Learning From Mistakes

TOTALLY MADE-UP STORIES 
#1   August 1949, somewhere in America:

Shortly after penning the catchphrase,"Happiness is a warm Pussy", a struggling unknown cartoonist we'll call Charlie S. capitulated to the moral edicts of the church ladies on the editorial board of the local newspaper.

Charlie reluctantly changed the line to puppy and his beloved Mr Whiskers was turned into a dog called Snoopy...

and the rest is history.

Live!

the original...love it...

but I feel a need for meme...

Feel free to drop a few tag lines for me to work with.

FOREIGNERS MUST STOP EATING

by LORD TENNISANYONE

Pursuant to my recent reply to an electronic article published by my dear associate and ardent Large Hadron Collider denier, Vicus Scurra , concerning the Queen's 2009 message regarding the dietary peculiarities of foreigners, it suddenly occurred to me, that the greatest challenge of the new decade will be how we manage to preserve our beloved exotic animals and allow foreigners to share our planet.

Sadly those people have brought this all upon themselves. Unable to control their primal urges they fight amongst themselves and breed exponentially. 
Due to their self inflicted circumstance they are in the midst of subsequently eviscerating their local biospeheres where our beloved exotic animals live.
Bad form I say.

On the darkest of continents these people thoughtlessly trespass on our Game Preserves at will and shoot anything that bloody moves. Known locally as "Bush Meat" these foreigners are systematically eating our cousins, the Bonobos and Chimpanzees.

Dare I say that during the Colonial era in Africa the locals weren't allowed to tamper with our Game and everything seemed to be in order.
Now the whole bloody thing is out of sorts.

As if that wasn't enough of a perturbance, these foreigners also  massacre Elephants, Tigers, Gorillers, and Rhinos, leave the carcasses to rot, and sell their tusks, horns, paws, and penii, so that other foreigners can get boners, carve trinkets, and make bloody knife handles.


 

These voracious little buggers send huge floating factories into our bloody oceans to net, vacuum, dynamite, and harpoon anything that bloody swims or crawls..including our whales.

With all the fish nearly gone from the actions of these inconsiderate uppity foreigners, vicious Seals have started attacking and feeding upon my fellow Colonists.

One can hardly believe that these heartless bastards perform the barbaric practice of hacking the fins off of millions of bloody sharks every year, dumping the rest of the dying creatures into the water, in order to make expen$ive bloody soup to supposedly bring good luck and get boners.

Unfortunately eating our cousin Apes which have 99% of our DNA isn't the most egregious violation. What will eventually tip the scale and force us to take affirmative action is the irreconcilable practice of eating our beloved best furiends... 

Dogs.
Bloody Hell!

My old chum Charlie Darwin would not have been surprised at our discovery that all large megafauna were obliterated and became extinct as we marched out of Africa and conquered the other continents.

The animals that evolved alongside of us in Africa had enough bloody sense to run away or eat us. The new species that we encountered were thick as a post and just stood there as we poked them with sharp objects.

The fossil record shows that we annihilated the competing predatory species and inadvertently upset the natural balance allowing the prey animals to overpopulate and devour their food supply whilst succumbing to accompanying disease, before we killed and ate them all.

Nowadays it's bloody well impossible to enjoy a tender butter-roasted Dodo...

not to mention that a proper Gentlemen can no longer even enjoy a pleasant afternoon bagging a Thylacine ?!

pity.

That being said, we in the modern world have taken responsibilty for the missteps of our ancestors and developed an inexhaustable supply of frankencritters on huge factory farms....
 so why can't those foreigners figure it out?

We want to be able to enjoy hunting and photographing the exotic animals on safari in our far off lands and if these foreigners wish to continue sharing our planet, then they must stop eating our animals and especially our furiends.
My Word! 

MAN EATING DEER!

I recently had the opportunity to peruse the hyperbolic pages of old American Hunting Magazines.

I became obssessed with a recurring segment known as This Happened To Me which are illustrated accounts of "Sporting Outdoorsmen" who survived being attacked by uppity wild animals.

I love the dramatic comic styling and the underlying implication that Hunting is a dangerous activity and only the manliest of men can participate.


Some of the attacks were apparently unprovoked. Thank goodness his buddy had a gun in his sleeping bag.

To be fair, even the most Disneyfied members of PETA would want to have a huge arsenal of firearms at their side if they met up with a Bear in the wild. ..

and who amongst us wouldn't expect huge multicellular "game", especially 1800 pound herbivores like Elk, to fight back against Hunters if they are provoked, wounded or having a bad day.

