Sometimes man stumbles upon great truths entirely undeservedly. Kamerlingh Onnes just happened upon superconductivity while twiddling around with mercury and refrigerators; Roentgen was playing with himself in electrical ways and realized to his shock that he could see through his skin. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard neuroscientist, woke up one morning with headache, a stroke and noble sentiments. Her discoveries are even more astounding.
As preliminary, recall that blood clots in the brain can cause loss of language, memory, or face recognition, paralysis, personality changes and the like. What had hitherto gone unsuspected is that certain parts of the brain actively hinder us from realizing our potential. Blood clots in such undesired parts (the stodgy and linear left hemisphere, specifically) instead improve us! Indeed, they cause us to Awaken to our full, true nature, as the unshackled remainder reveals what had previously been blocked off.
Now, it is hardly surprising that no scientist has predicted this – why would large parts of the brain be actively engaged in keeping us from Truth? And yet, why should it be otherwise? After all, do we not function better without an infected appendix? Surely the loss of what forces us into dull, methodical, detail-oriented, negative-energy patterns might have similar effects! Taylor’s work is being widely celebrated; she has written a bestseller, appeared on Oprah, and is recognized by Time as one of the 100 most influential people in the world. Here is a colloquium where she presents her findings (a twenty minute video, but well worth the trouble. Do wait for the standing ovation she justly receives):
Her testimony is fascinating and jarring, even humbling. With bad brain gone, she found the boundaries between her body and the rest of the universe dissolving into the common Energy Field of which she discovered she was made, like everything else, and experienced herself connected, perfect and together, brother and sister with the Whole, beautiful whole. She lost all sense of her day-to-day life and work and relationships, which she found was quite compatible with Oneness. She saw the stranger in her body, that tiny, detached bit of universal consciousness, and wondered how she would ever contain such enormous vastness of being into a mere meat-brain. She realized, somewhere in the buzzing blooming confusion, that she was rising above her parochial, linear need to parse time into past, present and future and saw it pictorially, complete. As she says, she achieved Nirvana, energy lifted and spirit surrendered to the nurturing womb we all emerge from.
The connections she draws to eastern contemplative practice are perceptive and profound. Also eerie, almost frightening – how could those sages from ages ago possibly have adumbrated what materialistic Science is only now coming, dimly, to appreciate? Now, it is a bit troubling that that the path to becoming one with everything involves losing your mind. That seems to suggest something rather peculiar about what we are to unite with. But brain as yet unmutilated, we miss the brilliance of the insight: this is precisely the sort of distracting, bad-karma-thought sprit-strokes rid us of!
And to think, we each may possess such knowledge, for the contemptible price of keeping golf-ball sized clots in our heads! Taylor does say she lost the ability to read, speak, and move, and that it took her eight years to recover. Still, who among us wouldn’t be tempted by the thought of even a few moments of perfect clarity? Would not viewing visvarupa compensate for blindness before and after? As she says,
“Who are we? We are the life-force power of the universe, with manual dexterity, and two cognitive minds, and we have the power to choose, moment by moment, who and how we want to be in the world. Right here, right now, I can step into the consciousness of my right hemisphere, where we are – I am – the life-force power of the universe. I am the LIFE-FORCE POWER of the fifty trillion beautiful molecular geniuses that make up my form! At one, with all that is!”
THIS is what we miss by retaining left-brain. Effulgent, incandescent truths are offered us. Shall we fail to confront them?
The Houston Public Library system's newest plan for distributing books is a modern twist on the book mobile where books were deliverd on wheels to eager readers. This time, the reader is the driver and librarians act as car hops. Love the idea. Anything that makes it easier to lay one's hands on books gets my vote.
There'll be no carhops on roller skates. And if you're hankering for a burger and fries, forget it. But if it's food for the mind you crave — books, music or movies — staffers at some of the Houston Public Library's most congested branches will be happy to deliver your order right to your car.
The library's new curbside service, HPL To Go, is being tested at the Looscan Neighborhood Library and the McGovern-Stella Link Library. If trials go well, the service will be extended to other “parking challenged” branches.
HPL To Go joins Info Quest, a program that allows users to text message queries to reference librarians, as the latest additions to the public library's growing roster of services designed to engage 21st century library patrons.
