Joseph Meyer

I like original metaphors, well-crafted novels, and non-fiction in biology, chemistry, criminology, psychology, and psychiatry. I am on the absurdist-humanist continuum, religiously agnostic because I have seen too much to be certain of anything. I spend much of my time as a family caregiver. I am occasionally a fierce and pragmatic policy advocate for those with serious psychiatric illnesses. I enjoy reading, hiking, and music. I am a retired university administrator.  💚🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️ BLM

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NIP-05 Address

josephmeyer_at_c.im@momostr.pink

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nprofile1qqsphr555v0ctyrlnpkqh3zq2m6jmh2g0rtsmzmz0d4lxn2mt65a8jq7dache

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npub1rw8ffgclskg8lxrvp0zyq4h49hw5s7xhpk9ky7mt7dx4kh4f60yqkm9q00

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Last Notes

2025-03-11 23:58:10

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I wonder if the vice president and a majority of cabinet members voting to remove Donald Trump under Section 4 of the 25th Amendment might be the easiest way to be rid of him. I could imagine Rubio joining such a majority, if things get bad enough.

2025-03-11 23:48:51

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That’s good to know! Maybe we will take another look at NM. 😊

2025-03-11 23:33:00

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We have considered NM. We have vacationed in Las Cruces, Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and most recently in Cloudcroft this past summer. My late aunt and uncle lived in Albuquerque for many years. But mental health services are not great in NM and the police, at least in Albuquerque, don’t have a good reputation for how they interact with persons like my daughter.

2025-03-11 23:10:51

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I live in Austin, Texas. But I expect to relocate to a blue state where my transgender daughter will feel safer. We have considered a move abroad, preferably to Spain or Portugal, though I fear my daughter’s schizophrenia would likely be an obstacle to obtaining a longterm visa.

2025-03-11 23:00:34

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Me too. I’m in my late sixties. But, being old isn’t a bad deal to me. It is better than I expected it to be when I was young.

2025-03-11 22:55:41

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I think that happened to me when I was much younger, in my teens or twenties. But it is no longer a problem for me.

2025-03-11 22:31:54

I took a nap. It’s one of the things senior citizens, like me, get to do. I highly recommend them. #Nap #Naps #Napping

2025-03-06 21:30:57

Guapo after his spring doo.
#DogsOfMastodon #Dogs
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/114/117/607/116/041/945/original/1c8d5cfbe2d2bb74.png

2025-03-05 04:23:19

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Oh no! I hope you feel better soon. 😢

2025-02-27 01:09:16

My mother was born in 1915, amazingly giving birth to me in her mid-forties. She lost a few childhood friends and relatives to diseases before vaccines were developed. She had her tonsils removed with ether as the anaesthesia; she had a deep foot wound treated before there were antibiotics. One interesting story she told me was her little brother developing an ear infection. A family doctor recommended a mastoid operation, but said the boy could lose his hearing in that ear. When my grandmother hesitated, the doctor said trials were being done with a new medication at a nearby research hospital. I think it was Emory University. My grandmother took her son, my mother’s brother, to that facility and they gave him a treatment that cleared up his ear infection. The treatment was penicillin, which was discovered in 1928 by Alexander Fleming at Saint Mary’s Hospital in London. At that time, U.S. citizens had the good sense to trust scientists and physicians more than politicians and charlatans.
#Science #Medicine #Antibiotics #Disease

2025-02-20 13:07:41

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Yes. I have photos of dirty work by a loggerhead shrike in my vicinity: grasshoppers and an anole lizard gruesomely pinned on thorns of a mesquite tree.

2025-02-10 04:03:04

The best thing about the Eagles win is my expectation that their players are more likely to refuse Donald’s invitation to the White House.
#NFL #Eagles #SuperBowl

2025-02-09 17:43:39

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I can’t imagine ever visiting Florida again.

2025-02-02 04:09:59

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Thank you. I will use this list to buy Canadian products in the USA, even if they cost a bit more.

