Saturday 30 November 2013
Merry Christmas to you all.
I wish you all a Christmas jolly,
snow and mistletoe and holly,
good friends there to make it cheery,
lots of rest: don't get too weary.
May your gifts be well received,
your excuses be believed,
pray have enough to eat and drink,
try not to end up in the clink.
I hope that Santa isn't grumpy
and your gravy isn't lumpy
on the turkey plump and tender;
better put it through the blender.
In short, I want to say in rhyme
have a really lovely time
but most of all a Wish that's True:
Love and Joy and Peace to you.
© CS
Bah, Humbug!
Christmas comes but once a year
and when it comes it brings good cheer
cheer to all the girls and boys
with their stockings full of toys.
Stockings? Nowadays its sacks!
Christmas Greetings sent by fax
fathers boast of what they've bought
mothers just get very fraught
go on endless shopping trips
fret about expanding hips
shopping trolleys overflowing
where is all the money going?
Have we got enough to drink?
God! the TVs on the blink!
So much food it's going rotten
presents bought so soon forgotten
decorations thrown away
that's it - end of holiday.
When you really work it out
what is Christmas all about?
Buy and sell and wads of cash
generating tons of trash.
10/2001
Another blast from the past...12/24/2002 4:58 PM
(When I was still able to walk more than a few yards. )
Christmas Eve. Late afternoon. Sheffield.
Today I decided to go and do some shopping. It was either that or go without Christmas Dinner altogether. I did have a cold sausage left over, but, well, you know. It's bad enough being alone at Christmas without sitting down to a left over sausage decorated with a sprig of holly.
If I had any holly of course.
Fortunately the shops are open Christmas eve, so no problem there. Unfortunately my legs were on a go slow while debating the advisability of going on an all out strike.
Fortunately I have a wheeled shopping trolley so I walked (walked? Make that staggered) it round to where I garage my car. Unfortunately, the car had decided that this was a good day to die. So it did.
Fortunately, the shop I wanted is a downhill walk, though of some distance. Unfortunately this means that it's an uphill walk back with a full shopping trolley.
Fortunately it was a nice dry day for a walk, and I managed to get everything I'd written on my list. Unfortunately I'd forgotten to write "Stuffing" on my list.
Fortunately the fish and chip shop was on the way home, and open, so I treated myself to battered cod and chips to eat out of the wrappings on the way home. Not easy while using both hands to push a loaded trolley uphill, but worth it I thought.
Unfortunately it started to rain at that point, so I stuffed the yummy hot food into the trolley to eat it later. With luck it would still be warm by the time I got it home.
Fortunately it wasn't too cold, and I enjoyed it. Unfortunately so did my cat.
Fortunately I had some time to spare so I thought it would be nice then to go online and see what delights Christmas would bring to a lonely old woman. Unfortunately what I received was a rude email from someone I'd thought was a friend. Huh.
Things were getting better by the minute. I poured myself a drink to calm down or cheer up, or something like that. Fortunately I had bought some in advance of Christmas. Good job too.
Unfortunately alcohol makes me ill, so I just know that I'm going to pay for this.
What more can happen? No, don't tell me. I really don't want to know.
Merry Christmas everybody.
Monday 25 November 2013
To be or not to be. Gay, that is.
It's astounding how many people still believe that being homosexual, as opposed to heterosexual, is a "lifestyle choice". Who in their right minds would actively choose to be mocked, shunned, abused, put in jail in some places, or even killed. And often lose their place in the family. What sense does that make? It's illogical.
And those of you who think that way - would you be able to choose it? And if not, why do you suppose others do?
We get told that on the one hand gay sex is animalistic, inhuman, and at the same time it is only done by humans. Please, people, make up your minds. Neither is true anyway.
If you are considering that sex was invented purely for procreation, then ask yourself this: how often have you had sex without it being for purposes of procreation? Of course not every act results in a pregnancy, but still, you get the point. Very few people would be happy to have sex maybe three times in a lifetime.
But it's much more than that of course. Sex is also pleasurable. It has to be, or why else would people do it? Even to procreate. Yes, there are some ultra religious groups where that is the norm, where any kind of pleasure is shunned. But it's pretty extreme, you have to agree.
Some say that homosexual behaviour is unnatural. Let's look at that. Take the bonobos. They indulge in sex at all times, in all ways, with all genders, with no embarrassment. It is used for greeting, making up after a conflict, soothing, and just for fun, as well as in the usual way for procreation. Is that unnatural? Maybe someone should tell the bonobos.
And then there's the argument of it being a human perversion. "You don't see animals behave that way!" No? Actually, you do. Ask any sheep farmer, they know that there are rams who have no interest whatsoever in ewes. Their attention is focused on other rams. They are no use for breeding. Although if they are a good specimen artificial insemination could be used, and perhaps farmers have found other ways round the problem. It is also interesting that the parents of these rams were perfectly normal breeders, so it isn't something inherited.
