Month: July 2014

Have you noticed how many of the participants in the drama unfolding in the Ukraine are suffering from mental illness? Have you noticed how this malady is spreading to the press corps and government officials of the lie, cheat, and steal parties on both sides (or all sides as the case may be). Have you noticed how the low-lifes of the Internet everywhere are coming out in droves to express bizarre theories and accusations to stir up the pot?

Most of this is driven by ingrained fear and loathing; a result of subtle and not-so-subtle programming by propagandists, organizations that promote some cause or another, religious institutions, and belief systems that have no basis in reality. But the whole business is being really accelerated by population pressure, and imbalances in the distribution of personal wealth, natural resources, and shrinking opportunities to improve the lot in life of people and/or the countries in which they reside.

In North America, when the Native Americans occupied the country, several hundred languages were spoken, and the tribes evolved a sign language based on gestures to communicate. When they wanted to take a break from killing each other over territorial disputes, women, and hunting grounds, they would sit down in a ‘Pow wow” to settle the disputes and engage in trade. I think what is needed now is for the parties to the Ukrainian dispute to gather and discuss things in a Pow wow, and the means of communication limited to sign language. In this way, the ‘truth’ of things would emerge, and positions would be clearly understandable. Rants and raves would be hard to engage in. While deceit would still be possible, it would be far more difficult.

But, this still doesn’t deal with the mental health problems. General Semantics can help in this situation. Things like Identification—reacting to a new situation as if it were an old and unchanging one, would become more apparent. The Institute of General Semantics has published a single page of ‘guiding principles’ to enable the unenlightened to take advantage of its basic tenants without having an in-depth knowledge of the discipline. You can find this easy to read and understand synopsis here:   http://www.generalsemantics.org/the-general-semantics-learning-center/overview-of-general-semantics/important-terms/ 

The other issues of mental health are more profound and result from years of conditioning starting in earliest childhood by one’s parents and preachers. This type of damage will be hard to unravel without years of specialized therapy, including the use of presently banned psychoactive drugs such as Ayahuasca. It will be important for all involved in the debacle to realize that much of the rhetoric and bizarre behaviors of the combatants and ‘interested parties’ are a direct result of preconditioning and reflexive reactions. A big sign should be suspended over the Pow wow conference table that states, “One in three of you is irretrievably deranged, twisted, and in dire need of therapy”. 

 

The Powwow by Allen Eckman

 

My older and wiser cousin sent me an e-mail that I though I should share with my readers. So, here it is—be educated and entertained at the same time !

Interesting Real Facts (Strange but True)

