Stoned and unequal

Yesterday I happened to attend a meeting of WV county officials and had a great conversation with a prosecutor from the southern coalfields who spoke of the awful epidemic of prescription drug abuse in that part of the state. Low income people and low income communities are the hardest hit.

Those familiar with WV will recall that these southern counties are both the ones from which huge amounts of coal have been taken and are also those with high rates of poverty and unemployment, big inequalities in terms of power, and not a whole lot in the way of empowerment for most people.

By chance, this morning I read the following passage about an experiment with monkeys in the book The Spirit Level: Why Greater Equality Makes Societies Stronger by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett:

In a clever experiment, researchers at Wake Forest School of Medicine in North Carolina took twenty macaque monkeys and housed them for a while in individual cages They next housed the animals in groups of four and observed the social hierarchies which developed in each group, noting which animals were dominant and which were subordinate. They scanned the monkey's brains before and after they were put into groups. Next, they taught the monkeys that they could administer cocaine to themselves by pressing a lever-they could take as much or as little as they liked.

The results of this experiment were remarkable. Monkeys that had become dominant had more dopamine activity in their brains than they had exhibited before becoming dominant, while monkeys that became subordinate when housed in groups showed no changes in their brain chemistry. The dominant monkeys took much less cocaine than the subordinate monkeys. In effect, the subordinate monkeys were medicating themselves against the impact of their low social status. 

Golly, it's a good that that never happens with people, huh?

ECONOMIC JUSTICE 101. Here's a take on the subject by yours truly.

ZOMBIE BEES? A friend of mine from upstate New York just sent me this link. Thanks, CR! The good news is that at least zombie bees don't eat other bees and turn the ones they bite into other zombies.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED

GONNA CHANGE MY WAY OF THINKING

Photo credit: Image courtesy of everystockphoto.com.

The theme for this week's Goat Rope is the late Viennese physician and psychologist Victor Frankl's classic work Man's Search for Meaning, which describes his experiences in several concentration camps in the Nazi era and the lessons he learned from them. If this is your first visit, please click on earlier entries.

According to Frankl, the ordeal suffered by the inmates of the concentration camps forced a change in thinking:

What was really needed was a fundamental change in our attitude toward life. We had to learn ourselves and, furthermore, we had to teach the despairing men, that it did not really matter what we expected from life, but rather what life expected from us. We needed to stop asking about the meaning of life, and instead to think of ourselves as those who were being questioned by life--daily and hourly. Our answer must consist, not in talk and meditation, but in right action and in right conduct. Life ultimately means taking the responsibility to find the right answer to its problems and to fulfill the tasks which it constantly sets for each individual.

That's a thought.

COAL CHINA STYLE. There's been a lot of local stuff about China and coal in the wake of WV Gov. Joe Manchin's visit there. This was interesting.

DEADLIEST YEAR. While the Bush administration keeps chanting its the-surge-is-working mantra, 2007 is already the deadliest year for US troops in Iraq.

LABOR ON THE WAR. The AFLCIO has taken a strong stand against the Iraq war. For more, check here.

MEGAN WILLIAMS UPDATE: here's WV Public Radio on Saturday's March and here's post-march coverage from the Gazette.

RX=OD. West Virginia Public Radio and the Charleston Gazette have teamed up to cover some bad news for WV: we lead the nation in drug overdoses and prescription drugs are a main culprit. This is part of an ongoing series so check back at Public Radio and the Gazette for more.

GOAT ROPE ADVISORY LEVEL: ELEVATED