Why is the Obama at war with the nation's business on one hand and turns around and bails out certain business on the other hand?
The biggest obstacle to any recovery in the near future is two things two really simple things.
1. Have the Feds get out of the way and stop putting road blocks in the way of business creating things and in turn making money.
2. Follow through with what you promise you are going to do.
The Obama regime has become almost an icon of bad luck, failure and broken promises. How dare I say Mr Charisma could ever be a bad luck icon. The following is some of the things that go into this view.
1. He was nominated at the Democratic Convention in Denver, Colorado at Mile High Stadium. The Denver Broncos who play their home games at Mile High Stadium did not make the playoffs.
2. All the promises he made of openness were for not.
3. What happened to Bi-partisan politics? Why were the Republicans left out of the Health Care Bill.
4. What about the Cash for clunkers program? Apparently who ever came up with that brainstorm failed to understand that people actually buy used cars and some people actually give old cars to charity. When the cars were turned in for this program the first thing that happened was for the car dealer to drain all the oil out of the engine and then run the engine until it was frozen. All the parts that were available on wrecked cars in junk yards were not available because the second thing that happened was that all these cars were simply crushed.
I was once complaining to a progressive friend once that what was needed in Washington was some advisers to the President that knew any thing about economics. He told me, "But Warren Buffet and Bill Gates advise the president." My response at the time was,"Please keep in mind that even Stalin and Mao Tse-Tung had economic advisers." what I should have said was that Warren Buffet is a fine economist but he is a supporter of the Keynesian type of economics that says, "To make an economy grow the federal government has to spend money, the more money the feds spend the faster the economy will grow." This line of thinking is sort of like someone saying, "I can spend my way out of debt".
The down side of Obama being a bad luck icon is that not unlike Sports Illustrated where all the teams picked for the cover of their magazine, loose the big game so goes Obama. Every time he shows up to promote a political candidate they will most assuredly loose so goes any sports team he endorses. New Orleans Saints thusly will loose to the Indianapolis Colts in the 2010 Super Bowl.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
Saturday, January 9, 2010
Cimbing Pikes Peak.
For 5 years straight every summer around 1980 I set out to climb Pikes Peak on Barr Trail, why? Maybe the following will answer that question.
Barr Trail starts at the Cog train depot in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It is 12.3 miles up from an elevation of 5,600 ft to over 14,000 feet. At mile marker 6 or 7 you pass a free tent camp ground and at timber line there is an A Frame shelter. There is a small creek running along the trail so water is never a problem. Timber line is around the 11,500 foot elevation and the trail gets kind of fuzzy. There are large rocks to climb over but the last mile is called something like 12 heavenly steps, this is total bull shit. Those are not steps when they are at least 3 feet high. Dehydration at altitude is the biggest problem and dehydration leads to pulled muscles. Stretching to raise your body over a 3 foot ledge over and over causes wondrous things to happen to your leg muscles. The really fascinating thing about the 12.3 mile climb up Barr Trail is just how many hundreds of people are doing the same thing you are doing and some of them are actually running up that trail. The record for the accent on the 12.3 is 2 hours 22 minutes and 32 seconds (http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/ ) It took me 8 hours of walking up that trail those many years ago.
By the time you reach the top of Pikes Peak you are so dehydrated and cramped up, you fear the hike back down your car at the Cog Train terminal. Total strangers upon hearing your plight over the loudspeaker will take pity and give you a ride back down to your car. There is a Marathon up and down Barr Trail on the mountain in August each year. On New Years Eve each year, there is a group of crazy people called Add-A-Man Society who actually snow shoe up that trail and shoot off fire works from the top each New Years Eve at midnight and there is a waiting list of people to join these group of people. Sometimes I really wonder about people who live in Colorado with all these endurance races each year.
I do have a theory of why men over the age of 30 get involved in these diabolical endurance events and some call it a midlife crisis. Basically it is that we as the studly sex, tend to look in the mirror and still see ourselves as 20 somethings still full of piss and vinegar as the old timers used to say. We can not accept the fact we are getting older and each spring and summer we have to set out to prove we still got it.
So what is the event in your life that tested your man hood?
Barr Trail starts at the Cog train depot in Manitou Springs, Colorado. It is 12.3 miles up from an elevation of 5,600 ft to over 14,000 feet. At mile marker 6 or 7 you pass a free tent camp ground and at timber line there is an A Frame shelter. There is a small creek running along the trail so water is never a problem. Timber line is around the 11,500 foot elevation and the trail gets kind of fuzzy. There are large rocks to climb over but the last mile is called something like 12 heavenly steps, this is total bull shit. Those are not steps when they are at least 3 feet high. Dehydration at altitude is the biggest problem and dehydration leads to pulled muscles. Stretching to raise your body over a 3 foot ledge over and over causes wondrous things to happen to your leg muscles. The really fascinating thing about the 12.3 mile climb up Barr Trail is just how many hundreds of people are doing the same thing you are doing and some of them are actually running up that trail. The record for the accent on the 12.3 is 2 hours 22 minutes and 32 seconds (http://www.pikespeakmarathon.org/ ) It took me 8 hours of walking up that trail those many years ago.
