Free Cities Honduras

Here is a 6 minute summary of a couple of free cities efforts, which is good to hear.  Sadly the fellow is a capitalist, which means he esteems usury.  He did get his education the way the founding fathers did, which cost practically nothing today as well.

google will not allow me to embed fox stories, but here it is...

http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/3168252517001/how-one-principality-seceded-from-australia/?playlist_id=2891469744001#sp=show-clips


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The Gift of ADD/ADHD

Doctors are becoming ever more perplexed as to why ever more people are questioning their judgment.  Perhaps it is because ever more doctors are becoming soldiers in the fight for social engineering.

Parents face implacable social forces who want to make money off their children.  This needs to be said.

According to the US National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), nearly one in 11 American children aged 13-18 and one in 25 adults are affected by ADHD.
The analysis noted that Ritalin and other drugs were meant to be used only for "severe" ADHD symptoms, which according to research data only occur among about 14 percent of children with the condition.
Yet "about 87 percent of children diagnosed with ADHD in the US in 2010 subsequently received medication," it said, warning of "unnecessary and possibly harmful medication treatment".
The study said the main ADHD drugs could have side effects like weight change, liver damage and dwelling on suicide. And the drugs' long-term impact, as a child moves into adulthood, remained unknown.
The study, led by Rae Thomas at the Centre for Research in Evidence-Based Practice at Australia's Bond University, did not dispute the existence of ADHD as a medical condition.
It noted that children who genuinely had a severe form of it ran the risk of failure at school and of social rejection.

One in eleven.  There are zero children who need Ritalin.  There is no such thing as a chemical imbalance until the doctors introduce a chemical imbalance.  There are plenty of kids who are rambunctious, or mature at a different pace, and so what if they face "social rejection"  or face "failure at school."  We all face some social rejection, that's part of life, and no one faces total social rejection.  Failing at school is a problem of how schools operate.  So homeschool the gifted child.  Failing at school is no indicator of future success.  25% of our people drop out, and most do just fine.  Finishing school signifies nothing.

If you look at all these people who go to gun-free zones and starting shooting the place up, they have all had these treatments.  Talk about facing social rejection and doing poorly at school.  I call eleven dead doing poorly at school.

We have drug companies that attract soul-dead welfare queen executives, and parents who think of their kids as a consumer item... or a pet.  "Let's load junior up with whatever..."  Or at best, parents who have no idea who they are up against.

If your kid is on Ritalin, well, you've been had.  Get very expert help on getting your kid off Ritalin, and out of the system.  The stuff is extremely dangerous, and all the doctors know it.    So why do they prescribe it like "an aspirin and rest"?

If your kid acts up at school and faces social rejection, rejoice.  You have a gifted child.  Homeschool the kid, or sail around the world.  Whatever you do, do not drug the kid.  We need eery single one of those kids with the gift of ADD/ADHD. Change your life to organize around the gift.  Do not drug him.

Have a heart.


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John Paul DeJoria

There is a double-truck ad in the current issue of Forbes by Paul Mitchell, aka John Paul DeJoria.  The guy is fast becoming my hero in biz.

DeJoria entered the world of hair care as an employee of Redken Laboratories. He was fired from this position, he claims over a disagreement on business strategies. In 1980, he formed John Paul Mitchell Systems with hairdresser Paul Mitchell and a loan for $700.^[5] DeJoria owns 70% of The Patron Spirits Company. The Company is an ultra-premium tequila brand, and in 2011 they sold approximately 2,450,000 cases. DeJoria has a business interest in the African oil industry through his holdings in Madagascar Oil Ltd.

He caught me hook line and sinker with Patron tequila.  I thought I was buying a time tested traditional tequila, when in fact it was something a hairdresser came up with in 1989.  The best!

The ad is for something called Grow Appalachia.  Well, here is where the hero thing comes in.  How he gets involved in helping alleviate hunger in Africa, is to help Appalachians grow more and better food.  See the connection?  No?  He does, and so do I.

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The Gift of ADD/ADHD and International Trade Success

Kevin checks in with an interesting article...  if I had a critique it would be the fellow is going to run into price competition, but I doubt they will beat his salesmanship.

He says he does not use sales reps, and I imagine not, since he is very good at that.  What did catch my eye...