Other recently added services include the HPL Mobile Express — a van loaded with computers that visits under-served neighborhoods — and Info 24/7, which allows users to query reference librarians via the Internet.
Library Executive Director Rhea Brown said she has challenged library workers to find ways to remain relevant in the iPhone era.
“The library is no different from any other business organization,” she said. “For you and I in society, technology is the way of the world.”
Brown said the library, whose 41 locations drew more than 5 million visitors in the last fiscal year, relies on surveys and focus groups to guide improvement efforts. The curb service project grew out of complaints from customers weary of searching for scarce library parking.
“The parking lots are small and their business is very large,” neighborhood library chief Regina Stemmer said of the test sites. Puzzled for a solution, Stemmer said her “eureka moment” came as she spied a card advertising a food delivery service while dining with friends at an area restaurant. What works for chicken fried steaks, she concluded, might work for books.
The rest of the report here.
To steal a phrase from some blogger named Joe: "this, this is sad news."
RIP, Senator. You will be missed.
(Cicero? Was I supposed to say something Camelot-themed? In my defense, despite some serious background in the Arthurian tradition, it's not immediately apparent to me where Ted fits in. Also, Rome is kind of great.)
UPDATE: just FYI, there are some very interesting comments on this post from Anna, Dean, and Ruchira. Check them out if you're interested in politics, Kennedy, or how we discuss/view dead people.
From the New York Times a few weeks ago:
"Spending an idle morning watching people look at art is hardly a scientific experiment, but it rekindles a perennial question: What exactly are we looking for when we roam as tourists around museums? As with so many things right in front of us, the answer may be no less useful for being familiar."
Why indeed do we wander around museums? Is it the age-old quest for finding ourselves in our past, the thirst for knowledge? Or the window-shopper and street-gawker's instinct? Is it less about stopping and staring and more about bragging rights as in "I visited the Louvre, when we were last in Paris." Or maybe a combination of 'All of the Above"?
As a kid in Paris, I had been on school field trips to various sections of the Louvre, spending a few hours once in the Egyptian section, and another visit in the Greek section, but remember very little of what are considered to be its main attractions. My recent visit was an all new-experience, reminding me that it was perhaps at the Louvre that I acquired my taste for museum-hopping no matter where in the world we went.
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Ah, the Louvre! The perfect place to loiter leisurely, gazing at John the Baptist's all-knowing smile, or perchance the mysterious magnificence of the Mona Lisa.That is, until the hordes of tourists and tour guides waving flags, assorted brochures and even umbrellas to keep their groups together, all trample over you in their eagerness to see the next item on the 'Da Vinci Code' tour.
The Monna Lisa was unreachable. A special line of the devoted faithful had to be stood in and endured, before you were able to partake of her timeless gaze at closer quarters. We settled for the distant view. Even hoisting my daughter onto her father's shou
lders and placing a camera in her tiny fingers elicited an indignant "Not allowed" from a museum security official doing due diligence.
Never mind the barely visible main attraction- the huge painting of the Wedding Feast at Cana (Veronese) on the opposite side was quite a show-stopper, though 
precious few of the crowds milling around the Gioconda paid any attention to it.
With over 35,000 paintings and antiquities, we could have spent an entire month in the museum, but having only a day, we could only spend a paltry few minutes in each section, catching the 'highlighted items' suggested in the museum's brochure.
Then, we decided to linger in certain places, not quite the stuff of tourist lore, but quite fantastic nevertheless. The Persian section was eye-popping, with its huge capitals that took up so much room that one could barely imagine the size of the pillar that supported it.
A small crowd was milling around a rock edict which bore the Code of Hammurabi, with a prominently displayed French translation nearby- 'for X, off with the hand… for Y, off with the leg… for Z, off with the head…"- I provided a quick translation for my son: "…It's the Off-with-his-head school of justice",as an eavesdropping tourist nearby snickered in agreement.
The sculpture courtyard adjoining the Persian section was a relatively quiet place to recuperate from the milling crowds jostling to pose with the Winged Victory. I sat behind a statue of Hercules battling a gigantic snake , though not at a good vantage point (read, treated to a prominent view of the Derriere). I was reduced to sneaking peeks at the red charcoal drawing of the statue, which an art student was working on, right next to me. She had time to spare, tracing every contour with careful concentration, but tiring presently of her drawing, whipped out a cellphone and started a quiet conversation with a friend. So much for the slow version of museum enjoyment in the era of the cellphone.
