Linda Barlow

Obviously I haven’t been updating my blog.  I am a little more active on Twitter & Facebook, however. I use Facebook mostly for casual contact with friends. On Twitter I generally post links to and/or comment about politics, science, medicine, human rights and women’s rights.

I’ve been following the swine flu scare quite closely, having long been interested in infectious diseases that have spread widely, causing the great pandemics of history.  One of the reasons I went back to grad school recently to study biology was because of my concern over the devastation wrought by HIV-AIDS.  I wanted to know more about these deadly agents that can cause so much misery and death.

Influenza subtype A H1N1 is frightening because, according to the CDC, it represents a novel mix of elements from human, bird, and pig influenza virus genomes.  When human immune systems are exposed to a new infectious agent, we have no existing antibodies to attack and neutralize it.  Thus, when confronted with such a pathogen, we’re more likely to get sick than if we had already had full or partial immunity.

Immunology is a highly complex discipline, however, and viruses are tricksy creatures.  From what I’ve been able to understand about the current situation, we’re still in the learning phase when it comes to A H1N1.  We just don’t know enough about it yet.  And even if we did, viruses evolve rapidly.  They lack some of the sophisticated error checkers that do quality control on replication in more complex eukaryotic cells (i.e., the kind of cells we humans are made of).  Thus viruses mutate quickly, which can result in increased or decreased lethality, transmission, and resistance to antiviral medications like Tamiflu.

Flu bugs tend to spread less in the warmer months, which is why our typical flu seasons start in the fall and end in the spring.  In the northern hemisphere, summer is approaching, which should lead to a drop-off of A H1N1 cases (although countries in the southern hemisphere might suffer an increase).  But the World Health Organization and the CDC are concerned that a summer drop-off might be the lull before the storm.  During the post-World War I influenza pandemic of 1918-19, which is believed to have killed 20-40 million people, the flu started in the spring, died down during the summer, then came back roaring the following fall/winter, killing far more efficiently than the usual flu virus.

From what I can make out from reading and digesting a lot of the current information that’s out there, the current H1N1 bug is nowhere near as scary as the 1918 version.  It’s not as lethal, it’s probably less contagious, and it’s apparently not causing death by cytokine storm (where you’re effectively destroyed by your own hyperactive immune reaction).  But viruses being somewhat unpredictable, this could change…which is why we’re being warned to stay alert, cover our mouths when we cough or sneeze, stay home from school/work if we’re sick, and wash our hands frequently with soap and warm/hot water.

This afternoon’s latest alert from the World Health Organization begins like this: “4 May 2009 — As of 18:00 GMT, 4 May 2009, 21 countries have officially reported 1085 cases of influenza A (H1N1) infection. Mexico has reported 590 laboratory confirmed human cases of infection, including 25 deaths. The United States has reported 286 laboratory confirmed human cases, including one death.”

Map of H1N1 cases

Hillary and Bill Clinton gave great speeches at the DNC — rousing, intelligent, persuasive, and most of all, generous.  They were both more gracious to the Obama campaign than I could have been….but fortunately I’m not in the business of politics.  Usually, I’m not particularly interested in politics or politicians, almost all of whom I regard with a jaundiced eye.

But I am interested in equality, and if I do finally end up casting my ballot for Obama in November, it will be in the interest of seeing the United States led by someone other than the privileged white males who have held the office of president and vice president for the past two and a half (almost) centuries.  I would have preferred a ticket with Hillary for President and Obama, the junior, less experienced leader, as Vice President.  Denied that, I would have voted for Obama as President and Hillary Clinton as Vice President.  We need far more women leaders in every vital role in government.

I don’t particularly care whether the women who eventually come to power in government, business, the sciences, the arts, and all other areas of human endeavor share my personal ideology.  I want to see female role models everywhere — on the Left, on the Right, and in the Middle.  I dream of a Congress that is, like the population, 50 percent female.   When 250 of the Fortune 500 companies are run by women, maybe we’ll have something that resembles equality of the sexes in this country.

Thanks, Hillary, for your 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling.

