Words may convey unintended results

By words the mind is winged.
- Aristophanes, dramatist (c. 448-385 BCE)

As well, the mind may be imprisoned.

We create worlds based on the words we hear from others and the words we speak to ourselves in our thoughts. These worlds may not be similar to the worlds of those who are closest to us, those who have experienced the same words.

Words shape our thoughts, our interpretation of words lends shade and nuance to those thoughts and the worlds we create from them for ourselves. Someone may become our enemy, for example, based not on the words that person says (as they were intended) but by our interpretation of those words.

Whenever we are in any doubt as to the meaning of words we hear or read, we would be wise to ask the user of those words to explain their meaning further. Whenever words we hear are hurtful, our first reaction should be to question whether the speaker intended them to be hurtful or simply used the wrong words to convey a thought.

Otherwise we may create false worlds that could result in fear, discomfort, even alienation for ourselves.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to encourage people to ask when the meaning of words they hear or read is in doubt, to avoid causing self-hurt.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Good reasons and real reasons

A person usually has two reasons for doing something: a good reason and the real reason.
- Thomas Carlyle, historian and essayist (1795-1881)

The "good reason" is usually one that others will accept. The "real reason" is one of personal interest. The latter may be one of greed, of compassion, of curiosity, of conscience-easement or of altruism, but it is usually one that the person prefers to not share with others.

Something to consider when we wonder why someone has done something the way they did.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to take the mystery out of personal relations.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Trust is a matter of necessity

"It is impossible to go through life without trust: that is to be imprisoned in the worst cell of all, oneself."
- Graham Greene

Humans are social animals. Social animals depend on each other for their survival, including their security, supply of food, defence and general welfare. We need each other for other reasons, including exploration of ideas, development of solutions to problems, even for touch and love.

A person who trusts no one is by definition alone, unable to socialize easily with others. To be able to work with others means that some personal sacrifice is necessary because we must trust others in order to get something from them.

The difference between trusting others and not trusting others hinges on a decision. Explanations for why one should not trust others merely cloud the issue, acting as excuses for avoiding making a necessary decision.

We trust others or we do not have much of a life. Others will betray our trust, true enough, but we will betray the trust of others as well. Some flexibility and forgiveness are part of being human.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give people reasons to trust for their own good health.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

We get the government we care about

The only maxim of a free government ought to be to trust no man living with power to endanger the public liberty.
- John Adams, 2nd US president (1735-1826)

This is exactly what we do, as voters, when we pay no attention to the governing of our communities and our countries between elections. We trust those we elect (people we often know very little about) to govern us in a safe, respectable and honest manner.

This would be similar to the owner of a business only checking in with those who operate the business for them every two or four years. This never happens with businesses unless the owners don't care if the business disappears.

It happens in most democracies. We get the government we care about.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help governments make citizens part of the governing process instead of victims of it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

They were never children

"People who get nostalgic about childhood were obviously never children."
- Bill Watterson, from the comic strip Calvin and Hobbes

Childhood isn't easy for anyone. The point Watterson makes is that the best part of childhood is the memories of the best things that happened to us as children.

Selective memory is the term used to describe the filtering system our brain uses to block out the bad elements of our memories while making the good elements vivid and clear. We use selective memory to block out unhappy events of our childhood (much of the time) while enhancing the good times.

One of the worst things about childhood is that a child never knows what may happen next. Their future could change at any time. That may partly explain why many adults want conditions to remain the same in their lives for long periods of time, as that would give them the stability they so desperately lacked as children.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help parents and teachers explain to children what is ahead for them so the future is not so frightening.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

The harm we do without intention

"Half of the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don't mean to do harm. But the harm does not interest them."
- TS Eliot, American-born British critic and poet (1888-1965)

The harm does not interest them. That means that either they are incapable of understanding the concept that what they do harms others and this is bad, or that the concept is an important part of the teaching by parents to young children, a part these people missed.

One of the worst "sins by default" that parents can make is to assume that their children get life lessons somewhere along the way, they they do not have to be taught because they are "common sense" that everyone knows.

Nothing is common sense to someone who has not been taught. Common sense itself must be taught or it is not acquired.

A child is born knowing nothing but how to suck and what the smell of its mother is like. Everything after that must be taught. If anything is not taught purposefully and thoughtfully, it may be a lesson that is never learned. Or it may be a lesson that is learn wrongly because it was learned from someone who had their own best interests in mind and not that of the child-learner.

A drug dealer would be one such person.

Leave nothing to chance when raising a child. Teach everything.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help all parents understand that common sense is only common when it is taught to every child.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Governments don't lose wars

People rarely win wars; governments rarely lose them.
- Arundhati Roy, writer and activist (1961- )

Does that seem like a contradiction? It isn't. A government remains
intact if someone dies. No one accepts full responsibility for
anything in government.

If you look at the lives of everyone who is affected by war in any
way, not a single one of them is improved as a result of war. Many
continue their lives after a war with post traumatic stress syndrome
that never disappears. At best it gets suppressed.

No one who doesn't have a death wish begins a war in their own
neighbourhood. Wars are always begun "over there." Other governments
begin wars in our neighbourhood.

A government trains its soldiers to kill without remorse. An
individual who does that is convicted to life imprisonment or death.

No one truly understands war because they are waged by governments.

Government work is carried out by people who are trained to have no
people skills. If what they do results in harm, they have no remorse.

It's not their fault. It's the government. Governments have no
conscience. Governments rarely lose wars because the enemy was always wrong.

The enemy, it turns out, has no conscience either.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social
Problems,' striving to teach children ethics that become the basis for
conscience in adulthood.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

The past haunts our future

Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
- George Santayana, philosopher (1863-1952)

This quote is often used as a level to encourage people to learn
history. Yet the importance of the message is lost unless the proper
stress is place where it needs to be.

It's not history itself that must be studied, but the history of human
behaviour. That is, history is replete with examples of situations
where if a person does THIS, THAT is likely to result.

This, the consequences of certain actions or behaviour, is something
that can be taught, that should be taught.

It must be taught in order for us to reduce the level of social
problems we endure today.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social
Problems,' striving to teach people to consider the consequences of
their behaviour before they find themselves in serious trouble.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

A lazy brain could kill you

"Reading is to the mind what exercise is to the body."
- Sir Richard Steele

Reading forces the brain to think, a grand concept that involves several different brain processes, often involving both halves of the brain. Visual/aural input alone, such as from television or movies, requires extremely little brain effort, a little to follow a story line and the rest to put the input data into storage.

While too much of anything may have its harmful consequences, too little thinking may actually shorten one's life. When the brain atrophies from lack of work, it may eventually give up control of the immune system, which is a guarantee of impending disease.

As the brain controls virtually everything in every part of our body, anything that impairs its ability to be in complete control risks our life. Those who disagree with this conclusion may want to rethink the argument in their next life.

And don't get too close to anyone in this life who might miss you when you are gone.

Bill Allin
'Turning it Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help people put the world and their lives in perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Failure is part of the road to success

"The guy who takes a chance, who walks the line between the known and unknown, who is unafraid of failure, will succeed."
- Gordon Parks

Each of us must give due consideration to those factors which could bring about the failure of a project we will embark upon. That's part of the due diligence required for a major project. But fear imprisons us, shackles us to impotence.

The successful person sees failure as a valuable learning experience on the road to success. An unsuccessful person sees failure as a necessary way of life.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help people put life into perspective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Want to get rich? Avoid the stock market.

"In one 22-year study tracking the careers of 1,500 men and women, 83 of whom became millionaires, the researcher found that not a single person in the study became wealthy investing in the stock market. In fact, most of the people in the study were still struggling financially after 22 years of work, and one of the main reasons was because they had lost so much money investing their savings in stocks recommended by financial advisers."
- Brian Tracy, Getting Rich Your Own Way

The moral is either to avoid taking the advice of financial advisors or to stay out of investing in the stock market.

