It has long been assumed that a significant percentage of the male population in North America suffers a condition described as male-pattern baldness. Conventional wisdom and generally unscientific observation bears this out.
However, conclusions reached after a 23 year study by the Western Hair Institute for Protein Development, (WHIPD) which analyzed the percentage of body weight in hair by men, has arrived at a surprisingly different result. As men age, the hair atop their heads only "seemingly" recedes. Men do not go bald! Their follicles migrate...in a southward direction...relative to the cranium, to be precise.
In actuality, the mechanism by which follicles relocate to other parts of the body, is driven by gravity. Simply put, this is due in large part to those parts being closer to the ground and therefore more affected by gravitational forces. Just as the skin of males and females alike tends to stretch with aging, so too, after a fashion, does hair. Though for hair, the "Sag" is actually relocation on the host body.
With women, the effect is less pronounced. The hair on their heads tends to thin slightly and a small amount of it is displaced to the upper lip. The skin sag is more noticeable however, particularly in the chest area, under the eyes and on those areas identified as being cellulite prone.
For men, the skin sag is most noticeable in the abdominal area and while there is speculation about a connection to male E.D., this is thus far, just that. Clinical studies are underway and may yield results of a connection in a few years. Lest this discourse wander too far afield from point, back to follicles.
For the North American male Homo Sapiens, (The study may apply across all regions and ethnic groups, but the study was confined to the North American sub-continent only.) Hair migration begins at different ages for virtually everyone involved. This would be the genetic component.
The less significant environmental component has more to do with how much hair goes, and to where. In the northern portions of the sub-continent, the migration southward of cranial hair is more significant and is even accelerated during the colder. winter months. This is roughly analogous to other species growing winter coats. It has been documented that in these regions, during the winter, a greater amount of hair migrates to the groin area. It has been theorized that this is an environmentally actuated effect dating back to prehistoric times when snowball fights invariably led to large quantities of frozen water in the caveman's animal-skin loin cloth. Cave paintings in northern Minnesota, like those in the Pyrenees provide pictographic evidence of these battles. The natural human response to snow down the pants is to cry out. Thus, this admittedly controversial point of view, has been deemed the "Ooohmagooolees Theorem."
The farther to the South the study tracks, the less significant the relocation of the lower follicles. However, in this region, nasal, ear and even facial hair is viewed as generally thicker. In the past, this was called the "Hillbilly Effect." Although for the purposes of the study, and to satisfy federal requirements concerning political correctness, it has been renamed "Hog-Holler Syndrome."
One anomaly that has cropped up in the analysis of the study reflects an out sized statistic. Within the Hog-Holler group, the amount of hair that migrates Earthward is significantly greater than that which disappears from the top of the head.
There is no shortage of theories to explain the differential. These range from a scientifically un-provable corollary to Einstein's theory of general relativity to several that run a gamut from preposterous to plausible. The one that is most widely accepted, though less elegant and profound than some of the others is the "Hair grows in dirt like a plant," theory. This grew out of an old wives' tale told by mothers to recalcitrant children who wouldn't wash their ears. As the tale goes: "If you don't wash out your ears, potatoes will grow in them." The theory is that hair will grow in dirty ears and nostrils. And while the evidence mounts supporting the validity of this concept, no full scientific study has, as of this writing, been undertaken to substantiate the assumptions.
One thing that has been substantiated is that the older the study participant, the further south the body hair travels. A man who was officially 107 years old at the close of the study presented a significant amount of grey hair growing out of his feet, some even between the toes. (Although, anecdotally, this has been discounted because the researchers involved were not certain if the hair was actually hair or merely sock lint.)
Further this decrepit example of manhood had virtually no hair above the knees. Photographs showing his calves and feet looked as though he wore muck-lucks. Yet, it is documented that he was barefoot. Computer extrapolations of the trends supported by the data draw to a disturbing conclusion. That conclusion states that as medical science extends the human life-span, all male hair will eventually settle around the foot by the age of 132.
New devices for the trimming and shaving of pedal extremity hair will have to be devised. A joint task force, supported by the Schick, Gillette, Norelco and Remington companies are studying the engineering challenges involved in such a technical advance.
