sensory overload

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/7/2006 4:13:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, julie.stevenson16@... writes:

I would really like it if more people listened to children, but often children are discounted as just being children - sad :-( Children also have thoughts and opinions and should be listened to and taken seriously, but that is just my opinion I guess and maybe some others, but not all :-(

This happened to me when I was about 13. This was during my father's second marriage and I was visiting them. He was looking for things to do with some money he had. I suggested putting it in the stock market, especially tech stocks (this was about 1983 when the big tech companies were getting started). The other option was to rent storefronts near colleges and in business districts in several cities, put in copy machines and computers with printers for word processing work and hire good staff to run them. He could even hire college students to type up other student's work for a fixed price per page, giving the students half of the fee. Remind anyone of Kinkos, which sold for millions?

Well, he didn't do any of that. Instead, he put about $200,000 (up to $300,000 I've heard from some people) into a Christian book store that had already failed. He stayed in the same place with the same stock and everything. Needless to say, it failed too, losing him all that money. Had he taken my advice, he'd have had a lot of money now.

More than that though, I learned that he had sold a lot of land, several thousand acres. When I heard that, I thought that the folks down there could have bought it and held it in turst, secretly, for me until I turned 18. They could take a portion of the proceeds, much of it would go to paying off the mortgage and some would go to stock and other investments. When I asked the folks in Alabama about that a few years ago, they said that could have worked, but it was dropped on them so fast, they had to scramble with the deal. Mostly they bought it themselves to keep outsiders from moving in.

Anyway, there were other occasions when people didn't listen to me and would have been much better off if they had.

[Guest guest]

In a message dated 9/7/2006 4:13:15 PM Eastern Standard Time, julie.stevenson16@... writes:

I would really like it if more people listened to children, but often children are discounted as just being children - sad :-( Children also have thoughts and opinions and should be listened to and taken seriously, but that is just my opinion I guess and maybe some others, but not all :-(

This happened to me when I was about 13. This was during my father's second marriage and I was visiting them. He was looking for things to do with some money he had. I suggested putting it in the stock market, especially tech stocks (this was about 1983 when the big tech companies were getting started). The other option was to rent storefronts near colleges and in business districts in several cities, put in copy machines and computers with printers for word processing work and hire good staff to run them. He could even hire college students to type up other student's work for a fixed price per page, giving the students half of the fee. Remind anyone of Kinkos, which sold for millions?

Well, he didn't do any of that. Instead, he put about $200,000 (up to $300,000 I've heard from some people) into a Christian book store that had already failed. He stayed in the same place with the same stock and everything. Needless to say, it failed too, losing him all that money. Had he taken my advice, he'd have had a lot of money now.

More than that though, I learned that he had sold a lot of land, several thousand acres. When I heard that, I thought that the folks down there could have bought it and held it in turst, secretly, for me until I turned 18. They could take a portion of the proceeds, much of it would go to paying off the mortgage and some would go to stock and other investments. When I asked the folks in Alabama about that a few years ago, they said that could have worked, but it was dropped on them so fast, they had to scramble with the deal. Mostly they bought it themselves to keep outsiders from moving in.

Anyway, there were other occasions when people didn't listen to me and would have been much better off if they had.

[Guest guest]

I am in agreement with you Heph.

The people that watch that show enjoy watching bad things happen to

good people. Such shows make it easy to laugh at people who have

misfortunes due to the laugh track telling them that seeing other

people suffer is SUPPOSED to be funny.

After watching a show like that, people then go out into the world

thinking that laughing at others is okay.

When these people come across " sensitive " folks like me, I get

belittled for having this sensitivity.

Personally, I think the show should have been taken off the air a long

time ago. I oughta write a letter....

Tom

Administrator

I have never been able to watch " Funniest... " . There is always way too

much heartlessness in the humor. And it isn't silly the way The Stooges

were- obvious play-acting in fun. (My favorite comics are Steve

when he's doing his definitely non-commercial work- and his earlier

movie work, and - as just two examples.) I think over the

years the show has been playing more and more to an audience that has

been more and more attracted to the show- an audience that is

particularly heartless. And I say that knowing full well that several

people I think highly of in other ways happen to really like that show.