It’s a start.

Joe Biden?  Ok, he’s a nice guy, and experienced, but… Biden the plagiarist?  Biden, whose own attempts to win the nomination have been greeted with yawns from the voters in the past?  Biden, the Clarence Thomas enabler from the Anita Hill hearings?  Way to go, Barack — is this seriously going to get you the votes you’ve lost by ignoring the 18 million of us who voted for Hillary Clinton?

Since Obama has failed to choose the candidate who actually got the most votes in the primaries, I’ll probably either be staying home in November or going to the polls for the sole purpose of writing in Hillary’s name.

Oops, today is the big one. My 40th birthday was all about celebration (a trip to Bermuda). My 50th was fun, too, if a little more downbeat because 50 sounded a bit daunting. Now, as time seems to move faster (is there a law of relativity that applies?) with every decade, I have hit the 6-0 milestone. Am I over the hill? Or has the hill already receded into my rearview mirror?

My primary consolation is that millions of other babyboomers will soon be joining me in our seventh decade. A few are there ahead of me.

I was born during those hopeful post-World War II years when our parents were busy makin’ whoopee and reproducing, stimulated by the economic rebound that followed the defeat of Nazi Germany and the U. S.’s emergence as a world-class power. I had an older half-sister, born to my mother during her pre-war first marriage, but I was the eldest of the 3 babyboomers whom my Mum and Dad produced together.

We grew up in relative peace and security, in the wonderful old Victorian house near the center of Winchester, Ma., a suburb of Boston. The first three years of my life had been spent in an apartment in Cambridge, but the move to the suburbs became possible as my dad’s continued studies at Harvard Business School (MBA and doctorate) improved his job prospects. Dad had grown up relatively poor, son of a divorced mother who had been obligated to work. My own mother, formerly a school teacher, didn’t need to work after I was born; indeed I don’t think any of the mothers in our neighborhood had jobs.

In those days, we knew all our neighbors. My parents socialized with the other grown-ups who lived nearby, and the neighborhood kids played together after school and from dawn to dusk during the endless lazy summers.

In the early 50s we had a TV, which was kind of a big deal, and several old radio sets from the 30s and 40s that still worked. Radio (AM only) remained essential. My dad played his swing music on the gramophone, although he soon obtained, to his great delight, a new Hi-Fi, with separate speakers and a record player that could twirl a whole stack of vinyl records. When I turned 12 in 1960, my birthday present from my parents was a battery-powered transistor radio, which was about 8 inches by 3 inches by 1 inch and came encased in a maroon covering. Transistors had replaced the mammoth vacuum tubes that filled the inside of radios and TVs in the 50s. I could carry my new radio around and hold it up to my ear — it was absolutely the coolest thing.

Wow, this stuff sounds like ancient history to me now, and I was there. Scary thought.

Today, for my 60th, I asked for and received an iPod Touch, to replace my former iPod. I think I’m just as excited about it as I was about my maroon transistor radio. Via our wireless connection, I was able to get my email, surf, check Twitter, Google Earth, and the blogosphere, and watch my favorite Turkish soap opera on Youtube, all while listening to the Rolling Stones in the background.

And the really good news? I’ve lost another couple of pounds and can fit into my skinny jeans!

I’m psyched! My 60s are going to be fun!

As a lover of the country of Turkey, I’ve been following the recent tug of war between the secular forces and the elected parliamentary leaders of the AKP (Ak Partesi), which includes members who are observant Muslims. Both Prime Minister Erdogan and President Gul are AKP members, although Gul’s prospective presidency nearly caused a military coup last year. A hastily-called election widened the AKP’s lead in parliament, and the military was forced to back down.

The secular forces have not given up, though. According to reports in numerous international news sources, and my friend Jenny White, who blogs from Istanbul, the secularists have turned to the courts to accomplish what they failed to achieve at the ballot box. Turkey’s chief prosecutor has proposed a ban on the ruling party, who have, he asserts, been guilty of various crimes against secularism. Should this strategy succeed, both Erdogan and Gul could be banned from political office and their party disbanded.

