In the "I suspected as much" category...

I just came across this article [link]about cell phone usage and it played right into my paranoia. Here's the opening paragraph:

In a culture where people cradle their cellphones next to their heads with the same constancy and affection that toddlers hold their security blankets, it was unsettling last month when a study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association indicated that doing so could alter brain activity.

What? You think those who walk about with a cell phone glued to their hands and ears already show signs of weird brain activity? Perhaps. Science doesn't yet know what the changes in brain activity will do, or are doing. The change is subtle, it seems, just "an increase in glucose metabolism after using the phone for less than an hour." What would that be? Brain sugar? That term sounds like a hip way of saying "flattery."

In any case, even though science has no idea whether there is (or will be) any harm from this, many people are, according to the article, "what they can do to protect themselves" from this effect. Well, short of giving up the cell phone, that is. I guess word got around pretty fast since the report was published last month in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA).

Recommendations range from the extreme... giving up one's cell phone... to just using a speakerphone feature, keep it away from your head. Since it is obvious that telling people not to use a cell phone these days would be nervously laughed at, the speakerphone option is the only serious advice.

Some studies show a link between cell phone use and "cancer, lower bone density and infertility in men" while plenty more find no link. We just have no idea, do we?

Mine is not threatening my brain activity at all (as minor as that activity may be) since my cell phone spends most of its time shut off and sitting on my dresser. I am not a big fan of these things. On the other hand, I am retired so have less need for communication. Even when I was working, I had no need for a cell phone. All it could do was to make me available to management. And I had no desire to be more accessible.

And, forgive me for saying so, I think using these things in restaurants, on the golf course, and so on is just rude to those around you. Let's face it, folks, the largest percentage of cell phone calls are unimportant. I saw a man the other day, riding a bicycle with a cell phone pressed against his ear. He was dressed like he was just out for some light exercise. He appeared to be in his 60's and probably retired (most residents here seem to be) so what was so important? Even if he worked, can't he be out of touch with his workplace for 30 minutes while he exercises? Don't we need a break from that stress? Isn't that part of what getting some exercise is about?

Just turn the thing off! They'll leave voice mail if it's important. Even if it's not important.

Well, let's just total that up, shall we?

It seems I am always "in heat" for new things, mostly cars, these days. There's nothing wrong with my car other than it gets poor gas mileage in city driving. Unfortunately, that's pretty much all the driving I do these days. In my car. When we take a trip somewhere, we use Faye's. Her car's a little newer. And Faye prefers the cloth seats in her car to the leather/leatherette ones in mine. So, I acquiesce.

Because I just drive around town, it would make sense to have a small fuel efficient car. Something that gets good mileage, something with enough room to carry my golf clubs and the associated gear (rain jacket, a couple of small towels, two pair of golf shoes, and about 6 hats I only wear at the golf course), something "zippy", something cheap.

So I watch ads. I peruse the internet. I do a lot of "Build your [insert model name here]." In doing so, I have noticed a commonality. Price creep does not creep like a tortoise, it leaps and bounds like a kangaroo, it soars like an eagle.

I am at that age where I no longer can tolerate the stripped down model. I once owned a `56 Chevy 2 door sedan. Stick shift, vinyl seats, 6 cylinder engine, no radio, no power steering or windows, no heater. I added an after market radio which means I found a cheap Chevy/Delco radio at an auto junkyard and installed it.

But you cannot buy a stripped down car anymore. You cannot buy a new car the way we once did. Here's how it worked. You went to the car dealership, you test drove one of the demos. You selected the options you wanted individually; radio, power steering/windows, heater, and so on. The salesman would total it up and you would sign the contract. The car would be ordered from the factory and arrive within a couple of weeks. Those days are pretty much gone.

We have gone to buying cars like we shop for groceries or garden tools or just about anything. We select from the inventory on hand. In some, maybe many, cases the dealer will try to locate a car that comes close to, or matches, your preferences from another dealer (he'll swap one of his with that dealer for it) and you'll have it within a few days at most. It seems we no longer want to wait. In exchange for not having to wait, we compromise on accessories, features, and trim.

The auto makers have found a way to exploit that. You want that $400 built-in navigation system? You have to add the "tech package" for $2500 (or more) which gives you a number of extra features and accessories you don't want or need. You want the 17" wheels? You have to buy the "touring" or "sports" package for $3500 which includes things like a motorized sun roof and a rear deck spoiler and fog lamps.

