Archive Fever: Writing and thinking with oceans, memory, and attention.

There has been a bit of press (though not nearly enough) on dementia as of late.  Some has been spurred by findings that Robin Williams (along with 1.3 million Americans currently) suffered from Lewy Body Dementia in addition to early onset of Parkinson's Disease . Here is a recent APA piece entitled "Speaking of Psychology: Protecting Your Aging Brain" that addresses the causes of dementia as well as the effectiveness of activities such as physical exercise and brain training games in preventing it.

I've been going to water a lot, rather as much as I can, this summer.  I've been to the ocean, rivers, lakes, streams, etc.  Mostly, it's been a pretty frustrating experience.  Initially, I thought that I was going to the wrong spots.  What's more probable, though, is that there is something wrong with the places that I've visited.  There's nuance to this supposition, a nuance that's predicated on subjectivity and awareness.  My most recent visit was to Seattle's Lake Union. It was beautiful.  It is beautiful.  People were on the water enjoying what appeared to be the most sublime of natural offerings that exists on the urbanized Puget Sound...enjoyment, seemingly without care.  Hell, why not?  Just about every "how to see Washington or the Northwest" visitors' guide has something like the following in every issue that I've perused this year.  I'm inspired by this messaging too. Until, I notice the "no swimming or ...

It has been a hot summer in the Pacific Northwest.  The heat has ushered forth a lot of physical and emotional discontent for me, some certainly due to the lack of AC in our Portland home; Portland is on track for its sixth warmest July on record.  When we moved here a year and a half ago, the word on the street was that summers were perfect and there was no AC required.  Well, slow down big fella because my psychological dependency on air conditioning has garnered a very real physiological precedent having lived in our sauna of a house this summer. And, it appears from t his National Weather Service article that the East is cooler than the West this year AND this pattern may persist (in the near term) in our increasingly warming world.  Great...drought, wildfires, and less snow in the PNW while the East Coast enjoys new cooler summers.  See except here: cool conditions in the East contrasted, as they have nearly all year, with baking conditions in the ...

This past Monday my son and I took a day off from work to join a couple other parents and their kids on a brief jaunt up I-5 into Washington so that we could swim in Lake Merwin.  The trip was a much welcomed respite from the summer heat that has finally arrived in Portland.  Lake Merwin is beautiful for sure. And, having grown up in and around the ocean on the East Coast I have found myself restless to immerse myself in water sans wetsuit (something not very often done in the Pacific Northwest).  We'd suffered through the rain and cold of Portland all winter, not to mention the torment of Facebook posts from our East Coast friends who've been swimming bareback in 70+ degree water for months now.  In short, this was to be some sort of payoff to a psychological setup that I'd been constructing for months.  Going into it I knew that the swimming wouldn't appproximate the memories I have of the warm Atlantic, but the urge toward nostalgia and hope of discove...

Anthropogenic Biomes(Anthromes) offer a new way to understand our living planet by describing the way humans have reshaped its ecological patterns and processes.  Click here for a link and description of the infographic below.  The work is is based on a system of 21 Anthrome classes divided into 6 broad groups, as described in  Ellis and Ramankutty (2008;Anthromes v1).  

I'll be presenting at the annual conference for APHA in New Orleans on November 17, 2014.  Here's my prospectus for the roundtable discussion.  I'm pretty excited about sharing my nascent research and would love some thoughts, comments, and constructive critiques. Additionally, if anyone would like to participate in this ongoing research concerning ways health care professional engage climate change please let me know. Sustainability, climate change, and nursing education: Curriculum for clinical intervention Monday, November 17, 2014 Hill Taylor, PhD, MS, MA   ,   School of Nursing, Oregon Health & Science University, Portland, OR Nursing and medical education must address current and future impacts of climate change. This presentation examines responsiveness in nursing curriculum and clinical practice at Oregon Health & Science University. This study’s key objective is to establish protocols and frameworks for managing the health effects of...