Today’s post comes from Congressman Loomis Beechly, representing Minnesota’s 9th district, which comprises all the water surface area in the state.
Greetings Constituents,
I write to you regarding an issue of great importance. It has come to my attention that some leaders in Massachusetts are saying that theirs is the brain state.
Are we going to allow this?
There was a time when American states competed to see which one produced the most impressive looking crops or the largest number of sophisticated manufactured goods. This is what State Fairs used to be about. It was a way for the state to boast about its superior products and an exemplary way of life.
But things have changed. Increasingly, the spoils are going to those states that have the best brains. The markets don’t care how big our pumpkins are. They want to know what’s inside! And I think our great advantage over the rest of the world is that our melons are chock full of brains!
Actually, that’s a lie. There are smart people everywhere and one human head has about the same amount of brainage as the next. But until we convince ourselves that we’re unusually bright, we’re not going to seem smart to anyone else. School children are known to go out of the way to not appear too smart, for fear they’ll lose the popularity sweepstakes.
That’s why we have to talk up the quality of our noodles just like they were beef cows or zucchini.
Yes, I’m saying every Minnesotan should have a blue ribbon pinned to his or her skull as a sign of excellence.
Why? Because our brains are bigger, plumper, juicier, faster, longer-lasting and just plain better than the brains in every other state, bar none!
Some will loudly disagree. Others will silently disapprove because they know in their hearts that they are smarter than us. Constituents, that’s where we have them! People who think they’re superior to everyone around them also tend to look down on promoters and salesman. They think their excellence is self-evident and believe that everyone else will soon come to see it. Saying so out loud is tawdry, or so they think.
In the meantime, these geniuses pity anyone who toots his own horn.
That’s a mistake!
The sign of a truly intelligent person is that she knows no one will give her credit for anything unless she demands that they do it! So I’m surprised there aren’t more Minnesotans talking up the unique qualities of their brains! We should be ready, at the drop of a hat, to expound on the quality of our noggins. We should all be the Muhammad Ali of intellect. Float like a butterfly, sting like Apis mellifera!
Let’s get started today! I’m proud to say I’m a smart person living in a State of Brains, and I think you are too!
Your Exceptionally Bright Congressman,
Loomis Beechly.
What’s good about your brain?
Trail Baboon 
Good morning. When I was growing up my parents tended to treat me a a special person giving me the impression they thought I was smart. I did seem to have some skill as a student. As an older person I know that I am not always so smart. I guess when it comes to using my brain I now understand that it doesn’t always work as well as wish it would. Are you smart if you know that you are not always smart?
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yes. thats very smart.
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So, when you know you are dumb you are smart?
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when you know you dont know. then you know
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my brain is my friend and my foe. it happened every year in grade school. they had the iowa tests where the black pencils came out and the cards got filled out and handed in and a couple weeks later the results would come back in and the teachers would call me to the desk after the class had gone out to recess ( 15 minutesevery morning 45 after lunch and 15 in the afternoon. pouring rain and -20 degrees were no reason to alter the plan) they would sit at their desk ask me to pull up a chair and begin to review the iowa test scores with me. did you know that youre smart they would say. yes i would reply. then why do you act the way you do? you dont act like youre smart. you screw around and you dont get all the answers right and by looking at these test scores you should be doing much better. yes sister i will try to do better. after that the relationship always changed a bit. you would think they would talk a bit a teachers coffee break but it was always a lightning bolt to the next years teacher. i guess i did a good job of masking it. in high school my mom was the art teacher and she had one of the people in the department who looked after that stuff come up and grab her by the arm and tell her i had the second highest test sore ever in the district. who was first i asked. it turned out it was a kid a year older who had aced the test the year before. oh yeah i said he is really smart. my mom would be having a conversation and she would hold up her hands and say stiff like hold on your brain is working too fast. my brain doesnt work like yours. i need a little time to put it all in order. i like going to china where the honor me because i am left handed. oh you ar eleft handed you have a special brain they say. yes i am glad the poeple of china know these things i tell the with a smile, but they know i know that htey know. i do have special brain.
inside my noggin tucked in tight
is my thought machine dominant right
it does all my thinkin
allows thoughts to sink in
then steers my lifes path on its flight
i know it aint always apparent
with spelling snafus often errant
ideas whirl and intercede
in fistfull numbers at lightning speed
as a monk i’ll bet i could do a fair chant
i dont get the crossword in the sunday times
i dont always come up with coherent rhymes
but i do enjoy trying
and words come flying
from recessed corners of this slingshot mind
my lefthanded self is a wonder
creative juices flow over and under
my brain has great luck
while driving a truck
of fixing my lifes coming blunders
whenever im stumped beyond understanding
my brain is there with solutions demanding
a respnse from me
i would never see
left to my own gerrymandering
dont know where it comes from thank god
some of these ideas are really quite odd
but thoughts from this brain
are impossible to train
like seventeen peas in a pod
i go with the odd window dressing
when it feels like my brain is just messing
with conjuring up an idea
its a little mental diarrhea
i just count it as my special blessing
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Bravo, tim. You have a remarkable gift for versifying so early in the day (or anytime, really), and you seem to so effortlessly embrace yourself and the quirky ways of your brain.