So, you see an ad for a Jetta and it says "under $16,000" and you think "Wow! That's a pretty good price." Until you try to find that vehicle anywhere. It doesn't exist. No matter where you go, even on the internet, you will not find that stripped down vehicle.

After you sigh a few thousand times, go through all the anguish, and decide you will bite the bullet and pay for what you don't want to get the 10% you do want. You find all the additional charges...

Dealer prep - Anywhere from $200 to $400 (sometimes more) depending on the make and model. This means the dealer allegedly checked the car out and washed it. And maybe tossed in a full tank of gas.

Title transfer - Starts at about $200 and rises rapidly depending on state.

Destination charge - Several hundred dollars. Basically you are just reimbursing (at a profit) the dealer for bringing the car to the dealership so you can see it on his lot and settle for it instead of the one you really wanted but could not get.

And you may also run into something that is just outright theft in my opinion. A premium based on desirability. I saw one of these premiums as high as $2000 tacked onto a new model van from Toyota back in the mid-70's.

So that $16,000 car that you saw advertised? Did you look at the fine print? You'll have to pause your DVR or get a magnifying glass for the newspaper or magazine ad to find out the one pictured is "$25, 995, as shown."

And people wonder why I'm a cynic...

Hooking and other pursuits

One of the blogs I try to read each time there is a new post is the Scientific Fundamentalist, This post [Are All Women Essentially Prostitutes?] really caught my attention. The title, while provocative, is misleading. He starts out musing about whether men try to impress prostitutes (in this case, think Call Girls, not street hookers) as they would try to impress a "normal" date.

He finds they do. I already knew that. Not because I patronize call girls or know men who do but because men seem wired to do so. I think it is simply human nature to want to impress others. I think it is true regardless of the nature of the relationship. I have met people in bars, at parties, at work, on golf courses, just about everywhere that casual, and transient, meetings happen. Small talk always leads to attempts to impress in one way or another. Male and female alike engage in it.

Think about it. I know I have done this again and again and I would bet that you have too. From dates, to casual meetings at parties and dances (and just about anywhere), I have done my best to impress the opposite sex. But I have also tried to impress teachers, bosses, co-workers, waiters and waitresses, and more. There is a difference in degree, method, and in conscious motivation but the desire to impress was there at some level.

My father was a salesman. It was, to me, an odd trade for a man I saw as reclusive, quiet, stern, and a bit cold. I learned that was just part of his persona. In this post [I think I am turning green], I tried to explain it:

My father, a mostly silent and stern man, would pull up in front of a large store and we would go in. As we passed through the door, his seemingly eternal frown would disappear and a smile would appear. Cheerfulness would fill his face and he would wave and greet people as if they were old friends he had not seen nearly often enough. He would exchange pleasantries, laugh at lame jokes, nod sagely at tales of woe, and be something much more human than the Dad I had known all my short life.

If you are going to be a successful salesman, you have to create a relationship with your clients, they have to see you as something more than a guy who wants their money. You have to impress them. We do this when we want to make a friend, or encourage subordinates, or get treated fairly by a company, or just about any time we interact with others.

At the end of that Scientific Fundamentalist post, this question came to mind immediately:

Isn't everyone a prostitute? In a loose interpretation, that is. The core definition of a prostitute is one who offers one's body for money. That pretty much describes anyone who works for wages. We make a moral distinction when we are talking about prostitution. Throughout my working life, I provided my body (to do some physical work) in exchange for money.

And another thought also entered my mind. This one related to the parent website of the blog. Isn't a psychologist just a rented friend?

I'm too [un]sexy for my shirt

You wouldn't know it today by looking at me but I was once rather handsome, they tell me. Never mind who they are. I was lean and wiry and tan. Quite tan.

It happened in my 19th year on this planet. That would be when I was 18 (do the math, folks, do the math) and "discovered" surfing... along with millions of others. I was a skinny kid, ribs easily counted, spindly legs, arms easily confused as loose threads hanging from my sleeves. I rarely wore short sleeved shirts or shorts, I was quite insecure about my body. I weighed about 130 lbs and stood 5'11" when I turned 18. Yup, scrawny. I identified closely with the character in the Charles Atlas ads... the one who got sand kicked in his face by the bully.

No matter what I did, I could not gain weight. I ate like any teenage boy, stuffing every kind of food imaginable in my gullet, but it never stuck to those really obvious ribs. Serious thoughts about tapeworms were voiced by my mother... who had the opposite problem. It was genetics at work. My father, at 6'4", weighed all of 140 lbs when my parents married. You are your parents, it seems.

