The Thursday Ramble: Digging Deep

My first semester at Rollins College I took a required introduction to the liberal arts class. Through various readings, films, music, and art we spent the semester exploring the topic of "freedom." It was the first time I had taken a really deep dive into what on the surface looks like a simple topic. The first evening the professor said, "if you really think you are free, try walking down Park Avenue in the nude." Not for the first time, I have to say the most important thing I learned at Rollins was how to learn, to cultivate curiosity and take a deep dive into issues or topics.  My time there changed me as a person. 

Over the years I have read thousands of books.  For several months one year I took a deep dive into the differences between being alone and loneliness. So much so that the clerks at Park Avenue Books started suggesting new books, based on what I had bought before.  (Sadly they lost their lease and faded out of existence in the late 1990s.) I read cookbooks, like others read romance novels. I own a couple hundred of them. When I see an ingredient, I most often know what it is, and how to cook with it. 

Lately I am taking a deep dive into biomarkers and Alzheimer's disease. 25 years ago, I asked a medical school professor how to determine if someone had Alzheimer's. His answer was "we don't while they are still alive,  a definitive diagnosis requires a brain biopsy and the risk of doing on a live patient is not worth the risk, especially when we have no effective treatment." Today the answer is, we start by screening for elevated proteins in the blood, if we find them, we do a PET scan to look for plaques and tangles in the brain. That along with a clinical evaluation showing a marked decline in memory and cognitive function and we can get a reliable diagnosis. The blood tests for abnormal proteins are the latest addition. And a clear diagnosis is becoming more and more important. Clinical trials are showing effectiveness for therapies to slow or stop the growth of those proteins that either cause the formation of plaques and tangles or are produced by the plaques and tangles.  And there are trials showing that new therapies are effective and reducing plaques and tangles in brain tissue (though it is not clear if this stops the progression or reverses the damage that has been done.)  Blood tests for biomarkers of these proteins are essential for this research. There is more than a glimmer of hope for treatment, and possibly prevention in the future. Two of my four grandparents died living with dementia. This is personal, and professional. 

I have been asked to draft policy encouraging extending medical privacy laws to prevent discrimination based on the biomarker test results. Diagnosis relies on multiple factors,  a clinical evaluation showing a marked decline in cognitive ability, plus evidence of plaques and tangles in brain tissue, and elevated protein levels. If is possible to have elevated proteins, and even the presence of plaques and tangles in brain tissue, and not show a significant decline in cognitive ability.  These tests are not like x rays of a bone to see if it is broken. The risk of discrimination based on the results leads to a reluctance to consent to the tests. Even more important into the future, the blood test could be an early warning sign, leading to therapies that could stop Alzheimer's in its tracks before it damages cognitive ability. 

And here I go. That intellectual curiosity that was ignited in college classroom all those decades ago, is leading me to a deep dive into yet another topic. 

My World of Wonders: August 19, 2026

Where have I been this week? The community center, the pool, the treadmill, a couple of health care offices. 

What have I been up to in the kitchen?  Chicken enchiladas, roast beef, eggs benedict, and I can't remember what I made last Thursday.  

Who have a talked to? Amy, Julia, Dian, Warren, Ruth, a bunch of doctors and nurses. My Sweet bear of course. 

What have we learned this week? If you have lost a meaningful amount of weight, talk to your doctor about adjusting medications. 

What blogger had a nasty fall this week? Blobby in Cleveland, wishing him a full recovery. 

What bloggers are missing in action? Ken and Walt in France. No updates for a couple of weeks is just not like them. They have been at the top of my daily read list of years. 

What am I reading this week? Unpublishable by Danny Gregory, and a book on Neurodiversity. 

Travel Tuesday: Window Seats

MGM Casino at National Harbor, just across the river from home.

The formation of a thunderstorm near Atlanta

Atanta

 

Chicago 

LaGaurdia 

The north shore of Lake Erie, Ontario

Flying over Canada 

Monday Moods: Busy

How am I doing? Busy! And Learning. 

I agreed to present on a couple of workshops at the National Aging and Law Conference at Syracuse University in early October. The written materials and PowerPoints are due the end of the month. I have been trying to coordinate with co-presenters and get those finished and in on time.  I produced that conference a dozen times and I know how important it is that speakers finish the materials on time as requested.  I am well on schedule, by spending an hour or two each day working on those. 