People get rich by investing in the stock market. But they earn their riches from the losing investments of the small investor who doesn't have time to follow what the stock market is doing.

No way of earning money comes easy. Either you earn it with your own efforts at a job or you earn it with your own efforts by becoming an expert investor. Saving it under a mattress doesn't work because inflation makes its value less each year.

You need to become knowledgeable if you want someone else to earn money for you.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make each person an expert at a few things.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Who is your best friend?

"The cat could very well be man's best friend but would never stoop to admitting it."
- Doug Larson

The cat is therefore not man's best friend. Friends tell what they mean to each other. Not in words, necessarily, but in actions and gestures at least.

No one who must stoop to anything can be a real friend. Friends are always on the same level. When someone is not, a friend will raise him to his level.

Friends make you better. Anyone who does not make you better is not a friend.

Anyone who cannot make others better is incapable of making friends. What a terrible deficit to have missed such lessons in childhood.

When a pet is your best friend, you missed some important lessons as a child.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach children how to make a keep friends.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Walk beside the leader

Every individual…has to retain his way of thinking if he does not want to get lost in the maze of possibilities. However, nobody is sure of having taken the right road, me the least.
- Albert Einstein (written May 25, 1953, near the end of his life)

The more we retain our own way of thinking, the more dedicated we are to doing things our own way, the greater the chance that we will make a mistake. Yet not making mistakes means not learning, which means not improving ourselves. Mistakes are an essential part of life if we are to get better rather than just older.

Those who do not make mistakes get into less trouble, but they simply exist rather than live. They follow someone else, trying to live vicariously from their leader.
It doesn't work. Following a leader when the leader leads by consensus is constructive. Following a leader who has his own agenda and seeks his own best interests is a waste of life.

Life is not given to us to turn over to a self-interested leader. It is only meaningful when we help others, when their bests interests become ours as well.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give everyone the skill and the ability to lead their own life rather than follow selfish leaders.
Learn more at http;//billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Ignorance is a form of self-harm

Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored.
- Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)

Governments routinely ignore facts which may affect legislation that could impact our lives for two reasons. One is that they have not been fully apprised of the facts and their implications. The second is because they are influenced by lobbyists for major business interests.

The first reason results from the situation where we do not have channels set up to funnel information from those who do studies to those who make decisions. Studies by university academics, for example, often fail to reach decision makers in government because the professors have no motivation to go to the effort required to make their new inforamtion available to the public. The except to this is when a study has been sponsored by a major pharmaceutical company or industry with lobby interests.

The second reason exists because, to a great extent, industrialists control the legislation and policies adopted by governments. This is the case because ordinary voters have little interest in learning about wht their governments do. To some extent, voters know little because the information that they need to know is not available to them through the media.

A Turning It Around program would eliminate the second reason for government ignorance by teaching children to be aware of what information is available and encouraging them to participate in the activities of their governments.

A TIA program could also alleviate the first reason for government ignorance by giving new information new channels to reach the public, thus to government representatives.

No one benefits from ignorance, but many may be harmed.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach children to become participating adults instead of ignorant spectators and complainers.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Fascinated by sex?

"It has struck me that people who aren't getting enough sex are always very fascinated by it, even if the fascination takes the form of them being very very cross that other people are getting some."
- John Cleese

I'm not fascinated by sex. Nope, not me.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach people about certain subjects so that they do not become fascinated by the mystery of them.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

The power to be humble

It is always the secure who are humble.
- G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)

Those who are secure can afford to be humble. Others, by comparison, are desperately struggling to earn a place in the world.

Healthy and comfortably well off politicians make decisions about health care for children, the elderly and disabled adults.

Financially secure industry leaders make decisions about the prices to be charged for items to be purchased by those who have to scrimp on their food to buy other needed items.

To be secure is to have power. To be humble about it is to be confident in one's ability to hold on to that power.

Yet we each have within us the ability to be secure within ourselves, if we learn how to reach that stage. The power of self confidence is reachable if we are taught how to find it. Thus we have the potential to be humble, no matter what our financial or social position.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach everyone how to achieve self confidence.
Learn more are http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Dinosaurs of humankind

"He that never changes his opinions, never corrects his mistakes, will never be wiser on the morrow than he is today."
- Tyron Edwards

A person who never changes his opinions and who insists that others who change theirs are unstable or lack conviction is someone who does not learn. Such a person ignores history that shows that progress reveals a steady increase in available information and stifles the natural curiosity that caused the human species to be more sophisticated than other animals today.

This kind of person will not be able to hold back progress for long, but he can do a great deal of damage to educated and knowledgeable individuals he encounters along the way. And he may be able to hobble whole societies for decades.

We need to be able to recognize these people as human dinosaurs who, while influential, ultimately do more harm than good.

Progress may not be pretty, but it is inevitable. It's up to us to give it direction instead of letting it run unchecked.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to encourage the natural curiosity of children to remain with them through their adults lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Ignorance breeds prejudice

Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge.
- Charles Darwin, naturalist and author (1809-1882)

A well-educated person, a person with knowledge, is never completely confident of anything. He knows so much that he understands not even the best of contingency plans will cover all possible things that may go wrong.

He also knows what he doesn't know, he is aware of how much more there is to learn about any given subject.

An ignorant person knows so little about the subject that he may proceed with it blithely with great confidence of success or accomplishment of his mission.
A knowledgeable person may become arrogant because he knows so much more than others. An ignorant person may become arrogant because he firmly believes that he knows as much as he needs to know and no further learning is necessary.

Only the ignorant person may become a bigot. Bigotry requires a large measure of ignorance. Prejudice founds itself on the belief that "we know what we need to know".

A bigot becomes confused or angry when presented with more facts. A knowledgeable hungers for more facts.

The world needs more of this kind of hunger.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to create a hunger for knowledge that will leave no room for prejudice. Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

The why to live

He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.
– Friedrich Nietzsche

This is simply a different way of saying that we need to have objectives in our lives. If we know where we are going and have confidence that we will eventually reach our destination, we can understand and accept more readily that there will be bumps on the road that we must endure.

Here are a few possible life objectives that some people aim for:
- I want to be rich
- I want to be famous
- I want to live more comfortably than my neighbours
- I want to help as many others as I can because they will enrich my life

Consider four people with these four objectives, each on his or her deathbed. Which do you think will be most satisfied with their life?
Which will be more prepared for a life to follow?

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give people life objectives that will make their lives better, not just faster, more complicated or more risky.
Learn more at http;//billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Believe and you will create

Be not afraid of life. Believe that life is worth living and your belief will help create the fact.
- William James

The strange reality of life is that each life is lived within the brain of the person who lives it. Two people who share the same experience often disagree as to what happened. Two people who are the closest of friends are often surprised at how little they know of the real person their friend is.

The same person having the same experience two or more times might even interpret it differently each time.

Life is not just what you make of it, it's what you believe it is. If you believe that life is worth living, it will be. If you believe it is not worth living, your life will meet that belief.

You build your own life. Fate merely provides the bricks while you create the mortar to build of them what you will.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give people strong mortar with which to build good lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Can wrong ever be right? Maybe

"Every vice was once a virtue, and may become respectable again, just as hatred becomes respectable in time of war."
- Will Durant

At first blush, this is a tough one to accept. However, consider the circumstances of war, for example, where the common human principle of not killing each other is not only cast aside but is encouraged.

A father with no income and hungry children at home may consider stealing to provide food.

Two people who promise to love each other, honour and cherish each other when they wed, and who fundamentally disagree with divorce may seek this form of escape when the relationship becomes more than they can bear.

