A Pill to Stretch Your Day: Modafinil (marketed under the name Provigil, short for prolonged vigilance) is a medication approved for narcolepsy (a disorder in which the regulation of alertness falls victim to sudden ‘sleep attacks’) but which, as the name implies, promotes vigilance and combats sleepiness under any circumstances. It is inherently different from caffeine, amphetamines and other psychostimulants which ‘jazz up’ the entire nervous system (whose effectiveness is accompanied by side effects such as jitteriness and muscle tension, a ‘crash’ as their effect wears off, and addictiveness). Modafinil seemingly restricts its actions to the reticular activating system, the part of the brain which keeps us awake and alert, and there does not appear to be ‘rebound’ fatigue or sleepiness when a dose wears off or withdrawal if a user is deprived of it after a period of consistent use.

Its maker is seeking approval for treatment of fatigue and somnolence caused by other medical conditions. The military is, predictably, quite interested in this drug for personnel on longhaul missions where sustained alertness and cognitive efficiency for long periods of time is required. Because somnolence or fatigue is a common side effect of medications used to treat severe psychiatric illnesses, and often limits patient acceptance of necessary medications, many psychiatrists are investigating its potential as a counteractive. Of course, the buzz is about using it in intentional sleep deprivation. I’ve seen a number of webloggers only semi-facetiously avowing, “That’s for me!” in pointing to this LA Times piece. If you thought the ‘cosmetic psychopharmacology’ revolution of ‘Prozac Nation’ was profound, wait until you see what impact this and similar medications coming down the pike might have!

But (as is the rule when you read about newly-developed psychoactive medications), you’ll soon enough find statements to the effect that “nobody really knows how this works” or what the long term consequences — of the medication per se, or of the prolonged sleep deprivation it may be used to facilitate — are. And the effects of the drug in unbalancing an essentially ‘normal’ brain (with regard to somnolence and alertness) may be inherently different from its effects in bringing an ‘unbalanced’ brain back into balance e.g. in narcolepsy, just as (I have long maintained) the effects of stimulants in rebalancing attentional processes in the unbalanced brain of a patient with ADHD are inherently different from their effects in unbalancing a ‘normal’ brain when used recreationally. I’m reminded of a prophetic science fiction story I read what must have been forty years ago in which a man submits to an experiment with a machine that eliminates his need to sleep. Predictably, it is not as pleasant as he had expected and, when he pleads with the investigator to terminate the experiment, things come to a horrific crash. [Does this description ring any bells with anyone?]

I’ve also seen some of the same webloggers who are clamoring for modafinil hoping they can use the recently-publicized ‘magnetic thinking caps’ to expand their cognitive skills to savant-like levels. But scroll back several days in FmH to read my comments on transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) for some hints as to the price one has to pay…

Richard Reeves: Why Bush will be a one-term president

This was a day in the life of the president of the United States, Thursday, April 18, 2002:

• The circumstances of endless savagery in the Middle East forced him to look into a television camera and tell the world that Ariel Sharon (news – web sites) is “a man of peace.”
• Halfway around the world, on the West Bank, the U.N. peace envoy to the Middle East, a Norwegian hardly given to flamboyant language, one of the first outsiders to inspect Mr. Sharon’s recent work, looked into other cameras and said: “Horrifying, horrifying … Israel has lost all moral ground in this conflict.”
• In Kabul and Washington, members of the forces commanded by President Bush (news – web sites) had to face the cameras and apologize for the killing of Canadian soldiers, our best friends, by American bombs in yet another friendly-fire incident of the kind that punctuates long-distance, high-tech warfare.
• On Capitol Hill, it was Democrats who commanded the cameras, exulting in easily defeating Bush’s most important energy initiative, the drilling for oil and gas in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.
• Back on television, the president gave a lecture to the elected president of Venezuela, an incompetent, if charismatic, lefty named Hugo Chavez, who had been overthrown two days before with some help and cheers from the right-wingers running the middle levels of the Bush State Department. Bush warned Chavez that he better do more of what we consider the right things, or we’ll get his army after him again.
• Up the road in New Jersey, which happened to be one of the 13 original United States, the federal Justice Department (news – web sites) issued directives to prevent the state from releasing the names of hundreds of people who have been held in five Jersey jails without charges for as long as seven months. The order from “Justice” reads: “It would make little sense for the release of potentially sensitive information to be subject to the vagaries of the laws of various states within which these detainees are housed or maintained.” Meaning no disrespect, I seem to remember we fought a revolution to protect the vagaries of state laws.
• In England — now I remember that’s who we fought the revolution against — the ambassador from our favorite oily medieval monarchy, Saudi Arabia, has published poems he wrote about “God’s Martyrs,” the killers of Americans and Israelis at the World Trade Center and in shopping malls and restaurants.
• Back close to home, The Washington Post is beginning to publish photographs of Taliban prisoners in liberated Afghanistan (news – web sites). They are starving. Teen-agers are weighing in at less than 100 pounds. Are they bad guys? Probably. But they look like Auschwitz. What the hell is going on out there?
• And meanwhile, the president’s men and women are on the Hill testifying that such things as workplace injuries can more effectively be controlled by filing lawsuits than by rules and regulations. That may be true, but only if the injured are both rich and graduates of Harvard Law School.

That really is what it is like to be president of the United States. The job is so much more than one man can ever conceive of, much less “handle,” because all of these things are happening at the same time. And in some way, George W. Bush, former slacker, will have to do something about each of them. You can already see that in his face. It is not blank anymore.

