OCD Patients

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder Patients

Soon after obsessive worries begin, OCD patients typically do something to diminish the worry, a compulsive act. If they feel they have been contaminated by germs, they wash themselves; when that doesn't make the worry go away, they wash all their clothing, the floors, and then the walls. If a woman fears she will kill her baby, she wraps the butcher knife in cloth, packs it in a box, locks it in the basement, then locks the door to the basement. The UCLA psychiatrist Jeffrey M. Schwartz describes a man who feared being contaminated by the battery acid spilled in car accidents. Each night he lay in bed listening for sirens that would signal an accident nearby. When he heard them, he would get up, no matter what the hour, put on special running shoes, and drive until he found the site. After the police left, he would scrub the asphalt with a brush for hours, then skulk home and throw out the shoes he had worn.

Obsessive doubters often develop “checking compulsions.” If they doubt they've turned off the stove or locked the door, they go back to check and recheck often a hundred or more times. Because the doubt never goes away, it might take them hours to leave the house.

People who fear that a thud they heard while driving might mean they ran someone over will drive around the block just to make sure there is no corpse in the road. If their obsessional fear is of a dread disease, they will scan and rescan their body for symptoms or make dozens of visits to the doctor. After a while these checking compulsions are ritualized. If they feel they have been dirtied, they must clean themselves in a precise order, putting on gloves to turn on the tap and scrubbing their bodies in a particular sequences ; if they have blasphemous or sexual thoughts, they may invent a ritual was of praying a certain number of times. These rituals are probably related to the magical and superstitious beliefs most obsessionals have. If they have managed to avoid disaster, it is only because they checked themselves in a certain way, and their only hope is to keep checking in the same way each time.

Obsessive-compulsives, so often filled with doubt, may become terrified of making a mistake and start compulsively correcting themselves and others. One woman took hundreds of hours to write brief letters because she felt so unable to find words that didn't feel “mistaken”. Many a Ph.D. Dissertation stalls – not because the author is a perfectionist, but because the doubting writer with OCD can't find words that don't “feel” totally wrong.

When a person tries to resist a compulsion, his tension mounts to a fever pitch. If he acts on it, he gets temporary relief, but this makes it more likely that the obsessive thought and compulsive urge will only be worse when it strikes again.

OCD is very difficult to treat. Medication and behavior therapy are only partially helpful for many people. 

Even some forms of obsessive jealousy, substance abuse, compulsive sexual behaviors, and excessive concern about what others think about us, self-image, the body, and self-esteem can be helped.

(Brain Lock Unlocked. The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, M.D., excerpt).

Monkey Wrench Gang

The Monkey Wrench Gang

(excerpt)

By Edward Abbey

He turned back on the highway and followed it for another ten miles, driving without lights. Dangerous? Perhaps. But not impossible. Hayduke had not noo much difficulty staying on the road. Bonnie Abbxug chewed her anxious knuckles and offered plenty of unwanted advice, like ”For God's sake turn the light on. You want to get us both killed?” His only immediate worry was horses: hard enough to see horses at night even with the lights.

They arrived at the dirt road leading northeast to Shonto and Betatakin. Hayduke turned and once well away from the state road switched on the lights. They made good time, stopping only at a lonely spot out in the desert, between two wind-stripped, dead and silvery junipers to recover the goods, packed in heavy canvas duffel bags, which the Gang had cached there after the railway bridge operation. That had been Hayduke's idea – he wanted the dynamite in the bags for what he called “sanitary” reasons and for easier backpacking later. Abbzug had salvaged the empty boxes; that was her idea.

As Hayduke loaded the two bulging bags into the rear she again complained, “I'm not going to ride in the same car with that stuff! But again - “Walk then!” - she was overruled. They trundled on. Getting low on fuel. Hayduke stopped under the seats until he found campground at Betatakin. He groped under the seats until he found his Oklahoma cred card, a length of neoprene tubing – My leetle robber hose, senor, as he called it fondly – and disappeared into the darkness with siphon and two gasoline cans.

Bonnie waited, rehearsing once again all the tedious questions about her own sanity. No question at all about that of her companion, or that polygamous jack-Mormon river guide, or poor mad Doc. But what am I doing here? Me, a nice Jewish girl, with an M.A. In Classican (yeah!) French Lit. With a mother who worries about me and a father who makes 40,000 a year. Forty thousand what” Forty thousand ladies' foundation garments, what else. Me, Abbzug. A solid, sensible  gril with a keppela on her shoulders. Running around with these crazy goyim in the middle of Arabia. We'll never get away with it. They got laws.

Hayduke came back, two full cans pulling his arms down straight. Groping again under the front seats-copping as he did a free feel between Bonnie's thighs – he found his spout and poured ten gallons into the tank. Started to walk away again with the empties.

“Where're you going now?”

“Go to fill the auxiliary tank.”

God! Gone. She waited, cursing herself, wanting to sleep and quite unable, dozing in fits and waking up in terror.

Sound and smell of pouring gasoline. They were off again, into the night, running as Hayduke liked it best, full and cool. With transfigured license plates both fore an aft. “We're from South Dakota tonight,” he explained.

Bonnie groaned.

“Relax,” he said, “we're crossing the river soon. We're getting out of this overdeveloped hypercivilized goddamn Indian country. Going back to the canyons where people like us belong. They won't find un is a million years.”

A little lady. Illustration by Elena.

Perfectibility of Our Brain

Perfectibility – the Mixed Blessing

The idea of the brain as plastic has appeared in previous times, in flashes, then disappeared. But even though it is only now being established as a fact of mainstream science, these earlier appearances left their traces and made possible a receptivity to the idea, in spite of the enormous opposition each of the neuroplasticians faced from fellow scientists.

As early as 1762 the Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778), who faulted the mechanistic view of nature of his time, argued that nature was alive and had a history and was changing over time; our nervous systems are not like machines, he said, but are alive and able to change. In his booke Émile, or on Education – the first detailed book on child development ever written – he proposed that the “organization of the brain” was affected by our experience, and that we need to “exercise” our senses and mental abilities the way we exercise our muscles. Rousseau maintained that even our emotions and passions are, to a great extent, learned early in childhood. He imagined radically transforming human education and culture, based on the premise that many aspects of our nature that we think are fixed are, in fact, changeable and that this malleability is a defining human trait. He wrote, “To understand a man, look to men; and to understand men, look to the animals.” When he compared us with other species, he saw what he called human “perfectibility” - and brought the French word perfectibilité into vogue – using it to describe a specifically human plasticity or malleability, which distinguishes us in degree from animals. Several months after an animal's birth, he observed, it is for the most part what it will be for the rest of its life. But human beings change throughout life because of their “perfectibility”.

