Sassistas! Our dish on the social soup.

Brain Exercises

Many of us mark a new year with resolutions: eating and drinking less, saving money, reading all the books we own . . . and for most of us -- exercising more.

A fascinating article in yesterday's New York Times revealed that in addition to exercising our bodies, we also ought to exercise our brains.  In her article, "How to Train the Aging Brain," author Barbara Strauch offers compelling evidence that one way to keep a middle-aged mind sharp is by shaking up what you already know.  Here are some of Strauch's key points:

• Brains in middle age (the 40s to late 60s) get more easily distracted.
• Contrary to popular thought, brains continue to develop through and beyond middle age.
• "What is stuffed into your head may not have vanished but has simply been squirreled away in the folds of your neurons."
• The brain in middle age, gets better at recognizing the central idea, the big picture.  "If kept in good shape, the brain can continue to build pathways that help its owner recognize patterns and, as a consequence, see significance and even solutions much faster than a young person can."

But how does one keep brain connections in good condition and grow more of them? The answer will surprise you:  "Educators say that, for adults, one way to nudge neurons in the right direction is to challenge the very assumptions they have worked hard to accumulate while young."  The point is not to learn new facts, but to challenge your perceptions of the old ones; to challenge how you view the world. For example, "get out of the comfort zone to push and nourish your brain.  Do anything from learning a foreign language to taking a different route to work."  Adults learn best with a "disorienting dilemma" or something that "helps you critically reflect on the assumptions you've acquired."

What disorienting dilemma do you need to embrace to exercise your brain?  For example, Flannista may have to read some William F. Buckley or more of Winston Churchill.  Richard Dawkins could really push her out of her comfort zone.  Or perhaps Flann ought to look up beet casserole recipes.

What do you need to do to challenge your perceptions of the world?

Done Deal?

BREAKING NEWS SASS!  HERE IS A SPECIAL "MEET THE SASS" FROM OUR POLITICAL EXPERT, WESTSISTA, AS THE UNITED STATES SENATE PREPARES TO CAST THE SECOND OF THREE PROCEDURAL VOTES TO END THE HEALTH CARE DEBATE. THANKS SO MUCH, WEST, FOR WRITING THIS POST AT THE LAST MINUTE!

I find it shocking, but not everyone has been glued to every passing nuance of this year’s health care debate.  Here’s my take on some of the most-used (but often misunderstood) buzzwords in this debate, and my understanding of the general outline of the Senate bill scheduled for a vote on Christmas Eve.

Public Option.  Something similar to Medicare -- a government run program.  Would provide at least some competition to private insurance in terms of premium rates.  Since Medicare’s administrative costs are approximately 2-3%, and private insurance has administrative costs up to 20% (they have to add in things like sales and marketing), the positive argument is that a public option would make health care dollars go further.  The negative argument is that the last thing we need is another big government agency, and that it creates another ongoing financial obligation when we don’t know how we’ll continue paying for the ones we already have.

Filibuster and Cloture.  The House can pass a bill with a simple majority.  Since there are 435 members of the House, a majority is 218 or more.  The Senate rules allow debate before a vote to continue indefinitely (filibuster) or until 60 Senators vote to end debate and force a vote (known as Cloture). 

Mandate.  This makes it illegal not to have health insurance.  Federal subsidies are available for anyone whose annual income is at or below 400% of the poverty level. To give you an idea, for an individual that amount is $43,320.  If you don’t obtain health insurance, you can be fined up to $750; that amount is equal to or less than the cost of 12 months of many health insurance plan premiums. Failing to pay the fine or get health insurance can lead to jail time, just as failing to pay your income taxes can.

What happens now:  The House already passed a bill (with a public option), but since the Senate just passed a different bill, they now go into “conference” -- to come up with a bill that both the Senate and the House can agree on, and the compromise bill has to have enough votes to pass both the House (218) and the Senate (60).  This conference would start in January, and the White House hopes it can be complete before the State of the Union address in late January 2010.

General outline of Senate Bill: 

• Expands Medicaid to cover more people.

• Mandates that everyone must have health insurance -- puts burden on individuals.

o      Allows health insurance companies to charge higher premiums for older people and those with pre-existing conditions  (some estimates are up to three times the premium of a “healthy” young person.