Also, medical remedies involving topical exfoliates in combination with cranial follicle transplantation and/or stimulation are being explored.
The scientific community awaits the results eagerly.
Thursday, July 19, 2007
Wednesday, July 11, 2007
A Friend Of The Family
I have found my true calling. And I'm raking it in, hand over fist. I always knew I was a pretty good public speaker. At one time I was touring the lecture circuit, collecting honorariums equal in a week to what many earn in a year.
But the constant travel, the living out of suitcases, the dining in expensive restaurants and the entertaining (heads of state, celebrities...university faculty) was beginning to wear on me. Also, my family was clamoring for more attention. Never mind that my children were enrolled in the finest schools...that my wife had nearly a servant for every room in the house, and she could spend hours daily on the charities I founded to occupy her free time. My family wanted more of ME. And being the kind of person I know myself to be, I could understand why.
I decided to downsize. No, not the house or any of our hard-earned creature comforts. I downsized the speaking engagements. It all happened in what I would describe as an evolutionary manner. Some several years back, I was called upon by the bereaved widow of an old and dear friend, to deliver the eulogy at her husband's funeral.
I told the widow I was honored to be asked, and of course, accepted. After all, I knew that my presence on the dais would lend an emphatic underscore to this dear old friend's life. I was going to tell the stories of how he and I (at my urging of course) used to volunteer to feed the homeless. I would recount how we went into the Red Cross during a blood shortage and gave multiple pints each. (He gave two...I, the more robust of the pair, gave four.) I would speak, in tears, of how he took a bullet trying to save a dying soldier in Viet Nam and how I then had to pull him to safety, taking one myself in the process. These were the vivid, life-affirming stories I would tell about my old friend. I knew hearing these stories about her husband would make my old friend's loving widow happy. And I was happy for her.
But then the old biddy threw me a curve. She wanted me to tell funny stories about him. She didn't want his funeral to lament of a wonderful life, lost. She wanted a tacky celebration of the quirkiness that made her dear departed funny...and in her demented old mind, special. Being the soul of diplomacy, I smiled warmly and of course, accepted the challenge.
But deep down, I seethed. How dare she request I demean my old friend? The things that were funniest about him would also make him out to be, dare I say it, a fool. I had to be careful to avoid that path. I undertook to craft a speech that would be both funny and uplifting. It was a difficult task, for if truth be known, my old friend was a bit of a dimwit. Still, as I stressed over each and every syllable, I began warming to the idea. Not because the old coot was all that funny, but because with the proper turn of a phrase, I could make him seem so. I actually began giggling as I read my speech into the mirror. This was funny stuff!
I wouldn't tell the assembled mourners that he couldn't cook. I'd tell them of the time he boiled water to make hard boiled eggs and neglected to add the eggs. And then, while they were laughing at that, I would tell them how in a fit of pique, he tossed out the boiled water and began heating another pot to make coffee. I'd relate how when I questioned what he was doing, he replied that the first pot was "Egg water." He was now making "Coffee water." Before too long, I had constructed a eulogy that would have them rolling in the aisles. And you know, it did.
One gentleman at the funeral came up to me afterward and told me he'd like me to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. I pointed out to him in the gentlest way possible that he was still alive. When he told me he was suffering a terminal illness, what could I do? I humbly accepted. Over the next few months, he sent me various snippets about his life that were...unfunny.
But I didn't hold 4 honorary chairs in literature for nothing. In my hands, his Christmas eve picketing of a union busting ex-employer became a warm and cherished memory of he and his pals burning paper doll effigies of their ex-boss over an oil-drum and waiting for Santa. His battle with a landlord became a hysterical anecdote about pancakes covering the lawn of the man's home, neatly tooth-picked into the earth. And his brush with death in an airline crash landing, morphed into an entertaining anecdote about what not to do when the plane comes down with no landing gear.