While we may rejoice at the thought that the brain and human nature may be “improved”, the idea of human perfectibility or plasticity stirs up a hornet's nest of moral problems. Illustration by Elena.

It was our “perfectibility”, he argued, that allowed us to develop different kinds of mental faculties and to change the balance among our existing mental faculties and senses, but this could also be problematic because it disrupted the natural balance of our senses. Because our brains were so sensitive to experience, they were also more vulnerable to being shaped by it. Educational schools such as the Montessori School, with its emphasis on the education of the senses, grew out of Rousseau's observations. He was also the precursor to McLuhan, who would argue centuries later that certain technologies and media alter the ratio of balance of the senses. When we say that the instantaneous electronic media, television sound bites, and a shift away from literacy have created overly intense, “wired” people with short attention spans, we are speaking Rousseau's language, about a new kind of environmental problem that interferes with our cognition. Rousseau was also concerned that the balance between our senses and our imagination can be disturbed by the wrong kinds of experience.

In 1783 Rousseau's contemporary Charles Bonnet (1720-1793), also a Swiss philosopher and a naturalist familiar with Rousseau's writings, wrote to an Italian scientist, Michel Vincenzo Malacarne (1744-1816), proposing that neural tissue might respond to exercise as do muscles. Malacarne set out to test Bonnet's hypothesis experimentally. He took pairs of birds that came from the same clutch of eggs and raised half of them under enriched circumstances, stimulated bu intensive training for several years. The other half received no training. He did the same experiment with litter-mate dogs. When Malacarne sacrificed the animals and compared their brain size, he found that the animals that received training had larger brains, particularly in a part of the brain called the cerebellum, demonstrating the influence of “enriched circumstances” and “training” on the development of an individual's brain. Malacarne's work was all but forgotten, until revived and mastered by Rosenzweig, and others in the twentieth century.

Though Rousseau, who died in 1778, could not have known Malacarne's results, he showed an uncanny ability to anticipate what perfectibility meant for humanity. It provided hope but was not always a blessing. Because we could change, we did not always know what was natural in us and what was acquired from our culture. Because we could change, we could be overly shaped by culture and society, to a point where we drifted too far from our true nature and became alienated from ourselves.

Perfectibility means that we can no longer be so certain about what it means to perfect ourselves. Photo by Elena.

(The Brain That Changes Itself by Norman Doidge, M.D., excerpt).

Where Is Prague?

Cosmic Mystery or the Hand of God, Geometer

Johannes Kepler stood at a cusp in history; the last scientific astrologer was the first astrophysicist of the Earth.

In 1598, one of the many premonitory tremors of the coming Thirty Years’ War engulfed Kepler, a provincial schoolteacher of humble origins, absolutely unknown to all but a few scientists. He was living in Graz, a cozy German town, when the war began. Fortunately for Kepler, Tycho Brahe, a famous astronomer offered the mathematician to join him in Prague.

Leaving Graz, Kepler, his wife and stepdaughter set out on the difficult journey to Prague.

Chronically ill, having lost two young children, his wife was described as “ignorant”. She had no understanding of her husband’s work and, having been raised among the minor rural gentry, she despised his impecunious profession. She didn’t know where Prague was and what country was it the capital of.

Kepler for his part described his thoughts toward his wife as follows: "for my studies sometimes made me thoughtless; but I learned my lesson, I learned to have patience with her. When I saw that she took my words to heart, I would rather have bitten by own finger to give her further offense”.

But Kepler aspired to become a colleague of the great Tycho Brahe, who for thirty-five years had devoted himself to the measurement of a clockwork universe, ordered and precise.

Kepler’s expectations were to be unfulfilled. Tycho himself was a flamboyant figure, festooned with a golden nose, the original having been lost in a student duel.

“Hypocrisy I have never learned. I am in earnest about faith. I do not play with it”, Kepler said and he tried to work harder and harder in order to forget that his wife didn’t know where they lived.

Kepler’s fundamental innovation is nothing short of breathtaking: he proposed that quantitative physical laws that apply to the Earth are also the underpinnings of quantitative physical laws that govern the heavens. It was the first non-mystical explanation of motion in the heavens. This discovery made the Earth a province of the Cosmos.

“Astronomy”, Kepler said, “is part of physics”. He considered that his first aim was to show that “the celestial machine is to be likened not to a divine organism but rather to a clockwork…, insofar as nearly all the manifold movements are carried out by means of a single, quite simple magnetic force, as in the case of clockwork, where all motions are caused by a simple weight.”

There were only six planets known in Kepler’s time : Mercury, Venus, Earth,  Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Kepler wondered, why only six? Why not twenty or a hundred? Why did they have the spacing between their orbits that Copernicus had deduced? No one has ever asked such questions before. There were known five regular or “platonic” solids, whose sides where regular polygons, as known to the ancient Greek mathematicians after their time of Pythagoras.

Curiously enough, within the symphony of voices, Kepler believed that the speed of each planet correspond to certain notes in the Latinate musical scale popular in his day – do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, ti, do. He claimed that in the harmony of the spheres, the tones of Earth are fa and mi, that the Earth is forever humming fa and mi, and that they stand in a straightforward way for the Latin word for famine.

Kepler believed he had recognised the invisible supporting structures for the spheres of the six planets. He called his revelation the Cosmic Mystery and thought that connection between the solids of Pythagoras and the disposition of the planets could admit but one explanation: The Hand of God, Geometer.

One week after Kepler’s discovery of his third law of nature, the incident that unleashed the Thirty Years’ War transpired in Prague. The war’s convulsions shattered the lives of millions, Kepler among them. He lost his wife and son to an epidemic carried by the soldiery, his royal patron was deposed, and he was excommunicated by the Lutheran Church for his uncompromising individualism on matters of doctrine. Johannes Kepler was a refugee once again. He had envisioned Tycho’s domain as a refuge from the evils of the time, as the place where his Cosmic Mystery would be confirmed, but he had to flee Prague, a town whose whereabouts his wife ignored.

