Archive for October, 2005
Internet Control: Understand the Ramifications
Sunday, October 9th, 2005Here’s more. Thanks Instapundit.
Good News
Saturday, October 8th, 2005What have Houstonians coveted lo this long summer? Cool weather.
We got it yesterday. The temps dropped from 100 degrees (you know you’re numb when 94 degrees feels perceptably different than 98) to 65 in one day. Not great for the respiratory system, but awesome in every single other way.
Tonight, the windows open to blue skies fading into a pink sunset. The cool air making the homemade chicken nuggets (you ain’t a Texan if you don’t got a deep fryer) and spaghetti dinner taste all that more yummy.
Ahhh, autumn has finally arrived in Houston. Hallalujuah!
Health Needed For Wealth
Friday, October 7th, 2005You may have noticed fewer posts of recent. Well, kidney infections tend to sideline even the most stout-hearted. And this blogger was sidelined or rather, clothes-lined linebacker-style in bed.
During this painful time, I managed to read a few articles regarding “work-life balance” and “the networked family”. The bottom line? Yes, you’re overworked, but with proper technology and if corporations get out of a “industrialized” mind-set it will be okay.
What a bunch of hooey.
With everyone working, no one sees the kids (but we text message all the time.) With everyone working, good food is out of the question so fast food is de rigeur (who has the time to cook?). With everyone working, we march through life like good soldiers (who has time to worship, enjoy peace and just think?).
All this work is to feed the beast, keep in mind. These are upper-income wager-earners who work for the BMW (too good for a Chevy), the McMansion (must live at the right address even if you only sleep there on the off times you’re not out of town on business), and the right private schools and day care (appease the guilt of being away).
But I digress.
My real point in talking about this issue: without health all this goes down the drain. While on the phone with a potential client her to-do list poured out like a stricken lament. With all this to do, how do I fit time in to clarify my life and take care of my health?
My answer was simple: How can you afford not to?
Performance coaches, alternative health doctors, team builders and anything “preventative” often receive much derision by those who are “results oriented”. Eating well, exercising, and the corporate equivalent of planning for the future, spending time creatively and for both the individual and corporation–resting, seem wasteful.
Here is my list of wasteful: painful surgeries and down-sizings, stupid marriages and mergers, and generally running around putting out fires instead of building individual and corporate health.
We need less Sun-Tzu and more Lao-tse.
Most health woes whether individual or corporate can be prevented. A tired, but useful example is a car: would you expect the engine to keep working if you never change the oil? No, but people and businesses do it all the time and with infinitely more to lose.
It is unsurprising that the number one way people end up in bankruptcy is health woes. How long would you survive financially a long-term health trauma?
I thought so. An ounce of prevention….you know the drill. (hint: is worth a pound of cure)
Internet Control
Thursday, October 6th, 2005We are in trouble. Are you familiar with that little organization called the United Nations? Do you want these American haters controlling information in the future?
One gets the impression that the E.U. is so concerned about reclaiming world domination back from the Yankees back that they will destry themselves to do it.
UPDATE: Glenn Reynolds has more.
HERE’S MORE on efforts by the UN and EU to take over the Internet. You can bet that they’ll do their best to quash criticism of corrupt international bureaucracies if that happens.
UPDATE: Reader Julian Morrison emails:
It’s like I posted to Slashdot: why would the EU and the UN want to grab control, when that control right now is only being used for laissez faire? Because they want to /stop/ the laissez faire!
China wants to take down Tibetan and Falun Gong sites. Germany wants to ban neonazis from the internet. The arab nations would want to kick off Israel until it “fulfils its international obligations”. Etc etc. This is nothing less than an attempt to stuff the information genie back into its bottle.
At all costs, they must be prevented from claiming the spurious moral high ground! Confront them with the question: what would you change? And, why not go through process at ICANN? What would you want to do,
that they would refuse? And why?
Spanish Flu Recreated
Thursday, October 6th, 2005Scientists have recreated the flu that killed over 50 million people and are making it available to other researchers worldwide.
Studying it to prevent it? I can maybe see the logic. Although the same virus scientists have yet to create a vaccine for the common cold or HIV or even a really effective Flu vaccine. How exactly do doctors plan to prevent the virus they just recreated that was a slate-wiper–kills everyone who catches it?
Sharing it? The logic seems flawed. Any vengeful or morally bankrupt scientist could sell the virus to evil people and reek more havoc than a neutron bomb ever could.
Is it just me or does the world get more dangerous every day–mostly by unintended consequences?