He was thrilled, and insisted I take a small payment for all my work. I refused of course. A couple of months later, I was called by the man's nephew. His uncle had passed on. Would I come a deliver the eulogy I had authored. How could I refuse? I did so, on an dreary afternoon. But inside the chapel, it might as well have been warm and sunny. The assemblage had tears streaming down their cheeks. They were not tears of anguish,but tears of joy. When it was all over, several mourners left complaining of severe aches in their sides from laughing.
I began to get more calls. I had to refuse many, because I was still travelling to lecture. But as I was getting off the plane in Sandusky, Ohio, for a lecture to a group of lobbyists, my cell phone rang.
I am not easily startled. But this call took me by surprise. I was actually speechless for a brief moment. The old man's attorney...You will recall, I declined remuneration from him...was infoming me that I had been named in his will. In fact, I was named as his sole beneficiary. I had inherited 23 million dollars.
But there was, the lawyer continued, a complication. The old man's family (all nieces and nephews) were challenging the will. I infomed the lawyer that, of course, I happened to agree to a large extent with the family's point-of-view. After all, it is not in my generally altruistic nature to be a predator, else I too would have become an attorney. I told the lawyer to negotiate an equitable five way split for the four plaintiffs and myself. I made the old man's family happy...and after all, that's what I am really about. After legal fees, inheritance taxes and various and sundry items I won't go into, I made nearly three million dollars. And all because I did what came naturally to me. I performed a selfless act for a fellow human being.
It was at this point that I cancelled my lecture tour and decided that the time was at hand to go into a new line of work. I became a Eulogizer. For a small honorarium, I would travel (locally only) and deliver stirring, usually hilarious, speeches about the dear departeds. Sometimes I might do four in a day.
I held my captive audiences spellbound. Each and every eulogy led to inquiries for perhaps dozens more. I would simply hand my card to whomsoever inquired and they would contact me later. I called myself simply, "A Family Friend ." My phone rang off the hook. You'd be surprised how many people might cash in their chips within 50 miles of my home every week.
But as fine a writer as I am, (and the large wall dedicated to my numerous awards silently attests to that) I found that my, you should pardon the expression, "Deadlines," grew more and more tightly spaced as the business expanded. I began to take shortcuts. I recycled some of the older material...going to the trunk, so to speak. No one seemed to notice. As long as I peppered the speech with a few truths about the departed, I could say just about anything I wanted and the audiences would laugh. After all, it was all in good, clean fun.
Then one day, I left the speech on my desk at home. I was too far along to go back. I would have been late for the funeral and the deceased is the only one allowed to be "late" at a funeral. I had to recall what the man's life was about as I drove to the cemetery. And when I stepped to the podium, I spoke extemporaneously. I winged it.
I knew he had himself been widowed four times. His fifth wife was left a widow. So, I strongly intimated...in fact, all but accused him of being a womanizer! The audience burst into raucous laughter. He owned a restaurant. So I made up a story about how one day the Health Department shut him down for unsanitary conditions, and how he fought back by sending a meal to that same department, made from day-old food. They howled. I even recycled some Catskills resort humor by paraphrasing an old Henny Youngman joke. I said that on my last visit to the hospital, I found my friend...(They are always my friend.)...kneeling beside his bed praying to the Almighty. I told them I overheard him saying: "Dear Lord...Take my wife...Please!" His widow was so grateful to me for "getting" the essence of her husband, that she doubled my fee.
It began to sink in that no one speaks ill of the dead. And that's the whole point. If they know you're going to say something funny, they'll laugh at the punchline, no matter what it is. At the next funeral, I delivered the occasional phrase in Spanish. They laughed anyway. Why? Because they were supposed to.
The very next day, I observed that the woman being laid to rest in a graveside service had been a prostitute during the Korean conflict and that her two sons were illegitimate. They loved the story. None of it was true. But neither boy actually knew their father. He had died a soldier's death in that very war, and they just naturally assumed from my eulogy that their mother had always protected them from the truth.
So, now I have a staff of writers who flesh out the information that families provide me with. My chauffeur drives me from cemetery to cemetery on a daily basis and I edit and memorize my speeches en route. But, of late, I've grown a bit weary of the grind. And I have all these filing cabinets chock full of great material.
