Wednesday, February 23, 2011
Saturday, February 19, 2011
a little bit of history repeating
Condoms do not encourage sex. Condoms encourage safer sex.
Clean needles do not encourage drug use. Clean needles encourage safer drug use.
Crack pipes do not encourage crack use. Wait for it. Crack pipes encourage safer crack use.
This means smoking from glass and not plastic and not having to share crack pipes, which increases the risk of infection.
That all sounds obvious, but my beloved city seems pretty confused about the issue.
I am especially thrilled that mayoral candidates are committed to running their campaigns on the backs of crack smokers.
Clean needles do not encourage drug use. Clean needles encourage safer drug use.
Crack pipes do not encourage crack use. Wait for it. Crack pipes encourage safer crack use.
This means smoking from glass and not plastic and not having to share crack pipes, which increases the risk of infection.
That all sounds obvious, but my beloved city seems pretty confused about the issue.
I am especially thrilled that mayoral candidates are committed to running their campaigns on the backs of crack smokers.
Monday, February 14, 2011
Line by Line (procrastination)
A fun and addicting drawing tutorial:
Line by Line
by James Mcmullan
To facilitate offline use, I put together this pdf of the second through eighth entries.
Line by Line
by James Mcmullan
To facilitate offline use, I put together this pdf of the second through eighth entries.
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
What war does to our soldiers & a fundamental flaw in our healthcare:
Yes, you should read Lawrence Wright's Scientology article. This too:
The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War
By Jennifer Senior
•...20 percent of the soldiers who’ve deployed in this war report symptoms of post-traumatic stress and major depression.The number climbs to almost 30 percent if the soldiers have deployed more than twice....
So grim is the problem that this summer, the Army released a remarkably candid suicide report. “If we include accidental death, which frequently is the result of high-risk behavior (e.g., drinking and driving, drug overdose),” it concluded, “we find that less young men and women die in combat than die by their own actions. Simply stated, we are often more dangerous to ourselves than the enemy.”
In other words, nearly as many soldiers are dying at home today as are dying abroad.
...
In fact, this residential facility that Chiarelli is visiting is different. It treats alcohol and substance abuse, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, depression, and pain management all under one roof. Stephen N. Xenakis, a psychiatrist and former commander at Eisenhower, was an early proponent of this kind of integrated program. Like many doctors, he believes that one of American medicine’s greatest failings is its fragmentation into narrow-caliber silos, with doctors seeing ailments solely in the context of their own specialties. No population, says Xenakis, suffers more outrageously from this structural deficiency than returning soldiers. Doctors seldom take the totality of their extraordinary experiences into account. “Soldiers are in an environment that has dust particles and toxins we don’t even recognize,” Xenakis tells me. “There are pressure waves and blasts. They’re carrying packs, at altitude, that weigh 90 pounds. They’re in a different sleep cycle than normal. They’re in situations that are almost always stressful, if not traumatic.” Yet when they return home, he says, they’re shunted into all those individual silos, with each specialist seeing only what he or she is trained to see: A headache. Insomnia. Paranoia and irritability. A ruined knee. “So as doctors,” Xenakis continues, “we say, ‘Okay. We’re going to track this psychological problem, and we’re going to track this immunological problem, and we’re going to track their headaches and their musculoskeletal pain and their insomnia.’ ” He slowly breathes out. Though he retired in 1998, Xenakis has been urging the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to consider integrated medicine for quite some time. “When in fact it’s a system problem we’re dealing with,” he says. “And that’s how you get this poly-drug problem.”...•
The Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Celexa, Effexor, Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Restoril, Xanax, Adderall, Ritalin, Haldol, Risperdal, Seroquel, Ambien, Lunesta, Elavil, Trazodone War
By Jennifer Senior
•...20 percent of the soldiers who’ve deployed in this war report symptoms of post-traumatic stress and major depression.The number climbs to almost 30 percent if the soldiers have deployed more than twice....
So grim is the problem that this summer, the Army released a remarkably candid suicide report. “If we include accidental death, which frequently is the result of high-risk behavior (e.g., drinking and driving, drug overdose),” it concluded, “we find that less young men and women die in combat than die by their own actions. Simply stated, we are often more dangerous to ourselves than the enemy.”
In other words, nearly as many soldiers are dying at home today as are dying abroad.
...
In fact, this residential facility that Chiarelli is visiting is different. It treats alcohol and substance abuse, PTSD, traumatic brain injuries, depression, and pain management all under one roof. Stephen N. Xenakis, a psychiatrist and former commander at Eisenhower, was an early proponent of this kind of integrated program. Like many doctors, he believes that one of American medicine’s greatest failings is its fragmentation into narrow-caliber silos, with doctors seeing ailments solely in the context of their own specialties. No population, says Xenakis, suffers more outrageously from this structural deficiency than returning soldiers. Doctors seldom take the totality of their extraordinary experiences into account. “Soldiers are in an environment that has dust particles and toxins we don’t even recognize,” Xenakis tells me. “There are pressure waves and blasts. They’re carrying packs, at altitude, that weigh 90 pounds. They’re in a different sleep cycle than normal. They’re in situations that are almost always stressful, if not traumatic.” Yet when they return home, he says, they’re shunted into all those individual silos, with each specialist seeing only what he or she is trained to see: A headache. Insomnia. Paranoia and irritability. A ruined knee. “So as doctors,” Xenakis continues, “we say, ‘Okay. We’re going to track this psychological problem, and we’re going to track this immunological problem, and we’re going to track their headaches and their musculoskeletal pain and their insomnia.’ ” He slowly breathes out. Though he retired in 1998, Xenakis has been urging the chairman of the Joint Chiefs to consider integrated medicine for quite some time. “When in fact it’s a system problem we’re dealing with,” he says. “And that’s how you get this poly-drug problem.”...•
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
