The Nappy Cat Chronicles

Apparently the PUMAs, the Party Unity My Asses, have started a new Democratic Party. They feel that the old Democratic Party wasn’t sycophantic enough. Or something. The irony is mindblowing.

“She’s going to learn national security at the foot of the master for the next four years, and most doctors think that he’ll be around at least that long,” said Charlie Black, one of Mr. McCain’s top advisers, making light of concerns about Mr. McCain’s health, which Mr. McCain’s doctors reported as excellent in May.

I don’t know which part of this quote is more significant: The “for the next four years” part or the “making light” of McCain’s age-health part. Why not “for the next eight years” and why even jokingly say that “We think he’ll make it four years.. Maybe longer!” That’s just not very funny.

Sarah brings brings a great deal of white-bred “true” conservative appeal. Right-of-center independents now have a choice between voting for the first female VP and voting for a “nigger with a funny soundin’ name.” That’s not a bad gamble on McCain’s part. Plus, some people have the romantic notion that Alaska’s an uncivilized tundra where you have to work hard and be tough all of the time to survive.

The largest negative and what’s most striking is the contrast between her and McCain. Relative to John McCain, Sarah is young and attractive. It’s going to make people notice his frailty and his unappealing age spots and combover. I think his VP pick should have been someone uglier (like Lieberman or someone from PBS).

So, if Obama’s the honor roll jock and Biden’s the guy at the senior center who dances with the widows, then McCain’s your grandfather who was military and Palin.. well.. she’s your mother. And that’s just gross.

That man gives me the creeps.

The Coen brothers return with their 14th feature-length, Burn After Reading, on September 12th.

Messiah returns to BBC One for a 5th installment-Rapture-on the 1st of November. Ken Stott (above) will not return as Scotland Yard’s Detective Chief Inspector, Redfern Metcalfe. Instead, Marc Warren will take the helm as DCI Joseph Walker.

A defining case of heads, I win:

and tails, you lose:

I have no first hand knowledge of this, but I am 100% sure that the McCain campaign had two other ads ready to rip in case Clinton was the VP pick. Democrats, take note: This is precisely why, in 1965, the chairman of the Republican Party in California declared, “Thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican.”

Metropolis’ coveted missing scenes were recently discovered in a museum archive in Buenos Aires. The complete movie was last shown in Berlin 1927.

As a psychology associate, I deal with medication issues on a daily basis. “Can this challenging behavior in which this client is engaging be prevented by this medication?” The answer is, more often than not, an emphatic “no.” The solution to an individual’s aggression towards others or aggression towards themselves should be dynamic:  Among the mentally ill and, most often, the mentally retarded, the motivation behind an individual’s engagement in a particular behavior is derived from a combination of brain defects, environmental stimuli, learned interpersonal responses, witnessed and experienced trauma, compulsions, emotional reactions, anxiety, and psychosexual drives.

Once a diagnosis based upon symptoms of psychosis, mania, impulsiveness, or severe paranoia is made and the “medication solution” is implemented, an individual’s behavioral motivators become even more unbalanced. Even if not applied recklessly, this continued imbalance occurs for three reasons:

• The “medication solution” may snowball until an individual is prescribed four or five medications each meant to target a particular aspect of the individual’s personality and diagnosed illness or the side effects of another medication. The common types of medications in this sort of regime include an atypical antipsychotic, an SSRI, and a mood stabilizer.
• An individual may fail to have an observable response or may have a profoundly negative reaction to a particular medication. If that occurs, the guilty medication is replaced with a comparable medication that will, in all likelihood, produce more side effects.
• Conventional wisdom dictates that the “medication solution” is best intervention because it is the more cost effective and its positive results are immediate. However, while behavioral changes are often immediate due to anxiolytic effects, the long-term expense of these medications and the sustainable effectiveness of psychotherapeutic intervention and environmental engineering prove conventional wisdom wrong.

