Tuesday Times

I MISS BLOGGING !!!
It doesn't much matter anymore whether or not my friends read me -- I GOTTA BLOG !!
:-)

The Tuesday New York Times -- my favorite!

Interesting ... even though it's Botox ... quote: 
"Botox ... appears to alleviate depression.... at first seems obvious: If you stop frowning at people, they'll like you more and treat you better and you won't feel so blue.  But the process turns out to be considerably more sophisticated and complicated....facial expressions are...vital links in the unconscious neurological processes that create emotion.  In other words, if you cannot smile, you will never be as happy as if you could, and if you cannot frown, you will be unable to experience the full intensity of the negative emotions manifested by frowning, depression included." 
Not at all a reason to get Botox ... but interesting, yes?

More serious ... and upsetting ... is the "Too Many Pills in Pregnancy" story.  I've seen data saying that more and more kids are being diagnosed with autism, birth defects, ADD, etc., etc., etc.  It seems to me that there MUST be a connection to those increases and the following quotes:
"During the last 30 years, use of prescription drugs during the first trimester...has grown by more than 60 percent....About 90 percent of pregnant women take at least one medication and 70 percent take at least one prescription drug....Since the late 1970s, the proportion of pregnant women taking four or more medications has more than doubled....A growing number of pregnant women...self-medicate with over-the-counter drugs that once were sold only by prescription.  'We seem to have forgotten as a society that drugs pose risks...Many OTC drugs were grandfathered in with no studies of their possible effects during pregnancy.'"

The italics are mine.  We ALL take drugs -- some legal, some illegal, some prescription, some non-prescription, some of the time, all of the time.  And we ALL suffer the consequences and side effects -- subtle, not-so-subtle, recognized, unrecognized, worth it or not.  Does it help us at all to complain?

That's all I want to say today.