I saw a man pursuing the horizon;
Round and round they sped.
I was disturbed at this;
I accosted the man.
"It is futile," I said,
"You can never — "
"You lie," he cried,
And ran on.
Considered THE archetypal sensationalized anti-drug movie, but it's really an exploitation film made to capitalize on the hot taboo subject of marijuana use. Like many exploitation films of the time, "Reefer Madness" tried to make a quick buck off of a forbidden subject while skirting the Motion Picture Production Code of 1930. The Code forbade the portrayal of immoral acts like drug use. (The illegal drug traffic must not be portrayed in such a way as to stimulate curiosity concerning the use of, or traffic in, such drugs; nor shall scenes be approved which show the use of illegal drugs, or their effects, in detail.)
The film toured around the country for many years - often being re-edited and re-titled ("Tell Your Children", "Dope Addict", "Doped Youth", "Love Madness", "The Burning Question"). It was re-discovered in the early 1970s by NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws) and screened again as an example of the government's demonization of marijuana. NORML may have been confused about the film's sponsorship since one of the film's distributors, Dwain Esper, testified to the Arizona Supreme Court that "Reefer Madness" was not a trashy exploitation film but was actually sponsored by the U.S. Government - a convincing lie, but a lie nonetheless.
That being said, the film is still quick enjoyable since it dramatizes the "violent narcotic's ... soul destroying" effects on unwary teens, and their hedonistic exploits enroute to the bottom.
Also, if you are interested in the rich, uniquely American history of exploitation films, there are two excellent books on the subject:
"Forbidden Fruit - The Golden Age of the Exploitation Film", Felicia Feaster and Bret Wood, Midnight Marquee Press, 1999.
"Bold! Daring! Shocking! True! A History of Exploitation Films, 1919 - 1959" Eric Schaefer, Duke University Press, 1999.
Director: Louis J. Gasnier
Producer: George A. Hirliman
Production Company: G and H Production
First Listen: Eddie Vedder, 'Ukulele Songs'
May 25, 2011
For his second full-length solo album, Eddie Vedder has taken up one of the most useful creative tools available: limitation. It's embodied in a little finger-strummed thing that the Pearl Jam singer picked up during a beer run in Hawaii nearly 15 years ago, an instrument whose limits he never pushes, and which ends up refining and expanding his own range. Ukulele Songs isn't a novelty record; it's a statement of truth. Made calm and open by the ukulele's intimacy, Vedder sounds like someone getting out of his own way and discovering what really matters within his art.
What matters musically, as he's been saying lately in interviews, is melody. The baritone growl that not quite singlehandedly defined millennial American rock transforms here into the lullaby singer's murmur and a romancer's croon. Pearl Jam is a big, noisy band, and in many of its best songs, Vedder has ridden its big waves hard: He's helped many a fan safely unleash un-pretty emotions. Here, though, he asks the listener to pull back with him and pay attention to the tiptoe of his voice as he descends a scale, or the sweetness of slipping into falsetto.
Vedder's song selections are culled from more than a decade's worth of writing he's done on the uke. A Pearl Jam song, the driving "Can't Keep," opens the set and seems like a form of reassurance — Vedder hasn't gone totally soft, Ten Club members! But the craving for escape that the song expresses here seems like a bit of a fake-out. Everywhere else, from tearjerkers like "Sleeping By Myself" and "Broken Heart" to the more hopeful likes of "Without You" to the vintage crooners' favorites that Vedder covers, Ukulele Songs is about staying still enough to feel something calmly and clearly... READ THE REST *HERE*
The use of beta-tricalcium phosphate bone graft substitute in dorsally plated, comminuted distal radius fractures.Journal of Orthopaedic Surgery and Research
Michael G Jakubietz , Joerg G Gruenert and Rafael G JakubietzI know, I know -- where did that last line of the conclusion come from? Is it really there or am I imagining things again? Like I said, this has a definite target -- orthopedic surgeons -- and, well, I hope it doesn't keep any of them up at night!
