Deja Vu

One of my blog pals, Dr. Deb Serani, wrote a post one time about the phenomenon of deja vu.* That's something I'm interested in because it is a side effect of ECT (electro-convulsive therapy), which I had a year and a half ago for severe depression. Today, I found an article saying that they've discovered where, exactly, in the brain, this phenomenon occurs.

Origin of Deja Vu Pinpointed
-Dave Mosher, LiveScience Staff Writer

The brain cranks out memories near its center, in a looped wishbone of tissue called the hippocampus. But a new study suggests only a small chunk of it, called the dentate gyrus, is responsible for “episodic” memories—information that allows us to tell similar places and situations apart.

The finding helps explain where déjà vu originates in the brain, and why it happens more frequently with increasing age and with brain-disease patients, said MIT neuroscientist Susumu Tonegawa. The study is detailed today in the online version of the journal Science.

(Click on the article's title to read the rest of it.)

If that's not fascinating enough, then you might enjoy reading this:

Top 10 mysteries of the mind

10. Sweet Dreams (what are dreams?)

9. Slumber Sleuth (why do we need sleep?)

8. Phantom Feelings (experienced by amputees)

7. Mission Control (biological clock)

6. Memory Lane (how do we remember?)

5. Brain Teaser (what is laughter?)

4. Nature vs. Nurture (which has the most influence?)

3. Mortal Mystery (why do we age?)

2. Deep Freeze (cryonics - would it work?)

1. Consciousness (what is it?)

The mystery of consciousness, it seems, is finally coming to the attention of (some) physicists. In the blurb about consciousness on the preceding list, there's a link on this phrase, "... scientists have managed to develop a great list of questions... ." The link takes you to this fascinating article:

Why great minds can't grasp consciousness
By Ker Than, LiveScience Staff Writer
(08 August 2005)

At a physics meeting last October, Nobel laureate David Gross outlined 25 questions in science that he thought physics might help answer. Nestled among queries about black holes and the nature of dark matter and dark energy were questions that wandered beyond the traditional bounds of physics to venture into areas typically associated with the life sciences.

One of the Gross's questions involved human consciousness.

He wondered whether scientists would ever be able to measure the onset consciousness in infants and speculated that consciousness might be similar to what physicists call a "phase transition," an abrupt and sudden large-scale transformation resulting from several microscopic changes. The emergence of superconductivity in certain metals when cooled below a critical temperature is an example of a phase transition.

Gross isn't the only physicist with ideas about consciousness.

Beyond the mystics

Roger Penrose, a mathematical physicist at Oxford University, believes that if a "theory of everything" is ever developed in physics to explain all the known phenomena in the universe, it should at least partially account for consciousness.

Penrose also believes that quantum mechanics, the rules governing the physical world at the subatomic level, might play an important role in consciousness.

***
Ah! Now this is very interesting: ... quantum mechanics ... might play an important role in consciousness." This seems to be what "the Ancients," those long-ago mystics of the great Eastern philosophies, were talking about all along.

What if science finds that consciousness doesn't play just "an important role," but plays THE role? What if ... consciousness is the substance of the universe? What if ... it's really true what John Lennon famously wrote, paraphrasing Eastern philosophers, "I am he and you are me and we are all together." What if ... everything and everyone in the universe is connected, intertwined, like unto a ... network?

Oh wait, this seems familiar. I think I've blogged about this before. Haven't I?


*Deb, I couldn't find the post you did on that, even though I used the search feature on your blog. If you have the link, please let me know so I can update this.

Doorbell Ready?

You know the expression, "company-ready." That means you've busted your butt to get the house looking good enough for company to see it. I don't have that problem because I have a lady who cleans the house for me. I know, I'm spoiled, you hate me, get over it.

No, the problem I have is getting myself doorbell ready. I like to putz around in the mornings in my jammies. If the doorbell rings, I can answer it without embarrassment - usually - because my jammies are PG rated. I mean, it's not like that's what I sleep in. Ahem. And besides, I've already run my hands through my hair so it looks more like fashionable faux bedhead than real bedhead, and I've had coffee and can thus focus my eyeballs. It's on days like this, and on days where I've actually dressed early and have my makeup on that the doorbell almost never rings.

But for those rare (ahem) mornings that I want to sleep in because I've been up late the night before working at my computer (ahem), that's when, invariably, someone decides to ring my doorbell. No wait - if all my PG rated jammies are in the dirty clothes hamper AND I'm sleeping late - that's when it rings. It's much easier to grab clean jammies from the dresser drawer and put them on, albeit hopping around on one foot and then the other to get them on, then pulling the top over my head (usually inside-out) on the way down the stairs, than to go to the closet and try to put an outfit together in ten seconds flat.

