A HAPPY DEATH
Not like Moses on a barren mountain,
nor wrestling with an angel
in a place of stone —
In my own bed I want to die,
in its warm scent of my warm sleep,
until the last slow breath,
the last glimpse of the world’s
hummingbird colors.
I want to die in my own bed,
the one place where I don’t
feel I am a stranger.
Let my bed
be my ship,
a mermaid named Oriana
guiding me home.
~ Oriana
A Happy Death is the last poem I ever wrote — was it two years ago? I wanted to see if I could still do it. I also realized that if I were to go on writing poems, they would likely turns around the themes of aging, dying, departure, cremation, the world going on without me — and, on the mild side, the ever-more diminished exceptions and absurdity of making plans for the future. And I didn’t really want to marinate in the varieties of that ultimate loss.
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While they were preparing the hemlock, Socrates was learning how to play a new tune on the flute. “What will be the use of that?” he was asked. “To know this tune before dying.” If I dare repeat this reply long since trivialized by the handbooks, it is because it seems to me the sole serious justification of any desire to know, whether exercised on the brink of death or at any other moment of existence.~ Emil Cioran, Drawn and Quartered
Socrates by Jacques-Louis David (detail from The Death of Socrates)
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BEYOND WORDS: THE HIDDEN LANGUAGE OF DATING
From Regency-era "fan flirting" to coded gifts, people have perfected the art of discreetly signaling their love over many centuries. Here's what it reveals about our quest for love.
If you visit the Richelieu wing of the Louvre in Paris, you might meet the gaze of a former Queen of England. Her hands, adorned with expensive rings, are clasped together. She smiles ever so slightly in her reserved, composed way. Jewels and gems cover her headdress as well as the rich red and gold fabrics of her puffed-sleeve gown. A small cross hangs below her neck. There is no doubt from the painting that she was destined to turn heads.
The betrothal portrait of Anne of Cleves was enough for Henry VIII to enter an engagement with her, though the marriage only lasted six months
So arresting was Hans Holbein the Younger's betrothal portrait of Anne of Cleves, it caused one of the most powerful people in the world, Henry VIII, to enter an engagement with her in 1539. The painting was described by Henry's ambassador in Cleves as "very lively", implying that it was an accurate portrayal.
However, some historians have accused Holbein of exaggerating her beauty. Either way, Anne and Henry's first encounter in person was incredibly awkward, with historical accounts suggesting that neither was attracted to the other. What followed was an unconsummated marriage before the couple were granted an annulment in July 1540 – some may say, a lucky escape for Anne.
While presenting a potential future Queen in portrait form might initially seem far removed from our modern-day efforts of finding love in a world of digitized dating services, courtship portraits are, actually, back. Dating apps, used by 30% of adults in the US as of 2022, require users to make crucial preliminary judgements based on little more than a photograph and perhaps a few reassuring words from friends.
As the majority of modern dating interactions begin from behind a screen, online users are exposed to hundreds of potential partners sorted by an algorithm. But, dating today and courtships hundreds of years ago suggests that words have not always been central, or necessary, for finding love.
Some of the hidden languages or visual signals of attraction have remained remarkably similar over centuries, while others have faded into oblivion. What do these non-verbal codes reveal about how we perceive romantic relationships – and might understanding them, help us find true love?
"Fan flirting”
Let's begin with a period in a history known for celebrating romantic love and courtship. The Regency era, loosely defined as the decades around 1800, offered women the opportunity to be wooed – courted – but also, to actively go out into the marriage market.
In novels by Regency era writers such as Jane Austen, characters often pursue marriage for financial or social prospects – but love tends to win by the end. Marrying for love became a "widely celebrated ideal during the 18th Century", says Sally Holloway, research fellow at the University of Warwick in the UK and author of The Game of Love in Georgian England. People emphasized finding love before marriage, as opposed to developing love for someone later, "not dissimilar from how you would assess compatibility with a partner today," she says.
A love interest might develop at one of society's social events. Holloway says that there was fun to be had in subtle flirtation in these public settings – for example, there was a "language of fans" during the period, "but it was more a bit of fun than a serious method of communication.”
In 1797, the designer Charles Francis Bandini created a fan on which he printed a coded alphabet in tiny, ornate lettering – to allow women to send messages from across the room. The fan, called Fanology or the Ladies Conversation Fan listed different hand positions to indicate each letter in a similar fashion to semaphore, which was a method of communicating employed mostly by sailors using colored flags.
In 1797, “Fanology or The Ladies Conversation Fan” listed different hand positions to represent each letter, like a secret language
Another fan, entitled The Ladies Telegraph, for Corresponding at a Distance from 1798, was similar. "The primary use of the fan between lovers would have been as a much less explicit means of flirtation, accompanied by longing looks, fluttering eyelashes and loving glances," says Holloway.
Fan signals were useful at crowded and noisy dances, or where discretion was required. But in closer quarters, men and women could use scents to "stimulate and strengthen feelings of love and sexual desire," says Holloway. Liquid scents were also applied to love letters in order to entice a lover.
Holloway says that men during the Regency era typically presented women with a wide range of gifts, from flowers to miniature portraits, to show their affection and suitability as a partner. "Couples would check that their disposition and outlook on life were suitably similar by exchanging books as tokens and underlining the passages that they most agreed with," says Holloway. "In their letters, they discussed their hopes and fears, their moral views, what they hoped to find in marriage, and worked to build a closer emotional bond.”
In return, women "typically presented men with handmade items such as embroidered ruffles and waistcoats to indicate their domestic skill and time invested in a suitor, and pressed flowers such as violets, which symbolized their modesty, truthfulness and faithful love," says Holloway.
The two most symbolically important gifts were locks of hair – a physical piece of the loved one's body which would outlast their time on Earth – and a ring, which symbolized their hand in marriage.
While the language of fans may no longer be in use, according to Holloway, there are some similarities to the way couples still use gifts and messages to connect in the modern dating world.
The Earliest Form of Social Media?
As photography became more accessible and widely distributed during the Victorian period, more people had the chance to see likenesses of celebrities and even royalty for the first time. Friends and family could also exchange mementos of each other. And soon the technology sweeping through British Victorian society found a romantic purpose: the cartes de visite – a portrait photograph around 9cm by 6cm, pasted onto a piece of card that could be sent to prospective lovers.
Cartes were cheap and easy to exchange, so in their own way, a portrait could go viral like an image might go viral online today. People posted adverts requesting an exchange of cartes, and lovers might keep their suitor's cartes close to them, "almost like a little fetish object," says John Plunkett, an assistant professor in the department of English at the University of Exeter in the UK.
Originally made famous by Queen Victoria and Prince Albert before becoming more accessible to the middle and upper classes, the cartes were "part of an individual's construction of themselves in relation to a wider collective identity," wrote Plunkett in a paper published in the Journal of Victorian culture.
Cartes provided some people with their first and perhaps only opportunity of having their photo taken. As with modern dating apps, a carte could allow them to make an impactful first impression. "You're going to dress up in your Sunday best," says Plunkett. People included something of their personality, showing themselves reading, or posed in a way that showed how dominant or demure they were. "It gives you a chance to make a statement about who you are. You're going to make yourself look more socially mobile and higher status," says Plunkett.
Like with modern dating apps, the cartes de visite allowed people to make a powerful first impression through the use of style and props
It became fashionable to turn the cartes of one's closest social connections into collages. An art style developed around posing friends in unusual and creative ways, such as assembled in a drawing room or even as unfortunate victims in a spider's web. The aim was to save these mementos in a scrap book and express something about how closely one's friends were held.
In many cartes, some of which can be viewed at the V&A museum in London, UK, people posed with objects that represented wealth, such as art or sculptures – and even pets.
Plunkett explains that the use of props helped people to remain still while photographers took their pictures, since those early photographs required much longer exposures than photos do today – but also to incorporate "the sense of a grand background" or to show off your profession, for example.
"It's all about putting on an appearance and thinking about what's the vision of yourself you want to project… [like an] Instagram or Twitter profile… You're going to choose something that shows off a certain version of yourself," Plunkett says. Similarly, on dating apps today, people use backgrounds and props including exotic landscapes or animals to reflect their interests and how they like to see themselves.
Romance in Berlin nightclubs
By the end of the Victorian period, social etiquette was beginning to relax, and daters found new places to seek partners. Dancehalls played increasingly upbeat music late into the night. Jaunty ragtime dances gave way to jazz in the 20th Century. It became more socially acceptable for single women to go to bars and clubs with friends and meet people there. With new dating spaces came new ways to signal interest.
Around this time, in the 1920s, Berlin became the poster city for ultra-modern night life. Some Berlin clubs were "immense, multi-level, with movable floors and even water for water ballet shows," says Jennifer Evans, a professor of 20th Century social history at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and author of Life Among the Ruins: Cityscape and Sexuality in Cold War Berlin.
Technology of the time enabled dancers to flirt in busy clubs. The Berlin nightclub Residenz-Casino, known familiarly as the Resi, became famous for offering night-clubbers the means to contact each other using either a telephone or an elaborate system of pneumatic tubes from their table. Like the tubes used in internal office mailing systems, department stores and banks to send money from the shop floor to the back office, a message could be stuck inside a metal canister and pushed into a tube, where it was sucked by a vacuum to its destination.
In 1920s Berlin, the Residenz Casino became famous for allowing clubbers to signal their interest in someone through a system of pneumatic tubes
Someone could write a message on paper and send it to a switchboard, where an operator would read to ensure it was polite (a bit like, an early example of content moderation on social media today) before diverting it to the recipient's table. Alongside messages, gifts "from cigarettes to small trinkets to cocaine" could be bought and sent to the intended love interest, says Evans.
"There must have been something quite scintillating about seeing your person across the room as they received the message, hidden in plain sight," says Evans. "Their reactions, positive or negative, immediate and unfiltered, enhanced by the sense of fun and frivolity in the room. Maybe we should bring them back.”’
The outbreak of World War Two in 1939 spelled the end of this form of social interaction, she says, but some nightclub communication systems lived on in what would become West Berlin after the war. The Resi itself re-opened in 1951.
