We have a new thirteen-step program to help you recover from the 'dark' influences of too many twelve-step recovery group meetings:
1. Admit that you are powerless over twelve-step meetings -- that your life has become unmanageable. Scream and pass out.
2. Come to believe that only Santa Claus can restore you to sanity.
3. Make a decision to give all of your problems to Santa Claus, as we understand Him.
4. Turn your will and your mind over to the care of Santa Claus. They were worthless anyway. Also stick him with those pesky problems.
5. Make a searching and fearless inventory of your garage. You won't believe the junk you will find in there.
6. Confess to everyone that you can't sing, you can't dance, your butt is too fat, and you have bad breath.
7. Make yourself entirely ready to have Santa Claus deliver some goodies.
8. Write a letter to Santa Claus, humbly begging him to fix all of your shortcomings.
9. Make a list of all of the people you have pissed off.
10. Go piss them off again.
11. Continue to inventory your garage, and when you find that you are hoarding some really useless junk, promptly admit it.
12. Seek, through your cell phone, to maintain constant contact with Santa Claus, as we understand Him. If you can't get Him, call a psychic hotline.
13. Make twenty copies of this letter, put your name at the bottom, and send them to all of your friends.
Our New Religion
Our new religion is called "Ungroupism". It differs from our major competitor, the other cult religion, Anonymous Alcoholism, in a number of important ways.
-- First off, we never have any meetings. Attending meetings would be very unUngroupistic.
-- Also, Ungroupism as such ought never be organized, so it isn't. There is no national headquarters, nor any state or local offices, either. If you want to contact the President of Ungroupism, or the Board of Directors, or the Trustees, you can't, because there aren't any.
-- In addition, we are so anonymous that we don't give out any of our names, first or last, or even our initials. And since we never have any meetings, there is no way you can figure out who we are.
-- The only requirement for membership in Ungroupism is a desire to stop going to lunatic meetings.
-- Each ungroup has but one primary purpose -- to carry the message to the meeting maker who still suffers.
-- Our major competitor likes to brag that their religion was founded by "a Wall Street hustler who helped an Akron rectal surgeon through his last binge." Oh yeh? Well our religion was founded by a psychopathic serial killer who ate his last victim, so our religion is much better than your religion, thank you.
-- You can join our fellowship, and become a member, any time you wish, just by saying that you are a member, but we don't. We are firm believers in the wise alcoholic teachings of our patron saint, W. C. Field, who said, "The reason I don't belong to any clubs is, I would never join a club that would have me as a member."
If you don't understand this,
it is because you are not working a strong enough program.
by Jack and Lois Trimpey, Co-Founders, Rational Recovery
There is enough information on this sheet for many people to completely recover from chronic obesity.
With Addictive Voice Recognition Technique® (AVRT), the game of weight control is rigged heavily in your favor. Regardless of whether overeating is a disease (most unlikely!), regardless of what genes you have inherited, and regardless of what earlier problems you may have had, your food addiction may be understood as a natural function of the human brain. The sole cause of your overweight is your Addictive Voice. In effect, you have two separate "brains" within your head. One is primitive, similar to the brain of a dog or a horse. This we call the midbrain. It is basically the brain of a beast, and its only purpose is to survive. The "beast brain" generates survival appetites that drive the rest of the body toward what it demands, such as oxygen, food, sex, and fluids. In some people, the midbrain is convinced that starvation is just around the corner, demanding more food than survival requires. The body then stores energy in the form of fat for later use to prevent starvation.
But another brain sits on top of the beast brain, the cerebral cortex. This "new brain," or neocortex, allows human beings to be conscious, to think, to have language, and to solve problems. Your neocortex is "you," and you can override any appetite, even for oxygen. (Anyone can stop breathing until unconscious; starving oneself to death is not difficult.) In AVRT, you will use your neocortex, your human brain, your self, to override the appetite for unnecessary food. By taking independent action, you may avoid "treatment" or diet programs that are costly or disagreeable, and harmful entanglements with the recovery group movement.