The Hand of God, Geometer, revealed the Cosmic Mystery and created a Holy Geometry. Image by © Megan Jorgensen.

Embracing Our Cosmic Insignificance

Embracing Our Cosmic Insignificance 

Some find life too short because spanning an average of 67 years it seems too short to have any meaning. Other say it is too long and intentionally shorten their life story, but one thing is certain about living it eventually ends. The story of every fruit fly, king, janitor, beggar, computer guru, politician and so on doesn’t have a happy ending. We all perish and we perish only once.

This insignificance of life has bothered many of us, as our single and short life implies that it can be taken lightly. However, the fact that we are given just one life – no second chances, no secret shortcuts to endless options, no dress rehearsals – makes the lightness unbearable.

This lightness of being from the cosmic point of view proves to be liberating and a little less unbearable because it reminds us how fortunate we are for our existence. So let’s take several steps back and examine our current position. In doing so, we find what is perhaps best said by Daniel Dennett:

Every living thing is, from the cosmic perspective, incredibly lucky simply to be alive. Most, 90 percent and more, of all the organisms that have ever lived have died without viable offspring, but not a single one of your ancestors, going back to the dawn of life on Earth, suffered that normal misfortune.

You spring from an unbroken line of winners going back millions of generations, and those winners were, in every generation, the luckiest of the lucky, one out of a thousand or even a million. So however unlucky you may be on some occasion today, your presence on the planet testifies to the role luck has played in your past.

Carl Sagan also offers this cosmic perspective which helps us view our beloved Earth a “pale blue dot”. As soon as we adapt this vision, patriotism, nationalism and other dangerous words, which usually end in –ism or –ion, suddenly lose their importance. Instead, according to Carl Sagan, it highlights the importance of dealing more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the only home we’ve ever known.

Nei Degrasse Tyson, the Carl Sagan of today shares the same opinion. He argues that visiting Sagan’s cosmic vantage points renders the constant conflicts in the name of boundaries or religion immature, silly and egoistic. This is similar to an adult (a word to which we generously associate the labels matured and grown-up) who treats a child’s complaints about broken toys and bruised knees as small problems (however these accidents are all traumatic experience to a kid).

Astronomy is unfairly and unfortunately considered “useless” compared to other sciences. However it has the power to reform our character and behaviour towards each other and the world we live in. It has the power to expand our view.

Astronomy lowers the omnipresent egoistic sentiments related to social status, culture, race, language. Lessons learnt through astronomy are capable of maturing up the mindset of any individual, family, institution, corporation and country.

Anyone who relishes the cosmic outlook will have qualities that will make him or her a better policy maker.

Thus, a crash course in astronomy is needed at every level. The situation should inspire us to spend less time on our cell phones and social media sites. It should broaden our minds, reduce unattractive competitiveness over journal names with the number of pages one has published in comparison with his or her neighbor. As researchers we should develop our attitudes towards learning.

As human beings, we should humble us down so that we can live up to our scientific name – homo sapiens (wise man).

We don’t suggest replacing the Bible in the motel rooms with a picture of the universe and an arrow showing where we are. We think this picture should complete the offer. Thus we could truly develop this fraction of an iota of a crumb of a grain of the universe which we call home.

Steve Jobs, an undeniable innovative man, said once (and we see here how our mortality influences our thoughts): “Remembering that you are going to die is the best way that I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose”. Yes, Steve Jobs used his cosmic lessons selectively, but these words illustrate the fact that our unbearably light life can be full of lights for everyone.

Cosmic Insignificance. “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.” (William Shakespeare, King Lear). Illustration by Elena.

Termites

Termites

I don’t suppose you know much about termites, so I’ll remind you of the salient facts. They are among the most highly evolved of the social insects, and live in vast colonies throughout the tropics. They can’t stand cold weather, nor, oddly enough, can they endure direct sunlight. When they have to get from one place to another, they construct little covered roadways.

The termites seem to have some unknown and almost instantaneous means of communication, and though the individual termites are pretty helpless and dumb, a whole colony behaves like an intelligent animal.

Some writers have drawn comparisons between a termitary and a human body, which is also composed of individual living cells making up an entity much higher than the basic units.

These creatures are often called “white ants”, but that’s a completely incorrect name as they aren’t ants at all but quite a different species of insect.

Excuse this little lecture, but I get quite enthusiastic about termites myself. Did you know, for example, that they not only cultivate gardens but also keep cows – insect cows, of course – and milk the, Yes, the termites are sophisticated little devils, even though they do it all by instinct (supposedly).

To communicate with termites, we must do for them what von Frische had done with bees – he’d learned their language. But the language of the termites is much more complex than the system of communication that bees use, which as you probably know, is based on dancing.

Our technology enables us to listen to the termites talking among each other, but also permit us to speak to them. Actually that’s not as fantastic as it sounds, if you we use the word “speak” in its widest sense. We speak to a good many animals – not always with our voices, by any means. When you throw a stick for your dog and expect him to run and fetch it, that’s a form of speech - sign language. Thus we could work out some kind of code which the termites understand, though how efficient it will be at communicating ideas I didn’t know…

Have you ever wondered who will take over when we, the Humans, are finished? Remember that the termites, as individuals, have virtually no intelligence. But their colony as a whole is a very high type of organisms – and an immortal one, barring accidents. Their progress froze in its present instinctive pattern millions of years before Man was born, and by itself it can never escape from its present sterile perfection. It has reached a dead-end – because the termites have no tools, no effective way of controlling nature. But you cannot judge the termitary by human standards. What we can hope to do is to jolt its rigid, frozen culture – to knock it out of the groove in which it has stuck for so many millions of years. I will give it tools and new techniques, and before the next generation comes we’ll to see the termites beginning to invent things for themselves.

I do not believe that Man will survive, yet I hope some of the things he has discovered, will be preserved by the next tenants of the Earth. If the Man is to be a dead-end, another race should be given a helping hand. A supertermite, if it ever evolves, will have to remain for millions of years and reach a very high level of attainment.

Besides, Man has no rival on this planet and thus it may do him good to have one. It may be the Mankind’s salvation. (Not that I’m hostile to mankind. In fact, I’m sorry for it. I simply believe that humanity had shot its bolt, and I wish to save something from the wreckage. Perhaps there may be some kind of mutual understanding, since two cultures so utterly dissimilar as Man and Termite need have no cause for military conflict. But I couldn’t really believe this, and if a contest comes, I’m not certain who will win. For what use would man’s weapons be against an intelligent enemy who could lay waste all the wheat fields and all the rice crops in the world?

