Tag: Iowa

Iowa State Fair Musings

We’ve never actually been to the Iowa State Fair, but we really like listening to the Iowa Public Broadcasting TV shows about it.

The first show covered a lot of activities. Food at the Fair is always intriguing.  We know there are a lot of foods on a stick, but we didn’t know you could get a rattlesnake corn dog—with venom sauce! It’s pretty good according to the food guy, Travis Graven. You probably won’t find it in your local grocery store.

The big animals are impressive. I always wonder why the handlers sort of guide some of the animals (like that huge boar) using those little boards.

The lemonade stand was a little thought provoking. Dad’s Old-Fashioned Lemonade stand sellers aren’t out there to make money. They do it for the nostalgia. I’m sure they do it for the tradition as well.

That’s a nod to keeping tradition alive. One of those is the 4-H program. According to the Iowa State University 4-H Youth Development web page, the 4 H’s stand for:

Head for thinking, planning, and reasoning

Heart for being kind, true, and sympathetic

Hands for being useful, helpful, and skillful

Health for taking care of yourself and your community

The Iowa State Fair is a longstanding tradition. It started way back in 1854. It was on hold in 2020 because of the Covid-19 pandemic and that was the first time since World War II it was cancelled and only the sixth time in the Fair’s 166-year history.

A tradition is defined as the transmission of a culture’s customs, beliefs, knowledge, skills and more from generation to generation. In order to do that somebody has to do the passing down of all of that. And somebody has to pick it up.

You can store some of it in electronic archives, but a critically important part of it relies on institutional knowledge in the hearts and minds of the culture’s older people. It’s a two-way street; the young listen, accept some, and improve more if we’re lucky. It’s more than facts and figures—it’s the wisdom we want to preserve.

And we want to keep the rattlesnake corn dogs, with venom sauce.

Sena’s Epic Bigfoot Expedition!

We know you’ve been waiting for Sena’s next Bigfoot safari and it turns out aliens from the third galaxy on the left have been dropping them into Sand Lake at Terry Trueblood Recreation Area.

The aliens shoot through a gravel road type of portal and beam their Bigfoot pets who’ve outgrown their homes into Sand Lake. They eat like growing teenagers and the interdimensional highway is a convenient way to get rid of them. It’s a good thing they can dog-paddle to shore.

The uptick in Bigfoot sightings probably has a lot to do with the incoming hordes of invasive insects, including the most recent pest, the Spotted Lanternfly. It’s not hard to figure out why. Bigfoot creatures eat the bugs by the handful.

What’s not so clear is where the Spotted Lanternfly actually comes from. Oh, I know the official report is that they’re from China, but that dodges the conspiracy theory by many people (I don’t know them personally) that the Iowa State University (ISU) Extension agents are cultivating them on the sly. Their website downplays the whole affair and says you can send them specimens preserved in hand sanitizer if you’re interested, but nope, there’s no infestation.

Sure; tell that to Thompson Aero, Inc, which has been dusting crops and park woods areas around the city lately, using what they want people to think is Neem Oil Spray. You can buy a product called Neem Oil spray at Walmart. They sell it claiming it kills the Spotted Lanternfly.

In fact, our sources reveal that the opposite is true. Neem Oil actually nourishes the bug and increases their reproductive capacity. The ISU Extension office is in on it because the real goal is to increase the population of Bigfoot creatures (who like Spotted Lanternfly more than beef jerky) in Iowa because the states in the Pacific Northwest, Alaska, and Wisconsin are snatching up all the tourism trade. You didn’t know it was all about money?

This whole business is run by the ISU Extension, which is why it’s called Area 41. Don’t buy into the hogwash about the name pointing to this being an ongoing April Fool’s Day joke.

There’s such a thing as the Freedom of Information Act and those in the know (who I don’t know at all) found out about this scheme. They planned a Storm Area 41 similar to the Storm Area 51 Raid in Nevada in 2019. That was said to have started out as a joke—and then really crapped out.

Anyway, Sena is keeping an eye out for Bigfoot. I can’t promise that she won’t launch another expedition in the future. Even the men in black with their big-ass neualyzers can’t stop us.

ZAP!

You know, I don’t think there’s any such thing as Area 41 or Bigfoot either. Hey, I just saw a tall guy and a pug both wearing black suits walk by my window. The pug was singing “Who Let the Dogs Out.”

That’s weird. It’s way too hot outside to be wearing black suits.

Watch Out for the Spotted Lanternfly in Iowa

An invasive insect called the Spotted Lanternfly has been spotted in Iowa. It has been in the U.S. probably since 2014, starting in Pennsylvania. It spoils a lot of different plants and crops. You can learn more about how to identify, report, and help control its spread at the Iowa DNR website and its links to the PennState Extension (see video below).