"I suppose we are constantly re-inventing ways to talk to one another, expressing our desires, in these demi-monde [fringe or clandestine] spaces,” says Evans. "It seems to say a lot about who we are as humans and how badly we seek connection.”
Secret signals in LGBTQ+ culture
Same-sex relationships have long had to rely on alternative modes of communication because of the history of oppression and marginalization that has targeted people in LGBTQ+ communities. Historically, secret signals allowed LGBTQ+ people to find partners while trying to stay safe from hostility, violence and repressive laws. Same-sex relationships were illegal in much of Europe until the 1960s and 70s, and 2000s in the US.
The green carnation, for example, originally became popular as a symbol with a hidden meaning by gay writer Oscar Wilde. In 1892, Wilde instructed a handful of his friends to wear them on their lapels for the opening night of his play Lady Windermere's Fan. When asked what it meant, Wilde (allegedly) said, "Nothing whatsoever. But that is just what nobody will guess.”
Oscar Wilde, pictured here (left) with his lover Lord Alfred Douglas in 1893 gave the green carnation a hidden meaning
"This sums up so many of these queer symbols – they have to be hidden hints and nods without overtly saying what they mean," says Sarah Prager, speaker and author of Queer, There and Everywhere: 27 People Who Changed the World and other books about LGBTQ+ history. "This can be a challenge for historians," adds Prager. "There might never be full confirmation or separation from legend with some of these symbols, because the whole point is to be able to communicate in secret in times of oppression.”
Other flowers and plants became associated with the LGBTQ+ community. "Besides the green carnation, one of the oldest examples of queer floriography is violet and lavender. [...] The colors purple, lavender [and] violet, have all been associated with queerness for centuries," says Prager. "We think this dates back to Sappho, the Greek poet of the 6th Century BCE, [who] wrote about women loving other women and is one of the earliest recorded examples of queerness between women.”
Jewelry has long been used as a visual expression and communicator of sexual identity in queer communities. "I have tattoos, earrings, clothing, that signal my queerness so that it makes it easier for me to feel in community with people," Prager says. "The feeling that I get when I see somebody else showing one of these symbols is an instant recognition of community, safety, kinship.”
Through the musical and sexual liberation of the Swinging '60s and '70s, queer culture found a new voice. There were increasingly spaces for the LGBTQ+ community to seek love. In Germany, "gay men used the Contacts Desired pages of magazines like Der Kreis and the later gay magazines like Him," says Jennifer Evans. "There, they'd advertise for 'friendship' or companionship... or sometimes, more brazenly for photo exchanges.”
The test of time
The desire to see a sweetheart's likeness, and playfully connect through coded gestures and implied meaning, has continued to the present day – whether through dating app profiles, curated online presences, pings, likes, swipes and compliments.
"There's a long history to secret writing, long before sexting or slipping into someone's DMs as they say," says Evans. She points out that flirting and the early stages of courtship have long been associated with the development of new technologies that allow people to communicate hidden thoughts and feelings, even in plain sight: "From symbols like a colored handkerchief hanging from a back jean pocket in gay cruising, to shorthand emojis and acronyms in sexting."
Sometimes, she adds, this furtiveness serves a purpose in keeping people safe – such as when being public about engaging in certain sexual practices could put one in danger. But more generally, she says, it is the sheer thrill of developing shared intimacies.
Codes, rituals and carefully composed images are all "part of the game.”
https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20250703-the-200-year-old-hidden-languages-of-dating?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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TRUMP’S COGNITIVE DECLINE CAN ONLY GET WORSE
As founder of the group Duty to Warn, founded in 2017 by mental health professionals and laypeople to warn the community-at-large of impending danger, Gartner has long spoken out about Donald Trump’s unfitness to be president. He has contributed to psychiatrist Bandy X. Lee’s bestselling anthology The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 37 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, appears regularly on television and shows like Meidas Touch to discuss the threat of a Trump presidency, and co-hosts the Shrinking Trump Podcast and companion YouTube show with psychologist Harry Segal of Cornell University.
On the podcast, Gartner recently celebrated the ordination of Pope Leo XIV, who he predicts will become a leading opposition figure to what he sees as Trump’s cruelty. “I love Pope Leo – he’s a radical liberal when it comes to immigration and the poor,” Gartner says. He also noted the comments made on X (formerly Twitter) by the bishop of Philadelphia, who wrote about Trump and the president of El Salvador laughing at the deportation of a US resident to El Salvador. The bishop asked, “Do you not see the suffering? Is your conscience not disturbed?” Gartner‘s response: “It’s nice to see the Catholic church affirm the true values of Christianity. I’m really buoyed by his elevation.”
MindSite News co-editor Diana Hembree’s interview with Gartner has been edited for length and clarity.
MindSite News: Dr. Gartner, you’ve talked about two aspects of Trump, in particular, that make him a terrifying choice as president of the United States: what you see as his advancing dementia and his serious mental illness. Let’s talk first about Trump’s dementia in his role as president of the most powerful country in the world.
You have said, quote, “there is absolutely no doubt” that Trump has dementia, including an ongoing deterioration in memory, thinking, behavior and motor skills. Trump used to be very articulate in earlier years, you’ve said, but now he often, quote, “degenerates into literal incoherence, where no one can tell what he is trying to say.” Could you talk about the signs of dementia you’ve observed in Trump during his most recent presidential campaign and now?
Dr. John Gartner: Certainly. When we’re diagnosing dementia, what we need to see is a deterioration of someone’s own baseline of functioning. What we see that a lot of people don’t appreciate is that when Donald Trump was younger in the 1980s, he was actually quite articulate. He spoke in polished paragraphs; now he has difficulty even finishing a sentence. His thoughts were logical and related: now they’re tangential.
He goes off on these ramblings where he is confabulating things – weird things in which he’ll talk about Venezuelans and mental hospitals, and then he’ll talk about sharks and batteries or the late, great Hannibal Lector and Silence of the Lambs. And why is he talking about Hannibal Lector – a fictional character who was not great; he was a murderer, a serial killer. It makes sense in Trump’s mind but these are really random associations. And there is an accelerating rate of decline.
You’ve said that what is most alarming is how far Trump has declined in the last four years. In a petition signed by 3,000 medical professionals warning that Trump’s probable diagnosis is dementia, you said that sometimes forgetting a word is normal aging, whereas inventing words or using non-words is not. Could you elaborate?
He is losing his capacity for coherent speech. We’ve collected dozens and dozens of Trump’s phonemic paraphrasias, in which you use sounds in place of an actual word (a hallmark of brain damage and dementia). What happens is that someone is trying to say a word and then they get the first part out but they have to end it or create one because they can’t remember the rest. Trump will say something like ‘mishiz’ for missiles, or “Chrishus” for Christmas, because he can’t complete the word.
Then we see also a lot of semantic paraphrasias, in which he uses a word incorrectly, as in “the oranges of the situation” because it rhymes with “the origins of the situation.” This is not within normal limits; his basic ability to use language is breaking down.
So there is that verbal deterioration. And then there is the physical deterioration. He used to be quite graceful, and now he uses a wide-based gait typical of frontotemporal dementia; sometimes he swings his right leg in a semi-circle. He also has trouble getting up the ramp; he has trouble doing physical things.
The other way we see deterioration is in his behavior. Actually, this is where people say, ‘Well, how can you tell? He’s a bad person; he breaks every rule of law and decency, what is new?’ But he is much more impulsive and erratic now. He blurts things out; he makes impulsive decisions that he has to then reverse, like his many reversals on tariffs.
Now people may think that because Donald Trump is demented that he won’t be very effective in his agenda. But the problem is he has the whole Project 2025 team behind him, led by Russell Vought. And he’s got Elon Musk, who is a mental health study in and of himself.
Musk is on the spectrum; like Trump, he is hypomanic, and like Trump, he is clearly also a sociopath. He feels no remorse in inflicting pain on people; in fact, he feels a sense of glee and mastery in doing it. He was joking about using a chainsaw (to cut federal jobs), holding one up and laughing about it. He’s taking away the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of innocent people. He’s a monster, just as Trump is a monster, and Trump attracts monsters. Now we have a real Trump problem, because we now have a whole government that is populated by people who have some version of his personality disorder.
Could you explain what you mean by Trump’s personality disorder? I know you have said for some time that the mental disorder he suffers from is called malignant narcissism.
Yes, I was one of the first people to say he was a malignant narcissist early on in 2017. And the reason I was one of the earliest to say it was not because I was more perceptive or more knowledgeable but because I happened to have done my post-doc with Otto Kernberg, who is a famous psychoanalyst in the area of personality disorders. The diagnosis of malignant narcissism is not in the DSM; it’s actually an obscure historical diagnosis that was introduced by psychologist Erich Fromm, who himself escaped the Nazis, in an attempt to explain the psychology of Hitler and other murderous, paranoid, grandiose dictators like him.
People with the disorder are usually characterized by entitlement, manipulation, grandiosity, pathological lying, the absence of empathy and conscience, and sadism, the latter of which results in a sadistic psychopath, according to Kernberg and others. I believe that Fromm called malignant narcissism ‘the quintessence of evil.’
That’s exactly what he said. It is interesting – it’s probably one of the only psychiatric diagnoses we have, other than anti-social disorder, that really defines the theology category of evil. In other diagnoses, we generally try to take away the stigma of mental illness. But this is one that deserves to be stigmatized.
You’ve mentioned that nuclear war is one of the most frightening outcomes of Trump’s mental illnesses while he is president. What needs to happen, in your opinion? Is there any chance this year that mental health experts could succeed in getting Trump evaluated by non-partisan mental health experts using the 25th Amendment?
No, that is not going to happen, unfortunately. I’ve been fighting for it for a decade, and I may never live to see it. But you’ve talked about nuclear war being one of the most pressing issues facing us. I don’t think Trump, in a demented haze, will press a button to attack, say, Denmark, but what people don’t understand is that peace doesn’t keep itself.
The default option for humanity for the last thousand years has been war.
Everyone has tried to attack their neighbor, take their land and their resources. And the period we’ve lived through is largely the golden age of humanity. After World War II, America banded with Europe and NATO and for the first time created a world government. And for the first time, there were international rules and consequences. Yes, we’ve had bad proxy wars and stupid wars like Vietnam and Iraq, but as David Brooks has said, that was more from arrogance and stupidity rather than malevolence. We basically set the rules of the road and helped keep the peace, even if not perfectly.
