What I learn by listening: Anorexia

No one seems to know what causes anorexia, but Prof. Jeremy Wolfe podcasts his course, Psychology 101, from MIT, on iTunesU, and gives a chilling account of the pattern that most people who fall in this category come from. Anorexia, of course, is the disease that will find someone absolutely attesting that everything is fine when s/he is wasting away with shrinking vital organs, sometimes resulting in death.

First, anorexia apparently only occurs in countries where both "food is plentiful" and "thinness is glorified", in fact where we simultaneously obsess over both thinness and food. For about forty years, this was associated with white, middle class western culture. but it recently has spread to other ethnic groups and, more recently, to Japan and China.

Second, it typically occurs among females, specifically young, post-menapausal females who usually are "always doing things right". They are self-disciplined, take care of themselves, do their homework, and generally, follow the rules.

Third, and this was the shocker, they come from families that are achievement-oriented, somewhat overprotective and "enmeshed" in the lives of each other. Prof. Wolfe gives the example of his own extended enmeshed family. When they try to go out to eat it takes 30 minutes to decide where. Shortly into the debate someone will say "Granny doesn't like that place", but it isn't Granny who is speaking up. It is the type of family where everyone tries to speak for everyone and is intolerant of individuals "acting out" anger. If there is an issue, the family tries to smooth it out, quietly, as a unit.

He throws in additional complicating cultural factors, such as the "myth of the superwoman" and how, with self-control, you should be able to fix anything in your life.

The implication seems to be that the young woman desperately wants to control something and she finds that, through self-discipline, she can reduce her eating intake which she equates to self-control, beauty and thinness, all good things. In fact, as an added benefit, the less she eats, the more she finds that she also controls everyone else around her, as they, of course, tear their hair out trying to get her to change while she remains oblivious to the danger she poses to herself.

Few things work all of the time as a cure for anorexia. In the hospital, control over treats such as letting friends visit, sometimes provides enough incentive to get the person to eat. That doesn't always work, however, when they return to the free environment. Counseling the family, as a disorder of the family where the daughter is the treated as the designated victim, also sometimes works, although it must be difficult to reach such an understanding. Most people, however, do eventually recover.

Bulima, on the other hand, occurs largely among the unattached, people who really want to fit in. This often includes a lot of social eating and drinking. It also includes wanting to fit into those tight jeans to fit in socially as well. Unlike anorexics, they feel ashamed and want to diet. But while dieting they feel the hunger and binge, followed by rounds of vomiting and more bingeing. It is as if the brain is saying you are not getting enough nutrition, so "go eat more". Group therapy for bulimics, meeting other people with the same problems, helps remove some of the shame and isolation and is usually quite effective.

What I found so chilling about the description of anorexia is, that, at first glance, how everybody seems to be doing "right" things. He uses this example, however, as a demonstration of how subtlely mental illness can take hold.

The disease must come as a great and terrible surprise to the individuals and families that it strikes. I have never previously ever heard or read anything that I thought might help people deal with the situation. Perhaps this can help a little.

Prosperity Comes to Espirito Santo

In April we had a 5-day quick visit to our family in Brazil. In each visit it strikes me how Brazil constantly re-defines itself. This time it was apparent that the time for that old joke about "Brazil always being the country of the future" might be retired. 

Most of my nephews and nieces, who I had long noticed were so serious as students, now have almost all landed good jobs in the entrepreneurial sector, many associated with Petrobras. They are building a HQ in Vitoria that is said to employ 10,000 future jobs. For right now, many of that generation have left Vitoria to take jobs in Rio until the new HQs opens up. Most of them are individual consultants, self-incorporated. Benefits vary, but it is a different mold than that of "government employee-mentality".

Another nephew plays in a band in bars at the "Triangulo das Bermudas". This is a collection of lively night spots in Praia do Canto, which you shouldn't miss. Praia da Costa in Vila Velha has also developed beautifully.  Daughter Julie already settled on her dream home there, right at the curve at the beach, but, lacks the $300,000 to buy it. Housing prices in general have soared in the passed six years. Is it a bubble or something those of us that have thought about retiring there shouldn't miss out on?

The hills inside Vitoria, that used to house the favelas, are now all built up with real homes. Even the downtown is undergoing historic preservation. The CVRD plant, once the jewel, is now looked at as an eyesore and source of pollution. 

