Sunday, August 25, 2013

Come out, come out wherever U are.



 
The show on TV featured an interview with an internationally known doctor renowned for his ground breaking work on the subject of memory. The doctor was explaining, to the camera, that this television program was a demonstration and it was part of his investigation into unusual memory, sometimes known as photographic memory. "You will witness the unexplained phenomenal ability of some people to use their memory.  I will challenge my 5 guests who are also volunteers in my study, by having them tell us what happened on random dates and then we will check their answers against Google.  That way we will see how accurate their answers are."

He then calls out a date, say, September the 8th, 1995.  The person to answer first stands and says, "That was a Monday", and then he says what the headlines or what newsworthy events occurred on that day. 

The monitor of the computer comes into view and shows the information a Google  search of that date had discovered. Indeed, the computer screen monitor  shows the answer covers every news item of significance occurring on that date. 

Each of the other guests then stood up one by one and gave a similar performance. This was research and there was no reason for it to be a trick.  I was flabbergasted.

When the questioning of the guests was over the doctor continues the interview and he explains the nature of his study and how much new information about the brain was now available, and how, by using faster and faster computers, new ways to understand how memory and the brain work together are being revealed..  He said that what we had just seen was a demonstration of  memory from people who were born with this amazing ability.  After that he said that there are other circumstance that seem to trigger unusual memory activity.  Usually by a very traumatic event in a person's life.  I have had such a happening and memory return. but the unusual memory returned to me seems to be confined to my childhood.  With  much detail I can visualize events that happened in my childhood as if they had very recently occurred.. But, somethings I don't mind forgetting.  Like when I was in a hospital and they gave me my medicine in orange juice.  Whose idea was that anyway.  Ugh!  It made orange juice taste as if it had caster oil in it for many years into my adult life..  But my memory for recent stuff is tricky.  Sometimes good, sometimes bad. 

Human cane. (Out of stock)
 I have to use a cane to keep pressure off my  leg and back. My first cane likes to play tricks and hide, so to be sure I always have a cane, I have 3 canes.   Cane number #1 is my favorite.  Cane #2 and cane #3 are backups and as I write this,  cane #1 has gone missing.   So I am using cane #2.    And of course cane #3 is my safety valve.  But I'm  not buying  another cane, #4, because I think cane #1 is just waiting for me to buy it so he can come out from wherever the hell she is hiding.

 
But all kinds of other stuff from my childhood are very clear.   Like when I was in school, I was always talking, which was  annoying to my eighth grade history teacher.  She kept her class orderly and if you disrupted classroom decorum, she put you in the last seat in the first row by the wall with the chalkboard and door.  Naturally that meant she had the student, who got the highest grade in a test, sitting in the first seat, in the row by the windows.  Very near to her desk in the front of the room. 
 
On the first major test (there would be 3 major tests)  I got a 97.  She liked what I wrote but she penalized me for leaving out two periods..  I told her I thought that was unfair, this was history, not English.  You're right, I was a smartass then too.  Anyway since the next highest test score was 93, it meant for me, the first seat in the row by the windows, right at her desk..  My tucas never hit the seat because she switched me to the last seat of the first row for talking on the way to the front of the room.
After the first test I got sick and I was out of school for almost a month.  When I came back to school it was just in time to take the second test.  I got a 68 and I could see the relief in her face.  But the third and final test subject was about Napoleon.  I had read four or five books on Napoleon, including War And Peace.  I got 99.  Only one period this time and she didn't take the other half a point.  

 Highest mark again, but I did not want that front seat.  To me it was a penalty, but, after I got it,  I was determined she was not going to get me out of it.  I walked to the seat practically on my tippee toes.  The teacher had a habit of looking out of the window and every time she did so, when she turned back to the class, there I was.  Whenever I noticed it I would smile.  I could almost smell the wood burning in her head.  We both knew she had to get me out of there.

I lasted two school days, on my third day in the first seat she called Pete, (my best talking buddy) to her desk.  He was only there for a minute or two when she told the class to behave while  she went into the hall.  Before she came back I got Pete's eye and shook my head at him pointing to my lips.  A short time later a teacher's aide comes into class and she tells the teacher she is wanted in the principal's office which was a few doors down the hallway.  The teacher told us to behave again and left the room putting the aide in charge.  Now come on, it was not my fault.  There is no way a fourteen year old talkative kid can control his tongue under those circumstances.  The door opened and she came back into the classroom. Neither of us said anything.   I just got up with my things and went to the last seat which was unoccupied. 

But she did give me an 'A' for the semester.