[The blink is courtesy of BookNotes; I can only echo Craig’s comment, “Please God, let it be so…”]

It’s Chirac vs. the far right Le Pen in the runoff for France’s presidency. Tweedledum and Tweedledee Chirac and Lionel Jospin split the reasonable vote and gave the bigots second place. The Age [via dev.null]

A Different Voice Comes to Public Radio: ‘NPR’s newest news program, “The Tavis Smiley Show,” is the first predominantly African-American-oriented series in the network’s 33-year history.’ NY Times

Critic Jon Pareles raves about Wilco’s new recording, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. NY Times

Was Arafat the Problem? Those who despair at how far away from the Camp David accords we’ve drifted often conclude that Arafat, in rejecting Ehud Barak’s “so generous” proposals, was never really interested in a negotiated, two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Writing in Slate, Robert Wright (author of The Moral Animal and Nonzero: The Logic of Human Destiny) looks more closely at Arafat’s comportment at Camp David and Taba, and the supposed generosity of the Israeli offers, and finds this position insupportable (although it does appear to hinge abit much on an epiphany of dubious significance he recounts having in a conversation with Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek). Arafat’s failing has not been to be too aggressive, Wright says, but to lack the creative vision as a leader to steer his people effectively to a land-for-peace compromise. Succinctly echoed by Mitsu at Synthetic Zero: “What the Palestinians need is either Gandhi or Nelson Mandela. What they have is Zelig” ? By 2000, when Barak had allowed Sharon to visit Haram al-Sharif, igniting the intifada, and it was increasingly clear he would be succeeded by Sharon (and Clinton likewise by the hands-off stance of the Bush administration), it was probably too late.

President Carter writes an op-ed piece in today’s Times that captures the growing sense that Israel must return to its pre-1967 borders as a means to peace. He suggests joint administration of East Jerusalem and ducks the infamous issue of the ‘right of return’ to Palestinian lands inside the borders of Israel. He suggests that the US leverage the Israelis with the threat of withholding aid and enforcing a strict interpretation of the legal requirement that all US arms supplied to Israel be used for strictly defensive purposes. But he sidesteps the issue above of how Arafat might lead the Palestinians to accept less than their most intransigent segment demands, or control the factions that will never accept Israel’s right to exist.

Mozilla 1.0 Release Candidate 1 has just been released. Now if only Ev Williams would enable Mozilla access to Blogger Pro, I could stop using M$IE again…

Environmentalists are rejoicing as Senate Rejects Bush Drilling Plan [Associated Press] but beware, it was only because Republicans couldn’t muster the 2/3’s majority necessary to break a Democratic filibuster. Administration spokesperson warns that the fight will go on, and the project will probably become a high-priority reality if the Republicans regain control of the Senate in the midterm elections this fall. [Guardian UK] Of course, the Administration’s incoherent rhetoric attempting to link energy independence to the War-on-Terrorism® aside, the fist-in-glove relationship between the Administration and the energy industry is blatantly obvious, as highlighted in this double dose from the April 20th New York Times:

Bush Policies Have Been Good to Energy Industry
High Administration Officials Have Links to Energy Industry

And here, highlighted by the New York Times as well, is an oxymoron if I ever heard one — the ‘Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining’ is headed by the chairman of the ‘Council on Environmental Quality’ at the White House. Especially in the Rockies, these administration lackeys of the energy conglomerates have their eyes on numerous other sites on public land for giveaways:

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska was not the only place where the Bush administration was hoping to find more oil. It is also encouraging drilling at more than 50 new sites in the lower 48 states, particularly in the Rocky Mountains.

The energy bill passed last year by the House includes a provision directing the administration to make it easier for oil and gas companies to obtain federal leases and permits to drill for oil and gas. That version will have to be reconciled with the Senate’s.

The Bureau of Land Management is considering dozens of projects across the West. In addition, President Bush set up a task force last May to examine how to streamline the permit and leasing process. In doing so, Mr. Bush said that the “increased production and transmission of energy in a safe and environmentally sound manner is essential to the well-being of the American people.”

Another reason to watch the midterm Senate elections carefully, if you had any doubts…

Environmentalists are rejoicing as Senate Rejects Bush Drilling Plan [Associated Press] but beware, it was only because Republicans couldn’t muster the 2/3’s majority necessary to break a Democratic filibuster. Administration spokesperson warns that the fight will go on, and the project will probably become a high-priority reality if the Republicans regain control of the Senate in the midterm elections this fall. [Guardian UK] Of course, the Administration’s incoherent rhetoric attempting to link energy independence to the War-on-Terrorism® aside, the fist-in-glove relationship between the Administration and the energy industry is blatantly obvious, as highlighted in this double dose from the April 20th New York Times:

Bush Policies Have Been Good to Energy Industry
High Administration Officials Have Links to Energy Industry

And here, highlighted by the New York Times as well, is an oxymoron if I ever heard one — the ‘Task Force on Energy Project Streamlining’ is headed by the chairman of the ‘Council on Environmental Quality’ at the White House. Especially in the Rockies, these administration lackeys of the energy conglomerates have their eyes on numerous other sites on public land for giveaways:

The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska was not the only place where the Bush administration was hoping to find more oil. It is also encouraging drilling at more than 50 new sites in the lower 48 states, particularly in the Rocky Mountains.

The energy bill passed last year by the House includes a provision directing the administration to make it easier for oil and gas companies to obtain federal leases and permits to drill for oil and gas. That version will have to be reconciled with the Senate’s.

The Bureau of Land Management is considering dozens of projects across the West. In addition, President Bush set up a task force last May to examine how to streamline the permit and leasing process. In doing so, Mr. Bush said that the “increased production and transmission of energy in a safe and environmentally sound manner is essential to the well-being of the American people.”

Another reason to watch the midterm Senate elections carefully, if you had any doubts…