While I haven't gotten back to Barra de Sao Francisco for about 6 years, I am told that it is hard to find a parking spot. The Barra and Ecoporanga have both profited big time from the development of granite. I would love to see the Barra now.

Crime remains a problem, but like in the US, it is concentrated in pockets. Close in suburbs, like Cariacica must be very difficult to live in, but that has little impact on day to day life in Vitoria, except for some normal precautions one might take anywhere. 

Most of my friends from back in the day had long since moved from the interior to Vitoria, making it easy for me to visit them. Now they are retiring and turning the country over to a new generation. I think the new generation will do very well. My friends are starting to move again to places 40 or 50 miles out, like Campinho and Aracruz. They talk about turning back to their hunting and fishing roots and a quieter lifestyle. Sounds nice.

Vitoria was cleaner and prettier than I ever saw it before. Traffic was sometimes congested, but orderly with a surprising respect for pedestrians. The people were happier than I remembered, even from just a few years ago.  It was a short, but great trip. We did it now, mostly out of fear that our own nation's economy may be entering a more tenuous phase and who knows when we will be able to do it again. I hope it will be often and frequent. 

I guess, for Brazil, the future has arrived.

The meaning of Christmas

I find that the meaning of Christmas has a very simple message. Whether you believe that Jesus was a divine messenger, a prophetic messenger or a wise-man messenger that had great knowledge of God. The message of his birth is the same, "we are not alone".

On Reading "Death Comes to the Archbishop"

I woke up way too early today and was lamenting to myself the loss of earlier times in my life, when I had more time to spend with friends talking about things in our lives or what we read. Then I realized that that is what blogs and insomnia were invented for.

This morning I am dwelling on the themes of place and time from a book Arthur Powers told me to read, "Death Comes to the Archbishop", by Willa Cather. Now Willa Cather should be near the top of just about everybody's favorite authors, just for having written "My Antonia". Anyway, I had never heard of this book before, so I gave it a try.

Cather said it was an experimental novel for her, written about 1927. It was like some early Italian movies, more about place than story. She paints (really paints in print) images of the American Southwest in the middle to late 19th century. She notes without preaching, the different relations that Indians, Mexicans and the newcomer Americans all had to the place or to the land. The Indians sought mostly to blend into the environment, not using windows because they felt the reflection scarred the earth, while the Americans came to plant, grow and change it. One can almost hear echoes of these relationships in today's debates on climate change.

A second theme was the sense of time. Haydee has been telling me about her speculations that time could be more circular than linear. The Archbishop, in his old age, goes back and visits the southwest of his youth, just the way I increasingly spend my time enjoying, really enjoying, my experiences of much younger years. People start to think he is going senile, but that misses the point.

I remember visiting my mother in the hospital in her later years. She greeted me with "what a shame, you just missed all of my old friends from Marquette (her college), they were here and we had a wonderful time." To this day I regret being so pigheaded skeptical instead of just asking her "tell me all about it". Maybe you have to be past 60 to understand that dimension.

In addition to the more obvious reasons to like the book, it also held my attention for a more personal one. I had always understood that Regis College, my alma mater, was started in Las Vegas, NM in the latter part of the 19th century and that Bishop Machbeuf invited the College to move to Colorado when he moved New Mexico to become Bishop in Denver. Bishop Machbeuf it turns out was actually the principal supporting character, Fr. Vaillant, in the book. Machbeuf Hall was the dorm with tons of cute girls at Loretto Heights College down the road from Regis.

At the very beginning of the book, Fr. Latour, the bishop, and Fr. Vaillant are commissioned to set up a diocese in the newly won territory of the southwest United States in Santa Fe, NM. Only, it is so new, no one can tell them how to find Santa Fe. It takes them two years to get there and the Mexican priests in the region said no one told them they were getting a new bishop and won't listen to these strangers. So, Latour has to spend another year to cross the desert to the west coast of Mexico to get his credentials from the Mexican archbishop as well.

Along the way, he acquires a mule, named Contento. Contento remains as much a part of the story as anyone else. As for me, I feel like a just took a trip across the southwest, riding a mule named Contento, and I did it all in the latter part of the 19th century.

