Looks Who is Talking Now

When I was growing up we never worried if the words we spoke were understood by babies 6 to 9 months old.  You talked to them, they babbled back to you, you fed them or changed their diaper and sent them on their way.  A new study was conducted to understand if babies 6 to 9 months old understand the meaning of words.  I say just wait until the child gets to 5-years-old and they’ll understand how to ask you to buy them everything in the toy store.  When they get to be teenagers you’ll wish you had a home voice box removal kit designed for use on teens.  My comments on this press release are in Italics.

The Meaning of Many Spoken Words Understood By 6- To 9-Month-Olds

At an age when "ba-ba" and "da-da" may be their only utterances, infants nevertheless comprehend words for many common objects, according to a new study.

So what?  Now if they could understand how to get a job THAT would be impressive.

In research focused on 6-to-9-month-old babies, University of Pennsylvania psychologists Elika Bergelson and Daniel Swingley demonstrated that the infants learned the meanings of words for foods and body parts through their daily experience with the language.

Haven’t they ever seen the commercials from E*Trade?  Those kids not only talks but understand how to trade stocks.  I think these researchers should spend time studying those children.

These findings unseat a previously held consensus about infant learning. It was widely believed that infants between 6 and 9 months, while able to perceive and understand elements of the sounds of their native language, did not yet possess the ability to grasp the meanings conveyed through speech.

The researchers are confused.  It was widely believed nobody really cared as long as their child was healthy and developing normally.  These researchers should study why children don’t seem to comprehend the word “no” even into adulthood.

Bergelson and Swingley recruited caregivers to bring their children to a lab to complete two different kinds of test. In the first, a child sat on the caregiver's lap facing a screen on which there were images of one food item and one body part.

What body part?  Even at that age, I’m sure there are body parts that would get different reactions.  I wonder if this type of research has ever been done using teenagers.

The second kind of test had the same set-up except instead of the screen displaying a food item and a body part, it displayed objects in natural contexts such as a few foods laid out on a table or a human figure.

Was the human figure displayed in a natural context?  Was it of dad drinking beer and watching sports or of mom yelling at dad for drinking too much beer and spending too much time watching sports?  That's something I think kids understand at an early age.    

In both the two-picture and scene tests, the researchers found that the 6- to 9-month-old babies fixed their gaze more on the picture that was named rather than on the other image or images, indicating that they understood that the word was associated with the appropriate object.

I wonder if any of these researchers have children.  Gazing at things at that age takes up quite a bit of time.  Maybe the kids were thinking how bored they were being forced to sit on someone’s lap and look at pictures.  They probably wanted to down and explore the stuff in the research lab.

"We're testing things that look different every time you see them," Bergelson said. "There's some variety in apples and noses and 'nose' doesn't just mean your nose; it could mean anybody's nose. This is one of the things that make word learning complicated: words often refer to categories and not just individuals."

Huh?  Who paid for this study?  If you just show pictures to a kid all day and record the results you make way too much money no matter how much you’re paid. Words also often refer to expressions such as...WHAT? 

The study's novel results contribute to an ongoing debate about infant language acquisition and cognitive development.

With the brilliance displayed by the researchers involved with this study, it makes you wonder what’s next on their agenda.  Will they turn their well-developed intellect toward unlocking other mysteries such as why children drool while teething, why children make a funny face before they fill their diapers?  Such priceless information is likely to enlighten all parents in the present and future.  (For any researchers reading this, the previous paragraph was sarcasm.  Just ask any child 6 to 9 months old.)

Here is a link to the story.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/02/120213154057.htm

According to Psychologists: If You Simply Hold a Gun You Believe Others Have a Gun

I don’t have a Ph.D. in psychology.  I have read many studies that suggest to me that part of the requirement for obtaining such an advanced degree is to completely do away with any hint of common sense you might possess.  That is the only way to explain how some extremely ridiculous studies could be conceived and performed.  Below is the study that wants us to believe that by holding a toy gun you are more inclined to think others have one.  I think this is a false premise.   I used to think most people who conduct research could think rationally but this study has created serious doubts within me. 

My accurate insights are in italics.

New Research Shows That Holding a Gun Makes You Think Others Are Too

Wielding a gun increases a person's bias to see guns in the hands of others, new research from the University of Notre Dame shows.

If you’re traveling through certain parts of New York City, Los Angeles, Philadelphia or even Afghanistan, I think this is a reasonable assumption.

Notre Dame Associate Professor of Psychology James Brockmole, who specializes in human cognition and how the visual world guides behavior, together with a colleague from Purdue University, conducted the study.  In five experiments, subjects were shown multiple images of people on a computer screen and determined whether the person was holding a gun or a neutral object, such as a soda can or cell phone. Subjects did this while holding either a toy gun or a neutral object, such as a foam ball.

