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Heroes

Seattle's epic plan to fight heroin starts with a simple nose spray.

On Wednesday, April 27, Officer Drew Fowler rode his bike over Pike Street's rainbow-colored crosswalk and started pedaling back up toward the precinct.

Fowler is a tall, broad-shouldered man. Every day, he rides around Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood on his bicycle, as part of the Seattle Police Department.

On this particular day, it was the middle of the afternoon. Fowler and his partner, Officer Chris Myers, were ready to finish up their shifts and head in.


But as they started pedaling up Pike Street, something caught Fowler's eye. On the other side of the street were three men, sheltered in the covered stoop of a dusty, abandoned music store. They were all sitting down, but something didn't seem right with one of them.

All illustrations by Kitty Curran.

"There's no good way to explain why we were alerted," said Officer Fowler. "It was just that instinctual. The way he was laying, it was very unnatural."

In fact, the man was lying on his side, back twisted, legs splayed out on the sidewalk.

Fowler and Myers stopped, still balanced on their bikes on the other side of the street, and called out to the men: Is he OK?

The officers had to shout over the noise of traffic. The man's friends seemed out of it, but one of them vaguely waved his hand, as if to say come here, come here.

Fowler and Myers rode across and stepped into the doorway. The man wasn't just lying down. He was unconscious. Foam had settled around his mouth and he wasn't breathing. Fowler recognized the signs. The man appeared to have overdosed on some sort of opioid. If something wasn't done, he was probably going to die.

Opioid abuse is not unique to Seattle.

"Our nation is in the midst of an unprecedented opioid epidemic," starts a fact sheet from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

It's estimated that about 2.5 million Americans are addicted to either heroin or prescription opioids. Overdoses have more than quadrupled since 1999. In King County alone, 229 people died of opiate overdoses last year.

King County is where Seattle is located, and county officials are determined to bring that number to zero — which is where Officers Myers and Fowler come in.

As Fowler leaned over the man, Officer Myers darted to his bag and pulled out a small syringe.

The precinct had given the syringes to all of Seattle's bike officers not even a month earlier, as part of a pilot program with the University of Washington and The Marah Project. The syringe was full of naloxone, a powerful medicine that can essentially hit the undo button on an opiate overdose. Opioids kill by latching on to the part of a person's brain that controls breathing, and naloxone fixes that.

Myers screwed on a plastic applicator tip and shoved the syringe up the unconscious man's nose. He pushed the plunger once, sending a spray of the medicine up into the man's sinuses where it would be absorbed straight into the bloodstream. He switched to the other nostril and pushed the plunger again.

Then, Myers and Fowler waited.

Naloxone isn't a new drug, but giving it to cops is a new idea.

Hospitals and medics have used naloxone to save lives since the 1960s, but for a long time, that was pretty much the only place you could get it.

Starting in 2001, however, states started making it easier for people everywhere to get a hold of it, and soon enough, police departments were interested. In 2010, the Quincy Police Department in Massachusetts became the country's first police department to equip all of its officers with naloxone.

Cops don't have the advanced training or equipment that medics do, but they do have one big advantage: speed. Cops patrol neighborhoods. Firefighters and medics don't. This means cops can get to a call quicker. They can also keep an eye out for public overdoses, like Fowler and Myers did. Medics still follow up, of course, but by equipping cops, cities can get someone help much sooner.

And seconds count when someone isn't breathing.

Within 30 seconds, Fowler and Myers' man started breathing again.

Deep within his brain, the naloxone went to work. Nerve signals started to flow again. Breathing signs reappeared. Color started to slowly return to the man's face. Within two minutes, he had opened his eyes. Within five minutes, he was sitting up and talking.

"It would be overly dramatic to say 'coming back from the dead,'" said Fowler. But the comparison is not without precedent. Either way, it's a "pretty impressive thing to watch over the span of 10 minutes," said Fowler.

Medics arrived to give the man a more thorough once-over. One shot is often enough, though sometimes patients need an extra dose or additional care. This man didn't. Within about 10 minutes of Fowler and Myers' first inkling that something was wrong, the man had completely recovered.

Saving lives is important, but if we want to defeat this epidemic, we'll need to address the root causes of it as well.

