Some People Will Protest Anything!

This story was so “out there” I had to check to make sure it was not a spoof from the Onion or other satirical website, but sure enough reputable sources like NPR and the Boston Globe confirm that a small group protesting against the hanging of Renoir paintings gathered in front of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts last week.

When they so eloquently say, “Renoir Sucks” and “God Hates Renoir,” they refer to Pierre-Auguste Renoir, born in 1841, a French Impressionist painter.  They don’t object because his work was obscene or anti-American.  They just don’t like it and think as a painter he “is the most overrated artist east, west, north and south of the river Seine.”  Apparently his trees don’t look enough like trees (or something).  Last spring, the leader started an Internet petition urging the President to "remove all of the literally awful Renoir paintings hanging in the National Gallery in Washington DC."  It has been taken down for lack of support.

When looking for a cause in an attempt to shine the spotlight on himself and gather a following, is this the best someone could come up with?

I shouldn’t even care about this except that it reminded me of one more group that tries to manipulate us and gets away with it more often than is reasonable.  It is not the news media and politicians that I highlighted last time.  This time it’s the art critics.

(So much passes for art these days, as it is extoled by self-proclaimed artists and the professional critics that this deception could be the topic of an entire book, not just a short on-line essay – and it probably has been.  In the interest of space, I will stick to one contrasting example in the visual arts.)

See this short video titled:  A Visual Odyssey: Christopher Wool.  This is also a serious piece (not satire) from a reputable site featuring two critics lovingly describing the artist as a “hero of our generation” with a work filled with “complexities and ambiguities.”  They just go on and on pulling our leg about how he uses yellow as a “non-color” to accentuate his black and white painting.  (It’s enough to make you roll your eyes until it hurts!)

See one example of his work at the left.  Nothing here is even identifiable as a tree, bears the slightest resemblance to anything in nature, and looks like little more than an accident.  The critics, of course, would dismiss my opinion as that of one who just didn’t have the capacity or training to “understand” such a masterpiece.  And so goes the con, but how many people get drawn into these Emperor's-New-Clothes scenarios.

See this gallery of Wool's work and compare to a gallery of Renoir at the bottom of the Wikipedia page and judge for yourself who, if anyone, should be protested against.

Out of Proportion

The news media once again teams up with politicians to dictate to us what to think about and what to care about.  With the latest mass murder in Oregon they expose us to every theory, for and against some form of gun control.  Every mass murder, in fact every single murder, is tragic and steps should be taken to reduce any such occurrence, but is it really the huge problem they make it out to be or is it just another example of the media trying to sell papers and enhance audience figures by dwelling on the shocking?  (Count on the politicians to get on board and express opinions just to keep their names in front of the electorate.)

At the beginning of this USA Today piece on how bad it is, they lead with the statement:  “While only about 1% of all murders nationally, mass killings still happen frequently.”  That is true.  I compared the number of deaths by mass murder from this article (137 deaths in 30 occurences) to the government’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) data for homicides (16,121) and homicides with firearms (11,208) to confirm this.  It is only about one percent.  (All data is from 2013, the latest complete year released by the CDC.)

They admit that the fuss is about 1%, but lead with the word "bloodshed" apparently ignoring the other 99%.  How bad is the problem?  Looking further into the CDC data, it’s not surprising to find homicides themselves, far down on the list of causes of death.  More people are killed by vehicle accidents (35,369), suicide (41,148 – about half with firearms), poisonings (38,851) and falls (30, 208).

Furthermore, drowning is the leading cause of injury death among children aged 1–4 years.  “Among children aged ≤4 years, 50.1% of fatal incidents occurred in swimming pools.”  The fact that children between birth and four years dying in swimming pools (approximately 220) is greater than people who die in mass murders seems to escape those experts.  The politicians also ignore the fact that most mass murders are not on college campuses or at any school, but happen as a result of family disputes.  To them every gun death becomes another Sandy Hook.

This is neither about guns nor about mental health.  It’s about the media telling us what to care about and what to get upset and excited about.  They are pulling our strings!

