Yesterday, I read an email from Colorado’s Attorney General which had me in tears – good tears for the accomplishment, mixed with sorrow for the lost time. I lived in the San Luis Valley from the time I got out of the Marine Corps (1976) until 1991 when the jpb situation thre pushed me and Virgil to move to Colorado Springs. That was the time of my life when I was a real cat lady. I don’t recall opiates being a problem there then. Alcohol, yes. But the big medical thing was diabetes and the fact that it hit Hispanics so much harder than non-Hispanics. Unfortunately I can’t link to the email, but I can link to the article in the Valley Courier – still in print thankfully – which tells the story also. He’s a Democrat, so I have always voted for him any time he was on my ballot. I hope he stays in office for a long, long time.
Steve Schmidt – a couple of days old – but unless his prediction has alread come to pass, not too old. And we should be ready for it, and then, even if it turns out to be wrong, we’ll be fine.
Personally I would
but I’m glad someone is saying it out loud. because there are people who do not realize how bad it actually is. And you cannot fight something if you don’t know it even exists. I think we can do this, but we cannot forget for a moment what we are up against.
This is the good news. The bad news. of course, it that it’s today’s courts it will have to go through, not, for example the Warren Court (I’m pretty sure no relation to Elizabeth.) Kroger and Albertson’s being the only two big conglomerates is already a monopoly (technically it’s a duopoly, but these two are like-minded like Charlie and David.)
Yesterday, the Atlanta Black Star had a story which horrified me – not that that is unusual – but this one is a bit out of the ordinary. Stories of abusive cops assaulting people of color are, sadly, still a dime a dozen. But when the abusive cop is running for Congress – that puts it into a different category. The ABS doesn’t mention the District number, but it is the one currently served by Democrat Pat Ryan, so it’s the 18th, in the Hudson Valley. This is his official site. If you can spare anything for an election other than the Presidential one, this would be one to consider.
I have alluded to this before – and I don’t want anyone to forget it. As Joyce Vance says, “History is full of failed coups that were preludes to successful ones.” So we must take it seriously and use every means at our disposal.
Seems like absolutely no one except Mary Trump wants to talk about this. I saw somewhere that the statute of limitations had expired, since the incident occurred in 2015.I don’t know what the Federal statute of limitations is on taking a bribe. But I’m pretty sure that there’s no statute of limitations in a Federal RICO case.
Yesterday, Trinette was by and helped me by bringing the mal in and the trash and recyclables out. I am still “gun-shy” about going out of and back in my front door, having tripped on the threshhold too many times. I can do it, but I really have to concentrate and it isn’t the greatest thing in the world for my blood pressure. So I do so appreciate her help with this. I had found some time this week to work on something i had promised her – to burn some CDs of works by black classical composers. I found enough for 6 CDs, and I have a playlist for the 7th, but I hot my download limit until today (I’, also almost out of blank CDs, but I have more on order). And I have still barely scratched the surface of what’s available. But I am having so much fun doing it – it’s a good thing it’s not illegal.
The article is about the secretly recorded tape made of Russell Vought, a big player on Project 2025. Besides quotes from the undercovers, they also have the video. Watch it if you dare. I doubt I need to say it’s all unconstitutional.
This is regarding fundraisers and volunteering on behalf of Kamala Harris. After that video, I figured we needed some good news badly.
Yesterday, the radio opera was “Rusalka” by Dvorak, which is the Czech version of the little mermaid. Like the Andersen original, it does not end well (Czech folk tales in general tend to be noticeably grimmer than Grimm). After the prince spurns the rusalka for the foreign princess, the former princess spurns him, devastatingly, telling him to follow his witch to hell. Which he pretty much does. Wonderful music. The “Song to the Moon” may be the best known, but the Polonaise also gets a lot of play. And short enough for me to go back to local radio and hear again almost the last almost-an- hour of “Don Carlo.”
As you watch the Democratic National Convention on TV (or whatever) from the comfort of your home, be glad you are not a Smithsonian curator. Seriously, it’s difficult to keep track of everything the Smithsonian does to preseerve American culture and history. Every once in a while I like to take a look at it, and also remind others.
I realize everyone and his dog (or her cat) is coming out with information on Project 2025. If the aggregate of these guides does not yet surpass the number of pages in the Poject itself, it likely will soon. This is Lakota Law’s version, based on comparing it to “settler violence,” otherwise known as “US policy throughout the 19th century.” The comparison is, IMO, apt, and I think examining it can benefit far more people than just Native Americans and people of color.