If you have tried many times to lose weight, but continued to overeat against your own better judgment, you may think that you are unable to control your eating behavior. This is an example of the Addictive Voice (AV), removing your resolve to eat correctly. The Feast Beast, your desire to eat too much, is ruthless in getting what it wants. It can "talk" to you, in your own voice. For example, if you wisely decide that you will eat less and avoid fatty foods, you will soon hear that old, familiar voice telling you why you should continue eating abundantly and/or enjoyably. You may imagine a picture of what you want to eat, and see yourself eating enjoyably to relieve "terrible hunger." That is your AV. Though you made a wise decision to eat correctly, your Feast Beast has enlisted your language and visual centers to seduce you into overeating. AVRT allows you to override your midbrain, and seize control. If you compete you will win; beasts by nature are short on intelligence.
There are two parties to your overeating problem - you and "it," the addictive voice. "It," the addictive voice, is simply any thinking, imagery, or feeling that supports incorrect eating ever. With your intelligence, you can easily recognizeyour Feast Beast's thoughts and feelings.
The structural model of addiction shows that the Feast Beast has no direct means to get what it wants. It must appeal to you to get the amount and kind of food that it "needs." It cannot speak, it cannot see, it has no arms or legs, and it has no intelligence of its own. But it uses your thoughts, sees through your eyes, creates strong feelings, and persuades you to use your hands, arms, and legs in order to obtain unnecessary food.
Addiction Diction (sm)
Your Feast Beast's favorite pronoun is "I." When you hear the thought, "I want a snack," you may recapture "I" by adding a "t" to the "I." Then you will hear yourself thinking, "It wants a snack." After you have recaptured "I," your Feast Beast will resort to the pronoun, "you," and you will hear, "You have been good; you can splurge a little. It won't really matter much, especially if you exercise." Sometimes, it may speak for both parties, you and it, by saying, "We need a little something. Let's go get some donuts." Recognizing the Feast Beast's use of pronouns is part of Addiction Dictionsm, a potent way to tame your Feast Beast.
Once started, AVRT is practically effortless. When you recognize the primitive origin of the Addictive Voice, it will usually fall silent, and then return later. It may whine a lot, but you arc in control. Beasts have feelings, so when you have stopped eating fatty foods for a few days, and reduced the amount that you consume, you may feel physically uncomfortable. This is a normal, harmless phase when your body is adapting. Within a week or two, your appetite will go into the background and you will have more energy to pursue your real goals in life. But your Feast Beast will lunge at you and tell you that anydiscomfort you feel is a warning that you are harming yourself, and that you had better eat more, especially "nutritious" (fatty) food. Your Feast Beast, unable to tolerate hunger, will enlist your ability to reason, using any warped logic, to find new reasons to eat incorrectly. For example, it will tell you that you eat for reasons other than the pleasure of eating, such as anxiety or loneliness, or it will say you are congenitally defective. When you confront your Feast Beast, it may generate strong feelings such as anxiety, depression, or anger. When you recognize those feelings as your Addictive Voice, they will fade.
Instead of struggling one-day-at-a-time toward a weight goal, you may make a five-word Big Plan to never eat incorrectly, "I will never eat incorrectly." To the Feast Beast, a permanent plan for eating correctly is frightening because it appears to threaten survival. Therefore making a Big Plan may trigger feelings such as anxiety, sorrow, or anger, and endless reasons to postpone the decision. Those feelings are not truly yours, but only those of a frightened animal. Your old enemy is on the run. Your Feast Beast is just a beast, and it will finally accept you as its master.
Play Taps For Your Beast
As you vanquish your old enemy, play TAPS for it. There are four axes of a dietary Big Plan: Time, Amount, Place, and Stuff. Because AVRT is simple and effective, you may be tempted to make a Big Plan that you cannot stick to over the long run. TAPS allows a progressive approach, one axis at a time, until you have the results you want and are confident of lifetime stability. Some start with just one axis, like Time, e.g., "I will never eat after 8 PM." This alone may produce gratifying results. But if stronger measures are needed, the Place axis may be added, e.g., "I will also never eat in front of the TV (or in a motor vehicle, or in my bedroom, etc.)
Without addressing what and how much you eat, you can lose considerable amounts of weight with discipline on other axes. Some may prefer to start with Stuff (or Substance), e.g., focusing on one or several "culprit foods" that trigger bingeing, e.g., "I will never again eat ice cream (or pizza, spaghetti, candy, pastries, etc.)" Simple, direct, and very effective. Finally, The Amount one eats may be the key. Never having seconds, never eating a meat portion larger than a deck of cards, never allowing different foods to overlap or touch on your plate, and other amount strategies can have significant effect on weight loss. Together, TAPS is a way to gradually add to an eating plan that you can stick to forever.
