You Are Probably Going to Be Fooled.

This person is trying to trick you.  Watch how easy he does it.



Julie's Mom has five daughters.

1. Jana
2. Jene
3. Jini
4. Jono

What's the name of the fifth one?


 __________________________________________






You probably said "Junu" because that would logically be the next name in the sequence and we naturally assume the question is about guessing the next name in the sequence.  So we miss the fact that the questioner did not actually name the mother, but instead described her as belonging to one of the daughters and one not in the list.  Ergo, logically, Julie's Mom must have a fifth daughter named Julie.

I've written a lot about propaganda and deception lately.  This word trick is an interesting peek at how someone gets you looking one way so that you miss what's really going on. 

The numbered list pulled your eyes away from the key bit of information you needed to solve the puzzle which was in the first line.  We read past this line because Julie was a modifier of Mom and you don't pay as much attention to modifiers as you do to the nouns modified and the verbs in sentences. You'd have guessed it easily if the questioner had said "Julie has four sisters, name the fifth one," and then been given the list.  Even then, you might have taken a whack at the sequence because it was new and intriguing information and our brains are drawn to the new and unknown.  Everything else gets shoved into the background (such as the information that the mother of the four girls in the list was also Julie's mother).

This trick takes advantage of our trust that the person talking to us isn't lying to us or trying to deceive and our fascination with new stuff.  That's why presidential press secretaries say, "That happened a long time ago," when they really don't want to talk about something.

That's why presidents bomb aspirin factories when they want someone to not notice they've been hitting on the interns.  That's why the guys in the White House gave up the IRS and the Justice Department - anything to get you looking away from the hearings about Benghazi.  Better the press looks at naughty subordinates than at the big guy. 

Bad people always want to draw your attention away from the really nasty bits that are going on right before your eyes.  And because people are trusting we are fooled.  It happens in families, It happens in politics and it happens in the spiritual world.  The devil does slight of hand and if we're careful he'll get us looking one way when we ought to be looking the other.  People are embarrassed when they are caught like that and fooled, but they oughtn't be. 

There is no shame on those who are tricked. 

The shame is on those who do the trickery.

I'm just saying.

Tom King (c) 2013 

I Become a "Biker"

We're now well and truly stranded up here in Washington State out  in the middle of a swamp surrounded by West Coast liberals with our truck back in Texas and three miles from the nearest store of any kind (and did I mention that I'm 59 with bad knees and and a spare tire that weighs more like an anvil?)  We're in spitting distance of a live volcano that is overdue to go off and I'm having to figure out how to write for a living.

So, somebody lent me a bicycle.  Taking it as a sign from God, I decided to go to town to "pick up a couple of things."

My Sweet Baboo didn't want me to go.  She figured I'd keel over dead alongside the road somewhere and she'd never know what happened to me and be trapped alone in the apartment and have to eat the dog to survive.  The dog went, "Say, what?"

But when I hinted I might be returning with chocolate, she relented and gave me a list with "a couple of more things we really need".

So I pulled on my backpack and rode off toward the nearest Safeway.  The dump truck did not run over me thanks to the handy driveway and all those tiny rocks that cushioned my fall. Once I got to the store, I chained up my bike and grabbed a basket.

Stores are insidious things.  The things you put in your shopping cart reproduce. I stuck to the list pretty well and got all the stuff she needed and then I thought of the poor little thing sitting back there all alone and started tossing "a few little treats" into the basket.  By the time I was done I had a pretty formidable basketful for someone who was planning to carry it all home on a bicycle.

Into my rucksack, I packed a six pack of Coke (in the glass bottles), cans of spaghetti sauce, a large bottle of laundry detergent, twenty pounds of cleaning supplies. a block of cheese and 40 or so pounds of dog food, potatoes and enough oatmeal to last the winter (next winter). When I attempted to shoulder the pack, I discovered that someone had poured concrete into it.  That thing weighed 85 pounds if it weighed an ounce and I still had three bags I was going to have to suspend from my neck.

What I did next is how I know I'm getting old.

I called a cab and went over to Subway and ate a sandwich till the cab got there.  I know the cab driver.  When she arrived, she got out and loaded me, my bike and my concrete rucksack into the cab, laughing the whole time.  The woman laughed all the way back to my house.

I either need to go to town more often and buy smaller quantities, or hitchhike back to Texas for my truck.  Either way, I'm getting too old for this kind of "bikering".  I'm seriously considering buying a Vespa and I don't care how wimpy it looks.

My knees are giving me hell this morning and my calves decided I needed a good double cramp, when I tried to get out of bed (which was a circus act in itself).

