I'm pretty middle-of-the-road when it comes to stuff like this, because I know there are legitimate cases where medicating kids is probably for the best, and that's cool and all, but I think just because it worked for one kid one time, everyone thinks it should work for all kids everywhere all the time.

 

It's like Kirstie Allie in those weight loss commercials, telling you because something worked for her one time, it will work for everyone all the time. Any weight loss commercial, really, does the same thing; but even if the person on the commercial is for real and the pills or the book or the diet or the surgery really did work for them, it still doesn't mean that it will work for everyone. Or that it will work for you.

 

In a broader sense, it's almost like saying that because George Washington solved all his problems by massing a well-armed militia and overthrowing the government, then we should all solve our problems the same way. Obviously, Washington was a specific guy in a specific time who did very specific things to solve his problems. What Washington did wouldn't have worked for Ghandi, or Anne Frank.

 

But in a way this is what these commercials would have us believe....It worked for me, it'll work for you too!!!

 

I don't believe it, and I don't think Ritalin is the answer for everyone. I think it makes it too easy for bad, lazy parents, when their maniacal children try to burn down the house while they're asleep, to avoid the issue. Kids like that aren't prosecuted and sent to jail, they're not even analyzed and given therapy anymore. Their meds are adjusted.

 

Pretty soon we won't need prisons anymore, for anyone.

 

No one on The Sopranos ever goes to jail. It's weird because they're the worst kind of people you can ever imagine; they kill their own family members and beat up and take advantage of their friends, and then they all talk to their therapists about it and get medicated so that they can be more happy and well-adjusted. And yet, we like them and want them to succeed. And we root against the bad guys who are...well, pretty much just like the rest of them.

 

I like Law & Order and I always want the mobsters to be put away, but on The Sopranos I like the mobsters and want them to get away with everything. It's like the Bizarro world where everything is the opposite, and nothing makes sense.

 

Eating with chopsticks just doesn't make any sense to me at all, and I wonder who ever thought of them and why, and it's not that I don't understand the basic principle of how the chopsticks work. But considering that, as humans, one of our main goals in life is teaching our children to feed and care for themselves, the amount of time and effort it takes to master the use of chopsticks suddenly seems counterproductive.

 

At most, chopsticks are a quarter of inch thick at the end, and it's not even like you use them to stab big chunks of food, which would be hard enough. You have to hold two of them, in one hand.

 

If China is so advanced technologically, and so smart and highly evolved, why did they never independently come up with the spoon? What kind of civilization can't invent the spoon? It seems so primal, so basic, like inventing the wheel or the hammer or fire, and yet the Chinese insist on picking up grains of rice with two sticks. It's insane.

 

...I've always assumed that Chinese people inherently have better motor skills and hand-eye coordination than Americans do. Chopsticks aren't better or worse than the utensils we use, they're just different

 

 

The difference is that one is about function while the other is about manners. If you'd never seen any eating utensils at all, and someone handed you a fork or spoon and told you to eat with them, you wouldn't have any trouble. At least, you wouldn't starve to death while trying to figure out how to use them to get food into your mouth. You wouldn't have to practice, or consult diagrams and websites telling you what to do with them.

 

 

 

I was talking to my friend Will about this, and he made the comment that, on Chinese farms, they must bale hay with pool cues.