“Michael S. Joyce is an ultraconservative ideologue. For years, prior to

his recent retirement, he headed” the Milwaukee-based Harry and Lynde Bradley Foundation, “one of the most effective right-wing

foundations in America. Joyce recently answered President Bush’s call to

resuscitate his floundering faith-based initiative. If anyone is up to that task,

it’s Joyce.”

(Bradley) Foundation support for conservative writers included

grants to: Dinesh D’Souza for The End of Racism, a revisionist view of the

history of slavery and racism in America; Charles Murray for The Bell Curve,

an argument for the genetic inferiority of blacks; David Brock for The Real

Anita Hill “which characterized Anita Hill as ‘slightly nutty slightly slutty'”

(Brock repudiates the book in the August issue of Talk magazine); and

Christina Hoff Sommers for Who Stole Feminism. Tompaine.com

Pig Treatment Used to Treat Mentally Ill People

A mineral supplement developed for calming

aggressive pigs has been modified to treat children and adults with

serious mental disorders, a Canadian scientist said on Tuesday.

The concoction of minerals, initially dismissed by the scientific

establishment as “snake oil,” was developed by the owner of an

animal feed company in Canada to help a friend with children

suffering from severe psychological disorders.

David Hardy used his knowledge of animal nutrition to create the

treatment made up of 36 components, most of them minerals, and

the effects on the children were dramatic enough to encourage him to

develop it further.

While stressing the research was preliminary, a leading pediatrician

from Alberta Children’s Hospital in western Canada said it was

convincing enough to conquer her skepticism. Reuters

First Artificial Intelligence to Undergo Formal Human Psychological Evaluation: “For the first time a standard psychological test known as the

MMPI-2 (Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory) used by clinicians world wide in the

evaluation and treatment of adults will be administered to a machine based artificial personality.

GAC (Generic Artificial Consciousness) – pronounced ‘Jack’ – is the artificial personality being

developed at the Mindpixel Digital Mind Modeling Project (www.mindpixel.com) with the

collaboration of nearly 40,000 internet users from more than 200 countries worldwide. GAC will be

evaluated using the MMPI-2 over the next several months to assess it’s learning of human consensus

experience from the Mindpixel project’s large and diverse group of users from many different

cultures. The test will be supervised and interpreted by Dr. Robert Epstein, one of the world’s

leading experts on human and machine behavior.”

Fireworks leave polluting afterglow; happy Independence Day. “The spectacular fireworks that mark

public events like the Olympics and the

new millenium, leave a nasty afterglow of

the air pollutant ozone according to new

research.”

Emotional controversy (as emotional as it gets in the sober letters column of the Journal of the American Medical Association) over a study reporting that St John’s Wort was ineffective for the treatment of major depression.

Review of Nell Casey (ed.)’s Unholy Ghost: writers on depression:

This powerful collection of reflections on depression includes some well-known authors,

such as Ann Beatie, Susanna Kaysen, and William Styron, but for the most part the less

well-known writers outshine the big names. Possibly that is because editor Nell Casey

had more influence over the less prestigious writers, and encouraged them to crystallize

their ideas. Nearly all of these pieces are new, while a few have been printed

previously in magazines, and just two are extracts from previously published books. All

the authors have been in close contact with depression, either personally or though

helping a family member deal with a crisis. The experience of these writers gives their

contributions authority and depth, and their ability to reflect on this experience makes

this collection both thoughtful and moving.

There’s a common misconception (which I encounter all the time in contending with the families, spouses, employers and friends of the depressed people I treat) that clinical depression is just like the ‘down’ times that the rest of us experience. Untold fractiousnessness and second-level suffering results from the message to the depressed patient that they should just “snap out of it” by “force of will” and “get on with their life”, and the like. For those tolerant of a literary approach, this book is the best antidote I’ve found (I used to recommend William Styron’s Darkness Visible, which is excerpted in this anthology.) to give the skeptic some perspective on the qualitatively distinct suffering of a person in the throes of a deep depression.

Consider this, poet Jane Kenyon’s “Having it Out with Melancholy”, especially the brutal, starkly riveting stanza 7 whose central image has burned its way indelibly into my consciousness since I first encountered this poem many years ago:

If many remedies are prescribed

for an illness, you may be certain

that the illness has no cure.

–A. P. CHEKHOV, The Cherry Orchard

1 FROM THE NURSERY

When I was born, you waited

behind a pile of linen in the nursery,

and when we were alone, you lay down

on top of me, pressing

the bile of desolation into every pore.

And from that day on

everything under the sun and moon

made me sad — even the yellow

wooden beads that slid and spun

along a spindle on my crib.

You taught me to exist without gratitude.

You ruined my manners toward God:

“We’re here simply to wait for death;

the pleasures of earth are overrated.”

I only appeared to belong to my mother,

to live among blocks and cotton undershirts

with snaps; among red tin lunch boxes

and report cards in ugly brown slipcases.

I was already yours — the anti-urge,

the mutilator of souls.

2 BOTTLES

Elavil, Ludiomil, Doxepin,

Norpramin, Prozac, Lithium, Xanax,

Wellbutrin, Parnate, Nardil, Zoloft.

The coated ones smell sweet or have

no smell; the powdery ones smell

like the chemistry lab at school

that made me hold my breath.

3 SUGGESTION FROM A FRIEND

You wouldn’t be so depressed

if you really believed in God.

4 OFTEN

Often I go to bed as soon after dinner

as seems adult

(I mean I try to wait for dark)

in order to push away

from the massive pain in sleep’s

frail wicker coracle.

5 ONCE THERE WAS LIGHT

Once, in my early thirties, I saw

that I was a speck of light in the great

river of light that undulates through time.

