Rebel With Plenty of Cause

You've GOT to read this:


http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/g/a/2009/07/24/notes072409.DTL&nl=fix


Once again Mark Morford 'splains it all to us. Because YEAH, REALLY, has God got nothing better to do than fret about the minutiae of our activities and serve as a handy-dandy excuse/rationalization therefor? Oh, I think God has a LOT more on his divine plate to worry about.

But I've always thought that. Even as a tiny parochial school urchin, oppressed by the Stormtroopers of the Vatican, the Dominican nuns of Our Lady of Perpetual Help school, I was deeply suspicious of their strident claims that God (or my tattletale guardian angel, narking me out to the boss) was watching every single smallest littlest thing I did and setting it down in a big old ledger, with which, when I died, I would be confronted.

"Really?" I thought. "I very much doubt it." And if that was true, that sure as heck wasn't any God I wanted to believe in. So, since at the age of 6 I couldn't mount a flagrant rebellion and hope to go unpunished, at school or at home, I adopted guerrilla tactics.

Hey, they MADE me do it! I behaved like Sister's perfect little candidate for sainthood in class, and, in the depths of the rebel heart that beat under my uniform, I plotted escape. I tried not to be too impatient, even though I knew it would take years. But I also knew it would come.

Oh, during my teen years, the rebellion got a lot harder to hide, because when you're a teenager it generally is, even when you have nothing serious to rebel against.
So my frustrated and baffled parents sent me for many earnest discussions with a rather sympathetic parish priest, dear Father Molloy, who seemed privately to be egging me on to revolt, actually. Being intelligent, perceptive and sympathetic in a way fairly unique for his time, he knew I was never going to be a sheep of the flock, and, rather stunningly, seemed to be more interested in my actual spiritual welfare, wherever it took me, than in making me bend to Rome.

He turned out to be not what my parents had hoped for by sending me for those little talks. They figured he'd knock some sense into me. Instead, he recognixed the sense I already had, and encouraged it, for which I forever bless his name.

He even tried to discourage my parents from sending me to a Catholic college; was in fact horrified at the idea, said it was the one sure way to make me lose my faith.
He was right to a certain extent: I did indeed stop being a Christian, though I'll always be a cultural one (that's not something you escape, ever, and I don't think I'd even want to). But I was able to find real faith, the path I belonged on. Bonaventure gave me that, along with a lot else, and I was glad. Maybe St. Francis is too, even.

And if that's what kicking back---at all the petty rules and restrictions and fears and paranoia organized religion tries to put on you, to cramp your soul and break your spirit and make you an obedient, dull, unquestioning, utterly manageable member of the cult---can do for you, then I say bring it on. What we realize ourselves NOT to be defines us just as surely as what we come to know we are. The only way to know that is to fight FOR as well as against. And we should be grateful.

Right Again, As Usual!

This has been bothering me my whole life. I'm not alone!



Sun and warm weather bring sadness and withdrawal for those with summer-onset depression

By Rosemary Black
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Thursday, July 23rd 2009


The same sunny skies that make summer a favorite month for so many people cause others to withdraw and become depressed.

Summer-onset depression, a warm weather variation of what’s called seasonal affective disorder, or SAD, often starts in the spring and tapers off between September and November.

It’s a relatively new disorder. Dr. Alfred Lewy, director of the Sleep and Mood Disorders Laboratory at Oregon Health and Science University, said the first real studies to see if a summer version of SAD exists were conducted in 1991, according to ABC News.

That research showed that sufferers tended to experience different symptoms than their cold weather SAD counterparts.

“In people with summer depression, you see a decreased appetite and insomnia; with winter depression, you get an increased appetite and increased sleep,” Lewy told ABC News.

It’s nowhere near as common as the winter version of seasonal depression, says Richard Shadick, Ph.D., psychology professor and director of the Counseling Center at Pace University.

“It tends to have a late spring onset, and folks tend to suffer through the hot summer months,” he says. “Summer’s very nice for many people, but some people hate oppressive heat. They are very sensitive to heat and they get headaches because of the bright light.”

Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert says he starts seeing patients for summer-onset depression in late spring as people begin to dread the long hot summer. Sleep difficulties, weight loss, irritability and a lack of interest in activities are common, he says.

“The contrast to the summertime norm of people being outside and enjoying activities only highlights the symptoms,” he says. “There is an obvious physical connection to this disorder as the heat leads to exhaustion and lethargy.”

The most effective treatment, Shadick says, is a combination of medication and psychotherapy. It also helps to eat right, connect with friends and stick to an exercise regimen, he says.

Alpert advises sufferers to stick to a schedule, get up on time and follow a to-do list.

