开云体育

While the settings were picturesque, the fact that almost all the fort scenes could be shot on the grounds of Goulding's meant that Ford could maximize production time; lengthy rides out into the valley were only necessary for action scenes. In this way, Ford knew he could complete the film under schedule in the astonishingly brief time of four weeks, only slightly more than the average television movie of today, and several weeks less than was usual for a Technicolor Western shot on location. There was no downtime, if the weather clouded up so a given scene couldn't be shot, Ben Johnson, a new addition to the stock company, could ride. "He liked to watch me ride a horse," remembered Johnson. "All these guys were better actors than I was but I could beat them all riding a horse."

Johnson was born on an Osage Indian reservation in Oklahoma in 1918, and had been working on a cattle ranch in 1939 when Howard Hughes bought some horses for his film The Outlaw. Johnson was making $40 a month at the time, and was hired to accompany the horses to Hollywood. "The first week I was on his payroll," Johnson remembered, "I made $175, as opposed to $40 a month. That's why I stayed in Hollywood."

By 1948, Johnson had doubled for Gary Cooper, Joel McCrea, and most of the Western stars of the time. Johnson was doubling Henry Fonda in Fort Apache when a couple of horses ran away with a wagon during a take. Johnson stepped out from behind the camera and stopped the runaway. Moved by the stuntman's unassuming courage, Ford got down off the camera parallel and went over to Johnson. "Ben, you'll be well rewarded for this." Johnson thought that he'd get some more stuntwork out of his good deed, but two weeks later, Ford called him into his office, handed him an envelope, and told him to have his lawyer look at it.

As the envelope wasn't sealed, Johnson pulled out the contents and discovered a personal services contract with Argosy Pictures. "The fifth line down [read] 'to $5,000 a week,' " remembered Johnson. "That's as far as I read. I got a pen off his desk and I signed "

Ford clearly liked the young man a great deal, and saw in him something of Harry Carey's ease and likability. Aside from his natural athletic gifts, Johnson was the token normal person in the Ford stock company. He wasn't a drunk, wasn't given to fits of temper, depression, or grandiosity, but did have a natural authority on screen.

Budgeted at $1.8 million, the picture required Ford to work seven days a week. The first two days of the schedule were given over to selecting locations, then he dove in. The first day, Wednesday, October 27, 1948, he shot action footage of Indians, stagecoaches, and Ben Johnson riding, and covered an astounding eight and a half pages of script. After that, he averaged between five and six pages of script a day (the average for a large-scale studio picture is two to three per day).


Scott Eyman "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford" (1999)

Ford remained a good soldier, without a great deal of authorial ego, willing to step in and help out as his employers deemed necessary. Frank Borzage was as skilled an emotional director as anybody in Hollywood, but he was not regarded as being talented with action, so Ford was called in to shoot the scenes of the troop mobilization in 7th Heaven. Even an experienced action director was at the mercy of circumstance, however, as the powderman on the picture, hearing his cue - notes on a bugle - exploded a church steeple before he was supposed to. As it happened, the bugler was just warming up and the cameras weren't ready. Nobody was killed, but four cars were destroyed. Ford also helped out Raoul Walsh by shooting a sequence of the troops moving to the front in What Price Glory?

Scott Eyman "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford" (1999)

Behavior is one of the most widely discussed topics of all times by parents and professionals within the autism community. Parents want to know how to deal with their child's behaviors at home and in the community. Educators in the classroom find it difficult to manage the behavior outbursts that can accompany autism, and often resort to punitive tactics, which have little or no effect on an autistic child who is having a tantrum due to sensory overload or social misunderstandings, Understanding the source of "bad" behavior and teaching "good" behaviors is a challenge for neurotypical adults who have a different way of thinking and sensing their world than do children with ASD. It requires adults to rethink the way they interact with people with ASD, and most are ill-equipped to do so. Abstract concepts about morality and behavior do not work. The child has to learn by specific examples. When I said something rude about the appearance of a lady at a store, mother instantly corrected me and explained that commenting on how fat the person is was rude. I had to learn the concept of "rude behavior" by being corrected every time I did a rude behavior. Behavior has to be taught one SPECIFIC example at a time.

Call me old-fashioned, but adults in the world of my youth, the '50s and '60s, believed in a stricter social behavior code than do adults in today's world. For the child with ASD, that was a good thing. Social skills were taught as a matter of course. Behavior rules were straight-forward and strictly enforced, another positive strategy well aligned with the autism way of thinking. Consequences were uniformly imposed and expectations to behave were high. My mother and all the other mothers who lived in our neighborhood attended to children's behaviors, and placed value on teaching their children good manners and appropriate behaviors. To be a functioning member of society, these things were required, not optional, as they seem to be today. Kids today are allowed to do just about anything. The behavior of many five- or six-year-olds I've witnessed in stores or other public places is atrocious. The parent stands there, not knowing what to do, eventually giving in to the child's tantrum just to get him quiet.

Today's fast paced, techno-driven world is louder and busier than the world I grew up in. That, in and of itself, creates new challenges for the child with autism, whose sensory systems are usually impaired in one way or another. Our senses are bombarded on a daily basis, and this can render even typical children and adults exhausted by the end of the day. Imagine the effect it has on the sensory-sensitive systems of the child with autism, especially those with hyper-acute senses. They enter the world with a set of physical challenges that severely impair their ability to tolerate life, let alone learn within conventional environments. They have so much farther to go to be ready to learn than I did growing up in my time.

When figuring out how to handle behavior problems, one has to ask: Is it a sensory problem or a behavior problem? Accommodations are usually needed to help a child handle problems with sensory oversensitivity. Punishing sensory problems will just make the child's behavior worse. Sometimes behavior problems occur when an individual with ASD becomes frustrated due to slower mental processing, which in turn makes a quick response difficult. In kindergarten, I threw a huge tantrum because the teacher did not give me enough time to explain the mistakes I had made on an assignment. The task was to mark pictures of things that began with the letter B. I was marked wrong for marking a picture of a suitcase with the letter B. In our house, suitcases were called "bags."

Behavior never occurs in a vacuum; it is the end result of the interaction between the child and his or her environment, and that environment includes the people in it. To bring about positive change in the behavior of the child with ASD, adults need to first adjust their own behaviors. In the television series, Supernanny, Jo Frost makes such remarkable changes in the behavior of kids because she first helps parents get control of their own behaviors and learn basic behavior techniques. That's a valuable lesson for every parent, educator, or service provider, to take to heart. The behavior, good or bad, of a child with ASD, largely depends on you and your behavior. If you want to change the behavior of the child, first look at your own. You might be surprised by what you see.

