Friday, May 16, 2008

Provigil

Johann Hari experiments with this drug called Provigil:
A week later, the little white pills arrived in the post. I sat down and took one 200mg tablet with a glass of water. It didn’t seem odd: for years, I took an anti-depressant. Then I pottered about the flat for an hour, listening to music and tidying up, before sitting down on the settee. I picked up a book about quantum physics and super-string theory I have been meaning to read for ages, for a column I’m thinking of writing. It had been hanging over me, daring me to read it. Five hours later, I realised I had hit the last page. I looked up. It was getting dark outside. I was hungry. I hadn’t noticed anything, except the words I was reading, and they came in cool, clear passages; I didn’t stop or stumble once.

Perplexed, I got up, made a sandwich – and I was overcome with the urge to write an article that had been kicking around my subconscious for months. It rushed out of me in a few hours, and it was better than usual. My mood wasn’t any different; I wasn’t high. My heart wasn’t beating any faster. I was just able to glide into a state of concentration – deep, cool, effortless concentration. It was like I had opened a window in my brain and all the stuffy air had seeped out, to be replaced by a calm breeze.

I am torn between two diametrically opposed reactions:

1) Ha ha! Look at you, taking drugs that are doing who knows what to your brain. Don't come crying to me when you go senile at 45.

2) DUDE! Where can I get me some of this Provigil?

I'm not sure which will win out in the end.

Tuesday, May 6, 2008

Hypotheticals

Gene Weingarten's weekly chat at the Washington Post has brought us another wonderful pre-chat poll:

Which statement by a presidential candidate running in 2012 would MOST assure he could NEVER be elected?
a) "I support religious freedom for everyone, but I do not attend religious services and personally don't believe there is a God."
b) "At the age of 19, I robbed a liquor store at gunpoint. It was the biggest mistake I ever made and I have spent the rest of my life atoning for this terrible thing."
c) "I am a bisexual man, and in the distant past I had romantic relationships with men and women. I have been married to my wife, to whom I have remained completely faithful, for 20 years."
d) "I m a Christian fundamentalist. The world is 10,000 years old, dinosaur skeletons are a trick by God to test our faith, and, as much as this pains me, Jews and Muslims who have heard the word of Christ and rejected it are condemned to burn in hell."

Which person would be LEAST likely to win the 2012 presidential election?
a) A man who is 5'10" and 300 pounds.
b) A man who had an affair with a younger woman and left his wife and teenage children five years prior to the election.
c) A woman widely believed to be a lesbian, but who has never acknowledged or denied it: "My sexuality is a private matter unrelated to my public service."
d) A person who worships as a Muslim, but who has been a war hero for the United States. He is married to a Christian and his children are Christian.
e) A woman who is, by absolutely anyone's assessment, hideously ugly.

Of the same choices, which person would be MOST likely to get elected?
a) A man who is 5'10" and 300 pounds.
b) A man who had an affair with a younger woman and left his wife and teenage children five years prior to the election.
c) A woman widely believed to be a lesbian, but who has never acknowledged or denied it: "My sexuality is a private matter unrelated to my public service."
d) A person who worships as a Muslim, but who has been a war hero for the United States. He is married to a Christian and his children are Christian.
e) A woman who is, by absolutely anyone's assessment, hideously ugly.

And now, for something completely different:

If you had to do without one of these for the rest of your life, which would you choose?
a) Coffee and tea
b) Denim jeans
c) All nonalcoholic carbonated beverages
d) Any form of alcohol


As for the most important question, I voted denim jeans. I never wear jeans. I'd slow down into a stupor without coffee though.

Oh, there are some politics questions too. My hunch is that the atheist, the bisexual, and the Muslim will have an easier time getting elected as a Republican than as a Democrat. Those are the groups that the guys who write attack ads and "Please Forward To All Your Friends" emails have decided are the designated bogeymen for Republicans. So if one of them actually runs as a Republican, many of the GOPers who would have forwarded the nasty emails will decide to support their candidate instead.

The reverse goes for the Christian fundamentalist who thinks Jews are going to hell. He's the kind of monster that lurks under the beds of little Democratic paranoiacs, so if he runs as a Democrat, he'll get the votes of the partisan Dems and crossover vote from the Republican side.

This all pretends, of course, that these guys would stand a chance of making it through primary season. It would be a seriously weird year if the GOP nominate a bisexual or a Muslim and the Democrats nominate a fire-breathing fundie caricature.