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Monday, August 12, 2013

The Law




 
Va. Gov.  What's this stuff?
Apparently the governor of Virginia has broken the law.  And as bad as it looks for him, it might be getting even worse. He took stuff, money and things, in  return for favors that only he, the governor, could bestow.  These  favors were to the same individual who gave him money and its the same guy who also gave gifts to his family..  The governor does not seem to be in danger of going to jail for this but some convicts are where they are now, in the slammer, for breaking similar laws.  They got prosecuted.  But the governor thinks he's entitled to a 'get out of jail free card' because he is the governor of Virginia.
So he is returning some of the gifts he received, and some of the money his family took.  You know, so the law enforcers, they should leave  him alone..  Hmm.  Lets see, Virginia's Attorney General is a cohort of his and he is also a Republican, and apparently he has a dirty hands problem of his own. . So can anyone depend on him to enforce the law?  Equally?. . .  This is a nice kettle of fish, huh?.   I wonder how many cons would get out of jail if we allowed them the same standard of law enforcement the governor wants for himself.   But I think he is in real trouble because its all petty stuff.  Not so many zeros.  And I love his nickname. Governor Vaginal Probe.
Still, governors have to put their hands on bibles and swear to uphold the law, don't they? Well, maybe he forgot.  Or maybe for him to put his hand on a bible and swearing to something is the same as him not putting his hand on a bible and swearing to something.   
Maybe he doesn't' know what us citizens think when our officials do stuff like that.  Guess what governor?
When you swear on a  bible, that's heavy stuff and we have a perception that 'what you are saying is truthful' and that you are going to honor what you say.    Maybe in Virginia they think that swearing-in stuff is just some ritual for the TV cameras..  
The more I learn about Virginia's officials the more their governor reminds me of other GOP governors, especially the governor of Florida.  They both seem to think being associated with lawless behavior is ok, and that wandering down this path doesn't negatively affect their political stature.   
When I was a kid it was not unusual for me to sneak into the movies.  Without realizing it maybe I was getting myself prepped to be a Republican and then, somewhere, I just took a wrong (or right) turn in the road.
But what is it with these GOP governors and law breaking?  
Lets take our governor, you know, the guy who took the 5th 75 times because he thought it would keep him out of jail, here, in Florida.  He built a business that was so sturdy it could withstand a fine of a billion and half dollars. Wooo. Oooo.  Now that's some trick.  Makes the  Virginia gov look like a piker.  And his company deserved that fine because they were caught defrauding, and overbilling and otherwise stealing money from Medicare and Medicaid.
Stories in the Miami Herald are regularly reporting on people getting caught doing this poop.  In fact, so many crooks are stealing from Medicaid it seems like its almost the 'crime de jour' in South Florida..    One of the governor's supporters, trying to drum up votes during the election, said to me, no one was more qualified to come up with legislation to stop this kind of poop.  He said it with a straight face, too.  Well, I'm still waiting for corrective legislation.. 
And, far as I know, culpable people are still allowed to work for companies that were fined.   What?  How does that make sense?  Does anyone think people who do this stuff even want to forget how to do what they did?  I think they just get better at hiding it.
I think I can help here, you know, with an real idea or two.  Like, 'all culpable employees, along with all executive officers of a  company fined for bilking Medicaid and Medicare, be prohibited from working for any company who sends bills to Medicaid or Medicare.  For a period of five or ten years.'  And another one.  'All bills submitted to Medicare and/or Medicaid require a signed, under penalty, statement that the person submitting the bill does not know of any inflated or otherwise wrongful charges on the bill.'  Hey Soose, its so easy if you want to do something.
What gets me is, here are these self righteous GOPers pontificating about how much Medicare and Medicaid is costing us taxpayers, (they do this as a tactic, so you will vote for them I guess), when all the time a lot of the cost comes from their misbehavior.   How can we expect them to pass sensible new legislation to prevent this kind of stuff when some of them are profiting from it?

I think, our governor should open a few foreign off-shore bank accounts and put a pet on top of his car when he goes on vacation trips.  Then he might be eligible for inclusion in the next GOP primary.  To me he's a  perfect fit with that last GOP presidential primary group.  Hey, if he makes the GOP primary I just thought of a good slogan for him . . . 10,10,10.  

And don't these GOP governors realize a lot of jobs are in jeopardy?  As an example, some of the proposals they are suggesting are threatening jobs, and some of those job losses are from the future of the newest 'aroma technology'.  
Just think, with Florida's governor wanting people to 'pee in bottles' and the Virginia governor wanting pregnant women to have 'vaginal probes' with electronic equipment,  the entire future of 'smell-o-vision' is in jeopardy.
Here is a trivia question for ya, "How many former governors of Illinois are in the slammer?"  I think that last guy made a critical error when he ran as a Democrat. He should have gotten elected as a Republican.  Selling job appointments?  For them?  A Piece of cake.  That's just job training for when they become lobbyists.



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