Recently, I have posted a few times on recent scientific research involving the gut, or intestinal, microflora, that is microscopic living things in one’s intestines. I neglected to mention a few elementary facts regarding human beings and their microbes, particularly those in our least favorite bodily excrescences, feces.
First, the human feces are by dry weight 60% bacteria, living and dead. The stomach is nearly sterile; from there, bacterial populations gradually increase as one proceeds down the intestinal tract. There are, very roughly, 100 trillion (An old source from 1977 says, there are up to 10 to the 14 power (10^14) bacteria in the human intestinal tract, that is, ten times more than the 10^13 human cells in the body) microbes in your intestine. What is more important, they represent about a hundred times the number of different genes as are in the human genome, and many of these genes have functions that impact the human body in dramatic fashions.
For example, the gut microbes absorb carbohydrates and peptidoglycans that the human intestinal endodermal cells cannot, and break them down to generate simple sugars that the intestine can absorb, and the body can use. The presence of this type of bacteria accounts in large part for the presence of apparent errors in the estimation of calorie intake in obese people, especially those who claim they are eating little but continue to gain weight.
Another example is, broadly, the secretion of factors by gut microflora that influence the human immune system, intestinal growth, and most unusually, moods (by the secretion of serotonin, for example), as well as their possible effect on neoplasms in the rectum, colon, and rarely, small intestine.
First and foremost, however, the microbes of the intestine serve as a protective barrier to pathogenic bacteria when the pathogens gain access to the gastrointestinal tract. Resident bacteria adhere to the cell walls of intestinal surface cells and prevent other bacteria from gaining access by “crowding them out” or competing for residence in the same ecological niche, reducing available energy sources, and even poisoning the invaders.
The residents of the intestinal tract form many large groups but Bacteroides and Firmicutes are two of the most populous. The Firmicutes are usually gram-positive, include some pathogenic species, and they are known to be “promiscuous” sharers of genetic material by connecting to each other with thin hollow tubes that admit the nucleic acid chains and pass them from one to another. Many are also capable of forming endospores, smaller cells with condensed genetic material that are essentially inactive and resistant to adverse environmental conditions like heat and cold.
Bacteroides, on the other hand, are gram-negative and do not form endospores. They also protect the gut against invasion by other bacteria. However, Bacteroides fragilis is responsible for opportunistic infections such as appendiceal abscesses. Bacteroides are typically resistant to a wide variety of antibiotics and have recently shown resistance to more (erythromycin, clindamycin, and tetracycline.) Bacteroides are typically found in people who eat plenty of meat and animal fats, and also in those who are lean. The Firmicutes, conversely, especially those called Prevotella, are typically found in those who consume large quantities of carbohydrates, as well as vegetarians.
When people are fed a laboratory diet, their bacteria respond with changes in composition within 24 hours. However, these changes are usually modest. Normal weight people who eat a lot of fat and protein usually have Bacteroides in their intestines and do not change that composition when fed a laboratory diet over a period of ten days.
A study of European children versus children in Burkina Faso showed that the Europeans had mostly Bacteroides, while the Burkina Faso children had a predominance of Prevotella. This was attributed to the diet in Burkina Faso, which is mostly carbohydrate, whereas the European diet has plenty of fat and protein.
It is entirely possible for animals to live without any bacteria at all in their intestines. This type of animal can be grown and born without the presence of bacteria, and they can be raised in an essentially sterile environment. Germfree mice, however, require supplements of Vitamin B12, Vitamin K, folate, and biotin.
The gut bacteria also digest polysaccharides and some oligosaccharides into short chain fatty acids(acetate, propionate, and butyrate), which stimulate the proliferation of the gut epithelium and cause it to differentiate.
The gut immune system is stimulated by enteric bacteria, and it forms into nodes along the intestinal tract; when fully developed, it is known as gut-associated lymphoid tissue or GALT. When an antigen is consumed orally, the systemic response to it is prevented; this effect persists for more than a month in normal guts but only a few days in germ-free mice.
More fascinating facts later.