2025-01-27 10:53:07

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What you describe is eerily similar to tactics suggested in a CIA booklet, recently shared on Mastodon, for disrupting Nazi meetings during WWII by talking at length about tangential issues to interfere with productivity. If that 1945 booklet were updated, it might include ChatGPT as a useful tool. But, your experience also reminds me of some poorly facilitated committees on which I’ve had the misfortune of being a member.

2025-01-26 12:53:33

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So is there no solution then? I kind of like the idea of knives and scissors with blunt ends, because it might reduce the frequency and severity of what are often impulsive attacks rather than long-planned ones. As other articles have indicated, Axel Rudakubana is living with mental illness. And, as a family caregiver for an adult with a serious mental illness, I know impulsivity from experience.
But even acknowledging an association between serious mental illness and violence is unacceptable to many in the USA because of stigma. Violence by those with serious mental illness is rare, even though it is several times more likely than among those without serious mental illness. And, psychologists and psychiatrists are not very good at predicting who will become violent. Should we lock up 100 innocent people to prevent a violent attack by one of them?
Reducing violence requires a variety of approaches, because it is a complex issue. In a world where resources for the economically and politically powerless are increasingly hard to find, I am not hopeful for better approaches. More mental health funding is not a panacea, because treatment is sometimes ineffective. And, even if it were always effective there are civil libertarians defending the right of persons who’ve lost touch with reality to wander free. As you note, taking away knives is also not a panacea. But, many of us in the USA think taking guns away from persons with serious mental illness is an important part of the solution since more than half of our gun deaths are suicides. There are other means of suicide, but they take more time and studies show that time gives a person the chance to reconsider.

2025-01-19 11:45:07

Advice for former users of #Tiktok or other social media platforms who wish to be welcomed by current users of Mastodon (fediverse) that have been here a while:
In the words of the late Danny Young, unofficial mayor of south Austin, “Just Be Nice.” In my experience over a couple years, members of this community put effort into interacting courteously with others—let’s not lose that vibe. If you disagree with a toot, do so politely or just ignore it rather than responding with vitriol. I block persons who frequently toot mean-spirited content and many others do the same. Read the ground rules put in place by the administrator of the instance you chose to join and respect them in both letter and spirit. Use #hashtags in toots and searches to find your niche. Welcome, friends.

2025-01-18 14:48:47

“Poor and free rather than rich and enslaved. Of course, men want to be both rich and free, and this is what leads them at times to be poor and enslaved.” — Albert Camus
#AlbertCamus #Camus #Philosophy #Politics #Capitalism #Literature #Quotes #MAGA

2025-01-17 21:18:24

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Hmmm. I’m surprised that Dubya is on the list.

2025-01-14 09:45:32

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https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/826/048/000/297/421/original/ac8f1e34f3ad8f55.jpeg

2025-01-13 18:18:24

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They should use some of those giant outdoor fans in west Texas to blow storm clouds toward California. /s 😉

2025-01-12 14:28:26

Life in a Pseudo-Religious Oligarchy
I may be the only one dense enough to just arrive at a realization about the state of the U.S. government today. The Citizens United (2010) ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court that made corporations into people, without limits to their political cash contributions, once seemed in the not distant past like a legal abstraction to me. And, the description of the U.S. government as an oligarchy by none other than Jimmy Carter in 2015 sounded like hyperbole. It’s like the consequences of Citizens United and subsequent related events snuck up on me while I was too busy making a living and supporting my family to pay much attention, which might have been part of the plan. (1/3)
#Ethics #USPol #Money #Christianity #Religion #Oligarchy #Sunday

2025-01-03 23:32:43

I guess it’s okay to stop pretending we have equal justice under the law in the USA. The self-serving and unethical behavior of national, state, and local leaders in government and business naturally leads to great cynicism among young people. Who would expect anything different? #Law #Justice #Ethics

