Remembering the Dodgers

Doris Kearns Goodwin's book Wait 'Till Next Year is a great read for baseball fans who grew up in New York City in the late forties and early fifties. Goodwin was indoctrinated as a rabid Brooklyn Dodgers fan by her father and suffered with them through multiple seasons as National League pennant champions only to lose to their nemesis, the New York Yankees. She relates play-by-play of key games in which her heroes Jackie Robinson, Roy Campanella, Gill Hodges, Peewee Reese, and Duke Synder were outstanding stars. She attributes the origins of her historical interest to her compulsive and meticulous keeping of Dodgewr's box scores. The book also brings back the halcyon post-WWII days,blotted by the McCarthy era, the execution of the Rosenbergs, and the Korean War, none of which interfered with her mostly happy suburban childhood in Rockville Center, Long Island. Perhaps it is merely an illusion that goes along with old age, but it is refreshing to reminisce about a time when the most important concern was the outcome of a baseball game. Yes, the Phillies won the World Series and the Eagles went father than anyone dared hope but it just ain't the same.

Privatize the Post Office

When I first moved to Chester Springs I quickly located the nearest post office. It's not where my mail comes from which is 15 minutes away but only 5 minutes distant. Doesn't make much sense but good enough tomail things and I'm a frequent user. What immediately caught my attention wasthe name of the tiny office--Uwchland, P.O. The township and all the street signs read Uwchlan. No "d."
"Interesting" I thought. "This area was probably once called Uwchland. They
must have dropped the "d" to fit on roadsigns more easily." No! I checked the history of the area. It was always called Uwchlan. The post office, it seems, made a mistake in 1932 and no one bothered to correct it.

I learned yesterday that a check for $200 that I sent to a mutual fund a week ago never arrived and was not cashed. I went to the post office to learn if they knew of any mail being lost. While I waited my turn in line a woman came up behind me and asked if the post office had a stamp machine. "It doesn't," I replied "butit should." The clerk overheard the conversation and explained that there is no need for a stamp machine since every food store now sels stamps. Unable to contain myself, I interjected: "That's like the supermarket not selling milk because it's sold in the local convenience store." God forbid the post office should be convenient. The lady had to wait 10 minutes to buy a book of stamps. Oh, did I mention they new nothing about mail being mislaid and gave me a number to call?

Reductionism and neuroscience

Continuing my last blog on voodoo and neuroscience,it occurs to me that the attribution of conscious thoughts, memory, emotions and percptions solely to neural activity represents the height of arrogance by neuroscientists. All psychological processes can be "explained" on many levels--subjective, neurological, chemical, genetic. How can any one level be considered as a primary cause of these processes?
Attempting to attribute any level as the the origin of a psychological process would be equivalent to solving the chicken or the egg riddle. It can't be done. How do you explain the fact that new brain areas sometimes assume the function previously handled by damaged areas? Neuroscientists perform an important function in putting one piece of the puzzle together, but they are not psychologists. As we have already noted, nor are they statisticians.

Of neuroscience and psychology

Recently I've been going through Calvin & Ojemann's "Conversations with Neil's Brain." A neurosurgeon and neurophysiologist describe the stimulation of the brain of an epileptic brain to identify specific areas for sensation,language memory etc.
Their basic premise is that all of our cognitive, personality, and emotional functions can be "explained" or understood as nervous system activity. 'Don't waste
time trying to interpret dreams,[ they advise. 'It is merely noise in the nervous system.' The book is interesting but leaves me somewhat disturbed by its dismissive atttiude toward 150 years of psychological science. Like many in the medical sciences, they are just not interested in subjective events, let alone the philosophical implications of the mind-body problem. Even my retinologist who, saved my sight over fifteen years ago, never asks what I actually see. His examination is focussed solely on the flatness of my retina. Several years ago I wrote several books for Facts on File, a publisher of books for middle and secondary school students. The consulting editor for their Gray matter series insisted I devote half of each book to the brain. I complied reluctantly in order to get the books published but turned three well-written and interesting texts into rather boring and repetitive expositions on brain structure.
Sharon Begley's Feb. 9 "On Science" article in Newsweek offers me some hope that neuroscientists are waking up. Titled "Of Voodoo and the Brain" it describes criticism from within the neuroscience community that the correlations reported
in neuroscience journals are inflated (0.9? Come on!)and due to the misuse of statistical reasoning. She didn't also explain that correlations don't imply cause and effect. Nevertheless, BRAVO to the maverick neuroscientists and to Sharon Begley.