Temple Grandin "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's" (2011)

In January of 1945, just one month after we married, I was invited to the White House for Franklin Roosevelt's annual birthday party. Many Hollywood personalities were invited and I was very proud to be included. Besides being a guest at the Birthday Ball, I was to appear in Dear Ruth which was to be performed especially for the President. The show was scheduled prior to the ball and the charter flight from Los Angeles to Washington was designed to arrive with time to spare. We were travelling on "Orchid Priority," top priority for any aircraft at the time.

But mother nature never heard of "Orchid Priority The weather turned bad and we were forced to land at Kansas City. We finally arrived at 2 a.m., long after the ball and, naturally, the play. With no talent, the play was cancelled. The real sadness for most of us was that the President had to leave for the Yalta Conference at I a.m. and we missed him.

Mrs. Roosevelt held an informal luncheon the following day. I was thrilled to be seated at a small table with her and Harry Truman and his daughter Margaret. As usual, I talked too much.

Mrs. Roosevelt seemed terribly interested in Holly-wood and my career to date. I went on at length about my new husband and Elaine and so many things. And I ended our conversation with, "You know what I'd love, Mrs. Roosevelt?"

"No. What is it?"

"A spoon. A spoon from the White House."

She laughed and discreetly handed me one right from the table. "I think I'd better spend some time with the rest of my guests," she said and went off to do just that. Mr. Truman and Margaret stayed with me and we had a very enjoyable chat about everything but politics. The Vice-President did confide that he felt the press were being unfair to him in the way they photographed him and quoted him out of context. I agreed, of course, but wanted to say that perhaps if Margaret and Bess dressed a little better, the press might be more kind. I've never seen any mother and daughter dressed in such bad taste. They were nice people, though, and I was pleased to see the press treat Mr. Truman a little better after he became President.

The White House photographer took a group picture later that afternoon and I treasured it for many years until a fire wiped out most pictures I'd kept of my career. In the picture, a space was left empty for the departed President. On one side was Mrs. Roosevelt. I stood on the other. Also in the photo were Myrna Loy, Gail Storm and Margaret O'Brien, at that point the darling of Hollywood and wherever else she happened to be. I think Mrs. Roosevelt wanted to adopt her.

But the most rewarding event during those hours at the White House came much later that afternoon. I found myself alone in one of the White House rooms with Mrs. Roosevelt. I don't know why we ended up that way but we did. And there were two things she told me which always seem to come to mind when I think about the Washington trip.

Mrs. Roosevelt said to me, "I want you to know, Miss Lake, that I was very happy to give you that spoon. I was happy because you asked me for it. Most people wouldn't bother asking. They would take them and walk out." I wish my mother could have heard that.

And then the nation's First Lady turned very solemn and gazed through the window onto the garden. I didn't dare interrupt her thoughts although I started to wonder if that wouldn't be what she was expecting me to do. She finally broke the silence by getting up and walking across the room. She stopped in front of a lovely cabinet and slowly perused the items behind the glass. Then she turned to me.

"The President is ill, you know." She said it so flatly, so without emotion or tone to draw emotion from me. I said nothing.

"The President has cancer of the prostate gland. He'll be operated on when he returns."

I sat there wishing desperately she hadn't told me that. It would have been bad enough if she'd been the wife of a dear friend. But she was talking about the President, a man as familiar to everyone as their closest friend.

"I don't know what to say," I said. "I'm sorry. I mean I. . .

"And I don't know why I've told you this," Mrs. Roosevelt said with a smile. "I'm the one to be sorry. I suppose we all need to tell these things to someone. I chose you for no reason. No one knows of this except his physician and a few close advisers. Please respect my confidence."

"Yes, of course, Mrs. Roosevelt. Of course."

The President returned from Yalta and I waited day by day to read of him entering the hospital for the surgery. I suppose he wanted to but never got around to it in the press of his schedule. It all became meaningless on April 22 when he died of the cerebral hemorrhage in Warm Springs, Georgia. His death brought to me a strange and childish sense of importance. I never repeated what Mrs. Roosevelt told me. Never. I don't know why.

Veronica Lake, "Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake" 1969)

Nasal sprays help with my seasonal allergies, but I've heard they can be addictive. Is that true? And what should I do if I think I'm hooked?

It's an issue that has been joked about on social media and on comedy shows like "Saturday Night Live" and "Family Guy": Once you start using certain nasal sprays, it's challenging to stop.

Some active ingredients can indeed create extra stuffiness, causing "the compulsion to use it again and again for relief," said Dr. Edward McCoul, an ear, nose and throat doctor at Ochsner Health in New Orleans.

Dr. McCoul said that an estimated 9 percent of people visiting E.N.T. physicians have what is called rhinitis medicamentosa, or "rebound congestion" - meaning that their sinuses become even stuffier than they were before using the sprays.

The resulting repeated need for nasal spray isn't technically considered an addiction, said Dr. Jonathan Bernstein, an allergist and immunologist in Cincinnati. The spray would need to change a person's brain chemistry to fit the official definition.

But the physical dependence is a real phenomenon. When the blood vessels in your nose get too accustomed to certain sprays, you can wind up feeling as though you couldn't breathe without them.

"It's such a slippery slope: said Dr. Lily Pien, a Cleveland Clinic allergist and immunologist.

Most habit-forming sprays have a recommended limit of two sprays per day for up to three days. Any more, and you run the risk of rebound congestion. The sprays to watch out for are the ones categorized as nasal decongestants, which contain active ingredients like oxymetazoline (Afrin, Sinex) and phenylephrine (Neo-Synephrine), Dr. McCoul said.

Decongestant sprays temporarily restrict the blood flow in your nasal passages, shrinking your blood vessels so the air has more room to circulate. If your blood vessels get too accustomed to these drugs, they can swell up as soon as you stop using them, making for narrower airways.

Because of that, decongestant sprays are best for short-term use, Dr. McCoul said. "The common cold is the ideal situation for nasal decongestant sprays: he said. "After a few days, the cold is naturally going to get better."

If you're stuffed up for more than three consecutive days - say, during a bad allergy season - experts have good news : Not all nasal sprays carry the risk of rebound congestion.

