Special Edition Evening Rant

The Washington Post told us this morning of yet another bit of folly: According to a recent poll [PDF] by the U. Penn's National Annenberg Election Survey, a majority of veterans still favor Bush over Kerry as commander-in-chief, 56% to 38%. According to the article, the Swift Boat Liars' putsch hasn't had a big impact among these voters -- but the Post saw fit to provide this man-in-the-street gem on the controversy from a local vet:

"I can't make heads or tails out of it," said Keith Weeks, 72, a Korean War veteran who was soaking up the sun Tuesday in the back yard of Arlington VFW Post 3150. "You can't know who's telling the truth."

"You can't know who's telling the truth." Doesn't anybody in this country read a decent g*dd*mn newspaper any more? Preferably while thinking about what they're reading?

Memo to Mr. Weeks: The truth, as they say on the X-Files, is out there, for anyone who takes five minutes to investigate it.

Chalk up another one for the smear merchants.

I'll grant you that most veterans are probably politically conservative, but you would have thought them more likely to approve of someone who'd actually seen combat than give the nod to our Shirker-in-Chief. (On the other hand, I suppose it's likely that a sizable number of veterans, even today, have never actually seen combat, either, so maybe that explains it.)

From the ray-of-hope department, however, comes news of another NAES survey [PDF]: This one concludes that an increasing plurality of the public -- 46% -- now believes that the Bush Campaign is behind the SBL ads; 37% of those surveyed, by contrast, held that the ads were made "independently." So maybe the message is getting through after all.

Science Friday

A few notable nuggets from this week:

--A paper published online at Science (abstract is available free with registration) that's receiving wide attention this morning suggests that the activities of sport fisherman may be as harmful to marine fish populations as those of the usual bête noire, the commercial fishing industry. Examining both commercial and recreational fisheries over the past 22 years, the paper's authors found that, while sport fishermen land only around 4% of the total U.S. marine fish catch, they account for around 23% of total nationwide landings of "populations of concern" -- at-risk fish such as red drum, bocaccio, and red snapper -- and for a whopping 38% to 64% of the catch of these populations in specific areas such as the South Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico. You can read more at ScienceNOW (subscription required), New Scientist, and News@Nature.

--PLOS Biology published a study this week that adds a new wrinkle (and a vaguely Frankensteinian one) to the controversy over performance-enhancing drugs and athletic doping: The researchers have used genetic manipulation to create a strain of super-athletes. But don't worry (at least for the moment); we're talking about super-athletic mice here. By tweaking the genetic code of the mice to express a more active form of the skeletal-muscle protein PPARδ, they created a race of athletes that were able to run 67% longer and 92% farther than controls before tiring out. Coincidentally, GlaxoSmithKline is now working on a drug that activates PPARδ directly rather than through genetic means; Ronald Evans, the senior author of the study, told New Scientist that "The potential for this to be abused by athletes is real."

--The European Southern Observatory is reporting the discovery of the smallest planet yet discovered outside of our solar system -- "only" fourteen Earth masses in size. That's only around 40% of the mass of the lightest previously discovered extrasolar planet, and puts it on a par with Uranus, the smallest of our solar system's gas giants. However, the specifics of this new planet's distance and orbit around its own host star, μ Arae, suggest that it could be made mainly of rock, not gas -- making it not a "sub-Jupiter," but a "super Earth."

--Finally, if you haven't already seen it, take a look at the New York Times article on the possibility of ginning up some robotic repair missions to save the Hubble Space Telescope.

All I have time for right now, I'm afraid. But interesting, no?

Morning Reflection: Prozac Nation, Indeed

This past weekend's New York Times Magazine carried a fascinating feature about antidepressants in Japan. Apparently, driven in part by a significant drug company marketing campaign, the use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac and Paxil has dramatically increased, as Japanese have come to accept mild depression as a treatable disease. Most interesting of all, though, is that before this aggressive marketing effort, the Japanese didn't even have a word for mild depression. So a new term had to be invented: kokoro na kaze -- a Japanese who is mildly depressed now says that his "soul has caught a cold."

The article comes on the heels of some other interesting news related to SSRIs -- most notably a volte face by the U.S. FDA, which, in light of new research (and after sitting on similar findings for a year), has finally issued warnings regarding the increase in suicide risk for some children who are prescribed antidepressants. And antidepressants also are playing a role in a well-publicized murder trial, as the defendant, a minor, will argue that Zoloft made him do it. (It is unfortunate that this latter story in particular will probably drive a lot of the press coverage of this issue, as many will assume that the defense is merely grasping at whatever straws it can. That may well be true -- but it doesn't mean that the underlying issue is a frivolous one.)

The appearance of these press items suggests that the U.S. may finally be on the verge of having a conversation it has, in a way, been putting off for years now -- a conversation about whether these drugs, which are unquestionably lifesavers in cases of major depression, have attained a bit too benign a public image, and whether they are consequently being overprescribed in cases of mild depression. It really does seem that we have become a "Prozac Nation," after all. Here's an example: My wife, among other things, is a lactation consultant; as part of her screening interview for new clients, she routinely asks if they are taking any prescription drugs. "No," they've been known to respond, "just a little Zoloft" -- the clear implication being that, in the minds of some, these drugs are being equated to nonprescription meds like Tylenol and Claritin. To me, that seems a bit dangerous.