I had these points in mind when I read Christopher Lane’s Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. Lane begins with a terrific visiting of the back-stabbing, tension, infighting, and nastiness that preceded the publication of the American Psychiatric Association’s third Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-III). The DSM-III is a physician’s field guide to mental illness. Lane presents the DSM-III as human endeavor: The committee responsible for its completion was comprised of egotistical and well-intentioned neuropsychiatrists who narrow-mindedly constructed a flawed document.

From my reading of the DSM-III, this is an accurate assessment and the conclusions that Lane draws, based upon his analysis of his evidence and multiples interviews, are overwhelmingly valid. It is unfortunate then that roughly “normal” individuals should be subjected to pharmaceutical empire that predicates its marketing upon the assertions of the DSM-III.

Lane explains it thusly:

Step One: Take the results of an ambiguous questionnaire to prove that the new disorder far exceeds psychiatrists’ already ample expectations, leading them to suspect the presence of a widespread, underdiagnosed problem. Step Two: List the new disorder in the DSM, thereby inviting drug companies to treat it. Step Three: Shower doctors with free samples of newly minted pills [many doctors have a closet literally filled with free samples], while bombarding television viewers with carefully crafted ads. Step Four: Castigate dissenters for failing to recognize the severity of the illness and for heartlessly prolonging patient suffering. (p. 196)

Ultimately, this type of system thrives in a society in which doing something is considered better than doing nothing and in a culture in which consumerism imparts identity. This is America and, in America, at least one child as young as two has been prescribed one of these mind and body altering medications. The pursuit is ostensibly more important than the happiness.

Lane presents an adequate amount of empirical data and anecdote to compellingly argument that our current crop of psychopharmacological medications are, by-and-large, dangerous and that our current means of distribution are fraught with corruption. Unfortunately, Lane lacks the philosophical cleverness to explore how American culture sustains this beast and where it’s all headed. I, like many other professionals, would like to know; though, something tells me it’s gonna get worse before it gets better.

It’s been almost two years, so, I figure I should write something about it. In August 2006, I traveled with my friend Clare to Athens, Greece where we boarded a small cruise ship called the Perla and traveled with a Contiki group and visited Turkey, Greece, and a few Greek islands.

Unfortunately, I did not have a proper digital camera at the time and had to use my camera phone. Hence the poor quality of the photographs I shot. However, the beauty of the shot always relies on the beauty of the scene and we visited a few of the most beautify places on Earth.

My and Clare’s first destination was was Istanbul. We began on August 19th at Hagia Sophia:

One of the first things that hit me upon entering Hagia Sophia is that its architecture is very Escher-esque; but, as a museum it’s very subdued. The next day, we visited the main gate of Dolmabahçe Palace:

After a few photos, we moved onto the Blue Mosque (AKA the Sultan Ahmed Mosque). At the time, I thought nothing of it. But, reflecting now upon my visit, I remember feeling odd. I believe I felt that way because, until then, I had never been inside of an active non-Judeo-Christian house of worship.

Next, we visited the Ottoman Topkapı Palace. Clare went off with someone else from our group to tour the inside. I needed a break so I sat and ate lunch with the two tour guides.

On the 21st, we spent the day on the Greek island Mykonos. Clare and I ate calamari during dinner and, later that night, I got lost trying to find my way back to the boat while the rest of the Contiki group hung out in what looked like a closet (but was actually a club).

The next day, we docked at Kuşadası. Clare and I split up again and I can’t remember why. I think she may have been feeling ill and decided to stay on-board. By that point, eating made me ill as well so I was surviving by smoking cigarettes and drinking water. Anyway, I walked miles to Ladies’ Beach and purchased more water. On my way back, I ran into one of the tour guides and we ate lunch at a café on the Guvercin Ada penninsula.

On the 23rd, we spent most of the day on the Greek island Rhodes. Rhodes is an absolutely gorgeous island and our Contiki group got a discount at a laundromat in the city. So, while my clothes were laundered, I took in the sights. Clare joined me eventually. I gave her a tour and bought a pair of linen pants. We had a dressy dinner on-board that evening.

