Special Bulletin

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Is this thing going to

• hug you,
• bite you,
• stab you,
• suck you dry
• or hiss at you
  from a dark corner?

Professional Psychiatry has adopted this methodical approach of first making people realize they are already thinking dark, sick thoughts, then prescribe a power pill — that just happens to cost a fortune — and just when it looks like relief might be in sight the psychiatrist assumes an unblinking stare, apparently stolen from a glassy-eyed toad frog sucking up swamp gas, and invites the patient back next week for the next painfully revealing session, if the patient can live with himself long enough.

Think about their ink blots for just a second, and you’ll agree — their ink blots ARE prejudiced.

Here, try this experiment.. Lay a dozen of their ink blots down in front of you at one time and see what similarities you find that they all have in common..

1. They are black
2. Dark
3. Evil
4. Shadowy
5. Fuzzy
6. Strange

Let me ask you this,

Is there even one of these similarities that
makes you raise your voice in gladsome song?

Prejudiced tools produce results that are prejudiced.  This prejudice is inexcusable. The good and noble thoughts of man should be allowed the chance of discovery and expression too. You don’t see ad writers splashing dark gruesome images across the television screen when they want to sell product. No, no, these amateurs know enough psychology to realize that all it takes is a little bit of color to make even the worst of products look good. In the past they have learned to use bright layouts and psuedo-comforting words like: “Not a cough in a carload” that persuaded hundreds of thousands of impressionable people that smoking was not only safe but wonderful. They invited doctors in their starched, white frocks — to speak with the authority of priests representing the healing forces to reassure the American public that smoking was okay.

If bright colors and clean layouts can produce sales of destructive products then it is just as true that dank, dark colors and fuzzy layouts can produce warped thoughts that are not bright and cheerful.

Black Ink Blots Are Prejudiced.
They are prejudiced against bright, cheerful thoughts.
Even in the best of circumstances
black colors tend to darken the mind.

So, why do psychiatrists insist
on using BLACK ink blots?

Dark thoughts are unhealthy.

This world does not need more people with unhealthy minds.

If psychiatrists want to play fair, they can at least insert a few bright colors amongst their dank, dark ink blots and say: “What joyful scenes do these blots remind you of?

“Why, Doc,
“suddenly they look like cute little rabbits
“and they are having the time of their lives!

“Look at them laugh at each other.
“Do you think they might be telling funny bunny jokes?
“Hey, look! “My thoughts are CLEAN!”
“My mind is pure and uh, uh, I feel great!
“wonderful,
“HOW did you ever switch me over to radiant happiness –”

Before picking up their license, psychiatrists should have studied enough psychology to know it has been proven that brighter colors invite happier thoughts, while darker colors are prejudiced to helping patients worry about:

what’s hiding under their bed,
in their closet,
behind the shower curtains –
and what they might be stepping on next —

I remember taking one patient in twenty years ago for psychiatric examination at his request.  Suddenly the examining nurse is screaming and, fearing the worst, I jerked the door open and went in to her rescue.  Her back was against the wall and she was trembling.  My Church friend was sitting at his desk, many feet away from her and as puzzled as I was.  “What’s wrong?”  I asked the nurse.

With tears in her eyes she explained the source of her terror… “He believes in Godddd!”

Now, before YOU too jump to any prejudiced conclusions, this was twenty years ago and one of my Church friends was the President of the American Psychiatrists union, group, or something — it’s been a long time.  My point being that if a doctor of psychiatry known for his religious views can be president of a large group of psychiatrists then surely being terrified of anyone that believes in God is not a universal handicap in that profession.

Dark thoughts are known to produce dark feelings of guilt.
Dwelling on these dark feelings are enough to frighten anyone.
Yet, if you visit the office of a successful psychiatrist you will
be greeted with a somber, drab, faceless, dark atmosphere.
Are they trying to tell us something about their trade?

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Do you know what happens to a psychiatrist that wakes up with a sense of humor?
S/He becomes a funeral director, where their smiles won’t be so out of place.

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Think about it.. Most people go see a psychiatrist the first time with just a little problem, and before a month has gone by they can’t even take a shower by themselves unless they have popped a puny little $64.00 pill their psychiatrist insists is going to help them, someday soon. How many patients do you know that have been seeking psychiatric help for forty years or more, and need more help than ever? If they ever can’t afford their mind-benders, their whole world comes apart, in tiny little fragments. I don’t know how many I’ve had to bundle up and hurry them to the hospital so they could get another fix.

Shouldn’t the goal be to produce happy, confident people that don’t need another addiction? If psychiatrists want patients to feel better they can start by making their offices look bright, and cheerful, a delight to be in. How about a smile of welcome instead of a glassy eyed stare? How about throwing out some ink blots of cheerful colors to balance out those prejudiced, dark, somber, black ink spots?

HELP IS ON THE WAY. Click HERE to make your own good, clean ink blots.

Hand one to the psychiatrist and ask — “Do you see anything funny in this ink blot doc?”

