Doomsday Clock Moving Forward

This is the Alarmist Age. We are told to worry or fear many things that, on reflection, don't deserve either. But with mass media, social media and those d--- cell phones (but that's something I worry about because they drive me crazy) all are tossed at us every second of every day by our computer driven mediums we have become stressed by it all. Well, an old standby fear monger mechanism, The Doomsday Clock.

A group of atomic scientists from the University of Chicago created the clock in 1947 as a way of declaring the danger the world was in danger of being "blown up" because of the new menace to it, the atomic weapon. and the contemporary idiom of nuclear explosion (countdown to zero), to convey threats to humanity and the Earth. It evolved into a warning of the threats to earth with the time hand representing the  degree of danger. The closer to midnight, the more likelihood the earth could end in nothingness. Three minutes is the closest to midnight the clock has been since 1984 during the Cold War. The closest it has ever been to midnight was at two minutes in 1953, when the hydrogen bomb was first tested.

So much for symbolism.  The Doomsday Clock now seems to be the Politically Correct Clock in fitting with the Alarmist Age. Some very dubious apocalyptic events, like global warming, have been added to the data used to produce predictions of doomsday. So.....citing "climate change" and the ongoing threat of nuclear weapons, scientists this year have moved the hands of the Doomsday Clock two minutes closer to midnight. It is now three minutes to midnight.

"The probability of global catastrophe is very high. This is about the end of civilization as we know it. In 2015, unchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernization and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity," the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists said in a statement accompanying this year's Doomsday prediction. "World leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe. These failures of political leadership endanger every person on Earth."

I'm not an Atomic scientist, but when PC issues like climate change are cited as a reason for moving forward the hands of the Doomsday clock I get "hot' with irritation. If there were no problems the scientists could find, what time would the clock be set?  And how much weight is given to each perceived problem? I'd wager that terrorists originating from the middle east will use a nuclear weapon long before the Sahara Desert is inundated with rising sea levels. But is that possibility and many others far greater than trendy global warming part of the projection? How can one predict the probability of the end of the world when there are limitless scenarios that could do it?

Oh, long before anything serious comes from "global warming", the earth's ecosystem will collapse under the weight of 12 billion human bodies as overpopulation becomes unsustainable. When the Global Warming nuts start discussing how to stop humans from over- breeding, then I'll take they and the Dooms Day clock seriously.

Big Babies

There was an item in my newspaper, a story about an unusually large baby born in Florida. It seems that a mom  who thought she was gong to deliver twins, instead gave birth to a baby that weighed over 14 pounds (6.4 kilos). No truth to the rumor that she is still screaming in pain. And the kicker to the story is that the woman (who looks very obese in pictures shown of her) didn't even realize she was pregnant until a month or so before delivery. What do you do with a baby that size when he wants to be held often, as all small ones do? It's either share the holds or d see a chiropractor for back strains.

Anyway, that big baby was one of the larger ones ever born in Florida. But the heaviest baby weight ever recorded according to The Guinness Book of World Records was the one a Canadian woman named Karen Bates delivered. That baby  boy who weighed 23 pounds, 12 ounces (6.4 Kilos) and was 30 inches long. He was born way back in 1879, however, and died just 11 hours later. I am not sure if mom Karen died of shock when she saw that monster, but she probably wished she did.  Could you imagine carrying that baby for 45 minutes or so when he reached his first birthday and more than doubled his weight?

Just a year or so ago an mom in Indonesia gave birth to a baby that weighed 8.6 kilos.  But why are some babies so big at birth? I didn't know so I researched the subject and found that the biggest factor in heavy birth weight is not heredity, but instead the most obvious one. It's how fat is mom. If mom is a fatty, the baby is far more likely to be large too.  Some other factors that can produce a baby as fat as Kevin James or Melissa McCarthy include; heredity,  the age of the mom (older moms have heavier babies), and whether gestational diabetes is present during pregnancy.

While its a novelty and a conversation piece it's not healthy to be born in the image of an elephant.  Big babies are hard to deliver and even get "stuck" sometimes, there is trauma to the mom with many of those births and in pregnancy. Also being a fat baby can delay the baby's crawling and walking, also essential parts of a baby's physical and mental development could be slowed. So, contrary to those old sayings that a fat baby is a healthy baby it probably is the opposite in many big baby births. 

