The Government is willing to have a foreign nation take over control of US ports (yeah, yeah, I know, it's not that cut & dried), but wants to spend 2.2 billion to put up a wall between the US and Mexico, for security reasons?
Every single day brings on a whole new WTF from Washington.
Border Security or Boondoggle?
37 Million Poor Hidden in the Land of Plenty
By Paul Harris
The Observer UK
Sunday 19 February 2006
Americans have always believed that hard work will bring rewards, but vast numbers now can not meet their bills even with two or three jobs. More than one in ten citizens live below the poverty line, and the gap between the haves and have-nots is widening.
The flickering television in Candy Lumpkins's trailer blared out The Bold and the Beautiful. It was a fantasy daytime soap vision of American life with little relevance to the reality of this impoverished corner of Kentucky.
The Lumpkins live at the definition of the back of beyond, in a hollow at the top of a valley at the end of a long and muddy dirt road. It is strewn with litter. Packs of stray dogs prowl around, barking at strangers. There is no telephone and since their pump broke two weeks ago Candy has collected water from nearby springs. Oblivious to it all, her five-year-old daughter Amy runs barefoot on a wooden porch frozen by a midwinter chill.
It is a vision of deep and abiding poverty. Yet the Lumpkins are not alone in their plight. They are just the negative side of the American equation. America does have vast, wealthy suburbs, huge shopping malls and a busy middle class, but it also has vast numbers of poor, struggling to make it in a low-wage economy with minimal government help.
A shocking 37 million Americans live in poverty. That is 12.7 per cent of the population - the highest percentage in the developed world. They are found from the hills of Kentucky to Detroit's streets, from the Deep South of Louisiana to the heartland of Oklahoma. Each year since 2001 their number has grown.
Under President George W Bush an extra 5.4 million have slipped below the poverty line. Yet they are not a story of the unemployed or the destitute. Most have jobs. Many have two. Amos Lumpkins has work and his children go to school. But the economy, stripped of worker benefits like healthcare, is having trouble providing good wages.
Even families with two working parents are often one slice of bad luck - a medical bill or factory closure - away from disaster. The minimum wage of $5.15 (£2.95) an hour has not risen since 1997 and, adjusted for inflation, is at its lowest since 1956. The gap between the haves and the have-nots looms wider than ever. Faced with rising poverty rates, Bush's trillion-dollar federal budget recently raised massive amounts of defence spending for the war in Iraq and slashed billions from welfare programmes.
For a brief moment last year in New Orleans, Hurricane Katrina brought America's poor into the spotlight. Poverty seemed on the government's agenda. That spotlight has now been turned off. 'I had hoped Katrina would have changed things more. It hasn't,' says Cynthia Duncan, a sociology professor at the University of New Hampshire.
Oklahoma is in America's heartland. Tulsa looks like picture-book Middle America. Yet there is hunger here. When it comes to the most malnourished poor in America, Oklahoma is ahead of any other state. It should be impossible to go hungry here. But it is not. Just ask those gathered at a food handout last week. They are a cross section of society: black, white, young couples, pensioners and the middle-aged. A few are out of work or retired, everyone else has jobs.
They are people like Freda Lee, 33, who has two jobs, as a marketer and a cashier. She has come to the nondescript Loaves and Fishes building - flanked ironically by a Burger King and a McDonald's - to collect food for herself and three sons. 'America is meant to be free. What's free?' she laughs. 'All we can do is pay off the basics.'
Or they are people like Tammy Reinbold, 37. She works part-time and her husband works full-time. They have two children yet rely on the food handouts. 'The church is all we have to fall back on,' she says. She is right. When government help is being cut and wages are insufficient, churches often fill the gap. The needy gather to receive food boxes. They listen to a preacher for half an hour on the literal truth of the Bible. Then he asks them if they want to be born again. Three women put up their hands.
But Why Are Some Tulsans Hungry?
Many believe it is the changing face of the US economy. Tulsa has been devastated by job losses. Big-name firms like WorldCom, Williams Energy and CitGo have closed or moved, costing the city about 24,000 jobs. Now Wal-Mart embodies the new American job market: low wages, few benefits.
Well-paid work only goes to the university-educated. Many others who just complete high school face a bleak future. In Texas more than a third of students entering public high schools now drop out. These people are entering the fragile world of the working poor, where each day is a mere step away from tragedy. Some of those tragedies in Tulsa end up in the care of Steve Whitaker, a pastor who runs a homeless mission in the shadow of a freeway overpass.
