Into The Fog

It's been a befogging, sorrowing, sickening week in San Diego and I feel very old.  This post will stumble around in the mist.


The kidnapping, rape, and murder of  17 year old Chelsea King and the arrest of her suspected killer, a registered sex offender, has broken the heart of this city.  John Gardner III, the accused, faces additional charges for another assault with intent to rape that took place on December 27th, 2009... at the same Rancho Bernardo park where Chelsea King was abducted. Gardner is also being investigated in the case of Amber Dubois, who has been missing for 13 months.  Today, it was reported that Amber's skeletal remains have finally been found in North San Diego County near Escondido. It's possible, but not confirmed, that Amber was found based on tips police received following the discovery of Chelsea King's body.  John Gardner lived about two miles from the high school that 14 year old Amber attended.  There's a spreading heart-sickness here.


The University of California at San Diego badly bungled its handling of the blatantly racist "Compton Cookout," an off-campus party linked to the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity.  After first distancing the school from the Presidents' Day party, administrators eventually offered a lame Teach-In to "educate students" in racial sensitivity...which makes me wonder what UCSD's students had been learning about race relations prior to this incident. Tensions escalated when students discovered a noose hanging in the library. And then a Klan-style hood was found on a statue of Dr. Seuss at the UCSD campus. There's some apparent mind-sickness here.

The weather has fit the city's mood:  low, dark, heavy cloud; cold temperatures; and another week of intermittent rain.  Fog shrouds the mountains around the city.  San Diego needs this rain after more than a year of drought that turned the entire city a dull dun. Those foggy mountains sport the carcasses of burned-out trees from the previous year's forest fires...some of them nearly overgrown with new green as long-dormant plants flourish. Maybe the area will be safer from fire this summer,  but you can tell San Diego's people have to work hard to remind themselves to be glad of the heavy weather.  There's widespread mildew of the spirit here.


I've been trying for days to come up with a fitting post.  Ideas have sparked through my mind, but the souring national news and the sorrowing local news have drowned each one.  I've become heart-sick and mind-sick and dull-spirited for the time being. And maybe a little dim-witted, too.  I know these conditions will lift, but, for the moment, I'm just putting one foot in front of the other, one word behind the next.


I didn't realize how much I was affected until this morning.  We were on our way in the rain to the 11:30 service of the First Unitarian-Universalist Church of San Diego, the first church I've attended since my kids were small and I was attempting to introduce them to the religion of their forebears.  I love this UU church (I never thought I would utter that sentiment again in my life). They describe themselves as "a vibrant, Welcoming Congregation, open to all regardless of age, race, gender, religion, or affectional orientation."  I would add, "Or lack, thereof."  We found them three years ago, when my beautiful, big-hearted daughter asked if we'd be interested in checking out the UU's with her.  Since then, when we're here, we're there.  If I could sell my house back home, and if I could afford to live here, the incredibly smart, wise, diverse people of this church would be reason enough to move. No one who seeks inclusive community and growth would feel out of place here. This is the first group of any kind that I've found to embrace with my whole heart and mind. But I've digressed...into the one clear spot in the fog that I've found all week.

To refocus... I realized on my way to the UU Church this morning that I could not remember why we are in Afghanistan.  I hope I'm not stupid, but I may have grown extremely dull lately.  I just couldn't recall a reason for our war there that made sense to me.  I thought of our War on Terror, but I could think of no front.  I thought of Bin Laden, but we believe that Al Qaeda does not rely on centralized leadership so much now.  All the obvious and touted reasons arose and none of them would take root this morning.  I had to ask my husband, who answered, "9/11, Bin Laden, War on Terror."  The fog wouldn't lift for me.


Yesterday morning, I read a post by jack-of-all-thumbs, on Self-Sufficient Steward, called "Looking For Laurels, In All The Wrong Places"  about the kids at risk in Afghanistan, and I started crying (jack's posts often spark me).  Maybe it was the cold, the gray, the rain, the fog.  Maybe it was reading about the stalker my friend Beth has picked up on Nutwood Junction; maybe it was the powerfully courageous post my friend Sheria published on depression at The Examined Life; maybe I'm just getting old, foggy, and thin-skinned.    