Well, who knew you could draw evidence from real life by looking at a computer screen?  Did anyone bother to check the eyesight of the participants?  Is it me or is body language also an important aspect of determining if someone has a firearm?  (Sarcasm alert) I guess if you’re holding a toy gun you have a whole different attitude then if you’re holding a foam ball.  I know when I’m holding a fully loaded squirt gun, I’m hoping to find another person who has one.

The researchers varied the situation in each experiment, such as having the people in the images sometimes wear ski masks, changing the race of the person in the image or changing the reaction subjects were to have when they perceived the person in the image to hold a gun.

I wonder what type of gun?  You’d have a different response from seeing a 357 Magnum to noticing a derringer.  I imagine the picture of a nun holding a derringer would be less threatening than seeing an escaped prisoner holding a 357 Magnum.

Regardless of the situation, the observers found the study showing that responding with a gun.  Biased observers reported "gun present" more than those with a ball. Thus, by virtue of affording the subject the opportunity to use a gun, he or she was more likely to classify objects in a scene as a gun and, as a result, to engage in threat-induced behavior, such as raising a firearm to shoot.

Huh?  This is where the requirement to get rid of your common sense in order to receive an advanced degree could be problematic.  This looks stupid.  “Affording the subject the opportunity to use a gun he or she was more likely to classify objects in a scene as a gun.”  Are these researchers out of their minds?  What opportunity?  The subjects had toy guns.  Someone needs to tell these people that holding a real gun and looking at real people if a bit different. 

“And, as a result, to engage in threat-induced behavior, such as raising a firearm to shoot.”

I hope this study wasn’t taxpayer funded.  How many people raised their toy guns to shoot?  Hey, maybe they should’ve seen how many of the participants holding foam balls were tempted to throw them at the computer screen.  In theory, they afforded the opportunity to throw a rock at someone?

"Beliefs, expectations, and emotions can all influence an observer's ability to detect and to categorize objects as guns," Dr. Brockmole says.

As does the ability of a researcher to conduct experiments that dwell in the realm of the ridiculous. 

"Now we know that a person's ability to act in certain ways can bias their recognition of objects as well, and in dramatic ways."

(Sarcasm Alert) All that from recording people holding a toy gun or foam ball while looking at pictures on the computer.  Who knew?  Next, they’ll probably engage in other earth-shattering scientific research like trying to discover why people who buy food also eat it.

"In addition to the theoretical implications for event perception and object identification, these findings have practical implications for law enforcement and public safety," Brockmole says.

Really?  I think the only real practical implication of this study is for law enforcement to arrest whoever funded this and explain to them the real world is about more than foam balls, toy guns, and computer images.  I say it should be done in the name of public safety.

Here is a link to the story

https://news.nd.edu/news/holding-a-gun-makes-you-think-others-are-too-new-research-shows/



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Pills That Stop Racism. A Real Study

We’ve become an extremely pill dependent society.  There are pills for weight loss, pills for hair loss, pills for heartburn, pills to negate the effects experienced by pills people have previously taken.  So much faith has been put into the power of medication a group of researchers now feel they’ve discovered a pill that will end a person’s racist tendencies.  I wonder if they could work on making a pill that would end researchers desire to do such studies and thinking we regular people actually believe what they say.  My extremely valuable insights are in italics.

According to the Press Association

Researchers from Oxford University released a new study in the international medical journal Psychopharmacology showing that taking propranolol reduces “implicit negative racial bias.”  Experimental psychologist Dr. Sylvia Terbeck, from Oxford University, who led the study published said: “Our results offer new evidence about the processes in the brain that shape implicit racial bias.

I wonder if they could discover evidence about the processes in the brain that causes someone to implicitly feel such a study is actually not worth the money paid to do it.

“Implicit racial bias can occur even in people with a sincere belief in equality. Given the key role that such implicit attitudes appear to play in discrimination against other ethnic groups and the widespread use of propranolol for medical purposes, our findings are also of considerable ethical interest.”

They’re kidding us, right?  I love the “even in people with a sincere belief in equality.”  What does this mean?  These participants believed everyone is equal but for having a brain that processes discrimination, they wouldn’t be against it.  I doubt it’s possible to invent a pill that would make this stuff believable.

Thirty-six white people were used in the study.  Half of them received propranolol and the other half got a placebo.  Researchers then used a feeling thermometer to rate how “warm” they felt toward different groups.  Each volunteer was asked to undertake a “racial Implicit Association Test” (IAT) one to two hours after taking propranolol or the placebo. 