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embrace or throw up easy choice
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Indeed bravo – you and your brain are a wonder. (And I’m a bit jealous of the left-handedness, my big brother is left-handed and as a kid I always wanted to figure out switching to being a “lefty” like him, especially since it seemed to make him smarter, or so I theorized.)
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left handedness was a recently acceptable phenomenon in the 50’s 60’s. i remember people coming over when i was little telling my parents they could still make me a righty at this early age and get that left handed stuff nipped in the bud. i asked why in the world they thought it would be a good idea and it wasnt until 2nd grade penmanship class with a schaffer ink cartridge fountain pen for the only acceptable tool i realize the funny tilt of the paper lefties employed was to keep from dragging their hands across the newly inked page below the mass of flesh on the bottom of that left pen wielding intruder. the nuns were not real understanding about blurred cursive from a 4th grade pen. i loved storytelling which i picked up from my dads passing on his belief that oral tradition was one of the greatest legacies. i try to tell my kids stories but the 8 second attention span has given me a run for my money. cell phone games while i am telling a story makes me kill off main characters mid sentence to see if anyone is paying attention. they often are not so i will have the story go off in a direction that eventually gets someones attention enough at they either ask for return to the original storyline or to stop it entirely. i hate the cell phone brain sucker. no one daydreams anymore. daydreaming is one of my best things. i cant live without it. i have one daughter who still lets her imagination run wild for extended periods and we celebrate the hidden brain whenever it is evident. it is such an iceberg. only a tip popping out with 99% below the surface. have you seen the coconut fiber that comes in a compressed bale? add 10 parts water and watch a loaf of bread sized chunk become a couple of big buckets of fluffy puffy stuff ideal for siol treatment instdead of peat moss or pet bedding. well my brain feels like anytime you pull out a chunk and add water it swells up and takes over the available space and time. then it never goes away it lurks over in the corner til i get back to it drying slowly back to compressed powder form. good news bad news. watch out what you toch it swells up so fast i blocks out everything else for a couple minutes then days then weeks or… you push it aside and grab another chunk.
like renee i like brains but in the abstract where she like the neuro end of the deal.
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“slingshot mind” I like it!
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All I can say about your brain, tim, is that I sure hope you leave it to science when you no longer are using it. I have a picture in my mind–sort of like a Gary Larsen cartoon–of a bunch of guys in white lab coats surrounding your brain on a lab table, saying, “Jesus! I’ve never seen anything like this before!!”
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I can see the spin offs of this already. Imagine the Disney ride called “Tim’s Brain”. “Ride the neuroimpulses going faster than the speed of light! Thrill in the convolutions, switchbacks, and sudden drop offs! Marvel in the rich imagery you can only glimpse before new and even more wonderful images appear!
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“Jump the optic chiasm! Get primitive in the Prefrontal Cortex! Dip you toes in the Lateral Ventricles! Watch neuronal pruning at its finest!”
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🙂 But the signs promoting those rides would all have to be lowercase!
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That would be no problem. In fact, it would be part of the ride “Decipher TIm’s musings!”
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then the morphine injection
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Rise and Shine Baboons!
Oh, my poor abused brain. It was in better shape prior to chemotherapy–that life-saving process left it in a foggier state that makes it difficult to find words. However, it facilitates a visual, experiential style that craves novelty and resists repetition and boredom. It also wakes me up at night ALOT which I resent.
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i would think there is a chemo enima that would act as a cleanse. i bet there is a beast out there that wil get things back on track. i am a homeopathic practicier and it sounds like it is right on track to be a fix worth looking into. homeopathic practioners in golden valley is marvelous
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I am in the unenviable position of testing very young children (under the age of 3) to determine if they qualify for developmental disability services beyond the age of 3. These are children who have been identified early on with pretty significant delays in some aspect of their development. Most have significant speech and language delays. If they qualify they are eligible for a host of services as well as helpful case management at an affordable rate for their parents. In order qualify they have to score in the Very Low range on the IQ test. It is bittersweet to tell parents that their child qualifies, since it also means that the child’s IQ, as measured at the present time, is below 70. I try to soften the blow as much as I can, since many of these kids will score much higher in years to come if they develop language. Recently I was testing a little one who decided to give me the wrong answers to the IQ test on purpose just to see what I would do. That one had other issues besides developmental delays, and really made my day.
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Hmm, that kid who deliberately gave bad answers sounds interesting. He or she (I’m guessing “he”) has a bit of originality and independence.