Ever since the visionary leader Kemal Ataturk emerged from the chaos following the fall of the Ottoman empire after World War I, the doctrine of secularism has been one of the Turkish Republic’s core values. Although the country is 97 percent Muslim, a strict separation of church and state has been enforced. When I lived in Turkey for two years during the 1970s with my Turkish husband, the people who moved in our social circle (mostly university professors and other professionals) were almost exclusively secular in their views. Although religious holidays like Ramadan and Kurban Bayram were generally celebrated, about the only time anybody we knew prayed five times a day or went to the mosque was when someone died.

At the time, however, it was not unusual for devout women to cover their heads with headscarves, even within public institutions like hospitals and universities. Some years after I left Turkey, head covering was banned in the universities, forcing religiously observant Muslim women either to leave the university or subvert the ban by wearing a less obvious head covering, like a wig.

The ban on headscarves in the universities has been lifted recently, due to the efforts of the AKP. (Both Basbakan Erdogan’s and President Gul’s wives cover their heads in public). The secularists are not happy about this, apparently fearing that permitting devout Muslim women to wear the headscarf represents a slide down a slippery slope toward the complete destruction of the rights of women in Turkey.

Now forgive my cynicism, but I seriously doubt that the real issue here is the rights of women. Anyone who reads my blog will have figured out that I don’t believe too many male politicians anywhere in the world care very deeply about women’s rights. If they did, women wouldn’t continue to be the second class citizens that we remain, in country after country, state after state.

What the Turkish secularists are worried about is the same specter that dominates so many of our fears in the West — the possible upsurge of Islamic fundamentalist extremism. And they do have a point. Turkey is one of the only nations in the Middle-east where Islam, the religion, is not tightly intertwined with Islam, the state. Turkey has thrived in recent years as a modern, secular, industrializing country.

Even so, the AKP has prevailed in several elections, and there seems to be little evidence that their recent dominance in parliament has harmed the country (for a much more in-depth discussion, I once again recommend Jenny White’s blog). Turkey has been at pains to prove to the European Union that they meet all the benchmarks of a fully democratic nation, and the last thing the country needs is a military coup or other strong-arm tactics intended to overthrow a democratically elected government.

Overheard in Guild Wars: (an online MMO)

General Chat: Obama the Healer: Monk looking for group for mission.

Team chat: Hillary the Warrior: Cool, there’s a healer LFG. Add him. We need a healer for this dungeon.

Team chat: CampaignMan: He looks like a noob. No elite armor. Prolly never done the mission before.

General chat: Hillary the Warrior: Group lf healer who knows the mission. No noobs.

(Private message): Obama the Healer: Take me.
(Private message): Hillary the Warrior: Hey dude, u know what you’re sposed to do?
(Private messager): Obama the Healer: Sure. Add me.

Obama the Healer has joined your team.

Obama the Healer: Hey.
Hillary the Warrior: Hey.
CampaignMan: ‘Sup
SuperDelRanger: Heya.
SuperDelNecromancer: Hey.
SuperDelNuker: Nice.

Hillary the Warrior: K, let’s get clear before we start. We’re taking all the chaos demons down, group by group. Ranger, pull on my signal. I’ll take the aggro — I’ve got the best defense, and I can do massive AoE with my axe. Anyway, there’s nothing they can throw at me that they haven’t thrown before. Casters stay back, and nuke any adds.

Obama the Healer: Just a moment. I’m not sure I agree. In fact, I propose we change that strategy. Change is good.

Hillary the Warrior: Er, I’m the leader of this group. I’ve got the experience.

Obama the Healer: All I’m suggesting is that we work together closely, as a cohesive team. There’s no reason to aggro every enemy. We might be able to negotiate with some of those demons if we approach them carefully.

Hillary the Warrior: WTF, man, r u kidding me?

Obama the Healer: Hey, chill. Just trying to put forward some inspirational new ideas.

Hillary the Warrior: You wanna negotiate with fire-breathing chaos demons doing 9500 DPS?