The most common "perp" was our ancient competitor the "other" omnivore, the Bear. Actually there is another omnivore the Boar, but they are related to bears anyway that's why the genders of both are called Boars and Sows but I'm getting sidetracked.


Imagine the audacity of a lowly dumb animal eatin' Human Men!

We've been going at each other for hundreds of thousands of years.



You'd expect a 1,000 pound Bear to eat whatever it wants right?

Being attacked by a Cougar isn't surprising either...

or a poisonous Snake.

How many of you realised that big brown eyed Bambi can attack people! Well they can, especially during the mating season when the Bucks are so horny that they lose their minds...

actually they aren't horny they have antlers but the distinction might be lost on you if you were being impaled :)

Have you ever imagined being attacked by an ill tempered Badger? Sure why not?

Hippo? Absolutely Hippos kill more humans in Africa than any other animal..except Mosquitos.

How about getting rammed by a Dolphin?

Rabid Otter?

Feral dogs? Under the right circumstances even the lazy-ass family pet can revert to a savage wolf-like monster and hunt people. This hunter became the hunted and was forced to take-0ut killer hounds that have tasted blood when a pack treed him.

The best (worst) story was the too scary to even contemplate. I can't imagine how terrified this guy was when he and his three Beagles were attacked by a black hare. Shades of Monty Python's Killer Rabbit of Caerbannog in the Holy Grail.

Have a lash at this action-packed heart-stopping imagery!



Instead of "scaring the pants off him", it scared the shirt off him...I said shirt by the way. They did a fantastic job of creating the illusion that shooting wascally wabbits is not for wussies. HA!

SHORT & SWEET

THE ARFUL TRUTH ABOUT ALTRUISM

The other night I was flipping between the umpteenth re-broadcasting of the Westminster Dog Show AND a program on Psychologist Paul Eckman's work on facial expressions WHILE trying to read an article on INEQUITY AVERSION in Dogs ((audible gasp)).

INEQUITY AVERSION or IA is the preference for fairness and resistance to inequitable outcomes. Homescapeons probably inherited this trait from our ancestral Primates but other species, including Dogs, are also sensitive to inequities in favour.

Humans have turned inequity aversion into an Artform and many are consumed by it. Some are angry that others get ahead and some people fret and feel guilty or unhappy to have received an undeserved reward because they don't want to upset the proverbial Apple Cart.

"This seemingly self destructive behaviour is a willingness to sacrifice potential gain in order to block another individual from receiving a superior reward."

"In theory this response is essential in creating an environment in which bilateral bargaining and a level playing field can thrive."

Life just isn't fair but we think that it should be.

Homo Escapeons seem to have inherited this trait from our Primate ancestors but we're not alone. Recent studies have proven that Dogs intrinsically understand when they are getting pooched.


If Dog "A" is getting extra treats for doing the same bloody trick and Dog "B" is getting diddly-squat, Dog "B" will vent their frustration by either giving up and peeing on the carpet, or by opening a can of whoop-ass on the other Dog and the asshat who is teasing them.

It's true isn't it? We all hate..I mean "do NOT prefer".. to see others, primarily our perceived peers and co-horts, get ahead in Life...especially when they are putting the same amount of effort into The Game of Life as we are.

We tolerate instances when those "less fortunate" catch a break..as long as they don't get more than us, but we reserve our ultimate contempt for the polar ends of the Human spectrum: Downass Slackers and Lucky F*cking Bastards.

We all seem to universally disapprove of slackers, they can rot in their self-imposed, lethargic, limbo. The same goes for the Lucky Bastards, a good example of this is the fact that everybody despises lottery winners.

Which made me think about my favorite German loanword, Schadenfreude. Schadenfreude (Damage/Joy) means the usually unanticipated pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others. Schadenfreude seems to be a hardwired byproduct of our sense of inequity aversion.

In order to alleviate the shame about how awful we are, I quickly searched for an antonym and discovered Mudita. Mudita is rejoicing and finding altrusitic pleasure in others' joy and well-being. Isn't that swell?

I think that if we are being totally honest with ourselves, we can admit that we do experience sprinklings of Mudita towards a very select, small, group that includes our close friends, those few relatives whom we actually like, and a handful of self deprecating acquaintances who work hard at pretending that they are one of us.

Schadenfreude, on the other hand, is liberally dispensed towards the vast majority of others..particularily the self indulgent, asshat entertainment and sports celebrities, politicians, and the uber rich 3% of the population who rub our noses in their excessive avaricial lifestyles.