I think we should let the termites have their chance. I don’t see how they could make a worse job of it than we’ve done. Illustration : Megan Jorgensen.

Neutron Star

Neutron Star

Neutron star matter weighs about the same as an ordinary mountain per teaspoonful – so much that if you had a piece of neutron star and let it go (hum… you could hardly do otherwise), it might pass effortlessly through the Earth like a falling stone through air, carving a hole for itself completely through our planet and emerging out the other side – perhaps in China.

If a peace of neutron star matter were dropped from nearby space, with the Earth rotating beneath it as it fell, it would plunge repeatedly through, punching hundreds of thousands of holes before friction with the interior of our planet stopped the motion.

Let’s imagine: people there might be out for a stroll, minding their own business, when a tiny lump of neutron star plummets out of the ground, hovers for a moment, and then returns beneath the Earth, providing at least a diversion from the routine of the day.

Before it comes to rest at the center of the Earth, the inside of our planet might look briefly like a Swiss cheese until the subterranean flow of rock and metal healed the wounds.

Large lumps of neutron star matter are unknown on Earth. But small lumps are everywhere. The awesome power of the neutron star is lurking in the nucleus of every atom, hidden in every teacup and dormouse, every breath of air, every apple pie. The neutron star teaches us respect for the commonplace.

A star like the Sun will end its days, as we know, as a red giant and then a white dwarf. A collapsing star twice as massive as the Sun will become a supernova and then a neutron star. But a massive star, left, after its supernova phase, with, say, five times the Sun’s mass, has an even more remarkable fate reserved for it – its gravity will turn it into a black hole.

Thermonuclear reactions in the solar interior support the outer layers of the Sun and postpone for billions of years a catastrophic gravitational collapse.

For white dwarfs, the pressure of the electrons, stripped from their nuclei, holds the star up. For neutron stars, the pressure of the neutrons staves off gravity. But for an elderly star left after supernova explosions and other impetuosities with more than several times the Sun’s mass, there are no forces known that can prevent collapse.

The star shrinks incredibly, spins, reddens and disappears. A massive star will shrink until it is the size of a city, the crushing gravity acts irrevocably, and the star slips through a self-generated crack in the space-time continuum and vanishes from our universe.

What if every neutron star is an intelligent being? Image : © Megan Jorgensen.

On the New Stars

On the New Stars

Johannes Kepler published in 1606 a book called De stele Nova, “On the New Star”, in which he wonders if a supernova is the result of some random concatenation of atoms in the heavens. He presents what he says is “… not my own opinion, but my wife’s: Yesterday, when weary with writing, I was called to supper, and a salad I had asked for was set before me. “It seems then, “I said, “if pewter dishes, leaves of lettuce, grains of salt, drops of water, vinegar, oil and slices of eggs had been flying about in the air for all eternity, it might at last happen by chance that there would come a salad”. “Yes”, responded my lovely, “but not so nice as this one of mine”.

No supernova explosions have been observed in Milky Way Galaxy since the invention of the telescope. But supernovae are routinely observed in other galaxies.

David Helfand and Knox Long in the December 6, 1979, issue of the British journal Nature say (and we quote): “On 5 March, 1979, an extremely intense burst of hard X-rays and gamma rays was recorded by the nine interplanetary spacecraft of the burst sensor network, and localized by time-of-flight determinations to a position coincident with the supernova remnant N49 in the Large Magellanic Cloud” (the Large Magellanic Cloud, so called because the first inhabitant of the Northern Hemisphere to notice it was Magellan, is a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way, 180,000 light-years distant. There is also, as you might expect, a Small Magellanic Cloud).

However, in the same issue of Nature, E. P. Mazets and colleagues of the Ioffe Institute, Leningrad – who observed this source with the gamma-ray burst detector aboard the Venera 11 and 12 spacecraft on their way to land on Venus – argue that what is being seen is a flaring pulsar only a few hundred light-years away.

David Helfand and Knox Long do not insist that the gamma-ray outburst is associated with the supernova remnant. In fact, they charitably considered many alternatives, including the surprising possibility that the source lay within the solar system: Perhaps it is the exhaust of an alien star-ship on its long voyage home!

Anyway a rousing of the stellar fires in “supernova remnant N49” is fact, as simple as we are sure there are such things as supernovae.

I'm quite sure that all the supernovae are exhausts many alien star-ships on its long voyage home. Image: © Megan Jorgensen.

Infinity

Infinity

When we talk about infinity, we are talking about a quantity greater than any number, no matter how large.

Just try to stand between two mirrors and you’ll see a large number of images of yourself, each the reflection of another. Well, you cannot see an infinity of images because the mirrors are not perfectly aligned and they are not perfectly flat. Besides light does not travel infinitely fast, and you are in the way. But if all the conditions are in place, your cat would be a perfect expression of Infinity.

If you consider your cat down beyond a single atom, you confront an infinity of the Very Very Large. And these infinities represent an unending regress that goes on not just Very Very Far, but Forever.

So what about the lives of the stars? The same is true for them, as hydrogen fusion cannot continue forever: in any given star, there is only so much hydrogen fuel in its hot interior. The fate of a star, the end of its life cycle, depends very much on its initial mass.

Billions of years from now, there will be a last perfect day in our Universe. This evolution is inexorable. Eventually the stars will vanish, the life will die and catastrophe of the most immense proportions imaginable will overtake the universe. And no God will be able to save it from its fate.

I have a terrible need… shall I say the word?… of religion. Then I go out at night and paint the stars (Vincent van Gogh). Image: © Megan Jorgensen.

Zodiac

Zodiac

The zodiac is a band of twelve constellations seemingly wrapped around the sky in the apparent annual path of the Sun through the heavens.

The root of the word Zodiac is that for zoo, because the zodiacal constellations, like Hydra or Leo, are mainly fancied to be animals.

In fact, a million years from now, the constellation of Leo will look less like a lion than it does today and perhaps our remote descendants will call it the constellation of the radio telescope – although we can guess that a million years from now the radio telescope will have become more obsolete than the stone spear is now. Anyway, constellations were given the names of the signs and asterisms could be connected in a way that would resemble the sign's name.