A Turning it Around system in place would drastically reduce the incidence of such events. By teaching children in their first few years of life, rather than many years later, we establish within them principles that are so entrenched they are inviolable in later years. By teaching older children what they can do when they encounter the kinds of downturns of life that we all experience (giving them coping skills and people they can turn to when they need help), such tragic events can be avoided in most cases.

How many people really know what is involved with marriage, including how their relationship will change, what their respective responsibilities will be, how to manage disagreements and how to engage their partner in events that encourage mutual understanding and respect, at they time they say their vows? Most simply believe that love will see them through.

Love is great, but you can't eat it and it doesn't substitute for coping skills and knowledge when times get rough.

Teach the children before they need it and adults will have fewer unmanageable problems.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give children the knowledge and skills they need to cope with the exigencies of life as adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication

"Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication."
- Leonardo da Vinci

Simplicity does not come naturally. Those who wish to be thorough initially feel the need to include everything so that others will not miss anything.

A level of sophistication (scientists call it elegance) is reached where everything is implicit, nothing is missed by others, yet there is a beauty where each can take what he or she needs from a simple presentation.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make teaching children simple by teaching them what they need, not what industry leaders and movie makers, politicians and religious zealots want them to have.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Healing from the bootstraps

He's the best physician who knows the worthlessness of the most medicines.
- Benjamin Franklin, statesman, author, and inventor (1706-1790)

The number of worthless medicines is no smaller today than it was in Franklin's time. What has increased is the number of effective medicines.

And yet, no medicine works unless the body is prepared to heal itself. If it is ready then medicine might not be necessary.

The key is mental preparedness. That is, whatever method you choose to heal yourself, you must be convinced that it will work or you might just get worse.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach people how to prevent themselves from needing medical care by learning how to live in a healthy manner.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Who is killing Americans?

"Cars kill over ten thousand times more people than terrorism. So which one does a government naturally use its resources to combat? And I mean any practically government on Earth."
- Eolake Stobblehouse This was originally an opinion, not part of a larger piece from which I took the quote.

Why do governments spend vast resources to counteract terrorism but very little to address deaths from vehicles? Because people are afraid of terrorists and are not afraid of cars.

Think about it. The US has suffered one attack by terrorists, in one city, since 1941, yet it has terror alerts that apply to 285 million people, no matter where they live. As a result of that one attack, the US government launched two wars (which are still going on) and cost US taxpayers about two billion dollars per day.

Even though the US military is involved with two wars, Americans kill more other Americans with hand guns and with cars every day, every month, every year than well-protected soldiers die in those wars.

Not only that, their president insists that terrorists are a constant threat that must be fought tenaciously and constantly for many years to come.

How many American lives are "really" at risk due to terrorism? In fact, most Americans live peaceful lives, have jobs and families, get along well with their neighbours and co-workers, enjoy sports, hobbies and relaxation in ways that people in all parts of the world enjoy.

The only terrorism that risks the lives of American citizens is the psychological terrorism that is perpetrated on them by their media. And the more the media play up potential danger, the more US citizens buy newspapers and watch television.

That's self-inflicted psychological harm. An individual who did that sort of harm to himself would be committed to an institution.

Children need to be taught to recognize media manipulation of their minds. They can learn this stuff, even easier than adults can learn it.

Children can learn not to be afraid. Once they have fear firmly entrenched in them as adults, it's hard to dislodge it.

Teach the children and save the world. Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to teach children how to protect themselves from media mind-twisting before they become psychologically broken adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Don't defraud yourself

A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by littlestatesmen and philosophers and divines.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)

A foolish consistency means staying with something when we know it doesn't make sense.

There's no reason why a religion, a political philosophy, a business policy or a personal way of life should not make sense. Something that does not fully make sense should be thought through until it makes sense. If even then it doesn't make sense, it's time to change to a position that does.

The two keys here are to think it through and that what we settle on must make sense. We cannot live comfortably in an environment where what we believe in doesn't make sense. Deep inside we know that we are defrauding ourselves.

You don't have to "have faith" in something that doesn't make sense. Faith is the fall-back position for those who cannot justify what they believe with the criterion of making sense.

Most positions that ask us to have faith can be rationalized so they do make sense. Some cannot. The ones that can't should be discarded.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give people the tools to evaluate whether things and beliefs in their lives make sense.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/inex.pl

Crazy man becomes world hero

Canada is an extremely large country. Most Canadians don't see more than small bits of it in their entire lifetimes. Many find the thought of driving across the country a quest only for those who have nothing else to do with their lives.

A few Canadians have actually walked the many thousands of kilometres from the eastern shore of Newfoundland and Labrador province, on the Atlantic, to the western shore of British Columbia province (either the mainland or Vancouver Island). These people are considered to be insane by most Canadians.

Running across is out of the question. Running across if you only have one leg reaches beyond what the imagination can cope with.

Terry Fox, born in Winnipeg and raised in B.C. province, tried to do just that, though he had lost one leg to cancer.

His beginning, where he dipped his prosthetic leg into the Atlantic Ocean, was barely noticed by Canadian media. He planned to dip it again into the Pacific a few months later. He would "run" the equivalent of two marathons each day--kind of a hop and skip with each successive step.

Along the way he would ask people to sponsor him so that he could raise money to find a cure for cancer. Terry called it his Marathon of Hope.

By the time Terry passed through Quebec province, most Canadians knew who he was and what he was doing. When he neared the far side of Ontario province, every Canadian knew who Terry Fox was.

At Thunder Bay (city), about a day's run from the border of Manitoba province, Terry had to stop. His cancer had returned and his doctors advised that he go no further. His pain was constant and intense. That was September 1, 1980.

Terry Fox died in June of 1981. Yet his name is known around the world today. People in over 50 countries conduct their own Marathons of Hope each year. In Canada alone, some three million children in every province and territory will be involved in "The Terry Fox Run" this year, be they running, walking or pushing themselves in wheelchairs.

The name Terry Fox is a symbol of hope for the world. Terry's posthumous projects have raised over $360 million for cancer research.

When Terry Fox ran half way across Canada, cancer research was in the doldrums, having made little progress over the previous generation. Today many kinds of cancer are with reach of being stopped and untold thousands of Canadians are alive because of the attention that Terry brought to the disease and the resulting early diagnosis of so many people.

Terry Fox is a Canadian hero. Yet he is also a hero to the world, no matter what the skin colour, religion, home country, language or culture of the people who honour him.

Terry Fox is one reason I and many of my fellow countrymen confidently call ourselves proud Canadians.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give every person reason for hope for a better future.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

"Up to his designer stubble"

"He looks to me like somebody who is up to his designer-stubble in stolen moments of illicit love."
- Daisy, Keeping Up Appearances (BBC1)

Another quote on the lighter side. This is one that drives psychologists, psychotherapists and sociologists crazy because it has buried within it a boatload of background that one may imagine for the character who spoke the line.

It's the kind of line you expect to see in written literature because it's almost too powerful to be a spoken line in a TV show.

Test it yourself. What kind of person would say something like this?
Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give people the tools to understand each other better.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Why are people afraid of growing old?