STEROID SPRAYS Sprays that contain steroids like mometasone (Nasonex) or fluticasone (Flonase) are safer alternatives for treating long-lasting congestion, Dr. Pien said, because they won't cause rebound.

As with decongestants, steroid sprays reduce nasal inflammation, Dr. McCoul said, but they won't work as quickly. Steroid sprays can sometimes take up to a month of once-daily use to work.

ANTIHISTAMINE SPRAYS Sprays that contain the antihistamine azelastine (Astepro) are also safe, Dr. Pien said. They block histamine receptors linked to itching, sneezing and watery eyes.

Antihistamine sprays usually clear allergy symptoms more quickly than steroid sprays, Dr. McCoul said. But if your nose is more stuffy than runny, steroid sprays might be best, since they're better at reducing inflammation. Combining steroid and antihistamine sprays is also safe.

SALINE SPRAYS Sprays that contain saline (usually just salt and water) are safe and medication-free, Dr. McCoul said. They can reduce dryness and help clear nasal passages of particles or germs that cause inflammation.

But if congestion is an every-day problem, it's a good idea to see an allergist, said Dr. Richard Lockey, an allergist and immunologist at the University of South Florida. And you should always ask your doctor before using any over-the-counter medications, Dr. Bernstein said.

If you have been using decongestant sprays for more than three days and feel as if you can't stop, the experts agreed it's time to get medical help.

Using these sprays for too long can damage your septum, the cartilage that divides your nostrils, Dr. Bernstein said.

Doctors might prescribe an oral steroid, which can help reduce swelling as you wean off decongestant sprays. Some also suggest alternating decongestant sprays with steroid sprays as you gradually reduce your dependence on the decongestants.

Caroline Hopkins

The saying says neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night can keep U.S. postal carriers from their appointed rounds. But in one Austin, Texas, neighborhood, mail delivery is suspended by a hawk. The bird dive-bombs mail carriers and anybody else in Travis Heights. A biologist says it's likely defending hatchlings. So for the next few weeks, residents are being asked to collect their mail at the local post office.

Preaching-Team Tips For Surefire Sermons
by Paul Rudnick

With access to the most charismatic pastors and snappiest sermons via YouTube and pod-casts, churchgoers' standards are rising.... Full texts and outlines of sermons are available on websites like Sermon Central and Logos, ostensibly for reference and inspiration.... Some larger churches ... employ in-house "preaching teams" that collaborate on sermon production. —The Times, July 7, 2021.


1. DO NOT BEGIN ANY SERMON WITH THE FOLLOWING LINES:
- "Yesterday morning, while I was sitting on the toilet ..."
- "Some of you may have seen the headline 'Local Clergyman Found Naked and Inebriated in Walmart Linens Aisle' ..."
- "What a great-looking crowd! Anyone in a relationship? With Jehovah?"
- "A priest, a rabbi, and the man they both crave walk into a bar ..."

2. PHRASES THAT WILL APPEAL TO YOUNGER PARISHIONERS:
- "Texting—it's like praying with your thumbs, dude."
- "My pronouns are 'thou', 'thy,' and 'let's get this hip-hop Mass started, bitches!' "
- "The Sistine Chapel is God's selfie." (Make mind-blown hand gesture and sound effect.)
- "Let's talk about climate change. It's what happens when we do meth."

3. REACHING OUT TO WOMEN:
- "Mary—she wasn't just someone's mom."
- "Moses—am I right, ladies?"
- "Is mutually satisfying sex an important part of a godly marriage? Let's ask Solomon's two-hundred-and-seventeenth wife, Amanda of Goshen."
- And, just like that, Eve was blamed for wanting to pursue her education."

4. DEALING WITH SECULAR TOPICS:
- "Would I endorse a political candidate? You bet I would - if his name was Junior Senator Jesus Christ, from the great state of Worship."
- "I hear a lot of talk about queer people. Well, God loves everyone. Even Marjorie Harbett's husband and that young fellow he calls his associate car washer."
- "When I hear the words 'women's reproductive freedom,' do you know what I think? I think, That's a lovely blouse, Helen Darrells! Is it new?"

5. LARGER THEMES (SUGGESTED TITLES):
- Is Murder a Mortal Sin? Even at the Holidays?
- What Does God Mean by Salvation? Don't Any of You Have Google?
- Hugging: Does It Lead to My Resignation?
- World Peace: Is It Just Something Jews Yell to Steal Your Parking Space?
- Forgiveness: Even Your Dry Cleaner?

6. PRODUCT PLACEMENT:
- "Many people ask, 'Can I ever atone? For not buying a 2022 Chevy Equinox?' "
- "Do I believe in miracles? Of course! Especially when I have persistent diarrhea and there's Imodium Multi-Symptom Relief!"
- "Why did the Lord make war and suffering? So we'd appreciate Apple-bee's Chicken Fajita Rollups!"

7. 100%-GUARANTEED PUNCH LINES:
- "Oops, God did it again!"
- "That's what the Almighty said!"
- "Is that a hymnal in your pocket, or are you just really excited about the story of Ruth?"
- "Oy vey, Sister Matilde!"

8. SNAPPY SAYINGS:
- "Bless your heart - especially in my body after your car accident!"
- "Can I get an amen? And a raise? I'm kidding!"
- "Let us pray - for me to get a raise! I'm still kidding!"
- "You may kiss the bride - and my ass, if I don't get a raise! I'll be here all week - unless I don't get that raise!" –
"May God be with you - because I'm outta here, you cheap bastards!".

FEBRUARY 7, 2022

Ford remained a good soldier, without a great deal of authorial ego, willing to step in and help out as his employers deemed necessary. Frank Borzage was as skilled an emotional director as anybody in Hollywood, but he was not regarded as being talented with action, so Ford was called in to shoot the scenes of the troop mobilization in 7th Heaven. Even an experienced action director was at the mercy of circumstance, however, as the powderman on the picture, hearing his cue - notes on a bugle - exploded a church steeple before he was supposed to. As it happened, the bugler was just warming up and the cameras weren't ready. Nobody was killed, but four cars were destroyed. Ford also helped out Raoul Walsh by shooting a sequence of the troops moving to the front in What Price Glory?

Scott Eyman "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford" (1999)

Autism & Religion

Teach Goodness

Any parents share with me their desire to educate their child with autism or Asperger's about the religion practiced by the rest of their family. Some wonder if their child is capable of understanding the concept of God, or a higher power, of being spiritual, or even understanding the basic messages of the Bible or other religious texts.