Although the zodiac remains the basis of the ecliptic coordinate system in use in astronomy besides the equatorial one, the term and the names of the twelve signs are today mostly associated with horoscopic astrology.

The Zodiac constellations are known to have been in use by the Roman era based on concepts inherited by Hellenistic astronomy from Babylonian astronomy of the Chaldean period (mid-1st millennium BC). Besides the construction of the zodiac is described in Ptolemy's Almagest (2nd century AD).

Babylonian astronomers at some stage during the early 1st millennium BC divided the ecliptic into twelve equal zones of celestial longitude to create the first known celestial coordinate system: a coordinate system that boasts some advantages over modern systems (such as equatorial coordinate system). The Babylonian calendar assigned each month to a sign, beginning with the position of the Sun at vernal equinox, which, at the time, was depicted as the Aries constellation, for which reason the first sign is still called "Aries" even after the vernal equinox has moved away from the Aries constellation due to the slow precession of the Earth's axis of rotation.

Because the division was made into equal arcs, 30º each, they constituted an ideal system of reference for making predictions about a planet's longitude. However, Babylonian techniques of observational measurements were in a rudimentary stage of evolution and it was probably beyond their capacity to define in a precise way the boundary lines between the zodiacal signs in the sky.

The Babylonian star catalogs entered Greek astronomy in the 4th century BC, via Eudoxus of Cnidus and others, but horoscopic astrology first appeared in Ptolemaic Egypt. The Dendera zodiac, a relief dating to ca. 50 BC, is the first known depiction of the classical zodiac of twelve signs.

Planets as seen by Megan Jorgensen. Illustration by Megan Jorgensen.

Under the Greeks, and Ptolemy in particular, whose work Tetrabiblos laid the basis of the astrological traditions, the planets, Houses, and signs of the zodiac were rationalized and their function set down in a way that has changed little to the present day. Capricornus (Goat-horned - the Sea-Goat).

Curiously enough, the Hindu zodiac signs and corresponding Greek signs sound very different, being in Sanskrit and Greek respectively, but their symbols are nearly identical. For example, dhanu means "bow" and corresponds to Sagittarius, the "archer", and kumbha means "water-pitcher" and corresponds to Aquarius, the "water-carrier". The correspondence of signs is taken to suggest the possibility of early interchange of cultural influences. Pisces (the Fishes). 

It is important to distinguish the zodiacal signs from the constellations associated with them, not only because of their drifting apart due to the precession of equinoxes but also because the physical constellations by nature of their varying shapes and forms take up varying widths of the ecliptic. Thus, Virgo takes up fully five times as much ecliptic longitude as Scorpius. Scorpio (the Scorpion).

The zodiacal signs are an abstraction from the physical constellations designed to represent exactly one twelfth of the full circle each, or the longitude traversed by the Sun in about 30.4 days. Aquarius (the Water-Bearer).

Due to the constellation boundaries being redefined in 1930 by the International Astronomical Union, the path of the ecliptic now officially passes through thirteen constellations: the twelve traditional zodiac constellations plus Ophiuchus, the bottom part of which interjects between Scorpio and Sagittarius. Ophiuchus is an anciently recognized constellation, catalogued along with many others in Ptolemy's Almagest, but not historically referred to as a zodiac constellation.

The star. Illustration par Megan Jorgensen.

Schizophrenia

Schizophrenia

Read this text to learn more about causes of schizophrenia, signs to watch for, treatment available.

What is schizophrenia? 

Schizophrenia is a mental illness that affects about 1 in every 100 persons.

People with schizophrenia sometimes do not know the difference between what is real and what is not real.

For example, they may hear “voices” of people who are not real. This may leave them mixed-up, upset and afraid. They sometimes say and do things that appear unusual or do not make sense to other people.

Severe types of this illness can cause problems at home, school, work or in a person’s social life.

What causes schizophrenia?

There is no one reason why someone develops schizophrenia, but researchers are studying its causes.

• Scientists believe that abnormal brain chemistry is responsible.
• It may be a partly inherited illness.
• Stress can play a role in making the symptoms worse.
• Signs and symptoms:

Not everyone with schizophrenia has the same symptoms. Symptoms are usually first seen in teens and young adults.

Delusions:

Delusions are false personal beliefs that can be quite strange to others and are very hard to change.

For example, some people with schizophrenia may believe that others are trying to hurt them, or that he or she is famous or has special powers.

Hallucinations:

Hallucinations are experiences that are not really true.  Hallucinations can be experienced as images, sounds, feelings, tastes or smells.

Hearing voices is the most common hallucination in schizophrenia. These “voices” may talk to each other, warn of dangers, or even tell the person to do something.

Thinking, speaking or behaving in a disorganized way:

Schizophrenia can make things difficult. People with schizophrenia may not be able to concentrate on one thought for very long and may be unable to focus their attention. The way they speak or may appear strange or disorganized as well.

Negative symptoms

A person with schizophrenia may not show a lot of emotion. The person may not want to be around others, may have very little to say or may not be interested in doing things. These symptoms are often the hardest part of the illness for families and friends to understand. Sometimes people misunderstand these symptoms as laziness, but they are really one of the most difficult parts of the illness to treat.

What are the treatments?

Medication: Currently, medications are available which often reduce or eliminate the symptoms of schizophrenia. But the symptoms very usually keep coming back without medication and ongoing treatment is needed.

Sometimes the doctor may need to change the treatment plan to manage the illness effectively. For example, the doctor may change the type or dose of medication. Sometimes people can get depressed or even suicidal because of their symptoms.

Other supports that can be helpful:

• Family, friends and self-help groups;
• Close follow-up with a professional;
• Coping and problem-solving skills education;
• Job training.

 Dr. Bell, I presume, has already told you that Ruy has lost the ability to read and write. Ordinarily that's indicative of advanced dementia praecox, isn't it? However, I think Mr. Jacques' case presents a more complicated picture, and my own guess is schizophrenia rather than dementia. The dominant and most  frequently observed psyche is a megalomanic phase, during which he tends to harangue his listeners on various odd subjects.

We've picked up some of these speeches on a hidden recorder and made a Aipg analysis of the word-frequencies. 

