Summertime Heat is rough on our canine companions too.

I did a quick search, as these cheesy infographics scream FAKE-ATTENTION-GRABBING-HEADLINE...

-However

     It does appear at least by a cursory search that these temperatures are indeed accurate. I personally would never walk my dog on asphalt, but I do recognize where sometimes it might be a necessity.

     One tip a lot of dog health sites agree on is this.
Place your hand on the asphalt for 10-30 seconds. If you can't keep your hand on it for that long, then the surface is too hot for the pads on a canine's feet.
If someone come across better info please share it and let me know.

     As always, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Not only will burns be traumatic to your pet, but traumatic to your wallet when you have to take them to the vet for treatment.

Cops Arrest Man in Animal Cruelty Case

     I am glad they have the person they believe to be responsible. My neighbor and I were just talking about this case a few hours ago, and we both were at a loss as to what would possess a person to do such a thing.
      

Many people are suggesting all sort of outrageous punishments for this man. 

I will hold my judgement.
 

     Do not mistake my comment. I do believe he should be punished, but as for the method I want to know why this happened. This man does have a criminal record, so there is a history of miscreant behavior.

• Did he do this in retribution to some imagined slight by a third party? 
• Was he just in the mood to be cruel? 
•  Was he high?

      Perhaps my ruminations on his reason would lead those reading this to think I imagine a scenario that excuses this. That is not farther from the truth. There is absolutely no excuse for this type of behavior ever.
      So why the interest in the underlying reason? Well, people are too quick to think of punishments. Many say "kill him". I don't know that taking his life is called for. He truly is a very messed up person, but will his death solve anything? Perhaps it is easier for me to ruminate over this as it was not my dog.
      I would like to see a more severe punishment than what is currently on the books. 5 years doesn't seem like enough. I would want a psychological review of this man to see what the fuck is broken in his head.
      As for punishment, I will not speculate. I am a very creative individual, but as you know what you type on the internet stays forever, and I would rather keep such dark thoughts to myself.
I am still outraged at this, but my years have given me wisdom that quick retribution is not always best. There are many types of hell a person can be put through worse than death. I will leave such thoughts to the imagination of you all. Karma will reach this man regardless of what punishment man metes out. I only wish I could be there to witness his accounting for his deeds when the time comes.

      I will end this on a positive note. To any of my FB friends that own a dog, (or any pet), and are struggling, please get help. Before any situation devolves into anything remotely like this talk to someone. If you have no one to talk to, at the very least surrender the dog to a shelter where it has a chance of finding a new home. There is no shame in realizing that the responsibility of another life might be too much for a person to handle.

Cops Arrest Man in Animal Cruelty Case 

'Articles' like this piss me off, or, The Ramblings of a Man Fed up with Fake "NEWS"

      I am sharing this in response to it appearing on my Facebook wall. For all who have read my original response, I thank you. For those who have not, please give it a minute of your time, as this topic keeps getting brought up.

Here are the comments from the OP on Facebook:
MASS exodus from Florida . . .
Highway I-95 and I-75 will be jammed for the next
month or so with druggies and deadbeats heading
North out of Florida, because this is the first state in the union to require drug testing to receive welfare.....

Hooray for Florida. In signing the new law, Republican
Gov. Rick Scott said, "If Floridians want welfare, they
better make sure they are drug-free."

Applicants must pay for the drug test, but are
reimbursed if they test drug-free. Applicants who test
positive for illicit substances, won't be eligible for the
funds for a year, or until they undergo treatment.
Those who fail a second time will be banned from
receiving funds for three years!

Naturally, a few people are crying this is
unconstitutional. How is this unconstitutional?
It's a legal requirement that every person applying
for a job has to pass drug tests in order to get the job,
why not those who receive welfare?

Forward this if you agree!
Let's get welfare back to the ones who
need it, in Canada, Australia and New
Zealand, not to those who won't get a job.
I AGREE !

Here are my original posting comments:

      'Articles' like this piss me off. Why? Because they are knee-jerk "hot button" issues meant to grab attention and nothing else. Do I think drug testing should be done on welfare recipients?
-Sporadically.
-Why?
 Here's some actual data on a pilot program:

http://thinkAhttp://thinkprogress.org/economy/2015/02/10/

      Now, the short version is this: 0.2 That's right. two-tenths of one percent. According to the research, that's well below Tennessee's drug usage rate of 8% for ALL people.
So, in conclusion, all of the pulpit banging on this issue is mostly bullshit. If testing is done, IMHO this is how it should be.
      Once every (x) years a random panel of recipients in a set area is tested. There should be (x) numbers of areas per state based on population density.
IF the results of the test show usage of welfare recipients in a give are to be equal or higher than the average usage of ALL people for the area, then testing should be increased in frequency until the numbers drop.
      Why this approach? Because as a country we waste too much damn money on programs that make no difference other than pander to a political base.
In the case study for Tennessee, we see that a regular testing schedule would be a monumental waste of taxpayer's money.
      So, we should balance the need for testing against recorded rates.
More data is needed to give a comprehensive result for each state. Articles like the one in this post are the worst kind as they are outright lies, and offer near nothing of value to the reader.
-Oh right, this isn't an article. Its a picture with a comment with no supporting evidence, no author, no point but to incite anger period.