The UU Church is sponsoring a film viewing and discussion with Afghanistan vets on March 18th, entitled "Rethink Afghanistan."  Ours is a military family; this is a military town where we feel at home; my husband retired from the Air Force and we have military active duty family members; we are not Peaceniks by Default...we like to think we're not anything by default, but, when my husband and I want to learn what is meant by a "just war," we watch WWII documentaries.  The two of us are thinking we'll be there at the UU meeting to do a little rethinking. 


Meanwhile, if any of you can think of a convincing argument in favor of continuing the war in Afghanistan...something other than the reason most of the kids who are there give, which is "to look out for my buddies here"...by all means, fill me in.  If you can't, let me hear you. I want to be sharp, clear-headed, un-befogged, when I go to hear what the veterans have to say.  What say you?


[images: SEAN M. HAFFEY / UNION-TRIBUNE;.net/images/otaymountainfog.jpg;  notinhd.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/san-diego]

The Anti-Dysrationalia Movement

Dysrationalia is defined as the inability to think and behave rationally despite adequate intelligence. The concept of dysrationalia was first proposed by psychologist Keith Stanovich in the early 1990s. Stanovich classifies dysrationalia as a learning disability and characterizes it as a difficulty in belief formation, in assessing belief consistency, or in the determination of action to achieve one's goals. [wikipedia].


This is a quick bonus post for the Go-Here-Get-This category. On his psychology blog, We're Only Human, Wray Herbert publishes some timely and pertinent research on how angry voters choose their candidates vs. how worried voters make their choices.  I want to just copy the whole post, but I'll settle for a quick quote or two:

We like to think that our democracy is rational, that as voters we educate ourselves on the issues and choose the candidate who best represents our views. Emotions, while natural, would seem to undermine this civic ideal, leading to cynicism and confused thinking and wrongheaded choices. But is it so simple? New research suggests that emotions can indeed skew voting behavior—but in surprising and nuanced ways.

Before the voters started researching the issues and candidates, some were primed for fear and others for anger—much like the scenarios above. The idea was to see if these two basic human emotions shaped civic behavior in different ways. That is, did angry citizens size up candidates one way, and anxious voters a different way? And did these thinking styles translate into different behavior at the polls?

Go take a peek and get back to me.  Then, please take a look at The Coffee Party's Mission Statement:

The Coffee Party Movement gives voice to Americans who want to see cooperation in government. We recognize that the federal government is not the enemy of the people, but the expression of our collective will, and that we must participate in the democratic process in order to address the challenges that we face as Americans. As voters and grassroots volunteers, we will support leaders who work toward positive solutions, and hold accountable those who obstruct them.

and their fingerprint:

We are diverse — ethnically, geographically, politically, in age and in experience.  

We are 100% grassroots.  No lobbyists here.  No pundits.  And no hyper-partisan strategists calling the shots in this movement. We are a spontaneous and collective expression of our desire to forge a culture of civic engagement that is solution-oriented, not blame-oriented.  

We demand a government that responds to the needs of the majority of its citizens as expressed by our votes and by our voices; NOT corporate interests as expressed by misleading advertisements and campaign contributions.

We want a society in which democracy is treated as sacrosanct and ordinary citizens participate out of a sense of civic duty, civic pride, and a desire to contribute to society.  The Coffee Party is a call to action. Our Founding Fathers and Mothers gave us an enduring gift — Democracy — and we must use it to meet the challenges that we face as a nation.

 I have some of the smartest, most rational Followers on the blogosphere--folks of various political persuasions--which means you actually read the paragraphs and won't just react to the logo.  I'd like to hear from you on this.