I was a bigger than normal baby, though not out of the range of normal. However, one part of me might have been huge.... my mom always said "You've got a big mouth".

Doctors Just Say No To Some Kids

There are some odd people out there (besides me). I prefer to the segment of loonies who  embrace trendy and political correctness way too much. In the U.S. there are even some people still choose not to have their children vaccinated against all those deadly diseases that used to kill and maim so many children during pre vaccination days. Do I need to write that vaccine immunization has been proven time and time again to be both very safe and extremely effective? The "I don't want my kid vaccinated type because it may make my child ill, even autistic" not only compromise their child's health based on faulty information, but they contribute to a herd mentality against immunization..

So now a growing number of  pediatricians have been parting ways with patients of theirs who refuse to vaccinate (If banned by one doctor, the parent can easily find another doctor who will treat their child). If the child has not been vaccinated the parent will have to go elsewhere, since those doctors won't see unvaccinated children. It's good to see doctors stepping up against ignorance to try to push irresponsible parents to make better choices for their little ones. For example, In a study of Connecticut pediatricians published last year, some 30% of 133 doctors said they had asked a family to leave their practice for vaccine refusal, and a recent survey of 909 Midwestern pediatricians found that 21% reported discharging families for the same reason. Bravo!

Having an unvaccinated child in a doctor's waiting room full of other children, some sick is dangerous for both the unvaccinated child and the other people in the waiting room. And sending unvaccinated kids to school and other public places is irresponsible (some schools in the U.S.  are now refusing admittance to kids who do not show proof of vaccination) There's also an issue of trust. If parents don't trust their doctor's medical advice on one subject, why would they trust them on another? There should be a high level of trust there between doctor and patient.

Ok, now for the opposing view that says no doctor should refuse any patient for any reason. Some people don't vaccinate their children in spite of all the good information about the benefits of vaccinations because humans do a stupid things that fly in the face of reason, as in smoking cigarettes (the greatest single cause of bad health). Doctors treat smokers, so why not the unvaccinated. Secondly, one might ask why punish the child by refusing medical care simple because the parent is an idiot.

So what do you think? Is it right or wrong for a doctor to ban unvaccinated kids from a particular doctor's office?

Groundhog Day

Did you miss Groundhog Day?  Probably so, since even by American standards it's not a serious holiday.  The relatives don't get to come over and eat all the food in the house while guzzling every alcoholic drink available as well. I give thanks for that.  Groundhog Day is always on February 2nd., a day in which Americans observe groundhogs emerging from winter burrows to predict the remaining time of the winter season. If the groundhog returns to its burrow, folklore states that winter will last six more weeks. If the groundhog stays in side (maybe watching another reality TV show?), it is believed that spring will come early. Many towns in the mid west part of the U.S. commemorate that holiday with festivals and gatherings to watch the groundhog. It shows that there isn't much to do in that part of the country.

In ancient times, Germanic people believed that badgers had the ability to predict the weather, and they used that knowledge to plant their crops. Even after those crazy German communities stopped believing in the badger's power to predict, the tradition of it kept the practice alive.  Now we Americans are stuck with it. If I see another newscaster playfully report on Punxsutawney Phil, the official groundhog of the holiday, predicting if the U.S. will have 6 more weeks of winter, I will stop rating Phil ahead of Global Warming  fanatics as a reliable source of climate news. I wish someone would kidnap that groundhog and drop it in an ISIS Muslim terrorist camp.  They might execute the groundhog for being an infidel and actually do good for civilization.

But wait! Maybe it's not such a bad idea to have a holiday named after a rodent who predicts the weather. It makes more sense that the Chinese custom of their zodiac naming one entire year after a rat (The Year of the Rat), or the Japanese celebration 'Naked Festival' in which men dress in loincloths and run around in public for a full day.

Ireland's oldest fair is called 'Puck Fair', held every year in Kilorgin. Supposedly long ago, as raiders were approaching to invade the village, a goat broke away from a herd and headed into the village, which alerted the villagers of incoming danger. So the goat saved the village and now has a day named for him. I don't have one named for me....maybe because most people think that I am more of a jackass than a goat.

