Sammy

We're going to miss our Sammy Boy, an excellent cat and superb friend. Dobby, his little idiot companion, is quite lost but will find his way.

Bozos on the bus

The future is fun! ... The future is fair! ... You may already have won! ... You may already be there!

I'm a great one for denial. As much as I post about CRPS research and various studies, as much as I do the moan-and-groan, I have not much wanted to know more about CRPS and dystonia.

Along with its torturous companion, neuropathic burning pain, dystonia is beginning to characterize this period of the disease (in me). It is awful, it humbles me daily, and it's time that I learned a little more about it, since denial is reaping its usual reward of... not much.

I need a primer in terminology. Spasms, tics, movement disorder. Abnormal postures. Twisting, repetitive movements. Thirteen different forms of dystonia, proper... many more diseases of which it is a symptom. Focused in one location, generalized. Hurts a little, hurts a lot.

Obviously, I don't have a primary dystonia (I'm not sure of the correct way to say that...) -- mine is secondary to CRPS, and began, in terrible earnest, last year, or seven years after the onset of the disease. From the beginning I had spasms and tics, but they were well controlled, for years, with stretching and exercise, with baclofen or tizanidine. Even when it was not well controlled with medication, the pain and discomfort was tolerable for a long while.

Now, though, the twisting and spasming covers more area -- mostly of my right leg -- and lasts for hours. The generalized violent tics are extremely painful, enough so that I cannot refrain from yelling sometimes. No matter how many times I experience them, they are always a surprise.

Researchers estimate dystonia as occuring at a rate of between 5-30% of the CRPS population. Other than that, research hasn't provided us with much information, except the usual disturbing interest in pegging dystonia as a functional, faked symptom. Thanks ever so much, researchers, for keeping that pointless application of science alive, and presumably, well-funded.

In sum:

...[D]ystonia with CRPS usually happens in the hand and causes the wrist and thumb to curl in, called flexion. In the leg, it starts in the foot, sometimes causing the toes to "claw." Researchers also noticed that patients with CRPS and dystonia tend to be younger than patients with CRPS without dystonia, and the more extremities affected, the more can be affected. Dystonia can come on gradually or it can come on suddenly. It also usually begins on the same side as the injury before the CRPS.

There isn't a connection between when the injury happened and when CRPS and the dystonia begins, so sometimes it is hard to tell what follows what. As well, it isn't known if bracing or immobilizing an arm or a leg after injury makes it more likely for dystonia to develop. Researchers have also looked into the psychological aspect of CRPS and CRPS-related dystonia, but that, too, hasn't found anything.

All the research results in there being no clear understanding of what causes some patients with CRPS to develop dystonia and not others. Because of this, no clear treatments have evolved. Medications don't seem to help and while psychosocial interventions may help some patients, they don't help all. Physiotherapy, tried with some patients, could make the situation worse, rather than better.

In another study, the researcher could not see his way to CRPS and Dystonia being co-existing disorders, not even after tossing in the adjective unusual. The good Dr. Schott, from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery, in London, authored one of those... review articles (upper lip raised in a hapless sneer... nothing personal Dr. Schott). From this glommed together review of the glommy literature, we find:

Not all patients with CRPS develop dystonia but many do. And the timing can be anywhere from a week to five years before the dystonia starts to show up. There are a few cases where dystonia occurs first, and then CRPS develops, but it's usually the other way around.

The symptoms of CRPS may even get better as the dystonia comes on. This suggests that separate mechanisms are at play. Scientists generally agree that both problems stem from a dysregulation of the central nervous system. But exactly what happens in each condition is still a mystery.

Doctors are looking for predisposing factors for the onset of dystonia. Does it only occur when there's a bone fracture? Or is it more likely to develop when the limb has been in a cast? Does surgery trigger it? Perhaps there are genetic or environmental factors.

Right now there are more questions than answers. The complex interaction of the nervous system with the immune system and the motor system are part of the picture. What are the biologic and mechanical pathways? This remains unknown and is still the focus of many studies.

G. D. Schott. Peripherally-Triggered CRPS and Dystonia. In Pain. August 2007. Vol. 130. No. 3. Pp. 203-207.

Okay, so now I've read two oft-cited articles on CRPS and dystonia, and, as usual, feel like the exception to the rule. I also feel that familiar feeling of marginalization -- and my bullshit detector is going off.

I know that researchers cannot report what they have not researched... just as I know that calling for further study is a line not unlike "take two aspirin..." The interest isn't there because the money isn't there to stoke the interest.

Or maybe I am bitter.

Moving right along... the next bit of scholarly help I run into blithely pegs the appearance of dystonia in a CRPS patient as La Belle Indifférence, or as conversion disorder. This is a scant case study of a 46 year old woman with CRPS and dystonia after a knee injury, and who does not respond to any treatment (from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy to spinal cord stimulator; from amitriptyline to steroids; from sympathetic blocks {rolling:my:eyes} to arthroscopy). From what I can gather, this author, Dr.Fraser Duncan of University Hospital, Birmingham, Edinburgh (July 2008) relies almost exclusively on... you guessed it! The work of the good doctor Schott!

We Bozos have a saying: 'When you put on the nose, it grows.'

Ach mein gott but I am tired. I will take this up again soon... and in the interim, will rest easy knowing that there is, as usual, no one driving the bus...

Excuse me while I go twitch, spasm, twist, and scream.

The future's comin', and there's no place to hide!

Pithy bolded and browned quotes are from I Think We're All Bozos on This Bus by Firesign Theatre.

Sarah Palin's Wild Ride!

Buckeye Surgeon apparently couldn't stomach any more of the Palin mythology, specifically the massive pile of folklore dedicated to the Untouchable Topic of Trig, even more precisely, Trig's Birth Tale.

She's Looney Tunes, and tells either a terrible fiction or an even more terrible truth.

Give the entire post, and the growing commentary about it, a read:

I'm sorry, but I just cannot resist any longer. The fantastical, magical realism surrounding the events of the birth of Sarah Palin's 5th child Trig just have to be reviewed. (Come on, there's a medical slant to the topic, right???)

Please take a moment to listen to or read the transcript of an interview ex-Governor Palin gave to a reporter in 2008. To recap:

In April 2008, Sarah Palin was 43 years old and 8 months pregnant with a known Down's Syndrome child. She had had two previous miscarriages. For some reason she flew to Dallas, Texas to give a speech at a national governor's conference. Early in the morning on the day of the speech, Mrs. Palin states that she started to feel some cramps and noticed leakage of some fluid. So she called her OB in Alaska who apparently reassured her that everything was cool (and who now refuses to speak to anyone from the media about the incident). Again, she describes fluid leaking from between her legs, suggesting a possible premature rupture of membranes (i.e her water broke). While 8 months pregnant with a special needs child. At age 43. [Click HERE to read the entire exposé]

\im-ˈpȯr-tənt

All photos from American Idyll, a blog maintained by my eldest Brother-Unit, TW (plus the maintes beautiful contributions of ruuscal). American Idyll is dedicated to the Grand Canyon, and to the river, because, as TW notes: the river knows...