I was floating with the whole

human family. We were all colors — those

who are living now, those who have died,

those who are not yet born. For a few

moments I floated, completely calm,

and I no longer hated having to exist.

Like a crow who smells hot blood

you came flying to pull me out

of the glowing stream.

“I’ll hold you up. I never let my dear

ones drown!” After that, I wept for days.

6 IN AND OUT

The dog searches until he finds me

upstairs, lies down with a clatter

of elbows, puts his head on my foot.

Sometimes the sound of his breathing

saves my life — in and out, in

and out; a pause, a long sigh. . . .

7 PARDON

A piece of burned meat

wears my clothes, speaks

in my voice, dispatches obligations

haltingly, or not at all.

It is tired of trying

to be stouthearted, tired

beyond measure.

We move on to the monoamine

oxidase inhibitors. Day and night

I feel as if I had drunk six cups

of coffee, but the pain stops

abruptly. With the wonder

and bitterness of someone pardoned

for a crime she did not commit

I come back to marriage and friends,

to pink fringed hollyhocks; come back

to my desk, books, and chair.

8 CREDO

Pharmaceutical wonders are at work

but I believe only in this moment

of well-being. Unholy ghost,

you are certain to come again.

Coarse, mean, you’ll put your feet

on the coffee table, lean back,

and turn me into someone who can’t

take the trouble to speak; someone

who can’t sleep, or who does nothing

but sleep; can’t read, or call

for an appointment for help.

There is nothing I can do

against your coming.

When I awake, I am still with thee.

9 WOOD THRUSH

High on Nardil and June light

I wake at four,

waiting greedily for the first

note of the wood thrush. Easeful air

presses through the screen

with the wild, complex song

of the bird, and I am overcome

by ordinary contentment.

What hurt me so terribly

all my life until this moment?

Along these lines, you might be interested in The Literature, Arts, & Medicine Database, a multi-institutional project initiated in the summer of 1993 at the New York University School of

Medicine — an annotated bibliography of prose, poetry, film, video and art which is being developed as a dynamic,

accessible, comprehensive resource in Medical Humanities, for use in health/pre-health and liberal arts settings.

Health effects, reproductive issues and effects on short-term memory from caffeine; an excerpt from Weinberg and Bealer’s The World of Caffeine: the science and culture of the world’s most popular drug (Routledge, 2001).

If, like the great

majority of people in the world, you use caffeine regularly, you are faced with

a complex, confusing, and often apparently contradictory cacophony of

traditional and contemporary claims about its effects on human health. … In

the last half of the 20th century, an explosion of general medical knowledge

and a large number of controlled experiments have shed scientific light on

many of caffeine’s effects. It has been often and truly said that caffeine is

the most studied drug in history. Yet, because of its nearly universal use, the

variety of its modes of consumption, its presence in and effects on nearly all

bodily systems, and its occurrence in chemically complex foods and

beverages, together with the complexity of the social and psychological

factors that shape its use, caffeine may also be one of the least adequately

understood. Tompaine.com

Both intrusive parenting and children’s scatological preoccupations are going high-tech.

It’s the thirtieth anniversary of Jim Morrison’s death; now he’s back. Jerry Garcia’s already returned.

UFO Cult May Sue U.S. FDA Over Human Cloning: “Brigitte Boisselier, a French biochemist who belongs to the international Raelian Movement, told

Reuters on Tuesday that her company Clonaid still plans to produce a cloned child within the next

year despite a recent crackdown by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.”

Oxy Craze Makes Way to Cities. Are the media discovering a scourge, fabricating or fantasizing about one, or helping to precipitate it?

Ky. Patient Gets Artificial Heart. Near death without it, the titanium and plastic device which is expected to extend his life by around a month is the first self-contained artificial heart without external connections. The heart allows a patient to pursue normal activity up through moderate exercise. About half of people awaiting heart transplant die before a suitable donor heart is available. The expectation is that this patient will die with the artificial heart.

Israeli target (lower right)?

State nixes GPS highway robbery. “There is no legal ability for them to charge a penalty when there has

been no damage,” says the State of Connecticut’s Department of Consumer Protection, ordering the auto rental company to cease and desist and refund penalties to customers who have complained. Surprising ruling. As outrageous as I think the auto rental company’s practice is (was), the renter did sign a contract agreeing to it. The consensus was that he would lose in court. The Register

Ford Wants to Send Drivers of Sport Utility Vehicles Back to School. Now Ford says it’s not Firestone’s fault, not Ford’s fault, but the fault of the SUV driver?? New York Times

Congressman Is Accused of Asking Woman to Lie. Condit’s web of apparent lies around the Chandra Levy disappearance, regarding which he is officially “not a suspect,” deepens. What’s that funny smell? New York Times

Wood Products to Have Arsenic Label: I’ve previously written about the first inklings of danger to children from playing around climbing structures made from treated lumber. Now “consumer warning labels will start appearing

this fall on nearly all the treated lumber in the United States, warning

about an arsenic-laced preservative being used to protect the wood

from decay and insect damage… Also Tuesday, the Consumer Product Safety Commission (news – web

sites) took a first step toward possibly banning CCA-treated wood

from playground equipment. It also is commonly used in the making

of decks, railings, picnic tables, fences, posts and docks.” AP

“How easily could a hacker bring the world to a standstill?” The Doomsday Click — “It didn’t

take long for me to see what computer-security experts have known for

years: any fool can enter, alter, and destroy even the most seemingly

impregnable Web sites…. It’s not even against the

law. You don’t have to know how to write, or even understand, the code

to wreck it. ” The New Yorker