Left & Right: Boston bombing caused by our pet causes

Tamerlan & Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Whether it’s from boxing-induced brain damage …

Could the amateur boxing career of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased suspect in last week’s Boston Marathon bombings, have had a role in the massacre? That’s a question leading brain researchers at Boston University’s School of Medicine hope medical examiners look into when they perform an autopsy of the 26-year-old who was killed during a firefight with law enforcement officials early Friday morning.

[…]

“Is it possible that some changes might have gone on in his overall functioning due to his boxing and potentially related brain disease? Yes,’’ said [Dr. Robert Stern]. “Anything is possible. But to then jump to the disease leading to well-planned behavior like this, I couldn’t go there.’’

… or marijuana-induced brain damage …

Accuracy in Media’s Cliff Kincaid is citing reports that the two Boston marathon bombers may have been drug dealers and that “the younger brother was a pothead” to argue “that dope’s effect on the brain is what may have led him into his brother’s terror activities.”

… it’s always reassuring to watch both the Left and Right go to ridiculous lengths to try and shoehorn an as-of-yet unexplained act of terrorism into their pet issues, especially if it allows them to eschew any uncomfortable discussion about possibly complex and nuanced factors in favor of a lazy and uselessly simplistic answer like “their brains work wrong!”.

Daily Blend: Friday, December 21, 2012

Wait, there’s still time for the world to end yet!

The NDAA ^[pictured] gets even worse: Senate removes amendment protecting U.S. citizens from indefinite detention without a trial.
(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)

Meanwhile, it turns out that the Obama administration’s surveillance program is even worse than under Bush & co., to absolutely no-one-who’s-been-paying-attention’s surprise.

41-million-strong state of São Paulo, Brazil passes same-sex marriage.
(via Joe. My. God.)

Pro-gun lobby blames Newtown massacre on gun-free zones, media, movies, videogames, music, gun safety advocates, President Obama, hurricanes, terrorism, gunman.

Better yet, the NRA wants “an active national database of the mentally ill”; sensible people everywhere pop an aneurysm.

In lighter news, contrary to expectations, it seems that 2012 was the best year overall in human history (so far!).

If you have any story suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments or send them in.

APA’s DSM-V drops Asperger’s, adopts “gender dysphoria”

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the bible of mental and behavioral disorders, is currently being prepared for its fifth edition (to be released in May 2013), the first major revision in nearly 20 years, and there’s some buzz over a few of the changes that have been made. One that I found noteworthy is the noted exclusion of my own diagnosis, Asperger syndrome:

The term “Asperger’s disorder” will not appear in the DSM-5, the latest revision of the manual, and instead its symptoms will come under the newly added “autism spectrum disorder”, which is already used widely. That umbrella diagnosis will include children with severe autism, who often do not talk or interact, as well as those with milder forms.

[…]

Some on the panel opposed the idea of dropping the specific diagnosis for Asperger’s. People with that disorder often have high intelligence and vast knowledge on narrow subjects but lack social skills. Some Asperger’s families opposed any change, fearing their children will lose a diagnosis and no longer be eligible for special services, but experts have said this will not be the case.

From what I’ve read, the idea is to eliminate the superfluous categories and subdivisions of autism and to combine those with ASD on a more general scale of severity, ranging from mild social handicaps (such as I) to those who are incapable of interacting with anyone else coherently. I suppose it’s for the best, though I now wonder how this revision might affect my own diagnosis, considering how widely influential the DSM is, even abroad.

Also interesting, and rather more positive, is a change that many in the trans community have been awaiting:

The term “gender identity disorder”, for children and adults who strongly believe they were born the wrong gender, is being replaced with “gender dysphoria” to remove the stigma attached to the word “disorder”. Supporters equated the change with removing homosexuality as a mental illness in the diagnostic manual decades ago.

The fact that gender dysphoria is indicative of some ingrained atypicality is no reason to brand those who have it as “disordered” in any way, and it will be quite telling (albeit unsurprising) to see who will choose to double down on that particular term in the wake of this reclassification.

(via Joe. My. God.)