• Prohibits health insurance companies from:

o      Denying health coverage to people with pre-existing health conditions;

o      Dropping people from their health insurance plan after they become sick;

o      Charging varying rates based on gender or occupation; and

o      Applying overly restrictive lifetime and annual limits to coverage.

Although I am not happy with a health insurance mandate without a public option, I think the current Senate bill does bring some desperately-needed regulation to the health insurance industry.  Estimates are that this bill will result in 30 million more people with health insurance, which seems significantly better than nothing.  So I’ll be hoping for a positive Christmas Eve vote, a successful conference between the House and the Senate in January, with a health care reform bill signed into law in late January.  No matter what you are hoping for, this is far from a done deal.

Kidney Championing

The Sassistas! would like to acknowledge and thank Carolyn for dishing today's sass.

"Have you ever seen a kidney walk?" read the orange print on the t-shirt of a toddler.  And beneath, a red kidney sprinted, arms pumping, a bead of sweat on furrowed brow. 

The kidney reminded me of a plump Oscar Meyer wiener with a friendly face, making it difficult to swallow my morning coffee.  Next a team of walkers appeared with dogs in tow, all streaming purple boas from their necks.  They were an enthusiastic, motivated team, while me and my small entourage hopped from foot to foot and  brayed about the gusty cold wind that was whipping the bay.  It was unseasonably cold in a town that don't do cold all that well.  A drizzly rain fell, not a beautiful day to beckon walkers to the first annual Kidney Walk for this area held this past Sunday. I wondered where the heck the sunshine was, the pink (or kidney-color) ribbons, the interested passers-by, but it was not to be.  It was a small turn-out, most people figuring since they'd raised their money, actually attending the walk in the rain was a no-go. 

The DJ was a fan of the 80's stuff (which better-half loved), and he knew how to work nearly 150 walkers.  He had some good speakers to blow, too, and even when the wind changed directions I could hear the music fine and clear.  I wondered what the people in the fancy surrounding townhouses thought, but he rocked it out.  An air horn blew and we began the course.  When you're cold and start sudden movement, I've learned that your knees squeak like the Tin Man's no matter what kind've fancy running shoes you got on.  So, I squeaked through the whole course once and then again, while better-half ran around me chattering like a pre-schooler on ritalin.  Thank God the rest of the lot, even the purple boa people, were creakers like me.

It was fun!  I'm already signed up to draw blood in a free screening clinic that the money we raised will provide in February.  Got my entourage to volunteer for other things, too.  Kidney disease, compared to some of the more publicized health issues, is a low-profile, unglamorous problem.  The availability of dialysis does not foster a sense of urgency when it comes to finding more suitable treatment or obtaining government funding . . . or even raising money for a kidney walk.  Most people don't realize that having dialysis is comparable to living in an iron lung: you are tethered until the day you die, or someone else dies and you're at the top of the list of 80,000 waiting for a cadaver kidney.  Altruistic donation still isn't fully embraced as the option that's so critically needed.  Hopefully that will change as we provide more education.
 
I'm so sure that most of you have a cause that you champion, whether for animals, famine relief, the environment, health issues, or legislative ones.  I'd like to hear about it, and how you came to choose it (or how it chose you).  And I bow in thanks to the sistas who gave money to my walk.  There's something about a walk that made it easier for me to ask for money, and the response, I think, is greater if people think that you're putting some effort behind the issue you're promoting.  Don't know why that is.

Thanks to Flann for letting me get the word out.  Ya'll save your spare change, I'll be asking for it about this time next year, too!

To read Carolyn's post detailing her experience about donating a kidney, click here.

Stop!

"I can do 40 leg lifts without stopping!"

-- Kitty Carlisle (1910-2007)

DISCUSS.

Wandabra!

This October is the 25th Anniversary of National Breast Cancer Awareness Month. 

More than a month, NBCAM is (according to its website, linked above) "a partnership of national public service organizations, professional medical associations, and government agencies working together to promote breast cancer awareness, share information on the disease, and provide greater access to screening services."   The website is a year-round resource for breast cancer patients, survivors, caregivers, and the general public.

