MISCELLANEOUS – A Royal Academy of Arts-trained pianist from the U.K. has played about 150 piano concerts for elephants at a Thai animal rescue organization. (The Week 12/15/23)

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SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT:  It’s a hard nut to crack, and I doubt that I shall ever get into the real meaty part of it, but two opposing articles have come to my attention, and I just want to point that out, not to solve the problem.  The first is in Will Self’s December 2021 essay in Harper’s magazine, “A Posthumous Shock: How Everything Became Trauma,” and the second a Health and Science article in The Week of December 15, 2023, “Why Trauma Feels Current.”  Although Self’s lengthy essay is quite erudite and appears to address a misconception of some of the facts–{such as the separate but earlier belief that mothers were responsible for schizophrenia)–The Week article raises the question of the difference in brain storage of traumatic memories versus neutral and sad memories.  (The former memories are stored in the posterior singular cortex while the latter are stored in the hippocampus). 

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GOOD GOLLY, MISS MOLLY

 

My thoughts are covered with moss

in words as old as myself.

Why in a blue moon should I

assign them all to the shelf?

 

They’re as real as jabber wock

and twice as long in the tooth.

Like, who’s your elder anyway?

Tell me that, young’un. Forsooth!

 

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QUOTATION OF THE DAY:   “In a country well governed, poverty is something to be ashamed of. In a country badly governed, wealth is something to be ashamed of.”   — Confucius, Chinese teacher and philosopher