The thing we should be asking ourselves in many cases, I think, is whether these drugs are really treating the root cause, or whether they are merely treating the symptoms. There is no question that depression is a biochemical syndrome, likely involving neurotransmitter hormones, especially serotonin. And there's no question that, in some patients with major depression, attacking the biochemical imbalances that underlie depression is really the only safe and effective path. But what's causing those biochemical imbalances in patients with mild depression? Perhaps genetics or some ineluctable characteristic of personal biochemistry -- but perhaps other things, like stress, lifelong habits of negative thinking, or even sleep disorders, that can kick the neurotransmitter system out of whack. And these things might be treatable without bringing out the heavy artillery of SSRIs.

Again, I'm not saying that these drugs are bad -- only that we need, perhaps, to refine our thinking about when they should be prescribed. I hope to have a bit more to say about this in a future post.

Morning Rapture: Beloved Margaret

In keeping with the name of this Weblog -- "Personal Effects" -- I'd like to offer something . . . well, personal.

You see, today I celebrate my 20th wedding anniversary. And, in a unique bit of good fortune, I happen to have spent those two decades married to the most wonderful person in the world.

That is her to the left -- Mrs. Ahab, if you will. (I have thoughtfully chopped and blurred myself out of the picture; restoring me is left as an exercise for the reader.) I apologize for the quality of the photo, but it has been riding around in my wallet for the past two decades, as a surety against anxiety, fear, depression. Even today (especially today, in fact), just a glance at this picture is good for a smile.

Beloved Margaret -- how happy I am that we found each other, and that you've been patient enough to stick with me all these years.

Morning Vacuum

When I started this Weblog, I promised myself that I'd write something worthwhile (or at least something that seemed worthwhile) every weekday. Unfortunately, life steps in today and makes that impossible.

Lunch Hour Metablog

A lot of stuff about the numerous articles on the Swift Boat Liars that are finally popping up in the mainstream press. TPM had a feature that pretty much captured what I was feeling about the Washington Post article of this past weekend -- that is, that the Post's version seems to be that both sides have explaining to do, whereas pretty much every piece of objective evidence seems to back Kerry up. Similar take on Daily Howler. Other SBL stuff on Kos, Eschaton, Alterman, etc. -- often taking the opportunity to highlight the comparative lack of military service for the Bush/Cheney crowd.

My take: It seems, frankly, amazing to me that, at a time when we're mired in an unwinnable foreign war, when my kids' job prospects are looking increasingly circumscribed, when environmental and workplace rules are being rolled back, etc., etc., the coverage of this campaign is being driven by who did (or didn't) do what during the Vietnam War.

There's also some non-SBL stuff worth reading. Nice essay posted on Daily Kos, for example, about the appearance-versus-reality of the upcoming Republican Convention. And Tapped links to a Knight-Ridder article documenting that "many members of the Iraqi security forces seem to have roughly the fighting spirit of the Vietnam-era George W. Bush." (Oops. I guess we're back to Vietnam again . . .)

Morning Rant: Bushness as Usual

Saturday, the New York Times gave us a preview of the Republicans' convention strategy: Trot out the old "compassionate conservative" warhorse, and sneak through a radical-right platform while no one is looking. Sounds, almost, like a replay of 2000 -- but with a new wrinkle: The G.O.P. will blame the Democrats for any hint of public disorder (and we've had more than enough hints that there'll be plenty of disorder to go around). Quoth the Times:

Mr. Bush's advisers said they were girding for the most extensive street demonstrations at any political convention since the Democrats nominated Hubert H. Humphrey in Chicago in 1968. But in contrast to that convention, which was severely undermined by televised displays of street rioting, Republicans said they would seek to turn any disruptions to their advantage, by portraying protests by even independent activists as Democratic-sanctioned displays of disrespect for a sitting president.

Essentially, no matter what happens, it will be portrayed as the nefarious work of the Democrats, seeking to cast doubt and shame on the country's saintly and patient leader. I suppose that's politics. More interesting is the question of the Bushites' promise to "lay out an ambitious agenda" at a time of a near-half-trillion-dollar deficit at home and military entanglement abroad. One might reasonably ask, too, why anyone would possibly believe that line, in light of Bush's record of saying one thing and doing another on everything from homeland security to gay marriage to nation building. Will anyone buy this line -- knowing that, judging from his past behavior, he will say whatever it takes to get elected, and then do whatever he wants afterward?

I hope not. But then, many of us didn't buy it in 2000, and nonetheless, look where we are. I saw a bumper sticker yesterday (pointed out to me by my son) that just seemed to sum it all up: "If you aren't completely appalled, then you haven't been paying attention."

Has everyone been paying attention?

In any event, for a bracing antidote to the Republican Convention spin, have a look at the interview with Garrison Keillor published Saturday on Salon. In it, Keillor refers to George W. Bush as "the shallowest man to occupy the White House since Calvin Coolidge" -- not especially fair to Coolidge, but it was, after all, presumably an off-the-cuff remark.