CampaignMan: This is why I hate PuGs.

Obama the Healer: Or maybe we just could slip around them, avoiding their aggro circles. My point is, if we work together, we needn’t aggro every foe in the dungeon.

Hillary the Warrior: Duh, I’ve done this before, like 35 times. How many times have you done this mission, monk?

Obama the Healer: Well, actually, I’ve never done it, but I’ve studied it extensively. I’m convinced that the best way to avoid a party wipe is to bring a fresh perspective to the mission. It’s not just about you, the tank. It’s about the entire team working together. We’re infinitely stronger united than divided.

CampaignMan: I told you he was a noob. Kick him.

SuperDelRanger: Wait, he’s kinda got a point. We did wipe last time we tried.

SuperDelNecromancer: We can’t go in without a healer.

Hillary the Warrior: Ok, so it’s true we wiped last time, but I’ve learned a lot from that mistake. I’ve got it figured out now, every detail. I have a complete policy brief on this dungeon. Follow my lead and I’ll keep you all safe. In fact, I’m making you a solemn promise that you won’t accumulate any DP.

SuperDelRanger: U can’t guarantee that, man. This dungeon is pretty tough, and there’s no good exit strategy.

Obama the Healer: I’ve analyzed the mission, too, and I believe that it’s our attitude that counts. Our commitment. If I were in charge of this team, I’d never have brought us into this mission in the first place; in fact, I voted against it. But we’re here now, so let’s clasp our hands and fill our hearts with shining new resolve. Together, we can do this.

SuperDelNecromancer: We can?

Obama the Healer: Yes, we can!

SuperDelRanger: Dude, I like what I’m hearing. Let’s get on Vent and discuss it.

Hillary the Warrior: Man, I don’t believe this. I’m the leader. I’ve got the experience. I’m ready from Gate 1 of this dungeon. Even if you called me at 3 am I’d be ready to lead you through this dungeon!

CampaignMan: Just kick Obama the Noob.

SuperDelRanger: Do not kick him. There’s no other healers in the area. You know how hard it is to find someone who wants to heal instead of fight!

Obama the Healer: I’d be happy to get on Vent with you. I LOVE Vent — it’s perfect for me….I get really eloquent on Vent. My voice will fill you with hope and inspiration.

SuperDelNecromancer: kk, I’m starting up Vent.

Hillary the Warrior: Enough! We don’t need Vent. Let’s just do this. I know the mission, I’m calling the strategy. Follow my plan or find another team.

SuperDelRanger: Hillary won’t use Vent because if we hear each other’s voices, everybody’ll know she’s a girl.

Hillary the Warrior: STFU!

SuperDelNuker: No way. Hillary the Warrior’s a girl?

SuperDelNecromancer: Whoa. There’re no girls on the internet. Not gamers, anyhow.

Obama the Healer: I played with a girl once. She wasn’t very good, though.

Hillary the Warrior: Sexist idiot!!1! Girls gamers kick ass.

SuperDelNuker: Are you really a girl, Hillary? Jeez, no wonder we wiped last time. Dump her. Let’s follow Obama and do this thing.

SuperDelRanger: Obama FTW!

****
Non-geek gamer glossary:

noob (newb, newbie): new to the game and/or incompetent as a player
LFG: looking for group
aggro: to draw the fire of an aggressive foe
AoE: area of effect damage (several foes harmed at once)
nuke: ranged damage, often done by magic attacks
adds: additional foes entering the fight
PuG: pick-up group
DPS: damage per second
party wipe: everybody in the party is killed by the foes.
DP: death penalty
Vent: internet voice software used by gamers.
kick: throw someone off the team
STFU: expletive telling someone to shut up.
FTW: for the win

Like many women of a certain age (i.e., menopausal), I have experienced the insidious outward creep of my waistline. It’s been awhile since I was last able to fit into my “skinny jeans,” as the girls from Sex and the City named those pants you can’t bear to throw away. But, to my own honest amazement, the day when I can pull ‘em out and slip ‘em on is coming. Since the beginning of August, 2007, I have lost close to 30 pounds, and it hasn’t even been particularly difficult.