I'm thinking of going to an open mike night at a comedy club and trying out my material on the living. Who knows? Maybe I'll be the next big thing in standup.
But the constant travel, the living out of suitcases, the dining in expensive restaurants and the entertaining (heads of state, celebrities...university faculty) was beginning to wear on me. Also, my family was clamoring for more attention. Never mind that my children were enrolled in the finest schools...that my wife had nearly a servant for every room in the house, and she could spend hours daily on the charities I founded to occupy her free time. My family wanted more of ME. And being the kind of person I know myself to be, I could understand why.
I decided to downsize. No, not the house or any of our hard-earned creature comforts. I downsized the speaking engagements. It all happened in what I would describe as an evolutionary manner. Some several years back, I was called upon by the bereaved widow of an old and dear friend, to deliver the eulogy at her husband's funeral.
I told the widow I was honored to be asked, and of course, accepted. After all, I knew that my presence on the dais would lend an emphatic underscore to this dear old friend's life. I was going to tell the stories of how he and I (at my urging of course) used to volunteer to feed the homeless. I would recount how we went into the Red Cross during a blood shortage and gave multiple pints each. (He gave two...I, the more robust of the pair, gave four.) I would speak, in tears, of how he took a bullet trying to save a dying soldier in Viet Nam and how I then had to pull him to safety, taking one myself in the process. These were the vivid, life-affirming stories I would tell about my old friend. I knew hearing these stories about her husband would make my old friend's loving widow happy. And I was happy for her.
But then the old biddy threw me a curve. She wanted me to tell funny stories about him. She didn't want his funeral to lament of a wonderful life, lost. She wanted a tacky celebration of the quirkiness that made her dear departed funny...and in her demented old mind, special. Being the soul of diplomacy, I smiled warmly and of course, accepted the challenge.
But deep down, I seethed. How dare she request I demean my old friend? The things that were funniest about him would also make him out to be, dare I say it, a fool. I had to be careful to avoid that path. I undertook to craft a speech that would be both funny and uplifting. It was a difficult task, for if truth be known, my old friend was a bit of a dimwit. Still, as I stressed over each and every syllable, I began warming to the idea. Not because the old coot was all that funny, but because with the proper turn of a phrase, I could make him seem so. I actually began giggling as I read my speech into the mirror. This was funny stuff!
I wouldn't tell the assembled mourners that he couldn't cook. I'd tell them of the time he boiled water to make hard boiled eggs and neglected to add the eggs. And then, while they were laughing at that, I would tell them how in a fit of pique, he tossed out the boiled water and began heating another pot to make coffee. I'd relate how when I questioned what he was doing, he replied that the first pot was "Egg water." He was now making "Coffee water." Before too long, I had constructed a eulogy that would have them rolling in the aisles. And you know, it did.
One gentleman at the funeral came up to me afterward and told me he'd like me to deliver the eulogy at his funeral. I pointed out to him in the gentlest way possible that he was still alive. When he told me he was suffering a terminal illness, what could I do? I humbly accepted. Over the next few months, he sent me various snippets about his life that were...unfunny.
But I didn't hold 4 honorary chairs in literature for nothing. In my hands, his Christmas eve picketing of a union busting ex-employer became a warm and cherished memory of he and his pals burning paper doll effigies of their ex-boss over an oil-drum and waiting for Santa. His battle with a landlord became a hysterical anecdote about pancakes covering the lawn of the man's home, neatly tooth-picked into the earth. And his brush with death in an airline crash landing, morphed into an entertaining anecdote about what not to do when the plane comes down with no landing gear.
He was thrilled, and insisted I take a small payment for all my work. I refused of course. A couple of months later, I was called by the man's nephew. His uncle had passed on. Would I come a deliver the eulogy I had authored. How could I refuse? I did so, on an dreary afternoon. But inside the chapel, it might as well have been warm and sunny. The assemblage had tears streaming down their cheeks. They were not tears of anguish,but tears of joy. When it was all over, several mourners left complaining of severe aches in their sides from laughing.