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Many kids that have behavior problems are very oppositional and, I am told, will screw up IQ tests by intentionally giving wrong answers. Renee, I expect you have been involved with giving very oppositional kids IQ tests and didn’t have much fun doing that.
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my brother had a tramatic birth with ivs in the ankle at birth last rights given etc.. he came out of it fine but hadnt spoken by the age of 3. my mother was freaking out and called her mother. who had noticed that whenever paul would point and grunt i his older brother by two years would act as translator and get him what he he was after of instruct my mother how to fulfill his wishes . her mother told her paul had no need to speak he was being taken care of perfectly with handsigns and grunts and that he should be instructed to ask for what he wanted. my mother says she kept me out of the room and when paul grunted she said he has to ask. his first words were… i’d like the cereal in the blue box on the shelf above the refrigerator. … that ended his silence.
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Wonderful story!
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This reminds me of my daughter’s fourth child, a little girl named Brandi. Brandi was far more perfectly beautiful than the Gerber baby. Her exquisite beauty and quiet nature made her a natural for others meeting her needs. As a result, this child didn’t really start talking until about age 4. We all conjectured that she didn’t speak because everyone around her was doing the speaking “for her”. She’s now 15 and perfectly normal as far as I can tell.
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We’ve been through this with the schools and our daughter. Testing is done to determine where daughter will fit in and what services she qualifies for. It’s always hard to be told she’s in the ‘Moderate to Severe’ group even though we don’t think she is. However, the Mild to Moderate classification gets her services that she may or may not be ready for. And sometimes the MS group puts her with kids way below her abilites and then she’s almost held back- which creates its own issues.
No easy answers. But she is doing pretty well. She’s a trouper- and she’s stubborn and likes to be independent. (Like her mother). And we’ve had good teachers and paras especially the last two years and they all know how to work ‘with’ her and not ‘against’ her.
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glad its working out. glad you are there to guide her down the path.
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As I’ve posted before, I spent 31 years with my erstwife as the butt of jokes about my shabby memory. It was only after she left that I figured out that my memory was robust . . . just different from hers in how it works. Now my memory is the aspect of my brain that pleases me most.
This morning I decided that my memory is like a vast, silent, cool library where all kinds of delightful books (memories) are stored on shelves. It smells good there. I can enter that place on a warm summer day and wander for hours, taking delight in one book after another. Here is a book of memories called simply “Danny.” Danny was the dog I loved when I was a boy. I can study the many Danny memories for hours, smiling all the while. Here is a book labeled “Bill Cargill.” I happened to examine it this morning although I have not thought of him for several decades. He was someone I knew briefly in 1960. But it all came back–what a terrible person he was, how outraged and shocked I was when I finally understood how nasty and morally reprehensible he was. You might think that contemplating a SOB would be unpleasant, but it was instructive to remember him this morning and to see how my loathing for him helped shape my character. Yesterday I had the fun of remembering a joke (about Rorschach tests, of all things) that my dad told me in 1957; I sent it to Renee.
These days I can no longer thrash my way through cattail marshes following a dog on the trail of a pheasant. My fingers are no longer nimble enough to play the guitar or tie a tiny fly to a leader. But that fantastic library of memory never closes! I can visit it and wander around, totally enthralled, any time I choose to. Even better, there are no starched panty librarians glowering at me through bifocals and standing between me and the adult books. I can go there as often as I wish!
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nice
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I liked that joke.
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I have been told that I have a facility for explaining concepts and processes. I get teased at work for using office supplies as props in my explanations – but then am also told that how I explained whatever it was clarified the issue or concept or idea a lot. So, there it is. I also know, based on what others tell me, that I am also good at synthesizing ideas and data – that I see connections between things where others don’t. None of this seems like anything special to me…but since folks who are not me seem to think otherwise, maybe it is.
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none of our gifts ever seem special to us. but like health i suspect if they ever start to leave they are missed and their true role in our identity is realized
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It is hard to get to know one’s self, for the things we do really well often seem so easy to us that we don’t appreciate the gift. I have a friend who understands things and learns things by thinking visually. It took her half a lifetime to figure out that this is a distinctive way of thinking.
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Here is a fun question. Who could be the governor of the “State” of Brains–let’s say it is Brainsylvania. (Guess who is at home with her mother this morning?)
Bill Clinton is really brainy–he might do. Great social skills and charisma, but he certainly has poor impulse control which speaks poorly of frontal lobe development.
Bill Gates–great technical mind and wonderful philanthropic urges. But lousy social skills. That Aslpergers thing.
Dale Connolly–fabulously creative brain. Pretty diffident, though. Anyone that diffident cannot create a Governor of Brainsylvania Cermonial Presence–overactive Reticular Activating System.
You get the idea. So who can govern Brainsylvania?