When you have made your Big Plan, you may feel a great relief. This is the abstinence commitment effect (ACE), showing that you clearly understand the concepts of AVRT. A Big Plan changes the way your future looks, and depression may no longer have a purpose in your life. Stay alert for new Beast activity, which may be sudden or gradual. It doesn't give up easily, and it is a strong opponent. When you feel the struggle within you, it is only your old enemy having a hard time with its new master you. Knowing this builds great confidence that your food addiction and overweight condition are over once and for all.
Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, are challenging long-held beliefs that human beings are wired to be selfish. In a wide range of studies, social scientists are amassing a growing body of evidence to show we are evolving to become more compassionate and collaborative in our quest to survive and thrive.
In contrast to "every man for himself" interpretations of Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, Dacher Keltner, a UC Berkeley psychologist and author of "Born to be Good: The Science of a Meaningful Life," and his fellow social scientists are building the case that humans are successful as a species precisely because of our nurturing, altruistic and compassionate traits.
They call it "survival of the kindest."
"Because of our very vulnerable offspring, the fundamental task for human survival and gene replication is to take care of others," said Keltner, co-director of UC Berkeley's Greater Good Science Center. "Human beings have survived as a species because we have evolved the capacities to care for those in need and to cooperate. As Darwin long ago surmised, sympathy is our strongest instinct."
Empathy in our genes
Keltner's team is looking into how the human capacity to care and cooperate is wired into particular regions of the brain and nervous system. One recent study found compelling evidence that many of us are genetically predisposed to be empathetic.
The study, led by UC Berkeley graduate student Laura Saslow and Sarina Rodrigues of Oregon State University, found that people with a particular variation of the oxytocin gene receptor are more adept at reading the emotional state of others, and get less stressed out under tense circumstances.
Informally known as the "cuddle hormone," oxytocin is secreted into the bloodstream and the brain, where it promotes social interaction, nurturing and romantic love, among other functions.
"The tendency to be more empathetic may be influenced by a single gene," Rodrigues said.
The more you give, the more respect you get
While studies show that bonding and making social connections can make for a healthier, more meaningful life, the larger question some UC Berkeley researchers are asking is, "How do these traits ensure our survival and raise our status among our peers?"
One answer, according to UC Berkeley social psychologist and sociologist Robb Willer is that the more generous we are, the more respect and influence we wield. In one recent study, Willer and his team gave participants each a modest amount of cash and directed them to play games of varying complexity that would benefit the "public good." The results, published in the journal American Sociological Review, showed that participants who acted more generously received more gifts, respect and cooperation from their peers and wielded more influence over them.
"The findings suggest that anyone who acts only in his or her narrow self-interest will be shunned, disrespected, even hated," Willer said. "But those who behave generously with others are held in high esteem by their peers and thus rise in status."
"Given how much is to be gained through generosity, social scientists increasingly wonder less why people are ever generous and more why they are ever selfish," he added.
Cultivating the greater good
Such results validate the findings of such "positive psychology" pioneers as Martin Seligman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania whose research in the early 1990s shifted away from mental illness and dysfunction, delving instead into the mysteries of human resilience and optimism.
While much of the positive psychology being studied around the nation is focused on personal fulfillment and happiness, UC Berkeley researchers have narrowed their investigation into how it contributes to the greater societal good.
One outcome is the campus's Greater Good Science Center, a West Coast magnet for research on gratitude, compassion, altruism, awe and positive parenting, whose benefactors include the Metanexus Institute, Tom and Ruth Ann Hornaday and the Quality of Life Foundation.
Christine Carter, executive director of the Greater Good Science Center, is creator of the "Science for Raising Happy Kids" Web site, whose goal, among other things, is to assist in and promote the rearing of "emotionally literate" children. Carter translates rigorous research into practical parenting advice. She says many parents are turning away from materialistic or competitive activities, and rethinking what will bring their families true happiness and well-being.
"I've found that parents who start consciously cultivating gratitude and generosity in their children quickly see how much happier and more resilient their children become," said Carter, author of "Raising Happiness: 10 Simple Steps for More Joyful Kids and Happier Parents" which will be in bookstores in February 2010. "What is often surprising to parents is how much happier they themselves also become."
