Wide genes

There’s an inflammation of the brain that has been found to cause or predispose for schizophrenia. I like this Canadian news release’s wording:

“This could lead to new treatments for schizophrenia which is currently affecting a good number of people.”

Somehow I think the original study was a little more precise.

Inflammation Linked To Schizophrenia

liz | 1:10 PM | Uncategorized

True confession: Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Reading the new Martin Amis book, House of Meetings, on the trolley today made me want to smash a person’s face in–that’s how annoying it is. I even looked around for someone who looked like Amis, just for daydreaming “fun,” but slim, effete, dashing, straight-toothed British gentlemen are in short supply on SEPTA’s 34.

liz | 11:32 AM | Uncategorized

Somebody help this man!

Hugh Laurie, of House (but, more excitingly, of Blackadder), is in serious emotional trouble, and I feel like he’s not getting the care he needs. He’s living alone in L.A., and his wife and kids are back in England, where he’s from. Here are some excerpts from a Daily Mail article about him:

Hugh has for the past three years lived a solitary and joyless existence in California as he shoots the series for nine months at a time. Increasingly, say friends, the toll has been exacting. He says, “Mine’s not a happy day. I try not to affect other people by sulking and kicking the furniture if I don’t get something right, but there are days when I actually lose it and it’s not pretty. … I am afraid I punched a door recently.”

Tortured by his feelings of unworthiness and his obsession that his American accent is not up to scratch, Hugh’s famed melancholy has reached new and darker depths. New actors and crew working with the star on the set are routinely given advance warning by Fox TV producers that they can expect the show’s leading man to be morose and sullen.

Says a friend: “It is painfully obvious to everyone who knows him that Hugh is in not in good shape at the moment. God knows he can be the most unhappy bloke at the best of times, but this is different. He desperately misses the children and the separation has put pressure on the marriage.”

Indeed, neighbours are used to seeing a morose Laurie sitting alone on a cheap, striped, fold-up chair on the balcony of the modest apartment where he lives.

Hugh, who has fought depression for years, has admitted in the past to considering suicide on more than one occasion.

You see what I’m saying? And he’s not in counseling or therapy for any of this. He’s just taking homeopathic drugs. Hey, L.A., you’ve got a bazillion shrinks out there. Can’t one of them help Hugh out?

liz | 5:46 PM | Uncategorized

Honor thy caregiver

One of my enduring missions for this site is to acknowledge caregivers–both the heroic work they do in tending to a loved one with an illness, and the mental health difficulties they encounter in doing so. This article puts a finer point on it:

Risk of Depression is Higher for ALS Caregivers Than for ALS Patients, Says Study

[And give your caregiver a soda, for god's sake!]

liz | 12:15 PM | Uncategorized

SFJane: Part III, revised

My apologies to SFJane for not correcting this last week. When I see that I have a lot of emails, comments or video responses, I start to hyperventilate and end up doing nothing productive. A famous-ish man (C. Northcote Parkinson) once said, “Delay is the deadliest form of denial.” Amen, brother.

Here’s the latest version of SFJane’s chronicle of dealing with bipolar disorder. Thanks again, SF, for your honesty.

liz | 10:55 AM | Uncategorized

Special treat, ha ha

I’ve heard some people can’t play the “Liz Spikol’s Philadelphia” videos we post on the PW website, so here’s an uncut version of the bingo excursion. (Thank god for Jess Fuerst’s editing skills. At four minutes, I’m thinking this is a bit long.)

liz | 9:00 AM | Uncategorized

Vivid dream: Zev and Stellan are alive and well

Last night all kinds of odd people entered my dream.

First it was Britney Spears, who I’m apparently quite worried about. She had released a new CD with an elaborate booklet filled with her in vaguely lewd positions–but still without any hair. In the liner notes she referenced Sinead O’Connor, as though another famous baldy justified her own smooth pate. Critics were generally horrified.

Then I dreamt that an Oberlin name came to me suddenly: Zev Berman. I didn’t know him very well at school, but in my dream I decided to Google him. I quickly found an obituary for him. He’d died in 1995, just five years after graduation. In the dream he was photographed leaning against a wall, wearing a grayish shirt.

Then I ran into Peter Skarsgaard in a phone booth. He was shooting up, and looked really strung out. I said, “You’re so talented and smart. You’re ruining yourself with drugs.” He looked up at me sheepishly as blood ran down his arm.

Okay, so I woke up and was like, Zev Berman? How random. I haven’t thought about him since Oberlin, and at Oberlin I didn’t think about him much. I Googled him and have discovered that he’s now a film director, which is cool. I went to imdb and found him, and the photo of him looked EXACTLY like the one in my dream. (Only Steve Volk, PW senior staff writer, will believe that. But it’s true.)

As for Peter Sarsgaard, I’ve always had a crush on him. He’s one of those actors I’m sure would fall for me if we met. I also feel that way about Mark Ruffalo. (Yes, his wife is a gorgeous blond amazon named Sunshine. But … we’re very alike in other ways. Probably.)

liz | 12:01 PM | Uncategorized

Intent to kill?

I admit, I try to banish all thoughts of insurance from my mind. For some reason, it makes me tense. But here’s an interesting case: A woman was killed by her ex-boyfriend, who was mentally ill. According to Pennsylvania Law Weekly, “Warren Heisey expected his actions would cause his ex-girlfriend Janie S. Reim’s death,” which means the death was not accidental. Therefore the insurance company isn’t required to pay out the policy to Reim’s estate.

The case is important because it hinges on whether a mentally ill person is capable of conceiving intent. Was Heisey aware that his attack on Reim would cause her harm?

Mental Illness Evidence Doesn’t Destroy Intent

[This image is an old ad for Prudential Insurance. Why was the poor little girl being sent away from her family? Did Aunt Martha die? I almost cried when I saw that.]

liz | 9:18 AM | Uncategorized

Marilyn news, rebuffed

In the below, Luther chides me for buying into the notion of Kennedy and Lawford orchestrating Marilyn’s death:

Even though a newspaper from Australia might not be quite aware of the vicious attacks launched against anyone with “liberal” political tendencies by the FBI director J. Edger Hoover, you should be.

This report smacks of a FBI hatchet job. Where did the evidence come from? As a side note, you might read the following article which delinates the FBI’s false reports created to fire and prevent advancement to any federal position of Clark Kerr, a member of the California University board of regents.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2002/06/10/MN64831.DTL

Any report produced by the FBI from this time should definately be viewed with complete skepticism.

liz | 5:27 PM | Uncategorized

Suicide Saturday!

How many websites offer that, I ask you. It’s always a laugh over here at TTWS.

Three stories for today:

1) Brad Delp, of the execrable band Boston, died last week. His death has now been ruled a suicide. This article tries to explain his death, but is suicide ever the result of a single cause? Maybe in India, where farmers kill themselves after they get into horrible debt (see story No. 2), but with someone who calls himself a “lonely soul,” there’s probably a less pragmatic reason for his wanting to opt out.

2) Nearly 75,000 people commit suicide each year in India. Click here for more.

3) Most sensationally, a secret FBI report claims that Marilyn Monroe’s death wasn’t exactly suicide. Conspiracy theorists have been saying this for years–that Bobby Kennedy didn’t want her to disclose their affair, and he and Peter Lawford cooked up a plan to spike her sleeping pills. Her maid was also involved. Here’s more of the story.

liz | 12:53 PM | Uncategorized