Haunted By...

When I was a lot younger, I recall a conversation I had with my mother. I don't actually remember much of the conversation; how it started; what it was mostly about. But what I do remember was what she said regarding people of strong faith. She said how much she envied that part of some people who were able to believe so strongly in something without proof (such as God - but that's not at all my point here).

I think that she craved something of that blind certainty. To have an unshakable belief that withstands the onslaughts of others' beliefs, conflicting evidence, and oftentimes even logic or reason.

At the time, I was able to understand that craving. But it wasn't quite the same. My craving derived from a desire to know. For the most part, I didn't know a lot, and knew that I didn't know a lot. The idea of truly knowing an answer to some BIG question really appealed to me. That was what I thought she meant.

In hindsight, though, I think she envied the concept of faith in an "ignorance is bliss" sort of way. I'd like to think, though, that if she had the choice to slip into a state of faith based on ignorance, she would not.

For myself at the time, I naïvely expected a direct positive relationship between education and a strong sense of knowing. Yet, after 30 or so years, I still find myself wistful for that strong sense of knowing. In fact, my sense is that the more I know, the more I doubt.

Looking around me, I see people who have strong beliefs, nonetheless. It makes me feel as though I am doing something wrong. So I examine these people's beliefs more closely - hoping to see whatever it is that they see that makes them so certain. They may point to the "evidence" for their strong beliefs, but all I see are fractures, weak or missing supports, misunderstanding, ignorance, irrelevance, or loud smoke.

What I mean by "loud smoke" comes from the way my father would occasionally argue his points. He would simply raise his voice and wave his arms around while smoking a cigarette. So he would literally become a loud puff of smoke that just kept repeating his viewpoint without any obvious justification. So to me, "loud smoke" is just a belief that is yelled really loudly and is about as solid as smoke.

Going to school and learning about psychology has shorn away many of the supports I would otherwise imagine myself relying upon to justify beliefs. On the one hand, it is depressing for me because I feel less and less confident that I will ever hold a strong belief, but on the other hand I find it really fascinating how people's minds work that allows them to hold strong beliefs. In other words, it is amazing all the tools we have, use, and develop to sustain our beliefs! So at least I am able to replace my loss with the gain of learning about some pretty cool stuff!

So anyway, here is a PARTIAL list of reasons why I don't believe anything too strongly:

• False Memory: There are all sorts of memory problems revealed in psychology (reconstruction effects, implantation effects, degradation effects, etc.). My first experience with the fallibility of memory came when I was walking around the streets of Haverhill with my cousins and their friends. I must have been in sixth or seventh grade at the time. We came upon another group of kids across the street. For some reason, one of the guys in our group thought that someone on the other side deserved to have a rock thrown at them. He picked up a stone and hurled it across the street and nailed one of the guys over there. We all took off running. (No, it was not me throwing rocks - trust me; I couldn't hit the ground if I aimed at it.)
  
  Later (months) I was in school and some kid came up to me and started yelling that I had thrown a rock at him and he was going to get me back! At first I had no idea what the hell he was yelling about, but after a bit, I realized he was the boy that had been hit by the rock a while back. I tried to explain that it wasn't me that had thrown the rock, but he was adamant that it WAS me because he never forgets a face and he would certainly never forget such a mean thing that was done to him nor who had done it.
  
  At the time, I shared with him the same naïve view of memory. We both apparently believed that memory was a biological recorder of events. What people stored in memory was perfectly accurate, although it could have holes (like when we forget something - it's just missing information). Therefore, I assumed this kid was lying about what happened because he had no idea who the real rock-thrower person was, and never would. BUT, he remembered seeing ME there and was therefore only going to be able to exact revenge on the next best person; someone who had been part of the enemy group of rock-throwers; me!
  
  Nowadays, I know he wasn't deliberately lying. He probably truly believed I was the rock-thrower. His memory was inaccurate, but he believed his memory was flawless. He held a strong belief based on corrupted data. But unlike a computer that can potentially analyze a memory drive and determine that it is bad, with human memory, we have no way of knowing what memories are good and which are bad. It ALL feels like GOOD memory! DOUBT.
  
  
• Sensory Events: Having learned a pretty good amount about how the senses work, and especially how perception occurs, I know that even direct experiences with the world can be misleading. Just off the top of my head, here are some things that contribute to my doubts about what I see, hear, taste, touch, or smell about the world around me:
  
  (1) Expectancy effects. (2) Constancy effects. (3) Phantosmia (and I'd include parosmia here too). (4 & 5) Hypnagogia and hypnopompia (accompanied by sleep paralysis). (6) Exploding head syndrome. (7+) Tactile hallucinations (e.g., feeling of bugs crawling on our skin, called formication; inability to locate an itchy spot; also what I call the voodoo effect - when you suddenly feel as though you are being poked by a needle for no apparent reason [a nociceptive illusion]; etc.). (8) Migraine aura (fortification illusion, photopsia, and scintillating scotoma). (9) Sleep paralysis. (10) Peduncular hallucinosis (I have a friend who experiences this - he is visited by Death, you know, cloaked and hooded skeleton carrying a scythe). (11) Synesthesia. (12) Tinnitus (hearing a [usually] high-pitched sound even though no sound is present). (13) Apophenia (and of course, pareidolia). (14) Autokinetic effect (perception of movement when there is no anchoring/orienting information, e.g., a small dot of light in an otherwise dark environment will appear to bounce and float around - it's really just our eyes moving, but we can't tell that because there is not enough visual information available to lock our eyes onto.) (15) Ideomotor effect (unconscious physical movements that affect objects in our vicinity that we then attribute to outside or paranormal sources - instead of to ourselves). (16) Pupil response (can make us think we see shadows). (17) Entoptic Phenomena (e.g., scratches on our corneas or junk in our eyes (the vitreous), can be seen under the right conditions and confused for objects and events in the world around us [cf. blue field entopic phenomenon]). (18+) Not to mention all of the ways our sensory world gets messed up when we drink, are over-tired, experiment with drugs, etc.
  
  Of course, I'm not even listing here the possible (1) chronoceptive (losing track of time; feeling as though time is going slower or faster than usual; stopped; etc.), (2) equilibrioceptive (shifts in sense of balance that can not only make one feel dizzy, but also that they were pushed, or that gravity has shifted, etc.), (3) proprioceptive (Oliver Sack's writes about this in A Leg to Stand On - e.g., when our body parts feel foreign; like they do not belong to us), and (4) thermoceptive (temperature based) illusions people can experience (we don't really sense temperature, but shifts in thermal conductivity - when heat is drawn from our skin, we sense cold; when heat enters our tissue, we sense warmth. It's all relative.).
  
  
• Psychological Illusions: We fool ourselves all the time with our little cognitive tricks. Sometimes we do so to protect our ego (see Social Psychology texts for more of these); sometimes to protect a belief; sometimes just to make it easier to process our complex world; and sometimes without even realizing it - out of habit.
  
  (1) Confirmation bias (e.g., focus on "hits" and ignore "misses"). (2) Hindsight bias. (3) Availability heuristic. (4) Representativeness heuristic. (5) Assuming causation from correlation. (6) Need for certainty. (7) Change blindness & Inattention blindness. (8) Repetition blindness. (9) Dissociation (in this case we see people apparently doing this whilst "channeling" or exhibiting "demonic possession" [epilepsy?]). (10) And so on.
  
  
• Less Common Psychological Issues: Although these are much less common than the above (since the above can occur to everyone, whereas these are specific to only a subset), they are still possibilities that come to mind when I hear people I don't know talk about their strong beliefs or the strong beliefs of folks they know. That is, I cannot rule out these issues as contributing to others' beliefs.
  
  (1) Schizophrenia (the biggest one in this list, as well as any other psychotic disorders that can contribute to paracusia, etc.). (2) Delirium tremens. (3) Lewy body dementia (via Parkinson's disease). (4) Alzheimer's disease. (5) Epilepsy. (6) Narcolepsy. (7) Fever induced hallucinations. (8) ETC.!
  

So many mundane possibilities to account for the many strange beliefs we may form... and this is only a partial list! It's enough to make one's head spin! (Call an exorcist!) I haven't even listed the effects of deliberate lies people tell, hoaxes perpetrated, misunderstandings generated by poor language choices, and so on.

With so many possible competing sources of why we might believe something, you may wonder why we should believe anything! But we do. Our daily survival depends on believing potentially faulty information. Our confidence is increased whenever multiple sources of information converge on a single possibility (or a limited number of them). The more likely our survival depends on forming a good (accurate/true) belief, the more careful we are in considering the sources (usually).

On the other hand, when safety and survival are not directly affected by our particular choice of beliefs, THEN we seem to chigger into any old belief regardless of the evidence.

