Random observations

I was thinking more like middle school. At times reminiscent of those bullies - the ones that picked on the retarded kid. But enough of that...

Random observation: The various science channels always show programs on quantum mechanics during the warmer months of the year.

My German-style whole-wheat bread from the Amish farmers'-market stand dried up and got too hard to eat. So I poured some water onto it and put it in the oven to bake it up nice and crispy. Now the kitchen smells as if someone was smoking pot. What does that tell me about those Amish farmers?

Why they're happy?

What goes "Clip-clop, clip-clop, clip-clop, BANG! BANG! BANG!"?
An Amish drive-by shooting.

They seemed content and calm. No compulsive giggling, no paranoid phantasies about "the system". Doesn't quite fit the hypothesis of pot usage. I suppose it shall remain a mystery forevermore.

that you need to ask those farmers some discreet questions

But won't this destroy the mystery?

I want facts, man, I want facts!

Hmmm. . . . You might have pointed me to a market niche there! Selling organic, Amish weed to hippyish New Yorkers around Union Square. . . . You're right, I should ask those farmers a few discreet questions!

You could set up by my pal who sometimes sells for Flying Pig Farms at Union Square - happy pork on happy bread.

I don't compulsively giggle or get paranoid when I'm high.....that I remember. they're not compulsory features of being high.


It didn't make me all that happy either, though....though it seems t help a lot of people with anxiety.

Probably they just grow hemp for clothing (it's cool cloth) and pop the seeds in the bread.

Or they're high as kites all day.

Either is good.

This isn't quite "make you smile today," this isn't quite "make you grimace today," and while I maybe will eventually use this to start a really comprehensive thread, now is not the time.

So.

Saw a picture of Rush Limbaugh in the paper just now. Bah. Stupid Rush Limbaugh. That's always my first thought. Second thought is "cochlear implants" and some variation of "seriously, they work that well for him?" Because of all of the people I have met or read about (in non puff pieces) with cochlear implants, and I've met somewhere around a hundred, he seems like a real success story. And I am definitely open to the idea of cochlear implants if they work, I just want to be more confident that they would be likely to work for me.

The vast majority of the people I've met were unhappy with them, and the ones who were happy turned out, on closer inspection, to not get much more benefit out of them than I do via plain old lipreading. I'll go into that further if I start a thread about cochlear implants, but one guy who I talked to recently who almost convinced me answered my question about whether he has to work to understand people or whether he can just passively receive sound with, "Of course I have to work. Everyone has to work, hearing people too." (He was born hard-of-hearing and his hearing deteriorated, and he got cochlear implants in his early 20's.) No. I used to be hearing, I remember what it was like. There's an element of attention -- if you're engrossed in a book you can't "hear" someone talking to you -- but not the kind of work he's talking about. (Like being exhausted after going out for coffee with a hearing person.)

So. Rush Limbaugh.

In this article, I keep reading, and see this:



http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/22/business/media/palm-beach-draws-conservative-media-personalities.html

A-ha! I thought so. This is not the general cochlear-implant community take on Mr. Limbaugh. Look at him, he works on radio. Of course the cochlear implants were a spectacular success.

Well, I don't work on radio. Everyday interaction is what I'd most like cochlear implants to address. I can already do better in small gatherings than large. (Although really large ones are fine, because then they split up into smaller groups, and since I rely on lipreading rather than sound that works fine for me, background noise is not an issue. So in that respect I actually have an advantage.)

I've heard radio personalities talk about how working in radio has negatively affected their hearing, because they wear headphones all day.

And working in radio makes it easy to increase the signal-to-noise ratio. (Put on headset, turn volume way up.)

I wonder how they would work out if backed up with a good external hearing aid designed for the purpose. Now, I'm making the really far fetched assumption that money is no object to any of us.

On the other hand, it could just be that the one would amplify the worst parts of the other.

Well, it has an external hearing aid pretty much.

The cochlear implant, as the name implies, completely replaces the existing cochlea with a man-made replacement.

The cochlea is where sound waves are processed and changed into electrical impulses that go to the brain.

So there isn't really any way to bypass/ supplement the implant. It's just there, and there are receivers that get sound and funnel it to the implant.

Those receivers are state-of-the-art yadda yadda.

I still haven't found an absolute best-case scenario that offers a better quality of life than what I have now, though.

My audiogram would go up for sure -- I'd hear more noise, more tones. But useful noise? There's the rub.

I think he lost his hearing because of oxycontin (?) abuse... can't remember.

Huh, just looked that up and found this:



http://deafness.about.com/cs/celebfeatures/a/rushlimbaugh.htm

anyway, here's something on the oxycontin-as-cause speculation (which I'm not sure was ever confirmed but makes sense to me):

http://dir.salon.com/news/feature/2003/10/07/rush_drugs/

More noise. Yeah, anybody can do that.

"What is your opinion on the current hostility to workers?"

"I think the whole system's busted."


You know, I don't think it's unreasonable to tell a doorknocking "activist" that if they come back with a petition you'll give it serious consideration. I also don't think the onus is on me to generate the content of this petition.

If I were to generate a petition I really believed in, I doubt it would both a) generate a widely favorable response or b) be particular enough to be effective.

But perhaps it would be possible for someone with the AFL-CIO to generate a petition that would, in the words of our activist, improve the lot of workers and "that whole hostility thing." Their brochure, on the other hand, is free of any prose beyond instructions for enlisting out support.

Utterly devoid of concrete ideas.

In the mean time, I don't feel moved to give them $5 and get put a list of people whose votes they can count on (and take for granted) at election time.


"What would you want that petition to say?"

"If you want to change the world, have an idea."

So here's my idea. It's on an inglamorously small scale, though, and it's certainly not as trendy as protecting benefits for state workers is right now. (Not that that's not a valid aim, but I don't see any of the doorknockers pushing for expansion of benefits to any of the many who currently live check to check or hand to mouth...)


Turn my corner gas station into a corner grocery.

If some local CSAs banded together for firg space for fixed-price packs of fresh food at the corner gas station, big $ from my neighborhood... And fewer people from my neighborhood (like myself) clogging the roads in their cars to get basic groceries.

I bet some of those energy drink and frozen pizza arrays could make way for local dairy, eggs, frozen vegetables. Selling frozen local produce would increase demand on the local producers without requiring an increase in its number of customers. Maybe the demand would be enough to let the CSA cooperative acquire some neighboring land? Or draw similar interest from the farmer's market vendors?

There are lots of cornfields out by Verona and Fitchburg that could be presseed into service, and some of it is probably owned by folks who would just as soon get out. I'd wager the fields are too disjointed by the new housing developments to warrant interest from the really big producers at this point...


Just a thought. I find it more appealing than getting my name on another national mailing list.