But what is happening here is that we’ve split with NATO. It is as if during World War II we had brought Churchill into the Oval Office and humiliated him and then joined Hitler. We have literally turned the international order upside down. Aside from emboldening Putin and putting Europe in danger, what it means is the safety is off. There are no consequences. This whole mutual assured destruction thing has always been so creepy, but it worked (to keep the peace). So the thing is that with all the world’s policemen gone, and no world order, somebody is almost inevitably going to set off a nuclear weapon.
That’s a terrifying scenario.
Yes. But people are not thinking so much about those horrors, because with all the horrors right in front of our face, it’s hard to even contemplate the domino effects, the long-term implications.
You have written that Trump, quote, “rages at being persecuted by imaginary enemies, including vulnerable minority groups who actually represent no threat whatsoever. With such a leader, all who are not part of the in-group… are enemies who must be destroyed.” Is this why Trump is demonizing and persecuting immigrants, in your opinion? After all, two of his wives were immigrants, and, according to statements from German authorities, Trump’s own grandfather migrated to the US from Germany illegally.
That is correct. I’ve often said that Trump is the American Hitler, and immigrants are the new Jews. He is persecuting immigrants the way that Hitler persecuted Jews, and we are watching our society do nothing to protect them – the way Europe did nothing to protect its Jews. It’s totally being replayed. He wants to send immigrants to concentration camps.
People need to understand that the definition of a concentration camp is not necessarily a death camp – that’s worse, obviously. A concentration camp is where you take an ‘undesirable’ population and you imprison them and they’re separated from the rest of the population. He wants to send them back to their countries, but they don’t all have a place to go, so he’s going to start accumulating them in these camps.
Trump started building these camps in his first administration, but then separating children from their parents blew up and he kind of backed off from that. But this time he’s not going to. I was really shocked when he was going to send immigrants to Guantanamo, but that’s now apparently too expensive. That would have been even worse – a concentration camp where we couldn’t even see what’s going on.
In a sense he has done that in El Salvador, by sending Venezuelan immigrants there he was supposed to bring back by order of a US federal judge. But he ignored the order and the immigrants are actually in an infamous prison work camp in El Salvador known for its human rights violations.
Right. There are going to be more and more people in more and more camps. We are heading toward a constitutional crisis with that as Trump is disregarding the orders of the judge. And once the executive branch decides it doesn’t have to follow the orders of the judicial branch, then it’s game over (for democracy). It’s officially over.
In terms of bringing people into the country, the Trump Administration recently intervened in the Romanian government’s prosecution of alleged sex traffickers and dual US/British citizens Tristan and Andrew Tate for rape, sex with minors, money laundering and human trafficking, among other charges, flying them to Florida on Feb. 27 of this year. According to news accounts, Andrew Tate is a big supporter of Trump and contributed to his campaign.
I watched a chilling interview clip with Andrew Tate in a program on YouTube – we’ll put a trigger warning on this interview – raging about his fury at young women who crossed him. Among other things, Tate said, “This is what I learned at pimp school…. just bring out the machete, and boom!… Grab them by the neck“– here he mimes viciously punching someone over and over in the face — “her f—ing cheekbones are broken…she’s crying…“shut up, b—–!”). It was absolutely horrifying. Why do you think Trump officials intervened on behalf of Tate and his brother?
Well, as you said, Tate was a Trump supporter. I almost assume that at this point he would be. Many major Trump supporters are sexual predators. Trump is a convicted sexual predator; Hegseth is an [alleged] sexual predator; Kavanaugh an [alleged] sexual predator. We keep hearing about another Republican congressman or big contributor who is a sexual predator. It’s incredible.
One analogy for what’s happened is cancer. Our country has advanced cancer. We had a chance to remove the cancerous tumor and we didn’t. And now it has metastasized. The DNA of our country is changing because the cancer cells start infecting other cells and altering their DNA. So we’re becoming…. the whole country is becoming more Trumpian, and this is actually what happened in World War II.
One of the contributors to The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump is Robert J. Lipton, a very famous Yale psychologist – he’s 95 but he is still alive and kicking. But he started writing after World War II about authoritarianism, and he coined a term I like a lot about a phenomenon that he called “malignant normality.” In the mentally disturbed world of malignant narcissists, once they gain power, their mad world becomes the conventional wisdom for the whole society. So it’s really as if the world went insane. Americans are being infected as if they were in that zombie movie to become monsters. And it’s frightening, but it’s one of the things that happens to society when the malignant narcissists have been able to gain power.
Is there a way we can combat this growing authoritarianism?
It’s very dire. They hold the levers of power, and they’re ruthless, and they’re moving at warp speed. And they have no scruples. And there really is nothing they will allow to stop them. They have no internal values or morals or fear or shame because they are psychopaths. And now, unlike the first Trump administration, Trump has really populated the whole government with people who are more or less equally sick. Or sick in the same way, even if they’re not as sick.
Someone like Pete Hegseth, for example, is a mini-Trump: He degrades women; he’s a Christian racist and a nationalist. So now we’re in much bigger trouble. Because the people who were guardrails, even if they were Trumpian, at some level had a conscience, at some level were human, and they were still loyal to the United States of America. Now it’s like, what do we say, ‘Hell is empty because the devils are all here’? I think that’s from Shakespeare.
Yes, absolutely, from The Tempest. You and psychologist Harry Segal have compared Elon Musk to Darth Vader in Star Wars and Trump to the Emperor, who you mention is “always an old and shadowy figure in the background.” You describe Musk as the Darth Vader-like invader, who is actually out there, quote, “acting out and breaking laws and acting quickly, all because Donald Trump gave him permission to do so.”
You also recently said that Trump has “outsourced his brain, which is demented, to Elon Musk” since Musk is relatively young and has a lot of energy. Musk has already caused an enormous amount of destruction. Without being elected or appointed to the Cabinet, Musk and his young tech acolytes in the so-called Department of Governmental Efficiency, or DOGE, have been rampaging through the federal government, shuttering departments and firing tens of thousands of federal workers, many of whom who Musk claims – without any proof – are underperforming. They’re also threatening to fire hundreds of thousands more, although there is pushback from the courts.
Yes, and there was something in the New York Times about the appointments clause – you have to be appointed for a job. Musk was not elected, not appointed by the Senate – that was the basis in which the courts were going to stop Musk. (Trump critic and attorney) George Conway said that was the basis on how the courts would get rid of Musk. And I just texted him today and said ‘You were right!’
But now we’re in a different phase, where I think it’s going to be a bit of the hide the ball, Three Card Monte. For example, with USAID, Musk’ team cancelled the USAID contracts, and the judge said, ‘Sorry, you can’t do that; you have to honor the contracts.” The next thing [Musk’s team] did was close the building and announce they’re going to shred all the documents in the building, absolutely everything there. They said the shredder is going to be working full-time to shred everything; if it’s broken, only then will we use the burn bags, “but otherwise we’re shredding everything.”
So now when someone says, “Now look, we weren’t kidding; you really have to honor all the contracts,” they’re going to go, ‘What contracts?’ It’s like the fake elector scheme – who the hell would have even thought of that? That’s what some people don’t realize. The way Trump is going to defy court orders isn’t always going to be open defiance. A lot is going to be covert defiance: ‘We are following the order, but we didn’t follow the order. We’re going to release the money, but we didn’t release the money.” And that means you have to file the suit again, and that’s another three months. Because they are so creative in their criminality and so shameless in their lying, they can do anything and call it anything.
I wondered what you thought, from a psychological point of view, about Trump’s video of a dystopian Gaza made over in his own image. In it there were no visible Palestinians but a Qatar-like vibe, a lot of vulgar giant golden statues of Trump, bearded men belly dancing and small children on a beach rushing to catch dollars tossed out to them by Elon Musk.
Well, we have to remember that malignant narcissists are sadists. They revel in being destructive, humiliating, insulting, degrading, laughing at other people’s pain and humiliation. They’re basically terrifying the world right now. Everyone is afraid of losing their job and their 401-K going down or what’s going to happen to the world order. Or whether they or someone they love is going to be deported. And the thing is, malignant narcissists thrive on that fear. They love that fear. It gives them a rush, a dopamine rush, to be destructive. There’s a phrase for that: Omnipotent destructiveness. It’s feeling powerful in an excited way because you’re destroying things or people or institutions. So there is this glee, a sadistic, almost satanic glee they’re taking in all of the harm and uncertainty and chaos and fear they’re generating.
There is certainly a lot of fear and chaos following the new series of threats to Medicaid, Medicare and Social Security, and USAID and other federal agencies, as well as the attacks on diversity, schools, universities and freedom of speech. Not to mention the fear, anger and incredulity about Trump’s immigration raids and his threats to take over Canada, Mexico, the Panama Canal, and Greenland, with him telling Denmark that he wants Greenland and he intends to get it with or without their permission.
Yes! It is really startling how in a matter of weeks America went from being the city on the hill to a pariah state. We’re practically North Korea now in the eyes of the world. Canada is actually organizing a boycott of American products: As an act of patriotism, they’re asking people not to buy American. We ended our last show on Shrinking Trump with a parody from Canada of the song “I Will Survive” (which is directed at the United States). It’s in the last three minutes of the show, and you can see us dancing to it (laughter).
The Trump administration is on the road to fascism, and the shocking thing is how quickly it’s going. It was 53 days, I believe, before Hitler seized complete power with the Reichstag, and all legislative powers were all vested in him. Of course now we don’t need the Congress to vote, because the (Republican majority) is just doing what Trump wants.
What did you think of Chief Supreme Court Justice John Robert’s rebuke to Trump ? He said, “For more than two centuries, it has been established that impeachment is not an appropriate response to disagreement concerning a judicial decision.” Do you see that as too little, too late?
Roberts and Amy Coney Barrett still have a vestige of a conscience. There is still humanity left. Those two people – and it’s frightening to think about it this way – are really the two thin reeds on which any possible survival of the Constitution rests. They’re the swing justices now.