2011, 6:24
doi:10.1186/1749-799X-6-24
Published: 22 May 2011
Abstract (provisional)
Background: Intraarticular distal radius fractures can be treated with many methods. While internal fixation with angle stable implants has become increasingly popular, the use of bone graft substitutes has also been recommended to address comminution zones and thus increase stability. Whether a combination of both methods will improve clinical outcomes was the purpose of the study
Methods: The study was thus conducted as a prospective randomized clinical trial. 39 patients with unilateral, intraarticular fractures of the distal radius were included and randomized to 2 groups, one being treated with internal fixation only, while the second group received an additional bone graft substitute.
Results: There was no statistical significance between both groups in functional and radiological results. The occurrence of complications did also not show statistical significance.
Conclusions: No advantage of additional granular bone graft substitutes could be seen in this study. Granular bone graft substitutes do not seem to provide extra stability if dorsal angle stable implants are used. Dorsal plates have considerable complication rates such as extensor tendon ruptures and development of CRPS.
Fixed Dystonia in Complex Regional Pain Syndrome: a Descriptive and Computational Modeling Approach
Alexander G. Munts, Winfred Mugge, Thomas S. Meurs, Alfred C. Schouten, Johan Marinus, G. LORIMER Moseley, Frans C.T. van der Helm and Jacobus J. van Hilten
BMC Neurology 2011, 11:53
doi:10.1186/1471-2377-11-53
Published: 24 May 2011
Abstract (provisional)
Background: Complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) may occur after trauma, usually to one limb, and is characterized by pain and disturbed blood flow, temperature regulation and motor control. Approximately 25% of cases develop fixed dystonia. Involvement of dysfunctional GABAergic interneurons has been suggested, however the mechanisms that underpin fixed dystonia are still unknown. We hypothesized that dystonia could be the result of aberrant proprioceptive reflex strengths of position, velocity or force feedback.
Methods: We systematically characterized the pattern of dystonia in 85 CRPS-patients with dystonia according to the posture held at each joint of the affected limb. We compared the patterns with a neuromuscular computer model simulating aberrations of proprioceptive reflexes. The computer model consists of an antagonistic muscle pair with explicit contributions of the musculotendinous system and reflex pathways originating from muscle spindles and Golgi tendon organs, with time delays reflective of neural latencies. Three scenarios were simulated with the model: (i) increased reflex sensitivity (increased sensitivity of the agonistic and antagonistic reflex loops); (ii) imbalanced reflex sensitivity (increased sensitivity of the agonistic reflex loop); (iii) imbalanced reflex offset (an offset to the reflex output of the agonistic proprioceptors).
Results: For the arm, fixed postures were present in 123 arms of 77 patients. The dominant pattern involved flexion of the fingers (116/123), the wrists (41/123) and elbows (38/123). For the leg, fixed postures were present in 114 legs of 77 patients. The dominant pattern was plantar flexion of the toes (55/114 legs), plantar flexion and inversion of the ankle (73/114) and flexion of the knee (55/114). Only the computer simulations of imbalanced reflex sensitivity to muscle force from Golgi tendon organs caused patterns that closely resembled the observed patient characteristics. In parallel experiments using robot manipulators we have shown that patients with dystonia were less able to adapt their force feedback strength.
Conclusions: Findings derived from a neuromuscular model suggest that aberrant force feedback regulation from Golgi tendon organs involving an inhibitory interneuron may underpin the typical fixed flexion postures in CRPS patients with dystonia.
We have 3 kids: Sam, Nathan and Isaac.
Sam was diagnosed when he was 2year, 7mo with autism. Nathan was born 3 weeks later.
It was a stressful time.
As he grew, it became obvious that Nathan was on spectrum too and I was devastated. I had always wanted a large family and it seemed all I could obsess on was not having more children. Well, in addition to trying to fix what was wrong with my kids, it was all I could obsess on. Eventually, after 4 years, we did decide to have another. At the advanced age of 38, I had Isaac, now 4. And he is neurotypical, the outlyer in our family. The weirdo. Or the normal kid in a family of weirdos, take your pick.
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| Malpensa Airport, Milan 2008 |
Have you ever been in an airport, or another busy place, but you're by yourself? So your brain decides to separate itself from it's surroundings. You feel separated from those around and there is a hum in your head. It is just an odd feeling. It's called depersonalization by the psych people. And this kind is very mild as opposed to the severe end associated with severe anxiety disorders and PTSD. But it happens to me sometimes when I'm shopping by myself or at a huge convention by myself. I can hear and talk to people and look pretty normal, but I just feel totally separated. Maybe it's just me being weird, but work with me on this idea.