And, he says, plan a midsummer trip to somewhere cooler, such as Canada or Northern Maine.

“This gives the person something to look forward to and breaks up what is often seen as a long, endless, hot summer,” Alpert says.

As more is known about summer-onset depression, other treatments may be available, Lewy tells ABC News. Lewy is investigating whether treating patients with melatonin could be effective at relieving symptoms.

Another option? Goggles - and not just underwater.

“Summer depression may eventually be treated with dark or orange goggles that block out blue light,” Lewy told ABC News.

Or a sure cure? Hang on til next winter, complete with ice storms, blizzards and subzero wind-chill factors.

Harry Potter and the Cinematic Kool-Aid (SPOILERS)

If you haven't seen the movie yet (or read the book...is that even possible??), stop here. Now. Go no farther.

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*

Okay. You've been warned...

I was disappointed. Not even in an angry way, just in a "meh" way.

The Burrow is TORCHED?? And yet nobody mentions it once they're back at Hogwarts...it's as if nothing had happened...where are the Weasleys going to live?

No Dursleys. No Dumbledore funeral!!!!! (Though I'm not really as upset about that as I thought I'd be...) No Lucius. (That DOES upset me...) No Bill and Fleur. No Scrimgeour. No "Other Minister" scene up front.

So cheesy, the bit where everybody held up their wand to salute Dumbledore, like the end of a 70's rock concert. Couldn't they manage lighters? Or fired off flaming streamer trails into the sky or something?

Too much repetitious Draco in the Room of Requirement. Though Tom Felton was terrific. And for all the people complaining that DR, EW and RG are getting too "old" for their parts, Felton looks about 30...

Alan Rickman is phoning it in. Maggie Smith looks much aged from the last one. I still don't like Michael Gambon as Dumbledore.

Those two boys who played Tom Riddle were awesome, and looked eerily like one another. (The younger one, Hero Fiennes Tiffin, is Ralph Fiennes' nephew.)

Very dark. Lighting-wise, I mean. Hard to make out what was going on. And if that was some stupid directorial decision ("Oooh, it's such a dark book! I know, let's shoot it through a paper bag, to make it LOOK dark too!"), he deserves to be hanged from the Astronomy tower.

I just wasn't very impressed or involved...odd, that.

As dear Dr. Johnson once said, "Worth seeing? Yes. But not worth GOING to see."

Piping Up at the Gates of Dawn

I have just read the most profoundly preposterous twaddle I've seen in a very long time (comments no longer being accepted, otherwise the author would have gotten an earful).

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/10/books/10willows.html

All about two annotated versions of one of the books I love best, "The Wind in the Willows."

My issue---putting aside suggestions of it all being about upper-class Edwardian Britain quashing lower classes, which may or may not be a matter for lawful debate---is with the alleged sexualization of the relationships.

GREAT GODDESS DEFEND US! Is there no END to the banal stupidities of alleged literary types??? Ratty and Mole's relationship is in no way homoerotic, any more than Frodo and Sam's, and I'm getting more and more revolted by moronic deconstructionists trying to foist a sexual subtext onto everything that comes along.

As for the "sexuality" allegedly present in the Piper chapter, no. Just. No. Ecstasy, certainly: it brings tears of joy to my eyes every time I read it. But "sexual"? Hardly!

Again, this relentless sexualization has GOT to stop. Before it irredeemably taints and smears every lovely thing in literature with its sneery, sniggering ickiness. Makes. Me. Sick.

Iquitarod

It's what she does. She quit five colleges before apparently graduating from a sixth. She quit being mayor of Wasilla to run for VP. Now she's quitting being governor of Alaska to run for...what? Surely she must know by now, after three generations, that withdrawal doesn't work for her?

She says she has a higher calling. Queen of the Rapture, maybe? If only! Lord, please make it so and put her out of our misery, let our prayers come unto thee, even though most of us here don't worship thee. We can ASK, right??

So let her cross that bridge to nowhere, or sit on her front porch and look at Russia all she wants, or field-dress some moose, or her husband, whatever she likes.

Since she's obviously not going to hide herself in the tundra, I say we have some fun with this. I do SO hope Letterman doesn't shy away...

James Douglas Morrison, 8 December 1943 - 3 July 1971

They gave him light in his ways,
And love, and a space for delight,
And beauty and length of days,
And night, and sleep in the night.
His speech is a burning fire;
With his lips he travaileth;
In his heart is a blind desire,
In his eyes foreknowledge of death;
He weaves, and is clothed with derision;
Sows, and he shall not reap;
His life is a watch or a vision
Between a sleep and a sleep.

---Swinburne