back to top77 Comments to “Whirled Views 11.13”

1. BY Chas 11.13.07 AT 9:03 AM

   My wife reminded me that yesterday was the anniversary of our first date in 1955. She remembers things like that.
   I took her to the only football game she has ever attended. (Duke beat SC.) Afterwards, we had dinner at Cornell Arms Buffet because I worked there and ate free. So I only had to pay for her.
   Then we went to the Victory Servicemen’s Center where the ladies served refreshments to the soldiers on weekend pass, and we guys had impromptue singine, preaching and witnessing. No one was obliged to attend, several usually did.
   It was a difficult courtship at first. The problem was: I didn’t have time for her.
   I was a student at USC and worked two part time jobs. So, the only time I had was on the weekends. So, I asked her out for next Saturday, but she was busy. Sometimes she went home to Taylors, sometimes her Marine brother would come from Camp Lejune and bring a friend.
   As I posted on our anniversarey (June 9), for me it was love at first sight, but not for her. She was going with a soldier from Fort Jackson, but she suspected he had another girl in Atlanta. (I knew none of this.)
   Anyhow, it was difficult. I almost gave up. But I have a certain tenacity about me. (She says I’m hardheaded and stubborn, but that just shows she still doesn’t understand her man.)
   Anyhow, before Christmas break was over, we were a team. She says she kept wondering when we would break up, but we never did.
   She has promised to keep me another 50.

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2. BY Chas 11.13.07 AT 9:07 AM

   Looking back on all this, it’s obvious that it was meant to be. But it was not at all apparent at the time.

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3. BY Kyle A 11.13.07 AT 9:15 AM

   Hi, everybody.

   Today on my blog I have posted a survey on reading and on the teaching of reading. I would like many responses, because this topic is on my mind right now, and I want to find out what a lot of other people think.

   Click here:

   http://renaissanceguy.wordpress.com/2007/11/13/how-to-teach-reading/

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4. BY Kara 11.13.07 AT 9:22 AM

   An Affair to Remember! Best movie ever!

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5. BY momoffour 11.13.07 AT 9:30 AM

   I’ve been reading through Nehemiah these days, and it has struck me how the people responded to the hearing of God’s word. It has truly convicted me, and I have been asking God to fill me with the same joy as they had when I realize a “new truth” in my reading.–

   “Ezra opened the book in the sight of all the people…and when he opened it all the people stood up. Then Ezra blessed the Lord the Great God. And all the people answered ‘Amen, Amen!’ while lifting up their hands; then they bowed low and worshiped the Lord with their faces to the ground…Then he said to them…’Do not be grieved, for the joy of the Lord is your strength…All the people went away to eat, to drink, to send portions and to celebrate a great festival, because they understood the words which had been made known to them.”
   Nehemiah 8:5-6, 10,12

   I hope this blesses someone today as it has blessed me!

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6. BY kBells 11.13.07 AT 9:32 AM

   One our first dates was to an Auburn football game about this time of year. We were trying to keep the relationship a secret from our co-workers until we knew it was going to work out, (they had been telling us we belonged to together for years) but one of them caught me near the concession stand. He knew something was up because I was a well know rabid Bama fan. When he asked me what I was doing there I just blurted out that I had lost a bet.

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7. BY Anlir 11.13.07 AT 9:39 AM

   Good morning everyone! I drug myself out of bed and to the office so I could retrieve the paperwork for the “College Football Saturday” Contest from last weekend.

   And the winner is:

   TJ

   He correctly picked the winners of all 5 games.

   So, TJ, here is your nice, warm, hot-off-the-campfire *digital* S’more

   Enjoy!

   If you would like to participate, we will have another contest this Friday morning. All you have to do is pick the winner of 5 college football games, plus a tiebreaker. Even if you don’t know anything about football, you’re welcome to participate.

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8. BY outkast 11.13.07 AT 9:50 AM

   Congrats for having such a wonderful relationship and story to tell, Chas!

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9. BY janie 11.13.07 AT 10:17 AM

   Chas–

   Congratulations on your wonderful marriage, and blessings for your future. Thanks for sharing.

   Anlir–Please get well!

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10. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 10:24 AM

    Congratulations, Chas. Although we have not been married as long as you and your wife (my wife and I celebrate 42 years this month), we can brag that we are almost completely incompatible.

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11. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 10:25 AM

    1/5

    Although I don’t know if they were every formally diagnosed, I suspect that both my father and mother suffered from clinical depression. My mother fit the “classical” symptoms: listless, depressed, conspicuously sorry for herself, unable to cope with tasks of everyday life or manage us (her five children), sometimes breaking into tears in the middle of a task

    My father was angry much of the time. However, as Terence Real discusses in his book I Don’t Want to Talk About It, male depression often presents itself in different ways than depression in women. Excessive and uncontrolled anger is often a symptom of male depression.

    Also, he would frequently go into the bedroom and lie on the bed with the lights out. If I had engaged in a misdeed, or had failed to do some task I was supposed to do, he would call me into the bedroom, tell me to look at him while he talked to me, and then tell me about what an awful child I was.

