He has since deleted his account but not without some of the most heinous bigotry I’ve seen being put on display across Twitter. Be warned the follow screenshot below is offensive and upsetting.
Not so long ago being called a racist was a serious accusation which stained one’s entire life both personally and professionally.
It’s the parable of the boy who cried wolf writ large across the very discriminatory Internet. We are experiencing the aftermath of years of “The Boy Who Cried Racism” and predictable it’s quite ugly.
The term has lost its power and actual racists are no longer afraid of the big bad wolf or anyone warning of its approach.
As being called a racist became a commonplace “insult” across social media more people decided maybe it wasn’t so bad to be labeled as one. Being called racist now even has shock value that can be leveraged.
It’s happened to other terms like sexist, homophobic, and fascist. We no longer fear the terms, like we no longer fear warnings of the wolf. But racists are dangerous. So are fascists and sexists.
Created using DALL-E-3 with prompt “make me an imagine of a boy based on the parable “the boy who cried wolf” but he is crying “racism”
I believe we now have so much blatant racism on social timelines as we’ve decided to label everything racist.
Perhaps it’s time to make it rude to label everything racist so we can once again heed the warnings when real racism rears its ugly head.
The dream has many forms. Sometimes it’s a permanent move, often it’s about rushing for some type of upcoming unexpected travel like a flight change or worse an “evacuation emergency” like a fire or natural disaster.
My subconscious likes to chew on packing up crucial items and leaving. I moved a lot as a child. My father also valued traveling while my mother and siblings did not.
I assume some of these nightmares are a related to those experiences. Instability is a classic reaction formation process for a child seeking safety. And I’m now as an adult finding that safety to be in reach.
I have whole systems for managing the types of unexpected problems that crop up in modern travel like my three bag cascade. I’ve taken this activity that has had a negative valence for me and turned it into positive experiences.
I am experiencing a peace about the future I didn’t fully expect to find. I’ve been lucky enough to have a number of long term efforts start to paint a picture of success.
I began a process of examination of my last several years somewhere in the last half decade as I prepare myself and my work the next stage of growth. I’ve made a number of fairly significant decisions as my idea of where the future is headed and how I myself expect to live in it. A lot of these choices are public and revealed preferences. I don’t make it a secret.
I’ve been considered a doomer only because I think one has to look with calm and clear eyes at the problems in front of you. Only then can you really build optimism about your capacity to improve. Being merely positive isn’t a bad thing, but positivity is only driving you towards success if you are planning realistically. A good attitude is just a starting point.
I’ve taken things slowly. Sometimes it feels painfully so. But the intentions I had to be prepared to live in a more chaotic world means I live a stable life now even as daily uncertainties exist for everyone.
My intention is to approach building the future with optimism. The problems are large but I work with many focused and sober minded people who actually can and do build solutions. Fighting the future won’t do much. But who says it’s got to be a fight? Maybe we can bring on better things.
I am hunkering down for a Friday evening at home. Batten down the hatches, secure the chickens in their coop, turn on the security system and lock the doors kiddos because the circus is here.
We don’t live in the town of Bozeman thankfully but comfortably far enough into rural county land that we shouldn’t be bothered.
Nevertheless when something big comes to town, and it’s harder to imagine something bigger than a political rally, it can get in the way of basic routines like grocery shopping or picking up prescriptions at the pharmacy.
I was doing a few errands over the lunch hour and traffic was crawling as trucks decked out in flags paraded through town. It was actually quite festive even if it slowed everything down.
Trump is speaking at 8pm and already by noon the rumor on local chats and news websites was that the indoor arena was nearly full with early arrivals.
There is a portion of 19th street where local farmers sell fruit and vegetables on the side of the road. Today it was packed with booths selling Trump paraphernalia instead of cherries or sweet corn. I
think the most astonishing flag I saw was “Cum-Allah Harris” but it was otherwise your usual MAGA fair with lots of signs for local Republican candidates as well.
Slow traffic and roadside flag sales
I didn’t get any close up pictures as I was trying to avoid the scene but I did a little bit of looking as I drove by. I’m hoping it brings good business to restaurants, bars and motels though in truth August is already so popular a time to be in Bozeman we don’t really have much capacity.
I’m safely back home long before anything has kicked off and I indeed to keep it that way. Don’t invite trouble and trouble won’t find you. But I look forward to hearing stories from friends and neighbors. Maybe I’ll watch the livestream.
I’ve been having some unwelcome negative emotions over the past few weeks of political turmoil. It could be a function of long Covid or some variant of season affective disorder. I got introduced to an even worse environmental trigger.