Sources: Science public access article 2011; Infection and Immunity 2008;
Sentenced to Death for Marijuana Possession: Wrongful Conviction of Black Man in Louisiana
A twenty-three year old black man, Rodericus Crawford, was sentenced to death after his one-year old son died in bed with him, of pneumonia. His conviction hinged on a bad autopsy that was done by the forensic pathologist for Shreveport, in Caddo Parish, Louisiana. A story giving full details was published in last week’s New Yorker (combined issue, July 6 and 13, 2015.)
The infant had a prior minor injury that occurred one day before his death: a fall in the bathroom that resulted in a minor cut on his lip and a bruise above his eye. The autopsy showed bruising around the lips that must have occurred during postmortem attempts at resuscitation, bruises on the buttocks, and pneumonia, as well as cerebral edema. The pathologist diagnosed “chronic child abuse” and claimed that the infant had been smothered. The presence of cerebral edema, however, contradicted this cause of death because smothering or suffocation does not cause cerebral edema: the victim dies before edema can get started. The edema must have been due to the pneumonia. The parents had reported that the infant had had “a little cold” and had been treated with a nasal aspirator for congestion; rapid progression and death from pneumonia and sepsis can occur within a few hours without the caretakers awareness of severe acute illness, especially during night-time hours.
The man responsible for the trial, conviction, and death penalty, however, was named Dale Cox, the first assistant district attorney of Caddo Parish. He has a positive obsession with killing black people for perceived crimes and had been responsible for more than a third of the death sentences in Louisiana. His parish, Caddo Parish, is home to unreconstructed racists from the Confederacy and was the last capital of this renegade regime during the Civil War. This parish also had the second most lynchings of any county in the South.
After the trial, three pathologists were enlisted to write autopsy reports that contradicted the one used to convict this man: all agreed that the infant had died of pneumonia and sepsis. A blood test confirmed that sepsis was present. Daniel Spitz, a forensic pathologist who had already co-authored a pathology textbook that is popular in medical schools, stated that his autopsy results made it impossible to try the father for supposedly murdering the infant. He stated that the original pathologist had diagnosed homicide “on what seemed like a whim.”
The prosecutor, who received the contradictory autopsy report from Spitz a week before the trial, conceded that it deterred him, but on conferring with the original pathologist, who told him that there was also bruising on the infant’s bottom, he decided to proceed.The pathologist, Traylor, claimed that the pneumonia couldn’t have been severe because the parents didn’t report any fever or rapid heartbeat.
Daniel Cox, the prosecutor, who was sixty-seven at the time of trial, had gone through a divorce and personal bankruptcy in 2005, and some of his colleagues felt that he had become unstable, volatile, and that his usually calm demeanour had deteriorated recently. The defense attorney, Daryl Gold, who thought that Cox was unusually “nice”, even speculated that Cox had a “brain tumor or something.” Another defense lawyer, Henry Walker, the former president of the state’s criminal defense bar, wrote to Listserv that Cox had “developed a state of mental unbalance…”
This rabid, unbalanced prosecutor was hell-bent on sentencing Roderius Crawford to death even though he had no proof of his allegation that the infant was smothered. He used the fact that Crawford had been arrested for marijuana possession as a club at trial to make him and the infant’s mother seem like drug fiends who had brutally murdered their child in a fit of marijuana-induced stupor or sexual frenzy. He openly played on the jury’s prejudices and ignorance regarding drug use as well as the circumstances of their poverty. He hammered on the fact that the father and defendant had never held a full-time job (never mind the unemployment rate and lack of opportunities in his neighborhood in Shreveport.)
Rodericus Crawford was not called to testify by his defense lawyer, although he could have made a sympathetic figure and could have truthfully denied that he had ever abused the infant.
It seems that when Crawford was arrested for possession he was released because the police believed that he had promised to inform on his neighbors, a house five doors down from his that was thought to be a “drug den.” After his release, he refused to turn “state’s evidence” or “fink” on his friends, so the police were dissatisfied and may have placed his case in line for re-arrest; if so, he would have been held until trial because he had no money for bail. Crawford’s mother perceived that his prosecution for his son’s death was revenge for his failure to rat on his friends after the original arrest.
