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Just the Facts

The other day I was talking to someone who said he had heard on the radio that the US Federal government was going to give free digital television converts to welfare recipients, and that they were spending $100,000 each on plasma TVs in prisons. This came from what was described as “the most trustworthy radio news source in the area.”

Frankly, I couldn’t believe it. There was a coupon program to buy converters at a discount, but the program used up all its money, and had been discontinued. (Recently, it has been given more money by the federal bailout, and is operating again.) However, these coupons are available to anyone who desires them, so it’s hardly being targeted to those receiving government assistance.

But I wondered what the origin of these stories had been, so I hit the internet.

It turned out that millions of households on welfare might be given free digital television converters—in Japan sometime before their digital switchover in 2011. The prison story was a little closer to what’s real—the state of Florida’s department of corrections is spending $100,000 total, approximately $1 per inmate, out of its $2.3 billion dollar budget to convert existing television to digital.

Our opinions are often based on incorrect facts. Part of this is described in basic psychology—it’s called confirmation bias—how we filter evidence that strengthens our preconceptions.

But also our incorrect knowledge of history, various sciences, and current events allows us to hold on to incorrect opinions.

This is especially true in “popular knowledge”—think about all those e-mail forwards you receive that 15 seconds at about.com or Snopes could easily refute. Think about all the people who believe wearing a magnet on their wrist will make them healthy. Or all the “Christians” who espouse the heresy of the Prosperity Gospel and can even quote Scripture out of context to support it. Or that rubber tires protect vehicle occupants from lighting strikes. Or that a metal vehicle acts as a Faraday cage. (It doesn’t.)

At any rate, I have been thinking much of late that we should all do more analysis before we speak.

I wish we could all just be smarter.

I wish I could just be smarter.

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Nichelle: The Return of the Twins

[Note: I am keeping this updated via the comments. You will want to read them for the latest status.]

For just over a week now, the symptoms Nichelle has not experienced in years (for more than very brief periods of time) have been plaguing her again. These include sharp pains in various parts of her body, strange sensations in her head, abnormal exhaustion, and odd sensations of temperature. When these strike, it becomes impossible for her to lead the active life she has enjoyed for the past few years. At times the pain has even been bad enough for her to dig into our hoarded Vicodin supply. We call these pains “The Twins: Pain and Agony.”

For example, today she awoke in apparently perfect condition, and was able to get in a full Tao-Bo workout and her strength training. However, by mid-afternoon, her head began feeling foggy, and the pains had begun. On Sunday, she again began the morning fine, but by the end of our church service, did not trust herself to drive home.

A return of these dreaded symptoms was not something we anticipated. Nichelle has had the additional struggle of facing the possibility that this is back to stay for some unknown length of time.

Although we are certain that these have a hormonal component, we believed that a vitamin D deficiency was the cause of these difficulties. Nichelle has been on a high dose of vitamin D for the past few years, which appears to have kept the symptoms at bay. Nichelle had blood drawn on Saturday, and has an appointment to go over the results tomorrow morning. If it is a problem with vitamin D, it should be easy to correct. If that isn’t the problem, we would be back at the inexplicable and difficult state we were in a few years ago.

Clearly this is God’s path for us, and we will endeavor to learn from it and glorify Him, but please pray that Nichelle will be back to normal soon.

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President Obama’s Big Day: Off to a Good Start

After being up until 1:00 a.m., our new President attended a prayer service at the Washington National Cathedral.

He issued several executive orders, including:

  • A freeze on salaries for White House staff earning $100,000 or more.
  • New Freedom of Information Act rules, making it harder to keep the workings of government secret. (And requiring a third-party ruling before declaring communication or meetings secret.)
  • Saying, “The way to make government responsible is to hold it accountable,” he ordered new ethics rules for “a clean break from business as usual”—tighter ethics rules governing when administration officials can work on issues on which they previously lobbied governmental agencies, and banning them from lobbying his administration after leaving government service.

He also drafted an executive order calling for closing the Guantanamo Bay prison facility within a year, got things rolling on the economic stimulus package, and spoke with a number of Middle East leaders.

Despite what I would have predicted, I think I am going to like this guy.

(See http://www.cfrb.com/news/56/861993 and http://marketplace.publicradio.org/display/web/2009/01/21/pm_first_day_q/ .)