Attempting to find out what's going on there, biopsies were done on ram's brains, comparing the two kinds of rams. It was found that a certain area of the brain, which controls sexual attraction, was much smaller in the "gay" rams. This was something they were born with, believed to be as a result of an imbalance of hormones while they were developing in utero.
It is seen in other species too. Males who only want to be with other males. Possibly harder to spot in females as they tend to stick together more anyway. It happens in birds, and mammals, and the more researchers watch wildlife, the more they see of it.
Now if happens naturally in other species, why not in humans too? No amount of counselling, or medical treatment, or whatever ill founded attempts to "cure" homosexuality can make any difference to a brain already formed. And why should it?
What is the real problem here? Fear? Is there some sort of irrational idea that maybe it's contagious? Or that we might be preyed upon? Raped? I think it's true to say that rape is a particularly heterosexual act on the whole. And as for paedophilia, another ridiculous accusation leveled at homosexuals, gays have no interest whatsoever in such dreadful behaviour. They are two entirely different things.
And why does it all have to be about sex anyway? Gays are no more obsessed with sex than anyone else. It is simply who they are. The way their brains work. Natural for them. It's not sick, or perverted, nor is it a choice. It's no more a lifestyle choice for them than being straight is for everyone else.
Why should anyone be so concerned? It isn't contagious, or inherited, or dangerous to others. A lot of the objections of course are on religious grounds. The bible says.... Yes it does. It also says a lot of other things which the same people generally ignore completely. Cherry picking is no way to use your holy book. And if people simply say that they can't see the attraction, so what? No one is asking them to. If the thought disgusts you, get over it. It's none of your business!
So lets live and let live. The world is becoming overpopulated anyway, the critics should be thankful that some people won't be adding to the problem! Ok, that was tongue in cheek. Don't get mad. And let's not get obsessed with the lives of people who do no harm. Life is hard enough.
And those of you who think that way - would you be able to choose it? And if not, why do you suppose others do?
We get told that on the one hand gay sex is animalistic, inhuman, and at the same time it is only done by humans. Please, people, make up your minds. Neither is true anyway.
If you are considering that sex was invented purely for procreation, then ask yourself this: how often have you had sex without it being for purposes of procreation? Of course not every act results in a pregnancy, but still, you get the point. Very few people would be happy to have sex maybe three times in a lifetime.
But it's much more than that of course. Sex is also pleasurable. It has to be, or why else would people do it? Even to procreate. Yes, there are some ultra religious groups where that is the norm, where any kind of pleasure is shunned. But it's pretty extreme, you have to agree.
Some say that homosexual behaviour is unnatural. Let's look at that. Take the bonobos. They indulge in sex at all times, in all ways, with all genders, with no embarrassment. It is used for greeting, making up after a conflict, soothing, and just for fun, as well as in the usual way for procreation. Is that unnatural? Maybe someone should tell the bonobos.
And then there's the argument of it being a human perversion. "You don't see animals behave that way!" No? Actually, you do. Ask any sheep farmer, they know that there are rams who have no interest whatsoever in ewes. Their attention is focused on other rams. They are no use for breeding. Although if they are a good specimen artificial insemination could be used, and perhaps farmers have found other ways round the problem. It is also interesting that the parents of these rams were perfectly normal breeders, so it isn't something inherited.
Attempting to find out what's going on there, biopsies were done on ram's brains, comparing the two kinds of rams. It was found that a certain area of the brain, which controls sexual attraction, was much smaller in the "gay" rams. This was something they were born with, believed to be as a result of an imbalance of hormones while they were developing in utero.
It is seen in other species too. Males who only want to be with other males. Possibly harder to spot in females as they tend to stick together more anyway. It happens in birds, and mammals, and the more researchers watch wildlife, the more they see of it.
Now if happens naturally in other species, why not in humans too? No amount of counselling, or medical treatment, or whatever ill founded attempts to "cure" homosexuality can make any difference to a brain already formed. And why should it?
What is the real problem here? Fear? Is there some sort of irrational idea that maybe it's contagious? Or that we might be preyed upon? Raped? I think it's true to say that rape is a particularly heterosexual act on the whole. And as for paedophilia, another ridiculous accusation leveled at homosexuals, gays have no interest whatsoever in such dreadful behaviour. They are two entirely different things.
And why does it all have to be about sex anyway? Gays are no more obsessed with sex than anyone else. It is simply who they are. The way their brains work. Natural for them. It's not sick, or perverted, nor is it a choice. It's no more a lifestyle choice for them than being straight is for everyone else.