There was a pervasive culture of racism where Crawford lived; when he called 911, the dispatchers assumed that he had smothered his son and stated that there were “a hundred people living in that house” (there were five.) It took over twenty minutes for the ambulance to arrive, and when it did, the paramedics quickly realized that the infant was dead. There were signs, like jaw rigidity and milky opacification of the corneas, that indicated he had been dead for more than an hour. However, they excluded the father from the ambulance and never told anyone that the child was dead. A crowd quickly formed around the ambulance, and they finally drove away after calling the police and requesting protection from the people (family members and neighbors from whom they had withheld the fact that the child was already dead) surrounding them. They turned off their lights and sirens as soon as they turned the corner.
The police wouldn’t let Crawford or the mother follow the ambulance to the hospital. Instead, they immediately detained him and ignored his behavior, which indicated he was severely affected by the incident and already assumed his son to be dead. His innocence was most clearly expressed by his behavior at that time: he was sobbing uncontrollably despite the mother’s reassurances.
How can you sentence someone to death on such slim evidence, and ignore the dissent of three pathologists who are willing to go on record as stating that the first autopsy was mistaken? Even if you assume that the infant was smothered, the father clearly did not intend for his son to die, thus could not be convicted of first-degree murder; and manslaughter is usually not a capital crime. Clearly, Cox is driven by his pathological animosity to black people and is in the driver’s seat when it comes to kidnapping innocent citizens and sending them to be murdered by the apparatus of the state. We can only hope that this case comes to the Supreme Court and is reversed before the murder can be committed.
Cerebral Folding and Brain Size
A new article in Science magazine describes a mathematical function which relates cerebral folding to surface area and thickness. The thinner the cerebral cortex, the more folds it can make and the more surface area it can accommodate. The article can be found here.
Here is a quote from the abstract:
“Larger brains tend to have more folded cortices, but what makes the cortex fold has remained unknown. We show that the degree of cortical folding scales uniformly across lissencephalic and gyrencephalic species, across individuals, and within individual cortices as a function of the product of cortical surface area and the square root of cortical thickness. ”
This formula can be demonstrated by crumpling different thicknesses of paper; maximum crumpling tolerance depends on the square root of the thickness of the paper and results in different final volumes for the ball of crumpled paper.
Therefore, as lissencephalic brains tend to be found in patients with mental retardation, and gyrencephaly is said to be associated with genius, the surface area of the brain is important to its functional ability. The average human neocortex contains about 20 billion neurons and roughly 30 billion glial cells (the number of glia varies widely) in a six-layered coating of gray matter on top of large numbers of long axons covered in myelin, which shows up as the fatty white matter underneath. The more surface area, and the more folding, the more neurons and glia can be included in the neocortex. It appears that the brain functions by sending signals from an introductory ball of interneurons to a more abstract layer of neocortical cells, and even from the initial neocortical area to another, yet more abstract set of neocortical cells. The processing done by each set of neurons to signals received from below relates to how the brain responds to a given set of sensory signals. “Thinking” is really a series of processes carried out by sets of neural cells that react to their inputs by sending an output either to a higher level set of cells or towards a set of cells that initiates motor function. Even motor function is controlled by several layers of sets of cells; in a sense, function is merely passing along signals from one’s input cells to the corresponding output cells. Even within a single anatomically localized set of cells, there may be layers: cells that receive input from the distant region, cells that receive local inputs and send only to equally local output cells, and finally cells that receive local input and send their output to a higher distant region.
For example, in the visual system, there are cells in the retina that sense light, a layer of interneurons, and below that, a layer of cells with axons that project in the optic nerve, cross in the chiasm, and end in the lateral geniculate body. This set of neurons has cells that receive the input of axons from the optic nerve and pass them along to interneurons; then there is an output level that sends its axons along to the occipital area of the neocortex, on the posterior pole of the brain. From there, another bundle of axons radiates to the frontal or prefrontal cortex, which is a third level of abstraction.