Wildfires burning both in state and across the west gave us low cloud cover. You could barely see the next road let alone the mountains. The whole day felt like dusk. A long dim suffocating presence that felt like it would resist nightfall. It was smoky perma-dusk day where neither horizon nor blue sky could be seen.
“The sky above the port was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel.”
William Gibson Neuromancer
Probably his most famous piece of prose, this introduction manages to evoke something beyond the literal color and into an expansive image of otherworldly nothing.
He apparently “imagined an ancient TV … that grey/ haze as the tube warmed to a channel that was ‘active’, but sending no programming” which was “the black and-white video-static of my childhood in mind, sodium-silvery and almost painful”
The pain of a sky blocked out by smoke from wildfires even at high noon is unsettling and uncanny. It’s hard to feel right when what you see is so destructive.
We are safe inside the house with air purifiers in every room. The Conway HEPA filter went from one crisis to the next as a pandemic purchase that works on pollution too. The custom software that Alex uses to manage our smart home is showing perfect interior quality as the purifiers run day and night. Outside the AQI score was 118 “unhealthy for sensitive individuals.”
We’ve got a few more hours to sunset but a thunderstorm might be moving in.
I started getting coded as right wing sometime in the last four years. I found this confusing. I have significant public opposition to Republican policies and Donald Trump in particular.
I’ve been small “l” libertarian for most of my adult life. I’ve vote for quite a few Democrats as I opposed neoconservatism. I registered Republican as the Democrats went from embracing business and technological growth to opposing it. I didn’t see free enterprise as a threat but as the engine of our progress.
I vote for Biden as I sincerely thought it was the best choice after a tumultuous four years under the ostensibly Republican Trump where I saw nothing but a bigger government and frayed norms around containing that government’s authority.
I don’t like a large state apparatus in principle and feel America is the nation that most sincerely pursues the liberty of its citizens. The state has been granted the sole monopoly on violence. That monopoly must exist for civilization but necessarily must be constrained by the rights of the citizens who consented to be governed.
I’m proud of the American experiment as a citizen, a Christian (in particular a Protestant) and a capitalist. That may sound conservative to some but in practice tended to get me left coded as I support less government involvement in nearly everything.
Drugs, sex work, reproductive freedom, medical freedom (which ranges from vaccines to sex & gender choice), speech (which includes compute), religion freedom and commerce are liberties best decided upon by responsible adults of good conscience.
We have codified this in our constitution and democracy is the working progress of finding a way to agree to be governed together. Whether it leans left or right is hardly the point. Each generation reacts with the choices it inherited from the one before it.
The political fight is to remain a citizenship that consents to be governed. America isn’t a monolith. We respect the liberties of our fellow citizens who have agreed to respect each others rights. If we disagree we arbitrate that through the government we’ve consented to be governed by. That is only possible insofar as we respect each others fundamental rights.
Violence is not meted out by individuals. The state alone has that monopoly and it ends at our personal rights. No citizen should ever claim the mantle of irreversible violence. Violence against those who we choose to govern us considered the most unacceptable to all citizenry. Political violence is never acceptable.
When we discuss a crisis of democracy and invoke mortal or existential threats we override the bonds that make us Americans. My respect for my fellow citizens must be in equal measure their respect for me. We are responsible for ourselves so that we may be responsible amongst and to other.
When I think of the violence that we’ve seen in the political process of deciding who represents us in our state I am furious. It is unacceptable that any of our representatives have been subject to violence. Since 2011 we’ve had three attempts at deadly political violence against Gabby Giffords, Steve Scalise and Donald Trump. This is terrorism and untenable.
The shock I feel today after witnessing an attempt on Donald Trump’s life last night substantial. I probably should have felt it more intensely for our Congressional representatives. I have taken so much for granted as an American.
The liberty I’ve felt to articulate my own views is unprecedented. We as a nation have tremendous capacity for disagreements. The political is a negotiation and we all accept compromises. All three of those politicians have positions I find to be unacceptable infringements on my liberty. Which is why I speak my case and vote for my positions.
I’ve felt perhaps wrongly that living my own freedom was politics enough And that means I have to speak when I see unacceptable things. We cannot continue to escalate the stakes.
I want America to remain a United States. I recognize I hold positions others disagree with. I may disagree with you. I don’t know how I’ll be coded from here and I don’t care. I am committed to being an American. I remain committed to the protection of my fellow citizens full liberties.
That Americans would die for them has been made more than metaphor too many times. Let us do all we can to prevent that so we can continue to live together in freedom. Let the blood of patriots remain imagery so we can continue to live united.