Each day the homeless and the drug addicted gather here, looking for a bed for the night. Some also want a fresh chance. They are men like Mark Schloss whose disaster was being left by his first wife. The former Wal-Mart manager entered a world of drug addiction and alcoholism until he wound up with Whitaker. Now he is back on track, sporting a silver ring that says Faith, Hope, Love. 'Without this place I would be in prison or dead,' he says. But Whitaker equates saving lives with saving souls. Those entering the mission's rehabilitation programme are drilled in Bible studies and Christianity. At 6ft 5in and with a black belt in karate, Whitaker's Christianity is muscular both literally and figuratively. 'People need God in their lives,' he says.
These are mean streets. Tulsa is a city divided like the country. Inside a building run by Whitaker's staff in northern Tulsa a group of 'latch-key kids' are taking Bible classes after school while they wait for parents to pick them up. One of them is Taylor Finley, aged nine. Wearing a T-shirt with an American flag on the front, she dreams of travel. 'I want to have fun in a new place, a new country,' she says. Taylor wants to see the world outside Oklahoma. But at the moment she cannot even see her own neighbourhood. The centre in which she waits for mom was built without windows on its ground floor. It was the only way to keep out bullets from the gangs outside.
During the 2004 election the only politician to address poverty directly was John Edwards, whose campaign theme was 'Two Americas'. He was derided by Republicans for doing down the country and - after John Kerry picked him as his Democratic running mate - the rhetoric softened in the heat of the campaign.
But, in fact, Edwards was right. While 45.8 million Americans lack any health insurance, the top 20 per cent of earners take over half the national income. At the same time the bottom 20 per cent took home just 3.4 per cent. Whitaker put the figures into simple English. 'The poor have got poorer and the rich have got richer,' he said.
Dealing with poverty is not a viable political issue in America. It jars with a cultural sense that the poor bring things upon themselves and that every American is born with the same chances in life. It also runs counter to the strong anti-government current in modern American politics. Yet the problem will not disappear. 'There is a real sense of impending crisis, but political leaders have little motivation to address this growing divide,' Cynthia Duncan says.
There is little doubt which side of America's divide the hills of east Kentucky fall on. Driving through the wooded Appalachian valleys is a lesson in poverty. The mountains have never been rich. Times now are as tough as they have ever been. Trailer homes are the norm. Every so often a lofty mansion looms into view, a sign of prosperity linked to the coal mines or the logging firms that are the only industries in the region. Everyone else lives on the margins, grabbing work where they can. The biggest cash crop is illicitly grown marijuana.
Save The Children works here. Though the charity is usually associated with earthquakes in Pakistan or famine in Africa, it runs an extensive programme in east Kentucky. It includes a novel scheme enlisting teams of 'foster grandparents' to tackle the shocking child illiteracy rates and thus eventually hit poverty itself.
The problem is acute. At Jone's Fork school, a team of indomitable grannies arrive each day to read with the children. The scheme has two benefits: it helps the children struggle out of poverty and pays the pensioners a small wage. 'This has been a lifesaver for me and I feel as if the children would just fall through the cracks without us,' says Erma Owens. It has offered dramatic help to some. One group of children are doing so well in the scheme that their teacher, Loretta Shepherd, has postponed retirement in order to stand by them. 'It renewed me to have these kids,' she said.
Certainly Renae Sturgill sees the changes in her children. She too lives in deep poverty. Though she attends college and her husband has a job, the Sturgill trailer sits amid a clutter of abandoned cars. Money is scarce. But now her kids are in the reading scheme and she has seen how they have changed. Especially eight-year-old Zach. He's hard to control at times, but he has come to love school. 'Zach likes reading now. I know it's going to be real important for him,' Renae says. Zach is shy and won't speak much about his achievements. But Genny Waddell, who co-ordinates family welfare at Jone's Fork, is immensely proud. 'Now Zach reads because he wants to. He really fought to get where he is,' she says.
In America, to be poor is a stigma. In a country which celebrates individuality and the goal of giving everyone an equal opportunity to make it big, those in poverty are often blamed for their own situation. Experience on the ground does little to bear that out. When people are working two jobs at a time and still failing to earn enough to feed their families, it seems impossible to call them lazy or selfish. There seems to be a failure in the system, not the poor themselves.
