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This is a rough draft of my Rants for the week of September 9, 2007

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http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/06/13/145217

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http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2007/08/28/ap4059405.html

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September 9, 2007 Rants

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1. A friend of mine said that he was staying at a place way out west somewhere with a crowd of folks when the toilet plugged up. One of his friends said, “Did you use that?” He said, “Yes I did. I’m from Maine and I’m used to it. Only in Maine we dig them deeper.”

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2. What do you do when you see a two or three or four year old child hit and pound on his mother? I get up and walk away because I don’t like to see it. I went to high school for four years, and the most valuable thing I learned in high school was from Arthur Freider who taught me how to type. I went to grad school for 4 years, and the most valuable thing I learned at grad school was from Deiter Blindert who taught me the basic principles of shaping human behavior. It was a course called psycholinguistics, but all it amounted to was learning how to train a rat to press a bar in a box. And once you learn how to train a rat to press a bar in a little box, you know how to shape any animal’s behavior so it will do most anything, within its physical capabilities, that you would want it to do. You can also shape a child’s behavior so the child will do anything you want. And this is the unfortunate part, because you can train your child to do things that are good or you can train that child to do things that are bad. And if your three year old child pounds on you, without knowing how you did it, you have inadvertently trained your child to do something that is not in the best interest of you or the child.

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3. If you think about it, you might find it curious that everyone is allowed to bring children into the world. If you have a religious or political agenda, having children even becomes mandatory. But parents are not required to take a prenatal course that would introduce them to the basic principles of shaping a child’s behavior. So most children are raised on a hit or miss basis. Through most of human history children’s behavior was probably shaped by negative reinforcement in the form of a loving hand applied to a bare bottom. Today, unless you are talking about prison camps in fascist countries, negative reinforcement has gone out of favor. Shaping the behavior of children with negative reinforcement in the form of physical contact is even illegal in some countries. Fortunately, positive reinforcement works. And, again, I find it unfortunate that parents are not even offered a course that would introduce them to the basic principles of shaping a child’s behavior.

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4. We are talking here about girls run wild. And boys run wild. Can you think of anyone who would not be happy if every parent in the world understood the basic principles of modifying human behavior with positive reinforcement? If I were a clinical psychologist, I would probably be opposed to it because educated parents would put them out of business.

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5. I read the other day that prison camps were popular with fascist and communist dictators. I wonder if anyone has done a study on the evolution of prison camps. How they change. Although the good old-time prison camps were set up to hold enemies of the state, it wasn’t long before the parameters were broadened so that there was room in there for almost anybody from any segment of society. And once you got in there, it was pretty hard to get out because there were no trials. And, as we mentioned, prison camps that started out to hold anyone with brown eyes, eventually found room for people with blue eyes. Once you have a prison camp set up, and get people accustomed to the idea of prison camps, you can jam more and more of your former friends and neighbors in there without really disturbing the status quo. I’m glad we don’t have to worry about a knock on the door in the middle of the night, aren’t you?

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6. Tom DeLay was recently a guest on the Today Show with Matt Louer. I had a struggle finding out anything about Tom DeLay when I Googled him, because I had him confused with another man named Trent Lott. So I was Googling Trent Lott and I couldn’t see that Trent Lott had recently been on the Today Show or just come out with a book called “No Retreat, No Surrender.” If you don’t follow the national scene closely all these people you hear about can run together in your mind. So I had to actually locate that Today Show so I could see who it was that Matt interviewed. I really enjoyed seeing and hearing Tom Delay on TV. I think Tom Delay should be invited back to the Today Show every week so Americans can constantly be reminded by his own words what kind of a man Tom Delay is, who his friends are, and what he and his friends stand for.

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7. Here’s a news item. It says that Senator Larry Craig who voted against gay marriage pleaded guilty to lewd conduct in men’s room. This is big national news. But does anybody care? As long as he keeps his itchy hands off me and little boys I’m sure I don’t care what he does in his spare time. If you stop to think about it, it’s not what a man does in the men’s room but his politics that can give you the creeps. I’d never heard of this man before and I wouldn’t be able to remember it now if I didn’t have it written down. Everybody knows that there are men who like men and there are men who like women. So what. This is not a big deal. It is a fact of life. Everybody knows that there are some men who like both. When I hitchhiked through Alabama in 1957 it seemed that the only men who would give me a ride after the sun went down reached over and put a hand on my leg. Which reminds me – back around 1957 I was in the movies when I felt a hand creeping onto my leg. Inch by inch I felt that hand creepy creepy creeping. Just about when I figured I could nail him, I shouted and gave him a karate chop on the wrist. That was one of the one or two times I ever hit anybody in my life. He jumped up and left the theater. Overcoat and all. But I want you to know that I have always liked these guys. Think about it. They are very likely to adopt homeless children and are not likely to clutter up the planet by making extra people that we really don’t need. Not one of them ever stole my girlfriend. Imagine what it would be like to be stranded on a desert island with two gay men and fifteen beautiful women. When you think of it in those terms, don’t you really wish that there were more of them around? Back when I was a single man I even wrote a poem about it. “Oh what a great world this would be If all the men were gay But me.”