"...Let us go," we said, "into the Sea of Cortez, realizing that we become forever a part of it; that our rubber boots slogging through a flat of eel-grass, that the rocks we turn over in a tide pool, make us truly and permanently a factor in the ecology of the region. We shall take something away from it, but we shall leave something too." And if we seem a small factor in a huge pattern, nevertheless it is of relative importance. We take a tiny colony of soft corals from a rock in a little water world. And that isn't terribly important to the tide pool. Fifty miles away the Japanese shrimp boats are dredging with overlapping scoops, bringing up tons of shrimps, rapidly destroying the species so that it may never come back, and with the species destroying the ecological balance of the whole region. That isn't very important in the world. And thousands of miles away the great bombs are falling and the stars are not moved thereby. None of it is important or all of it is.
-- John Steinbeck (from "The Log from the Sea of Cortez"**)

**The Log from the Sea of Cortez is an English language book written by American author John Steinbeck and published in 1951. It details a six-week (March 11 – April 20) marine specimen-collecting boat expedition he made in 1940 at various sites in the Gulf of California (also known as the Sea of Cortez), with his friend, the marine biologist Ed Ricketts. It is regarded as one of Steinbeck's most important works of non-fiction chiefly because of the involvement of Ricketts, who shaped Steinbeck's thinking and provided the prototype for many of the pivotal characters in his fiction, and the insights it gives into the philosophies of the two men.

The Log from the Sea of Cortez is the narrative portion of an unsuccessful earlier work, Sea of Cortez: A Leisurely Journal of Travel and Research, which was published by Steinbeck and Ricketts shortly after their return from the Gulf of California, and combined the journals of the collecting expedition, reworked by Steinbeck, with Ricketts' species catalogue. After Ricketts' death in 1948, Steinbeck dropped the species catalogue from the earlier work and republished it with a eulogy to his friend added as a foreword.

off to the showers

I've been stuck in bed for four days now, and sad to say, it's the best place for me. Every hour, I try to get Sammy to eat and drink, settling for a bite, downright giddy should he show more interest. Getting out of bed and into the wheelchair is so painful that I bypass Salty Tears and go straight to Total Despair.

It's not my shoulders, I don't think, because they don't hurt more than normal -- and my fever is actually higher than is usual. If you really want to know, I think it's a delayed reaction to the losses achieved by virtually every one of my Wimbledon favorites.

Yes, from the Belgian women [Vera Zvonareva just defeated Kim Clijsters] to sexy Andy... from... Oh, hell. I cannot get over Andy's loss. That was likely the blow that inflamed every freaking one of my osteoporotic joints. Huge congratulations to Yen-Hsun Lu, of course. Ranked 82, unseeded, the Taiwanese player's win was his first in four years of Wimpleton competition.

There is so little known of him that you will quickly become inured to the fact that his dead father was a chicken farmer. There are only so many ways that even the most talented of journalists can find to say "son of a chicken farmer."

Roddick and Lu had played three matches prior to this, Roddick winning all three. I confess to not paying great attention to this meeting, as I suffered from Assumptions.

Still, my interest flickered when the second set went to a tie-breaker. And again, when Roddick's return of service stayed perfectly flat. The last set was clearly his best, too late. Darned son of a chicken farmer!

When Roddick responds defensively to a lesser player playing hot, he opts for predictable safety, and fails to convert, fails to aggress. He just generally fails. So while his play since returning to competition after his knee surgery truly is excellent, the mind and an inhibited strategy cannot be trumped.

Lu, on the other hand, went with a more zen approach: “Today I just take a time, serve regular, and stay with him, try to find a chance and to win the set, set by set, set by set, until end, I shaking hand and I win. Yeah, I just don’t think.”

Lu's next opportunity for mindless advancement? Novak Djokovic, in the quarterfinals.

Is there an answer to why Andy only managed to convert one of eight break opportunities or is it as simple as complaisancy, and perhaps the last piece of his particular puzzle?

Clearly, he has improved tremendously as a result of intensely rehabilitating his knee. When he is "on," there's nothing finer!

No, complacency is the wrong word. Not self-satisfied, not unaware of trouble or danger.

Not non-chalant, either -- coolly unconcerned or indifferent. Not without warmth or enthusiasm.

I am at a loss. The danger is that I will choose an outside agency -- the wind, the sun, the stress, maybe even Yen-Hsun Lu, himself.

Never underestimate the son of a Taiwanese chicken farmer.

Now that all my picks have been eliminated, whom do I now choose to jinx? Let's see... I think I'll go out on a limb and choose Serena (Venus was eliminated this morning). What can I say -- I am a daredevilish sort. On the men's side, anyone but Roger, please. I love Nadal, but am very fond of Soderling. So... anyone from that side of the draw, I guess!

Berdych, I don't know at all. Ranked 13, on paper, he doesn't look to stand much of a chance against Federer. The great news is that the paper won't be playing. The awful news is that, after his shakey first two matches, Federer has cranked everything up a notch, and pretty much destroyed Jurgen Melzer on Monday.

The dirt on Berdych is that he tends to choke... if ever there were an occasion amenable to choking, I am guessing that the Wimbledon quarters is it. *

Okay, well, I am soaked in sweat. I am going to head for the shower to desalinate.
If that wasn't already a word, it is now.


* Okay, so this would be me, a day later, eating my words. Yum, yum! Not only did he not choke, Berdych won. Meaning that he elevated his play, looked awesome, and totally embarrassed Roger Federer, who proved less than sporting during his meeting with the press afterward. Instead of acknowledging Berdych's superior play, he produced a litany of his physical woes, and claims to have "[given] the match away." You don't get to Federer's level of competence without a healthy ego, but it would be nice to see some humility. Berdych earned his win today with deep and powerful shots, great movement on the court, and great serving. Congrats to the Czech!

Djokovic will face Berdych in the semifinals, and Nadal takes on... MURRAY! Yes, he finally has broken through and you know the Brits must be going crazy...

The other shocker today -- Serena and Venus Williams were ousted from doubles competition by Elena Vesnina and Vera Zvonareva.

The women's semi is set up as follows: Serena Williams vs. Petra Kvitova and Vera Zvonareva vs. Tsvetana Pironkova. That's right -- no Venus, no Kim Clijsters, no Justine, no Maria Sharapova. It's almost as if only Serena got the memo this year...

And, just because this is my blog and I feel like it, I would like to renew my plea for women's play to extend to best of 5-set matches. Slow-starters are often doomed in the 3-set system, and matches can end in a ridiculously short period of time. Wozniacki was out in 46 minutes! Billie Jean King has been calling for parity for over 30 years now... It's time to listen to her. In 2007, she was interviewed by NPR following the Wimbledon Committee's decision to provide equal prizewinnings to men and women players.

