I Rest My Case
Hello World,
So here we are, practically in the middle of April, and what have we got to show for it, I ask you that? On the other hand, the weather seems to be stuck back in February, with days upon damp, blustery days one after another. It hasn't seemed to put a dent in the spring flowers, which are bursting forth in cheerful waves of color everywhere you look, because their progress is based on length of day, and not temperature, or so I've been told. It must be true, because the hyacinths are outdoing themselves all over our yard, and even though I thought it was much too early, there are already windflowers, and even the tulips are a lot farther along than I would have expected by now. At church, they have pansies in their flower boxes, while in the back, the rock garden is ablaze with sunny yellow flowers, which are a mystery to me, or I'd be happy to recommend them by name. Of course, they may be some sort of special "Flora Ecclesiastica" which only grows on church property, and if you try to dig it up and plant it in unconsecrated ground, it turns into poison ivy instead. That would be my luck.
Speaking of April, probably not more than a few of us remember that Daylight Saving Time used to start in April, not back at the beginning of March like it does now, and in fact, your average person would think there would be no reason for anyone to remember this vestigial trivia any longer. Not so fast! For anyone using outdated technology, as we are at the hospital, the software is appropriately programmed to change the system time to account for Daylight Saving Time, but it only makes this change at the time DST would go into effect back when the software was developed, which in the case of Windows2000NT, is now about 10 years ago. It does no good to try and convince the computer that DST has already taken effect in early March, and please change the time accordingly, because it will have none of that, no matter what you do. So finally, Monday was a big day in our office, when our computers finally decided to join the rest of the world by springing ahead to the correct Daylight Saving Time, since the software is immovable in its conviction that DST happens in April and not March, and we reached that precious milestone at long last. I had no such luck with the copier or fax machine though, even though they are set to adjust for DST, they resolutely resisted this time-tripping tomfoolery, and stood their ground, an hour behind everyone else, with defiance etched all over their features. I finally had to reset them manually (like I have time for this!) but you could see that they were disgusted with the whole situation, and I can't say that I blame them.
While we're on the technology front, alert readers may remember that for my birthday, I had gotten a new 19" monitor, and it's a beauty, a sleek black V7 model D1912 with LCD screen. Earlier this week, I hooked it up to my computer, and what a life-changing experience that is. My previous monitor was not old, and it was certainly not small at 17 inches, but the new monitor is so big and bright and sharp, it's just a totally different viewing sensation. Even though I'm still using all the same programs, and visiting the same web sites, everything looks shiny and new, and because it's so big, everything is so much easier to read than before. When I first set it up, I watched a slide-show of some of my pictures, and I said to Bill later that on the new monitor, the pictures looked better than when I took them in the first place. Even though the screen size is larger than my previous monitor, because the new one is LCD, it's almost completely flat, so it weighs next to nothing and takes up practically no space at all. I remember when I found out at work what a drawback that can be, if like me, you tend to use the top of your monitor as a "holding area" for loose papers that you don't know what else to do with, or you tape things to the sides of the monitor so you remember them. These new-fangled models don't have enough flat surfaces you can do that with, and it takes some getting used to, before you can find other places for your errant papers. So that's one thing that I miss about my clunky old monitor, but I wouldn't give up my new one for anything, now that I've seen what a difference it makes, when everything is big as life and bright as day.
Meanwhile, taking another swing at the Irish songbook, we have one of our alert readers to thank for the following information:
=======================
About your message about Irish Songs, Danny Boy was written by a Brit who had never been to Ireland. At one of the Irish Fests we go to in June, they had the Clancy Brothers as some of the entertainment, and they noted that Ireland is famous for their happy war songs and sad love songs.