    I wasn’t a happy camper. I don’t think he was, either.

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12. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 10:26 AM

    2/5

    The whole issue of mental illness and treatment for it in human history is crazy.

    If Jesus cast demons out of people, later authorities often locked mentally ill people up for fear they were possessed by demons.

    http://www.loveallpeople.org/deliverance.html

    If locking people up ended up treating mentally ill people as criminals, later authorities released mentally ill people to wander the streets like bums and derelicts.

    However, some people who commit terrible crimes sometimes escape criminal punishment because they are declared to be “mentally ill.” If they are placed in a hospital for the criminally insane, many people in our society are outraged because they believe such criminals are evading punishment.

    Often treatments for mental illness seemed more like torture and human rights abuses than as medical treatment: electro shock treatment and lobotomy, for example. Sigmund Freud thought of himself as a great scientist; now his work seems more like myth making than science. (Though I clearly remember as a child of about four or so having the feelings that Freud described as an “Oedipus Complex.”)

    One well-known psychiatrist with a libertarian bent, Dr. Thomas Szaz, considers mental illness to be mostly a myth rather than a medical category. It strikes me that Szaz views mental illness as both a way by which society tries to control individuals (improperly) and a way by which aberrant individuals try to avoid individual responsibility for improper actions. (I don’t know whether Szaz considers oxymorons to be a mental illness, but I doubt it.)

    http://www.ftrbooks.net/psych/bios/thomas_szasz.htm

    Treating people for mental illness can be very profitable for people who provide treatments. I knew a woman once who had been through years of expensive psychoanalysis. I don’t know that there was anything terribly wrong with her; perhaps talking once a week to her “shrink’ was just an expensive hobby. On the other hand, maybe she would have been REALLY crazy without her therapy.

    People we don’t like or approve of are often labeled as mentally ill. Communist countries such as the Soviet Union and China used “mentally ill” as a pretext for punishing and isolating political and religious dissenters. Conservative Christians at worldmagblog seem utterly unaware (deliberately, I would guess) of the irony when they label homosexuals as mentally ill. Also, they are apparently unable to tell the difference between a perversion and a mental illness.

    Each generation looks askance at the “ridiculous” treatments for mental illness in the past as it promulgates and promotes equally ridiculous treatments in the present.

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13. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 10:27 AM

    3/5

    The popular treatment fad of today is dosing people with chemicals. It’s profitable for drug companies who are learning to “diagnose” ordinary human problems and difficulties such as shyness as “mental health” problems that can be “treated” by drugs.

    http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/10/lane.html

    It’s also convenient, less expensive, and easier to manage for insurance companies to pay for drug therapy than for “talk” therapy for mental health treatment.

    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050417/ai_n14595264

    I listened to a talk by an emergency room physician (unfortunately I didn’t catch his name) on the radio recently where he pointed out that many drugs used to treat depression also cause many side effects.

    For example, many depressed people are at increased risk for suicide.

    Some of the drugs used to treat depression list as their side effects: increased risk of suicide.

    The doctor went so far as to argue that our treatments for depression were causing depression in some cases.

    http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/Treating_Depression/side_effects.htm

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14. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 10:31 AM

    wmb is rejecting a comment as already posted. I think I’m going crazy. I’ll have to finish my boring series later.

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15. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 10:32 AM

    3/5

    One more try

    The popular treatment fad of today is dosing people with chemicals. It’s profitable for drug companies who are learning to “diagnose” ordinary human problems and difficulties such as shyness as “mental health” problems that can be “treated” by drugs.

    http://www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2007/10/lane.html

    It’s also convenient, less expensive, and easier to manage for insurance companies to pay for drug therapy than for “talk” therapy for mental health treatment.

    http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qn4155/is_20050417/ai_n14595264

    I listened to a talk by an emergency room physician (unfortunately I didn’t catch his name) on the radio recently where he pointed out that many drugs used to treat depression also cause many side effects.

    For example, many depressed people are at increased risk for suicide.

    Some of the drugs used to treat depression list as their side effects: increased risk of suicide.

    The doctor went so far as to argue that our treatments for depression were causing depression in some cases.

    http://www.clinical-depression.co.uk/Treating_Depression/side_effects.htm

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16. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 11:08 AM

    4/5

    In terms of depression, claims have been made that there is a genetic link or predisposition to it. One fairly well-known study identified a high occurrence of depression and bi-polar illness among Amish farmers in Pennsylvania. Depression can also be connected to situational events such as death of a loved one, loss of a job, marital abuse, and unjust imprisonment.

    I wonder if “bi-polar disease” can be described as depression on steroids. Of course, depression and even suicide have been blamed on withdrawal from steroids.

    Taylor Hooton, a baseball player at Plano High School in suburban Dallas, got steroids from another teen after his coach told him to bulk up. He committed suicide in 2003 after he stopped taking the drugs. He was 16.
    “These kids that are using steroids are not just good kids, they’re our best kids,” said his father, Don Hooton. He blames his son’s death on depression triggered by steroid withdrawal. Hooton became an advocate for steroids testing in schools and pushed for the law passed in May.
    http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601079&sid=apQhV5Ql.zEc&refer=home

    On an intensely religious web site such as worldmagblog, there is a tendency to argue that religious belief and associated activities such as prayer can assist with problems and difficulties of life, including perhaps depression.

