Howard Zinn is Dead

so lately, I've been forcing myself to stop browsing "news"paper sites, reading about stuff that doesn't really matter (e.g. toyota recalling vehicles) and I've been trying to instead browse collections of more substantial stories about stuff that might teach me something (e.g. NPR's online archive of interviews.) And hell for that matter, maybe I should read about Howard Zinn. The least I could do is read his wikipedia page.

Of course, with all the useless information I'm bombarded with, it feels like I have less and less room for any more information in my mind, much less information that makes me *think* and so, I have sort of a natural reaction to *not* reach for the Howard Zinn auto-biography, and instead to reach for the bong of mediocrity, stuff some more useless information into it, pack it in, light it up, and take some deep puffs, holding it in, and then letting it out, and observing the meaningless wisps of smoke as they evaporate into nothingness. My mind screams out for nothing, for nothingness, for peace. I have a nothingness problem, similar to a drinking problem, and maybe if I drink some more, it will go away... maybe...

That interview of that scientist dude was interesting, the one I posted in that thread titled "analysis paralysis." The guy mentioned an experiment that had been done whereby people were given a number to memorize - some people a two digit number, and some a seven digit number. So after they memorize the number, they send them into a room and offer them the choice of a treat between a healthy fruit salad or an unhealthy ice cream or whatever it was.. some kind junk food kinda treat. So, the people who had memorized the two digit number were way more likely to choose the fruit salad, whereas, those who had memorized the seven digit number were more likely to choose the unhealthy treat.

The guy opined that we can conclude from this that the logical part of the brain gets overwhelmed pretty easily. Apparently, the logical facilities of the mind are not capable of nearly as much as we give them credit for, and much of our behavior which we rationalize as... rational... in fact is due to the emotional parts of the brain participating in the decision making process...

Perhaps where some of us go wrong is in trying to become more logical, in trying to shut out the emotional parts of the cognitive process... Perhaps we might do better to try to better integrate the emotional elephant of the brain, even to learn to trust it more, not less...

Anyway, I hope that the next time I post in this topic, it can be about Howard Zinn, esteemed by the person with no vowels, which makes me feel kinda sad that I don't know about the guy, but I guess, I don't need to, on some subconscious limbic level, need to anticipate chowing down on a b-b--b-b-banaaaana split while watching the guy's acceptance speech at the Grammys in order to integrate his thinking into my own.