I have learned, over the years, that there is a whole upper layer of abstract thought mixed with emotion that I do not have. Thoughts and emotions are separated in my mind; they don't intermingle and affect one another. Thinking is concrete - it happens in pictures in my mind. Therefore, for me, inspirational matters had no meaning, except for the very concrete aspects of them taught to me.

I had a proper religious upbringing, though. My family attended the Episcopalian church every Sunday. These weekly outings held little value for me, and I was not interested in what went on. The scratchy petticoats I had to wear to church were awful; in fact, the worst thing about church was the Sunday-best clothes. Sunday school was boring to me and I usually spent the entire class filling in the Os and Ps in the church program.

Concrete teachings were what I understood. For instance, our Christmas service made a lasting impression on me that I retain to this day. Each Christmas, every child in the congregation had to take one of their good toys and give it to a poor child. One year, I offered a yo-yo and Mother told me that I had to give a better present. At the Christmas service, the minister stood next to the manger, full donated toys, and said, "It is better to give than to receive." This kind of concrete learning I understood.

The autistic/Asperger's mind tends to dwell on negatives, and this something parents and professionals should be aware of and find ways to counteract. It is beneficial for a young autistic or Asperger's child to be schooled with positive teachings. One way to do this is through religious training. Helping a child understand what to do, in concrete ways, demonstrating actions that are giving and positive and helpful to others, can counterbalance this tendency toward negative thinking. If a child asks about something negative, for instance, like stoning as it's mentioned in the Bible, I would recommend parents telling the child that in modern times, most people no longer do that. Keep it concrete and simple.

A nice, positive approach for a Christian upbringing would be to give a child one of the WWJD - "What Would Jesus Do?" necklaces or key chains. Then teach the child concrete examples of what Jesus did, or would do, in various situations. For instance, Jesus would not cheat at games. He would not lie, or steal another child's toys. When I was little, I stole a toy fire engine from another child and Mother made me give it back. Moral upbringing must be concrete. A good person is considerate of others. One example I remember from my childhood was being told, by a very sleepy mother, that asking her to open a stuck glue bottle while she was sleeping was not being considerate. Fair play and good sportsmanship are important to teach. Jesus would play fairly and would not be a poor loser. He would not scream and rant if he lost a game. It is unfortunate that in our society today, so many sports heroes behave badly on television and there are no consequences for their actions. It teaches a wrong moral lesson for a child with autism or Asperger's (or any child) to see a famous basketball player not being punished for kicking a TV cameraman. If a child views things like this, it is important that a parent tell the child that Jesus would never do that.

Teach your child love and kindness in a concrete manner, with very specific examples. For instance, an example of kindness would be bringing flowers to an elderly lady in a nursing home. There are hundreds of ways parents can share the real essence of their faith with their child with autism or Asperger's, through daily demonstrations of the goodness that is at the foundation of their religion. This is more important, and will help the child in the future more than will learning to recite passages of text, or trying to teach them higher-level concepts that they will have difficulty understanding.

Temple Grandin "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's" (2011)

Things Vaccinated People Still Should Not Do
By Eli Grober

(Fully vaccinated people can visit with other fully vaccinated people indoors . . . and refrain from quarantine and testing following a known covid-19 exposure if the vaccinated person asymptomatic. - Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.)

Here at the C.D.C., we have announced a new set of public-recommendations for people who are fully vaccinated against covid-19. However, there are a number of things that vaccinated people are still not allowed to do. Please familiarize yourself with this list.

REPLY ALL
Once you are fully vaccinated, you are still not allowed to reply all to an e-mail that was clearly not meant to solicit such a reply. Similarly, getting the vaccine does not give you the green light to cc two hundred people on an e-mail. Better to bcc them.

Stay Unmuted During Group Zooms
Just because you're fully vaccinated doesn't mean that everyone wants to hear all the sniffing and typing and fidgeting you do while in a Zoom meeting. Mute yourself, whether you've got the shot or not.

Walk in the Middle of a Busy Sidewalk
Moderna, Pfizer, Johnson &Johnson - none of these will prevent other people from getting really annoyed that you won't stay on your side of the pavement.

Not Order Fries and Then Eat Your Friends' Fries Off Their Plates
No kind of vaccine will ever make it O.K. to do this. Even if you're vaccinated and eating outdoors, masked and distanced, just order your own damn fries.

Play Devil's Advocate
You may be protected against coviD-19, but you're not protected against looking like a jerk. Just admit that you like being disagreeable, and then keep the rest to yourself.


Eat Hot Dogs Horizontally, As if They're Corn on the Cob
Some people like to eat their hot dogs in this fashion. This is super weird, and, no matter how vaccinated you are, you are not allowed to do it.

Use Both Armrests on a Plane or a Train
Just because it's safe for you to travel again doesn't mean that you're the only one travelling. Are both of your elbows really that tired?

Get On the Subway Before Letting Riders Off
You have never been and are still not allowed to do this. You may have the antibodies, but you don't get to be anti everyone else's body.

Suddenly Stop Walking Up a Flight of Stairs to Look at Your Phone
Like developing a vaccine, going up stairs is an activity that demands your full attention. You may be immune to the novel coronavirus, but you're certainly not immune to a person behind you walking straight into your butt. Get to the top of the stairs, then look at your phone, and then be grateful for modern medicine.

Suggest That You and Your Friends Split the Bill, Even Though You Ordered a Steak and Everyone Else Just Got Drinks
Inoculation doesn't stop this from being wrong. In fact, doing this might give you COVID. The data isn't in yet.

This list will be updated regularly based on community-spread levels of SARS-CoV-2, and also on community-spread levels of doing really annoying things.

THE NEW YORKER, MARCH 29, 2021

781213 Tomorrow to fresh woods and pastures
(Lycidas by John Milton)


Without making too obvious a play for your sympathy, I do have to tell you that tonight I have been specially let out of custody for this broadcast.

I was only allowed to be here on condition that A) I wouldn't use the privilege to make an escape attempt and that B)
That the BBC officially undertook to deliver me back immediately that the show was over.

Which just goes to show you how strict some of these health farms are these days.

Just like everybody else who's ever wound up inside one, I never really believed this could happen to me.

Nevertheless just a scant couple of weeks ago there I was standing on a weighing machine in the commandant's office. And while he was looking through my dossier he said to me, "You seem an educated man. What makes you do such things?"

