Away for a few days!

*This post is queued (omg that’s such a weird word) because I don’t know if I’ll actually get on the tumblah today.*

Anyway, I’m driving down to New York tomorrow to pop by my bubbie and zayde for a day and then head over to Long Island to attend Keshet’s Inclusion Training Institute. I’m out of town until next Wednesday and I’m not sure what my internet access options will be at the hotel, so I may not be around much. 

Shabbat shalom, y’all. Be back soon!

Today: 70 degrees with a slight breeze; Shavuot “studying.”   Also, Tuesday night I went to the first shiur, given by the rabbi at work, at the Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the local Orthodox shul; he was teaching on Jewish discourse on astronomy, so for anyone who thinks religion and science can’t coexist, just remember that the rabbis were asking about a heliocentric solar system probably a whole century before Copernicus.
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Today: 70 degrees with a slight breeze; Shavuot “studying.”  

Also, Tuesday night I went to the first shiur, given by the rabbi at work, at the Tikkun Leil Shavuot at the local Orthodox shul; he was teaching on Jewish discourse on astronomy, so for anyone who thinks religion and science can’t coexist, just remember that the rabbis were asking about a heliocentric solar system probably a whole century before Copernicus.

jothelibrarian: Pretty medieval manuscript of the day shows St Michael slaying the dragon. As dragons go, it’s pretty tiny! I confess I imagined a rather larger, scalier, and altogether more fearsome foe. Even so, I’d probably do a runner if one like this wandered around the corner… Image source: Dunedin Public Libraries Medieval Manuscripts. Creative Commons licensed via Flickr.
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jothelibrarian:

Pretty medieval manuscript of the day shows St Michael slaying the dragon. As dragons go, it’s pretty tiny! I confess I imagined a rather larger, scalier, and altogether more fearsome foe. Even so, I’d probably do a runner if one like this wandered around the corner…

Image source: Dunedin Public Libraries Medieval Manuscripts. Creative Commons licensed via Flickr.

Exercise doesn't help depression, study concludes

therapsida:

missvoltairine:

tooyoungforthelivingdead:

A study into whether physical activity alleviates the symptoms of depression has found there is no benefit.

Research published in the British Medical Journal suggests that adding a physical activity intervention to usual care did not reduce symptoms of depression more than usual care alone.

This contrasts with current clinical guidance which recommends exercise to help those suffering from the mental illness, which affects one in six adults in Britain at any one time.

I thought this was true and all - fuck yeah, randomised controlled trials!

i’m waiting for the study that proves that yoga at sunrise actually makes depression worse

I’ve always been assuming that I will get better when I finally kick my butt into gear and start exercising regularly but now I guess there’s no hope cool!

I wish the article was a little more informative and included more info/data from the study, because going from “adding exercise failed to alleviate symptoms of depression more than usual care alone” to “exercise does not appear to be effective in treating depression” seems to be a bit of a leap. There’s a difference between “this doesn’t help more than this” and “this doesn’t help at all.” 

And I’d like to see a breakdown of the study participants. I always think there’s a danger to giving blanket statements like this. I certainly find that exercise really helps alleviate some of symptoms; care for anything, especially depression and other mental health issues needs to be individualized.

Source: tooyoungforthelivingdead

Do They Really Tawk Like That? Not Now

“One vocal complaint in recent years is that the Bloomberg administration’s global city ambitions have left New York feeling very little like New York. Although Ms. Quinlan’s film is wistful for what was, it simultaneously conveys how enduring a certain version of authenticity is. Early in the film we meet a young sanitation worker named Ben Lee of Staten Island. He tells a story about riding in the back of a car and the driver is shocked to discover, when she turns around to face him, that he is Korean-American. Having grown up around Italian-Americans, Mr. Lee learned to talk the way they did. He once had a girl obsessed with him because he was, as she put it to him, “an Asian Guido.””