Now, with all that accomplished, I can go back to sleep.

God and Science: Aceptance and Belief

I have long been troubled by the use of the word "belief". Especially how it is used comparing belief in things we know from religion and belief in things we know from science. Should we even use the same word when talking of things physical and things spiritual? For instance, I believe that the sun will rise in the morning and I believe that if I let go of a ball, it will drop down. I really believe those things. As often as I observe them, they always happens the same way. But I never felt that that was the same way I felt about what I "believe in" about God.

But, wait a minute!

Science tells me that the sun doesn't really rise in the morning. Science tells me that the earth and sun are revolving around each other as they are together hurtling through space at some millions of miles an hour or something. I don't believe that. I accept it, because other people think that is the best explanation, but don't believe it. I can't even comprehend it. And then science tells me that the ball is not really just dropping down, but that the ball and the earth are attracted toward each other and are both moving, however so slightly, in some Newtonian notion of science, toward each other. Now, once again, I can accept that because people a whole lot smarter than I tell me that that is a what they say. But "believe it", come on, NO WAY! In fact, Einstein didn't believe it was the whole story either and described some fascinating system of gravity as a web that someday will probably take the spinning theory's place.

Don't get me wrong. I am not anti-science. I actually accept all of these things as theories, or at least as very likely theories that the smart and intelligent people I seem to think give us pretty good explanations. The things I believe in are those I can see and verify for myself. So, therefore, I believe that the sun rises and I believe that balls drop. I accept that earth and sun revolve around each other and that they are both hurtling through space. I accept that the ball and earth are attracted together and that together they are part of some gigantic web or something. That is OK. I can accept these things without troubling myself about really understanding them any better than the simple way I explained them above.

I invite any readers to explain it to me better and disabuse me of my mis-understandings, but I doubt I will ever reach the point of thinking that I really believe them. They are theories designed to explain, in a consistent manner, what we see but can't explain. In a way, it is something of a convenience.

This all brings me back to things spiritual. I don't know if I believe in God the same way I conceptualize God or the same way that many others might do so. What I believe in is a power of good or of love so much greater than anything I can really understand. I believe this because I have experienced it, usually through other people. I also believe that I have felt that power of love acting in my life, greater than anything I can do on my own. This, I can believe, is God. It is like my belief that the sun will rise and that the ball will drop. I have been fortunate to have had these experiences, even sometimes during great spiritual pain or dryness. Now that is talking about something of convenience!

It doesn't stop there however. Wise and well meaning people have developed theories that tie these and other strands of my religion or even other religions into notions and theories that seek to explain it all. I like to think about the concepts discussed, but I don't dwell on trying to understand them. Anyway, they are called mysteries. Mysteries invite us to enter into deep and profound thought. But people proclaiming that they know mysteries, may just be putting limiting something way beyond the human ability to limit.

Now, I can accept many of these popular theories of god, just as I accept Newton's or Einstein's theory of gravity. But, when I put all of the helps and experiences of love that I have had, that is what I call my belief in God.

McCarville/McCarvill Reunion

Last weekend, Haydee and I and Sean and Nancy attended a McCarville/McCarvill reunion in Clarksville, Md.

We have never been sure how our branch of the family (the Owen McCarville-Jane Lynch group) fit into the rest of these honorable McCarvilles. They all trace their ancestry back to a Thomas McCarville in a family tree that we are not really part of. It was the first time we ever met with this group.

We met many new friends, two of them called Jim McCarville. One Jim McCarville, the one from Minneapolis, told me of the family DNA project that has conclusively proved we have a common ancestor. We just don't know how far back. (By the way, he graciously offered to host the reunion next year in Minneapolis.)

We met another family with a Jim McCarville from Buffalo. They are all big hockey fans and promised to come to see a game at the Igloo before it closes in 2009-2010. By the way, the Buffalo McCarville's don't know how they fit into the Thomas tree either.

I got to argue about whether my friend, old King McCarville, qualified for the definition of a "High King" (I thought so). I bought the updated McCarville/McCarvill CD and went out today to by the Family Tree Maker software. (I should have more updates in the future.) The great T-shirts were worth the trip alone!

It was great that Nancy came along, she is a Gilbert with her own stories, but (and this was my favorite part), she listened so patiently to all of ours.

