Birthday!

Today is one of my favorite days of the year. Today is the day my Wonderful Husband was born.

The birth of Wonderful Husband ushered in a new era of gamer geekitude, comics nerdiosity, and cutting wit! Legend holds that at the time of his birth, the constellation Gygax burned so brightly it could be seen during the day. Wise men from all across the globe brought the newborn babe gifts of Frankincense, Myrrh, and Diesel Sweeties t-shirts.

As the WH grew, so did his legend. According to the scrolls, he slew a great antediluvian vampire in a fatal game of Tic Tac Toe, and thus did he take his name as an Internet Handle. A recent Future History, dropped accidentally through a temporal vortex and found by a little English girl digging for fossils at the cliffs of Lyme Regis, indicates that the great Klingon Emperor Va'klam is named after WH because his humor is lethal in hand-to-hand combat. WH's comics blog has garnered the nearly-impossible-to-come-by endorsement of King ClownApe. WH's love of reading is matched only by his love of frosting. WH, at Dragoncon 2008, had both the guts to ask the sultry-voiced Dr. Pamela Gay during a Q&A, "Could you say that again, real slow?" and the grace to blush when she actually did it! :)

I love you, Wonderful Husband! Have an AWESOME birthday!

Top five things I worried about while growing up woo-woo

It is my opinion (though based on pure anecdote) that humans are wired for worry. Perhaps this helped our fight-or-flight speed when our ancestors were being stalked by other animals with pointier teeth and more feet to run with. But taken out of life-or-death situations, as many middle-class Americans are, we STILL have the same primitive wiring, and by golly we WILL find other things to worry about. Piddly things. Things that wouldn't matter a weasel's nose to someone on the brink of starvation or riddled with disease with no prospect for medicine to come in time. Yet these stupid piddly worries can take on crippling, life-threatening, panic-inducing significance in our lives. It is at this point that such folks are ripe and receptive targets for magical thinking to swoop in and offer them certainty and stability, blissful relief from worry!

But it doesn't always happen that way. Take small children, for example. If you tell a child about anything, whether it be faith-based beliefs or fact-based information, that child's mind will inevitably explore the worst-case logical conclusion. A school presentation on fire safety may give rise to, "What if my house burns down?" A church service might lead them to obsess, "Hell is scary!" or, "What if next time I go to the beach I get swallowed by a whale??"

Likewise, my Qabbalistic-eclectic-pagan upbringing did not soothe my fears-- it only gave me a weirder list of things to worry about. These worries were, of course, based on the beliefs I had been taught since birth. I can look back on them now and laugh, but they were the bane of my existence for many years. Here's a list of my biggest, ugliest, sleep-losingest childhood worries. I shall leave it to the reader to decide how normal, productive, or healthy these fears were. ;)

5. That the balanced and varied diet I ate, along with the seven vitamin and mineral supplements my mom gave me every morning, was not nutritionally sound enough to get me through life. Seriously-- there was the multivitamin, the calcium, the E, the A, the zinc tablet and the two godawful kelp tablets. I used to take them one at a time, then one day-- I was eight, I believe-- I decided that took ALL MORNING, thus I learned to swallow the whole handful in one gulp. Nonetheless, I worried, there might be a TRICK that I'm missing out on, some miracle micro-nutrient that I'm deficient in! I might not be maximizing my the potential of my vital essence!!! Oh noes, the horror, I might only live seventy-eight point five years!!!!

4. That I would eventually be permanently disabled or disfigured because one of my legs was slightly shorter than the other. A chiropractor told my mom this when I was five. It MUST be true!!!! (Of course, his prescription for preventing this terrible fate was... more visits to the chiropractor!)

3. Karma. The big, angry, cosmic K. I was worried that every little thing I did would provoke a cosmic backlash against little ol' me. Gawd HELP me if I ever forgot to give someone their PEN back-- that was STEALING!!! I read a magazine article that said so!!! THREEFOLD RETURN, MANNNN!!! Or even tenfold return, depending on your particular woo-flavor. Magical thinking is the bane of the obsessive-compulsive personality. Unfortunately, it's exactly that type of person woo-woo seems to attract... and target.

2. My personal contribution to the degradation of the environment. That the burden of every teeny tiny piece of trash I threw away, all the food I ate, everything I ever bought or received as a gift, all of it was helping to KILL THE EARTH. Our Mother. The cradle of life which gave birth to us all. I was KILLING MY MOTHER with my very EXISTENCE. Thanks, Environmental Movement, for putting that kind of guilt into the head of a child.

And the NUMBER ONE worry, the thing that I lost the most sleep over, the thought which terrified me more than the threat of nuclear war or axe-murdering urban legends, was:

1. That I would be alive in a subsequent incarnation when the sun goes nova, SIX BILLION YEARS IN THE FUTURE, and how much this fiery death was bound to hurt. Yeah, I got nothing to add to that. ;)


Well, there you have it-- the effect of an upbringing straight from the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius, the lasting imprint of these eclectic philosophies of peace, cosmic unity, and wholistic wellness on the impressionable mind of a small child! I'm sure there were other fears I could dredge up, but I just have to go lie down with a cold compress now. And probably take a vitamin.

A blog plug for Friendly Atheist

I just took an academic survey on coming out as an atheist that The Friendly Atheist linked to. I think the survey is a great idea-- the researcher Tom Arcano states on Life Without Faith, "Ultimately I hope that this survey and the publication of the results will, in some small way, encourage more of us to more openly be who we are, atheists."

But also, I started reading The Friendly Atheist blog as a result. I like The Friendly Atheist! I didn't used to, because of his GORGEOUS GUY picture at the top of his blog. I don't trust GORGEOUS GUYS-- they are nothing but trouble. Trouble, I tell ya! Only geeky nerdy guys gain my trust!!!! (Hey, you gorgeous guys-- get off my lawn!) But then I saw a photo of him in glasses, my stony, perky heart melted and I went, "Awwwwwwww, look at that adorable nerdy guy! I can totally like him now!!!" Also, he's an Indian dude, and I have the same embarrassingly strong attraction to Indian dudes that many nerdy guys have for hawt Japanese Lolitas, and OMG I'M TALKING TOO MUCH, SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP!!!!

(Taking a moment to restore decorum and dignity... deeeeeeeep breath...)