I’ve known for some time that I should make the commitment to lose weight, but I haven’t had much success with diets in the past. I used to be a thin person. Unlike many young women, I spent my youth and my 20s blissfully ignorant of the anguish so many other girls experienced as they tried to fit their healthy, naturally rounded figures to the norm of increasing slenderness that has created the anorexic “I wanna look like a starving model” cult of today.

Tall, thin women like my young self didn’t have to diet. Or even (horrors!) exercise. We could eat and eat — pizza, chocolate, ice cream — you name it, and never gain an ounce. We weren’t accustomed to dieting. We didn’t know how.

I did, however, acquire a health foods bug during my 20s, after reading Adelle Davis’s Let’s Eat Right To Get Fit. Unfortunately, Ms. Davis died of the cancer that was supposed to be prevented by her consumption of a healthful diet, so I didn’t stick to her more extreme recommendations. But I never forgot some of her rational, sensible advice: eat a balanced diet with a rich variety of foods, and make sure to optimize nutrition.

In my 30s, after giving birth and living the sedentary life of a writer, remaining thin began to be a struggle rather than a birthright. My naturally skeptical mindset has kept me from drinking the Kool-Aid when this or that bestselling diet fad has swept the nation. I watched my friends try various new diets, lose significant amounts of weight, and gradually regain it. My own attempts to diet, which usually meant eliminating all my favorite foods, were unsuccessful. I could lose 5 pounds, and sometimes even 10, but after a few weeks of depriving myself of foods I enjoyed, I’d go off the diet, make excuses, fortify my willpower, try again, tumble off the wagon once more, get depressed, and a dig into a pint of walnut fudge ice cream to make myself feel better. Or a brownie. Dark chocolate truffles, anyone?

The one time I lost a significant amount of weight was with the aid of one of those extreme diets — you know the type — you drink this liquid protein powder stuff several times a day and don’t eat any solid food. At least, that’s what you’re supposed to do. I’m not good at following the rules, so I insisted to the folks I was paying for this “treatment” that I should be allowed one solid meal a day. To this I added, in violation of the rules, a nice salad of fresh greens. Unlike most of the suckers in this program, I only had about 20 pounds to lose, which actually happened pretty fast (too fast). The poundage gone, I started eating real food again, et voila, you guessed it, I slowly gained back all the weight.

The sad thing about this was that even though I knew I had set myself up for re-gaining the weight (by choosing an eating plan that could not possibly be maintained, and wouldn’t be healthful even if it could be maintained), I still felt like a failure. I had been delighted with the 20 pound loss. I’d bought new clothes! Part of the diet plan had included daily vigorous exercise, which was great, but when the diet ended, I slacked off on that, too. What a loser! I deserved to get fat. Bring on the taco chips.

To make matters worse, a couple of years ago I got a scary result on a stress test. This put me in the hospital for an angiogram. Heart disease runs in my family, and I was still leading a sedentary lifestyle, which is a well-established risk factor. Blood pressure and cholesterol were ok, possibly because, despite the dark chocolate and the chips and salsa, my eating habits were healthier than most folks’. I don’t particularly like red meat, so I rarely eat it. I’ve been drinking non-fat milk and consuming other non-fat dairy products since they started appearing on supermarket shelves. I gave up cheese — even on pizza — many years ago. I avoid processed foods, and anything containing high fructose corn syrup, trans fats, and high sugar or sodium. I love fresh fruits and vegetables and eat them often. I love bread, but only the dark, crunchy, whole wheat and rye berry type. I eat beans many times a week; in fact, legumes and soy products have been my primary protein source for years. Heart disease? Ok, maybe it’s in my genes, but I haven’t helped it along.

Fortunately, the angiogram revealed only a small amount of coronary artery narrowing — about the amount that would be expected, the docs told me, in someone my age. Still, it was a warning. I don’t think anybody is certain how fast this sort of thing worsens.

