The Anecdote To Your Problems or Mykel's August 2024 Blog: YOU'RE STILL WRONG

You’re STILL Wrong
Mykel's

August 2024 Blog/Column

The Anecdote To Your Problems

If you have knowledge, let others light their candles in it.

                    -- Margaret Fuller

Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so.
                    -- Douglas Adams

Honey to heal a wound. Cherries for gout. Cod-liver oil— blech!—to keep your eyes healthy. Your grandmother and her doctors probably swore by these fixes, and now science is catching up with them.
                    -- Jen McCaffery and Tina Donvito

Anecdotal fallacy is when someone uses a personal story or a few individual cases to make a broad claim. Just because it happened to one person doesn't mean it's a universal truth. The bigger picture often involves research and data that can offer a more accurate view.
                    --Practicalpie.com

Practicalpie...You’re wrong!

                    -- Mykel Board

I’m more frustrated than a chimp with his fist stuck in a jellybean jar. My left testicle itches… not the whole thing… just one spot.. about an inch down from where the skin joins the leg. It’s a narrow piercing itch, like I’ve been stabbed by a knitting needle and instead of pain, the reaction is… ITCH. As intolerable as pain… as severe as pain… only not pain… itch. I’m at a table in the library… a great old building... used to be a church, I think. A winding staircase connects the floors. The table, nice wood, about 5 feet wide by 15 feet long. Seven other people sit at the table… about two feet between us. I feel like I have to grab myself… between the legs… and scratch, rub… or insert my hand under my belt and rake my nails over the offending part. I’m too shy to do any of that… Yeah, there’s the bathroom under an arch on the other side of the reading room. Must be all-gendered because a line of people… boys and girls… waits to get in. I can’t wait.

I move my left hand under the table… pretend I’m scratching my knee. Slowly, I raise the hand up scratching my thigh. I realize my upper arm, pressing against the table shakes the furniture. People look at me, squinting in anger. I stop scratching. Now I squeeze my thighs together, rubbing them… one against the other. No… no… this won’t work. I can’t take it. I stand… the itch gets vaguely lighter. I walk out of the library…. Run home… grab a bottle of rubbing alcohol from the rack on the bathroom door… drop trou… bathe the affected part in 90%… ow… ow… ow… aaaaah. Relief.

FLASH TO ABSTRACTION: Strangely, I find people who are non-religious… even atheist... talk about their advantages as being blessed. They talk about being grateful for their good hearing or their ability to write books. I don’t get it. If you are BLESSED with something… who (what) did the blessing? You can’t be blessed unless someone blesses you. On Passover, I bless the matzoh. I do the blessing. The matzoh is blessed. It is not part of the ritual for the matzo to bless me. I don’t know how it could.

Jordan licks the tip after giving me the best blowjob I’ve had in years. I’m GRATEFUL. I received the gift from Jordan. I’m grateful TO Jordan for the gift. You cannot be grateful for something unless you’re grateful TO someone.

FLASH TO REALITY: I am grateful to my friends who disagree with me. There are a lot of people in the world who disagree with me. Most I’ve never met. Some stopped being my friends because they don’t like my politics, my attitude, my brown skin tags. But I also have friends who I’m grateful to for continuing the discussion. For contradicting me, but remaining friends. For sitting and talking and disagreeing… for pointing me in a new direction… for teaching me how other people think… for putting up with my scratching under the table. My friends tell me about the way they look at the world. Sometimes they think things, maybe repeat what they’ve heard elsewhere, try to discuss with logic. Even when they get to the eye-rolling stage, they don’t give up on me... at least they don’t give up being my friend. I’m grateful to them for their friendship… for their willingness to explain… for their presence. I’m not blessed to have such friends. No one gave them to me. But I am grateful TO them.

“Okay Mykel,” says literary device, “can you put the pieces together? What does being blessed, being grateful, and having cool friends have to do with an itchy testicle? Can you connect the dots… er… scrota?”