I thought the origin of the holiday was as a holy day. But there seems little that is holy about any of the holidays I have mentioned or most of the others that are listed on a calendar. I think I should just forget Groundhog Day and instead wait for my favorite holiday. It's later this month and is called 'Do A Grouch A Favor Day'.  I have many requests for this year's favor and await your gifts. If you fail to give me one I will be an even bigger grouch this year. Thanking you in advance.............

Psuedo Mature Kids

When you were 12 or 13 years old were you cool, the leader of your middle school class, daring enough to drink a beer and smoke in the school rest room, naughty enough to steal condoms from that convenience store you frequented while you played hooky?  If so, you may be what is called a pseudo mature (middle school aged kids who are so busy trying to act older than their age, they don't mature properly) behavior type. That would be a risk taking, socially precocious cool kid. Problem is, according to a new study, those kinds of kids far more often wind up as dysfunctional adults.

Dr, Joseph Allen, a psychology professor at the University of Virginia, says in 'Whatever Happened to the Cool Kids? Long-term Sequelae of Early Adolescent Pseudo mature Behavior', that their pseudo mature behavior set them up for trouble later in life. By the time they are in their early 20s, many of them have had difficulties with intimate relationships, alcohol and marijuana, and even criminal activity. They are doing more extreme things to try to act cool, bragging about drinking three six packs on a Saturday night, and their peers are thinking that they may be a little off. By their 20's many of the nerds are achieving while  the cool middle school type psuedo matures are socially immature and still living in their middle school world.

I was neither a cool kid nor a nerd when I was in middle school. My idea of cool was to not be noticed and not to do what was popular. But I remember the type that professor Allen references. They are the kind who show up at a school reunion 20 years later, still behaving as they did as 12 year olds. Most are socially immature and far more often failures in career and personal relationships than the other kids of the middle school age group. The professor says that in his research he found that  pseudo mature behavior was an even stronger predictor of problems with alcohol and drugs than levels of drug use in early adolescence.

So those pseudo mature kids are so busy chasing popularity, they are missing a critical developmental period and turn out to be like....well Lindsey Lohan and Justine Beiber. Problem is, the study never says what adults, in particular parents and teachers, can do about the pseudo mature kid.  It just suggests that parents can reinforce qualities that will help them withstand the pressure to be too cool, too fast. Good luck with that. I doubt that type of kid will be much impressed with what mom and dad say.

Anyway, do you have a story about yourself or someone you remember in school who was a  pseudo mature kid?

Mardi Gras Costume Videos

The times are a changing, really fast too. But traditions keep us more grounded in the present, even when the rest of the culture is racing ahead with its changes. The reason I thought about this is because I noticed on the New Orleans newspaper dot com site (nola.com) a video a reader posted that was shot in 1954. It has views (in color too....imagine that) of random costumes that one reveler recorded with his ancient video camera on Mardi Gras Day 1954.

It's quite interesting as a cultural history of people that celebrated Mardi Gras more than 60 years ago. But how different were the costumes and attitudes shown on that old video from one  that was more recently shot? You have to look at the two links below to form your own opinion as to what changes you see and what similarities. The second video was taken Mardi Gras Day 2009 (55 years later than the first video) also in New Orleans, and it is a recording by one person of a few of the costumes seen that day.

Go ahead and view them.....I''ll wait for you and resume my remarks when you are finished.
1954
http://www.nola.com/mardigras/index.ssf/2015/01/reader_shares_vintage_new_orle.html#incart_river

2009
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-LafDdPQnTE

Oh you're back! What did you see in the two years that is different and what is the same? Does the similarity of the two make you think, as I do, that traditions keep us fixed in time, or that they at least show that we can revert to the expectations of tradition. Either way, I think Mardi Gras and other traditional events are good for the people who participate. They reflect on the past and embrace it in an active way, beyond just knowing the past or thinking about it momentarily. Because we participate the same way we learn to appreciate, maybe even adopt some of the behaviors of the former time.

I could be wrong, so you tell me what you think. Happy Mardi Gras from both year 1954 and 2009.