If you are successful at making a psychiatrist smile, please let me know.

Something Wicked this way comes. I remember the words and the book, but not the author.

I was thinking about that title yesterday when I was sitting in a group of men and women, from all walks of life, joined together by happenstance. The television blurted on and every head turned to watch the President defend his decision to pay off $700 billion in an effort to boost the economy. His decision was made “for your good.”

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Optimists that are never right
are happier than pessimists
that are never wrong.

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I glanced around the room to see how the rest of the group was responding. There were scowls on every face and many lips were mumbling. I addressed a man directly opposite of me.. “What are you saying?”

“I said he wasn’t doing it for MY good.”

And Boy, the dam broke. One after another, up they spoke in bitter denunciation.

“Congress squabbled for 50 years over a simple water rights issue and never resolved it, but now they swear they can get the facts and figures needed to fix this problem in two days?”

“Yeah, they told us just weeks ago that everything was fine — so they are either lying, or stupid. If they were lying then they still are; and if they still — ”

“ARE! But, you know what really scares me is his promise that things will get back to normal. I don’t want them normal, I want them right.”

“You don’t just wake up one morning and say, Hey, I need to see the President; I’m bankrupt.”

“Did you hear him say this wasn’t even going to raise our taxes? How many times in the past 90 years have we heard that?”

“And fell for it. Did you see that, that Black Caucus Leader in Congress speaking? He’s the only one making any sense!”

“He was making a LOT of sense, how come we’re not running HIM for President? How do we get stuck with these — ” he sputtered to a stop, at a loss for words that could be used in a mixed public.

“Both of them picked out better people for Vice President than we picked out for President.”

As each comment was voiced there were confirmations from every side. Then some spoil sport asked:”Does anybody know who Bush’s Vice President is?”

The room fell silent. No one knew the answer, and the television — droned on.

United

We Almost Stand a Chance!

Any way you want to look at it, this package is just not right. The American people know it. All across the web you hear the muttering and see the disgust. Something wicked has done got here. To straighten this mess out we need to vote everybody in Congress, out of Congress — except maybe that Black Caucus Leader.

That isn’t going to happen, so what CAN we do?

Considering the date, the first thing we should realize is that this next President will be the target of all the abuse and ill natured feelings of the American People. It will be a dirty, rotten job and WE must vote to decide which one of these heroic volunteers can handle the calumny best, because it is coming.

Next, let’s remember just how many friends and family members were saved from losing their life’s savings because this Band-Aid was applied. Sure, it would have been sweeter if a bunch of crooks and opportunitists hadn’t been saved in the process, but the deal is done so let’s sweep it all under the carpet.

Next, get our finances in order, tighten our belts before we have to.

The billboard of a church said, “Come in and pray today, beat the Christmas rush.” That is good advice, increased church attendance and regular Scripture reading. Like it or not, there is a God. If He can’t get our attention with a few hurricanes and financial debacles then earthquakes and volcanoes are next on the agenda.

Inasmuch as you are able, get a garden going.  Live within your means, never ever buy on credit and pay your bills on time.  If you have more than you need, use your excess to feed the hungry and clothe the naked.

I don’t know if this guy is joking or deliberately dense. He has cut himself the goal of becoming earth emperor, and he is revealing to the world just how he is doing this, and in the process learning what a huge job it is. One of the first things he realized was that he needed lots of money to become Emperor of Earth. How has he decided to get it? “I can get money from donations and I’m also going to start buying lottery tickets, cause you can win lots of money instantly with the lottery.”

That’s a pretty elementary wealth building strategy. You send me money and I’ll buy lottery tickets. If I ever win anything — and if I still want to be Emperor of the Earth — I’ll ask you for a few more bucks. Man, this process is guaranteed.

Another Emperatic idea he has is to read books. He’s just read one 900 page tome and is rallying for another one. This time he will pick out one with fewer pages.

This new emperor of ours has a neat style to his posts that makes you hope he makes it to first base one of these days, if he’d be happy with being ambassador to Outer Mongolia where he could study up on the tactics used by Ghenkis Khan.

This kid is a lot smarter than I was at his age. I had this brilliant idea of buying Swiss electric razors and selling them through the newspapers — because they came out faster than magazines. My whole paycheck went to paying for the boxed ad. I waited three whole days for that ad to come out, and when I read it my heart fell right through the floor.. . “SWIFT electric razors.

No, I didn’t sell a one. In the whole state of Arizona there wasn’t one person smart enough to write (I couldn’t afford a phone back then) and say: “Hey, did you mean SWISS, as in precision?”

We have the cats pretty well trained here.
Now they only come inside the house
when we open the door.

So I climbed out of that hole in less than five years and began importing green frogs from Mexico. Boy, I sold a dickens out of those saphos. Then I ran across some spun glass roosters and elephants from Guadalajara.. And why should I keep these all to myself. Why, I could sell these all across the United States, setting up a distributor in each state.