One of the more common fears in western society is a fear of growing old. This fear, once of lesser importance in non-western cultures, is growing as societies that once highly valued its most elderly generation now treat them more and more as redundant vessels that must be cared for but are of little use.
Why?
What is it that people fear about growing older? Do they see elderly people in nursing homes who are crippled and feeble-minded and worry that they will become like these people? Do they see families where younger generations can't wait to get the older folks into nursing homes? Do they see families where middle aged people spend all of their free time and some of their work time looking after weak and helpless parents?
I suspect that most people see those who experience these situations in their families the way they view people who become drug addicts or gambling addicts. Bad luck, but it will never happen to me.
Then what are they afraid of?
They are afraid that they will not be prepared to be "old." They don't want to be physically unable to care for themselves. They don't want to be mentally unable to think for themselves. In short, they don't want their future to be in the hands of younger people or a government that will treat them like mail to be shuffled around but not well looked after.
They don't want to be physically weak, but they will not do exercises now, when they are younger, to strengthen their muscles and their bones. Because they are too busy now.
They don't want to be mentally weak, but they will not do what they must to strengthen their brain to defend against it breaking down from lack of cognitive thinking. They don't have time to read and think. Reading and thinking are hard work. They are too busy and too sophisticated to do that much hard work.
Too busy now, afraid for the future.
Or is it too lazy now and the expectation of being even more stupid in the future than they are now?
No one makes people become stupid. They stupidify themselves.
Some people have bodies that will not last in peak condition until they are 80 or 90 years of age. That's life. But many others could be much better if they would get the exercise their bodies need before their bodies become too weak. After a body is broken is not the time to try to protect it.
Every brain will last far longer than the body it inhabits. That is, it will last longer if it is exercised.
But that's hard work and sophisticated people don't want to do hard work. That's the way of life in the western world.
Self stupidification.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' a book and program to prevent self stupidification by teach childrne what they need before they need it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

US and North Korea, not necessarily enemies

Everyone wants the six nation talks involving North Korea and its generation of nuclear fuel to end well.

The US, which is polluting its air to an extraordinary extent with its coal-fired power generating stations (often sending their foul air to my part of Canada), has decided that nuclear power is the only viable form of power generation for the long term of its country. The US knows that nuclear power generation results in radioactive waste, which it is prepared to bury for 10,000 years or more (until a method to dispose of it safely appears).

The US has also decided that North Korea should not be able to use nuclear power because it has abused nuclear capability and knowledge in the past. The US also views North Korea as one of its "Axis of Evil" countries--basically this list is comprised of any country that has a severe dislike for the US and its ways.

However, it should be noted that North Korea did illegally buy technology from Pakistan, manufacture its own nuclear technology (including weapons) and sell them abroad.North Korea, as a nation, is literally starving, mostly because of its Stalinist ways. So the US wants to use nuclear power to advance its own industry, but it does not want North Korea to have the same opportunity.

Meanwhile, the United Nations is sitting on its hands and whistling Dixie. The US wanted the UN to reform itself into a modern and effective form of international diplomacy, monitoring and peacekeeping organisation. UN member countries decided it didn't want to be quite that effective. In other words, UN member countries don't want to mind anyone else's business. The US, of course, wants to do just that.

I applaud the US for its efforts with the United Nations. Too bad the UN doesn't have either the leadership or the willpower to do what the world needs at this time. The US has set it up so the UN could take more responsibility, but the UN wimps have chickened out.

The US, to its credit, is trying to do a juggling act with one hand tied behind its back. Bravo! to the US for showing true leadership in this time of crisis.

To the United Nations: How do you manage to have your thumbs in your ears, your mouth and your anus all at the same time? You should only be allowed to plug two orifices at once.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give each person the tools and knowledge with which to make wise decisions.
Learn more about this extraordinary plan at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Untested government legislation can kill you

Beware of bugs in the above code; I have only proved it correct, not tried it.
- Donald Knuth, computer scientist (1938- )

Most of us have experienced problems with computer programs that do things that don't make sense. We freely blame the programmer, while at the same time we nonchalantly accept activities and programs by our governments and their respective agencies that are little beyond the stage that Knuth describes in the quote.

Top down government fails in the same way that top down business or top down computer programming fails. If the most important people in the business or in the government system are not well served by a policy or program, it will surely fail.

The most important people in a business are those who deal directly with customers, as they are the ones on whose shoulders rest the income of the company. In a government program, the most important people are those the program is intended to help, not those who administer the program or those who pass the legislation to implement the bill.

When legislation wording, protocol and red tape get in the way of helping people, governments fail their people. This was never more evident than in the aftermath of the recent tragedy in the southern US.

Never mind if a program should theoretically work. If a government program doesn't serve the needs of its people, it is a waste of tax money and a fraud on the part of legislators who made it happen.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give people the skills with which they may survive and thrive. Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Live today, don't relive yesterday

There is one art, no more, no less: to do all things with artlessness.
- Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)

"Artlessness" does not mean without skill. Rather it means in an innocent way, as a child would.

When we conduct our lives ever mindful of the emotional and psychological baggage we have collected over the years, we do ourselves a disservice, binding ourselves to past ways of doing things just as surely as if we were bound by chains.

Each act we do should be considered and done for its own merit. Just as today the world has moved on from where it was yesterday, we must move on from the emotional baggage of our past.

Today can only be a new day for us if we let go of what happened yesterday, whether yesterday was a good day or a bad day.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help each person make today a good day.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

How bad are you?

"I hate mankind, for I think myself one of the best of them, and I know how bad I am."
- Samuel Johnson (English writer and lexicographer, 1709-1784

Johnson may take self-effacement to an extreme, but he does make us aware that we all have our dark sides, our sins, our weaknesses, our failures that we would prefer to not have on our "permanent records."

What is important is that we focus more on our good sides, the positive parts of our personalities.

Johnson's style of self-critique may be good to cleanse the soul, but only working on our positive sides gives us a decent life.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' working to help each person put their life in pespective.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Katrina: Finding the Positive

Much has been made of the tragedy in the southern US over the past week and a half. The media have enjoyed immensely showing us scenes of people who were stranded on housetops and stuck in unhealthy shelters.

Sadly, what most of them missed was the good stuff that was happening to the large majority of one million people who were forced to evacuate their homes and leave their home states to bunk in with others, sometimes total strangers. Some, for example, are staying in Canadian universities.

However, that is not the point of this message. I want to make a point about how Katrina may change the direction that the world will take over the coming years.

September 11, 2001, made many Americans believe that everyone who was not a US citizen was potentially dangerous, a threat to "the American way of life," perhaps to their personal safety.

Since Katrina, over half the nations on Earth have contributed supplies and/or expertise to help the people of the US, generally considered to be the most hated nation on Earth. Put those two concepts together--hated nation and half the planet help its people.

Even Cuba, which has medical expertise far beyond its economic status, offered to send doctors to the US to help out. I have not heard whether or not the US accepted the offer--if it was to decline, I don't think I want to know.

Katrina was the worst natural disaster ever visited on North America, perhaps even on the western hemisphere. When the US showed itself to be its most helpless (and in many cases hopeless), most of the rest of the world--the ones who could afford to do something--pitched in to help.

The media and the politicians are not aware of this now, but the minds of Americans will change toward the rest of the world. After 9/11, "others" equalled "enemies." Since Katrina, "others" equal "strangers that could be friends."

It takes that magnitude of tragedy to change the thinking of a nation. But that tragedy might change the future of our world.

Al Qaida claimed that Allah had wreaked vengeance on the US for its misdeeds. Everyone else was prepared to come to the aid of the US in its hour of need.

Americans don't forget that kind of thing.

Within four years we have experienced two turning points in history. I dare say that no other people since our species began could make that claim.

Now we will watch to see if the neo-conservatives in the US continue to tear down the humanity of their nation, or if their others=enemy concept is buried and them aloing with it, or if there is a movement toward middle ground of socialists and conservatives.

It was the hands of men who brought about the turning point of history on 9/11. Was the natural disaster called Katrina just coincidence? Whether coincidence or not, Katrina arrived at a remarkably convenient time, when the world needed it most.

Feel free to send this message to anyone you like. However, if you send it to anyone else, please include the following attribution:
Bill Allin'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' searching for the common good in everyone.Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Who robbed you?

I thank Thee first because I was never robbed before; second, becausealthough they took my purse they did not take my life; third, becausealthough they took my all, it was not much; and fourth because it was I who was robbed, and not I who robbed.
- Matthew Henry, minister (1662-1714)

This well-known quote aptly fits the approach to negative situations and events taken by many religions. Note that it focuses on the person who was victimized by robbery.