2025-01-01 02:17:08

I found a firewire to earphone plug in the parking lot of the municipal park where I walked my dog a couple days ago. Now I've plugged my iPhone into the auxiliary port of my amplifier and am playing an album, Negotiations and Love Songs by Paul Simon, real loud to drown out the fireworks for my dog. I had forgotten what a great album it is! Fun times. Music along with some Trazodone is helping to keep Guapo pretty calm.
#Fireworks #Dogs #DogsOfMastodon #NewYears

2024-12-31 21:07:08

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What about their skimming, just millimeters above the water? It's a pretty cool behavioral feat. 🙂

2024-12-24 23:41:55

Does my dog feel sorry for me, because I’m not a dog? #Dogs #DogsOfMastodon

2024-12-16 14:15:49

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Spectacular! Thanks for sharing.

2024-12-15 10:22:42

My daughter was verbally precocious as a young child and remains so as an adult with an extensive vocabulary and an understanding of nuances in the meanings of words. While sitting in a dentist’s chair at the age of 7-8, she said, “it’s the process I don’t like.” Although I still find enjoyment in life and am in no hurry to die, it will provide me with some much-needed rest when the time comes. I am unafraid of non-existence. It’s the process I don’t like. #Life #Death

2024-12-12 16:31:19

I’m going to play golf today on my favorite municipal course. It’s a really nice course for the high quality of fairways and greens. But it also has lowered my faith in humankind, since I’ve twice left a golf club behind on the course over many years of playing there and neither time was it turned in at the clubhouse.
Some famous golf professional or instructor once said you can learn a lot about a person’s ethics by observing their behavior on a golf course. I don’t remember who it was. It might have even been said by someone who voted for Trump, since professional golfers by and large seem to be a conservative lot. In any case, I think whomever said it was correct and that it certainly applies to the U.S. president elect based on reports I’ve read about his behaviors. #Golf #Ethics #Trump

2024-12-05 14:18:07

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Maybe she's pretending to be an eagle and hoping they don't notice her.

2024-11-30 19:21:51

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The Merlin app on my iPhone has alerted me to hearing these on several occasions. But I have been unable to see them.

2024-11-30 01:20:11

What best describes your thoughts about the USA being called a leading democracy in the world?
#Leadership #Democracy #Economics #Ethics #Morality #USA #History #World

2024-11-29 03:31:12

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Do you conclude they finally came to their senses or, less generously, that Trump's character was not quite deplorable enough in those earlier years to vote against him? 😉

2024-11-28 15:40:33

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Thanks for a fitting Thanksgiving message. Your contributions to the fediverse are consistently on target. I wish you and your loved ones an enjoyable day!

2024-11-24 15:15:13

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I wonder how prevalent serious psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia spectrum and bipolar disorders are among the homeless in the UK. The consensus seems to be that rates of such illnesses in the USA homeless population are at least 5-6 times greater than seen in the overall population. Since such illnesses have behavioral symptoms, including spending that some judge as being irresponsible, I hope the investigators take that under consideration.

2024-11-22 18:26:10

Bible lessons in Texas public schools approved in a 8-7 vote by the Texas Board of Education.
#Schools
#Religion
#Bible
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/527/991/850/230/186/original/328d242ec76a7016.png

2024-11-19 14:26:30

Some Thoughts on Rhetoric, Ethics, Biology, Time, and Acceptance
I have been stuck—that’s how a dear friend would describe it: I am disappointed by the re-election of Donald Trump, particularly bothered by pejorative thinking and words from MAGA relatives and acquaintances that brought forth this electoral outcome. I have strong beliefs about right and wrong that differ greatly from those of Trump and his disciples. I am flummoxed by an awareness that Trump has not even been inaugurated, yet may continue to annoy me daily for four more years unless I have a survival plan. What can I do to cope?
(1/7)
#Rhetoric #Behavior #Ethics #Biology #Time #Acceptance #MAGA #Camus #Absurdism