I began to get more calls. I had to refuse many, because I was still travelling to lecture. But as I was getting off the plane in Sandusky, Ohio, for a lecture to a group of lobbyists, my cell phone rang.
I am not easily startled. But this call took me by surprise. I was actually speechless for a brief moment. The old man's attorney...You will recall, I declined remuneration from him...was infoming me that I had been named in his will. In fact, I was named as his sole beneficiary. I had inherited 23 million dollars.
But there was, the lawyer continued, a complication. The old man's family (all nieces and nephews) were challenging the will. I infomed the lawyer that, of course, I happened to agree to a large extent with the family's point-of-view. After all, it is not in my generally altruistic nature to be a predator, else I too would have become an attorney. I told the lawyer to negotiate an equitable five way split for the four plaintiffs and myself. I made the old man's family happy...and after all, that's what I am really about. After legal fees, inheritance taxes and various and sundry items I won't go into, I made nearly three million dollars. And all because I did what came naturally to me. I performed a selfless act for a fellow human being.
It was at this point that I cancelled my lecture tour and decided that the time was at hand to go into a new line of work. I became a Eulogizer. For a small honorarium, I would travel (locally only) and deliver stirring, usually hilarious, speeches about the dear departeds. Sometimes I might do four in a day.
I held my captive audiences spellbound. Each and every eulogy led to inquiries for perhaps dozens more. I would simply hand my card to whomsoever inquired and they would contact me later. I called myself simply, "A Family Friend ." My phone rang off the hook. You'd be surprised how many people might cash in their chips within 50 miles of my home every week.
But as fine a writer as I am, (and the large wall dedicated to my numerous awards silently attests to that) I found that my, you should pardon the expression, "Deadlines," grew more and more tightly spaced as the business expanded. I began to take shortcuts. I recycled some of the older material...going to the trunk, so to speak. No one seemed to notice. As long as I peppered the speech with a few truths about the departed, I could say just about anything I wanted and the audiences would laugh. After all, it was all in good, clean fun.
Then one day, I left the speech on my desk at home. I was too far along to go back. I would have been late for the funeral and the deceased is the only one allowed to be "late" at a funeral. I had to recall what the man's life was about as I drove to the cemetery. And when I stepped to the podium, I spoke extemporaneously. I winged it.
I knew he had himself been widowed four times. His fifth wife was left a widow. So, I strongly intimated...in fact, all but accused him of being a womanizer! The audience burst into raucous laughter. He owned a restaurant. So I made up a story about how one day the Health Department shut him down for unsanitary conditions, and how he fought back by sending a meal to that same department, made from day-old food. They howled. I even recycled some Catskills resort humor by paraphrasing an old Henny Youngman joke. I said that on my last visit to the hospital, I found my friend...(They are always my friend.)...kneeling beside his bed praying to the Almighty. I told them I overheard him saying: "Dear Lord...Take my wife...Please!" His widow was so grateful to me for "getting" the essence of her husband, that she doubled my fee.
It began to sink in that no one speaks ill of the dead. And that's the whole point. If they know you're going to say something funny, they'll laugh at the punchline, no matter what it is. At the next funeral, I delivered the occasional phrase in Spanish. They laughed anyway. Why? Because they were supposed to.
The very next day, I observed that the woman being laid to rest in a graveside service had been a prostitute during the Korean conflict and that her two sons were illegitimate. They loved the story. None of it was true. But neither boy actually knew their father. He had died a soldier's death in that very war, and they just naturally assumed from my eulogy that their mother had always protected them from the truth.
So, now I have a staff of writers who flesh out the information that families provide me with. My chauffeur drives me from cemetery to cemetery on a daily basis and I edit and memorize my speeches en route. But, of late, I've grown a bit weary of the grind. And I have all these filing cabinets chock full of great material.
I'm thinking of going to an open mike night at a comedy club and trying out my material on the living. Who knows? Maybe I'll be the next big thing in standup.
Tuesday, July 3, 2007
Robot Parts?
Gentlemen and Ladies:
It has been predicted that over the next decade or perhaps two, robots in the home and at the workplace will become commonplace, even ubiquitous. It will require enormous amounts of resources to build and maintain these labor-saving devices.