I watched a show on Psychologist Paul Ekman and his work on studying the universality of Human Facial Expressions. Travel to any corner of the globe and you'll find that the every human face uses the same expressions for; anger/disgust/fear/happiness/sadness & surprise...big surprise eh?

Look at the list again and decide how many more of our universal expressions relate to Schadenfreude more than Mudita. It would appear that Schadenfreude has the edge. Whatever pond we're in, we want everybody to stay within our perception of equitable boundaries.

So if Life is unfair and yet we're taught from a very early age to play by the rules anyway, therefore it becomes painfully obvious why we blow a fuse when others disregard the perceived RULES of the societal equity contract. Road Rage is the most obvious evidence of the system breaking down and that is why some people go ballistic when others try to take advantage of them in traffic..

which is afterall simply a microcosmic metaphor of the Road Of Life.

Like most of you, I try to tame my SCHADENFREUDE.

Westminster Dog Show Anouncer:

Dog Number 293 The Schadenfreude.

This massive powerful Dog was bred in Germany to protect the ego and disembowel others who get ahead. The Schadenfreude is a "One Man Dog" and holds contempt for others. This headstrong giant must be kept on a tight leash and requires vigilant training or it will destroy your LIFE!

Number 293 the Schadenfreude.

Dog number 113 the Mudita.

The Mudita originated in India and was bred to please others and make us feel good inside. The Mudita is not a Toy it is a small working Dog and much more than just leash-candy. The Mudita is rare but brings pleasure to all with it's good natured personality. It's small stature makes it easy to care for and transport. The Mudita is gregarious and can be enjoyed by people of all ages.

Number 113 the Mudita.

So which of these Dogs do you unleash more often?

*Next week is another reading week so I'll be oot & aboot.

LIVING IN THE NOW LIKE SELFISH CATS

Today I will be going on and on about Dr.Daniel G.Amen Change Your Brain Change Your Life and PSYCHOLOGY TODAY Living In The Now.

Let's start with the centre of our universe which is the 3 pound glob of jello holding your ears apart, the Brain.

The average Human Brain makes up 2% of your body weight, receives 15% of the cardiac output, 20% of total body oxygen consumption, and 25% of total body glucose utilization.

"From a philosophical point of view, it might be said that the most important function of the Brain is to serve as the physical structure underlying the mind. From a biological point of view, though, the most important function is to generate behaviors that promote the welfare of an animal."

Neuroscience seeks to understand the nervous system, including the brain, from a biological perspective.

Psychology seeks to understand behavior and the brain.

Neurology refers to the medical applications of neuroscience.

Psychiatry the branch of medicine that works to study, prevent, and treat mental disorders.

Cognitive Science seeks to unify neuroscience and psychology with other fields that concern themselves with the brain, such as artificial intelligence and the mind body quandry is one of the central issues of Philosophy.

The correlation between the physical brain and the Human mind is the ultimate wonderment. Personally I think that we are our Brain but how are the Mind and Brain connected? There are three ways to look at it:

Dualism holds that the mind exists independently of the brain, hmmm.

Materialism holds that mental phenomena are identical to neuronal phenomena, HELLO!and Idealism holds that only mental substances and phenomena exist..

doo doo doo, doo doo doo.

In any event let's agree on two things;

one, that clinically, death is defined as an absence of brain activity and two, a lot of people who lose their mind say that they have never felt more alive!

Ok enough background..the other night I was watching Dr. Daniel_G._Amen, the author of 22 books, promoting his Change Your Brain, Change Your Life infomercial on PBS. A quick Googlkipedia check and I discovered that he received his MD degree from the now-closed medical program at Oral Roberts University. Amen from ORU? Up goes my God-dar.

Amen calls the Brain The Hardware To The Soul and his homespun approach combined with imoprtant sounding-scientificky lingo had me going for about 12 minutes...Humans have huge frontal lobes, which are involved in self-control, planning, reasoning, and abstract thought..then he started talking about his Pets, he has a Cat and a Dog. Amen goes on to say that Dogs have teeny frontal lobes but Cats not-so-much, so that's why Cats don't worry about the past and don't think about the future.

When was the last time a Cat looked and acted guilty for doing something naughty while you were away and you found them hiding behind the Sofa?

Amen said Cats live in the NOW.