2024-11-17 13:04:21

I have been browsing photos on this Silent Sunday morning and viewing the ALT text that most of you are including for those who are visually impaired or blind. One might even call that text artistic prose, when it is done wIth great attention to detail. Reading it enhances photographs even for me, a sighted person, by calling my attention to details I might have otherwise not appreciated. So, thank you to those photographers who take the time to do a nice job with ALT text.
"Prose is art. The way a writer uses language to tell a story. It lacks formality yet requires attention to detail. Writers manipulate the structure of sentences to elicit an emotional response from their readers. When a writer tells a story in ordinary, everyday language they are giving you their best in prose."
Source: CreativeWritingEDU.org
I am also imagining a photo without ALT text from the perspective of a person who cannot see it, like a black box or empty space. By reading the good work of others, I am trying to get inspired to do better with ALT text descriptions when I share my own photos: Writing prose, painting a picture with words, creating an emotional response.
#Photography
#Writing
#SilentSunday

2024-11-17 12:26:47

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Thanks for sharing this spectacular photo.

2024-11-14 01:49:14

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😂 This is funny.

2024-11-11 15:14:44

Memories from Texas
On September 8, 2009 President Barack Obama spoke to school children across the USA about the importance of education and personal responsibility. My children were attending a Texas public elementary school at the time and I learned by official memorandum that some parents in my neighborhood were unhappy about the event. The school principal didn’t tell those parents to get over it; she did not tell them to send a note asking for their children to be excused (and begin the school day late or sit in a separate room without the broadcast). No, to appease racism, the school principal sent a letter to all parents requiring them to give signed permission for them to opt into hearing the President of the United States speak about an apolitical topic. Otherwise they would sit quietly in the cafeteria. It made me really angry; it still makes me angry.
I once heard a classmate use the N-word when I was in elementary school more than 50 years ago. I decided to try it out when I got home in a conversation with my mother, who I recall was standing in front of the stove and cooking. She turned around and slapped me across the face. I’m glad she did. I haven’t forgotten it. But I didn’t realize how much bigotry was still around just 15 years ago when Obama gave his talk to school children. And I certainly did not realize it was still so widely prevalent when we re-elected Donald Trump in 2024.
#Texas
#School
#Racism
#Bigotry
https://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/barackobama/barackobamabacktoschoolspeech.htm

2024-11-05 02:33:41

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Does the storm portend well for the election tomorrow?

2024-11-03 07:59:09

Trump is the father
of invention—lies, that is.
Fertilization!
#Haiku

2024-10-27 10:37:37

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That seems like a smart aphorism, though I will have to ponder it more before deciding whether I entirely agree. Let’s see if Tesla remains in business.

2024-10-26 09:53:44

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I am glad such cases are uncommon. Your police officers also seem to shoot persons in crisis due to serious mental illness far less frequently than police in the U.S.A.

2024-10-26 09:29:26

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This article seems to suggest the mental healthcare system in the UK shares many of the deficiencies seen in the US—in summary, relying on a punitive criminal justice system to address behaviors that are symptoms of illness rather than immorality. As individualism and wealth disparity grow in our societies, I fear social services will worsen for those with serious mental illness who are often poor, politically powerless, and unable to effectively advocate for themselves.

2024-10-09 23:31:37

On my morning hike, I heard American crows mobbing what was probably a red-shouldered hawk, the bird of prey that seems to be most common around here in central Texas. Some blue jays also joined in the cacophony. Carolina chickadees and black-crested titmouse were active along my regular hiking path as usual. Northern cardinals swooped back and forth across the trail in front of me as if they were leading me along, like they always do.
#Birding
#Hiking

2024-09-30 13:39:01

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MAGA Republicans are hating the immigrants; they're hating their descendants; they're hating the persons of color who live there.

2024-09-28 15:10:30

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Wow! Thanks for sharing this spectacular view!