A Zipf count is pretty mechanical. But scientific, undeniable scientific.... Back in the forties, Zipf of Harvard proved that in a representative sample of English, the interval separating the repetition of the same word was inversely proportional to its frequency. He provided a mathematical formula for something previously known only qualitatively: that a too-soon repetition of the same or similar sound id distracting and grating to the cultured mind. If we must say the same thing in the next paragraph, we avoid repetition with an appropriate synonym. But not the schizophrenic. His disease disrupts his higher centers of association, and certain discriminating neural networks are no longer available for his writing and speech. He has no compunction against immediate and continuous tonal repetition.

Just listen: “Behold, Willie, through yonder window the symbol of your mistress's defeat: The Rose! The rose, my dear Willie, grows not in murky air. The smoky metropolis of yester-year drove it to the country. But now, with the unsullied skyline of your atomic age, the red rose returns. How mysterious, Willie, that the rose continues to offer herself to us dull, plodding humans. We see nothing in her but a pretty flower. Her regretful thorns forever declare our inept clumsiness, and her lack of honey chides our gross sensuality. Ah, Willie, let us become as birds! For only the winged can eat the fruit of the rose and spread her pollen...

Did you keep count? The author used the word “rose” no less than five times, when once or twice was sufficient. He certainly had no lack of mellifluous synonyms at his disposal, such as “red flower”, “thorned plant”, and so on. And instead of saying “the red rose returns” he should have said something like “it comes back.”

(And lose the triple alliteration. We can re-examine that diagnosis very critically. Everyone who talks like a poet isn't necessarily insane.)

(The Rose. Charles L. Harness)

Severe types of this illness can cause problems at home, school, work or in a person’s social life. Illustration: © Megan Jorgensen.

Antidepressant Medication

Antidepressant Medication

Antidepressant medications are used to treat many psychiatric illnesses such as depression, anxiety disorder, obsessive compulsory disorder.

These medications help treat and prevent symptoms from returning. A patient and his or her doctor will choose the best antidepressant medication for the patient.

What are antidepressant medications used for?

These medications are used to treat many symptoms, including feeling sad, low energy, nervousness, repeated and unsetting thoughts and actions, thoughts of suicide.

How long will this medication take to work?

It can take four to six weeks before you start to feel better. Do not change the dose or stop taking the medication without talking to your doctor. Antidepressants take time to work.

How long do I need to take this medication?

The length of time you take an antidepressant will depend on what illness you have. You should talk to your doctor about how long you will need to take this medication.

What are the possible side effects?

Not everyone has side effects. If you do have side effects they usually are not serious. Most of the time side effects will get better with time.

Common side effects include:

• Constipation (difficulty going to the bathroom)
• Diarrhea
• Dry mouth
• Feeling less interested in sex or difficulty having sex
• Feeling nervous
• Feeling tired
• Headache
• Trouble sleeping
• Upset stomach

(This not a complete list of side effects. If you are worried about these of other side effects talk to your doctor or pharmacist).

Some side effects can be serious such as:

• Flu-like symptoms
• Difficulty breathing
• Skin rash or itching
• Change in mood to unusually happy or excited
• Feeling very nervous, confused or upset
• Thoughts of suicide
• Thoughts of hurting yourself or others.

If you have any of these side effects, you should tell your doctor right away.

Interactions with other medications

Antidepressant medications can change how other medications work. Antidepressants may not work properly when taken with other medications. Always check with your doctor or pharmacist before taking other medications, vitamins or herbal medicines.

Things to consider:

• Do not stop or change the dose of your medication without talking with your doctor
• Tell your doctor about any changes in the way you are feeling or acting
• If you feel sleepy, do not drive a car or do other things where you need to be awake
• Do not drink alcohol while taking an antidepressant.

Do not change the dose or stop taking the medication without talking to your doctor. Antidepressants take time to work. Illustration: Megan Jorgensen.

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD)

What is OCD? Obsessive-compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder. People with OCD have repeated, upsetting thoughts or images that may make them do things over and over. The obsessive thoughts or images are called “obsessions”. The actions that are done over and over again to make the thoughts go away are called “compulsions”. These actions give only brief relief from anxiety. Many people with OCD know that their actions are not normal but they cannot stop or control them. OCD can be so severe that it stops people from having a normal life.

What causes OCD?: There is no one reason why someone develops OCD. Family history, brain chemistry and stress play a big role in producing the illness.

OCD occurs in people of all ages but symptoms are usually first seen in teens and young adults.

Signs and symptoms

Examples of obsessions include:

• Keeping things neat or in special order
• Fear of germs
• Fear of being hurt
• Fear of hurting others
• Upsetting thoughts about sex
• Upsetting thoughts about religion

Examples of compulsion include doing one of these things over and over:

• Washing hands
• Cleaning
• Arranging things
• Counting
• Repeating words silently
• Praying
• Checking things (such as whether the stove if off or the door is locked).

What are the treatments?: OCD generally responds well to treatment, such as medication and psychotherapy.

Medication will help reduce anxiety, unwanted thoughts and repeated actions.

A type of psychotherapy called Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) teaches how to deal with anxiety and how to stop doing unwanted things.

Support from family, friends and self-help groups can also be very helpful.

Cognitive Behaviour Therapy (CBT) teaches how to deal with anxiety and how to stop doing unwanted things. Image: © Megan Jorgensen.

Morality in Psychology

Morality

What's a goon to a goblin? - Lil Wayne

Let's face it: Life can be pretty unfair. After all, to be a supermodel you must have inherited an above average height, a particular bone structure, a low appetite, natural beauty and so much more. And you have to start young. Does that mean we should ban all supermodels? While the Dove self-esteem campaign celebrates all shapes and sizes of attractiveness, and minimum BMIs have been introduced at many fashion shows, the female tall, thin ideal continues to push many young women and girls towards eating disorders, such as anorexia and bulimia nervosa.

Along these lines, morality is of interest to many social scientists, including psychologists. One of the most famous discussions on the topic involves Lawrence Kohlberg, and the subsequent feminist-leaning reaction by Carol Gilligan. Kohlberg argued that morality spans several stages, and used the sick wife paradigm to gauge one's stage of moral development.

Does the end justify the means? The sick wife paradigm:

A man's wife is dying of a disease that can only be cured with medication neither of them can afford. Deeply in love, the man breaks into a pharmacy and steals the drug to save the life of his loved one. Stealing is wrong, but his intentions were pure. Should he have done it… at all? Should he go to jail alongside the opioids addict who broke in to get money for their next fix?

