Like the air around us; the hidden thoughts of our brain

There are many instances in which we react to a stimulus without the time to consider it; we comprehend it without the need for our conscious mind to behold it. This kind of behavior is attributed to a reflex or an instinct. In most cases, the stimulus and reaction occur in a visible or physical realm so that we can recognize or acknowledge their occurrence after they happen.

But there are other reactions to stimuli which remain solely cognitive with no physical component. An example is when we suddenly feel an emotion in response to events, words, sounds or smells. In these cases, our mind has generated a response that may not be accompanied by a physical reaction and is experienced solely in our subconscious. Of course, there are times that even with this lack of physical experience, an emotion will intrude on our consciousness resulting in our awareness of a reaction that resides entirely in our thoughts. However, this suggests other times when both our perception and registration can occur without a conscious knowing.

Given this capability for our minds to comprehend and react without any involvement by our conscious self, it seems likely there could be a range of cognitive activities over which we have no awareness at all. I believe this is a basis for human attitudes and behaviors which later are regarded as prejudiced or ignorant, but which hold sway among the contemporary mental collective. That is, we adopt beliefs or opinions for which we have no apparent conscious rendering. We are evidently capable of taking certain cues and reacting to them completely non-consciously.

How can this feature of the human brain undermine our ability to rid ourselves of ignorance and bias? It can do so because of how we learn and how we form the basis for conscious thought and decisions. That is, our minds most reliably adopt and store a concept through the repetitive hearing, seeing or other perception. And because so much of what we experience and process is done non-consciously, there can be ample opportunity for reinforcement of which we may not be aware and what ultimately may allow them to become ingrained without our awareness.

And when they reside in our brains in this way, we are not prone to examine or question them. They are there, like the air around us, not heeded but providing a foundation for our thoughts and decisions. In this state, they are most invidious because they can influence us in unexpected and unacknowledged ways. They also add nothing to any evidence we may attempt to collect to prove our faulty thinking. They stand guard around firmly held beliefs which we are not able to scrutinize.

How can we recognize that we have such thoughts? And what should we do when we do? Perhaps nothing; it could be these mental constructs are what "keep us together." Maybe our questioning would be too upsetting to our fragile structure of assumptions and beliefs. If we push unwanted cognitive perceptions out, it could be that something equally unsavory could take its place. But I do believe there is an alternative to the status quo.

One method for evaluating our deeply held thoughts is to compare them to those held by people of a generation ahead or, now that I am old enough, a generation behind. Our attitudes on race, opinions on the practices of other citizens and the perception of people in distant countries are all areas which can be examined.

Evaluation of older attitudes is possible by identifying them and then evaluating how they have fared over time. Knowing a person who worked in a nursing home provides some perspective on this class of thoughts. Other places which can be emblematic of ancient thoughts are media sources controlled by members of an older generation, congregations made up of a majority of aged people and politicians who represent those who profit from the way things are.

Some areas to examine are racial attitudes, willingness to explore new technologies, questioning of legal precepts and openness to new health practices. This is by no means an exhaustive list, but has provided some areas for examination of my own mental workings.

The evaluation of currently held views against those of a younger generation is fraught on two fronts. The first is that it might be difficult to recognize the newer attitudes since they may not have yet been codified in literature or structures of power. And the second arises from the fact that there may not be a definitive measure for either the newer views or even your own. However, there is still value in making this attempt and learning something more about ourselves and our society.

I have recently seen the cover of a book called Incognito, written by the neuroscientist David Eagleman (@davideagleman), which looks to explore this topic in more detail than what I can offer. I will one day read it and see how much I am missing. Despite my inexperience regarding this topic, I feel the implication that non-conscious thoughts hold sway over a portion of our behavior and beliefs is profound in two ways.

The first is that whatever is expressed as some kind of common knowledge or societal belief is actually made up of a collection of individual brains. This means it is both hard to change and somewhat self preserving. The other is how the nature of sub conscious thoughts make them hard to detect and prone to unexamined affirmation. It then becomes possible to hold attitudes or opinions that could be considered ignorant if exposed to conscious scrutiny.

We are, when it comes to whom others know and the place we fill in the larger collections of neighborhood, town, state and family, only as extraordinary, confounding, judgmental and loving as our brains can conjure. It may be we have no choice in the submission our personality has to our mind, but insofar as we do have a whit of self reflection, we owe it to ourselves and our consciousnesses, to do so.

AIDS in Cameroon: The Once Unassailable Disease of Death

AIDS is still prevalent in Cameroon. It "flourished" in the 90's and has only receded slightly in breadth of presence since then. The difference now is the availability of antiviral medications at prices made more affordable starting in 2000. The impact of AIDS in terms of numbers is alarming, but knowing how individuals and families were affected is sickening. The deadly sway of the disease could be seen by the wide swath of lives taken and survivors devastated.