My daughter wanted a drink of water, and the quest for a water fountain began in earnest. But the Louvre, being a palace more than a few centuries old, didn't have the requisite plumbing to handle the thirst of the trampling hordes, unlike the new-fangled shiny rest-roomed and water-fountained American museums. We waited in line desperately at the entrance to a crowded café in the museum, and 15 minutes after we made it in, a bored-looking waiter finally brought us a tiny cup of cappucino (10 Euros! Eeek!) and a bottle of Evian (3 Euros! Eeek-squared!). Next time we visited a Musée, we resolved to carry our own water, even if it was in a distinctly unfashionable recycled Fanta bottle.
The famed glass Pyramid was but a snatched glimpse through the windows of various wings, as we gaped our way through the luxurious apartments of Napoleon III. Then we redoubled our walk through the section of European painters, catching a few famous Rembrandt self-portraits in the process.
How did we manage to spend the better part of a day in a museum with my children who are notoriously allergic to museums? My teenager didn't complain much, having succumbed quite happily to the touristy notion of 'catching all the highlights' in the brochures. My 8-year old daughter was anointed the official photographer and religiously clicking away at everything in sight. Unfortunately, we only have a handful of usable pictures from her collection, but the camera was worth its price in gold, for the peace of mind and the Prime Whiner's busyness that it brought us.
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Cross-posted from Fluff-n-Stuff
A few quick thoughts:
1. Calling it "ObamaCare" is demeaning and stupid. There's no possible universe in which that's even decently descriptive, if accuracy is any (not even the) goal. (This is similar to my objection to referring to George Tiller as an "abortion doctor.") I'm not sure if this is a smart political description: it may lead to negative impressions of the new health care world order, but it also may lead to negative reactions to the speaker (of the term "ObamaCare") who is not taking things seriously.
2. Calvin Massey (who I previously called out for making himself look like an idiot–and not the Ezra Klein type–with his comments on the Skip Gates affair) comments here. Most interesting to me is his insistence that a (federal) government mandate to citizens to purchase health insurance is a nontrivial, nonjustifiable intrusion on human liberty. Oh no, you have to purchase a minimal level of health insurance! Seriously? What does that say about the conservative mind? (And from a law professor who, due to his financial position, would never consider not having health insurance anyhow!) If made in good faith — and there are good reasons to think this assertion is not made in good faith, for instance the underlying federalism concern of the post, which would have to accept a state-initiated mandate (which reminds me, again, that libertarianism and federalism are inconsistent, although no conservative will ever admit this) — then the conservative mind is a neurotic, disturbed, even insane place. If not made in good faith, then of course it coincides nicely with the theme/claim running through this blog for the past four (?) years that conservatives act/argue in bad faith.
3. Law geek types are discussing the constitutionality of major health care reform.
Certainly seems that way. More than half a century after Britannia ceased to rule the waves, the hot spots of sectarian conflicts it left behind continue to smolder and flare up around the world. Here is a list of some of the major political powder kegs in erstwhile British colonies.
SRI LANKA
During their 150-year rule, the British favored Tamils and other minority ethnic groups over the majority Sinhalese. After 1947's national elections, the Sinhalese tried to reverse the discrimination, culminating in a quarter-century-long civil war.INDIA/PAKISTAN
When the Brits arrived, the Subcontinent was a patchwork of princely states. When they left centuries later, they divvied it up by religion, prompting mass migration and perhaps a million deaths. Kashmir, which had a Hindu leader and a Muslim majority, has been contested ever since.IRAQ
Border disputes and ethnic tensions have been rife since 1920, when the British forged modern-day Iraq out of three Ottoman states: Baghdad, Basra, and Mosul. The Brits decamped after a 1958 revolution, but their hellish handiwork lives on.SUDAN
A British-Egyptian alliance ruled North and South Sudan separately until 1946, when the Brits abruptly changed their minds and decided the two should merge. The north was economically and politically favored over the south, and civil war has been on and off ever since.ISRAEL/PALESTINE
As anti-Semitism gained ground in Europe, an influx of Jews complicated land claims, but the Brits—in charge of this former Ottoman territory starting in 1921—flip-flopped on the declaration of Israel as the Jewish homeland and proposed partition, which was rejected by both sides. In 1948 they cut their losses and left it up to the United Nations. Today, a solution is as far off as ever.SOMALIA
Fashioned in 1960 from a British protectorate and an Italian colony, Somalia has been divided against itself ever since. In the 1990s, after decades of civil strife, the government collapsed and the two neighbors declared autonomy.NIGERIA
The West African nation was once two distinct states—officially joined in 1914, but administered by the British separately until independence in 1960. Here, the British favored the south, setting the stage for decades of strife.