Drug Problems
Thursday, October 6th, 2005Fruits and veggies interact with drugs. Who would have thought?
The topic of the above linked article is grapefruit juice (a very nice digestive aid because it is so acidic so you absorb what you eat) and how it reduces the recommended dose of a drug because you absorb more.
For a long time, the medical profession has had it both ways–medicine changes your body-mind chemistry but food just feeds you and, even more wrong, it doesn’t matter what you eat.
Alternative doctors, like Mr. Dr. and me, have long used food as medicine. Guess what? Organic food and food based supplements don’t cause side effects and reactions because your body recognizes them and knows how best to use them. That doesn’t mean they don’t change your body chemistry, because they do. Just because there is no pain (side-effects) doesn’t mean there is no gain.
Medicines are unnatural and the body views them as invaders and tries to excrete them any way possible. That is why liver and kidney problems follow prolonged drug use–it doesn’t matter what drug, either. From the Pill to Penicillin, the body gets forced and manipulated and doesn’t like it.
So, yes food and medicine interact. Some foods are acidic, some alkaline. That one factor alone will significantly change your chemistry. Some foods contain salicylates (the compound that makes up aspirin) and so are natural pain killers and blood thinners–apples, for example.
It is not shocking to me that drugs and food interact. What is shocking is that researchers are finally looking into the topic because it is so obvious to health doctors who receive nutrition education. (Medical doctors don’t. They learn about pharmacology to the almost complete exclusion of nutrition.)
Here’s the funny part: the recommendations coming out of this research won’t include avoiding the drug. Oh no! The recommendation won’t be eat more apples and lay off the aspirin. Oh no! The recommendations will be: don’t eat apples (or drink grapefruit juice or whatever) while taking aspirin. This advice implies that the synthetic foreign substance (medication) belongs in the body while the natural, health-building food with no side-effects does not.
Could there be a more screwy perspective?
Ms. Meirs Supreme Court Justice
Wednesday, October 5th, 2005I voted for President Bush for one reason: the Supreme Court. It’s not that I don’t care about Iraq or budgets or social services or road building. I do.
But all that stuff (except war) will happen with or without the President–the Congress legislates and the Pres accepts it or vetoes it. Supreme Court Judges ultimately have infinitely more power than the folks in the other branches of government.
Shouldn’t we at least know where this person comes from? It disturbs me that we have a Chief Justice who is essentially like the Saturday Night Live character Pat. Is he a he or a she? We can’t tell. We can’t tell anything about him. We know even less about Ms. Meir. We voted. Bush won. We all, whether Democrat or Republican, should know–even if we don’t like what we find out.
I want a constitutional judge on the Supreme Court. No, the Constitution is not a “living breathing document”. The framers had an intent for every word written. That intent must be what governs decisions not a few guys in black robes who believe their person opinions matter more than the guiding principles within the Constitution.
Peggy Noonan says it better than I could.
Toilet Trained: A Lesson in Operant Conditioning
Tuesday, October 4th, 2005
While sitting on the toilet the other day, I had an epiphany: my new house’s toilets managed to change my whole family’s behavior.
B.F. Skinner a well-known psychologist (to psychologists–he doesn’t have the same name recognition as Pavlov) was the father to Behavioral Therapy.
One way to encourage behavior is to reward it. A way to extinguish (get rid of) unhelpful behavior is to make the consequences of the behavior so repugnant, disgusting, frustrating that the behavior gets extinguished. This can be done by negative reinforcement, extinction or punishment.
My toilets chose negative reinforcement.
At my old house, after going #2 a person could essentially wad up a whole roll of toilet paper and the toilets would flush. Rarely would it plug up unless someone had week-long constipation or something (but I digress).
At my new house, the toilets have set the limit of toilet paper at four squares. Period.
Now ladies (and men too, but they care less) we all know that four squares are not enough–except for meals. So, like you, I used more. My kids used more. My husband used more. Guests used more.
During the first week at the house, one of my first purchases were two shiny new plungers. One for each bathroom.
How much do I hate plungers? Words fail me. It is impossible to adequately describe how despicable clogged toilets can be day in, day out, day in, day out. And with Daddy at work all day and into the night guess who gets to (to the tune of Whistle While You Work from Snow White) plunge, plunge, plunge, plunge, plunge, plunge, plunge, plunge, all the whole day long?
That’s right ME!