To mark the month, the Sassistas! first want to encourage all the sistas in the 'sphere to schedule their annual mammogram if they haven't already done so.  Next, enjoy the Artful Bras Project created by the Quilters of South Carolina to raise awareness of breast cancer.  Pictured left is "Monkey Business" from that wonderful project.  Pictured below is, "An Angel to Watch Over Us."  Many thanks and love to PEACEsista who first emailed us about the Artful Bras Project last February 5th!  We were saving it for a special post, PEACE.

Speaking of special, please use today's comments to post the name of a beloved who is a breast cancer patient, survivor or caregiver.  Tell us a little bit about that beloved and how she/he is doing.  For every name you post, the Sassistas! will donate $10 (up to $500) to the National Breast Cancer Foundation which, among its many goals, provides mammograms for those in need. 

(Nowayasista -- check out the video from Rachel Ray on the home page of the Foundation's website!)

Thanks for taking good care of yourself and your beloveds!

Rats!

"Stress is an ignorant state.  It believes that everything is an emergency."
  -- from Wild Mind by Natalie Goldberg

STRESS.  We all experience it.  What can we do about it?

The Sassistas! first began to draft this post more than a month ago, after reading a fascinating New York Times article entitled, "Brain Is a Co-Conspirator in a Vicious Stress Loop."  Seems that laboratory stress tests on rats proved that "the sensation of being highly stressed can rewire the brain in ways that promote its sinister persistence."  According to a neurobiologist quoted in the article, the test results provide "a great model for understanding why we end up in a rut, and then dig ourselves deeper and deeper into that rut."  In other words, stress is a vicious cycle.

Like we said, we were going to post about when this article first came out on August 18, then Flannista got the news that she needed an MRI to rule out a brain tumor.  She became too stressed to complete the post, so she decided to delay publishing the post until today.

Today is the day of Flann's annual gynecology and mammography appointments followed by a semi-annual dental check-up (to see if her overnight mouth guard that prevents teeth grinding due to stress is working). Three important appointments.  Three understandable reasons she is stressed at the time of this writing, though it often takes much less than this.  Sometimes it takes only a strange smell.  Rats in the attic?  Stove on fire?  Carbon dioxide?  CANCER???!!!

In Flann's defense, there is much scientific proof that menopause in general increases stress for women.  In her book, The Wisdom of Menopause Christiane Northrup suggests that the avoidance mechanisms women used in the past as a defense against unpleasant memories and emotions no longer work during menopause: 

. . . when the hormonal shift of focus and accompanying changes in brain activity conspire to call buried traumas and unresolved issues into the light . . . . The midlife investigation and release of the painful patterns from the past is necessary if you are to truly heal.

Yes, midlife investigation is necessary, and yes, it causes stress.  Seldom, however, is it an emergency. 

What causes stress in your life?  How do you cope with it?  Let us know.

One last thing, we're curious if any of those laboratory rats were in the throes of menopause at the time of testing.  Talk about a vicious cycle!

"You Lie!"

The Sassistas! had already published another post this morning but scrapped it after reading the fallout from President Obama's address to the Joint Session Of Congress on health care reform.

Although we watched the speech last evening, we fell asleep right after it was over.  We wondered, however, who had yelled what at the President at about 8:40 pm EST.  Momentarily stunned, the President continued speaking.

This morning, we discovered the details.  As millions of Americans watched from home, Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C., pictured right) shouted at the President from his fifth-row seat:  "You lie!" when Obama vowed to lawmakers that his health care reform would not provide benefits to illegal immigrants.  Obama moved on to his next sentence in his speech, about how no federal money would be used to fund abortions.  "Not true!" came another shout.

In a Washington Post editorial this morning, Dana Milbank writes:

The national debate, already raw for years, had coarsened over the summer as town hall meetings across the country dissolved into protests about "death panels" and granny-killing. Guns were brought to Obama appearances. A pastor in Arizona said he was praying for Obama to die.

But even by that standard, there was something appalling about the display on the House floor for what was supposed to be a sacred ritual of American democracy: the nation watching while Cabinet members, lawmakers from both chambers and the diplomatic corps assembled.

The Sassistas! recall once watching Britain's House of Commons in session where audible heckling and grumbling were, well, common.  But this seems like a stunning breach of protocol.

What do you think?  And what did you think of Obama's speech?

Honeymoon Over?

The headlines in the Washington Post and New York Times are declaring the same thing: Obama's honeymoon is over.

