"Home is a Medicine Unto Itself"

Gustav Klimt

“The wind blew my eyes off my face and I caught them in my hand,” my son declared, pointing to his pre-school art project. The assignment was to glue a hat, pants, shirt, mouth and eyes where they belong on a pre-drawn outline of a human body. The hat was where you would expect it, as were the mouth, shirt and pants. But both eyes were glued to the left hand.

“Wow, that’s poetic!” I replied, and wrote down the quote at the bottom of the paper with his age, “2 and a half.” Then I taped the masterpiece to his bedroom wall.

A week later he had a seizure, which turned out to be the first symptom of autoimmune encephalitis.

an excerpt from Sandra Stein's essay, Home is a Medicine Unto Itself

in The Atlantic

One of the abiding positive effects of blogging is the friends I've made, the intense relationships that have developed despite geographic distance. I met Sandra several years ago online when she contacted me after reading my blog, and in the years that followed we've exchanged emails, texts and telephone calls, sharing much of our lives, our hopes, our tribulations and dark senses of humor. Sandra's article in The Atlantic is so beautifully written, and her story -- her son's story -- is one that will take your breath away, as it took mine.

Home is a Medicine Unto Itself

Nonresistance, UC-Davis Style

I find this photo remarkable:

Photo: Brian Nguyen

I'm struck, too, by what James Fallows calls the moral power of an image in this Atlantic article.

Whether you support the Occupy movement or not, you have to admit it's incredibly interesting. I feel, at turns, cheered, energized, afraid and puzzled by and for it.

The United States Constitution states the following in the First Amendment, of the ten amendments that constitute the Bill of Rights:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Veddy, veddy interesting

Lies, Damned Lies and Medical Science

The title alone is worth the read.