The sympathetic touch
As for college-goers, UC Berkeley psychologist Rodolfo Mendoza-Denton has found that cross-racial and cross-ethnic friendships can improve the social and academic experience on campuses. In one set of findings, published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, he found that the cortisol levels of both white and Latino students dropped as they got to know each over a series of one-on-one get-togethers. Cortisol is a hormone triggered by stress and anxiety.
Meanwhile, in their investigation of the neurobiological roots of positive emotions, Keltner and his team are zeroing in on the aforementioned oxytocin as well as the vagus nerve, a uniquely mammalian system that connects to all the body's organs and regulates heart rate and breathing.
Both the vagus nerve and oxytocin play a role in communicating and calming. In one UC Berkeley study, for example, two people separated by a barrier took turns trying to communicate emotions to one another by touching one other through a hole in the barrier. For the most part, participants were able to successfully communicate sympathy, love and gratitude and even assuage major anxiety.
Researchers were able to see from activity in the threat response region of the brain that many of the female participants grew anxious as they waited to be touched. However, as soon as they felt a sympathetic touch, the vagus nerve was activated and oxytocin was released, calming them immediately.
"Sympathy is indeed wired into our brains and bodies; and it spreads from one person to another through touch," Keltner said.
The same goes for smaller mammals. UC Berkeley psychologist Darlene Francis and Michael Meaney, a professor of biological psychiatry and neurology at McGill University, found that rat pups whose mothers licked, groomed and generally nurtured them showed reduced levels of stress hormones, including cortisol, and had generally more robust immune systems.
Overall, these and other findings at UC Berkeley challenge the assumption that nice guys finish last, and instead support the hypothesis that humans, if adequately nurtured and supported, tend to err on the side of compassion.
"This new science of altruism and the physiological underpinnings of compassion is finally catching up with Darwin's observations nearly 130 years ago, that sympathy is our strongest instinct," Keltner said.
...by Stanton Peele ...This guy is one of my favorite experts on addiction. (...Emerson)
News Item: Like humans, fruit flies that get intoxicated on alcohol can become addicted and keep drinking regardless of the consequences. (One addiction news digest headline called the critters "Buzzed Fruit Flies.") Researchers at the University of California at San Francisco indicate this phenomenon will allow us to better understand how alcoholism works, U.S. News and World Report concluded in a stunning article, "Fruit Flies Can Be Alcoholics Too."
The scientists studied the behavior of Drosophila melanogaster who (or is it "that"?) were given the option of drinking alcohol. They found that the flies consumed food spiked with alcohol faster than plain food, and they wanted more alcohol over time.
That's alcoholism all over! People just keep drinking like - well - fruit flies. But, wait a moment, don't some people, after they get drunk a few times, decide to cut back on their drinking or not drink at all? After all, I have heard people say, "I get silly if I have more than a glass of wine - so that's all I'll drink."
I mean, don't human beings exercise some choices in line with their values? I know a lot of people who have quit smoking after being addicted. The reason they quit (or didn't start in the first place even if they were drawn to it) is because of, well, their values. They want to be healthy. They don't want people to think they are addicts. They don't want their kids imitating them in an addiction or, when pregnant, they don't want to pollute their babies.
And how do fruit flies become alcoholics, really? I mean, the alcoholics I knew blacked out, sneaked drinks and hid bottles, ran out to convenience stores to get six packs in the middle of the night, and had promiscuous sex. Can the flies do that? (I know they have promiscuous sex, but don't they do that sober?)
I had trouble in biology classes in high school and college because I asked all sorts of impertinent questions like these. Here I go again! Do fruit flies have similar kinds of feelings to humans about sex? (Are there slut fruit flies?) In terms of what might make them quit drinking, do they have similar feelings to us about pregnancy? Do they have pregnancy? Do they have intercourse or oral sex? Do they practice tantric sex? Hey, I'm getting way off topic.
Let's focus for a moment on the other end of the process. Let's say the Drosophila malanogasters (is it too late for me to retake that biology final? - I'm feeling so knowledgeable) become chronic inebriates. After talking to their pastor or their uncle in Alcoholics Anonymous, do some decide to join AA? I mean, what the heck do they say at the beginning of the meeting - you know, the part where you are supposed to admit you are an alcoholic and you're powerless over alcohol?
"I am powerless over alcohol-spiked fruit fly food." That just doesn't sound right. Maybe they can stick to the plain, "I am powerless over alcohol." That's better. But they can't talk, can they. Maybe they can dance that message out (or am I thinking of bees - did I mention my problems in biology class?). "I'm (two step) an alcoholic (dip) for life (twirl)." But, wait a second - don't fruit flies live only days? How will they do 30 meetings in 30 days?
