A while back I commented on the fact that Noam Chomsky now has a beard and I wondered why he had grown it. A reader sent me the following information: some while back Noam got sick and for one month or so did not shave. He discovered that he liked the beard that grew, because when he was five years old, he played Moses in a preschool play and liked the way he looked with the false beard so he decided to let it grow. I love that story.
I continue to mend, slowly. One reader cautions me to be more careful. Alas, I am very careful, but as they say about terrorist attacks, the terrorist only has to be successful once and the police have to be successful all the time.
It is actually interesting why Parkinson's makes one freeze and stumble. Apparently, or so I have been told (I could of course be wrong), the brain sends messages to the muscles and at the interface between the nerve and the muscle messages are transmitted with the aid of a substance called dopamine. People with Parkinson's have a lack of dopamine which makes the message short-circuit. It seems that when one is walking smoothly and steadily on a perfectly flat surface, the messages go through all right, but as soon as one gets to a doorway or to rug on the floor that looks different or when one enters a bathroom or kitchen and has to turn this way and that, the messages get screwed up. The neurologists who treat Parkinson's cannot in fact do much of anything for the patients except to tell them little tricks for overcoming this failure of the interface between nerve and muscle. For example, they suggest using a laser light to point where one wants to put one's foot as a way of helping the message to get through. I have discovered, on my own, that when I am walking with a roller and come to a doorway, if I pull the roller back and then step forward with it I move smoothly. Otherwise, I may freeze as my foot flutters and I am unable to move at all. If it were not for the fact that this is my life, I would find all this quite interesting.
Meanwhile, like everyone else in America, I obsess over each detail of the progress of the various cases in which Trump is enmeshed. I am eagerly awaiting Friday, when the judge in the January 4 case will respond to Trump's proposal that his trial be put off for 2 1/2 years.
"If it were not for the fact that this is my life, I would find all this quite interesting."
ReplyDeleteThat sentence merits a place in a list of great quotations in English.
Have you ever thought of writing a journal about your experience with Parkinson's?
I'd say it would sell, not a best-seller, but enough so that someone would be willing to publish it without charging you for it.
"like everyone else in America"? surely not everyone. Sorry to be picky, but there are implications in such word use, as I have just protested on a previous thread:
ReplyDeleteMy problem, D. Z., is that the "when we talk amongst ourselves" was prefaced by some remarks not everyone might agree with, even on this blog. Hence, as I tried to suggest by what I went on to say, there was an implication that we are all like thinkers here. I suspect that isn't true even when it comes to contemplating Cornel West's political adventures. But the phrasing has a way of imposing like mindedness--or else silence--on others.
The person with Parkinson's in my family (I'll call this person "P") is another "interesting" case.
ReplyDeleteP was diagnosed about two years ago, after suffering through a long and severe bout of depression and anxiety. At some point in the process of treatment, they were diagnosed with Parkinson's - but P was not particularly surprised, as they had been obsessively consulting "Dr. Google" in light of a persistent tremor. Prior to diagnosis, the rest of us hadn't taken P's prediction sufficiently seriously; we all figured P was simply catastrophizing, seeing as P had suddenly fallen into the habit of ruminating over past "sins" - all minor stuff, no doubt ("sex, drugs, rock 'n' roll") - and spending days/weeks/months in the grips of an unshakable certainty that God was planning to send them to Hell. (It didn't seem surprising that such terrible thoughts would be accompanied by "a bit of nervous trembling.")
P finds it strangely consoling to know that Parkinson's was largely responsible for this episode. P is indeed in a much better place psychologically these days (which feels like a rather twisted thing to say); once again we're all able to laugh and joke and smile and fret about petty stuff...for the time being.
Your reflections on your experience with Parkinson's have been valuable to me, and by extension to my family. It's a weird and difficult thing to go through.
xyz, My reply was in the context of LFC's remark on the best way of countering West's candidacy. I don't believe that anything that is posted on this blog (or LGM) and definitely in the comments is going to make it directly into the general discourse, hence my use of the term.
ReplyDeleteAs the news, etc. been all about the indictments around the MAGA insurrection, Maui, and the West Coast hurricane, the Prof's observation is appropriate and an entirely reasonable assumption.
Consider that you are over-thinking the term.
Age has compelled me to invest in several very expensive but way safer orchard ladders and I'm seriously considering an electric trike. Glad Prof. Wolff didn't break anything and is on the mend.
unfortunately I don't have time rt now to (re)join the discussion re Cornel West.
ReplyDeleteThis wd have to be a much longer discussion about exactly who(m) Scott Lemieux thinks he's blogging for (i.e. audience), why he blogs -- apart from the fact that it must be kind of a powerful rush to have hundreds (at least) of readers hanging on one's every insult -- and what he hopes to achieve.
Sorry I can't elaborate rt now.
"I am eagerly awaiting Friday, when the judge in the January 4 case will respond to Trump's proposal that his trial be put off for 2 1/2 years."
ReplyDeleteTrump is like goo. The more judges tighten their grip around him the more he'll slip through and escape. I believe Trump will win the Primary Election. But perhaps like O'Reilly said on Newsnation, he may lose the General Election. Someone eloquent enough may come along & steal the show.
"The more judges tighten their grip around him the more he'll slip through and escape."
ReplyDeleteUntil he doesn't, meanwhile I see a plane has been shot down in Russia. Anyway, Trump has signaled at least a couple of times that he will rabbit if necessary.
LFC, I was merely explaining to xyz why his gloss on my reference was incorrect.
I doubt if Trump rabbits he'll be able to get as far as Napoleon did during his 100 days. However, Trump is a slippery fellow. And if Trump wins the General Election, he could lead the country towards Civil War. Especially with those states with many white supremacists who want to live under their own white leaders & bring back Jim Crow or slavery. This could cause a bipartisan Domino Effect. Perhaps there are Blue States who would be willing to break away from the Federal Government for the sake of a State Run Socialist Government. Like one California perhaps? However, there are many Blue States who need the Federal Government (& the Union intact) to keep the institutions running that currently exist.
ReplyDeleteWith all of the chaos caused by our constitution is it any wonder why Plato hated democracy?
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