During the night, the wife had pinned me in on one side and the dog had pinned me in from the other and those two females were not letting me sneak out again for any more bike riding this morning- even though they loved the BLTs we had for supper immensely..

Ain't it grand to be loved like that?

Tom

Cinco de' Tom - My Annual Celebration

Walt Whitman, without any dash of humility at all, named one of his better poems, "A Song of Myself". While I do not pretend to the poetic talents of Mr. Whitman, I do understand the sentiment behind his paean to himself. Years ago my kids began to notice that I tended to break up the celebration of my birthday over several days leading up to and following my birthday.  Birthday dinner at home one day.  Birthday dinner out on another.  Celebratory movie and popcorn.  Celebratory trip to the mall to buy my birthday present.  Anything to stretch things out.

I think it was my son, Micah, who dubbed it Cinco de' Tom and teased me unmercifully about stretching out my birthday fun.  I don't care.  The last couple of years since I've been in Washington and the economy has been in the dumper, the celebration has become a little skimpier.  I don't mind so much.

You see it was never about the size of the party or the number of presents.  Good old Mom always come through with a nice present and birthday card for her baby boy and favorite kid, but for the most part, I settle for e-mail greetings and Facebook entries from the kids and Sheila bakes me one of her amazing cakes.  I made a vege-Mexican Enchilada Pie in keeping with the fiesta theme this year. When we can afford it, we both treat ourselves to a nice birthday bash in my honor.  She has just as much fun as me and, frankly, it would be no fun without her.

I think we should all make a festival out of our birthdays.  This year we celebrated our 39th wedding anniversary and my 59th birthday two weeks apart.  I'm planning to save up for a mighty bash next year as it will be our 40th anniversary and I'll officially reach geezerdom when I hit 60 on my next birthday.

I plan to party for the full five days.................while wearing a sombrero!

I deserve it.  Mostly Sheila deserves it for putting up with me for this long. You deserve it to, so go ahead and celebrate this year.  Make a big deal out of it. It's your milestone. Give yourself a treat and who cares what anyone thinks.

I discovered something about being reticent about birthdays.  If you don't make a big deal about it, your loved ones don't know how much you enjoy the parties and then they stop giving you one on the grounds that you must not like it.  If you do make a big deal out of your birthday, they rouse themselves to extra effort and throw you a nice birthday bash.

And when they do everybody has fun and how nice is that?  Years ago, I learned to my surprise that those who love you actually want to know what makes you happy.  If they know, they can do something for you that also makes you happy.

So every year, it's Cinco de' Tom - me spreading happiness (and making out like a bandit on the birthday presents).

Tom
(c)  2013 

Calling Doctor Daisy, Calling Doctor Daisy!

(c) 2013 by Tom King

We've been training our dog, Daisy as a medical alert service dog.  My wife has suffered severe panic attacks for more than 30 years as a result of an accident in labor and delivery with our youngest child. Daisy is able to recognize their onset and comes immediately to Sheila's side when they start.  She helps Sheila know when a panic attack is coming on and it helps Sheila know to take her anti-anxiety meds quick.  That way, Sheila is not totally alone when I'm away from the house and so that we get an early warning that a panic attack is coming if we're out in public.

Sheila often experiences vivid nightmares and night terrors.  Many times these occur after I get up in the morning and leave her sleeping a little longer.  This morning I was taking a shower and thought I heard a noise.  I got out and threw on a robe.  By now I could hear a strange voice that sounded dry and small, but terrified.

"Dr. Daisy," the voice shouted. "Don't do the surgery yet. The anesthetic isn't working!"

I figured Sheila was having another nightmare, so I bolted for the bedroom.  When I arrived I found Daisy up on the bed with her paws on Sheila's chest, licking her face.  Sheila was spluttering and shouting, "No, no, Dr. Daisy. It's not working. Help me!"

I shook Sheila awake and asked her if she wanted a drink of water to help her wake up.

"Oh, please, yes....."

As she came to, I moved Daisy back.  Apparently the dog had heard Sheila trying to wake from a dream that Sheila was having about being stretched out upon a surgical table and being operated on.  The best we can piece together it went like this.

Sheila's nose got blocked somehow and she couldn't breathe. Sheila is NOT a mouth breather.  She was in deep REM sleep and couldn't wake and began gasping for breath which dried out her mouth and tongue making it difficult for her to speak clearly.  She began to groan because in the dream the surgical team was fixing to start cutting and Sheila thought she was going to be awake for the operation.

She began to shout for help which was when I heard her.