The irony should not go unnoticed, that it will take humans to service the robots, so that they in turn, can take a load off humans. Of course, we could build service-specific robots whose sole function it would be to repair robots in need of fixing. But who or what would fix them? It could be vicious cycle.
When a robot finally clanks its last clank, it will be recycled into a new, more efficient version of itself. That is, unless we, idiotic humans make it from materials that are difficult to recycle or design obsolescence into the things like we do with cars.
But these aren't insurmountable issues. The big one...the one over which I mull constantly, is what do we do with robotic waste? We are already designing organically-based light emitting diodes for televisions and organically based processors for computers.
As this trend continues and inevitably expands, we are likely to see computers and their mobile counter-parts, robots, commencing rudimentary metabolic processes akin to those of lower life forms. As robots "Evolve," so too will their metabolic processes. Even a robotic sensor can see where this will lead. We may have to design entirely new septic systems to accommodate robotic organic waste unless we are willing to share our commodes with the electric help. Will their shiny metal behinds scratch the paint on our toilet seats? The future approaches, riddled with questions for which there are not as yet answers.
I have to proposed to the National Science Foundation that a study be undertaken to determine what form the disposal of robot waste products shall take. But the government is typically unwilling at this point to address the issue. Privately, more than a few of those who would not take a public stance have expressed their opinions that this is a serious issue. However, the current administration has, ostensibly for now, tabled any discussion. I suspect that this is because those automatons in the administration would rather spend their dollars for pork than to plan for the future.
Therefore, it falls to private industry to puzzle out a solution to this problem before it becomes a reality. Which is why I am appealing to you, the American Society of Plumbing Manufacturers and Contractors to privately fund a research project on the proper way to dispose of robot refuse. Given the various toxic and non-toxic power sources robots will use and use up, we must be prepared to dispose of them all in a safe, economically feasible and environmentally sound fashion. I await your response.
It has been predicted that over the next decade or perhaps two, robots in the home and at the workplace will become commonplace, even ubiquitous. It will require enormous amounts of resources to build and maintain these labor-saving devices.
The irony should not go unnoticed, that it will take humans to service the robots, so that they in turn, can take a load off humans. Of course, we could build service-specific robots whose sole function it would be to repair robots in need of fixing. But who or what would fix them? It could be vicious cycle.
When a robot finally clanks its last clank, it will be recycled into a new, more efficient version of itself. That is, unless we, idiotic humans make it from materials that are difficult to recycle or design obsolescence into the things like we do with cars.
But these aren't insurmountable issues. The big one...the one over which I mull constantly, is what do we do with robotic waste? We are already designing organically-based light emitting diodes for televisions and organically based processors for computers.
As this trend continues and inevitably expands, we are likely to see computers and their mobile counter-parts, robots, commencing rudimentary metabolic processes akin to those of lower life forms. As robots "Evolve," so too will their metabolic processes. Even a robotic sensor can see where this will lead. We may have to design entirely new septic systems to accommodate robotic organic waste unless we are willing to share our commodes with the electric help. Will their shiny metal behinds scratch the paint on our toilet seats? The future approaches, riddled with questions for which there are not as yet answers.
I have to proposed to the National Science Foundation that a study be undertaken to determine what form the disposal of robot waste products shall take. But the government is typically unwilling at this point to address the issue. Privately, more than a few of those who would not take a public stance have expressed their opinions that this is a serious issue. However, the current administration has, ostensibly for now, tabled any discussion. I suspect that this is because those automatons in the administration would rather spend their dollars for pork than to plan for the future.
Therefore, it falls to private industry to puzzle out a solution to this problem before it becomes a reality. Which is why I am appealing to you, the American Society of Plumbing Manufacturers and Contractors to privately fund a research project on the proper way to dispose of robot refuse. Given the various toxic and non-toxic power sources robots will use and use up, we must be prepared to dispose of them all in a safe, economically feasible and environmentally sound fashion. I await your response.
Klaatu Barado Nikto,
Gort
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