'TIS THER SEASON TO BE JOLLY : ALCOHOL SEEMS A JUMP[ START FOR SOME

UK researchers have found that whiskey consumed at the same amount as vodka gives a worse hangover but does not change performance the next day any more than vodka does. For some more details on this research, click here. I remember being told many years ago by researcher, Dr. Roger Weiss, that bourbon would kill fish in a tank while other liquors did not.

Given the Holiday season facing us, the media will be giving us a rundown of road fatalities by drunken drivers. They will not only kill or maim themselves but will take passengers and other drivers and passengers with them. If you have an inebriated guest, lift their keys and let them hunt until they are convinced they are lost and suggest that the guest sleep over. Don't worry about the privacy of a guest room, they will usually drop wherever they are and consider themselves lucky if there is a rug where they fall.

It has always escaped me how anyone can get drunk on Egg Nog no matter how heavily spiked. The stuff is pretty gag-worthy even when fat is eliminated and replaced with sea weed or horses hooves or whatever is used to thicken it these days. This short blog is not intended to succeed in convincing alcoholics to grab a designated driver but, rather, to let the normal sober person realize that Christmas is one of those holidays where 'new' drinks are concocted. The punch may have several different kinds of liquor in it and bite like shark. In attempts to make sure the supplies last, people go overboard with stocking up so that those inclined to not pass up a free drink have the bar set too high for their greed.

Remember, one way or another, their is a high price to be paid for over-indulgence.
Be prepared, beware, and be safe.

ARDIPTHECUS RAMADUS: MORE PROOF OF EVOLUTION

December is the time that people start adding and sorting things out of events of the year, decade, or whatever time lapse they choose. Victoria Gill, a science reporter for BBC News reports on Ardipithecus ramidus, a 4.4 million year old female, a million years older than Lucy. In view of all the scientific research and evidence of evolution, it is maddening that so many people are still so ignorant they believe evolution is only a theory.

Additionally, this first prize winner is described for being named as the most significant scientific achievement of the year (after 15 years of labor putting the fossil together and recreating what she might have looked like). This story was followed by the nine runners-up. For the complete story, click here. The nine runners up in Science's list of the year were Pulsar mystery, extended life, supreme conduction, plant survival, laser tool, gene therapy, magnetic monopoly, watery moon, and Hubble repair. These are all described in the BBC article.

REFRAMING A CONCEPT

One of the tools of psychotherapy is to reframe your patient's opinion, impression, or assumption. In a sense it is helping the patient think outside the box in which they have been trapped by their thinking. George Monbiot writes a column published in The Guardian. Here is a quote which I think is a lovely example of reframing. "Humanity is no longer split between conservatives and liberals, reactionaries and progressives, though both sides are informed by the older politics. Today the battlelines are drawn between expanders and restrainers; those who believe that there should be no impediments, and those who believe that we must live within limits." For the complete article, click here.The article is titled This Is About Us. It appeared on 12/14/09.

As with 'The One Whose Name We Dare Not Speak" from Harry Potter, many do not speak of or equate uninhibited Economic Growth with the desecration of our natural resources. We all laughed at Jack Benny who, confronted by a burglar with a gun said, "Your money or your life!", took a long time to answer and prodded by the burglar said, "I'm thinking, I'm thinking!" The realtors, manufacturers, developers, careless polluters and all others who threaten our planet are thinking how they can survive with riches, without caring about their descendants. Jack Benny may have been funny...they are not!

USING PROPER GRAMMAR

There is a wonderful blog...much of it geared to seniors, but not only to them, called TIME GOES BY. On Tuesday, Crabby Old Lady wrote a grammar rant. I saw no way to respond or add to her invitation for more examples. Annoying for those of us who pride ourselves in using correct grammar is that if more people (than not) use a word incorrectly, the keepers of the most-used dictionaries change the meaning to the incorrect usage. It is like the dumbing-down that our media tends to do do often. Media personalities seem never to be corrected for their misuse of grammar, not even accuracy of facts.

It used to be that if you said you were nauseous, it meant: 1 : causing nausea or disgust : nauseating. 2 : affected with nausea or disgust. Today Merriam Webster uses that meaning as 'causing' but also uses 'affected with', giving in to those who couldn't say I feel nauseated.

Chris Matthews uses 'ethnic' instead of 'race' which I find annoying even though I have written the correction to MSNBC. Clearly, no one in the media really cares for accuracy enough to correct the loudmouths who spout opinions, frequently wrong in facts as well as grammar.

Another frequently used pair of words are 'affect' and 'effect'.
A simple way to remember these is that affect is a verb; effect is a noun. (picture from Grammar Girl)

Marketers and ad people seem to have some of the worst grammar as do lyric writers who want to make words fit a rhyme. 'New Improved', while often an oxymoron, should be 'newly improved' if I remember what I was taught. To give the reader an even more accurate reading it might even be 'most recently improved' since some companies keep improving (or should that be 'recently changed')?