About twenty percent of the 800,000 patients a year in the United States who have strokes are affected by acute cerebral thrombosis, that is, a clot fills up an artery that feeds a part of the brain and stops blow flow, resulting in death of the affected brain region and loss of function: a stroke. That implies that the affected brain region is, during the early phase of stroke onset, revivable if blood flow can be restored.
Some years ago(here in 1995), a drug called tPA (plasminogen activator) was developed that could dissolve the blood clot in some instances. This was only partially effective. Over the last few years(here in 2007), a basket-like expandable intra-arterial catheter has been developed that can be introduced through a groin incision all the way up to the cerebral arteries. This device can be inserted up to the clot; a central wire then punctures the clot, and a basket-like surrounding wire is expanded around the clot. The whole can be retrieved through the groin incision.
The use of the clot extractor has been aided by improvements in brain imaging and catheter technology generally that make the whole procedure simpler and safer.
Some five trials have been recently performed of this device compared with tPA; four were stopped early because of the benefits of the device. Patients assigned to the device arm had 60 to 75 percent functional recovery, as opposed to only 40 percent recovery with tPA alone. These results are a dramatic improvement over tPA, which was itself considered a breakthrough when it was revealed.
Even more impressive is the window for successful treatment of an acute stroke, which has widened to nearly six hours when the device is used.
The treatments are also complementary. The clot retriever is good for large clots, and tPA is good for smaller clots, such as those that break off when the clot retriever is closed on a large clot.
One aspect of the treatment has not been explained: the results are much better if the patient is awake when the device is being used. Whether it is the fact that the patient is in better condition overall when they can be kept awake or whether there is another explanation has not yet been explored.
The article I’m referring to is in Science News; the most recent of the five trials mentioned above was published in March in the New England Journal of Medicine, here. Unfortunately, the Science News is on a pay list and the New England Journal articles are only available as abstracts unless you want to pay to subscribe.
So you have to read between the lines and get the information from another source that this is going to be the preferred therapy for large, acute strokes of recent onset: to put them under some sort of brain vascular scanning to look for an arterial blood clot, and if the symptoms are less than twelve or twenty four hours old, use the “thrombectomy” device, possibly followed by tPA.
Leap Second Time Comes Again
Add a second at midnight, because the Earth is slowing down.
Leap seconds are added at the end of the day on June 30 or December 31, depending on necessity. The reason the occasional leap second is needed is that the earth’s rotation is slowing down. In 1820, the length of the day was defined as 86400 seconds. Since then, the earth’s rotation has slowed by two milliseconds a day, so, for example, the last leap second was added in 2012. Those two milliseconds a day do add up; five hundred days and you’ve lost a whole second.
So, as expected, the earth’s rotation is slowing down, and has slowed down, since the earth was created, some four or four and a half billion years ago. To be precise, the United States Geologic Survey says that the Earth and the solar system were created 4.54 billion years ago.
Here is an official-looking website that tells what will happen at midnight tonight.
To continue with the theme of microbes in your intestines, I present an old study that demonstrates something of great importance to all those people who are told to diet, and there are a lot of them. This study is from 2006, and it merely confirms a common-sense hunch that explains why some people say they don’t eat anything and still gain weight; while other people can be observed to be gorging themselves on a regular basis, and such people are thin as rails.
The study, abstract available here, is entitled, “An obesity-associated gut microbiome with increased capacity for energy harvest” which explains pretty much everything. They found that two species of bacteria, Bacteroidetes and Firmicutes, endowed their hosts with the ability to harvest more energy from a normal diet. In addition, they were able to give these two species to mice that had previously been raised without any bacteria in their intestines; the newly infected, or really colonized, mice gained weight and increased total body fat. Finally, they showed that genetically obese mice seemed to mediate part of their weight gain through hosting these bacteria, whereas genetically normal weight mice did not harbor the same bacteria.