Much of the recent rise in opioid addiction has been fueled not by heroin, but by the rising availability of prescription painkillers. Prescription opioids used to be prescribed very narrowly and kind of as a last resort, but since 1999, the number of prescriptions has increased four-fold.

This is a problem because opioids can be incredibly addictive. Even people using them for legitimate pain relief — such as after a surgery — can end up addicted. In fact, the majority of people who end up using heroin turn to it because of a pre-existing addiction to prescription drugs.

There are also problems with how we treat addiction and the laws surrounding addiction as well. That can be frustrating to some people and officers, who may see naloxone as enabling an addiction or as just a stopgap solution.

Luckily, King County has been thinking about these problems too.

Washington is one of many states that has Good Samaritan laws, which provide some legal immunity to people who report an overdose. But they're not just dealing with this from a legal viewpoint. Seattle already diverts many low-level drug offenses away from prison and into community-based services or drug court.

"This is a social issue; it needs a social solution," said Seattle Police Department Sergeant Sean Whitcomb.

They've even put together an opioid addiction task force.

The mayors of Seattle, Auburn, and Renton commissioned the task force in March 2016 and have already put together a suite of recommendations. The naloxone program was actually one of their recommendations.

King County also wants to do things like institute prescription drug take-backs, remove barriers to anti-addiction therapies, and combine drug treatments with mental health and other care services. They want to set up safe-injection sites — an idea that's attracted a lot of controversy but has been working in Europe since 1988. The task force is also well aware that current War on Drugs policies have disproportionately hit communities of color and that it's important that they not replicate those mistakes.

Taken together, these recommendations would stop overdoses, get users help, and prevent new addictions in the first place.

Back at the doorway, Fowler and Myers' man was eventually able to get up and walk away under his own power.

As of this writing, the Seattle police have performed a total of 13 of these rescues — the latest on Oct. 20, 2016. Fowler and Myers were involved in another one of these rescues as well.

"I've heard [naloxone] referred to as, like, a miracle drug," said Fowler, "and that might be a bit strong, but — right place, right time, right people — it's a great confluence."

The data about these saves is being given over to scientists at the University of Washington, who will assess the efficacy of the program. But for the cops themselves, using the drug seems to be an easy decision. The training is simple and the drug itself is cheap and lightweight. Sergeant Whitcomb said there's been essentially no pushback in Seattle. Everyone seems keen on it.

In the end, all of this is about saving lives, which is a clear win for everyone.

"So much of police work exists in the gray area," said Fowler. You're doing the right thing, but it might not be easy and it may look different to different people. But this new program doesn't feel gray, according to Fowler.

"Getting the opportunity to do something so simple, but so impactful as saving a life, it's a good moment for a police officer."

A waiter talking with his hands.

One of the great things about America is that we have a relatively young culture, so many of the foods that we eat were brought over from other countries. That makes America a great place to try out all the different types of food from around the world.

However, we also like to put our own stamp on staples from around the globe that give the American version its own unique flair. Some foods that we claim originated overseas were actually first made right here in the U.S. of A. For example, chimichangas, which can be found in many Mexican restaurants, actually originated in the state of Arizona. Crab Rangoon, a popular “Chinese” dish, was actually invented in San Francisco, and spaghetti and meatballs were never a thing in Italy.

TikTok creator Gabby Donahue posted a video that’s the perfect example of how some ethnic foods get remixed once they become popular in the States. In a video with over 7 million views, her father shows a waiter in Italy a photo of chicken parmesan from Olive Garden so he can order it at the restaurant. The waiter's reaction is an excellent example of someone trying to be polite while he cannot believe what he is seeing.

“My Boston Irish father trying to order a Google image of the Olive Garden chicken parm in Italy,” Donahue wrote in the text overlay.

@gabbydonahuee

@Olive Garden ‘s biggest fan 😭😭😭😭 #italy #cultureshock #chickenparm #olivegarden


When the father showed the picture to the waiter, he seemed a bit confused about the image. “Only in the States,” he said. “It doesn’t exist in Italy.” The father couldn’t believe what he was hearing: “It doesn’t exist in Italy?”

“I don’t know what it is…on the pasta?” the waiter said, trying to make sense of the chicken breast smothered in cheese and sauce. The waiter gave his final verdict while holding his chin: “No. That’s horrible.”