1	Look at your zipper. See the initials YKK? It stands for Yoshida Kogyo Kabushibibaisha, the world’s largest zipper manufacturer.
2	40 percent of McDonald’s profits come from the sales of Happy Meals.
3	315 entries in Webster’s 1996 Dictionary were misspelled.
4	On the average, 12 newborns will be given to the wrong parents daily.
5	Chocolate kills dogs! True, chocolate affects a dog’s heart and nervous system. A few ounces is enough to kill a small sized dog.
6	Ketchup was sold in the 1830’s as a medicine.
7	Leonardo da Vinci could write with one hand and draw with the other at the same time.
8	Because metal was scarce, the Oscars given out during World War II were made of wood.
9	There are no clocks in Las Vegas gambling casinos.
10	Leonardo da Vinci invented scissors. Also, it took him 10 years to paint Mona Lisa’s lips.
11	Bruce Lee was so fast that they actually had to slow a film down so you could see his moves. That’s the opposite of the norm.
12	The original name for the butterfly was “flutterby”!
13	By raising your legs slowly and lying on your back, you can’t sink in quicksand.
14	Mosquito repellents don’t repel. They hide you. The spray blocks the mosquito’s sensors so they don’t know you’re there.
15	Dentists recommend that a toothbrush be kept at least six feet away from a toilet to avoid airborne particles resulting from the flush.
16	The first product to have a bar code was Wrigley’s gum.
17	Michael Jordan made more money from Nike annually than the entire Nike factory workers in Malaysia combined.
18	Marilyn Monroe had six toes on one foot.
19	Adolf Hitler’s mother seriously considered having an abortion but was talked out of it by her doctor.
20	The three most valuable brand names on earth: Marlboro, Coca-Cola, and Budweiser, in that order.
21	To escape the grip of a crocodile’s jaws, stick your fingers into its eyeballs. It will let you go instantly.
22	The average person falls asleep in seven minutes.
23	The “pound” (#) key on your keyboard is called an octothorp.
24	The only domestic animal not mentioned in the Bible is the cat.
25	Rubber bands last longer when refrigerated.
26	The average person’s left hand does 56% of the typing.
27	Dreamt” is the only word in the English language that ends in “mt”.
28	It’s impossible to sneeze with your eyes open.
29	In Chinese, the KFC slogan “finger lickin’ good” comes out as “eat your fingers off”.
30	A cockroach can live for 10 days without a head.
31	We shed 40 pounds of skin a lifetime.
32	Yo-Yos were once used as weapons in the Philippines .
33	Mexico City sinks abut 10 inches a year.
34	Brains are more active sleeping than watching TV.
35	Blue is the favorite color of 80 percent of Americans.
36	When a person shakes their head from side to side, he is saying “yes” in Sri Lanka .
37	There are more chickens than people in the world.
38	The thumbnail grows the slowest, and the middle nail grows the fastest.
39	There are more telephones than people in Washington , D.C.
40	The average four year-old child asks over four hundred questions a day.
41	The average person presses the snooze button on their alarm clock three Times each morning.
42	The three wealthiest families in the world have more assets than the combined wealth of the forty-eight poorest nations.
43	The first owner of the Marlboro cigarette company died of lung cancer.
44	Intelligent people have more zinc and copper in their hair.
45	The world’s youngest parents were 8 and 9 and lived in China in 1910.
46!	Our eyes remain the same size from birth onward, but our noses and ears never stop growing.
47	You burn more calories sleeping than you do watching TV.
48	A person will die from total lack of sleep sooner than from starvation. Death will occur about 10 days without sleep, while starvation takes a few weeks.
49	Chewing gum while peeling onions will keep you from crying.
50	The Mona Lisa has no eyebrows.
51	When the moon is directly overhead, you weigh slightly less.
52	Alexander Graham Bell, the inventor of the telephone, never telephoned his wife or mother because they were both deaf.
53	A psychology student in New York rented out her spare room to a Carpenter in order to nag him constantly and study his reactions. After weeks of needling, he snapped and beat her repeatedly with an axe, leaving her mentally retarded
54	“I am.” is the shortest complete sentence in the English language
55	Colgate faced a big obstacle marketing toothpaste in Spanish speaking Countries because Colgate translates into the command “go hang Yourself.”
56	Like fingerprints, everyone’s tongue print is different.
57	“Bookkeeper” is the only word in English language with three consecutive Double letters.
58	Right handed people live, on average, nine years longer than left handed People do.
59	The sentence “the quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog” uses every Letter in the English language.
60	If the population of China walked past you in single line, the line Would never end because of the rate of reproduction
61	China has more English speakers than the United States .
62	Every human spent about half an hour as a single cell.
63	Each square inch of human skin consists of twenty feet of blood vessels.
64	An average person uses the bathroom 6 times per day.
65	Babies are born with 300 bones, but by adulthood we have only 206 in our Bodies.
66	Beards are the fastest growing hairs on the human body. If the average Man never trimmed his beard, it would grow to nearly 30 feet long in his Lifetime.
67	According to Genesis 1:20-22, the chicken came before the egg.
68	The longest place name still in use is: Taumatawhakatangihangaoauauotameteaturi- Pukakpikimaungahoronukupokaiwhenuakitanatahu – a New Zealand hill.
69	If you leave Tokyo by plane at 7:00am, you will arrive in Honolulu at Approximately 4:30pm the previous day!
70	Scientists in Australia ‘s Parkes Observatory thought they had positive Proof of alien life, when they began picking up radio-waves from space. However, after investigation, the radio emissions were traced to a Microwave in the building.
71	Wearing headphones for an hour increases the bacteria in your ear 700 times.
72	More than 40,000 parasites and 250 types of bacteria are exchanged during a French kiss.
73	Men can read smaller print than women, but women can hear better.
74	Coca-Cola was originally green.
75	The most common name in the world is Mohammed.
76	The name of all the continents ends with the same letter that they start with.
77	There are two credit cards for every person in the United States .
78	TYPEWRITER is the longest word that can be made using the letters only on one row of the keyboard.
79	Women blink nearly twice as much as men!!
80	You can’t kill yourself by holding your breath.
81	It is impossible to lick your elbow.
82	People say “Bless you” when you sneeze because when you sneeze, your heart stops for a millisecond.
83	It is physically impossible for pigs to look up into the sky.
84	The “sixth sick sheik’s sixth sheep’s sick” is said to be the toughest tongue twister in the English language.
85	If you sneeze too hard, you can fracture a rib. If you try to suppress a sneeze, you can rupture a blood vessel in your head or neck and die.
86	Each king in a deck of playing cards represents great king from history. Spades – King David, Clubs – Alexander the Great, Hearts – Charlemagne, Diamonds – Julius Caesar.
87	111,111,111 x 111,111,111 = 12,345,678,987,654,321
88	If a statue of a person in the park on a horse has both front legs in the air, the person died in battle.
89	If the horse has one front leg in the air, the person died as a result of wounds received in battle.
90	If the horse has all four legs on the ground, the person died of natural causes.
91	Question – This is the only food that doesn’t spoil. What is this? Ans. – Honey
92	A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out.
93	A snail can sleep for three years.
94	All polar bears are left handed.
95	American Airlines saved $40,000 in 1987 by eliminating one olive from each salad served in first-class.
96	Butterflies taste with their feet.
97	Elephants are the only animals that can’t jump.
98	In the last 4000 years, no new animals have been domesticated.
99	On average, people fear spiders more than they do death.
100	Shakespeare invented the words ‘assassination’ and ‘bump’.
101	Stewardesses is the longest word typed with only the left hand.
102	The ant always falls over on its right side when intoxicated.
103	The electric chair was invented by a dentist.
104	The human heart creates enough pressure when it pumps out to the body to squirt blood 30 feet.
105	Rats multiply so quickly that in 18 months, two rats could have over million descendants.
106	The cigarette lighter was invented before the match.
107	Most lipstick contains fish scales.
108	And finally 99% of people who read this will try to lick their elbow.