I can see we're going to have to go back to the laboratory on this one.
Last week while I was in Copenhagen, I got a press release in an email stating that Canada was totally reversing its climate change position, announcing aggressive limits on carbon emissions, and would start paying "climate debt" to developing countries.
"This is interesting, I thought. I'm going to have to see how this will play out." I didn't realize at the time that I'd been punked by The Yes Men. The Yes Men are a group of international pranksters who challenge free market doctrine, capitalism and unresponsive governments and call attention to environmental crises and injustice through elaborate public hoaxes.
Past hoaxes have included announcing Dow Chemical would pay $12 billion in reparations to the victims of the Bhopal gas leak on BBC World News, pretending to be the US Chamber Of Commerce and announcing it was totally reversing its position on climate legislation (they are now being sued for this) and creating fake editions of the New York Times and New York Post. You can learn all about their antics in their recently-released film, "The Yes Men Fix The World".
The prank continued in elaborate detail, chronicled and updated by our Eat The Press Editor, Jason Linkins. After the fake announcement, there was a fake press conference between Canada and Uganda (Watch it here) on a fake UN set streamed on a fake UN website. A fake Wall Street Journal article covered Canada's change of heart, which was followed by a fake statement from the Canadian government condemning the prank. Elaborate!
I went behind the scenes in Copenhagen to meet The Yes Men and their team of pranksters to find out what it takes to pull off such an elaborate hoax. I particularly loved the tour of the set they created for the UN press conference, which was designed by art students and used tons of found objects.
WATCH:
A special thanks to Jennifer Prediger from Grist.org for shooting and editing this video.
Since the launching of the latest incarnation of the Field Center just two days ago on 04 July, with its new focus on supporting the emerging community of students and other interested parties, I had a front row seat on how some of us meet change. Almost without exception, the response was excited, appreciative, and encouraging. Then there was the occasional reaction from someone taken hostage by the sudden disappointment that a class he or she had been waiting to take was no longer available under the new order. So ensued the email exchanges of the sort one might expect—mostly involving the larger issue of change and the authority we sometimes give change to determine who we are, especially when the change is disappointing. The few students who took the time to express this disappointment are appreciated, of course; they care, and care deeply. There is, however, as the Course tells us, “no time off from our consciousness”—and it is the unexpected development, the left turn we didn’t anticipate, the stinging disappointment that seems to come out of nowhere that reveals to us our intentions, how much we’ve reclaimed our creative authority to choose who we are, and how much we’re still willing to export that authority to the world and to others.
Such moments, obviously, have enormous instructional value, provided that we’re willing to recognize and accept the instruction. When I see a student in the iron grip of contradiction, immersed in blame, busy being the effect, and demanding that the world be this or that while all the while missing his or her power to rise above, to disengage, to refuse to let any worldly prize count more than the inner pearl of alignment, I remind myself that each of us walks the path of evolving consciousness at his or her own pace, and that sometimes suffering is the only instruction we’ll accept. It’s a hard way to go, but the Particle infatuation with its will coupled with its determination to assign the world causal authority, is a formula for suffering. It is a real consolation to remember that contradiction is dialectical—that is, it contains the seeds of transcendence. Pushed far enough, the will becomes exhausted. Denied long enough, the truth becomes unavoidable. Sooner or later, we’re compelled by our very resistance to put down resistance, accept things as they are, and begin again from a place of greater willingness. It isn’t a matter of whether or not we’ll awaken from the dream of willfulness, urgency, and demand, only of when.
It’s not the things we win that make us more than we were, but the things we lose. Change always involves the proverbial doors—one closing, the other opening. How we meet change reveals our intentions, who we’re willing to be and, correspondingly, who we’re unwilling to be. Informed by practice, who we’re willing to be includes coming into relation to the world with its ever changing events as something greater than our will, while who we are unwilling to be involves refusing to allow ourselves to be hostages to the world. So we have our desire, but it doesn’t have us. Poise, acceptance, the willingness to move with rather than against—these are the unmistakable features of the practice of what we call “alignment,” that state of self-honoring that has gained the winning perspective that knows that nothing in the world is worth the selling of our soul.