Writer 's lament

With the publication of "Shrink: Odyssey of a Therapist" the major work now begins. Writing is the easiest task. You are being creative, you have a need to write, and the exercise is mostly fun, especially with a novel and,following Stephen King's advice, you don't work from an outline and don't know until the end how the story will finish. Editing is pure misery but is time limited. Marketing, probably the
major task, seems forever. I now am in the throes of trying to make my book known. I have decided against book signings. The potential rewards are small unless a major bookstore stocks the work on its shelves, which is hard to arrange. However, the Internet offers a wealth of opportunities to spread the word if you are willing to invest the time. You need to respond to other blogs on a regular basis, using the
comments to mention why the writer might be interested in your work. You need to develop ways to make your own blog read by using resources such as Facebook. While the publisher sends out press releases, it behooves the author to contact local newspapera and radio stations, hoping for an interview. All of these efforts, while necessary, are extremely time consuming with little likelihood of a payoff. To add to the misery, substantial financial rewards are unlikely. In my case royalties are less than $2.00 on a book listing for $30. To sell my novel. which took over two years including editing, I must pay the publisher more than I can purchase it for at Barnes & Noble who is discounting it 20%. This, despite the fact that I was asked to contribute toward initial publication costs. Will I do another novel? Yes. I've had a short novella--a followup of Shrink--accepted by a different publisher, with no up front feess. Probably more problems but it's better than letting the manuscript gather dust in my basement or clog up my hardrive.

Cognitive therapy in the high school

15 year old boy: "You called me at the right time. I'm very upset."
Therapist: What's up?"
Boy: My girl friend dumped me. Then she told me she's been cheating on me. We were having an affair?"
Therapist: What kind of affair...sexual"?
Boy: No ...you know."
"Therapist: Making out?"
"Yeah, that's it. And she told me she been cheating on me, many times. I'm furious. My adrenaline has been flowing.I was up all night. I'm a mess."
Therapist:"So you are angry?"
Boy: I am furious.I can't get it out of my mind."
T: What do you tell yourself before you feel angry"?
Boy: "I tell myself I hate cheaters."
T: You need to get over this and move on."
Boy: "I can't. I keep thinking about it."
"What must you do to move on"?
"I have no idea."
"You need to change your thinking. You need to say something different to yourself."
"I don't know what to say."
"Let's explore that. Are there other girls you could be interestd in"?
"Yeah but girls think Iam 'emo'"
""Emotional?"
"Yeah."
"Emo is bad?"
"Not cool."
"All girls think that"?
"Almost all."
"Have you had other girl friends"?
"Yes, lots."
"Soo you could go find another girlfriend."
"I don't go after them. They come to me."
"So girls think you are attractive."
"They like my long hair."
"So what's the problem? "Once they get to know me that break it off."
"How many girl friends have you had in the past two years"?
"About fourteen."
"That's a lot. How may of those didn't think you were 'emo'"?
"Two."
'Two out of fourteen. That's one seventh. If you were a baseball player you'd be batting almost 300. That's pretty darn good."
"I guess."
"There are 1400 students in this high school. How many would be girls"?
"About 500."
"I would think 700. Lets split the difference and say 600."
"OK."
"Of 600 girls, how may would you think are pretty or at least cute."
"About 200."
"OK. one third. Let's say there are two hundrend potential girlfriends but only one seventh won't reject you. That's about 28 girls in this high school with whom you might have a relationship."
"Maybe."
"I want you to start telling yourself three things. The faster you start saying this to yourself and believing it, the faster you will get over your anger and upset and move on."
"This sounds weird."
"Eventually you will do this on your own. For now just trust me and do as I suggest. The three things are: (1)My ex-girl friend is not worth my being upset over her.(2) There are lots of fish in the sea." (3) It's time to move on." I
want you to write these things down and practice saying them every day. I'll see you next week and we'll see how it's going."

Update

"Shrink: Odyssey of a therapist" has been published by Eloquentbooks.com and marketing has begun. The short sequel which I originally titled "The last ride"
has been accepted by PublishAmerica. Because they has a similar title in their cataloque my new title will be "Strategic intervention." Morrie, my alter ego therapist hero, is called out of retirement to treat a man with intractible pain in his arm and no identifiable organic basis. The patient reveals he is Stonewall Jackson, reincarnated. You'll have to read the rest. Since I may be on a writing roll, I am attemptonmg to breathe new life into several earlier and never published gems lying dormant in my basement, some for at least thirty years. I have registered this blogsite with Blogger Catalog for increased exposure.

New and old writing

The publication of my novel Shrink has generated some new enthusiasm for doing more. I have followed up on the adventures of Morrie Schwartz, Ph.D.sychologist with a new adventure. Morrie comes out of retirement to treat a man with intractible pain in his arm with no organic basis. The man reveals he is a reincarnated. Stonewal;l Jackson, Confederate Civil War hero. I am presently seeking a publisher for this long shoirt story or short novella--a novellete, I am told. Additionally, I am resurrecting some older poems and essays as well as a short, never published,textbook, "Search for the human mind." I fimd I was a better writer as a younger man but am more motivated now to complete these once-started projects. Time is running out.