ROBERTS: There's an argument to be made that women tennis players play best of three, men play best of five. Often the women's matches are not as tough because there's not as much depth of field and that it's not equal work. So we're not talking about equal pay for equal work. What do you - what's your response to that argument?

Ms. KING: Well, first of all, in the entertainment business you don't get paid by the hour. And secondly, we've always been willing to play three out of five sets and if anyone knows the history of Wimbledon, they would know that when women first started to play back in the late 1800s and early 1900s, we did play three out of five. But you have to remember, we played in a corset, a full-length dress, couldn't show our ankles or our wrists. and I think one of the women that was participating back in the old days fainted or didn't feel very good and therefore the all-men committee decided that they would only let us play two out of three sets.

ROBERTS: So they shortened the sets instead of foregoing the corsets?

Ms. KING: You got it.

John Henderson took on the topic during Wimbledon 2008:

The origin of women playing three rather than five sets goes back to when sports were run exclusively by men who took the patronising view that women, poor dears, could not possibly compete for as long as their male counterparts.

This attitude is changing in other sports, particularly in athletics. For years, the Olympics allowed women to run no farther than 800 metres - the 1,500 was not introduced until 1972. Now women run all the distances, including, of course, the marathon. Britain's world-record holder Paula Radcliffe has shown conclusively that stamina, which has been defined as simply the guts to go on, is not a gender thing by doing a faster time than all her male compatriots, as well as female, in the London Marathon.

Stamina, the guts to go on. I like that.

Lindsey Baum: One Year Missing

Last July 20, I wrote my first blog post about missing 11-year old Lindsey Baum:

Around 9:15 pm on June 26, Lindsey J. Baum, an 11-year old from the tiny town of McCleary, Washington, disappeared while walking from a friend's house to her home, only four short blocks away.

She just had an argument with her brother, but most everyone notes that she wasn't storming off mad. She didn't have the accoutrements you'd think of when thinking of a runaway -- no money, no cell phone, no change of clothes.

Some friends set out with her, so she was accompanied for a while before they peeled off to go to their own homes for dinner, or homework, a bath or shower, whatever.

Two of those four blocks are reported to be somewhat industrial -- though we are talking *rural* small town. One block away is access to a major highway.

As any child would be, Lindsey was troubled by her parents' recent divorce. Her father lives in Tennessee. This detail is the one I have to shrug off -- in my family, similar circumstances played a role in my eldest brother's decision to run away. But he was a savvy teenager, a world traveler; Lindsey just turned 11 (a grand birthday celebration surely awaits her), and only knows McCleary.

Tomorrow marks the first anniversary of her disappearance. There have been no sightings, no productive new information, and in this age of information and its technology, that is almost unheard of. Indeed, I would have thought it impossible that in the span of a year, there are no leads to proffer, no tantalizing tidbits to ponder and inspect.

I have wondered, even, what the significance might be of such a complete absence of clues. Unfortunately, to follow that path means to go crazy with notions of vast conspiracy. Fortunately, there is no lack of volunteers willing to go nuts by noting such things as the disturbing habit of such-and-such Youth Minister to be surrounded by... youth. (It only gets worse. A local park ranger, who was identified, not from some actual association with Lindsey, but by a psychic who dreamed his initials had the gall to own a supremely suspicious... boat.

I do not imply that nothing has been done -- not at all. Far from it.

There have been frequent searches, interviews and re-interviews (and amateur sleuthes have had a field day inventing all sorts of suspicious people). A substantial reward has been offered. The FBI is on the case, Interpol has been alerted, and the local Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office has worked long and hard, and will continue to do so.

Rather than mark tomorrow's anniversary by failure and lack, Lindsey's mother Melissa has helped organize an event called a Day of Hope:

McCLEARY, Wash. (CBS/AP) A "day of hope" will be observed Saturday in an Olympia park on the one-year anniversary of Lindsey Baum's disappearance.

Police are still looking for possible leads in the case and hope that they will one day be able to determine what happened to Lindsey, who was 10-years-old when she went missing on June 26, 2009 while walking home from a friend's house in McCleary, Wash.,west of Olympia.

During the observance, called "Lindsey's Day of Hope and Awareness for the Missing," balloons will be released for Lindsey and all of the other missing persons of Washington state, reports The News Tribune. It will take place from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. in Olympia's Heritage Park.

Previously, police have enlisted the help of the FBI, bloodhounds, and searchers on horseback, but there have been no signs of the missing 4-foot-9-inch, 80 pound girl.

Melissa Baum, Lindsey's mother, says that her daughter was upset by the recent divorce of her parents, but says Lindsey did not have enough money to run away, nor had she ever tried to run away in the past.

After nearly a year of searching, her mother fears the worst.

The search for Lindsey continues, and authorities are offering a $25,000 reward for information regarding the young girl's whereabouts, as well as information leading to the arrest of and charges against the person or people responsible for her disappearance.

If you have any information regarding Missing Child Lindsey Baum, please call the Grays Harbor County Sheriff's Office at 866-915-8299.

I finished my first post about Lindsey by explaining how I'd heard of her. SecretWave101 was bothered, early on, by the scant attention being paid this dear child. Full of vim and vinegar, I vowed to follow the case, and publicize it here. I stand by that promise, even knowing now how little help this actually is.

I learned about her over at Dr. SecretWave101's blog. He notes what many of us have seen in our own communities: How legwork and media savvy are manditory to keep the faces and stories of our stolen children front and center in the public's view.

He notes other stuff, too -- having to do with the privilege of stereotype and the insidious mechanisms by which missing and exploited children receive airplay.

Research Lindsey's story and retell it on your own blog -- or where you will. You're likely more creative than I am -- the point is to disseminate, remind, encourage. Yes, and annoy, I suppose, if that should become necessary. (It's de rigueur here at Marlinspike Hall, deep, deep in the Tête de Hergé!)

To see all posts about Lindsey, click here.

The Long and the Short of It

Wow. What a difference a day makes!

Isner is out, losing in a fast, straight-sets match to Thiemo de Bakker, during which the American had no aces -- versus the 113 aces served to Mahut on Tuesday... Wednesday... and Thursday.

Today's match, over in 94 minutes, was the shortest men's match thus far in the 2010 Wimbledon tourney.

I'm surprised he was able to move at all.

For my daily whine: why, oh why, must Clijsters be paired against Henin?



Noteworthy: Mauresmo, very happy, it seems, in her retirement, is coaching Michael Llodra... who lost a close 4 set match to Roddick on Wednesday. Now she can chill and have a little beaujolais on some veranda somewhere.

Funny -- after her win at Antwerp, where someone awarded her a nice bottle, she said, "Tout le monde va penser que je suis alcoolique"!

I haven't been very forthcoming about my picks for this year... I am, to be honest, pretty sick, as well as emotionally drained by nursing Sam-I-Am. He will only rarely take food, and then only small bites from my hand. It is uncomfortable for him to lower his head to a bowl -- so my hands are met in offering every half hour -- a dish of water, a plate with small palatable morsels, treats of all kinds. I will spare you the play-by-play, as it is quite simple: He is a dying cat, much loved and well-cared for, and loving and caring, generously, in his turn. We hope he will turn the corner and live months, maybe years longer, but it does not look likely.