Then I got hooked on surfing. I am not sure why. My first attempt left me with a fat lip from being hit by the board and a sunburn from too many hours in the sun for a body that had been mostly covered since I was a small child. Within 6 months, I had become a fair surfer and a deep, dark, reddish brown. The only part that wasn't tan was the palms of my hands, the soles of my feet, and the area from a few inches below my navel to a line about three inches down my legs.

My shoulders broadened and my waist narrowed. Paddling a surfboard and swimming quite a bit did that. But my arms stayed thin, my legs stayed spindly, and my ribs still poked out. My stomach was still not flat, I had no "6-pack abs", but it was close. I was lean and wiry. And very, very dark.

I learned, about a year into surfing, that no matter how tanned you got, you could still get sunburned. I spent about 8 hours in the water on an overcast day. It wasn't especially hot by south Florida standards, probably mid-80's, and you couldn't see the sun through the cloud layer. But that night I developed those bubbly blisters on my nose and cheeks just under my eyes. And some on my forearms. I did what any kid would do... I peeled the dead skin away to reveal the pink layer underneath. I looked a bit weird for a couple of days until those areas tanned again.

I still thought I was too skinny. And I thought I was not handsome. Until one evening when I was trying desperately to seduce a 15 year old girl from New Jersey, a tourist teen visiting Hallandale Beach with her parents. She talked about how sexy I looked paddling out into the waves that afternoon at the beach just down from her motel. Instead of dismissing her words as simple flattery I accepted them. To this day, I do not know why. Even so, I failed to accomplish my goal that night... probably to both our benefits.

I enlisted in the Navy a few months after that, weighing all of 133 lbs (officially). As much as I ate (and I gobbled food pretty much mindlessly then), I left the Navy 4 years later weighing about 145 lbs.

I mention all this because I noticed the other day that my weight was creeping up. I am not that skinny kid I once was. Yet I look in the bathroom mirror and that is who I see. Not the tanned surfer dude but the skinny little creep that he once was. The mind plays tricks on us all.

Got chaos? Get used to it

Another week has gone by and things are heating up. Not just the weather either, though that is certainly warming up down here in Paradise. I am talking geo-politics. Which I seem to be able to do without a university degree. One of the joys of being a human... we can talk without formal knowledge about anything all. A friend of mine (I think he's a friend) says "Ask Douglas... he knows everything!" He says that a little too often and I detect more than a tinge of sarcasm in his delivery.

Anyway, ignoring that guy and plunging ahead, the Middle East is still in turmoil. We don't really mean Middle East, though, do we? We mean Muslim countries in and around that region. Egypt is still sorting itself out, Yemen is in crisis mode, Bahrain has called in troops from Saudi Arabia, Syria is shooting its own people, and then there's Libya.

Do we belong in the skies over Libya? Should Br'er Rabbit have picked up the Tar Baby? I don't see the long term, or even the short term, benefits of this thing. I hear and read people calling this a "war" but I disagree. It doesn't even amount to the NATO actions over Kosovo though there are some similarities. Except there was plenty of reasons (propaganda) given for the Kosovo intervention that made just a little more sense than the ones given for Libya. If taking military action with Libya is justified by Qaddafi's slaughtering his own people, why wasn't that sufficient for invading Iraq? Not to mention staying in Afghanistan until the Taliban is impotent.

The No Fly Zone strategy will likely fail. Qaddafi [Duck] is not exactly sane but he's not as stupid as some folks seem to think. He knows no one in this coalition is going to send in ground troops (that's been announced) and that the world will tire of this in time so all he has to do is hunker down and hold out. I would guess he thinks he can do that.

But let's get back to these "democratic" uprisings in the region. I worry about them. Mostly because I don't think the outcomes will be all that democratic. I think these uprisings will be used by the best organized political groups and those are not really interested in establishing "one man-one vote" societies. These groups are interested in seizing power and become the ruling tyrants. Some of this is being backed by Iran (Shi'a), I think. Mostly in Yemen and Bahrain. Some of it seems Sunni instigated and possibly Saudi financed at some level.

The only good I see in any of this is that it shows an escalation of the struggle between Sunni and Shi'a and I don't mind if these two are at each other's throats. The worst possible thing for the non-Muslims of the world would be for these two sects to join forces. In the long term it would be bad for everyone.

Being atheist, I would be among the first to be offered the choice of conversion to Islam or death. I'd much rather live in a society (and world) dominated by Christians. They seem to have evolved out of their Inquisition days and become a bit more tolerant. Islam is still in that mindset, I think, and that makes that religion a bit more scary.

Yeah, it's all about me.