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8. A policeman hears a lot of strange and curious stories that often get repeated before a judge. Years ago I used to go up to the court house just to sit up back and listen and write down things that were too unique and wonderful to have been concocted by a normal human mind. You can also hear strange things if you have a bed and breakfast. A guest told me that years ago when she was 23, she was a personnel manager of a big company out in Albuquerque. An employee who was having sex change operations, started to use the women’s room. Because this was years before things like this were an every day occurrence, there was no precedent so she couldn’t consult the literature and didn’t know what to do. The women said they’d refuse to go in the room if that person was in there, which resulted in an inordinate amount of pressure to resolve the issue. Because the process involved a series of operations, a doctor had to be consulted to determine what day the patient actually made the transition. One understands that situations like this do entail an adjustment of the staff.

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9. We are going to talk about logic. I know nothing of the symbols that professional logic choppers use. All I know about logic is that some things don’t make sense. Please listen closely. Because we have a Bed & Breakfast, we have to test our well water every year or so. This is good. I think it should be done. If our well contains coliform bacteria, e coli, fluoride, arsenic, lead, iron bacteria, sulfur bacteria or empty soda cans, I think we should know about it so we might correct the situation. This is how we test the water in our well. On a bright sunny morning, I pour 4 gallons of chlorox into the well. I let it sit there for a day. The following day I run the water until it comes out pure and clean and free of chlorox. We know there is no chlorox in the well because we put some water in a glass and drop in a few mysterious crystals. If the crystals turn pink, we run the water until the crystals don’t turn the water pink. But hear this. On the directions, they suggest that just before taking the sample, we chlorinate the faucet. Otherwise the sample might be contaminated by bacteria on the faucet. So our sample comes out bacteria free and we pass the test, because we chlorinated the faucet. My obvious question to you is, what do we get in our glass the next time we run a drink without chlorinating the faucet?

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10. There are difficult aspects to every occupation. A friend told me that her son was a teller in a bank when someone brought in $350 in small bills that had been eaten by a goat. They cut the goat apart to get the money. When I thought about it, I realized I might have cut the goat apart, too. Would you let your goat pass that kind of money?

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11. Speaking of our elderly friends, today I talked on the phone with a 91-year-old woman. When I called her, I expected to hear a feeble little voice on the other end, but her voice came across strong. Her mind was obviously sharp. I was going to say that her mind and her memory were better than mine, but that wouldn’t be saying much. I told her that her mind was obviously in excellent shape, and she said that was what everyone told her. But she said that she had --- I think it was a hip replacement --- and she couldn’t get upstairs anymore which was a great inconvenience to her. She said she kind of wished that her mind went before her body so she could at least get around. Is it true that no matter what happens to us, we wish that something else had happened? I only mention this because I just heard about another neighbor, who must be 90 or more, who reportedly said that they don’t even make mirrors as good as they used to.

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12. Here’s an email from Steve that touched me. It was in response to my comment a week or so ago about the lives of the rich and famous. Steve says, “Yes, I share your lack of interest in the lives of the rich and famous. … I’ve also learned that the more money I spend on a vacation the fewer memories I have. Money insures comfort, and comfort is not memorable. I can vividly remember the $5, $3, and, yes, $1 rooms I've slept in around the world, but not the $100 rooms, even though, at the time, I'd have loved to have $100 worth of comfort. Most vivid are nights spent on hay bales, gravel piles, stacks of lumber, or tenting for nothing who-knows-where” From Steve. Thank you Steve. I’ll bet you can remember some places where you stayed that were memorable. I’m humble@humblefarmer.com The first one that came to my mind was a place in France where Marsha and I stayed one night. It was so hot I got up several times during the night to take cold showers. …. [Not read. Let's hope the Bill of Rights can hang in there until 1/20/09.]

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13. Billy Anderson said that he made three fishing trips out to the Grand Banks with an Icelander. Billy said he didn’t make a cent for the first two trips. On the third trip he made $300 and he packed his bag. The Captain said, “Billy, where are you going?” Billy said, “I quit. I would have quit before but I didn’t have the bus fare to get home.

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