Ah, literary device. I’m lucky she’s there whenever I need her. I’m grateful to myself for inventing her. The gist of this blog came from a lunchtime conversation I had with Jim and Dawn. They are two of my friends who often disagree with me, but despite that disagreement, remain my friends. I’m grateful TO them for that. We’re talking about the American healthcare industry. I say that I’ve been to 71 countries, and among the ones called First World, the US system is the worst… even beating some Second and Third worlders. It’s the only country you have to PAY for an ambulance to take you to the hospital. And I’m talkin’ hundreds of dollars.

[NOTE: Since I posted this, a European friend has told me that they charge 71 euros in Belgium for an ambulance. That's still less than half of what they charge in New York, See how important anecdotes are?]

I tell them about my pal Marilyn, who when in England suddenly developed a stomach something or other. She was staying in a cheapish hotel, and crawled to the concierge to ask how much a doctor would cost and where she could find one.

“If you’re sick you go to the doctor… or a hospital. It doesn’t cost. You just go,” comes the answer. “Want me to call you an ambulance?”

“How m.. m… m…?” starts Marilyn.

“Pay for an ambulance? That’s crazy.” says the hotel lady. “That sounds like something from a Sci Fi movie. You know: dystopia.”

“Anyway, I don’t need one.” answers Marilyn. “Could you just get me the address of a doctor? I’ll take a taxi.”

I don’t know the diagnosis. A rotten crumpet maybe. But she saw a doctor, got diagnosed, maybe a prescription… and it was over. She paid the cab fare… that’s all.

“That’s anecdotal,” says Dawn when I relate the story. “You can’t go by what a person says. You need the science… the statistics.”

“Okay,” I say. “How ‘bout my London pal Alestair?” He had the same kind of prostate cancer I had. Went for the radiation. 20 treatments… one every two weeks. He just finished up… 7 months after diagnosis.

“Still anecdotal,” says Jim. “I’ll look it up. The cellphone comes out pop-doodle-pop.

“Google lists long wait times as one of the worst things about the British system. See? You can’t go by anecdotes.”

“You trust Google more than you trust my friends?”

“It’s science,” answers Dawn. “An anecdote is only what some people say happened to them. It could mean anything.”

SPEAKING OF THE INTERNET: Wikipedia tells me: Lies, damned lies, and statistics" is a phrase describing the persuasive power of statistics to bolster weak arguments. It’s one of the best, and best-known critiques of applied statistics. It is also sometimes colloquially used to doubt statistics used to prove an opponent's point. The phrase was popularized in the United States by Mark Twain (among others), who attributed it to the British prime minister Benjamin Disraeli.

FLASH TO MY BALLS: I don’t need Google-verified statistics. Rubbing alcohol works for me, so I use it. If you have the same problem, try it. If it doesn’t work for you, try something recommended by someone else. I posted a question on facebook asking people what they used in a way NOT recommended by the manufacturer or a white-coated salesman in doctor drag. Here are a few of the answers:

• I use Claritin over the Rx for my vertigo.

• Antiperspirant on feet. If I use it in the armpits, my lymph nodes swell up, so I have to use antiperspirant-free deodorant.

• Flonase for vertigo and mosquito bites

• I’ve heard that mouthwash is effective against an itchy scalp.

• I use yeast infection creme (Monestat) behind my ears

• I use the heartburn med Tagamet (which is a histamine blocker) and sucks for heartburn as an antihistamine to treat hives and allergies.

• Skin so Soft by Avon of all people repels deer ticks and mosquitoes

All this information is ANECDOTAL… yet I’d try any one of these tricks in a minute, over a scientifically proven (and advertised) cure. Anecdotes are REAL PEOPLE. They are not statistics. They are not victims of control groups, placebos, or tests the results of which will reverse themselves in 2 months. Anecdotes are my balls and Marilyn’s British stomach virus. Google statistics don’t mean a damn thing.

This is a religious-like worship of an absolute GOD of science with Google as its bible. It claims a truth as demanding as the belief that Jesus walked on water. It is a belief that rejects PEOPLE It rejects experience and replaces it with numbers.