Which is cool..and ironically that is what most Psychologists want modern Humans to do. The cover on my new issue of Psychology Today is HOW TO LIVE IN THE NOW..the link to the article is up at the top..it's quite interesting.

In the main article a Buddhist scholar states that "We're living in a world that contributes in a major way to mental fragmentation, disintegration, decoherence." The article goes on to say that when we are at work we fantasize about vacation and on vacation we worry about work piling up. The paradox of living in the moment is that when we think about a future reward, our brain kicks into future mindset and then mindfulness is thwarted..we hoist our own petards.

Author Jay Dixit writes that MINDFULNESS or Living in the moment, is when you realise that you are an observer of your thoughts from moment to moment without judging them..to stop doing and focus on just being.

So basically we just need to be more like Cats?

Anyway, Dr Amen went on with his infomercial saying that many adults have ADHD and actually when he rattles off the list of traits and almost everyone in the studio audience nodded their heads in acknowledgement.

If you get overwhelmed by mental ANTs, Automatic Negative Thoughts, you need to learn how to question their validity...don't just accept your defeatism. Since all of us have the symptoms at one time or another...I agree that we do need to fix our 'stinkin' thinkin' and please note that I do not mean to make light of genuine psycho-physical challenges that many of us inherited.

Amen suggests using esreveR psychology on dealing with drama queens because hey, it works on 2 year olds! Attentionally challenged Adults need to feel like everything is their idea because their brains are stuck. Amen suggests that they have a sticky thought shifter thingamabob part of the brain and so we need to ingest Fish Oil to lubricate it, ooh omega fatty whatchamacallits.

Guess what the most effective remedy aside from reading his book or a visit to his clinic is? STOP THE PRESSES! exercise.

Personally I found it hard to concentrate on his infomercial (HELLO!) and I could not get past the idea that Cats are stuck in the NOW because of their tiny selfish brains.

Now I know why Humans love Dogs, because Dog brains are hardwired for robo-slave pack mentality which forces them to seek our approval at all costs. The domestication of the Wolf had a huge influence on our road to Civilization. They helped us hunt, protected us, ate our garbage, pulled heavy crap.

Cats? Well, they were different alright but we must have liked them for other reasons..they prolly killed mice so we let hang around the cave.

Some Cat lovers will be furiously defending their pussies in the comment section and claim that their Cat is super smart and even occasionally affectionate. OK they might be smart I have seen Cats learn to flush a toilet on Youtube.

What about Lions? Don't they exhibit planning, self control, and reasoning when they are hunting Gnus or out killing competitors like Hyenas, Humans, and Cheetahs? Oh sure Lions sleep about 22 hours a day but maybe that's because they are so efficient at killing things in the NOW?

Anyway Dr. Amen got written up on QUACKWATCH.ORG*, a nonprofit that investigates health-related frauds, myths, fads and fallacies by Dr. Harriet Hall, a retired family physician, who wrote "Amen's recommendations defy science, common sense and logic. He's selling vitamin supplements and he's selling his own line of products. He's turned into big business."

According to its Web site, Amen Clinics charges $3,250 for a "comprehensive evaluation, which includes the patient's history, two SPECT scans, a physician consultation, and a 30-minute treatment follow-up appointment. Follow-up scans after treatment are $795 each".

But wait a second, isn't it the American Way to oversimplify complex obstacles, repackage and brand them with your catchphrase and sell it to the great unwashed? Millions will beat a path to the doorstep of your franchise if you can offer a simple solution to changing your Brain but I don't BUY IT.

We can change our behavior and live healthier lifestyles that promote greater bloodflow to the Brain...but would it not be simpler to live in the NOW and just be more like Cats.

WHAT DO YOU THINK?

btw: To be fair, Amen's attorneys replied, unsuccessfuly I might add, to the criticisms here .

TAKING IT TO THE STREETS
I am a member of the Citizens On Patrol Program.

Basically a few of my neighbours and I walk around at night wearing bright, yellow, vests.

The idea is to be conspicuously visible to the local Teens or YOOTS, and hopefully deter them from tagging or engaging in lillicit activities in public areas.

A recent encounter with a large gathering of Yoots confirmed my belief that this generation cannot read so good. One of them asked us if we were Cops.

The two 'P's on our logo seems to completely puzzle them.

What are ya gonna do?

I suppose that many local residents prolly think that we must be some half-assed vigilante group...it is a fairly new program.

A bunch of victimized, middle-aged, Charles Bronson wannabes, who have had it up to here with crime and are out to get some payback.

Not so much!

