iancasey.com

The over-medicating of our society

Depressed? There’s a pill for that. Anxious? There’s a pill for that. Erectile dysfunction? There’s a pill for that too. We have become so dependent on these various medications to function, it’s a wonder we’re not all walking zombies. I speak from experience with some of these medications. I have taken more than I can probably even remember.

My initial foray into prescription medications came right after I graduated from high school. I went into my doctor’s office and told him it always felt like my heart wanted to beat out of my chest. He ran some tests and sent me on my way with a prescription for Xanax. In retrospect, starting that medication may have been one of the biggest mistakes of my life.

Benzodiazepines are a class of drug that includes Xanax, Valium, Klonopin and probably at least 50 other medications. They work by calming the body down or sedating it. They are also often used as muscle relaxants, to treat seizures, for insomnia, and occasionally for alcohol withdrawal. And they are handed out like candy to people.

If doctors actually took the time to go over with their patients the dangers of these drugs, I’m convinced they would not be as popular as they are today. Or maybe they still would be. They make you feel invincible. I know that if someone had lectured me about the dangers of Xanax back when I was taking it, I probably would have just tuned them out.  Nobody ever did.

I hope it doesn’t sound like I am attempting to blame my poor choices on somebody else. It was my decision to start taking the drug, and I am the one who decided to swallow almost an entire bottle of pills a couple of years ago. But that’s the thing with these drugs. They cloud your judgment.  They also cause some pretty hardcore amnesia. Like forgetting how many pills you already took.

I will end this entry with the list of side-effects (many of which I have experienced) and reactions that can occur while taking these drugs. The most common side-effects of benzodiazepines are related to their sedating and muscle-relaxing action. They include drowsiness, dizziness, and decreased alertness and concentration. Lack of coordination may result in falls and injuries, especially in the elderly. Another result is impairment of driving skills and increased likelihood of road traffic accidents. Decreased libido and erection problems are a common side effect. Depression and disinhibition may emerge.  Less common side effects include nausea and changes in appetite, blurred vision, confusion, euphoria, depersonalization and nightmares.

Does that sound like something you would want to take? 

 

Exploring the cosmos

I have always loved the show Star Trek. I think it had something to do with their incredible vision of our future. Oh, and they also lived in outer space. And drove around in really cool spaceships. Since my teenage years when I was first discovering The Next Generation, space has always been a fascination of mine. And since we invested in the Hubble Space Telescope back in the early 1990’s, we have been treated to some incredible, mind-blowing photographs of the cosmos. One of my boards on pinterest is even devoted to just that. I wanted to share some of my favorite photographs with you today.

Some of the most stunning photographs I have ever seen are of nebulae. One of the most incredible photographs of nebulae I have ever come across would have to be this one, of inside the star-forming region known as the Eagle Nebula: 

The pillars of creation is actually situated inside this nebula:  

Another breathtaking nebula is the Crab Nebula, which is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus:

Still another kickass nebula is the Cone Nebula, which is an is an H II region in the constellation of Monoceros:

Had enough of nebulae? Oh, who am I kidding. If you're like me you can never get enough awesome photos of nebulae! But in the interest of keeping this blog entry under 20 pages, I will now move on to galaxies. NGC 1232 is an intermediate spiral galaxy about 60 million light-years away in the constellation Eridanus: 

Messier 82 (also known as NGC 3034, Cigar Galaxy or M82) is the prototype nearby starburst galaxy about 12 million light-years away in the constellation Ursa Major. The starburst galaxy is five times as bright as the whole Milky Way and one hundred times as bright as our galaxy's center:

 And I will end with this incredible photo of the Dumbbell Nebula (I told you I really liked these things): 

And that now concludes astronomy 101, with your teacher Ian Casey. I hope you've enjoyed looking at these photographs as much as I have.

 

The circle of life

For the last couple of weeks there have been at least 2 lizards living in my house. And each time one of them finds his way in, he invariably scoots his way over to this artificial tree in my living room.

I was able to let one of them outside maybe a week ago. Today as I was waking up, I walked out of my room and almost stepped on a barely alive cockroach on the floor. Being the kindhearted person I am, I scooped him up on a paper towel and carried him outside. Then, right before my eyes, just as I set the bug down on the front porch, a lizard swooped in and ate him! Was this the same lizard that I rescued last week? I do not know. They all look the same to me. But how interesting would it be if it were? Here you have a lizard that I rescued from my house, eating another animal that I paid the same courtesy to. I think Elton John said it best in his song from The Lion King – it’s the circle of life.

 

 

Laws and sausage

So last night as I was getting ready to go to sleep, there was a fly buzzing around my room. I’m not sure what kind of fly it was, but it was some kind of flying insect. He buzzed right by my head, and I swatted him. He died. And then something happened. I felt bad about it. What right did I have to take this other living things life away from it? Sure, it was inside my house, but maybe it just came in accidentally, looking for food or something. Then I got to thinking how we really don’t care all that much for the creatures on our planet we feel are lesser beings than us - the insects, the mice and rats of the world. Hell, we use mice in all kinds of animal testing. We also use cats, dogs, and rabbits. Sure, I guess it’s a necessary evil, to live in a functioning society. 

I’m not entirely sure what the point of this blog entry is, I just know that killing other creatures for sport or fun is wrong.  Killing them for food is, of course, a different story. But I am reminded of a video I saw not too long ago that showed workers mutilating some pigs at a pig farm. The pigs were screaming out in terror as they were shocked with electricity, another was beaten to death with an iron bar. I am certain these same things happen all the time around the world at various farms. Is it really necessary to torture these poor animals before we kill them? It’s bad enough they are being bred and raised purely to be turned into our sausage and bacon, but it’s another altogether to do what these people did to them. You know the saying that you never want to see how your laws or your sausages are made? I think I just did.

I will leave you with one of the videos that really disturbed me: 

 

 

 

Does anyone happen to have the time?

 

Does time seem to be speeding up, or is it just me? Today is Tuesday. It seems like it was just Tuesday yesterday. The only downside to this time speeding up business is that it isn’t football season yet. Oh well, I’m sure that will happen in another couple of months (though it really shouldn’t be starting until September). This time speeding up business has prompted me to do some (google) research on the phenomenon.

 

I found this quote, at http://www.universolutions.us: 

“Time is actually speeding up (or collapsing). For thousands of years the Schumann Resonance or pulse (heartbeat) of Earth has been 7.83 cycles per second, The military have used this as a very reliable reference. However, since 1980 this resonance has been slowly rising. It is now over 12 cycles per second! This mean there is the equivalent of less than 16 hours per day instead of the old 24 hours.”

And that is exactly the way it feels to me. Seriously. It seems like the Super Bowl happened no more than a couple of weeks ago, when in reality it was over a month and a half ago!

Some scientists believe that when this pulse reaches 13 cycles per second,  the earth will actually stop rotating, will remain still for around 3 days, and then start rotating in the other direction! Now this could all be hooey, I’m not entirely sure. But what I am sure of is time definitely seems to be speeding up to me.  What about you, dear reader? Have you noticed time speeding up as well?

 

Visual Snow An internet diagnosis between psychiatry and neurology

Download Visual Snow An internet diagnosis between psychiatry and neurology

This is a paper that Ben Wigmans and his father Gerard made about a little known condition (and one I also happen to suffer from) called visual snow. There is as of yet no known cure for visual snow. It causes snow or television-like static to constantly appear in the person's visual field, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Also this paper is a translation, but there is still a lot of great information in it.

Here is an excellent forum on this condition, which I also happen to administer: Visual snow or static forums