They did an experiment where all 36 participants were white.  Interesting how they had an experiment about discrimination by discriminating.  (Sarcasm alert since an anti-sarcasm pill has yet to be invented.)  Hey, I guess with 36 white people they were able to gain knowledge about every aspect of discrimination in every race around the world.  Who knew that a planet with billions of people could have their behavior explained by 36 white people?  Experiments like this make me wonder just how hard being a researcher could possibly be.

The test involved categorizing positive and negative words, and pictures of black and white individuals on a computer screen.  They also found that there was no significant difference between the propranolol and placebo groups toward religious or sexual prejudice.

What about age discrimination, gender discrimination, ugly discrimination or ten-letters –in-the-last-name discrimination?  Does “no significant differences” mean these 36 white people hated everyone equally?  Is it me or is this a bit limiting?  Will there need to be a pill created for each type of discrimination?

“Man I hate white people.”

“But you’re white.”

“Oops, guess I accidentally took the self-hating race pill by mistake.”

“Here take the love white people pill and you should be okay.”

“Thanks.”

“The main finding of our study is that propranolol significantly reduced implicit but not explicit racial bias,” researchers concluded.

These researchers think we all have the IQ of a one celled animal.  What does this mean?  The participants would not think discriminatory thoughts but just acted discriminatorily?  Maybe the 36 white people were biased at a subconscious level against researchers doing senseless work.  I don’t know what’s worse.  People doing such research and thinking it has some value or the media running stories about it because they think it has some value.  Could someone please make a truth and reality pill for the researchers and media people responsible for bringing this to the public? 

Here is a link to the article

https://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/03/13/study-finds-heart-disease-drug-combats-racism/

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Collegiate Battle against Bottled Water

This is an actual article that was produced by Bloomberg News.  I would file this story under “Duh.”  It seems that college students at the Ivy League colleges have come to realize that you really don’t need to buy bottled water as you can drink water from a water fountain.  Wow!  What a revelation!  I really was never much of a bottled water person but it’s nice to know that now Ivy League students and others are grasping a concept I’ve had for decades.  My extremely valuable insights are in Italics as always.

Top colleges shunning bottled water

NEW YORK -- Bottled water is coming under attack on college campuses.

More than 90 schools, among them Brown and Harvard universities, are banning the sale or restricting the use of plastic water bottles, unnerving the $22 billion retail packaged-water industry in the United States.

It’s something to think about an industry is getting “unnerved.”  I suppose it easier than saying bottled water companies are pissed off at college students who have developed an attitude about their product.  They just may stop hiring non-bottled-water drinking college graduates.

Freshmen at colleges nationwide are being greeted with stainless-steel bottles in their welcome packs and encouraged to use hydration stations where free, filtered water is available. Brown, which once sold about 320,000 bottles of water a year in vending machines and campus stores, ended sales in dining halls in 2010. Harvard and Dartmouth College are installing hydration stations in new buildings to reduce trash.

The now have “Hydration stations?”  Wow!  When I went to college they were called water fountains.  My how things changed.

"The product just doesn't make common sense," said Sarah Alexander, 20, an environmental-studies major at Hanover, N.H.-based Dartmouth. "Companies are taking something that is freely accessible to everyone on the Dartmouth campus, packaging it in a non-reusable container and then selling it under the pretense that it is somehow better than tap water."

Sara Alexander gets an RMN Common Sense Award.  She has given me hope and faith in the current youth attending college.  There were many of us who felt the same way back in the 1970s when the bottled water started becoming popular.  Of course, at that time, it was considered trendy to waltz down the street and drinking water from a plastic bottle. 

In response to the growing movement, the water industry released a video on YouTube last month poking fun at "Ban the Bottle," an organization that advocates banning one-time-use plastic water bottles. The spot, which features "Star Wars"-like music and flashbacks of antiwar demonstrations, says bottled water is a safe, convenient product that is "one of the healthiest drinks on the shelf" and that its packaging is recyclable.

(Sarcasm Alert) I bet after watching that video college student around the country will say “What were we thinking?  Why would we want to drink tap water when we could actually shell out our hard earned cash for a plastic container of water?  Forget about having our own container for water.  We need to have the plastic bottle with the label.  Who cares if it's actually tapped water?  The illusion that you’re drinking iceberg water or spring water or water from the frozen parts of the planet Neptune is what’s really important.”

The bottling industry may be worried about losing brand loyalty from college kids, said Eric Meliton, an industry analyst with Frost & Sullivan.  College students are "on the go, they've got backpacks and they may not choose to use bottled water."

Someone needs to tell Eric Meliton there was a time before bottled water.  We all found a way to survive.  Maybe the world is starting to figure out their product isn’t really all that important.  Back in the day, we had water fountains and today they have hydration stations. It’s six of one and half a dozen of another.

Reducing or eliminating plastic bottled water saves students money and has the environmental benefit of reducing the need to truck bottles across the country, said Niles Barnes, project coordinator with the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education?  This is a real organization.  Isn’t there a fraternity that also does this?  After a college drinking party people can come up with the most amazing things.