I once got a mailing from some atheist group. It came with a sticker that said I BELIEVE IN GOOD… adding an O to the religious mantra. Well, I believe in GOODMAN… Frank Goodman who lives next door. And I believe in Abdula, Owasu, Tetsuya, Bob… and all the humans out there who have tried it out and passed it on. I believe in bodies more than test tubes... experience more than statistics… health reports more than dissection.

I WANT anecdotal evidence. If science tests 100 people and 76 of them get hair regrowth after drinking piss… I want to know what’s up with the other 24. Are they more like me? Do they have something special that keeps the baldness?

One of the most important people in my life is Sid Yiddish. I’ve voted for him for President in every election this millennium-- except when I voted for Obama. (What a mistake THAT was.) Sid will not eat food or take medicine if he doesn’t like the taste. He doesn’t eat fish, drink anything cola-flavored, hates mint and licorice. If he tells me something “is bad,” I know enough to ask, “Is it because of the taste or because it doesn’t work?” He is a real person and his opinions and recommendations can be narrowed down and explained. Those 24 people who had no success with piss drinking… Did they even try? What makes them different than the others? How could I ever know?

Get it? In my anti-science rampage, I’m running my jeep through the crowd of science supporters… flinging them… bloody... from the grill… left and right… ahead too so I can run them over. The story of their demise? ANECDOTAL of course. It’s not science until we have a test case… a crowd of Christians perhaps… crossing the street. Slammed into with a Tesla... the scientific method. Does the same thing happen both times? Is it reported in a respectable journal? Were the subjects strictly controlled? Does Google know about it?

Jen McCaffery and Tina Donvito (see quote at the beginning of this blog): You’re Right! Anecdotes are the Olympian runners. Science can only catch up.

See you in hell,
Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ MISSED IT BY THAT MUCH Dept.: Right after the Donny Trump ear attack, my pal Ed. opined, “It’s a fake! It sounded like a pop gun” He was met with a pooh pooh chorus. But I just read about how Teddy Roosevelt’s “attempted assassination” guaranteed him the presidency for a second term. And the more I think about it, the more it seems logical. What are the odds of such a close call? Some innocent shlub takes a bullet “to show the attack was real.” Who compared the deadly bullet with the one in the ear? No one! Isn’t it convenient that the shooter was killed before he could be questioned? Holy Lee Harvey Oswald batman! Next blog: CONSPIRACY?

→ COVID-24 DEPT: And speaking of conspiracies. Isn’t it a bit odd that the weak candidate, Joe Biden, should come down with Covid just in the middle of his campaign? After the bigwigs call on him to cut his losses and run, POW! Isolate in Delaware. In national policy, the guy wasn’t so bad. If he weren’t such a war-lover, I’d almost vote for him. Looks like the Dems are gonna lose everything this year. (I almost wrote “this ear”). LATE NEWS: Joe pulls out of the race. Turns it over to Kamala. Frankly, I think Sid has a better chance this year than he’s ever had before. He’s got my vote… again.

→ TOLD YOU SO DEPT: BBC News reports that one of the recent winners of the Nobel Prize for medicine discovered a breakthrough drug after poring over 2,000 ancient herbal recipes. Dr Tu Youyou's discovery, the anti-malarial artemisinin, derived from wormwood, is credited with saving millions of lives. From opium in poppies, to quinine derived from the cinchona tree, to digoxin from foxgloves, there are many gems unearthed from the past that have true testable medical benefits. All this was pre-science… just anecdotal… hundreds of years of anecdotes. Science is just catching up.

→COULD SEE THAT COMING DEPT: USA Today reports that Dustin Ebey, 35, a math teacher from north Texas, has changed his legal name to Literally Anybody Else and is running a write-in campaign for president of the United States. ABC13-TV reported that Else has revealed his running mate, Neal David Sutz, a New Yorker who is currently living in Switzerland. Else said Americans deserve better than the divisive, partisan electoral system we currently have. "This name gives everybody something to point to, to channel, that belonging to one movement, to one message that could hopefully have a meaningful impact," Else said.

