I had to clamp my hands over my mouth and nose and press hard to stop laughing out loud. I had found this source of merriment by chance while looking for something else and could not believe my eyes. Hooting with hysteria in the middle of the British Library is somewhat frowned upon, but all the same, this scientific paper had to be craziest I had ever encountered. Was it a joke? No, it was in a serious journal. It had been cited by other researchers, too.
Jarl Flensmark has discovered the cause of schizophrenia and it’s right under our feet. That’s right, under our feet, because the cause of schizophrenia is shoes! Shoes are the source of all mental disease! Shoes dampen down eccentric contractions of the foot when walking, and this produces tension signals from Golgi tendon organs. Calamity ensues, because the ‘electrical stimulation of the vermis inhibits the limbic structures and increases neurogenesis, and so do the signals from eccentric contractions...’
And, as we all know, the foot bone’s connected to the heel bone and ‘the use of heeled shoes results in less eccentric contractions with decreased neurogenesis.’ Now hear the word of the Lord! We are starving our brains of vital electricity by wearing shoes! As a result we suffer from depression, epilepsia, Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease, schizophrenia, diabetes, and myopia!
Of course, I wondered for a moment whether this had not been written by a schizophrenic, but no. This is peer-reviewed journal, and this article has been picked up by others. An anti-shoe movement must surely follow.
But there is hope... ‘Bicycle riding reduces depression in schizophrenia due to stronger stimulation by improved lengthening contractions of the triceps surae muscles.’
Was it about a bicycle? The spirit of Myles na Gopaleen was alive and well here. A case for the Third Policeman if ever I heard one!
As I gasped for air and wiped the tears from my eyes, I had a moment of disquiet. What if he was right? I have recently become aware of the Barfuss (or ‘barefoot’) movement and even snipped out an article for a friend on the Trentham Gardens Adventure Barfuss Play-Park.
Perhaps there is something to be said for going unshod, as nature intended.
Is humanity’s ill-judged embracing of heeled shoes a devilish plot by the Dolman-Saxlil Shoe Corporation after all?
(Flensmark’s paper, ‘Physical activity, eccentric contractions of plantar flexors, and neurogenesis: Therapeutic potential of flat shoes in psychiatric and neurological disorders’ is to be found in Medical Hypotheses, Volume 73, Issue Number 2, August 2009, pp 130 - 132)
Monday, 27 July 2009
Friday, 10 July 2009
Ptang! Ptow! Ptath!
For obscure but pertinent reasons I have become highly interested in the works of A.E. van Vogt once again. By chance I picked up an old Panther Books edition of his 1940s space opera The Book of Ptath. It’s a gem.
Nobody ever did utterly insane plots like old A.E van V and this one does not disappoint. A typical van Vogtian superman appears from nowhere, does all of Craig Raine’s ‘Martian’ poet concept forty years early and far better, then goes... oh, I’m bored with the superman discovering his powers thing, I’m going to make him a WWII fighter teleported into the far future... oh, no... er, he’s a reincarnation... It’s 200 million years AD. Er, no, I like ancient Egypt better. There’s a temple and a goddess with super powers too. Oh, no, er, I think I’ll have two goddesses. And there’s a magic chair... a magic chair to turn the superman into a god, if he sits down in it but he has to invade the supercontinent that’s stolen it first, but, er, for some reason he’s just been mistaken for a prince who’s got an army of billions and he’ll do it, but he’s not sure if he’s going to sit down in the chair or not. Only if it the opportunity presents itself. And one of the goddesses wants to kill him... er, no, to save him, er, no, she’s the reincarnation of his lost love... er, no, I think I’ll make her the Nemesis of the other goddess, and she wants to save the superman... or kill him... I’m not sure. Maybe both. And maybe the evil goddess wants him to start the war, or maybe she wants him not to invade after all... or maybe she wants both. Yeah. Both. That’s better...
Like I said, no-one wrote completely raving mad make-it-all-up-as-I-go-along plots like vV, and no-one managed to infuse every word with their own unique crazed brand of man-and-superman triumphant will philosophy better than him... not even Ayn Rand.
The best thing about the edition I have though, is that it features what has to be the laziest piece of SF cover art I have ever seen. Have a look. Is it a many tentacled creature from a black lagoon? Er, no. Is it a scene from a psychedelic freak-out? A little more homespun than that. A household object seen from an unusual angle, would you believe? No need to ask the family, though. Have another, closer look! That’s right! It’s a rubber bathmat!
