Parlez-vous français? Or anything?

My daughter, K---, has become a good reader. And she has discovered that you can change the settings on a DVD movie so that it becomes subtitled. Of course, she doesn't read any languages other than English, so she likes to put on English subtitles with some other spoken language.

She has been watching The Sound of Music lately, with the audio in French. I actually have never watched a dubbed version of this movie, and it's fascinating to hear how things are translated. And the songs are sometimes in French and sometimes in English. Anyway, she has been doing a running translation for her little sister, S----, reading the subtitles for her. I imagine that this makes a movie that she's already seen more interesting. What I like is that she's being exposed to the sounds and cadences of some language other than English.

It's a funny thing that Americans are so insular when it comes to language. I've never actually seen statistics on the number of Americans (not counting first-generation immigrants) who speak some other language with any degree of fluency. But, I bet that the numbers would be dismal when compared to other industrialized countries. I've met a lot of people from other countries, and most them speak English as a second language.

Why does this matter at all? I think that it puts Americans at a disadvantage with regard to interacting with the world outside of our borders. Furthermore, it allows Americans to ignore or disregard much of what is going on in the world. Ask a group of Americans what is happening in Sudan--the vast majority would not have the slightest idea, I wager.

I could go on and on about it. Many others have commented on it. I don't know what the solution might be. I wonder though, does the American indifference to world events come because of the lack of languages? Or, does the lack of languages spring from the indifference?

Mental health and medicine

I was looking at a blog entry over on Bloggernacle Times about cognitive-enhancing drugs. You can read my comment about it.

It got me to thinking about a physician's role to discern disease state. Although less-progressive folks might still question whether things like depression or ADHD qualify as disease states, I think that most people would agree that they do. The question is whether or not an individual actually has the disease or not. And this is where a lot of criticism has been leveled at doctors who aren't careful in making that determination.

Critics point to the "bad doctor" who is prescribing Prozac and Ritalin to every other patient who comes through his office. "How can it be," they say, "that so many people are depressed?" This is why I try to always be careful when I hand out mental-health diagnoses of one sort or another. There are published guidelines regarding what symptoms a person must have in order to be given some diagnosis. (Whether or not those guidelines are valid is a question for another day.)

But even after a diagnosis is made, the question of treatment still remains. How does one treat depression? Why do anti-depressants work? Why is it insufficient to simply do psychotherapy of some sort? Does this patient even need treatment at all? I ask myself these questions. And there is no single answer to any of them. So I go carefully along, and try to avoid getting stuck in routines of treatment that ignore the variation in individual needs.

on sleep, or rather, the lack thereof...

I spend most of my time feeling pretty tired. Fatigue is my constant companion. Even at those times when I think that I'm not fatigued, I have only to close my eyes for a second and then I realize that I'm mistaken. It has become a way of seeing life, I think. There are just degrees of tiredness. One day I'm extremely tired; the next, not so much so; the next only slightly fatigued; and the next, exhausted. What's funny is that much of the time I'm unaware of this.

Certainly, my own choices have something to do with the problem. I don't go to bed early. Even when I have the chance. It's especially tough because once the kids are down (more or less) for the night, I feel like it is now my chance to be free, to read, to talk with Ash, anything. So perpetuates the endless fatigue. This, of course, is in addition to all of the times that I'm obligated to lose sleep for professional reasons.

I've read and heard things that seem to suggest that I'm merely part of our culture in this respect. Chronic sleep deficit is a pretty American problem to have, n'est-ce pas? I keep resolving to change things, but it doesn't come easy. Am I self-indulgent, or is it a mechanism for dealing with stress? Do I need the extra time to release the pent-up stress or frustrations of living in a world of bureaucracy, endless paperwork, malingerers, and the genuinely-needy? I really do feel that my psyche is strained at times.

On the other hand, am I just fooling myself? Would everything just be better/easier if I would simply go to bed? Well, I'm going to bed now.

Here's to our new collaborative effort!