Year: 2013

Aging Along With Our Books

Jen Doll pens a love letter to the books that filled her childhood summers:

There are a great many excellent summer reads, but to me, some of the most moving books of summer are the ones we read way back when we were kids on summer vacation. These stories may be five or 10 or 20 years old, or more, yet they still manage to take us right back to that childhood sense of summer, and wonder, when the days stretched out long and full of possibility, when the sun didn’t go down until 9 p.m. and we could roam free in our neighborhoods, ruling our small worlds, until then. Anything could happen by day, but by night, I’d be tucked in bed with a good book, which I could read with impunity into the wee hours because there was no school the next day. I’m a big believer in re-reading, particularly books we experienced at some long-ago time in our lives, because the power of those stories is not just in their words. They are transportive, letting us remember, re-live, and compare who we were then with who we are now.

Along the same lines, Judith Hertog recently revisited Ivan Turgenev’s classic novel of social change in Russia, Fathers and Sons, and came away surprised by how her response to the work had changed:

On rereading, I had expected to recognize the scenes and characters that moved me years ago. But I could not even guess which passages I had underlined and annotated as a seventeen-year-old. I vaguely remembered being impressed with Bazarov – it was probably one of his speeches that I recommended to my friends – but as an adult, I found Bazarov childishly pompous and recognized him as an insecure young man who holds on to the reassurance of big ideas to avoid having to make emotional connections. He was, in fact, I now realized, the boyfriend with whom I had just broken up when I was seventeen and whom I continued to love obsessively.

On second reading, I found that my sympathy now lies with the older characters, whom Bazarov ridicules. I felt pity for Bazarov’s parents as they try to understand and please their disdainful son. I identified with Arkady’s tenderhearted father, whom Bazarov dismisses as a sentimental fool. I even found myself siding with Arkady’s conservative uncle, Pavel. When, in one of their many quarrels, Bazarov declares that he questions anything that has not been proven, Pavel replies: “We are old-fashioned people; we imagine that without principles… taken as you say on faith, there’s no taking a step, no breathing…” Now that I’m an adult, I’m inclined to agree with Pavel that there is indeed a limit to the power of rational thought. In the twenty-five years between my readings of Fathers and Sons, the elements that originally did not speak to me seem to have germinated and become a part of myself.

Flirting On The Spectrum

A training program at UCLA helps people with autism-spectrum disorders by making the rules of romance explicit:

PEERS will take the seemingly mundane, but actually complex act of flirting and translate it into a step-by-step lesson. “First, a couple notices each other across the room. They make eye contact and look away, and they look again and they look away,” said [UCLA professor Elizabeth] Laugeson. “The look away makes it known you’re safe, but the common error someone with autism can make is to stare, which can seem predatory and scare a person.” People with autism are also specifically instructed how to smile and for how long, since “another common mistake is to smile really big rather than giving a slight smile,” said Laugeson. “A big smile can also be frightening.”

Neurotypical people often take flirting for granted as a fairly organic, coy, and even fun back-and-forth, but for someone with autism, it is really a complex, nonsensical interaction. “Flirting still doesn’t make sense to me. It seems like a waste of time,” said [autism advocate Alex] Plank, who worked on a video with Laugeson to teach his WrongPlanet community members how to flirt. “If you think about it logically, you say things you wouldn’t normally say, so it’s harder.”

Leaving Europe For Jihad

Sebastian Rotella takes note of the unprecedented wave of radicalization driving Muslims in Europe to join jihadists in Syria:

“Imagine this: Between 2001 and 2010, we identified 50 jihadists who went from France to Afghanistan,” said a senior French counterterror official who also requested anonymity. “Surely there were more, but we identified 50. With Syria, in one year, we have already identified 135. It has been very fast and strong.”

The statistics are even stronger in adjoining Belgium, one-sixth the size of France. Between 100 and 300 jihadis have journeyed from Belgium’s extremist enclaves to Syria, according to a veteran Belgian counterterror official. Other significant fighting contingents represent Britain, Denmark, the Netherlands, Canada, Central Asia, Libya, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia. The senior French official estimated the total number of Europeans to be at least 400. Others say it could be double that, but counterterror officials warn that precise numbers are difficult to establish.

Update from a reader:

While there can be no doubt that the conflict in Syria has stirred the passions of radical elements within Islamic culture, I think it’s worth casting a suspicious eye on Rotella’s statistics on the “jihadists” who have fled France and Belgium for the war in Syria, and the comparison he makes to the Afghan war. Syria was, after all, a French colony for years, and French is a commonly spoken language there.

That there are a substantially higher proportion of immigrants of Syrian descent living in both France and Belgium than those of Afghan descent. France doesn’t even make the top-10 list of countries playing host to Afghan refugees.

Rotella’s use of the indifferentiate term “jihadists,” imagining a unified front of de-nationalized, radical Muslims bent on the destruction of the West, hides the most logical cause of these departures for the battlefields of Syria: a lot of these young men are culturally connected to Syria. Do you honestly think the European police forces distinguish between “jihadists” of the Al-Qaeda sort, and other politically motivated Arabs…say those whose families were harmed by the current Baathist regime in Syria? Nuance has never been the strong suit of those characterizing the motivations for action among Arabic speaking Muslims.

Again, I don’t question that a portion of those who have joined the fight in Syria see this as step-one in a battle against the Great Satan. But to characterize this as an “unprecedented wave of radicalization” rather than a not-unsurprising response to cultural connections in that same, mundane way that the Irish Catholics of Boston were more interested in the goings-on of the IRA than the German Catholics of Missouri, is rhetorically inflammatory and sheds more heat than light.

Engineering Makes Perfect?

Reviewing David Epstein’s new book The Sports Gene, Reeves Wiedeman explores the idea of breeding superstar athletes:

The technology is on the not-too-distant horizon: scientists have produced fertile eggs from mouse stem cells, allowing for the possibility that, one day soon, humans will be able to engineer their children to receive specific traits and not others. Give him my wingspan, but not the vertical leap. The big hope for these technologies is that they will help deal with debilitating diseases, but big-money sports are inevitably going to get involved. …

There are, by Epstein’s count, around a hundred thousand “naturally fit” Americans between the ages of twenty and sixty-five—those whose genetic makeups predispose them to being in shape. The book is rife with such genetic advantages that find their ways into different populations. Members of a particular ethnic group in Kenya, in addition to living at altitude, have thinner legs, which makes the pendulum effect necessary for distance running that much easier to create. An outsized number of Jamaicans from Trelawny, a region in the island’s northwest, have become world-champion sprinters. Redheads from everywhere tend to have greater tolerance for physical pain.

But the disappointing reality Epstein most often presents is that there are no answers, or at least not definitive ones, to the questions of what genetic traits will guarantee athletic success, or whether training can truly overcome inborn limitations. Take ACTN3, a gene that allows for the production of alpha-actinin-3, a protein found in the fast-twitch muscles of almost every top sprinter who has ever been tested for the gene. But a properly functioning ACTN3 is not a golden ticket, merely a prerequisite for entry.

Revenge Of The Urban Planners

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Architects are converting unprofitable shopping malls into New Urbanist developments:

Ellen Dunham-Jones, architecture professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology, and June Williamson, associate professor of architecture at the City College of New York, have documented this phenomenon in their book, Retrofitting Suburbia: Urban Design Solutions for Redesigning Suburbs, a comprehensive look at efforts to retool, reinhabit, or return to nature abandoned suburban forms. In some cases, this means turning gargantuan forgotten malls into hip, urbanized residential villages.

One such experiment is under way in Lakewood, Colorado, an affluent suburb west of Denver. The former Villa Italia shopping mall, a 1.2-million-square-foot indoor mall built in 1966 that had fallen on hard times, has been turned into Belmar, 104-acre pedestrian-friendly community that has apartments, condos, town houses, office space, artists’ studios, and a shopping and entertainment promenade on 22 walkable, urbanized blocks.

More Dish on the tragedy of malls here, here, and here.

(Inside Virginia’s abandoned Cloverleaf Mall circa 2011. The mall has since been torn down, and 600 apartments are planned for the site. Photo by William Fisher.)

A Pen Pal In Solitary

A reader writes:

I never imagined that I would someday be in a position where I personally know someone in solitary confinement, or that I would be able to confirm what Atul Gawande wrote in The New Yorker about solitary confinement: “Whether in Walpole or Beiruit or Hanoi, all human beings experience isolation as torture.” I have been writing to a long-term prisoner since September, 2004. In early 2009, she was placed into solitary confinement, where she remains today, four and a half years later. Our correspondence has continued throughout.

She is an outgoing, social person, and four-plus years of solitary confinement has been particularly hard on her.

For the first year or so, she was in a cell that had an inner door of bars, which remained closed all the time, and an outer solid door which she could slide open, allowing her to talk with other prisoners in nearby isolation cells. Then she was moved to a cell with a door that stays closed all the time. The lights in her cell are left on 24 hours a day. When she leaves her cell, it’s in full irons, with her ankles shackled and her wrists chained to her waist. The guards aren’t allowed to talk to her, except to give her commands. All her visits are non-contact. She loves long hugs, but hasn’t had a hug of any kind in almost five years. Even when her mom and dad visit, she only talks to them over a phone, through a glass window.

The effects of solitary confinement – especially depression and loneliness – are obvious from her letters. She spends much of her day sleeping, and only gets limited time outside her cell for exercise and a shower. Guards are not allowed to talk to her, except to issue commands. To me, the effects are obvious. She wrote regularly; she was optimistic and curious. Today she writes sporadically and fights a never-ending battle with depression. She deals with the depression with prescription drugs, prescribed by the prison psychologist.

Now that I’ve seen the effects of long-term solitary confinement on someone I know, I can say with certainty: it’s torture.

The Puritanism Of Progressive Parents, Ctd

A reader writes:

As a former resident of Portland, I’ve followed the fluoridation debate lightly without much of an opinion, but have dug into it some more with the unfurling of this thread. I tip my cap to the reader who linked to the anti-fluoride site. I, for one, have been trying to figure out what’s wrong with my teeth for some time, with no leads (even from dentists) until I saw the pictures of dental fluorosis:

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I grew up in Lawrence, KS which had fluoridated water, and my teeth look like those with mild dental fluorosis. (But I also had no cavities while growing up.)

Overall, I thought that some of the arguments made on the site were compelling, some less so. But the reflexive cries of “whack-job” by readers in the following post made me cringe. In addition to providing zero links to their claims of pseudo-science for others to evaluate, there’s a rich irony lost on the responders.

Oppenheimer’s article wasn’t about fluoridation or organic food; it was about the aggressive purification of the left betraying the fundamental values of classic liberalism and subverting its societal priorities. That those readers imagine that they’re proving Oppenheimer’s point by citing Western medicine is laughable. There is perhaps no better example of “liberal” ideological purity and certainty than mainstream Western medicine, which dismisses all forms of knowing that can’t been “proven” in a lab.

A reader with a long-term illness writes:

I couldn’t resist responding to this statement: “Ignorance of science and medicine is a luxury that is great so long as you’re basically healthy. When you’re really sick, however, you’d better toss all that alternative crap out the window.” What upsets me most is the either/or attitude the reader advocates. I think this mindset permeates our culture.  I think it’s completely unproductive and does nothing but produce self-righteous justification for one’s current beliefs.

I was raised holistically by both my parents.

On the rare occasions me or my brother did get sick my parents used homeopathy and other alternative methods and home remedies to treat us.  When we had colds, it was honey / lemon / cayenne pepper tea, and onion cough syrup.  If you look either of the home remedies up you will see that they are very old and have been used for many generations.  Neither of us ever had bronchitis, tonsillitis, strep throat or other common childhood illnesses.  We had our regular check ups and yes we got our required shots.  We were the healthiest kids in our class and of most of our friends.

However, that changed for me around 10-12 when I got bit by a tick.  I didn’t know it at the time, but I had contracted Lyme disease.  My lyme would go undiagnosed for close to 20 years until I reached 30.  In my early 20s I developed very severe endometriosis.  After much searching and many visits to various doctors and specialists over a 3.5 year period, I was properly diagnosed and had two surgeries for it.  The first was diagnostic but didn’t fix the pain.  The second was done two years after my first by a surgical specialist and I was finally on the mend – or so I thought.  I was diagnosed with chronic and untreated lyme disease two years after my second surgery.  (Before any of your skeptics chime in on my lyme diagnosis, my diagnosis was confirmed based on the CDC guidelines for diagnosing Lyme, even though my bite occurred almost 20 years prior, and I never had any of the initial symptoms of a bull’s eye rash, fever or flu like symptoms.)