This information suggests that weight loss may be enhanced by eradicating these two populations of bacteria from the intestines. In fact, Huffington Post recommends avoiding sugars, which are Firmicutes favorite food, and eating more beans, which Bacteroidetes are accustomed to. According to that article, Bacteroidetes are actually better bacteria to have.
Inulin and oligofructose (both polysaccharides classed as fibers, with oligofructose having <= ten fructose molecules; both are plant storage carbohydrates) stimulate the growth of Bacteroidetes and reduce Firmicutes when fed to mice, in this study from 2013. Neither “fiber” is absorbed in the upper intestine, so in germ-free mice they provide no nutritional value. These foods also increase satiety hormones ghrelin and glucagon-like peptide 1, and reduce weight when fed to obese mice. This paper, presented at a conference in 1998, describes inulin as having a “neutral, clean flavor” and oligofructose as having a”sweet, pleasant flavor and is highly soluble” so it recommends them both as food additives. The paper describes how these foods are extracted from the chicory root and goes into some detail on production. The same paper, (in pdf form at this site) describes studies that show both foods to stimulate the growth of Bifidobacteria, which help synthesize B vitamins, stimulate the immune system, and inhibit or outcompete harmful bacteria.
These research studies and papers describe beneficial effects of the nutritional fibers inulin and oligofructose as food additives, with improved bacterial populations in the gut and possible stimulation of weight loss. It appears contradictory that some lean people can eat large amounts of food without gaining weight; yet the bacteria stimulated to grow in their intestines increase their energy utilization from, at least, certain polysaccharides.
More on this general subject later.
Friday, August second, two thousand and twelve.
Having resolved to talk about what’s really going on, I hereby describe my current situation: this morning, like every morning, I got up at 5:00, took eight hundred milligrams of ibuprofen, and went back to bed. At 6:30, Mary was up, so I asked her for one of her diet pills, which she graciously handed me after asked if I didn’t want two. Back to bed again, until Mary leaves, at which time I get up to kiss her goodbye and wish her a good day. Then up for putting on pants, socks, and shoes to go for a walk. Before leaving, smoke two bowls of the leftover combustible materials. Walking time, with two eight pound dumb-bells, 26 minutes, or about one and one quarter miles. Met up with one of the cats, a big yellow male tabby, in the plum orchard almost half a mile from the house.
Also before leaving this morning I took twenty mg of the anti-cholesterol drug Crestor and twenty mg of Benicar, an angiotensin receptor blocker for hypertension. Plus nine hundred mg of Neurontin, or gabapentin. Last, fifty mg of desvenlafaxine or Pristiq. With a glass of water.
As to how I feel–uncharacteristically light, as if I’m entering a manic phase, which would just be a degeneration of the overall pattern which can be hammered in to place over a lifetime of situations, choices, and actions. I say hammered because everything can be over-simplified and turned in to “just another manic phase” or “just another depressive period” which tends to suck all the meaningfulness out of an experience from which you might actually have learned something. I say “might” because the chances of actually learning and remembering something worthwhile are small.
All the same, I still feel that I’m going to start feeling bad real soon again. Tonight.
Inserted note: as a matter of fact, I didn’t feel “bad real soon” or certainly not “real bad” but actually got sleepy and fell asleep in bed next to Mary around ten-thirty or so. I think the TV was already off.
By the way, we usually watch the Turner Movie Classics which means no commercials (except for the ones between movies for the next movie) but the movies are mostly pretty old, with the exception of “2001″ and “Lawrence of Arabia.” In the old days, until the late Sixties, there was an explicit production code which proscribed unhappy endings, at least for the good guys. Certain obscene words were also prohibited, as well as situations and activities considered unwholesome.
The intent of the Code was to make television safe for children to watch, and it had the unintended result of making almost all of the movies produced under the code come out with happy endings, or at least highly just endings.
Mary liked movies made under the Code because she liked movies to come out with a happy ending. She was very unhappy with movies like “Elvira Madigan”, in which the lovers commit suicide at the end of the movie.
So watching TMC was usually safe if you needed a happy ending for your movie.