THE BACKGROUND A Toronto native, Mr. Shvartsman learned his first sales lessons at the age of 7, helping his parents sell jewelry at a Sunday flea market. He was smart, but he struggled in school because of an undiagnosed attention deficit disorder.

And thank God they did not diagnose it!  He'd be glued to a video-game right now and countless people in Florida would be short nice patio furniture.

If someone told you your energy, creativity, curiosity and love of life is a disease, and they have been drugging you for it, then find a good doctor who can take you off the drugs (under medical care).  There is nothing wrong with you.  Get off the drugs, enjoy your incorrigible weirdness, and serve others with it.  They will be happy you did.

For the grandaddy of psychiatry critics, check out Dr. Szasz...





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The Gift of ADD/ADHD

When I was a child, my parents asked me what I wanted for Christmas.  I said a tea set.  They begged me to be like the other boys.  I told them I tried.  The other boys would say "Let's go play baseball!"  And I'd say "No, let's take clothes apart and see how they are made."  Then the other boys would beat me up.

I told my parents about a new disease they made.  They called it hyperkinesis.  (Later they called it ADD or ADHD or both.)  I heard they had drugs for it.  I asked if I could have the drugs.

My mom had a degree in sociology and said psychiatry was bogus and hyperkinesis was not a disease. I reminded her she wanted me to be like the other kids.  She said the other kids were not on drugs, so going on drugs would not make me like the other kids.

In high school when all the kids were on drugs they were then like me.  They would do stuff like take clothes apart to see how they were made.  In class.  The clothes they were wearing.  This was better.  I began to fit in.  Except it was illegal to take such drugs.  I finally got a job in a hospital kitchen, where ADD paid off big time.  I learned ADD was a gift.

Then Uncle Sam said I should register for the draft.  Go to Vietnam like the other boys.  At that point I didn't care about being like the other boys.  I had the gift of ADD/ADHD.  War was not for me.  I filled out a bunch of forms and the military said they did not want me.  1 O.  Women and children first.  I got a job in an import export company.  A small one, perfect for someone with ADD/ADHD.

If your kid is different, it's not a disease.  It's a gift.  If they offer you drugs, decline.  Suggest if they can't keep up with a kid with ADD, perhaps they should take drugs.  That actually works out well.

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Are You Successful?

Occasionally I get asked that question by a prospective student, and it is difficult to answer, for the questioner has trapped himself.

So I answer, “I would not wish my life on a dog.”

Usually, this startles my questioner.  But but but...

Then I follow up “But I would not trade my life for anyone else's.”

And that is absolutely true.  I certainly envy some people’s talent, this singer, that athlete,  here an artist, that cook, but never would I trade places.  And even if I had their talent, I would not use it in the way they do, so what would be the point?  They do wonderful things with their talent, and I wouldn’t do what they do.  The Bible says something about being happy with your portion.

And then, how do you explain to anyone who does not have the gift of ADD/ADHD that you have the finest gift God can bestow on a human, short of salvation itself?  It is cruel to tell people who do not have this gift that you have it, and they will never have it, this side of the parousia.

You see, the questioner wants to judge my “success” not by my standards, or his standards, by a third standard, accumulation of things.  Do I have a waterfront home, do I have nice cars, a boat on the dock, a summer place, do I have this and that, do I golf, etc.

I hesitate to answer directly because of the assumptions:

1. That those things are my idea of success.  That any “successful” people care about those things.

2. That if I had those things, I could show others how to get those things. That is delusional. One person’s path is like no others.

3. That copying someone else is a way forward. This denies that an individual has creative options.  It is an escape from responsibility.

And all for what? More stuff?

A better question than are you successful is “are you happy?”

To this question I can honestly and unhesitatingly answer, “Hell no.  War, bailouts, disease, fascism, rotten medicine, illegal search and seizure, porn, torture, spying, poverty, it all makes me sick.”

Yikes, then who would want to learn anything from me?

Because I find joy in working on solutions to all of those problems.  it is exactly the problems that give us an opportunity to make the world a better place.  Ourselves.

We have wine.  The next valley over has none.  Problems:  barrelling wine for travel, making barrells, making carts to carry wine, clearing roads over the pass, raising oxen to pull the wagon, making wagons, new clothes for 3 season travel.  Trade is solutions to problems, being aware of the problems, and experiencing the pain of realizing gthe problems, is the way forward.