It does drive me crazy how weak the Democrats have been, how naive they have been. Because two groups are playing by two sets of rules. I feel like Democrats bring an email to a knife fight. If you’re in a situation where someone is trying to murder you, you need to grab any weapon you can. But Democrats did so little to protect us. Trump put all these corrupt actors in place during his first administration, like (Postmaster General) Louis DeJoy, who cycled money to his own company. Biden could have gotten rid of him for cause. But he didn’t – he didn’t fire anybody. And now Trump is firing thousands of people, and Biden fired no one. There was also an inspector general of the Secret Service who was part of the text erasure scandals, and he had erased some texts, so he was basically investigating himself. And that violates the primary rule of jurisprudence – you just can’t have a guy in that position.
Do you feel that the mainstream press has been sanewashing Donald Trump?
Yes, the press has sanewashed Trump; they really have. This is another thing that has been so frustrating. Sane-washing is a great term: It’s normalizing the abnormal. Things that are crazy and destructive and not normal, if you homogenize it enough then people can accommodate to it. Suddenly that becomes the new normal. The press really ignored the signs of Trump’s dementia and his mental illness, and we had so much trouble getting the mainstream media to even report on this as a question!
But they kept hammering on the issue of age with Biden, and Trump was and is so much more cognitively impaired, mentally and psychiatrically. I mean, Biden wasn’t talking about the late, great Hannibal Lector. But the mainstream media kept making it sound like it was the demented guy versus the robust Trump. Or it was ‘two old men – are they both too old to run for president?’ They never gave an honest hearing to the kind of data you and I have been talking about.
https://mindsitenews.org/2025/04/01/sanewashed-trump-dementia-and-mental-illness/
a bit more on this topic:
“It’s not a ‘weave,’ It’s really an example of what we call tangential thought, where he goes off on loose associations. So, Harvard sounds like Harlem. Harlem, now he gets into a whole thing about Black voters. Then he somehow comes back he remembers it did have something to do with Harvard so now he has to circle back to Harvard, but now the people in Harlem are protesting what is happening in Harvard,” he said.
“So, he gums it together in this sort of confabulated story that kind of weaves his loose associations together and then we all just, you see the reporters looking really confused, and then people just go on and ask another question as if we didn’t just witness an example of thought disorder,” he added.
When asked if he believed that the Cabinet would invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from office due to his cognitive ability, Gartner said that the Cabinet should.
Gartner also said that Trump’s presidency will turn into a “Weekend at Bernie’s” White House, likely referring to the movie’s plot pretending that a dead person is still alive.
“We are going to have a ‘Weekend at Bernie’s’ White House,” he said. “They’re going to be wheeling him around, but don’t think that he can’t get into trouble. He will. It’s going to go from a farce to tragedy or from tragedy to farce, but it is going to get more and more absurd.”
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https://youtu.be/U7X1kZZnD8c?si=F1Dfn5orMZNAuzQs
Oriana:
There are certain bulges in his pants that suggest Trump is catherized. Aside from the rambling speech, fecal and urinary incontinence, though not exclusive to dementia, are significantly more frequent in dementia. This is concerning because incontinence is usually a sign of mid-stage dementia, rather than "early-stage dementia," as labeled by Dr. Gartner and the media. Regardless of the stage, we know that dementia is a progressive neural disorder.
"Good days and bad days" are also typical of dementia. There are periods of lucidity when the person seems completely normal. Eventually, however, the "bad days" take over.
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AIR CONDITIONING WORSENS THE CLIMATE CRISIS
~ In late June of 2021, a heatwave glowered over the Pacific Northwest, forcing temperatures in the region to a record-breaking 118ºF. Few people in the region—neither Americans nor Canadians—have air-conditioning. Stores sold out of new AC units in hours as a panicked public sought a reasonable solution to the emergency. Unfortunately, air-conditioning is part of what’s causing the unusual heatwave in the first place.
We came close to destroying all life on Earth during the Cold War with the threat of nuclear annihilation. But we may have come even closer during the cooling war, when the rising number of Americans with air conditioners—and a refrigerant industry that fought regulation—nearly obliterated the ozone layer. We avoided that environmental catastrophe, but the fundamental problem of air conditioning has never really been resolved.
Mechanical cooling appeared in the early 1900s not for comfort but for business. In manufacturing, the regulation of temperature—“process cooling”—controlled the quality of commodities like cotton, tobacco, and chewing gum. In 1903, Alfred Wolff installed the first cooling system for people at the New York Stock Exchange because comfortable traders yielded considerably higher stock returns.
Only in the ’20s did “commercial cooling” appear. On Memorial Day weekend 1925, Willis Carrier debuted the first centrifugal air-conditioning system at the Rivoli Theater in Midtown Manhattan. Previously, theaters had shut down in the summer. With air-conditioning, the Rivoli became “the talk of Broadway” and inaugurated the summer blockbuster.
While other subway passengers perspire in the warm and humid underground station, Paul Forman appears cool and comfortable in the experimental air conditioned train, which made its first run in New York City, in July 1956. The test run included six air conditioned cars and two old cars. When the train left Grand Central Station, the temperature was 89 degrees in the old cars, while the new cars registered a temperature of 76.5 degrees.
Before World War II, almost no one had air-conditioning at home. Besides being financially impractical and culturally odd, it was also dangerous. Chemical refrigerants like sulfur dioxide and methyl chloride filled most fridges and coolers, and leaks could kill a child, poison a hospital floor, even blow up a basement. Everything changed with the invention of Freon in 1928. Non-toxic and non-explosive, Freon was hailed as a “miracle.” It made the modernist skyscraper—with its sealed windows and heat-absorbing materials—possible. It made living in the desert possible. The small winter resort of Phoenix, Arizona, became a year-round attraction.
Architecture could now ignore the local climate. Anywhere could be 65ºF with 55% humidity. Cheap materials made boxy, suburban tract housing affordable to most Americans, but the sealed-up, stifling design of these homes required air-conditioning to keep the heat at bay. Quickly, air-conditioning transitioned from a luxury to a necessity. By 1980, more than half of all U.S. homes were air-conditioned; now the figure stands at 88%. And despite millions of Black Americans fleeing the violence of Jim Crow, the South saw greater in-migration than out-migration for the first time—a direct result of AC. The American car was similarly transformed. In 1955, only 10 percent of American cars had air-conditioning. Thirty years later, it came standard.The cooling boom also altered the way we work. Now, Americans could work anywhere at any hour of the day. Early ads for air-conditioning promised not health or comfort but productivity. The workday could proceed no matter the season or the climate. Even in the home, A/C brought comfort as a means to rest up before the next work day.
The use of air-conditioning was as symbolic as it was material. It conveyed class status. Who did and didn’t have air-conditioning often fell starkly along the color line, too, especially in the South. It conquered the weather and, with it, the need to sweat or squirm or lie down in the summer swelter. In that sense, air-conditioning allowed Americans to transcend their physical bodies, that long-sought fantasy of the Puritan settlers: to be in the world but not of it. Miracle, indeed.
But it came with a price. As it turned out, Freon isn’t exactly non-toxic. Freon is a chlorofluorocarbon (CFC), which depletes the ozone layer and also acts as a global warming gas. By 1974, the industrialized world was churning out CFCs, chemicals that had never appeared on the planet in any significant quantities, at a rate of one million metric tons a year—the equivalent mass of more than 500,000 cars. That was the year atmospheric chemists Sherry Rowland and Mario Molina first hypothesized that the chlorine molecules in CFCs might be destroying ozone in the stratosphere by bonding to free oxygen atoms and disrupting the atmosphere’s delicate chemistry. By then, CFCs were used not only as refrigerants but also as spray can propellants, manufacturing degreasers, and foam-blowing agents.
The ozone layer absorbs the worst of the sun’s ultraviolet radiation. 87 A 1 percent decline in the ozone layer’s thickness results in 77 thousands of new cases of skin cancer. Greater depletion would lead to crop failures, the collapse of oceanic food systems, and, eventually, the destruction of all life on Earth.
In the 1980s, geophysicist Joseph Farman confirmed the Rowland-Molina hypothesis when he detected a near-absence of ozone over Antarctica—the “Ozone Hole.” A fierce battle ensued among industry, scientists, environmentalists, and politicians, but in 1987 the U.S signed the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer, which ended Freon production.
The Montreal Protocol remains the world’s only successful international environmental treaty with legally binding emissions targets. Annual conferences to re-assess the goals of the treaty make it a living document, which is revised in light of up-to-date scientific data. For instance, the Montreal Protocol set out only to slow production of CFCs, but, by 1997, industrialized countries had stopped production entirely, far sooner than was thought possible. The world was saved through global cooperation.
The trouble is that the refrigerants replacing CFCs, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), turned out to be terrible for the planet, too. While they have an ozone-depleting potential of zero, they are potent greenhouse gases. They absorb infrared radiation from the sun and Earth and block heat that normally escapes into outer space. Carbon dioxide and methane do this too, but HFCs trap heat at rates thousands of times higher. Although the number of refrigerant molecules in the atmosphere is far fewer than those of other greenhouse gases, their destructive force, molecule for molecule, is far greater.
In three decades, the production of HFCs grew exponentially. Today, HFCs provide the cooling power to almost any air conditioner in the home, in the office, in the supermarket, or in the car. They cool vaccines, blood for transfusions, and temperature-sensitive medications, as well as the data processors and computer servers that make up the internet—everything from the cloud to blockchains. In 2019, annual global warming emissions from HFCs were the equivalent of 175 million metric tons of carbon dioxide.
In May, the EPA signaled it will begin phasing down HFCs and replacing them with more climate-friendly alternatives. Experts agree that a swift end to HFCs could prevent as much as 0.5ºC of warming over the next century—a third of the way to the goals of the Paris Climate Agreement.
Yet regardless of the refrigerant used, cooling still requires energy.
According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, air-conditioning accounts for nearly a fifth of annual U.S. residential electricity use. This is more energy for cooling overall and per capita than in any other nation. Most Americans consider the cost of energy only in terms of their electricity bills. But it’s also costing us the planet.
Joe Biden’s announcement to shift toward a renewable energy infrastructure obscures the uncertainty of whether that infrastructure could meet Americans’ outrageously high energy demand—much of it for cooling that doesn’t save lives. Renewable energy infrastructure can take us only so far. The rest of the work is cultural. From Freon to HFCs, we keep replacing chemical refrigerants without taking a hard look at why we’re cooling in the first place.