    Depression can be caused by biochemical causes (which may in part be hereditary in origin), by stressful situations such as job loss and divorce, and by existential issues such as wondering if life has any purpose.

    Having worked with an evangelical Christian who experienced severe bi-polar illness (costing him his job and disrupting his life, despite hospitalization and extensive treatment), I wonder about both the efficacy of prayer as a treatment and the efficacy of conventional mental health treatment as a treatment.

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17. BY Random Name 11.13.07 AT 11:09 AM

    Evidently working again. Somebody must have given wmb a shot. Or threatened to shoot it.

    5/5

    In a way, I wonder if my life was a case of depression waiting to happen. A few years ago, I did experience a case of what was diagnosed as (and felt like) clinical depression.

    I am functioning reasonably well at the moment (well enough to be a regular pest at wmb), but I was quite struck by an article I recently read in the November/December 2007 issue of AARP Magazine “Simply Happy” by Julia M. Klein.

    The article describes the work of Stephen Ilardi, associate professor of psychology at the University of Kansas.

    “There’s increasing evidence that we were never designed for our sedentary, socially isolated, indoor, sleep-deprived, poorly nourished lifestyle. If throughout the course of human evolution people were as vulnerable to depressive illness as 21st-century Americans, we would long since have gone extinct as a species.”

    http://www.psych.ku.edu/TLC/AARPIlardi_small.pdf

    If Ilardi’s work has merit, I suggest it as an example of:

    a) We are still in the infancy of understanding and treating mental illness in any fashion that can be considered “scientific” and reliable.

    b) In some areas, free enterprise creates great benefits and values for our society. In other areas, it causes more problems than solutions.

    Don’t go crazy over what I just wrote. On second thought, go ahead. However, just be sure to pray like crazy over it.

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18. BY kBells 11.13.07 AT 11:18 AM

    I have a very low opinion of the psychiatric profession. I am convinced that my only sister would be alive today if not for the incompetence of a so called therapist.

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19. BY Anlir 11.13.07 AT 11:23 AM

    As some of you will recall, I said that I had found an offensive picture/e-mail on our employee lunch table, about Barack Obama. I threw all the copies away (in the recycle bin), except for one, which I showed to the owner. The owner is a major league Republican, but he agreed with what I did. He found the picture/e-mail to be offensive and stupid. I have a feeling the entire company will be getting an e-mail from him asking us to refrain from putting out anonymous political stuff.

    I don’t know how much longer I’m going to make it today. I still have a bad cold and I belong in bed. I get really, really bored just lying in bed. Though I feel like I could use some rest. So if I disappear from here, it’s because I took some more Nyquil and crawled back in bed.

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20. BY arcadia 11.13.07 AT 11:32 AM

    Random: I think you will find that there is always an element of politics or “political correctness” in determining who is or is not mentally ill. Yet, unquestionably, some people definitely are.

    Consider two people who both lie around in bed all day–one because he is too depressed to get out of bed and the other because he just doesn’t want to. Which of them is mentally ill?

    Or consider two people who each go outside their suburban homes each night and build huge, dangerous bonfires–one does it because a voice in his head tells him to do it and the other because god tells him to do it in anticipation of the rapture. Is either of them “crazier” than the other?

    The other truth behind mental illness is that modern treatment methods can and often do produce striking successes enabling thousands of people to lead useful lives when they otherwise couldn’t. I myself know at least two diagnosed schizophrenics who function well every day, but couldn’t tie their own shoes or safely walk across the street without their anti-psychotic medication. And, I have in the past benefitted from anti-depressive treatment.

    I know many Christians are suspicious of, or opposed to psychiatry and other behavioral sciences, purportedly because they often provide explanations for “evil” other than accepted theological doctrine. Freud and his theories have always been a particular target, largely I suspect because he sought to normalize or rationalize certain “evil” sexual behaviors and thoughts.

    But I think the main reason Christians are so often opposed to mental health practices is that they are always cognizant of the fact that these concepts could always be used to deem many of them as completely delusional.

    Consider, if you will, the Kentucky couple in this article from a newspaper today.

    http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2007/nov/10/couple-cite-bible-for-defense/

    They have what I suspect are completely defensible theological beliefs.

    But the question for society is, are they crazy

    a) generally

    b)only when their beliefs cause them to defy civil authority

    or

    c) not at all.

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21. BY Cheryl D. 11.13.07 AT 11:36 AM

    kBells, Very sorry about that. I too know people who have been hurt by psychology.

    One had a “repressed memory” of having been molested by her brothers, who of course denied it. She’d spend hours on the phone crying about her awful past, and her family had been torn apart because her brothers denied the charges and her family believed her brothers. Repressed memories have since been shown to be fraudulent, though they have hurt many, many families in such ways. I actually also knew a guy with a repressed memory of molestation, so apparently they’re more common than one might think! But how many suicides and the like have been done because of such lies?