Somebody who asks if I am successful is heading in exactly the opposite direction. They do not want to solve problems, they want to store up stuff.  There is no possible way I’ll ever head in that direction, and it is dicey they will ever want to go where I am going.  So when I am asked “are you successful,?’ I cringe.  Some people have been turned around, sure.  But many just want more.

There are some people whose orientation is to figure out where they can position themselves to take.  Like politicians.  Michael Lewis wrote Liar’s Poker, a cautionary tale of how Wall Street works, and he was astonished to get so many people, smart people at top schools, who missed the point and wanted to know how to get a job doing what Lewis regretted.

I just tell them the class will save them time and money getting to where they would get anyway.  Nothing more nothing less.  Whatever definition they have for success, they’ll get there faster at less cost.  That’s all i can do.  Is that worth more than what anyone might pay?  For 25 years the answer has been yes.  I keep treaching becuase people keep saying thanks.

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College and Business Success

Unemployment is worse than reported, and college graduates face a grim prospect.  People are loading up on debt, and roofers are going back to school to learn to code java, and java coders are going back to school to learn to roof homes.

Coming from a family of academics, I was the black sheep who went into business.  I do teach on the side, so I guess I did get some on me...  but since I went into business I approached teaching as an entrepreneurial challenge which resulted in achievements most academics would kill for.

I do think an education is a good thing, and I do believe all kids are primarily "home schooled" for better or worse.  My expectations to my daughters was that they would all get at least a BA, and in no circumstances should it be in a "voc tech" program, like business, journalism, pre-med, law or some sort of waste of time and opportunity.  Also, under no circumstances were they to get student loans.

So starting with the eldest, who has a comparative religion degree, my middle is finishing up a classics degree with a concentration on Latin, and the youngest is going after a double major English and Humanities.  I could not be more proud.

I must confess the middle one did bang out an AA in apparel design, essentially before she finished high school, but that was just because she wants to go into fashion and was advised she better know how clothes are made.  Done.

The benefit of an liberal arts education is to have an alternative universe that you know about, into which you can escape and reflect when things are too tough, and where you can compare and contrast when you need to make decisions.  If you are in business and you have a business degree, where can you go in your mind to get some perspective?  We solve problems on a different plane that we experience them.  We have physical, mental (emotional) and metaphysical dimensions to our lives.  When we have a physical problem, say paralysis, it will not be physically dealt with, it is dealt with in philosophical or metaphysiscal level.  The paralytic may say "suffering has meaning" and is able to cope.  He is still paralytic, but he has dealt with his physical problem on a mental level.  A unfortunate spouse may be experiencing mental abuse, and the problem is solved by physically moving away, and so on.  If you have a business problem, and your education is business, where do you go when you have problems?  If you plan to be in business, get a degree in something you love, like botany.  Discussing botany with other botanists will give you separation and perspective on solving the business problems. That will be worthwhile.

My eldest is a producer at a rock solid media company, when her peers are unemployed.  Here comparative religion degree allows her to keep a perspective.  The middle has standing offers from the largest corp in the world and from some leading apparel people to come aboard.  Latin not only gives language roots connections, but cultural roots.  She meets people "where they come from" because she has toured their history and cultural roots.   My youngest loves to cook, and not out of her teens, when most culinary programs produce graduates who must work for no pay (they call it staging) she turns down paid work.

Personally I have the gift of ADD so my college transcript are a bit of a hash.  Since I had more than the required 180 credits to get a BA, the bewildered advisor came up with a unknown degree, "asian studies," whatever that is.  But most of business is discussion about the world around us, and because of my college degree I can carry my own in a conversation.

Now this is not to say you must have a college degree. Some of the smartest people I know have never graced a classroom above the grammar school level.  You do need to read, and if you cannot read, then there is endless free help with that. Get some.

But if for whatever reason, college is in your future, and you want to do well, get a liberal arts degree, and get one without going into debt. Coming from an academic family, I already knew about what Dr. North outlines in that link.  I would just stress, never waste an opportunity to get a liberal arts education, and never take college time to get a voc tech degree.  (Sure, get one if you want one, they are probably the best educational value around, but don't let it interfere with a liberal arts degree.)