It is an impression backed up by many of those mired in poverty in Oklahoma and Kentucky. Few asked for handouts. Many asked for decent wages. 'It is unfair. I am working all the time and so what have I done wrong?' says Freda Lee. But the economy does not seem to be allowing people to make a decent living. It condemns the poor to stay put, fighting against seemingly impossible odds or to pull up sticks and try somewhere else.
In Tulsa, Tammy Reinbold and her family are moving to Texas as soon as they save the money for enough petrol. It could take several months. 'I've been in Tulsa 12 years and I just gotta try somewhere else,' she says.
Savethechildren.org
From Tom Joad to Roseanne
In a country that prides itself on a culture of rugged individualism, hard work and self-sufficiency, it is no surprise that poverty and the poor do not have a central place in America's cultural psyche.
But in art, films and books American poverty has sometimes been portrayed with searing honesty. John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath, which was made into a John Ford movie, is the most famous example. It was an unflinching account of the travails of a poor Oklahoma family forced to flee the Dust Bowl during the 1930s Depression. Its portrait of Tom Joad and his family's life on the road as they sought work was a nod to wider issues of social justice in America.
Another ground-breaking work of that time was John Agee's Let Us Now Praise Famous Men, a non-fiction book about time spent among poor white farmers in the Deep South. It practically disappeared upon its first publication in 1940 but in the Sixties was hailed as a masterpiece. In mainstream American culture, poverty often lurks in the background. Or it is portrayed - as in Sergio Leone's crime epic Once Upon A Time In America - as the basis for a tale of rags to riches.
One notable, yet often overlooked, exception was the great success of the sitcom Roseanne. The show depicted the realities of working-class Middle American life with a grit and humour that is a world away from the usual sitcom settings in a sunlit suburbia, most often in New York or California. The biggest sitcoms of the past decade - Friends, Frasier or Will and Grace - all deal with aspirational middle-class foibles that have little relevance to America's millions of working poor.
An America Divided
* There are 37 million Americans living below the poverty line. That figure has increased by five million since President George W. Bush came to power.
* The United States has 269 billionaires, the highest number in the world.
* Almost a quarter of all black Americans live below the poverty line; 22 per cent of Hispanics fall below it. But for whites the figure is just 8.6 per cent.
* There are 46 million Americans without health insurance.
* There are 82,000 homeless people in Los Angeles alone.
* In 2004 the poorest community in America was Pine Ridge Indian reservation. Unemployment is over 80 per cent, 69 per cent of people live in poverty and male life expectancy is 57 years. In the Western hemisphere only Haiti has a lower number.
* The richest town in America is Rancho Santa Fe in California. Average incomes are more than $100,000 a year; the average house price is $1.7m.
From Gawker
“It was a meant to be a quick stunt to show the frailties of our celebrity-obsessed culture,” said Cauty, adding, “there are too many people who are famous despite their lack of talent, usefulness and basic intelligence. We wanted to do something that held a mirror up to that.”
“We feel that our culture has become an enormous soap opera. We don’t care what a person thinks, or creates, or contributes. We just care about what they do in their normal lives. Especially when it’s something they shouldn’t be doing.”
But first ~ spotted this on djinnj's LJ earlier this morning:
| lemcclatchie's Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 9 | |
|---|---|
| Average number of words per sentence: | 16.67 |
| Average number of syllables per word: | 1.56 |
| Total words in sample: | 4701 |
| Another fun meme brought to you by rfreebern | |
No businessmen had to be at work.
Not quite, I started delivering at noon and finished at half past midnight...39 deliveries in that snow, including a lot in the worst of it.
Oh, and the wonderful denzins of Willimantic Connecticut tipped me a grand total of $63 dollars (for those playing the home game that's an average of $1.16 each for risking life and limb to bring them pizza).
Double-check the tipping protocol at South Pacific and Asian hotels. Many prohibit tipping to prevent staff from hustling guests for money.
Choosy CSI You scored 70% recognition! |
My guess is that you watch one or two of the CSI shows and while you know your characters, you don't know the faces for all three shows that well. But at least you are a fan, so that counts for something. If you had fun, please don't forget to rate my test. Thanks! |
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My test tracked 1 variable How you compared to other people your age and gender:
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| Link: The CSI character recognition Test written by thinkandcome on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the 32-Type Dating Test |
It seemed, after all, so American to get worked up over a snow storm. We are the culture of crisis, the culture of the overdone. We overeat, overcoif, overspend, and overindulge. Why wouldn't we overdramatize, too? This was a Sunday. No businessmen had to be at work. No kids missed their morning classes. Grocery stores remained open and Thai delivery—at least here in Astoria—remained operable. Really, it was the perfect day to curl up with a mug of hot chocolate and do nothing.