      As a matter of fact, the heralded Gov Rick Scott mentioned in this picture has given up on trying to test welfare recipients in Florida.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…/florida-welfare-drug-

     According to the article: The ACLU challenged the law on behalf of Luis Lebron, an Orlando Navy veteran and single father who refused to submit to a urine test. The 11th Circuit found that only about 2.6 percent of Florida welfare applicants failed the drug test during the four months the law was in effect, almost half for marijuana use." Yep, 2.6 percent. So, why am I so mad? Because bullshit opinion pieces like this picture try to pass themselves off as legitimate news/information and mislead people I respect with lies and misinformation.
Educate yourselves people. Google is your friend. Fact-check, question, and learn."

Note- I'm still working out formatting and grammar issues. (I need a better editor than the generic one that Blogspot uses) I also don't know yet if it is possible to link the original comments from the responses I got on FB. I'll see if I can link the post here.
I'm in the process of re-blogging some of my more lengthy Facebook posts and responses here as the lack of formatting on Facebook is driving my OCD to dark places.

Living with Bi-Polar, a review of Stephen Fry’s documentary, and personal experiences Part 4

Part 4 Self-Medication.
                Self-medication has been around longer than today’s regulated medication industries; after all, self-medication is where all medication began. However, for this line of discussion, I’d like to start with a definition from Wikipedia:

“Self-Medication is a human behavior in which an individual uses a substance or any exogenous influence to self-administer treatment for often unmanaged, undiagnosed physical or psychological ailments."

               Now I will only be discussing my personal experiences with this, as I don’t feel too comfortable on stating second and third hand accounts. For myself, alcohol was the medicine of choice in my teens and twenties. Why? To quote Homer Simpson, “To Alcohol…the cause…and solution to…all of life’s  problems.” Well, when you’re walking around like a time-bomb, you tend to only focus on the latter half of that wisdom.  For a manic-depressive, alcohol seems like a great choice. On one hand, if you’re depressed, just drink up and you’ll feel better. All those happy people in beer commercials can’t be lying, right? On the other hand, when you’re manic, you either want to:
A) Stop the ride and get off. Your exhausted, and your mind won’t shut off. So how do you get it to stop? Use a beer hammer of course! Drink and drink until you knock yourself unconscious.
-or
B) Keep the party going! Woooooo Hoooo! THIS IS AWESOME!!! Give me another beer and a shot!
Yes, those are indeed complete opposite outcomes from using the same substance. How does this make sense? It doesn’t. When you’re bi-polar, you also tend to re-make things as you need them to be. When you’re in a manic state, what is rational to most completely eludes you. Why? Well who has time for facts and logic when I’VE JUST THOUGHT OF THE MOST AMAZING THING OMG NEED TO GO GET A…yeah…that happens a lot. Mania can make you feel god-like. The universe is your and all in it is within your understanding. Consequences really don’t factor into a manic high.

                So for depression, you also drink. Why? “I’ll take country and western song cliché’s for a $1000.00 Alex” So many people have written why people drink when depressed I’m not going to cover it. The why really isn’t relevant, as much as the ‘what happens when?’ part. See, when you’re depressed, all you can think about is wishing you were not. Many times I think subconsciously I was craving a manic episode. Not knowing that’s what my times of frenzy were, I related to the next thing. Getting hammered. Being drunk parallels mania in a lot of ways. Loss of inhibition, slight feeling of euphoria, relaxation, confidence, etc. all mimic parts of a manic episode. The biggest difference is when you’re drunk, you might have slightly impaired judgment. When someone is manic they may not be that closely tied to reality. When a person is in a state of mania and gets drunk, its game fucking on hold on to your hats time folks!!!  Yeah, take that rulebook and set it on fire for all the good it will do you. I’m glad I never got into hard-core drugs, as it would have gotten me killed. If a drag racer holds the Nitrous button down too long he can blow the motor. If you try to take a race car like brain and add rocket fuel to it, you’re going to burn it out quick. Alcohol was “safe” because I couldn’t drink enough to kill myself, right? (Again, loss of logic).

