Brief Messages or Announcements – Page 31

The Drain Tile Grate Ghost Strikes Again!

The drain tile ghost struck again last night. You’ll recall a couple of days ago, I stacked two large rocks on the tile drain grate which has been the subject of numerous vandal attacks for at least the last couple of weeks.

It looks like the top rock was picked up and turned over on the ground about a foot away from the grate. The other rock, which is heavier, looks like it was pushed across the grate, seemingly to remove it. The grate is still attached with the worm gear adjustable clamp.

This happens only at night.

The only trouble is we don’t what’s causing the problem. It’s a mystery that drove us to order a critter cam, which is supposed to be delivered in the next couple of days.

We also don’t know why only one of 7 grates has been singled out for attention. They’re all the same. They help control drainage in our back yard. They all have water in them, which slowly drains. There is nothing else inside the pipe worth all the effort apparently being expended.

Over time, the major interest is not that this occurs, but who or what is causing it. So, for now we plan to leave the scene of the crime as it is. We’ll see what happens tonight.

I’m not going to post any guards. They’ve all been incompetent.

Here We Go Again About Antidepressants

Back in August, my colleagues, Drs. George Dawson, MD and Ronald Pies, MD wrote a rejoinder in Psychiatric Times to a review article published in Molecular Psychiatry by J. Moncrieff, Mark Horowitz and others (Moncrieff J, Cooper RE, Stockmann T, Amendola S, Hengartner MP, Horowitz MA. The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Mol Psychiatry. 2022 Jul 20. doi: 10.1038/s41380-022-01661-0. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 35854107.)

The idea that most psychiatrists subscribe to the so-called “chemical imbalance” theory of depression has arisen again in an article by Mark Horowitz on October 7, 2022. Sena alerted me to the article which is getting a lot of attention. There were well over 600 comments and counting about it when we read it on October 7^th.

I would like to refer readers to the Dawson and Pies article, “The Serotonin Fixation: Much Ado About Nothing New,” published August 3, 2022. Since the issue about emotional blunting from SSRIs resurfaced again on October 7th, it wouldn’t hurt to review their September 26, 2022, Psychiatric Times article, “Antidepressants Do Not Work by Numbing Emotions.”

Scouts Food Drive Pickup Today

Today is the bag pickup day for the Scouts food drive. Bags were distributed October 1-5. They’ll be picked up between 9:00 AM to noon. According to the Scouting for Food website,

On average, the Scouting for Food Drive typically collects over 93,387+ pounds of food from Cedar Rapids, Iowa City and its neighboring areas. This translates to over 77,823+ meals that will be served for those who need it most during the winter season.

The Friday Night Big Mo Blues Show

I heard this on ‘da Friday Night Blues on KCCK 88.3 earlier. I took guitar lessons when I was a kid. I was real good at buzzing the strings. Not everybody can make the audience clap their hands to their ears and howl in pain. It’s a rare talent-thank goodness. You’re welcome.

I heard Iowa Blues legend Kevin B.F. Burt tonight. I’ll never be able to prove it, but I think he was D.J. for KCCK Friday Blues Show for a short time in the distant past. I’m pretty sure I listened to him. I can’t find that in his interviews anywhere, not even in the biggest one I could find. Sena saw him and his wife at an optometrist clinic a few years ago. He was trying to pick up a pair of eyeglasses. He was in a big hurry and kept saying he had to get to his gig. Sena even spoke to him, asking him if he was Kevin Burt. He very kindly confirmed it-but he was still in a hurry.

Autumn Whisper

We were walking the Terry Trueblood trail on October 3, 2022 during the balmy early autumn weather. Sena and I had been looking for a decent picture of Goldfinches all summer long and didn’t catch any.

Sena gently alerted me to a female Goldfinch foraging on a tree right next to the walkway. She was trying to snatch bugs out of the air, and her olive feathers flashed in the sun.

That was right next to Hilde DeBruyne’s orange steel sculpture titled “Wings.” How lucky can you get?

Day 3: Drain Tile Grate Secure!