Aging: The Conspiracy Theory

I've been observing some disturbing developments in myself at 62. ( I'm really sixty-one, but I've made it a practice since 33 to always give my age as one year older so I can get used to it. By this system, I'm about to turn 63.)  I'm growing increasingly alarmed to find strange new limitations of my brain.  I have no memory of agreeing to any of this.  It's as if there are entire missing decades between 33-year-old-me and me at however-old-I-am these days...could it be drug induced amnesia? Maybe it's just that I've been studying the Tea Party mindset too long (I'm working on publishing my conclusions in an article entitled, The Role of Senile and Paranoid Thought Processes In The Tea Party Movement); I begin to suspect there's something sinister at work.

 Given that my brain and body do whatever they want to these days regardless of my intentions, I hope I can keep this post in the road.  It feels like I'm no longer in charge, like I've been body-snatched by evil-doing poltergeists.  As evidence:

1)  I'm slow at everything I do.
2)  I'm impatient with time spent on things I don't want to do (which includes all maintenance of belongings and self.  I don't know if you've noticed, but those things take up most of our time at any age).
3)  I can't abide interruption and I'm distractible as hell.
4)  I can't find words...that tip-of-tongue problem based on word looking retrieval processes.
5)  I can't recall the proper sequence of steps in a task I've performed a million times before (ex: make a spaghetti dinner or get dressed).  I'll be on the last step and suddenly find I'd forgotten Step 3...which can be critical if it involves either olive oil or underwear.
6)  I get tired long before I'd expected to, which means I have trouble with biting off more than I can chew and with task completion.
7)  I can't seem to make decisions.

That's not an exhaustive list, but it'll do for now.  Something funny is going on here; I don't recognize any of those listed behaviors as me.  According to an article on aging and centenarians in Time Magazine, based on animal studies,"only about 30% of aging is genetically based;" which, considering that my overall competence seems to have dropped by at least 80%, leaves me with 40%, 60% some considerable percentage unaccounted for. They've ripped off my small supply of math skills, too. Time to do a little detective work.

First, on that infuriating word-retrieval glitch, apparently the density of the gray matter in the left insula of my brain has declined. It may have been redeposited on the inside of my thighs just above the knee; I KNOW I was really dense at one time and these knee-bulge thingies were NOT there yesterday.  I think my best defense against left insula theft is to learn a new word each day and to use that word frequently. On Wordsmith.org, today's word is cabal,  from the Hebrew kabalah, meaning a small, secret group of intriguers or plotters. In proper usage, My word retrieval issues can be blamed on an Idaho-based cabal of right-wing extremists who are bent on destroying the density of the left insulas of Liberal Elitist bloggers.  Good word to know.  Some of you could be next.


There's a surprising number of studies out there lately that try to put a positive spin on the brain changes I describe.  I'm increasingly suspicious of  this sort of thing; what motive could the cabal possibly have for making dodderism look good?  There are studies at Stanford  that show that, among the aged, our brain efficiency is improved by filtering out our "irrelevant" long-term memories so that we can put more mental energy toward the more immediately relevant short-term memories, or working memories, such as where we put the olive oil.  We don't even get to decide for ourselves what's relevant and what isn't, which is mind control. Maybe they do it through reality shows on the television.


Researchers have gone so far as to rob mice of full neuron development in their hippocampi, where long-term memory is stored, in an effort to improve their performance on maze-running tasks (similar to my spaghetti-dinner-making task). Guard your hippocampi, my fellow elders, and avoid cooking for crowds.  In fact, I'd recommend that, as soon as you get the kids out of the house, you stop cooking altogether.


Even AARP gets in on the conspiracy cover-up by pretending there's nothing going on.  In their article "Boost Your Brain Health," P. Murali Doraiswamy, M.D., claims that,

Despite what our youth-oriented culture tells us, mental decline after 50 is not a given. In fact, in some ways the healthy brain gets stronger with age. Studies confirm that accumulated knowledge and expert skills (a.k.a. wisdom) increase as you get older...Other brain functions may not improve with age, but they don't automatically wane either. One example is higher-order decision making such as choosing the best investments. Older people do as well as younger ones on tests that measure this function—as long as they aren't rushed.