Swiss Diplomacy
For some reason the idea of the VEEP and the Ambassador "keepin' company" just cracks me up.
But then I have a sick, twisted, sense of humor.
The reason for my question yesterday was to 1) make people think 2) try to find the truth.
This started with a rather hysterical conversation amoungst several friends a couple of weeks ago. One side was: "The US has destroyed the country! There's no food, power, medicine...." the other was "The US has done more for Iraq than Saddam ever did! Without us they wouldn't have food, water, medicine, schools..."
I realized, listening to this "debate" that 1) I didn't know what was really going on in Iraq and 2) neither did the people having this debate.
I'm pretty sure anyone reading this knows I loathe this administration. I might joke about them bbq'ing babies and ripping the fur off kittens, but, I'm fairly certain we haven't destroyed Iraq and I was fairly certain we haven't done much to help it either.
So I started looking for personal blogs a few days ago. My point yesterday was to get others to think about these questions and go looking too.
Here's some of what I found:
The Woman I was
My Green Zone
Raed In The Middle
So if there was a question whether this war and occupation was worth the cost paid by Iraqis and U.S. people, I would say: “definitely not”. The right change should have come from the inside, and the right type of democracy should have emerged from a long-term grassroots movement growing within Iraq.
The foreign occupation turned the dream of having an Iraq without Saddam to a darker nightmare, a nightmare where Iraqis lost even the smallest benefits they used to have before the occupation while the political oppression stayed the same if not worse. The biggest irony in this nightmare is when the “liberators” compare themselves to the former dictator to market their “new” Iraq. “Saddam killed 300,000 but we just killed a 100,000 to make you vote”, this is the how the logic of the mainstream pro-war activists and media sounds like. The same people who used Saddam’s crimes to justify the war on Iraq are committing the very same crimes against Iraqis.
There aren't many entertainment places in Baghdad, except for the clubs (Al-Alwiya and Al-Sayd), restaurants or the wedding parties. But there was social life and family visits. These have decreased so much now as the safest place is to stay home...
# It's bad. All that we got is 8 hours per day. You know? Sometimes all I wish for is to switch on the light early morning so I can wear my makeup in sufficient light or have hot bread in the oven for breakfast. But these are rare days when I wake up and there is electricity.
People here don't believe that the American who brought all these tanks by airplanes can't bring the necessary machines to fix the electricity back. It's not terrorists or insurgents who slow down the rehabilitation but the will. They just don't care or don't want us to have a normal life. This is what I started to believe lately.
It's not an impossible mission .We have oil and money, and America have the technology so why can't we have what the poorest country in the world have?
I do believe if someone decides to do his job properly, nobody can stop him.
If you know, and have a source for your information, please post it.
Do the Iraqi people have electricity, 24x7?
Are all hospitals open? Do they have all the medicine and physicians and nurses they need?
Is there rationing? Food, gas, water?
Is there decent drinking water?
Are the schools open for the same amount of time each day as they were before the War?
Is it safe for people to be on the streets during the day? At night?
Is the cost of food greater or less today than it was on January 27, 2003?
Isn't within the realm of possibility that the United States of America is responsible for Hammas winning the election?
Think about it.
Bush, Cheney and Co. will continue to play the patriotic bully card just as long as you let them. I've said it before: War brings out the patriotic bullies. In World War I, they went around kicking dachshunds on the grounds that dachshunds were "German dogs." They did not, however, go around kicking German shepherds. The MINUTE someone impugns your patriotism for opposing this war, turn on them like a snarling dog and explain what loving your country really means. That, or you could just piss on them elegantly, as Rep. John Murtha did. Or eviscerate them with wit (look up Mark Twain on the war in the Philippines). Or point out the latest in the endless "string of bad news."
Osama bin Laden: Is It Him? Almost Certainly
It is as if both "sides" in this conflict live on illusions. Mssrs Bush and Blair keep telling us things in Iraq are getting better, when we all know that they are getting worse. Anarchy has seized that entire country. American bodies coming home to the United States? Just don't let the press take photographs of the coffins. Bombs in London? Nothing to do with Iraq, Blair haplessly told us last July.
I was surprised when I came across the article The Latest Bush Mega-Catastrophe... ~ it's similar to what I've been pondering for several years.