Is morality weak? Some people try to dominate others, and not the type of consensual domination seen in BDSM, but outright bullying. Of course to dominate, one preys on the other's weaknesses, be it insulting the person's crooked teeth, or stepping on their arthritic foot. But sometimes, the perpetrator may simply use your strengths against you - your goodness of heart, your compassion, the fact that you are a good, caring, sensitive person… I am of the Judeo-Christian tradition and believe most people are positive, but when the manipulative aggressors come out, I stand by the question: If the roles were reversed, how would they treat me?

A system of morality which is based on relative emotional values is a mere illusion, a thoroughly vulgar conception which has nothing sound in it and nothing true (Socrates). Illustration: Megan Jorgensen.

Electroconvulsive Therapy

Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT)

What is ECT? Electroconvulsive Therapy or ECT is a medical procedure used to treat symptoms of some mental illnesses such as severe depression, Bipolar Disorder and psychosis. ECT can also help people who have thoughts of hurting themselves or others. Your doctor may ask you to try ECT if other treatments have not worked in the past. During ECT, a small controlled electric current is passed through the brain.

How does ECT work? It is believed that ECT helps the part of the brain that controls emotions and thoughts to return to a more stable condition.

• ECT treatments are usually done twice a week.
• ECT may be used with other types of treatments, such as medications and psychotherapy.
• After you feel better ECT may be continued to help keep you feeling better.

How do you prepare for ECT?

• Your doctor will explain the procedure and answer your questions. You will need to agree in writing to have ECT.
• You will have blood tests and a cardiogram (a test of your heartbeats) to make sure you do not have any physical problems that prevent ECT.
• The day before treatment your doctor may make changes to your medication. You will need to stop eating and drinking after midnight.
• In the morning, your nurse will help you get ready and will accompany you to the treatment room.
• When you arrive in the treatment room, a nurse will put an intravenous line (TV) into your arm. Medication will be given to you to help relax your muscles and put you to sleep for the treatment.

What happens during the treatment?

• Your heartbeat, blood pressure, oxygen levels and your brain waves will be monitored.
• A blood pressure cuff is placed on one of your arms to measure your blood pressure. A small monitor is put on one of your fingers to measure the oxygen level in your blood.
• When you are asleep, one or two electrodes (small metal discs) are placed on the side of your head. These electrodes carry the electrical current through your brain. The current lasts from 1 to 4 seconds. You will have a short seizure (your muscles contract and then relax). This lasts 20 to 60 seconds.
• You will not feel pain.
• You will not remember this part of the treatment because you are asleep.

What can you expect after treatment?

• Your nurse will continue to check you’re your blood pressure, oxygen level, heartbeat and breathing.
• After resting, you may eat and return to your regular activities.

What are the side effects of the treatment?

• You may feel muscle aches, headache or jaw pain. The pain goes away after a few hours.
• You may feel confused and forget what happened just before and after the treatment. Your memory usually returns after a few hours.

What are the risks?

Electroconvulsive Therapy is a safe treatment with the same type of risks as any other treatment that uses general anesthesia. Your doctor will discuss possible risks with you.

Do you have other question about ECT?

If you have any question, it is very important to discuss them your doctor or nurse before you have ECT.

ECT. Illustration by Elena.

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar Disorder

Bipolar disorder is a mood disorder. A person with Bipolar Disorder has extreme “high” and “lows” in mood. It is different from the normal “ups” and “downs” that everybody goes through. Severe types of this illness can cause problems at home, work, school and social life… it may even result in suicide.

What causes Bipolar Disorder? – There is no one reason why someone develops Bipolar Disorder. Family history and brain chemistry play a big role in producing the illness. One`s personality and stress can bring on the illness.

Signs and Symptoms – A person with bipolar disorder has extreme changes in mood, such as overly “high” (Mania) and overly “low” (Depression). Some people have periods of normal mood in between. Periods of Mania may last several days to mouths. Periods of Depression may last several weeks to months.  These symptoms are a change from a person`s normal behaviour.

Symptoms of Mania may include:

• Very good mood
• Increased energy and restlessness
• Too many ideas too fast
• Talking more than usual or very quickly
• Less need for sleep without being tired
• Poor judgement and acting without thinking. For example, spending a lot of money, careless driving, increased use of alcohol or drugs, getting into fights, foolish financial decisions
• Unable to focus
• Exaggerated believes in one's abilities.  For example, believing he or she id God or has special powers (such as being able to fly), thinking he or she is smarter than others, etc.
• Feeling “on top of the world”.

Symptoms of Depression may include:

• Feeling sad, crying for no obvious reason
• Feeling hopeless and empty
• Feelings of guilty or worthless
• Loss of interest or pleasure in activities once enjoyed
• Low energy or feeling tired
• Difficulty thinking or remembering things
• Sleeping too much or too little
• Eating less or more than usual
• Thoughts of suicide

What are the treatments?: Bipolar disorder responds well to treatment once the illness has been diagnosed. Since the symptoms of Bipolar Disorder will keep coming back, ongoing treatment is needed. A combination of medication and psychosocial treatment (such as stress management) is best for managing the illness over time.

Sometimes changes to the treatment plan may be needed to manage the illness effectively. For example, the psychiatrist may change the type of dose of medication. Support from family, friends and self-help groups can also be very helpful.

A person with Bipolar Disorder has extreme “high” and “lows” in mood. It is different from the normal “ups” and “downs” that everybody goes through. Illustration: © Megan Jorgensen.

Strategies for Getting Motivated

Ten Strategies for Getting Motivated

1. Make a commitment: Commit yourself by making a plan, writing it on the calendar sharing your plan with another person.
2. Calendar or day book: Write tasks and activities down on a wall calendar or small day book. Carry your day book with you, and look at it frequently. Check things off when completed.
3. Think of all the resources available to you: Who and what might be able to help you to follow through with your plan or commitment? What creative ideas can you think of to get around obstacles? Ask for help if you need it.
4. Be open minded to new ideas: Recognize that trying to do things the same old way may not be working for you. Listen to how others are getting things done. Try the suggestions of others.
5. Visualize the positive benefits: Think about all the positives you will get from following through with the task of activity. Imagine the sense of accomplishment you will feel later.
6. One step at a time: Break activities down into manageable steps, to avoid feeling overwhelmed. It is easiest to get started if you remind yourself it is OK to just do the first step.
7. Action before interest: Remember that the feeling of being interested in an activity often sets in after starting an activity, not before. Get started on something no matter how you feel, and the interest will come. Try activity even if initially you feel tired, bored, nervous or uninterested.
8. The buddy system: It is often easier to get moving when you have the support of a friend with whom to face a challenge. Go to a new activity with a friend or supportive family member.
9. Keep your expectations realistic: What are your expectations for yourself when trying something new? Keep them realistic. Do not aim for perfection. Expect to feel nervous. Expect to make mistakes. Expect it to be difficult.
10. Do the five times test: When joining a new activity, club or class do not make a decision quitting until you have attended at least five times. It is not fair to judge the merits of something until you have given it a fair chance. That’s five times!