Anyway, I will go with my sentimental favorites -- why not? So that'd be Roddick and Henin. I apologize, in advance, to them -- as I have an extensive history as a Sport's Jinx.

As in Judo: Apoplexy Justice

When I am reduced to burps and gurgles over some antic by Dick Cheney or by the way torture citations are lightly glossed, tossed, and reseasoned before being plated and served up as homegrown and fresh from the garden...?

And when the subterranean amoral violence that diminishes us as both a nation and a species is explained away by that particular cavernous Talking DeathHead?

When the two are intertwined by the tendrils of justification (national defense, intelligence, terror:terror:terror) then I am simply apopleptic* and can only thrash about, trying to find my voice.

Thank goodness, then, for Buckeye Surgeon and his posts on torture, and his refusal to let Cheney off the hook.

I officially became a fan of the Buckeye Surgeon last May, when he published the post: Baudrillard and the Hyperrealism of the Parathyroidectomy

This is going to be a bizarre post; I'm just warning you.

I've been reading from Jean Baudrillard recently. Baudrillard is a post modernist French thinker/philosopher who writes about the preponderance of images, signs and representations in our technologically-driven, post modern lives. A lot of what he writes is almost deliberately obscure and esoteric. You find yourself re-reading entire chapters two or three times because nothing makes sense and you get pissed off thinking hey I'm not a moron, I have advanced degreees why is this guy being so intentionally obtuse? I sort of hate Baudrillard, actually, for that reason. But he does have some interesting takes on the nature of reality that are rather illuminating.

I believe the exact wording of my thought at the time was... chouette! [True, I had to put aside the whole Forget Foucault (Oublier Foucault) nonsense... which was submitted to Foucault, himself, for publication in Semiotext(e) and to which Foucault, himself, never replied. Which is to say, don't miss Sylvère Lotringer's interview, Forget Baudrillard. In short, what must be acknowledged is the impossibility of participating in a field of study or in its criticism, without complicity.] Buckeye Surgeon plays on the subject/object shenanigans chez Baudrillard, and, oddly enough, chez super-specialized endocrine surgeons, as well. Actually, not odd at all, given consumerism à la Baudrillard. Hyperreality and this consumerism mark the Baudrillard of the 70s, the on-again, off-again marxist "thinker" in evolution as provocateur.

There are precious few medical bloggers who could pull that off, and even fewer that one would want to. I found myself wanting to hear Baudrillard on Abu Ghraib (war porn), among other things, through the filter of this particular midwestern general surgeon.

So recently, when he decided to beg all questions, in To blog or not to be, I was bummed, and responded snarkily.

I know, I know. [Like Frank Drackman -- which is a phrase I never ever thought I'd write -- I have a framed Master's of My Domain upon the office wall...]

I am so happy he continues to blog, even happier to know that he does so with his young daughter in mind.

Who else is going to keep that upstart, Atul Gawande, in check?

* At those moments, I am at such a remove from the inane boggle-headed chirping about how "il faut cultiver notre jardin" that I am, to overestimate myself, dangerous. I nod along with Jean-Luc and pump my cold, purple fist at his "Je me contenterai d'ajouter qu'il y a aussi sans doute un peu de malice chez Voltaire..."


“As in judo, the best answer to an adversary maneuver is not to retreat, but to go along with it, turning it to one’s own advantage, as a resting point for the next phase.”

— Michel Foucault

on loaded guns and father's day

Father's Day, for me, is a shameful day. Understand, please, that the shame is mine, not his.

Honor thy father and thy mother is the fifth commandment in the Christian Top Ten, and the first commandment to add a Carrot to the Stick.

Honor your father and your mother,

that your days may be long

in the land which the Lord your God gives you

--Exodus 20:12 (RSV)

One of my favorite off-the-cuff and exceedingly clever remarks to make? "Ewww, that is sooooo Old Testament!"

It's so wonderfully scathing a thing to say in response to some wannabe's harsh judgment or other. Sniff.

After dropping promptly out of college during my second semester, I toyed with this course and that course, using up precious elective credits while working as a nurse's aide in what was euphemistically called a "neurological post-intensive care unit." (Think carrots, peas, corn, eggplant.)

I lived with Baber, a drop-dead gorgeous woman who suffered various addictions -- to cocaine, marijuana, tequila, moonshine, cigarettes, and sex. She was lots of fun, for a while, until her Probation Officer began dropping by too often, and for the wrong reasons. If you get my blaring drift.

Somewhere toward the end of our year together, The Baber lost her job as a Respiratory Therapist, became a short-skirted waitress, began to deal coke out of our apartment (she had, believe it or not, a hollow-ended pool cue that sometimes came into play), and received her second Driving Under the Influence citation. Actually, I think these things are listed in the wrong order. Whatever. It all seemed to happen at the same time, belying cause-and-effect neatness.

Part of Baber's DUI sentence included the temporary suspension of her driver's license. She insisted I go to court with her that long ago early morning, getting us there right on time in her jaunty Toyota stick shift, expertly maneuvering into a choice parking spot three-quarters up a tree-lined, steep, and narrow street.

I learned to drive in a vintage pristine 1965 baby blue Cadillac, which resembled nothing so much as a boat, after which I was gifted with a white 1963 Ford Falcon, my first automotive love. That was the extent of my experience as a driver. (Please note that as I got older, so did my cars.)

So it was no surprise, to me, at least, that I almost got us killed on the way home. We lived in a mountain town, a *hilly* mountain town, to boot, which helped not at all as I struggled to hold my place in line at stop signs and to respond to Baber's barked, angst-driven instructions.

After that, my roomie called on her many other friends to get her from points A to B to wherever.

I remember a strong feeling of disconnect during those final weeks of living with Baber. I was working Night Shift at the hospital so as to free up my days and evenings for two classes: The Bible as Literature and The History of Western Civilization, Part One.

People like to play the game of "where were you when...?" -- I guess because it creates a reassuring collective -- something we had more of when we were less evolved. Where were you when John Kennedy was shot, and Robert? Where were you when you heard that Reverend King had been assassinated, that four were dead in Ohio? Where were you when they tore down the Berlin Wall, when Nixon resigned? When Lennon fell, and George died, and Pinochet got off scot-free? Where were you when the Challenger blew up, when the Twin Towers came down? When Michael Jackson overdosed, when Obama won the election, when the market crashed?

Where was I when I first encountered Plato's man in a cave, chained both fore and aft to his fellows, facing a blank wall, that blank tablet on which was cast the shadows of things?

Sigh. Everyone fancies themselves a semiotician.

Reference the shadow.
Reference the thing, itself.
Reference the thing that cast the shadow.