Comfort cooling began not as a survival strategy but as a business venture. It still carries all those symbolic meanings, though its currency now works globally, cleaving the world into civilized cooling and barbaric heat. Despite what we assume, as a means of weathering a heat wave, individual air-conditioning is terribly ineffective. It works only for those who can afford it.
But even then, their use in urban areas only makes the surrounding micro-climate hotter, sometimes by a factor of 10ºF, actively threatening the lives of those who don’t have access to cooling. (The sociologist Eric Klinenberg has brilliantly studied how, in a 1995 Chicago heat wave, about twice as many people died than in a comparable heat wave forty years earlier due to the city’s neglect of certain neighborhoods and social infrastructure.)
Ironically, research suggests that exposure to constant air-conditioning can prevent our bodies from acclimatizing to hot weather, so those who subject themselves to “thermal monotony” are, in the end, making themselves more vulnerable to heat-related illness.
And, of course, air-conditioning only works when you have the electricity to power it. During heatwaves, when air-conditioning is needed most, blackouts are frequent. With afternoon temperatures reaching 112ºF around Portland, the power grid failed for more than 6,300 residences under control by Portland General Electric.
The troubled history of air-conditioning suggests not that we chuck it entirely but that we focus on public cooling, on public comfort, rather than individual cooling, on individual comfort. Ensuring that the most vulnerable among the planet’s human inhabitants can keep cool through better access to public cooling centers, shade-giving trees, safe green spaces, water infrastructure to cool, and smart design will not only enrich our cities overall, it will lower the temperature for everyone. It’s far more efficient this way.
To do so, we’ll have to re-orient ourselves to the meaning of air-conditioning. And to comfort. Privatized air-conditioning survived the ozone crisis, but its power to separate—by class, by race, by nation, by ability—has survived, too. Comfort for some comes at the expense of the life on this planet.
It’s time we become more comfortable with discomfort. Our survival may depend on it. ~
https://time.com/6077220/air-conditioning-bad-for-planet-how-to-fix/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
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THE LINGERING SHADOW OF INDIA’S PAINFUL PARTITION
Border
Security Force personnel patrolling along the barbed wire fence at
India-Pakistan border during Independence Day celebrations at RS Pura
Sector in Jammu Kashmir on August 14, 2021.
Pakistan was weakened by several economic and political crises, and the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan in 2021 reduced Islamabad’s importance to Washington.
After New Delhi revoked the semi-autonomous status of Indian-administered-Kashmir in August 2019 and brought it under direct rule, diplomatic, political, economic, and cultural ties with Pakistan all but disappeared. A tense peace followed, maintained by heavy military and police presence, as most Kashmiris withdrew from separatist politics and militancy. India, focused on positioning itself as a global power, largely ignored a struggling Pakistan.
You can’t actually see the Great Wall of China from space but the border dividing India from Pakistan is unmistakable. For over 1,900 miles, from the shores of the Arabian Sea to the icy mountain peaks of Kashmir, a line intended to divide Hindus from Muslims is visibly etched onto the surface of the globe. The jagged border was hastily drawn by a British judge when the Indian subcontinent won its independence from Britain in August 1947 but was divided into a Hindu-majority India and a Muslim-majority Pakistan.
In the weeks that followed, millions of Hindus and Sikhs fled from the regions newly designated as Pakistan into India, while millions of Muslims left their ancestral homes in India and moved in the opposite direction—to what they hoped would be a safe haven in Pakistan. Some 15 million people were rendered refugees, and between one and two million were killed in the violence that accompanied the Partition.
The trauma of the Partition continues to define South Asian attitudes toward past, present, and future. Today, layers of fencing, accompanied by 150,000 floodlights, thermal sensors and landmines have turned the border between India and Pakistan into a veritable Iron Curtain. The edgy, militarized border renders Indians and Pakistanis, who had lived together in overlapping communities before the Partition, almost completely inaccessible to one another.
One of its most disastrous legacies of the Partition is the dispute over the former princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, which erupted into a war between India and Pakistan soon after independence and left Kashmir divided between the two countries after a ceasefire. Three more wars, political intrigues, nuclear weaponization, decades of insurgency and counter-insurgency in Kashmir exacted a great human toll and unleashed passions and prejudices which have contributed to excessive dominance of the military in Pakistan, and have helped intensify religious nationalism in India.
On April 22, terrorists attacked a group of Indian tourists in a pristine meadow in the Kashmiri town of Pahalgam and murdered 26 people—the largest killing of Indian civilians in years. India quickly blamed Pakistan and Indian politicians. Television networks and civilians all clamored for revenge.
The massacre in Kashmir came after a fraught decade for the two countries. Since 2014, India has witnessed a significant political transformation with the rise of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and his emphasis on muscular nationalism and Hindu majoritarianism. At the same time, Prime Minister Modi responded to the attack by changing India’s military doctrine to consider a terrorist attack in India as an act of war: Indian planes struck deep inside Pakistan, even hitting a military air base close to the headquarters of its Strategic Plans Division responsible for overseeing its nuclear weapons. Fears of India and Pakistan being a mistake away from nuclear war rose as the two countries hit each other’s military infrastructure with airstrikes and swarms of drones.
The history of hostility and violence gave the conflict an aura of inevitability. “I am very close to India, and I am very close to Pakistan, and they have had that fight for a thousand years in Kashmir,” President Donald Trump remarked.
A forgotten history of cooperation
Despite the ceasefire holding, even the most modest cultural and diplomatic exchanges between India and Pakistan have now vanished. South Asia’s two nuclear armed neighbors are now more dangerously cut off from one another than the United States and the Soviet Union were during the Cold War.
Yet Indo-Pak relations haven’t always been defined by hostility alone. After a ceasefire brokered by the United Nations divided Kashmir between the two countries, they reconciled surprisingly quickly. Recently declassified intelligence files reveal that throughout the 1950s, India and Pakistan cooperated, shared intelligence, and even considered a military alliance.
Indian and Pakistani intelligence services began collaborating in April 1949 to prevent a communist takeover in Burma, which both countries feared would encourage similar revolutions on their own soil. The operation “must be kept completely secret,” Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, warned his ambassador in Burma. Indian and Pakistani agents worked together to smuggle military equipment worth millions of dollars to the Burmese military into Rangoon, saving the state from total collapse.
The Rangoon operation laid the foundation for further collaboration between India and Pakistan. By 1950, a minister in Nehru’s cabinet was speaking of “the very friendly relations between the two governments,” and Prime Minister Nehru spoke of an “Asiatic federation” in the “not very, very distant future,” and a “United Nations of South Asia.”
In The Great Partition, historian Yasmin Khan recounts how in 1950 a joint press conference brought journalists from India and Pakistan together for the first time in three years. Correspondents burst into tears upon seeing their old co-workers again. India’s National Herald newspaper described the Indian and Pakistani journalists spending hours talking, trying to learn about life in places across the border they had known intimately, which had become mysterious and inaccessible. Prime Minister Nehru championed the idea of India and Pakistan finding ways to allow their citizens to meet as often as possible.
India and Pakistan continued to cooperate with one another for well over a decade, convinced that cooperation was the only way to manage the continued flow of refugees across their borders. Indian and Pakistani politicians worked together to resolve questions of refugee rehabilitation, almost implemented a “No War” pact, and even introduced joint India-Pakistan passports.
In 1960, Pakistan’s President Ayyub Khan proposed a military alliance, which didn’t materialize. But in September 1960, India and Pakistan did sign with the World Bank, the landmark Indus Water Treaty, which enshrines their rights to water from the six rivers that flow between the two countries. For more than six decades, the treaty survived the subcontinental wars and discord but has come under significant strain after India suspended its participation in the treaty after the April terrorist attack in Kashmir.
Indian paramilitary soldiers stand guard along a street in Srinagar on May 11, 2025.
A stark downward spiral
Relations between India and Pakistan began worsening when Indian forces marched into the Portuguese colony of Goa in December 1961. Many in India saw it as the final act of decolonization, ending four centuries of European rule in the subcontinent. But Pakistan’s President Ayub Khan viewed it as a sign of Indian aggression. In response, he began supporting rebel groups in India’s northeast, prompting India to back separatists within Pakistan. After a brief war in 1965, both countries passed “enemy property” laws, allowing them to confiscate the assets of citizens who maintained property, business interests, or family connections across the border.
Six years later, in 1971, Indian support for Bengali rebels in East Pakistan and its military intervention led to the creation of Eastern Pakistan as the independent nation of Bangladesh. Pakistan retaliated by supporting separatist Sikh militants in Punjab in the 1980s. A popular rebellion against New Delhi erupted in Indian-administered Kashmir in the winter of 1989-1990. Pakistan armed, trained, and funded the Kashmiri militants, and transformed the insurgency by sending in Pakistani Islamist militants. A decade later, President Bill Clinton was referring to Kashmir as “the most dangerous place in the world.”
Fading allure of shared histories and peace
“We stopped a nuclear conflict,” President Trump claimed after the India-Pakistan ceasefire in May. The ceasefire has held but any sense of normalcy has not returned to the relations between the two countries. A period of warm cultural and economic relations and serious efforts at resolving the Kashmir dispute between 2002 and 2012 when India was led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a hazy, distant memory now. In those seasons of peace, Indian movie stars lit up Pakistani theaters and Pakistani musicians filled out massive venues in India and bilateral trade would exceed billions annually.
Indians and Pakistanis who remember a life before the Partition, before the borders, are in their nineties and dying fast. They recall a complex picture of loss of home, language, friendships and separated families. Even the earlier generations of soldiers and officers in the Indian and Pakistan militaries had shared histories. Opponents in the first wars between India and Pakistan were comrades who fought side by side in the British Army in the Second World War. They would smuggle cigarettes and letters across the front lines to their old friends.
After India’s victory in the 1971 war, Gavin Young, a correspondent for The Observer, asked an Indian general if he had met the Pakistani general who had surrendered along with his men before Indian forces. “Oh yes,” the Indian general replied. “He said he was very happy to see me. We knew each other in college.”