 

 Yesterday, I celebrated my 74th circuit around our sun. That’s right, at the time of my birth, it was the fourth day of the Battle of Britain. It was the day that Mussolini successfully invaded Egypt. And, now I look at my life as a fine old wine, it was a very good year; yada, yada, yada. Well, that was yesterday; today, everything has changed. Today, I am, as my English friends say, ‘Gobsmacked’!!

 

Yes, dear reader, today I received in the mail a form letter from none other than my primary care physician; a very hot lady doctor from India.  To quote directly from the letter:

“To My Valued Patient:

I have been practicing medicine at xxxxx for the past few years and have valued being your primary care physician. I have made the decision to discontinue my practice and to make a lifestyle change. Thus, August 1, will be my last day at this location. Blah, blah, blah…..

Sincerely, 

Kavita xxxxx, MD “

 

I screamed. I tore my clothes. I set my hair on fire. Then, I reconsidered. I wonder if it had anything to do with the cough test the other day during our office visit. I wonder if I should speak to her about my wife, while I can. I wonder if she has any idea what this is doing to my blood pressure. I may have to meditate so hard that I develop a Hemorrhoid.

 

No matter what happens, I am adrift again in the maw of the maelstrom, and I hear that awful, sucking sound that precedes the whirling descent into the bowels of the Medicare system. Fortunately, I am a Veteran, and I can always go running with my tail between my legs to a Veteran’s Administration hospital. I would never do it now, however, because our brave men and women fighting in the Middle East need all the bed space they can get.

 

Forlorn and depressed, I made my way into a small bar near my village, and taking a seat at the counter, ordered a double Jack Daniels. A youngish blonde was seated at a stool nearby, and she eyed me as I threw down the double shot like a Russian drinks vodka. Having already downed a few power drinks, she turned around on the stool, faced me, looked me straight in the eye and said, “Listen up, Buddy. I screw anybody, anytime, anywhere, your place, my place, in the car, front door, back door, on the ground, standing up, sitting down, naked or with clothes on, dirty, clean…, it doesn’t matter to me. I’ve been doing it ever since I got out of college and I just love it.”

Eyes now wide with interest, I responded, “No kidding. I’ve been looking for a lawyer. What firm are you with?” 

 

I’ll close now, with one of my sick jokes:

 

A doctor on his morning walk noticed an old lady sitting on her front step smoking a cigar so he walked up to her and said, “I couldn’t help but notice how happy you look!  What is your secret?”

 

 

“I smoke ten cigars a day,” she said. ‘”Before I go to bed, I smoke a nice big joint. Apart from that, I drink a whole bottle of Jack Daniels whiskey every week, and eat only junk food. On weekends, I pop pills, get laid, and don’t exercise at all.”

