My sweet daughter takes an infinite number of quizes that reveal her inner soul (well, some characteristics, at least), but every time I take one, they ask to sign up for something. I already get enough junk mail and I usually can’t figure out how to complete the quiz wthout giving away my two firsborn children, so I just skip them. But lo and behold, clothedinjoy had one on her blog to test what major you should have, so I tried it. Wonders of wonders, nothing was required except to answer a few question.

What is your Perfect Major? (PLEASE RATE ME!!<3)
created with QuizFarm.com

So I was a philosophy/psychology major and had a career as a Navy Pilot and a computer analyst. Not a bad test, really.

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Beloit College has published its Mindset List for the class of 2010.

Members of the class of 2010, entering college this fall, were mostly born in 1988. For them: Billy Carter, Lucille Ball, Gilda Radner, Billy Martin, Andy Gibb, and Secretariat have always been dead.

Here are a few of the mindsets:

1. The Soviet Union has never existed and therefore is about as scary as the student union.

7. They have never heard anyone actually “ring it up” on a cash register.

11. A coffee has always taken longer to make than a milkshake.

19. “Google” has always been a verb.

30. Non-denominational mega-churches have always been the fastest growing religious organizations in the U.S.

34. They have always known that “In the criminal justice system the people have been represented by two separate yet equally important groups.”

39. “So” as in “Sooooo New York,” has always been a drawn-out adjective modifying a proper noun, which in turn modifies something else

Toodles.

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Mark, Mark, Mark…

So far I’ve been successful at avoiding tags. I treat them as chain letters, mostly, mainly because I don’t have the patience to so the work to pass it along. I’m usually as squirrelly as a Jr. High School Boy.¹ Even if I love you, it will be a long time before I respond to another one of these tags. Only because I love Mark so much, and the work required to pass this tag along is relatively small, and I’m a tag virgin, will I respond…this time.

• One book that changed your life: The Bible (This may sound too easy, but it was my study of The Bible in college that led me to reject the church² and begin a search for truth. It was the same book where I found it in the person of Jesus 20 years later)
• One book that you’ve read more than once: The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories by William J. Bennett
• One book that made you laugh: And If You Play Golf, You’re My Friend: Further Reflections of a Grown Caddy by Harvey Penick
• One book that made you cry: The Sacred Romance Drawing Closer To The Heart Of God by Brent Curtis and John Eldredge
• One book that you wish had been written: A really good mystery novel by me (I’ve been too lazy and undisciplined to accomplish this feat)
• One book you wish had never been written: Â Prince of Peace by James Carroll (Completely base and sacreligions. No value whatsoever that I could see)
• One book you are currently reading: The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman
• One book you’ve been meaning to read: The Man in the Mirror by Patrick Morley (And an extremely long list of mysteries, thrillers, and spy novels)

And, now this tagging thing means I’m supposed to tag 5 others to post the same information from their library of reading. You poor folks are now tagged: Stacey, Beth, Scoop, Bonnie, Kiki. Sorry.

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

1. By the way diagnosing a Jr. High School boy with ADHD is like saying, “There is water in the ocean.” [↩]
2. In my naivety, I equated hypocricy in the church leadership with error in the Bible [↩]

In Bad Business by Robert B. Parker, Spenser asks Rita Fiore how her love life is going. She responds:

“Busy,…but, same old question, ‘why are there so many more horses’ asses than there are horses?’”

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

Thanks to all of you who responded to What Do These Articles Have In Common?.

Very good, folks. My Dau emphasizes blaming external sources for lack of personal responsibility; Bonnie quotes her Grandma who says, “we’re all going to hell in a handbasket;” Scoop encouraged me to change the posting category to “Obvious” subfolder “Dah!” Vicki (Kiki) asks, “Where’s the parents’ responsibility in all this?” All cogent replies. Proof positive that intelligent people read Major Mike’s Musings

Way back when, when Mrs. Major and I taught 9^th grade Sunday school class at Chapel Rock Christian Church, we had a discussion about how the TV program, Beverly Hills 90210, was an undue negative influence on the class. (Maybe Kiki will remember that discussion). The students maintained that (1) the program did not put Christianity down, (2) promoted some moral issues, and (3) didn’t influence anyone who was smart enough to know the difference between TV and real life. It was just entertainment, after all.

Fast forward to the era of the three articles. Now we have three instances where the culture is exerting unhealthy influence on its partakers, in these instances soda, raunchy sex music, and gangsta rap. Couple this influence with the denial of those influenced that they are being influenced and you have a recipe for deleterious behavior change. While teens are extremely susceptible to cultural influences because they are seeking acceptance and independence, adults are not immune.

Also notice that those who profit from these influences–Soda companies, the music business, game makers, movie companies, television networks–all deny that their product has a negative affect on the product’s users. We, my readers and I, all say, “Duh! Everyone knows that if you drink a bunch of sodas all the time you’re going to gain weight. If you listen to music that promotes sex or violence, you’re definitely going to be desensitized to sex and violence.”¹ Somebody out there must be buying the hogwash. Why else would it still be there? Maybe they don’t buy it, but don’t care about the consequences. Then again, maybe they’ve figured out how to blame someone else besides themselves.