There are those who 'could care less' (hear the chalk scraping on the blackboard on that one) when it originally meant “it is impossible for me to have less interest or concern in this matter, since I am already utterly indifferent”.

When I say, "It is I" in response to "Who is there?", people look at me as though I'm a freak who doesn't know how to say "It's me!" That says nothing (on a side note) to the person who answers, on the phone, to 'with whom am I speaking?' with "It's me" in a voice you could swear you have never heard before. Not to be confused with an equally annoying habit of some who answer to "Where are you?" with "I'm here." This forces me to ask, "Where is here?"

When asked how I am, I love saying, "I'm good", realizing that people think I am saying I am well. Oh well, I'm well, and still drawing water from the well of life's enjoyment.

LIEBERMAN'S LIES EXPOSED ON MSNBC REPLAYED VIDEO FOOTAGE

Joseph Lieberman was not someone I liked or trusted even when he was Gore's VP running mate. Had I not been so aghast at the thought of voting for GW, I probably would have voted for any Republican who looked like presidential material. There has always been something about the way the man speaks...the nasal whine...that has added my distaste of his flip-flopping. Nevertheless, I voted for Gore with a lukewarm heart, wondering how many other people felt as I did.

Tonight on MSNBC, Rachel Maddow played enough footage of past positions expounded by Lieberman towards which he now holds a completely reversed position to demonstrate how the man cannot hold a position for himself but flows with the money. When he and Harkins once tried to pass a no-filibustering bill, he now takes pride that he, a single senator, can stop the HealthCare bill. He threatens to do just that plans to do it if they don't water the bill down to the point of making its intent almost meaningless. It doesn't matter that 60% of his constituents want the bill passed. One can only assume he does not plan to run again and doesn't mind committing political suicide. It does make one wonder where the pot of gold rests that would make a man do this to his own past reputation for caring for people.

Why our system doesn't make this Senatorial farce impossible is beyond me, a lay person? I surely hope those who are in a position to add it to the long list of things that need to be done to make our legislative body have real meaning and work for the people again, will be put on an agenda to be heard.

For an interesting article on the lack of veracity on Lieberman's part, click here.

IS THIS A CASE OF BETTER LATE THAN NEVER?

Criminals find that a name change doesn't always give them a new identity. One's past seems to cling like an incomplete wipe on hemorrhoids. Xe formerly known as Blackwater, money maker for those who finessed a no-bid contract through before the Obama administration came into being and have been raking it in for a long time. But all good things eventually come to pass and the CIA has taken over, using their own staff to load bombs onto their drones. The New York Times revealed the existence of the secret contract with Blackwater, renamed Xe, in August.

There are so many things that the American public never knew and still doesn't know about how the government makes sneaky decisions. At some point, politicians who add pork onto bills so that some frivolous expenditure can be added to their state parks rather than improving their schools and medical care of their people, will realize that they are robbing Peter to pay Paul, so to speak. Maybe even those voters who put them in office will smarten up and realize they, the taxpayers, are paying for it in the long run, whether they see it now or not. They are paying for the greedy politician to get re-elected to waste more of their money.

For the complete article from BBC on this, click here.

EROTICA VS PORN

Porn has been around forever and will likely remain that way. However, men whose first sexual experiences are through porn have to be totally retrained for female consumption. While watching porn before 'making love' (an oxymoron when used thus) with a real woman, they have some very funny ideas about both sexes. Sadly, they get very confused about what it is to be male. Ejaculating in your partner's face is not only demeaning but I have not any women outside of my mental health practice (or even in it, for that matter) who think the guy is macho or who can't turn him off fast enough.

Many older people use soft porn to save time in foreplay. Neither gender is sure that their endurance will last, especially males who are frequently on erection inhibiting medications. Physical causes may be: diabetes, hardening of the arteries, which can lead to high blood pressure, angina or poor circulation (blood pressure lowering medication can make an erection impossible for some), kidney disorders, multiple sclerosis or other neurological diseases, high cholesterol, side effects of prescribed drugs, heavy smoking, alcoholism and drug abuse, prostate problems, clinical depression, pelvic surgery. and more

Psychological problems such as stress, boredom, and low sexual self-esteem, among others may also be causes which may affect with one partner but not another. Adultery is often a first attempt to diagnose the problem before seeking other resources.

Since so little is publicly supportive of masturbation, specialty shops which sell products are seen as shameful by many and frowned on by religions who are still stuck on Onanism. For an excellent article on hardcore porn and its current effect on young people, click here.