Now I said, "It's just something inside me I suppose sir. All my life I've desired beautiful things. "

And he said, "What sort of beautiful things?"

I said, "You know, roast potatoes, baked bean sandwiches, rice pudding with hot marmalade."

He gazed down at what the scale was registering. And he said, "Look what it's got you. A hopeless addict. When you walk out of here I promise you one thing. You'll have kicked the habit. The hard way. Cold turkey."

And I said, "With hot chestnut stuffing?"

He sighed and turned to his chief dietician, Nurse Duggans, the one we called the Enforcer."

And he said, "Book him. Block eleven."

Well, thirteen days I've done there now. And I can tell you this. If you've never been at a health farm, you just never believe what happens to people there. Those inmates, or UMCOWS as they're called. That's for the initials U M C O W Standing for Upper Middle Class Middeweight. They'll go to any length in their cravings for calories.

One middle-aged estate agent suddenly went berserk from hunger and they caught him trying to inject raspberry ripple ice cream into a main artery.

In the exercise yard the incorrigible eaters, on the outside they may be solicitors, bank managers, marketing executives, but here they're just known as the heavy mob. And what they're made to do is stand there doing running on the spot for sometimes as long as seven, eight minutes.

The only thing that sustains your sanity is that the sheer hunger keeps making you drop off to sleep. And in those hunger sleeps you get the most fantastically sensual dreams. One night, I remember, I dreamt I was running barefoot through a field of fried chips.

Now I don't want to make this too much of a sob story but mainly because although I have to go back there tonight, actually not only am I due out tomorrow, but on the way here my family managed to smuggle me a whole half carrot, inside which I found a note giving me the most stupendous good news.

While I'd been inside, two restaurants have opened in our high street. One is a French bistro whose dessert folly styles a whipped cream meringue pudding that's so enormous that portions are served from a small forklift truck. While the other is an Italian pretoria which features not just spaghetti, cannoli, fettuccine and lasagna, but a brand-new dish which combines all four of them.

There are so many calories, apparently, that they only can be counted on an eight-digit calculator.

So, as I say, don't waste too much of your sympathies on me because although it's back to diced turnip tonight, t omorrow, ah tomorrow, tomorrow the French puds and pastas new

Denis Norden
December 13, 1978

Every three months, I give my dog a beef-flavored chew that kills any ticks that bite her. She has also been vaccinated against Lyme disease. Why don't these options exist for people?

"It's funny, in Lyme disease, animals have so many more options than humans do," said Dr. Linden Hu, a professor of immunology at Tufts University School of Medicine. That includes several Lyme vaccines, as well as oral and topical tick-prevention medications.

Safety concerns and doubts about public acceptance have hindered the development of these types of drugs for people. But with rates of Lyme and other tick-borne illnesses increasing in recent years, researchers are exploring new (and old) options, and a few are now being tested in human clinical trials.

Between 1999 and 2002, there was a human vaccine for Lyme disease available in the United States. The drug, called Lymerix, was approved by the Food and Drug Administration in 1998 after clinical trials deemed it safe and effective for preventing infection with Lyme-causing bacteria.

Shortly after people started receiving the shots, reports of side effects emerged, most notably symptoms of arthritis. Federal officials didn't find evidence that the vaccine was unsafe, said Dr. Erol Fikrig, an infectious disease expert at the Yale School of Medicine, who was involved with developing the drug.

But the reputational damage had been done. Sales of the Lyme vaccine plummeted, and in 2002, GlaxoSmithKline, which manufactured the drug, pulled it from the market.

The Lyme vaccines that currently exist for dogs are similar to the one that was developed for humans. Both vaccines work primarily by prompting the immune system to create antibodies to a protein called OspA, which is produced by the Lyme-causing bacteria that are transmitted through tick saliva. When a tick ingests a dog's blood, the antibodies kill the bacteria residing in the tick's gut, preventing them from causing an infection.

In recent years, Pfizer, Valneva and Moderna have developed two new vaccines for humans that target the same OspA protein, though other aspects of the shots have been changed from the original version, Dr. Fikrig said. Both vaccines are being tested in clinical trials, and results are expected in a few years.

The other main prevention methods for pet owners are topical and oral treatments. These drugs, called acaricides, get distributed through the animal's body after they're swallowed or applied to the skin and kill ticks, along with fleas and mites, when they bite. A major advantage is that they protect against multiple tick-borne infections, not just Lyme disease.

For many of these illnesses, a tick must remain latched onto its host for a day or two to cause an infection, said Dr. Janet Foley, a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the University of California, Davis School of Veterinary Medicine. "So as long as you can kill that tick within hours, you'll abort the possibility of transmitting anything like Lyme disease."

While both oral and topical medications are toxic to ticks, they've largely been proven safe for dogs. However, Dr. Hu said that to his knowledge, few thought of investigating whether humans could use them as prophylactics against tick-borne infections until recently. An acaricide's "toxicity for ticks is far, far, far greater than its toxicity for mammals," Dr. Foley said. But, she added, it's understandable that people may be concerned about a drug that suffuses the body with a toxin just in case they get bitten by a tick. "I think that there wouldn't be much market for that," Dr. Foley said, though that's "pure speculation," she added.

One small drug company, Tarsus Pharmaceuticals, is betting that there might be such a market. In collaboration with Dr. Hu, it is testing whether an oral acaricide used in some veterinary tick medicines, called lotilaner, is safe and effective in people. (The drug was also recently approved as an eye drop for humans, to treat eyelid inflammation caused by mites.)

"We actually are one of the few examples of bringing a medicine from the veterinary side to the human side," said Dr. Bobak Azamian, the co-founder, chairman and chief executive of Tarsus Pharmaceuticals.

According to the company, early clinical trials of lotilaner - provided to people as a pill, not a beef-flavored chew - showed that it was about 90 percent effective at killing ticks that bit the participants both on the day they took the medication and 30 days later. No major safety concerns have surfaced during the tests, Dr. Azamian said.

Still, it will be several years before any of these medications might be considered for F.D.A. review. And even then, said Dr. Hu, "it's always a wild card how people are going to feel about it."

Dana G. Smith

The old man was in rare form, and he had picked a fine place for it.

The Lido is a tree-covered island about eight miles long and a few hundred yards wide that forms the eastern boundary of the Venice lagoon. In the first week of September 1971, John Ford came to the Lido, to the arabesque Excelsior Hotel, to be honored by the Venice Film Festival.