So, there's a blog called The Friendly Atheist, and it's good. Here's a link.

(See how cool I was that time? I am sooo smooth!!!)

ASCIITHULHU DEVOURZ U!!

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Saturday morning!

My dad taught me a cute little song when I was young, author unknown to me. It's sung to the tune of "School Days" (you know, "School days, school days, beautiful golden rule days," etc. ... oh gawd I'm so old!!!):

School days, school days,
Yank and shove and pull days,
Screaming and shouting with all your might,
Getting the kids up takes dynamite.
Then on the weekends you hit the hay,
Hoping to sleep through half the next day,
But the sleep you get isn't worth a dime,
'Cause the kids, they get up before six every time!

I just had to laugh this morning, because my surly-in-the-a.m.-before-school boy BOUNCED out of bed at first light, bright and chipper and ready to play! WHEEEEE!!!

I will be good for nothing this day except drinking coffee. And possibly crafting silly emoticons resembling chan versions of Cthulhu.

Parenting an Asperger child

As you may have surmised, if you've read the blog this far, I do not have the genes with which to co-produce an easygoing, calm, emotionally centered child. ;)

All the peace and serenity I have achieved in my own life has come as a result of hard work-- constant vigilance against temper outbursts, discipline about living a drama-free life, deep-breathing, perspective, repetition of the mantra "This too shall pass," adherence to a strict exercise program, and finally, at long last, a healthy regimen of oxcarbazepine (YAY science-based medicine!!! Wheeeee!!!)! ...Er. The enthusiasm comes naturally.

Anyway, the child produced by Wonderful Husband and me possesses the neurological configuration known as Asperger's syndrome, and I suspect he may also be bipolar. Of course the latter is hard to diagnose at his age, so we cope with the certain issues first. Either neurological state makes controlling one's emotions much harder, so I have been working with him since he was old enough to understand words about handling strong emotions. If he learns coping tools young, his life will be so much easier, and like any parent, I want him to have a great life doing whatever he loves!

Asperger and autistic kids have a hard time controlling themselves in many cases because their sensory data isn't always meaningful to them. They have to be taught how to process that input. My own boy is a sensory-seeker (rather than a sensory-avoider). He lives life loudly and with passion. He loves to cuddle and hug. He loves soft stuffed animals, and used to ask me to bury him in a pile of them, which was about the cutest thing in the entire world. He loves to move, and to feel his body in motion. He loves to hear music and sing at the top of his lungs. He loves the sounds of words, and he loves the way people say their words-- give him a week and he can imitate the vocal inflections and accent of any classmate or teacher so well that I can recognize whose voice he is using! He loves to bang on things with sticks-- "sticks" being our verbal shorthand for any two straight-ish objects of matching size, color, length, general appearance, and material. (Two metal forks are sticks, two long wooden spoons are sticks, but a fork and a spoon are not a set of sticks.) He loves to laugh and to hear others laugh. He tends to focus on preferred tasks to the extent that he doesn't always hear his name being called. And when he feels physically bad, from allergies, or from not having slept well, or from low blood sugar, or from having to have a bowel movement, just as a short list... he becomes just inconsolable.

He has made so much progress in coping with the realities of life and the universe in his five scant years on this planet. He used to get INSANELY PISSED at the laws of physics! He was a natural-born magical thinker-- he felt that the universe ought to be malleable to his whims! When he was a toddler, this made playtimes challenging. That square peg was GONNA go in that round hole, dagnabbit, if he had to hit it with a rock!!! His toys had to line up in a row and sit straight up facing him, and if one fell over, the world ended! His inability to shove a large stuffed animal into a tiny toy truck drove him bananas, to the extent that I taught the little echolalia-parrot to shake his tiny fists at the sky and say, "OH, LAWS OF PHYSICS, MY OLD NEMESIS!!!" The venting seemed to help him feel better about the general unfairness of the world.

On his good days, my boy could be elected President. Yes, at age 5. He has this quirky charm which immediately endears him to everyone he meets, and he has this INCREDIBLE memory for the names and quirks of others! He might ask you to tell him your name 37 times, just because he likes to hear you say it, but once he processes it, he never forgets it. Within two weeks, he knew nearly everyone in his school and had a little quirky remembrance of every individual. I was bringing in his immunization record to the office-- and even the office ladies knew him and spoke rapturously of him!!! The baristas in our favorite coffee hangout give him free treats and chastise us when we don't bring him in with us!!! He is genuinely interested in people, and he is comfortable in any social situation. It ASTOUNDS me!

But on his bad days, he disrupts his entire class. His stress in turn stresses out the other kids to the point of tears. He becomes introverted and doesn't want people to look at him. He runs away from his teachers. He tells his most beloved teachers to shut up and that he hates them. Very, very occasionally-- because we have worked HARD to instill in him that this is NOT acceptable-- he hits or kicks.

The special ed folks say he is the highest-functioning child in his CBIP class for autistic kids, and he is so close to being able to be mainstream-educated... but then a bad day strikes, and makes everyone rethink that plan. It wouldn't bother me so much if he were getting enough academic stimulation in the CBIP class, but he's not. He's well in advance of his age group on reading, spelling, and math skills. But he resists toilet-training, so that sets him apart from neurotypical kids his own age, and he has to be in the special ed class because they're the only ones authorized to change his pull-up. The regular class stresses him out because he likes adult interaction, and there's no teaching assistant in the regular classes, so he ends up monopolizing the teacher's time and the other kids get nothing done. But the special ed classes bore him too much. We've got an IEP meeting coming up to discuss strategies. Acting out because he's not getting enough to do vs. acting out because he's too stressed with all the things expected of him is the tightrope we will be walking throughout his education.

Much of this is true for all kids. It can be hard to differentiate Asperger behaviors from regular old age-appropriate behaviors. I often observe parenting an Asperger kid to be much like parenting raised to the third power. Every child behavior, good and bad, is magnified in intensity and duration-- and you have to magnify your parenting skills commensurately, to show them that there is a calm, loving center to their world. It breaks my heart when my son breaks down in tears wailing, "I can't feel better!" And then I gather him up in my lap and stroke his hair and play soft music and show him that yes, he can feel better. This too shall pass.

Skeptics' Circle 96!

HOORAY, the Skeptics' Circle number 96 is up at Endcycle, and I am so excited to be a part of it!!!