Where was I in that famously pivotal moment when I was washed in the Allegory of the Cave? Turns out, it was one experience that took place at two different times. Once at its first reading, in that mountain city, in the campus library, where I sat peering out a huge plateglass window at the golden light, setting. The bookend of the experience came 6 or 7 years later. I was walking down Shattuck Avenue in Berkeley, and came upon a beautiful blue shoe, a woman's pump, silk. One left shoe and I was awash in the arbitrary nature of the sign, and in what Plato makes Socrates call "truth"!

What a rush.

Okay, let's get it out of our collective system. This was years ago, before hegemony and eurocentric became part of my stilted academic vocabulary, definitely prior to the time when I began to question the validity of The Canon, and a few universities away from reading Gramsci (as a requirement).

I was as if lost at Baber's place, never feeling it even half mine, despite paying half the rent. Work was rarely fulfilling, and if the Allegory of the Cave could rock my world, imagine my stupefaction when faced with the poet Isaiah, with Socrates drinking hemlock because his principal and the Superintendent of the School District deemed his teaching impious and too snarky for impressionable students. [In case you are wondering, I've topped out today at 101.3.]

Time with her was not a waste. I made some good and lasting friends, earned some easy college credits, and saved my money. I met a man and fell in love. I met lots of men, in fact, mostly musicians from Baber's work. I generally found them in the kitchen, searching desperately for coffee, happy to let me brew a strong pot while they played guitar in the living room. Baber was never an early riser.

But as someone famously said, about something else entirely: "Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold..."

Baber had a gun that somehow made its way under my pillow, and the man I loved was called home. I felt a failure at 19, and spent 50-60 hours a week talking to people who literally oozed, telling their parents, their pregnant wives and lost-without-her husbands that "you never know..." I was sleeping with the husband of a bisexual friend -- actually both Baber and I were -- in exchange for unlimited organic carrot juices at his downtown health food store -- also for pot and blueberry shine.

One day, the precariousness of everything became too much. It had been well over a year since I had called... home. As if it were a habit, I picked up the phone and dialed numbers like an automaton.

The rift between me and my father is bottomless and so wide I cannot see the other side.

"Please come get me," I whispered.

"I'll be there tomorrow afternoon," Dad said. "Be ready to go..."

I may have 3 semester hours that were awarded for the apt completion of The Bible as Literature, but I had forgotten, let's say, that though Deuteronomy and Exodus are credited with the Ten Commandments, they cannot hold a candle to the grave legislation of Leviticus, written around the time of the Babylonian exile, and not, as some hold, by Moses -- but by that amorphous group designated P, for Priestly Sources.

"You shall rise before the gray headed and honor the presence of an old man, and fear your God: I am the LORD" (Leviticus 19:32).

Reverence, fear, curse, honor, obey, mock, scorn, contempt -- Biblical parent language is loaded language.

As I write this, it has been 20 years since I have spoken with or seen my father. I think of him everyday, which does neither him nor me any good, but it is, in all honesty, the very best I can do. I know you think otherwise. Sometimes, usually early in the morning, in the kitchens not making coffee for musicians, the man I loved long dead, and Baber's rabid enthusiasm finally understood as the manic portion of bipolar disease... I also think that I could do better.

There are no guns in The Manor, nor under my pillow -- and there never will be. That's the last full measure of my devotion.




My Life had stood - a Loaded Gun -
In Corners - till a Day
The Owner passed - identified -
And carried Me away -

And now We roam in Sovereign Woods -
And now We hunt the Doe -
And every time I speak for Him -
The Mountains straight reply -

And do I smile, such cordial light
Upon the Valley glow -
It is as a Vesuvian face
Had let its pleasure through -

And when at Night - Our good Day done -
I guard My Master's Head -
'Tis better than the Eider-Duck's
Deep Pillow - to have shared -

To foe of His - I'm deadly foe -
None stir the second time -
On whom I lay a Yellow Eye -
Or an emphatic Thumb -

Though I than He - may longer live
He longer must - than I -
For I have but the power to kill,
Without--the power to die--

--Emily Dickinson

the match that would not end

i just had to document that the score is 55-55 in the fifth set.

that's right. "set." as in, tennis set. fifth, as in, there were four that came before.

mahut versus isner, the longest game ever... dastardly even. to say these guys are tuckered (even though the match has been spread over two days) is a ridiculous understatement. play has now run over the 9-hour mark.

the quality of the *serving* alone is awe-inspiring.

the first 60 or so games, i thought "how cool to be witnessing tennis history."

(now i am kind of embarrassed for whomever wins -- and so bummed on behalf of the loser.)

now it is 56-56... 157 games in the match so far! holy moly*, guacamole!

chapeaux, all around.

6/24/2010: {CONGRATULATIONS TO ISNER! the two had to come back on a THIRD day and the match ended up lasting ELEVEN hours, five minutes... this is one that will be long on the record books. the final fifth set score? 70-68}

* [T]he origin of the word Moly... comes from Homer's Odyssey. In book 10, Hermes gives the herb to Odysseus to protect him from Circe's incantation. Homer describes Moly by saying, "The root was black, while the flower was as white as milk; the gods call it Moly, and mortal men cannot uproot it, but the gods can do whatever they like."

Mannitol as Salvage Treatment for CRPS? Not so much...

By definition, salvage treatment/therapy is

1. A final treatment for people who are nonresponsive to or cannot tolerate other available therapies for a particular condition and whose prognosis is often poor....
Salvage therapy is given in the hope of a cure or at least of some more quality time or a better quality existence.

The Wikipedia entry notes that "it is used both to mean a second attempt and a final attempt."

"Salvage treatment/therapy" is not a new concept to me, but it's also not one that I spend an inordinate amount of time investigating. I think that when I first started reading reports and studies, the SCS was considered out there, a regular Hail Mary of a treatment, plus oddities like Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy... Now, I suppose the ketamine coma falls under the rubrique, as well as intrathecal catheters and intraspinal administration of narcotics, and drugs such as baclofen.

[Most articles note that the term is usually used in reference to the treatment of HIV/AIDS and certain cancers, diseases in which "final attempts" are certainly of a more dire nature.]

The advocation of mannitol as a treatment drug in CRPS is certainly not widespread --indeed, one of its most steadfast promoters is the infamous Dr. Hooshmand, who proposes its use to deter "toxic metabolic water retention in the nerve cells" and "neuro-inflammation."


INJURY: International Journal of the Care of the Injured
Volume 41, Issue 7, Pages 773-777 (July 2010)
Edward C.T.H. Tan, Marijn C.T. Tacken, Johannes M.M. Groenewoud, Harry van Goor, Jan Paul M. Frölke

Department of Surgery, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands

Department of Medical Technology Assessment, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, The Netherlands

Edward C.T.H. Tan is corresponding author, and may be reached at: Department of General Surgery - Traumatology, Radboud University Nijmegen Medical Centre, 690 Internal Postal Code, P.O. Box 9101, 6500 HB Nijmegen, The Netherlands. Tel.: +31 24 361 38 71; fax: +31 24 354 05 01.