By the time you reach the top of Pikes Peak you are so dehydrated and cramped up, you fear the hike back down your car at the Cog Train terminal. Total strangers upon hearing your plight over the loudspeaker will take pity and give you a ride back down to your car. There is a Marathon up and down Barr Trail on the mountain in August each year. On New Years Eve each year, there is a group of crazy people called Add-A-Man Society who actually snow shoe up that trail and shoot off fire works from the top each New Years Eve at midnight and there is a waiting list of people to join these group of people. Sometimes I really wonder about people who live in Colorado with all these endurance races each year.
I do have a theory of why men over the age of 30 get involved in these diabolical endurance events and some call it a midlife crisis. Basically it is that we as the studly sex, tend to look in the mirror and still see ourselves as 20 somethings still full of piss and vinegar as the old timers used to say. We can not accept the fact we are getting older and each spring and summer we have to set out to prove we still got it.
So what is the event in your life that tested your man hood?
Friday, January 8, 2010
Tis that time of year
I was in a Tarjay or Target last night and right on cue the exercise stuff was on display where last month the Christmas junk was being sold. There was rubber bands that you were supposed to hook up someway so that when you walk you swing your arms, a weight belt you wear around your waist while walking and ankle weights. One thing that perplexed me, a DVD on how to walk.....Don't we already know how to walk?
Amazing to me how much junk is out there for sale to the culpable and those over the age of 30 who look in the mirror and no longer see the person they were a mere 10 years ago. Folks you are getting older and you ain't seen nothing yet.
Here I am 63, do not smoke or drink booze very much and still able to pick up an 80 pound bag of dry concrete and carry it 100 feet. I can still lift large 100 pound slabs of flagstone and place them into a flagstone patio.
Once upon a time ago I was one of those denizens of the indoor prairie dog towns they call cubical offices. Cubical sweet cubical as they say. Sitting on your butt stairing at a computer screen for 8 to 10 hours a day can do terrible things to one's back, knees, stomach and wrists, not to mention your mental attitude.
We did have a weight room attached to the office I worked in and most mornings I would spend a half hour on the tread mill, lifting free weights, running up imaginary flights of stairs on the stair lifts and even did a stint with an arrobics instructor. She was an Amazon, much worse than some of the Marine Drill Instructors I had in boot camp. I thought that working out 30 minutes aday should have been enough but was it.
Physical fitness is a multi billion dollar a year industry that seems to florish in January of each year as the people who have shunned mowing their own lawn or walking up flight of stairs at work, get religion. Physical fitness is like dieting in that we will do it gang busters for a short time and then very slowly other obligations come up or we pull a muscle. Usually about a month after we start some form of personal enhancement program we have other obligations that take the place of what once was our most important focus in life.
I was once told by someone as to why they did not want to do weight lifting, because after you quit your muscles turn to fat and you get all soft. I have news for you all who think this way, muscle and fat tissues are seperate units in the human body. Just as you can not turn muscle into fat you can not turn fat cells into rippling muscles.
There are several weight loss commercials on television now as they have always been showing the before and after photos of people. Ever notice that the before picture shows a beer belly and the after photo shows a six pack abs? No matter how much weight you loose you will not gain rippling killer six pack abs. The only way you can gain a rippling mid section is by exercise.
Running is a great way to loose weight but in my case I would start with the 5 minute run and add 5 minutes to my weekly run each week on my way to running a marathon after 12 months. The problem is that if you try to push yourself too much you will pull muscles and when you do that you end up having to sit on the side lines as they say. The best running program is one where you start slow and add to your weekly runs slightly but each week add just a little extra time. Funny thing about running is that as you improve your endurance your speed creeps up as well and you find after awhile you are able to run forever. After 4 weeks instead of running 15 minutes for the week you should be up to 1/2 hour and you should be running 1/2 to 1 mile further. The problem at this point is that it seems like you are progressing too slowly and when you come to your scheduled end of your training you tell yourself I can go a little further what harm can it do. Shin splints, tendenitis, pulled muscles and burn out comes in at this point.
If a person wants to get into a training program for some form of physical activity talk to an expert first or read a book on the subject. If you are over 40 years old and have not worked out or done anything more strenuous than channel surfing for the past 20 years, keep in mind you can not start where you left off 20 years ago.
Amazing to me how much more work out clothing there is for women then there is for men. But then again retailers sell more women's clothes than men's duds.
Back in the days when I was running in 5K, 10K and half Marithans I would wear a pair of cotton shorts, a cotton T-shirt and a pair of $50.00 running shoes to the races and of course there was always those who showed up wearing the $500.00 pair of shoes, $100.00 professional running shorts that looked like the Colorado State flag and the $200.00 racing shirts. No matter what activity one gets involved in it seems there are some people who will go all out and buy only the best stuff.
I never placed in the top ten percent of the racers but it was fun and I was able to tell myself I can still do it. I still have a coffee cup from the Governors Cup 10K race in Denver from Sept 25, 1994 but the T-Shirt is long gone. Some of my favorite races were the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Colorado half Marathan, the 4 mile run up Lookout Mountain near Golden Colorado and the numerous races in City Park Denver. Then there was the 12.5 mile climb up Pikes Peak and the run back down the mountain sometime around 1980 but that is another story.