See you in hell redux, 
MB

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

Mike Diana often censored great Boiled Angel comic artist invites you to check out his material. Take a look at it at: http://mikedianacomix.com/boiled-angel 

Here’s Ricardo Wang with a “micro-label” in Seattle “specializing in 8-track tapes and CDs. WOW! Check out one of their label staples: The Dead Air Fresheners.

Also on bandcamp: My very long time faves in NYC, the BLACKOUT SHOPPERS. Featuring pals Seth and possibly the next vice-president of the US

Here’s an update on the current URL for Sid Yiddish’s Dating Game (type) entry.

And this sounds right up Sid’s alley. The Bilderberg Jazz Arkestra on Bandcamp!

Eric Grayson has an online music review zine, Sobriquet. Full pictures of the sleeves too! Something missing from too many zines. Sometimes you CAN judge a… er… book… by its cover.

Steen Thomsen is a Dane I’ve known ever since Lincoln was shot. I put his band THE ZERO POINT on the great WORLD CLASS PUNK Cassette for ROIR. It must be worth a mint now. I don’t have any left, I’m afraid. You can (and should) connect to the Zero Point on facebook. Tell ‘em Mykel’s blog sent you.

Sorry Dorothy, we are STILL in Kansas. And it’s as weird as OZ. Check out Bob Cutler’s DISTOPEKA.

And for a quiet smile and a much needed break for you and the dog, try G.C. Adams’ YouTube entry.

You already know Murder & Mayhem zine… those guys who did the Mykel Board centerfold. (No genitals shown… and probably for the better.) Their online version is here.

The Clean Boys from Denmark are also longtime friends of mine. In Denmark we recorded as The Bend-over Boys. Only one 10-inch available… but at least now I can say I have a 10-incher!

Finally, for this month, Margaret O’Brian asked me to include the site: anti-war.com They seem to be folks after my own heart.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com

Follow The Science? or Mykel's Blog for September 2023

 

FOLLOW THE SCIENCE? or Mykel's September 2023 Blog

   

Follow The Science? ... or Mykel's Blog for September

You’re STILL Wrong

or

Mykel's August 2023 Blog/Column 

Follow The Science    

by Mykel Board

“If we knew what it was we were doing, it would not be called research, would it?” - Albert Einstein

“It would be possible to describe everything scientifically, but it would make no sense; it would be without meaning, as if you described a Beethoven symphony as a variation of wave pressure.” - Albert Einstein

“If you try and take a cat apart to see how it works, the first thing you have on your hands is a non-working cat.” - Douglas Adams

The foot bone connected to the leg bone,
The leg bone connected to the knee bone,
The knee bone connected to the thigh bone,
The thigh bone connected to the back bone,
The back bone connected to the neck bone,
The neck bone connected to the head bone,
Oh, hear the word of the Lord!
Dem bones, dem bones gonna walk aroun',
Dem bones, dem bones, gonna walk aroun'
                                             --Delta Rhythm Boys, 1941

It’s the big lecture hall. 200 seats… theater style… a lectern and a speaker… the world-famous Chemist, Dr. Hans Zarkov. He wears a white lab coat.

To the right and left of the lectern are huge matching plexiglass cubes. each one is 7 feet tall by 15 feet wide and 15 feet long. Inside the cubes are students who volunteered for this experiment in science. Each cube has a small tube connected through one wall. The other end of the tube is connected to a large gas canister. Each tube connects to a different canister.

“Good evening students,” says Dr. Zarkov… with just a hint of a Slavic accent. “Today we will talk about the scientific method and how we can separate myth from reality. You remember the principles.

Now let us look at water. A simple substance… made of hydrogen and oxygen… which for years has been labeled a necessity for human existence. But is it? Let us examine in detail... by experimentation… the scientific method… to see what it is in water that supports human life.”

