts of the engine. That meant dropping a new engine into the car for a minimum of $2,200. We decided it wasn’t worth it, preferring to spend that money on something newer and more reliable.

Thus, our research began. Or, rather, Hubby’s research began.

When we were young and dumb, we played hit-or-miss with the whole car-purchasing task. We were seriously burnt doing this, ending up with a car that had a major mechanical issue because a salesperson pressured us into buying. He used the line, “The car won’t be on the lot tomorrow; you’ve gotta buy now.” Yeah. We don’t fall for that anymore. As soon as a car salesperson uses that kind of line on us, we walk. No car is so good a deal that we can’t take a day or two to think about it. And if someone buys a car out from under us, fine. It wasn’t meant to be.

Since that time, along with not knuckling under to high-pressure sales, we have learned to do our research before we head out to local car lots. The first part of research is figuring out what features we want in a vehicle. For our latest experience the most important feature was size, followed closely by good gas mileage. Our children have all grown to be taller than I am, so had to cram themselves into the Millenia like it was a clown car. We didn’t want to keep torturing them, which meant finding a bigger vehicle. Because we also wanted good gas mileage, most SUVs were off the list immediately. Hubby wasn’t keen on a minivan, although a couple were possibilities.

Based on these features, we created a short list, which included the Buick Park Avenue, Toyota Sienna, Mazda MPV, Buick LeSabre, and Buick Rendevous.  (Lotta Buicks on that list.)

Then, we looked at cost. A word about car prices. Whatever you know you can afford, don’t reveal that amount to salespeople. Instead, tell them you’re willing to spend about $1,000 to $1,500 less.  If you tell them you can afford $8,000, the vehicle will cost $9,000 guaranteed. Part of this is because car salespeople upsell (they always think you can afford more than you’re willing to pay) and part of this extra cost is for sales tax and licensing fees.

After determining our budget, Hubby went online and checked car values by make, model, year, and odometer reading. Taking our desired features and budget into consideration narrowed our options considerably. We decided the Buick Park Avenue was going to most closely fit our needs.

At that point we visited numerous car dealerships, searching for our specific car. We sat in a number of other vehicles during our visits, just in case we had missed something. Hubby also regularly checked used car listings online to see if there were any Park Avenues available. There was one that was in good shape at a dealership in town and that’s the one we eventually bought.

Now we’re busy getting used to the specific nuances of our car. It’s got all kinds of power features we didn’t have in the Millenia. (The automatically adjusting driver’s seat is the bomb!) And we are all enjoying the extra space.

In reflecting on this car-buying experience (for which Hubby gets all the credit for the research he did), I realized that when we purchased the Millenia, we didn’t have the internet available. I think I prefer car shopping better with the assistance of the Web.