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22. BY Night Train 11.13.07 AT 11:42 AM

    Scientologists are even nuttier than Christians, but like the blind pig and the acorn, they’ve managed to stumble on a powerful truth: psychiatry is a fraud that has not only ripped off tens of millions of people, it has seriously damaged millions more.

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23. BY janie 11.13.07 AT 11:46 AM

    “We are still in the infancy of understanding and treating mental illness in any fashion that can be considered “scientific” and reliable.”

    Random: This is your most useful conclusion, in my opinion. I have suffered from severe cyclical major depressive disorder since childhood. Drugs (but only certain ones) help me (but not everyone), so I’m glad that drug companies have worked on them. Prayer and faith help me keep my mind focused in a positive direction and provide a kind of comfort. Some Christians have tried to assign a spiritual “cause” (for example, demonic opression or unresolved sin). I know they mean well. I do my best to avoid these people, but have accepted prayer from others who seem more level-headed. I was part of a study at a university mental health center and told that my illness is genetic. (My oldest son also has a variation of it and is disabled by it.) All this is definitely difficult and no fun. But, in my opinion, life has its joys and sorrows for everyone. Mine is comprised of both. It could be worse, right?

    Really, the worst thing about mental illness is facing people’s misconceptions and the stigma some attach to it. So whenever I reveal this about myself and my son, I know I am taking a risk of having to field well-meaning but non-helpful responses. Certain Christians feel that if you are a Christian, you shouldn’t struggle with it, and if you do, you are doing something wrong. Non-christians aren’t always too helpful either.

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24. BY janie 11.13.07 AT 11:51 AM

    Regarding the mental health profession: some are good, some are useless, and some are downright harmful.

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25. BY janie 11.13.07 AT 12:01 PM

    Anlir–
    I’m glad your boss was receptive to your complaint.

    Hope you feel better soon.

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26. BY kBells 11.13.07 AT 12:10 PM

    “We are still in the infancy of understanding and treating mental illness in any fashion that can be considered “scientific” and reliable.”

    I got something similar to this from one of my sister’s doctors. So I asked if I was just suppose to give him my sister to experiment on like a lab rat. He didn’t have an answer. It is very hard to get a legal adult away from a professional manipulator when they are at their weakest.

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27. BY llama 11.13.07 AT 12:14 PM

    Electroshock treatments work real good for a few years and then you can give them another dose to tide them over for a few more years.

    These treatments should be free, government paid, for all lefties of course. It is something the right wouldn’t mid paying for and the success would be nearly instantaneous

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28. BY Pauline 11.13.07 AT 12:21 PM

    Random Name,
    We aren’t much past infancy in understanding how the mind works when it’s working right, so it’s not surprising we’re only guessing what’s going on when it doesn’t work right.

    I’m sure there is genuine mental illness. I’m sure there are people using claims of mental illness to avoid responsibility for their own actions. And in between there are a whole lot of people who aren’t easily classified.

    Based on my family, it sure seems likely that it has a large hereditary component, though of course mentally ill people raising children could pass on lots of problems that didn’t go through their genes. I don’t know if people with mental illness tend to attract/be attracted to other people who do, but within my family I can think of two couples where it worked out that way (not counting myself and my husband who have both dealt with chronic depression).

    My guess is that a lot of mental illness has its causes in a combination of hereditary predisposition together with poor choices, rather like some physical diseases. This is probably a simplistic way of looking at it, but I think of it as similar to adult-onset diabetes - you might have avoided it by healthier eating and exercise habits, but once you have it, you need to get proper treatment. (As opposed to “pre-diabetes” which may be dealt with by improving your diet and exercise.)

    I tried cutting back on my dosage of antidepressant this summer, and after two months decided it was a bad idea. So I’m rather appreciative of the medicine, though I realize it is sometimes misused. I would hardly expect the medicine to deal with the problem all by itself though - I still have to make the right choices. I don’t plan on being like a woman we knew in Michigan, who had emphysema so bad from years of smoking that she was on oxygen, but she was so addicted to cigarettes she smoked anyway - and set the house on fire one time.

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29. BY Chas 11.13.07 AT 12:28 PM

    Anlir, I hope you aren’t around to read this. If you are. GO HOME!
    You are going to give something you have to someone. You should drink a couple of cups of hot lemonade and go to bed,

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30. BY kBells 11.13.07 AT 12:34 PM

    #26 This is also the reason I don’t buy it when some of our liberal friends try to sell the scientific community as the selfless saviors of the world. I believe most of them would gladly sacrifice an individual or even the immediate good of us all for scientific advancement and the advancement of their careers.