The doctor walks over to the cubicle on the right. A few students inside press their faces against the plexiglass like children looking into a toy store window.

“You know that water consists of two ingredients… hydrogen and oxygen. But is it the water or the ingredients that promote life?”

The doctor taps the cubicle. “Start the gas,” he says.

Students in the front of the lecture hall can hear a faint hissing sound as the gas enters the cubicle. The students inside look toward the pipe opening. A few smile. One suddenly breaks into a dance. Before long, there’s a little circle. They’re dancing the hora. The doctor smiles, gives them the thumbs up, then turns to the audience.

“That was the oxygen,” he says.

Then he walks to the other cubicle.

“Start the gas,” he tells the tank operator.

Again a faint hiss… but the young people inside the cube do not look happy. A girl in a tight sweater… wearing yoga pants... begins to cough. The group moves away from the pipe… crowding into a corner. Several others in the group begin to cough. One young man, short, with a carefully-trimmed unshaven look, lies on the floor of the cube. Before long another collapses, Then another… soon the cube is filled with unmoving bodies.

“That was the hydrogen,” says the doctor. “And you are witnesses today. You can see that water is NOT what preserves human life. It is oxygen –and only oxygen– that preserves us. Hydrogen is a dangerous poison. It can kill. It is the scientific method that has proved it. Congratulations to those still alive. You have graduated from students to scientists.”

FLASH TO MORPHOLOGY 101: Professor Board stands at the front of the class... in front of a whiteboard. He wears a GG Allin t-shirt and torn jeans. His long hickory pointing stick leans against his desk… between the whiteboard and the class.

Students bend over their notebooks, furiously scribbling Board’s words. Board turns his back to class and writes a list of words... in red marker... on the whiteboard.

snore
snot
sneeze
sniffle
snout

Then he turns back to the class. “Yeah, we got snow and snake… but they’re not part of the group I’m talking about.”

A very butch girl, sitting at a desk in the first row, half-raises her hand accompanied by an attention-getting snort.

“Okay, Dr. Board,” she says. “Are you going to tell us what this is about? Or do we have to guess.”

Board lifts one nostril in a condescending sneer. “I’ll let you guess,” he says. “Waddaya think?”

“They’re all NOSE-words,” answers the girl, pulling her shoulders back like she’s just volunteered for the suicide squad. Board grabs the wooden pointer. Holding one end, he smacks it on the desktop. THWAP!

“BINGO!” answers Dr. Board. “You got it. Many –maybe most– words starting with SN are nose words in English. The letters SN are called semi-morphemes to distinguish them from full morpheme like inter and hypo.

“Now look at these…” Dr. Board turns his back to the class and writes:

sculpture
scoop
scar
scab
schizophrenic
scatter

“I got it!” the professor hears a call from the back of the room and turns around, again slapping his hickory pointer against the desktop. THWAP!

It’s Tommy Lee, a Chinese foreign exchange student. “They all mean cut or divide… I always wondered why scissors started with sc and not a plane old s. Now I know!” As he speaks, Tommy not-so-subtly scratches between his legs. “That SC,” he continues. “It’s a semi-morgue.”

“Semi-morph,” corrects Prof. Board, “but you got the idea.”

And YOU, dear reader? You got the idea? Science is about cutting… about dividing… about looking at the part… the butterfly in Brazil… and not counting that tornado in China.

It’s easy to see the evils brought on us by science. Can you say Hiroshima and Nagasaki? You got trans-fats, margarine and Round-up insecticide? I guess few people reading this are old enough to remember the pregnancy drug Thalidomide... a sedative staple for new mothers.

Everyone was taking it. The science said it was a great medicine. Besides being a sedative, it was a strong anti-nausea medication for pregnant women with morning sickness. Then they realized…

Whoops!

There is a publication, I think from the same folks who publish Consumer Reports. It’s called Worst Pills Best Pills… comes out every month and lists all the mistakes pharmaceutical scientists have made in the recent past. There’s a ton of ‘em.