Dartmouth is trying to "shift the student culture" about purchasing bottled water, said Rosi Kerr, the school's director of sustainability. Princeton University, in Princeton, N.J., promotes a "Drink Local" initiative to reduce bottle waste

Some departments at Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard have banned the purchase of bottled water for meetings.

For meetings?  Can you imagine going to a meeting to give a talk and having someone at the door stop you and say “Drop the bottle of water and back away from it slowly.  You can come to the meeting but we’ve got people from the TSA at the door to screen anyone for any unauthorized attempt to smuggle in a bottle of water.  (The previous sentence was sarcasm but to some, it may actually be an idea.)

More than a dozen U.S. schools have campus-wide bans on the sale of plastic water bottles, Mr. Barnes said.

Can you imagine the listing on a student’s file that they were expelled due to smuggling in plastic bottles of water?  I suppose as long as alcohol etc isn’t banned college will still be tolerable.  I imagine that finding a cause to get emotional about on college campuses is probably difficult.  People know global warming is a hoax, OWS is not considered a virtual criminal organization so what’s left?  Ban the plastic bottles of water?  They have my backing and to show my support I’m going to get some water, in a glass, from the tap or should I say “hydration station?”

Here is a copy of the article
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2012-03-07/ivy-colleges-shunning-bottled-water-jab-at-22-billion-industry

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Winners and Losers and Tabasco Sauce

I’m always amazed when I read such studies as the following one.  It causes me to fight back the urge to hit myself in the head and yell “What kind of life have you led to think this subject is worth studying?” As always my extremely valuable insights are provided in italics.

Winners Become More Aggressive Toward the Losers

In this world, there are winners and losers - and, for your own safety, it is best to fear the winners.

What more motivation do you need to try and be a winner other than your own safety?

A new study found that winners acted more aggressively against the people they beat than losers did against the victors.

What did they expect?  After losing a sports game do you ever see members of the losing team going to the winning team and yelling “Yeah, we lost, but you couldn’t lose like us if you tried to lose.  You’re going to have to work hard to keep winning and we don’t have to do anything to keep losing.  Bet you’re jealous now.”

"It seems that people have a tendency to stomp down on those they have defeated, to really rub it in," said Brad Bushman, co-author of the study and professor of communication and psychology at Ohio State University.

"Losers, on the other hand, don't really act any more aggressively than normal against those who defeated them."

(Sarcasm Alert)  What a surprise.  I bet Brad has been stomped down a bit and is out to even the score with those who did the stomping.  Will this lead to sensitivity training for winners?  Maybe Brad will do a study to prove all winners suffer from “Loserphobia.”

Bushman said this is the first study to examine whether winners or losers were more likely to act aggressively.

Unless he comes across a crazy person or a government bureaucrat who has way too much money to spend, let’s hope this is the last time such a study is done. 

Bushman conducted the study with three French scholars.

Why am I not surprised the French are involved?

They conducted three related studies.  The first involved 103 American college students who were told they would be paired with a partner they would be competing against on two tasks.  (In actuality, there was no partner)  In the first task, participants were shown patterns of simple shapes on a computer screen for just a fraction of a second and they had to decide whether a dollar sign was present or absent.

I bet business majors would do better at this than someone studying liberal arts.

After 80 trials, all students were told their scores. Half of them were told they did better than their supposed partner, and half were told they did worse. In other words, half were winners and half were losers.

I don’t think computerized dollar sign detection is ever going to be an Olympic sport.

The second task was a competitive reaction time task.  Participants were told that they and their partner (supposedly the same person they competed against in the first task) would have to press a button as fast as possible on each of the 25 trials and whoever was slower would receive a blast of noise through headphones.

I’m sure with the right training of thumb usage all thing would be possible here.  Never underestimate the power of button pressing training.

The winner of the task would decide how loud the blast would be and how long it would last.

Results showed that participants who won in the first competition blasted their partners longer and louder than did those who lost the competition.

(Sarcasm Alert)  Oh, give them a break.  After all the training it took for them to be able to detect computerized dollar signs and quickly press buttons they’re entitled to let off a little steam. 

So in a second study, conducted with 34 French college students, the researchers repeated the same experiment, except researchers, told participants who did well on the first task, they did not necessarily perform well on the second.  The results were the same.

Maybe the results were the same but I bet the French students had a better wine selection and tastier food choices than their American counterparts. 

A third study, involving 72 French college students with one group told their partner did better than they did on the first competitive task.  One group was told their partner did worse. There was also a third group told there was a computer error during the first task and they couldn't tell who the winner was.

After this was over I bet the French students who participated wished they’d signed up for the sex research studies.