I once worked with a little guy named Stephen (not Steve) who trained and ran the Leadville 100 mile Ultra trail run. Imagine if you will running along mountain dirt trails of southern Colorado at altitudes reaching 15,000 feet. They weigh you along the way and if you have lost too much weight in this run you are disqualified. He finished his race in around 12 hours and lost 10 pounds in the process. When I was in high school President Kennedy started a 50 mile race craze when he said that all Marines should be able to hike 50 miles in one day. I was 16 at the time and my track couch thought it would be fun to have the entire track team do a 50 mile race from Boonville California to Fort Bragg California. We started with 100 high school boys and 6 of us finished the 50 miler that night. They drove us down to Boonville and said, "See ya up in Fort Bragg". We had no water no food and no support along the way. I think if any high school track coach were to try this today he would be arrested for trying to kill off his track team. But I did it in a pair of broken down old US Keds and getting water from gas stations along the way. Many evel thoughts went through my head that day but now that I look back at it that day was probably one of the most challenging and interesting days of my life.
Today my wife Ruth who is 55 works out at Curves. Personally I think Curves is okay if a person pushes themselves but by and large people do not push themselves when it comes to working out at least I never would for very long. Exercising is 99% mental and if you take an almost Zen like attitude towards the pain that comes along with exercising you will not do any good.
In Marine Boot Camp there is a saying, " Pain is weakness leaving the body".
If and when you plan to get into a physical fitness program there are a few things to remember.
1. You do not need any machine to make you strong
2. The cost of your clothes will not make you stronger.
3. Do not do this program for anyone else but your self.
4. If you stick with your program your program will make you strong.
Amazing to me how much junk is out there for sale to the culpable and those over the age of 30 who look in the mirror and no longer see the person they were a mere 10 years ago. Folks you are getting older and you ain't seen nothing yet.
Here I am 63, do not smoke or drink booze very much and still able to pick up an 80 pound bag of dry concrete and carry it 100 feet. I can still lift large 100 pound slabs of flagstone and place them into a flagstone patio.
Once upon a time ago I was one of those denizens of the indoor prairie dog towns they call cubical offices. Cubical sweet cubical as they say. Sitting on your butt stairing at a computer screen for 8 to 10 hours a day can do terrible things to one's back, knees, stomach and wrists, not to mention your mental attitude.
We did have a weight room attached to the office I worked in and most mornings I would spend a half hour on the tread mill, lifting free weights, running up imaginary flights of stairs on the stair lifts and even did a stint with an arrobics instructor. She was an Amazon, much worse than some of the Marine Drill Instructors I had in boot camp. I thought that working out 30 minutes aday should have been enough but was it.
Physical fitness is a multi billion dollar a year industry that seems to florish in January of each year as the people who have shunned mowing their own lawn or walking up flight of stairs at work, get religion. Physical fitness is like dieting in that we will do it gang busters for a short time and then very slowly other obligations come up or we pull a muscle. Usually about a month after we start some form of personal enhancement program we have other obligations that take the place of what once was our most important focus in life.
I was once told by someone as to why they did not want to do weight lifting, because after you quit your muscles turn to fat and you get all soft. I have news for you all who think this way, muscle and fat tissues are seperate units in the human body. Just as you can not turn muscle into fat you can not turn fat cells into rippling muscles.
There are several weight loss commercials on television now as they have always been showing the before and after photos of people. Ever notice that the before picture shows a beer belly and the after photo shows a six pack abs? No matter how much weight you loose you will not gain rippling killer six pack abs. The only way you can gain a rippling mid section is by exercise.
Running is a great way to loose weight but in my case I would start with the 5 minute run and add 5 minutes to my weekly run each week on my way to running a marathon after 12 months. The problem is that if you try to push yourself too much you will pull muscles and when you do that you end up having to sit on the side lines as they say. The best running program is one where you start slow and add to your weekly runs slightly but each week add just a little extra time. Funny thing about running is that as you improve your endurance your speed creeps up as well and you find after awhile you are able to run forever. After 4 weeks instead of running 15 minutes for the week you should be up to 1/2 hour and you should be running 1/2 to 1 mile further. The problem at this point is that it seems like you are progressing too slowly and when you come to your scheduled end of your training you tell yourself I can go a little further what harm can it do. Shin splints, tendenitis, pulled muscles and burn out comes in at this point.
If a person wants to get into a training program for some form of physical activity talk to an expert first or read a book on the subject. If you are over 40 years old and have not worked out or done anything more strenuous than channel surfing for the past 20 years, keep in mind you can not start where you left off 20 years ago.
Amazing to me how much more work out clothing there is for women then there is for men. But then again retailers sell more women's clothes than men's duds.
Back in the days when I was running in 5K, 10K and half Marithans I would wear a pair of cotton shorts, a cotton T-shirt and a pair of $50.00 running shoes to the races and of course there was always those who showed up wearing the $500.00 pair of shoes, $100.00 professional running shorts that looked like the Colorado State flag and the $200.00 racing shirts. No matter what activity one gets involved in it seems there are some people who will go all out and buy only the best stuff.
