And then I Wonder Why I Dance Alone

The other night while watching Bowling for Catfish on one of the cable only stations way up there above the police calls, listening to a commercial, that used it, I started to wonder 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 song 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, we just throw out words like the small chimps in the zoo fling poo, and try, like them, to not get any on each other.

Advertisements for prescription medications. We've seen so many of them, on TV, in newspapers, and online. Still, 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? 

Are the names based on the compounds that go into them and is there a naming protocol involved or do the drug companies hire marketing and opinion research firms to invent words? We've all heard of "Viagra," but what else was in the running? Have you ever mentioned a drug to your doctor whose advertisement you've, doctor and what happened then? 

Some time ago, like later today, I left leave work early to the cheers of a grateful and terribly sarcastic staff to take my wife for an important medical appointment. I'll do better this time but the last time this happened, I got off to a late start leaving work so I was, perhaps, more hurried than I'd otherwise normally be driving to Norwich. 

I wasn't being reckless-I was driving in an accelerated mode. 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 doctor's office later I remembered motivations are internal and behaviors are external. That is, as the Fab Four sang, 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 his nearly-identical twin. Proving yet again sometimes the things we do speak so loudly we cannot hear what each other is saying.
-bill kenny