No Rhyme, Less Reason

My most recent original thought died of loneliness but before that, I wondered, listening to a TV commercial, about the turn of phrase "emerging science indicates..." WHAT exactly is emerging science? Is it like rock 'n' roll, "I know it when I hear it"; perhaps more like Jennifer Warnes and a heartache (and why wasn't that brought us to by Lasik, btw)? As a kid the rule was you had to define a word before you could use it (remember spelling bees and that desperation dodge, 'would you use it in a sentence, please?'). Now, you just throw out words like the small chimps in the zoo fling poo, and try, like them, to not get any on you.

What exactly constitutes a 'third world country'? If you're living in one, do you know it? Is there a playoff at the end of the continent where you can be relegated to the status of a fourth world country or advanced to a second world country, and is there a checklist to document your advance to First World Nationhood? Is that the term that'd be used? And if you have to ask do you lose points?

We've seen so many of them, on TV, in newspapers and on line, advertisements for prescription medications-who are those messages aimed at, us or doctors? If it's supposed to be us, I have a problem because the names of many prescription medications are nearly unpronounceable. Who comes up with those and how? Is it based on the compounds that go into them or do the drug companies hire marketing and opinion research firms to invent words? We've all heard of "Viagra"-what else was in the running? "Yippee!", or perhaps "YIPpee!" (see that subtle shift of focus just then; I could so do that naming gig for a living.) And have you ever mentioned a drug whose advertisement you're read to your doctor and what happened then?

Coming home the other day to take Sigrid to the orthopedist (she won thirty lessons with Dancing with the Stars, but she had to use all thirty in the same afternoon; what a trouper!), I got off to a late start by just a few minutes leaving work so I was, perhaps, more hurried than I'd otherwise normally be driving to Norwich. I wasn't reckless-I was accelerated. After all, I wanted to get home so we didn't have to rush and that way I knew my wife wouldn't be anxious about worrying about being late. Out of nowhere, a car came up behind me, then beside me and then well beyond me, disappearing at the bend in the road. What a driver and a complete maniac!

Sitting in the doctors' offices I remembered motivations are internal and behaviors are external, and while everybody's got something to hide, except for me and my monkey when your insides are out and your outsides are in, you can't see what another person is feeling, only what he/she is doing. My high speed driving didn't bother me because I knew why I was going that fast. My trouble was that 'other guy' (the maniac) who didn't reveal his heart, just kept stomping his gas pedal. Of course, to others on the road that afternoon, I, too, had been the nearly-identical twin to an elbow we've all heard so much about. Proving yet again sometimes the things we do speak so loudly we cannot hear what each other is saying.
-bill kenny