The world needs more compassion.

Heph

[Guest guest]

> Whoa, bed on fire, that should be memory! What's your earliest age of

> memory?

The flames were at least 16 inches high and I sprang out of bed in a

heartbeat, and smothered it out with a blanket. The funniest part is that I

went downstairs into the kitchen and my mom asked why I was up so early. I

said " My bed was on fire. " She was like " Oh, that's nice " (not in those

exact words)... Then about 3 seconds later, she says " What?!?! " and I

repeated " My bed was on fire " . She flipped out and ran to see my bed. I

think I was somewhere between 12 and 15 years old.

I have one memory when I must have been between 3 and 7 years old. I went to

birthday party and the mother asked what kind of sandwich we all wanted. I

requested a peanut butter and jelly. Later, when she started making the

sandwiches, she would yell out your name to come and get your sandwich. I

thought she yelled my name, and I grabbed the sandwich on the counter. It

was a tuna fish sandwich with TONS of mayonnaise. I started eating it and

thought " this is the worst peanut butter and jelly sandwich!!! " (even though

I knew there was no peanut butter and jelly on it). After I ate half the

sandwich, the birthday boy was looking for his " special sandwich " ... The

tuna fish sandwich with a TON of mayonnaise. DOH! Then mother noticed that I

was eating it and was surprised that I didn't notice I grabbed the wrong

one. The whole time I was thinking that I didn't want to offend her

" cooking " .

Sorry for the long story!!!

Anyway, I just have a couple of stories like that, that I can remember from

when I was a little kid.

I can remember more and more from about 14 years old and up. I don't think I

have really good memory of my adult life - I think I go in stages/phases of

life and once I am done with that phase, the memory goes too... To a certain

extent.

Dan

[Guest guest]

" I can remember more and more from about 14 years old and up. I don't

think I

> have really good memory of my adult life - I think I go in

stages/phases of

> life and once I am done with that phase, the memory goes too... To a

certain

> extent. "

Interesting. I wonder what is average for first memory. I've always

thought from age 5 on but I don't know where I got that. I have less

memories than others, but my memories go back to age 3.

Here's an interesting thought, though the article says NO ONE can

remember infancy or early toddlerhood, which we know is not true:

Monitor on Psychology

Volume 37, No. 6 June 2006

Table of contents

" I had to stop myself from jumping up and down. Because here was

evidence that both hemispheres were involved in episodic memory, and so

there had to be some interhemispheric communication. "

Christman

University of Toledo

On the other hand, maybe I do remember…

Mixed-handed people may be better able to remember early childhood

memories than strong righties, according to new research.

By Lea Winerman

Monitor Staff

Print version: page 18

Psychologist Christman, PhD, is mixed-handed: He uses his left

hand for most everyday activities, including writing, but can use his

right hand for some things, like throwing a ball. Christman's wife,

whom he met in college, is strongly right-handed: She uses her right

hand for everything.

There's another difference between the two. Christman says he has a

better memory for those early college days than his wife does: " There

are lots of times I'll say, `Do you remember that party?' and she'll

say, `What party?' "

Those two facts don't sound related, but Christman suspects that they

might be. For nearly two decades, he's been pursuing a line of research

that suggests that mixed-handed people have more interaction between

the left and right hemispheres of their brains, and that this increased

interaction is linked to more reliable and accurate episodic memories—

recollections involving personal life events.

Now, in a study in the May issue of Neuropsychology (Vol. 20, No. 3),

Christman has extended those findings to the earliest of childhood

memories. Everyone has " childhood amnesia " to some degree: No one can

recall memories from infancy or early toddlerhood. But Christman's

study suggests that mixed-handed people may be able to recall slightly

earlier childhood memories than people who are strongly right-handed.