After 78 years, there is still no shared understanding of the profound collective loss the Partition inflicted on the subcontinent. The border has hardened, and ironically, it is now easier for Indians and Pakistanis to meet in Britain. In both countries, Partition has been mythologized in ways that leave little space to mourn what was lost. Today, the shared history of India and Pakistan survives only in fragments—confined to memories, archives, and scattered families—as the two nations follow increasingly different trajectories and imagine futures that leave little room for one another. It is politically easier, after all, to say they were always meant to be enemies.
https://time.com/7302108/lingering-shadow-indias-painful-partition/?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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WHY SOME BABIES CRY A LOT 
What new parent hasn’t tried pretty much everything to soothe a crying baby? From shushing everyone within a 5-mile radius, to walking around the backyard at all hours of the night, I’ve tried it all as a mom of six.
How Twins Reveal That Crying May Be Genetic
The Swedish research, published in JCPP Advances, is based on questionnaire responses from parents of nearly 1,000 twins, both fraternal and identical, at 2 and 5 months of age.
Using twins for the study ensures that variables like home environment, family situation, and socio-economic status are the same. When identical twins express more similar traits than fraternal twins, genetics is thought to be the culprit. That's because identical twins share about 100% of their DNA unlike fraternal twins, which share about 50%.
In this study, researchers determined that at 2 months, genetics accounted for 50% of crying duration and settle ability. By 5 months, genetics was behind up to 70% of crying.
What This Means for Parents
Parents should feel comforted by the research, according to Joel Gator Warsh, MD, board-certified pediatrician and author of Parenting at Your Child’s Pace. “This study reinforces what many of us in pediatrics already suspect: some babies just cry more than others, and it’s not because a parent is doing anything right or wrong,” he tells Parents.
But as Tiffany Fischman, MD, FAAP, a concierge pediatrician at Sollis Health, points out, “I see many parents desperate to calm their babies and if they feel the crying is out of their control, it can be frustrating.”
What may help is to let go of the guilt and comparison to others. “Every baby is wired differently, and knowing that can create space for more compassion and patience, both for your child and yourself,” Dr. Warsh says.
The Reasons Babies Cry Changes Over Time
So, genetics plays a role in how much your baby cries. But why they cry and how parents can best meet their needs also shifts as babies grow.
“In the early months, crying is largely neurologically driven and reflexive,” Dr. Warsh explains.
Between 6 to 9 months, babies are becoming more aware and use crying to communicate. “Around this time, behavior, temperament, and environment start to shape crying more than just genetics alone,” he says.
A baby can recognize if they cry they will likely get picked up, for instance. “They can begin to test their ability to alter their environment based on learned responses,” explains Dr. Fischman.
At each stage, it’s important to pay attention to the signals your child is giving to you. This will look different depending on the age of your baby, and can inform how you react.
“As they get older and their needs shift from survival to self-regulation, gently letting them fuss for brief periods—especially during sleep training efforts—can be appropriate if done with attunement and support,” Dr. Warsh says.
He encourages parents not to feel pressured into using the cry-it-out method if it doesn’t align with their values, or feels overwhelming. “The goal should always be to respond with love and intention, even if that looks different from family to family,” he advises.
What To Do for a Crying Baby
Listening to your baby cry can create quite a bit of angst, no matter what a study says. On more than one occasion, I have joined right in with my 5-month-old’s tears out of frustration or exhaustion.
Although sometimes a baby will just cry, here are some things you can try to help curb crying:
Create a calming environment. Dr. Warsh suggests dimming the lights, gently rocking your little one, and swaddling a younger baby to mimic the feel of the womb. Shushing and sucking can also help soothe a baby, especially in the first three months, according to Dr. Fischman.
Stick to a routine. When your baby knows what to expect, they may feel calmer and be less likely to cry. Dr. Fischman notes that although biological factors are at play, creating routines early on can help shape your baby’s future temperament.
Look for patterns in your baby’s crying spells. “Sometimes overstimulation, hunger, or overtiredness are to blame,” Dr. Warsh says. Anticipating your baby’s rhythms can stop crying before it starts.
Employ skin-to-skin contact. According to Dr. Warsh, kangaroo care is calming and bonding at any age.
Redirect their attention. After 6 months of age, Dr. Fischman says, “Taking them to a new room or showing them a toy or object and refocusing their attention can help them calm down.”
Monitor your own stress. “Babies are wired to pick up on our nervous systems,” Dr. Warsh says. If you notice that your nerves are understandably getting frayed, take deep breaths, or ask for a partner, family member, or friend to step in so you can have a break.
“At all ages, thinking about basic needs like hunger and sleep are important first steps to calm a crying baby,” Dr. Fischman emphasizes. “If basic needs are met, the strategies are more nuanced and vary with age, but a consistent routine and a calm parent are important at all ages.”
When Crying May Signal an Issue
A pause before picking up a crying baby may allow them to settle on their own. Not jumping to scoop them out of their crib at every little grunt can also be healthy for both baby and parent.
But sometimes crying is alerting you that your baby needs your attention right away. If crying is accompanied by other symptoms, such as a fever, rash, or changes in breathing, it’s essential to contact your health care provider immediately. Other red flags include:
Poor feeding
Lethargy
Intense or persistent crying that is inconsolable
Vomiting or changes in bowel movements
Dr. Fischman also urges parents to listen to their gut feelings that something is wrong, especially if your usual tricks aren’t working to calm your baby. “I believe parents have strong instincts,” she adds.
Finally, Dr. Fischman says that if a parent feels they are at their limit with the crying and it’s affecting their own well-being, “It’s time to ask for help.”
https://www.parents.com/babies-crying-is-genetic-11769186?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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WHY GEN Z LOVES SAD SONGS
Let’s play a game. If you have a Spotify account, log in and search, “sad.” What do you see? My account suggests a myriad of playlists, such as “Sad Crying Mix,” “Lonely Sad Mix,” “Crying Myself To Sleep,” “Sad Bops'' and more—all of which, the streamer claims, were made specifically for me. If it weren't for the surplus of SZA and Frank Ocean songs on each tracklist, I’d roll my eyes at the concept.
Alas, the algorithm is correct. It understands exactly what I want to listen to, and it knows what you want to hear, too. To make sure of it, Spotify observes trends in its user's listening habits. This year crying is all the rage—at least, among Gen Z users. According to Spotify’s data, Gen Z’s top searched term globally is simply... “sad.” As a fellow Zoomer, I’ll admit I’ve listened to “Sad Bops'" once or twice, but haven’t we all? I thought that was a circumstantial experience, not a plague affecting my entire generation.
Naturally, I had to investigate. To my understanding, Gen Z is doing just fine. We’re tech-savvy, ambitious, politically involved, and frankly, very funny. So what gives? In an effort to understand our love for somber tunes, I spoke with Dr. Michael Bonshor, a music psychology expert. This year, Dr. Bonshor partnered with Spotify ahead of their Bummer Summer Playlist launch. After analyzing their data, he determined that Gen Z often uses sad music to relax. It makes sense, given the general state of the world! Maybe a daily dose of Lana Del Rey can save us all.
Below, Dr. Bonshor and I discuss the makings of a sad song, the psychological benefits of listening to sorrowful music, and why we shouldn’t fret over Gen Z’s music preferences.
ESQUIRE: What exactly classifies a song as sad?
Dr. Michael Bonshor: The most obvious feature of a sad song is the tempo. It tends to be fairly slow, often between about 60 to 70 beats per minute—like a relaxed heartbeat.
Sad songs also tend to be low-intensity. They don't have a lot of changes in volume. They also have a gentle—what I’d call melodic—profile. That means that the tune doesn’t suddenly go incredibly high or incredibly low. It tends to be nice and steady.
The other thing that we notice in sad songs is that the tone of the instruments and the voices tend to be more mellow. The whole effect is relaxing. Sometimes they’re [sung] in a minor key, which people often use when they’re writing sad songs. But the major key, which often sounds a bit brighter, can be used too. The interpretation of sad songs is based on the relationship between the lyrics and the music. The lyrics really make a big difference.
That makes sense. What sad songs are people resonating with right now?
There are quite a few at the moment. One of the people Spotify has introduced me to is D4VD. He's got a very reflective style. I’ve really enjoyed listening to his song, “Here With Me.” His lyrics speak to the softer feelings and more somber moods that we have from time to time. [He writes] very straightforward lyrics that people can identify with.
I'll have to check it out. Given Spotify’s research, Gen Z seems to be pretty sad—or, at least, unusually interested in sad music. Why?
Well, I don't necessarily think that searching for sad songs means that Gen Z is sad. There are other reasons for listening to sad music—like the beauty in sad songs. You know, the melodies, relaxing rhythm, and so on. But there are a few reasons why Gen Z does it more than any other generation.
First, they've grown up becoming expert users of technology. Their social lives have been created around that. They've used it to explore the world, sort out their problems, and get advice. I also think they’re more aware of their feelings. There seems to be a very empathic feeling amongst Gen Z. And they are, of course, used to customizing their listening in a way that previous generations couldn’t. They can tailor their music to their mood, or to support whatever they're doing. That might allow them to be entertained while expressing or releasing their emotions. You can experience catharsis singing along to somebody.
Research shows that Gen Z tends to be very reflective. Like everybody, they want a sense of belonging, so listening to music that reflects their mood isn’t going to stop just because it’s summer.
The catharsis point is interesting. It does seem odd that Gen Z is looking for sad songs in the summer, though.
Year-round, we can use music to support what we're feeling. If we want to continue feeling a certain way, we can choose songs that reinforce it. If we want to change our mood, then we can use music to change it. too. Again, [listening to] sad songs doesn’t necessarily mean we’re sad. It could also mean that we’re in the mood to relax.
What makes sad music relaxing?
Their slow speed has an effect on our bodies. If we're breathing slowly and deeply, we start to relax. Also, our bodies and our minds are trained to respond to music tempo. We tune into that physically. [Our] breathing slows down, then our heart rate slows down, and we start to feel better. Listening to sad music also releases positive hormones. There’s also research that proves singing and listening to music together releases endorphins. On a streaming service like Spotify, people are aware of what everybody’s listening to and they start to feel part of a community. That adds to the sense of belonging that music can induce. And that in itself can release oxytocin, which is a bonding hormone.