Know what I mean?

So now I'm thinking what I really need to do is prepare (now THERE's a concept) for such contingencies. Remember that episode of the Dick Van Dyke show when Laura was preggers, and Rob wanted to be certain, absolutely certain, that he would be ready to get her to the hospital in case her labor began in the middle of the night? He practiced getting out of bed and getting his hat and coat on in seconds flat. He was already wearing his suit and tie. The problem was the hat and coat.

Especially the hat. In those olden TV-land days, married couples "slept" in twin beds with a nightstand sentinel between them. There was skinny Rob, laying ramrod straight on his back on that skinny little bed, timing himself on how fast he could get his hat on when The Moment arrived. He placed it on the headboard and adjusted and readjusted it until he could reach up behind him, grab his hat, and have it on his head before his feet hit the floor. I know everyone will remember that classic comedic scene.

This is planning at its finest. Of course, when The Moment arrived for Rob and Laura Petrie, nothing went off as planned. But I digress. I'm going to make a plan for doorbell readiness. My plan will not include a hat. Just so you know.

Now, if I could just find out how to keep my doorbell from ringing every time someone rings the neighbor's bell...

The advice I've gotten is that writers should have their own website, whether they're published yet or not. When unpublished, the writer puts the link on the letterhead, then prospective agents and/or publishers could take a look at it, and when a writer is published, then hopefully the zillions of fans will have a place to find them. Ahem.

So...

Lavender Dawn made a website for me, and I love how it looks.
Please stop by to see it, and sign my guestbook while you're there, okay?

Scruffybutt Sez

"Once again, it ends up dogs are smarter than scientists thought."

Duh.

Mad King George

Don't We Have a Constitution, Not a King?

By Marjorie Cohn, AlterNet. Posted June 1, 2007.

Bush has issued a directive that would place all governmental powers in his hands in the case of a catastrophic emergency. If a terrorist attack happens before the 2008 election, could Bush and Cheney use this to avoid relinquishing power to a successor administration?

Read the full article here.
(and try to have a nice weekend, anyway)

For your children's children

Something to look forward to:

Bush sees South Korea model for Iraq
(copyright AP)
WASHINGTON -President Bush envisions a long-term U.S. troop presence in
Iraq similar to the one in South Korea where American forces have helped keep an uneasy peace for more than 50 years, the White House said Wednesday.

***
Another Snow job:

Asked if U.S. forces would be permanently stationed in Iraq, [White House Press Secretary Tony] Snow said, "No, not necessarily." He said that the prospect of permanent U.S. bases in Iraq were "not necessarily the case, either."

Later, Snow said it was impossible to say if U.S. troops would remain in Iraq for some 50 years, as they have in South Korea. "I don't know," he said. "It is an unanswerable question. But I'm not making that suggestion. ... The war on terror is a long war."

Again, we see the White House trying to equate the quagmire it created in Iraq with "the war on terror." Now, they're trying to prep us for U.S. involvement over there until, I guess, kingdom come. (Oh wait. That's literally until kingdom come, because the people in the White House actually believe this whole Middle-Eastern conflict is a prelude to a "Second Coming." It would be laughable if it weren't for the loss of so many innocent lives.)

What they're saying is, we've screwed this up so badly that we're going to have to maintain a presence over there for decades to come, but, we're going to make it look like we're fighting this noble "long war on terror" and hope that everyone will forget that Saddam Hussein had nothing whatever to do with 9/11, and that prior to our invasion of his country, al Queda had no presence in Iraq, or even the slightest connection with the Iraqi government.

And get this, the last paragraph of the article:

Adm. William Fallon, the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, seemed a surprising choice when he got the job earlier this year, yet his experience as U.S. commander in the Pacific overseeing the Korean peninsula would serve him well if the U.S. military adopts a Korea model in Iraq.

This was planned. That's why there will be no timetable. These people have been thinking in terms of decades of involvement.

I just want to know, how the hell are we going to get through the next 18 months?

Have you tried this yet?

Tomcat brought home a pint of the new Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavor, Stephen Colbert's AmeriCone Dream, and OMG, you have got to try it!

From their website:

The flavor, Stephen Colbert’s AmeriCone Dream™ is a decadent melting pot of vanilla ice cream with fudge-covered waffle cone pieces and a caramel swirl. It’s the sweet taste of liberty in your mouth.

