I’m taking a break from literally trying to make order out of chaos and checking out a web site recommended by the friend with whom I went on vacation. She’s interested in how psychic stuff works and so also follows brain research.
The Dana Foundation’s web site on brain, immunology, and arts education (interesting combination, no?) could keep me linking around it for days on end, since it covers three of the subjects in which I’m most intersted.
It’s not bad enough that our personal and private space contnues to be invaded and assaulted by everyone from our government to spammers. The site’s “Brain in the News” section includes this (year-old-but-still-disturbing) piece.
Some Fear Loss of Privacy as Science Pries into Brain. By Carey Goldberg, Boston Globe, May 1, 2003, p. A1
Brain imaging techniques, now able to observe which brain areas may be active when lying, experiencing unconscious racism, or reacting to a consumer product, are raising new concerns about “brain privacy,” part of the rapidly expanding field of neuroethics Ethicists are concerned that current privacy laws may not prevent this kind of information from being requested – or even misused – by courts, government, the military, employers, or insurers – who may draw conclusions, about potential violence or mental illness. Some scientists say that brain-based lie detector tests may also not be far off. While imaging equipment is currently too expensive to be used by nonscientists, and existing human experiementation rules protect subjects from coercion, many scientists hope that new consumer laws, or ethical guidelines for doctors, can be enacted.
Neuroethics. Part of Bioethics. So, there’s a President’s Council on Bioethics. Heh. How about a President’s Advisory Council on Presidential Ethics. Period.

The antibiotic I’m taking makes me nauseous and screws up my stomach. All I want to do is avoid taking care of any kind of business.
How do they do it, those on chemo, those dealing with knowing that they’re going to be feeling a lot worse than I do for the unforeseeable future?
b!X reports on Portland’s Mayor Katz, who is continuing to do her job even while battling some rare form of cancer.
I’m not sure I could do it. I can’t even get up the energy to put my laundry away.
One more day of the antibiotic. In the meanwhile, it’s lots of acidophilus and Tusin cough medicine. Will this coughing never end???

I’m sitting on a bench in the shade with my mother. I can’t sit in the sun because I’m taking Levaquin. This is the first time I’ve been outside since I got back, sick, from vacation. Hell, it’s the first time I’ve taken a shower and changed my clothes since I got back. Bronchitis is exhausting. All that yucky yellow stuff exploding out of your bronchi. Cough. Gag. Spit. Cough. Gag.
I sit far across the bench from my mother and don’t touch anything she’s going to touch. The last thing I need is for her to catch it. I’m crocheting as I’m sitting — a brightly striped afghan for my grandson, at his mother’s request. It should have holes, she says, because he likes to wind his fingers through the holes. I’m making it soft and snuggly –Alexander’s Grammy’s Magic Gypsy Blanket — good to sooth whatever might ail a typically testy toddler. The name was my brainstorm as I lay in bed most of the last week. Coughing. I started writing a story to go along with the afghan. A story about Alexander and his Grammy and a magic gypsy blanket.
My mother’s jabbering away about stuff from the 30s and 40s I’ve heard before. Many times before. I smile, nod, keep crocheting. I can’t even really hear what she’s saying. My ears are stopped up, her voice is weak, and I’m not even sitting that close to her. I make myself listen. Pick up a word or two so that I can respond as though I’m really listening. I think she eventually figures it out.
A friend of mine has tickets to Moore’s F9-11 for tomorrow night and asked if I wanted to go along. Cough. Cough. Guess not.
During our York Beach Solstice gathering, I drew the blank Rune (which didn’t exist in the original system but has been added by modern players), the symbol for “The Unknowable.” I sure didn’t know I was going to get this sick, including raging sore throat and swollen shut sinuses (somewhat better now — which is why I’m sitting outside and trying to breathe in some fresh air).
So, my future is a blank stone, for me to carve, hurl, or bury.
We shall see.

Cough.
And, finally, this Nid’s for you and your crew, my hopefully soon-to-be departing president.

You just can’t make this stuff up. You have to hear it to believe it. This may be the first class war in history where the victims will die laughing.
From a speech by Bill Moyers to the “Inequality Matters Forum” at NYU. Read it and weep.