A winding research road

Christman, a psychology professor at the University of Toledo, first

began thinking about the connection between interhemispheric

interaction and early childhood memories nearly 20 years ago. At the

time, he says, he realized that two things happen around age 4 or 5:

The corpus callosum—the bundle of nerve cells that connects the two

hemispheres of the brain—starts to become functional, and childhood

amnesia goes away.

" I thought, `That seems interesting,' " Christman says. " So I wrote a

little note about it to myself and taped it to the wall of my office.

But at that point the only evidence I had was this temporal

coincidence, and that didn't seem strong enough to justify research. "

When, six years later, Christman attended a talk by psychologist Endel

Tulving, PhD, the note was still taped to the wall. At the talk,

Tulving presented research showing that for semantic memories—memories

for names, dates and facts—encoding and retrieval both happen in the

left hemisphere. But for episodic memories—such as memories of early

childhood or other events—encoding happens in the left hemisphere, and

retrieval in the right.

" I had to stop myself from jumping up and down, " Christman

says. " Because here was evidence that both hemispheres were involved in

episodic memory, and so there had to be some interhemispheric

communication. And that had to involve the corpus callosum. "

Another piece of evidence that the corpus callosum plays a key role in

episodic memory comes from studies of split-brain patients—people whose

corpus callosi have been cut as a last-resort treatment for epilepsy.

One 1996 Neuropsychology study (Vol. 10, No. 2, pages 254–262) by

psychologist Alice Cronin-Golomb, PhD, found that these patients had

impaired episodic memories.

Still, Christman says, jumping to studying childhood amnesia right away

seemed like too big a leap. So he and his colleagues began to study

episodic memory in mixed-handed adults. In a 2004 study published in

Brain and Cognition (Vol. 56, No. 3, pages 313–319), for example, they

found that mixed-handed adults were less likely to falsely remember

words than strong right-handers in a word-list memorization task.

In his most recent study, Christman made his way back to the question

inspired by the note on his office wall: Do mixed-handed adults, who

have a bigger corpus callosum and more interaction between their brain

hemispheres, also have earlier first memories from childhood?

To answer this, he asked 103 college-age men and women—37 mixed-handers

and 63 strong right-handers—to write down two stories from their early

childhood. He did not specifically ask them for their earliest memories—

just for an early memory. One story, designed to measure episodic

memory, was supposed to be an event that they actually remembered. The

other, designed to measure semantic memory, was supposed to be

something that they had heard from their parents or another person.

Then Christman contacted the participants' parents to verify that the

stories, which involved experiences such as a trip to Disney World or a

mother's second wedding, were actually true.

On average, he found that the age of the personally remembered stories

recalled by the mixed-handers was significantly lower than the average

age of the personally remembered stories recalled by the right-handers—

5.21 years and 5.94 years, respectively.

Somewhat puzzlingly, he also found that the age of the secondhand

stories given by the mixed-handers—2.48 years—was also significantly

lower than the right-handers average age of 3.28 years. In early

childhood memories, the line between what we personally remember and

what we've been told by others is fuzzy, Christman says, and so he

suspects that even the secondhand stories might involve some episodic

memory.

Support and dissent

Neuropsychologist ph Hellige, PhD, who studies brain hemisphere

specialization and interaction at the University of Southern

California, says he finds Christman's work intriguing. " What makes

Steve's work most interesting, " he says, " is the novel way that he's

taken a number of phenomena in the literature that might be

disconnected and put together a logical chain and a story that makes

them all fit. "

Hellige says that there is " reasonable circumstantial evidence " for

each link in that logical chain—that mixed-handers have better

interaction between their hemispheres, that better interaction is

linked to better episodic memory, and that better episodic memory

includes memories from early childhood.

" There are several critical arguments, and if any were off the mark, he

wouldn't be able to get the results he's predicting, " Hellige says.

Still, some of links remain controversial. For example, University of

California, Los Angeles neuropsychologist Dahlia Zaidel, PhD, who has

studied memory in split-brain patients, says that she's not convinced

that there's enough evidence, particularly physical evidence, to say

that mixed-handedness is associated with better interhemispheric

communication.