According to Scott Wilson in the Washington Post (9/6/09) "opinion polls showed support for the president and his policies dipping sharply, and the disheartening numbers have shaken the confidence of some of Obama's staff."

Peter Baker in the New York Times (9/6/09) writes:

With his honeymoon seemingly over and his White House on the defensive, Mr. Obama faces what friends and foes alike call a make-or-break moment in his young administration. Because he has elevated health care to such a singular priority, advisers said he must force through a credible plan or risk crippling his presidency.

John Podesta, who ran Obama's transition team, says: "Nothing will influence the perception of the presidency more than whether he can be successful in getting a health care bill through the Congress.”

According to some pundits, Obama's challenge is this: while he built his successful candidacy and presidency around a leadership style that seeks consensus, he must now take a more assertive approach.  Opinion polls show that Obama's public support has fallen in his first seven months in office -- more than his immediate predecessor during his first seven months in office.

The honeymoon was bound to end sooner or later.  Are you concerned that Obama has staked too much on credible health care plan?  What's your remedy for Obama?

Feet First

The photo to the left features Jerseysista wearing her pair of the thin rubber shoe sensation, Vibram Five Fingers. 

According to Vibram's website:

When you go barefoot, your movements become the movements of a child—playful and sensitive, yet purposeful and confident. You experience the unbound joy of stepping, hopping, and running across any surface on earth, simply to get from here to there.

Vibram FiveFingers® allow you to relive that sensation. Unlike conventional shoes that insulate you from your surroundings, FiveFingers footwear deepens your connection to the earth and your surroundings. FiveFingers enhance your sense of touch and feel, while improving foot strength, balance, agility, and range of motion. 

The Sassistas! were reminded of Jersey's FF's (FiveFingers) yesterday while reading a front-page article in the business section of the Sunday New York Times. Pictured (see right) were the feet of Tony Post, chief of Vibram USA, running in Jersey's FF's (well, not HERS specifically, but you know what we mean).  The article provides an overview of how upstart companies like Vibram "are challenging the running-shoe status quo with thin-sole designs."

The Sassistas! were also reminded of a Washington Post review they read recently of Born to Run by Christopher McDougall.  In his book, McDougall argues that "feet that are in direct contact with the ground get constant sensory feedback.  They adjust to reduce impact."  

Yeah, but how MUCH are these things?  Preliminary Sassistas! research reviews that these things are about 80 bucks.  Hmmm.  For shoes that feel like you're wearin' nuthin', that's more than nuthin'.  Our sassearch uncovered a much less expensive alternative.  Click here to see for yourself.

Would you wear Vibram FiveFingers?  Why or why not?

Of All The Nerve

Flannista can't begin to tell you how many times she's heard in her life, "You ought to have your head examined."

Well, at 10 a.m. EST today, she is.

Pictured to the right is (according to some website), "a weighted MR image of the head showing maxillary sinus, nasal septum, clivus, inner ear, medulla, and cerebellum."

Whatever.  It's the image that came up when Flann googled, "MRI -- Optic Nerve." Today, Flann is having an MRI of her head and optic nerves to rule out a brain tumor.

Before you all pick up the phone and call, Flann would really like you to first pause and send up a prayer or two. Next, you need to know that in my gut, I don't think I'm experiencing anything life-threatening.

Here's the skinny.  A year ago August during a routine annual eye exam, my ophthalmologist noticed that my left optic nerve was "pale."  In December I had a field vision test to rule out glaucoma. Yesterday, I had my annual eye exam and the same ophthalmologist said, "Hmmm. That left optic nerve is even paler.  If you were 70, I wouldn't be worried about it.  But I'd like you to have an MRI.  Could be a slow-growing tumor.  Just want to rule it out."

Yep, he said, "tumor."  Once you hear that word sistas and mistas, trust me, that's ALL you hear.

So I got the first appointment I could.  10 a.m. EST this morning.  

I'm a bit claustrophobic, so I hope they pipe in some sort of music.  Last night, Matissta and I went through some of my soundtrack CDs (I love soundtracks) and knowing how much I love the composer Thomas Newman, she said, "Hey, how about 'Six Feet Under'?"  

I looked at her and said, "Think about what you just said."

She was horrified, but within seconds, we both were laughing.

Ah, the best medicine.

Love to all.