At the end of the day, what we lost is far less important than how we meet the loss. There is no time off, and the lesson continues to show up until we accept it. Resistance ultimately is a failure method. To catch the moment of opportunity in the disappointment, to take the instruction and “overcome the world”—these are the nuggets of gold waiting to be panned from the river of change.
Actors have the privilege of exploring fictional characters, to see the world from the perspective of another person's imagined life. Sometimes, usually less often, we have the opportunity to speak the words of historical figures, to say the words they themselves spoke. This presents a different kind of challenge, in many ways, something I have been thinking about personally since becoming involved with a performance project and now documentary film called The People Speak, which is airing on History Channel, Sunday, December 13, at 8 pm (7 pm Central). (A soundtrack of music from the film is available from the Verve label December 9.)
The project is inspired by Howard Zinn's books A People's History of the United States and, with Anthony Arnove, Voices of a People's History of the United States, two books that have had a deep influence on how I understand this country. Howard's books provide a history of the United States from below, from the standpoint of ordinary people often overlooked in our textbooks and in our culture.
In 2005, I had the chance to be part of reading in Los Angeles with a remarkable lineup of actors, including Sandra Oh and Josh Brolin, which we called Voices of a People's History of the United States. The enthusiastic reaction of the audience to hearing the words of people in our country's history who have spoken out, fought injustice, and made a change, demonstrated how empowering it can be for people to reclaim this history and to make it their own. And how enlightening it is to shine the light of history on the issues and concerns of the present.
The success of these performances throughout the country -- some in high schools and some in theaters, some with professional actors and musicians, some with high school students -- led a few of us to think that we should make a film that could highlight and preserve these stories. The stories of people like Plough Jogger, a farmer in Shay's Rebellion, who asserted "We've come to relieve the distresses of the people."
Or an anonymous member of the Industrial Workers of the World who was arrested for denouncing World War One, saying, "This war is a businessman's war and we don't see why we should go out and get shot in order to save the lovely state of affairs which we now enjoy."
Or Orlando and Phyllis Rodriguez, who lost their son on 9/11, and issued this heartfelt statement a few days after: "Our son died a victim of an inhuman ideology. Our actions should not serve the same purpose. Let us grieve. Let us reflect and pray. Let us think about a rational response that brings real peace and justice to our world. But let us not as a nation add to the inhumanity of our times."
What we have found in making this film over the past two years is that people respond to these voices is profoundly personal and emotional ways. They take inspiration from seeing how people struggled in the past, often against far greater odds than we face today, to make their voices heard and to right historic wrongs. They find insight from these expressions of the past into how they feel and live in the present. And they also find hope for a different future.
As Howard Zinn has often pointed out, history told from above -- from the standpoint of generals and kings and presidents -- encourages passivity, a sense of helplessness. In this version of history, "great men" make history, not ordinary people. But looked at from below, history has another lesson. Whenever change as happened, it has been through protest, dissent, struggle, social movements, ordinary people picketing, striking, boycotting, sitting down, sitting in. All this mans that we make history, history is effected by our everyday decisions. And we have a responsibility to speak out when we see injustice. We can't wait on others to "lead" us or solve our problems for us. We have to participate, to engage, every day and not just once every four years.
Howard Zinn's work also reminds us that we always need to ask: what stories am I not hearing? Whose voices am I not hearing? And that if no one is telling our stories, we need to find ways -- creative, dynamic -- ways of telling them ourselves.
Today would have been Dr. Seuss’s 105th birthday. To celebrate, here are 10 Stories Behind Dr. Seuss Stories, an article we originally published last fall.
1. The Lorax. In case you haven’t read The Lorax, it’s widely recognized as Dr. Seuss’ take on environmentalism and how humans are destroying nature. The logging industry was so upset about the book that some groups within the industry sponsored The Truax, a similar book—but from the logging point of view. Another interesting fact: the book used to contain the line, “I hear things are just as bad up in Lake Erie,” but 14 years after the book was published, the Ohio Sea Grant Program wrote to Seuss and told him how much the conditions had improved and implored him to take the line out. Dr. Seuss agreed and said that it wouldn’t be in future editions.
2. Horton Hears a Who! Somehow, Geisel’s books find themselves in the middle of controversy. The line from the book, “A person’s a person, no matter how small,” has been used as a slogan for pro-life organizations for years. It’s often questioned whether that was Seuss’ intent in the first place, but I would say not: when he was still alive, he threatened to sue a pro-life group unless they removed his words from their letterhead. Karl ZoBell, the attorney for Dr. Seuss’ interests and for his widow, Audrey Geisel, says that she doesn’t like people to “hijack Dr. Seuss characters or material to front their own points of view.”