I never placed in the top ten percent of the racers but it was fun and I was able to tell myself I can still do it. I still have a coffee cup from the Governors Cup 10K race in Denver from Sept 25, 1994 but the T-Shirt is long gone. Some of my favorite races were the Georgetown to Idaho Springs Colorado half Marathan, the 4 mile run up Lookout Mountain near Golden Colorado and the numerous races in City Park Denver. Then there was the 12.5 mile climb up Pikes Peak and the run back down the mountain sometime around 1980 but that is another story.
I once worked with a little guy named Stephen (not Steve) who trained and ran the Leadville 100 mile Ultra trail run. Imagine if you will running along mountain dirt trails of southern Colorado at altitudes reaching 15,000 feet. They weigh you along the way and if you have lost too much weight in this run you are disqualified. He finished his race in around 12 hours and lost 10 pounds in the process. When I was in high school President Kennedy started a 50 mile race craze when he said that all Marines should be able to hike 50 miles in one day. I was 16 at the time and my track couch thought it would be fun to have the entire track team do a 50 mile race from Boonville California to Fort Bragg California. We started with 100 high school boys and 6 of us finished the 50 miler that night. They drove us down to Boonville and said, "See ya up in Fort Bragg". We had no water no food and no support along the way. I think if any high school track coach were to try this today he would be arrested for trying to kill off his track team. But I did it in a pair of broken down old US Keds and getting water from gas stations along the way. Many evel thoughts went through my head that day but now that I look back at it that day was probably one of the most challenging and interesting days of my life.
Today my wife Ruth who is 55 works out at Curves. Personally I think Curves is okay if a person pushes themselves but by and large people do not push themselves when it comes to working out at least I never would for very long. Exercising is 99% mental and if you take an almost Zen like attitude towards the pain that comes along with exercising you will not do any good.
In Marine Boot Camp there is a saying, " Pain is weakness leaving the body".
If and when you plan to get into a physical fitness program there are a few things to remember.
1. You do not need any machine to make you strong
2. The cost of your clothes will not make you stronger.
3. Do not do this program for anyone else but your self.
4. If you stick with your program your program will make you strong.
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
Medical Mary Jay.
I thought there was a lot of Star Bucks in Denver, now we find there are 390 Medical Mary Jay outlets in the city. Guess this puts a new slant on the the song Rocky Mountain High. Does anyone think this will make Denver a bigger tourist destination? Does this mean the state is going to to start growing the weed and where can I get my own prescription?
In Aspen they have made a small amount of weed legal and up in Boulder I doubt anyone takes a second glance at any one smoking a tote.
Funny how what I was doing illegally in Pueblo back in 1976 was punishable by a life sentence and now it is legal. Back then I had about 20 plants growing in my back bed room mostly because I thought it was a really nice looking plant.
The way you start a Marijuana plant is quite simple:
1. Lay the seed between a moist paper towel and keep the paper towel damp.
2. After about a month the roots will appear and you can gently place the seedling into a dixy cup full of potting soil.
3. Once the seedling starts growing for about another month trans plant the plant into a slightly larger plant and put a grow light on the plant.
4. Water once a week or when needed and the plant will continue growing
5. In the spring you can transfer it to an outdoor spot probably should be concealed from neighbors eyes as they would probably come in the middle other night and steal your plant.
6. You can remove the leaves from the plant after a few months and dry the leaves in your oven on low.
I never got around to the last part as I was just growing the plants because I like the vegetation....honest.
In 1979 we moved back to Aurora and someone had actually planted a Marijuana plant in our front yard without our knowledge. My wife's brother Dave came to visit us when he was in college and he apparently liked the plant so much he dug it up and took it back to Greeley to supposedly transplant it in his rock garden. Thanks a bunch Dave old buddy.
These days I have mixed feeling about the drug, plant or whatever you want to call it. On one side if we were allowed by law to grow it, we could get high pretty cheaply. It does not cause Cancer or any other decease and if you smoke what you grow your self there is no crimes against anyone. On the other hand the bad side affects is the criminal element, minors could get high causing a drag on school performance and sexual promiscuity (apparently beer does not have this affect).
Anyway apparently the Denver City Council is going to try to regulate the advertising and distribution. Too bad they do not realize the amount of money that could be made from taxing the substance. January 16, 1919 the 18Th Amendment to the Constitution made booze illegal. But in 1933 this boondoggle was appealed by the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. Believe it or not there is no constitutional Amendment making Marijuana illegal. The only reason it is not legal locally is because the Feds would with hold federal funds to states that made it legal.
Now my question is where can I get some of those seeds?
In Aspen they have made a small amount of weed legal and up in Boulder I doubt anyone takes a second glance at any one smoking a tote.
Funny how what I was doing illegally in Pueblo back in 1976 was punishable by a life sentence and now it is legal. Back then I had about 20 plants growing in my back bed room mostly because I thought it was a really nice looking plant.
