The southern California sun is blinding this morning. I really need my shades.
March is not over yet and I see the requisite blonde in a bikini, working on her tan, stretched out near the swimming pool.
The radio is barely audible; something about how we are all becoming heartless bureaucrats. Read more on Getting Some Rays…
Filed under Family, News, Society by on Mar 28th, 2017. Comment. 
There is something very funny going on with substance abuse. There is less of it among teens. Less since — it has been suggested — teenagers are increasingly occupied by the amusing complexities of cell phones. Read more on Teens Favor Phones Over Drugs?…
Filed under abuse, Addictions, News, Substance Abuse by on Mar 24th, 2017. Comment.
They call it pareidolia. It is all right if you never heard of it — you have probably experienced it. We don’t just love stories. Our brain seems to need them. We take what is inanimate and give it an identity, a spirit, a character, a story. In 1944 a couple of psychological researchers at Smith college showed an unimaginatively dull and insipid movie of black triangles and lines and such moving about to 34 “subjects,” probably unpaid Smith students (who may also have been emotionally or even sexually frustrated) when all but one of them described this 2 1/2 minute movie with amazing “humanity.” They saw scenarios like two male triangles keeping a female circle prisoner. Read more on Seeing Virgin Mary or Christ In Stains…
Filed under News, Psychology, Religion, Uncategorized by on Mar 22nd, 2017. Comment.
Read more on Drawing Inspiration From The Great Cathedrals…
Filed under News by on Mar 21st, 2017. Comment.
I remember my French apartment, next to the market-place in Amiens, a small town a hundred miles north of Paris. A woman and her husband ran one of the larger produce booths, just a few steps from my window. She was one of those diminutive nut-brown Frenchwomen — not as pale as most of us were in the frozen north. She told me that near the Mediterranean, where she came from, I would be called “white as an aspirin tablet.” And when I visited there briefly, that is exactly what they called me. Read more on The Pleasure Of The Table…
Filed under News by on Mar 19th, 2017. Comment.
The easiest ways to spot trends is to age. Not that I noticed I was aging. Somebody pointed out to me I should be a “poster child” for senior citizens. This left me a bit confused, since I did not notice I had become one. Gevalt! I am 64, which means in one more year, I will become eligible for Medicare. Better check my pulse. Read more on Maybe You CAN Fool Mother Nature…
Filed under Aging, News, Research by on Mar 18th, 2017. Comment.
My husband loves showbiz stories. He was an avid movie fan while I was studying medicine, which meant he had a whole world to introduce to me, since my education at prep school including being somehow given the impression that cinema was a degenerate form of entertainment, compared to other arts. So my husband was piddling around on the internet when he told me some things about Wally Cox, the comic, and his friend Marlon Brando. I couldn’t imagine two people more-opposite and was surprised to learn what he told me.
Filed under medicine, News by on Mar 17th, 2017. Comment.
Read more on Your Job Description Is Always “Customer Service”…
Filed under News, Personality Disorders by on Mar 16th, 2017. Comment.
“You really made me feel better,” said the cuddly little woman. I had put the lid on her little episode of mania very quickly, and she was happy with me. She was stable and I was making our appointments further apart. Read more on The Perfect Thank-You Gift…
Filed under Doctors, News by on Mar 14th, 2017. Comment.
I had a really depressed patient. She had just had one leg amputated below the knee because of advanced diabetes. Of course, I prescribed some antidepressants, and made sure the medical stuff (medical causes of diabetes) had been eliminated. I asked her why she couldn’t dance. “I can’t walk and you want me to dance?” she asked, as if holding back tears.
Filed under depression, News by on Mar 14th, 2017. Comment.