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

1. Thanks, Dau [↩]

Dell Battery Danger Stems From Manufacturing Defect

Yipes. Exploding laptops! How would you like to have your laptop explode in your lap? Eeeeeeeeeeeeeyaaaaaaaaaah.

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

The following three articles ran on consecutive days last week. It struck me that there was one huge thing that these articles have in common. Here are the articles:

Article One

Report Says Sugary Drinks Pile on Pounds

By MARILYNN MARCHIONE
AP Medical Writer

Americans have sipped and slurped their way to fatness by drinking far more soda and other sugary drinks over the last four decades, a new scientific review concludes.

An extra can of soda a day can pile on 15 pounds in a single year, and the “weight of evidence” strongly suggests that this sort of increased consumption is a key reason that more people have gained weight, the researchers say.

Article Two

Sexual lyrics prompt teens to have sex

By LINDSEY TANNER
AP Medical Writer

CHICAGO (AP) — Teens whose iPods are full of music with raunchy, sexual lyrics start having sex sooner than those who prefer other songs, a study found.

Whether it’s hip-hop, rap, pop or rock, much of popular music aimed at teens contains sexual overtones. Its influence on their behavior appears to depend on how the sex is portrayed, researchers found.

Songs depicting men as “sex-driven studs,” women as sex objects and with explicit references to sex acts are more likely to trigger early sexual behavior than those where sexual references are more veiled and relationships appear more committed, the study found.

Article Three

Indianapolis on Edge Over Killings

By RICK CALLAHAN
Associated Press Writer

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — Marilyn Brooks and her two children didn’t hear the gunshot that killed a teenage boy in an alley behind her home, but the slaying so traumatized her 9-year-old son that he spent the night at his grandmother’s house and refused to return home the next morning.

Thirteen people have been killed in Indianapolis in less than a week – a wave of bloodshed that has alarmed residents and civic leaders and led to stepped-up police patrols in the city’s trouble spots.

Olgen Williams, an Indianapolis activist, said young people in the city have fallen under the spell of gangsta rap and the violent lifestyle it portrays.

“They all want to be gangsters because they think that’s the thing to be. The girls want to have a boyfriend who’s a bling bling gangbanger,” he said. “In the media, if you market something enough, someone is going to buy it. And that’s what these kids are buying.”

Do you see the commonality? What commonality do you see among the articles? I’ll give you my 2¢ worth in a couple of days. Please let me hear from you.

© 2006 – 2009, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.

• “When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car.”
  –Author Unknown
• Advice for the day: If you have a lot of tension and you get a headache, do what it says on the aspirin bottle: “Take two aspirin” and “Keep away from children.”
  –Author Unknown
• “Oh, you hate your job? Why didn’t you say so? There’s a support group for that. It’s called EVERYBODY, and they meet at the bar.”
  –Drew Carey
• “The problem with the designated driver program, it’s not a desirable job, but if you ever get sucked into doing it, have fun with it. At the end of the night, drop them off at the wrong house.”
  –Jeff Foxworthy
• “If a woman has to choose between catching a fly ball and saving an infant’s life, she will choose to save the infant’s life without even considering if there is a man on base.”
  –Dave Barry
• “Relationships are hard. It’s like a full time job, and we should treat it like one. If your boyfriend or girlfriend wants to leave you, they should give you two week’s notice. There should be severance pay, the day before they leave you, they should have to find you a temp.”
  –Bob Ettinger
• “My Mom said she learned how to swim when someone took her out in the lake and threw her off the boat. I said, ‘Mom, they weren’t trying to teach you how to swim.’”
  –Paula Poundstone
• “A study in the Washington Post says that women have better verbal skills than men. I just want to say to the authors of that study: ‘Duh’”
  –Conan O’Brien
• “Why does Sea World have a seafood restaurant?? I’m halfway through my fish burger and I realize, Oh my God…. I could be eating a slow learner.”
  –Lynda Montgomery
• “I think that’s how Chicago got started. Bunch of people in New York said, ‘Gee, I’m enjoying the crime and the poverty, but it just isn’t cold enough. Let’s go west.’”
  –Richard Jeni
• “If life were fair, Elvis would be alive and all the impersonators would be dead.”
  –Johnny Carson
• “Sometimes I think war is God’s way of teaching us geography.”
  –Paul Rodriguez
• “My parents didn’t want to move to Florida, but they turned sixty and that’s the law.”
  –Jerry Seinfeld
• “Remember in elementary school, you were told that in case of fire you have to line up quietly in a single file line from smallest to tallest. What is the logic in that? What, do tall people burn slower?”
  –Warren Hutcherson
• “Bigamy is having one wife/husband too many. Monogamy is the same.”
  –Oscar Wilde
• “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.”
  –Mark Twain
• “Our bombs are smarter than the average high school student. At least they can find Afghanistan.”
  –A. Whitney Brown
• “You can say any foolish thing to a dog, and the dog will give you a look that says, ‘My God, you’re right! I never would’ve thought of that!’”
  –Dave Barry
• “Everybody’s got to believe in something. I believe I’ll have another beer.”
  –W. C. Fields

© 2006 – 2008, J. M. Erickson. All rights reserved.