Somewhere along week two, I freaked out. I became the TP Police (kinda like an MP but meaner). My kids freaked. They started throwing used toilet paper into the trash because mom might lose it if the toilet plugs again. We all went back to Freud’s anal stage for a while. It wasn’t pretty.
Slowly, subtly we changed. Against our collective will, we became raging environmentalists. “Only four pieces of toilet paper. Do ya hear me? FOUR!”
We traded off TP for tread marks and upped our Bleach usage (the only thing that kills bacteria is very hot water and bleach, word to the wise.)
What’s my point? I do have one, actually. If a toilet can change our behavior, we can shape behavior, too.
Dr. Phil of psychobabble fame always says “we teach others how to treat us.” And he’s right.
A group of sociology students thinking they were funny conditioned their teacher. Every time he hit a topic they liked they made eye-contact, leaned forward and feigned rapt attention. Every time he diverted into a boring topic, they yawned, looked away and acted disinterested. It worked. They counted the time, and the professor slowly, but surely taught the information that was reinforced and stayed away from the yuck topic. Operant conditioning at work.
We do this every day. Why do we keep getting certain people in our life? Because we are still in our own life and our words, beliefs, and mostly actions (communication is about 90% NON-verbal) reinforce certain behaviors.
So here’s the deal: be like the toilet. Decide how you want to be treated and then reinforce behavior you like and extinguish behavior that bugs you.
Don’t like your kid’s whiney voice? Don’t yell back (or worse whine, “Johnny don’t doooooo that” wah, wah, wah). Ignore him. He get’s nothing, not one thing until he uses the tone you want.
Sick of your husband dropping his clothes all over the house? Don’t pick them up. Don’t wash them. Leave them to rot. Ditto the dishes. When he asks what’s going on–tell him that you clean the clothes that make it to the laundry basket. (And say it happily and sweetly–this will reinforce his communication with you. A snide tone will kill your progress.)
Want your wife to show more appreciation? Show appreciation to her (modelling). Then when she throws you even the tiniest of bones, reinforce it. Say something like, “thanks for noticing and saying something it means a lot to me.” Be enthusiastic and encouraging in your tone and action.
If this all seems like too much effort, consider how your past behavior has worked. Maybe some change, on your part, is in order.
A word on punishment: this is the easiest form of behavior modification but is the equivalent of winning the battle but losing the war. Except in extremely unique circumstances, it should be avoided at all costs. Why?
Punishment usually works only as long as the punisher is around. The punishments breed resentment which causes other more undesirable behavior.
For example, an age-old standard punishment is “withholding”. You married people know what I mean. Rather than solve the problem, it breeds hostility. The situation spirals.
Another example is yelling “no!” over and over to kids. Until a child approaches three, negatives are difficult to understand in the abstract anyway. Better to reinforce positive behavior and use positive language “hold the cup with two hands”, “nice job putting the cup on the table!” rather than “don’t spill the milk!” No behavior is specifically requested and the message sent is “spill the milk” because the negative, the word “don’t”, is not processed. If the child does spill, make her wipe it up. This might be called a negative reinforcement. (Oops, I have to clean when I spill.)
Don’t argue with me on this one, these are actually very simple psychological principles.
Like the toilet, be clear on the behavior you want. (Few paper products please.) When the desired behavior is performed, reward it. (Nice, easy flush.) When the undesired behavior is performed ignore it or negatively reinforce it. (Overflowing toilets with objectionable contents.)
We can change our behavior and so can other people. We don’t have to play victim. Grabbing hold of destiny includes teaching people how to treat us.
Toilet training takes on a whole new meaning, doesn’t it?
Doctors Drop Patients
Monday, October 3rd, 2005Doctors don’t like to be questioned. Vaccine refusal is especially contentious says a new study. Vaccines, the holy grail of medicine right after the discovery of penicillin (and the related germ theory), must be enjoyed by all…or else.
Of 302 pediatricians questioned, 256 said they had encountered a parent who refused to let a child receive at least one vaccination in the previous 12 months, and 162 — 39 percent of the group — who had a parent refuse all vaccinations.
The refusals were most commonly based on safety concerns, worries about children getting multiple vaccines at once, philosophical reasons and religious beliefs, said the report from Chicago’s Rush Medical College.
“In the case of parents refusing specific vaccines, 82 (28 percent of the doctors) said that they would ask the family to seek care elsewhere; for refusal of all vaccines, 116 (39 percent) of pediatricians said they would refer the family” to another doctor, said the report.
The reason physicians cite most often for wanting to drop such patients were lack of shared goals and lack of trust, added the study published in the October issue of the Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