The other thing sad songs can do is release a hormone called prolactin. Prolactin has a very comforting effect. Sometimes, listening to sad music can help our bodies repair themselves—not just emotionally, but physically and psychologically as well.
So, it’s like a form of self-soothing?
It is! It's the sort of thing we do all the time in a way, isn't it?
Even so, do you think we need to be worried at all about Gen Z’s love of sad music?
No, I don't think so. It shows that they’re reflective. They're using music to support that reflection. And because we know sad music can have positive effects—which most people would not expect—it can only be good for their emotional well-being.
Really?
Yeah, I mean as we know, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Gen Z is sad. But if you are sad and start releasing prolactin, it can help you have a good cry. The sort of cry that gets it all out so you can move on, you know? I don’t think there’s anything to worry about.
Is there such thing as listening to too many sad songs?
There is a difference between listening to sad music because you want to express yourself, and spending too much time focusing on that emotion. But most research has shown that listening to sad music actually distracts you. The main research that supports this is a study on flow.
Flow is like being in the zone. If you’re experiencing flow, you’re totally absorbed in whatever it is you’re doing.
Listening to music is a big flow activity. It can distract us from our feelings and create a slightly distorted sense of time. For example, if we’re bored and get immersed in music, time appears to move quickly. The more consumed we are by a song, the more focused we are on the musical element—perhaps more than our feelings.
Spotify's data found that people primarily search for sad songs on Wednesdays. Why is that? What's up with Wednesdays?
I suppose if we assume that a lot of people still work Monday through Friday, by the time you get to Wednesday it can feel like a long time [has passed] since the weekend—and you’ve got a long way to go until the next one. Going back to that idea of flow: immersing yourself in an activity, like listening to music, can make that time pass quickly.
What sad music do you listen to when you want to decompress?
I like a wide range of music styles. There are classical tracks that I go to. I’ve got a piece that’s in the middle of a Beethoven Symphony—Symphony No. 7. [It] seems a bit highbrow, but it sounds like a funeral march. I could listen to it for hours, it’s just so soothing. It calms me right down. In terms of pop songs, it sounds cliché, but my go-to is Adele.
Oh, of course!
All week I’ve had “Someone Like You” going round and round in my head. It just kind of keeps you calm, doesn’t it? Yeah I go to Adele, “Make You Feel My Love,” all those things.
Those are some solid scream-sing options.
Exactly. You just don’t get tired of them.
*MAMMALS HAVE EXCELLENT HEARING
Mammals have exceptional hearing. Using echolocation, bats can detect tiny insects flying in pitch-black darkness. Elephants can recognize the calls of their companions from roughly a mile away. And rabbits can detect the sounds of predators before they ever get close enough to pounce.
Physically, these animals are very different. But they all share one helpful anatomical feature: external ears.
Scientists have long wondered about the evolutionary origins of outer ears, which are unique to mammals. Now, two new studies are unraveling some of the mysteries surrounding the soft, fleshy structures protruding from our heads.
In one paper, published in early January in the journal Science, researchers report the discovery of a new type of cartilage that could help explain why mammals are such keen listeners.
They stumbled upon the novel cartilage by chance, while getting ready to look at mouse ear tissue under a microscope. After using chemicals to dry out the ear tissue, they noticed it looked different from other types of cartilage. Its cells were filled with lipids, a type of water-insoluble compound that’s usually found in fat tissue, rather than in connective cartilage.
Researchers named the new tissue “lipocartilage.”
Further analysis revealed the lipocartilage cells were similarly sized and tightly packed together, akin to bubble wrap or interlocking Lego bricks. And though the cells gave the tissue structural stability, the lipocartilage was also more flexible than other types of cartilage. When scientists went looking for lipocartilage in other creatures, they found it in the ears of other mammals, including humans, opossums and bats; they also found it in the noses, sternums and larynxes of mice.
But they did not find the novel tissue in birds, amphibians and reptiles, groups of animals that do not have outer ears. This suggests lipocartilage “may have contributed to the exceptional hearing of mammals,” says Markéta Kaucká, a developmental biologist at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology who was not involved with the paper, to Science’s Mitch Leslie.
The other paper, published in the journal Nature in early January, suggests the genes responsible for mammals’ external ears might have arisen from those that produce fish gills. It builds on previous research that suggests the jaw bones of ancient fish evolved into the three inner ear bones that mammals have today. This finding offers important new insight into the evolutionary underpinnings of outer ears, which are typically difficult to study, because cartilage disintegrates over time and does not fossilize like bone.
“When we started the project, the evolutionary origin of the outer ear was a complete black box,” says Gage Crump, a co-author of the Nature study and a developmental biologist at the University of Southern California, in a statement.
But through their work, the scientists discovered similar gene activity patterns and DNA sequences in the gill tissue of zebrafish and the ear cartilage of humans.
The gills themselves—which fish use to breathe underwater—did not literally transform into outer ears. But, rather, when ancient fish evolved into vertebrates that could live on land, they didn’t have to build their outer ears from scratch. Instead, they were able to repurpose the existing genetic programs responsible for creating gills, according to the researchers.
“That’s one of the amazements of life and evolution,” Abigail Tucker, who studies developmental biology at King’s College London and was not involved in the research, tells Scientific American’s Viviane Callier. “The regulatory network was still there and therefore could be co-opted and used again, this time to make an external ear structure rather than a gill.”
The team even revealed that the same genetic mechanism builds the gills of horseshoe crabs, invertebrates that have changed very little over the last 400 million years. When the first fish evolved, they might have repurposed the gill-forming genes from these ancient creatures.
The bendy cartilage in mammals’ outer ears today, then, may be “the last remnant of invertebrate cartilage,” Crump adds.
https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/why-do-mammals-have-outer-ears-scientists-are-getting-closer-to-solving-the-mystery-180985884/?itm_source=related-content&itm_medium=parsely-api
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THE FLIGHT INTO EGYPT: TRUTH OR FICTION?
According to Matthew’s Gospel, the Holy Family—Joseph and Mary, with baby Jesus—fled to Egypt to escape King Herod, who sought to have Jesus killed. In that attempt, he had his troops slaughter all the infant boys under two years old. It is certainly consistent with the man that he could have had large numbers of boys killed, but being consistent with his character is not enough in itself to make this extreme action likely to be true.
We also have to consider that Matthew’s nativity story is so inconsistent with Luke’s nativity story that it is not possible for both to be true, in spite of Christian attempts to harmonize them. Luke’s nativity story contains too many historical errors and inconsistencies to be true. However, there are other clues that indicate that this story is a work of fiction. Of particular relevance is that the story was written to develop parallels between Jesus and the Old Testament Moses, with one such parallel being the pharaoh’s command that all the infant Hebrew boys be killed, and Herod’s command that all the infant boys in and around Bethlehem be killed.
The Jewish historian Josephus hated King Herod and wrote everything he knew to the detriment of Herod’s reputation, but did not write anything about the so-called “Slaughter of the Innocents”; nor does any other commentator of the time ever mention it. There being no evidence for this action by King Herod. Some apologists tend to downplay it by saying that Bethlehem was only a small town and there would have been so few boys under two that the killings would have passed unnoticed by historians.
Stephen Pfann, an acknowledged expert on early Christianity, estimates the population at two to three thousand, although other estimates as low as one thousand people in Bethlehem, which could mean up to perhaps 200 fertile women even on the lower estimate. Childhood mortality was high, so women made no attempt to limit their reproduction—it would be reasonable for there to have been at least 20 infant boys living in the town at any time. Moreover, Matthew 2:16 says that all the infant boys in the whole area of Bethlehem were targeted, so we should at least double our initial estimate, to include infants living on farms and villages around Bethlehem. This becomes too large a number for no one to notice and record the extent of the alleged bloodshed. It did not happen, which means the Holy Family had no reason to flee to Egypt. ~ Dick Harfield, Quora
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PARKINSON’S, CONSTIPATION, MICROBIOME (the best review yet)
It can start small: a peculiar numbness; a subtle facial tic; an inexplicably stiff muscle. But then time goes by — and eventually, the tremors set in.
Roughly a million people in the United States (and roughly 10 million people worldwide) live with Parkinson’s disease, a potent neurological disorder that progressively kills neurons in the brain. As it does so, it can trigger a host of crippling symptoms, from violent tremors to excruciating muscle cramps, terrifying nightmares and constant brain fog. While medical treatments can alleviate some of these effects, researchers still don’t know exactly what causes the disease to occur in the first place.
A growing number of studies, however, are suggesting that it may be tied to an unlikely culprit: bacteria living inside our guts.
Every one of us has hundreds or thousands of microbial species in our stomach, small intestine and colon. These bacteria, collectively called our gut microbiome, are usually considerate guests: Although they survive largely on food that passes through our insides, they also give back, cranking out essential nutrients like niacin (which helps our body convert food into energy) and breaking down otherwise indigestible plant fiber into substances our bodies can use.
As Parkinson’s advances in the brain, researchers have reported that the species of bacteria present in the gut also shift dramatically, hinting at a possible cause for the disease. A 2022 paper published in the journal Nature Communications recorded those differences in detail. After sequencing the mixed-together genomes of fecal bacteria from 724 people — a group with Parkinson’s and another without — the authors saw a number of distinct changes in the guts of people who suffered from the disease.
The Parkinson’s group had dramatically lower amounts of certain species of Prevotella, a type of bacterium that helps the body break down plant-based fiber (changes like this in gut flora could explain why people with Parkinson’s disease often experience constipation).
At the same time, the study found, two harmful species of Enterobacteriaceae, a family of microbes that includes Salmonella, E. coli and other bugs, proliferated. Those bacteria may be involved in a chain of biochemical events that eventually kill brain cells in Parkinson’s patients, says Tim Sampson, a biologist at Emory University School of Medicine and coauthor of the study.
At first glance, the relationship between bacteria and brain disease isn’t exactly obvious. How can a change in gut microbes kick off a devastating neurodegenerative disorder? The relationship between the two may seem counterintuitive — but Sampson says it comes down to the subtle ways that the brain and the gut are connected.
