Day: May 11, 2008

Times Tidbits

Over the last week or so, The New York Times has just had a lot of great material that I wanted to share with you.

First up is a piece on traditional healers and US immigrants entitled “Illegal Farm Workers Get Health Care in Shadows.” Interested in curanderas? Then take a look. Because it includes a video too.

Benedict Carey has a piece “I’m Not Lying, I’m Telling a Future Truth. Really.” Tend to fib? “It’s basically an exercise in projecting the self toward one’s goals,” says Dr. Richard Gramzow.

Jennifer Senior’s review Chronicle of a Death Foretold covers the new book Blood Matters by Masha Gessen. Gessen is a “previvor,” and writes about her learning and decisions about what to do about her extremely high genetic risk for breast and ovarian cancer

The next one is primarily because I know the person who starts the article off! I used to train with Jenny Higgins at Emory, so it’s great to see her as the lead-in for Gina Kolata’s piece on training for triathalons and the difficulties of peak performance.

Carl Zimmer wrote on Lots of Animals Learn, But Smarter Isn’t Better. “Why have most animals remained dumb?” is a good evolutionary question, and it has to do with the costs involved in being smart. Zimmer also addresses how learning as widespread in the animal kingdom, so bye-bye to notions of animals operating primarily by hardwired instincts.

Janet Rae-Dupree had her short and sweet Can You Become A Creature of New Habits? How about making good habits to overcome old habits, and trying to canalize creativity too.

Hurt Girls: The Uneven Playing Field analyzes the higher rates of injury in women’s sports, asking is there an injury epidemic? A Magazine piece, so it’s comprehensive.

Continue reading “Times Tidbits”

Mad Pride

“Mad Pride” Fights A Stigma by Gabrielle Glaser reports on the frank talk, public exposure, and anti-stigma efforts of people who experience “extreme mental states.” Books like Kay Redfield Jamison’s autobiography of bipolar disorder An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness and movies like A Beautiful Mind on the mathematician John Nash’s schizophrenia have brought mental illness further into the public light. Now a grass-roots movement is going further: “these advocates proudly call themselves mad; they say their conditions do not preclude them from productive lives.”

It is a diverse movement, centered on anti-stigma efforts, on quality of life, and on treatment options.

Members of the mad pride movement do not always agree on their aims and intentions. For some, the objective is to continue the destigmatization of mental illness. A vocal, controversial wing rejects the need to treat mental afflictions with psychotropic drugs and seeks alternatives to the shifting, often inconsistent care offered by the medical establishment. Many members of the movement say they are publicly discussing their own struggles to help those with similar conditions and to inform the general public.

Themes such as creating “a new language that resonated with our actual experiences,” better public and medical recognition of the nature of their problems, and being given the same sorts of leeway and freedoms that “normal” people enjoy are what drive the “mad pride” movement. They are at once post-conventional due to their extreme mental states, with behaviors and subjective experiences that society would rather not see (social denial), and want to express themselves and have others understand–such a basic human desire.

Liz Spikol, a bipolar writer in Philadelphia, is one of the emerging voices through her blog at the Philadelphia Weekly and YouTube videos (“trouble spikol” is a good search term). Here’s one to watch.

Nicholas Kristof in Colombia

Nicholas Kristof recently wrote an editorial about Colombia, free trade, and human rights entitled Better Roses Than Cocaine. He argued there that “Some Democrats claim that they are against the pact because Colombia has abused human rights. Those concerns are legitimate — but they shouldn’t be used to punish people like Norma Reynosa, a 35-year-old woman who just may snip the flowers that go into the Mother’s Day bouquet that you buy.”

He notes, “Colombia’s progress has been immense. Assassinations of union members, while still a problem, have fallen 80 percent since 2002. Last year, the murder rate for union members was 4 per 100,000, reaching levels far below the homicide rate for the general public.”

He finishes by writing, “To their credit, a large group of prominent Democrats from previous administrations have strongly endorsed the trade accord, declaring that it is ‘in both our vital national security and economic interests.’ But the presidential candidates aren’t listening. Democrats instinctively criticize Mr. Bush when he harms America’s standing in the world. That’s easy. But a test of intellectual honesty is your willingness to hold your own side to the same standard and to point out pandering in those politicians you normally admire.”

I have written previously on the controversy over free trade and Colombia. And Kristof’s readers responded in volume to his editorial, so check them out as well—lots of good critique. Finally, there was a video that went along with his stay in Colombia, so from the Bogota savannah landscape to the voices, as well as the coverage of these same issues, I recommend a look: