Feline Spongiform Encephalopathy: The Science Behind Crazy Cat Ladies

        The results of a Danish study on 45,000 women, conducted over a period of thirty years, were made public this past summer that discovered a link between cat ownership and suicide.  Women infected with a parasite found in cat feces called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) were found to be 1.5 times more likely to commit suicide.  This isn't a very large increase, but when added to the findings of previous studies - links between T. gondii and changes in behavior and mental illnesses like schizophrenia and bipolar disorder - the correlation between cat ladies and madness is difficult to ignore.  Now, I realize this is a relatively old study, but I just found out about it and I have too many cat ladies in my life, crazy or otherwise, to not comment.
       

        With the cat ladies I know, the most obvious sign of insanity is the number of cats they possess.  If you met them out in public, you may not necessarily think to yourself that they were crazy; but if you were invited into their home, the words "Crazy Cat Lady" would leap into your head, completely unbidden.  According to an article on npr.org, "Scientists still aren't sure how the parasite affects a person's brain, [...] But in rodents, it causes cysts to form in areas of the brain involved in behavior.  A study of rats also found that infection caused them to lose their fear of cats and become attracted to the odor of cat urine. That behavioral change would increase the chance that a rat would be eaten by a cat — allowing the parasite to get into the cat's intestine, which is the only place it can reproduce sexually."  This is what I have observed in crazy cat ladies, as well; the more cats they own, the more attracted they are to the idea of having more.  The article notes that cats don't eat people very often, so the parasite can't benefit from infecting humans, we are just "collateral damage."

Notice All The Cat "Artwork"; The Herd Just Isn't Enough

       
        Well, scientists may still be unsure what T. gondii infection does to the human brain, but I can tell you.  The cat ladies that I know love their cats like family, take them for walks and rides in the car, and in many cases they seem to have more rights than human family members.  It's a mental illness that makes women want to dress their cats in sweaters, nuzzle them like boyfriends and eat next to them at the dinner table.  These cysts apparently form in the area of the female human brain that creates songs about the names of cats and feels compelled to ascribe human emotions to feline facial expressions.  I understand it because I've been surrounded by crazy cat ladies all my life, and because now I'm finally falling victim to the disease myself.  I realize that I am way too obsessed with my cat, but I just can't help it, so I will try to take it easy on my more advanced counterparts and keep praying that my personal case of Mad Cat Disease is a slowly metastasizing one.

My Own Private Oubliette

Have you ever felt like you’ve fallen into a hole?  Like you’re clinging to the side of a cliff, at the point where the prospect of climbing back up to the top is too daunting but you can’t see the bottom and you’re too scared to let go?  

 I’m in that hole right now, talking to you from my niche in the wall, a temporary foothold that will let go at any moment.  It might be difficult to hear me.  You may have to lean in and cup your ear.  But be careful.  Don’t fall in.  I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, and if I can’t save myself, I’m afraid you’ll be on your own.

Like Alice, I was trying to avoid the mundane tedium of the everyday.  I wandered off and fell in.  But mine is no rabbit hole.  Its walls are not lined with clocks and cupboards.  There is no Wonderland at the bottom.

Truth be told, there is no bottom.  It just keeps going and going.  Its walls are lined with sharp roots and slimy fungus.  The more desperately I try to claw toward salvation the dirtier and more battered I become.

Why do I carry on this mad clawing?  It would be so much easier to cross my arms and feet and fall down into the abyss that I know will claim me in the end.  But I know someone will keep me from falling.  They will keep me from falling but won’t pull me out.  And now I’m past the point of seeking succor ~ I fend off the helping hands.  I long for the oubliette that is waiting for me.  Maybe that is what this hole is; maybe I’m in it now.

I don’t want a lifeline.  Sometimes I long to hear my own death rattle; in my morbid little musings, it is a comforting sound.  What I really want is for the people trying to pull me up to come to the same realization as me: that it is a silly venture – inane and futile.  What is waiting at the top?  My hole is dark, but it is warm.  Analogous to that of Jack the Bear, the invisible man.  His hole was bright, but he was invisible.  Mine is dark but I must be conspicuous down here because people won’t let me have any peace.

What I want is for someone to help me – but not help me out.  Help me overcome this senseless, innate need to fight my way up.  Help me tie my hands and feet together.

So I can go sailing down

Into the sadness

Into the sleep

Into the quiet

Into the deep.

But I can’t ask anyone to do that.  And no one would volunteer.  I haven’t the courage to dig in and climb up or to fold my arms and fall down.  I’m stuck here, clinging to the side of this hole.  An oubliette I’ve built for myself; teetering in a purgatory I’ve created.

 

South African Hippo Suffers Death by Doltishness

        A hippopotamus died today in South Africa after it stumbled into a pool at a game conservation lodge and suffered exhaustion from the efforts of trying to climb out.  The hippo got stuck in the pool on Tuesday and conservation lodge workers and animal activists waited anxiously for the arrival of a veterinarian that was to supervise the lifting of the hippo to safety with a crane.  I just don't get this story.  I'm not sure if the writer from the Associated Press is an idiot, but the people who were supposed to be helping the hippo were definitely short some brain cells.

        I mean, obviously the hippo was in distress, I don't see why they need a vet to tell them that.  It's not like these people were just bystanders, with no knowledge of animals - they work in animal conservation.  Some of the quotes illustrate my point about the diminished intellectual capacity of those involved.  "'He was not as perky this morning, more agitated, like he was irritated. I think because he wanted to get out of the pool. That's my personal opinion,' said Ferreira."  No shit?  I wonder how long one must study animals to be able to recognize that being stuck somewhere that you can't get out of, surrounded by people who refuse to help, is irritating?  Ferreira is the lodge manager, by the way, as in, the person in charge.  The activists and lodge workers tried to blame the vet, Dr. Alex Lewis, and vice versa: "When journalists questioned Lewis about not arriving earlier, he said he couldn't have saved the animal because it was in such poor condition already.  Lewis said he had advised the owners of the lodge to feed the animal in order to make it strong enough for the rescue."  So, let me get this straight.  Not only did these people stand around just watching this hippo struggle, they didn't even try to feed it?  What?!  I mean, that seems like the only thing in their power to do that would have made this animal a bit more comfortable.  So, basically, the way I see it, this hippo was murdered.  It didn't suffer exhaustion.  It suffered stupidity.  People should be ashamed of themselves.  

U.S. Tennis Ump Serves Husband Overhead Smash for Breakfast

http://gma.yahoo.com/u-open-referee-charged-killing-husband-coffee-cup-204916663--abc-news-topstories.html

        70-year-old tennis referee, Lois Ann Goodman, was arrested for murder today in New York City, where she was supposed to officiate the U.S. Open.  Back in April, Goodman called Los Angeles police and reported that she had found her 80-year-old husband dead at the bottom of the stairs; she told them that she guessed he had had a heart attack and fallen.  Earlier this month, Alan Goodman's death was ruled a homicide; the cause of death being multiple injuries to the head.  The murder weapon?  According to the arrest warrant, it was a coffee cup.

        If convicted, Goodman faces life in state prison.  LAPD detectives say they know the motive but report that sharing it with the public may affect the case.  If Lois Ann Goodman is anything like me in the morning, the motive could have been something as simple as irritation that her husband was taking too long in the bathroom.  I think she should plead temporary insanity - I don't think anyone should be held responsible for anything they do or say before 9am.  I feel for this woman; I have definitely been guilty of homicidal thoughts in the morning, hell - this morning I considered killing someone.  I can picture her standing at the counter, mug in hand, waiting for those last little irritating drops of coffee to finish coming through the filter.  Her husband was probably complaining about something - the dry-cleaners messed up the crease in his pants again - whatever - and she just snapped.  I completely understand.  I think I'm going to have "Free Lois Goldman" T-shirts made and sell them to help raise her bail.    

Can Anyone Save the Dark Tower?

        The Dark Tower series by Stephen King is an epic quest for redemption: Roland Deschain, the gunslinger, travels through time and other worlds to save the Dark Tower, and his own soul in the process.  He is the ultimate anti-hero - his ka-tet (quest-mates, if you like) start the journey as hostages, but become much more than mere friends.  It is impossible not to hate him a lot of the time - he does unspeakable things, yet speaks of them with no emotion.  But he is actually a loving man with a fragile soul and a desperate need for forgiveness. This series, the crown jewel of Stephen King's extensive canon, incorporates elements of old western movies and stories, along with the magical fantasy of Tolkein's Lord of the Rings.  Pop culture allusions abound - from the 1960s ("Hey Jude" pours out of jukeboxes at various points throughout the series) to the 2000s (a golden snitch from the Harry Potter books saves the characters at one point).  The story plays with the ideas of meta-fiction along with various philosophical ideas, such as the concept of Eternal Return, resurrected in the western world by Friedrich Nietzsche.  In other words, it is a complete hodge-podge of awesomeness - to say that adapting these books for the screen would be a difficult undertaking is a gross under-exaggeration.  It would be damn near impossible to convey every wrinkle in the fabric of this masterpiece.  Which is why the films have never been made.  There wasn't much talk of it even, until the past few years.
        In 2009 I, along with millions of others, rejoiced to hear that J.J. Abrams (director of the hit show Lost and the recent Star Trek movie) had bought the rights to the series for nineteen dollars and was planning to adapt it into a television series.  Nineteen is a number of great importance to the story, so I thought that was really cool.  He had announced that he was planning on getting started after Lost was all wrapped up.  Alas, less than a year later he announced that he was scrapping the project.  Disappointment abounded among fans of the Dark Tower series everywhere.  Until the next year, when the venture got picked up by Ron Howard, Brian Grazer and Akiva Goldsman.  They have decided to turn the books into a combination movie and television series.  Something that has never been done before.  So the seven books would be adapted into 3 films which would be bridged by 2 television miniseries in between each.  An amazing concept, which has proven difficult to shop to studios.  

        Ron Howard's home studio, Universal Pictures, deemed the project too risky and expensive a while ago.  Yesterday afternoon it was announced that Warner Bros. also passed.  I was very sad to hear it, but placated by Howard's attitude toward continuing efforts to make the Dark Tower series into movies.  Entertainment Weekly's website reported that "Howard remains somewhat optimistic, invoking the Dark Tower's term for "destiny" and its philosophy that fate keeps leading one in similar directions until a lesson is learned.  As fans expressed sorrow that his project seemed to be coming to an end, the director tweeted, 'Don't give up on us yet.  Ka is a wheel.'"  That floored me, because it tells me that Ron Howard gets it.  These books are special - hard to explain, difficult to define, so far-reaching in plot and setting, but with characters that are so rich and textured that they remind you of people you know.  I have to see this story on screen before I die.  So an idea that has been touted by many fellow bloggers of late, is one that I have also adopted as the ultimate solution.  Three words: Home Box Office.  HBO has done a fantastic job with another literary masterpiece, Game of Thrones.  That series is only up to six books and has a cast of over a thousand characters; a sweeping epic like the Dark Tower would do very well as an HBO series, I think.  Well, it seems like the fate of the story is in good hands with Ron Howard, for now.  In the story, someone gives the gunslinger very good advice at one point: "Let the word and the legend go before you.  There are those who will carry both."  Hopefully Ron Howard is one of those.                                  

Smartphones: Technological Tethers

        The newest issue of Time magazine is a special report about the rising use and importance of smartphones.  "The Wireless Issue: 10 Ways Your Phone is Changing the World" features a global poll that sheds light on the use of smartphones and attitudes toward them in "all age groups and income levels in eight countries: the U.S., the U.K., China, India, South Korea, South Africa, Indonesia and Brazil" (32).  The cover for this issue is exceedingly cool - a mosaic of 288 Instagram photos sent via mobile from Time readers in 120 countries.  The report is expansive, covering areas from the impact smartphones are making on elections, charity work and purchasing to their elevated use in spheres such as journalism and education.  The part that interests me the most though, is the section entitled: "Your Life is Fully Mobile," which investigates the effects of smartphones on people's everyday lives.

        Nancy Gibbs, the writer of this article, brings up some points about phones that I have been pondering for a while now.  I used to be one of those people who had a phone, but basically just for emergencies - it didn't have internet or the ability to play music or take pictures.  Sounds like a fate worse than death, I know.  I would frequently forget to charge it or even to bring it with me when I went out.  Then, about six months ago, I got the iphone.  Now I sleep with my phone, it sits next to my plate while I eat; sometimes I just hold it in my hand, even though I am not expecting a call or email.  One of the points that Gibbs focuses on is the rapidity with which this obsession with smartphones has occurred.  "It is hard to think of any tool, any instrument, any object in history with which so many developed so close a relationship so quickly as we have with our phones.  Not the knife or match, the pen or page.  Only money comes close - always at hand, don't leave home without it.  But most of us don't take a wallet to bed with us, don't reach for it and check it every few minutes..." (32). According to the global poll, 1 in 4 people said they check their phone every half hour and 1 in 5 admitted to checking it every five minutes; a third of those surveyed claimed that being away from their phones for even short periods of time gave them anxiety.   

        There is no question that smartphones make our lives easier - there are no longer any excuses for not keeping in touch with friends, family and work  - and way more importantly - there is no longer any excuse for not knowing things.  Whatever societal implications come with this obsession, one thing that is sure to dwindle is general ignorance.  Everyday questions like, "what kind of flower is that?" and "who was the lead in that movie again?" can be answered in seconds with barely an interruption in conversation.  Phones definitely make our lives easier, but at what cost?  Gibbs writes that "in the U.S., close to 9 in 10 adults carry a mobile, leaving its marks on body, mind, spirit. [...] Thumbs are stronger, attention shorter, temptation everywhere: we can always be, mentally, digitally, someplace other than where we are" (32). This is the biggest problem, I think.  Having my phone on me at all times gives me the ability to avoid any situation - boring dinner discussion, strangers who for some reason want to chat while they wait for a train or elevator, a long wait in line.  But this supposed need for escape becomes a habit, and speaking only for myself of course, I don't feel the need to wait until I am bored to pull out my phone anymore.  Next time you are out to eat, look around at the other patrons.  Almost everyone is on their phone, and the few that aren't have a forlorn, yet anxious look on their faces like they are missing an essential piece of themselves.  It's disturbing when you consider the attachment that a majority of people have to their phones.  The smartphone "is a form of sustenance, that constant feed of news and notes and nonsense, to the point that [...] many people would pick their phone over their lunch if forced to choose [and] three-quarters of 25-to-29-year-olds sleep with their phones.  Gibbs closes her article with an ominous yet thought-provoking question: how much of our lives and work and relationships is left to be completely transformed by our obsession with smartphones?
**Check out the whole special report and all the details of the global poll:
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/0,9263,7601120827,00.html

The Profundity of Perseids

Mount Evans, Colorado, 2012

        So I stayed up as late as I could to watch the Perseid meteor shower last night.  I love shooting stars - even more than I love rainbows - I know, everyone loves shooting stars and rainbows - it may be the most hackneyed thing I have put to "paper."  Yet, the fact remains, a meteor shower may be my favorite thing ever.  I looked up some information on this meteor shower - on wikipedia - yes, I know, not the most reliable source, but for things like this it is usually reasonably accurate.  "The Perseids are so-called because the point from which they appear to come, called the radiant, lies in the constellation Perseus.[...] The stream of debris is called the Perseid cloud and stretches along the orbit of the comet Swift-Tuttle. The cloud consists of particles ejected by the comet as it travels on its 130-year orbit. Most of the dust in the cloud today is around a thousand years old. However, there is also a relatively young filament of dust in the stream that was pulled off the comet in 1862.^[3] The rate of meteors originating from this filament is much higher than for the older part of the stream."  I think this kind of stuff is so cool - watching a meteor shower is like a form of time travel - what you are seeing actually already happened - it's really strange to think about.  It's also kind of mind-boggling to consider that with all the advancements that have been made in the knowledge of space, people have been enjoying the Perseid shower the same way I did last night for 2000 years.  So, anyway, the shower's peak was actually Saturday, but the clouds were unforgiving.  The best time to watch is as close to dawn as you can get, but the lighter the sky, the harder it is to spot the stars.  I couldn't stay up nearly that late, as I had to work today, but even as early as 1am there was quite a bit of action.  Just in my small patch of sky, I saw 38 shooting stars from 1-2:30, and probably six of those were really impressive.

        I have watched the Perseid shower every August ever since I can remember.  It's funny, I have watched it so many times, but last night I realized that I have never watched it alone.  I've always had at least one person there - I used to watch with my dad and my sister, more recently my little sister, my boyfriend, friends - I do my best to spread the word of the magic of meteor showers.  I believe that it's the only event that can make you feel so small and utterly insignificant, yet for a short time you are connected to the vastness of space in a way that we seldom are.  It's an event so big that most of the world can watch it, but every time someone sees a shooting star it makes them feel uniquely special.  Have you ever watched someone see their first shooting star?  It's pretty cool.  I have a twelve-year-old sister, and a few summers ago I was visiting my parents in Illinois during the Perseid shower, so we watched together.  It's so flat and there are so few trees there that the sky seems bigger - and that year was a good one, I remember.  I had to spend the whole night shushing her loud exclamations of "Wow!  Shannon, did you see that one?!  This is so cool!"  Not to forget all the questions that came with the discovery - "Shannon, where do they land?  Can shooting stars hit planet Earth?  I bet it would hurt to get hit by one.  Ever wonder what they would look like from a plane?"

Sky Over Hungary, 2012

        Last night I waited as long as I could and then grabbed my beach chair and my ipod and trudged up a hill in our yard in the dark.  I laid the chair almost flat - trust me, if you look up at the sky for any length of time without something to lean back on, you will barely be able to move your head the next day - and snuggled into the chair in my pj's and sweatshirt like I used to when I was little.  I found some classical music on my ipod - Vivaldi and Mozart and the like - and it was absolutely lovely.  Vivaldi and Mozart are a much better soundtrack than the noisy cosmic commentary of a 10-year-old.  The temperature was a little brisk, but refreshingly so, and I could smell Autumn lurking just around the corner.  It was a magnificent display of the sublime - and enjoying it alone was galvanizing in a way that is difficult to explain.  There is another meteor shower coming up, so if you missed Perseids - and I doubt anyone got to see the peak with all of the clouds - be sure to make a note on your calendar about the Orionid meteor shower, which will peak on October 21st.

**Fun fact - William Shakespeare is credited with the invention of the phrase, "shooting star":

 "With the eyes of heavy mind, I see thy glory, like a shooting star, Fall to the base earth from the firmament!"  (Richard II)  He is also credited with: good riddance, bedazzle, all's well that ends well, all that glitters is not gold, laughing stock, the naked truth - only a few of dozens!