So here's the context of this musing: Earlier this year, I met, and fell hard in love with, an extraordinary woman. I've known a lot of women over the years, but I've never been with anyone who made me feel the way she does -- not just being in love (I've been down that path a few times), but a strong and definite feeling this is someone who could be, should be, a life partner.

And, for some reason, the poor woman is confused enough to like me back. But after a lot of thought and discussion, she has decided that right now there is not space for this relationship in her life. But, if circumstances change...no guarantees, but the possibility of there being a chance down the road is not excluded.

And so I'm holding on to hope.

So I've been contemplating the nature of hope recently. I mean, hope is supposed to be a 100% positive thing, right?

But the problem is that hope draws us out of the present moment. Hope is always about the future, and if we attach to thoughts of the future we're lost. As Zen teacher Charlotte Joko Beck wrote (in her book Everyday Zen: Love & Work):

read more

autumn leaves are falling

but this is not death

for the tree blooms again

instead each

red orange gold burst

a spectacular "farewell until we meet again"

"I must go now, for a while" says the life in each tree,

"go inside and sit, that I may burst forth in the spring,

and so I leave you this salute as a token of parting

and a promise of return"

The H1N1 insanity continues: CBS News reports that the CDC advised states to stop testing for H1N1 flu and stopped counting individual cases back in July.

While we waited for CDC to provide the data, which it eventually did, we asked all 50 states for their statistics on state lab-confirmed H1N1 prior to the halt of individual testing and counting in July. The results reveal a pattern that surprised a number of health care professionals we consulted. The vast majority of cases were negative for H1N1 as well as seasonal flu, despite the fact that many states were specifically testing patients deemed to be most likely to have H1N1 flu, based on symptoms and risk factors, such as travel to Mexico.

...

With most cases diagnosed solely on symptoms and risk factors, the H1N1 flu epidemic may seem worse than it is. For example, on Sept. 22, this alarming headline came from Georgetown University in Washington D.C.: "H1N1 Flu Infects Over 250 Georgetown Students."

H1N1 flu can be deadly and an outbreak of 250 students would be an especially troubling cluster. However, the number of sick students came not from lab-confirmed tests but from "estimates" made by counting "students who went to the Student Health Center with flu symptoms, students who called the H1N1 hotline or the Health Center's doctor-on-call, and students who went to the hospital's emergency room."

California, for example, looked at 13,704 specimens from "swine flu" patients -- and found that 86% did not have influenza, 12% had non-H1N1 flu, and only 2% had H1N1.

We've previously mentioned how only a small percentage of "flu" cases are actually influenza, and how the CDC's figure of 36,000 flu deaths a year is fantasy.

read more

There's a statistic I've been hearing a lot lately: according to the CDC, 36,000 Americas die from the flu every year. Mostly I've been hearing this from (well-intentioned) people pushing flu vaccination.

(Please note that this figure is about the regular seasonal flu, not the H1N1 strain, and -- except for one note below -- I'm not commenting on H1N1 here.)

Now that's a heck of a figure. 36,000 a year? If that's right, then every two years more Americans die from flu than were killed in Vietnam -- there are 58,195 names on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.

2,993 people were killed in the 9/11 attacks: if the 36,000 figure is right, every year the flu is a dozen 9/11s.

Now, that seems odd. I'm too young to know anyone who died in Vietnam, but I knew two people who died in the 9/11 attacks. Of course, that's a non-random distribution -- I live on the East Coast -- but I don't think I know anyone who's died from the flu. If in my adult life I've lived through 240 9/11's worth of flu deaths, it seems like I ought to know somebody affected. These numbers don't seem to make sense, and my skeptic bone is starting to itch.

So where does this 36,000 figure come from? Do they actually test people who die from flu-like symptoms for the influenza virus and count them? Well, no. According to their own website, "CDC does not know exactly how many people die from seasonal flu each year."

And they also admit that the 36,000 figure is not deaths caused by flu, but "flu-related" deaths:

Seasonal flu-related deaths are deaths that occur in people for whom seasonal influenza infection was likely a contributor to the cause of death, but not necessarily the primary cause of death.

Keep this in mind as you hear about deaths supposedly from the H1N1 pandemic: most of these will never be verified by any hard evidence that H1N1 infection was the primary cause of death. Instead, the more people think the H1N1 is a killer, the more they will attribute ambiguous deaths to H1N1. It's the same principle that makes the Law of Fives work.

So the CDC's 36,000 figure is not based on actually counting deaths caused by flu, but based on the use of a statistical model to guess at the number of "flu-related" deaths, because otherwise they'd get (in their opinion) too low of a count:

read more

It's bad enough that many institutions in our society won't recognize a loving relationship unless you have a permission slip from the state, but when the state refuses to issue those permission slips to same-sex couples, here's what happens: Lisa Pond died alone in a strange city while bigoted hospital staff kept Janice Langbehn, her partner of 18 years, and their kids away from her. And despite the fact that Janice had durable Power of Attorney and Living Will documents showing her legal authority to make end-of-life decisions for Lisa, the courts have approved Jackson Memorial Hospital's actions.

read more

This week's Zelda's Inferno exercise: use a metaphor that likens the self to an inanimate object, and consider what this means to aspects of your personality.

I am a prime number

unfactorable -- breakable, to be sure, but not cleanly

you will not understand me

as a product of others

the only factors that make me

are the One and myself

there are infinitely many of me

scattered throughout space

but no clear pattern links us

only predictable statistically

simply defined, yet

still mysterious after years of study