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It would be nice to have a decent guy, such as Dale, as governor. I don’t see those two Bill’s as being the decent type and wouldn’t want them as governors. Giving out lots of money or being very charismatic doesn’t make up for being greedy or power hungry.
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Who would Baboons consider great statesmen (statespersons) of the past, those with foresight, heart, and brains?
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h h h comes to mind immeadiatley
bobby kennedy
al gore
i like wild bill,
how about putting w or cheney in just to prove a point. a week or two ought to do it.
for today i think al frnaken could handle it til obama gets freed up in a couple of years
john stewart would be good after the thing established so it doesnt start as a joke.
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In more recent history Mahatma Gandhi and Nelson Mandela come to mind.
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Hubert Humphrey. Paul Wellstone. Martin Luther King, Jr. Eleanor Roosevelt. Or how about a brainy non-statesperson like Stephen Fry or Hugh Laurie?…Maybe Neil deGrasse Tyson?….
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I would like someone like Mr. Rogers to run the world, it would be a kinder, gentler place.
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This may appear to be OT, but it’s really a Public Service Announcement. Several baboons made it last year, hope to see a bunch more this year.
Friends:
The annual Eddies’ potluck picnic and concert down by the river is this Sunday, May 26th. We are writing with a reminder and important information about the location.
Location Update!
The picnic and music will be in the traditional location on Harriet Island (NOT in Cherokee Park as we were thinking initially). For those of you who might not have been to The Eddies’ home before, come to the Harriet Island East Entrance. Get to the south end of the Wabasha Bridge in downtown St. Paul, Minnesota, and turn east onto Fillmore Ave. (the stoplights in between the Bridge and Plato Blvd.). You will see the sign for Harriet Island. Follow the road through the construction and keep going until you reach the parking lot. Once there, you will see us. Take care, though. Because of the building being constructed at the south end of the Bridge, online maps will show you streets that no longer exist. Don’t believe everything you see on the Internet!
Reminder About Basic Plan
The Eddies will supply various meats and buns for cookout sandwiches. We will also have condiments. You should bring a picnic dish to share, beverages, chair, etc. We also encourage you to bring your own reusable plates and cups to help us keep trash and waste to a minimum (we will have a supply of paper goods in case you forget). We will have silverware too.
The food should be ready to go by 5:00 or so. At about 7:00, The Eddies will sing for you all. Afterwards, everyone helps to clean up and pack things away so that the park is no worse off than when we first arrived. Pretty simple.
Also, if you can help to arrange fine weather, that would be greatly appreciated. Hope to see you there!
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i cant make the picnic but i will arrange the weather. enjoy
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Thanks a lot, tim, but I had already taken care of that.
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Lots of about my brain is good. Like coordinating lots of small moving parts into a cohesive whole, working mechanism. Kind of like a huge comic book convention this last weekend….
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We were going to go to Springcon, but plans fell through for various reasons. How was it?
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The show itself went fantastic! Attendance was up. We donated almost 2 tons of food to the food shelf. Dealers sold lots of stuff, so they were happy. Lots of cos-play folks. The art show was hugely popular. Panels were great. (Behind the scenes, we had some issues…) But the show itself was a tremendous success! If you want to volunteer, it’s really cool to hang with the guests.
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I like the part of my brain that can play music by ear, and the part that says “Yeah, good idea, go with that.” I’m not so fond of the part that has CRS (Can’t Remember Stuff), and says “You idiot, what would people think if you did that???”
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Very late last night, I stumbled across a 30 minute infomercial about something called “Program for Getting Rid of Anxiety and Depression”. It fascinated me to listen to person after person relate how this program had “saved my life”. As I listened further, I realized that someone’s put together and marketed a CD which basically teaches you how to change out your learned negative tapes and replace them with self-empowering positive tapes. Cognitive-behavioral. I thought, “So – what’s new about this?” It also occurred to me that I spend months to years teaching exactly these concepts and helping clients replace their negative self-talk.
I guess that there’s nothing new at all. The infomercial folks are making a living peddling pretty much what I provide weekly to my clients. Perhaps the biggest difference is that I put a personal touch to the training? My favorite metaphor is that someone seeks me out for learning how to play the piano (pretending I’m a skilled pianist and the student is a novice). If that student booked time with me and only went home with a list of books to read about “how to play the piano”, he/she would never learn how to play. If, on the other hand, the two of us sat down and I showed her hand position, read music, and gradually exercising the fingers to extend further up the scale, she’d eventually learn the skills. Then, we could play together and she’d learn to play her own music. The piano, the instrument, is the relationship. Books alone can’t get the job done. A piano – the relationship – is the KEY to learning one’s own music
What’s “good” about my brain? That I’ve figured out what I don’t know, tried to learn what I can know, and the wisdom to know the difference.
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Can’t believe no one has quoted Woody Allen on this topic.
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