3. If I Ran the Zoo, published in 1950, is the first recorded instance of the word “nerd.”
4. The Cat in the Hatwas written basically because Dr. Seuss thought the famous Dick and Jane primers were insanely boring. Because kids weren’t interested in the material, they weren’t exactly compelled to use it repeatedly in their efforts to learn to read. So, The Cat in the Hat was born, and I must agree: it’s definitely more interesting.
5. Green Eggs and Ham. Bennett Cerf, Dr. Seuss’ editor, bet him that he couldn’t write a book using 50 words or less. The Cat in the Hat was pretty simple, after all, and it used 225 words. Not one to back down from a challenge, Mr. Geisel started writing and came up with Green Eggs and Ham – which uses exactly 50 words. The 50 words, by the way, are: a, am, and, anywhere, are, be, boat, box, car, could, dark, do, eat, eggs, fox, goat, good, green, ham, here, house, I, if, in, let, like, may, me, mouse, not, on, or, rain, Sam, say, see, so, thank, that, the, them, there, they, train, tree, try, will, with, would, you.
6. Marvin K. Mooney Will You Please Go Now! It’s often alleged that this book was written specifically about Richard Nixon, but the book came out only two months after the whole Watergate scandal. It’s pretty unlikely that the book could have been conceived of, written, edited and mass produced in such a short time; also, Seuss never admitted that the story was originally about Nixon. That’s not to say he didn’t understand how well the two flowed together. In 1974, he sent a copy of Marvin K. Mooney to his friend Art Buchwald at the Washington Post. In it, he crossed out “Marvin K. Mooney” and replaced it with “Richard M. Nixon”, which Buchwald reprinted in its entirety. Oh, and one other tidbit: this book contains the first-ever reference to “crunk,” although its meaning is a bit different than today’s crunk.
7. Yertle the Turtle = Hitler? Yep. If you haven’t read the story, here’s a little overview: Yertle is the king of the pond, but he wants more. He demands that other turtles stack themselves up so he can sit on top of them to survey the land. Mack, the turtle at the bottom, is exhausted. He asks Yertle for a rest; Yertle ignores him and demands more turtles for a better view. Eventually, Yertle notices the moon and is furious that anything dare be higher than himself, and is about ready to call for more turtles when Mack burps. This sudden movement topples the whole stack, sends Yertle flying into the mud, and frees the rest of the turtles from their stacking duty. Dr. Seuss actually said Yertle was a representation of Hitler. Despite the political nature of the book, none of that was disputed at Random House – what was disputed was Mack’s burp. No one had ever let a burp loose in a children’s book before, so it was a little dicey. In the end, obviously, Mack burped.
8. The Butter Battle Book is one I had never heard of, perhaps with good reason: it was pulled from the shelves of libraries for a while because of the reference to the Cold War and the arms race. Yooks and Zooks are societies who do everything differently. The Yooks eat their bread with the butter-side up and the Zooks eat their bread with the butter-side down. Obviously, one of them must be wrong, so they start building weapons to outdo each other: the “Tough-Tufted Prickly Snick-Berry Switch,” the “Triple-Sling Jigger,” the “Jigger-Rock Snatchem,” the “Kick-A-Poo Kid”, the “Eight-Nozzled Elephant-Toted Boom Blitz,” the “Utterly Sputter” and the “Bitsy Big-Boy Boomeroo.” The book concludes with each side ready to drop their ultimate bombs on each other, but the reader doesn’t know how it actually turns out.
9. Oh The Places You’ll Go is Dr. Seuss’ final book, published in 1990. It sells about 300,000 copies every year because so many people give it to college and high school grads.
10. No Dr. Seuss post would be complete without a mention of How the Grinch Stole Christmas! I couldn’t find much on the book, however, so here are a few facts about the Dr. Seuss-sanctioned cartoon.
Frankenstein’s Monster himself, Boris Karloff, provided the voice of the Grinch and the narration for the movie. Seuss a little wary of casting him because he thought his voice would be too scary for kids. Can you imagine the cartoon with any other voice?! If you’re wondering why they sound a bit different, it’s because the sound people went back to the Grinch’s parts and removed all of the high tones in Karloff’s voice. That’s why the Grinch sounds so gravelly.
