A Little Jumble of Everything

So today I had multiple little ideas for a blog but not one that would be long enough to sustain a whole blog so I'll throw in a little taste of all three.

 First off- Left Handed-ness. According to Wikipedia, the Latin word for being left handed is "sinistra" which originally meant left but started to be connected to evil and bad luck. This ties in with our talk of the trickster well because the trickster is rarely ever seen in a positive light.

Next- Herms. Just to let you guys know, if you google "herm" be prepared for a lot of porn. A midst all the porn there were a few picture of herms though. And interestingly enough, Charity drew them very well! This is what a majority of most herms look like.

Finally- My theory as to why the weather has been so weird lately. I'm pretty sure the thermostat in the heavens is broken. That's why we'll have nice 50 degree days one week and then get a few inches of snow the next. Then we revert back and eventually we're all just slopping around in the mud and puddles. I'm not sure how long it will take to fix the thermostat but I hope they fix it soon. This teasing is getting old.

Crowds... not such a good thing

In class on Friday, we talked about the cult of Attis and their strange ritual festival. For those of you that weren't in class, here's a short recap.

1. They go out into the forest and find a tree and decorate it with small carvings of Attis.
2. They take the tree into the city and set it up for the festival.
3. They cut themselves and spatter the blood all over the tree as a sacrifice
4. The males in the group cut off their manhood and beat a statue of Cybele with it.
5. Finally, they run through the streets, throwing the severed manhoods in random doors.

Weird huh? The strange thing about this phenomenon is that effects like this are still present today. What effect? This effect can be called the crowd effect, mob effect, or herd behavior. Basically what happens is people get into a large group and jump around (usually to some sort of high energy music or beat) and psychologically lose themselves in the process. These people may come into a mental state in which they may do things they don't want to do.

A good example of this is Woodstock 1999. In my high school government class, we looked at a video of this (which I can't find). I believe when Korn was singing, this effect took place. Suddenly, everyone started jumping at the same time, in the same rhythm. This doesn't seem like a bad thing, does it? Well, as the effect wore on, many people were raped and some injured and killed. Kinda makes you rethink a mosh pit huh?

Why Babies Cry

Why do babies cry when they come out of the womb? Wouldn't it be nice if they just came out laughing and smiling and doing that cute little gurgling thing they do? But no, they come out looking like aliens and screaming at the top of their lungs.

I did some looking into this subject and a lot of people seem to think that they cry because they are scared, which could very well be true. I believe that babies actually cry because of the fact that the first inflation of the lungs is decently painful, at least that's what I learned in human development. Babies "practice" breathing in the womb but the lungs don't actually inflate until they are filled with oxygen. That's not a very interesting explanation though.
If we looked through the eyes of a baby, how would we see this?

• First off, the baby could be cold. In the womb a baby is almost always 98.6 degrees. How many hospitals are that warm? I can answer that question- not many, at least none that I've ever been in. 
• Secondly, the world is LOUD! If you've been living in a decently quiet place and suddenly you're pushed out into a world with beeping, crying, yelling, talking and bustling around you wouldn't be very happy either.
• The umbilical cord allows for constant nourishment to the baby and all of the sudden it has been sawed off. That's it. No more food. Suck.
• You've been floating around in random fluids for 9 months. Now you're being tossed around from doctor to nurse to other nurses to mom to dad etc etc. Not fun. Talk about motion sickness!

These are just a few things that popped into my head about how I would feel if I had just been born but I guess we'll never know since we can't be born again.

Foot Fetishes Explained

So in class we talked about how someone (I can't remember the name for the life of me) was pierced in the heels by his mom and this resulted in his inability to sexually desire anyone but his mother-- gross. Then we covered another one of Freud's many theories about why weird (and most of the time, disgusting) things happen in the mind.
The connection between the feet and desire reminded me of a book I read for my seminar class last semester called Phantoms of the Brain (really interesting book for anyone looking for a good psychological read!!!!). In Phantoms of the Brain, there is a section covering the "body map" that we all have in our brains.

On the left, you have the body map in it's entirety and on the right, you see the homunculus. I can't fully remember why certain parts of the homunculus are enlarged and others aren't but I think that the bigger the part, the more sensitive it is, but don't quote me on it. The purpose of this map is to show us the relationships between certain parts of the body. The closer the parts on the map, the more closely they're related using sensations such as scratching or tickling.

If you look closely at the body map, you'll notice that the toes are located directly adjacent to the genitals then the rest of the foot is located next to the toes. This explains our theory of the foot fetish! When your genitals experience some sort of sensation, your feet will react in some way as well. Also, this is the reason why foot massages feel so good. If you don't feel weird about yourself right now, I don't know what would make you feel weird!

Fallen Heroes

I think by now we've all had our fair share of hero myths and we know the basic plot inside and out. Through all these myths, I've seen a very obvious trend: the good guy wins.

In our world, we always hope for good things to happen and things to work out but the chances of the good guy winning EVERY time is pretty slim. So what happens when the good guy loses? When bad triumphs over evil? And most importantly, what happens to our fallen heroes? Thoughts?