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31. BY Night Train 11.13.07 AT 1:16 PM

    Now, this is a first. I was at the Big City library the other day. It turns out that even though I live across the state line, I can still get a card for $15 a year. I’m in heaven! Anyway, under New Non Fiction, they had a book by two Christian authors refuting The Secret. It was a thin book, and I’m a very fast reader, and I read the whole thing in about 40 minutes. Now here’s what got me. A hundred years ago, Christians talked about Christianity, the Christian faith, America being a Christian nation. Then, about 50 years ago, they began talking about America being a Judeo-Christian country, and the Judeo-Christian faith, etc., even though Judaism and Christianity are diametrically opposed to one another. From what I’ve read, this was largely done in response to the holocaust. At any rate, lately this inclusiveness has gotten even more expansive, as I now see not just Jews, but Muslims included, and more and more references to “Christians, Jews, and Muslims” and “people of the Abrahamic faiths”. I’ve seen Christians express disagreement and unhappiness with this newest development, but it seems as if it’s here to stay. But this Christian book on The Secret blew me away. The authors explained that the teachings in the book violate the tenets of all the major faiths. They then interview authorities from the Christian, Jewish, Muslim, and Wiccan faiths! And these are mainstream Christian writers, in a book published by a mainstream Christian publishing house.

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32. BY Bianca 11.13.07 AT 1:53 PM

    I understand what you mean. I’m using a Christian homeschool curriculum that actually refers to Abraham as the spiritual predecessor of not only Jews and Christians, but Muslims! I understand that he’s the geneaological predecessor (Ishmael and all that) but spiritual? And of course it uses the phrase, Judeo-Christian. Thank goodness for the ability to tweak the curriculum. It definitely needs it. I wish I hadn’t bought it and given money to pluralism.

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33. BY mumsee 11.13.07 AT 1:56 PM

    Does anybody know anything about aquatic frogs?

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34. BY trr 11.13.07 AT 2:12 PM

    Mumseem, did you try wikipedia? If it’s not a term paper, it’s ok to use it.

    Yeah, NT, Wicca is not a major faith. They should have interviewed a Hindu and a Buddhist if they wanted major religions.

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35. BY Stephen 11.13.07 AT 2:25 PM

    This article is an interesting further elaboration on the re-definition of “privacy”.

    http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20071112/ap_on_go_ot/terrorist_surveillance;_ylt=AiSX7nTBIOHRKYkv60cbVsGs0NUE

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36. BY Peter L 11.13.07 AT 2:40 PM

    Good day to all! I finally did something I have been pondering for a while. I started a blog of my own. It’s not much, and probably won’t have much on it until I get caught up at school where I teach. (Ha!) All you need to do if you’re bored is click on my name or gravatar and there you go! I call it “3rd and College”, which is the intersection where I live.

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37. BY Kim 11.13.07 AT 2:40 PM

    On mental illness. I make no secret Prozac saved my life. I currently am dealing with life non-medicated. I can remember years ago before I had Chloe driving home along a stretch of interstate and thinking I could just floor this car and drive into those trees and no one would care. While I was pregnant and nursing Chloe I could hae conquered the world. I asked my doctor to do a blood test to find out what all was surging through my body so that we could keep it that way. After I weaned her, is when I hit bottom and ended up on Prozac. I have also taken Wellbutrin and Lexapro. I think as with anything there are good doctors and bad doctors, and good medicines and bad. For any who care, I have no major sins in my life that I haven’t already handled with God to be depressed about. The way I am dealing with stress and depression these days is by watching Law & Order, SVU, CSI at about 2 or 3 am each morning.

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38. BY mumsee 11.13.07 AT 3:13 PM

    It is my impression that most people deal with depression to some extent. How they deal with it is up to them, within legal bounds. It is also my impression that it is way overmedicated and counseled and we ought to look more closely at Random’s last quote in 17. As in most things American, we think if a little is good, a lot is better; if something can be sold it should be and somebody found an almost empty field to sell in (like toothpaste, food, fast food, faster food, clothing, etc). We know that medication can help depressed people and if other options are unsuccessful or if somebody needs leveling out to where he can try the other options, we should not deny the help it gives. Some people need it for life, some just for a season, and many don’t need it at all.

    As far as counseling, I know that the worst day of the month for my kids is the state mandated counseling where they are to go to pour their hearts out to a stranger. They do not like it. They would prefer to be outside playing, doing real world therapy. Any difficulties they run into, they would prefer to discuss with somebody they know: us, a teacher, their old foster mom, etc. They come home angry and provoking. They have a bad night and then they try to get back to normal, having spent an hour not talking to somebody they don’t know about things they have no interest in. There is a time for counseling but like everything, there is a time and a place and it is not a one size fits all cure.

    It also would benefit all if we took a breath before deciding that somebody who does things differently is crazy.

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39. BY Anlir 11.13.07 AT 3:13 PM

    Random has certainly brought up an interesting topic today.

    I would say that people should keep trying until they find what works for them. Every human being is different, and what works for one person may not work for another. As modern and advanced as we like to think we are, some people’s problems may be beyond our human knowledge.

    For some people, medicine works. For other people, some type of psychotherapy works. For other people religious faith works. For many people, a combination of things works. They all have their drawbacks and they all have their pluses. The point is to find what works for you.

