MICHAEL’s MEME

Stanley Fish wins the William Kristol Memorial Prize

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 23:11:51 -0800

There is just so much wrong here. I doubt my comment will appear (the NYT moderator has a habit of deleting my entries).

http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/08/do-you-miss-him-yet/?hp

What to say about such drivel? "Victory at Last?" What victory? We still have 115,000 troops, plus innumerable contractors and and other support in Iraq. At least 38 Iraqis were killed during the "voting" that occurred on Sunday in Baghdad alone. Bush's war based on lies has cost us taxpayers over $900 billion, and what was all this death and destruction for? Hmmm? Why are we in Iraq? A victory for a lie.

I could go on. But I’m tired. So I’ll spare you. Suffice to say Stanley Fish is an idiot.

Star Trek Online Is Awarded an A+ For Audio

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 21:41:41 -0800

The audio work we did for Star Trek Online received a glowing review from Ten Ton Hammer, one of the premiere MMO gaming sites. As follows:

Sound

Excellent

“With all of the original source material at their finger tips, the team at Cryptic would have had to go out of their way to provide anything less than stellar sound. Fortunately, they took the time to make sure the sound in Star Trek Online is perfect. Phasers sound like phasers. When you receive a private tell from another player, the chime of someone coming to your door on the Enterprise-D comes through your speakers. With the very first loading screen, the team draws you into the game with the beginning movements of the original TV intro score. How could you not get excited for the adventures you and your crew will embark on? As the final cherry on the top of this audio sundae, the team also recruited Leonard Nimoy to provide narration for not only the movie intro, but also the progressing storyline. Suffice it to say the sound is outstanding.”

A BIg Pile of Books

Mon, 8 Mar 2010 20:30:06 -0800

I continue to make my way through the ancient Greek classics, mostly philosophy these days. Epictetus’ Discourses, Socrates (through Plato) and Marcus Aurelius are among the authors I have enjoyed. I’m also reading various essays on Stoicism, like Lawrence Becker’s A New Stoicism, William B. Irvine’s A Guide to the Good Life, and John Sellars Stoicism.

Martha Nussbaum has been on the pile by the bed, with Upheavals of Thought: The Intelligence of Emotions on top of the pile.

I recently finished Jonathan Safron Foer’s Eating Animals, which I highly recommend. You will be changed by reading it...unless you have no soul.

I also finished James Rachels The Legacy of Socrates.

Another ourstanding book I’d recommend is Sins of the Flesh - A History of Ethical Vegetarian Thought by Rod Preece.

On the music front, I’ve been enjoying Stefan Hagel’s recently published Ancient Greek Music: A Technical History, which is an incredible piece of scholarship.

Also have been listening to some beautifully recorded interpretations of the existing ancient greek music fragments as found in E. Pohlmann and Martin West’s, Documents of Ancient Greek Music, performed by the ensemble De Organographia. Very lovely, and outstanding in every way.

I continue to explore Bernd Alois Zimmermann’s work via scores, books and recordings. I wish I knew German better.

Hiatus Revisited

Sun, 28 Feb 2010 23:12:06 -0800

Idiopathic Thrombocytopenic Purpura

You may recall, if you happened to be here around this time last year, this long post about my stay in the hospital during the winter solstice holiday of 2008. Since I was released from the hospital, I’ve had a complete blood count (CBC) done every three months. While at times the count has been a bit on the low side, I was told it was nothing to be concerned about.

Well, here we go again....

I was looking forward to the break for the winter 2009 solstice, even though I planned to spend some time at work over the holiday to take care of a few things for the impending Star Trek Online launch. On my first day off from work, I had an appointment to see a doctor about a pain in my back. Nothing severe, but it had bugged me for over a week, so I decided to go see someone about it.

While I was at the doctor’s, I decided that I’d take care of a couple of other things things too. I was due for a blood test, so one was ordered. I stopped on my way out so the resident vampire could draw some blood.

About an hour after getting home, the phone rang. It was my doctor. He informed me that my platelet count was dangerously low. So low in fact it barely registered. He instructed me to go to the emergency room.....immediately.

Of course I was stunned. I had not felt bad or ill, maybe a little fatigued, but I attributed that to the fact that I’d been working long hours trying to get STO out the door. I pulled myself together and packed an overnight bag (something I did not get to chance do when I ended up in the hospital in 2008). I said goodbye to my dogs and left.

I checked in at the emergency room at Stanford Hospital on the evening of December 22nd. They started drawing blood and running tests. I was hopeful that I might avoid a hospital stay, but with my platelet count so low they did not want to let me go. I was admitted to the hospital around 2:30 a.m. They decided I needed a platelet infusion.

My nurse, Letty, administered the infusion. She was quite nice. Afterwards, I tried to get a couple of hours of sleep.