The way you start a Marijuana plant is quite simple:
1. Lay the seed between a moist paper towel and keep the paper towel damp.
2. After about a month the roots will appear and you can gently place the seedling into a dixy cup full of potting soil.
3. Once the seedling starts growing for about another month trans plant the plant into a slightly larger plant and put a grow light on the plant.
4. Water once a week or when needed and the plant will continue growing
5. In the spring you can transfer it to an outdoor spot probably should be concealed from neighbors eyes as they would probably come in the middle other night and steal your plant.
6. You can remove the leaves from the plant after a few months and dry the leaves in your oven on low.
I never got around to the last part as I was just growing the plants because I like the vegetation....honest.
In 1979 we moved back to Aurora and someone had actually planted a Marijuana plant in our front yard without our knowledge. My wife's brother Dave came to visit us when he was in college and he apparently liked the plant so much he dug it up and took it back to Greeley to supposedly transplant it in his rock garden. Thanks a bunch Dave old buddy.
These days I have mixed feeling about the drug, plant or whatever you want to call it. On one side if we were allowed by law to grow it, we could get high pretty cheaply. It does not cause Cancer or any other decease and if you smoke what you grow your self there is no crimes against anyone. On the other hand the bad side affects is the criminal element, minors could get high causing a drag on school performance and sexual promiscuity (apparently beer does not have this affect).
Anyway apparently the Denver City Council is going to try to regulate the advertising and distribution. Too bad they do not realize the amount of money that could be made from taxing the substance. January 16, 1919 the 18Th Amendment to the Constitution made booze illegal. But in 1933 this boondoggle was appealed by the 21st Amendment to the Constitution. Believe it or not there is no constitutional Amendment making Marijuana illegal. The only reason it is not legal locally is because the Feds would with hold federal funds to states that made it legal.
Now my question is where can I get some of those seeds?
Monday, January 4, 2010
Time to hire some new employees.
As I see it our country leaders are sort of like an employee who goes on a spending spree as soon as they get their pay check and then after the money is all gone they realize they haven't paid the mortgage, the utility bill or bought any food for the coming month. After they realize they are broke they come to their ...boss and ask for a draw on next pay period. How long would you keep this employee around?
Friday, November 13, 2009
POLITICALLY CORRECT HISTORY
The following is from www.experiencefestival.com/
Political correctness - Examples of language modification
Political correctness - Gender-related
The term server is increasingly used for a person of either gender who waits tables.
Chairman was replaced by chair, chairperson (or president or some other term). (The term chair has its own history within academia.)
Fireman was replaced by fire fighter.
Congressman was replaced by member of congress. The former remains in use for male members of congress, however.
Policeman became policewoman when referring to females; then the term police officer was introduced for both genders.
Likewise, Army wife, Navy wife, etc., are now Army spouse, etc. (Occasionally male civilian spouses of military members will ironically refer to themselves as Navy wives, etc.)
"To boldly go where no man has gone before", from the introductory sequence of Star Trek: The Original Series, was changed to "To boldly go where no one has gone before" in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
"Man does not live by bread alone" became "People do not live on bread alone" in the 1996 NIV Inclusive Language Edition of the Bible, Matthew 4:4.
Airlines no longer use the term stewardess (nor steward for men), partly due to disparaging stereotypes and the condescending nickname stews. Thus they have replaced it with the gender-neutral term flight attendant. As is the case within nursing, male members of the profession, who are the minority, are typically referred to by their gender (e.g. male flight attendant as opposed to flight attendant for females.)
The word sex has largely been replaced with the word gender, though gender classically did not mean male/female, but rather it referred to grammatical masculine/feminine constructs ("steward" vs. "stewardess", or "actor" vs. "actress", for example). The word sex seems to have become an impolite or emotion-charged term, at least in part because it is prevailing verbal shorthand for sexuality and sexual intercourse.
Lacking a gender-neutral alternative, many actresses now prefer the term "actor" when defining their profession, thus eventually likely rendering the term gender-neutral through common usage.
TIME Magazine's Man of the Year became Person of the Year regardless of which gender wins it (there had been "Women of the Year" in the past).
The phrase "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me", attributed to Jesus, is frequently changed to "Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me."
Miss and Mrs. have been supplemented by Ms., providing a word that does not indicate marital status. The term was ridiculed by many when it was first introduced in the 1970s, but over time it has become common usage.
The 1960s-1970s TV show The Dating Game needed terms for unmarried contestants; bachelor was obvious, but the feminine "equivalent" was the negatively-charged term "spinster", which was only more slightly polite than "old maid"; so the show either coined or popularized the term bachelorette, which has since come into common usage.
The time-honored "I now pronounce you man and wife" at weddings has largely been replaced by "I now pronounce you husband and wife". Some etymologists find this amusing, as "wife" is Old English for "woman", while "husband" is Old English for "householder"; the original expression was meant to define a moment when both members of a couple officially and legally became equally committed to adulthood.
Generalized uses of man when referring to humanity (mankind) are frequently replaced by gender-neutral terms.
Political Correctness comes to America via a Marxist Organization: Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, which was founded in 1923 and came to be known as the "Frankfurt School." After the Nazis came to power they moved their operations to America and set up shop at Columbia University. Inspired by the brand new communist technique, Mao, in the 1930s, wrote an article on the "correct" handling of contradictions among the people. "Sensitive training" – sound familiar? – and speech codes were born. When a people become sensitive to the "needs" of others it makes it far easier to make people have a more socialistic political form of government.