Pardon me while I do the Skeptics' Circle Happy Dance.

There are some awesome entries, and I'm working my way through them as I type this post... oh, dear... I can see I have all kinds of great stuff to help me avoid actual work tomorrow.

I better go to bed now, so I can get my SKEPTIC on bright and early!!!

Another introspective post, related to proposed federal regulation HHS-OS-2008-0011-1672

Ok, I just sent in a comment on HHS-OS-2008-0011-1672, the so-called "Ensuring that Department of Health and Human Services Funds Do Not Support Coercive or Discriminatory Policies or Practices In Violation of Federal Law." This proposed regulation is a prettily-titled, hackish piece of Bush administration sneakery, aiming to allow the religious beliefs of doctors into the care they provide for their patients. It is a transparent attempt to let healthcare providers refuse to supply a patient with emergency contraception. It is still open for public comment. I will join the many voices of the blogosphere in encouraging every United States citizen to express their opinion.

My comment was as follows:

"Document ID HHS-OS-2008-0011-1672 is a TERRIBLE regulation which puts the rights of the patients at the mercy of the beliefs of the care providers. Patient care must come first! Since the patient/provider relationship is necessarily one of trust and knowledge discrepancy, it is the responsibility of the care provider to share ALL pertinent information with the patient, so that the PATIENT may make an informed decision about his or her healthcare based on the state of medical knowledge at the time of the decision. For this reason, the rights of the patient to direct his/her own care must of necessity trump the beliefs of the care provider."

Here's what I didn't say.

When I was a freshman in college, I was given a date-rape drug and raped. Just like Veronica Mars-- "Wanna know how I lost my virginity? So do I." I didn't know about date rape drugs back then. No one had ever told me they existed. Until it was too late.

Was I out partying? Why, no. I was in the basement laundry room of my dorm hand-sewing an SCA costume. Some drunk alum broke into my dorm after hours and started talking to me. He was kind of a jerk, but I was nearly done with the sewing, and I wanted to get the dress finished before I went to bed. So I stayed and he kept talking. Eventually he offered me a sip from a bottle of scotch. His back was to me when he was opening it. He seemed to be taking overlong opening the thing, and I tried to look around him to see what he was doing with the bottle that was taking so darn long. He hid it from me, saying, "Hey, now! No peeking!" Then he put it down in front of me, saying, "Now, I'm gonna go take care of some business, but I'll be right back, and while I'm gone, you just do whatever that bottle tells you to." Ok, I thought, there's no way just a sip of this would get me drunk. So I sipped.

I have no idea how long I was unconscious. I have an extremely hazy memory of being found by two people and carried to my room. When I regained consciousness, it was light outside and I was in my bed in my dorm room. I started vomiting soon after coming to. I felt as though every ounce of fluid in my body would soon be coughed out, but no, I just kept vomiting and vomiting every few minutes. Eventually the dorm matron had me moved to the sofa in her suite for observation. At some point during this process, I realized I had been wearing a bra when I went into the basement, and it was now nowhere on my person. Likewise, my underwear was off and was kind of wadded up in one leg of my sweatpants. "Oh, hell," I remember thinking. I reported this to the matron, and she arranged transportation for me to the school doctor.

The college was a small institution, tucked away on a a plateau quite far from any cities. It had one school doctor, and one school gynecologist. They were an older, fundamentalist Christian married couple from Canada. The female of the pair had recently written an article for the school newspaper decrying what she viewed as the rampant promiscuity and immorality on the campus, and according to my friends, her standard operating procedure was to suspect VD as the cause of every complaint until proven otherwise.

When I came in, I had to be supported by whatever helper the dorm matron sent with me, but thankfully the vomiting had subsided for the time being. I was left alone with the doctor. I don't recall her conducting an actual physical examination. She asked me what happened. I told her, to the best of my recollection. She asked me if I had ever been sexually active before then. I said no, I had been a virgin. She sent me to her husband for the gynecological exam.

The GYN nurse was bitchy to me. She used a tone of voice that suggested I was here specifically to make her day worse. Part of the problem was that I was probably fidgeting. I had felt cold ever since regaining consciousness, and of course I had to be half-naked in the stirrups, and the room felt freezing to me. I remember I kept asking her if I could wear my socks, and she kept refusing. Also, it was my very first gynecological exam, and I just wasn't familiar with the procedure-- I remember I kept trying to put my knees together for warmth. The nurse said she was giving me a morning-after drug through IV injection. The fluid went in through a vein in my hand and managed to make me feel even colder. Still, I remember her being a dab hand with the needle, so, so far so good.

The doctor then came in to do whatever his part of the exam was. Then after what seemed like an age of lying there in the cold, they let me get dressed, and the doctor sat me down in his office. He told me that there had, indeed, been sexual penetration and unprotected ejaculation. He said the lab tests would be back in two weeks to see if I had contracted any sexually transmitted diseases as a result. He told me about the morning-after injection and what I could expect as a result of that. Then he asked if I were sure about having been a virgin, because he saw no tearing of the vaginal walls during the exam. I repeated that I had never had sex previously and just shrugged at the other, having no explanation for it, nor even particularly understanding it. He replied, "Well, all right, but..." then he shrugged and went on. My brain was still addled from the drug-- I would neither be off my matron's couch nor be done vomiting for a full week afterward. Only later did I reflect that he had been accusing me, essentially, of lying-- about my level of sexual activity, or about the sex being nonconsentual.

At no point was it recognized that I was not in full possession of my faculties. At no point did either doctor do any kind of drug screen on me to detect anything untoward in my bloodstream. At no point was it offered for someone else to be in the room with me so that they could explain what had gone on to me, at such a time as I was fully mentally aware.

For the longest time I felt twice-victimized-- first by the rapist, and then by the snarky medical staff of my own college. Their moral judgment left a lasting impression on me, and I resented it for years afterward. But now that I look back on it, I see that to their credit, snark was all they did. At no point did they refuse me treatment because of their beliefs.

Now imagine what doctors with similar belief might do with HHS-OS-2008-0011-1672 on the books. What if a girl in my college circumstances is denied a morning-after pill because of her doctor's beliefs? I'm pretty sure the next-nearest hospital to me at the time was a good 30 miles away.

It makes me sick just to think about it.

A Plug For Astronomy Cast: I <3 Cosmic Microwave Background!!!