He was a frail, seventy-seven-year-old man in poor health who invariably contrived to give the entirely correct impression that he was not to be trifled with. On the boat from the airport, he had been plagued by a fussy attendant in the private vaporetto. "Water a bit choppy, sir?" the attendant had inquired. "Fancy saying that to an admiral in the Navy," he shot back.

And now there was a critic at the door of his hotel room, come for his scheduled interview. Barbara Ford, her father's traveling companion and handler, politely told the critic that the interview might not be possible; Daddy was being inconvenienced by some sudden stomach trouble. "Come in, come in," yelled Ford from the lavatory. "I can deal with two shits at once."

Scott Eyman "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford" (1999)

Auditory Problems

Auditory challenges are often cited as the #1 sensory challenge among individuals with autism/Asperger's. There are two kinds of auditory problems: 1) sensitivity to loud noise In general and 2) not being able to hear auditory detail, such as discerning one voice among other sounds, or hearing the hard consonant sounds of words. An auditory sensitivity to noises, where sounds hurt the ears, can be extremely debilitating. Sound sensitivity can make it impossible for some people on the spectrum to tolerate normal places such as restaurants, offices, and sports events. These extreme auditory problems can occur in both nonverbal individuals and those who are very high-functioning with marked intelligence and language capabilities, such as college-educated people with Asperger's.

Auditory training therapy is useful for some people. In auditory training, a person listens to electronically distorted music a couple of sessions a day for ten days. The music sounds like an old-fashioned record player that is speeding up and slowing down. AT helps some children and adults, yet has no effect on others. The main improvements seen in those that it helps include reducing sound sensitivity and increasing hearing of auditory detail. For many children, getting their auditory input under control results in improved concentration, fewer behavior issues, and gives a chance for other therapies and learning situations to take hold. Some people with more minor auditory challenges use earplugs or music headphones to block out distracting or painful sounds, things such as chairs scraping on the floor in the cafeteria, the constant ringing of telephones in a busy office, or maneuvering through a crowded airport. Earplugs must never be worn all the time; this can cause the individual to become even more sensitive to sound. They need to be off at least half of the day, but can be used in noisy places such as shopping malls or the gym.




An Integrated Approach to Treatment

Severe sensory sensitivity can be a MAJOR barrier to learning in children, and in employment and socializing as the child grows and becomes an adult. My own sensory problems are minor nuisances, but for others, they can literally wreck the person's life. There are many highly inrelligent adults with ASD or Asperger's, with brilliant minds in their field, who have such severe sensory issues that they cannot tolerate a normal job environment. They must either find ways to work independently from home, where they can control sensory input, or remain largely unemployed. Employers are beginning to understand sensory issues and some will even make accommodations when the needs of the person are explained. However, on the whole, we as a society have far to go in appreciating the challenge of living with sensory issues that most people on the autism spectrum face daily.

Teachers and parents should look closely for sensory issues in a child or young adult. Recurring behavior problems often have a sensory issue as the root cause of the behavior. If a sensory issue is suspected, a consultation with a good Occupational Therapist should be the next step. These individuals are trained to recognize sensory issues and then develop a customized program for the child. Interventions such as deep pressure, slow swinging, and games involving balancing work best when they are done every day.

Sensory issues are daily issues. If the services of an OT are available for only half an hour each week, parents and teachers should visit the session and ask the OT to show them what to do the rest of the week. For children, a combination of sensory therapies such as sensory integration from an OT, auditory training, and visual interventions coupled with other treatments works best. Special diets help some children with their sensory issues; improvements are seen not just in tolerating different textures and types of food, but also in other sensory areas as well. With older children and adults, a little dose of a conventional medication may reduce sound sensitivity if less invasive methods have proven unsuccessful.

Temple Grandin "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's" (2011)

The Pences Visit Manhattan

By Douglas McGrath

Governor Mike Pence was having a romantic dinner with the love his life, Mrs. Mike Pence, at the Red Lobster in Times Square. The Governor knew that as Vice-President he would have to attend foreign banquets, so he and Mrs. Pence were trying to broaden their palates. Luckily, they had already found a couple of dishes at the Red Lobster which they liked. Governor Pence was saying a blessing over their chicken wings and mozzarella cheese sticks when the first three notes of "When I Survey the Wondrous Cross" chimed on his phone, signaling a text. As he read it, Mrs. Pence popped a sizzling cheese stick into her mouth and blew out little puffs of steam. "Look at me!" she said gaily. "I'm a steamboat!"

But the Governor didn't laugh. Mrs. Pence took his hand and said, "What's wrong, helpmeet?"

"I've been called to Trump Tower.

It's an emergency."

Outside Donald Trump's penthouse, the Governor was frisked by Secret Service agents. Pence found contact between men not involved in sports natural, but he knew it was necessary for the safety of the nation. He was so patriotic that he often insisted on being patted down two or three times in a row, faster each time.

As he entered the penthouse, he saw Ivanka doing crunches while she watched an exercise video made for the Trumps by Vladimir Putin. Eric was at a mirror, filing his teeth into sharp points, and Donald, Jr., was on a step-ladder, combing the mane of a trophy lion. Any hair that came out was placed in a silver bowl, to be used for Trump's daily weave.

"Where's your father?" Pence asked. "My Fuhrer, I mean, my father is asleep," Donald, Jr., answered.

"At this hour?"

He nodded. "We put a tranquillizer in his Big Mac. We need to talk to you alone. Mike, you've seen the polls. Dad's freaking out. When he got the numbers this morning, he collapsed and started thrashing around, knocking things over and sort of - What would you guys call it?"

"Foaming," Eric said. "Look, we wanted Dad to run for President. But not because he'd be a good President. We just want to get him out of the company. If you think he sucks as a candidate, you should see him try to run a business."

Ivanka shook her head. "A monkey with a high fever has better business sense than he does," she said. ''And, if he loses, he'll be back at the office, spewing out ideas - oh, God ... " She curled up on the floor and started rocking back and forth.

Eric put the file down, bit a piece of paper, and smiled at the row of neat little holes. "We're softening his message to help with the groups he's offended, which include ... um ... "

"Everyone but the Klan," Ivanka said. "But we have no hope if our own party won't support him," Eric said. "We chose you for V.P. because the establishment loves you. So get them in line, and maybe we can win this thing."

Back on Fifth Avenue, the Governor called Paul Ryan. "Paul, I want to talk to you about Donald Tr- Hello? Hello?" It was funny - ever since he accepted the Party's nomination as Vice-President, he lost calls all the time. Trump told him it was because the phones are made in China.