Yesterday, I learned that the same artist who created the Obana “Hope” poster has now made one for Kamala called “FORWARD.” It’s 18×24 but you can download it as a pdf on a single page. And if you don’t have an 18×24 space, you can get “labels” (actually just sticky paper) at an office supply store. (I just used my last one for something else, but have ordered more.) And, yes, this is the same poster I wrote about in yesterday’s email – I didn’t want anyone to miss it. It is Creative Commons, which means you may print it and put it up without worrying about copyright. You are, as it were, pre-licensed. Also, I received a grocery delivery.
Margaret Atwood has a new French Revolution post out. She explains why it took her this long … but frankly I think this is exactly the right time for it. Not, I suppose, that the people who most need to be warned will see it – or not in large numbers – but at least we will.
I don’t suppose anyone who comes here is any more interested in crowd sizes in general than I am. I’m all too aware that crowd sizes are not even as good an indicator of electoral victory than the polls. But there is something they do measure, and that’s what this article is about. It appears that HuffPost is willing to print what is right before their eyes when the New York Times will not.
There are probably a gazillion patrons of health in Greek mythology alone. I chose Hygeia to discuss this with partly because she seems to deal with general health, good or bad, and pretty much not anything else. (Apollo is probably the most powerful of the divinities who attend to health, but he’s not a specialist – he handles many other issues.) And then also because our modern English word “Hygiene” suggests both out daily life and also our personal responsibility for our condition (that’s not absolute, but some health issues are at least partly in our control.
At 79, and married to an 81-year-old who survived traumatic brain injury (not in his control, but one of the 14 factors mentioned) and who is finding it harder and harder to concentrate, Ii read this with a great deal f interest. I will point out that even the author of this cautions that in the research he discusses, the researchers made the assumption that correlation implied causation for these factors, and in reality that may not be the case.
I might note that my grandmother experienced dementia in her early eighties, and my mother was terrified of it. She decided to do a lot of mental activies to keep her brain functioning. Anecdotal evidence is just that, anecdotal, but I can say she was as sharp as a tack when she died at 93, a subscriber to 6 monthly crossword puzzle magazines. I went through all the ones which were unfinished, and I can say that of the puzzles which were unfinished, very few puzzles were not completely filled, and there were no errors. (I’m no longer into crosswords, but I do some Sudoku daily, and also Wordle. And the Conversation’s weekly news quiz weekly. And other brain teasers as they appear.) The closest the article comes to addressing that is to mention “nonpharmacological approaches, such as using activities tailored to interests and abilities,” which a quite broad statement.
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Dementia risk factors identified in new global report are all preventable – addressing them could reduce dementia rates by 45%
Nearly half of all dementia cases could be delayed or prevented altogether by addressing 14 possible risk factors, including vision loss and high cholesterol.
This third updated report of the Lancet Commission on Dementia offers good news and a strong message: Policymakers, clinicians, individuals and families can be ambitious about prevention and reduce dementia risk; and for those living with dementia and their caregivers, support their quality of life using evidence-based approaches.
The new report confirms 12 previously identified potentially modifiable risk factors from two previous reports, published in 2017 and 2020. It also offers new evidence supporting two additional modifiable risk factors: vision loss and high levels of low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol, often called “bad” cholesterol.
Our study of published evidence found that collectively, addressing 14 modifiable risk factors could potentially reduce the prevalence of dementia by 45% worldwide. Even greater risk reductions could be possible in low- and middle-income countries and for people with low income in higher-income countries given the higher prevalence of dementia, health disparities and risk factors in these populations.
The report further indicates that reducing these 14 risks can increase the number of healthy years of life and reduce the length of time with poor health in people with dementia.
We are a general internist and an applied sociologist and intervention scientist, and our work focuses on memory and wellness in older adults. Together with 25 other internationally recognized dementia experts under the leadership of psychiatry professor Dr. Gill Livingston, we carefully reviewed the evidence to derive recommendations for prevention, intervention and care.
Why it matters
The rapid growth of aging populations worldwide is a triumph of better public and personal health throughout the entire life span. Yet, given the lack of a dementia cure, this report highlights the importance of prevention as well as supporting quality of life for those with a dementia diagnosis.
In the new report, our team proposed an ambitious program for preventing dementia that could be implemented at the individual, community and policy levels and across the life span from early life through mid and late life. The key points include:
In early life, improving general education.