Is Bush the Anti-Christ?
The Latest Bush Mega-Catastrophe Is Now Pharmaceuticals
No matter what you think of George W. Bush, he is staking out his claim as a bona fide Horseman of the Apocalypse.
Like Bush's America, Howard's Australia is not so much a democracy as a plutocracy, governed for and by the "big end of town," even though, as Mark Twain pointed out, this is "an entire continent peopled by the lower orders." He was not that far out; for my generation, like that of my parents, we were the poor who had got away. There was a sense that we had inherited something other than the British legacy. Long before the rest of the western world, Australians gained a minimum wage, an eight-hour working day, pensions, maternity allowance, child benefits and the vote for women. The secret ballot was invented here and became known as the "Australian ballot." The Australian Labour Party formed governments 25 years before any comparable social democracy in Europe. In the 1960s, with the exception of the Aboriginal people - who are always the exception - Australians could boast the most equitable spread of personal income in the world.
Osama Sighting
After numerous repetitions of "We don't know if Osama is still alive," Osama himself decided to send George Bush a letter in his own handwriting to let him know he was still in the game.
Bush opened the letter and it appeared to contain a single line of coded message:
370HSSV-0773H
Bush was baffled, so he e-mailed it to Condi Rice. Condi and her aides had no clue either, so they sent it to the FBI. No one could solve it at the FBI so it went to the CIA, then to the NSA. With no clue as to its meaning they eventually asked Britain's MI-6 for help. Within a minute MI-6 cabled the White House with this reply:
"Tell the President he's holding the message upside down."
A deeply disturbing article by Silja J.A. Talvi, which first appeared in In These Times, on the Character Training Institute and the International Association of Character Cities and the Christian Reconstructionist movement. This is a must read folks:
Cult of Character
See also:
Christian Reconstructionism
The Chalcedon Foundation
What is Christian Reconstructionism?
Moses' Law for Modern Government: The Intellectual and Sociological Origins of the Christian Reconstructionist Movement:
What would a "reconstructed" America look like, K.L. Gentry suggests the following elements of a theonomic approach to civic order:
1 It obligates government to maintain just monetary policies ... [thus prohibiting] fiat money, fractional reserve banking, and deficit spending.
2 It provides a moral basis for elective government officials. ...
3 It forbids undue, abusive taxation of the rich. ...
4 It calls for the abolishing of the prison system and the establishing a system of just restitution. ...
5 A theonomic approach also forbids the release, pardoning, and paroling of murderers by requiring their execution. ...
6 It forbids industrial pollution that destroys the value of property. ...
7 It punishes malicious, frivolous malpractice suits. ...
8 It forbids abortion rights. ... Abortion is not only a sin, but a crime, and, indeed, a capital crime.
I can't remember where I spotted this, so, to whomever I've gacked it from, thanks!
I'm calling this the No, Not Ever List.
Everybody, Tag! You're it.
Four jobs you've never had in your life:
Mortician
Police Officer
Stripper
Architect
Four movies you don't want to watch even once:
Any horror films
Any slasher/horror/terror, whatever, films
Matrix
Lord of the Rings
Four places you've never lived:
Russia
Israel
China
Australia
Four television shows you've never watched:
That witch show - Charmed?
House
24
Everybody Loves Raymond
Four places you've never been on vacation:
Russia
Israel
China
Australia
Four of your least favorite foods:
Liver
Asperagus
Brussels Sprouts
Fish
Four places you'd rather not be:
Hospice
Hospital
Rollercoaster
Los Angeles
Four albums (cds) you can live without:
Any Rap
Any Country & Western
Any Kids music
Any hard (acid) rock
Reality Check
He's that thing that lurked under your bed when you were a kid. Under Fire, DeLay Steps Down. Hopefully Texas will see the error of their ways and not send this... person... back to Congress.
What Year Is This Anyway?
During the birth of the United States, John Adams - who also proclaimed that Britain's rule under which "The Law, and the Fact, are both to be decided by the same single Judge" was "directly repugnant to the Great Charter [Magna Carta] itself" - wrote of "a government of laws and not of men." During the Watergate crisis (to hop a couple of centuries) and just after he was fired by a President who wanted to shield his criminal acts by citing the doctrine of executive privilege, Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox warned, "Whether ours shall continue to be a government of laws and not of men is now for Congress and ultimately the American people." Just 33 years later, the question again begs answer - is this to be a nation of laws or of men? Is this to be a nation that recognizes nearly 800 years of Anglo-American legal precedent in which even the nation's chief executive is subject to the rule of law, or one that allows that leader to assume the unchecked rights of a sovereign during the Middle Ages? Are we willing to accept the Bush administration's latest rollback campaign and reset the calendar to 1214?