    We all have our way of coping and getting through life. Sadly, some people turn to drugs, alcohol, and other negative substances. Some people develop an unhealthy dependence upon other people, or a certain religion, or a certain book, or astrology…the list is endless. Some people cope by taking it out on other people. Some people cope by hibernating. Some people use humor, and go on to become great comedians. Some people cope by reading books. Some people cope by blogging.

    I say, whatever gets you through life, as long as it doesn’t harm others or yourself, is ok with me.

    *****

    Kim:

    Here is a great big smile for you today!

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40. BY mumsee 11.13.07 AT 3:15 PM

    TRR,

    Yes, I looked up info, I was looking for the experiences of any real virtual people. We just got Bobette a few days ago. He/she seems fine, just ate a golfish a few minutes ago.

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41. BY rdean 11.13.07 AT 4:20 PM

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21768663/

    Oh no, what the Christians feared. A man married his dog. Where is the honeymoon? Will there be a litter? One thing we know for sure, he wasn’t gay.

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42. BY trr 11.13.07 AT 4:54 PM

    Mumsee,
    I am a real virtual (from your perspective) person (I thought that term was funny!) but alas, one with no experience with aquatic frogs… In fact, I’d never heard of them until you asked.
    How big is that frog? It ate a goldfish?!

    I dealt with depression some years ago with medication, too. First Prozac, then a side effect made me switch. I tried Paxil and Zoloft - one of which made me sleepy - Effexor, and ended up on Wellbutrin. Quit altogether about two years ago. For me, I think they probably helped at first, but they were expensive placebos with some side-effects. There are people who go on them and just stay there indefinitely. Great for the pharma companies, not so great for the users. Maybe some people do need them for the rest of their lives, I don’t know.

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43. BY mumsee 11.13.07 AT 4:56 PM

    Okay, so now that our little frog has eaten two goldfish at the recommendation of the pet store people, I read that they are not to be fed goldfish as the fish have an enzyme that disturbs the vitamin B production and a sharp fin and the inner workings of the nine year olds frog are about to be decimated. I suppose I could do some sort of stomach surgery and hope it is fine by the time she gets home from school. How does anything survive in this world?

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44. BY Cheryl D. 11.13.07 AT 5:03 PM

    Well, Mumsee, as a 13-year-old I once relieved a crayfish’s buoyancy problem with a massage. But no experience with frogs, sorry. (My crayfish got out of the tank and crawled around the room for a while. When I put it back in, I found that it had swallowed air and it now floated. So I stroked the sides of the carapace, air bubbles came out, and the crayfish went back on the bottom where it belonged.)

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45. BY mumsee 11.13.07 AT 5:03 PM

    TRR,

    It is, I think, an African Clawed Frog, and is about three inches from nose to tail, about seven with legs extended. It is supposed to grow to the size of a dinner plate. Well, that may have been before the goldfish debacle. I guess I will have to move the goldfish back into Norman’s tank (he is the turtle or into Red Something or Other (the Beta tank) where those things can safely eat them. Or maybe just take them out and put them in with my goldfish pond inhabitants. I guess I can go back to digging worms. It is not easy being a parent.

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46. BY mumsee 11.13.07 AT 5:08 PM

    But then, digging worms is much easier than when I found myself running around the neighborhood with a butterfly net catching flies for first batches lizards. I told them the lizards must go back to the wild when I noticed what I was doing. But they pointed out the lizards had eggs and we had to see if they would hatch. The kids went back to bug catching duty, the eggs hatched, we released them all into the wild. I repeat, let us not judge other people insane just because they do things differently than we do.

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47. BY Anlir 11.13.07 AT 5:17 PM

    Ah, the joys and trials of being a parent. You’re hilarious, not crazy, mumsee

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48. BY mumsee 11.13.07 AT 5:32 PM

    Well, thank you, Anlir. Sometimes I do things that make me think..well..anyway, thanks.

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49. BY Anlir 11.13.07 AT 5:48 PM

    I’ve never claimed to be a “seer” or a Great Santini, but my Feng Shui has given me a cryptic prediction:

    I forsee water and tree colliding on WMB.

    I hope I’m wrong.

    Anyway, carry on people.

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50. BY janie 11.13.07 AT 6:10 PM

    Anlir, I think you need to go to bed now.

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51. BY Anlir 11.13.07 AT 6:13 PM

    Janie:

    Actually, this is the best I’ve felt in 3 days. I think I’m over the hump now. But then, it could be the stack of empty Nyquil bottles that are scattered about the house.

    

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52. BY janie 11.13.07 AT 6:14 PM

    My kids used to collect lizards, turtles, snakes, etc. We raised meal worms to feed them. Sometimes my son would go insect-hunting in order to give them some variety. He was the envy of the neighborhood, because no one else’s mom would let them bring this kind of stuff into the house. I’m quite relieved to see that I wasn’t so different after all.

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53. BY musing 11.13.07 AT 8:18 PM

    I am watching to:

    Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial

    It seems to be a fascinating account.

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54. BY outkast 11.13.07 AT 8:26 PM

    Mumsee: We’ve had aquatic frogs for years, and they always amaze every guest to our home.