So here is the acid test: are you pursuing a bachelors degree to be happy, or to make money?  if to be happy, go.  If to make money, don't do it.  College is not for you.  Go straight to business start up.

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Talk to Two Customers, Call Me In The Morning

I'd like to make an observation about being self-employed.  Now this just may be peculiar to we who have the gift of ADD/ADHD, but my heart and mind soars from the depths of discouragement to the heights of bravado, in spite of the fact that I know it is never as bad or as good as I think it may be at any given extreme.

One thing you learn is to just accept the feeling, but don't really act on it.  There is always, though, something that can get you grounded and balanced again: marketing.  Forget about what you are feeling, and just get your product or service in front of customers.  Their sober assessment will get you back on the straight and narrow.

It does not matter where you are in the process, at any point you can speak to customers, whether you are in the beginning, where you are still a consumer, or you've made the switch to where you are now a producer.  No mater where you are in the continuum of building your own business, contact with customers is always edifying, one way or another.

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Your Kid Is Sick. Not.

Here is a lovely video, less than two minutes long, that anyone with a admirable child should see. It has a link at the end, which is useful.  If your kid has ADD, he is not ill, he is important.  If you want to get a solid consumer's guide to psychiatry, read Szasz, anything by him, but Coercion As Cure is a good start.

Keep in mind, when you read of some horror committed by some deranged individual, you'll hear "he was off his meds."  The problem is never he was off his meds.  Meds only work for a short period, and then they are no good.  So everyone put on meds is at some point "off his meds."  The problem is they put someone on meds to begin with.  Of course, many peoples introduction to meds is as kids with illegal substance abuse, but then again, those drugs were designed by highly trained, highly motivated scientists, to have an effect in the market. Read Szasz for real medicine and mental illness.

Szasz is hard to take: we excuse behavior, we deny personal responsibility.  But he can be funny too:  So what if your dog tells you to kill the president?  Would you do it if I told you to?  No?  Then why would you do it if your dog told you to?

Brilliant:  he does not get into whether your dog spoke to your or not, he gets into your responsibility given what circumstances you find yourself.  So what if your dog talks to you?  You are still responsible for your actions.

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Gift of ADD/ADHD - How To Treat

Ritalin is a consumer item for most parents, something to give the kid, like a wii box or braces or whatever is popular today.  The powers that be, following Huxley, condition teachers (and some parents) to see a kid who mind can go in ten directions at once and say

"O no!  My kid's mind goes in 10 directions at once!"

A propoer response to realizing your kid has a mind goes in 10 directions at once is

"My kid's mind goes in 10 directions at once.  So what?"

The mind goes in the right direction, it merely goes in 9 others too, at the same time.  So what?

But, the kid cannot study!

No, the course is boring.  By 10 minutes into the lesson, the kid has checked it out nine other ways, and has already figured it out: whole language is bogus.  New math is bogus.  State history is untrue.  If you already know that it is all a waste of time, then why pay attention?

How can you say new math or whole language is bogus.

Well, there is no science to support its efficacy.

But plenty of kids excel with this pedagogy.  No, the only kids who excel in school are those with parental involvement.  Kids spend 8 hours a day in front of essentially TSA workers who drone on about nothing.  They then go home and have their parents teach them the lessons, or go to khanacademy.org, or otherwise learn the topic.  They do well.

Love is defined as wanting the good for the other.  If you love your children, and he has ADD, then homeschool him.  Let him study math, language and music in 4 minute increments, and be finished at 10 am to snoboarding the rest of the day.  One parent may have to quit a job, but if you pencil it out, you'll learn you are probably not giving anything up.

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The Gift Of ADD

This sure looks like the thinking of a kid with ADD.

And here is more of what I have written about this gift...

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Chemistry and Outsourcing

I wandered on to this site and found chemists talking about outsourcing chemistry to China, and how the savings are not really there.  Note the mention of "workers in China, management in USA."  Well, no wonder the savings are not there.  The expensive part is management, and its implications.

So what is the solution?  They suggest sending USA management to China.  Sigh.

What the USA chemistry industry needs is a wave of bankruptcies, after the govt gets out of medicine, so we can have a renaissance in chemistry and medicine.

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ADD: If It Is A Disease, Why I Don't Want A Cure.

