Four letter words

OK, come on, I know what you were thinking (don't even try to lie about it!) but that is not what I meant.  I have plenty to say about profanity, vulgarity, and cursing, but that will have to wait.

No, I'm talking about a very, very common word that I bet nearly every English speaker uses, a word which has just four letters, and yet it speaks volumes.  It speaks encyclopedias of meaning.

Go ahead, guess what word I am talking about.  Really.  Guess.  It only takes a second.

Did you guess mpwf?  Every letter shifted left one letter.  And no, I DON'T mean nwxg - I said to shift left, not right.

That is a good guess, and probably a great guess, and it actually does fit my hints, but it is just not it.  No, there have already been tons and tons written about that, and I'll save my comments on that topic for another post.

Here is another hint - I have used the word at least twice already in this post.  Does that help?

No more teasing then, my word is kvtu.  Shift left.

In my experience, that word  (I'll refer to it as TW from now on) has incredible power to change discussions in ways that are usually not obvious unless you look out for it.

Let us imagine that one is trying to clean out one's garage, a chore which one has told one's spouse that one would do last weekend, but one began and soon stopped because, say, one had too many bikes left over from kids and whatnot that are cluttering up the place, and one tried to think up the best solution to that problem.

So the conversation between one and one's spouse goes as follow:

S:  I thought you said you'd clean out the garage last weekend.
O: I know, but I got started on it and then I didn't know what to do with the bikes, and . . .
S:  Why didn't you just take care of it?
O: I was trying to figure out where to put them all . . .
S:  Why didn't you just mount them on the wall like we talked about last summer?

Did you notice TW?  What does this word mean when used in the above phrases?  What is this word saying, actually?  This word is saying "You are trying to give some complicated explanation for not doing something that is so easy and so trivial that it is not even worth bringing up."  This word reminds me of two sayings I have heard, one from my high school football coach, and one from a counselor I once had.  My football coach would say, when you tried to explain why you didn't accomplish what he wanted you to, "No excuses, just results!"   A counselor told me that was a common trait among humans.  "Nobody wants to hear about the labor pains, they just want to see the baby."

So look out when someone uses TW when talking to you.

Now, there isn't much you can really do about the words someone else uses, but there is an even worse use of TW that you can actually do a LOT about.

Listen to see if you ever use that word.  I don't mean when talking to someone else, although it would be nice if you stopped doing that to other people, even though they won't really notice it and thank you for it, but they will probably have a general feeling that you are less obnoxious than you might have been.

No, I mean if you are describing to someone else something which you have done, something you have accomplished, try to NEVER use TW.  I learned this in an acting class, and someday I'll talk about acting, which I really really like, and which is full of a lot of BAD advice but also some really good advice if you meet the right people.

This is some of the good advice - if someone actually does want to hear about what you have done then leave out TW.   For example, let us say someone visits and notices the new colors you have painted in your living room.  They'll say something like "Hey, nice colors here" (unless they are jerks and then why on earth did you invite them into your house?) and if you say "Oh, I just picked out some colors and painted" it sounds like that was a trivial thing to do, as if one was saying "Oh, I just turned on the tap and out came the water" when the truth is there was more to it than that, probably a lot more to it.  You probably took some time to consider what would look best, you took the time to pick out the best paint, and then you took some time to convince your spouse he needed to paint the living room even though he just painted it last year.

So you did not "just picked out some colors and painted."  You 'picked out some colors and painted," which is an accomplishment, and you deserve credit for that, even if by 'painted' you mean "convinced my spouse to paint and had to put up with all his grumblings."

Take credit for what you have done!

How I see we boomers

Jeff Mincey over at Everyday Citizen posted about the character of we boomers, and asked for root causes.  I commented with my assessment of things.  I certainly do not know these things _for sure_, but it is the way I see the world at this time.  I guess time will tell if I am correct.  What do you think?

