inkbluesky

The therapeutic value of blogging becomes a focus of study

Self-medication may be the reason the blogosphere has taken off. Scientists (and writers) have long known about the therapeutic benefits of writing about personal experiences, thoughts and feelings. But besides serving as a stress-coping mechanism, expressive writing produces many physiological benefits. Research shows that it improves memory and sleep, boosts immune cell activity and reduces viral load in AIDS patients, and even speeds healing after surgery. A study in the February issue of the Oncologist reports that cancer patients who engaged in expressive writing just before treatment felt markedly better, mentally and physically, as compared with patients who did not.

Not exactly the kind of self medicating that some people have in mind, but its legal and overdosing at worse leads to some embarrassment.

cyan power tower

Ex-Press Aide Writes That Bush Misled U.S. on Iraq

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan writes in a new memoir that the Iraq war was sold to the American people with a sophisticated “political propaganda campaign” led by President Bush and aimed at “manipulating sources of public opinion” and “downplaying the major reason for going to war.”

McClellan includes the charges in a 341-page book, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” that delivers a harsh look at the White House and the man he served for close to a decade. He describes Bush as demonstrating a “lack of inquisitiveness,” says the White House operated in “permanent campaign” mode, and admits to having been deceived by some in the president’s inner circle about the leak of a CIA operative’s name.

If you have time to click around besides the commentary on yet more evidence that BushCo was less then candid as regards Iraq look at how quickly Scottie’s former comrades proceed to demonize him. He’s a liar trying to make some money while Bush’s ratings are in the basement. It doesn’t matter what the little weasel says Saddam was a modern day Hitler and Bush was justified in lying the nation into a counter productive war. By the end of the week it will be something of a contest to see how many ways McClellan can be rhetorically lynched. I’ve read some of the excerpts and Scott is still being if anything less then honest then he could be about the scale of the Bush Whitehouse propaganda. One of the reasons the next election is so important is the ability of the American people to have access to more documentation about what administration officials knew and when they knew it. The idea that a president can manipulate a democracy with three co-equal branches of government into a war because one feels there is some oh so high moral justification that is placed beyond the judgment of the people is wacky at best. That gives the next president and the one after permission to do the same. We already have too many Johnnie did it too junctures in our political debates. As painful as seems for some there are instances where especially people with great powers have to act like adults and do what is right, not what the little gods of extremist ideology whisper in their ear.

Oh what a tangled web we weave, When first we practise to deceive! -   Sir Walter Scott

When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. – 1 Corinthians 13:11

Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies. – Groucho Marx

marsh rat