We stayed at the Inn at Peralynna Manor that we found on Mapquest. It looked like a corporate retreat or wedding reception place that was not otherwise booked for this weekend. The food was fantastic and the service very attentive. The decor was a tad on the over-opulent or even faux opulent side. One of our group, who will remain nameless, said it looked like it was decorated by Michael Jackson, But none of this is to say it detracted from our stay. In fact, it just added to a really great weekend.

Patsy Cline, Always

Haydee, Julie and I went out to see "Always", the tribute show to Patsy Cline tonight at the Pittsburgh Caberet. It was a great show, but the gem of the evening was discovering the Caberet. It is a nice little dinner theater that you could imagine might have been a place that Patsy could have played. Well, maybe you need a little imagination to come up with that. But it was great to hear, "Walkin after Midnight", "Fall to Pieces", Crazy" and 17 other songs they way she would sing them.

Patrick McCarville Named Public Defender for Salinas Co.

Patrick McCarville was named Public Defender for Salinas County, Colorado, on July 1, 2007. Follow the link to find out who he got to defend on his first day on the job. Congrats, Pat!

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/13605055/detail.html

If you click on the second video link to the right of the article, Camper Charged with Murder, and you will see him at work. At least you see his back in a nice suit.

Over 60? Get Your Shingles Shot!

"You know that there is a shot for that now."

Those were the first words out of my doctor's mouth, even before he told me that the lesions on my head were, as I now know, "shingles".

I had never thought much about shingles and, when I did, thought they had been pretty much tamed. Turns out from the many stories of friends and acquaintances, that this virus is very much among us, 10-20% of us are likely to get it, and greatly misunderstood.

Shingles is the same virus that has remained dormant in our nervous system ever since we first had chicken pox. When it wakes up, it travels down the nerves to erupt on the skin. It shows up as feeling of high sensitivity and then what looks like a rash or hives on one side of the body. Mine hit the right hand side of my face. The pox outbreak lasts 7-10 days, and mine is nearly gone, but the pain and numbness can last for 3-5 weeks. Some cases may have longer term impacts, including possibly on the eye.

Shingles is not contagious. With direct contact, a person with shingles can pass the virus on to someone who has never had chicken pox, but you can only get shingles from yourself. It is treatable if diagnosed early. If one is suspicious, don't wait to get it checked out. Just don't.

Dr. Ellis tells me that in 2006 the AMA approved a new shot for shingles. (Web pages indicate that Merck developed it and market it as Zostavax.) According to Dr. Ellis, the AMA recommends that everyone over 60 get the shot. Early tests indicated it reduces the chance of getting shingles by 50%. If I can do any favor, it is to pass this advice on to my friends who may read this page. If you can reduce your chances of getting this by 50%, you want to do it.

IF YOU ARE OVER 60, GET YOUR SHINGLES SHOT!

A little clarification on the life and times…

To whom it may concern:

Sean McCarville dives in caves.

Jim McCarville writes about ailments and eye surgery and stuff.

Red Stripes and Bats

Spelunking Pictures

I'll post more online some where

Sean's Spelunking Advanture

Sean just returned from vacation in Jamaica, checking out dirty dingy caverns and other similar places. He's still editing his comments, so there may be more to come. His words are better than mine, so here they are.

Posted by Sean McCarville
Unnamed Cave
We parked just past a small rural auto shop (two guys in the hills with a roof and a monkey wrench – on second thought I’m not sure they really had a roof) and backtracked up the road just a bit to find a path leading to what we thought would be Falling Cave. The trail was not surprisingly overgrown, and I was glad to be wearing long pants but was still a little uncomfortable with the hard hat (and headlight) I was wearing. Crossing a small stream I slipped on a wet rock and took a pretty hard fall on to a log. My side it still a bit sore from the fall six days later. Now I’m quite paranoid thinking either my boots have lost all their traction or these rocks are somehow far more slippery than what I am used to on the Blue Ridge Mountains. We follow the stream up the hill (paranoia continues) and reach the entrance to the cave. Everyone probably says this but it seemed like it was straight out of a movie. Two bats flew out of the cave. No one else saw them, and there was a sparrow's nest near by, but the two creatures I saw looked and flew like bats. I wish I could get a second look to be sure.