Take another example of high school football.  Reporters breathlessly tell us that football injuries have resulted in four deaths in 2015.  (Some blast headlines that four deaths have happened in the last month, but they only play football in the fall.)  Do they remind us that those four deaths were .0000036 of over 1, 088,000 boys (and girls) playing high school football (less than 1/25 of one percent of one percent)?  Do they tell us that it is more than 100 times more likely to lose your high-school-age son to drowning or poisoning?  That doesn’t sell.  That doesn’t excite.  Blame the violence!  Blame the helmets!  (But when a high school girl goes to court to force the school to let her play football, everyone in the media is more concerned about her equal rights than about her potential for head injury!)

One more interesting note in passing on the CDC data:  There is a category called death by legal intervention.  Interestingly when sorted by race, the number of white people who died as a result of "legal intervention" (352) was more than double the number of black people (147).  But you wouldn’t know it from the headlines!

Various Observations

With cameras on nearly every street corner, both those set up by the government and those by private companies for security and the ones in almost every cell phone, we are seeing both on the news and on line more and more pictures of natural disasters, car crashes, embarrassing moments, and just about everything else.  The only subject that there doesn’t seem to be a rash of pictures is UFOs.  A number of years ago reports were much more common, and several books promoted evidence that we are not alone.  Now there seems to be very little serious reference to ETs.  Maybe everyone knows they would be expected to back up their stories with a few fairly high-resolution pictures.

A recent radio ad told me that I should buy gold, because the price had come down to levels not seen since 2007 and before that 2000.  These may not be the exact dates, but the gist of it was to buy gold while it was again very affordable.  I was expected to react quickly because the last two times the price went up from here.  Another interpretation, though, could be that the last two times after going up, it also came back down to where it is now.  Was this ad telling me that it was a good time to buy gold or just the best time to climb on board “the gold roller coaster” as it continues to go up and down?

Would smearing black stuff under my eyes make me a better driver by cutting down the glare?  This thought struck me as I saw a close-up on TV of a football player coming off the field.  Is this eye black effective or just superstition?  A few sources tell me of limited studies that show “the eye grease made of beeswax, paraffin, and carbon does in fact reduce glare and improve contrast sensitivity,” but “anti-glare stickers and petroleum jelly have no impact.”  Does that minimal improvement in contrast sensitivity improve performance?  No evidence is available.  Tennis players must react to fast-moving balls in sunlight or under bright, artificial lighting, but they don’t paint their faces.  Even so, as superstitious as many professional athletes (and their fans) are, there is little chance of the practice changing soon.

Is everyone a hater?  There is another one of those simple internet posters going around on Facebook and other sites with a long list of all the people the Republicans are accused of hating:  the poor, Muslims, women, blacks, etc.  On the other side the left is accused of hating and trying to destroy America and the Constitution.  The behavioral model as presented here asks, even requires, everyone to rise above this, drop the name-calling and general accusations by dealing exclusively with behavior.  But the name-calling won’t stop until the general public, the voters, you and I, adopt and start living out the behavioral model and demand that it does.  That’s why I present a couple examples every week, to try to teach Americans that there is a better way, a real solution.

More About Symptoms

Last time I pointed out how the seemingly constant need for entertainment and distractions could be symptoms of deeper problems.  At the very least these symptoms indicate a weakness in discipline and perspective.  Another indication of the shortage of discipline and perspective could be a lack of patience.

The other day as I was driving to the studio to teach a yoga class, I was stopped behind a Honda at a red light.  The light changed and the other lanes of traffic began to move, but the Honda was fixed to the spot.  After about a count of four, he accelerated and began to catch up to a large truck in the lane in front of him that was slowing for other traffic.  As he nearly caught up to the truck he abruptly slowed down.  When the truck pulled into the turn lane he maintained his slow speed, as if the truck were still there.  I am always wary of this kind of erratic driving, so pulled over to get past him and out of his way.  As I drove by I could clearly see the driver looking down at his phone as his thumb moved over the keys.  That must have been a very important message to justify putting himself and the rest of us on the road in danger.  Apparently it just couldn’t wait.

