Cause and Effect

As a child, my brother noticed that every time he ate breakfast, he would have severe stomach pain shortly thereafter. He found that if he skipped breakfast he would avoid this stomach pain. So, he identified the cause of his pain as breakfast, and he used this knowledge to merely skip that meal and thereby avoid the stomach pain.

He followed this regimen until about age 60. At this age, he was considerably overweight at about 220 pounds, far too much for his very slender bone structure even though he was 6 feet tall. He was uncomfortable. Also, he had ongoing serious trouble with GERD which he treating by consuming huge amounts of antacid every day. Anyway, he decided that he had to do SOMETHING to lose weight and so for the first time in his life he decided he needed to go on a weight loss diet. He flipped a coin and chose Atkins.

As most of you know, Atkins is mostly about avoiding almost all carbohydrates. You also eat meals at least 3 times a day and breakfast is very important. My brother decided to resume eating breakfast after a 50 year hiatus and just 'tough out' the pain.

Here is what happened.

First thing was that he had no stomach pain following breakfast. Second thing was that he felt great. Third thing was that he no longer needed to take Tums in huge quantities. He found it easy to stick to the low-carb protocol and lost weight so quickly people thought he had become ill. After three months he decided to weigh himself and found that his weight had dropped to 167 and he felt too thin. He eased off a bit, and got to 170.

It's been about 10 years now since that moment. He has eased off a bit more and now weighs 180. He is tall, lean and trim. Looks great and is healthy. He does not look as if he is much older than me, if at all, although he is 13 years older. He uses about 5 Tums a month now instead of 15-30 a day.

So, was he right or wrong when he determined that breakfast was the cause of his stomach pain? Well, here's the thing.... yes and no. It wasn't breakfast per se that was the problem, but rather WHAT he was eating for breakfast. As a child, he would typically have oatmeal or shredded wheat for breakfast. Both of these are high carb breakfasts with low protein. This sort of breakfast is very hard on people who have esophageal reflux, like he does. If he had been eating sausage and eggs for breakfast back then, I suspect the story would have been different.

So, because of his logical, but incorrect, assumption due to observed cause and effect, he spent 50 years avoiding breakfast unnecessarily.

Please don't take this as an Atkins promotion. I do NOT promote it as I feel it is an unbalanced and extreme diet. It's just what works for him.

On a similar note, I have a sister who is certain that sex discrimination is the cause of why she has never gotten into higher paying jobs despite her excellent education. It has not occurred to her that other factors such as her clerical mentality and passive approach might be a factor. It is much easier to blame something outside of yourself than something inside.

Cause and effect can be a great tool, but also a great trap.

SNL and Tiger Woods

Well, the big news of the day is that Saturday Night Live had a skit about the Tiger Woods melodrama. EVERYONE is dumping all over SNL about this skit harder and faster than the ever-shrinking mainstream media dumps on a Republican politician caught farting in public.

Everyone is yakking about how it wouldn't be acceptable the other way around and that spouse abuse isn't funny.

I think there is only one thing to do.

SNL needs to stop making jokes about anything.

Give Him a Chance

Yesterday I was chatting with an old friend online and I said something pessimistic about our president.

She told me to 'give the guy a chance. He has a big mess to clean up.'

Well, I'm thinking, 'Give the guy a chance to do what? Destroy even MORE of our economy and ruin our global infuence?' But she is a good friend and I didn't want to distress her, especially since she is suffering from a lot of physical and family problems.

But I've heard this before. My brother and his wife said the same thing.

In my mind, this means that they just want me to politely turn my head, ignore all the huge flashing lights and red flags of President Obama, forget that he has Socialists and Marxists for best friends and is spending our country into oblivion. If you give someone like this a blank check, because you agree to 'give him a chance' by the time you figure out you've been had and he's a disaster, it is too late to do anything about it.

If you publicly criticize his policies, you become a target. He is willing to throw anyone under the bus who gets in his way. He has villified, Fox News, the insurance companies, and the list goes on. People who protest are labeled as extremists. Now that a non-Republican is in charge, questioning the authority is no longer patriotic. It is only patriotic to dissent when a Republican is the target.

What I think I will do is exactly what I've been asked to do. I will give him a chance. I will give him just as much a chance as the liberals, the main media outlets, and the Democrats gave George Bush when he was elected. This is what I should have told my friend yesterday, but I chickened out. So I'm saying it today.

I am SO GLAD I'm NOT in the AARP

For a long time I have resisted membership in this organization which seems to think that senior citizens deserve more and more social security handouts no matter how badly this affects our children and grand-children's taxes.

Now today, November 4, 2009 I see that the AARP has endorsed the government's insane health reform bill. I stand vindicated. They will never get a dime of my money.

12345

I thought for my first blog I'd write something as mundane as possible. I just now looked up on the clock on the wall and saw that the time was 12:34:05. How cool is that? Of course, if I had happened to look up at this time on June 7, of 2008 it would be a lot cooler.

I get a kick out of people who make a big deal about some numerical sequence like this with claims that it will only come once in your lifetime or never again or some such nonsense. To people who little my email inbox with such drivel I like to point out that their magic 12:34:05 6/7/08 will come true twice that day. and the o8 is really 2008 and they have 'conveniently' and illogically dropped the first part of the year designation. Now if this stupid numerical sequence really meant anything, it seems that you would have to stick strictly to the actual number. 2008 just does not fit in well with these things. End of story - an inconvenient point.