[Dinah, insert appropriate pic here. Roy: Done.]
I spent 5 hours on a plane Tuesday flying out to San Diego for a meeting (Foo, if you wanna meet up, holler) and killed some time writing this. BTW, I’ve discovered I can really extend my battery life by turning off the MacBook display and just typing, fixing all the typos when I’m juiced up (well, you know what I mean).
I read something in today’s (Tue) Washington Post about a study that demonstrated that thinking about past bad deeds, like shoplifting or cheating, increases one’s thoughts about washing your hands, brushing your teeth, and generally ridding your body of “dirtiness”. Think Lady Macbeth and “Out, damned spot.”
Makes me think of the tamest OCD symptoms one can have. This is a disease, mind you, where you have to compulsively perform an action to undo, or clean away, a particular thought. It’s not hard to imagine how this basic, apparently universal, urge to perform a cleaning task in response to some physical or mental soiling can be ramped up into an out-of-control illness. [Maybe describe the anatomy of OCD.]
Makes me wonder what Tom Foley is washing these days. (Or maybe certain college administrators, hmm?) I think this helps to explain why organizations tend to “cleanse” themselves of tainted individuals, rather than try to reform them, and why crisis management firms recommend that in these situations, the best thing to do is “come clean”, admit what happened, apologize, take responsibility for it, vow to make amends, and not do it again. It allows observers to “see” that one has cleansed themselves, so that they may now be more acceptable.
The article pointed to evolutionary benefits to avoiding poisonous, spoiled, or otherwise tainted, foods, places, and people. I wonder if our elected officials have showers in their offices. I can think of a few who probably need full-fledged decontamination chambers.
Link to Roy's reference in Washington Post article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/06/AR2006100601230.html (compliments of dinah)
Roy, dude, I am voluntarily in Vacaville, outside Sacramento until Friday, 11:00 am. With a day's notice I'd have stayed! When are you leaving?
ReplyDeleteLeaving Sat AM. I'm just north of Del Mar at La Costa. Having a great time riding in my rented convertible driving up the coastal highway.
ReplyDeleteJW-I'm guessing the religions picked up on this innate urge, and used it in their toolkit.
Roy, does this mean you got loose AGAIN?? I need longer nails and a bigger hammer.
ReplyDeleteYour post link didn't work and I couldn't fix it, maybe Clink can??
Have a blast in San Diego, if you find Foo, please, please take a picture of him. I want to know if he looks like Jason Lee in My Name is Earl.
And Foo: I ate the chicken foot you left on my door and your site still freezes my computer. No one else's does this. Clink thinks it has something to do with Brazil and Technocrati.
Okay, boys, I have to go wash my hands now.
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ReplyDeleteSo if you've got a messy desk does that mean you're not feeling guilty about anything? Excellent...I will tell the investigators. Who needs lie detector tests?
ReplyDeleteRoy we need to send you away more often to work on the blog.
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ReplyDeleteAnd here I am, just sitting around on my fat @ss, being depressed and doing not much of anything, day after day.
ReplyDeleteCarrie, you are AMAZING!
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ReplyDeleteDo we get a post with the return flight??????
ReplyDelete