“Horrible? Wow. Look at that. That doesn’t,” the father laughed. “That looks good… but,” the waiter shrugged off the father. “It does look good,” the father continued. “It tastes good. I’ll tell you what, I’m gonna mail you some. I’ll send it to you.”

“Okay? Olive Garden chicken, I’m gonna search,” the waiter said, walking away from the table.


The commenters had a field day analyzing the waiter’s body language. “‘No, that looks good’ while looking completely disgusted was the most Italian reaction ever,” one commenter wrote. “Bro remembered halfway through his disgust that he’s at work,” another added.

It’s not crazy that an American would think that chicken parmesan is an Italian dish; after all, it’s served in most Italian-American restaurants. However, according to Paesana, it was created in America by the Italian diaspora.

“In the Old World, that’s Italy prior to the Italian diaspora—the large-scale emigration of Italians from Italy to America—proteins like chicken were not widely available," according to an article on the site. "As such, the prototypical chicken parmigiana was actually made with breaded, fried slices of eggplant in place of chicken for a dish called melanzane alla Parmigiana."


Even though chicken parmesan didn’t originate in the old country, Pasquale Sciarappa, a popular Italian-born food influencer living in America, has no problem cooking the dish.

"'That’s not Italian!’ I hear this every time I share a dish like Chicken Parmigiana. And you know what? They’re right — it’s not something you’d traditionally find in Italy. But you know what else is true? It’s Italian-American. It was born in immigrant kitchens — from people who left Italy, landed in the U.S., and made do with what they had. They took inspiration from dishes like melanzane alla parmigiana and recreated comfort from memory using what was available,” he wrote.

It’s understandable that an American could go to Italy without knowing that something he’d had in Italian restaurants wasn’t actually from Italy. It’s understandable for an Italian server to balk at a photo of a dish served in an American restaurant that you’d find in a shopping mall.

But we should all agree that one of the wonderful things about American culture is that it's an amalgamation of different cultures stirred around in the same pot, and if that means we get a fresh variation on the burrito, a new way to eat Chinese crab, or a tasty piece of chicken where eggplant used to be, the more the better.

Education

Stop struggling with small talk by using the easy 'COST method'

This simple acronym will make your next social gathering a lot more enjoyable.

A man and woman chatting at a dinner party.

There are several reasons why people are hesitant to engage in small talk at a party or around the water cooler at work. Some people simply avoid it because they don’t find chatting about the weather, sports, or what they saw on television the night before very interesting.

Others are afraid that they may run out of things to say or that there will be an awkward pause that makes them want to hide their head in the sand, like an ostrich. Mary, a friendship educator with a degree in interpersonal communication, has a solution for those of us who want to be friendly and meet people but abhor small talk; she calls it the COST method.

What is the COST method for making small talk?

According to Mary, who goes by @better.social.skills on TikTok, COST stands for Compliment, Observation, Story, and Tip. These are four options you can turn to when you're in need of a conversation topic.

@better.social.skills

Remember the acronym C.O.S.T. and you’ll always have something to talk about at parties or events. C stands for compliment. Tell somebody you like their shirt or shoes, for example, and see where the conversation leads. O stands for observation. Remark on something happening around you, like if you enjoy the music or feel a certain way about the weather. A stands for story, in which you share a little anecdote about yourself. For example, maybe you were late to the party for some reason, or you’re excited to get home and watch a show you’re loving. T stands for tip, in which you give a small recommendation to someone. For example, where the shortest bathroom lines are, which food is particular particularly delicious, or point out an interesting person they might want to talk to. What do you think? Would you use these? #creatorsearchinsights #conversationstarters

1. Compliment

“Tell somebody you like their shirt or shoes, for example, and see where the conversation leads,” Mary says.

“Oh, I like your shoes.”

“I like your shirt.”

“You have such a soothing voice.”

2. Observation

“Remark on something happening around you,” Mary says.

“This song is amazing.”

“I really love how Jeanie decorated this room.”

“There’s a lot more people here than last night.”

3. Story

“Share a little anecdote about yourself. For example, maybe you were late to the party for some reason, or you’re excited to get home and watch a show you’re loving,” she said.