                The problem is what constant drinking does to a person. For a normal person it is bad enough; when you are bi-polar it gets worse. Think you were rapid cycling between mania and depression before? Well step right up, we have a treat for you! It’s called exhaustion! Can’t sleep? Get blackout drunk! Wake up hung over and groggy! Go to work and deal with people all while trying to get your head on straight. Shift is over, time to go relax with a drink! Or TEN!!! Hey, that bottle of rum isn’t going to drink itself!

                See, what I didn’t know was that getting blackout drunk and passing out was possibly WORSE than not sleeping. When you’re half-crazy with sleep deprivation, you don’t think clearly. All you want is results, sleep. Should have I talked to a doctor? Yes. Did I talk to a doctor? Hell no. (See part 1). So, instead of getting the rest I thought I was getting, I really was just trashing my ability to remember stuff, flooding my body with toxins, and adding obscene amounts of calories directly from the beer and the poor eating that went along with it. I think Taco Bell has stayed in business solely on the amount of money drunks spend there between 12am-4am on the weekends. 

                This cycling of mania-blackout/depression-blackout had quite a toll on my heath. I was gaining weight, having memory problems, and my mood swings were getting worse and worse. Since alcohol is so easily available to teens, it was my starting off point. If I had access to potentially stronger drugs I probably would have done as many as possible and died from any number of possible fates. But I didn’t die. I credit that fact to a group of people that was a large part of my life at that time. I will go on more about how they kept me from being my own worst enemy in future posts.

                I hope that this helps those who have never self-medicated relate to those that have. It is not a practice I encourage in the form that I’ve shared. If anyone reading this feels I am not giving enough explanation to any given topic, please let me know in the comments. I’m new to writing in this style, and want to balance assuming people know the general dangers of alcohol with giving examples of how they can be so very attractive to bi-polar individuals.

Living with Bi-Polar, a review of Stephen Fry’s documentary, and personal experiences Part 3 (Mania)

Part 3 : Mania


Now I realize that parts 1 and 2 were a bit more autobiographical than analytical, but I wanted to give a background. I wanted to show how easy it is to have what may seem like a good support network, when in reality a manic-depressive person is simply unprepared for whatever triggers lie ahead.

In the video, there is discussion about when it is too early to diagnose a child. I will avoid this issue, as it is a personal one. To clarify my last statement, I mean that like its effects, the observation of the behavior will be dependent on the family when dealing with a child. If a family is very close, with parents that have good observational skills and a baseline of what “normal” behavior should be, then it is possible to catch this illness early. However I will again stress that this is up to the family and doctors who know the person best. Medications for treatment are complex at times, and the extent for how they work is still not fully known for all of them. I will segue into teen / early adult life and self-medication, and the dangers it poses for people like me.

Stephen Fry mentions self-medicating briefly, and then moves on. I’m only partway through the second part of this documentary, so I’m not sure if they will come back to it. (He is just now talking to a doctor about Lithium).

So why is self-medication so common with manic-depressives? Well, to know that, you first need to understand the mania. Manic episodes are not like what the word sounds like; well at least some of the time. Depending on the severity of the episode, any number of things can occur. I’m linking the Wikipedia page on mania here, as there is a lot of information written, and I don’t want to simply regurgitate it all. [Mania] Of the utmost importance a person needs to understand that manic episodes are not “neat”. To clarify, they don’t always fit into one type or another. A manic-depressive person can cycle through many different states, up and down, and with varying levels of severity. This is hard for some people to comprehend, and that is understandable.

In the opening sequence, Stephen Fry interviews Carrie Fisher, and she makes some of her own observations on mania. She is not exaggerating that there is no drug that can come close to a manic high. This is absolute truth. No amount of ANY stimulant, psychoactive, or mood altering drug can come close. You may ask yourself, “Really? Come on, there are super-crazy drugs out there, surely SOME of them are more intense?”  To answer this, simply think of what a drug is. It is a chemical that changes the way our brains process information. Each drug targets a specific function, and has a focused chemical reaction / response built in. Now imagine all of the types of behavior drugs can illicit. Now imagine trying to take all of those drugs at once. There are still a finite number of chemical interactions that can take place based on the number of initial reagents you dump into your body. During a manic episode, the brain goes into various stages of hyperdrive/meltdown without any outside chemical input. As vast and near limitless is the brain’s capacity for imagination is, so is its capacity for creating its own runaway reaction. Think of a nuclear reactor that is in a runaway reaction; the more it gets further into the reaction, the more intense and violent it becomes. The same is with the brain during mania. Nothing will stop the runaway reaction unless one of two things happens. Either you run out of fuel, (collapse), or insert an agent to stop the reaction like control rods, (medication).

Since most people are not fond of collapsing due to exhaustion, they will seek other means to cope with mania. As this post is already long, I will discuss the logic, (and fallacy), of the manic-depressive’s rationalizations in self-medicating in the next post.