Ultimately, I think that people simply are unaware of how many ways we can be misled into trusting information used to support a particular belief (especially paranormal beliefs). In a way, then, I suspect that many people are enjoying the bliss of ignorance as they sustain their strong beliefs.

These are the cases that interest me from a psychological standpoint. These are the cases of strong belief that part of me yearns after, but a much larger part of me cannot accept; simply because I am haunted by all of these doubts.

Aren't you?

Can't Stand Idiots

Because this is clearly a last-minute entry, I will be making this brief - just to "jump through the hoop" of getting a blog written this month. Makes me wonder if I should continue to do this. Obviously I'm not making the most of this whole blog thingy. Probably I am just suffering from endofthesemesteritis. Having a whole week off just before the end of the semester isn't doing anyone's motivation levels much good. Recently bought a few t-shirts from JCP that I like. One has the ghost-buster's logo on it which is nice because it is helping me to think about the group I am hoping to help put together with the Pittsburgh CFI. The aim will be to provide a rational counterpoint to the CRAP that gets into the newspapers from so-called "paranormal investigators" in the area. So if anyone is interested, let me know. ALSO, if you can think of a good name for the group, THAT would be helpful, too. I was thinking along the lines of SIPP (Scientific Investigations of Paranormal Phenomena) but I don't know if I really want the word "paranormal" in there. Anyway, let me know. Please. The second shirt has an image of the cat-in-the hat character and says something like, "Trust me, I'm a doctor." The last one has big initials: CSI. Then beneath these it states, "Can't Stand Idiots." So that's my brief topic for this month's entry. What I really cannot stand is when I am an idiot. In fact, the whole idea for this entry was "given" to me when I overheard a student mention her own seeming proclivity for self-idiocy. It reminded me of an early memory of being an idiot. This would be first grade. R. L. Wood School (Haverhill Massachusetts) was where I was introduced to my potential for idiocy. It only contained grade one through four (if memory serves); and it is now closed for good I've heard. Anyway… Every day we broke for lunch as soon as the hot-lunch delivery was completed. We filed out of the classroom door in the back of the room and walked past a table stacked with Styrofoam containers of steaming yet ultimately lukewarm foods covered with condensation. We were given a tray and a container then toward the end of the table, napkins, plastic-ware, paper straw, and a small carton of milk. Then we continued back through a doorway at the front of the classroom to sit at our desks and eat like adults. Let me stop here and tell you how awesome those desks were! They were the chair-attached kind that had a slightly angled top that lifted to reveal a chamber underneath. Here we stored our small pot of paste (yum), box of over-sized crayons, a wooden ruler, a giant red eraser, some pencils, as well as graded papers (the ones that didn't earn the right to go home to the parents - yes, I mean the F's), and books about Dick and Jane. At the front edge of the desk was an old ink-well hole (mostly useless except that it was a good place to chuck bits of trash and what-nots during the day). Ok, so I was an exceptionally shy child who tried not to move, talk, or otherwise become noticed. I had zero friends - unless you count the kid who chased me when I got off the bus every morning. He loved doing this in the winter because he'd catch up to me by grabbing my hood and yanking it backward and then use it to whip me around to the ground. I also remember that there was a girl who really liked me and one day she walked over to me, grabbed me and gave me a big kiss on the cheek. I probably looked at her with a mixture of shock (that never happened to me before - or since, actually) mixed with horror (can you say COOTIES?!). I quickly wiped away the wet remains of her affections with my hand which made her burst into tears and run away crying, "He wiped off my kiss!" Turns out that signaled the beginning of quite the dry spell for me… lasted at least a decade before I got any other girl to kiss me. BEING that I was shy, that didn't mean I was immune to the attentions of the teacher (Mrs. Hansbury). She was always very generous with her foil stars and praise whenever a student did something amazingly wonderful… like pick up the chalk that had fallen from the tray, or let her know there was someone at the door, or raise a hand to answer a question. It was during lunch one afternoon that I suddenly had a craving for some attention. I had eaten my meal and was sipping milk through my straw reflecting on how nice it would be to get a gold star on my forehead. The milk carton was resting on my desk next to my elbow which was supporting the hand I was using to balance my idiot head. Sipping through this soggy paper straw, I scanned the floor for errant chunks of chalk, or maybe an eraser to pick up. Nothing there. Then I remembered that noticing a visitor at the door was worth points, but nobody was outside the front door (most likely spot for visitors). But then again, maybe the person was outside the BACK door?! Nobody would even SEE that door window because we all were facing forwards! Maybe there's somebody there RIGHT NOW! I twisted my head and body to the right so I could check. Now, turning one's head means that one's face goes too. Turning the face means eyes, nose, and mouth turn. Since the mouth was turning, that meant that the soggy straw was going for a ride, too. Because the straw was going, that meant the milk was going to try and tag along as well. Just FYI, you should never invite milk cartons on short trips because of all the members of the traveling party mentioned above, they are the WORST at keeping up. The milk carton just tipped over and started to chortle its contents onto my pants. I didn't want to make a big scene, so I just watched as the milk emptied out. It was supposed to be less than a pint of milk, but somehow I think the dairy had overfilled it because it was about a gallon or two that eventually made its way onto my clothes. This may not seem like a big deal to anyone - but you have to remember that a little boy with a wet crotch in first grade doesn't exactly radiate maturity or mental wherewithal to either the teacher, or the little boy's merciless classmates. And no, there was nobody at the door. For some reason lunch was a bad time for me in first grade at Wood School. I remember one day we had corn in our lunch cartons. I was innocently eating when I noticed the guy next to me placing a single kernel on his spoon, then bending the spoon back and then releasing it at another kid a few seats over. I watched as it seemed to rocket across the room like it was shot from a gun. That was amazing! Never in my experience had I ever come across anything like this. The lad was a genius to invent such a device! I watched him do it again and decided it was time to see if I could recreate this agricultural weaponry on my own. I held my spoon just so… Looking over at my neighbor to see if I'd set it up correctly. Then I plopped a chunk of corn into the bowl of the spoon. Yes, mine seemed to look about like his. Now let's see, you simply push down the edge of the spoon? As I did so, I looked over to see if it was really that simple… Yes, it… WHOOPS! The weapon fired before I was ready! I hadn't had a chance to aim it anywhere. Actually, to be honest, I don't think I'd even planned on firing the weapon… I just wanted to see if I could set it up! I'd been holding the spoon-weapon so that it was facing the front of the room. Watching in horror, the little yellow projectile sailed beautifully upward toward the front of the classroom following a mathematically perfect arc! Glancing ahead at its likely target, I saw the lunch monitor. She was standing up front, arms folded in a military stance while scanning the desks for unruly behavior. She never saw it coming. The corn kernel bounced exactly off the tip of her nose perfectly. If I'd been aiming for it, I'd have missed her completely. It was a very light morsel of food, so the resulting head bounce she gave had to be pure reflex. She had merely been startled - not physically wounded in ANY way. Nonetheless, despite the benign nature of the event, she stomped to the middle of the classroom demanding to know, "Who did that?!" As you know, children, especially first graders, are a socially cohesive bunch. They stick together in solidarity. So as a unit, every single child in the classroom (and I think even some who happened to be passing by in the hall) pointed their finger at me and yelled, "HE DID IT!" The monitor was clearly shocked and made me feel even worse by saying, "Little Stevie Paul?! I never would have thought you capable of such behavior!" No punishment. It was just that sentence of disbelief and disappointment. It was that very day that I vowed never again to partake of any culinary warfare. I hung up my plastic spoons for good. So be warned. If ever we find ourselves together in a cafeteria and a food skirmish breaks out. My role will never exceed that of conscientious objector.

Tums, or Rolaids, or Whatever...

My first full time job (40-hour week) was at a company called Raytheon (the very plant pictured above). I was hired as a clerk. It was the beginning of the year as I had recently failed out of college after a miserable first semester in the pre-med program at my state university. My highest grade was, I think, a "C" in my psychology course - calculus, physiology, chemistry, and physics didn't fare so well. (My misguided plan was to eventually become a psychiatrist.) Orientation and registration at the university had been a whirlwind and I was "advised" to take all these classes merely because they fit into a weekly schedule (two additional slots were needed for chemistry and physiology labs). Anyway, that experience was, as they say, an epic fail.

Despite the "epic fail," I admit to having been pretty relieved. I hated college. My only motivation for even attending college in the first place was that everyone had expected me to go. To make things worse, near the end of the semester my girlfriend had dumped me (pre-email days = letter). Well actually, to be accurate, she'd dumped me LONG before then, it was just that she didn't let me know until about this time. Anyway, just after the holidays, an official letter arrived inviting me not return to school. Once the family shock and disappointment in me waned, I was able to settle into a pretty happy contentment. The future and all its untapped opportunities lay before me!

My dad already worked at Raytheon, so that probably helped to get me that clerk position. Maybe, maybe not. But I recall the human resources lady doing my entry interview and finishing up with, "Be sure that you do a good job, Stephen." To which I sincerely and honestly replied, "I'll do my best." Apparently that wasn't a satisfactory response as she got a little huffy and said, "I expect that you will do better than that!"

Being young and accustomed to submitting to authority (i.e., anyone older than me), I didn't "talk back" or anything, but I did leave with an uncomfortable feeling that I'd screwed something up, AND that the woman I'd just spoken to was a blazing idiot. How can I do better than my best? Was I supposed to have LIED and said I'd give 110% or something? Cripes, it's impossible to do either! Although I didn't recognize it at the time, this was the first little hairline crack in my perfect post-college eggshell bubble I was trying to settle into.

Other fractures to my world were soon to follow (all of which finally got me the proper motivation to go to college again). Basically, my mind was too active for the job I was placed into. Exceptional pay and benefits are not enough to compensate for sitting nine hours a day (one for lunch) doing a stupid, inane, job. My job was to keep files on the parts that were stored in a cage next to my open-floor office and submit reorder requests when appropriate. That's it. It was a position that would be easily replaced by a computer program if anyone wanted to spend four hours to write it.

All the records were on stiff manila cards filed in rows of cabinets. Reaching into these day after day gave me endless paper cuts and bright red and bloody cuticles. I could finish my work in less than six hours. So I had to learn to take my time or I'd be bored silly looking for stuff to do.

Anyway, two embarrassing things happened to me on this job. I will tell you about the lesser of the two. The other one I still haven't fully recovered from yet.

The office area that I worked in contained about six or so desks. My desk was next to an old World War II vet's desk. He was in a wheelchair and had been a paratrooper during the war. Then there was the desk my boss (Sal) used. Then behind me were desks for the three ladies to work at (no idea what their jobs were). I only remember two of their names, Mona and Vickie. Let's call the other one, Sheila. Anyway, I flirted madly with Sheila and Vickie who were both married, but flirted and teased with me as good as I gave. Anyway, one day Sheila wasn't feeling well. She complained that her stomach was bothering her. Well, I told her to go to the nurse's office. You have to understand that this Raytheon was (is) HUGE. People got around on little carts that looked like motorized skateboards as well as golf carts. There was an actual little hospital area in there that had a nurse 24-7 and probably a doctor for some set times.

Ok, so I told her simply to go see the nurse and get some Tums or Rolaids or something. Amazingly, she said, "No way!" You see, she was afraid of hospitals and any of the related trappings thereof. I'd never met someone with such a strange thing to be afraid of, so naturally, I teased the crap out of her about it. That didn't last long because it isn't really much fun to tease people who are sick. They just don't give very good reactions, nor do they play back very well (or very nicely). She wouldn't smile whatsoever. So I gave up and went -slowly- back to my work.

After a while of listening to her little sighs and uncomfortable chair shuffle noises, I started feeling a little guilty which then turned to a little bit of sympathy. Maybe I could do something to cheer her up? So, I asked if she'd be willing to got to the nurse's office if I went with her?

No.

That turned into me suggesting that we could go and she would brief me on her symptoms and I would pretend it was MY tummy ache? She wouldn't have to say anything, and I would just sneak her the Tums or Rolaids or whatever when I got them.

No.

It wasn't much of a stretch to finally just say that I would go myself and get her something and bring it back.

Yes!

Fine. I had plenty of free time anyway. We briefed Sal about the plan so I could get permission to leave. He gave us a crooked look, but said fine-whatever. Off I went on my 15 minute walk to the nurse's station. My position was too lowly to allow the use of a motorized sled. I had to hike the full distance despite my tummy ache. It was actually a good thing to walk because I needed to get into character. How should I walk in? Holding my stomach while barely dragging myself in? No, don't over-act, Steve. What should I say? Should I try to cry? No, again, I had to remind myself not to over play the role.

I finally got there and the place was deserted. It looked like a chunk of a hospital plunked into the middle of a factory. After a bit, the nurse showed up and was very professional looking (white dress and hat and everything). This intimidated me a bit. I almost chickened out because I thought for sure she would know I was fibbing about my tummy pains. So I had to be sure to sell it. Holding my belly and bending a bit at the waist, I explained the terrible pain and how I knew everything would be ok if I could just have some Tums or Rolaids or something.

She escorted me to a small examination room and checked me out (blood pressure, etc.) and asked how long it had been hurting. Only this morning. Really, I think I just had a bad bit of breakfast. Tums… Rolaids, whatever you have, then I'll go. Please, I really have to get back to work, I barely have enough time to finish it all.

The nurse left me in the little examination room for a bit. Just enough time for me to start to feel a little guilty - maybe she knew I was fibbing. She'd gotten all my information, name, what department I worked in, the name of my boss. Gulp. Maybe she was talking on the phone reporting me right now! I was on the verge of sneaking out, but she already knew who I was and exactly where I worked, so I couldn't really get away.

When I had originally volunteered for this mission, I'd felt like a hero: A secret agent off to scam the "enemy" out of needed medical supplies. But now! Right now I was feeling like a naughty little boy who was waiting outside of the principal's office for my parents to show up so we could all talk about what a perfect criminal I was going to turn out to be.

Eventually she returned with a little paper cup in her hand! Yay! Success! The tablets must be in that little cup! My spirits soared a bit because I wasn't in trouble! I could get back into my spy fantasy!

Then the other hand came up with a very medicinal-looking bottle. Umm…?!

She poured from this bottle a murky watery greenish swampy juice. It plopped and dribbled from the mouth of this ominous brown bottle to fill the cup about a third of the way up. I literally had stopped breathing for the moment in order to let the consequences of my lies finally catch up with me.

So… umm, what is that?

It's called Tincture of Belladonna.

I was a college flunky, but I knew that Belladonna was the less scary term for Deadly Nightshade, a very toxic (extremely poisonous, hence the name) plant. As absurd as it may have been, I thought that I had actually been caught out in my lies and the company was going to kill me; make an example of me. I could keep my spy fantasy because I was like a spy about to be defeated unexpectedly by a beautiful woman (anyone get the joke there?).

Seeing my trepidation, the nurse assured me that it was a TINCTURE of belladonna. Not strong enough to poison me. Just enough to numb the tummy. Give me some relief to the obvious discomfort I was in. So, go ahead and drink it up! You'll feel better in no time!

Actually, I just wanted some Tums… or Rolaids… or something like that.

This is something like that, only better. Go ahead, drink.

Umm….

DRINK.

ok…. Gulp. Choke. Gag. Thanks… Gotta go back to work… feel better already… thanks… cough… see ya…

I staggered back to my work station. I have no memory of the walk back. Just a memory of leaving the nurse's station then next arriving back at my work area. I felt really sick. The partially strained swamp juice I'd allowed to drop into my stomach was having the exact opposite effect than described. Of course, I never had a tummy ache to begin with.

I went straight to my desk and Sheila asked where the Tums or Rolaids or whatever was. I explained that the nurse had made me drink the whatever. That was the only thing that made her smile that day. Actually, I don't remember that she actually smiled. It was more like she was laughing hysterically the rest of the day along with everyone else in the area she could tell it to. I had inadvertently made her feel better even in my failure to secure Tums or Rolaids, or whatever.

For the rest of my employ, there would be occasional mysterious deliveries of Tums or Rolaids to my desk when I wasn't looking. Nice.

Life and Living

http://www.nzimpressions.com/
An Alternative To Suicide

Of mossy green
and shining treats
With golden yellow
grimy teeth

I could blankly
sit and stare
Then slip my shoes
from off my feet

Into this
I'd slowly sink
From wading in
much too deep

Then I'd splash
my face and drink
From this stagnant pool
of boiling stink

The Long Shot

NPR has (had?) a segment called, "What I Believe" that would air every so often. I haven't listened for at least a year, so nobody try to guilt me into donating to NPR. Anyway, the few essays I listened to were interesting and got me to wondering what I'd say. So for lack of another topic for this month (I have a mere 1 hour and 40 minutes to get something in), here's a brief and probably poorly written ramble of something that I think I believe.

Growing up, I was pretty quiet and allowed others to pick on me without fighting back. I hated it, but never wanted to make things worse (which is what I assumed would be the result). So I think that as a result of that, I have a soft-spot for the underdog.

By "underdog" I mean a person or group (or animal, etc.) that seems to be the minority or hold the weaker stance in any conflict. So I am probably a sucker for the long-shot bet.

Another consequence of this bias is that I seem to have an automatic problem with authority figures. I can get over that problem as long as I can see the justification of that authority. If I think a person in charge is an idiot, I look for ways to avoid that person or thwart them in any way I can (without risking conflict that would result in escalation - because I am a wimp, after all).

I have enough experience to know that often the majority is right, and that the weaker position is weak for good reason. But it isn't always this way. So when I believe that a weaker person or group (etc.) is on the receiving end of abuse, it fires me up.

The word "belief" tends to conjure religious associations. For good reason, as religion is just belief adorned with bizarre ceremonies, costumes, trinkets of wood, plaster, paint, glass, gold, and too often, blood.

I am tired of religion. I am tired of hearing that all the good is thanks to God, while all the bad is our own fault. I cringe when I hear people say they will pray for this and that - like a cure for cancer. If (or when) such a cure arrives, its arrival will be credited to God by many. Not so much the people who lived and died working toward that cure. Losing sleep, some losing loved ones to the very cancers they were working to cure. This actually pisses me off because we (humans) are the underdogs.

Before anyone's nose gets out of joint, don't think that my point here is an atheistic one. I think it is a psychological one.

If this world was made for us, then we should be able to do with it as we will (which is what we've been doing). Surely God will step in before we ruin things too much, right? If someone were to calculate the man-hours spent praying in a given year, imagine how much time that would be?! What a waste of time! If you were on a slowly sinking boat, would it be a good idea to sit and pray, or bail water?

Here is what I believe. Until people can come to put their faith entirely in people, and just people, we will be a doomed race. Humans must come to believe in themselves. Children grow up and become self-sufficient - that doesn't mean they never had parents. So if you must continue to believe in a God, then fine - but you should believe more in people. There's more evidence that there are people on this planet than there is evidence of any particular god.

We seem to be a race of middle-aged children who have yet to leave our parents' basement bedroom! It's as though we expect that some guiding force will protect us from ourselves.

Why do we have to rely on that? Why can't we believe in ourselves?

So again, I find myself rooting for the underdog. In this case, us. Belief in a god seems to be an obstacle to our growth as a race. God is the abusive domineering partner in our relationship. But, like is too often the case in such relationships, we make excuses for the abuse, we come back to the abuser time-and-time again. We refuse the restraining order, we won't press charges. We think the abuse is our own fault (mostly true) and if we just behave better, we'll be taken care of (never true).

We call ourselves "civilized" but, as Inigo Montoya once said, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

ACME: Chapter Four

Wake-up Call

Senator Card stood patiently behind the technician. He was staring in suppressed amazement at the display in front of them both. There, as if it were yesterday, stood the house in which his best friend and partner had lived over 30 years ago. The assistant was twiddling with the computer controls and the view began to corkscrew drunkenly closer to the dirty yellow two-story house. The constantly shifting view made the senator feel a bit queasy.

After almost losing his balance for the third time, he relented and reached to his side a bit to press a palm against the metal wall beside the console. Eventually the view on the display had completed its gyrating path toward the kitchen window. The screen darkened for a moment as the view passed through the wall just beside the window. The technician glanced nervously over his shoulder toward the senator and mumbled, "Sorry, I was aiming for the window." He was new at this, after all. Hell, he was also the most experienced at "this."

The view steadied and Card could see the old Formica table with the burns and scratches. There was a nearly empty pot of coffee and three dirty cups and assorted dishes scattered elsewhere on the table. The sink across the floor near the refrigerator was stacked half full with pots, pans, and a broken pot of soil. The senator smiled as the sudden memory returned. The plant should be in the pot on the stove, if he remembered everything correctly.

The technician tightened a few knobs and snapped a few toggle switches to fix the image. With a squeaky turn of his chair, he informed the senator that the computer was locked onto the appropriate coordinates. This was received with a grunt from the senator who stepped through the doorway out of the control booth toward the over-sized plywood shack sitting in the middle of the warehouse floor.

From a first glance, it appeared to be an absurdly gigantic warehouse. But it was necessarily so as it rested on top of more than sixty stories of densely packed technology. The shack was the only part of ACME that didn't need so much space.

As he walked toward the wooden crate that temporarily served as a step up to the only door on the ludicrously rustic looking shanty, he could feel his knees getting weaker. He found that he had to consciously herd his thoughts away from what he was doing. Or, more precisely, what he was about to do.

As a consequence of blocking out these thoughts, the senator felt as though he were walking in a dream. The simple and normal act of walking toward a doorway had suddenly taken on a strange surrealistic quality. Perspiration had begun to form at the top of his brow. Annoyingly, sweat beads were clinging to the front edge of his toupee. Each step brought about a tiny wiggle from the moisture-dots. Each tiny wiggle of sweat became an insect trying to squirm under his hairpiece. This helped him to not think about what was happening… what was about to happen.

Within this haphazardly built wooden box existed the face of the ACME. It contained the ACME emitter. Or, to be more precise and less poetic: sixteen orange-peel slices of curved metal that, when put together, formed a gigantic metal sphere. The outer shell of the metal sphere was actually only about a half foot thick. It was completely studded with what appeared to be giant bolts of metal and neon piping. Beneath the sphere, and leaking around various supports, was an ominous red glow. Most of the base of the metal sphere was actually the top of the ACME pad. The sixty stories of technology beneath the pad extended nearly eighteen stories beneath ground level.

The emitter of the ACME projected all the way up from the seventh sub level like a spinal cord accessing and projecting to floors of crystalline computer circuits and dense slabs of virtually infinite storage. This spine of ACME projected here at the 39th floor to form the floor, walls and ceiling of this relatively tiny metal orb. In fact, significant portions of the metal sphere were actually the beta and beta-prime data encoders. The actual emitter was a wire mesh spheroid inside the center of this technological disco-ball Senator Card was about to enter.

Layered, and fully integrated within the spherical emitter were seven crystalline shells, each capable of presenting data in almost any format and in any of over two million shades of color. Everywhere things were spherical except for the giant crate built around the ACME ball. He'd forgotten to ask why they decided to put a round peg in a square hole. Stupid scientists.

As the senator stepped up to the wooden crate, his foot caught the edge causing it to squeak on the floor like a metallic fart. The fart-echo resonated and reverberated much longer than it should have for such a dignified moment. Hand on doorknob, the senator glanced back at the control booth. There, the technician was leaning in the doorframe watching pensively.

With a deep breath, a sharp twist and pull of the doorknob, the senator swung the door open and launched himself inside the outermost portion of the orb. From here he could see the glowing red and metallic sheen of the primary ACME sphere. Someone had left behind a small yellow toolbox just beside the secondary entrance to the sphere. "Sloppy," he thought. There was no door to open into the ball; the entry was a gaping black portal barely big enough to step through. He could see nothing but swirling black.

"Are you sure this thing is on?" He yelled back through the doorway of the shed.

The small intercom next to his head crackled, startling Card enough that he almost fainted. "Yeah, you won't see anything until you step through the entry field. Just push through it; and whatever you do, don't touch the metal on your way through!" The technician smirked, feeling safe in his control room. There was no reason why the Senator should avoid touching the metal, but he knew it would be a bit of a squeeze for the portly old man.

Senator Card stood for a moment sizing up the portal. Slowly and carefully he poked his right leg slowly through the black swirling entryway. His toe bumped something solid on the other side, but his foot did find a surface to stand on. Still moving slowly, he added weight to the right leg and surfer-like squatted and pushed his right hand forward into the darkness as though pushing a curtain aside. Ducking a bit, he leaned into the portal and without thinking, held his breath and plunged through the hole.

Card was totally unprepared for the extent of the detail suddenly revealed. In response, his legs began to melt beneath him. Almost windmill-like, Card grabbed at the nearest kitchen chair and yanked it under him. The slack-jawed senator fell ballistically into the chair with a jolt that caused his jaw to close with a snap. Like a balloon popping, he exhaled and stared. It was all truly unbelievable.

The Senator fumbled a barely functioning hand forward to the table to grab at something - he got the saltshaker. He hefted its weight. He shook some salt into his hand, which then moved to his mouth. It tasted like salt! A smile began to spread across the senator's darkening face.

Years ago, on the advice of his closest but now deceased friend, the senator had stopped smiling; certainly never in public, anyway. By all outward appearances, the senator appeared at worst as a harmless but serious looking old man. When he smiled, though, a subliminal evil essence oozed from every nook, dent, and clogged pore in the man's face. The lines around his eyes and mouth sharpened to dagger points with smiles that had trapped children in their beds. Fearful of this waking nightmare, children would fear to sleep lest a smiling Card visit them in their nightmares.

Senator Card lifted a dinner plate and felt the chipped edge with his thumb. There were dried splotches of ketchup and baked beans here and there. Jesus it felt so real! He tapped the plate with a fingernail and heard the slight chime of the china. On impulse, he dropped it suddenly. With satisfaction, it bounced off of the table to smash onto the floor.

The crash was answered by a male voice from a room down the hall, much further away than the diameter of the sphere he was in could allow for. "Norm? Is that you, you rotten bastard? You shitin' up my kitchen again?" After a moment, his thirty-years-dead partner and closest friend stepped into the kitchen and immediately paled at the sight of the decrepit old man sitting at the table. From his partner's point of view, Card had become a bloated senior-citizen overnight.

"Christ! Who the hell… Norm…? Are you…? Is that you? What the hell happened to your face? Jesus, Norm!"

Senator Card had mentally rehearsed this meeting, hell, fantasized about this meeting thousands of times over the past seventeen years. What he'd say, how he'd be standing when he said it, and even what aftershave he'd have on. Hell, he'd even practiced in front of the mirror a few times. Now that he was actually here, the first and only word that croaked from between his two sweaty lips to this long-dead old friend was, "Incredible!"

* * *

That morning… I was reading the newspaper in my "library" when Norm helped himself to my kitchen. The crash nearly made me spill my coffee. I yelled to him while I tidied up my "office" with a flush. He tended to ruin the things he touched and Mary was plenty mad enough at me already because of Norm.

I remember shuffling down the hall to the kitchen. What I saw really shocked hell out of me. "Jesus Christ Norm, what the hell are you doing?" He looked sheepishly at me. And did his 'asshole' smirk at me. He looked like hell. Real hell. I even told him so.

"Norman, you really look like hell. I mean, more than usual."

Norm crunched across the plate-fragments on the floor and luckily fell, or sat, in the chair in front of me. He had the smirk going full blast. I knew this was bad, but it was spooky bad. He held my saltshaker in his hands and kept toying with the damn thing. "Incredible" was the last thing I thought he was going to start with, but oddly enough, it was the word on my mind when he said it. I just couldn't believe his face. He was ugly enough last night, but now… It was like he had someone stretch all the flesh on his face out and it just hadn't snapped back into place right. I figured he knew how he looked, so I stopped kicking him while he was down.

He had something on his mind; I could wait. There was a lot occupying my mind just then anyway. The newspaper headlines occupied my professional thoughts. The Fence was making news again. Not front page every day, but he was there today. The bastard. I was sure he had something to do with the body we found last week. It was disgusting. Nobody had ever seen such a thing. It was as if the guy had instantly turned into a sponge. Blood and guts, or whatever it was, had leaked out and hardened into a kind of shell around the body. The coroner upchucked on that one and I'd never seen that happen before. I figured that somehow Fence got hold of some kind of acid or maybe it was radiation? I dunno. I needed to check out a few sources downtown. Most of my thoughts, though, were tied up replaying the fight I had with Mary last night. My mind started working on that problem while my vulture eyes feasted on Norm's carcass of a face. It was truly an incredible sight.

Norm turned back to the table. He unscrewed the salt, spilling little irritating sprinkles on my jelly donut. "What's up Norm? You look like you were caught with the chief's wife or something." The look he gave me made the hair on my neck stand up, but I kept it to myself. I hate it when I hit close to home without trying. My partner put the salt shaker down precisely. He stared at his hand and blew out a breath I didn't realize he was holding.

"I never would have thought this could be so hard." He said to someone other than me it seemed. My hairy-neck began to prickle a little more. He lifted the back of his hand to his mouth and absently licked off the few grains of salt. He seemed about to say something but stopped to look at his hand. "My god. It really tastes like salt!" I was beginning to feel like I was in a Twilight Zone episode.

"Eddie," he began. "Look, I gotta get something off my chest." I waited. This must have been tough on him. He really looked shitty. In fact, as I looked at him, besides the face-wreck, it seemed like he hadn't slept in a week. He seemed bulky or bloated. I was getting that crawly sick feeling in my gut like he was gonna tell me he was going to die, or that he's been screwing my wife, or that he's been working for Fence and now he's got to kill me. I always try to get together a quick list of worst-case scenarios before I hear what sounds like bad news. It's never as bad as the real thing. I find it to be a helpful coping strategy.

"I can't tell you until I make something else clear to you first. This is probably going to sound crazy to you, Eddie, but, the truth is, you aren't really who you think you are." All that I could think of to say was "Mmmm?" I hadn't considered the possibility that an insane guy named Norm would be in my kitchen. I made a note to add this to my list next time.

He sighed impatiently and tried again. This time he had paperwork or something. He had removed a shiny blue business card out of his pocket. It read, "Atomic Chrono-Momentum Extrapolation (ACME), New Pasadena, California, Access code: International Operator, 40014001" I looked at Norm dead-on in the eyes. He was straight with this. "I'd always wondered where Coyote got his stuff."

"Ok, ok. Here then, look." Norm fished out his wallet. Things were feeling real weird, but weird got weirder when Ab-Norm (as I was thinking of him just then) pulled out a few hundred-dollar bills and without breaking eye-contact with me, placed one at random into my hand.

"Look at the bill, Eddie, is it real?"

I was always ready for Norm's little pop-quizzes. I checked it. It seemed ok to me. I was really having to concentrate, though. Norm was acting as if this were really important. I must be missing something. After a bit I gave it back.

"Yeah, it look's real to me," was the best I could do.

I held the bill out to him so he could show me what was wrong. Show me what I was missing. Norm didn't take the bill. Very slowly and deliberately, like he was ready to spring a surprise party, or a trap, he said, "Look at the date, Ed. What's up with that?"

I took the bill and stared at it again, this time with particular emphasis on the date. It had been printed in 2002. "I give up Norm, what's wrong with 2002? Did the government not print any in 2002?" Clearly I was failing this quiz. Norm's reaction wasn't what I'd expected though.

"What? 2002?" He snatched the bill back and looked at. "Christ!" He fumbled at his cabbage wad again and pulled a few out. "Here, check these..."

The hair at the base of my neck was starting to prickle. Where the hell did Norm get all these hundred dollar bills? Were the rumors true? Was he on the take? I never would have given that a second thought if it hadn't been for the money. So much, too much, of it for Norm to have so casually in his wallet.

* * *

The senator could see that his old friend was merely humoring him. It was infuriating. He'd worried so much about how his friend would react to the wonders of science, and there was simply no easy way to get through to him.

"Wait a second. Step back a bit to the hallway. Now watch." Card stood, turned, and stepped carefully to the front of the kitchen where he'd first come in. Sweeping his arm to reach just above and below his head, the senator inched forward feeling for the now invisible edge of the sphere's entrance. As he neared the far end of the sphere he began to crouch over so as to keep from hitting his head. Finally he could feel the smooth inner shell and the rim of the sphere entrance just above his forehead. He turned back to look at Eddie, leaned awkwardly back to wedge the top of his head against the otherwise invisible entry-portal. The senator folded his arms across his chest and grinned awfully at Eddie.

To Eddie, this performance looked like a bad mime act. Norm was really looking like a decrepit. No; he was looking like a senile old man. Although, he had to admit, the angle Norm was leaning at made it appear as though he was about a foot or so away from the front door. He really looked like he was leaning on thin air!

"OK Norm, nice trick. Now stop before you pop a hernia or something."

"Damn it, Eddie! This is not a fucking trick!" The senator's eyes blazed like they do before someone gets hurt. It had been a very long time since anyone had failed to take him seriously. There was also some strained frustration. He seemed unable to communicate his ideas to his old partner. It was essential that Eddie understand what was going on. He had to see the reaction or he would never buy into the ACME effect.

Besides, this little test meant that he was putting off dealing with some critical topics. Very critical topics. Topics that were getting more expensive as this program kept running and the ACME kept draining power resources.

"Come over here and feel this. It's the wall of the projection room we're in."

Eddie paused to consider this bizarre request. He wasn't really in the mood for this stupid-ass game playing. But things were not normal. Maybe Norman was "sick" and should be humored? He frowned and walked over to his partner.

"Here, put your hand right here, you'll feel it!"

Eddie looked blankly at Norman for a moment, then swung his hand up to the point in space indicated. There was nothing there, of course. His palm smacked nothing but thin air. But he patted at the air a bit without much enthusiasm. Humoring him, Eddie said, "Yeah, I feel that, kinda hard but soft, right?"

"Shit. You're part of the damn program, you can't feel it. Hang on let me think. Of course! The tools! Now we can get somewhere, Edster!" Eddie hated being called "Edster." He didn't actually like "Eddie" too much either. He sometimes felt that it made him sound too soft, or too friendly.

Card practically danced as he circled his large frame back toward the entry portal. He dragged the chair over to support his weight on one arm. Then he crouched a bit and with the other with the other arm, started patting at the air again.

Eddie was becoming less concerned about his friend and also less patient. He watched again as the world's worst mime started act two. But suddenly he saw Norman's hands disappear into nothing.

"Norm! What the hell… how did you do that?" Eddie whispered fiercely.

Card looked back over his shoulder with a strained grin then ducked forward and suddenly his head disappeared, followed by his arms up to his shoulders and then his waist.

"Norm! Jesus Christ, what are you doing?"

Eddie bent down and grabbed Norman by the belt and pulled. Both flew back toward the sink in a heap. Something dark flew from Norman's hands. Instinctively Eddie grabbed at it but wasn't able to hold it for long. Its weight and metallic bulk slipped from his fingers just before it clattered loudly against the kitchen sink and then slid along the floor to Card's feet, spilling things along the way. It was a small toolbox now opened with a few tools marking its path haphazardly like discarded children's toys. Looking at his friend with some amazement, Eddie could see that Norman's face had purpled and was sweating from the minimal exertion.

"How did you do that Norm? It was a great trick! Better than that mime shit!"

The senator began to reply as he plucked the tools from the floor and arranged them back into the box, but stopped suddenly. He frowned a bit at the army-green toolbox and its contents. "Funny," he thought, "I coulda sworn this had been a yellow toolbox." Then the senator's arm began that familiar aching. "Shit! Not now. Not now for Christ sake." he thought.

"Eddie, just sit tight for a while, ok? I need to go take care of something." The pain was beginning to numb his shoulder and spread hotly to his wrist and fingers. "I'll be back, partner. I need to think this through a little better. I'll try again real soon, promise!"

Card felt old, out of shape, and very foolish. This was mixed together with a frustrated impatience with himself that he hadn't endured since his rookie days. But, he had realized that this wasn't really a live performance. All he had to do was reset the program and try it again. His old partner would have no memory. This entire conversation would be erased the moment the ACME was powered down. He could have a do-over.

The throbbing in his arm had begun to dissipate and the tingle in his fingers signaled the false alarm. Nitro pills in his briefcase back in the control room were no longer important. All the Senator cared about now was getting the hell out of the machine. Forget about the sincerely concerned looks his ex-partner had given him. This needs to be done better. And it will be.

Senator Card turned his back on Eddie and ducked down toward where he thought the opening or exit should be. He had completely forgotten about not touching the sides of the doorway. Pressing his hands along the inner surface of the sphere he waved around feebly until he saw his hands disappear in front of him. He'd located the exit. He spread his hands out to find either side of the round portal so he could center himself and step through. He paused briefly to consider turning around and saying goodbye to his dead partner. But what the hell did it matter? As soon as they turned the machine off this would all be gone. His partner would be dead again anyway. Besides, fatigue was taking root. He had seen what he needed so now the automatic parts of his mind were taking over and gearing up for a nap. His muscles were getting numb and as excited as all this was, he had to admit that he was too much an old fart to do any more. He still had to get back to his office and organize his thoughts.

With a sigh, Card reached between his feet and grabbed the toolbox. With his free hand, he pulled himself through the hole. Instantly it felt as though there were firecrackers going off in his mouth, throat, chest, and belly. Dropping the toolbox, he yelled clutching and slapping at his chest and stomach. Card's initial and panicked thoughts were that he was having that heart attack anyway. That was quickly changed to a paranoid certainty that he had been betrayed and some malfunction in the ACME was causing his death. He'd had heart attacks before and they never felt like this.

* * *

After he watched his friend disappear into thin air carrying the toolbox, a sick dread moved through Eddie's gut. "What was it he said?" Glancing at the table he saw the saltshaker. "Right, he said, 'It really tastes like salt!'" Eddie shook a bit of the salt onto the back of his hand. With only slight hesitation he stuck his tongue into the little white patch of crystals. It tasted like salt.

He gave a deep sigh and stared at the floor to think about his partner. What was this going to do to their ability to work together as detectives? What was he going to tell Mary? Should he just forget this ever happened? What happened to Norm's body? His face? Then he finally noticed what his eyes had been fixed on while he'd been spacing out. It was a small screwdriver; one of the tools that had skittered out of the toolbox and under the table earlier. He bent a knee and reached through the legs of the chair and grabbed the tool. It was the only thing he had to prove to himself that it hadn't all been just a hallucination. But what proof? A screwdriver? What does that prove?

Pressing the tip of the screwdriver into his chin he tried to identify the spot where his friend had vanished. On a sudden whim, and feeling foolish the moment he did it, Eddie tossed the screwdriver at the space Card had disappeared into. It vanished before ever hitting the floor.

Eyes wide, and blood pounding through his ears, Eddie felt like a ghost had just walked across his grave. And then that ghost cried faintly into the wind. It almost sounded like Norm crying out, but it had to be Eddie's mental expression of the concern he felt for his clearly troubled partner. Not to mention the growing concern he suddenly felt for his own, apparently failing, sanity.

Slowly, Eddie walked closer to the spot where the screwdriver had ceased to exist. Tentatively he felt the air with some concern that he might lose a finger or worse. Much worse.

* * *

The technician happened to be watching the monitor when Eddie was swatting around looking for Card's exit hole. He had been about ready to initiate the shutdown sequence when, at the sound of the senator's cry, he leaped from the control booth and ran to the wooden shanty doorway where Card lay half out of the small building breathing heavily. Assorted tools were scattered all around his body. The senator had bruised his shoulder falling out onto the wooden crate that had farted at him earlier. As if foreshadowed, Card could not contain the sudden pressure in his bowels and let loose with an explosive release. At the sound, the operator skidded to a stop a few feet before the heaving senator's supine body.

Card looked up at the technician and snarled, "What the hell did you do to me?" He'd forgotten the tech's name, which was probably a good thing at the moment.

Icy-cold terror seized the technician's own bowls at the menacing tone of the senator's voice. "What do you mean? I didn't do anything! What happened?"

"It felt like my chest and stomach was exploding! God damn it! You had to have done something!" The senator's chest, stomach, and bowels were feeling better now and so he started to roll himself around to a sitting position. It would not do to be in such an undignified position when he screamed at this little puke asshole.

Had the senator been looking at the technician's face, he'd have seen the light go on, but he was instead looking at the scratch on his watch crystal. "You must have eaten something in there. Did you?"

"Eh? What? Eat anything? No, of course not, there wasn't any food in there at all! Just dirty damn dishes everywhere. As usual!"

"Well, it could have been anything, like water or even a bug. Did a bug fly into your mouth?"

"What the fuck are you talking about? A bug! A bug? Jesus, I'm gonna fly a bug up your ass in a minute! Make some sense you snot!"

"Senator, the ACME sphere's operational parameters require a fair balance between energy and matter going in and energy and matter going out. If you went in with less than when you came out the extra mass is automatically reclaimed at the portal. You must have put something in a pocket or more likely ingested something that put you 'off balance' during exit."

Slowly the senator's light went on… the damn salt. "Oh Christ, the salt. I tasted the salt. Will I get fried if I go take a piss?"

After a moment of scrotal introspection, the humming of the ACME brought Card back to the moment. To the silent and fearfully immobile technician he tilted his head a bit and purred, "Is this thing still running? Am I spending a million dollars a second of the tax payers' money for no fucking reason? Should we be keeping track so that we can take it out of your pay?"

"No sir, I mean, yes sir, the ACME is still operational, but I'll go shut it down right now. No, you shouldn't have any problem taking a… I mean, going to the… well… there shouldn't be any more side effects, sir." Shane scampered away to slam the emergency shutdown.

Senator Norman Card could feel the system shutting down around him. In fact, it was difficult to not notice the sparking between power conduits as energy expenditures were being rebalanced. Eventually the subliminal vibrations of the machine faded making them noticeable only by their sudden absence. One of the tools on the floor in front of him was a mini flashlight. Curiosity tickled him and he bent down to grab the light. Turning, he re-entered the small ACME sphere, now dark. He shined the flashlight around at the very reflective curved walls. Turning, he glanced down and froze. At his feet was that damned saltshaker from Eddie's kitchen table.

JulNoWriMo 2010

For the first time ever, I will be trying to creatively write a complete something. The something in this case will be a novel.

OMG, NFW!

A crass statement, but to the abbreviated point.

For those of you who have never heard of JulNoWriMo, and don't know what it is, you would presumably, then, also not know NaNoWriMo (perhaps also referred to by some as NoNoWriMo), or what ANY ??NoWriMo would be. These are months that are "set aside" for people to write novels. So starting tomorrow (first day of July), the 31 days of the month are to be used for writing a 50,000 word novel. Hence: July Novel Writing Month 2010.

To write 50,000 words in a month means writing about 1600 words a day. This translates into (roughly) about six pages a day. A commitment I have always WANTED to be able to make to writing, but never have. Hell, I don't think I've committed to ANY personal goal for that long!

If you are interested in trying this out, go to julnowrimo.com and register a username in the forum section. Then, starting as soon as midnight tonight, write your ass off and post your daily wordcount in your profile. See? Easy! You can write about ANYTHING you want. Fiction, non-fiction, whatever.

I plan to write a science fiction story. One I've been thinking about for a long time. I only know some basic things about it. The title: ACME (the reason for the image above). A few plot-points. A main character who isn't alive (or "real"). A protagonist who is a major SOB, but who doesn't really want to be an SOB... anymore. A kick-ass ass-kicker! And, of course, the MacGuffin around which everything revolves.

What I do NOT know is where the story goes, how it ends, or whether I will be able to follow-through with this task. It is a scary commitment for me. I think because if I finish it, I might not like it. Then all those years thinking about it as something that could be good will feel wasted. My false belief(s) will be exposed.

I may post excerpts from it throughout the month if anyone is interested. Not many people I know are into science fiction... but I will try to make it an interesting read. By that I mean, something that I would have wanted to read.

Ok, that's it for now... don't want to waste all my creative juices on this virtually pointless blog.

Sprink Leaning

This weekend we spent cleaning the house. NOT one of the things I look forward to doing because of the level of thoroughness involved. But, a needed evil.

Anyway, because I am a lazy man, I tend to drift off-task here and there by reading the labels of the items I am passing judgment over. Normally I base the live-or-die (keep-or-toss) decision based on how the item looks, how much use is left in it, etc. Well, a new criterion was established recently. See if you can figure it out...

1. Suave Deep Cleaning Shampoo FOR MEN, "The right tool to thoroughly clean and remove build-up - for less than the more expensive brands."
   
   
2. Total Body Foot Powder (I think the name makes my point all by itself).
   
   
3. Bath & Body Works: Cucumber Melon Soap, "FRESH FROM AMERICA'S HEARTLAND" but "Made in Guatemala."
   
   
4. Plackers Stop Grinding^TM DENTAL NIGHT PROTECTOR, but under WARNING: Do Not Use, "if you are currently experiencing pain in the mouth or jaw because of tooth clenching or grinding."
   

Clearly, all of the above are keepers.

Epic Evil Dream-Ghost Attack FAIL!

I recently read a book titled, "Walking in on mum and dad: Adventures in embarrassment" by Brian King. Before I say anything else, let me tell you that I am one of the lucky kids NEVER to have walked in on ANYONE doing anything that would scar my psyche. However, during one of my nostalgic trips to the past, I did have a sudden realization (as follows).

When I was little... let's say around three years old or so, I had nightmares. Because I have always wanted to try and make sense out of the world, I naturally assumed that nightmares were coming from OUTSIDE me. This is because there's no way that I would have inflicted them on myself. So, they had to be like evil ghosts that floated around the world, swimming in the ocean of night-time... along with other types of sleep-ghosts, like good dreams, neutral dreams, strange dreams, pee-pee dreams... you get the idea.

So, a sleeping brain, like a baited hook, drifts into the nightly ocean realm to bob about until it "catches" one of these dream-ghosts. Sometimes you catch a good one, sometimes not. My goal at night was to figure out how to keep from catching the wrong type of dream. At first, I thought it was just a random catch. But over time, because I seemed to be having so many bad dreams, I started to think they were out to get me. Yes. I knew that the evil dream-ghosts were hunting me.

One night, while I pondered this problem, I decided to picture what it must be like for these evil-hunter-dream-ghosts in their dark sleep-realm. My tiny brain was not really up to the task of logical thinking, but fortunately for me, it was also too young to know how bad it was at thinking. So here are some of my "deductions" that guided me to a solution (some relevant to that deduction, some not):

1. Because it is ONLY POSSIBLE for ghost-dreams to attack AT NIGHT, I figured they couldn't see very well. Hey, who CAN see well in the dark, right?! (Totally missing the point that night was when I slept...)
   
   
2. Because the bad dreams really never bothered me until recently, I figured that the first bad-dream ghost must have found me by accident and because my juicy young veal-brain was so delicious, it alerted its sibling bad-dream ghosts to let them know how to find me. Sort-of like the honey-bee dance... but for evil bad-dream ghosts.
   
   
3. I never had the same bad dream twice, so when my brain "ate" the bad-dream, it must make one less bad dream out there for someone else to have.
   
   
4. Once a dream is dreamt, it doesn't leave my brain to swim around in the dream ocean. I know this because I can still remember the dream... so it's still inside my head, only not as scary since it's gotta live with me now.

5. If the bad-dream ghosts cannot see very well, and it's only a one-way trip into my head, they must know only one path to get to me.
   
   
6. There must be a way that the bad dreams get into my head from the outside. So this is got to be a path that is always open. Obviously, then, it has to be my nose. Think about it. My eyes are closed, so no dreams can get in that way. I can sleep with my mouth in the pillow or on my arm. My ears are easy to cover because one is usually in the pillow, while the other is covered with a blanket. (To this day, I can't sleep without even a light sheet covering my ear.) The only entry is my nose because I keep it out of the covers like a snorkel.
   
   
7. I sleep on my right side for the most part. This means that the ghost dreams found a specific way into my head. This way MUST be from my left, since that's the direction my nostrils open up to.. AHA! I was like Sherlock Holmes figuring these suckers out! I was about to beat them completely!
   
   
8. Because I am not asleep right away when I get to bed, the dreams must have to time their arrival just right. The world is big, so they probably have to start swimming toward my nose early in the day to get to my nose when it is open to them (i.e., when I am sleeping).
   
   
9. SOLUTION: Start my sleep as usual, on my right ear. But, just at the last minute, flip over and face the other way! HAH! Epic Evil Dream-Ghost Attack FAIL! Now they can't find a way in because all they will do is bonk against the back of my head! Hahahahahahahahah!
   
   
10. FATAL FLAW: Just because it's a one-way street to my brain, that doesn't mean they can't go in the exact opposite direction. Yes, it occurred to me that maybe they could just turn around and go in a straight line the other way - around the Earth - to get in the other way! Not to worry! Because the Earth is so big, I knew it would take them MORE time to go around the other way than I would be asleep. Besides, half-way through the night, I could just turn over and look back the other way. They wouldn't know this, and if there were any speedy evil ghost-dream swimmers, they'd just end up hitting the back of my head again!

Surprisingly, this actually worked! No more bad dreams! I was such a monkey-tard. But at least now that you know about little Stevie's baby-logic, I can get to my point.

A few years ago I was pondering those early days of crisp logical feats of deduction and wondered about what it must have been to set me off on these nightmares. I think I figured it out! It was a four-stage sequence of revelations that made me wish I hadn't been so nostalgic that day.

1. In this stage, I recalled that when I went to bed, I would like to stare up at the window in my bedroom because either the moonlight (streetlight?) usually brought in a good amount of light. My bedroom window also faced out to a street that wasn't used much at night (Kingsbury Avenue). But occasionally, a car would drive by and I could hear its engine as well as its tires on the road as it passed by.

2. Recalling that, it suddenly popped into my head that the road my window faced was a hill that dropped down into a dark scary wooded area. It was scary especially because we hardly ever drove that way. It was leading away from everything we would need (stores, school, relatives, etc.). And when I was a kid, that was enough information for me to know that if a witch or a unicorn or a dragon, or whatever were to pass by, it would have to come from THAT direction.

3. The previous revelation reminded me about the gypsy wagon that used to pass by my house at night! It was probably right after watching the movie Pinocchio that I started to imagine gypsies traveling the streets at night with their wagons of possessions hunting mis-behaving little boys (remember when Pinocchio gets captured in the wagon?). That, plus my grandmother's occasional threats of what would happen if I didn't behave ("If you don't behave, I'm going to sell you back to the gypsies!" - nice huh?).

4. My final train of thinking brought me to wonder what the hell could it have been that would work its way slowly up the road at night sounding like a gypsy wagon with bouncing tins and clomping hoof-stomps, and squeaking springs, and... well right about here, I also recalled that my parents' bedroom was right next to mine. It is easy to understand how a kid with his ears under the covers could mistake the origins of these sounds.

So, while I never walked IN on anything... the gypsies apparently took me for a ride BY something.

There is no blowtorch powerful enough to burn the memory of gypsy wagons from my mind now. What was once, up until a few short years ago, a pleasant childhood reminiscence of a silly fear... has taught me that those damn evil dream-ghosts CAN get you when you are awake!

Can you smell that...?

You may have heard about a website called "Rate My Professors"? It is a handy way for students to complain or praise their professors for others to read. Did you ever hear about the one called "Rate My Students"? Well I understand the domain is for sale, but there is no actual content there. Hmm, why could that be?

1. Students like to whine more than professors? No, I do not think THAT'S true (trust me).
2. Maybe professors just haven't THOUGHT about it? Well, maybe, but I doubt it. Really, most know that it would be ILLEGAL to post such information about students in a public setting like that without student consent... and would students consent to that? Doubt it.
3. Professors do not NEED a web-presence to bitch and complain about students? Well, I will stop with this one as it is closest to what I believe may be true.

There is an element of frustration when someone else has YOUR fate in their hands. Especially when you believe they may be manipulating your fate in ways you do not like. So, one outlet is to complain anonymously (i.e., safely) on the web; knowing that other members of your cohort AND possibly even the professor, will get to read about it.

True, some students justify their online complaints by also posting favorable reviews of OTHER professors as well. This probably makes them feel as though their complaints are "balanced" or "justified" rather than biased. After all, if all students did was complain about professors, then that would seem like a personal problem. But by giving positive reviews (sometimes), it helps to make a person feel that their complaints are more valid/honest/etc.

Ok, whatever... this page isn't about all THAT stuff, though. Instead, I'd like to direct you attention to the idea that most professors have been doing the teaching gig for a LOT longer than you have been a student. They also SEE a lot more students than you see professors. For example, in the years that I've been here, I see an average of about 100 brand-new student faces in my classrooms EVERY semester!

Believe me, we have SEEN it all, we have HEARD it all... You might THINK you are fooling your professor with some excuse. You see them smile warmly and sympathetically, and give you that extension, or accept this excuse... But most likely, they don't care. Teaching is a lot of work. If a student is THAT committed to a lie (or exaggeration) in order to "get away with" missing class or getting an extension, then fine. We can turn our attention to the students who are there for an education (rather than waste extra time on those who are there just for their degree).

BUT KEEP IN MIND, someday, if ANY student thinks that he or she might need a letter of recommendation for graduate school, or for a job, they should keep in mind that professors are under NO obligation to LIE about you in their letter!

MOST professors will probably avoid the ugly truth, though, merely by omitting those from the letter. The result being a very brief letter along the following lines:

To whom it may concern, I have been asked to write a letter of support for STUDENT who I have known since ________ as I have had STUDENT in ________ classes. These classes included, CLASS-1, ..., CLASS-n, and STUDENT performed adequately in MOST/ALL of them earning a mean grade of about ________ on a 4.0 scale. If you should require any additional information, please do not hesitate to contact me. Sincerely, Professor Name

Not much to say, really. But that was a student who really didn't say much in class anyway. The professor clearly does not really know the student. This is unfortunate. Most of the places (graduate schools or potential employers) are looking for information about reliability, aptitude, ability to take on challenging tasks, potential for success, communication skills, etc. These can sometimes be extracted from course work, but only rarely and probably never ALL qualities needed to write a good letter. So obviously one point that could be taken from this is to get the professor to know you AND demonstrate the skills and qualities that can be written about you in a strong letter.

BUT MY REAL POINT ONLY BEGINS NOW!

Imagine what the professor COULD (should?) have said if the student engaged in ANY of the following classroom behaviors:

• Often arrives late to class. ("Often" as in: I noticed it a couple of times.) How do you imagine this behavior would look to a potential employer? As far as your professor is concerned, this is the type of employee you would likely be. As far as your professor is concerned, this means you won't take graduate school that seriously either.
• Often packs-up and/or leaves class early. So... why should I hire you (or accept you into my program) again?
• Text-messages, or reads/studies-for an unrelated book/class, talks to neighboring students, (etc.) during my class. Um, yeah, THIS is a good person to hire. THIS person reflects the qualities I'd want from a graduate student... This student would surely be trusted to stay focused on the job, finish a task, pay close attention to detail, etc.
• Only does the bad behaviors (or has a bad attitude) in OTHER classes. The ones that don't matter, right? Yeah, like professors never talk... they NEVER go to a colleague and ask, "Hey, do you know this student? How does this student do in YOUR class?" Yeah, being selective about what classes you slack off in is a REAL good strategy. Best of luck with that! So really, that type of student is NOT to be relied on. Apparently, if they think they can get away with crappy behaviors, they WILL try to behave that way.
  

BOTTOM LINE: Your professors are NOT likely to be your employers or the people who make the final decision as to whether you get into a graduate program or not. However, they ARE key elements to that process. Your letters of reference are not based solely on your grades but can also include the impressions you give to them while you are taking their classes. Should you be worried? Not at all if you would behave the same way in class as you would if your boss or graduate mentor were watching you. Or, think of it the other way, would you want to spend money on employees or give scholarships to graduate students who behaved similarly?

Curing Our Ails!

I am currently in the midst of a semester in which I am "teaching" a course called Psychology of Paranormal Beliefs every Monday evening. Well, we missed one and a half evenings so far due to the weather.

Anyway, it is probably the sixth or seventh time I've taught the class, and I can honestly say I haven't been too thrilled with the way any of them have gone so far. I keep trying new things and ditching old things, and so-few things end up filtering through to be used again next time. But maybe by the 25th teaching I will get the hang of it.

So, what is my "problem" with the course? I wonder about that each time I teach it. I think it has something to do with the above photo. It is a photo of a product (ok, two products, a liquid and a pill) sold in a large-chain supermarket mixed in willy-nilly with an entire bank of cold/flu medicinals. It is expensive... but not seemingly more so than neighboring products. So what's the big deal? Unfortunately, the image may be a bit small and maybe a bit too blurry to identify the TYPE of product it is. On the left, it is described as "homeopathic cough syrup" while on the right, it is described as a "homeopathic medicine".

One of these is certainly a more accurate description than the other. Briefly, the idea of homeopathic "medicine" is that cures require exposure to extremely dilute quantities of substances that mimic the symptoms of whatever it is you want fixed. Indeed, where our traditional medicinal experience is that MORE medicine means MORE of an effect, with homeopathic "medicine" it is the opposite. Yes, the LESS of the critical substance, the MORE of an effect it has. So, roughly, the above pictured "medicines" contain not even a single molecule of the critical substance that is supposed to be helpful. Yes indeed, it must be some mighty powerful stuff!

Oh, want to know what the "critical substance" is that was diluted OUT of the product altogether? It's basically extract of duck liver and heart. Sound kinda like a gross thing to ingest when ill? Again, no big deal since there ISN'T any to be found in the product! So what does between $6.79 and $11.99 buy you? Well, as I said above, the description on the left is more accurate. The only ingredients you will find in THAT one is sucrose, lactose, honey, and water. Yes, in other words, you would be spending more than six bucks on a four-ounce shot of sugar-water! Not thirsty? Well then please feel free to purchase the "medicine" version which comes out to about two bucks a sugar-pill-dosage.

It really bothers me to think that people are throwing away their money on this crap - some knowingly, but SURELY many do so UNKNOWINGLY. If you want to believe that sugar water "remembers" that some duck-liver molecules brushed up against them in the past and will therefore CURE (or in ANY way TREAT) your illness, then FINE! Spend your foolish money! But because this garbage is stuck in the middle of all the other VERY WELL PROVEN treatments, people are going to pick up the box in their stuffy-nosed bleary-eyed quest for relief, see the outrageous CLAIMS on the box, ASSUME they are rigorously and scientifically proven, and throw away their money.

Please, would ALL of the folks who ever end up reading this (if any do), the folks who have a spare $12 that they can discard without a care, PLEASE just send it to me? Actually, just send me half! How's that? Does ANYONE really feel that they can piffle away cash... ever?!

When I have taught the class in the past, I have tried to maintain control over my biases because I really didn't want my students to feel that I was just PUSHING my bias down their eyes and ears. So by the end of the semester, I guess I just wondered if any of the messages really got through. I probably feel that they didn't because stupidity continues to reign in this world. It seems worse every day. Maybe it's always been this bad - but I am only sensitized to it the more I learn about it? Who knows. THIS semester, though, I think I will try being a little more assertive with my "biases" (but I will happily identify them as such when I do - for now).

For those of you who might be offended by my apparent lack of "open-mindedness" let me be blunt: Too f-ing bad! I challenge YOU to demonstrate YOUR open-mindedness! I will gladly accept the homeopathic claims when the testing of and resulting evidence is as good as that supporting scientifically based medical cures. What would it take to change YOUR mind? If you cannot imagine any evidence that would change your mind, then it is clearly already a closed mind.