Good idea. So I (a little smarter this time) put an ad in a national magazine catering to opportunity seekers and my ad said: “Unique Opportunity to become sole distributor of eye-grabbing glass elephants. Send .25 for more information.”

For well over a year I was inundated with quarters. Back then that would buy a gallon of gas. Postage was less than a nickel. And sales, without even a typewriter — with NO pictures, not even a drawing, I made sales of one sample at a time. I tried every way in the world of getting those elephants there in one piece, and failed. The closest I came was when I wrapped one up in an actual Italian Tapestry. The elephant broke in transit, but the guy bought the tapestry — and ordered more. I wish I could say that the rest is history, but I wasn’t that smart.

So now, 47 years later, I like reading the posts of our Earth Emperor, and I think you’ll get a kick out of his posts too. One thing he’s doing better than me is keeping a record of where he has been, and how he got there. I think that’s smart.

As a young man I read a science fiction story about a future world where advertising was the predominant feature of society. Everywhere you looked, advertising was looking back at you, and it was so effective that half the people on earth were impoverished because they bought more than they could afford. Oh how I loved reading about the crackpot ideas those early science fiction writers came up with. However when that science fiction story was first published I could put all my belongings on my back and hike out, whereas today I need a 2700 square foot house just to contain my personal belongings, then there are those little toys outside the house that EVERY American NEEDS! Then there is all that stuff at my other house — not that advertising had anything to do with any of my purchases, of course.

Oh sure, any time I have seen one of those wonderful, colorful, exciting ads displayed on the side panels of U-Haul trucks I want to get close enough to see what destination is now being featured. Many times I even go there, not that the U-Haul advertising had anything to do with that decision either. Even though the last 5 times I moved bag and baggage I did lease the biggest and best that U-Haul offered, however I guarantee that decision was always reached AFTER a thorough investigation of the merits of U-Haul’s current competition.

Today I realize that Life is a Bummer — without good advertising to revel in.

My love affair with good advertising began long, long ago in a galaxy far, far away, in fact I wasn’t even born yet — but I do like to start a story out at its very beginning. One of the first (of many) peculiarities ascribed to me was that even as a child I loved hearing about Quaker Puffed Wheat and Quaker Puffed Rice, the cereals shot from guns — but in my own defense I must add that was only if we got right back to Sergeant Preston of the Yukon and his lead dog King.

Nevertheless, for many years now I have noticed that I prefer watching the commercials to watching the shows provided on the television sets of friends, and I’m still not particularly impoverished like some people I know that can’t even stand the commercials. Many times I have wondered if they have spent 92% of their spendable income on these little gadgets that zap commercials into next week. There must be a moral there somewhere.

Feeble-minded souls of that other preference will be shocked to learn that there is a growing trend towards plastering cheap airline cabin walls with advertising. I think that the original idea was just to slow the drafts down a little bit, but you know how these things grow on you, like bill boards sprouting up alongside a new freeway. Today these onboard ancillary ads generate about $20 million a year.

Make SURE your family has all
the insurance protection it needs.
Compare what you have to pay now
with the family-friendly values we find.
See for yourself if your savings don’t
average 46% better than what you expect.

Now that they are getting paid to plaster these ads on cabin walls you can bet they aren’t going away any time soon. In fact, Terry Trippler, an aviation consultant who runs the travel advisory website tripplertravel.com — one of MY competitors — has recently been quoted as saying: “I could picture an airplane looking like a NASCAR,”

Uh, you should know what a NASCAR is even if you don’t like advertising. It’s one of those racing stock cars that are smothered with so many different logos from sponsors that you can look for ten years before realizing there is a car under there somewhere.

Some descendant of an early day science fiction writer said: “It’s not out of the question that we may one day see a Target logo on the nose” of airplanes coming in for a landing at an airport near you, packed with consumers yearning for the next big sale.

Plastering the cabin walls with cheap advertising — wait a minute, I got that wrong. — Plastering the cheap airline’s cabin walls with advertising has proven to be so profitable that now cheap airline cabins are also sprouting ads on tray tables and on cocktail napkins.

This may be a step too far gone. Skybus Airlines, which only coincidentally went out of business this year, even sold space on the uniforms of its flight attendants. What probably killed the company off (in my humble opinion) was that It was also decorating the outside of its planes with (non Target) ads.

U-Haul type advertising on the outside is a long shot different than being locked up for six hours inside a cheap airline cabin with wall to wall advertising while on a transcontinental airplane ride. I can just imagine petty suspicions exploding on every side of the aisle with every unavoidable delay. “They are going to keep us in here until we buy something!”

But no,,, Spokeswoman for Spirit Airlines Inc., a low-cost carrier based in Miramar, Fla. — Misty Pinson — has flown out of her way to say: “They (customers of the company) say that if this is a way to keep airfares low, they’re all for it.” She added: “Passengers that fly with Spirit have come to love the low fares we offer, and this is a way to offer those fares in tough economic times,”

So there you have proof of how well good advertising works: “CHEAP” advertising beats “TOUGH” economic times, even in the REAL world invented by an early day science fiction writer.