We finally got a couple of videos of a goldfinch! It has been years since I’ve been able to catch a brilliant male goldenrod and it happened last week on the Clear Creek Trail.
In fact, we saw a few birds with the usual idiosyncratic behavior. Goldfinch are rocket fast and hate getting caught on camera.
On the other hand, robins seem to be aware of when they’re being watched and ham it up.
Catbirds also seem to know when they’re being observed and flit away just as I’m getting the camera focused. The one I caught seemed to moon me with its rusty-feathered rump as it took off.
Cardinals also show off and can sit for several minutes preening while you get decent footage.
Birdwatching is a lot like fishing. When you tell others about the whoppers you lost at the lake, it’s a lot like birders telling you about the rarely seen, mysterious birds everyone but experts almost always never see.
And I swear I saw a blue bunting while we were out that day. It flew right in front of me. You should have been there. I haven’t seen a blue bunting in decades!
The health benefits of climbing stairs are well known and I’ve talked about them before. However, you haven’t really seen stair climbing in action until you’ve watched Sena ascend the stairs in our hotel.
There are 4 flights of 10 steps each. Doing it just once can puff you out. The keyword for this is “excelsior” which is Latin for “ever upward.”
Have a little sympathy for the cameraman who had to walk backward up the stairs, which is no small feat.
Last week while on our way to the Stanley Museum of Art, we saw the Rock Island depot at 115 Wright St in Iowa City. We’ve lived here 36 years and never visited this historic landmark before. It has interesting architecture and there is even a passenger bench inside. It was built in 1898 and was converted to law offices in the early 1980s. There used to be a waiting room which was removed when it was remodeled. You can see it in the featured image.
The depot has a rich history which you can read here.
Be sure to see the YouTube presentation by local historian Irving Weber.
You’ll notice that Mr. Weber opens his talk about the Rock Island depot by singing a line from a popular song about it: “Rock Island Line is a mighty fine line…”
When we looked on the web for the song, we couldn’t find a rendition with that exact line. Every version we listened to was slightly different but that line was always “Rock Island Line is a mighty good road…” There is an original version recorded in 1934 by John Lomax. We like the one by Lead Belly.
Right on time, the Iowa City Sculptors Showcase is out in the parks. The featured pieces all have a plate on the showcase pad with a QR Code you can scan to learn more about the works. They’ll be up for two years.
Tim Adams: “Exuberance” at Mercer Park, Bradford Dr; “Poppy” at Scott Park on Scott Blvd
Hilde DeBruyne: “Gaia” and “Life Leaf” at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area, McCollister Blvd
V. Skip Willits: “Writing Figure” at Iowa River Trail; “Flight of Butterflies” at Riverfront Crossings Park
Kristin Garnant: “Mechanics of Grace” at Riverfront Crossings Park
Johnathan Goupell: “Pillars [1]” at Riverfront Crossings Park
We went for a return visit to the Stanley Museum of Art the other day. It’s been a couple of years. There were a couple of head sculptures outside in the front of the building. They were in honor of one of my former medical school teachers, Dr. Richard Kerber. And the Keith Haring exhibit is excellent. He visited Horn Elementary School in 1989.
The homeless guy camped next to the busy street just outside of our hotel is still here. I’m going to call him Bob because it’s awkward to keep calling him “the homeless guy.” I haven’t met Bob yet, but Sena got him some water. She had to give it to the hotel resident who so far is the only one who has been able to communicate with him.
Sena and I talked about what might be done for Bob. She noticed that his face was sunburned bad enough to cause the skin to peel off. Could a case be made for his being a danger to himself?
Of course, you could guess this issue would come up because I’m a retired psychiatrist. As an aside, I found an article published in the Daily Iowan early this year. The author interviewed several residents of a homeless camp who were displaced after a fire and subsequently the owners of the land closed the camp.
The homeless people at the camp were articulate and open to interview. Some of them were clearly choosing to be homeless and able to state how and why they did.