In midlife, addressing hearing loss, high LDL cholesterol, depression, traumatic brain injury, physical inactivity, diabetes, smoking, hypertension, obesity and excessive alcohol.
In later life, reducing social isolation, air pollution and vision loss.
Uncorrected hearing loss is an important and modifiable feature of mid- and later-life aging that can hasten brain decline. Modern hearing aids are easy to use and can help older people maintain social ties and reduce age-related cognitive decline. AlexRaths/iStock via Getty Images Plus
Together, these add up to the Lancet Commission on Dementia’s estimate that 45% of dementia risk can be reduced. And an abundance of new research shows that when risk factors are addressed, such as exposure to air pollution, they are linked with improved cognition and likely reduction of dementia risk.
New evidence supports the notion that in high-income countries, reducing dementia risk can translate to more healthy years, years free of dementia and a shorter duration of ill health for people who develop dementia.
What still isn’t known
The 45% reduction in dementia risk across the world’s population is based on a calculation that assumes that risk factors are causal and can be eliminated. It shows how dementia prevention is critical and the impact it would have on individuals and families.
The commission emphasized the need for more research to identify additional risk factors, test risk factor changes in clinical trials, provide guidance for public health efforts, and identify and evaluate strategies for implementing and scaling evidence-based programs that support people with dementia and caregivers.
The updated report has worldwide public health and research impact and is being widely disseminated. It serves as a guideline to clinicians and policymakers and outlines new research directions.
The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.
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Hygeia, my hat, if I ever wore one, would be off to anyone who is able to successfully address all fourteen of these factors. But it does give us something to aim for. We can only help it helps those who choose to go fourteen for fourteen. They would certainly deserve a dementia-free old age.
Yesterday, I wondered whether anyone who comes here lives in Chicago. Because Wonkette is having a sort of party there on Sunday. I believe there will be snacks, and I’m certain there will be drinks. (If they were bringing their own bartender, there would be drinks you did not know existed. I’ve read some of his recipes and he is a perfectionist. But they’re not. So it will be mostly beer.) It will be between 5 and 7:30 PM in the bar of the Kaiser Tiger. Details here. Also, Tim Walz’s dog Scout is on the cover of Vogue’s September issue, Also, too my stuff got picked p – so my porch is cleared and ready for more.
Robert Reich on what Harris could do as President to make the economy better. Yes, it gets a bit technical. But it’s Robert Reich, so it’s clearly explained.
CREW (Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) has done an investigation of the Republican plan to infiltrate state election systems with themselves in order to refuse to certify elections they don’t like the results of. I’ve seen stories on this, and I’m sure you have too, but nothing beats an investigation report from a responsible citizens’ group. You do have to use the “download” button in order to read it. It downloads as a PDF and does so very rapidly, and it requires less than 7MB of disc space.
Yesterday, I learned there’s a new Randy Rainbow out. I also learned Randy has a sponsor now. I have doctored the URL to omit it – but I might point out that it is “Ground News,” which Trae Crowder has also accepted as a sponsor, so you know it’s going to be a reliable source. If you want the coupon, you can start it at the beginning. The parody is of “The farmer and the cowman should be friends,” from “Pklahoma,”which also is about division, so very appropriate. Here’s the link. With that accomplished, I also requested to schedule a donation pickup – and got today for a date. Well, I was ready; all I needed to do was move the chair I want to keep away from the boxes, and put out a note. Since I was going out to the porch anyway, I replaced my “No solicitation” sign, which was getting pretty worn, and put up a new one (if you are on our Mitch’s email list you probably saw it) “Warning! Retired person on premises. Knows everything and has plenty of time to tell it.”
Brooke Binkowski is new at Wonkette. She is a “counterdisinformationist*. In this article she addresses what counterdisinformation is and why it differs from fact-checking and debunking (both of which are also in her CV.) Even though she writes with Wonkette’s trademark irreverence (Rebecca appears to have a knack for hiring people who take to irreverence like ducks to water) some of her suggestions are quite doable. Of course, the more successful one is at it, the more likely one is to start receiving death threats, so take that into consideration too.
There’s a great deal wrong with people who to remove from society those wom they believe to be the “underclass.” But the one thing that may make them the most likely to rethink this is to point out that, without the “underclass,” they would have to clean their own toilets, scrub their own floors, at the very least harvest, and possibly also grow, their own food – and on and on. No, he’s not running for PResident – yet – but as an adviser th JD Vance, if Republicans win, he could still see the inside of the White House.