Does the bathmat play an important part in the drama? It hasn’t so far, but it is so barking bonkers that it would not be out of place.
Nobody ever did utterly insane plots like old A.E van V and this one does not disappoint. A typical van Vogtian superman appears from nowhere, does all of Craig Raine’s ‘Martian’ poet concept forty years early and far better, then goes... oh, I’m bored with the superman discovering his powers thing, I’m going to make him a WWII fighter teleported into the far future... oh, no... er, he’s a reincarnation... It’s 200 million years AD. Er, no, I like ancient Egypt better. There’s a temple and a goddess with super powers too. Oh, no, er, I think I’ll have two goddesses. And there’s a magic chair... a magic chair to turn the superman into a god, if he sits down in it but he has to invade the supercontinent that’s stolen it first, but, er, for some reason he’s just been mistaken for a prince who’s got an army of billions and he’ll do it, but he’s not sure if he’s going to sit down in the chair or not. Only if it the opportunity presents itself. And one of the goddesses wants to kill him... er, no, to save him, er, no, she’s the reincarnation of his lost love... er, no, I think I’ll make her the Nemesis of the other goddess, and she wants to save the superman... or kill him... I’m not sure. Maybe both. And maybe the evil goddess wants him to start the war, or maybe she wants him not to invade after all... or maybe she wants both. Yeah. Both. That’s better...
Like I said, no-one wrote completely raving mad make-it-all-up-as-I-go-along plots like vV, and no-one managed to infuse every word with their own unique crazed brand of man-and-superman triumphant will philosophy better than him... not even Ayn Rand.
The best thing about the edition I have though, is that it features what has to be the laziest piece of SF cover art I have ever seen. Have a look. Is it a many tentacled creature from a black lagoon? Er, no. Is it a scene from a psychedelic freak-out? A little more homespun than that. A household object seen from an unusual angle, would you believe? No need to ask the family, though. Have another, closer look! That’s right! It’s a rubber bathmat!
Does the bathmat play an important part in the drama? It hasn’t so far, but it is so barking bonkers that it would not be out of place.
Sunday, 5 July 2009
Right Herberts
Curious thing... Twice in the same week I have heard, on quite separate and unrelated podcast networks, former oil company executives turned New Age gurus insisting that the idea of oil being a fossil fuel is a mere conspiracy theory. It was the conclusion of just one man more than a hundred years ago. There is no other evidence that it is so, they said. Not only that, they revealed that this opinion is the accepted wisdom of the oil industry. They said this in tones that suggested their own exits from that industry had not changed their belief that oil is not a fossil.
Highly interesting. If oil is not a fossil, then what is it? That coal is a fossil ought to be without doubt, since even I have seen the ghost veins of ancient leaves etched onto the surface of that black stuff. Since you can compress and crack coal into oil does strongly suggest that it is merely an older form of the same fossil.
Yet, it seems, industry insiders are sceptical of this theory. I had never heard this before. I have, though, long wondered why they took the approach to oil that it do, namely one of always assuming they will find more of the stuff and that we should never worry about it running out. I have long wondered why our political leaders act as though there is no crisis coming, as though there will always be plenty of oil forever and infinitely into the future.
They have no Plan B because in their minds, evidently, there is no need for a Plan B. Presumably they must believe that oil is a living substance, that it is still being manufactured, generated by some underground organism that secretes it and fills pockets in the crust as it passes through its tiny burrows.
It dawned on me that I had heard this before. This is the origin of Spice on Dune... Arrakis... Desert Planet. The ‘Little Makers’, deep below the surface generate the beginnings of it, and then the sandworms feed and process their makings into the finished product...
I then remembered that Frank Herbert began his career as an oil company executive, and that Dune is a fantasy version of Arabia, the extraction of Spice based on his own experience on the rigs. Was Herbert telling us the secret theory of oil that industry high-ups believe?
I think he might have been. But is there anything in it?
I do doubt it, but even if it were true, were oil like the everlasting cheese in the Grimm Brothers’ folktale, we are tearing into it at far too great a speed for it ever to regenerate. Their story, after all, ends with no crumb of cheese left for it to regrow, so greedy have the family been to consume it all. Herbert’s novel, though, ends with the Spice provoking a powerful new level of consciousness that spreads across the galaxy... as does a Jihad which leaves billions dead and Dune a lifeless rock. That oil will provoke the former is already evident as the world wakes up to the effect it is having on our planet. Whether Herbert’s second avatar will also follow is another question.