The contemporary spread of AIDS in Cameroon is tempered by three factors. One is that a good number of early sufferers did not survive, reducing the size of the current pool of eligible victims. Another is that the awareness and knowledge of the disease is greater among those who are inclined to be sexually active. And the third factor is the aforementioned use of antiviral drugs in Cameroon.

It is unfortunate that there are those who survived the initial deadly spread of AIDS and did not learn as they could have. I know a man; a brother-in-law of my wife, who was recently diagnosed with the disease. He had become very thin and sickly earlier this year. Those who visited him and gave first hand descriptions of his condition were not encouraged. He has 5 children with his wife including two under the age of ten.

In 1988, I was teaching at a school in Sub Saharan Africa. The brother of a teaching colleague visited one day. He was described as a medical professional residing in the United States, living in the city of Detroit. It was decided that he should be able to speak authoritatively on the topic of AIDS. At the time, it was thought that the while the virus was rampant in the US, it was a topic that was just beginning to broach the awareness of the people living in Africa at the time.

He spoke about the virus. However, he started by speaking in generalities, as if it was just another sexually transmitted disease. As he began his speech, I had thought it was a good idea for him to talk to the students, many of whom were already, or would soon be, experienced sexually. It also seemed to be a topic relevant to the staff, although I had not reached the full understanding of how teachers' behavior played a significant role in the spread of the disease in Cameroon.

And it was only much later that it could have been described as a "coming full circle" for the disease. But even at this time, I became distressed as the man spoke. He had decided to give more details about the disease by explaining that the name was an acronym. And he wanted to give the word represented by each letter. However, as he began with the letter A, he did not say it represented "acquired."

I was somewhat taken aback. This straightforward rendering of the AIDS acronym was commonly known in the United States and the existence, description, method of transmission and symptoms of the disease were communicated to those of us serving in Cameroon. It seemed to me any person who lived in the US and paid any attention to the media there should know this basic information about AIDS.

I don't remember the words he offered in their place and I had the distinct feeling that a real "teachable moment" had been squandered. It was only much later, after I left Africa, did I hear how devastating this disease was to the people living there. And what I later learned made me fret less about students' understanding and instead gasp in despair when I correlated what I had seen of some teachers' behavior with their role as vectors in the spread of AIDS in Cameroon.

In Cameroon, it was a policy of the government to send teachers to schools in a different province from the one in which they hailed. Because the country had two official languages and innumerable native languages, it seemed like a reasonable idea. But in terms of disease transmission, the movement of a group of professional men and women was an enabler. Another factor made government employed teachers right for their role in the spread of disease; they were typically paid on a regular basis, making them capable of traveling but also bringing attention to themselves as people of means in what could be a poor town or village in which they worked.

What I observed were a small number of teachers who had female students visit them in their homes. I was visited as well, but in my case it was during the daylight hours and led to nothing. This was another topic on which we had received training, or in this regard, warning. Perhaps all visits by female students to the homes of male teachers passed as innocently; I can only assume not all.

Another aspect to AIDS in Cameroon is that a different strain than the one commonly found in the US is prevalent there. When this was discovered, the strain in the US became known as HIV-A, with the other named as HIV-B. This factor has forced the US Center for Disease Control to issue special handling instructions for blood meant to be donated by individuals from Cameroon. Instead of developing a second blood test for this strain, the answer is to reject blood donated by not only people from Cameroon or who lived there, but also any country bordering it.

We recently got news that our brother-in-law is feeling stronger, can care for himself and even get out of bed. We were told when he first heard the results of the test, he was in denial and then angry. But that he did start taking the antiviral medicine which is available at one of the Baptist hospitals in the province. These drugs are made available at a discount, but the price to most people in Cameroon is not insignificant.

A common mode of transmission in Africa is for a man to pass the disease to his wife, so we feared for my wife's sister. She and her husband were tested at the same time; her result came back negative. She has been urged to get tested again and verify she still does not have the disease. But we still remember the warning that HIV can be present in the body but remain dormant for up to a year or even longer.

It is the hubris of men that allows them to venture into the bush of Cameroon and hunt animals. When they kill one it becomes a source of food and income. It is possible that on a hunting trip long ago in Cameroon that the first human acquired the AIDS virus. Today, we live with the alarm of AIDS faint in our minds save for the intrusions of individual stories. With the discovery of a cocktail of drugs to treat it we can be thankful it is not the unassailable death sentence it once was.