The next morning the specialists started to roll in. I had a pack of six or seven hematologists and interns examine me, asking a bunch of questions. They then left the room to confer amongst themselves. I just wanted to know when I might be able to bust out of there.

They weren’t going to let me go until my count went up into the safe range. In addition to the infusion, they put me on a large dose of steroids. Wait and see....

Meanwhile about every 4 hours, a vampire would show up to suck my blood. In addition to the CBC they were running some other tests, so sometimes they’d draw half a dozen or more vials at a time.

The next day my count rose to 24. They knew I was eager to get out of there before the holiday, but it was looking increasingly like I’d be spending it in the hospital. I called my Animal Nanny, and made the necessary arrangements.

Towards the end of the day, the vampires came back and took another sampling. A couple of hours later, the head hematologist came back and told me that they had decided to allow me go home, as my count had now risen to over 30. I was instructed to come back for another CBC the day after the solstice holiday, and then they’d decide what to do after that. The diagnosis for now was ITP.

To make a long story short, my count rose during the first weeks, all the way into the normal range. Of course I was still on a very large dose of prednisone, which in theory was suppressing my autoimmune system. Now that my platelet count was back to normal, they’d begin the process of weaning me off the steroids. I’d also continue having more tests, to rule out any other possible disorders such as Lupus, etc.

It has now been two months and my count has dropped every time they have reduced the dose of steroids. Last week I measured at 40 (still on 12.5 mg of prednisone). This is down from a peak of 240 (when I was on 80 mg prednisone).

I returned to see my hematologist, and he seemed to be preparing me for the worst case scenario -- a splenectomy. This is a common treatment for patients with chronic ITP. If my count does not stabilize at an acceptable level as they continue to reduce the dose of prednisone, this is likely going to be the next step. While there are some other treatments (retuximab), none comes without some nasty side effects, and their effectiveness isn’t so great. Or course splenectomy is not 100 percent effective either (60-70 percent effective, but studies show that the remission rates go up after 5 years).

So I am not out of the woods yet. On the positive side of things, I feel fine and when my CBC was run last Thursday, it bumped up to 63. I’m now down to 10 mg of prednisone. We’ll see how things go over the next couple of weeks. I may still be able to avoid the surgeons blade.

Natalie Angier's Stupidity Leaves Me Speechless (almost)

Mon, 21 Dec 2009 23:46:52 -0800

If I could reach across the continent and slap her in the face I would. I really would.

So today’s NY Times has this laughable - no, pathetic is a better word - screed by Natalie Angier. Entitled “Sorry Vegans: Brussels Sprouts Like to Live, Too.”

Why should I even waste my fingers responding to such idiotic rubbish? Why? Not because of the smarmy tone, the flawed (lack of) logic, or the gross misinterpretation of the scientific record. No..she must be taken to task for her amoral stance and the outrageous implication that those who adopt vegan diets for ethical reasons are somehow hypocrites, “because plants have feelings too.”

What utter nonsense. Even i it were true that plants have feelings in the same sense as animals (and it is not), how does this help to justify the slaughter of a sentient being? Two wrongs still would not make a right.

Plants have no central nervous system, no brain, no reasoning power, and so on. Plants indeed do respond to environmental stimuli, but that response is purely an evolutionary-fueled automatonic response. To suggest that Brussels sprouts have subjective sentient experiences is laughable. It is not only truly absurd to compare Brussels sprouts to sentient animal creatures capable of all of the forms of emotional response that humans possess (Darwin: “the difference between man and the higher animals is one of degree, not of kind”), it is shamefully amoral to suggest so in an attempt to justify the slaughter of sentient animal creatures by equating it with the harvest and eating of plants. Not to mention pathetic.

From Romain Rolland’s Jean Christophe "The unpardonable crime"

“The nameless tortures which men inflict on such innocent creatures made his heart ache. Grant animals a ray of reason, imagine what a frightful nightmare the world is to them: a dream of cold-blooded men, blind and deaf, cutting their throats, slitting them open, gutting them, cutting them into pieces, cooking them alive, sometimes laughing at them and their contortions as they writhe in agony. Is there anything more atrocious among the cannibals of Africa? To a man whose mind is free there is something even more intolerable in the sufferings of animals than in the sufferings of men. For with the latter it is at least admitted that suffering is evil and that the man who causes it is a criminal. But thousands of animals are uselessly butchered every day without a shadow of remorse. If any man were to refer to it, he would be thought ridiculous.—And that is the unpardonable crime. That alone is the justification of all that men may suffer. It cries vengeance upon God. If there exists a good God, then even the most humble of living things must be saved. If God is good only to the strong, if there is no justice for the weak and lowly, for the poor creatures who are offered up as a sacrifice to humanity, then there is no such thing as goodness, no such thing as justice.”