Interlude.
Monday, August sixth.
Today started out much the same as Friday.
I went for a walk again. This time the yellow cat followed me from home as far as the distant orange orchard. When I saw the white flowers on the bank, I remembered that I wanted to take pictures of them.
So I went back home, got my camera, and drove the truck back to the spot where the flowers were coming out. They are on a plant that looks like it will grow small gourds or squashes. I took several pictures, adjusting the exposure for the fact that the flowers are bright white and nearly six inches across.
I finished the roll of film, started a new roll, and took a couple of extra pictures.
I returned to the house and decided to take the film in right away to be printed. Back in the truck, I drove into Sanger. First I dropped off the film at Walgreens, at ten minutes to ten. Next, I went to Mary’s bank (West America Bank) and checked her account balance at the ATM.
Then I went to WalMart and wasted an hour buying dry cat food, paper, odds and ends, and a couple of cheap movies. Finally, at eleven, I went back to Walgreens for the pictures.
After that, I should have gone to Costco to refill prescriptions, but I was too hot already. My shirt was soaked with sweat and my face was wet. I went home and took a shower.
Tuesday, August twenty-eighth, fifteen minutes to three in the afternoon.
Marshall is watching “John Carter of Mars” while I am typing this. We’ve reached the point where Carter and his love interest have escaped and are riding on native animals across a lovely rural landscape. The point of view switches to their antagonists for a moment, then back to Carter and the girl, with a native warrior arguing that the girl is selling them out. Shortly Carter and the native deprive the girl of her mount and leave her behind, running and yelling after them. At this point I begin to lose interest and turn to the subject of this monologue, which is still undefined.
It is now October 27. For the last two months (September and October) my right knee has been giving me terrible pain.
You’re not supposed to use the word suddenly, but that’s how it happened. I was walking through the back door into our bedroom, and as I raised my right leg to step in over the threshold, the knee turned to the side and maybe clicked a little; then agonizing pain shot through the knee. I couldn’t put any weight on my right foot. I called out to Marshall and asked him to bring the crutches, and with these I was able to totter in to the house.
For the rest of the day, I was unable to walk without the crutches. The next day I was able to switch to a cane, but the pain persisted. For the last two months, my right knee has been almost continuously painful, especially when I try to walk more than a few feet.
I found a knee brace at Walgreen’s that was real tight and had aluminum hinges. After wearing it a few days, I gave it up. It didn’t really relieve any pain although it provided a lot of support.
There is a tender area along the anteromedial aspect of the joint line; recently the tenderness has subsided somewhat, but there is marked swelling all around the joint. I think there is a large effusion now.
So I am trying to get around a little bit, but when I get up I have to be careful. Another thing that helped was a sample bottle of Pennsaid liquid; rubbing it on the joint where it was tender really helped. The bottle lasted about two days. Now I am able to walk without the cane, although the swelling persists.
At the same time, Mary was trying to buy a car. Initially they told her that her credit was good, and we fiddled around with them for two weeks trying to get a particular white 2007 Corvette. But when Mary finally got around to showing her documents, they said the pay stub was too old; they had to have a pay stub from the last 30 days.
Well, then she had to admit that she was on SDI(for the last three weeks), and that queered the deal. Even though she was getting almost as much from SDI as from the regular job, they wouldn’t consider anyone who was on SDI at all. They asked her if she could find someone to co-sign for her. I told them my pension wasn’t big enough to help.
Mary was extremely angry and frustrated after they turned her down. She was almost immobile for a day and a half. Then she started to get over it. I was not so affected by it; I had expected something to happen that would prevent her from getting the car.
Then October passed, and now it’s November first and it’s cloudy with a feeling of impending rain. I’ll be happy if it does rain, because it will confirm my theory that this year will be wet… on the other hands, odds are against things sometimes.
This is the big issue to be settled on the evening of November sixth, who will be president for the next four years, Obama or Romney? It’s almost too sickening to imagine that Romney might win. Fortunately, polls and gambling venues give Obama between 67 and 79% odds in his favor. Romney could still win, there’s a one in three to one in four chance of that, but … ugh.