Why should anyone be so concerned? It isn't contagious, or inherited, or dangerous to others. A lot of the objections of course are on religious grounds. The bible says.... Yes it does. It also says a lot of other things which the same people generally ignore completely. Cherry picking is no way to use your holy book. And if people simply say that they can't see the attraction, so what? No one is asking them to. If the thought disgusts you, get over it. It's none of your business!
So lets live and let live. The world is becoming overpopulated anyway, the critics should be thankful that some people won't be adding to the problem! Ok, that was tongue in cheek. Don't get mad. And let's not get obsessed with the lives of people who do no harm. Life is hard enough.
Saturday 23 November 2013
Memories are made of this?
What price memories? Just how accurate are they? Can we trust our own? The short answer is "no". We can't.
Simple experiments show that our memories are very faulty. Maybe you've seen the film of people concentrating on counting balls that they completely miss the man in a gorilla costume walking among them. You may have done the test yourself, online.
So, for one thing, our brains don't take in everything around us, only those things on which we focus. And they are constantly making new neural pathways, creating our neural net, reworking old memories to take new information into account.
I actually have very few memories of childhood, one year in particular is an almost total blank. I was told that this is due to trauma of some sort, the brain's way of protecting us from pain. I'm sure it's true, there was a lot going on in my childhood, not all of it good.
The year I can't bring to mind was when a cousin came to live with us, with her mother, when I was around 10/11. It was my first year in High School. I had no idea this had happened until my cousin mentioned it at my mother's funeral. It came as a total shock to me. How could that be? That a whole year was wiped out? And I have no memory of people I sat next to in school that year either. They remember me, but it's just a blank to me.
However, there is one memory I was sure of, absolutely, with no doubt whatsoever for many years, only to realise quite recently that it is quite false.
For most of my adult life I had a clear memory of a pin up I had in my teens. It was a pull out from a magazine, a swimmer, Mark Spitz, a famous photo of him with his seven Olympic medals arranged on his chest. You can see it easily using Google.
Now as I remembered it this pin up was next to my bed, stuck to the side of a cupboard in my bedroom at my family home. I slept alone in the attic of our house at that time, in my early teens. Nothing wrong with that, you may say. And there wouldn't be, except that it wasn't like that at all.
You see, in recent years I realised that he won those seven medals in 1972, by which time I had been married for 11 years. I slept with my husband in our marital home and there was no way I would have had a pin up of anyone! Anywhere! My husband was a jealous man.
My memory was almost entirely false, only the actual picture was real, yet it was as clear as anything for many many years!
Now if we can create false memories, so clear and convincing, for whatever reason, if our memories are so unreliable, just how far can we trust witness statements in court, however sure they seem of their facts? It makes you think, doesn't it?
It has certainly made me think.
Simple experiments show that our memories are very faulty. Maybe you've seen the film of people concentrating on counting balls that they completely miss the man in a gorilla costume walking among them. You may have done the test yourself, online.
So, for one thing, our brains don't take in everything around us, only those things on which we focus. And they are constantly making new neural pathways, creating our neural net, reworking old memories to take new information into account.
I actually have very few memories of childhood, one year in particular is an almost total blank. I was told that this is due to trauma of some sort, the brain's way of protecting us from pain. I'm sure it's true, there was a lot going on in my childhood, not all of it good.
The year I can't bring to mind was when a cousin came to live with us, with her mother, when I was around 10/11. It was my first year in High School. I had no idea this had happened until my cousin mentioned it at my mother's funeral. It came as a total shock to me. How could that be? That a whole year was wiped out? And I have no memory of people I sat next to in school that year either. They remember me, but it's just a blank to me.
However, there is one memory I was sure of, absolutely, with no doubt whatsoever for many years, only to realise quite recently that it is quite false.
For most of my adult life I had a clear memory of a pin up I had in my teens. It was a pull out from a magazine, a swimmer, Mark Spitz, a famous photo of him with his seven Olympic medals arranged on his chest. You can see it easily using Google.
Now as I remembered it this pin up was next to my bed, stuck to the side of a cupboard in my bedroom at my family home. I slept alone in the attic of our house at that time, in my early teens. Nothing wrong with that, you may say. And there wouldn't be, except that it wasn't like that at all.
You see, in recent years I realised that he won those seven medals in 1972, by which time I had been married for 11 years. I slept with my husband in our marital home and there was no way I would have had a pin up of anyone! Anywhere! My husband was a jealous man.
My memory was almost entirely false, only the actual picture was real, yet it was as clear as anything for many many years!
Now if we can create false memories, so clear and convincing, for whatever reason, if our memories are so unreliable, just how far can we trust witness statements in court, however sure they seem of their facts? It makes you think, doesn't it?
It has certainly made me think.
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