=======================
Hmmm. There certainly seems to be room for improvement in that scenario, I'm thinking. Also on the topic of room for improvement, I'm sure that many people scoffed when I said that it was a losing proposition to try and play baseball in certain cities in April, in spite of what the schedule-makers think, so I may have been the only person not surprised to see this on the AOL Welcome screen this week:
========================
DENVER (AP)
Thursday's Atlanta Braves - Colorado Rockies game
at Coors Field was postponed because of snow
========================
Well, I rest my case. Speaking of resting, what with all the stress and confusion of modern life, you might think it would do a body good to engage in the age-old, time-tested remedies of meditation and other Eastern relaxation techniques. Not so fast! If you look up Meditation with our friends at www.wikipedia.org, as Bill did, you'll find this surprising and sobering information:
========================
A growing body of clinical literature is now starting to address the phenomenon of meditation-related problems. Several side-effects have been reported, including uncomfortable kinesthetic sensations, mild dissociation and psychosis-like symptoms. From a clinical study of twenty-seven long term meditators, Shapiro reported such adverse effects as depression, relaxation-induced anxiety and panic, paradoxical increases in tension, impaired reality testing, confusion, disorientation and feeling 'spaced out'. The possibility that meditation might trigger strong emotional reactions is also reported by Kutz, Borysenko & Benson. Therefore, meditation might cause serious side effects, even among long-term practitioners, and might even, in some instances, be contraindicated. Particularly in the Chinese Qigong tradition, stories of unguided practitioners or inexpertly guided students developing chronic mental and physical health problems as a result of their attempts at meditation training are not uncommon. The identification of this syndrome has led to the inclusion of a category called Qi-Gong Psychotic Reaction.
========================
Panic? Psychosis? Depression? Hey, I don't need to meditate for that, it comes walking right into my office, every day of the week. I've never heard of such a thing as "relaxation-induced anxiety," which either sounds like the world's worst oxymoron, or the frat boys at Yale are pulling our legs with a meditation spoof that snuck past the censors at wikipedia. Why, the next thing you know, they'll be telling us that there's no such thing as Flora Ecclesiastica after all. Oh, wait a minute .....
So here we are, practically in the middle of April, and what have we got to show for it, I ask you that? On the other hand, the weather seems to be stuck back in February, with days upon damp, blustery days one after another. It hasn't seemed to put a dent in the spring flowers, which are bursting forth in cheerful waves of color everywhere you look, because their progress is based on length of day, and not temperature, or so I've been told. It must be true, because the hyacinths are outdoing themselves all over our yard, and even though I thought it was much too early, there are already windflowers, and even the tulips are a lot farther along than I would have expected by now. At church, they have pansies in their flower boxes, while in the back, the rock garden is ablaze with sunny yellow flowers, which are a mystery to me, or I'd be happy to recommend them by name. Of course, they may be some sort of special "Flora Ecclesiastica" which only grows on church property, and if you try to dig it up and plant it in unconsecrated ground, it turns into poison ivy instead. That would be my luck.
Speaking of April, probably not more than a few of us remember that Daylight Saving Time used to start in April, not back at the beginning of March like it does now, and in fact, your average person would think there would be no reason for anyone to remember this vestigial trivia any longer. Not so fast! For anyone using outdated technology, as we are at the hospital, the software is appropriately programmed to change the system time to account for Daylight Saving Time, but it only makes this change at the time DST would go into effect back when the software was developed, which in the case of Windows2000NT, is now about 10 years ago. It does no good to try and convince the computer that DST has already taken effect in early March, and please change the time accordingly, because it will have none of that, no matter what you do. So finally, Monday was a big day in our office, when our computers finally decided to join the rest of the world by springing ahead to the correct Daylight Saving Time, since the software is immovable in its conviction that DST happens in April and not March, and we reached that precious milestone at long last. I had no such luck with the copier or fax machine though, even though they are set to adjust for DST, they resolutely resisted this time-tripping tomfoolery, and stood their ground, an hour behind everyone else, with defiance etched all over their features. I finally had to reset them manually (like I have time for this!) but you could see that they were disgusted with the whole situation, and I can't say that I blame them.