On the 24th, we visited Santorini, the Greek island formerly known as Kallistē (”the most beautiful one”). The pictures literally jumped into my frame. Riding a mule down the long and narrow stare that led back to the dock was one of the most oddly thrilling experiences in my life.

Sadly, the next day, our cruise was over and we docked at Athens. Clare and I had spent a day or two in Athens before the cruise so we wandered the city a bit and ate gelato.

It broke my heart to leave. When we were on Santorini, I was 93.5% ready to grab all of my possessions from the cruise ship and setup as a drifter. But, I had to make sure that Clare made it to the Greyhound terminal in downtown Baltimore.

I think my next stop will be Tuscany or someplace nearby. And, for next time, I’m thinking “less camera phone” and more “megapixel.”

(The Dutchess & the Duke image courtesy of Hardly Art.)

Recipes with Sexually-Explicit Names that I May or May Not Intend to Make

Dark Chocolate Cake smothered with Whipped Cream

All-Day Meatballs

Tossed Salad drizzled with Dressing

Stuffed Mushrooms II

Dirt Pipe Milkshakes

SuperMoist Cakes

Now, onto the music:

(Click the arrow after each track for Last.fm info)

• Black Kids - Listen To Your Body Tonight [MP3]
• Brendan Canning - Possible Grenade [MP3]
• Cansei de Ser Sexy - Left Behind [MP3]
• Earlimart - Teeth [MP3]
• ¡Forward, Russia! - Spanish Triangles [MP3]
• Golden Animals - Ride Easy [MP3]
• Natalie Portman’s Shaved Head - Me + Yr Daughter [MP3]
• Ratatat - Falcon Jab [MP3]
• {{{ Sunset }}} - Theme from “A Perfect Light Awaits Me” [MP3]
• The Black Ghosts - Repetition Kills You [MP3]
• The Dutchess & the Duke - Mary [MP3]
• We Versus The Shark - Mountaineering [MP3]

Larison laments:

I keep seeing this ridiculous McCain ad being approvingly circulated on conservative blogs, and I am more than a little baffled at how stupid his campaign thinks we are. The ad claims that Obama is somehow neglecting or ignoring Latin America, as if it were wise for McCain to remind conservatives of his enthusiasm in this area, and it assumes that Latino audiences and the press are both so oblivious that they don’t know that Obama gave a Latin America policy speech in May…Understandably, McCain wants to cut into Obama’s lead among Latinos, and he probably thinks he should be able to win over as many as Bush did, but must everything these people do be so unreservedly ill-informed, lame and clueless?

Dearest Daniel,

I assume “these people” refers to the McCain campaign and Republican bloggers. In that case, they may be ill-informed, lame, and clueless, but only insofar as being so reduces their cognitive dissonance. Mostly though, they’re just liars who remain intentionally ignorant in order to sustain a lie in good faith.

You’re welcome,

Will

It’s not often put into words and it’s a social issue that may keep Obama in Chicago. The coverage allotted to those pundits who lean a particular way on this issue increased immeasurably after 9-11 and the unethical behavior publicly displayed by the Bush posse has become a stronghold for those pundits.

I’m referring to what some white people consider to be a sacred right. They don’t want to apologize for their racist tendencies and they feel the need to “speak out” if they believe that they are being forced to tap dance around their “reality based” assessments.

And, really, there’s nothing inherently wrong with this. Groupthink and preference for similarity are human conditions. Furthermore, man’s struggle to establish his identity as one who is dominant over the totality of his domain is as old as the sky is blue. So, ultimately, white people can rationalize racism by believing that, if a minority is given an inch, he will take a mile.

Using racist language secures this hierarchy. It not only defines a minority as inferior, it defines the white person as superior. McCain’s use of this language may shock Doug Thompson; but, as anyone with an ear to the ground knows, McCain’s only hope of winning this thing is to appeal to white people who are angry that they can’t call it as they see it. As much as they want to they can’t, you know, call Obama a nigger.