I am still trying to rap my mind around the fact that President Obama feels it is more important for people to be required to have health insurance than a job or career.
Political correctness - Examples of language modification
Political correctness - Gender-related
The term server is increasingly used for a person of either gender who waits tables.
Chairman was replaced by chair, chairperson (or president or some other term). (The term chair has its own history within academia.)
Fireman was replaced by fire fighter.
Congressman was replaced by member of congress. The former remains in use for male members of congress, however.
Policeman became policewoman when referring to females; then the term police officer was introduced for both genders.
Likewise, Army wife, Navy wife, etc., are now Army spouse, etc. (Occasionally male civilian spouses of military members will ironically refer to themselves as Navy wives, etc.)
"To boldly go where no man has gone before", from the introductory sequence of Star Trek: The Original Series, was changed to "To boldly go where no one has gone before" in Star Trek: The Next Generation.
"Man does not live by bread alone" became "People do not live on bread alone" in the 1996 NIV Inclusive Language Edition of the Bible, Matthew 4:4.
Airlines no longer use the term stewardess (nor steward for men), partly due to disparaging stereotypes and the condescending nickname stews. Thus they have replaced it with the gender-neutral term flight attendant. As is the case within nursing, male members of the profession, who are the minority, are typically referred to by their gender (e.g. male flight attendant as opposed to flight attendant for females.)
The word sex has largely been replaced with the word gender, though gender classically did not mean male/female, but rather it referred to grammatical masculine/feminine constructs ("steward" vs. "stewardess", or "actor" vs. "actress", for example). The word sex seems to have become an impolite or emotion-charged term, at least in part because it is prevailing verbal shorthand for sexuality and sexual intercourse.
Lacking a gender-neutral alternative, many actresses now prefer the term "actor" when defining their profession, thus eventually likely rendering the term gender-neutral through common usage.
TIME Magazine's Man of the Year became Person of the Year regardless of which gender wins it (there had been "Women of the Year" in the past).
The phrase "Whatsoever you do to the least of my brothers, that you do unto me", attributed to Jesus, is frequently changed to "Whatsoever you do to the least of my people, that you do unto me."
Miss and Mrs. have been supplemented by Ms., providing a word that does not indicate marital status. The term was ridiculed by many when it was first introduced in the 1970s, but over time it has become common usage.
The 1960s-1970s TV show The Dating Game needed terms for unmarried contestants; bachelor was obvious, but the feminine "equivalent" was the negatively-charged term "spinster", which was only more slightly polite than "old maid"; so the show either coined or popularized the term bachelorette, which has since come into common usage.
The time-honored "I now pronounce you man and wife" at weddings has largely been replaced by "I now pronounce you husband and wife". Some etymologists find this amusing, as "wife" is Old English for "woman", while "husband" is Old English for "householder"; the original expression was meant to define a moment when both members of a couple officially and legally became equally committed to adulthood.
Generalized uses of man when referring to humanity (mankind) are frequently replaced by gender-neutral terms.
Political Correctness comes to America via a Marxist Organization: Social Research in Frankfurt, Germany, which was founded in 1923 and came to be known as the "Frankfurt School." After the Nazis came to power they moved their operations to America and set up shop at Columbia University. Inspired by the brand new communist technique, Mao, in the 1930s, wrote an article on the "correct" handling of contradictions among the people. "Sensitive training" – sound familiar? – and speech codes were born. When a people become sensitive to the "needs" of others it makes it far easier to make people have a more socialistic political form of government.
I am still trying to rap my mind around the fact that President Obama feels it is more important for people to be required to have health insurance than a job or career.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
COGNITIVE DISSONANCE
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognition's" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
What if a person goes through life as a Christian and converts to Islam and then takes up Jihad and kills Christians for his new God?
The old saying, “If you tell a lie enough times it becomes a truth”, goes along way to explain why things are societies attitudes have changed over the years. This is an example of people changing their lifestyle because they have not questioned new laws or socially accepted norms such as Global Warming and being Politically Correct.
When a person acts out of the perceived “norm” and people accept these actions in this time in history when they would not have 100 years ago is an example of what I call Camouflaged Change. Years past it would be unacceptable for men to wear shorts in public yet even in the middle of Winter men are seen wearing shorts. Several years ago the military instituted ,"Don't ask Don't tell policy concerning being a Gay or homosexual in the military. Over the years the fact a person is Gay no longer has the sting socially as it once did but the military policy still holds. At the same time a person can be any religion in the military even a Jihadist Islamic Terrorist and no one will demand these people be discharged from the military as they do with Homosexuals. The major difference here is that I have never heard of a homosexual gunning down unarmed people while screaming God is Great in Arabic. But then according to the president of Iran there is no such thing as a Gay Muslim.
Some people are saying about the Army Major who gunned down all those people at Fort Hood as being mentally unbalanced and he simply snapped. If this person who committed this Terrorist act at Fort Hood, Texas had strapped a bomb around his waste and blew himself up instead of using a gun who there still be people who would question his motives?