Bob might not be articulate enough to do that. He spends most of his time lying on the pavement with his blanket over him. It’s sometimes hard to tell if he’s out there until he moves. When he’s up, he usually stands up and waves his arms back and forth or sits on the grass. Occasionally, he moves in ways suggesting he’s acting out some kind of conversation with an invisible person.
A police officer stopped by, spoke briefly with Bob, and left. A woman stopped by and tried to help him clean up his room, so to speak. She picked up some of his trash and put it in a bag. She tried to get him to help, but he didn’t seem to understand.
What about Bob? Is he a danger to himself or others? Is he incapable of taking care of his basic self-care needs? Sooner or later, this would come up because the mental health laws would come into play. There are many homeless people out there living under bridges and camps. We’ve seen them when we go out for walks. Not all of them are definable as mentally ill.
There is guidance on the web about how to pursue a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. I’m a retired psychiatrist and often was involved in those circumstances.
One way it works is that two people who are acquainted with the person go to the courthouse and complete paperwork to have someone ordered by a judge to be taken to the hospital for a mental health evaluation. If the judge signs an order, then typically the police would pick the person up and take them to the local emergency room. There aren’t vans with mental health professionals roaming the city looking for potential patients.
A psychiatrist performs a comprehensive mental health evaluation and later presents the report and testifies at a scheduled hearing. Attorneys are involved and give testimony for and against civil commitment. The patient also can speak. If the patient is court-ordered to inpatient treatment, that treatment is provided in the hospital usually. Periodic reports must be submitted to the court. Some people who are the objects of these interventions get better. Others don’t.
What’s missing here? You must at least know his real name to file for legal hold order. Although Sena says she saw Bob take out a cell phone, it’s not clear he knows how to use it or whether it even works. The only people who interact with him are those who are driving by and who show sympathy by buying food and water and other items for him. He usually tosses the empty water bottles in the parking lot where he sleeps. The police evidently didn’t think he needed an intervention from their perspective.
We don’t even know his real name. I haven’t tried to talk to him. I’ve never seen him act in a threatening way to anyone. Bob takes up one parking space and keeps his belongings within it. He usually lies under a blanket, often for several hours at a time. Bob doesn’t panhandle and I doubt he’s capable of that.
I read the Psychiatric Times article “FDA Issues CRL to Lykos for MDMA-Assisted Therapy.” The short story is that the FDA essentially told the drug company Lykos that their study of the efficacy of MDMA-assisted treatment of PTSD needs more work.
I tried to wade through the on-line documents of the FDA’s meeting on June 4, 2024. There are hundreds of pages and I didn’t go through every page of the transcript. The minutes were succinct and much easier to digest.
I’m going to simply admit that I’m biased against using psychedelics in psychiatry for personal and professional reasons. I’m not a research scientist. I’m a retired consultation-liaison psychiatrist. I saw many patients with a variety of psychiatric diagnoses including PTSD and substance use disorders. I’m not opposed to clinical research in this area, but I’m aware of the difficulty of conducting it.
In that regard, I want to also admit that I’m very susceptible to being influenced by a former colleague’s remarks about the quality of the research in question in the Lykos study. Dr. Jess G. Fiedorowicz, MD, PhD formerly was formerly on staff at University of Iowa Health Care. He’s now the Chief of Mental Health at The Ottawa Hospital where he’s also Professor and Senior Research Chair in Adult Psychiatry, Department of Psychiatry, University of Ottawa, Ontario. His remarks in the transcript are typical for his erudition and expertise as a clinician scientist.
It’s difficult to wade through the pages of the FDA transcript and I couldn’t digest all of it, by any means. But if you’re interested in reading both sides of this issue, it’s a good place to get the best idea of the committee members’ thinking about it. The minutes are much easier to read and provide a succinct summary.
I realize the Psychiatric Times article editor doesn’t agree with the FDA recommendations for further study of psychedelic-assisted psychotherapy for PTSD. It may or may not influence the University of Iowa’s study of psilocybin. In my opinion, the FDA did the right thing.
We can see the man from our hotel window. We assume he’s homeless. He has a small area where he sits on the curb next to the street. He does this most of the day. He has a blanket and a few other loose items which sometimes are strewn on the sidewalk or the grass.