Another commenter wondered why Romney has such a good chance of winning with all his negatives. It’s true, why would anyone want Romney to be their president? But then this is clearly a nation of morons, so it’s not so surprising.
At the present time, 3:20 PM November 1, 2012, I feel persistent deep seated aching in my right knee, mostly localized to the anteromedial aspect and within. I have noticed a marked swelling of the knee, which is probably an effusion. There is still significant tenderness on the joint line in the anteromedial aspect.
The constant aching pain has been wearing me down, and activities are much more tiring than before. I am often prompted to lie down on the bed with a pillow under my knee. I feel quite lucky to be retired on a disability, as I could not possibly work in this condition without massive doses of narcotics.
It reminds me a little of September-October of 2007, when I worked my last locum tenens job at the former Air Force base medical center. I was hurting immensely in the lower back, as far as I can remember, and I had to take enormous doses of pain pills to relieve the pain enough to work. I was in poor condition and my work suffered as a result. I felt that I never wanted to do this kind of work again.
I think it was a week before I finished the work, Dr Singh gave me an injection in my spine, I don’t remember exactly where, and I struggled through the last week as best I could. I then went home and laid on the couch for five days before the shot seemed to take effect. I can’t remember that time very well because the pain seemed to consume my entire attention. Perhaps the narcotics clouded my memory, but I don’t really think so. It was the pain that drove everything else out of my mind.
Now I have a constant, localized ache in my knee that is driving out all thoughts of going for a walk every day or even walking around the house much. It is consuming me and keeping my attention constantly focused on it. It’s not as painful as my back was, but it’s even more debilitating because I can’t walk around freely
Just now I closed my eyes and dozed off a little. I became aware of a feeling of being in another place; I couldn’t see it but I felt it somehow. The other place was a corridor, seemingly a central space for transiting a ship from fore to aft. I could sense boxes in the corridor, and people walking up and down its length. That was all I could sense at that moment.
The second time I close my eyes I become aware of some jointed machine that flexes and extends itself.
Religious Liberty and Same-Sex Marriage
The moment the Supreme Court decision came down, I heard someone (a conservative pig) say: “This decision is a blow against religious liberty.”
In what fantasy universe does allowing two OTHER people the right to consummate, nay, consecrate their relationship with each other infringe on a third individual’s religious liberty? The marriage takes nothing away from any other person’s rights to do or say whatever they please, nay, immigrate to Uganda for all I care.
How can giving two people the right to do something private (and public) between themselves infringe on a third person’s rights? The very concept is absurd. My right to do something is offending your sensibilities, not reducing your property values, nor doing anything else than prevents you from doing whatever you want. This kind of talk comes from the mirror-universe of conservative lies.
This quote, from Justice Anthony Kennedy’s decision, said it best: (quoted from NYT)
‘“No longer may this liberty be denied,” Justice Anthony M. Kennedy wrote for the majority in the historic decision. “No union is more profound than marriage, for it embodies the highest ideals of love, fidelity, devotion, sacrifice and family. In forming a marital union, two people become something greater than once they were.”’
” ‘The nature of injustice is that we may not always see it in our own times,’ he wrote on Friday. ‘The generations that wrote and ratified the Bill of Rights and the Fourteenth Amendment did not presume to know the extent of freedom in all of its dimensions, and so they entrusted to future generations a charter protecting the right of all persons to enjoy liberty as we learn its meaning.’ ”
This quote says it worst:
‘
In a second dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia mocked the soaring language of Justice Kennedy, who has become the nation’s most important judicial champion of gay rights.
“The opinion is couched in a style that is as pretentious as its content is egotistic,” Justice Scalia wrote of his colleague’s work. “Of course the opinion’s showy profundities are often profoundly incoherent.”
