You pays your money and you takes your chance

As my granddad always said:

"You pays your money and you takes your chance."

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If you ask me what I think, I tell you what I think.

I try to be REASONABLE and MODERATE.

The Brit Awards

The Brit Awards reminds me of Blue Peter except they are all on drugs.

Correction: The Brit Awards reminds me of Blue Peter except they are all on a lot more drugs.

Yankosceptic

I am YANKOSCEPTIC.

Or maybe it should be in French - "Je suis YANKOSCEPTIQUE"?

JE SUIS UN YANKOSCEPTIQUE.

Saint Louis?.........

Another amazing thing I found out recently is that the founder of one of the first Papal Inquisitions was Saint and King Louis IX of France in the 13th century (of Saint Louis, USA fame).

He is a canonised saint of the Roman Catholic Church and a hero of French history - and he expanded the first medieval Inquisition in the name of Jesus - that burnt men, women and books.

"Normal Blog"

Haven't written a normal blog for a long while. If there is such a thing.
I have been diverted by Twitter. I think that I like Twitter. There are some good things about it.

It's not my fault if I am right

Maimonides

Maimonides "the greatest Jewish philosopher of all time...emerged from the Islamic world."....

MAIMONIDES was also a great medical doctor - who would probably put some modern "doctors" to shame!...

Would "Depressant Drugs" be AS absurd as so-called "Anti-Depressants"?

High quality comedy from the good old USA:

"Despondex" Depressant Drug Launched:

Apart from being fecking hilarious, this makes 2 interesting points:-
1) Would "Depressant Drugs" be as absurd as supposed "Anti-Depressant Drugs"?
2) This spoof news report is almost an exact "mirror image" of what would be thought of as entirely normal and non-comic were it dealing with "low mood" rather than "exuberance".
Would a news article about "low mood" be in reality any less ridiculous?

Surely a "single issue party" is an impossibility?

Single issue parties cannot really be viable. This is obvious. Politics is not about single issues.

Though they are necessary perhaps, they are a symptom of the collapse of confidence in conventional politics.

For example "The Australian Sex Party" and the "Pirate Party" in Sweden seem concerned with single issues only. They are in a way what used to be called "Pressure Groups" rather than (what used to be) political parties.

They are possibly very necessary and very effective; but how could the Australian Sex Party actually run Australia?
Actually that may not be such a bad thing after all.... :)

"Men At Work"

"Men At Work" and "Land Down Under".

1) This is an absolutely cracking pop song. Amazingly good.
2) It is only very vaguely like "Cookaburra Tree" or whatever it's called.
3) Even if it is partly based on "Cookaburra" - so what? All artists borrow and re-interpret!
4) Fundamentally "Land Down Under" is NOT the same thing as "Cookaburra".
They are different pieces of work!
5) Copyright of any kind is unworkable rubbish anyway. If you create it - you share it.

Recent realisation re: "The Medicalisation of Everyday Life."

I have only recently realised that Szasz's core concept of the medicalisation of everyday life - the medicalisation of totally normal phenomena and behaviour, applies to areas of of medicine and society other than psychiatry (not strictly part of medicine of course) and psychology.

For example, everyone has heard of "irritable bowel syndrome". Now how can having an irritable bowel in and of itself be an illness?
It could be the symptom of one but how can it itself be one?

Szasz explores such questions in his excellent set of essays: "The Medicalisation of Everyday Life."
.........

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{intermission with related joke}

"The Infantilisation of Everyday Life"

by Doctor Thomas Seuss.

:D