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Fun with Atheism

One of the things I’ve been able to do this year is teach robotics, using the Lego MindStorms NXT system, at the Academy for Science and Design chartered public school, in Merrimack, New Hampshire. I volunteer two mornings a week, and teach two different student groups, numbering about 10 each. Until December, the program focused on FIRST LEGO League, in which we were competing. Since then we have taken up building robots for an intramural robot Sumo competition.

A few weeks ago, we mentioned a requirement of ethical behavior in class. One of the kids pondered, “Why should I care about ethics?”

“Because God requires it,” I replied. (Just because I’m working in a public school, there is no reason to pretend I’m not a Christ-follower. I don’t beat them over the head with it—indeed, it hardly ever comes up—but it is the foundation for my moral beliefs, including why we need to behave in an ethical manner.)

“But I’m an atheist,” claimed the student, “so that doesn’t apply to me.”

“Well, then,” I suggested, “The FLL program requires it; your school requires it; and this class requires it. Will that suffice?”

A few moments later I asked the student, “So, you’re an atheist? Really?”

“Yes.”

“Honest to God?”

“Ye—waaaaaaaaiiiiiiiit a minute.”

We’re still laughing about it.

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Doug’s Health: Hoping Humira Works

People often ask about how my health has been.

My rheumatologist and the one I saw at Brigham & Women’s Hospital agree that I have symmetric psoriatic arthritis, finally answering the question of psoriatic versus poststreptococcal reactive arthritis, although it must be pointed out that this is not a definitive diagnosis, but rather a differential one based on the presence of psoriatic skin lesions and the lack of reactivity to methotrexate alone.

I haven’t written much because, frankly, there hasn’t been much to say. While continuing treatment with methotrexate, the inflammation which has made it painful to move in certain ways (and at time nearly impossible) has stayed almost the same for months; the psoriasis—apparently the start of the whole mess—has actually gotten worse. After several months when the arthritis symptoms were quite severe, most of the duration of this has been more mildly debilitating.

I’m now able to move well enough to use our elliptical machine at home nearly every day. I was only really “down” about this illness once, when I realized there was no way I could participate in a planned outing to The Strategy Zone that I’d been anticipating for nearly a year. (I actually cried about that one.) It is very hard to lose weight (although I’ve taken off 4 pounds since Thanksgiving), even with Nichelle monitoring and prescribing my diet. It hurts to do things like put on and take off shoes, and exercises like Tao-Bo and running are out of the question. Until this became bad in early June, I was running about two miles every day—something I had worked since the previous November to be able to do. I’ve been able to help compensate for the psoriasis by spending the drive to work and back brushing my hair, which helps keep me—mostly—from looking like a Head and Shoulders commercial. (Finding a brush that was stiff enough was amusingly difficult.)

To be honest, it was much harder to see Nichelle suffering all that time under her vitamin D deficiency and being unable to do anything to truly help her. Being the “sick one” is sometimes very mildly discouraging, and somewhat painful, but it hasn’t been that bad. I also have much more sympathy to those with movement disabilities or rheumatoid arthritis.

Yesterday I took my first dose of Humira, a band name form of adalimumab, which is a tumor necrosis factor-alpha inhibitor. TNF is part of the inflammatory process, and inhibiting it reduces inflammation.

However, in addition to some other potential side effects, Humira is an immunosupressant, and can leave one open to infections and other illnesses. (For this reason I had to be very carefully screened for tuberculosis.) It also has to be injected, although only twice a month, and it’s only subcutaneous, and nearly painless. (I’ve had blood draws that hurt more.) It’s also very expensive—I believe about $20,000 per year—but insurance covers that, and the manufacturer even pays my co-payments.

On the bright side, in 4–8 weeks, I might start to see some reduction of symptoms, although the full treatment often lasts a year.

Thanks to all of you who are praying, and for all your kindnesses along the way.

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NaNi and Nichelle in The Nutcracker


Naomi in her angel costume and makeup from Gate City Ballet's Nutcracker.

Both NaNi and Nichelle were in a production of “The Nutcracker,” put on yesterday by Gate City Ballet. NaNi got the part of an angel, and Nichelle was one of the dancers at the party in the beginning.

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The performance was originally scheduled for last Friday and Saturday, but had to be postponed because of the ice storm. Another snowstorm arrived on Friday, so two performances were set up on Saturday.


Nichelle, onstage, during the party scene.

I’d actually never seen “The Nutcracker,” although, like most, I was familiar with the music. I was very impressed with both the overall quality of the production for a relatively small ballet company, and the skills of the dancers, especially the children. Later I learned that GCB is quite well known in this area for doing such excellent productions.


Nichelle at the end of her scene.