Getting motivated... Illustration by Elena.

What motivates you (survey)

Different things motivate different people. Your motivation may be low right now, but by identifying what tends to motivate you, you may find some ways to move yourself forward.  Have a look at the list below and check off items that apply to you. It is not a complete list, so add your own ideas.

• Doing my best
• Others depending on me
• Being encouraged or complimented by others
• Seeing the positive result of my actions
• Being around positive people
• Proving something to myself
• Proving something to others
• Feeling of accomplishment
• Last minute pressure
• Wanting independence
• Seeing my children happy
• Conflict
• Money
• Enjoying a sense of pride in my actions
• Having to meet a deadline
• Learning new things
• Enjoying the challenge
• To avoid the pressures caused by procrastination
• To avoid criticism from others
• To avoid feeling guilty
• Getting encouragement from others
• Reward motivation
• Internal focus of control and personal mastery

Select one of your motivators that were checked from the list above… Now develop a plan for using this to enhance your low motivation. For instance, “getting encouragement from others” is one of your motivators, consider asking a friend or family member for this type of support in a particular area where you need a push.

See if you can make a plan for any of the other motivators that you checked.

Getting motivated: It is easier when you have a support… Illustration: Megan Jorgensen.

Cognition and Sleep

Cognition

Psychology, the scientific study of the mind, like most disciplines contains many branches. An undergraduate student in psychology, while perhaps wishing to specialize in health psychology, must go through a panoply of introductory level courses: neuroscience, perception, child psychology, social psychology, abnormal psychology, learning and memory, cognition and so on.

Cognition relates to thought processes and mental schemas. Further, social cognition refers to how humans see, and think about, the social world. Social psychologists define social competence as the ability to positively interact with others, a crucial skill in teamwork, a quality many employers look for in potential candidates today.

But what about social cognition? How do humans perceive others' intentions, emotions and states of mind? One such process is called Theory of Mind (ToM) and has been widely documented as deficient in autistic individuals (Sally's hidden object test is often used to measure subjects' ability to "read others' minds"). Body language, facial expressions, tone of voice, vocabulary alongside content, and other social cues are likewise used in face-to-face interactions to detect deception and aid interpersonal communication in general.

Sleep

In the long run, humans need sleep in order to survive. Even a single night out partying without sleeping can cause significant impairment to one's cognitive function. Sleep is divided into non-rapid eye movement (NREM) and rapid eye movement (REM). NREM consists of N1, N2 and N3 stages. Circadian rhythms vary from person to person, but typically span the usual daylight schedule.

Sleep deprivation weakens memory, a function associated with the hyppocampus. Conversely, the amygdala represents responses to real and imagined threats, fear and anxiety, respectively; while the frontal lobe is the seat of executive function (impulse control, decision-making, inhibition, planning). Executive dysfunction is diagnosed using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep. But I have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep. (Robert Frost). Illustration : Megan Jorgensen.

Beast

Beast

By Peter Benchley

By the time Darling rounded the point into Mangrove Bay, the blue of the sky was fast turning violet, and the departed sun had tinted the western clouds the color of salmon.

A single light bulb burned on the dock, and beneath it, moored to a piling, was a white twenty-five-foot outboard motorboat with the word Police stenciled on the side in foot-high blue letters.

“Christ,” Mike said, “he's reported us already.”

“I doubt it,” said Dorothy, “he's a fool, but he's not crazy.”

Two young policemen stood on the dock, one white, one black, both wearing uniform shirts, shorts and knee socks. They watched as Darling eased the boat against the dock, and they passed Mike the bow and stern lines.

Darling knew the policemen, had no problem with them – no more than he had with the marine police in general, whom he regarded as ill-trained, underequipped and overburdened. These two he had taken to sea with him on their days off, had helped them learn to read the reefs, had shown them shortcuts to the few deep-water channels in and out of Bermuda.

Still, he chose to remain on the flying bridge, sensing instinctively that altitude reinforced his authority.

He leaned on the railing and raised a finger and said, “Colin... Barnett...”

“Hey, Whip...” Colin, the white cop, said.

Barnett said, “Come aboard?”

“Come ahead,” said Darling. “What brings you fellas out of the night?”

“Hear you found a raft,” Barnett said.

“True enough.”

Bernett stepped aboard and pointed to the raft lying athwart the cockpit, “That it?”

“That's the one.”

Barnett shone a flashlight on the raft and leaned down to it. “Lord, it stinks!”

Colin stayed where he was and said hesitantly, “Whip... we gotta take it.”

Darling paused: “Why's that?” Somebody claim to have lost it?”

“No... not exactly.”

“Them it's mine, isn't it?... First law of salvage: finders keepers.:

“Well...” Colin seemed uneasy. He looked at his feet. “Not this time.”

“Dr. St. John,” Colin said. “He wants it.”

“Dr. St.John.” Now Darling knew he was bound to lose, and his temper was bound to win. “I see.”

Liam St.John was one of the few men in Bermuda whom Darling took the trouble to loathe. A second-generation Irish immigrant, he had gone away to school in Montana and graduated from some diploma mill that awarded him a doctorate. Exactly what the doctorate was in, nobody knew and he never said. All anybody knew for certain was that little Liam had left Bermuda pronouncing his name “Saint-John” and had returned pronouncing it (and insisting everyone else do, too) “SINjin.”

Armed with an alphabet appended to his name, St.John had rallied a few powerful friend of his parents and besieged the government, arguing that certain disciplines, such as maritime history and wildlife management, were being grossly mishandled by amateurs and should be turned over to certified, qualified experts – which meant him, since he was the only status-Bermudian with a doctorate in anything other than medicine. Never mind that his degree was in an unknown field, probably some thing utterly useless like Druid combs.

An island. Pic by Elena.