I'm having a Worried Day. Mainly because I'm down to half a tank of gas and my city keeps running out. But! My worrying about gas availability is not going to fix the offshore drilling rigs, so I will find more productive things to think about today.

Right now, I'm thinking about the COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND!!!

Pardon me while I do the Cosmic Microwave Background happy-dance.

I like to listen to Astronomy Cast. It is my favorite podcast. In it, they tell you not only what we know about the cosmos, but how we know it. We know the Big Bang happened, and one of the chief pieces of evidence we have for it is-- that's right, the discovery of the COSMIC MICROWAVE BACKGROUND!!!

For more information about this awesome scientific discovery, please go to http://www.astronomycast.com/ and download from the archives Episodes 5 and 6, "The Big Bang and Cosmic Microwave Background" and "More Evidence For the Big Bang." You'll be glad you did!

Perky Skeptic In Fossil Heaven!

I've been blogging on heavy topics of late, so this post is about how FOSSILS ARE COOL!!! :)

I love fossils! They are awesome!!! My very first ancient find was-- well, not a fossil at all, but at age six, I found a genuine arrowhead-- in my driveway!! How great is that??? To my young self, it was like finding a ruby just lying on the ground! I was utterly hooked from then on, looking at every rock with suspicion of secret greatness.

My driveway gravel held no more arrowheads, but it turns out driveways can be great for finding all sorts of interesting rocks-- some shiny, some clay-ey, some dull, and some with glittering quartz inside. I read up on rocks and minerals. Then one day, wonder of wonders-- I found among that gravel what could only be a fossil. It was a perfect little brachiopod shell. I might as well have found a Spanish doubloon. I'm sure I bored everyone in the vicinity talking about my find. No one who crossed the threshold of our house was safe from the depredations of my fossil show-and-tell!!!

Alas, it was the last fossil I was to find for many, many years. In south Mississippi and central Alabama, fossil finds were not exactly thick on the ground. My yen for fossil-finding was gradually sublimated into other pursuits. Interesting rocks became their own reward. (But hey, once, I did find a kitty figurine!)

When I moved to Nashville, a city built on ORDOVICIAN LIMESTONE, ZOMG!!!, all that changed-- I found fossils EVERYWHERE!!! I found Platystrophia in my driveway! Herbertella in the dry creek bed down at the park! Crinoid* stems galore in the gravel of the community courtyard! Teeny tiny little Zygospira near my son's school! And my boy's love of after-school hikes led us into amazing adventures in semi-dry stream beds where bryozoans were thick on the ground! I collected some, and of course left many behind for others to find.

Nothing makes me feel more contented than rummaging through a pile of rocks or a mound of dirt in search of these remnants of ancient lifeforms. It's relaxing and exciting all at once. I feel a spark of connection with the past, as I hold in my hand the remains of ancient creatures who once lived on the very spot I stand. I love the thrill of spotting patterns in what looks to be an ordinary rock at first glance but to a watchful eye shows a clear shell impression or fenestrate bryozoan fronds. I love the thrill of cleaning them to reveal more of their anatomical secrets. I've even tried to share my love of the fossilized by making a display of my finds for my son's class to look at-- hopefully they will ALL get bitten by the OMG FOSSILZ R KEWL bug!!! Because, omg, fossils are, in fact, kewl. This is empirically testable. Somehow.

The one thing I have to admit with a hung head is that I am a compulsive crinoid stem collector. I have a very, very hard time leaving crinoid stems where I find them. So if Tennessee RUNS OUT OF THEM, you'll know to look in my house. Some people keep skeletons in their closets-- I will be keeping fossilized skeletal remains of the long-ago lifeforms which covered this part of the world.
__

*P.S. -- I could not help but notice that the Wikipedia article on crinoids, in its "Crinoids in pop culture" section, UTTERLY FAILED to mention the Doctor Who episode "Seeds of Doom", which featured a big ol' beastie called a Crinoid (whose spelling was later changed to Krynoid when someone pointed out the existence of actual creatures called crinoids). This is a shame, because I credit Doctor Who directly with my obsession with these fossils, since part of my geekbrain never fails to be going "Hurr hurr crinoids!" every time I find one.

The harm in astrology, Part 2

I'm going to go ahead and spit this one out, not because it's easy for me to talk about, but because I just need to get it out there, both to get it off my chest and out of the way, and in the hope that it might help some hypothetical person who might be considering consulting an astrologer for their problems. We will return to our regularly scheduled perkitude soon!

My father, because of his many problems, was never an emotionally well man. But because he was convinced he had achieved initiation into higher realms of knowledge, he was arrogant in thinking he had all his problems under control. In fact, he decried all other counselors (besides himself!) as ignorant quacks with no understanding of whatever subtleties he saw in his own situations.

His own counsel was... the counsel of the Stars!!! Yes, astrology. Sigh.

Most of my father’s friends were women who were emotionally vulnerable, either because of a great transition like recent or imminent divorce, or because they just had a screwed-up life full of hardship.

My father was an emotional predator. He would do their astrological charts (for about 25 dollars) and give them counseling based on his chart interpretation. These women thought him immensely wise and sensitive. He always knew exactly the right thing to say to make them depend on him. This usually led to sleeping with them.

When my mom divorced him, he began corresponding with a woman in another state whose chart he had done. She had a demanding, emotionally distant mother who relied on her for everything, and she had just gotten out of a marriage to a much younger man from another country-- he befriended her, persuaded her to marry him so he could more easily get a green card, then after a few years he drained her bank account and divorced her. You can easily imagine her fragile state of mind and heart.

My father told her it sounded like she just needed to be held.

This, of course, achieved the result of making her fall head-over-heels in love with him. She asked him to marry her before they had even met face to face.

He’s very charming early on, apparently, but it wasn’t long until he started emotionally abusing her in just the same way he had done with my mother-- blaming her for everything, making impossible demands, constantly needling her self-esteem. Classic abusive behavior.

Six years later he moved out, but she insisted on staying married to him so he can keep using her health insurance.