ABSTRACT : Mannitol as salvage treatment for Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type I

Introduction
Complex Regional Pain Syndrome Type I (CRPS I) is a continuation of symptoms and signs due to a pathological exaggerated reaction in an extremity of the human body after an injury or operation. Although the clinical picture of CRPS I in the majority of patients is well known, the underlying pathophysiology remains unclear. In the Netherlands, intravenous mannitol administration used as hydroxyl radical scavenger for patients who do not respond to conservative treatment of CRPS I is advocated but little evidence supports this salvage strategy. In this study the effect of mannitol as salvage medication was evaluated in a well-defined multimodal step-up treatment protocol.

Patients and methods
A consecutive group of 68 adult patients with persistent CRPS I was analysed, who underwent a total of 100 mannitol infusions. The effect of treatment was considered per sign and per symptom according to the Veldman et al. criteria for CRPS I.

Results
Overall improvement of CRPS I after mannitol treatment was successful in 24% after 1 week, and in 30% after 1 month. Mannitol treatment had some effect in patients with initially warm CRPS I in contrast to patients with cold CRPS I (OR=6.30 with CI [2.37–16.75]). Also patients with CRPS I at the upper extremity had more benefit than patients with CRPS I at the lower extremity (OR=3.26 with CI [1.34–7.93]). Poor results of mannitol treatment were associated with cold CRPS I (p<0.001), p="0.04)" p="0.04)."

Conclusion
Mannitol did not significantly contribute to the overall success of treatment in patients with CRPS I. Patients, presenting with acute, warm CRPS I in the upper extremity may have some benefit.

Remembering Leslie Scalapino

There are some wonderful -- explicative (by which I mean articulate) and moving -- remembrances of Leslie Scalapino being published.

Lyn Hejinian, Leslie Scalapino Remembered:

With the death of Leslie Scalapino on May 28, 2010, the world loses a writer whose visionary thinking provided her with a range of intensely experienced themes and images. It also informed the syntax of her language, which one might readily term experimental but which, more to the point, was a manifestation of the incessant vigilance she imposed on her mind and its articulations. The effort that her writing entailed was motivated by her conviction that action (e.g. writing, but also teaching, editing, publishing, insisting) and being (the present of anything or everything) are inseparable. One is one with the present. Everything is creative....

Leslie's generosity to poets (as a teacher, as an editor, as a publisher, and as an audience member at readings) was an expression not only of interest but of her ferocious persistence on behalf of something larger than art, though art was central to it. Leslie—in every facet of her complex and committed life—was engaged in a struggle for truth. It wasn't a transcendent truth but the truth of justice—particular and specific to the instant. She was an unprecedentedly original writer, because she was so very much an original thinker. She was also a fiercely compassionate writer. Suffering and injustices (of circumstance, of other people's thoughts as well as actions) were persistent themes in her writings, which sought (and spotted) alternative terrains for being, however fleetingly they could be glimpsed or said to exist.

R.D. Pohl, at ArtsBeat, Scalapino's writing punched a hole in reality, includes this about her latest published work:

Her most recent volume Floats Horse-Floats or Horse-Flows was published in March by Buffalo-based Starcherone Books. Based on the notion of "alexia" or "word-blindness (but not arising from a nervous disorder)," Scalapino generated a narrative in which "unknown words create a future."

How to describe the book? It's set in a kind of inchoate or apocalyptic continuous present in which strip miners, wounded soldiers, and dislocated polar bears wander across a deforested, animal and human corpse strewn landscape, orphaned girls are trafficked on the streets of Calcutta, insurgents sweep across the desert in Toyota pick-ups, a female detective named Grace Abe tracks a band of animal poachers across the hinterlands of Tibet, while elsewhere Venus and Serena Williams face off in a tennis match the main focus of which is Venus' "deconstructed forehand," an American president and his henchmen act to advance the interests of corporation named Haliburton, and poet named Creeley appears Virgil-like to a female narrator named One in her dreams.

It's a beautiful, horrible, synaesthetic vortex seemingly spun out of an intentionally disassociative lexicon the paradoxical end result of which is the tenuous possibility of freedom and social action. New York City based writer Douglas Manson, who read the book last year while living in Buffalo and working as an editor for Starcherone Books, recently wrote the following about it:

"I read the manuscript last year, and finally understood what she was trying to do--that the mind comes to recognize itself in the act of reading, with emphasis on "act". I've never read a book as difficult as that one, but also never read a book that made the activity of reading such a conscious, palpable one. She understood the way language structures thought so thoroughly that she could write both its trauma and apotheosis. It's not a book one likes or dislikes, but will show you, through your senses, exactly what the mind is doing when it reads."

Leslie Scalapino reads from Floats Horse-Floats or Horse-Flows, recorded and produced by Konrad Steiner. Feb. 14, 2010
(distributed by PennSound / BlipTV




New York Memorial for Leslie Scalapino
Monday, June 21, 2010 8:00 pm
Poetry Project St. Marks Church

Petah Coyne, Simone Fattal, Joan Retallack, Mei-mei Berssenbrugge, Charles Bernstein, Susan Bee, Ann Lauterbach, Susan Howe, Paolo Javier, Molissa Foley, Fiona Templeton, Laura Elrick, Rodrigo Toscano, Steve Clay, Rachel Levitsky, James Sherry, Pierre Joris, Judith Goldman, E. Tracy Grinnell, Tom White & others

There will be a wine and cheese reception to follow.

The Memorial follows two performances of Scalapino’s Noh play Flow–Winged Crocodile at Poets House
Saturday, June 19, at 7:00pm & Sunday, June 20, at 2:00pm
Directed by Fiona Templeton, with Katie Brown, Stephanie Silver and Julie Troost. Dance by Molissa Fenley. Music by Joan Jeanrenaud. Projected drawings by Eve Biddle. Cosponsored by Belladonna and The Poetry Project.
$10, $7 for students and seniors, free to Poetry Project and Poets House Members

Buddhist funeral ceremony
officiated by Abbot Norman Fischer
Thursday July 1, 2010
San Francisco Zen Center Green Gulch Farm
1601 Shoreline Highway Muir Beach, CA 94965-9759
for directions and parking: www.sfzc.org/ggf/
2pm in the Green Dragon Temple; 4-5:30 reception in the Wheelwright Center

In lieu of flowers, please consider a donation to: The San Francisco Zen Center, 300 Page St., San Francisco, CA 94102 Poets in Need, PO Box 5411, Berkeley, CA 94705 Reed College for the Leslie Scalapino Scholarship, 3203 Southeast Woodstock Blvd., Portland, OR 97202-8199 The AYCO Charitable Foundation, PO Box 15203, Albany, NY 12212-5203 for the Leslie Scalapino-O Books Fund to support innovative works of poetry, prose and art

San Francisco Memorial: Readings with poets, artists & friends
Friday November 19, 2010 (date to be confirmed)
Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall
University of California, Berkeley
Time & further details TBA

Education Matters: The 2010 UC-B Summer Reading List

Incoming undergraduates have now received the annual Summer Reading List put together by University of California at Berkeley faculty and staff. This year's theme is Education Matters:

In this uneasy period for public education, rife with budget cuts, fee increases, and struggling schools, both in California and across the country, it seemed to us a good time to examine stories about and issues in education. After all, we here at Berkeley have chosen to work in higher education, and those of you about to join us have decided to pursue your bachelor’s degrees, so while all of us will spend much of our time concerning ourselves with what we’re doing and how we’re going to do it, it also seems worth thinking about why we’re doing it. The following series of recommended books — memoirs, biographies, arguments, poetry, fiction, and one blog —form a compelling collection that can help us get at this question. We suspect that more than one of them will appeal to you...