This study also used a different measure of aggression.  Participants were then told they were randomly assigned to drink a sweet beverage and their partner was assigned to drink a tomato juice beverage.  Participants were told they could add Tabasco sauce and salt to their partner's beverage - which they knew their partner strongly disliked from the food preference form.

I bet they totally ignored the requests for vodka to be added to the drinks.  Don’t they understand these are college students?

Results showed that participants who were winners in the first task added more Tabasco sauce and salt to their partner's drink than losers did.

The real lesson here is to not let winners make drinks for losers.  I didn’t need this study to know this is a bad idea.  I bet if you’re a winner you might have a bit of an attitude being forced to make a drink for a loser. 

Bushman said the fact that the findings were repeated in three different studies in two different countries suggest that there really is something about winning that makes people more aggressive.

I think there something about a study like this actually being conducted that makes people more aggressive.  I need to talk to whoever funded this and tell them my financial needs.  How hard could it possibly be to get money from those people?

The next step, he said, is to find out if winners act more aggressively toward everyone, or just toward people they defeat.

I think the next step is to figure out where Brad’s been during his life.  I have to wonder if Brad’s obsession with the aggression of winners is based on his deep feeling he spends too much time doing studies  Maybe he’s just a “Winnerphobic” who needs to go to sensitivity training.

Here is a link to the article

https://news.osu.edu/winning-makes-people-more-aggressive-toward-the-defeated---ohio-state-research-and-innovation-communications/

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Voting Has Gone To The Dogs

There are many politicians who go absolutely ballistic at the mere mention of requiring photo identification to make certain a person who registers to vote meets the requirements.  (Sarcasm alert) If photo Identification were required for voter registration I’m sure that would be viewed as unfair to all the dead voters that have been an important part of many elections is such places as Chicago and New Jersey.  Why should you not be permitted to vote simply because you’re dead?  It’s not your fault you’re dead and if it is so what?  A lot of dead people’s estates pay taxes.  Now a man in New Mexico was able to register his dog to vote.   As usual, my priceless insights are in italics.

An Albuquerque Man Says He Successfully Registered His Dog To Vote In Bernalillo County.

Is this the start of the animal suffrage movement?  Is PETA now going to claim animals have a civil right to vote?  I would not be surprised if they’re thinking about it right now.

The dog owner said he saw a voter registration booth on the University of New Mexico's campus a few weeks ago and decided to see how easy it would be to register his dog to vote.

I’m sure his dog was very interested in this social experiment.  During this time the dog was probably busy cleaning himself or looking for some dog butt to sniff.  You must wonder about the quality of life for an individual who has nothing better to do with his time.

He said he was trying to expose the problems with the registration system.  He said he just received the dog's voter registration card in the mail Wednesday and it was way too easy.

(Sarcasm Alert) Yeah, if dogs want to vote we need to make it way more difficult. Just keep it easy for illegal aliens and convicted felons.  I say we offer free neutering for all pets that vote liberal and make it mandatory for their liberal owners.  Then we’d see how badly they want to vote.

"They should verify.  Somebody should have verified this information and somebody should have come out and taken a look at exactly who it was.  But I made up a birth date, and I made up a social security number and I had a voter registration card in my hand for Buddy two weeks later," the dog owner said.

I wonder if the dog also received a green card, SSI check and invitation to the white house.  At the very least his doggy contraception is probably now paid for by the government.

KOB Eyewitness News 4 contacted the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office.  They said state law does not require proof of your social, your date of birth, or even your name.  But they said what this man did is voter fraud.

Really?  Let us cover our eyes with sunglasses least we are blinded by the brilliance of those at the Bernalillo County Clerk's Office (BCCO).  The person or persons there at the BCCO who possess an IQ that does not begin with a decimal point must realize what this man did is not only voter fraud but an illustration of a system for voter registration that permits animals to become registered voters.  They might want to think about that.  I’m certain there are dead people all over the country saying “What problem?  There’s no problem here”.  I wonder if dead pets are permitted to register to vote.

They also said they strictly look over all the applications that come from third-party registration agencies before sending out registration cards.  But this time, Buddy the dog made it through the system.

This time?  I hate to say it but I have a hunch there have been many other times people not qualified to vote may have gotten registered.  I may be a bit cynical but I think we need a system of verifying voting eligibility that is more than “strictly” looking over applications. 

"We're going to have a lot of people that are registered to vote that shouldn't be able to vote," the dog owner said.

Do you think so?  I bet seeing a line of people with their pets outside of a voting precinct just might be a tip-off.  Next thing you know there will be an amendment on a ballot to ban doggy butt sniffing in public.  The pro butt sniffers and the anti-butt sniffers will have a serious debate.

He said he has no intention of voting under Buddy's name.

What a relief!  I’m more concerned with the guy who registered his Burmese Python to vote.  I’d wait until his snake was finished.  There was a time when voting was considered a privilege.  When I got to vote for the first time I was excited.  Photo identification would be a good start to straightening this out.  Like a wise man once told me “It’s always easy to show people the truth, it’s just difficult to make them see it.”

Here is a link to the article.

https://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/hey-buddy-no-noticed-arf-voter-registration-article-1.1031582?barcprox=true

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False Hope Syndrome

I know that psychologists love to figure out new and different syndromes.  I wonder if they’ve discovered a syndrome for psychologists who are obsessed with creating syndromes.  Now if you have high expectations and don’t meet them you have your very own syndrome.  Psychologists now say you have “False Hope Syndrome.”  I wonder if this also applies to guys who are constantly turned down for dates.  My invaluable insights are in italics.

Tips from the Experts to Beat False Hope Syndrome

Press Release USNewswire/ -- Are you one of the many who pledged to invest more time and energy into wellness? Are you still on target or was your goal sidelined?  Despite their best intentions, people often find it difficult to change their behavior.  According to sport and exercise psychology authorities from the Association for Applied Sport Psychology (AASP), the problem may be "false hope syndrome."

Yeah, I mean this is for real, these people believe this.  I guess being an exercise psychology authority doesn’t pay as well as it seems and you need some sort of syndrome to pad the paycheck.  Maybe they could charge people for “reality check” treatment?  If they haven’t thought of it I’m sure they will.

"False Hope Syndrome is the cyclical pattern where one embarks on a change, succeeds in the beginning, but ultimately fails at sustaining that change," said Dr. Amanda Visek, a Certified Consultant with AASP and a professor at The George Washington University.

Maybe they can develop something called a “stick to it” vaccine and the drug companies can get involved.  Hey, people in the medical profession are entrepreneurs too.  If you believe that someday stupid medical findings will cease to be taken seriously is that also “False Hope Syndrome?”

"Americans consistently show their resiliency to failure because many will resolve to take on the same goals again next month or next year, only to fail again."

These people are suffering from “loser syndrome.”  Get it right will you?

The key to breaking this cycle of failure using the following strategies to increase the odds of sticking with your fitness goals:

Assess Your Expectations –Align expectations with what science has shown us is feasible and healthy.  

Science has shown this path is filled with chocolate cake landmines and fried food attacks.  According to science they are only dealt with through exercise and eating tofu!

Readjust and Refine Goals – Be as specific as possible when developing goals to be measurable, action-oriented, yet realistic.

Duh!  Promise to only eat unhealthy food you can falsely rationalize eating and record the results on a chart so you know how badly you’re cheating on your diet.

Prepare for Action – Gather what is needed for success – appropriate clothing, fitness equipment, social support, etc. Proper planning is crucial. We don't typically plan on failing at our goals, but we often fail to properly plan.

Don’t you also need people to yell and scream at you as you exercise?  Guess I watched one too many episodes of “The Biggest Loser.”

Extrinsic vs. intrinsic motivation

According to Dr. Brandonn Harris, a Certified Consultant with AASP and assistant professor at Georgia Southern University “The key, he said, is to enhance intrinsic motivation, which focuses on physical activity that is fun, inherently enjoyable and may even provide the individual with a new and exciting challenge.”

Does this involve going to brothels?  If it does the obesity issues with men could be over in a very short time.  If the government is going to pay for free contraception they should also pay for this health-related activity!

Harris recommends that people expand their definition of being physically active beyond running or hitting the gym.  For example, activities like walking the dog, golfing without the cart, Zumba classes, and even gardening provide fun alternatives to "traditional" forms of physical activity.  It's also important, Harris said, to remember that some physical activity is better than none.

Let’s not forget the muscle tone, exercise, and fun involved with lifting 12 ounces of beer at a time!

"Fun is the center stone to maintaining exercise," said Visek. "New exercisers don't often know what they like, only what they don't like. The key is to experiment with a number of different activities and find which one suits you best.  It's all about exercising your way. And, you can exercise your way in small increments of time throughout the day.

And people believe the time spent walking to vending machines or to getting coffee in the office has no positive physical benefits.  Oh, how wrong they are!

Research shows that moderate intensity exercise accumulated in small bouts adds up to positive fitness gains."

Finding your motivation and making it work

And that ladies and gentlemen are how you deal with “False Hope Syndrome.”  If you set your goals too low do you suffer from “Low goal setting syndrome?” or if you meet one set of goals but don’t set more is that “Unmotivated goal setting syndrome.”  How about if you lose weight and gain it all back and then try to lose it again.  Is that “Why Am I an Idiot syndrome?”  How about if you lose weight without diet and exercise just maintain your life but stop eating fat and sugar.  Is that “I don’t need no stinking weight loss program crap syndrome?”

Maybe scientists need to realize not everything is a syndrome.  Sometimes things happen because we’re all flawed individuals.  History teaches us some people succeed and others don’t.  That idea will probably never be presented to the world by the medical profession as there’s just no money to be made from it.

Link to article

https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/secrets-to-successful-exercise-adherence-tips-from-the-experts-to-beat-false-hope-syndrome-140862793.html

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The Need to Dumb Down Fast Food Menus

In a continuing effort to demonize the fast food industry, a new study tries to make the point that even if such restaurants obey the law, they still can do more to get people not to eat the food they sell.  That makes about as much sense as a square bowling ball.  My comments are in italics.

Although Fast-Food Menu Calorie Counts Are Legally Compliant, They Are Not As Helpful To Consumers As They Should Be

(Sarcasm Alert!) That’s right.  I guess these restaurants should also offer free flu vaccinations and childcare to all those who purchase from their low-cost menu. 

Calorie listings on fast-food chain restaurant menus might meet federal labeling requirements but don't do a good job of helping consumers trying to make healthy meal choices, a new Columbia University School of Nursing (CUSON) study reports.

Huh? The purpose of a fast food menu is to get you to make healthy meal choices?  If you want to eat healthily, what are you doing in a fast food restaurant?

The study, by Elizabeth Gross Cohn, RN, NP, DNSc, assistant professor of nursing at CUSON, and colleagues, was published online in the Journal of Urban Health.  The researchers studied the calorie counts for 200 food items on menu boards in fast-food chain restaurants in the New York inner-city neighborhood of Harlem. Since 2006, the City has had a standard menu labeling law that includes some, though not all, of the new federal requirements.

Who knew that Harlem was a fair representation of all those who eat fast food?  This study will be quite valuable to all everyone living in rural America.

"Although most postings were legally compliant, they did not demonstrate utility," the authors say. "Menu postings for individual servings are easily understood, but complex math skills are needed to interpret meals designed to serve more than one person.  In some items, calories doubled depending on flavor, and the calorie posting did not give enough information to make healthier selections."

If your math skills are so poor you can’t double a number, you’ve got more problems than eating fast food.  What do these people want?  Something on the menu that states “If you’re a poster child for obesity don't order from our Big-fat Slob menu and get something healthy to eat for once.”

To collect the data, volunteers equipped with digital cameras worked in pairs and canvassed each designated area block by block to identify national restaurant outlets. A total of 70 menus and menu boards from 12 restaurant chains were photographed, and 200 food items rated.

So, whoever funded this study paid for these people to eat out every day for quite a while?  I think I’m going to study the effects of drinking beer and watching sports.  Who wants to fund me?

The researchers found that, while most restaurants studied have posted calorie counts, in the majority of cases there was insufficient information to make use of them at the point of purchase.

What do these people want?  Should menus come equipped with calculators?  What would be sufficient information?  Have on each of the menus “Eat this and die.  Enjoy your meal!”

Specialty pizzas were offered in wide ranges without a clear explanation as to how they differed since the calorie count was based on a standard size and standard set of toppings.

Who cares?  You want a specialty pizza you’re going to eat a specialty pizza.  After putting on my sunglasses lest I be blinded by their brilliance, I would like to explain to Elizabeth Gross Cohn, RN, NP, DNSc, assistant professor of nursing at CUSON, and colleagues that when you order a specialty pizza, you want to eat it and do not want to do a calorie calculation.  Do they think this motivates people to brag to fellow restaurant patrons about how they felt so informed when ordering their food!

"As further legislation is developed, we support the FDA in their commitment to having menu boards that are useful at all levels of literacy."

They’re crazy.  I don’t want the government involved with controlling menus.  Why should we make menus complex because stupid people spend too much time eating at fast food restaurants?  What do stupid people want?  They already control politics and big business. 

"In low-income communities with a high density of chain restaurants, and where educational attainment of consumers may be low, simplifying calorie postings and minimizing the math required to calculate calories would increase menu board utility.”

If the people in these communities are so intellectually challenged forget writing a menu.  Just use pictures that show happy faces and sad faces next to each menu item so they eat what the FDA and the people of this study think are proper.  The government has dumbed down our education system and now they want to do the same thing to our restaurant menus? When will it ever end?

Here is a link to the story

https://www.cuimc.columbia.edu/news/fast-food-menu-calorie-counts-legally-compliant-not-helpful-consumers-they-should-be

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Backpack Brutality

If you thought the world could not become any more of a crazy place, you need only watch politicians and the judicial system get together and prove you wrong. Case in point is the story of lesbians being charged with a hate crime for beating up a gay man. Yes, this is a real news story from Boston Herald.com. As always my comments are in italics.