The Sensible Decline of Fighting in Hockey

I grew up watching Gordie Howe play for the Red Wings. Of course, I reached almost middle aged before he stopped playing in the AHL. One thing he was known for, in addition to being a great scorer, was his toughness. He even has a "hat trick" named after him which includes a brawl. On the Wings, I remember him on a line with Alex Delvecchio and Frank Mahovlich. My recollection is that they were the top scoring line and known best to me for their talented play.

Now that I have established my bona fides in terms of "traditional, original 8" hockey, let me say this. Fighting in hockey should be banned, with severe penalties given to those who make an effort to instigate one. This is how fighting is dealt with in the other professional sports, except for boxing. There is no place for sanctioned barefisted hand to hand combat in hockey.

Why do I feel this way? For one, the increased awareness of the prevalence of concussions and other serious injury from fighting removes any notion of it as a "harmless entertainment."  Another is the basic incongruence between the skill of hockey and the brutality of a fist fight. And if it weren't such a potentially dangerous situation, the sight of linesmen and referees standing aside as two men "face off" would be comical in comparison to their eagerness to find a skater offsides or to penalize a team for "delay of game."

But fighting which may one day have been considered a part of the game, has lost its place. Players are realizing the threat that violence of this type has to their earning power and to their ability to function off the ice. It is also true that the role of enforcer as marketing device for the team is being replaced by players realizing the value of marketing themselves.

The current "enforcer" for the Chicago Blackhawks is Brandon Bollig. During his first game, he "dropped the gloves" and acquitted himself well in that regard. During his first year, the Blackhawks had another player who took on the same role at times, Jamal Mayers. After the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup this past season, many images were shown of players drinking champagne from it. A number of them took the cup to public gatherings; Jamal Mayers tweeted a picture of himself with his two grade school age daughters and later took them along when the team visited the White House.

And it is clear Bollig himself has realized the changing trend away from fighting in the NHL. Foremost, he undertook special offseason training to improve his skating and shooting ability and has expressed his desire to contribute his non-pugilistic skills to the team. He also has made efforts to market himself, recently appearing at a men's clothing store with Patrick Sharp to model suits and other apparel.

Hockey can be a violent sport; for the most part, it occurs as part of the striving to score goals or prevent them from being scored. Fighting may have been seen a part of this competition in the past, but because of sensible reactions to the increased awareness of its dangers and the fleeting rewards that exposure to cranial violence brings to players, it is seeing its heyday. I say, good riddance.

Disassembling Blagojevich

The former governor of Illinois who is still serving time in prison, Rod Blagojevich, is the subject of much disdain for his behavior in office. As I learned more about him as a person since he left office - at least insomuch as is possible through television and other media appearances - my opinion of him as being capable of public service waned. But I had voted for him both times he ran for the governor's office and I had approved of two political initiatives he worked to enact while he was governor. And now I know personally of two situations in which people or families benefited from them and who show appreciation for them.

The first is called All Kids (www.allkids.com), an expansion of health care in Illinois to all children. The inclusive aspect to this was important because many residents who are not US citizens are excluded from a number of other public benefits. But this program was open to children of green card holders. I have two nieces who received dental and medical care because of this program.

They were not suffering any life threatening disease or were in any need of special medical care or attention. But as a parent, knowing that a child is free from a serious problem is not a trivial piece of information. Also, it does not last long. That is, if your child had been seen by a doctor and a month later they suffer from serious symptoms, you are only slightly, if not at all, comforted by the earlier visit. It becomes easy to recognize that the peace of mind accorded by the knowledge of available medical care for a child is incalculable.

Another program instituted by governor Blagojevich is called Free Rides for Seniors. It provides vouchers for senior citizens to ride the buses, subways and commuter trains in and around Chicago. Initially, this was open to all seniors, but later was changed to be means tested and so now benefits a much smaller number of people. But I met a woman on a train from Chicago one day who was riding the train because she "can sit still and not be accused of staying in one place too long." She is a homeless person, who I have since met and talked to on two other occasions. On this trip, she was quite liberal in her praise for Blagojevich and quipped, "any governor who does something to help the black community gets put in jail!"

On this day, she opined about wanting to do farming in Palatine. This was after I told her about where I lived and what we had planted in our garden. Her desire was striking in two regards; the first was the conception of Palatine as a farming community. This reflected her misconception likely resulting from the isolation and separation between her life in the city and the suburbs. The other part that struck me was her mention of wanting to plant tobacco. I could not help but think she was recalling a time and place from when either she or her family lived somewhere in the South.

It is easy to dismiss a political character like Rod Blagojevich. I do not intend any attempt at rehabilitating his reputation by pointing out two human stories that derive from policies he implemented while in office. However, I think these laws do show some measure of decency and regard for the condition of vulnerable people. And in this climate of disdain for government, they are significant for their purpose and for the lives they impact.