2024-09-28 02:06:36

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nonplussed

2024-09-27 11:40:45

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I am looking forward to my morning coffee. I am just waiting a bit longer to let my wife sleep, before I engage with the noisy burr grinder and espresso machine. A local roasting company is only a few miles from my house, so my beans are always fresh. I am still using a little sugar and a splash of milk, until my doctor says I must stop.

2024-09-26 14:34:26

I feel disappointed with my new primary care physician who, in my opinion, gave inadequate attention to my medical history and serious drug interactions in back-to-back prescriptions. It is the responsibility of physicians, not their patients, to carefully consider such issues and I consider the physician's failure to do it a lazy ethical lapse that endangers patients. I will be finding a new doctor.
#Physicians
#Medicine
#Ethics

2024-09-24 13:34:06

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There should be, as a replacement for Confederate Traitors Day… I mean Confederate Heroes Day which is still on the calendar in Texas, the day before MLK Jr Day just to be especially irritating. Someone asked on FB why folks in Texas were celebrating Mexican Independence Day several days ago. I should have replied by asking why Texas celebrates murderous traitors on Confederate Heroes Day.

2024-09-22 14:53:51

A political yard sign that I saw today and liked.
#Harris
#Walz
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/181/767/343/175/576/original/4e28b5374a4cfcb7.png

2024-09-20 19:26:08

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It reminds me of camping at Black Gap in Texas about 45 years ago.

2024-09-19 21:35:41

Older adults sometimes complain about the weak morals and irresponsibility of youth by their definitions. But they never talk about the selfish role models that have been provided by the Trump family, business leaders, and other national figures. How could youth be anything but disillusioned and cynical?
#Trump
#Ethics
#Youth

2024-09-18 14:19:28

Front yard art seen this morning on my walk with Guapo.
#Art
#StreetArt
#Trump
#Politics
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/158/964/502/954/419/original/32a8edd99124741b.jpeg

2024-09-15 17:59:07

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Now that is a beautiful haiku. :bd239:

2024-09-15 17:43:11

Colonoscopy
An odd haiku topic, yes.
Butt good for five years.
#Haiku
#Colonoscopy

2024-09-07 14:59:10

I am reading Mark Twain: A Life by Ron Powers, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist who I correspond with occasionally about our mutual experience of raising children with schizophrenia which Powers wrote about in a book titled, No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak Of Mental Health in America. Powers' biography of Mark Twain includes the following passage, which is interesting for its mention of a friendship between Twain and Ulysses Grant, whose biography by Ron Chernow I just included today among my #20booksin20days
"Ulysses Grant would have fought the first battle of his Civil War career at the site of Mark Twain's birthplace, had not [General Thomas] Harris abandoned his encampment there before Grant's regiment arrived. Sam Clemens would have been there to meet him [as a member of Thomas' forces to which he had pledged his allegiance], had he not ridden away from the war."
That could have been the end of Sam Clemens (aka Mark Twain) before he wrote his famous works of literature. I am only about 100 pages into the Twain biography and expect to read more about Twain's friendship with Ulysses Grant in later pages.
#Books
#20BooksIn20Days

2024-09-02 12:21:45

"Twenty books that have had an impact on who I am. One book a day for 20 days. No explanations, no reviews, just book covers." 
Day 13 of #20BooksIn20Days
https://s3.c.im/media_attachments/files/113/067/909/249/184/025/original/89272a08b374b7ce.png

2024-08-13 14:15:50

Just out of my seventh colonoscopy. I started at age 40 because of a strong family history of colon cancer. Based on many polyps removed over the years, I am pretty sure I would be deceased by now without these screenings. The procedure is much easier than in the past. So don’t put it off. Your family and friends want you to live a long and healthy life.
#Gastroenterology
#ColorectalCancer

2024-06-27 16:02:21

I can't blame Kinky Friedman for deciding it was time to leave #Texas.
https://www.kxan.com/news/local/richard-kinky-friedman-dies-at-79/

2024-06-01 11:02:38

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“Kindness is free.” I like that. Happy Pride Month. 🌈