Turning It Around would propose to give the robber the skills, coping mechanisms and knowledge he needs before he got to the point of having to steal from another because he didn't know what else to do. These skills and this knowledge can be given to children and adolescents before they need them, thus preparing them for the downturns in their future and (in most cases) avoiding the need to resort to anti-social measures.

Have you ever met a child of three or four years of age who wanted to grow up to become a robber, a murderer, a drug addict or even a divorced mother or father? No, they all want to be something positive. Some simply don't have or learn the tools they need to survive. These tools involve teaching, not money.

Teach the children.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to give every child the tools and knowledge he or she needs to stay on the right side.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Freedom to die?

It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defence, we would sanction the subversion of one of those liberties which make the defence of our nation worthwhile.
- Earl Warren, jurist (1891-1974)

The United States of America has fought for well over two centuries for the causes of liberty and freedom. Most wars over that period have been fought for those causes, no matter where in the world they have been.

It would serve us well to consider carefully what those terms mean, liberty and freedom, to keep their meanings in the forefront of our minds before we send young adults to kill and be killed in their names.

What kind of freedom does a young man have who is sent to his death in a war? Does "freedom" include the freedom to die for a cause which is unjust or in which he does not believe?

It would also pay us to consider that those states that do not build up large militaries and arsenals and search for causes to fight for never seem to get into wars. Switzerland, for example, has not been involve with a war for 500 years. Nor does anyone want to attack Switzerland.

Canada, criticized by many of its own people for its undersized and underarmed military, is known around the world for its peacekeeping efforts today. In the past, when it was more associated with the UK, it was also known for its war successes, with little thought being given to making peace.

We are what we want to be.

We should consider whether what we want to be should be shaped more by our leaders or by ordinary citizens.

Leaders don't necessarily always lead their people in the right direction because they are more interested in their positions as leaders than they are in the direction that they lead their people.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help people consider what they want themselves and their country to represent.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Honour strengths not weaknesses

Best they honor thee who honor in thee only what is best.
- William Watson, poet (1858-1935)

We all have our weaknesses. It's up to us to know our weaknesses and faults and to do what we can to correct or improve them. It serves no purpose or advantage for others to point out our faults or weaknesses unless we are unaware of them or have chosen to ignore them.

It's easy to find what is a weakness or a fault in someone else. What is much harder is to find strengths and successes, especially if the successes are personal ones that involve overcoming personal weakness or tragedy. Yet, it's by our strengths and our successes that we should be known.

Our heroes are known by their successes and their strengths, while we ignore their weaknesses and failures.

We owe the same consideration to ourselves as we give to our heroes.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to help us give recognition to people for their successes and to help them to strengthen their weaknesses.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Thoughtless, at your own peril

"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you."
- Don Marquis

This is a motto for all groups that attempt to direct the behaviour of others among them.

Al Qaida makes its followers think they are reasoning through the situation such that the only conclusion is to commit suicide and kill as many others as possible at the same time.

Television advertisers make us think that we need their products and we reason that theirs is the solution to our need (which in many cases does not even exist).

Leaders of religious sects have their followers believe that they are making a conscious choice based on the (limited selection of) facts at their disposal.

However, this mind-bending method only works with weak-thinking people up to a certain age. There comes a point where some people don't think at all, at which time they will accept the simple suggestions of anyone who has anything good to offer (no matter how fraudulent the offer may be).

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' striving to make reasoned thinking a life-long activity.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Why our general health is getting worse

"One of the first duties of the physician is to educate the masses not to take medicine."
- Sir William Osler, Aphorisms from his Bedside Teachings (1961) p.105

Osler, an icon of the medical community, is not clear in this quote what he means by educating the masses "not to take medicine." He didn't mean that ill people should not take prescribed medications.

He meant that people should be educated about what they can do to make their bodies healthy enough that they will be protected from illnesses. We don't do that enough.

Pharmaceutical companies drill their customers and potential customers daily on television about why they need to take prescription and over-the-counter drugs for any problem they have. They do not, ever, teach anyone how to live in a healthy way so that they will not require drugs. Nor, oddly enough, do health insurance companies.

We must take that responsibility ourselves. Governments don't teach it either because they do not directly control curriculum in schools. Schools don't teach it, in general, because they are required to teach too much other curriculum that such "options" as teaching good health methods and techniques are cast aside, if they are ever considered.

We know what people must do to be healthy. We know as a society. What we are not doing is teaching this to those who don't know, the ones who get sick and who develop debilitating illnesses.

Teaching good health methods and habits should be a high priority in a society that is becoming progressively dependent on drugs and medical doctors.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' working to teach people how to look after their health so they have a better chance at finding happiness.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

What are you looking at?

When you change the way you look at things, the things you look atchange.
- Dr. Wayne Dwyer

While at first glance this quote may seem similar to yesterday's quote, it actually takes a different direction. They both have to do with the way we look at life around us.

However, this quote suggests that we look at different things when we change the way we look at things. That is, if we decide to look for the positive in events of our day, in our co-workers, in our family members and friends, we look at different events and behaviours than we would if we were looking for negative things.

When we want to find the positive in our lives, we tend to ignore or overlook those that are negative because they hold little importance to us. Forgiving, for example, is easy if we don't consider the mistakes of others to be important.

This conscious choice to seek positive things around us and in people relieves us of a great deal of stress. When we find ourselves relieved of stress simply by looking at different things, we must conclude that stress is something we heap on ourselves, rather than what others give to us.

We can turn ourselves into slaves to our jobs and our bosses will seldom interfere. We can turn ourselves into golf addicts and the golf pro will never complain. We can turn ourselves into shopaholics and the store owners will never tell us to stay home more.

Each of these behaviours adds to the stress of our lives because they mean we are doing things to excess, which causes us to look at different things than those that are important to us over the long term.

Change the way you look at things. If you are doing a great deal of something, consider what you will think of your participation to that extent on the last day of your life, if you are given the opportunity to look back over your life.

What really matters may not be what you are spending the most time on now. In fact, you might lose what really matters to you if you spend too much time on things that are not really important to your life over the long term.

You can't have everything. Make sure you look after what is important. That means you must look at those important things now, not after they are gone.

Don't assume that what is important to you will look after itself. It never does.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic SocialProblems,' waking us up to what is important in our lives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Your reality, my reality--not the same

The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
- James Baldwin

Consider how you know about what is happening in the world outside of what you experience each day.

Do you learn about it from the television or newspapers? These media have a vested interest in making money, which means telling you about tragedies that will get your interest. They focus on tragedy and misfortune because that is what builds their viewership and readership.

This very situation causes you to have a perverted view of the world. You are bound to think that the world is a terrible place because you only learn about what is bad about it.

Do you learn about the world from what you hear from others talking about it? These people tend to take the worst of what they have read or seen on television as subjects for their conversations because they are so extreme. Only listening to these people will give you an even worse impression of what the world is about.

To get a clearer idea, consider the people who live in your neighbourhood. They aren't all bad, even if a few of them are. Apply that to every neighbourhood in the world. The ratio of good to bad people in the world is about the same in every part of the world.

The bad guys are few. We just hear more about them so we get the impression that the world is filled with them. It isn't. The world is filled mostly with good people like you and me.

Not many of us make the news.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' working to put life in perspective for everyone.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

The sound of one hand clapping

As a teenager I remember hearing of a mysterious religion known as Zen Buddhism (sometimes shortened to just Zen). It was mysterious not just because my fellow teenaged ignoramuses and I had never been introduced to something so sinful as a religion without a god, but because it thoughtfully considered questions to which the answers were not simple or obvious.

One of these questions, as I recall, was stated this way: You know the sound of two hands clapping. What is the sound of one hand clapping?