Meanwhile, our faithful, highly trained service dog, Super Daisy, sprang to the rescue, placed her paws on Sheila's chest and began to do CPR (chest compressions alternating with muzzle to face resuscitation).  Sheila's words meanwhile were slurred and thick because of the dry mouth.  Not having opposable thumbs or access to a water bottle, Daisy moistened Sheilas mouth and throat with the only wet thing she had available.

"Hey," Daisy says. "The manual says clear the airway, so I cleared the airway."

Later as I gave Sheila some water to help her speak clearly, she sputtered and choked and then sat up looking confused.  "I think I've been French kissed by a dog," she said.

Daisy looked up at me and grinned.  "My work here is done," she seemed to say and resumed her spot at the foot of the bed.

Psycho-Social Development Made Easy: Stages 3 & 4

(c) 2013 by Tom King

Photo used by permission - Amy Maples, 2013

Put your pants on!” says Mom.

“Okay!,” says Aidan and proceeds to follow mom’s instructions to the letter, with the results seen here.

They're very literal at that age, children are.  At ages 3 to 5, their big psycho-social issue is "Initiative vs. Guilt".  Renowned psychologist Erik Erickson says that children need to begin asserting control and power over their environment at this age. Success in this stage leads to a strong sense of purpose. There are generally natural controls in place that prevent megalomania, however.  Children who try to exert too much power experience disapproval from parents or other authority figures, resulting in a sense of guilt. Guilt counterbalances self-assurance and can be a healthy factor in determining one's personality.  

So the good news is that Aidan is likely asserting just enough control, but not too much. If he does not do learn to make choices and exert some measure of control over his environment, he will grow up riddled with guilt. 

So congratulations, Mom.  You are probably raising a relatively guilt-free kid.  As such, he is far more likely to move out of your basement before he is 30.

If, however, the kid has begun to cross over into the stage that happens at about six through 11, he becomes even more concrete in his obedience and outlook.  He will want to know "What happens if....." kinds of things.  Mostly he will want to know the rules and the consequences of breaking them in order to figure out ways around those rules without suffering the consequences.  Kids that age are literalists.  Erickson identified this stage's primary psycho-social issue as "Industry vs. Inferiority".  Children, says Erickson, need to cope with new social and academic demands. Success leads to a sense of competence, while failure results in feelings of inferiority.  

Putting his pants over his head then becomes, for Aidan, a way to successfully obey his mother while maintaining his sense of control over his environment by taking initiative. This obedient rebellion helps the boy not to feel inferior to those around him. If you as a parent or authority figure laugh at him over the joke rather than scolding, you reward the behavior and he is more likely to repeat it.

Congratulations, Mom.  You are probably raising a comedian with a healthy ego. Not an easy task in this modern world.

- Tom

Getting Old is Actually Kind of Fun?

(c) 2013 by Tom King

Wheat gluten "steaks" simmering in broth.

As I've gotten older, I've decided to do some things differently.  For one thing, we've almost entirely stopped buying meat of any kind and gone almost entirely vegetarian. It means more cooking time, but I find I enjoy cooking.  Who knew meal prep could be this much fun?

People become vegetarians for a lot of reasons.  Some hope to lose weight of to improve their health or live longer.  Others do it because the whole idea of eating living creatures is repugnant to them.  Some do it in order to feel morally superior to others.  Some believe it will help save the planet.

I do it for several reasons, not the least of which is my religion.  In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve evidently lived on fruits and vegetables.  Later God pitched them out of the garden and said here's some grain (carbohydrates).  Try this.  Then, at the flood He designated clean and unclean beasts and told Noah he could barbecue the extra clean ones during the voyage.  The human lifespan dropped precipitously after that. So I figure it's healthier to eat the plants.

But probably an even bigger reason for it is that I like vegetarian food.  I grew up eating both vegetarian food and meat dishes. My Mom and my Grandmother made wonderful dishes like peanut butter loaf, cottage cheese loaf and vegetarian hot dogs and hamburgers. We mixed it up with the real thing too and for economic reasons, I did eat rather a lot of baloney sandwiches as a kid.

To this day, I'm not terribly fussy to cook for, though as a practicing Adventist, I leave pork and shrimp and stuff like that alone.  If we're visiting or away from home, we eat what we're offered and don't demand others cater to our weird dietary restrictions. We feel that would be rude, but we are up front about being semi-vegetarians.

