I Found A Peanut

Monday, September 3, 2007

Will Common Seasickness Patch Help Bi-Polar Patients?

It's fascinating that using scopolamine has helped some patients, especially in depressive phases. Researchers have found that when patients given the drug get a good night's sleep, their psychological symptoms lessen.

Which leads me to wonder: are undiagnosed sleep problems at the root of more problems than we yet realize?

Scientists are casting a wide net to find better treatments for the crushing depression and uncontrolled manias of bipolar disorder, and some approaches they're testing seem pretty surprising.

Like skin patches that prevent seasickness. Or a drug that fights Lou Gehrig's disease. And then there's a newly invented device that resembles a hair dryer in a beauty salon.

Some of the strategies were identified by logic, and others by pure chance. Scientists already have evidence that they may someday prove useful against bipolar disorder, also called manic-depression.

Doctors yearn for better therapies to treat the condition, which can rip careers and marriages apart and drive people to suicide. It is so complex and mysterious that researchers haven't developed a medication specifically for it since lithium, more than half a century ago.

Source: foxnews.com

NowPublic

Sunday, September 2, 2007

The Craig Case: Over-Reaction?

In a hard-hitting editorial, Mark R. Levin takes on the question of whether or not there's not only a kneejerk over-reaction to the Craig case, but whether modern liberalism has led to "culture of corruption" boogeymen.

so, Larry Craig is gone. He solicited sex without actually soliciting sex or having sex. He pled guilty, but not to lewd behavior — to disorderly conduct (a misdemeanor). He is said to have a secret life involving same sex partners, but where are all these partners? According to one report, a guy in college believes Craig hit on him in 1967. Another says he “believes” he performed oral sex on the senator in a restroom at Union Station. He’s not 100-percent sure. If Craig has been living this secret life since 1967, you’d think others would come forward at some point. Maybe they will. So far, they haven’t. Indeed, where is all the evidence of Craig’s seedy life? Where are the photos, the video, the audio, the solid witnesses, and the rest of the evidence? And if the case against Craig in that airport restroom was so compelling, if it was so sleazy, if authorities wanted to send a message to others, why didn’t prosecutors take Craig to trial? Why let him go with a disorderly conduct misdemeanor? Were they doing him a favor? I don’t think so. They conducted a sting operation without any sting.

Source: article.nationalreview.com

NowPublic

The Peanut Man

The morning is cool, a mist rising off the land. Just past dawn, still sleepy. But you're moving on down the road anyway.

There, under the trees, steam rising from the boiling pot, blending into the wisps of fog. The peanut man.

With the sun still barely tipping over the rounded earth, and the early morning cries of birds, the crossroads up ahead, you think: what did Robert Johnson first see when he met up with the devil? The fire glows hot as the peanut man smiles, chanting "hot boiled peanuts, fresh, sack 'em up. Hot boiled peanuts."

He hands you the sack, wet, hot, tempting with the fullness of hot boiled peanuts. You both smile, changing your money, fragile slip of paper, for what he has to offer: heat, a crunch, a taste like no other, the peanut, extraordinary food.

You hop back in your car. If you're smart, you find plenty of towels, paper or otherwise. Peanut bag goes in your lap, warming you.

Scoop out a hot boiled peanut. Here's where the juice begins, for real. If you know hot boiled peanuts, you don't crack open the peanut and transfer the meat to your mouth.

No, put the peanut in your mouth. Bite down. The warm, salty water, rich with the taste of peanut rushes across your tongue.

Lap your tongue around the peanut and shell. Suck. This is what life tastes like, meaty, salty, and warm, rich.

Remove peanut and shell, extract peanut. Toss shell somewhere. Return peanut, bare, naked, to your mouth. Taste it fully as you chew, the earthy taste of the simple peanut. Packed with protein, served with panache in that cradling shell, the peanut is about as good as it gets in the simple goodness of life.

If you've found a peanut, a whole bag of hot boiled peanuts, you've found food, warmth, sustenance, an entire culture, and something to muse about as you journey on.

Not to mention peanut shells to throw at your brother or buddy. Doesn't matter. The essence is the peanut, rich, rolling in the currents of history, from the Delta to the dawn of a new techno-millenium.

Brother Peanut is going along for the ride. And the peanut man, he'll always be out there, somewhere. No matter how long or hard the trip, suddenly, you round a curve, and there he is, smiling over his pot.

I Found A Peanut

Monday, September 3, 2007

Will Common Seasickness Patch Help Bi-Polar Patients?

Sunday, September 2, 2007

The Craig Case: Over-Reaction?

The Peanut Man

Think I'm doing a good job? I'd love some fresh tea, thanks!

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