4. Tip

“Give a small recommendation to someone. For example, where the shortest bathroom lines are, which food is particularly delicious, or point out an interesting person they might want to talk to,” Mary said.

“I don’t know if you’ve tried the new Mexican place on South Street yet…”

“I’d have one of Jeanie’s margaritas now, before they are all gone.”

“Be careful if you talk to Brian. He can get a bit long-winded.”

chatting before movie, popcorn, movie theater, snacks, small talk Three people chatitng before a movie.via Canva/Photos

The great thing, if you’re a little shy about making small talk, is that studies show that you definitely don’t need to do all the heavy lifting in the conversation. In fact, a Gong.io study found that the best way to make a connection with someone is to speak 43% of the time and let your new friend talk for the other 57% of the conversation.

Further proof that the best way to make a great first impression is a study published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. It found that when meeting someone for the first time, ask them a question and then be sure to ask two additional follow-ups before discussing yourself. This has been found to dramatically increase your likability.

“We identify a robust and consistent relationship between question-asking and liking,” the authors of the study write. “People who ask more questions, particularly follow-up questions, are better liked by their conversation partners.”

For those of you who have always felt that you're bad at making small talk. while others seemed to do it naturally, realize that people aren’t born great communicators; it’s a skill that can be learned just like anything else. With a few tips from the experts, you can go from dreading small talk to enjoying striking up a conversation with just about anyone.

Harvard researcher Arthur C. Brooks studies what leads to human happiness.

We live in a society that prizes ambition, celebrating goal-setting, and hustle culture as praiseworthy vehicles on the road to success. We also live in a society that associates successfully getting whatever our hearts desire with happiness. The formula we internalize from an early age is that desire + ambition + goal-setting + doing what it takes = a successful, happy life.

But as Harvard University happiness researcher Arthur C. Brooks has found, in his studies as well as his own experience, that happiness doesn't follow that formula. "It took me too long to figure this one out," Brooks told podcast host Tim Ferris, explaining why he uses a "reverse bucket list" to live a happier life.

bucket list, wants, desires, goals, detachment Many people make bucket lists of things they want in life. Giphy

Brooks shared that on his birthday, he would always make a list of his desires, ambitions, and things he wanted to accomplish—a bucket list. But when he was 50, he found his bucket list from when he was 40 and had an epiphany: "I looked at that list from when I was 40, and I'd checked everything off that list. And I was less happy at 50 than I was at 40."

As a social scientist, he recognized that he was doing something wrong and analyzed it.

"This is a neurophysiological problem and a psychological problem all rolled into one handy package," he said. "I was making the mistake of thinking that my satisfaction would come from having more. And the truth of the matter is that lasting and stable satisfaction, which doesn't wear off in a minute, comes when you understand that your satisfaction is your haves divided by your wants…You can increase your satisfaction temporarily and inefficiently by having more, or permanently and securely by wanting less."

Brooks concluded that he needed a "reverse bucket list" that would help him "consciously detach" from his worldly wants and desires by simply writing them down and crossing them off.

"I know that these things are going to occur to me as natural goals," Brooks said, citing human evolutionary psychology. "But I do not want to be owned by them. I want to manage them." He discussed moving those desires from the instinctual limbic system to the conscious pre-frontal cortex by examining each one and saying, "Maybe I get it, maybe I don't," but crossing them off as attachments. "And I'm free…it works," he said.

- YouTube www.youtube.com

"When I write them down, I acknowledge that I have the desire," he explained on X. "When I cross them out, I acknowledge that I will not be attached to this goal."

The idea that attachment itself causes unhappiness is a concept found in many spiritual traditions, but it is most closely associated with Buddhism. Mike Brooks, PhD, explains that humans need healthy attachments, such as an attachment to staying alive and attachments to loved ones, to avoid suffering. But many things to which we are attached are not necessarily healthy, either by degree (over-attachment) or by nature (being attached to things that are impermanent).

"We should strive for flexibility in our attachments because the objects of our attachment are inherently in flux," Brooks writes in Psychology Today. "In this way, we suffer unnecessarily when we don't accept their impermanent nature."

What Arthur C. Brooks suggests that we strive to detach ourselves from our wants and desires because the simplest way to solve the 'haves/wants = happiness' formula is to reduce the denominator. The reverse bucket list, in which you cross off desires before you fulfill them, can help free you from attachment and lead to a happier overall existence.