I caught a case of Covid at the very end of May that took me down hard. I’d been struggling with “long” symptoms
So I tried an experiment. A pretty crazy one at that suggested by my osteopath and supervised by a doctor.
I am using going to use a 7mg slow release nicotine patch (of the type made for smoking cessation) for the next 3-5 days to see if it impacts my over-stayed their welcome Covid symptoms. I started my experiment at 9am Saturday July 6th
Day 1283 Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs)
The principle was pretty simple but not proven yet in clinical trials.
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) have been proposed as potential therapeutic targets for COVID-19. Research suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein may interact with nAChRs, potentially influencing the disease’s pathophysiology[1].
Please do go read the original post with lots of caveats as nicotine is an addictive substance and this is not something to try without consulting your doctor.
I was unable to do the full 7mg but cut the patches down to 3.5 to 5mg over the five days. The side effects included headaches for the first day or so and a persistent queasiness.
Within a day I was lifted out of my exhaustion (which you’d expect from something modestly stimulative even though it was a low slow release dose). By the end of the second day my persistent coughing lifted entirely. I’d been struggling with congestion and coughing after even modest exertion like a walk outside.
I was functional on the fourth and fifth day like I hadn’t been since I got Covid. You can see me go into the red on my first day (my HRV dropped significantly but my RHR was only up by a few BPM). I slowly felt better and saw better recoveries even while taking on a little bit more exertion. I pushed a little too hard and found myself back in the red on my last day.
My Whoop recovery and strain chart for the five days of experiment beginning on the 6th and ending on the 11th of July
I was really relieved to stop the patch by the end. The last day of treatment I had overextended myself so I was in the red and feeling it even as the nicotine pushed my system up. I wanted to rip it off and did eventually cave at the end of the day instead of doing it all night.
My symptoms seem to be at bay. I feel decent enough so days after wrapping even as I began menstruation this morning. I hate to report that it also improved my usually debilitating PMS which typically includes intense migraines.
I would do it again if I got Covid. I cannot imagine ever using a nicotine patch consistently. I didn’t not enjoy the extra push of energy except insofar as it got me out of the exhaustion of the illness. I feel like it would be too much if I were otherwise feeling healthy. I have no cravings or side effects after.
Honestly I’m still wrapping my head around how well this worked. A part of me is confused, indignant and angry that a substance I was taught to fear has therapeutic benefit. Updating your mental models around long held beliefs is an uncomfortable process. But it’s a heck of a lot better than long covid symptoms.
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) have been proposed as potential therapeutic targets for COVID-19. Research suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein may interact with nAChRs, potentially influencing the disease’s pathophysiology.
I am doing alright with it. I was wary of keeping the patch on all night long (I am very sensitive to stimulants such that I won’t drink caffeine past 10am) so I removed it at about 5pm. That may have been a mistake.
Yesterday my Whoop recorded physiological stress. I wasn’t coughing, I had more capacity for exertion, and I felt generally less exhausted.
But I didn’t come down easily for sleep. I ended up taking a number of anti-inflammatory medications as well as an Ambien. My heart rate was stable but I felt “up” which I don’t care for at night.
And I did not wake up to good news. My HRV absolutely tanked. There are lots of confounding variables here in that I got good restorative sleep (medicine induced surely) but some strain has clearly been too much. 40% down isn’t a rousing endorsement.
I am also noticing a lot of chatter around addiction and whether or not it’s responsible to discuss these things. The fear that the average person is in fact prone so addiction and will have adverse affects. Which I’m sure is true. I don’t think normal people should take unnecessary risks and it’s good to have the minimum viable dose be none at all.
It’s wise to remember that I am not at all living in average circumstances nor do I have average medical conditions so I am not necessarily who you should be looking to for health advice. You should do the basics like eat more protein, lift heavy things, sleep an adequate amount, be in the sun and move around, and manage your baseline health metrics first.
Never one to take things laying down, I started a crazy “n of 1” experiment today. My family doctor prioritizes keeping up on literature. We’d chat about anti-inflammatory research in reputable journals.
But I am on week seven of Covid symptoms simply not clearing. I’ve been coughing when under stress or exertion, my seasonal allergies exacerbated the issue, my reconditioning of my cardiovascular system wasn’t going great and I was exhausted.
At a visit with my osteopath who helps with my chronic autoimmune issues in my spine (I’ve been diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis) I mentioned my ribs felt tender and constricted from Covid coughing.
She asked me if I was familiar with the research coming out about Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors and Covid-19 treatments. She’s casual like that.