Highly interesting. If oil is not a fossil, then what is it? That coal is a fossil ought to be without doubt, since even I have seen the ghost veins of ancient leaves etched onto the surface of that black stuff. Since you can compress and crack coal into oil does strongly suggest that it is merely an older form of the same fossil.
Yet, it seems, industry insiders are sceptical of this theory. I had never heard this before. I have, though, long wondered why they took the approach to oil that it do, namely one of always assuming they will find more of the stuff and that we should never worry about it running out. I have long wondered why our political leaders act as though there is no crisis coming, as though there will always be plenty of oil forever and infinitely into the future.
They have no Plan B because in their minds, evidently, there is no need for a Plan B. Presumably they must believe that oil is a living substance, that it is still being manufactured, generated by some underground organism that secretes it and fills pockets in the crust as it passes through its tiny burrows.
It dawned on me that I had heard this before. This is the origin of Spice on Dune... Arrakis... Desert Planet. The ‘Little Makers’, deep below the surface generate the beginnings of it, and then the sandworms feed and process their makings into the finished product...
I then remembered that Frank Herbert began his career as an oil company executive, and that Dune is a fantasy version of Arabia, the extraction of Spice based on his own experience on the rigs. Was Herbert telling us the secret theory of oil that industry high-ups believe?
I think he might have been. But is there anything in it?
I do doubt it, but even if it were true, were oil like the everlasting cheese in the Grimm Brothers’ folktale, we are tearing into it at far too great a speed for it ever to regenerate. Their story, after all, ends with no crumb of cheese left for it to regrow, so greedy have the family been to consume it all. Herbert’s novel, though, ends with the Spice provoking a powerful new level of consciousness that spreads across the galaxy... as does a Jihad which leaves billions dead and Dune a lifeless rock. That oil will provoke the former is already evident as the world wakes up to the effect it is having on our planet. Whether Herbert’s second avatar will also follow is another question.
Monday, 29 June 2009
Doing Alright With The Boys
You know who I feel sorry for? Gary Glitter. This must be very galling for him. “He was the same as me,” I can hear him thinking, “but they love him and they hate me.” Well, as the old saying goes, some animals are more equal than others. Gary, you didn‘t have $25,000,000 as a sweetener for accusers to drop the charges, did you? And you didn‘t have Jean Baptiste Pierre Antoine de Monnet, Chevalier de Lamarck in you corner, either. Learn from the master, Gary. That dead, French aristo is like two Johnny Cochranes on your team.
What the Chevalier de Lamarck taught us is that Darwin was wrong. Now, that’s a lesson every true Creationism-believing American wants to hear, so Jacko got the public on his side right away. He appealed to good, old fashioned common-sense, the kind that tells us iron ships sink and aeroplanes drop out of the sky.
Lamarckian evolution proposes not survival of the fittest, but improvement by design. Weaklings who become blacksmiths and build up bulging biceps at work will pass on their brawny arms to their sons. Short-necked giraffes have to stretch to reach the best leaves and they pass on the stretching to their off-spring who will have longer necks. Stands to reason doesn’t it?
So that is why a man who is born black and then undergoes years of painful plastic surgery to become white, will sire white children. And he did! Lamarck triumphant!
The only newspaper to discuss this topic in any detail, that I recall, was The Daily Star, which ran a memorable headline on the day Jackson’s first son was born:
“Jacko’s Kiddo Ain’t Blacko!”
What they lacked in English grammar, they made up for in basic biology. Even The Star knew something was strange there and anyone who has ever heard Public Enemy’s classic Fear of a Black Planet album would know why. But believers in the Chevalier’s theory had no qualms. Why shouldn’t his children inherit his new whiteness? Surely you’re not trying to say he hired surrogates to bear another man’s children and pretended he was the father just so as they’d be accepted as legally his, even though they weren’t? That’s the sickest thing I’ve ever heard! Only an evil paedophile would do that! This is Michael Jackson we’re talking about here!
Of course. No-one would ever suggest such a thing, because it would also imply that Jackson had bought his children. Certainly that he had paid for them... and I half remember the Americans had some sort of contretemps a while back about the rights and wrongs of buying human beings. Now I think of it, the question of being black or white was involved too. I wonder if they ever resolved that one.
You never thought of having your own captive clutch of kids, did you Gary, but I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking: “If I took an overdose of drugs, just like him, would they love me again then?”