I write this brief history to note that I am exactly the type of kid the reader was referring to.  But you know what ultimately got me better?  BOTH alternative therapies and Western medicine.  During the two years between my first and second surgeries, I used prescribed drugs by my gynecologist but I used acupuncture and Chinese herbs to support my system.  This kept my nausea and fatigue at bay and was very helpful in lowering my pain.  I also used a long list of other therapies, including medical marijuana. My Lyme treatment started with herbs for the first 1.5 years followed by a solid year of long-term antibiotic therapy.  During this I worked closely with a kinesiologist that my Lyme doctor (yes, a regular MD) sent me to in order to tweak my supplements and antibiotics as needed.

Without using both holistic and allopathic medicine, I don’t think I would be as healthy and thriving as I am today.  My Lyme is in remission and my endometriosis is under control.  I still have mild symptoms that are controlled with herbs and supplements in addition to progesterone therapy, and a diet focused on whole foods, fruits and veggies. I think it’s incredibly narrow minded to dismiss the “alternative crap” as “ignorance of science”.  I needed the drugs and the surgery, and I was perfectly willing to admit that and to use them as needed.  But I wasn’t about to dismiss other treatments I’ve used preventatively my entire life that helped to sustain me and move me through my medical issues in a gentler way.

Update from a reader:

“There is perhaps no better example of ‘liberal’ ideological purity and certainty than mainstream Western medicine, which dismisses all forms of knowing that can’t been ‘proven’ in a lab.” I have my issues with liberal dogma (which most certainly does exist), but if one cannot prove something in the lab, then it isn’t “known” – it is rumor. Worse yet, such logic leads to homeopathy, healing crystals, and other bunk.

True, some herbs have medicinal properties, but unless one has run a double-blind test, then you truly don’t know if the herbs do anything beyond the placebo effect. The US government has spent over a billion dollars trying to prove non-Western medical claims, and guess what? The herbs and other items very rarely do anything positive, occasionally show mild effects, and often have undocumented side effects.

Wanting things that have been proven in the lab might be something many liberals want, but that want is based on what science has done for us, while the dismissal of the scientific method by your reader in nothing short of scientific denialism that is also the father of global warming denying, anti-vaccination movements, and other kinds of crazy.

The Angry Candidate

Benjamin Wallace-Wells profiles Chris Christie:

We have never had a president as outwardly angry as Christie, but then this country has rarely been as angry as it is now. In the tea-party era, conservative anger has often been channeled by figures such as Michele Bachmann and Ted Cruz into a hysteria over very abstract and inflated threats: health-care death panels, the national debt, the specter of a country overrun by illegal immigrants. Christie’s use of anger is very different: It is much more targeted, and therefore potentially much more useful. …

What Christie is doing when he starts arguments with other Republicans—and it is telling that what looks very much like a presidential run has begun with a sequence of fights—is offering his party the chance to preserve its anger, while trading in its revolutionaries for a furious institutionalist.

The Biggest Cock In London

Alastair Cooke sizes up Fritsch’s piece:

The colour of the rooster, reminiscent of the iridescent, otherworldly pigment patented by the French artist Yves Klein, offers a surreal, comical contrast to the drab bronze statuary and buttoned-up grey facades of the grand buildings nearby. More importantly, the double entendre of its title is fully intended: with his stiff, punk-like coxcomb and jowly wattle, this puffed-up cockerel is meant to appear pompous and ridiculous. I particularly enjoyed his magnificently rumpled tail feathers. There’s something deliberately deflating about the manner in which they droop, so that the cockerel has the bleary aura of a whoring-and-roistering old rogue, worse the wear from drink, still strutting despite being unable to perform in the bedroom.

Here, then, is a sally by a female artist against the many vainglorious monuments commemorating self-important men that have been erected all over the world.