A Word Please

Do you think that daydreaming or staring blankly into space is a waste of time? According to a Newsweek article entitled The Hidden Brain, you’re actually working pretty hard while doing nothing. The brain’s default mode – those times when you’re sleeping, daydreaming, or otherwise allowing a black void to take temporary residence in your mind – consumes the bulk of your brain’s energy and activity.

Neuroscientists claim that your brain’s default mode does some pretty important stuff. Running in default prepares your brain for future events and emergencies. By spacing off now and then, you’re allowing your brain the time to learn to react more nimbly when confronted with real sensory information. Ducking away from that errant Frisbee on the beach or avoiding a kick from the overzealous drunk on the dance floor doesn’t just happen. These actions require lots of downtime, so that your brain can map out all these actions in advance and react appropriately.

There you have it. Newsweek and neuroscientists tell us that doing nothing is vital to our brain’s health. What better excuse do you need to kick back in that lawn chair and watch the clouds roll by?

I belong to an organization called Sisters in Crime. In a recent newsletter that I received from them, I learned that they have volunteers who have been tracking the statistics for professional reviews of mystery novels by male authors versus female. The final numbers for 2009 are truly disconcerting. Approximately 67% of the reviews went to male writers, leaving just 33% of the reviews for female writers.

Sisters in Crime monitors 42 publications. Of those, only 3 gave more reviews to female mystery authors. These were the San Francisco Bay Area’s Contra Costa Times, the Annapolis Capital, and Romantic Times. Of the remaining 39 that slant toward male writers, some of the statistics are astounding. For instance, 100% of the mystery novels reviewed by Detroit Free Press were written by men. They didn’t review one female mystery author all year! The percentage of male authors reviewed in other leading publications include: Ellery Queen at 76%, Entertainment Weekly at 72%, the New Yorker at 75%, and the Washington Post at 79%.

Looking at these statistics, a person would be forgiven for assuming that there are simply more male mystery authors to review. This, however, is untrue. The split is almost even.

Why this huge discrepancy?

What these statistics didn’t tell me is, of the reviewers, what percentage is male? Do we have an innate preference for reading authors of our own gender? Are male authors simply more popular? Looking at my own collection, I seem to have no gender bias for authors.

Perhaps the publications’ owners are the ones who are biased. Do they choose the books or does the reviewer do that personally?

The male author bias baffles me. Any insight would be welcome.

I don’t talk much here about my struggle with lyme disease. There’s 2 reasons for that:

1. I don’t think most people are particularly interested in the details of my health complications.
2. My writing world is my sanctuary; a place where, just for a little while, my mind drifts away and I can almost forget how crappy I feel.

However, I know there are lots of people out there struggling with chronic lyme disease. Many have yet to be diagnosed and, as they search for answers, they often doubt their own sanity. I know. I’ve been there. So today I wanted to share a book I’ve recently read that aims to help those of us who are struggling with this disease:

According to this book, the CDC (Centers for Disease Control) estimates that 20,000 new cases of lyme disease occur each year. Harvard medical school researchers dispute this. Their number is closer to 200,000. That’s a lot of people who might end up like me, with a chronic, debilitating illness. Yet, testing is woefully inadequate. I was tested multiple times by multiple doctors. Each only performed one test, the ELISA. Now I know that this test is notorious for false negatives. Now I also know that there are at least four tests available. After a 20 year struggle, a lyme specialist finally performed all four. Two were positive, two negative.

I’ll spare you the details of the two years that followed my diagnosis and move on to the book. Healing Lyme, by Stephen Harrod Buhner, answered questions I didn’t even know I had. Honestly, I learned more from this one book than I did from countless “specialists” and hours of Internet searches. Buhner is a master herbalist who took an interest in lyme disease due to an influx of patients at his clinic.

After more than a year of antibiotic therapy that did nothing more than destroy my digestive system, I stumbled upon Buhner’s book. My illness had progressed to the point where I had not walked out my front door in more than 3 months. I read his book and, a few months ago, started the herbal protocol that he recommends. I’m far from cured but I’ve improved. And, for me, even baby steps matter!

Whether you try the recommended protocol or not, I suggest everyone with lyme read this book. The information is fascinating, scary, and enlightening. When facing a chronic illness of any sort, the best thing you can do is arm yourself with facts. Know what you’re facing. Only then can you make the choices that are right for you.

According to an article in the May edition of Reason magazine, the New Orleans police and prosecutors charge their city’s prostitutes as sex offenders. This, in itself, baffles me. The term “sex offenders” has lost its edge. It can be a rapist, it can apparently be a prostitute, or it can be a guy who gets drunk and pees in a public park. Why would we want to lump all these crimes under one heading?

This article goes on to state that, of 863 people on New Orleans’ sex offender list, 483 were charged under this fairly recent prostitution law. These “sex offenders” were engaging in consensual (albeit, paid) sex. These women now have to register as sex offenders, their licenses are stamped with the sex offender status, and they must report their status to all their neighbors and future employers.

Shouldn’t a sex offender be someone we need to worry about? Someone dangerous? We may not all agree with prostitution as a profession but most of us do agree that prostitutes are not in the same league as a rapist or child molester.