He redialed, but the call went right to voice mail. Ryan must be trying him back, he thought. While Governor Pence waited, he looked around at the citizens of Manhattan. What a strange, sad city! Given how many people he saw wearing black, he figured that there must be funerals going on all the time. He assumed that the deaths were caused by starvation - even the wealthy-looking women he saw barely weighed ninety pounds.

But, as he studied these people, he noticed that many of them were on their cell phones. There were lots of people of different races, some from lands where they grow terrorists, and a good number of them were confused about their gender - women with short hair and army pants, men in colors that God intended only for flowers. Why did they have phone service and he did not? Surely, the Lord would take away the sinners' service before his?

The Governor froze as he realized: maybe it's not the service. Maybe people are deliberately hanging up on me BECAUSE OF TRUMP.

He found himself outside St. Patrick's Cathedral. Before he joined Mrs. Pence's megachurch, he had been a Catholic. How fondly he remembered the games he'd played with Father Molloy. He went inside and asked God if he and Trump had a chance. Not hearing anything, he opened a Bible for guidance. His eye fell on Mark 15:30 - "Come down from the cross and save yourself"
m
He knew then that there was no hope. Yet he did not despair. He thought of Mrs. Pence back in their room at the La Quinta Inn and Suites. She would be in her Lanz flannel nightgown and blue lace cap, preparing their nightcap of warm beef bouillon. They would figure out the future as a married couple should, with him deciding and her obeying. She would sit at his feet and play her guitar until nine-fifteen. That was bedtime, and they would drift off to sleep with the comfort of being man and wife - the real kind, the only kind that counts when you get to Heaven.

The New Yorker, October 10, 2016

Stone Walls Do Not a Prison Make
(from a poem, "To Althea, from Prison" by Richard Lovelace in 1642)

I'm not really terribly anxious to get home tonight because my wife isn't SPEAKING to me.

We're having what we call a coof. When I do something frightful my wife doesn't HURL things at me, we don’t talk.

And I'm in one at the moment. It's terribe really. Actually, today is my wife's birthday. That's the trouble. She's forty-… uh. She's fortunately going to have a voice. She knows I always give her presents.

Actuall, I DON'T always give her presents. I usually give her a gift.

You see I have a very old-fashioned attitude towards giving presents. Rather generous you might think.

But I believe in that old maxim, that's better to give than to receive. So, I like to RATION my giving.

Just so I don't get all the pleasure.

But I'm quite generous. I let HER give and get the pleasure on my birthday.

On her birthdays I like to give her a GIFT every nine years, and a PRESENT every ten. Because there's a whale of a difference between a gift and a present.

A GIFT is something fundamentally unnecessary, fundamentally useless. And it's bought in a shop marked gift shop.

Actually, a couple of years back I did give my wife quite a, certainly a USEFUL gift. It was one of those gimmick writing things that writes underwater and doesn't leak on planes and you don't have to refill for months. It's called a pencil. But it WAS marked happy birthday. With the initials H.B.

On the other hand, a present, every ten-year present has got to be something really. A present is a present. It's useful.
It's good. It brings a GLOW to the cheek of the receiver.

It's a thing like one of those super electric sewing machines. Where the needle dances a little hornpipe and then you get a buttonhole. Whether you wanted one or not.

That's a present. Now this birthday my wife's birthday today. I had one all lined up. I have this local chap who had the most BEAUTIFUL little bedside clock. It was a French carriage clock. It was ABSOLUTELY lovely. And I made a deal with the chap. Because my wife wanted, I KNEW she wanted for the bedroom. Something feminine. Something which suited her. And this seemed ideal.

I went to collect it yesterday. Unfortunately, it had started going again and he'd raised the price.

And there I was YESTERDAY with no present for TODAY.

As I was walking back across the village I suddenly noticed a poster. There was an old water mill near us and they were having an auction there of the contents.


Not only the milling equipment, but also the house effects BEDROOM furniture and effects.

I thought that's it.

So yesterday afternoon I nipped along there. And it was absolutely full of people bidding.

And I saw an attendant in a brown coat so I grabbed him and I said, "Come with me because I don’t know these auctions."

And we went into the crowded room and I looked round. And this chap, I could hear him, he was auctioneering the actual grindstones, these sort of eight feet granite things that churn the thing up.

And I looked around at them and I noticed, just above my head a COPPER warming pan.

I said to the chap, "That's just the thing."

And in my excitement, I pointed up at it.

Now when you're at an auction, it is MOST essential that you don't raise your right hand.

Well, I bought it. A pair of eight-foot granite grinding wheels. Grindstones. FORTY-TWO pounds, fifteen.

Got a lorry and got them home. Put them in the garage.

And this morning when my wife woke up I said, "I got you your present."

She said, "Is it something feminine? Is it me?"

I walked into the garage. Two eight-foot grindstones.

As I say There's a cool song. Gentlemen, do be careful at auctions, I mean, don't buy things like this.

Believe me, they may sort of scrape by as a GIFT, but I do assure you, stone wheels, do not a present make.


Frank Muir
670704

John Ford went to Hawaii for a short vacation after finishing Young Mr. Lincoln, and returned in mid-June 1939 to begin Drums Along the Mohawk. When the company arrived on location in Utah's Wasatch Mountains, the weather refused to cooperate; Frank Baker remembered six consecutive days of rain beginning the day he arrived, with Ford refusing to speak to him for weeks as punishment. Ford named Henry Fonda "Director in Charge of Entertainment," and Fonda organized a series of songs in three-part harmony around the campfire at night. Every evening at 9:30, a bugler would walk into the woods and blow a quiet taps.

A new addition to the crew was propman Joe Behm, who had to undergo the usual hazing. Behm met with Ford to show him some of his designs for props, and Ford barked, "What do you want me to do? Prop the show for you?" Behm made some conciliatory noises, and Ford responded by telling him that his work showed imagination and that he, Ford, would okay everything the propman wanted to do, sight unseen.

Once they got to the location, Ford's first request of Behm was that he get a baby grand piano for the recreation tent. Behm was stunned; if Ford had told him this in Hollywood, they could have just loaded a piano onto the trucks bringing the rest of the equipment, but where was he supposed to get a baby grand in southern Utah?

It was, of course, a test, which Behm passed splendidly. He made a trip down a long, winding road to Cedar City and went door to door until he found a resident willing to rent their piano to the film company.