The Wall Street Journal reports that there is some discussion among Senate Democrats of making health-care reform a two-part bill. Through "budget reconciliation," certain legislation can get passed with 51 votes instead of the 60 that are ordinarily required because of the filibuster. Reconciliation is a bizarre exception to the norm of the filibuster, but hey, when in Rome.
Ezra Klein thinks this is awful. I'm not sure why Ezra Klein, an idiot blogger my age who has no expertise in anything other than blogging, counts as a credible voice on anything, but he's with the Washington Post now, so he must be credible, right? As far as I can tell, his point is that this is bad because it will be "controversial" with conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. You know, the people who would make this move unnecessary if they were on board in the first place. To steal a line from Ezra: "But I might well be missing something here." (One of us surely is.)
Jack Balkin says this is something like a constitutional moment. Jack agrees this will anger moderate Republicans like Olympia Snowe by making them less powerful, but he thinks this is a good thing. Anything that weakens the filibuster is a good thing, basically.
If you ask me — and since I'm the one blogging this post, I'll act like you did — regular use of a the filibuster is a bad thing. It's unconstitutional in spirit and theory, although no court will ever decide this. The phantom filibuster is particularly egregious and is not, pace Ezra, "40 senators [talking] about cheese whiz until everyone else heads home for the night." Health care highlights this well. Look, most people in this country want reform. The President wants reform. Most Senators want reform. This is a hugely important issue that will have real consequences for the lives of many real people. And it's unclear if anything will be accomplished because the Democrats might not be able to get the 60 votes they need to pass legislation that requires 51 votes to pass. I mean, seriously, COME ON. If this angers the mighty Olympia Snowe, who I'm pretty sure I have (to my increasing regret) previously defended on this blog, good. She shouldn't be dictating policy for this country.
A couple of months ago, an otherwise cheerful neighborhood block party on our quiet street caused some agitation among the attendees when one of the neighbors began to describe President Obama as un-American, a socialist and a terrorist. He was angry with Obama's economic stimulus and distrustful of his health care plan. Even though there were only three people at that gathering who had voted for Obama (my husband and I accounted for two), even some of my Republican neighbors were a bit startled by the harsh rhetoric.
There is danger in exaggeration, in describing things as much worse than they really are. Not only does one thoroughly enrage the opposition, even those who agree with you in principle may not be willing to act with you. Although my neighbor, who claims to be a libertarian, did not call Obama a Nazi, the right wing opposition to health care reform routinely and loudly smears the president with Hitlerian analogies. Words like the Final Solution, Nazi and Mein Kampf are being carelessly tossed about by reactionary loud mouths like Rush Limbaugh and Sean Hannity. A swastika graffiti defaced the sign bearing the name of a Democratic congressman who supports Obama. Major and minor GOP operatives are gloating about spontaneous grass roots uprisings against the dreaded Obamacare. Protesters are showing up at town hall meetings with guns (even assault rifles) and pictures of Obama donning a clipped mustache. Yesterday a woman brandishing a placard depicting Obama as Hitler, asked Rep Barney Frank (D-MA) why he supported a "Nazi" like policy. She quickly learned that it was a mistake to direct such a stupid question at a smart, gay, Jewish man with a sharp tongue.
The funny thing is that the fear mongers who warn us that a national health care system is equal to the National Socialist Party of 1930s' Germany, willfully ignore the reality of health insurance in America – that we are currently at the mercy of jackbooted private insurance companies goosestepping over the sick and dying all the way to the bank. Death panels already exist and rationing of health care is routine in the free market system that they so adore. Please read columnist Froma Harrop's account of her family's ordeal with the insurance company during a period of life and death decision making.