I arrived at class safely.  About half way through I noticed one participant who seemed not to be able to wait for my cuing.  We barely finished doing a twist to the right and she was setting up for the twist to the left.  A couple of other times she missed a cue to pause and had to back up to get with the rest of the class.  During final relaxation I could see the fidgeting and sensed her thinking about when it would be over so she could get on with the rest of her day.  Upon leaving she said that she usually went to an evening class but felt she needed yoga today to help her relax.  I silently agreed one hundred percent with her diagnosis.  I hoped the yoga helped a little, but it seemed to have not made a big difference.  Too bad.

These kinds of reactions are not unusual.  We all feel rushed; there’s just not enough time!  So we cut corners, trying to get ahead.  But this cutting corners can put us in dangerous situations or just cause us to throw away a great opportunity to chill out on the yoga mat and get a little control of our lives.  It’s a lack of patience due to a failure in discipline, to tell ourselves “not now,” and in perspective to know how little many of our worries amount to over the long run.

One point is that many common and generalizable behavioral observations come not always from the news but from daily life.  If you dare, take the patience challenge, gaze straight ahead and take 10 deep breaths before moving on to that next urgent piece of business.

There, doesn’t that feel better?

Are You Afraid of Yourself?

Some pieces of information have come together recently to lead me to the conclusion that people are more and more becoming afraid of spending time with their own thoughts.  They seem to dread facing what’s in their heads.

The first sign was a message on a neighborhood e-mail group when construction workers broke ground for a new branch library.  One neighbor complained that it would increase traffic and possibly draw an undesirable element to this part of the city.  Besides, she said that she had no use for a library and found reading boring.  (I guess the Internet to her is just one long series of cute puppies and kittens.)

That was a little hard to believe, but not too unusual.  Next the post office delivered a card from my cable company telling me in large red letters to AVOID BOREDOM, by signing up to take my entertainment with me everywhere.  Now I like entertainment, but everywhere?  Don’t I want to have a little quiet time to think?

Apparently I am a minority for considering that based on the number of people I see in public who can’t put their phones down, much less turn them off.  This phenomenon is most visible among teenagers, which is why I was very surprised to hear on a television health segment that 60% of high schoolers reported binge drinking.

That was shocking, but also wrong.  Actually, the CDC reported last year that although alcohol is “the most commonly used and abused drug among youth,” and that “people aged 12 to 20 years drink 11% of all alcohol consumed in the United States,” a reputable survey showed that 35% of these youth reported drinking some amount of alcohol in the last 30 days and 21% binge drank – binge drinking being defined as men consuming five or more drinks and women drinking four or more drinks in 2 hours.  “Around 90% of alcohol consumed among under-21s is in the form of binge drinking.”

Well, 21% is better than 60%, but the National Institute of Health (NIH) published a study (done on rats - no teenagers were intoxicated) with findings showing a strong link between binge drinking during adolescence and impaired cognitive functions later in life including effects on learning, memory, impulse control and making decisions.  With more than 1 in 5 teens setting themselves up for long-term cognitive problems, what that means to our future healthcare needs, not to mention our nation’s future in general, I’ll leave for you to think about.

All that reminded me of an NBC story from a number of months ago about accidental deaths.  The number of overdose deaths “have doubled in the past 14 years and now more people die from accidental overdoses than in road accidents in most U.S. states.”  Overall, more people die accidentally from drugs than from car accidents and more than half of those deaths are related to prescription drugs.

When I lump these seemingly unrelated events together I begin to wonder if Americans are afraid of being alone with their thoughts.  Reading is not as enticing as zoning out in front of the TV.  It takes more concentration and effort.  That can seem boring.  If I am encouraged to take my entertainment with me, the advertisers must assume that I am incapable (or afraid) of amusing myself for even short periods of time.  Their assumption is borne out by the millions of teens who, even with easy access to this 24/7/everywhere music, movies and other entertainment, feel the need to drink themselves into oblivion.  And much of the rest of the population finds solace in prescription pills.  Are these all attempts to numb ourselves against the terrible prospect of some unexpected thought popping up?

It seems like what is called for is a little discipline, choosing to occasionally deny the instant gratification, and perspective, appreciating what we have and rediscovering all the wonderful things about our lives.  This self-induced isolation, drawing away from the outside world without seeming to acknowledge the inner world, is a scary symptom.