In a joking “don’t try this at home” way my osteopath said she’d seen folks use nicotine patches for a week to shorten their Covid symptoms to some success.
Now for some caveats. In any type of crazy self treatment it’s important to consider your risks and consult a professional. Don’t do anything without your doctor’s input. Every medicinal treatment has risk and side effects.
I am using going to use a 7mg slow release nicotine patch (of the type made for smoking cessation) for the next 3-5 days to see if it impacts my over-stayed their welcome Covid symptoms. I started my experiment at 9am Saturday July 6th.
I am treating this as a “kitchen table” science experiment in which I am clearly an N of 1 from which you can only take anecdotal evidence. But maybe one data point becomes many and with the network effects of social media maybe we push forward other experiments.
Here is what I know so far thanks to searches from perplexity AI but I encountered some of the papers through mutuals on Twitter, some on forums, others I’d discussed with physicians, some were just raw dogging Google Scholar.
The AI synopsis I’m sharing isn’t meant to be conclusive just to give interested parties a starting place to see why I believe this is an experiment I’m comfortable running on myself.
Nicotinic acetylcholine receptors (nAChRs) have been proposed as potential therapeutic targets for COVID-19. Research suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein may interact with nAChRs, potentially influencing the disease’s pathophysiology[1].
Nicotine and other nAChR agonists could modulate inflammation and the immune response, offering therapeutic benefits[2][3].
Given that I’m working with inflammation as my primary issue which is not modulated even without Covid, I was obviously quite curious to learn about this cholinergic system and potential for up regulation. I’d seen discussions as early as 2020 about the curious fact that smokers had experienced some protection from Covid infections.
This all clicked in my head as being testable on my own without significant risk. Gwern had significantly reduced my concern about nicotine usage where previously as a child of the drug wars I’d put smoking nicotine in basically the same category of dangers as injecting heroin. It is not.
It seems it is possible we’ve got an explanation for why smokers didn’t catch covid at the rates you’d expect and they did better with the infections. We may even have things to learn from it to improve treatments.
Nicotine agonists could potentially be used to prevent inflammation in COVID-19 patients by modulating the immune response. Nicotine, a cholinergic agonist, has been shown to inhibit the release of pro-inflammatory cytokines, which could help mitigate the cytokine storm associated with severe COVID-19[1][2][3].
The cholinergic anti-inflammatory pathway, activated by nicotine, suppresses maladaptive inflammatory responses, suggesting that nicotine or similar agonists might offer therapeutic benefits in managing COVID-19-induced inflammation[3][4][5].
Nicotine and quercetin were some of the earliest predicted compounds to reduce the binding affinity of the spike protein to ACE2 — which in turn, we described the MOA of here: biorxiv.org/ TL;DR is that reducing the affinity may increase neutralizing immune response.
I do want to reinforce that I am aware nicotine is addictive. I’ve had to take drugs that form chemical dependencies in the past. I’ve used Prednisone in the less controlled phases of my spinal condition and tittering off that steroid is a nightmare. But it can be done. It is doable with a plan, careful monitoring, and supervision.
All evidence suggests this experiment isn’t long enough for me to develop a dependency let alone an addiction. I am thankfully free from any genetic predisposition to addiction in my family.
I plan to do a B3 Niacin flush at the end which is meant to help tittering. I will also be monitoring my heart rate as Nicotine has a tendency to raise your BPM so if I don’t like what I see I’ll lower dosage or stop usage.
With all that said, let’s see if it helps me out. I’ll post because it is in my nature.
I’m pretty comfortable with being embarrassed. I get stuff wrong and I have to come to terms with it even as my ego complains bitterly. The ego protects itself with denial but that doesn’t mean its conclusions are correct.
Being impartial about your reality is hard. Denial is such a normal part of catastrophic events the CDC even has handy public health explainers. I hope post pandemic everyone can enjoy the irony of that.
Taking an impartial view when approaching a problem is hard. If it’s an especially destructive situation (as most forms of crisis tend to be) wanting to put off action is a common coping mechanism. We do it as individuals and we do it within the meta-organisms that form the cultural and political systems we live within.
My suspicion is that some of our current political problems are a result of denialism. Seeing things as they are is impossible for some people. Avoidance, rationalization and minimization is practically a skill set.
I’d hope in a crisis I would attempt to solve a problem with whatever meager tools and skills I had at my disposal. I’ve done my best to take action on a few slow moving problems. And yet impartiality only arises when I can accept reality. And I wouldn’t blame anyone who finding the reality completely unacceptable.