Rather than fight it out on Capitol Hill, Bush chose to circumvent the confirmation process. Yesterday, with Congress out of session, the president made more than a dozen recess appointments, granting positions to several controversial nominees. Julie L. Myers was made head of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement bureau at the Department of Homeland Security, despite criticism by Democrats and Republicans that she lacks experience. Tracy A. Henke became executive director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness; as the Washington Post reported, "She had been accused in her politically appointed post at the Justice Department of demanding that information about racial disparities in police treatment of blacks in traffic cases be deleted from a news release." Sauerbrey was installed at the State Department.
No court alone can do the job of protecting liberty from the exercise of executive power. For that most important of tasks, the people's elected representatives need to be actively involved. When we let them abdicate this role, the violations start to multiply, and we get the secret surveillance and the classified renditions and the unnamed torture that we all recognize as un-American. Our Constitution has changed enormously over the last two centuries, and it is sure to change much more in the future. Just how it changes, though, is up to us.
The front line of defense against terrorism is supposed to be the three-year-old, $40-billion-a-year Homeland Security Department, but news of its ineptitude, cronyism and no-bid contracts has only grown since Katrina. The Washington Post reported that one Transportation Security Administration contract worth up to $463 million had gone to a brand-new company that (coincidentally, we're told) contributed $122,000 to a powerful Republican congressman, Harold Rogers of Kentucky. An independent audit by the department's own inspector general, largely unnoticed during Christmas week, found everything from FEMA to border control in some form of disarray.
Yet even as this damning report was released, the president forced cronies into top jobs in immigration enforcement and state and local preparedness with recess appointments that bypassed Congressional approval. Last week the department had the brilliance to leave Las Vegas off its 2006 list of 35 "high threat" urban areas - no doubt because Mohammed Atta was so well behaved there when plotting the 9/11 attacks.
The warrantless eavesdropping is more of the same incompetence. Like our physical abuse of detainees and our denial of their access to due process, this flouting of the law may yet do as much damage to fighting the war on terrorism as it does to civil liberties. As the First Amendment lawyer Martin Garbus wrote in The Huffington Post, every defense lawyer representing a terrorism suspect charged in the four years since Mr. Bush's N.S.A. decree can challenge the legality of the prosecution's evidence. "The entire criminal process will be brought to a standstill," Mr. Garbus explains, as the government refuses to give the courts information on national security grounds, inviting the dismissal of entire cases, and judges "up and down the appellate ladder" issue conflicting rulings.
Followed the link on Bobby's site to this test:
For the Frontal Lobe, I scored a 3, closer to non-judging than value-driving.
For the Upper Cerebral Cortex, I scored a 9, closer to the middle, balanced, than logic-driven.
For the Temporal Lobe, I scored a 3, closer to unfeeling (yeah, well, I've been accused of that) than emotion-driven.
Your score for the Frontal Lobe, the section of the brain that monitors social interactions and controls the expression of values, is perfectly normal. If the other two scores are not equal and one of the scores is a 1 or 2, then your scores on the BBT are not balanced. See the interpretation for that very low score. Balanced scores on the BBT indicate the potential for high-quality living.
Your score for the Upper Cerebral Cortex, the section of the brain that controls cognition and objective thinking, is potentially balanced. This is especially true if the scores for the other two major brain sections are also within the mid-range of 3 to 9. Equivalent scores on the Balanced Brain Test indicate the potential for high quality living. If you scored a 3 to 5 in the Upper Cerebral Cortex and were able to add a few more points to this thinking area, more thoughtful solutions to daily problems may make life a little easier. Try to solve your life problems more thoughtfully and less emotionally. You will never be 'perfect' and your life will always be difficult.
Your score for the Temporal Lobe, the section of the brain that controls deep emotions like fight-flight, is perfectly normal. If the other two scores are not equal and one of the scores is a 1 or 2, then your scores on the BBT are not balanced. See the interpretation for that very low score. Balanced scores on the BBT are an indication of potential high- quality living. See the Forward by Dr. Samuel Knapp in Friday's Laws.
Friday's Laws