So. He. Can. Keep. Using. Her. Health. Insurance.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

If only this were an isolated incident! Alas, it is a pattern I've witnessed throughout my life. He advertises his services as an astrologer in a periodical with seemingly receptive readership. A woman, scared and emotionally vulnerable, requests a natal chart plus interpretation, which he supplies for a relatively small fee. She writes back, impressed with the accuracy of the chart interpretation, and asks his advice on a knotty personal problem. A correspondence begins. They meet face to face and begin a physical affair. Repeat until one of them grows tired of the arrangement. It is emotional abuse, pure and simple, to con people, not out of their money, but out of their love.

I remain convinced my father is 100 percent a believer in what he does-- because if he were of a mind to grift, he could have retired a millionaire.

My observed profile of a typical person seeking astrological guidance:

Female
Divorced or with marriage on the rocks
Low self-esteem
From a background of abuse
Desperate for answers, desperate for approval

I hate astrology. I have seen it ruin lives.

Living With Irrational Thinking = Living In Fear

So, I saw a couple of recent ScienceBlogs posts that got me thinking. The first was Orac's post on the germ-theory-denialism of Robert O. Young here, and the second was on Gene Expression about a study showing conservatives have more fear, here. It got me thinking about the alt-health mindset, and why to me it seems similar to the neocon mindset, and the fundamentalist-religious mindset, and why it all might in fact be lumped together as a general denialist mindset.

To me, the biggest, brightest, warm-fuzziest perk of atheism and a science-based world view is freedom from fear. Oh, sure, I still worry some, but not NEARLY like I used to. Back when I was a mystic, devoutly religious Wiccan priestess, alt-med, tarot-card-reading person, I lived with a constant background radiation of fear. When I accepted that the universe is a place where random stuff happens to everyone, I breathed a lot freer, a lot easier, than I did when I thought OMG MY REALITY IS BEING CREATED BY MY EVERY THOUGHT AND ANY TINY NEGATIVE THOUGHT COULD BRING DISASTER DOWN UPON ME!!!! I'm certain many conservative religious folks feel this way-- that their random thoughts of sin might bring down God's wrath. I know for a fact that people who buy into alternative medicine and diet woo worry that any stray thought of disease or negativity might bring them sickness.

There was a time, I hate to admit it, when I wanted to be a naturopathic doctor. I worked for years in a health food store which sold bulk herbs, herbal and vitamin supplements, homeopathic tinctures, ayurvedic remedies, and Deepak Chopra books. Based on my experience of the alternative health community, I would say that a lot of the behaviors I observed within it stem from the inability to accept the randomness of disease. Just like a religious fundamentalist who cannot accept random badness happening to good people and thinks those hurricane/tsunami/famine/AIDS/Holocaust victims must've done something to bring it down on themselves, the alternative health creed is, "Must be the sick person's fault." This leads them to blame the victims of illness, and of course themselves should they get sick. In the case of a progressive disease like cancer, it leads them to deeper and deeper denial of its progression. In the case of a self-limiting illness like a cold, they just attribute the "cure" to that which reinforces their cherished belief-- the alternative remedy, rather than the self-limiting nature of the disease itself! Nutrition woo is much the same-- do this or that diet! Take this or that vitamin! If you miss something important you'll get sick!!! Again, they lay the blame at the feet of the sufferer for his non-compliance with their dogma.

Subscription to this mindset can be falsely empowering. I say "falsely" because all it does is give the illusion of power and control over one's circumstances. But illusion is all it is-- it does nothing to help one come to grips with the simple fact of life that one can do everything "right" and still have misfortune strike. The greatest harm of this mindset is that it does not lend itself to asking for help at all-- much less from the right sources: medical doctors. That would be a repudiation of the subscriber's entire world-view, an admission of their own negativity... and an admission that their faith isn't strong enough. It's all a misguided attempt to control the uncontrollable variables in life and death. It's all, ultimately, about fear.

Sometimes fears can be overcome through education. For instance, I used to be afraid of new technology, because I was slow to understand gadgetry of all sorts. But once I finally threw myself into a computer class, it was AWESOME!!! A whole new world opened up beneath my fingertips!!! Before long, I couldn't imagine life without a computer. But here's the key-- I was not very invested in my techno-phobia. In fact, it was a pain and a nuisance. Thus, I could really see the clear and immediate benefit of divesting myself of that troublesome belief-system (that technology wuz bad and scaryyyyyy!!!one1!). Yay, edumacation winz!!!

But... say a person is so personally invested in a fear that they have based a chunk of their identity on it. Probably that person lives squarely in Denialville and will fight tooth-and-nail for the belief that keeps them in its thrall, even if it harms them in the long run. For example-- heavy sigh-- autism quackery. The parents who subscribe to thoroughly-debunked claims that vaccines cause autism, or mercury causes autism, or aluminum, or is it formaldehyde this week? These people are SO afraid-- and with the greatest of causes, the health of their beloved children!-- that all too often anything they learn is bent to rationalize their fears. It is difficult to evaluate evidence critically when they have already invested SO MUCH time, brainpower, social support (of other like-minded parents, a valuable social outlet and emotional support-system for the parents of disabled or different children), and yes, FEAR of the chemical agent in their pet hypothesis, be it thimerosal, aluminum, formaldehyde, or whatever else the ever-shifting goalpost has moved to. But it leads them to accept treatments for their precious children which stand absolutely no chance of helping them, and worse, will in many cases hurt them... even kill them. If they would read the science and REALLLY UNDERSTAND what it says, not just keep chewing over the regurgitations of Wakefield and the Geiers or "celebrities" like Jenny McCarthy, they would know the best way to help their children is NOT through chelation or lupron, nor through denying them vaccines. It's genetic! Really!!! It doesn't mean the child isn't AWESOME! My son is the best thing that ever happened to me, and his quirky neurological functions are an integral, inseparable part of his charm! His brain is who he is!!!

But as Prometheus said in this wonderful post which gave me the strength to finish writing this one, for some people, admitting this might mean they have to work harder to understand the child that nature has given them-- and to let go of their imaginings of what parenthood and family was "supposed" to be like. Some people never leave the denial stage of this process. It's easier for them to lay blame than to accept the randomness of life. But seeking comfort this way actively harms others-- measles is once again on the rise because of anti-vaccine hysteria, and valuable research dollars are being demanded to study spurious treatments that the overwhelming scientific evidence has already deemed useless in treating autism!