The entrance was perhaps eight feet tall by eight feet wide, rocky and had a stream of water flowing out and down the hill. My guess is it was about a quarter of the way up the hill, maybe 20 meters from the bottom. As we went in it narrowed quickly and the water got deeper quickly so we had to place our feet on either side of the cave walls to walk along which was difficult to do since all my footsteps were under about a foot of water. About 35 feet into the passage we got to a waterfall that was about 6 feet high and we had to climb up, which was nerve wracking (remember my earlier fall in the stream), but relatively easy. Again the cave narrowed and the water got deep very quickly to the point that it was up to my chest so I really could not see where I was stepping. I only remember about a foot of air space between the water and the roof of the cave. The other guys thought it was cool that they had found a huge crawfish in the entrance to the cave but I was just hoping I didn’t feel anything crawl up my leg. After another 35 feet we got to and area with more breathing room and a split. There was a small tributary coming in on the right and a five foot climb on the left. We tried the left first. This climb was drier and much easier but the cave narrowed so quickly after that, we were afraid it could take too long to get out if the water rose and trapped us in (by we were afraid I mean they were concerned, since I was mostly afraid of slipping again but other than that was just along for the ride and negotiating emotions of “this is fucking crazy” with “this is really cool” and having one of the times of my life. We decided it was only safe to go further in the dry season and headed back. Drew decided to explore the tributary, which I could not believe, and I saw him disappear into the hole which reminded me of Whinny the Poo getting stuck in Rabbit’s hole after eating too much honey. He tried to call out what he was seeing but since he was blocking the entire hole I could only hear muffled noises. Eventually he found a larger room and was able to turn around and come out. Yuan got a great photo of him coming out of the tributary. Then it was back through the deep water, down the waterfall, though the first part, and out. Turns out the cave wasn’t Falling Cave, instead it was a small unnamed cave.

Marta Tick Cave
It was a 5 kilometer or so ride on a barely existent road from the house we slept in to the trail leading to the cave. The trail was much easier to get through as another larger group had recently gone through. The JCO members were disappointed to learn a group of tourists had been taken up to the cave to see the bats. I could not help wondering if they realized I was little different than a tourist but felt no need to share that insight with anyone. After a half hour hike up and down a couple hills through the thick forest we arrived at some large jagged boulders. Most of the stone in the “cockpit” region of Jamaica was limestone and had been eroded by water into jagged Swiss cheese rocks. We climbed up the boulders and continued up the hill for a bit until we could see the entrance to the cave above us. Again it was a scene out of a movie with the forest and vines around us and everything else. We climbed up to the entrance which was quite wide, perhaps seven feet tall by 20 feet wide, and looked into a beautiful room about 20 feet high, 40 feet deep by 50 feet wide filled with rocks, stalactites and stalagmites, and apparently the room received just enough light for some greenery to grow. It looked like moss at first to me but also a little small shrubbery if I remember correctly.

Bat Roost
There were two tunnels leading away from the first room. We started with the one on the left that led to the bat roost. The entrance was grand, it was large and after a few turns we were inside. After perhaps only 30 feet the bats were flying around us, the cave was getting much darker as we were further from the entrance, and I was being dive bombed by a handful of bats that were either panicking and flying toward my headlamp or trying to scare us off. The ground was completely guano at this point and was very soft under my footsteps. A few times I looked up and could hardly comprehend what I saw, clusters of bats flapping their wings, and after a few moments I’d have to turn my light away out of fear the entire group would break out of their cluster and start flying around (perhaps at me). I wasn’t sure if the bats had been flapping their wings all long or only started when I looked up at them. I tried to look up twice more and finally decided not to do it again. At this point the cave seemed to split although either way led to a much larger room that was the main bat roost. The bottom of the room was about 10 feet deeper and the ceiling may have been 5 feet higher. I can’t even guess at the number of bats except to say it was in the thousands. Our group leader headed into the main cavern to get a better look, I was quite content to stay just on the edge. At some point about this time I started to wonder why thousands of gnats would be living in a cave with bats that would eat them. I realized then the gnats were there because of the guano, and therefore there were also spiders and other bugs which could eat the gnats, in effect a whole eco system was possible in the cave because of the bats. Shining my light down I saw a fleeting glimpse of a bunch of shiny stuff that disappeared, some kind of bug, no doubt, that burrowed into the guano away from my light. I noticed one of my companions had turned off his headlamp and was no longer bothered by the gnats. I turned my light off, waved my hand back and forth a few times and they were gone. It was somewhat quiet although there was some noise from the bats, and I realized I was squatting down in a cave in the darkness in guano, with gnats and bats above me, and spiders, crickets, and who knows what else below. We did a little more searching for invasive species (other than ourselves and headed out). The JCO members were please the roost was still healthy and fairing much better than some of the others which have been disturbed to the point they are hardly remaining intact.