    We have one that has escaped from our tank on two occasions, and we’ve found him a couple hours later each time — dusty but still alive and kicking (even though it normally stays under water all the time).

    Never have known one to eat a goldfish, though!

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55. BY HamachiTwo 11.13.07 AT 8:26 PM

    Is World Mag Blog becoming too predictable?

    Abortion thread–check

    Gay thread–check and check

    Hillary Hating thread–check

    Poor Christians thread–check

    Until tomorrow when we get to do it all over again…

    Hope you are feeling better soon, Anlir!

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56. BY Victoria 11.13.07 AT 8:29 PM

    HamachiTwo - 55

    What is the point you are REALLY TRYING TO MAKE?

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57. BY Peter L 11.13.07 AT 8:52 PM

    Re: mental health

    I am proof that insanity is hereditary. I got it from my children! (Or else that it is contagious and I got it from teaching, or at least attempting to teach, 8th graders.)

    Disclaimer for those with LSHS (little sense of humor syndrome):
    This post is tongue in cheek.

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58. BY HamachiTwo 11.13.07 AT 11:54 PM

    Victoria,

    I don’t need to make a point, do I? Most people around here are smart enough to know already. It might be more fun to try to guess which of today’s news stories will be tomorrow’s gay thread, abortion thread, Hillary-hating thread, and poor repressed Christians thread. Any guesses? I’ll award a digital cookie to the winner.

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59. BY HamachiTwo 11.14.07 AT 12:10 AM

    I once found a mummified frog in our house here in the big city. I’m still puzzled by this. The upstairs bedrooms in our home each have a closet with a little tile basin and vanity. It is just big enough for the sink and has about a foot of floor space. It really serves no purpose for our lifestyle, so they rarely get used. I opened the door one summer day for some unknown reason, and there was this little dried up frog on the carpet. He was completely mummified, and had white fuzz all over him. We deduced that our white longhaired cat must have discovered him outside, played with him a while, and when the frog became entangled in her fur somehow carried him inside and upstairs. I still have the poor little frog. I put him inside the belly of an antique brass fly I keep on my bookshelf. It’s the fly that ate the frog. Guests sometimes open it and think it’s a joke. It is, I suppose, but it’s real.

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60. BY Victoria 11.14.07 AT 12:16 AM

    Hamachitwo - 58

    Reading this post and making sense of it has nothing to do with with being smart, it’s a waste of time.

    If you find this blog to be less than interesting, why not hike over to another, this isn’t the only blog on the internet.

    You can eat your digital cookie with any flavor drink you choose, OR eat it dry!

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61. BY mumsee 11.14.07 AT 12:53 AM

    Outkast,

    Glad to hear we are not the only ones holding a frog captive. It ate the goldfish before my eyes so I know it was what happened. It doesn’t seem to be suffering any adverse affects.

    I am leaving about three inches of space at the top of the aquarium, do you think that is enough to keep him from escaping? I am guessing it needs a bigger tank but that just might be my own perspective. Are they supposed to have heated water? He seems quite active except when he isn’t. He is fun to watch. What do yours eat if not fish? What are meal worms (Janie mentioned them) and if you are reading this, Janie, how do you grow them? Thanks, from a dog person trying to become an aquarium adviser for four separate aquarium owners.

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62. BY rdean 11.14.07 AT 7:42 AM

    Last night, PBS aired a special on the reenactment of the Dover case, “Mysticism vs. Evolution”. They even had actors reading from the actual transcript. If I hear another ridiculous comment about “irreducible complexity” I’ll burst.
    They went through every “debate point” brought up by the “mystical creationists” and debunked them one at a time.
    The richest moment, when Behe said that Magical Creation is equal to “Astrology” in terms of science. Yes people, apparently the movement of the stars and planets impacts your love life. When is the next “debate”? Where are the “gaps”? The best part was certainly the “transitional” forms. Evolution predicted where they would be and what they would look like and how old they would be. And guess what? Evolution was correct.

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_3_novabrjudgmentday_2007-11-14

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63. BY musing 11.14.07 AT 8:19 AM

    rdean post 62,

    the Nova show “Judgement Day: Intelligent Design on Trial” was, I thought, very well done.

    I thought the following points were highly salient:

    1) the flagellum example was extensively reviewed and the weakness in the ID argument clearly illustrated

    2) the immune system ID argument was discussed in detail and rebutted, although the supporting material does not appear to be as readily accessible to the average person

    3) “Of Pandas and People” was extensively discussed, and the documentation of how this book appears to be a reasonably transparent attempt to masquerade creationsism as intelligent design was developed

    4) Bill Buckingham did not appear to acquit himself well in the interview

    An interesting and, I thought, thorough review of the case.

    I did think that, at least as portrayed, the defense appeared to have provided a somewhat weak legal case; perhaps this was because they appeared to have modest certainty that they would prevail.