I used to think the term "Enlightenment" was a facile label for a time-period that denigrated the accomplishments of all other centuries before it. But recently, I've grown to love the word. Like Carl Sagan said, science truly is a candle in the darkness of this demon-haunted world. It's the best lens we have through which to view and evaluate evidence. Critical thinking really is a light for dispelling the darkness of ignorance and fear.

I just wish it were contagious. *COUGH COUGH*

AHRRRR!!!!

Ahrrrr, mateys, I forgot International Talk Like A Pirate Day is today!!! And pirates, they be an endangered species whose disappearance corresponds with increasing global temperatures, don't ya know! So, fight global warming! Be a pirate!!!

(Pssst! When's International Sneak Like A Ninja Day?)

A Personal View Of The Harm In Astrology, Part 1

Hi there! This is going to be a two-parter. It started off with my pondering why my father is not a skeptic. He, like James Randi, is a magician. He applies critical thinking to many aspects of his life. But-- and this is a big BUT-- he has invested so much time, energy, and identity into his belief in astrology that I doubt he will ever be able to see it for what it is-- life-destroyingly harmful.

But first, I'm going to have to take this train of thought through a digression. First of all, I am bipolar, diagnosed late in life, but for the past few years very well-controlled by medication (YAY, MEDICATION! :) :) :) YAY, SCIENCE!!!). I suspect that my father, and indeed much of his side of the family, shares this condition. He is the last surviving member of his branch of that tree, but everything I know of the family and the way they interacted with one another points to it.

An acquaintance from the Bad Science forum asked me if I thought bipolar disorder can lead to magical thinking. I thought about this, and I said I think there's definitely something to that-- especially when the condition goes undiagnosed for a long, long time. My highs were in and of themselves mystical experiences! I felt ecstatic, like a Sufi dervish, feeling an almost-sexual union with the Divine! All things felt holy, all things were a part of me... (I still feel that way, only now I'm ecstatic that all things are made of star-stuff, and if that ain't holy enough for ya, well, I don't know what is!!!) And, well, anyone who has ever been depressed knows there is no worse hell.

If you were to graph the moods of a bipolar person, you'd get something that looks like a sine wave, with deep lows following the extreme highs. This is where the "roller-coaster moods" analogy comes from-- it is very much like being on a wild ride from which there is no getting off. I can well attest that before one is diagnosed with a mood disorder, the natural thing to think is, "What is wrong with me that I can't control myself better?" or some variation on the blame-myself theme. It is no great leap from there to conclude, "Something besides my conscious mind is controlling my life," which can lead to further speculations of "WHAT is that thing out there controlling my life?" Is it God? The devil? The ghosts of one's ancestors? Therein one's thinking can easily fall into grooves determined by cultural expectations with which one was raised. Also, this sine-wave mood pattern leads some, I've noticed, to that near-aphoristic thought of, "I feel too happy, something bad must be about to happen." Again, magical thinking!

It's what we do as humans-- we attempt to find explanations for the unexplainable. Unfortunately our explanations are often the most convenient rather than the most rational. I'm really glad the latest neurological research is getting such widespread press-- such press increases its accessibility to everyone and thus makes its convenience as an explanation grow.

I think it’s obvious from what I’m writing that I believe “holiness” is a perception derived from a particular confluence of thought and mood. I think once one has encountered that mental state it becomes easier and easier to get there, rather like an athlete getting “in the zone.” Practice makes perfect-- or, practice sure reinforces specific neural pathways that make the practiced task easier. This is why people who meditate a lot find it easier over time to hit those flashes of revelatory insight. Why people who pray a lot find it easier to feel the presence of God in their lives. Why people who claim to feel ghostly presences find their alleged abilities to see and feel said entities improves the more they practice. It’s all about conditioning the brain to perform a certain task.

Unfortunately, with a bipolar person, those mood swings are “practice,” too. You really learn how to sabotage your successes, if you’re not careful. My dad is an expert at sabotaging his successes.

When someone talks of “positive thinking” or “reinforcing negative thought patterns,” one can quickly turn up lots of altie woo-woo with that kind of language. But there’s also a lot of science to suggest that a bipolar person, undiagnosed for a long time, suffers from damage to certain areas of the brain because of lack of adequate serotonin. This makes it easy to think negatively instead of positively.

My father has been heavily into astrology since he was in his early twenties. Early in life, he discovered in his own horoscope THREE of the "Five Fated Patterns." Now, astrology is filled with the language of fudging, so that anyone can interpret it according to their own experience-- but this is the ONE area wherein astrologers can commit! They say that anyone whose natal chart contains one of the "Fated Patterns" of planetary positioning is allegedly destined for an incredibly challenging life. So my father grew up convinced that no good would come of his life and that he was destined to end tragically, even violently. He had lots of practice reinforcing this belief. In fact, I would lay odds that this contributed SIGNIFICANTLY to his never seeking psychiatric or medical help for his myriad problems.

He came from a psychologically, verbally, and physically abusive family. Seek counseling? Nope-- Fated Patterns.

He had unchecked Type II diabetes for at least ten years before diagnosis. His blood sugar fluctuations led to insane mood swings above and beyond his USUAL extreme mood swings, which he took out on his family through verbal, psychological and physical abuse. Seek a doctor’s advice? Nope-- Fated Patterns.

He was a sex addict, meaning he sought sexual adventures to the detriment of all other aspects of his life, including getting fired from many jobs because of ill-considered liaisons (screwing his undergrads and the daughter-of-the-Dean ill-considered), one of which happened right as my younger brother got diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease and we really needed health insurance! Seek any kind of help to get himself under control??? Nope-- Fated. Fucking. Patterns.

No harm in astrology? Bullshit.


Next up-- a look at how astrology helps predators find victims, cult-style.

Self-visualization: harder than it seems?

Does anyone remember trying to visualize yourself as a grownup, back when you were a little kid? Did you have an easy time of it? Personally, I found it an impossible task well into my teens.

Growing up mystical, like I did, I got taught a lot of visualization exercises alleged to be for good health, happiness, freedom from psychic attacks, money, good test scores, none whatsoever for finding cute boys to date, etc. Anyway, all of the above required me to visualize myself, and some of them even required me to visualize myself as a successful grownup. Well! I, er, thought of... a woman. Yeah, a woman. Right. Innnnnn... a business suit! That's successful, right? Yep, a grey skirt-suit... wiiiiiiiiith a briefcase! YEAH, briefcases just SCREAM success! Cool. Annnnnd, oops, the visualization is complete, only I realized way later that my Adult Self Archetype had brown hair. And a tan. Go figure! Apparently to my kidbrain, tanned brunettes equal successful career!!!! That's fine, except I'm un-tannable and, like, a blond, ohmigawd. Hmf.

