Points of interest 4/5

I just wanted to announce that the twice monthly Brainblogging carnival is out and excellent as always, moving beyond the neuroscience into more personal psychosocial side of the brain. It seems I am becoming a something of a regular contributor there, which is both flattering and humbling. Many thanks.

Also this weekend is time for the semiannual conference of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, something of a spiritual feast for myself as we Mormons get to hear from those we hold to be living prophets and apostles proclaim God’s message to us today. Any interested are welcome to listen in. I have also found it is sometimes interesting to get other’s reactions at the LDS Bloggernaccle various open threads found here, here, here, and here.

Here is the remaining best of the web in what has been a very, very interesting week, especially for you, the reader.

Fixing cracks in the system.

    America has a love affair with blame.  When tragedy hits, do we ask what we can do to help, what we may have done to add to the problem, or other such pedestrian nonsense.  Heavens no, we want to know who screwed up and we want them to pay.  Who let this happen, we ask.  Journalists make it their only question.  Headlines wring out for weeks.  Politicians will find someone to throw under the bus.  People will go into defensive mode.  If we run out of proper candidates, we then pile it on God.  Hand wringing is everywhere, but actually identifying and solving a problem, now that is rare.

Health Care Rationing

   I know, I know, how dare I start my post with such a dirty word.  A little while back I discussed the problem of Organ transplantation and supply shortage, giving my innovative and fantastically fair minded solution.  Of course, I got not so much a whisper’s feedback, so either readers have sat back in awe and stunned silence of my brilliance, or I am just delusional.  One thing I have no delusions about is the pipe dream of fairly distributing health care to everyone.

Science for the soul

I get some very offbeat searches thrown my way every now and then. For example, wanderers of the Ethernet have come in search of Strong powers to help me fight, which I am not so sure I could provide. It seems this would be important as mechanic vs. doctor is a search category. Is this a no holds barred grudge match or a freaky Friday type takeover of one another’s job?

Apparently I am more Christlike than I realize, as news of Jesus social phobia reached me. Another mistook my blog for Orson Scott Card’s Children of the mind with two body with one soul. One searcher sought info on wheelchair user pretender experience, which brought to my mind visions of George Costanza madly scooting away from a gang of the angered elderly, also on scooters, eager to expose his walking ability and take him down, classic, but not really available on my blog. Some masochist wants a kazillion question test and another surfer, truly fearful of the insidious Mormon collective sought out the secrets of the mind reprogramming Mormon.

There is one search this week intrigued me beyond all these, to the point I had to make it my next post. This is for that intrepid voyager who sought science for the soul.

Points of interest 3/1

My, my my what a week. My reader is getting bloated, I need to figure out a way to decompress. The internet is just too darn big. I think I need to take up meditation and perhaps do an every other weekly summary, except there is an entire load of good stuff to summarize. Perhaps waiting would only make it worse. Without further ado, especially for you, the reader-

Medical Care- Right or privilege?

For over 20 years our country and its undying commitment to capitalism have tried desperately to slow mushrooming healthcare costs, and failed miserably. HMOs, Capitation, things that business was confident would succeed where those fiscally incompetent doctors failed, fell flat. Patients, it seems, did not tolerate their health and well-being treated as a business.

Performance enhancing drugs-for doctors?

     Thanks to the Frontal Cortex, I recently stumbled across an article on the online journal n+1 that describes firsthand a new and disturbing trend in higher education, Adderall abuse.   Adderall is a mixture of long and short acting amphetamines that keep the mind revved up and the body energized for hours.  It appears overachievers at Ivy League Universities are sorely tempted by this as it improves test taking skills, focus, recall, enables all-nighters to work, etc.  The one group of students my mind immediately went to was the classic overachiever, the medical student. 

Religion and Anxiety

“The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider, or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you, and is dreadfully provoked: his wrath towards you burns like fire; he looks upon you as worthy of nothing else, but to be cast into the fire; he is of purer eyes than to bear to have you in his sight; you are ten thousand times more abominable in his eyes, than the most hateful venomous serpent is in ours.”

Jonathan Edwards, Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God

From the dawn of history, religion and anxiety have been intertwined.