Now imagine you are in an airport in a foreign country and there is the hum of Chinese or an Indian dialect, not an American voice to be heard. Your brain spaces out more as it seeks the familiarity of your thoughts. [CLICK HERE TO CONTINUE]
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| image courtesy of addiction search |
Dr. José De Andrés
Associate Professor of Anesthesia,
Valencia University Medical School
Chairman, Department of Anesthesiology and Critical Care
Director of the Multidisciplinary Pain Management Center
Valencia University General Hospital
Tres Cruces s/n, 46014-Valencia. Spain
Prof. Carmen Gomar
Professor of Anesthesia,
Barcelona University Medical School
Department of Anesthesiology and Reanimation
Hospital Clinic i Provincial
Villarroel 170, 08036-Barcelona. Spain
Howdy--
Just wanted to drop you a line as the grading/cursing here comes near an end.
Have had one student say that I "fucked [her]" and that "[she didn't] care one bit for this shitty class." My response: a bland "Have a nice summer."
I just wished I'd said it sarcastically!
Where's Swift when you need him?
Mucho amore to all.
Grader Boob
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| From UC-Berkeley's Landscape Heritage Plan Sather Gate, Wheeler Hall, and the Campanile beyond (ca. 1945). Note that at this time, the Gate defined the campus entrance, and the adjacent Sproul Plaza was a city block. |
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| *kate* Thanks to CaringBridge and the Tiny Sparrow Foundation * |
Host: With me now is Norman St. John Polevaulter, who for the last few years has been contradicting people. St. John Polevaulter, why do you contradict people?
Polevaulter: I don't!
Host: But you... you told me that you did.
Polevaulter: I most certainly did not!
Host: Oh. I see. I'll start again.
Polevaulter: No you won't!
Host: Ssh! I understand you don't contradict people.
Polevaulter: Yes I do!
Host: And when didn't you start contradicting them?
Polevaulter: I did! In 1952!
Host: 1952.
Polevaulter: 1947!
Host: 23 years ago.
Polevaulter: No!
(GONG!)
-- The Man Who Contradicts People from Monty Python's Previous Record
As soon as you hit Kinston, you could smell it. We would stop at the grocery store that sits right there when you come off the bridge from Morehead City to Atlantic Beach -- for bleach and ammonia, hot dogs, and Maxwell House in the big can. We ate Wonderbread at the beach and whole wheat the rest of our lives. Setting the indoor picnic table sometimes just meant spreading out newsprint and big platters of boiled shrimp, salad, and loaves of decent crusty bread. Garlic butter. Melons for breakfast, and toast. No one in the ocean before 9 AM, curfew starts at 9:30 PM, remember to tie a flipflop to the umbrella in case you get lost. They sent out a search party for me one night after I fell into a huge sand dune and just stayed there, mute, trying to decipher constellations and my Mother, both. I'd just had my appendix out; Chiggers crawled on my legs, ate me up, I scratched myself raw.. Not chiggers, sand fleas. My aunt chaperoned a bunch of us for Junior/Senior Weekend -- a boy fell off of someone's porch -- he was perched (backward) on the railing that jutted out over a concrete driveway. Lois made us all godawful sloe gin fizzes; He died. He wasn't from our school but was good friends with the Bennetts. My cousin and I made a chowder out of periwinkles and all the grownups actually ate it. (It was full of sand.)We spelled it "perrywinkle," wrote out an official recipe in pencil on a lined index card that we stuck in the middle drawer of that old-fashioned enamel table in the kitchen. I went to the cottage one winter, alone, and sat on the porch, right on the stormy ocean. They called that The Front Porch. Visiting the cemetery in Beaufort was important but I couldn't begin to tell you why. After my summer months there found a rhythm, time fell into bayside days and oceanside days, interrupted by stormy afternoons when we'd pile into the drugstore, where everyone got to buy one paperback, just one. Dusk. The running lights on shrimp boats. The pay phone on the pier. Swimming past the breakers. Knowing who was boss when the undertow took you twisting down. Yogurt on sunburn. Ice clinking, bourbon, scotch, beer. Hearts, spades, bridge, Scrabble and crossword puzzles. Turning into the wind. The stories about my sister Copper being born smack dab in the middle of Hurricane Hazel. Driftwood fires, sparking.