And doctors? When there once was “a family doctor” that took care of everything, doctors now specialize in tiny pieces of the body... specialties cut into tiny sub-specialties.

Doctor X never sees the connection between the head bone and the toe bone. He barely knows the toe bone exists. He’s a head man.

TRUE STORY: I call my urologist after a biopsy, its anesthesia, and its antibiotics gives me the shits… for days! What should I do?

“Go to the emergency room… or urgent care or something,” he tells me. “I’m not a gastroenterologist.”

At a later appointment, I overhear him telling another patient “you have a lot of sugar in your urine.”

“What should I do about it?” asked the patient.

“That’s not my department,” says the doctor. “You need to talk to a specialist.”

There are a few doctors who consider themselves “holistic.” But they don’t enjoy high status in the medical profession. Insurance usually won’t pay for them.

The scientists who developed plastics – or the gasoline engines-- never saw the coming pollution crisis. Now the “solutions” to those problems create problems of their own. Batteries in electric cars and scooters require rare mineral mining that destroys seabeds and turns the ocean red. The vehicles themselves spontaneously burst into flame. Wind farms to generate “clean” electricity kill thousands of birds. Electric replacements for coal factories start out-of-control wildfires.

It’s the semi-morpheme of SCience that’s the problem.

FLASH TO HIPPOCRATES: He’s just finished writing his new doctors’ oath: First do no harm. Now he’s in the lab with his students.

The doctor holds a squirming mouse by the tail. Turning his Greek head to look behind him, he calls on one of the boys in class to help demonstrate the scientific method.

“Dimitrios,” he says, “come here and hold the mouse on the table so it doesn’t move. I want to show you how we examine what makes it move in the first place.”

The boy grimaces… obviously not a fan of mouse-holding. But he walks up, takes the creature from Hippocrates, and holds it to the table by the head and tail. The doctor takes a sharp pointed knife and thrusts it into the soft belly of the mouse. A little pop of blood comes out of the animal as the knife goes in. Soon the pop becomes a puddle.

The boy, somewhat upset at the sight lets go of the mouse… It doesn’t move. “How are you going to find out about movement?” asks the boy. “It’s not moving!”

To its credit, science has recognized the problem. It’s called The Observer Effect. It says that the instruments used to measure something change the thing being measured. Unfortunately, scientists don’t realize that THEY are the instruments.

If all this weren’t bad enough, what happens in the current state of science worship is that those who say THAT’S WRONG… those who give an alternative viewpoint... are demonized as stupid or evil. It’s often the press who does the demonizing… sometimes the government.

Then there’s Robert Kennedy Jr, running against Joe Biden in the Democratic primaries. So what does he think about the Ukraine war? Or about the current dollars-for-death policy of the US? Is he going to save Medicare? And censorship from the right and left… what about that?

You won’t find answers on the news or from the Biden attack ponies. There’s only one issue for them. RFK is

ANTI-VAX

No matter that he has other political opinions about other things. The VACCINE is the focus. No matter that he has had vaccines that have been (sort of) proven over time: Smallpox, Polio, etc. He’s had ‘em all… except for the COVID VACCINE.

And what about Bronny James, son of LeBron James… a heart attack at 18! Was he vaccinated? You’ll never know from the news reports of the collapse. They talk about heart attacks and “sudden deaths between 2004 and 2008” What about during COVID time? What about among the vaccinated or not? Any difference? Not a peep.

And for me? What about ARTLESS drummer Michael Evans. In his fifties, a wildman... peak physical condition… not a drug user… a healthfood fanatic. BANG! Heart attack. Did he have one of those vaccines? Which one? We’re not allowed to ask. Just asking the question means we’re spreading conspiracy theories… misinformation.

If science is a process of hypothesis, testing, adjusting and correcting hypotheses, as my friends claim… then how can you gag those who say the hypotheses are wrong? How can you prevent those who believe that thalidomide causes birth defects or that the earth revolves around the sun from expressing those beliefs? How can you call them spreaders of misinformation, when scientists themselves explain their science as a history of misinformation?