Tony the Tiger, AKA Thurl Ravenscroft, is the voice behind “You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch.” He received no credit on screen, so Dr. Seuss wrote to columnists in every major U.S. newspaper to tell them exactly who had sung the song.
‘Tis the season to be joyful, but many experience something far short of it. The proverbial “blue Christmas” is one name given to that unique brand of sadness that seems to attach itself to the end-of-year holidays, especially for those who are struggling in the throes of contradiction in one or more of the four staging areas of experience: love, health, supply, and life direction.
Of course, only a Field training student would be likely to think of it in those terms; for others, the problem is “out there”—the loneliness of being without a partner or other family, the frustration of financial lack in a season defined by the giving of gifts, the added burden of a health issue at a time when the rest of the world is celebrating.
As always, though, a burden is a gift waiting to be unwrapped. This, however, is not necessarily easy to see, though seeing it invariably brings home the truth that sets free. One student, for example, was suffering greatly because a partner with whom she had spent many end-of-year holidays had up and left her, and this after a long and steady history of neglect and indifference that seemed to flow naturally from him.
No time of year has the power to exacerbate the loneliness of loss like the season of joy, and she found herself missing him acutely and wishing that she could be with him, even intending, in our terms, a rapprochement and reconciliation. She could not, in that moment, recognize all that she was being spared by his departure.
There is an old caution, perhaps its origins lie in the well-known horror story first published in 1902, “The Monkey’s Paw,” by W.W. Jacobs: “Be careful what you ask for lest it come true.” George Bernard Shaw expressed the same sentiment in his inimitable way: “There are two tragedies in life: not getting what you want and getting what you want.”
Along the same lines, there is this observation from a source I do not recall: “The magic wish is granted and can’t be taken back.” All of these remind us that there is often a grace operating in wishes not coming true. More than a matter of finding the proverbial silver lining in the cloud, or seeing the glass half full rather than half empty, recognizing grace in our disappointments, challenges, even burdens and losses calls for a “seeing through” the facts to a deeper truth: In the great punctuation of our experience, there is no period.
Things change.
The simple willingness to remember this, to refrain from assigning the status of a conclusion to whatever is happening at the moment, may open a window in the psyche and let in the fresh air of a broader context, one in which we can see the blessing hidden in the burden, the gift delivered in the unlikely form of a wound.
There is a famous Zen story (it has several forms) about an old farmer who lived on a small tract of land in a remote village with his son. They were dirt-poor, and worked hard just to get by. One day, a wild horse came out of the mountains and wandered onto their land. Under the law, this meant that the horse now rightfully belonged to them, and as horses were considered to be of great value, the incident made them literally wealthy overnight by their standards. The son, overjoyed at their good fortune, ran to his father and asked him what he thought about this miracle, to which the farmer replied, “We’ll see.” The next day, the horse ran away, and the son, bemoaning the crushing disappointment, went to his father again. “We’ll see,” said the farmer. The third day, the same horse returned from the mountains with half a dozen stallions following, all of which immediately became the property of the farmer and his son. Ecstatic, the son hurried to his father, thrilled and incredulous at the further turn of luck in their favor. The farmer said only, “We’ll see.” On the fourth day, the boy climbed on one of the horses and was thrown badly, breaking his leg. As the doctors were tending to him, the boy complained bitterly. Brushing the hair gently from his eyes, his father said only, “We’ll see.” And on the fourth day, the province went to war and the army recruiters came through the village to conscript all of the young men—except, of course, the one with the broken leg.
Grace works in our behalf continuously.
The whole of creation is grace in motion—but we are not always present to recognize and appreciate its ingenuity because our unhappy conclusions blind and bind us.
Simply to refrain from such conclusions, to be a little less infatuated with things that we only think we know, to be open and willing enough for life to present the treasure within the trial—these are things that can open us to the true magic of the season, restore the weary spirit, and give us peace.
They think that you are in competition for the good stuff.
“So, if somebody over there wants what’s best for it, ... then it might get it, ... and it might deprive you of what’s best for you.”
But that’s not the way this Universe works.
This is an expanding Universe that expands proportionate to the desire that is conjured within all Consciousness.
When you understand that there is no competition; nobody can get your good stuff, only you can allow it or disallow it, ... then you begin to understand that that’s how the Universe expands.
You don’t need to worry about what anybody else is doing; --- they’re not getting your stuff.