Jennifer Dorner
Head, Instructional Services
Doe/Moffitt Libraries

Michael Larkin
Lecturer, College Writing Programs

Each recommended reading is paired with a comment by the nominating faculty or staff, and is followed by a short blurb about that teacher. For access to the UC Berkeley Library Web Catalog, go here.

The Autobiography of Malcolm X
Alex Haley
New York: Ballantine Books, 1965
A complete education on three fronts: the streets, the slammer, and politics. This book really opened my eyes to hidden facts about the U.S. and how we treat people of color. But beyond that I learned about how a man can evolve from ignorance to sophistication without ever stepping inside a classroom. Thanks to Haley’s book I took it upon myself to master the dictionary as much as possible, starting with “that little Aardvark” as Malcolm so eloquently put it. Highly recommended for incoming or outgoing students.

Alvaro Lopez-Piedra
Library Assistant, Monographic Receiving Unit
Spanish/Italian/Portuguese Collections
Alvaro Lopez-Piedra works in the Technical Services Unit at Moffitt Library. His responsibilities include processing Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Catalan book shipments, communicating with vendors and book selectors, and occasionally helping in the mail room. In his spare time his face is buried in a book or in his music collection.


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Educating Esmé: Diary of a Teacher’s First Year
Esmé Raji Codell
Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 2001
This is an inspiring book following Codell’s first year of teaching as a 24-year-old in a new public school in Chicago. She includes funny and heart-rending stories of her struggles to teach troubled students with sometimes wacky approaches, while simultaneously contending with an undermining school principal, gang members, and abusive parents as well. All of it is told in her distinctive voice. Hard to put down. Hard to forget.

Martha Olney
Adjunct Professor
Department of Economics
A recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award, Martha Olney has taught Economics at Cal since 1992.


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Three Cups of Tea
Greg Mortensen
New York: Viking, 2006
This is a fascinating account of a Berkeley RN/mountain climber in the Himalayas who became close to the villagers who saved his life, and decided to build a school for their children. The project faced many obstacles, but he and they prevailed, and he went on to build many schools in rural Pakistan. The Taliban and conservative forces tried to limit the schools to boys only, but the author and his Pakistani allies insisted that girls be allowed to attend on an equal basis with boys. These schools help Pakistanis see another side of Americans, and win hearts and minds away from terrorism.

Nancy K. D. Lemon
Lecturer
UC Berkeley School of Law
Nancy K.D. Lemon teaches courses in Domestic Violence Law, both at Boalt Law School and in the Legal Studies Program (for undergraduates). Her graduate students come from public policy, sociology, social welfare, and ethnic studies, as well as law.


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No Right to Remain Silent: The Tragedy at Virginia Tech
Lucinda Roy
New York: Harmony Books, 2009
As Chair of the English Department, Roy provided Seung-Hui Cho with a tutorial in poetry after he was removed from a class for his threatening behavior. Cho later killed 32 people and wounded many others in an on-campus attack, and then killed himself. This book provides a close look at Cho from Roy’s perspective, but more important, she examines how Virginia Tech handled—and in some instances mishandled—information about Cho’s disabilities, its release of information to the public, and its response to the killings. Roy looks closely at issues of free speech, administrative red tape, and the relationship between “town and gown.” Many of the security measures now in place at UCB and other universities resulted from this tragic event in 2007. Not intended to scare, this book is a close examination of university culture.

Jane Hammons
Lecturer
College Writing Programs
Jane Hammons is a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award and teaches upper and lower division courses in writing for CWP. Her writing can be found in The San Francisco Chronicle Magazine, Columbia Journalism Review and literary magazines such as Alaska Quarterly Review, Frontiers: A Journal of Women Studies, and Southwestern American Literature.


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Winning the Dust Bowl
Carter Revard
Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 2001
EVERYONE should read this memoir. Coming from the American heartland, Revard tells a classic story of his success rising from humble beginnings as a mixed-race kid growing up during trying economic times. He recounts his story with a mix of pictures and stories of his family, as well as with exemplary poems and prose. Yet it goes beyond that—it’s a subtle text on how to write poetry; it’s also the story of how we become who we are, what shapes us and speaks to us as human beings, and what we all share. This is a true gem of a book. If you read it, you will never forget it.

John D. Berry
Librarian
Comparative Ethnic Studies and Native American Studies Collections specialist
Ethnic Studies Library
John Berry is of Choctaw/Cherokee/Scots-Irish/German heritage, an Oklahoma native, and a traditional stomp dancer. He is listed on the Native American Authors pages of the Internet Public Library, and has published poems both in print and on the web.


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Our Schools Suck: Students Talk Back to a Segregated Nation on the Failures of Urban Education
Gaston Alonso, Noel Anderson, Celina Su, Jeanne Theoharis
New York: New York University Press, 2009
The authors of this book examine the reality in which many students find themselves: confined to over-crowded, under-funded, segregated public schools. With fine-grained analysis and unflinching honesty, the authors challenge the prevailing idea that students and their “bad values” are to blame for the state of public education and, instead, hold responsible those who sustain structural inequalities and who perpetuate assumptions that criminalize and stereotype urban youth. Seamlessly woven throughout the text are the voices of students who “talk back” to those in power, critique their learning environments, and demonstrate their power as critical social actors. A terrific, compelling read.

Luisa Giulianetti
Assistant Director
Student Learning Center
Luisa Giulianetti loves working with students as they develop as writers. She is interested in composition studies and 20th century American literature, especially African American literature. She has taught seminars for writing tutors and composition courses, most recently in African American Studies.


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Why School? Reclaiming Education for All of Us
Mike Rose
New York: New Press, 2009
This short, compelling text takes the readers inside schools to see how the current, narrow focus on standardized assessment has “shrunk” the definition of education. (See also Rose's entry “Why I Wrote ‘Why School?’” posted on the author’s blog.) Rose brings us inside classrooms to offer illustrations of a broader definition that includes “curiosity, reflectiveness, imagination, or a willingness to take a chance, to blunder.” In a highly competitive environment like UC Berkeley, it is easy to let numbers drive teaching and learning and admissions. Rose’s little book asks us to reconsider the meaning of education in a democratic society: it’s about developing skills and being prepared for work, yes, but it’s about much more than that. And he asks us to put the question of “Why School?” at the center of the public debate.