What truly bothered me about this article was the absence of the prostitutes’ customers on the sex offender list. If the prostitute is a sex offender, then, by default, shouldn’t her (or his) customer be as well? They are both consenting in the act. They are both well aware of what they are doing. Without the customers, there would be no prostitute. Yet, only the prostitute pays the price with the sex offender stamp.

Furthermore, once we label these prostitutes with the general sex offender stamp, they cannot get a legitimate job anywhere. Who wants to hire a registered sex offender? No one stops and looks into the realities of the “crime”. Prospective employers simply look at that label and there is no way they are going to hire that person. We claim to want to stop prostitution, yet this very law forces these women (and men) to continue in the profession by taking away any reasonable and legal choices.

Should you get fired from your job for smoking pot, providing you have a prescription that says you’re allowed to do so? According to a recent article in Newsweek magazine, this is happening all over the country. Employers are firing their employees for failing a drug test, despite the fact that the marijuana in their system is legal and their job performance has not been a problem. Many of these cases have gone to court. According to the article, so far judges in California, Washington, Montana, and Oregon have sided with the employers.

This doesn’t seem like a fair standard. Oxycontin and Vicodin are much more powerful than marijuana, yet employees are not being fired for using those drugs. In these cases, we are talking about the legal use of marijuana for medical purposes, not recreational drug use. If a state is going to make the use of medical marijuana legal, then “failing” a drug test for that same drug should not be legal cause for termination. After all, you don’t get fired for having Oxycontin in your system – that is, providing you have a prescription.

Of course, this is just my opinion. But, it seems to me, our courts need to start backing up the laws made by our government, at both the local and national levels. Otherwise, there is a whole lot of confusion and innocent people get tossed around in the resulting whirlwind.

Newsweek had an article about DNA exonerations. Since the late ’90s, hundreds of convicted inmates have been found innocent through DNA technology. (Texas holds the record with 38 overturned convictions.) That, in itself, is not unexpected. We all know that lots of innocent people are in prison (and lots of guilty people are roaming free). What I found truly interesting is that almost 80-percent of those wrongly accused were first pointed out by eyewitnesses (either photo or in-person line-ups). I’ve read psychological studies on this issue and I knew that eyewitnesses were not particularly reliable. But 80-percent of the screw-ups is an enormous percentage!

A special panel is currently studying the factors involved in wrongful convictions. This fall, the panel will issue their recommendations. Until then, maybe we should all start paying closer attention. And, if we aren’t sure of something, it’s probably wise to simply keep our mouths shut.

The March/April issue of Mother Jones has a short list of weird liquor laws. I got a chuckle from a few and thought I’d share them with you.

Alaska: No alcohol sales between 5 a.m. and 8 a.m.
Evidently, that 3 hour break is when you’re supposed to eat breakfast and sober up before starting over.

Florida: Boozing may be prohibited during hurricanes.
I live in Florida. People here have hurricane parties and I’m pretty sure they are not alcohol-free.

Georgia: Public drunkenness is illegal, but drinking in public is fine.
Hmm…

Oklahoma: Stores must sell alcoholic drinks at room temperature.
Does this mean there is no such thing as a frozen pina colada in Oklahoma?

South Carolina: No liquor sold on Election Day.
If ever there was a day that deserved alcohol, this is the one.

I’m sitting here reading Rolling Stone magazine and I came across this tidbit: “Fecal contamination found in 48 percent of fast-food soda machines.” Ummm… Gross! How does fecal contamination get inside a soda dispenser? Are rats climbing on top of the machines and using them as litter boxes? Are human workers doing something I don’t even want to suggest? Is the soda contaminated before it gets dumped into the machines? Seriously, how does this happen?

This tidbit did not tell me which fast food restaurants were tested. This is not of particular concern to me, since I don’t eat fast food or drink soda. If you do, you may want to hunt down this complete study to find out which restaurants were among the 52 percent that did not contain fecal matter.

I will not be able to look at someone drinking from a McDonald’s cup without my stomach doing flip flops. It would be like mixing dirty toilet water into my tea. And we wonder why we have so many health problems in this country.

In The True Believer: Thoughts on The Nature of Mass Movements, Eric Hoffer writes:

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding. When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.

This minding of other people’s business expresses itself in gossip, snooping and meddling, and also in feverish interest in communal, national and racial affairs. In running away from ourselves we either fall on our neighbor’s shoulder or fly at his throat.”

I love the last line of that section. Such truth in that! In my experience, when someone is bored or unhappy with their life, they are more likely to meddle in yours. Most people who give me advice (generally uninvited and in the form of an order or gospel truth) are the last people I would want to take advice from.

This book was originally published in 1951 but Hoffer’s insights easily apply to the world today.

According to an article in this week’s Newsweek magazine (which is quoting a book called Statistical Abstract), in 2007 the average American watched 1,613 hours of television. That is the equivalent of 67 days! That is a whole lot of time in front of the TV. I don’t watch a lot of TV, so maybe I come in at around 45 or 50 days each year. But, still, 50 days each year? I can’t help but think of all the things I could do with those 50 days!

Another statistic that caught my eye: In 2007 18-percent of high school students reported carrying a weapon sometime in the previous year. And those are just the kids that admitted to it. Teenagers are not known for their rational thought. Scary to think that 18 out of every 100 has a weapon.