Well, it’s day 3 and the drain tile grate has not popped off yet. I secured it with a worm gear adjustable clamp on October 1, 2022.

I had to fire the little zombie I posted to guard it. He was drinking blood on the job, gambling on zombie cribbage with a gang of putrid corpses, and making threats to cancel Halloween based on bogus orders from Dracula.

I hired a wolfman from the temp agency who seems more reliable. He carries a sword although I’m not sure why. His teeth are huge—for such a tiny werewolf. Don’t call him “Tiny” to his face. He has an inferiority complex.

If you laugh at him, he’ll surely shred your shoestrings. Quick, say that three times really fast right now!

Psychiatrists Cast Doubt on Idea that Antidepressants Work by Causing Apathy

Out of 60 hits on page one of a Google search using terms “emotional blunting from SSRI,” only one cast doubt on the assumption that SSRI antidepressants exert their treatment effect by causing apathy. The rest endorsed the connection.

The one article I found on this quick search which contradicted this widely held and arguably incorrect assumption is “Antidepressants Do Not Work by Numbing Emotions,” published in Psychiatric Times, Sept. 26, 2022, which was written by George Dawson, MD and Ronald W. Pies, MD.

The authors wrote a convincing rebuttal of the assumption that the SSRI mechanism of action for treating depression is by causing apathy. Based on their review, the problem is more likely due to residual depressive symptoms. It’s a good thing it turns up on the first page of a web search.

Day 1: Drain Grate Intact

So far so good. After I affixed the drain grate to the corrugated base with a worm gear adjustable clamp, this morning the lid is still on.

I also posted a tiny zombie guard. He’ll chew up anything that tries to come up from below or break in from above. He’s not fussy about what he eats. He doesn’t sleep. He’s not scared of anything. Bad weather doesn’t bother him. He says the same thing Beetlejuice says:

“I’ll eat anything you want me to eat, I’ll swallow anything you want me to swallow; so, come on down, I’ll chew on a dog!”

Noisy Alien in Computer Removed

Well, this afternoon the computer repair guy returned and fixed the computer in about 15 minutes. The noise was gone after he replaced the power supply unit, the fan of which was the source of the mini-helicopter noise.

Obviously, this was a case of extraterrestrial invasion.

Seriously, though, once we got past all of the stuff about software checking, the repair was very quick. It turns out you can’t check the condition of the power supply unit fan with software. The noise problem was solved the old-fashioned way.

Bigfoot Messing with Our Drain Tile Cap?

We have this yard drainage tile system in our back yard. We have a half-dozen drain tile round grates over all of the pipes. One of them keeps turning up flipped over next to the pipe. It’s happened 3 days in a row.

The grate just slips into the pipe. Water pressure isn’t forcing it out. We think it’s maybe some kind of animal, Bigfoot, or an extraterrestrial messing with it.

According to the lawn and garden installer who supervised the job of laying the drain tile and pipe grates, the problem is either too much water through the pipe or critters. We’ve had no rain for the last 3 days yet we’ve found the grate upside down next to the pipe each of the 3 days.

I thought of getting a trail camera (critter cam) to catch whatever might be happening. But I’d have to order it because local hardware stores don’t carry them. We live in a residential area, but it’s a wooded lot. We commonly see squirrels, deer, wild turkeys, and even raccoons in our back yard.

If Bigfoot is messing with us, I could catch it on critter cam. That would be awesome.

So, it’s not impossible that an animal could be flipping the drain tile grate. But why? It’s always got water in it, and probably bugs. I think it would be easier for a critter to find water in the woods and bugs are flying around everywhere and on the trees.

I don’t think a human would flip the grate off. But if we had a critter cam, I could record it. They’re pretty expensive. I doubt Sena would let me order one. She’s going to try using sod pins to tether the grate.

Update: Sena put a couple sod pins in the grate to help secure it in the ground. She put some dirt around it so if a critter is messing with it, it’ll leave evidence. The rods are crossed with string around them to—confuse the critter?