Margi Wald
Lecturer
College Writing Programs
Margi Wald teaches courses in the College Writing Programs and is Director of the Summer English Language Institute. In addition to her ten years at UC Berkeley, she has taught in ESL and writing programs in Texas, Tennessee, Illinois, and abroad. Her research focuses on instruction in grammar and vocabulary and on academic literacy development among immigrant ESL students.


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Mike Rose’s Blog
Mike Rose, Professor of Social Research Methodology at UCLA, has written about education for years. As a nice complement to and extension of his recent book (see above), his relatively new blog offers timely entries with postings related to topics such as “the purpose of schooling in a democracy,” “education policy,” “race to the top,” “University of California Budget Cuts,” and “Obama and Education.”

Melinda Erickson
Lecturer
College Writing Programs
Melinda Erickson teaches undergraduate writing courses and graduate pedagogy seminars at Berkeley and works with teachers of English internationally.


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Five Stages of Greek Religion
Gilbert Murray
Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1955
As an undergrad at UC San Diego, I was introduced to this book during discussions with members of the Philosophy Department there. The book is based on a series of lectures Murray gave at Columbia University in 1912 in which he traces the development of Greek religion through its early worship of Olympian gods, to Homeric epics, to the development of different schools of philosophy that pre-dated Christianity. Passages from this wonderful book have accompanied me through all the twists and turns of a lifelong devotion to learning and education.

Paul Hamburg
Librarian for the Judaica Collection
As librarian for the Judaica Collection, Paul Hamburg has developed a keen facility with Hebrew and Yiddish language databases, which he shares with interested faculty and students. His research interests include the History of the Hebrew Book and the Music composed in the Terezin Concentration Camp in Czechoslovakia during the Holocaust.


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The Education of Henry Adams
Henry Adams
New York: Oxford University Press, 2008

The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin
Philadelphia: PENN/University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005

Coming of Age in Mississippi
Anne Moody
New York: Dell, 1976

Down These Mean Streets
Piri Thomas
New York: Vintage Books, 1997

A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, based on her diary, 1785-1813
Laurel Thatcher Ulrich
New York: Vintage Books, 1991

Up From Slavery
Booker T. Washington
New York: Modern Library, 1999

Bread Givers
Anzia Yezierska
New York: Persea Books, 2003


When many people think of education they think of schools. I do as well. But I also think of learning, and I know that learning in its most profound forms often takes place far beyond schoolhouse walls: within families, homes, communities, and nature; at work and play; and in struggle. I recommend students read several of the books listed above and consider what learning is, where it takes place and under what conditions. I hope they will come away from their readings, as I have, with more expansive understandings of education, learning, and life.

Ingrid Seyer-Ochi
Assistant Professor
Graduate School of Education
A former public high school teacher, Ingrid Seyer-Ochi is an anthropologist and historian of education whose research and teaching interests focus on urban education, the history of education, and diversity and inequality in schooling. Her most recent project is an ethnographic study of learning opportunities in three of Oakland’s most diverse and integrated neighborhoods. Her book, Smart on the Under: Excavating Opportunity in Urban America, is forthcoming.

the oasis

Dobby is clearly a gift, on loan to us.

He is the runt of Marmy Fluffy Butt's litter and from the beginning proved to be one of those special animals that comes along once in the lifetime of a blue moon.

Sam-I-Am continues to decline, steadily but slowly. I am moved by his decision to stay close to me, even though, clearly, there will be times I am going to wish he would glom onto someone else.

(More specifically... I hope he will decide to get off of my legs. Soon.)

But for now, it is a distinct honor. Much of my time is spent trying to get him to eat and drink.

I got up at 4 am and snagged an apple, kind of upset at how Sammy looked -- his eyes were very dull and he was exceedingly sluggish. The toxins normally cleared from his system by the kidneys and his liver are clearly taking over...

It suddenly seemed crucial that he drink some water -- just as, a few hours earlier, I staked the fate of the world on whether or not he would swallow my offering of a fragrant spoon of Super Supper. The Earth remains on its axis precisely because Sam-I-Am settled for a mouthful of plain yogurt.

Enter Dobby.

He surveys the situation, notes my near hysteria and Sammy's clear reluctance to imbibe...

And then begins a game of "Monkey see, Monkey do" that leaves me laughing, and Sammy, at least temporarily, hydrated.

Side by side at the bowls, they alternate between tapping their paws on the liquid surface and daintily lapping up the water.

I eat an apple.

Dobby pauses to give me a conspiratorial grin, then turns to lick Sammy gently on the head.

Maybe we can all grab a few more minutes of sleep.

Warscapes

It's been kind of a surreal day, and that's saying a lot.

Ferrying Sam-I-Am back and forth to the vet these past few days has been emotionally draining, as well as annoying, I'm sure, for Fred.

He refuses to put Sammy in a pet carrier, and holds him in his lap -- in the car, in the waiting room. (My suggestions that other pet owners might not be so thrilled with his choice evokes only the blankest of looks.)

While they were waiting for the vet today, Fred kept dozing off... and just when he'd reach the point of a real snooze, Sammy would promptly chirp at him.

"He would give me a look that said, 'Hey, can't you stay awake with me here? C'mon, my
human!'"

Sammy's chirps are legendary -- when he really needs you, he pulls it out of his bag o'tricks. Two tones, loud, and always accompanied by guilt-inducing looks.

Big eyes, the whole spiel. He's a wise guy.

[Sometimes he throws an elbow, if the chirp-und-glare routine falls flat.]

We left him at the vet, as we were having no luck getting him to eat. I was fast becoming his least favorite entity by coming at him with a syringe filled with water every half hour. Even so, he had not been able to swallow more than a few millilitres.

An x-ray showed that his liver was inexplicably small, while his spleen was inexplicably large.
His gastrointestinal tract, thanks to our insane twice daily doses of anti-furball elixir, was completely and totally empty -- no food, no masses, no kinks. An ultrasound showed some kidney damage (that's the extent of the explanation we received on the phone), and lab tests pointed to a possible kidney infection, as well. No imaging study, though, points to any obvious cancers, which is what we feared when the vet announced his excess spleen (you and I know he is channeling Baudelaire...).

All in all, not Sammy's day.

So it was very kind of the vet to call us late tonight with the news that the grey ghost was eating non-stop. The theory is that he felt renewed after getting lots of subq fluids. The vet estimates he'll be there a few days more, at least.

Considering we feared losing him this morning, we receive this news with great happiness this evening.

Unless I'm in an alternate universe?

I just glanced at the New York Times' headlines:

U.S. Identifies Vast Riches of Minerals in Afghanistan

The United States has discovered nearly $1 trillion in untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan, far beyond any previously known reserves and enough to fundamentally alter the Afghan economy and perhaps the Afghan war itself, according to senior American government officials.

Anyone else get hit with the prescient heebie-jeebie shivers?