" One of the biggest mysteries we have is the nature of interhemispheric

interaction, " she says. " We know what the left hemisphere can do, and

we know what the right hemisphere can do, but how they communicate is a

mystery. "

Christman agrees that there is still much left to learn about how the

two hemispheres of the brain communicate and the relationship between

that communication and handedness. Still, he says that his studies of

adult and now early childhood memory provide enough evidence to say

that the link exists.

[Guest guest]

>

" If in the same vein we stopped saving people from the

> consequences of their stupid actions, then there would be less of

them. For

> example: if Mr. Stupid Extreme Skier gets in an avalanche, then

they should be

> required to foot the entire bill of rescue and medical care, "

Agreed. Maybe there are some clauses in some insurance policies that

exclude certain sports or activities. Mike and I were discussing why

people love extreme sports. Adrenaline rush? Need a challenge? Have

it all? Bored? We noted that it was a certain sex and race that

mainly has the desire for extreme activities. Certain others think

it's crazy and would never do it, lol. It would be nice if these

folks could channel all that energy and drive into something

productive. I would love to have some of that energy and would

definitely use it for something better than they do. Maybe when you

are very healthy and haven't had too many problems you lack the

proper appreciation and are reckless.

'Stupid' has all kinds of connotations but I've noticed people are

spaced-out these days. Fluoride in the water? What's the deal?

They're slower and can't comprehend things very well.

[Guest guest]

RE Humor and Steve Found his website years ago by just entering the URL, by luck. Wasn't having any success with search engines. Curious... http://stevemartin.com/ Here's a list of his books... http://stevemartin.com/world_of_steve/print/books.php His first book?- Cruel Shoes, is named after one of his very best skits. My favorite book of his is Pure Drivel. It's pure comic genius! It's best to "read" it as a audiobook. Steve reads the book. (Many public libraries carry it I think.) Steve has lived a rather strange life. His best friend from secondary school wrote a biography about him. Steve started out in show business in

High School selling maps, then doing magic tricks, on his and his best friend's own initiative outside of Disneyland in Anaheim California. Unlike most celebrities of his status he almost never goes out and so forth. He spends a great deal of his time by himself or with just a few close friends at his ranch in the hills behind Santa Barbara, so I understand. A lot of his early material was very non-verbal. The reason why he was cast recently in the Pink Panther remake is because he is considered his generation's leading physical-comedy genius, as the original lead actor in the Pink Panther was for his generation- Sellers. (But personally I think it was a mistake of Steve's.) Hmm.... I find myself wondering if you got a crowd of ASD people together watching various comedies- what comedies would a "laugh-o-meter" register the largest volumes for? Heph mikecarrie01 <mikecarrie01@...>

wrote: >>"Mel defining tragedy and humor- > I hurt my little pinky. That's tragedy. You fall down through a man-hole in the street and break your neck- ~That's~ comedy!> > I would just point out here that laughing in the second instance above involves not-caring about the victim."I think the idea is that if we can laugh about

our tragedies then it makes them easier to bear, and Mel is talking about laughing at himself, but our society has taken it too far, I think. Maybe it says how much in pain everyone is, and they do it to cope. I myself laugh too much--I seem to find humor everywhere and use it to make things more lighthearted and easier to bear, because sometimes people take little things too seriously. There's still taboos on joking about other racial groups--you can joke about your own, but not another's. That taboo is starting to be dissolved though.> >"I have never been able to watch "Funniest...". There is always way too much heartlessness in the humor."I can't watch it either. I don't want to see someone's wedding cake get smashed or someone break their swimming pool and get hurt. I can't understand peoples' love of violence and pain. Like Rescue 911 and other shows like that. The 'everyone loves a train

wreck' idea."(My favorite comics are Steve when he's doing his definitely non-commercial work- and his earlier movie work, and - as just two examples.)"Steve and are my two favorite comics!! I don't see too many people who know who is. Have you read Steve 's first book? It's great. "The world needs more compassion."I think it's beyond needing 'more' compassion, and now needs 'most' compassion. Hephaestus Clubfoothttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestushttp://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hephaestus.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabeiroi

Get your own web address for just $1.99/1st yr. We'll help. Small Business.