The answers tended in two different directions. One was that there was no sound created without the other hand to clap against. The other noted that one hand could clap against something other than another hand, such as a leg, a face or another person's hand. Very esoteric, I'm sure.

Now know the original question. Japanese Zen master Hakuin (1686-1769), devised it as follows: In clapping both hands, a sound is heard. What is the sound of one hand? (In casual discussion this is usually corrupted to: What is the sound of one hand clapping?)

I now offer you a new interpretation based on years of considering this question.

What is created when two hands clap is sound, which is a kind of energy converted from air waves set in motion by kinetic energy from the two hands, originating from a signal from the brain telling the nerves to have the hand slap together using energy derived from nutrition taken from eaten food. I hope you see the symbolism of circulating energy here, a conservation of energy that is never lost, but simply alters from one state to another.

The air waves that create sound become kinetic energy that may transfer itself to some other form elsewhere. You may have read about the flapping of the wings of a butterfly in China eventually becoming a hurricane in the United States, as an example of how energy moves and transforms itself.

However, back to one hand in the air. One hand alone does not have the ability to make a sound unless it collides with something else. However--here is the new interpretation--one hand has the potential to use its energy to create many other things that require energy.

What is the sound of one hand clapping? It's the sound of potential. If you do not understand what on earth I am talking about, continue your quest for knowledge, my friend. You have much to learn.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' working to help people develop the skills to use their minds creatively.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Stress is wasted life energy

"Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important."
- Natalie Goldberg

Nothing is that important. Nothing.

Stress, we assume, is placed on us by ourselves. Yet in most cases we place it on ourselves because we believe that others expect things of us that may be beyond our ability to produce comfortably within the normal scope of our lives.

Eating and sleeping are critical to our lives. But missing a meal or a day of meals will do us no harm and missing a few hours of sleep or a whole night's sleep to help a friend in need causes us little harm.

Those things that cause us stress tend to be things that will not be of much importance a year from now.

What could you not recover from if you lost it? That is important. Yet that is likely something that is within your control if you take proper and reasoned measures to deal with it.

Stress is wasted life energy. Nothing is that important.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' trying to help people understand what is really important in their lives instead of what others tell them is important.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

What do you want of your life?

"Fear not that thy life shall come to an end, but rather fear that it shall never have a beginning."
- John Henry Cardinal Newman

Many people will not understand this quote. If you don't, perhaps your life has not really begun because you don't yet know what life is about.

You can't conduct yourself through something you don't understand. And you certainly can't reach a desired destination if you don't know where you are going.

What do you really want of your life? You want to conduct yourself in such as way that on your deathbed you can look back and say "I did it!"

What "it" do you want to do?

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' giving people directions for their lives so they don't become slaves to someone else's objectives.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Language and culture tied together

You can never understand one language until you understand at least two.
- Ronald Searle, artist (1920- )

When we speak only one language, we tend to associate that language with ourselves. That is, the language and we are one entity, inseparable. Only when we learn a second language do we begin to understand what language is, its complexity, its history, what it represents.

The history of a language is also the history of those who speak the language. It's part of the culture, so much so that people who live in situations where their ancestral language is disappearing (from lack of speakers) often lose the culture of their ancestors as well.

Learning more than one language, at a minimum a few words of other languages, should be a requirement for all people so that they can understand the foundations on which people of other cultures live.

We use different words, with different sounds and different definitions, but we say the same things no matter where in the world we live.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' helping us see what we have in common with others who seem to be different.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Churchill on fanatics

"A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject"
- Winston Churchill

The key point here is "can't change his mind." Some one who is persistent about reaching a goal would not be called a fanatic.

"Fanatic" has a negative connotation to it, suggesting that the subject about which a fanatic is so exercised is insubstantial or of little consequence.

Fanatic is the precursor of "fan," as in "sports fan."

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' working to give each person topics of substance to be passionate about.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Advertisers prey on children

"The very first law in advertising is to avoid the concrete promise and cultivate the delightfully vague."
- Bill Cosby

Children should be taught that the sole objective of all forms of advertising is to take money from them. They also should be taught that advertisers will attempt to do this by making them believe that they need something that they, in fact, likely do not need.

The purpose for this kind of teaching is not to squelch commerce and destroy the economy, but to make children aware that advertisers are more interested in their own income than in the welfare of their customers. This puts the buyer and the seller on more of an equal footing, as should be the case with a business arrangement.

Ask any child in a predominantly Christian country what he or she wants for Christmas and you will always get a definite answer. No doubt, the child wants a toy (or toys) that has been advertised on televison since early September. The toy may be broken by the end of December or abandoned two weeks later, but the child has wanted it for months before Christmas.

Children deserve to know that their minds are being manipulated. Banning addvertising aimed at children is a backwards and counterproductive way of doing things. Just teach the kids what advertisers are doing and they will be more inclined to want something they can really use rather than what has been imprinted on their brains by advertising.

Items that children can use to build or to create, activities that will help them to develop in a healthy manner, are seldom advertised. Yet these will last longer than conventional toys and will contribute to a child's development in ways that toys never will. They also provide activities that kids can use when they gather together to play, longer after Christmas has passed.

Children have the ability to ignore advertising just as much as adults. We need to give them the knowledge about advertising, rather than assuming that they will not understand what advertising is all about. They understand. They simply do not have any built up defences against it. They are denied this knowledge because of adult ignorance of their capabilities.

Teach the children.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' seeking to protect children from ignorance imposed on them by adults.
Learn more at http://billallin.com.cgi/index.pl

Mental toughness

"Mental toughness is many things. It is humility because it behooves all of us to remember that simplicity is the sign of greatness, and meekness is the sign of true strength. Mental toughness is spartanism with qualities of sacrifice, self-denial, dedication. It is fearlessness, and it is love."
- Vince Lombardi

Each person needs some degree of mental toughness in order to withstand the rigors of a tough life and people who derive satisfaction by hurting or taking advantage of others.

Mental toughness is a requirement of nature. We can see it in every form of life. Those without a built-in drive to survive and succeed die.

Mental discipline and toughness must be taught to human children. We are not born with it. We are different from most animals in that we have a childhood training period of about 20 years during which we must learn how to survive in a world that might crush us if we are not prepared.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' preparing to teach children the survival skills they need to hold their own in a tough world.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Gettikng rid of psychological baggage

"In life, satisfaction is experienced when activities are brought to a state of completion. Loss of energy and loss of control are functions of incompletion. The result of completing things releases one's ability to create. Prioritize any items that need to be completed, set a completion date, then do it."
- William Arthur Ward, American scholar

Unfinished business of any kind is excess baggage we carry with us. Even if we believe we have sufficiently supressed it or forgotten it, we carry it with us deep inside.Some excess baggage (psychological weight carried by our brain, though it may show as anxiety on our body) deserves to be cast off and forgotten. The rest, which cannot be forgotten, should be resolved. That which cannot be resolved deserves to be forgotten.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' helping people relieve the burden of excess psychological baggage.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Know who you are

"I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe."
- Richard Gere, to The Guardian (UK), June 2002

This man knows who he is and will not allow anyone to twist his mind into thinking that he is something he is not. Nor will he stand by while others accuse him of being something he is not.

It is critical that we know who we are, as there are always others who will tell us who they want us to be. Inevitably, they are wrong and what they want of us is a bad fit.

We are who we are. We can become more, but only by our own choosing and our own efforts and will.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' working to help each person understand who they really are.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

What I said, what you heard

I know what I have given you. I do not know what you have received.
- Antonio Porchia, writer (1886-1968)

When we speak or write, we always know what we mean, what we intend to convey in our message. What we don't know is how the receiver of our message interpreted what we said or wrote.

The problem is not just that English words have many different meanings. The problem is that our brains latch onto certain words while virtually ignoring others. From these certain few words in a message, our brains formulate what they believe the speaker or write intended to say.