Oh, yeah. A bunch of us must have been a little rushed between the tech bubble of the nineties and the beginning of the Great Recession when we were trying to decide where to safely invest our retirement savings...real estate, mutual funds, hmmm. After basically saying that most healthy brains experience few problems with aging other than some short-term memory loss, Dr. Duraiswamy goes on to devote an entire article to recommendations for improving brain functioning in the elderly.  Well, which is it?  Are we all losing it or just those of us who happened to be in the right place at the wrong time when the spaceship landed looking for experimental subjects?


Where was I?  On that distractibility issue, I am self-diagnosed with A-RADD (Age-Related Attention Deficit Disorder), but, according to my sure-fire spaghetti-sauce diagnostic tool, this problem came on very suddenly at age 61, 60 recently, while aging is supposed to take place over time, right?  I promise you that no time at all has passed since the last time I had a clue what the hell I was doing.  Adam Gazzelley of UCSF has studied this problem and finds that "not all older adults are impaired relative to younger adults."  (I bet Adam is about 28; Adam was a very popular name for baby boys in 1982). Adam's team cabal studied two groups, one aged 19-33 and the other, aged 60-72. 

The researchers used electroencephalography to record electrical signals from the participants’ brains in milliseconds during the task. In contrast to the younger adults, the older group could not suppress distracting stimuli during the first 200 milliseconds after exposure. “At later time points, the ability to ignore does show up,” Gazzaley says. “It’s not abolished, just delayed.” By then, however, the irrelevant information had interfered with the memory task, making the older group less accurate overall than the younger group.

I think they're saying that my A-RADD developed suddenly at age 60, which is about when I woke up to find myself instantaneously old and prone to parenthetical digression (that was when all my slacks stopped fitting me, too), and that I should ignore the first 200 milliseconds of any task I take on.  I'm going to ignore Adam's research; I don't know how it got in here.

It's not funny.  There's even research to show that our sense of humor is being effed with!  From the Journal of The International Neuropsychological Society, I learn this:

In research designed to probe humour comprehension and appreciation, Shammi and Stuss found that while older people were just as capable as younger people of "getting" wordplay jokes, they were not as good at recognising funny cartoons, or identifying funny punch lines to jokes.

The punch line to that joke is that these guys were named Shammi and Stuss.  Obviously, I've not lost a tittle of my humor comprehension.  As for funny cartoons...

 I was beginning to tire of all this research after about fifteen minutes, so I decided to drop the item-by-item schema and look for some large, over-arching theory to explain my whole list of complaints.  That's when I learned of the Dark Energy in my brain, as covered by the March 2010 issue of Scientific American. Basically, they've discovered through modern imaging studies that our brains actually use more energy in the background of our minds when our attention is turned off, when we're daydreaming or sleeping, than it does when we're paying attention.  When we're focused on something, the brain actually slows down.  They call this background hum the brain's Default Mode, and, when the connections in the Dark Matter become faulty with disease processes or aging, there's less efficiency altogether. That all sounds sort of Black Ops-y to me, like somebody's hacked into my meat computer and fiddled with my Default Mode.

I can't find that issue of Scientific American.  It's here somewhere, I know. I even highlighted the kerfluey out of it to share with you. I have absolutely no idea where it went, unless a shadowy cabal is involved. Is it age?  Is it me?  Is it a vast Right Wing Conspiracy headed by Newt Gingrich and Dick Cheney designed to turn aging voters into mindless lemmings? They made off with my highlighter, too.

[images: www.textually.org/.../images/set3/spy-vs-spy.jpg, jaggedsmile.files.wordpress.com/.../mindtrip.jpg, scienceblogs.com/twominds/sign_brain.jpg,www.motifake.com/image/demotivational-poster/ ]