Hold that thought, Gary, hold that thought.
What the Chevalier de Lamarck taught us is that Darwin was wrong. Now, that’s a lesson every true Creationism-believing American wants to hear, so Jacko got the public on his side right away. He appealed to good, old fashioned common-sense, the kind that tells us iron ships sink and aeroplanes drop out of the sky.
Lamarckian evolution proposes not survival of the fittest, but improvement by design. Weaklings who become blacksmiths and build up bulging biceps at work will pass on their brawny arms to their sons. Short-necked giraffes have to stretch to reach the best leaves and they pass on the stretching to their off-spring who will have longer necks. Stands to reason doesn’t it?
So that is why a man who is born black and then undergoes years of painful plastic surgery to become white, will sire white children. And he did! Lamarck triumphant!
The only newspaper to discuss this topic in any detail, that I recall, was The Daily Star, which ran a memorable headline on the day Jackson’s first son was born:
“Jacko’s Kiddo Ain’t Blacko!”
What they lacked in English grammar, they made up for in basic biology. Even The Star knew something was strange there and anyone who has ever heard Public Enemy’s classic Fear of a Black Planet album would know why. But believers in the Chevalier’s theory had no qualms. Why shouldn’t his children inherit his new whiteness? Surely you’re not trying to say he hired surrogates to bear another man’s children and pretended he was the father just so as they’d be accepted as legally his, even though they weren’t? That’s the sickest thing I’ve ever heard! Only an evil paedophile would do that! This is Michael Jackson we’re talking about here!
Of course. No-one would ever suggest such a thing, because it would also imply that Jackson had bought his children. Certainly that he had paid for them... and I half remember the Americans had some sort of contretemps a while back about the rights and wrongs of buying human beings. Now I think of it, the question of being black or white was involved too. I wonder if they ever resolved that one.
You never thought of having your own captive clutch of kids, did you Gary, but I know what you’re thinking now. You’re thinking: “If I took an overdose of drugs, just like him, would they love me again then?”
Hold that thought, Gary, hold that thought.
Saturday, 27 June 2009
We're bad, we're bad...
"Michael Jackson's family blame London for death" (Evening Standard headline)
It had to happen. Old Persian proverb: when you are walking through the desert and you trip on a stone, be sure an Englishman has placed it there.
That Ayatollah, he knows the score. What did I tell you? We’re EVIL! Yeah! A frail and somewhat wobbly pop singer keels over in his crib and croaks... terribly sad, ain’t it, but who are you going to blame it on? The boogie? No chance. Blame it on the bogeyman! Even from thousands of miles away, London - the most evil city in the most evil nation on Earth - is so poisonous it can reach out across the whole world and strike Jackson down in his prime. Oh, we’re good. Or rather, we’re bad! You weren’t baaad, Michael, we’re baaaaad! We’re the best at being bad. There is nothing evil in the universe but we are at the back of it somewhere. We’re number one, again! Is there no end to our infamy?
(Oh, don’t think I’ve finished about Michael Jackson either...)
It had to happen. Old Persian proverb: when you are walking through the desert and you trip on a stone, be sure an Englishman has placed it there.
That Ayatollah, he knows the score. What did I tell you? We’re EVIL! Yeah! A frail and somewhat wobbly pop singer keels over in his crib and croaks... terribly sad, ain’t it, but who are you going to blame it on? The boogie? No chance. Blame it on the bogeyman! Even from thousands of miles away, London - the most evil city in the most evil nation on Earth - is so poisonous it can reach out across the whole world and strike Jackson down in his prime. Oh, we’re good. Or rather, we’re bad! You weren’t baaad, Michael, we’re baaaaad! We’re the best at being bad. There is nothing evil in the universe but we are at the back of it somewhere. We’re number one, again! Is there no end to our infamy?
(Oh, don’t think I’ve finished about Michael Jackson either...)
Friday, 19 June 2009
We’re Number One!
He said the election was a "political earthquake" for Iran's enemies - singling out Britain as "the most evil of them" - whom he accused of trying to foment unrest in the country.
Yay us! We shoot, we score! Top of the World, ma! We’re the worst - official! We out-evil America, Russia and North Korea, put together! We were up against stiff competition, but we won the Ayatollah Trophy: Most Evil Nation on Earth! We’re bad widdle boys! Better watch your back, Barack. Don’t start shootin’, Putin. You’re out on a limb, Kim. We’re evil. Yeah! You know what I'm sayin’?