This problem is so peculiar that I have many times known people to be in heated debate over an apparent issue, when in fact they are both arguing the same side of the issue. In other words, they were arguing, but they agreed on which side of the argument was better. They could not "hear" the message that the other person was saying, they could only pick up and latch onto words that were different from words they would have used. These words gave them a different impression of what their debate "opponent" was saying than what was intended.

I wonder, for example, in the six nation negotiations involving North Korea, how often the negotiators agree but are unable to see that they agree. Thus they conclude that the "others" must be either stupid or perverse.

Whenever there is doubt about how what we have said has been interpreted by another person, we should ask that person what he or she understood from what we said.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' trying to show the world that many of our differences are really similarities that we express differently.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Have we lose our capacity for common sense?

"It has been said that man is a rational animal. All my life I have been searching for evidence which could support this."
- Bertrand Russell, English philosopher and mathematician (1872-1970)

This discrepancy bothered me for many years as well. How could it be that humanity progressed in a fairly logical form for thousands of years when so many of us in the present act randomly or arbitrarily?

The only conclusion I find acceptable is that logical thinking (a.k.a. common sense) is taught to children, or is not. Children who are taught to consider consequences to their actions before committing to them grow to be adults who have common sense, and who have enough of it to have influence over their respective communities or they become leaders. Children who are not proactively taught to consider consequences of their behaviour before doing something have such random or disorganized lives that they have less influence on their communites.

Russell, it seems, could see stupid or unaccountable behaviour in people around him, but failed to take into account the logical behaviour of others who, to him, did not breach his intellectual radar.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' trying to make sense of the world by teaching people to consider consequences of what they do before doing it.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Extraordinary claims?

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.
- Carl Sagan, astronomer and author (1934-1996)

Are the proposals I make in Turning It Around extraordinary? In a way, they are for the 21st century.

In every generation prior to the Industrial Revolution everyone knew the purpose and importance of the family. Since then it has lost its meaning for many people.

Today some people seem to believe that a family is the group of people who give children gifts on their birthdays and at Christmas (or whatever festival they celebrate) and that provide them shelter, food and cash. When the provision of those services ends, they believe they need have no further association with the members of their families.

Does this sound drastic, desperate or cynical? If so, you need to get closer to some families to learn what they are about. "Home" for too many children is a pit stop where they sleep, refuel and get more money.If this sounds wrong to you, then I invite you to join me to make it better.

So long as these conditions exist in your community, there will be troubles of the sort your read about on the front page of the newspaper.
We can change it now that we know how.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' making sense of your world so that together we can put it back together in good order.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

How wisdom becomes lost to younger generations

A proverb is a short sentence based on long experience.
- Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)

Cervantes (Spanish writer best known in the English speaking world for 'Don Quijote') provides an excellent definition for the word proverb. However, a few more words might be helpful.

Parents and older family members tend to pass along proverbs to younger generations as words of wisdom. Younger generations tend to accept them not necessarily as words of wisdom but instead as part of their culture.

We adults should encourage children to question us about these proverbs. We should be able to prove their value to our children, especially so if we can give examples from our own lives.

Proverbs gain status as words of wisdom worth adopting as personal life guidelines only when children hear something meaningful, such as examples from a parent's life, to which to attach the sayings in their minds.

Without the personal attachments, proverbs are just cute sayings that only gain meaning later in life when, as adults long past childhood, we see the truth and importance of them through the mistakes we have made in our own lives.

Wisdom has meaning to younger generations only when they have some way of identifying it as important to them, such as through the experiences of their parents.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' tying real-life experiences to words of wisdom so that children do not need to make the same tragic mistakes as their parents.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Tell the truth in simple language

"Works of imagination should be written in very plain language; the more purely imaginative they are the more necessary it is to be plain."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge

"Works of imagination" does not necessarily means fantasy. It means taking a reader beyond the humdrum thoughts of routine existence.

When writing Turning It Around, I faced two challenges. The first was to tackle a subject that most people consider far too complex to consider, that being solutions to social problems that keep getting worse as our governments add patches to patches with more prisons and psychiatric help for broken people. It had to be written in a form that could be understood by everyone who would read the book, no matter what their reading level.

The second was to express these now-simplified concepts in words that cannot be misunderstood and must not be able to be twisted by opponents to serve their own anti-social goals.

I believe that TIA achieves these objectives. Ironically, the print media treat something written so clearly and plainly, expressing concepts in such simple ways that they seem self-evident to any reader, as if the work does not warrant reporting. They want to take something that is hard to understand and make it easier for their readers. But then, something that is harder to read will not be read by many people.

I am reminded of the wonderful children's writer Dr. Seuss, whose books dealt with meaningful subjects in such "silly" language that they received little recognition at first, until children spoke by buying his books as fast as they could get them.

TIA will only catch the attention of print media when people buy the book from bookstores. I invite you to do your part with that and to tell your friends about the book too.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' bringing solutions to community and personal problems to your doorstep, like the old style milk delivery, only for the mind.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Was the past so different?

The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.
- L.P. Hartley, writer (1895-1972)

A casual review of any period of history might suggest that life was different in "those days," that in many ways they might have been better. Close study reveals that life was tougher in any previous time in history. We tend to focus on the golden aspects of the past while ignoring the dangerous lead.

Was the past, any period of the past, significantly different from the way our lives are today? Human nature has not changed. People were in the past the way people are today.

Greed, for example, has always been prominent in any society. However, some people learn that greed does not benefit individuals over a long term and is clearly harmful to a culture, a society or a religion, bringing about its eventual disintegration.

If some people can learn, we can teach everyone.

Let us teach every child the same basic values that will help them as adults and will benefit their families and their communities.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' provides the methodology to learn what our common values are and to implement the teaching of them to every child, in schools and in their own homes.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

The dubious power of doctors

My faith in doctors is immense. Just one thing spoils it;their pretence of authorised omniscience.
- Piet Hein, Danish poet, philosopher, designer

This may have been more true of doctors in the past. Now they hesitate to grant themselves such exalted importance for fear of litigation for malpractice.

This stance has now been adopted by business people and politicians.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems', making politicians truly accountable to their electorate for what the voters want represented.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Who is civilized?

A visitor from Mars could easily pick out the civilized nations. They have the best implements of war.
- Herbert V. Prochnow, banker (1897-1998)

As a child I used to wonder what the markers were of a "civilized" country. In those days, school lessons seemed to suggest that those who did not live in tribal societies were civilized. I came to believe that peoples whose cultures stressed peace more than war, who sought to live in harmony with others rather than to subdue them, were the most civilized.

Now, it seems, powerful implements of war, the ability to threaten war and the ability to launch a war in the clear belief of inevitable success are markers of civilization.

To me, as a child, "civilization" was a powerful word. Today, we had best stick with the definition given the word by anthropologists, people living together in urban groups.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems', striving to redefine civilization as the ability to live together in harmony and to seek compromise rather than conflict.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Origins of language and culture

The living language is like a cow-path: it is the creation of the cows themselves, who, having created it, follow it or depart from it according to their whims or their needs. From daily use, the path undergoes change. A cow is under no obligation to stay.
- E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)

Have you ever tried to persuade a cow to go somewhere it doesn't want to go? Yet it will follow other cows, at least in the same general direction, without prompting.

Culture comes into being in a similar fashion. We may identify with our language and our culture as integral parts of who we are. Yet who our ancestors were, where they went, what they did is buried inside of us just as surely as who we are comprises us today.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' shining a light on our past so we can see our way today.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.

Bringing truth to light

"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed. Second, it is violently opposed. Third, it is accepted as being self-evident."
- Arthur Schopenhauer

Truth needs opposition in order to verify itself and gain credibility among a large community.