[Guest guest]

>

> " My favorite book of his is Pure Drivel. It's pure comic genius! It's

best

> to " read " it as a audiobook. Steve reads the book. (Many public

libraries carry it I think.) "

I like that one too. You're right--it would be great to hear it read by

him.

>

" Hmm.... I find myself wondering if you got a crowd of ASD people

together watching various comedies- what comedies would a " laugh-o-

meter " register the

> largest volumes for? "

I would love to see that. I wonder if there would be too many

differences to tell or if there are more similarities and there would

be a definite pattern. Do we all like Monty Python? Surely there are

some that hate it.

>

[Guest guest]

Love it (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.)

Tom

Administrator

Do we all like Monty Python?

[Guest guest]

Ayn Rand is the only one who I know of that used the phrase :-)mikecarrie01 <mikecarrie01@...> wrote: >"bovine indifference" I like that phrase--I don't think I've heard it before.

Stay in the know. Pulse on the new .com. Check it out.

[Guest guest]

Ayn Rand is the only one who I know of that used the phrase :-)mikecarrie01 <mikecarrie01@...> wrote: >"bovine indifference" I like that phrase--I don't think I've heard it before.

Stay in the know. Pulse on the new .com. Check it out.

[Guest guest]

Spam spam spam spam spam spam, lots of spam wonderful spam. Gotta look on the bright side of life. Bethenvironmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote: Love it (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.)TomAdministratorDo we all like Monty

Python?

Talk is cheap. Use Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min.

[Guest guest]

Spam spam spam spam spam spam, lots of spam wonderful spam. Gotta look on the bright side of life. Bethenvironmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote: Love it (Wink, wink. Nudge, nudge.)TomAdministratorDo we all like Monty

Python?

Talk is cheap. Use Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min.

[Guest guest]

ly, never cared much for The Flying Circus, but Life of is one of my favorite movies. And most of Terry Gilliam's movies are among my favorites- Brazil, Time Bandits, and so on. I find the surrealistic dream-like qualities of his movies especially watchable. Of the early MP- Jabberwocky holds my fascination. Heph environmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote: Love it (Wink, wink.

Nudge, nudge.)TomAdministratorDo we all like Monty Python?Hephaestus

Clubfoothttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestushttp://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hephaestus.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabeiroi

Talk is cheap. Use Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min.

[Guest guest]

ly, never cared much for The Flying Circus, but Life of is one of my favorite movies. And most of Terry Gilliam's movies are among my favorites- Brazil, Time Bandits, and so on. I find the surrealistic dream-like qualities of his movies especially watchable. Of the early MP- Jabberwocky holds my fascination. Heph environmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote: Love it (Wink, wink.

Nudge, nudge.)TomAdministratorDo we all like Monty Python?Hephaestus

Clubfoothttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hephaestushttp://www.pantheon.org/articles/h/hephaestus.htmlhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kabeiroi

Talk is cheap. Use Messenger to make PC-to-Phone calls. Great rates starting at 1¢/min.

[Guest guest]

I would really like it if more people listened to children, but often

children are discounted as just being children - sad :-( Children also

have thoughts and opinions and should be listened to and taken

seriously, but that is just my opinion I guess and maybe some others,

but not all :-(

>

> Ooh, that's one of my points. How do parents forget what it's like to

> be a kid? I remember clearly. People think kids are there for their

> amusement. You can treat kids with respect, talk to them on their

> level, and they can still delight you and treat you with respect as

an

> adult, and they'll love you.

>

>

[Guest guest]

And now for something comletely different...I love it too!

>

> Do we all like Monty Python?