    In any event this capped a set of efforts which appears to hav established serious difficulties for intelligent design in:

    1) the field of science: their own witnesses admitted that it was untestable

    2) the area of law

    3) based on the resulting Dover School Board election, in electoral politics as well

    Intelligent Design does not appear to have an adequate intellectual foundation to sustain itself.

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64. BY TJ 11.14.07 AT 9:23 AM

    #7: Anlir, thanks for the S’more. Don’t worry about being a day late: I was out of town until late Tuesday evening, and haven’t really had a chance to check WMB (I could not access the web via wi-fi; there was a Vista problem that no one could figure out). The only thing I regret is not getting the tie-breaker correct (TN has to lose once more so that Georgia can win the SEC East).

    I wonder if it’s safe to eat a day-old digital S’more…

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65. BY mumsee 11.14.07 AT 9:49 AM

    TJ,

    Don’t eat it! Just set it here on my comment and walk away. It could be very dangerous for you to eat it.

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66. BY TJ 11.14.07 AT 2:40 PM

    Mumsee, why do I get the feeling that that would be a bit like offering a cupcake to Peter?

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67. BY Peter L 11.14.07 AT 2:44 PM

    TJ- I got my s’more last week when it had cooled off. Just put it in the microwave and heat for 10-15 seconds (so the cracker doesn’t get soggy). It will be fine.

    And you guys just don’t give up, do you? What happened to 70 x 7? (Of course, the original accusation was false, as well as all the others.)

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68. BY TJ 11.14.07 AT 3:02 PM

    Hey, Peter, I had no problem letting you have 2 donuts, remember? These other folks are the ones with the cupcake problem.

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69. BY mumsee 11.14.07 AT 3:33 PM

    Well, I am never going to win one so it was worth a try. And it is not like I was trying to take more than the alloted number. Or take what was set out for somebody else. Just trying to be helpful, don’t you know what a poison sugar is? And do you even know what is in marshmallows? A person tries to be helpful and gets her character assassinated in one fell swoop.

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70. BY HamachiTwo 11.14.07 AT 3:54 PM

    Victoria,

    I hope you’re having a better day today. I merely pointed out that the blog has become predictable, and I do visit several other blogs. Variety is the spice of life. As a registered commenter here, I am entitled to my opinion–and cookies mmmm Chips Ahoy!

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71. BY TJ 11.14.07 AT 3:55 PM

    OK, Mumsee, you can have my s’more. I think I only licked it once, and I’m told that I don’t have cooties, at least the contagious kind…

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72. BY HamachiTwo 11.14.07 AT 4:28 PM

    RDean and Musing,

    I’m bummed I missed the Nova show on ID. Sounds like it was really interesting. RDean, there are some very interesting similarities between the ancient astrological myths and Christianity myth. There were numerous saviors from various religions all over the Earth that were based on astrology and the zodiac, and they coincidentally share much of the story-line of the Jesus myth. Horus, born of the Virgin Isis Mary on Dec. 25th, star in the East, adorned by 3 Kings, at age 12 he was a prodigal child teacher, baptized at age 30 and began his ministry, 12 disciples he traveled with and performed miracles like healing the sick and walking on water, known as “The Light” and “Lamb of God,” and after being betrayed was crucified, dead for three days, and was resurrected. The God Attis has a similar story. Also, see Krishna, Dionysus and Mithra. All astrological.

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73. BY mumsee 11.14.07 AT 5:45 PM

    Eeewwwww.., well, thanks, but I am going to pass. Obviously you consider this stale old chunk of boiled calves feet to be too important. I am not one to stand between a brother and his treasures.

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74. BY musing 11.14.07 AT 9:20 PM

    hamachitwo post 72:

    it seems to be having a number of repeats in our area (it is in fact being repeated right now).

    Check your listings.

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75. BY TJ 11.14.07 AT 11:06 PM

    Good grief, H2, I can’t tell if you were serious or kidding in post #72. If you were serious, it sounds as if you’ve been reading some of the skeptic sites on the web. The so-called “coincidences” always reminded me of the folks that found the weird similarities between Lincoln and Kennedy — gosh, they both had V.P.s named Johnson! — and ignored the enormous dissimilarities. Here, for example, is an article debunk the whole Horus/Osiris angle: http://www.tektonics.org/copycat/osy.html. For other so-called “copycat” stories (particularly debunking the primary source for how these things got started, in the largely debunked and discredited work of Timothy Freke and Peter Gandy), read this: http://www.americanvision.org/foolsheart/blog/2007/07/christ-myth-fails-under-scrutiny.html
    (you also might want to check out this: http://www.americanvision.org/downloads/Manifested%20in%20the%20Flesh%20Web.pdf)
    A more detailed article about this can be found here: http://www.christian-thinktank.com/copycat.html#dying

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76. BY HamachiTwo 11.15.07 AT 2:37 AM

    Thanks Musing, It is too late to act now. Dang again. I’ll check the tv lineup and set the recorder for the next showing.

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77. BY rdean 11.16.07 AT 7:44 AM

    Why wait? Most of the transcript can be found at:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/id/?campaign=pbshomefeatures_3_novabrjudgmentday_2007-11-14

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