The worst thing that can happen to truth is to ignore it. When we do, it hangs around and eventually imposes itself on us or our descendants.

Let's not ignore the truth of Turning It Around. Let's not leave the next generation a worse mess than we have created in ours.

We can make marvellous improvements in short order, if we get busy. Tell others about the TIA group and invite them to join at
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
Big jobs can only be accomplished if we have others to help us and to lean on when needed.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' bringing truth to the world before it's too late.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more inforamtion.

Does the world owe you a living?

"Don't go around saying the world owes you a living; the world owes you nothing; it was here first."
- Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

It's a symptom of how poorly prepared children and adolescents are to face the world of adult responsibilities that they come to believe that the world "owes them a living." The world does not owe them a living, of course, but it does owe them (we owe them) the facts and skills they need to survive and thrive, as people not just as workers.

A person is not primarily the job (or lack thereof) that he holds. Yet that is what school systems teach to. Schools prepare children for jobs. They should prepare children for life, then jobs would be an integral part of their lives--but not the centre of it.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' wants to prepare children to be full adults, not just employees.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index/pl for more information.

Lions eating lambs

Don't ask me who's influenced me. A lion is made up of the lambs he's digested, and I've been reading all my life.
- Giorgos Seferis, writer, diplomat, Nobel laureate (1900-1971)

Though I find the imagery unsettling and unexpected of a diplomat, the thinking remains sound. We are the consequences of our experiences.

How does reading fit into the scheme of things? Reading exercises the brain in ways that nothing else does. Not conversation, not physical involvement and certainly not viewing television or movies. These latter activities do not put into play the same cognitive processes as reading.

Reading forces the brain to plunge deeper into its potential, in the process forming new neural connections that allow us to think beyond the surface appearance of what we experience. Specifically, it allows us to see causes, while others may see only effects.

Only when we understand the causes of conditions do we have any possibility of changing them for the future.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' gives us the causes of the unpleasant conditions in our families and our communities, then offers solutions that may be used by everyone.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.

Can you see God?

If you don't find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking for him further.
- Mohandas K. (“The Mahatma”) Gandhi (1869-1948)

Gandhi is not saying that each person you meet should demonstrate signs of the divine to you. He is saying that you find what you look for. If you are unable to find God within yourself, you will be unable to see him in others.

Others are reflections of you, in a sense.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' seeks to unite the divine in all of us.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.

Heading for the Orwellian nightmare

"It isn't a very long step from a conformist society to a regimented society. Although it would take longer to create an Orwellian nightmare through voluntary surrender of individuality -- and thus of independence -- than through totalitarian edict, the results would be very much the same."
- J. Paul Getty

Do you see this happening anywhere in the world?
A "regimented society" could be a police state, feudalism or some sort of totalitarian society. The evidence is available to the world.

The "Orwellian nightmare" referred to in the quote is George Orwell's book "1984."

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems,' directing people away from the orwellian nightmare toward a society of educated people.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.

Life's detours might be golden

No one ever ever won a chess game by betting on each move. Sometimes you have to move backward to get a step forward.
- Amar Gopal Bose, electrical engineer, inventor, founder Bose Corp. (1929- )

In other words, no line into the future is straight. A setback or detour might be what you need to put you onto a better course.

For most of us who have a plan for the future, it's a haphazard one because we cannot take unforeseen circumstances into consideration beforehand. Sometimes a step backward allows us to evaluate many factors that affect us and our loved ones from a perspective that would not have been possible if nothing unexpected had happened.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' helps to alleviate the pain of life's detours.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.

The nature of greatness

"It is the nature of all greatness not to be exact."
- Edmund Burke

Great people inspire others to work toward common goals. How each reaches their respective objectives along the way might require innovation, individualizations of the plan, which cannot be exercised under rigid rules.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic SocialProblems' is the answer, if you know the question.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.

Sanctity of women's rights

When assessing the rights of women, men must play no role in the formulation. There should be no "Women have this right, but..."

The rights of women stand alone, without comparison to or influence by or from the rights of men.

The rights of women should be absolute, without exceptions where the rights of men might supercede. There is no time when the right of a man is more important than the right of a women. This could only exist in a society, effectively, of slavery.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' has the methodology to make women's rights a normalized part of society.
learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Only one path to world peace

Certainly virtue is like precious odours, most fragrant when they are incensed, or crushed: for prosperity doth best discover vice, but adversity doth best discover virtue.
- Francis Bacon, essayist, philosopher, and statesman (1561-1626)

It's an odd and unfortunate fact of life that we tend to teach values and virtues after these have been violated. This reactionary form of teaching of societal norms has its consequences. Some children do not learn them well enough or in time to save them from adopting features of their lives that remain as permanent violations of societal norms.

For example, murder becomes a norm within some groups in some cities, though it violates an almost universal norm of humanity, which is "Do not kill."

In order for values, beliefs and societal norms of behaviour to become adopted and internalized by every person in a society, every child must be taught these, consistently, frequently and with similar emphasis.

Turning It Around advocates just such teaching. TIA is the only program in the world that proposes this common teaching among all people.

Do you want world peace? Then teach peace to every child. So long as peace is not taught consistently, frequently and with similar emphasis to every child, those who miss the message will not adhere to the wishes of a majority of people for peace.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' is the only path to world peace and personal safety.
Learn more at http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

An original idea

Don't worry about people stealing an idea. If it's original, you will have to ram it down their throats."
- Howard Aiken, computer pioneer (1900-1973)

Apparently we have little to fear about someone stealing our TIA concept. The idea that we could live in a world at peace, that we could live in communities without crime, that we could live our lives without fear and with confidence and happiness is today counterintuitive. What was once accepted and expected in human history is now foreign to us.

Now we will have to ram down the throats of people a concept that is in their best interests, that will make them whole individuals rather than automatons in a rat race.

Let's begin by offering them hope through Turning It Around. Let's begin by telling as many people as we can that there is reason for hope.

Let's tell them that they have to do something in order to earn that hope: they must learn and they must tell others.

It begins with us.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' is the book and the way.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.

Failure paves the road to success

"Failure is the tuition you pay for success."
- Walter Brunell

Success is earned through experience. Experience is earned through failure.

Failure is not the end. Failure is merely a lesson on the road of life. To stop the progress of our lives after a failure is like quitting school in the middle of a course. The course, and life, go on with you or without you.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic Social Problems' will protect kids from the damage that today's kids suffer because they are not prepared for bad times in their lives.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl

Born equal? Then what?

"All people are born equal. Each has a right to earn his niche bythe sweat of his brow. But some sweat more and carve larger niches."
- Anonymous

It may not surprise you to learn that this quote was taken from a newsletter that promotes small business, home business and the entrepreneurial spirit. The underlying theme of the message is that business is the most important factor that determines if one carves aniche in life or not.

I submit that business is not the most important thing in life, though that is what is taught, by example, in western countries.

If we do not teach the values of our people to our children, they adopt the values that others teach them. In western countries, that falls to businesses who advertise and promote, with their sole objective of making a profit.

Bill Allin
If you enjoy daily quotes and comments, please tell friends about this blog and join the group. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/turningitaround
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The Curses of Schools

"Destiny is not a matter of chance; it is a matter of choice.It is not a thing to be waited for; it is a thing to be achieved."
- William Jennings Bryan

One of the worst curses we can place on a child is to tell him that he can be anything he wants to be in life, then not give him the tools to achieve his goals. Schools are not set up to provide those tools, a deficiency that TIA plans to correct.

Another curse, almost as bad, is to tell a child that he won't likely amount to much in life. If the child believes this, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy. Schools are designed to tell children this very thing. They do it so well.

Bill Allin
'Turning It Around: Causes and Cures for Today's Epidemic SocialProblems' has answers when others have only questions and despair.
See http://billallin.com/cgi/index.pl for more information.