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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
freebeing
Published Letters: 7
Back in the real olden days, the 1940s, yours truly had constant problems concentrating and was a real pain-in-the-ass to my mother and other family members. My school grades from kindergarten through my first year of college were poor. Except for the two years I spent attending a private boarding prep-school in Beirut, Lebanon. While there, I was forced to sit at a desk 2-3 hours a night and, at least, pretend to be studying. While my ability to concentrate remained a problem, I did learn how to study. My performance on the College Entrance Boards was, at best, mediocre. I was accepted at a very small college in New Mexico. While there, I barely passed my classes and, with the help of my advisor, was able to transfer to Oregon State.
Shortly after my arrival in Corvallis I met a fellow student whose father was a pharmacist and who himself was a pharmacy student. He suggested that taking amphetamines would make it easier for me to memorize all those thousands of things that a student in the biological sciences was expected to know. Back in 1954 all students entering Oregon State took a standardized A.C.E. test which purportedly measured one�s probability of success in college. My test results put me into the fourth percentile. After taking my first set of exams a totally surprised advisor told me that he did not understand how I could done so well. He had expected me to fail. To make along story short my grades improved so much that I was often was on the honor roll and upon graduation was accepted at the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to my arrival to Berkeley I had traveled to the Middle East and, while there, had purchased hundreds of Dexedrine tables for use in graduate school. Had it not been for these drugs I am sure I would not have made it through my first year of graduate school. During this period of time I discovered espresso coffee and, through most of the subsequent years I used caffeine and related alkaloids to sharpen my mind. I recently took one of those on-line tests to determine if I am an ADD individual and, low and behold, I test positive.
I am now 70 years of age and unable to ingest large amounts of any stimulant due to a medical condition. Did my arrhythmia come from my years of taking stimulants? Who knows? Is my increasing inability to concentrate due to A.D.D., aging or something else? Who knows? What I do know is that I am more alert and my mind is sharper when I drink a double espresso
I have not watched the Oscar show for more than 4 years.
The 12 friends and I who watched last nights Oscar show found it ot be very satisfying. None of us were disappointed that Brokeback Mountain did not do a sweep.
We loved Jon Steward and thought he did a great job.
I suggest Cintra Wilson stop watching the Oscar shows and try somethign else for a while.
Ann Coulter's remarks about fragging Murtha should ghet her arrested by the secret service.
I suggest rather than be arrested she be inducted into the US military and sent to Iraq as a truck driver.
Monroe
What about gummy candies and colostomy bags?
I live in an 80 year old stucco house on a 80X30 piece of property in Oakland and recently have begun the process of replacing a number of windows with double pane.
PG&E used to give rebate son such windows to single-family homeowners like myself. They now only give them to owners of multi-family dwellings (apartment houses.
I can't get anyone at PG&E to give me a logical explanation as to why they stopped these window rebates.
Oh yes they will give me a rebate if I spend $800.00 plus dollars or more on new washers and dryers. If PG&E wants to give me an interest-free long-term loans to replace my older washer and dryer I would be grateful, but not before they give me information on exactly how much carbon the manufacture of these items produces. Information often left out of the equation.
I am 72 and retired living on a fixed income. How about offering some money incentives to people in my situation. I purposely purchased a home which is close to a neighborhood that has stores to meet my basic needs.
PS: I either take walk or take public transportation whenever I can and I drive less than 100 miles a month in a 21 year old automobile.
As a 73 year old man myself I must say I want someone younger to run this country. I am fed up with all these arrogant old men running the show. It's time to look forward for a change.
"We must not allow the past to bury the future."
Warehouse 13 sound a bit like the older TV series"Friday the 13th.
However, as I recall, there was not much humor in the older TV series
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092357/
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Once seen as a lunatic fringe, reactionary anti-women groups are courting respectability
Salon headlines in your mailbox