I am so glad I was in grade school before the powers that be discovered the disease known as ADD/ADHD.  Of course, there is no such disease, this made-up disease is merely a means of suppressing individuals who cannot sit still in school through soul-killing monotony.  I'll say it again, if teachers cannot keep up with lively students, drug the teachers with speed, not the students with ritalin.

Everyone says ritalin is overprescribed, but never in their instance.  Parents are conditioned to reflexively accept what doctors tell them, and to become a doctor today, you have to get with the program.

At wikipedia, one would expect far more on the controversy of ADD/ADHD, but even there, the powers that be allow only trace reference.  But let's look at what the site calls a problem, with my comments after each bullet.

Predominantly inattentive type symptoms may include:^[34]

• Be easily distracted, miss details, forget things, and frequently switch from one activity to another
• We are renaissance people...
• Have difficulty focusing on one thing
• We are renaissance people, we get it faster than you can teach it...
• Become bored with a task after only a few minutes, unless doing something enjoyable
• This is an illness...?!
• Have difficulty focusing attention on organizing and completing a task or learning something new
• Only when it is banal or unimportant, in spite of what you say...
• Have trouble completing or turning in homework assignments, often losing things (e.g., pencils, toys, assignments) needed to complete tasks or activities
• We share...
• Not seem to listen when spoken to
• When the speaker is boring: how is you being boring constitute me being ill...?
• Daydream, become easily confused, and move slowly
• Right... we work on serious things, which we are obliged to do in the mind, since you could care less about our creativity...
• Have difficulty processing information as quickly and accurately as others
• As defined by you, not by us...  we are not your little brown-nosers...
• Struggle to follow instructions.
• Only because your are tedious...

Predominantly hyperactive-impulsive type symptoms may include:^[34]

• Fidget and squirm in their seats
• So let us wander around the room, or school... or neighborhood...
• Talk nonstop
• Generally what we have to say is more interesting than what you have to say, and we are a sharing tribe...
• Dash around, touching or playing with anything and everything in sight
• Well, how come you have it out, are are an inquisitive tribe...
• Have trouble sitting still during dinner, school, and story time
• We "make hay while the sun shines..." can't sit around wasting time...
• Be constantly in motion
• You envy our energy...
• Have difficulty doing quiet tasks or activities.
• We save that for sleep time...

and also these manifestations primarily of impulsivity:^[34]

• Be very impatient
• You are tedious to us.
• Blurt out inappropriate comments, show their emotions without restraint, and act without regard for consequences
• You mean no matter how much you try to oppress us, we keep on happily?  We are genuine, frank? This is a disease...?
• Have difficulty waiting for things they want or waiting their turns in games
• Right, we prefer martial arts, tennis, skiing... games where you don't have to wait for the non-ADD/ADHD people to get it together... so this is a disease...?

  No way would I ever give up my inquisitiveness, my energy, my fascination with the world around me so that I can "focus" and be a good little automaton.  If you cannot keep up with us, then may I recommend angel dust, speed or cocaine? What?  That is offensive?  But drugging irrepressible youths is   not offensive?

Set my people free!

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Gift of ADD?ADHD - Cheerful Giving

The preacher man this morning was explicating the concept of cheerful giving, and it dawned on me that cheerful giving is an attribute of the ADD/ADHD nation.  We are cheerful givers.  We will give anything and everything away for nothing, we volunteer for anything and everything, although we really accumulate nothing to make giving much of an impact, and we have no skills so our volunteer work seems to be a net deficit for anyone who is managing a task.

But, we look at things from a thousand ways.  We may not be able to design a bridge, but we can tell you immediately if it will fall down, because we looked it at a way you did not.  Bridge builders could concentrate in school and learn bridge-building, we could not and did not.

We warn and are ignored because we know nothing about bridge-building.  But we are right.  (Someone said "you can be happy, or you can be right: pick one.")  We move quickly from task to task, seeing learning, innovating, and are generally just happy.  The powers that be cannot have that: people pointing out error, people not producing like robots, people somehow happy.

So today the ADD nation is drugged.  And we all lose the benefit of their insights, their innovations, their warnings.  The "cure" for ADD, ritalin, is far worse than the disease, for the person forced to take it, and for the rest of us who lose the good of the ADD/ADHD citizen.

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