November 6, 2009, Anxiety
Fort Hood Exit Strategy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a Military Psychiatrist
Firing a gun at Fort Hood was an exit strategy.
With the recent tragedy at Fort Hood, the time has come to face up to two facts:
War is Hell-this we know.
War is not conducive to mental health.
This we don't want to realize.
And it may be that if a little war is bad for one's mental state, a whole lot of war is a whole lot worse.
Leaving aside the merits of any particular war, and more detailed information about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, it's easy to imagine how any one of any background would feel terrified and entrapped under the following conditions: • Possessing first hand knowledge of the combat experience and the severe mental damage it inflicts upon deployed military
• Facing deployment, (and unlike other military heading into deployment), having prior knowledge of the hazard to one's mental health and psychological status
Related Articles
· What Can We Learn from the Killer at Fort Hood?
· Murder and Mayhem at Fort Hood: Post-traumatic Embitterment, Madness, or Political Terrorism?
· PTSD in the Military: An Interview of a Military Wife
· Massacre at Fort Hood
· The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil
It's safe to say that the majority of those facing deployment, have no real clue what they are in for. But Major Hasan undoubtedly did. Further he,
• Received his medical and psychiatric training as a military officer• Was therefore beholden to the military for the cost of that training• Had no way to leave the military
As heinous and reprehensible as were his actions, correctly or mistakenly, Hasan saw no way out of the military, no way out of his deployment. Firing a gun was his exit strategy.
I am sure that soon all the "bad apple" stories will briskly circulate. But before they do, let's ask: Isn't it possible that being a military psychiatrist could readily induce outsized cognitive dissonance in just about anyone?
Cold, calculating, numb, sedated, and murderous. Bonded first and foremost to comrades in arms. Is this a prescription for mental health, a solid marriage, successful parenting, or even a good night's sleep? Of course not. But these are the traits cultivated and inculcated in servicemen heading to battle.
Upon returning they can change into civilian clothes, but they can't so easily shed their traumatized neurology. For many, the military becomes a form of life long entrapment, a club that once joined, can't so easily be left behind, for economic, social, and psychological reasons.
By definition, a military psychiatrist is under military authority-- is that a conducive environment for building therapeutic trust?
A couple of months back, I attended a program lead by a military specialist in treating returning military suffering from psychological distress. First of all, it was evident that this specialist was himself traumatized. Empathy was for sissies. Maintaining the military code was more important than facing up to the pain. PTSD, he claimed, could be dealt with by a change of attitude.
"Just snap out of it," he told us he exhorted his clients.
This "expert" didn't want to call a spade a spade. He didn't want to call it post-traumatic stress. He wanted to call it "combat stress." That was more manly. In fact, the entire thrust of his therapeutic approach could be captured in a single sentence: "Figure out a treatment approach that conforms to military codes, and is palatable to higher ups, so that we don't have to admit the immense psychological damage."
I can't say for sure that this attitude is endemic to military psychiatry. I hope not, and would welcome hearing about places where good work is being done. I'm sure that there are numerous mental health professionals in the military who do a lot of good. I know that work with guided imagery has been proven successful with CDS available at www.healthjourneys.com
But the basic problem is that when you train people to be eternally hypervigilant, bond them as one in a killing group, put them through traumatizing experiences, and then upon their return signal that retaining the military code is more important than their personal mental health, then I can guarantee you several things:• They will know that they are not safe in receiving mental health treatments you offer• They won't easily find their way to helpful treatments for fear they violate their military code and bonds with their fellow officers• It will be harder for them to down-regulate their automated stress reactions and heal• They won't be safe for their families and loved ones people to be around • Ours will not be a safe world
So bravo, we went to war to create safety, and look what came back.
Until we can admit all of this, how can we help troubled people in the military? Or for that matter, find safety as civilians.
The good Major had never been in any combat and since he was an Army Major and a Psychiatrist it is doubtful he ever would. I have been in combat and am not afraid to talk about my experiences to anyone who would care to listen but most people who have never been in combat want to hear what it is like. At the same time I have never felt a need to pick up a weapon and gun down unarmed civilians but I am also not an ISLAMIC JEHADIST.
Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding two contradictory ideas simultaneously. The "ideas" or "cognition's" in question may include attitudes and beliefs, the awareness of one's behavior, and facts. The theory of cognitive dissonance proposes that people have a motivational drive to reduce dissonance by changing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors, or by justifying or rationalizing their attitudes, beliefs, and behaviors.[1] Cognitive dissonance theory is one of the most influential and extensively studied theories in social psychology.
What if a person goes through life as a Christian and converts to Islam and then takes up Jihad and kills Christians for his new God?
The old saying, “If you tell a lie enough times it becomes a truth”, goes along way to explain why things are societies attitudes have changed over the years. This is an example of people changing their lifestyle because they have not questioned new laws or socially accepted norms such as Global Warming and being Politically Correct.