>

[Guest guest]

Well. It's good that not all the parents are in that frame of mind. Many of the parents might lower the child's self-esteem with good intentions. They see their child with eccentric abilities and want them to decipher what they are and their self-esteem will eventually catch up with the hardship they'll go through. environmental1st2003 <no_reply > wrote: I have another forum with parents in it. The idea is that parents can ask REAL ASPIES questions about their

Aspie children. Every once in a while you have a parent who comes along who believes that their AS kid is only good for comic relief. If the child in the family is one of many children, then the AS kid is always the "lovable mascot." When you try to point out to the parent how they are demeaning their child, they either laugh at you, criticize you, or quit.This is the way the world works, and it is disgusting because these children "fall through the cracks" within their own families and grow up to have low self-esteem.We have a situation going on right now in the other forum that is similar. There is an Aspie who has been so lambasted by his significant other that he sees verbal abuse as being loving comments of a loving spouse. The Aspie admins are not fooled.TomAdministratorRe: Sensory overload Stupid, worthless parents. There shouldn't be so many people coming into the world now. There's too many anti-clich'e attitudes that there's no actual foundation.

How low will we go? Check out Messenger’s low PC-to-Phone call rates.

[Guest guest]

I was a goth in my younger years, but I did wash :-) and one of the

benefits of been a goth was that most people left me alone :-) I

tended to hide out in the library at high school anyways.

>

>

> In a message dated 9/7/2006 9:23:10 AM Eastern Standard Time,

> ravenmagic2003@... writes:

>

> The same clueless adults who teach other children to despite, fear

> and bully Asplings because they are different than mundane people.

>

> The same clueless adults who think that cookie cutter parenting

and

> cookie cutter children are simply the best ways to raise children,

> especially 'bad bad' children who are not mainstream and who are

> free thinkers who march to the beat of their own drum.

>

>

>

> I hate to say it, but there are some kids who bring this on

themselves. A

> cousin of mine says there is an openly AS kid at her son's school.

However, this

> kid goes out of his way to be weird. He dresses kind of Goth and

is filthy.

> His clothes are dirty, his hair long and almost dripping with

grease and he

> smells so bad you can smell him across a room. No one wants to be

near him,

> not even the real Goths and other typical outcasts because he is

so physically

> repellent.

>

> The unfortunate thing is that both this kid and his mother, who is

an

> employee at the school, both consider that this is free expression

and he shouldn't

> be judged by it. They acknowledge what a mess he is but won't

change him

> because that might " hurt his ego " or some such. Yet at the same

time, they both

> can't understand why he has no friends, even though he has said

that he would

> like some. There is probably an ulterior motive on the mother's

part as she

> is threatening to sue the school for some reason, harassment or

hostile

> environment or whatever.

>

> So one can make themselves more or less of a target. It can be

deliberate,

> like the Goths, or inadvertent, like the typical Aspie. Most

Aspies and their

> parents though I think would at least make some little changes

once they

> learned of the problem. This kid, however, knows the problem but

won't change.

> He's probably going to end up on the wrong end of a serious beating

one day.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I was thinking conversley in this country it is getting to be quite a

nanny state, where children are no longer allowed to climb trees and

often school trips are stopped due to parents sueing if someone falls

over or whatever - just wondering if this seeking of thrills and

andrenaline is some sort of backlash against not been able to have a

more free childhood? Just musing :-)

>

> I don't think its that we need more compassion as that we need

less

> stupidity. If we were less tolerate of stupid behavior, then there

would be less of

> these kinds of shows. If in the same vein we stopped saving people

from the

> consequences of their stupid actions, then there would be less of

them. For

> example: if Mr. Stupid Extreme Skier gets in an avalanche, then

they should be

> required to foot the entire bill of rescue and medical care,

insurance (private

> or governmental) would be waived. Immediate lifesaving care would

be given,

> of course, but they would be required to pay it back. Anything

longer term

> would be their own responsibility. Given how expensive medical

care is these

> days, that would certainly give them something to think about.