But wait, there’s more. Back to Professor Board… It’s the SC… the cut… the examination of the part… sometimes the microscopic part… to make your hypotheses.

I remember as a kid my father read me a story about some blind men who were introduced to an elephant and were describing what they felt. Wikipedia tells it this way:

The first person, whose hand landed on the trunk, said, "This being is like a thick snake". For another one whose hand reached its ear, it seemed like a kind of fan. Another person, whose hand was upon its leg, said, the elephant is a pillar like a tree-trunk. The blind man who placed his hand upon its side said the elephant, "is a wall". Another who felt its tail, described it as a rope. The last felt its tusk, stating the elephant is that which is hard, smooth and like a spear.

The blind men are the men of science. Scientists recently reported that alcohol in any amount is unhealthy and cancer-causing. This conclusion came through the scientific method. When you elbow the scientists in the ribs and ask about cultures famously long-lived like those in Eastern Russian and Okinawa… and oh yeah, a recent Dutch study that found that people who drink more live longer.

“It may be something else in the culture that contributes to the longevity,” say scientists.

“It may be EVERYTHING in the culture that contributes to the longevity,” I answer.

When a philosopher asks What is love? The physicist answers it’s electrons traveling through the nervous system stimulating body parts in reaction to another person. The chemist says it’s a chemical soup of Dopamine, Oxytocin, and Serotonin. One biologist on the internet says, “we might think about love as the emergent result of neurons firing in the amygdala.” That is the nature of science… blind men feeling an elephant.

How ‘bout asking a poet what love is? Well, those of us old enough to have gone to school when poetry was as important as STEM might remember Robert Burns:

My love is like a red red rose
That’s newly sprung in June
My love is like the melody
That’s sweetly played in tune

Cutting it to pieces is not a description. Someone who’s never fallen in love will not learn what it’s like from a firing in the amygdala. Love is poetry.

The world is like love. If you don’t see how the wing-flapping butterfly in New York is related to the typhoon in Japan, you can’t see what makes up the world. If you slice and dice and microscope the cosmos, it is no longer the cosmos.

Yes, I hate science. What science tells me today will not be true tomorrow. In fact, the mistake may kill people –a lot of people– while waiting for its correction. The cosmos is a vast interconnected whole… but it takes a poet to know that – not a scientist.

See you in hell,
Mykel Board

ENDNOTES: [You can contact me on facebook or by email at mykelboard@gmail.com. Through the post office: send those... er... private DVDs..or music or zines... or anything else (legal only!) to: Mykel Board, POB 137, New York, NY 10012-0003. If you like my writing, you can be notified when anything new is available. Send me an email with SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Back blogs and columns are at https://mykelsblog.blogspot.com]

→ Don’t Look Under the Mattress Dept: The Epoch Times reports Helen Grus--an Ottawa Police Service detective is being charged with “disorderly conduct” for investigating the vaccination status of the mothers of deceased infants. She sent two emails to the Police Chief to discuss a spike in infant deaths and a number of police officers with COVID-19 vaccine-related heart problems. Ms. Grus faces a charge of “discreditable conduct” for conducting an "unauthorized project" by probing into the sudden deaths.

→ Department of Truth Dept: YouTube has introduced a new medical misinformation policy that will censor any medical or health-related content that doesn't align with claims made by the World Health Organization. YouTube earlier had a "COVID-19 Misinformation Policy" webpage that stated that the platform doesn't allow content that "poses a serious risk of egregious harm” and spreads "medical misinformation" contradicting what the WHO or local health authorities (LHA) say about the COVID-19 pandemic. The webpage now redirects to a "medical misinformation policy" page that expands the censorship rule to "specific health conditions and substances" rather than COVID-19 alone. Content that contradicts guidance on treatments, including promoting "specific harmful substances or practices" not approved by authorities or the WHO as safe and effective, also won't be allowed on the platform.