I'm doing more of the cooking now that I'm semi-retired and only working 12 to 14 hour days and since, I'm cooking, I can exercise my preference for vegetarian food over meat. It's safer, healthier and I like it better. Adventists as a group tend to live longer than other Americans by about 6 to 10 years according to some studies.  I figure it's the lifestyle - a lifestyle that includes an emphasis on vegetarianism and eating a good diet.

Don't get me wrong, I do like pie, especially the fruity ones that aren't too sweet and homemade ice cream is a weakness of mine. And I have to take my Sweet Baboo down for a steak once in a while or she gets cranky, but all in all it wasn't a hard thing for us to do.  We've always eaten lots of vegetables and vegetarian foods, and there are all kinds of vegetarian substitutes for meat.  You can order stuff made from tofu, soybeans, wheat gluten and other plant proteins and many of them like vege-dogs, artificial scallops, bacon and buffalo wings aren't bad. You used to have to buy them from SDA suppliers like your state's Adventist Book Center, but now you can order vege-burger and vege-chicken at Amazon.com. 

Also, if you don't mind a bit of work, a largely lacto-ovo vegetarian diet can be less expensive than buying steaks, fryers and chops. This week I made some gluten steaks out of wheat and white flour, some chicken seasoning and ten minutes or so of kneading by hand (my KitchenAid Mixer does the lion's share of the initial kneading of the dough).  I'll be posting a recipe soon at my Hubpages site with photographs and directions for making your own wheat gluten.  I'll put up the link here when it's done.

This summer I plan to go to some of those little pick-it-yourself fruit and vegetable farms they have up here in Washington and get some bushels of fruit and veggies to can for the winter.  We have a pressure cooker and I'm going to buy a bunch of those great old-fashioned Mason Jars.  Not only will we have good food prepared by ourselves without a lot of chemical ingredients, but we are also going to have some lovely decorative jars of stuff in our pantry this year if all goes well.  And we should have some very pleasant meals this winter. 

I've discovered that getting old gives you an appreciation for hand-made things, whether food or decorations for your house or even well-made kitchen tools. I'm collecting stuff for my kitchen the way I've been collecting tools for my workshop.

They say that in your 50s and 60s your right brain - the creative half of your mind - begins to grow again for

the first time since you were a teenager.  It's kind of fun. Turns out the tools and telescope parts and all those unpainted toy soldiers I collected all those years may get turned into something after all.

Except for the arthritis, I'm enjoying getting to the age where I'm well-seasoned.  And even the arthritis yields itself to some creative solutions I've been trying out lately. I find I rather like ice packs and hot and cold fomentations to my joints.  And the exploration of herbal remedies has been like a treasure hunt.  That's how I found out that Aloe Vera juice and capsules help my knees work better.

How much fun is that?



- Tom

Human Frailty: Why We Can’t Stay Awake in Church

(c) 2013 by Tom King

This morning I ran across one of those Facebook posts designed to make you feel bad about yourself.  The post criticized folk who nod off during church services.  If you can stay awake for a three hour movie, you should be able to respect God enough to stay awake for a couple of hours in church. 

Well, I just want everyone to know I can fall smooth off to sleep in any movie you care to put up on the screen.  ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ right off into the popcorn while nubile scantily clad starlets set off explosions to the right and left (not that I watch such things mind you) and despite the fact that the theater, in order to keep the projection room cool sets the thermostat on “Arctic”.  And I do nod off in church more often than in theaters, but there’s is a perfectly good reason for that.  I go to church more often than I go to theaters.

Of course, people fall asleep in church, but it’s not about respect for God.  It’s not that we would rather worship celebrities than God.  It’s about temperature, timing and sound.  

• In theaters, they turn the AC on high to keep the projectors coo.  It gets so frigid in there you have to stay awake to keep from freezing to death. In churches, on the other hand they keep the AC low and the temperature higher to save money on the utility bill.
• There is also the occasional explosion and with Dolby sound they are fast becoming more and more realistic. In churches, if anyone makes a startling noise he or she is quickly shushed lest they wake their fellow members of the congregation.
•  Add to that, it's not only warm,  but it’s quiet.  To make matter worse, you have this guy with a deep baritone voice with this Walter Cronkite face and conservative suit standing up front speaking in gentle soothing tones after you just had a big breakfast.  
• AND It’s the end of a hard work week and you’re tired and you had to get up early to get everybody ready for church.  God gave us a Sabbath rest for a reason.  WE NEED IT! 
• Finally, you have the architecture working against you.  Services are supposed to be conducted in a restful setting.  The architects design church to be quiet, reverent and solemn places.  It’s true, however, that Fundamentalist Protestant church services are harder to stay awake in than the kind of services offered by Catholic and high church protestant denominations like Lutherans and Episcopalians.  These guys salt the service with sudden bursts of congregational participation activities which require standing up and reading off bits of the liturgy, singing or running up to the rail for communion.  This makes it harder to doze off in a mass. But give me a good old Baptist, Adventist or Church of Christ pastor on a warm summer morning after a week of hard work, family duties and business and you might just as well dissolve Ambien in the communion wine.