I turn left a good half mile before I have to just to see it. There's the wire form for a bear topiary -- kind of a Pooh -- that sits in the middle of one patch, and they decorate him for the least little holiday. National Teachers Day, Cinco de Mayo. Canada Day, Bastille Day, big football Saturdays. Past Sterling and Oakdale, but before Clifton Road. One year the yard was overgrown and the bear undecorated. I mean, he stayed in his Santa duds until they just wore off him. I think a baby died. Then, like nothing, the bear grew rich, thick, and green again and there were raised beds of every kind of flower, as if from nowhere. Can't even recall the house now -- brick, compact. One of the gingerbreads, big slants to the roof, dark masonry. Everyone felt special, peeking at those flowers, that bear, like it was a private kiss you'd sneak. I thought, What if they move? What will I do then? Who will change the bear?
I would pick up my parents' Saturday evening dinner order on the way home from a day of tennis in the park: a pound of barbeque, a pound of slaw, and hushpuppies. Then I'd cut through the dirt lot, through the heady smoke from the pit, and drive on up to the DQ in my 1965 baby blue Cadillac. It was a minor revolution, delaying that vinegar-heavy chopped pork for a vanilla shake. That's right, I was every bit as exciting as they were, me and my vanilla shakes. The vet we liked was right across the highway, on the westbound side of Hwy 70, heading back into town. I hated going home once they lit the downtown courts -- I could have picked up games all evening, and if Teresa didn't have to babysit, we could play doubles with the country clubbers who forgot to make a reservation. It'd be okay at home for a little while -- setting sun on the lake, the attack of pastels, the dog chasing geese. I'd follow him down to the water, turn 'round and look back at the house, their dream house, but you could tell just by looking that nobody lived there. Mom made me a big salad so that I could keep company while they ate their pound of barbecue, pound of slaw, and hushpuppies. I stayed a vegetarian for 25 years. Sometimes she'd ask me to stop at the Dairy Queen and bring home hot fudge sundaes. I always told her I forgot and kept the extra money for gas, always planning to get in that car, pick east or west, and go, go, go.
Just an overall poor effort
Chick checks in last night for nausea x 5 days, with positive pregnancy test at home. Let me pop that in the hood hospital translator for you right quick:
I want a sonogram, and maybe another pregnancy test. Starts going into an in depth discussion with the triage nurse about when she started having sex with this dude that is with her currently. Listen sister, this isn't Maury, we just asked your LMP, next please.
So it was utter pandemonium and fuckery up until about 4 am last night, people were forming human pyramids in the waiting room because there were no more chairs, the line to check in wrapped around the building and everyone had chest pain. I had two dudes who fell off of roofs, like, really actually fell off of them, check in within 5 minutes of one another. One had a broken C2. So, uh, obviously this young woman's complaint was not of immediate concern. So she and baby daddy leave and do some shit at Walmart or whatever and then come back...
Grader Boob: Great news. I finished that pain-in-the-ass paper for the Incomplete I got in Misogynous Medieval Literature my last year in grad school. Knocked that sucker out over the weekend.
Me: Congratulations, My Brother-Unit! So what did the prof have to say?
Grader Boob: Not much. He died six weeks ago.
Grader Boob (again): But that's not the point...
This white octopus was filmed with a high-definition underwater video camera at 6600 feet depth 200 miles off the coast of Oregon in September 2005 as part of the VISIONS '05 expedition led by Professors John Delaney and Deborah Kelleyof the University of Washington. Little is known about the deep-sea octopuses that live in proximity to the hydrothermal vent fields associated with theunderwater volcanoes of the Juan de Fuca Ridge in theNortheast Pacific Ocean.
This video features the Grimpoteuthis bathynectes species. Sometimes nicknamed the Dumbo octopus, its ears are really fins that help it move through the water.
Primary sponsors of the VISIONS '05 Expedition were theNational Science Foundation,W.M. Keck Foundation, NOAA Coastal Services Center, University of Washington, and the ResearchChannel.
Special thanks to Jerome M. Paros and Elaina Jorgensen.
Music courtesy of Bryan Verhoye.
Video production by Nancy Penrose
© University of Washington, 2009