 

“That is absolutely amazing! How old are you?”

“Thirty-four,” she replied. 

 

I tried to relax a little this morning by surfing the ‘Net, a habit that I have not developed, thank goodness, as it is a fairly unproductive frittering away of my most precious commodity: Time. However, I happened on an interesting archived website, Edge.com, and within this website, I came upon an article excerpt from the New York Times (2006) that discusses the Edge and its ‘dangerous ideas’ contributors. A sidebar response to the question ‘What is your dangerous idea?” came from a psychologist from the University of Texas who chose ‘The Evolution of Evil’ as his topic. He stated: 

The dangerous idea is that all of us contain within our large brains adaptations whose functions are to commit despicable atrocities against our fellow humans — atrocities most would label evil.

The unfortunate fact is that killing has proved to be an effective solution to an array of adaptive problems in the ruthless evolutionary games of survival and reproductive competition: Preventing injury, rape, or death; protecting one’s children; eliminating a crucial antagonist; acquiring a rival’s resources; securing sexual access to a competitor’s mate; preventing an interloper from appropriating one’s own mate; and protecting vital resources needed for reproduction….

The danger comes from people who refuse to recognize that there are dark sides of human nature that cannot be wished away by attributing them to the modern ills of culture, poverty, pathology, or exposure to media violence. We are seeing the worst of these traits being expressed right now by the likes of ISIL (Sham) in Syria and now, Iraq. It is like jumping in a time machine dialed in for the 5th Century, A.D.

These events are an example of what I would call linear thinking that ignores one of the main tenants of General Semantics: Awareness of the mechanism of ‘Abstraction’. Examples: You cannot know ‘all’ there is to know about anything. Whatever something ‘is’ it most definitely ‘is not’. The map is not the territory it describes, and the word is not the object it represents. How does this apply to his ‘dangerous idea’?

Well, first of all, I’d argue that human beings can no longer be defined in terms that were formerly appropriate to ‘Man as an animal’. The behaviors described by the U. of T. researcher can be observed every day in most animals, including domesticated dogs and cats. It’s interesting to note that in the animal kingdom, killing is the last resort of conflict resolution. Posturing and aggressive displays usually serve the purpose nicely. In most cases, it works the same way for humans also, although it must be admitted that humans are one of the few creatures that can kill simply for the pleasure derived from the act. But in general, a modern description of a ‘Human Being’ must include a large amount of content that exists outside of the human body. The time-binding effect of language, literature, art and science allow the deepest thoughts and feelings of people to live beyond their brief lifespan and through the sharing of accumulated knowledge and experience to become much more that they ‘are’. It also gives us the power to not act out our aggressions, and provides a reality check for our fears and paranoia. We all recognize the ‘dark side of human nature’, have seen its effects over time, and have developed civilization and science as a means of combating it. I agree with the scientist that we cannot attribute the darker aspects of human nature to culture. It is part & parcel of our animal beginnings. But I believe that we have evolved beyond the attributes of our simple animal selves, expanding our consciousness far beyond the confines of our bodies and limited sensory apparatus.

An example of this point is the very exciting work done a few years ago at Princeton University’s Engineering Anomalies Research Program (PEAR). They proved conclusively that the human mind can cause action-at-a-distance, and action at a distance at a specific time in the future. Participants in the program directly influenced the output of random number generators, and did other amazing things, simply by thinking about them.

So, with our culture, and the continuing evolution of the human brain, I don’t think we need to concern ourselves too much about our ingrained animal past. Hopefully, the control systems we have developed will keep these tendencies in check. The litmus test of this idea will be the demise (or not) of international terrorism.

There is no rational for terroristic responses to social problems. An act of terrorism is either an admission of one’s inability to persuade civilized society with ideas, logic and reason, or is simply a cover from which to engage in more mundane criminal activities. Skeptic that I am, I have noted that the terrorist’s ‘reason’ for his terrorist activity is amorphous; a moving target. Different reasons for different situations. Conclusion: Con men and criminals with AK47s, spouting religious drivel. Disruption of society for personal aggrandizement and gain. No high moral ground can be found in any of this. But does this mean we can’t control it? Of course not. It means we need to get tougher. Kick ass and keep doing it as long as necessary. Punish the ‘dark side’ relentlessly until it only manifests itself inside mental institutions. And finally, educate and inform the population as a whole about the nature of our dark side, and our personal responsibility for containing it.