In the walls of the intestines, a network of neurons called the enteric nervous system lets the body sense what’s going on in the gut and respond accordingly. This circuitry controls muscle movement, local blood flow, secretion of mucus and other essential digestive functions.
Since the cells of the enteric nervous system are embedded in the gut wall, many of them come into close contact with the lumen — the cavity of the gut that contains the microbiome — where they can interact directly with biochemicals created by bacteria. Some of these are sticky proteins called curli (pronounced CURL-eye) that may be implicated in Parkinson’s.
Under normal circumstances, curli proteins let Enterobacteria build biofilms, the gooey mats that protect the microbes and help them stay put in the gut. Yet if a curli molecule touches a common protein created by nerve cells — called alpha-synuclein — that protein begins to misfold and form a dangerous mass called an aggregate. Once created, these aggregates can spread widely though the nervous system, leapfrog from cell to cell and eventually enter the brain through the vagus nerve, the main pathway that carries signals between the brain and the gut. It’s thought that in some cases of Parkinson’s in humans, changes in the gut microbiome may activate that process, says Emeran Mayer, a gastroenterologist and neuroscientist at UCLA and coauthor of an overview of the gut-brain connection in the Annual Review of Medicine.
Suspicion that the vagus plays a key role in neurodegenerative disease has been growing in recent years. A 2017 study in the journal Neurology, Mayer notes, showed that “If you cut the vagus nerve, it decreases the risk for Parkinson’s disease. That’s a pretty strong indication that … this degenerative material is transported, apparently, through the vagus nerve.”
Over the past few decades, a number of animal studies have shown that the vagus provides a physical conduit that molecules can use to move between the gut and brain — but
although this neurological superhighway could play an important role in Parkinson’s, it’s still not clear if the nerve is a lynchpin in causing the disease itself.
The vagus nerve (shown in yellow) is a physical conduit between the gut and brain that might traffic misfolded proteins that trigger Parkinson’s disease, scientists suggest.
In addition to aggregates moving through the vagus, different triggers — like the lipids, vitamins and other organic compounds that gut bacteria produce — could travel through blood vessels to the brain, where they may cause inflammation and damage tissue. Likewise, says David Hafler, a neuroimmunologist at Yale University, immune cells that are activated in the gut may contribute to the neurological damage and dysfunction that occurs in Parkinson’s.
These immune cells, called T cells, can migrate out of the gut, enter the bloodstream and cross the blood-brain barrier, where they ultimately may kill off neurons. This sort of autoimmune response is the driver for other neurological diseases like multiple sclerosis, Hafler reasons, so it’s feasible that it plays a role in Parkinson’s as well. In both MS and Parkinson's changes in the gut microbiome could be the potential trigger.
There’s already strong evidence for this idea. In 2016, Sampson found a direct connection between gut microbes and Parkinson’s disease. Using fecal samples from Parkinson’s patients, Sampson inoculated the guts of germ-free mice (animals with no naturally occurring microbiome), and the animals quickly developed Parkinson’s symptoms. Today, using the new genetic survey of gut microbes he and his colleagues published in Nature Communications, he’s narrowing in on a few microbe families and using similar methods to reveal which precise species are the culprits.
Sampson’s approach comes with some caveats: Parkinson’s disease, after all, might be linked to multiple bacteria interacting in complex ways — so there likely won’t be a single smoking gun. It’s also not totally clear if changes in the microbiome are the root cause or if they just accelerate damage already taking place in the brain.
The complexity of the microbiome is mind-boggling: There are hundreds of different types of bacteria involved, and each creates myriad molecules that affect digestion, the immune system and other important bodily functions. Sorting through all those components and identifying how they change in the face of disease will be an important next step.
And so, as tantalizing as the links between the microbiome and Parkinson’s may be, it could be decades before people who suffer from the disorder can reap any tangible benefits. Many of the researchers examining those links, like Mayer, also warn patients to be of wary of sweeping claims about drugs, supplements or even fecal transplants — seeding the gut with microbes from another, healthy person — that “treat” Parkinson’s by altering the microbiome.
“A lot of people make a lot of money selling individuals supplements, telling you that they’re going to slow your cognitive decline or prevent Parkinson’s disease,” says Mayer. But, he adds, “we don’t know the causal roles of the microbiome for sure. We know it from animal studies, so we have indirect evidence for it — but it’s been difficult to show in humans without a doubt that the microbes, and some of their signal molecules, play the main causal role.”
Until definitive answers are found, researchers like Mayer will continue to chip away at the problem, microbe by microbe.
https://getpocket.com/explore/item/how-gut-bacteria-connect-to-parkinson-s-disease?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
Oriana:
Glutathione, one of the key potent antioxidants in our body, decreases with aging, and this decrease, especially in the brain levels of glutathione, has been singled out by some experts as a plausible cause of Parkinson’s. Beef and dark chocolate increase glutathione. N-acetyl-cysteine (NAC) , an inexpensive precursor of glutathione, is easy to obtain as a supplement. NAC has indeed been found to decrease Parkinson’s symptoms and to increase dopamine release. (If true, that would be the miraculously cheap way to treat Parkinson's.)
Another antioxidant compound produced in the human body is superoxide peroxide (SOD). Curcumin appears to increase SOD (based on personal experience, I recommend only the OMAX brand of curcumin).
Caffeine seems to delays the onset of Parkinson’s and other neurodegenerative diseases. Another protective compound in coffee, fatty acid called Eicosanoyl-5-hydroxytryptamide (EHT), has also been shown to decrease symptoms, especially when combined with caffeine (https://www.parkinson.org/blog/science-news/coffee).
Resistance training ("muscle building") has likewise been shown to ameliorate Parkinson’s symptoms.
Parkinson’s Foundation (https://www.parkinson.org/) offers extensive information about new therapies, promising research (e.g stem cells, focused ultrasound), dietary approaches (raspberries! dark chocolate! reishi mushrooms! modified keto!), and anything else related to this dreaded disease.
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THE BENEFITS OF CREATINE
Creatine has seen its fair share of controversy in the decades since it first came to public attention, whether it was the scandal generated by sports stars like Mark McGwire admitting to taking it to its use among Olympic athletes.
But despite the inaccurate comparisons to anabolic steroids, creatine has never been banned by the Olympics or most large North American sports leagues, including the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA).
“It’s something that helps bursts of energy — weight lifting, sprinting, etc.,” says Kristen Drescher, an immunologist at the Creighton University School of Medicine in Omaha, Nebraska, who has written about creatine.
This muscle-building supplement is so common now that one study reported that about a third of male NCAA Division I athletes had used the supplement before. But how does it work, and does creatine actually increase your muscle mass?
Creatine is actually a natural compound made by amino acids. It’s found naturally in muscles — whether human, fish, or animal. Our bodies store creatine in muscles, using it as energy in natural processes when we use them. We also have creatine in our brains.
While we produce some creatine organically — in our livers, kidneys, and pancreas — we can also gain creatine by eating the muscles of other creatures that also produce creatine naturally. In practice, this usually means eating red meat and fish.
The thing is, our muscles can't hold a lot more creatine than we can get from eating even large amounts of red meat and fish every day. As a result, creatine supplements have become a popular way to increase the creatine in the muscles.
How Creatine Increases Your Muscle MassCreatine doesn’t add muscle by itself. In the beginning, it pulls more water into your muscles, something which initially leads to an increase in size. But this is temporary if you don’t follow through.
To continue to get an increase in muscles, you still need to work out — taking creatine and sitting on the couch won’t lead to much. But by taking it over time and exercising, creatine basically gives your muscles more energy to work a little harder than they otherwise might.
Drescher says that part of the way creatine accomplishes this is by reducing the inflammation of your muscles as they work out, essentially what happens when you get sore from working out. The reduction of this inflammation helps people exercise for longer at the gym, push harder, and come back more frequently — all things that can help boost muscle size.
“There is evidence that creatine decreases inflammation, and inflammation is often what prevents people from working out,” Drescher says.
While the creatine found in meat and fish helps you build muscle, you usually can’t maximize the creatine in your muscles from food alone. That’s why people turn to creatine powder or other forms of the supplement. People taking this form will often load up on a larger amount of creatine for the first two to four days, then do a more standard maintenance dose for the following four weeks. At that point, athletes may restart the cycle, Drescher says.
Creatine's Other Positive Effects
Creatine’s muscle-building and anti-inflammation properties may extend to other benefits for those who use it — especially the elderly. Some research shows that creatine supplements can help stymie the age-related loss of muscle, even without much exercise. It can also help to increase body mass, reduce fatigue, and improve daily activities, giving the elderly more energy to do things like chores, Drescher says.
This increase in strength can help with a lot of things, Drescher says, and reduce the danger of age-related injuries from falling, for example.
Some other studies have found positive neurological effects that creatine might have in reducing symptoms related to Huntington’s disease, though those early tests have not stood up to repeat trials.
Creatine's Negative Effects
The most common negative impacts from taking creatine are gastrointestinal. As with most things, these problems are most often encountered with people who take larger doses.
“The biggest downside of it is if you start really taking large amounts of it, you have bloating, diarrhea, and cramping,” Drescher says.
There have been some other studies showing that large amounts of creatine might impact the kidneys or livers, but there isn’t a lot of solid evidence about this, one study found.
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/more-than-a-muscle-booster-creatine-could-help-energize-the-elderly?utm_source=firefox-newtab-en-us
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ending on beauty:
THE PORTRAIT IN THE ROCK
Oh yes I knew him, I spent years with him,
with his golden and stony substance,
he was a man who was tired —
in Paraguay he left his father and mother,
his sons, his nephews,
his latest in-laws,
his house, his chickens,
and some half-opened books.
They called him to the door.
When he opened it, the police took him,
and they beat him up so much
that he spat blood in France, in Denmark,
in Spain, in Italy, moving about,
and so he died and I stopped seeing his face,
stopped hearing his profound silence;
then once, on a night of storms,
with snow spreading
a smooth cloak on the mountains,
on horseback, there, far off,
I looked and there was my friend —
his face was formed in stone,
his profile defied the wild weather,
in his nose the wind was muffling
the moaning of the persecuted.
There the exile came to the ground.
Changed into stone, he lives in his own country.
~ Pablo Neruda
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