Have the GOP partisans, whose elected leaders have not condemned any of the tactics described above, gone too far in vilifying Obama and the Democratic Party's efforts at overhauling the health care system? Have they fallen victim to Godwin's Law too early in the debate? Most Americans are satisfied with their doctors but many are scared of their insurance companies. Obama will do well to tout the Health Care Reform bill as the Insurance Reform bill. I am hoping that the loud and abusive theatrics of the angry and armed right wingers will back fire (no pun intended) since most Americans would like to see their health insurance system improved. I would however be more reassured if I didn't find President Obama's insistence on feel-good bi-partisan solutions a bit disappointing. In his efforts to calm too many nerves and smooth too many ruffled feathers, he has wasted precious time trying to find compromises where no common ground exists. Has Obama squandered his political capital by ceding too much ground and time to adversaries who merely wish to see him fail?
After his brilliant beginning, the president suddenly looks weak and unreliable. That will be the common interpretation around Washington of the president's abrupt retreat on substantive heathcare reform. Give Barack Obama a hard shove, they will say, rough him up a bit and he folds. A few weeks back, the president was touting a "public option" health plan as an essential element in reform. Now he says, take it or leave it. Whatever Congress does, he's okay with that.
The White House quickly added confusion to the outrage by insisting the president didn't really say anything new. He's just being flexible. He still wants what most Democrats want–a government plan that gives people a real escape from the profit-driven clutches of the insurance companies. But serious power players will not be fooled by the nimble spinners. Obama choked. He raised the white flag, even before the fight got underway in Congress.
He hands the insurance industry a huge victory. He rewards the right-wing frothers who have been calling him Adolph Hitler or Dr. Death. He caves to the conservative bias of the major media who insist only bipartisan consensus is acceptable for big reform (a standard they never invoked during the Bush years). Obama is deluded if he thinks this will win him any peace or respect or Republican votes. Weakness does not lead to consensus in Washington. It leads to more weakness. The Party of No intends to bring him down and will pile on. Obama has inadvertently demonstrated their strategy of vicious invective seems to be working.
I don't know if things are as bad as the Nation article suggests. I think the president still has time to pivot around, steel his nerves and gather support from those who are committed to correcting the current flawed system of health care in America. Perhaps he will learn to ignore the name callers. Just today he went on the air and met with Democratic members of Congress to dispel some of the blatant misinformation spread by his critics whose only aim is to muddy the waters and stall any progress on this front. Obama called health care reform a moral obligation.
When the orchestrated hysteria of the town hall fiascoes first began, I used to wince every time I heard Obama speak of bi-partisanship and then get whacked with derision, lies and abuse. Now I am beginning to get impatient and even a little angry with his unwillingness so far to exercise his confrontational skills (if he has any, that is) in a timely fashion. He doesn't have to do quite what Barney Frank did. But a toned down variation of it will be refreshing. It is time to upgrade the campaign slogan of "Yes, we can" to the presidential drumbeat of "Yes, we will."
A valuable lesson for those conducting public discourse – balance is overrated. Not all opinions are valid.
The most interesting line (1:54 on the video): Science knows it doesn't know everything; otherwise it would stop.
Video link via the always interesting Lindsay Beyerstein.
Whole Foods CEO John Mackey's answer to Health Care Reform sounds awfully like "It's your fault if you are sick or dying." The rest is all about letting private insurance companies do their thing without government mandates. The last few paragraphs are especially irritating.
Rather than increase government spending and control, we need to address the root causes of poor health. This begins with the realization that every American adult is responsible for his or her own health.
Unfortunately many of our health-care problems are self-inflicted: two-thirds of Americans are now overweight and one-third are obese. Most of the diseases that kill us and account for about 70% of all health-care spending—heart disease, cancer, stroke, diabetes and obesity—are mostly preventable through proper diet, exercise, not smoking, minimal alcohol consumption and other healthy lifestyle choices.
Recent scientific and medical evidence shows that a diet consisting of foods that are plant-based, nutrient dense and low-fat will help prevent and often reverse most degenerative diseases that kill us and are expensive to treat. We should be able to live largely disease-free lives until we are well into our 90s and even past 100 years of age.
Accidental Blogger 