I mention this because I believe my five-year-old (caucasian) son visualizes his Adult Self as a black man. How do I know this? Because every day we walk past this community mural which depicts, among other things, a portrait of a well-dressed older gentleman with a navy blue suit, brown skin, valiant shoulder-length mane of salt-and-pepper hair, a well-trimmed beard and a mustache. Every day, my son points to it and says, "That's me when I was a grownup!"

Ok, not altogether surprising, for a few reasons. The man in the mural cuts an impressive figure. I could see him representing an Archetypal Adult Male in the mind of any child. Also, nearly all of the kids in my son's school are black or multiracial, and many are actually from Africa (we've got a large Somali community in Nashville). Still, I find it extremely amusing that, just as I had no concept of what I would look like when I grew up, apparently neither does my son.

I wonder if it's genetic? Is there a Complete Inability To Project One's Older Self gene? Is it dominant or recessive, or is it a multi-allelic trait? Wouldn't it be funny if it were X-linked? If I were to have multiple children and half my sons had it and none of the daughters... (Perky Skeptic wanders away muttering about genomic analysis until encountering a shinier object. "Oh look! A new way to calculate pi!")

James Herriot books, and why I love them

The Wonderful Husband and I were discussing the James Herriot books last night-- All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Things Wise and Wonderful and The Lord God Made Them All. I was going on about why I love them so much, and he said (and NOT just to shut me up, thank you! He is, after all, Wonderful!) I should write up my thoughts for the blog.

I love them for many reasons of course, not the least of which being I love vet stories and observations of animal behavior. But what makes these books true standouts among all the vet memoirs on the market? (And my aunt had a library FULL of vet memoirs, so I have sampled said market quite thoroughly.) For me, it's because they happen right on the cusp of science-based medicine happening to the veterinary profession. The author describes in vivid detail the old-fashioned treatments, while simultaneously bemoaning their futility, though they weren't to know it for another few years yet. He gushes, as only one who has straddled both worlds of treatment truly can, what a boon it was when sulfa drugs and penicillin first became available. We as readers are along for the ride as large animal practice more and more gives way to small animal practice, as people begin to see their cats and dogs as valued pets beyond their economic value as ratcatchers and herders. It's enthralling to read these stories, all of which are fictionalized but based on actual experiences by Alf Wight and his partners Donald and Brian Sinclair in the Yorkshire town of Thirsk-- known in the books as James Herriot, Sigfried Farnon, and Tristan Farnon in the town of Darrowby. Many people have, of course, been exposed to these works via the BBC television adaptation (which I also really enjoy the first few seasons of).

It was a fascinating time in history, as well. Most of the tales take place right before WWII broke out, and right before mechanization really hit those small farms up in the Yorkshire dales. He speaks of it with wistfulness-- on the one hand reflecting upon how much easier modern tractors and milking machines make the hard, harsh life of the farmers, and on the other hand mourning the passing of that way of life. But his excitement over the advances in veterinary medicine and surgical techniques is never ambivalent-- he wants to HELP the animals under his care, by golly, and he quite rightly sees the march of science as the key to doing it! It's truly moving writing, told with simplicity and honesty. I read these books time and time again, my enjoyment each time as fresh as a Yorkshire sunrise.

Some fever-inspired haiku

Pep-talk For Macrophages Against the Common Cold

Sweet proteinoid coat,
Chewy RNA center,
Come on! Eat up! YUM!


(Of course, being a huge geek girl, I had to look up whether the cold virus was in fact a DNA or an RNA virus. The following haiku resulted from my further reading on the subject.)

Rhinovirus, with
Symmetrical protein spikes,
WHY must you be CUTE???

and

Why so fast-acting?
Positive-sense RNA.
Go, Speed Virus, Go!

Also, I rarely get sick with anything other than allergies, so apparently I am a huge wussbag when down with an actual disease. I am feeling better, though, and will be back to full-strength perkitude soon! I will leave my parting shot to the Rhinovirus as follows:

Mitochondria
Evolved from protist pest-bug.
Come on, cold, evolve!


And this one's for my fellow gamer-geeks, 'cause Rhinovirus is shaped like a d20:

GM tells Cold, "Roll."
Icosahedral bastard--
Natural twenty!

I love James Randi!

From PodBlack Cat, I just found a lovely link to the NYC Skeptics meeting on October 10, 2008, wherein the Amazing James Randi will be lecturing!!!

I saw and met James Randi for the first time at DragonCon 2008 in Atlanta, Georgia. It was a stupendous experience for me, and in a way, the culmination of my own long journey toward skepticism.

My first boyfriend in college was the first person to greet anything I said with skepticism. This is shocking, since I went to high school with geniuses. But they were all geniuses who were interested in psychic phenomena, at least at the time. We would get together and try to read each others' minds, mentally transmit song-fragments to one another, and the like.

When I was 18, I was trying to get my boyfriend to cough up his birth data so that my dad could run his horoscope and do a chart comparison for us. The boyfriend adamantly refused! I could not conceive of any rational reason for his reluctance. We got into a discussion of psychics and the like. "Have you ever heard of The Amazing Randi?" he asked me. I had never heard the name before. He went on to describe how Randi exposed and debunked fraudulent psychics and telekenetics on national television. How he genuinely looked for anything that could be paranormal, but tested all claims with a scientist's rigorous controls and a magician's eye for trickery. How Randi had never met a psychic who could stand up to random chance during testing, and in fact had promised ten thousand dollars (now a million) to anyone who could! "Pff," I thought, "He just hasn't tested any real psychics, just charlatans. No true psychic would take money for using their gifts!" Ouch. GAWD I was naive! Little did I know I was employing the No True Scotsman fallacy in my own thinking.

