July 8, 2011
Was pleased to see a two part review in the New York Review of Books by Marcia Angell published in two issues of the journal. I like the expansion on ideas this double approach affords the writer and provides to the reader and you have time to consider inbetween or if you’re late to the read can zip straight into the second part.
In it (part one here and part two here) Ms Angell considers several recent titles that question the efficacy of psychiatric drugs, the frenzy with which they’re prescribed, the billowing DSM, the relationship between the pscychiatry and Big Pharma and more.
I’d be curious to hear Ms Angell’s position on the denial of surgery to smokers until they cease smoking in Sweden.
I was particularly intrigued by the debunking of chemical imbalance as the cause of depression and the shift to isolating and treating the brain since the 1970’s.
July 7, 2011
I do not entirely comprehend why male writers output such jibbering rubbish in the midst of a woman’s body? Is there some kind of mental deficiency that takes over when invoking the female form?
Yesterday I had a page 160 or page 161 moment with Alberto Moravia and his Boredom, to which I have now returned to for a third attempted summit. He has redeemed himself mildly with an exchange about dying in the midst of a bathroom sink on p173, but this man’s Boredom is becoming tedious where it previously fascinated. Somehow he is too easily satisfied in his prose, Moravia that is, in what he decided for it and where else it might have peaked (piqued). I’m finding this man Dino’s obsessive neurosis and jealousy combined with increasingly cardboard Cecelia (afforded at this point about as much complexity as a bunny with an itchy foot) … well wearying. Somehow I want the unexpected and p’haps this is not the literary land in which to find it.
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July 6, 2011
Seriously? Refusing to operate on smokers?! Doesn’t this contravene the basics ethics of medicine/providing medical care? (see debate here ) I wonder how far this could be taken refusing heart surgery to the (genetic) cardiac patient who’s deemed not to exercise enough, the bowel patient who does not eat sufficient whole grains, the diabetic who ingests a chocolate mousse and what are the implications of social class and poverty in chronic smokers? Will a similar stand be taken to eradicate the social stress that, for some, may give rise to smoking and dependence on smoking?
July 5, 2011
Two pieces during a recent gander at the NY Times propelled a neon sign flashing Vacant. The first a lengthy piece, opinion, profiling for the most part a man, who spends his time giving opinions, on the topic he gives opinions on. Hello? Anyone familiar with this fella’s name would immediate know his position on the topic from reading just about every word he’s written in his syndicated column.
The second, a book review, again, staggeringly devoid of any content, except this book makes me happy, and again this time before we even began reading the piece, if we were familiar, as I am with the woman’s work, we’d know in advance the book was likely to illicit the precise opinion it did. That said, this review bothers me less than the opinion piece profiling a man whose opinions I am already fluent in.
I don’t know where the NY Times editors sit down each day or which bus they travel on, but each time I turn a corner or sit next to someone, in our distant outpost here, I bump into people with much more to say than any of the above mentioned four flitterers clogging up column space in the NY Times. Get off the park bench or Get on the park bench? One of the two.
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More locally I have been simmering after boiling over on the choice of John Furlong to head up (that be head-nodding-up) the Riot Inquiry. Sweet Baby Jesus … what a ridiculous choice. Has the Mayor gone dancing round the Maypole entirely? He is a disastrous choice.
The only thing I can draw from it is to invoke the recent postal strike and state it is indeed a literal case of “Return to Sender.”
It is already a whitewash before it starts. Are they going to borrow the transcriptions from the Hutton Inquiry to ensure it delivers to the full pelt of historical white-washing. I expect the Riot Inquiry report to be less insightful than the Mr. Men.
July 5, 2011
Slugged strawberries
The tide turned in our small community garden plot.
For every slug I removed by hand, I have in turn now picked a plump and sometimes squishy strawberry. That’s 200 slugs for 200 strawberries. Today my son cooked a good-looking strawberry pie for one of our favourite people in the world who was minding our guinea pigs while we were visiting friends on a farm (lamb, pigs, ducks, chickens, vegetables) on Saltspring.
On the farm we ate their own raised chicken and vegetables and pizza cooked in an outdoor oven. (what a site to behold). I’d never seen such a thing before and it was quite fascinating to try to cook a rice pizza in it. Sleight of hand indeed. This was our second visit to the farm, thus it is now a tradition. I love summer! We have such lovely family times in summer. They often involve gardening and food and water and natter.
My nasturtium is mighty looking. A long ladder looking outfit of a plant ….
June 29, 2011
June 30th 2011 will see a general strike of sorts in England, teachers, public sector workers (upto 750,000) will walk off the job. Open Democracy analyse whether this June 30 strike can go beyond the failure of the March 26 strike.
Here the postal workers legislated back to work by the government were seen back at work today. It reminded me of the ambulance/paramedic strike which the govt also broke if I recall. One thing that has struck me about the postal strike was hearing the lack of solidarity at times from other union workers and reading such warbling on comments section of news reports. It’s dismaying. I was walking with a friend when we saw a postwoman today and called out support to her. Then as we carried on we were both remarking on how much we like our individual post people and how some of the posties we know are also musicians and are an eclectic, vibrant bunch.
June 28, 2011
Bodily other
This journal — Physical Culture and Sport. Studies and Research — I caught by a fluke 2 second glance on a twitter stream. I began reading an article on the anthropology of bodily otherness, but dug a bit further and became engrossed in this:
The Football Fan Community as a Determinant Stakeholder in Value co-Creation
Note the breakdown of the demographic of team supporters, their ages, social class and habits. I was intrigued by this idea of a system of relationships and within it, the fans as stakeholders (not least economic, emotively led economic stakeholders?) . What of this transaction? Its ramifications? Its dependence? It also strikes me when examined thus, the incredible power that remains with the fanbase should they chose to subvert that pattern of sustenance. The return, the repetition.