However, the other weekend the mere presence of our strolling posse was enough to convince some Yoots to stuff a lot of things into their pockets and exit the Park at a high rate of speed.

This past Thursday Night was Gate Night, the night before Halloween when Yoots traditionally toss eggs and flaming bags of dog crap at homes.

The Yoots that we did encounter were visibly annoyed by our pesky patrolling. We did not see any evidence that they had managed to pelt anyone's house with eggs or flaming bags of dog crap...although they did fling toilet paper into a few trees.

Our 7 year-old thinks that it's funny that my name is Coppens and I go out COPPing in my COPPstume, but my good-lady-wife always tells me to be safe before I go out the door.

I tell her not to worry. I'm not really scared of the illiterate YOOTS and I can easily outrun everyone else in our patrol group.

Last night was Halloween and as you can see,

this is about as as close as I'll ever get to meeting this Dude.

FINGER FAMILY VALUES
Many of you may have had to endure the tribulation of taking piano lessons during your delicate, impressionable, formative years.

You were to receive instruction after school on say, Wednesdays, which you positively dreaded, and pretended to be deathly ill every Wednesday morning, to no avail.

You also repeated this ridiculous ploy on Sunday mornings to avoid Sunday School..which was also an excercise in futility.

Upon arriving home, by means of the longest, possible, route, you discovered that your Mother had sanitized your domicile from floor to ceiling until everything sparkled.

She did this to avoid the wrath of your Music Teacher who lived down the corner in a pristine, little, cottage with a white, picket, fence that barely contained the meanest, f*cking, dog in the neighbourhood.

As you changed into your Sunday Best you started to feel your sphincter clamp and your hands became clammy. By the time you sat down upon the freshly, oiled, bench in front of the Piano, sweat began to trickle down your nose...and your heart started beating like a rabbit!


((KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK))
always, always, always, exactly three every time

In strode the object of your fears. Mrs. Kunstaeder..
who you privately referred to as Couldn't-stand-her..
but only in your head.

She was a stout, dour, woman of no fixed Eastern European descent who reeked of Cabbage and an assortment of other unidentifiable smells that could not compete with Cabbage.

She was a widow perpetually enveloped in something black whose husband had died decades ago during the Great War, you didn't know which, and it was never fully disclosed whether or not her dearly departed had fought and died for the Kaiser or against him. Nobody was brave enough to ask.


She never smiled, took off her coat, or asked about your grades. Mrs. Kudintstandher sat down beside you, her humongous brusts were bigger than your head and levitated inches from the Piano..
seemingly defying gravity out of sheer stubborn willpower.


She folded her hands with those HUGE knuckles, and yelled at the top of her lungs something that sounded like this..


"Fangen Sie an zu spielen wenig Scheiße.. Jetzt Arschloch!"

Which loosely translated means.."begin to play it now you little asshole."

Most of my memories of her have been locked away deep in my subconscience, but years later I did come to understood why any competent Parent would thoughtlessly introduce their children to the glorious world of Music with a souless, terrifying, witch like Couldn't-stand-her.


Not only must they have thought that their shiftless, little, thick as a brick, twats somehow deserved to be tortured by the firm hand of a tyrannical monster, and be subjected to the tortuous, sensory deprivation of countless, tedious, hours of rote-'o-rooter type instruction... but,

they also want to destroy any fanciful notions of becoming a famous Rock Star, making Million$, and enjoying a perfectly wonderful life filled with illicit excess.

Recently I came upon the archaic, turn-of-the-century Music book that we used.




I had forgotten how dys-frickin-functional der Finger Family vass.

Father Finger..



He was a little blurry and bleary eyed because he came home from the Pub everyday demanding supper and looking for a fight. He'd been drunk every day since he was laid off at the factory.

Mother Finger..


She was a textbook enabler who pretended that everything was fine and she pointed out that Father was just tired and a little upset because his Team lost again...and you needed to whisper while Father had his nap in the front hallway.



Big Brother..


The middle finger..say no more. He hated the world, and made your life a living hell. He would be blackmailing you until he finally made it into the Juvenile Correction Facility..and your Mother would make you visit him on Weekends!



Dopey..

That was you.
You'll never amount to anything because you're lazy and stupid!






Smarty Pants..



Your little f*cking brother. Oh how the Sun shone out of his ass. He could do no wrong. He got everything that he wanted because he sucked up to Mother and Father. He was their favorite..little shit.




So there you have it. A little stroll down memory lane and a decent explanation of why I am not a famous Rock Star.