I agreed to chair a policy committee for the Senior Lawyers Division, and we have been asked to advocate for protection against discrimination based biomarker test results. A week ago I had no idea what a biomarker was. So step one was learning, lots of learning. Then contemplating a strategy. Then starting drafting. I reached out to a couple of friends, who graciously shared very helpful resources with me. The next conference call is on Friday, I will have a partial draft to send out by mid-week. Again, I am busy, but productive. And I am learning. 

My last science class was in about 1990. The most important thing I learned in that class, was how to learn about topics I knew nothing about. The research skills developed in undergrad are still serving me well many years later.  

I am working steadily, and a few hours a day. Making good progress, and overall staying busy.  

Sunday Five: Delivery

1: Do you order food through delivery services? 

2: Have you had a delivery go missing? '

3: Why does the delivery bot, have round headlights? 

4: Do you think delivery robots will serve your neighborhood soon? 

5: Would you pause to let Kenshin finish crossing the street? 

My answers: 

1: Do you order food through delivery services? Not really, the restaurant at the condo delivers, one of the staff does the deliveries. We call it room service. 

2: Have you had a delivery go missing? I ordered 6 copies of the book "Who Moved My Cheese" to give to colleagues, the driver sent a photo of them outside a door, but not my door. Amazon asked me to wait a few days to see if they showed up, they didn't and Amazon reshipped them. 

3: Why does the delivery bot, have round headlights? To give it a cute animal like face. I read a book on this kind of design recently. 

4: Do you think delivery robots will serve your neighborhood soon? Not at the Condo, because they can't get into the buildings, and delivery to the doors in the 16 story buildings is required. 

5: Would you pause to let Kenshin finish crossing the street? Yes, I think delivery robots are the future in urban areas. 

Please share your answers in the comments. 

The Saturday Morning Post: Select the Best Medium for Your Creative Endeavours

A month or so ago, Neil, aka Yorkshire Pudding, posted an original poem, and the following day a commentary on few people reading poetry.  His postings stirred my creative thought process, and here is my commentary, "the key to art being understood and enjoyed, is sometimes the medium that it is delivered through." 

Most of the poetry that we experience is song lyrics, in recorded form. How it is delivered, the tone, the metre, the volume, the mood of the artist, changes the meaning dramatically.  When I read poetry, I struggle to find the author's voice in my head.  A poem about love, heard in my brain as a poem about anger simply does not convey the right message. 

Why don't people read poetry? Because they struggle to get the intended voice. If you want poetry to be experienced, use your voice. Record it, post it. Doing this has never been easier.  Most of us are appalled at the sound of our voice,  but others are not. Your voice conveys expression in ways that the written word struggles to do. 

Selecting the best medium, can make the difference between conveying meaning, and falling flat, or even more tragic, being unheard, unseen, unexperienced.  

Funky Friday: The Code of Conformity for Non-Conformists

 Way back in the late 80's early 90's I took a cultural anthropology class.  The Professor was slightly crazy, and like a few Rollins professors a trust fund baby, who never had to earn a living, and taught classes to have something to do besides shop and drink.  She split her year between a condo just off Park Avenue in Winter Park, Florida, and a flat overlooking Central Park in New York. If a student needed to take a make-up exam at the end of the semester, she would provide a prepaid Fedex mailer - she left for New York the last day of exams. 

We read about social norms, and social class. It was really a fascinating class - and I continue to read on the topics. The sign of an effective education is starting a lifelong quest to know more about what we have studied. 

Men having pierced ears had emerged in the 70's as the non-conformists behaviour. Even then there was the code of conformity for non-conformists. One ear was pierced on straight men, the other ear on gay men, both ears was considered weird. I don't remember which ear was for which group. 

In the 1970s mens underwear in the United States introduced new styles and colors.  White "Jockey" shorts were deemed old fashioned, and the non-conformists wore colors and even bikini cuts. A non-conformist would not wear white. Moving into the mid-90's it was the boxer rebellion.  Lose baggy boxer shorts had been the domain of stodgy old men and Ivy League Frat Boys.  Suddenly non-conformists were dropping anything tight, and wearing bright colorful and baggy boxers.  Only a conformist would wear navy blue briefs. All of the cool guys were wearing boxers. Again the code of conformity for non-conformists.  Then along came the boxer brief, tight fitting with a longer leg. The new non-conformists style, that is currently the conformists style, most often in black. I wonder what the non-conformists are wearing these days? 

Styles change, what is non-conformist, becomes mainstream and conformist, then a new non-conformist style emerges.