When a person acts out of the perceived “norm” and people accept these actions in this time in history when they would not have 100 years ago is an example of what I call Camouflaged Change. Years past it would be unacceptable for men to wear shorts in public yet even in the middle of Winter men are seen wearing shorts. Several years ago the military instituted ,"Don't ask Don't tell policy concerning being a Gay or homosexual in the military. Over the years the fact a person is Gay no longer has the sting socially as it once did but the military policy still holds. At the same time a person can be any religion in the military even a Jihadist Islamic Terrorist and no one will demand these people be discharged from the military as they do with Homosexuals. The major difference here is that I have never heard of a homosexual gunning down unarmed people while screaming God is Great in Arabic. But then according to the president of Iran there is no such thing as a Gay Muslim.
Some people are saying about the Army Major who gunned down all those people at Fort Hood as being mentally unbalanced and he simply snapped. If this person who committed this Terrorist act at Fort Hood, Texas had strapped a bomb around his waste and blew himself up instead of using a gun who there still be people who would question his motives?
November 6, 2009, Anxiety
Fort Hood Exit Strategy: The Cognitive Dissonance of a Military Psychiatrist
Firing a gun at Fort Hood was an exit strategy.
With the recent tragedy at Fort Hood, the time has come to face up to two facts:
War is Hell-this we know.
War is not conducive to mental health.
This we don't want to realize.
And it may be that if a little war is bad for one's mental state, a whole lot of war is a whole lot worse.
Leaving aside the merits of any particular war, and more detailed information about Major Nidal Malik Hasan, the 39-year-old man accused of Thursday's mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas, it's easy to imagine how any one of any background would feel terrified and entrapped under the following conditions: • Possessing first hand knowledge of the combat experience and the severe mental damage it inflicts upon deployed military
• Facing deployment, (and unlike other military heading into deployment), having prior knowledge of the hazard to one's mental health and psychological status
Related Articles
· What Can We Learn from the Killer at Fort Hood?
· Murder and Mayhem at Fort Hood: Post-traumatic Embitterment, Madness, or Political Terrorism?
· PTSD in the Military: An Interview of a Military Wife
· Massacre at Fort Hood
· The Ft. Hood Killer - Guilty But Not Evil
It's safe to say that the majority of those facing deployment, have no real clue what they are in for. But Major Hasan undoubtedly did. Further he,
• Received his medical and psychiatric training as a military officer• Was therefore beholden to the military for the cost of that training• Had no way to leave the military
As heinous and reprehensible as were his actions, correctly or mistakenly, Hasan saw no way out of the military, no way out of his deployment. Firing a gun was his exit strategy.
I am sure that soon all the "bad apple" stories will briskly circulate. But before they do, let's ask: Isn't it possible that being a military psychiatrist could readily induce outsized cognitive dissonance in just about anyone?
Cold, calculating, numb, sedated, and murderous. Bonded first and foremost to comrades in arms. Is this a prescription for mental health, a solid marriage, successful parenting, or even a good night's sleep? Of course not. But these are the traits cultivated and inculcated in servicemen heading to battle.
Upon returning they can change into civilian clothes, but they can't so easily shed their traumatized neurology. For many, the military becomes a form of life long entrapment, a club that once joined, can't so easily be left behind, for economic, social, and psychological reasons.
By definition, a military psychiatrist is under military authority-- is that a conducive environment for building therapeutic trust?
A couple of months back, I attended a program lead by a military specialist in treating returning military suffering from psychological distress. First of all, it was evident that this specialist was himself traumatized. Empathy was for sissies. Maintaining the military code was more important than facing up to the pain. PTSD, he claimed, could be dealt with by a change of attitude.
"Just snap out of it," he told us he exhorted his clients.
This "expert" didn't want to call a spade a spade. He didn't want to call it post-traumatic stress. He wanted to call it "combat stress." That was more manly. In fact, the entire thrust of his therapeutic approach could be captured in a single sentence: "Figure out a treatment approach that conforms to military codes, and is palatable to higher ups, so that we don't have to admit the immense psychological damage."
I can't say for sure that this attitude is endemic to military psychiatry. I hope not, and would welcome hearing about places where good work is being done. I'm sure that there are numerous mental health professionals in the military who do a lot of good. I know that work with guided imagery has been proven successful with CDS available at www.healthjourneys.com
But the basic problem is that when you train people to be eternally hypervigilant, bond them as one in a killing group, put them through traumatizing experiences, and then upon their return signal that retaining the military code is more important than their personal mental health, then I can guarantee you several things:• They will know that they are not safe in receiving mental health treatments you offer• They won't easily find their way to helpful treatments for fear they violate their military code and bonds with their fellow officers• It will be harder for them to down-regulate their automated stress reactions and heal• They won't be safe for their families and loved ones people to be around • Ours will not be a safe world
So bravo, we went to war to create safety, and look what came back.
Until we can admit all of this, how can we help troubled people in the military? Or for that matter, find safety as civilians.
The good Major had never been in any combat and since he was an Army Major and a Psychiatrist it is doubtful he ever would. I have been in combat and am not afraid to talk about my experiences to anyone who would care to listen but most people who have never been in combat want to hear what it is like. At the same time I have never felt a need to pick up a weapon and gun down unarmed civilians but I am also not an ISLAMIC JEHADIST.
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