Did Julius Caesar have his armpits plucked? Probably.

Modern life may have us shaving, waxing, microblading, laser treating, Botoxing, and altering our natural appearance in all manner of ways in the name of beauty, but the idea of grooming to specific societal standards is nothing new. In cultures all around the world and throughout history, humans have found countless creative ways to make ourselves (ostensibly) look better.

Of course, what looks better is subjective and always has been. Take, for example, the ancient Romans. If you wanted to be seen as a studly man 2,000 years ago in the Roman Empire, you'd remove as much of your body hair as possible. That meant tweezing—or being tweezed by someone else, most likely an enslaved person.

armpit hair, grooming, hair removal, hairless, beauty standard Armpit hair wasn't cook in ancient Rome. Giphy

The Romans, in general, weren't big on body hair for men or women.

"You had to have the look,” Cameron Moffett, English Heritage’s curator at the Wroxeter Roman City museum in Shropshire, U.K., told The Times. “And the look was hairlessness, particularly the underarms.” A collection of 50 tweezers on display at the museum, recovered from the archeological site that was once the Roman city of Viriconium, speaks to Roman tweezing habits, but that's not the only evidence we have.

Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote in a letter lamenting how the noise from the Roman baths was disrupting his work: "Besides those who just have loud voices, imagine the skinny armpit-hair plucker whose cries are shrill to draw people's attention and never stop except when he's doing his job and making someone else shriek for him."

When we picture the ancient Romans, "skinny armpit-hair plucker" may not be the image that comes to mind, yet here we are.


teeth brushing, toothbrush, oral hygiene, toothpaste, dental hygiene They brushed with what now? Giphy

While we fret over fluoride, the Romans brushed their teeth with pee and mouse brains.

Toothpastes of the past were made with all kinds of things—herbs, spices, salts, crushed bone, and more. For the ancient Romans, that "more" included mouse brains and human urine, according to Decisions in Dentistry. Mouse brains were believed to enhance the effectiveness of toothpaste, and urine, imported in large quantities from Portugal, was utilized for its ammonia content and whitening properties. A standard Roman toothpaste would be a mixture of herbs, mouse brains, urine, and a binder such as honey. Oddly enough, it appeared to be somewhat effective, with archeological findings showing a relatively low number of cavities and tooth decay.

@charissekenion

Sailorr has everyone talking about her sound - and her teeth. Here’s my super short history lesson on the practice of ohaguro #ohaguro #geisha #japanese #japantok #aapi #history #japan #historytok #sailorr #japanesebeauty

Meanwhile, in ancient Japan, women tried to blacken their teeth

Teeth whitening is all the rage in modern times, but in the distant past in parts of Asia, making your teeth black was considered beautiful. The practice known as ohaguro was a traditional Japanese practice that, ironically, was intended to prevent tooth decay.

According to a letter in the British Dental Journal, women in ancient Japan would paint a solution of ferric acetate (from iron filings), vinegar, and tannin from tea or vegetables. It was called kanemizuonto and made the teeth appear black. The practice has made a comeback among some rural areas of Southeast Asia, and the Vietnamese-American singer Sailorr has made waves with her blackened teeth as well.

ear picker, history, artifact, grooming, beauty An ornate ear picker.The Swedish History Museum, Stockholm/Wikimedia Commons

Ear pickers were much prettier than Q-tips. In fact, they were an accessory.

The old saying, "Don't put anything in your ear except your elbow," may not be as old as it seems, as people have been inserting objects into their ears to remove wax for a long time.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, it was common to see beautiful, ornate "ear pickers"—small metal tools with a small scoop at the end for cleaning ears as well as teeth and fingernails. According to Jamestown Rediscovery, it was fashionable to wear gold and silver toiletry tools, such as ear pickers or toothpicks, as accessories. It's hard to imagine wearing Q-tips and toothpicks around. Also, ew. But if you look up "ear pickers," you'll find ornate examples from various parts of the world.

At the very least, it's nice to know that modern humans are not the first ones to go to great—and sometimes interesting—lengths to meet an arbitrary social standard of beauty. (And three cheers for modern toothpaste. Seriously.)