→ A Petition I Can Sign Dept: I wish I could sign the now-closed Change.org petition to refuse Jeff Bezos re-entry to earth after he takes a trip on the Amazon Space Rocket. Such a good idea, but I guess the question was Who do you send the petition to? The UN army? Anyway, I’m glad to see it got over 200,000 signatures. I just wish I was one of them.

See you in hell, redux,

Mykel Board

THE NATION AGAIN

I’m a long-time subscriber to the The Nation. It’s the only lefty publication that I find myself not only agreeing with, but also getting inspiration from. Strangely, when I post this stuff on facebook, no one looks at it. My “friends” would just rather call me a “Trumpist” or a “Republican” for all the times I don’t follow the party line. If it’s printed in THE NATION, it should give me street cred, right? Yeah right.
    This time, Jeet Heer writes about how NATO has become a first world fortress against the rest of the world… and how the allies support for Ukraine (and not, for instance, African democracy) is bringing back cold war politics and leaving out the poorer countries of the world.

Then there’s a regular feature “by the numbers.” You draw your own conclusions:

LINK TRADE DEPARTMENT:

I did a nice interview with The Aither zine. Interesting questions, complete, and questions I’ve never been asked before. You can read it here. It’s a good one.

I read that the search engines like lots of links... and it's also nice to support my friends and enemies in their blogs. So facebook me or email me if you have a blog, webpage or something else to connect to. I add you. You add me.

Here's a start:

Jason Rodgers sent me his book Invisible Generation… free! And I lost it. Jason, a long-time partner of Suzy Poe, has been bugging me to review it… and I can’t. So the best I can do is promote it. I have a lot of respect for Jason… he is a libertarian (in the best sense of the word), and a super-smart guy. When/if I find the book, I’ll give you some more details.

Video of the week: My long-time friend Sid Yiddish appears on a YouTube DatingGame-like video. Guess who wins the bachelorette!

Here’s Richard Goldberg: goldberg.wordpress.com

Poetry and humor fans will like Justin Martin in The Latency

And my friend Mike R has a nice site with recipe hits from the past! (He cooked for me once... great stuff.) Check out Yesterday's Recipes.

And here's one by a member of ANTI-SEEN... a tour diary of sorts.

Andy Shelton has an interesting blog here.

Savage Hippie is a guy who has been YouTubing for a long time. Our opinions largely overlap... but he complains that I'm a Communist. I'm not! I'm a communist.

Chris Stecher publishes a zine called PRECIS. You can see the back issue links there... and he promises a new issue soon.

George Fertakis has a very nice graphics-heavy blog... with music and books featured prominently. If there’s no link here (I can’t find it temporarily), then Google… er… Duckduckgo him for information.

And my long-term pal Sid Yiddish contributes with his Mishegas Master Blog.

And connect to TRUST Zine, a long-running German punk zine… that STILL PRINTS!!! Yeah, they have a website too… of course! It’s here.

Here are a couple video links.

This from Jon Cox https://squelchchamber1.bandcamp.com/album/down-so-low

And this one from my very long-time friend Roger Armstrong.

Jim Testa moved his long running zine, Jersey Beat, to the blogosphere awhile back. You can read it here. Jim also recommended a kind of unique album… in a style you don’t see to much of these days… or any days. Neo-Hassidic Rock Opera. You can stream the album here.

Kyle Nonneman is in prison in Portland. At least he can’t be kidnapped by the secret police… I think. I post his blog for him, he can’t do it from the klink. Lots of stuff about noise metal… and some very weird politics that will either fascinate or repulse you… or both.

My long time pal, Jim Hayes rightfully complained about my leaving out his blog. He’s a great writer, so it was a tragic omission. Here it is.

Oh yeah, then there’s me. I have a blog of stuff I’ve written mostly from last century. You might enjoy it. Then again, you might not. It’s here.

Let me know if you have a blog… or a print zine… or a YouTube and want to be added to the list. You show me yours… you’ve already seen mine. god@mykelboard.com