So…this should have resulted in major lifestyle changes, right? Well, sad to say, it didn’t. Instead I think I went into denial mode, which included continuing to comfort myself with brownies (organic), chips (low sodium), dark chocolate, peanut butter (sugar-free, no salt added), and too much of that delicious whole wheat bread. As for exercise? No way! It was running on that treadmill that had made my heart go all jumpy and put me into the hospital. Forget THAT.

I began wearing increasingly baggy clothes. And I didn’t go out much. What if I ran into somebody I knew? My alter egos — characters in novels and stories — could all be nice and slim, no problem. And I had other alter egos in the form of computer game characters in Guild Wars and LOTRO — not only were they slender, attractive and sexy, but they could run all over Middle-earth without ever breaking a sweat or gasping for breath. Read the rest of this entry »

Every time I start meditating again, I wonder why I ever stopped. Over the years, meditation has proved to be the best strategy I’ve ever found for reducing stress and anxiety. Not only is it very relaxing, but meditation seems to ramp up my creativity as well. I have had some truly visionary experiences while meditating, and, in that quiet inward-looking state I feel much more in tune with myself, with the world around me, and with the essential nature of things.

There is no right or wrong way to meditate. In fact, I’ve long suspected that meditation is a natural state that we practice unconsciously as children, but tend to forget as we grow older. I used to watch my daughter when she was a toddler, and her usual way of relaxing herself was to sit down quietly with her blanket, stick two fingers into her mouth, and suck. She would continue in that dreamy state for 10 or 20 minutes before coming out of it, energized.

But all too often we have to rediscover and teach ourselves the wisdom that we knew as children. I have tried various methods of meditation — all are efficacious. Here’s a simple meditation that always feels wonderful to me. It is both calming and revelatory.

You begin by putting yourself into a relaxed state: sitting still and quiet, breathing slowly from the belly, exhaling for a little longer than you inhale. Let your thoughts drift, and don’t follow any particular line of thought. After a few minutes, when you feel relaxed, you are ready for the four segments of the meditation:

1. Aspire toward the Light.

Inhale slowly, reaching up mentally (or physically stretching up your arms) over your head, toward the source of all light.

2. Receive the Light.

Exhale gently, while lowering your arms and cupping your hands in a receptive state. Feel the light pouring into you.

3. Incorporate the Light.

Inhale with your arms crossed gently over your chest, imagining the light filling your chest and moving up into your head, down throughout your torso and legs, and out through your arms to the very tips of your fingers.

4. Radiate the Light.

Exhale as you spread your arms, palms outwards, envisioning the light flowing through you and out to touch and nurture everyone and everything in the world.

When you have completed the meditative chant, begin again and continue for your usual time period (15-20 minutes is what I usually do), breathing slowly and evenly as you Aspire, Receive, Incorporate, and Radiate the Light.

Depending on your own personal spirituality, you can imbue these meditative actions with whatever imagery best suits you. Here’s what works for me:

1. Aspire toward the Light — Mentally I reach upwards toward the Light/Love that flows through everything. That light is always there, but most of the time I am not consciously aware of it. To Aspire toward the Light (or toward God) is to open myself up and know the Light — see it, feel it, experience it. To aspire is to yearn or desire, and my state of mind is prayerful. Although the Light is always present, I have to direct my attention to it.

2. Receive the Light. This is often quite an ecstatic feeling. Again, it can be argued that we are always receiving the light, but it often feels to me as if I am separated from it, and must re-attune myself to it before I can truly appreciate the splendor and power of divine Light/Love moving through me. I am not, in my ordinary everyday life, a particularly spiritual person, nor do I currently practice any form of organized religion, although I am reasonably knowledgeable about several of the world’s great religions, and have been observant in the past. Meditation puts me back in touch with my spirituality, and makes me aware of certain aspects of reality that do not figure into my day-to-day life. Read the rest of this entry »

There are days (too many of them!) when writing is beyond me, but reading, hearing, feeling some of my favorite poems is not. Here is one of the lyrics I have loved, and been profoundly moved by, for decades: The poet is Ger