Yay us! We shoot, we score! Top of the World, ma! We’re the worst - official! We out-evil America, Russia and North Korea, put together! We were up against stiff competition, but we won the Ayatollah Trophy: Most Evil Nation on Earth! We’re bad widdle boys! Better watch your back, Barack. Don’t start shootin’, Putin. You’re out on a limb, Kim. We’re evil. Yeah! You know what I'm sayin’?
Thursday, 7 May 2009
Day of the **** All
Well, it’s finally simmering down now. Pig Flu is only about as dangerous as ordinary flu, the one that kills thousands every year anyway, without raising a rumpus. So, that’s all right then. It was interesting to me, though, that you had so many prominent commentators asking why the media had gone so crazy on this story. Simon Jenkins, in his piece ‘There is no known antidote for panic’ made the point very well, and even repeated it on BBC radio, in no uncertain terms. Of course, they defended themselves, assuring us all that there had been no over-reaction after all. It was perfectly justified. Phew!
What might otherwise have appeared on the front pages, I wondered. What would it take? Perhaps a madman trying to kill the royal family by ramming them in a speeding car, killing by-standers during a patriotic pageant, live on TV. That would have knocked swine flu off the front pages, wouldn’t it?
Well, it didn’t. Unless you speak German or Dutch you may be forgiven for having missed this one last week. Yes... last week. It made massive headlines on the Continent, but was relegated to a tiny byline, on page twenty or something, in The Guardian, a sidebar tucked well inside the freesheet Metro and, well, and that was about it.
But what happened? The entire Dutch royal family were parading through the town of Apeldoorn when a car crashed through the barriers and ploughed through marchers, intent on ramming the Queen’s open-topped bus and taking out both her and her heir apparent.
The attempt failed, but only just. The motives of would-be assassin, Karst T. are still a mystery (Motief Karst T. voor zijn ouders ook een raadsel Friends and relatives are baffled. ’Dit was niet de Karst die wij kennen’ (’This wasn’t the Karst we know,’) said his father.
If this had taken place in America, we would never hear the end of it, but this was a suspected terror attack (the guy had guns and explosives at home) and certainly an assassination attempt in a country that is actually next-door to our own... and we hear virtually nothing. I can’t figure what their game is, but this has made me more troubled about the media agenda even than I was before. If this does not puncture their navel-gazing insularity, then what will? What else have they shovelled off the front pages lately?
I shall be following this story, though. It’s a mystery, it’s bizarre and it’s insane: just my cup of tea. And our news-outlets are keeping very, very quiet about it. Day of the Jackal? So what? Was Jordan involved? Don’t want to know, mate.
Footage of the attack (with German language commentary):
http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-1000528.html
What might otherwise have appeared on the front pages, I wondered. What would it take? Perhaps a madman trying to kill the royal family by ramming them in a speeding car, killing by-standers during a patriotic pageant, live on TV. That would have knocked swine flu off the front pages, wouldn’t it?
Well, it didn’t. Unless you speak German or Dutch you may be forgiven for having missed this one last week. Yes... last week. It made massive headlines on the Continent, but was relegated to a tiny byline, on page twenty or something, in The Guardian, a sidebar tucked well inside the freesheet Metro and, well, and that was about it.
But what happened? The entire Dutch royal family were parading through the town of Apeldoorn when a car crashed through the barriers and ploughed through marchers, intent on ramming the Queen’s open-topped bus and taking out both her and her heir apparent.
The attempt failed, but only just. The motives of would-be assassin, Karst T. are still a mystery (Motief Karst T. voor zijn ouders ook een raadsel Friends and relatives are baffled. ’Dit was niet de Karst die wij kennen’ (’This wasn’t the Karst we know,’) said his father.
If this had taken place in America, we would never hear the end of it, but this was a suspected terror attack (the guy had guns and explosives at home) and certainly an assassination attempt in a country that is actually next-door to our own... and we hear virtually nothing. I can’t figure what their game is, but this has made me more troubled about the media agenda even than I was before. If this does not puncture their navel-gazing insularity, then what will? What else have they shovelled off the front pages lately?
I shall be following this story, though. It’s a mystery, it’s bizarre and it’s insane: just my cup of tea. And our news-outlets are keeping very, very quiet about it. Day of the Jackal? So what? Was Jordan involved? Don’t want to know, mate.
Footage of the attack (with German language commentary):
http://www.spiegel.de/video/video-1000528.html
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
