(interludes, links)

One for traumabrains; The Myth Of Closure - which is a pdf, and has questionable moments like, oh, the entire fourth page, and jargon is gargled and perhaps occult values outweigh science (while remaining critical about the lack of evidence for the conventional story of closure) but it is iiinteresting enough to me to be worth linking.

although. I shouldn't have left it open on my laptop and I certainly shouldn't have finished reading it at work. Someone was staring at me and saying 'you look very...focused.' Idk, I need to, not just write but write horrible stream-of-consciousness idcrap, and instead I have two complete drafts I need to fix and no time or energy with which to do it. Work is insane, there were massive and necessary errand sprees, I am still not caught up from last weekend, and have no prospect of doing so until about next Thursday. :( Too many stressors and not enough processing time.



Also? Turns out one of my coworkers is currently being killed by America's medical system, in a fairly underreported way that I always suspected was occurring and now know to be so. Please understand that this person is almost completely unlikeable and so I don't have any specific emotional investment in this piece of anecdata:

It's the pseudoscience. I've noticed, and I think mentioned here before now, that quack medicine that is proven to have no positive health benefits, particularly chiropracty, is unusually respectable in America because it can attract a large customer base of people who either can't afford health insurance or can't afford to use the health insurance they have. This inherent audience gives quackery a glimmer of respectability. M swears that everyone knows chiropracty does nothing useful but they like it because it feels good in and of itself. Not sure; my shock moment was when someone who didn't have access to medical care brought a medical leave note to work that was from their chiropractor.

Anyway, the unlikeable person had been in pain for a long time. She attributed this to a back problem she already knew she had, and made regular and totally pointless visits to a chiropractor. One can only assume that this chiropractor did not at any point indicate that they were out of their league here, or that someone with that degree of chronic pain should maybe be looking into somehow, some way, seeing a real doctor.

She's finally been diagnosed with breast cancer that has advanced into her bones, and we are told she has somewhere between three days and a month to live.

I come from a country where people her age get a free mammogram every year.

I have been telling people this.

Anecdata is for radicalising.



This is what happened to me yesterday; this is where I was on Sunday (though wow do I need to sort out the rest of my con photos, no time no energy this week :/ ), conclusion; MGS fandom is amazing. Also, is. (it's always weird forgetting I left music on and then coming back to my room and hearing Fly singing at me over tinny laptop speakers.)

I read this ages ago and it's been a core of my perceptions of the present state of things ever since, but I'm not sure I ever linked it; The Great Speedup. Very America-centric but probably relevant wherever you live.