Second Tunnel – Marta Tick Cave
The second tunnel in the Marta Tick Cave (the first being the Bat Roost) immediately descended about 5 feet, turned to the right and quickly became a crawl through the mud (at least it was red mud and didn’t look like guano). Someone had left a rope that was tied at the entrance to the cave and ran along side us. At some points we had to crawl flat on our bellies and thinking back it is remarkable I didn’t experience any claustrophobia at this point or any other. The cave remained rather wide, more than 7 or 8 feet wide in most places so that may have made it easier to deal with. After 60 feet or so we got to the first obstacle – a hole about 14 or 15 inches in diameter we had to fit through. The only way I could do it was to lie on my right side, stick my left arm through while keeping my right arm at my side, and then pull with my left arm, inch along with my right shoulder which was underneath me, and push with my toes. I could move forward a few inches at a time with this method and made it through ok. The cave then turned a to the left for the second section. More crawling in parts, but also some places with 3 or 4 foot ceilings and stalactites. This section ended with another small hole to squeeze through. The third section started to get larger and we could stand after a while. We got to a place with a steep climb which looked difficult. The other guys had noticed split back just a bit so we took it instead. It went down and after a bit got to the toughest hole of all to get through. We all made it and went on for a bit and it started to open up, we even saw a bat fly by, I have no idea how it was able to navigate without getting lost. In this area I first saw stalactites growing in odd directions, some with hooks or barbs or spindles, some with hooks going in all directions. Apparently no one knows why this sometimes happens. There seemed to be many places to climb up, but they all dead ended or become to small to pass so we headed back. When we made it back to the climb we decided to give it a try. Yuan was able to make it up and tied off a rope. With the rope the climb was pretty easy. It was about a 25 foot climb, although the ground sloped down away from the bottom, so depending what you call the bottom it could have been a 35 foot thing. We climbed around up top and got to a real treat, a lot of white. I guess it was all stalactites and stalagmites but one part of it looked like some kind of wave. We went on into another room of all white, from which you could climb down into one more room of all white.

We headed back, down the rope taking it with us of course, back through the passages and belly crawling and out. While it was great, I could not wait to get out of the cave as I got closer to the exit.

Ahmadinejad's New Letter

Today's Pittsburgh Tribune-Review carried an Associated Press article "Iran's letter to America just a PR stunt".

It was the first I heard of this, his second letter. What caught my attention was the reason the AP story gave why no one in America was interested.

It quoted some Iran specialist who said:

"'He's (Amadinejad's) ignorant of the attitude of American people' toward Iran....He believes that U.S. public opinion will be occupied with his letter and debate it. They (Iraninan leaders) have a huge lack of understanding of American public opinion and what moves it.'"

"Culture plays a role in his manner. In Iran --where discussions of poetry and theology are popular obsessions -- the abstract debate of ideas is a political tool not present in the United States". Ouch!

Well that got my attention and at least I read the letter. There was a lot of what might be expected and a lot that was not. It surprised me that he did speak with respect for the "God-fearing nations of the Iran and the US". One thought that stuck with me was that he said history has now "called these two great nations closer together at this time. " I had been think only in terms of drifting further apart.

You can read it for yourself at You can read it at http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/iran_pres_letter.pdf


This letter, and his previous letter to President Bush in May, do set out how he sees the world and how he tries to explain it to his own people and how he thinks we think about this. I think he is more right about us being drawn closer together than the AP cited Iran specialist who thinks we are not interested in "the abstract debate of ideas". I just hope there is time for us to be drawn closer more for good than for ill.

Finally, contrary to the quoted Iran specialist, I trust that "the abstract debate of ideas" is still of great concern to the American public.