Novavax Covid-19 Vaccine Gets CDC Green Light

The Novavax Covid-19 vaccine was approved by the CDC a few days ago. University of Iowa Health Care was one of the sites in the multi-site Phase 3 trial.

The vaccine is not based on mRNA technology; it uses a more traditional method similar to the flu vaccine, which is familiar to more people.

Exercise for Brain Health

University of Iowa research shows that exercise could help for protecting us against Alzheimer’s disease. After age 65, our risk for this category of dementia doubles every 5 years.

Even if scientists develop effective and safe senolytic compounds that could allow us to live to be 200 years old, that won’t be happening in the near future. There’s another way to help prevent Alzheimer’s disease.

Exercise can lower the risk for Alzheimer’s disease, especially some form of aerobic exercise.

When it comes to exercise, any exercise is better than none.

New 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline Starts Today!

The new 988 Suicide and Crisis Lifeline number is available starting today. Iowa is with the program and you can read more about it at the Iowa State University Extension and Outreach website.

You can also learn more at the 988 Lifeline web page.

Thoughts on the GuideLink Center Incident

The attack a few days ago by what was most likely a mentally ill person on staff at the recently opened GuideLink Center in Iowa City reminded me of what may appear to be disparate views by mental health professionals on the link between mental illness and mass violence perpetrators.

The GuideLink incident involved a person who assaulted GuideLink staff and who also left bags containing incendiary devices at the center and another building in Iowa City. The person is being charged with terrorism and is currently in custody in the Johnson County Jail.

I have not seen information about any injuries sustained by the mental health center staff. There were no explosions or fires at either location where incendiary devices were left. Bomb squad experts removed the devices. It’s not clear whether the perpetrator had been a GuideLink Center client.

The GuideLink Center opened in February 2021 and by all reports is a welcome and very much needed crisis stabilization mental health resource in the community. The staff members are dedicated to their calling.

Dr. H. Steven Moffic, MD, a retired psychiatrist who writes for Psychiatric Times, readily says that the perpetrators sometimes do have mental illness that at least contributes to committing acts of mass violence. Dr. George Dawson, MD, another retired psychiatrist, seems to say that the major reason for mass shootings is the ready availability of guns, a culture of gun extremism, and mental illness accounts for a small proportion of acts of mass violence.

But neither Dr. Moffic nor Dr. Dawson say that it’s only either mental illness or guns (or other instrument of mass violence) that lead to acts of mass violence. Both are important.

I’m a third retired psychiatrist and by now some readers might be asking themselves whether they should listen to any retired psychiatrist. Experience counts.

Speaking for myself, as a general hospital psychiatric consultant I was frequently faced with violent patients in the general hospital. Often, I found it necessary to ask a judge for a court order to involuntarily hospitalize a violent and/or suicidal patient on a locked psychiatric unit by transfer from an open medical or postsurgical unit.

In order to obtain an order in the state of Iowa, I had to be able to state to the judge that the patient in question had a treatable mental disorder and was an acute threat to himself and/others. In most situations, I had an open bed on a locked psychiatric unit available ahead of time.

Even if a Code Green was necessary, I usually had an inpatient resource to which I could move the patient. A Code Green is a show of force or takedown maneuver by a specially trained team to control a violent patient while minimizing injury to everyone involved.

I don’t know if that kind of approach is even possible in a community crisis stabilization setting like the GuideLink Center. I think it’s fortunate that it partners with many other community resources including the Johnson County Sheriff’s Office.

The outcome of the incident at the GuideLink Center was that the overall safety of the staff, the patient, and the community was preserved. More resources like this are needed everywhere. They deserve all the support we can give them.

UFO Sighted in Iowa So Break Out Your Tin Foil Hats!

Did you see the breaking news about a UFO sighting in Iowa in the last couple of days? You better get up to date because you don’t want to get caught in the tractor beam along with the cows. Get your tin foil hats.

Sena and I are not sure what to make of the UFO report in the Polk County area. The windshield the guy shot the video through is pretty dirty. The object in the sky spins pretty quickly. We figure the aliens have to be gorging on Dramamine.

The UFOs have plenty of opportunities to beam up the cows and anybody else who gets caught out in the open. Sena and I got abducted and had to think fast to get out of a fix.

The aliens accidentally beamed up a cow, which is no surprise—it’s Iowa, after all. They cooked the cow. Heinous! Horrific! Tasty with baked beans. The aliens were going to barbecue us until Sena showed them her recipe for cherry cobbler.

We ran into Fox Mulder up there. He was trying to talk his way out of a special dental implant.

It’s not like Iowa never gets visitors from outer space. There have been reports in the past, at least one from Council Bluffs.

Instructions for making tin foil hats are all over the web. Better get busy.