So, before we jump on the farmer, plumber or contractor for nodding off in church, accusing him of disrespect for God, let’s step back and wonder how God looks at it.  He gave us the Sabbath to give us a day to recoup and recharge.  I suspect he doesn’t mind it too much when the 70 year-old deacon nods off somewhere between the offertory and the benediction. We used to have a head elder back in Louisiana who almost every Sabbath, dozed off and started snoring while sitting on the rostrum behind the pastor.  The church started moving the elders off the rostrum and Elder Mickey continued snoring peacefully after that in his spot at the front right of the church next to the organ. He was a good man. He just worked long hours and he was getting old.

Look at it the way God the Father looks at it.  Remember when your kids used to fall asleep eating supper – dropped his head right down into the plate, face-first.  You didn’t berate him for disrespecting your cooking.  You picked the poor thing up, wiped off the potatoes and peas and tucked him into bed for a nap.  I expect that’s how God views the situation.

Besides, dozing off in church is a useful barometer for an alert pastor. It help him pastor know when he’s reached the end of his sermon.  If a third of the congregation is doing the head bobbing thing, it’s time to wrap it up and break for lunch.  I know pastors who used to write their sermons so that when the head-bobbing reached a certain pitch, he could cut to the end and wrap it up before the deacons began sawing logs in earnest. 

I’m just sayin’

Tom King

Oh, Dear, They Mentioned the "G" Word on the TV.

(c) 2013 by Tom King

I must admit I missed the Super Bowl this year.  I'm kind of like "Are the Cowboys in it?"   If the answer is no, I go chop wood or do something useful.  Dodge, however, had this great commercial, thought that evidently sparked a lot of conversation.  The commercial brings back the inimitable Paul Harvey's tribute to farmers. It's sweet and upbeat and reverent.

So naturally a lot of people were unhappy with it.  In the weeks following it's debut during America's signature sporting event, we were treated to weak-kneed attempts to discredit the commercial's message.  The LA Time's smug piece proclaimed "Here's the Rest of the Story."  I don't think "story" means what they think it means.  The Huffing and Puffington Post, of course, can always be counted upon to put a negative spin on the commercial, pointing out all the evil corporations and laws that make life hard for farmers around the world.

Odd, but they never seem to connect the idea that most of those starving farmers living in near slavery are living in leftist countries like China and Venezuela.  They never seem to remember that most of the farm regulations and systems that hamper farmers and support corporate greed in agri-business were written on their watch when they had control of both the House and Senate and often even the Presidency. 

They miss the point that farmers in a free America can go to the Supreme Court for redress of grievances against those evil corporations as farmer Vernon Bowman is doing against Monsanto. 

Finally the atheists among us haven't let the mention of God in public go uncriticized either.  Twitter blew up after the commercial with Tweets both pro and con in the millions.  Where the two intersected, heated disputes broke out like wildfires between obviously right and left wing commentators. 


It's sad really.  I don't even like Dodge trucks (unfortunate history with Chrysler projects), but I did appreciate the commercial.  If Chevrolet wants to do a commercial called "Allah made a Quickie-Mart Clerk", I really do have no problem with that either.  I'm sorry if that sounded anti-Muslim, it's not. I really admire the way immigrants to this country have stepped in wherever they could and made homes and fortunes doing whatever worked for them.  I wish them all well.

I know we have moved away from the family farm and some corporate abuses have occurred.  It cannot be helped that agriculture is changing.  We have a huge and growing population and we have to find ways to produce as much food that is as healthy as possible.  We will make some mistakes along the way. It was the same way when the economy went from the industrial age to the information age, when the agricultural economy that dominated America moved to the industrial age and all the way back through the Rennaisance, the iron age, bronze and stone ages.  Every shift has required us to find a new balance.

Farmers, however their farms are structured, are hard-working people who are under-appreciated.  Good for Dodge for preparing and paying for this very public tribute for American farmers.

And shame on all of you gripey little girls who have nothing better than to complain about every good and decent thing that comes along.  Get over yourselves for heaven's sake.

...or for your own sake if you don't buy the whole "God" thing.  That much negativity really chews up your guts and gives you diseases.

Just one man's opinion....

Tom King