Recognizing that we, as a country, are at a time in our nation’s history where we need to reach across the aisle to people of all political ideologies — the left-leaning liberals at the company’s headquarters in Vermont felt it was fine to combine forces with the media man-of-steel. The company adds there are many similarities between Colbert and themselves. “He’s about political activism, so are we. He stands up for what he believes in, so do we. He supports Bill O’Reilly, and we… think he has a right to his opinion,” says ice cream Co-founder, Jerry Greenfield.

Memorial Day 2007

A Hill of Fun

As Ellen Cherry Charles would say, yesterday was "a hill of fun." I went to a children's writers' and illustrators' workshop and was regaled by the witty and talented Cheryl Harness, writer and illustrator of more than 40 children's books.

Grace, the artist, and I were inspired - as everyone else - to stop procrastinating and get to work. We agreed that we could get a lot more done if only we had Cheryl's energy, but alas, we didn't ask her the name of her medication.

Bottom line, we have to work with what energy we have. Grace, the artist, needs to get her website done, and I need to finish editing my YA novel.

This ain't dress rehearsal.

When dog (owners) go bad

We have a pack of vicious dogs roaming our 'hood. It's been on the news, in the papers, and is the subject of numerous neighborhood crime-watch emails. Our City Councilperson has intervened to ensure that the 911 operators give calls about the dogs in our area priority, and an Animal Control Officer has given us her cell phone number. They are blanketing the area with extra officers.

The pack is responsible for at least 20 cat deaths. They chased a neighbor who was riding a bicycle, causing her to run into one of them, fall off her bike, and fracture her pelvis. She was not attacked by the dogs afterward because a neighbor ran out to help.

One day soon, and I hope before a child is injured or killed, these dogs will be caught. And then, they will have to be put down. I know it has to be done, but I wish the dog owners could be euthanized with them.

You know I love dogs. I also believe that there is no such thing as a "bad" dog, only bad dog owners. We would not have the problem of vicious dogs if all of the dog owners in the area were responsible people with more than two working brain cells.

They don't spay and neuter their dogs, and they allow the animals to run loose. What happens when unspayed and unneutered dogs who are roaming the 'hood find each other? They breed. Duh. And they and their offspring form packs because they are pack animals. Duh. What do pack animals do? They hunt. Duh.

That's only part of the problem. In some parts of the 'hood, there are crack houses. The dimwits who run these places think it's cool to have pitbulls "protect" the premises. They will mistreat and tease these animals to make them act mean because it's, you know, more macho. (Newsflash: having a vicious-looking dog does not make your dick bigger, dumbass.)

These owners don't take their animals to the vet for rabies vaccinations, either. Rabies is still at epidemic levels in Texas - not so much from dogs, but skunks. But all it takes is for a stray dog to chase and be bitten by a rabid skunk. Fortunately, there aren't that many skunks in the City (of the four-legged variety, anyway.)

This situation just makes me sick. Headlines scream: Vicious dogs on the loose! as if it's the fault of the dogs. It is not. But it's the dogs who will have to be caught and killed, not the owners. It ain't right. I'm just sayin.

Scruffybutt Sez

Weekends. That's when I get to take Daddy walkies! (Mommy has to wait 'til Monday.)

Cat, Get Out of My Bed

Grace, the artist, sent this to me.

Enjoy!

I don't know about you, but I'm having a hard time dealing with the fact that Melinda was voted off American Idol last night. Week after week, she blew the competition away. Her gorgeous voice, her power, her versatility, her sheer damn talent, and she's voted out? It ain't right.

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I have my smelling salts ready because this week at Maxwell House, I'm taking estimates on rewiring this whole place. It's a hundred-year-old house, and some of the wiring is (yikes!) original. (The last time we had an electrician out here, he took pictures with his cell phone to show his boss.)

-----
I was visiting Hoss's b**g today and he was talking about being a bird freak. I am, too. Birds love to talk to each other, and our remaining lovebird, Lisa, chirps away whenever she hears another bird. Or something that she thinks is a bird. Like the beeps from the microwave, timers, answering machines ... She also loves music, especially Pink Floyd and Stevie Ray Vaughan. Rolling Stones? Not so much.

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When you were little, did you have picture books? I can't remember anything like that from my childhood, although sometimes my father would make up stories for me about twins named Millie and Tillie. Anyway, did you have a favorite character? I got to thinking about this because I'll be going to a costume party later in the year for a children's book writers group I belong to. We're supposed to dress up as a favorite book character. I just can't think of any!