‘
I find nothing incoherent, much less “profoundly” incoherent, in Justice Kennedy’s words. Once again, Scalia (I hesitate to call him Justice for fear of demeaning the word) has shown himself to be a word hack, writing lies in the service of his profoundly illiberal conservative philosophy. Notice the repeated use of the word “profound” in Kennedy’s opinion, Scalia’s dissent (twice) and in my rebuttal of Scalia’s dissent. Here is a repetition simply for the purpose of repetition, without specific meaning. Scalia uses the words “showy” and “incoherent” to ridicule Kennedy’s opinions without giving a specific meaning to his ridicule and the word “egotistic” to suggest that Kennedy’s opinion refers to Kennedy’s own sexual orientation without coming right out and saying it. This is an unfair attempt to demean Kennedy.
Scalia topped himself, for the second day in a row (on the first day he denounced the court’s reading of the words “the state”) writing meaningless, shallow lies to advance his hatred for everything liberal, social-justice-oriented, and in support of the government’s need to support its own people.
If I were a provocateur, I would (and I’m NOT advising this for fear of unforeseen consequences) advocate for the assassination of Scalia, Thomas, Alito, and Roberts as being in the way of progress and in need of immediate replacement by a black president’s better conceived nominations. Just imagine what would happen if Scalia, Thoma, Alito, and Roberts had to be replaced. Would conservatives claim that Obama has no right to nominate liberals to replace these conservatives with conflicts of interest?
Unfortunately, now is not the right time to replace these fascist, freedom-hating justices because Republicans have a majority in the Senate. Obama would not be able to nominate the best justices: he is held back by the Republicans in the Senate. He would have to nominate compromise candidates who might not be really good, but rather weak. The right time will be after Clinton wins the 2016 Presidential election and balance in the Senate is restored.
This article from Science News is behind a paywall, so forgive me if I tell the whole story to make sure you don’t have to visit the site. By the way, in college, I was the junior member of a team that was exploring visual pathways in the brains of cats, specifically the lateral geniculate body, a lower brain first stopover for optic nerve impulses from the retina. In the lateral geniculate are cells that respond specifically to single small spots in the cat’s visual field, so they are some of the simplest nerve cells in the brain that respond to light.
The Science News story is about the discovery of a path that fear takes to the brains of mice: the superficial superior colliculus. In this brain nucleus, located on the top or dorsal surface of the mouse’s brain, are single cells that respond specifically to objects in the visual field that appear to be coming closer, and the more rapid the closure rate, the higher the response. These cells project to the amygdala, the brain nucleus most closely associated with the sensation of fear, with a stopover in the parabigeminal nucleus.
The researchers were able to genetically engineer these cells to respond to blue light. Thereafter, they were able to stimulate them at will, using an optical fiber implanted in the brain close to the superior colliculus. They were able to cause generalized fear reactions, specifically “running around in frantic attempts to escape” followed by freezing for a minute or more, even after the stimulus was turned off. This was followed, in some cases, by “depression” related phenomena: the stimulus “triggered fear responses, induced conditioned aversion, and caused depression-related behaviors.”
In addition, the abstract concludes: “Approximately 20% of mice subjected to the fear-conditioning paradigm developed a generalized fear memory.” Does that sound like post-traumatic stress disorder?
In other words, was the research involved in the induction of PTSD in mice? Perhaps it was only 20% of them. Otherwise, to be honest with you, I don’t see the point of the research. It’s cool to genetically engineer specific small groups of cells in the brain, and it’s cool to make them light-sensitive, so you don’t have to use an electrical impulse to stimulate the brain experimentally (which is better because electrical stimulation over longer periods can sometimes cause a reduced response, tentatively put to “scarring”), but beyond that, I’m not sure I see anything remarkable. Is this brain region poorly understood? Apparently not, because they know where it receives signals from, and where it projects to.
So what is the point of this research? On the other hand, maybe that is precisely the point: we did not yet know that there were such cell types in that part of the brain, cells that respond to “looming” objects in the visual field with fear. Maybe they proved just that they can genetically engineer specifically that one type of cell, or at least that general type of cell, because I don’t see any claim that nothing else is stimulated by the light impulses to the brain.
Who knows?
