Tue 06 Jan 2009
Christmas Wreath

Adoration Of The Magi. Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (bapt. 1 Jan 1618 - 3 Apr 1682).
Leave a comment.

Off Tangent Comix

 
Leave a comment.
 
See continuing updates on the APA, DSM, and the upcoming DSM Fifth Edition (DSM-V).
 
See our Annotated List of DSM-related news, research reports, analyses, and opinion pieces.
 
Visit the TS-Si Article Archive for reports on science, medicine, government, society, and other topics.
The Journey of the Magi
T. S. Eliot
Tuesday, 06 January 2009
London, UK. This poem, The Journey of the Magi by T. S. Eliot, is an enduring meditation on the intersection of uncertainty and resolve during a time of change. [N1] 
 
The poem was the first in a series that T. S. Eliot later grouped together as the Ariel Poems (1927), a cycle that emanates Eliot's spirituality and emerging religious convictions. [N2] However, it was not a smoth transition; Eliot insisted on an accounting of the facts of the world and relegation of belief to the realm of what is unknown (or unknowable).
 
The Journey of the Magi begins with lines adapted and modified from a Nativity Sermon by Lancelot Andrewes in 1622, which places it in the beginning of a crucial period for literary and religious history. [N3]
 
However, this beginning is experiential, A cold coming we had of it, the past was hard, a word in its times that was nearly interchangeable with cold, and realistic. The poem ends with that cold and hard realism, and a glimmer of, perhaps, hope.
— SSG
Opinion
Outside the Gates of Eden (an Excerpt)
Suzanne Cooke
Friday, 02 January 2009
Texas, USA. Forty years ago in the early morning hours of December 31 I took the first step in the process of coming out. 1968 was a year of turmoil, police beatings, and random arrests on trumped up charges, a jailhouse rape, an assault in the street for looking too queer.
 
I took heavy doses of LSD and journeyed deep within myself and realized I couldn’t suppress who I really was. Yet I was afraid. I was afraid even though I had faced police with clubs and military with bayonets.
 
In 1967, I had met a queen (possibly transsexual like me) in Greenwich Village. She had spoken of San Francisco as the place to go, a place where people like us went to find doctors and others like ourselves.
 
After I had been raped a sister helped me get transferred to the queen tank and in meeting others I lost the excuse that it was impossible for me to be Suzy.
Inbox: Transgender Fundamentalism
Lisa Jain Thompson
Sunday, 04 January 2009
Fairfax, VA, USA. Whenever someone at TS-Si makes a distinction between men and women born with Harry Benjamin Syndrome (HBS or True Transsexuality) and the transgendered, we always anticipate that a male transgender or a male cross-dresser will send us a whiny email.
 
Any discussion of the medical differences between being born with HBS and being transgendered is immediately met with ad hominem attacks on the writer, misstatement or lack of knowledge of current scientific research, and, in the worst cases. outright scientific illiteracy. Charges of hate and elitism often follow.
 
Sharon Gaughan’s rational, non-judgmental column, What About Non-op Transsexuals? A No-op Notion [N1], has always received comment both here and around the internet, often during the winter holidays. We were not disappointed this year, reconfirming that some things never change.

Religion, Self-control, and Values
TS-Si News Service
Saturday, 03 January 2009
Coral Gables, FL, USA. Self-control is critical for success in life, and a new study finds that religious people have more self-control than do their less religious counterparts.
 
These findings imply that religious people may be better at pursuing and achieving long-term goals that are important to them and their religious groups. This, in turn, might help explain why religious people tend to have low
How can we uphold the right to science?
Jessica Wyndham
Saturday, 03 January 2009
Washington, DC, USA. On 10 December, the world marked 60 years since the UN General Assembly adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a global framework for human rights, which includes the right to "share in s
Nostalgia: Overcome Loneliness With Happy Thoughts
TS-Si News Service
Thursday, 01 January 2009
Southampton, UK. Nostalgia is a sentimental longing for the past. In the 17th and 18th centuries, nostalgia was viewed as a medical disease, complete with symptoms that included weeping, irregular heartbeat and anorexia. By the 20th century,
Looking Back at 2008: Life, the Universe, and Everything
Lisa Jain Thompson
Wednesday, 31 December 2008
Fairfax, VA, USA. One of the problems with growing older is that everyone you have ever known is growing older with you. Eventually, some of them die and a piece of your life that has been there birth is gone forever.
 
Get On With It