LAWYER: LESBIANS’ ASSAULT ON GAY MAN CAN’T BE HATE CRIME

Three women identified by their lawyers as lesbians were arraigned yesterday on a hate crime charge for allegedly beating a gay man at the Forest Hills T station in an unusual case that experts say exposes the law’s flawed logic.

(Sarcasm Alert) What flawed logic? Why shouldn’t you be punished for the feelings you have as you pummel someone into oblivion? If you beat down someone to near death while shouting “Oh how I love you,” should you simply be let go to carry on about your business?

“My guess is that no sane jury would convict them under those circumstances, but what this really demonstrates is the idiocy of the hate-crime legislation,” said civil liberties lawyer Harvey Silverglate. “If you beat someone up, you’re guilty of assault and battery of a human being. Period. The idea of trying to break down human beings into categories is doomed to failure.”

As someone who has served on juries, I can say there are times when sane and jury don’t really go together. (Sarcasm alert) What fun would the judicial system be if everyone was actually treated fairly based on a competent interpretation of the law? Think of how fewer lawsuits would be filed and how many attorneys would be out of work.  It would change our legal system forever.

Prosecutors and the ACLU of Massachusetts said no matter the defendants’ sexual orientation, they can still face the crime of assault and battery with intent to intimidate, which carries up to a 10-year prison sentence, by using hateful language.

“Someone who is Jewish can be anti-Semitic,” said ACLU staff attorney Sarah Wunsch. “The mere fact that someone is a member of the same class doesn’t mean they could not be motivated by hatred for their very own group.”

That makes sense. You can hate yourself.  I wonder if I go out and beat up a middle-aged white guy who’s been married for decades because I hate middle-aged white guys who have been married for decades if I would be charged with a hate crime? It shouldn’t matter that I beat him up because he tried to beat me up or physically harm me. What’s important in the legal world is what I’m feeling as I beat someone. I’m looking forward to the day when we have legislation to punish causing envy.  This will be where people can be brought up on charges for making others upset because of all the stuff they own. 

"The defendant has been found innocent of assaulting someone because that person had a car the defendant always wanted."

But Carolyn Euell, 38, mother of two of the defendants, Erika Stroud, 21, of Dorchester and Felicia Stroud, 18, West Roxbury, told reporters the alleged attack “can’t be hateful” because both her daughters are lesbians.

Prosecutor Lindsey Weinstein said the two sisters and one of their domestic partners, Lydia Sanford, also a defendant, viciously beat the man Sunday, repeatedly punching and kicking him after he bumped them with his backpack on a stairwell.

He bumped them with his backpack?

With our judicial system, I’m surprised that the backpack wasn’t brought up on charges. I think the backpack instigated the entire incident. Maybe the backpack secretly hates gays!

She said the victim, who suffered a broken nose, told cops he believed the attack was “motivated as a crime because of his sexual orientation” since the three women “called him insulting homophobic slurs.”

Does this man walk around with a sign telling the world about his sex life? I know guys like to brag about such things but… gee. How did the girls actually know?

But attorney Helene Tomlinson, who represented Sanford, told the judge her client is “openly identified as a lesbian ... so any homophobic (conduct) is unwarranted.” She said the alleged victim was the aggressor and used racial slurs: “He provoked them.”

Wow! Homophobic slurs, racial slurs they probably even said some very hurtful things about his favorite television shows. If they know his sex life, they probably know that as well.

Felicia Stroud’s attorney, C. Harold Krasnow, said, “They don’t know what his sexual orientation is, just like he doesn’t know what theirs is.”
Krasnow later noted the low bail the judge gave the women, $100 to $500 cash, and suggested the prosecution’s case was weak.

Why would having a weak case stop them? They’re getting a lot of free media coverage so it all balances out.

Civil-rights attorney Chester Darling agreed. “No one should go to court. It’s knuckle justice,” he said. “It’s a fair exchange.”

But Jake Wark, a spokesman for Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley, said prosecutors will have no problem proving the women committed a hate crime, even if they are lesbians.

“The defendants’ particular orientation or alleged orientations have no bearing on our ability to prosecute for allegedly targeting a person who they believe to be different from them,” he said.

I say the prosecutors should charge the racist, homophobic backpack for the crime! The backpack should serve jail time and when released be required to go to sensitivity training. If the prosecutors of this country work together they can stop the inevitable plague of racist, homophobic backpacks that are sure to bring the judicial system to ruin. (If Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley is reading this the previous sentence might be considered sarcasm. Please don’t bring me up on sarcasm charges. I have no defense.)

Here's a link to the article.

https://www.bostonherald.com/2012/02/25/lawyer-lesbians-assault-on-gay-man-cant-be-hate-crime/



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