JOSH'S CONDITIONS & TREATMENTS BLOG

The Attraction of the Attractive

Good-looking people, standing on the prows of yachts with their full heads of thick, wavy hair blowing in oceanic zephyrs, have a better chance staying with their significant others than unattractive people.

Ugly people, sometimes known as Morlocks, toil away in dark factories deep below the earth's crust. They live hard lives, their pelts covered in dank moss, their words are basic, possibly slurred. Their hopes are simple, their dreams simpler. Most can find joy in a shiny pebble or a poem about geese.

"I married my wife for her personality and her ability to find food in a lightless environment," said an ugly man who was found trembling in a dark stairwell in Sioux City, Iowa.

But seriously, this study, probably undertaken by shallow researchers, found that people who were considered attractive usually attracted a mate of greater-than or equal-to attractiveness. Men who were slightly less attractive were often able to attract women of greater attractiveness. Women, on the other hand, were less likely to approach or date a man of greater attractiveness. (Remember that beauty, of course, is in the eye of the blah blah blah.)

The study also found that people who deemed themselves less than attractive usually switched what was important to them in a mate. They would often cite sense of humor or kindness as reasons to marry someone. Oh, those poor fools.

This study finds that sense of humor, human decency, heroism, magnanimity and love all pale in comparison to "hotness." People who find each other attractive are more likely to stick together. That's it. Attractiveness is a randomly attributed virtue distributed to the virtuous and wicked alike, and it was predestined at birth. TOO BAD!

in the future they may be able to improve marriages by meddling with DNA and eliminating ugliness forever. Until that day comes, however, I'll have to keep putting loads and loads of product in my hair, continue speaking in a false, vaguely European accent and save up for cosmetic surgery. I plan to have my beady eyes unbeaded and my uni-brow split.

A Geneticist can tell if you carry the ugly gene. A Plastic Surgeon can help also.

Find a local doctor near you.

Gullibility IS in the Dictionary, Apparently

Mike Wallace may have an ally when it comes to exposing defrauders of the elderly, and that ally is neurological science.

Remember all those old people who were defrauded by Nigerians? Weren't you laughing at them, beer in hand, with your whole life ahead of you, turning to your buddies saying things like, "Greatest Generation more like Greatest Bunch of Suckers!" Then you'd say this, "When I get old, I'll know better."

Guess what? You won't. When people get old their minds turn to soup. It will happen to all of us. Too bad, Charly Gordon!

Researchers at the University of Iowa, a state just brimming with elderly, discovered that over 40% of seniors have suffered some neurological damage. This causes the oldsters to become as gullible as a mid-eighties TV character from a small Midwestern town or obscure island country.

Apparently, the test subjects who had decision-making problems all suffered damage to their ventromedial prefrontal cortex, affecting their decision-making abilities. 

The researchers plan to test regular-aged joes and see how their prefrontal cortexes react when they make good and bad decisions.  And one day, a cure for these shenanigans!

A Neurologist can help out with all that brain damage. Find a doctor here.

EXCLUSIVE COVERAGE!

This is a portion of a researcher's transcript that I obtained by putting it in my pocket:

Researcher: You are on a train. A man without a uniform says he is collecting fifty dollars from all the passengers so the train won't run out of gas.

SubjectX: Are we on a train?

Researcher: No. It's a test to see if you're senile.

SubjectX: Why would you make me ride the train to see if I was senile. That's seems rather stupid. You'd be better off in a lab.

Researcher: We are in a lab.

SubjectX: A lab on the train?

Researcher: We're not on a train.

SubjectX: Then why do you need fifty dollars?

Researcher: For gas.

SubjectX: Will you take a check?

Researcher: Yes.

Location! Location! Location!

Where you live may affect how long you live. Researchers at Mississippi State have found that people who live in the south and along the Atlantic coast have a high mortality rate. Those living in the Great Plains, Southern California, the Texas/Mexico border and Arizona had the lowest mortality rate.

"Living in the Dakotas may lengthen your life," said a researcher. "Time, however, is relative to the observer. Those living in North Dakota actually live several lifetimes during the course of week. It is because they are bored. There. Do you get it?"

Iowa also had a very low morality rate. It is hard to die in Iowa. Everyone's just sitting around with a cattail in their mouths, talking about the weather. Shining sun. Some wind. A fish jumps. The sun sets. We all go home to sleep. It is good.

Doctors hope to use these facts to figure out what is killing all these people. First they need to figure out which people are dying because they are impoverished and which people are dying of rich-people illnesses, like money on the knee or pocket change-induced scoliosis.

Doctors do know that the areas of highest and lowest morality tend to be rural, in economic decline and are being left behind by the younger generations.

Hopefully, our nation's MDs can find a cure for living in Mississippi.

This link will connect you to a doctor nearby, no matter where you live.

State of Depression

States, the geographical regions, can be sad sometimes. A recent study by Mental Health America lists the most depressed places in the country. They based their findings on depression and suicide rates.

Utah was the most depressed state. First of all, their best lake is full of salt. That would bum me out. Secondly, most of the state is either desert or mountain.

Thirdly, Let me tell you something:

I have driven through Utah on several occasions. There are roads in Utah that do not get fixed. They just put up a sign that says ROAD BROKEN. When you hit that patch of busted road and your car takes flight, like Steve McQueen in Bullitt. In the few seconds of Jordanian hangtime as your car rapidly hurtles towards the desolate American desert, an overwhelming feeling of doom overtakes you. That feeling will never quite go away.

West Virginia ranked second because it's always in Regular Virginia's shadow.

Kentucky placed third, but for Kentucky, that is an improvement.

That happiest states are South Dakota, Hawaii, New Jersey and Iowa.

Researchers believe that lower depression rates are caused by easier access to mental health services. There are like five people in South Dakota and two of those people are psychiatrists who are married with three kids.

But in places like New Jersey where happiness doesn't seem like it could flourish. It does. Or rather, there is enough depression in New Jersey that more psychiatrists had to be shipped in to counteract all that depression, causing an influx of happy psychiatrists who increase the happiness rate and spoil the result of the study.

But seriously, according to this study, the more social workers and psychiatrists there are the happier the citizenry is. If a citizen is depressed, the citizen needs to know that he or she can see a psychiatrist and the result will be beneficial, even though, psychiatry technically is a soft science, unprovable with math.

Depression is no laughing matter, no matter where you live. To find local medical services in your state, click here.

Dog Shoots Man

On the first day of pheasant season, a dog shot a man. (I got this story off of MSNBC.com. Check out the ad in the middle of the news story.)

The hunter set down his gun in order to climb a fence. His dog stepped on the trigger, shooting the hunter in the calf. The hunter's leg was filled with over 100 pellets. He is expected to make a full recovery.

Even though human is out of season in October, no charges were filed.

This story took place in my home state of Iowa. This is a red-letter day for Iowa. Nothing newsworthy has happened there since 1917, when Governor William Harding prohibited the speaking of foreign languages in public.

If you get shot in the leg by your dog, you should see an emergency medical physician. If you believe that your dog is planning to shoot you, you should see a psychiatrist. If your dog is rabid and you're looking for someone to shoot it, call Tommy Kirk.

More doctors are found here.