Ford's next request was for a Model T for a gag shot that, he hoped, would elevate Darryl Zanuck out of his chair in the screening room. Behm found the car, Ford got his shot, and Zanuck was suitably amused. Unfortunately, the film's production manager was not. One day at lunch, he yelled at Behm for unauthorized expenditures for pianos and cars, then ordered the piano sent back to Cedar City.

When Ford found out that the piano had been sent back, he asked why, then immediately sent for the production manager. "This is your company, you're the boss, no one countermands your orders," Ford began. "You've questioned my integrity, you sent the piano back, you criticized Mr. Behm for following my orders "

"But Skipper," said the hapless production manager.

"Don't Skipper me. I'm Mr. Ford to you. I want to clarify this situation; I'm running the company. When I give an order it's followed. Bring back that piano - now!"

The production manager told Behm to get the piano, but was promptly interrupted by Ford. "I don't think you heard me straight. YOU bring the piano. Mr. Behm is through for the day. And another thing: you're barred from my set." Loyalty had been rewarded, arrogance punished, and a clear line of authority established-the actors didn't make the picture, nor did the producer, and especially not the production office. Ford made the picture.


Scott Eyman "Print the Legend: The Life and Times of John Ford" (1999)

Auditory Problems in Autism

Anyone who has attended one of my presentations knows that it is my opinion that sensory issues are a big part of behavior problems in children with autism. I, myself, have many sensory issues, and one that affects me the most is hearing/sound.

When I was a child, the ringing of the school bell hurt my ears; it felt like a dentist's drill hitting a nerve. This is common among the autism population. The sounds that are most likely to hurt the ears are high-pitched, shrill, intermittent sounds, such as fire alarms, smoke detectors, certain ring tones on mobile phones, or the screech of feedback from a microphone. Once a child experiences the pain associated with certain sounds, he is not soon to forget it. Subsequently, a child may have a tantrum and refuse to enter a certain room because he may be afraid that the fire alarm might go off, or that the assembly microphone might screech again. Even if it happened months and months ago, and even if it only happened one time, he may take action to avoid feeling that pain again. Sometimes sound sensitivity can be desensitized by recording the offending sound and allowing the child to initiate the sound at gradually increasing volume. Problems with sound sensitivity are very variable. A sound that hurts the ears of one child may be attractive to another. Parents and professionals need to be good detectives and watch for dues from the child about what auditory sounds are troublesome.

Temple Grandin "The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism & Asperger's" (2011)

At the turn of the millennium, the government in Glasgow, Scotland, appeared to stumble on a remarkable crime prevention strategy. Officials hired a team of Glaswegian contractors to beautify the city by installing a series of blue lights in various prominent locations. In theory blue lights are more attractive and calming than the garish yellow and white lights that illuminate much of the city at night, and indeed the blue lights seemed to cast a soothing, ethereal glow. Months passed and the city's crime statisticians noticed a striking trend: the locations that were newly bathed in blue experienced a dramatic decline in criminal activity. Just as the West Midlands police force clamped down on crime with billboards depicting human eyes, the blue lights in Glasgow, which mimicked the lights atop police cars, seemed to imply that the police were always watching. The lights were never designed to stem crime, but that's exactly what they appeared to be doing.

Word of the miraculous constabulary power of blue light traveled quickly. The police force in Nara Prefecture, Japan, installed a series of 152 blue lights at several crime hot spots. The crime rate fell by an impressive 9 percent , but the blue lights had other, unanticipated benefits: the suicide attempts that plagued Japanese train stations and crossings ceased altogether - not a single attempt was reported along the Central and West Japan Railway Company lines between 2006 and 2008. Even littering and garbage disposal seemed to decline in blue-lit areas, and blue lights were hailed as a panacea for several of society's most stubborn ills. Some enterprising minds even suggested replacing standard lights at gang hangouts with the pinkish lights that dermatologists use to inspect teenage skin for acne. What better way to encourage teen gang members to disperse than to emphasize their flawed complexions?

Amid the jubilation, researchers began to question the link between the blue lights and the range of reported benefits. Some suggested that the blue lights were brighter or attracted more attention than yellow and white lights, which merely displaced crime, suicide attempts, and littering to more dimly lit locations. Though researchers continue to question whether the lights were beneficial because they were blue, or rather because they attracted attention, several rigorous studies have shown that the color blue has remarkable effects on the human body.

In one study, two researchers visited a sawmill in Montreal, Canada.

Sawmill workers grade freshly cut pieces of timber and then cut the graded timber into boards for construction projects - exacting tasks that impose high costs when the workers make mistakes. Many sawmills operate through the night, and workers are sometimes forced to alternate between day and night shifts. This schedule wreaks havoc on a worker's circadian rhythm, the same biological pattern that causes jet lag when people travel from one time zone to another. Seasoned international travelers know how difficult it is to resist the urge to sleep when jet lag takes hold, and that same state of exhaustion causes countless accidents among shift workers. The researchers approached one such group and suggested an inexpensive, novel remedy: exposure to blue-green light. Blue-green light waves are the shortest visible light waves, and they trigger a range of biological functions that regulate circadian rhythm. Natural light is rich in these blue-green short waves, which is why sunlight is an excellent natural cure for jet lag. To test their theory, the researchers purchased a series of special lights that bathed the night-shift workers in a blue-green glow as they worked. When the shift ended the following morning, the workers wore special amber glasses to block out all blue and green light, thereby confusing their bodies into believing that they were working during the day and leaving work at night. The effects were remarkable. By the fourth day of the trial most of the workers felt more alert, as their error rate declined from 5 percent to just 1 percent.

Few people alternate between night shifts and day shifts, but a similar problem is said to affect millions of people across the world: seasonal affective disorder (SAD), or the winter blues. People who suffer from SAD tend to become depressed and listless for long periods during the winter, which also explains in large part why the disorder affects only 1 percent of Floridians but 10 percent of New Hampshirites. Among the many proffered solutions, blue-green light therapy stands alone as perhaps the least intrusive, and sufferers can purchase special lamps and light bulbs for little more than the cost of a standard desk lamp. The good news is that dozens of researchers have documented the effectiveness of the remedy, which has the same effects as genuine sunshine: diminished depressive symptoms and renewed energy. This research is generally sophisticated and rigorous, but color therapy began as a far less meticulous pursuit.


Adam Alter "Drunk Tank Pink" (2013)