Wisdom Or Wishful Thinking?

1) When I die, I want to die like my grandfather - who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.

2) Advice for the day: If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: 'Take two aspirin' and 'Keep away from children.'

3) 'Oh, you hate your job? Why didn't you say so? There's a support group for that. It's called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.'

4) 'The problem with the designated driver program, it's not a desirable job, but if you ever get sucked into doing it, have fun with it. At the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong house.'

5) 'If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant's life, she will choose to save the infant's life without even considering if there is a man on base.'

6) 'Relationships are hard. It's like a full time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two weeks' notice. There should be severance pay, the day before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp.'

7) 'My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, 'Mom, they weren't trying to teach you how to swim.''

8) 'A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: 'Duh.'

9) 'Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant? I'm halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my God, I could be eating a slow learner.'

10) 'I think that's how Chicago got started. Bunch of people in New York said, 'Gee, I'm enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn't cold enough. Let's go west.''

11) 'If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.' 

12) 'Sometimes I think war is God's way of teaching us geography.'

13) 'My parents didn't want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that's the law.'

14) 'Remember in elementary school, you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file line from smallest to tallest. What is the logic in that? What? Do tall people burn slower?'

15) 'Bigamy is having one wife/husband too many. Monogamy is the same.'

16) 'Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.'

17) 'Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Afghanistan.'

18) 'You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, 'My God, you're right! I never would've thought of that!''

19) Do you know why they call it 'PMS'? Because 'Mad Cow Disease' was taken.

20) 'Everybody's got to believe in something. I believe I'll have another beer.'

21) Why in the hell should I have to 'Press 1 for English?'

Tags:wishfulthinking

Current Mood: Amused

Tribes, Trials & Tribulations

A documentary called 'Perdidos en la tribu' (Lost in the Tribe) has accumulated a whole string of complaints and severe criticism in Spain, after only 2 episodes of ten (I think) had been shown. It recorded 3 Spanish families who travelled right into the hearts of some tribes in Africa and Indonesia, to live amongst them, and learned to adapt themselves to their customs and ways of life.

Responsible anthropologists and the sensitive NGO (Non Governmental Organization) have since been screaming out loud to the sky, accusing TV4 of denigrating the natives with shameless and disrespectful treatment, twisting and trifling the reality of these tribes. The complaints also sustained that the tribesmen were repulsively disguised to reinforce the topic, and what was supposed to be their natural habitats were in fact vulgar film sets designed to make a spectacle and degrade their homes.

In an ideal world, these arguments could sustain, but we are talking about television. From the first minutes of the episode, it's clear there existed doubts, but amazingly audience usually choose to believe what's shown to them as reality, whether it's a serious programme or those that denounce whatever. We must all know that for every minute of any action on the screen, there's always the presence of cameras, and a whole team of technicians, the cable guy, the battery handlers, the make-up man or girl, the prompt person, the prop man. Even the tribesmen know they are 'acting' surely.

'Lost in the tribe' is not a respectful, philanthropical or anthological adventure. It's another common and vulgar show that recycled reality to transform it into a spectacle. Same with many other shows, informative programmes included, exploiting the sensational, the scandalous, the outrageous; manipulates and disguises context to favour political or financial interests.

My doubt or question is: why do we insist on attributing to the tribe's people an innocence which we presume we have lost a long time ago, and thus convert us in theory to be superior? If we are so proud of our audiovisual progress, won't it be logical to assume that any native of any tribe taking part in the production, have the right to share, for assuming the tricks laid on them and ridiculous rolls they played, the benefits of the pie?

Tags:Tribes,Trials,Tribulations

Current Mood: Anxious

Shape Up For The Sperm Race

Some while ago Victor M. Amela interviewed John Aitken, world authority of human semen. Aitken explained several things rather interesting: A smoker's semen quintuples the possibility of the engendered baby developing cancer. The Industrialization and the intensive agriculture (pesticide, fertilizers) results in the quality of the semen to decrease. Although sterility affects both men and women, it traumatizes men more. On reaching adulthood, babies born in industrial zones and breast-fed develop higher possibility of becoming sterile or with inferior quality semen than those bottled-fed babies; because the maternal milk transmits estrogens. The Danish has the worst quality amongst the Europeans. He added that a diet rich in antioxidant: vitamin E and C can minimize the damage done to the sperms. With that knowledge and reading the review of the book of Sharon Moalem 'Como funciona el sexo' (How does sex work), the author also says quite interesting things, like feminine ejaculation for instance, which is more and more accepted in the scientific and medical fields. Going by the find of the study, only 10% of women ejaculate during climax but many don't 'want' to, because the initial sensation is similar to urinating, so they 'suppress' the urge during the process, same as when they wish to urinate but not yet found the right time or place to so. Also because they don't wish to do it in the presence of their bed companions in case they think they 'pee' in bed. Aitken is also of the opinion that certain type of pornography could improve the quality of the sperm. According to a study carried out in Australia, it showed that when a man watches pornographic film or magazines showing 2 men and a women in the sex act, the semen produced is significantly better quality than when he watched the images of only women. An expert in revolutionary biology, Leigh Simmons, one of the investigation team, put this down to " Men ejaculate more or better quality semen when the risk of spermatic competition is high.", being this nature of survival. Now that's interesting theory isn't it? The quality of Catalan semen (they didn't say Spanish) is apparently becoming worse and worse by the day (an excuse to promote pornography?), to the point that it's now a generalized problem. For years the natality in this country had decreased to an worrying level, and a couple of years ago, the government had exercised all sorts of encouraging remedies, mainly economic, like fixed payment to all families for their 1st baby (€600), monthly supplement to all children under 18, six weeks maternity leave with pay to mothers & 2 weeks for fathers, also with pay, etc. etc. Tags:competition,sperm

Current Mood: Awake