While we're on the technology front, alert readers may remember that for my birthday, I had gotten a new 19" monitor, and it's a beauty, a sleek black V7 model D1912 with LCD screen. Earlier this week, I hooked it up to my computer, and what a life-changing experience that is. My previous monitor was not old, and it was certainly not small at 17 inches, but the new monitor is so big and bright and sharp, it's just a totally different viewing sensation. Even though I'm still using all the same programs, and visiting the same web sites, everything looks shiny and new, and because it's so big, everything is so much easier to read than before. When I first set it up, I watched a slide-show of some of my pictures, and I said to Bill later that on the new monitor, the pictures looked better than when I took them in the first place. Even though the screen size is larger than my previous monitor, because the new one is LCD, it's almost completely flat, so it weighs next to nothing and takes up practically no space at all. I remember when I found out at work what a drawback that can be, if like me, you tend to use the top of your monitor as a "holding area" for loose papers that you don't know what else to do with, or you tape things to the sides of the monitor so you remember them. These new-fangled models don't have enough flat surfaces you can do that with, and it takes some getting used to, before you can find other places for your errant papers. So that's one thing that I miss about my clunky old monitor, but I wouldn't give up my new one for anything, now that I've seen what a difference it makes, when everything is big as life and bright as day.
Meanwhile, taking another swing at the Irish songbook, we have one of our alert readers to thank for the following information:
=======================
About your message about Irish Songs, Danny Boy was written by a Brit who had never been to Ireland. At one of the Irish Fests we go to in June, they had the Clancy Brothers as some of the entertainment, and they noted that Ireland is famous for their happy war songs and sad love songs.
=======================
Hmmm. There certainly seems to be room for improvement in that scenario, I'm thinking. Also on the topic of room for improvement, I'm sure that many people scoffed when I said that it was a losing proposition to try and play baseball in certain cities in April, in spite of what the schedule-makers think, so I may have been the only person not surprised to see this on the AOL Welcome screen this week:
========================
DENVER (AP)
Thursday's Atlanta Braves - Colorado Rockies game
at Coors Field was postponed because of snow
========================
Well, I rest my case. Speaking of resting, what with all the stress and confusion of modern life, you might think it would do a body good to engage in the age-old, time-tested remedies of meditation and other Eastern relaxation techniques. Not so fast! If you look up Meditation with our friends at www.wikipedia.org, as Bill did, you'll find this surprising and sobering information:
========================
A growing body of clinical literature is now starting to address the phenomenon of meditation-related problems. Several side-effects have been reported, including uncomfortable kinesthetic sensations, mild dissociation and psychosis-like symptoms. From a clinical study of twenty-seven long term meditators, Shapiro reported such adverse effects as depression, relaxation-induced anxiety and panic, paradoxical increases in tension, impaired reality testing, confusion, disorientation and feeling 'spaced out'. The possibility that meditation might trigger strong emotional reactions is also reported by Kutz, Borysenko & Benson. Therefore, meditation might cause serious side effects, even among long-term practitioners, and might even, in some instances, be contraindicated. Particularly in the Chinese Qigong tradition, stories of unguided practitioners or inexpertly guided students developing chronic mental and physical health problems as a result of their attempts at meditation training are not uncommon. The identification of this syndrome has led to the inclusion of a category called Qi-Gong Psychotic Reaction.
========================
Panic? Psychosis? Depression? Hey, I don't need to meditate for that, it comes walking right into my office, every day of the week. I've never heard of such a thing as "relaxation-induced anxiety," which either sounds like the world's worst oxymoron, or the frat boys at Yale are pulling our legs with a meditation spoof that snuck past the censors at wikipedia. Why, the next thing you know, they'll be telling us that there's no such thing as Flora Ecclesiastica after all. Oh, wait a minute .....
posted by El Tango Fandango @ 8:45 PM
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