>

> Perhaps they could pay their bill and get a thrill by being sent

into gang

> town and cleaning graffiti off the walls. The idea of a gang banger

catching

> them going this and shooting them or beating them up should give

them a whole

> knew kind of adrenaline rush, and they would be doing something

constructive.

>

> That's partly satire of course, but not entirely. The problem is

that in

> addition to coarsening, society has been embracing stupidity more

and more as

> well. We have bee rushing to the lowest common denominator in many

fields. I

> think that if we want to stop this, we should stop glorifying

stupidity. Take

> those silly " extreme sports " out of the Olympics and return them to

their

> origins as military sports. That's what the original Olympics were:

military

> based events. We could keep a lot of the non military events like

Gymnastics and

> such because that takes a lot of time and talent, but skateboarding

and a lot

> of the new winter events?

>

> I'm going to put up another post on something I had been thinking

about.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

I was thinking conversley in this country it is getting to be quite a

nanny state, where children are no longer allowed to climb trees and

often school trips are stopped due to parents sueing if someone falls

over or whatever - just wondering if this seeking of thrills and

andrenaline is some sort of backlash against not been able to have a

more free childhood? Just musing :-)

>

> I don't think its that we need more compassion as that we need

less

> stupidity. If we were less tolerate of stupid behavior, then there

would be less of

> these kinds of shows. If in the same vein we stopped saving people

from the

> consequences of their stupid actions, then there would be less of

them. For

> example: if Mr. Stupid Extreme Skier gets in an avalanche, then

they should be

> required to foot the entire bill of rescue and medical care,

insurance (private

> or governmental) would be waived. Immediate lifesaving care would

be given,

> of course, but they would be required to pay it back. Anything

longer term

> would be their own responsibility. Given how expensive medical

care is these

> days, that would certainly give them something to think about.

>

> Perhaps they could pay their bill and get a thrill by being sent

into gang

> town and cleaning graffiti off the walls. The idea of a gang banger

catching

> them going this and shooting them or beating them up should give

them a whole

> knew kind of adrenaline rush, and they would be doing something

constructive.

>

> That's partly satire of course, but not entirely. The problem is

that in

> addition to coarsening, society has been embracing stupidity more

and more as

> well. We have bee rushing to the lowest common denominator in many

fields. I

> think that if we want to stop this, we should stop glorifying

stupidity. Take

> those silly " extreme sports " out of the Olympics and return them to

their

> origins as military sports. That's what the original Olympics were:

military

> based events. We could keep a lot of the non military events like

Gymnastics and

> such because that takes a lot of time and talent, but skateboarding

and a lot

> of the new winter events?

>

> I'm going to put up another post on something I had been thinking

about.

>

>

>

[Guest guest]

....say no more :-)

>

> Do we all like Monty Python?

>

[Guest guest]

> I have almost no memory of being a kid. Sometimes it upsets my

>wife... She says " just try to remember " . I say I can't remember. I

>can remember a couple of moments that standout (like when my bed was

>on fire), but that's it.

>

> I have a 2 year old and he is the joy of my life. I am very

> conscious of my role as a father and very conscientious of

> everything involving his upbrininging (food, fun, family, etc).

> Dan

Do you think maybe as your child grows up certain situations will bring

recall of events from your past to light? Do you think even if the

memories do not surface emotions or gut reations stemming from your

childhood will be present?

Kim

[Guest guest]

What types of comments? Growing up with verbal abuse myself makes me

wonder why those who dish it out don't care if they undermine a

person's self esteem.

Kim

> There is an Aspie who has been so lambasted by his significant

> other that he sees verbal abuse as being loving comments of a

> loving spouse. The Aspie admins are not fooled.

>

> Tom

> Administrator

[Guest guest]

What types of comments? Growing up with verbal abuse myself makes me

wonder why those who dish it out don't care if they undermine a

person's self esteem.

Kim

> There is an Aspie who has been so lambasted by his significant

> other that he sees verbal abuse as being loving comments of a

> loving spouse. The Aspie admins are not fooled.

>

> Tom

> Administrator