Jeff,
I cannot really dispute your characterization of we boomers, although you do tend to paint with too broad a brush.
I wanted to say that there are well know root causes for our generation being the way it is, and this is not really a character issue at all. We boomers simply did what everyone does, we reacted to our circumstances in the best way we could.
Shared adversity enhances certain character traits - a sense of community, pulling together, and looking out for each other. The adversity of WWII did not affect the US the same way as it affected other countries. Much of the so-called 'socialism' in the developed world was a result of the adversity those people faced during WWII.
In addition, after WWII the US was the only first-world country left un-devastated. After WWII the powers that be in the US, the 'captains of industry,' designed a plan for the remainder of the twenty-first century. Those with real power designed the system we now have - they designed the global economy which would have the US on top, and the US citizens would be the consumers that provide the 'engine' for the global economy. These designers recruited academia, primarily the economic Professors, and they persuaded and then bought the politicians to make the laws.
This was an intentional plan, and they even made parts of it public. That plan worked to a degree. The problem we now face is that the global economy plan is not, ultimately, sustainable. Increasing population and consumption are meeting resource constraints.
Powerful forces wanted the boomers to be materialistic and consumers. Powerful forces wanted to keep most of the profits for themselves, so wages went stagnant and US citizens responded by first bringing their spouses into the workplace, then working longer hours, borrowing against their homes, and finally going into even greater debt to maintain their lifestyles.
Those are the root causes for why we boomers did what we did. I think most people who have studied this agree with that.
The question, now, is who has the real power at this time, and what will be their plan for the twenty-first century? I think we peons can influence that, a little, but for the most part we are as powerless as we have always been.
The traditional western solutions to a crisis like this are either through a hero, or through a champion.
Obama is the 'hero,' an outsider with good character who comes in to break the status quo and create a new status quo, but it is looking like he will not be able to do that, although the jury is still out.
The second solution would be a champion, someone who is already powerful, a member of the ultra-rich, someone who wants to change things, and someone who can convince enough of his peers to rally around him. Will such a champion emerge? Who knows? None have so far.
If neither of these things happen we face either a revolution or a slow, painful decline.

On being left-handed

In the comments nepata brought up the topic of left-handedness which, since I are one, has always been of interest to me.  While I know about some of the bad ways that lefties used to be treated, I don't recall that I was ever the subject of any bad treatment.  About the worst thing that ever happened was always getting pencil-lead on my hand as I wrote, because my hand trailed over the existing writing instead of leading it.  To a small degree I was also a tiny bit handicapped when learning sports, such as learning how to correctly throw a ball, but fairly quickly I learned to 'mirror' the example, as if I was watching myself in a mirror, and that seemed to work about very well.  Even now, when I demonstrate throwing technique to my youth softball team, we are able to stand face to face and they can see me and mimic me as if I was in a mirror, and that teaching technique seems to work quite well.

I think the first time I really noticed being left handed was in about fifth grade, when we learned about Leonardo Da Vinci, who was also left handed.  For awhile he became my hero, and I even learned to write backwards just like he did.  It was fairly easy to do at the time, and I can still write cursive from right to left, mirror writing, with little difficulty.

I dislike people who are, in my opinion, too sensitive to perceiving prejudice, so I don't really get into the poor-me stories about being a lefty.  Please don't get me wrong, though.  I know that there are actual cases of discrimination going on in the world, and I totally despise that, probably because in a tiny way I know what it is like to feel different.  I hate that crap!  Seriously.  But there is a line between actual discrimination and non-discrimination, and the line exists, and I don't like people who cross over that line and perceive discrimination when it is not there.  People like that are way too hard to be around, and I choose not to be around them.

Back to left-handedness.  In part being left-handed is why I took up the French Horn (which is now, apparently, simply called the 'Horn' by snooty people, so la-di-dah to them), because you press the valves with your left hand, but overall I don't think that matters much, and I've played trumpet and mellophone, pressing the valves with my right hand with little problem.  Same with the guitar.  I play the chords with my left and strum with my right, which is the same as most right-handers, and I can't say it really has mattered to me.  Maybe if I was super great or something, but as an amateur I can do okay the way I do it.  Same with batting.  In essence my torso twists one way when I throw and the other way when I bat, but that never seemed to matter much, and maybe it makes my torso more balanced, I dunno.

What I do think I know about being left-handed is this - I've asked the experts for over thirty years, starting with college, and in general I get the same answer - when the Doctor's and researchers talk about brain development, or brain activity, they are always talking about righties, because righties are more prevalent, and lefties have not been studied.  The Doctors are pretty sure that lefties are *not* just mirror images of righties as far as brain function goes, but that is about all I can get out of them.

My *guess*, based on the current state of neuroscience (luckily I live near the Mayo clinic and have heard talks given by some of the top experts) is that our brains function more like a cluster of processors instead of a single processor.  I suspect that our brains can hold two or more impulses or processes or whatever you call it at the same time, and sometimes these processes may even contradict each other.  That is my guess, and I think it explains why people's actions and thoughts are so darn complicated.

I also think that while different areas of the brain can develop to handle different functions, meaning it isn't like arithmetic processing must always be in a particular place, it is still true that _in general_ certain brain functions tend to happen in certain places.  By the way, have you seen  Jill Taylor's book "My Stroke of Insight?"  It is awesome!

So what about lefties?  I think that in general, in lefties, our brain's multiple processors are arranged differently from those in a righties brains, and some of the processors may even have a higher priority when contention occurs.  Lefties are over-represented in the arts, for example.  I think it is well-established that lefties are, in general, different from righties, and I'm gonna make the bold claim that we are better!