Even in 90-plus heat, he’s out there, sometimes standing beneath a small tree, presumably for shade although it’s inadequate. He waves his arms around in what looks like a futile attempt to cool himself. He might just be restless. Other times he sits on his blanket. Occasionally, people stop their cars and seem to be trying to communicate with him. He most often ignores them.
One of the hotel residents approaches him sometimes. It looked like he gives him something (probably a cigarette). Once, the homeless man left his station by the street and walked over to the front of the hotel, waving his arms, seemingly because the hotel resident was speaking to him. We couldn’t see what happened after that, but when he returned to the street, he lit a cigarette. We also saw he accepted fluid, maybe a can of soda.
Later, some people in a car gave him something they bought in a nearby drive-up fast-food joint. He threw out the ice from his drink, which he didn’t consume and sprinkled the fluid on his arms. The people left and returned later with several items they gave him. Some of it looked like more water, which he again poured on his arms. There was a backpack or something like it. He didn’t seem to know what to do with it.
He couldn’t ignore them when they try to help him (water, food, etc.). One person tried to help him clean up his little camp by picking up his trash. The police came out to check on him. We couldn’t hear the short conversation. After she left, he continued to toss his water bottles and other items into the parking lot. He sleeps on the pavement.
This reminded me of a couple of times when I’ve seen hobos. I don’t see the homeless man as a hobo. The term “hobo” is not synonymous with homeless, vagrant, or tramp. Hobos prefer not to have a home, travel around to find work, may still ride the rails to get around, and don’t see themselves as tramps.
As a young man, I worked for consulting engineers as a draftsman and survey crew worker in Mason City. This was in the 1970s. We traveled to outlying cities. One day, we went to Britt for a job. It was during the Britt Hobo Days Convention. It was not the first time I ever heard of it.
Funny thing, I thought I recognized one of the hobos in the café where we got coffee. He was wolfing down a big breakfast. When he was finished, he left in a hurry. I just assumed he was a hobo in town for the festivities. But he looked so familiar.
And suddenly it dawned on me. He had been a kindergarten classmate of mine. I couldn’t recall his name, but it was him.
Another memory that occurred to me was much later in my life, when I was a psychiatrist and co-attending on the medical-psychiatry unit in University Hospital in Iowa City. We admitted a patient who had been found walking around and around in a circle in the street, and seemed confused. Evidently the patient had an acute medical problem and no diagnosable psychiatric illness.
The patient identified as a hobo and was proud of it. The person was polite, grateful, and cooperative. The person refused any help from us beyond help for the acute medical problem. We discharged the person to the street.
Hobo life is different nowadays, I gather. Many have cars and phones. If you look carefully at their photos on the Britt Hobo Days web site, they don’t make me think of homelessness or mental illness. They have made a choice.
On the other hand, homelessness is often not a choice and severe mental illness is not uncommon. There is a homeless shelter in Iowa City, and the resources include a supportive community living program for those who struggle with mental illness. One member of the board of directors is a psychiatrist. Not every homeless person wants to go there. The University of Iowa Health Care has an Integrated Multidisciplinary Program of Assertive Community Treatment (IMPACT).
The Iowa Interstate Railroad train rumbles past our hotel a few times a day and it reminds me of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course I took 10 years ago. One of the exercises the instructor mentioned was the train visualization mindfulness exercise. I don’t know if I remember what our instructor actually said about it, probably something like what the instructor says in a mindfulness video.
One thing I do remember is that it’s OK to notice my thoughts as train cars running through my head. The other thing is the train cars can sort of hijack me and off I go on a tangent, like a hobo hopping a freight car. And, what if also I notice the spaces between the train cars? What would that be like?
The side of my nose itches.
My left eye is tearing up.
What can I do about anything?
Are we all alone in the universe?
Why is David Attenborough’s voice so calming?
Why do I joke around so much?
Even after 10 years of mindfulness practice, I still notice my thoughts jumping around. I’m still hopping from box car to box car.
Go Retire Psychiatrist 