I mentioned human life expectancy and how one man in China had lived to be over 200 years old, but did he believe me? No, he cited evidence from medical literature that no human had ever been recorded to have lived very far past the century mark. Then he challenged me to produce evidence to back up my claim (which I had seen in one of my dad's magazines). EVIDENCE??? How dare he ask me to support my claims??? It put quite the strain on our relationship. But it led me to reflect that maybe not everything my dad said was true, in, like, the true sense of the word. Maybe FATE magazine wasn’t the best source of news after all. At the time it just pissed me off, but it planted the seed of doubt in my fertile mind. I insisted on evidence in accordance with the laws of logic and rationality in all other aspects of life-- why was this different?

Because I had been raised with the ideas. I’ve heard time and time again that the woo we’re raised believing is the hardest to shake.

Parents may or may not realize how lasting an impression they make on their children. I feel it’s a pity more parents don’t use the opportunity to teach their children to think, to impart rationalism and to prepare them to face the world with unclouded minds.

Fortunately, there are others out there-- like James Randi, our Lamp of Diogenes, shining the beacon of reason through the fog of irrationality.

Thank you, James Randi. Thank you for the blossoming skeptical community where like minds may flourish and find one another with the hope of leading others out of this fog.

How The Miracle Of Childbirth Turned Me Atheist

I was raised Qabbalist in the full-on 19th century English spiritualist tradition-- Golden Dawn, Dion Fortune, Israel Regardie, Aleister Crowley and the rest. My dad believes the Illuminati are real and that alien overlords from the outer planes rule the workings of the world, and I grew up believing it, too. He is a professional astrologer, and our entire family lived by astrology. We were brought up surrounded by eclectic pagan traditions, and after studying the Qabbalah for many years I decided my practice really had always tended more toward Wicca, and eventually became an ordained priestess (ordained by the intarweb, thank you! Yes, that's right, the Church of Universal Life, exactly where my dad got his mail-order ordination decades before!). We lived in a lot of beautiful rural areas, and I grew deeply attached to the earth and the natural world around me.

This love of nature translated into studying it. Lots and lots of studying. Because, I reasoned, if you believe in magic, what better study than the natural processes of the world, in all their glory, their astonishing complexity? If you believe in God, then what better window into the mind of God than to study biology, chemistry, physics, all that you can cram into your brain over a lifetime of constant learning? What better way to honor the cosmos than to approach your observation and study of the wonder that is the natural world in accordance with the scientific method? Pure poetry, every bit of it, from 1 + 1 = 2 all the way up through the expanding universe! Added bonus-- keeping up with new breakthroughs in fields of scientific study provides an ENDLESS wellspring of wonder! To me, that was pure magic, and still is.*

Thanks to a great ninth grade Western Civ teacher, I became a confirmed cynic and critical thinker at 14-- I just didn't have the nerve to admit I found many of my dad's practices to be questionable. Not even to myself. I was deeply troubled by my lack of belief, and I threw myself into the fervent study of all manner of religion and mysticism for the next 20 years.

But when my own child was born, I rebelled.

It started when my dad sent me my son's astrological chart and interpretation. I held it in my hands and remembered how all through my life I had been labelled by my parents. Their beliefs about me were so firmly shaped by something I was not! "That's a very Cancerian reaction.... You did that because Mercury's in retrograde.... You feel X about Issue Y because your Moon's in Taurus and Venus is in your tenth house...." It was maddening. It had limited me-- not just in the eyes of my parents, but in my own eyes as well. It took me a quarter of a century just to be able to regard myself as a capable, logical thinker (because Cancers are all emotional, dontcha know!). I could not do that to my child. I wanted him to be seen for who he is and what he does, not for the configuration of the stars at his birth! What the hell is that but an exercise in creative rationalization? I resolved that I would not label my child according to some stupid externality over which he had no control.

I threw the natal chart away unread and felt immediate relief.

Like the burp of Mack in Dr. Seuss's classic Yertle the Turtle, one tiny rebellion was all it took to send a nice shockwave of "OH MY GOSH, I DON'T HAVE TO BELIEVE IN ANY OF THIS!" cascading through the rest of my irrationally-held dogmas. And BOY did it feel good!!! I had thought I wanted to raise my son with a strong religious background to help him resist the pull of fundamentalist churches, with their highly social profiles. Growing up, I had felt our family didn't do enough group-oriented, social ritualizing and I wanted my boy to have those social ties in a religious context which I felt I had missed out on. But every time I might have tried to pass mythological (religious) asssertions about the nature of reality off as fact, the words turned to ash in my mouth. Atheism became my cool drink of water. I realized a far more valuable gift to him would be a set of critical-thinking skills with which to evaluate any claim put before him.

Being a parent is an awesome responsibility. When my child first looked up at me with trusting eyes, the realization crashed into me, "I am responsible for teaching this new little person the truth about the world around him." I knew then and there that I could not be tempted by pretty half-lies. He came into the world needing help understanding objective reality, and I was going to HELP, not hinder him in that understanding! I don't want my boy growing up accepting pseudoscience as fact, like I did. I don't want him to suffer for decades under the belief that his own private thoughts can hurt him or other people, like I did. I don't want him thinking his world will be worse if he doesn't do Ritual X, but if he does it wrong, something even worse will happen, like I did!!! Like any parent, I want better for my child.

Hi there! I'm the Perky Skeptic!

Nice to meet you! I have been a longtime lurker in the skeptic, atheist, and scientific blogosphere for a few years now. Reading lots of great posts has sent ideas percolating through my brain, and I've been slowly writing them down. But it was my face-to-face collision with the thriving skeptical community at DragonCon 2008 that inspired me (finally!) to take up blogging. Also, I have found myself leaving loser-length comments on the blogs of others, and this blog is a public service to those poor folks, getting me off the streets and into the sweatshop where I belong. Yay, all my posts here are automatically on topic!!!

I am a mother, an artist, very possibly a female Asperger-type-person, and a generally chipper sort. I tend to use a lot of exclamation points and CAPS when EXCITED!!! In extreme cases there may be SMILEYS!!! I am open to the possibility that this may be annoying to some. I make no promises to change. Caveat reador.

Smartassery is a way of life for me. I don't think I will be able to maintain a diplomatic tone, nor would that be particularly entertaining. Proponents of mysticism are bound to find labels like "woo-woo" offensive. All I can say is that I intend no malice in it, EXCEPT to those individuals who knowingly exploit others for personal gain. To those people I bid a cheery "Fuck off!" and let the rest of us get on with trying to live our lives in the best way we can.

I've steeped myself in mysticism for too long-- hand me a towel, my skin's all pruney!