Yeah, I took the huge leap from different to better.  Better at what, you should ask.  Better at a certain kind of thinking and reasoning, I will reply.  Certainly better at artistic reasoning, whatever that is.

I think it is well-established that there is a genetic link for handedness, because it tends to run in families.  I think we will eventually discover exactly what that link is.

In the meantime, here in the privacy of my blog, I'm gonna make a bold claim and, again, state that in general lefties are the next step in human evolution as far as mental capacity goes.  If this proves to be an evolutionary advantage, meaning will lefties get the chicks, well, I dunno for sure, but actors do tend to get around.

Whoa, the left-handed gene was discovered!!

In a comment nepata pointed me to this article.

As I suspected, there is a genetic component to being left-handed, and they have found the gene that might cause it, although there may well be other genes or factors that play a part as well.

Do I have the greatest commenters or what?!

For the snarky among you the article does mention the gene and schizophrenia, which also seems to be linked with brain balance, but I remind you that the article also says left-handers should also not be worried about developing schizophrenia, because that illness is not completely understood yet, and there could be multiple factors that cause it.  Also, right handers can get schizophrenia, so clearly there is more to it than just a person's handedness or this particular.

I acknowledge that sometimes I overstate the case for things, but the thing is that scientists are VERY careful in what they say, and they hate to speak prematurely.  I, on the other hand, have no such constraints.  I think scientists would agree that we are finding out much more data on how the brain develops and works, and it is seeming more and more possible that brain chemistry plays a big role in our behavior.  My educated guess is that eventually we will find an organic cause for many of the neurosis, psychosis, and brain disorders that are currently listed in the DSM-IV psych manual.

For example, I think that I see much of the Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder (Different from OCD!) behaviors in the teabaggers and dittoheads.  Google OCPD, read the description, and see if I am wrong.  It sure explains a lot to me.

Legalizing Pot

First I want to apologize for taking such a long break from blogging.  I know that long hiatuses cause visitors to stop reading, and again I apologize for that.  I needed to attend to some personal business, and those of you who know me know what that was.

My trip to CERN is still on, and I've been following the status from CERN by reading the CERN Courier.  In addition there is a CERN bulletin that anyone can sign up for, and I am following that as well.  The ring is progressing well, and almost all the sectors are at their operating temperatures.  CERN is working very carefully this time, so I think that when I attend CERN they will absolutely have protons not only circulating in the injector ring, they will also have them in the main ring, and the beams should be colliding, although at lower speeds.  They plan to ramp the speed up to 3.5 TeV  by Christmas break.  At that level they should get interesting results, but they plan to ultimately run the beam at double that, 7 TeV.

Enough of that.  While mowing the lawn today I was mulling over stuff, and I got the following idea.  I think that marijuana will eventually become legal in the US, and I think it will be the tobacco companies and their congressman that bring that about.

Let me say I have never tried pot, ever, and I am agnostic on the legalization argument, although at this time the arguments for legalization make the most sense to me.  Essentially legalizing pot would allow the government to regulate and tax it and it would free up much needed prison space.

I got my idea because in my opinion, in the US at this time, it is the ultra-rich, the executives at major corporations, who actually have the real power in our society.  I think this is fairly obvious.  I do like to talk specifically about the people and not just the corporations, because if we get side tracked talking about corporations we lose the point.  The point is that the ultra-rich people hide behind corporations and use them not only as camouflage but also as an excuse for their immoral behavior.  Talking specifically about the executives themselves helps us focus on where the ultimate power lies, and hence where the ultimate solutions lie.

So to legalize pot you need a champion from the nobility, and it seems to me the tobacco company executives fit that role very nicely.  If they were smart they would see that as tobacco becomes less prevalent in the US they need another revenue stream, and pot fits the bill very nicely.  For one thing, it grows where tobacco grows, and those areas of the country already are used to making a living providing more or less banned substances - moonshine and then tobacco.  Sure I know you can grow pot anywhere, but you *could* grow tobacco almost anywhere, at least indoors, and you *can* brew your own beer, and still the major corporations are able to have a very lucrative market in both of those.  It is a matter of branding and marketing for the most part, along with some pricing and providing a consistent product quality.

Is this going to happen?  Beats me, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least.  In the same way that it took Nixon to go to China, I think it will take a Southern-based tobacco company to legalize pot.  Yeah, I know, currently those same people have demonized pot, but the people who buy that argument could also be easily persuaded that 'pot is OK.'   Critical thought and consistency are not their strong suit.

So what do you think?  Am I full of it?