As the worlds turn

We had our last class today, in Pooks' Blueprinting Your Novel course. This is the second class I've taken from her, the first being Writing a Novel a few years ago. I wish the class could have continued for a few more weeks - in fact that was the only "criticism" I made on the evaluation sheet - that the class was too short! (Pooks, however, may not agree - after all, she wasn't just teaching the class I was in, but another Blueprinting class in the evening, plus two other classes.)

Anyway, today was Show and Tell. We each brought things from the times and places our novels are set in. I was impressed that one person brought music (jazz) and scent (lavender mixed with things I'd never heard of and, alas, don't know how to spell, but that smelled wonderful, just the same.) Another brought photographs and a handmade artifact of the people she's writing about, and someone else brought a mock-up of her characters' MySpace pages. It was a lot of fun, and it let us in on a way to get into the world(s) of our characters. Very effective.

Speaking of worlds ... this IMVU 3-D chat thing is amazing (to me, anyway, because I'm so new to it - it might be ho-hum for the rest of you, and if so, I don't care!) You can create a world of your own for your Avatar to explore. Say ... this would be a great way to explore your characters! Pooks? You must mention this to your next class! Oh, and if anyone still has an invitation that I sent them, all you have to do is accept it and I'll get tons of points. Just thought I'd mention that. Ahem. Doesn't mean you have to actually participate or anything. :)

UPDATE:
Here's me (on the left) with Lavender on her very own IMVU pirate ship. (Why didn't I think of getting a pirate ship?) This is virtual reality, so I could have... I could have ... anything ... OMG.

OMG, if anyone ever sends you an invitation to IMVU, do not, I repeat, do not accept (UNLESS I was the one who sent you the invitation, then please DO accept because that way I'll earn credits, and the more credits I have, the more STUFF I can get, so accept!!! because right now I have my eye on a really nice Roman Villa.)

Evil Lavender Dawn sent me an invitation and I ... accepted ... and now I will never get anything done ever again because I'll be playing around with this stuff! She is evil! I was having enough trouble just keeping up with emails and blogging, but now ... oh man, I'm in big trouble. First I had to choose how my avatar looked, then what she'd wear, and then what her house looks like, only I need more credits for that, plus then Lavender (did I mention she's evil?) and I had to try out the 3D chatroom, which is amazing! and then all the things you can do and the sounds you can make and omg, just be forewarned that this is a complete waste of time and you'll love it/hate it just as much I do.

Carry on.

Just the truth

This headline caught my eye:

Twilight of the neocons

Click on it for an excellent Salon.com article by Andrew Leonard.

Leonard writes specifically about the resignation of a top aide to Paul Wolfowitz, Kevin Kellems. Kellems was formerly a spokesman for Dick Cheney, and as such, he

"was responsible for doing his best to push the line that the U.S. was justified in invading Iraq because Saddam Hussein was stockpiling weapons of mass destruction and supporting al-Qaida -- two of the most damaging falsehoods ever promulgated by the U.S. government."

Leonard quotes this gem from Kellems, "The United States did not seek this conflict."

I think we'll see Wolfowitz' resignation soon.

Kitchen Sink

****UPDATE****BREAKING NEWS****
Scruffybutt started a new blog - check it out.
****UPDATE****BREAKING NEWS****

I'm starting a new category, called Kitchen Sink, which I stole borrowed from Lavender because I'm lazy today's post is about a bunch of unrelated things.

###
Pooks' class was canceled this morning because she's under the weather, and so are a couple of others. So, here I sits, all dressed up, and ... that's when I thought of you! Speaking of dressed up, Tomcat and I went to a banquet Saturday night, and the new picture over there in my Profile is from that.

###
Another change: Scruffybutt's blog is no more. She's just too busy running the house and doing dog things to keep up with her blog. She may start a new one over on Wordpress or someplace like that. Blogger, which is now Google-ized, would not let me have two blogs with two different Profiles, so her blog had my picture and my profile on it. She was very upset, and between you and me, I think that's the real reason she stopped posting.

###
I went to a (free!) seminar on webpage design, sponsored by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) a while back. Grace, the artist, who is also a member, went with me, and she said the seminar was better than the ($$) course she took at SMU! Grace, the artist, will have no trouble setting up her own webpage because she has Mac. I, however ...

Yesterday I pulled out the materials and started mucking around on the internets to see if I could possibly design my own webpage. Stop laughing!

After I got over that silly notion, I thought I'd look for a free template. There are tons of them out there. I found one that I loved, loved, loved, so I downloaded it. Then, it wouldn't open because I don't have the right software on my computer to open it with. Was there a way I could have known that before I downloaded the dang thing? I checked out the price of the software, and it was over $600!

Finally, reality sinking in, I decided to try using one of the icky templates that come with my web host (yes, I actually did figure out how to get one of those and register my domain.) I don't understand, at all, why it won't do stuff it says it will do. For example, if I want to have a picture on the right side of the template, and there's an option to put it on the right side, why then for the love of god does the picture stay on the left, and I can't move it no matter what I do?

Why am I doing this to myself? Because, if you're a writer and/or illustrator, you just really need to have your own website, that's why.

See, I have a plan. There's going to be an SCBWI conference in October, and I have that YA novel, The Earthquake Doll, sitting around here collecting dust. It really needs to be rewritten, but I put it off because one, that's a lot of work, and two, I was writing the murder mystery, Gino's Law. I'm going to put Gino's Law aside and let it percolate for a few months and work on the YA novel between now and October. That's where the webpage comes in, because I'd like to have that up and running by then, too.

After that, I'll pick up Gino's Law again and see how it wants to end.

###
The male lovebird, Bart, died. That left us with just one - his sister, Lisa. I was surprised that she wasn't moping around after that. We decided to get her a companion, anyway, because I couldn't stand the thought of her being lonely. Well, it's a good thing we talked to an expert on the subject before we bought a bird. Did you know that lovebirds are color specific, meaning that they will have nothing to do with another lovebird without the same coloring as their parents (and themselves, of course?) I had already picked out a lovebird who was all by himself at the pet store, but his coloring was different. The bird lady told us that they would fight each other. Who knew that they discriminated like that? The lady suggested getting a mirror. So far, Lisa ignores the mirror completely. I think she's just being coy.

###
I heard on CNN last night that during Friday and Saturday, meteorologists reported 125 tornadoes in the Texas panhandle, Oklahoma, and Kansas. They said a normal two-day event at this time of year would produce around 50.

We had four small tornado touchdowns around here a few weeks ago, btw. One man was killed in Ft. Worth.

But back to the weekend - a tree across the street was hit by lightening. That's way too close, people. The wind tore up a shade and a gutter on the balcony of our house. The miracle is that it didn't bring down any branches on the humongous pecan tree in the back yard. I'm collecting estimates this week on having that tree trimmed - one huge branch is hanging over wires.

Stay safe, everyone.

As many of you know, I'm a Pastafarian. Once in a while I like to check out the Hate Mail (and concerned criticism) section of the Prophet's (Bobby Henderson), website, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM).

Here's a sampling:

It is my considered view that you are poisoning the minds of the worlds [sic] youth with your outrageous claims that a Flying Spagetti [sic] Monster (”FSM”) created the universe and not our Heavenly Father.

This is what happens when people don't read the fine print. Evidently, this person thinks the Prophet said that the FSM created the universe, but did NOT create "our Heavenly Father." (I love the "considered view" part.)

Here's one from a logical thinker:

Seriously think about this logically. How can a flying spaghetti “whatever” live or make something? If we are made in Gods [sic] image, I’m not spaghetti am I? you have probably ruined millions of people’s lives.

This one is at least instructive:

Woah…. [sic] that is just so..so…dumb. Really, it is. I hope no one actually thinks that that graph has any purpose, or credibility. Global warming and pirates have nothing in correlation. The reason global temperatures have increased is due to (not only just greenhouse gas, which actually do not contribute much overall) the earth’s natural process of heating and cooling. Pirate numbers have decreased because the practice is far less accepted and is more easily restricted.

My favorite title is:

I’m very against this site.

I like it even better than "jesus loves you bobby." I think what appeals to me most is the combination of the sophomoric "very" and the word "against," as if there's going to be a referendum on Saturday.

I hope you'll enjoy browsing as much as I have today.

May you be touched by His Noodly Appendage,
RAmen.

Attention Soccer Moms!

I saw a great comment by Lizzy to Tom Harper's post about the Army's new Chief of Staff wanting to increase the number of active duty soldiers by 65,000. She said, "... if you're under 50* and you voted for Bush - enlist."

Yes! Especially all you soccer moms out there driving around town in your SUVs with the "W'04" sticker on the back window, and the woman I recently saw in a black Lexus with the "I Support President George W. Bush" sticker on the bumper - get your butts down to the recruiting office and enlist! The President you support needs you. Yes, you! And any children you have aged 18 and over. Oh, and be sure to say hello to all the Bush and Cheney children while you're down there, okay?

* 42 is now the maximum age.

Mayday

Four years ago today.