Why Your iPhone has a Cracked Screen - It's a Howler! 😂

Is it just me? Or has anyone else noticed the high incidence of cracked screens on iPhones? (Sarcasm intended.) I 'm not sure, but I don't recall having seen one more than six months or so old that did not have a crack. I even seem to remember seeing something about Apple planning to offer repair kits as standard add-ins to their newest model, so the user would be able to replace both the screen and the Lightning connection (another weak point in their products).

Recently, after my son Doug gave my wife Nancy his old Kirkland (made by Rexton) hearing aids, she had to give up her trusty Android phone and get an iPhone, in order to use a proprietary Bluetooth streaming transmitter that Apple had developed in cooperation with a limited number of hearing aid manufacturers. To give the Devil his due, this is a marvelous innovation! There is so little lag time, it is essentially like having wired headphones on. It is a little annoying that they have chosen to go the proprietary route with this innovation, like with all of their best stuff. But that's a minor quibble - not everyone is like Benjamin Franklin with the lightning rod. And certainly, Franklin made a lot of money with other products. But I digress. Sure enough, it wasn't long before she had a cracked screen in two places. So, I've been thinking, why doesn't Apple just license the glass formulation that all the other manufacturers use and be done with this problem?

A couple of days ago, I was reminiscing (AKA bragging to Nancy) about some of my more astute simple fixes to different semiconductor industry manufacturing processing problems I encountered in my career, when I sat bolt upright and practically screamed, "NO WAY!" I grabbed my wife's iPhone! "WAY!", as I looked, as best I could, at the edges of the screen!

The particular fix I had been telling Nancy about occurred, as I recall, in 1984. At the time, I was Manager and Process Engineer for the Photomask Blanks shop of the Photomask Department at Texas Instruments in Dallas, TX. The semiconductor industry was closing in on megabit memory chips, and one of the enabling new developments was the introduction of quartz photomask blanks. Because of the magnitude-smaller coefficient of thermal expansion of quartz, quartz was replacing Hoya's LE-30, the dominant plate of the day, in photomasks for the highest density integrated circuits. LE-30 had supplanted soda-lime glass (both green and White Crown) a few years earlier when non-contact projection printing equipment had been introduced, in the 16-kilobit era, as it had a similar smaller coefficient of expansion advantage over soda-lime. The advantage was due to the need to allow a better overlay of stacked patterns on wafers, especially toward the edges of the wafer, when using equipment that causes the photomask to heat up as a batch of wafers is being patterned. At that time, 5" X 5" quartz plates were costing about $500 each. 

The Japanese company TDK, well known for its recording tapes, but also a player in other ferromagnetic-related industries, came up with the idea of drawing a ribbon of molten quartz through a platinum die and then cutting the ribbon into squares, as the source for their entry into the quartz photomask blank market, anticipating a $100 price point. This was a huge innovation and a significant departure from the existing process of cooling off a boule of quartz and then sawing it up into slices, then squares, and then grinding and polishing them down to the final flat and polished thickness. 

As we were evaluating the TDK plates, we experienced a problem with a high incidence of cracking in the corners of the plates in our ultrasonic cleaning baths. When they visited the next time, I pointed this out and told them, "Your plates have very sharp edges and corners, so a lot of stress resides in those edges and corners. You need to put a little radius (rounding) on all your edges and corners to relieve that stress." (This was not some ground-breaking insight on my part - it was standard practice by all other vendors.) Then I took them over to visit George (I can't remember his last name), the crusty old guy that made all of the quartzware for TI's Central Research Laboratory. I asked him to put one of their plates under a polariscope, and when he did, a veritable rainbow of colors emanated from each edge and, especially, each corner. He told them, "You need to put a little radius on all your edges and corners to relieve that stress."

About a month later, TDK came in for another visit and reported what they had done back in Japan: They had put together a 14-engineer task force and seriously attacked the problem with brute force, as is their wont. (Think Russian Army tactics.) They had conducted a series of ball drop tests from various heights and angles. They had done ultrasonic bath tests, etc., etc. etc. And they had come up with a definitive solution, "We need to put a little radius on all the edges and corners of our plates." Somehow, I managed to keep a straight face. 

Not so, right now! I am howling! 😂 Really! 

How has Apple, the repository of all that fantastic brainpower, not picked up on this almost trivially simple solution to their problem - 39 years after old George took one look at TDK's quartz photomask plates and confirmed what I had told them? Have all of Apple's competitors just been snickering up their sleeves all these years? I mean - I know there is a lot of hubris at Apple, but are they that elitist and insular? A big part of my career was sussing out the simple little low-tech details that the guys much, much smarter than me overlooked. Has no-one like me ever worked at Apple. Nah, probably not. JOATs need not apply, I suppose.

(Sadly, TDK's plates did not fare well in the market, due to inclusions near the ribbon-edge sides of the plates. In other words, they made the die too narrow, not leaving enough extra width to trim off the edge-effect scuzz. Another simple little detail was not accounted for by the brilliant guys,)

A Most Interesting Professor - Dr. Lawrence McNamee

"Ah, Mr. Norris, I see you've decided to take the final." Oops!

I had noticed that my roomie at East Texas State College, Noel Reed, had forgotten a pamphlet that he needed for the final exam in German I. He would need to translate one of the articles in it, so I rushed up to campus to take it to him. As I turned to leave the classroom, having delivered the pamphlet, I was face-to-face with Dr. Lawrence McNamee. "So, Mr. Norris! You decided to take the final?" 

Well, I had nothing else scheduled for the next hour and a half, since I had been taking the course - and doing well enough - until the spring Chorale tour. 

I shrugged my shoulders and mumbled, "Why not?" I had been helping Noel prepare for the test, so I knew the material. Well, I took the final and pulled a B in the course! Of course, that was far from enough to keep me from going from Dean's List to Academic Probation in one semester - my infamous Spring of 1963. Oh, well.

This was not my first course under Dr. McNamee. As a Physics Major, I had previously taken an English Literature course, basically a Shakespeare course, that he taught as part of the General Studies Required Course Program. The man was a mesmerizing teacher. So, when he was tasked to put together a German language curriculum, I was an enthusiastic enrollee. 

Along the way, I had heard a bit about his service as a translator at the Nuremburg War Trials and his earlier undercover work on the Continent during World War II. I was actually under the impression that he was a Brit and had served in MI-5 or MI-6, rather than a Pittsburg-born baseball player (He once had a tryout with the Pirates.) and boxer who served in the OSS. He even made a few passing remarks in class about how his flawless German and his reddish-blond hair made it easy for him to pass as a German.

I returned to East Texas State (then) University for the Spring Semester of 1965, now as a Business Major. I soon met up with Dr. McNamee on campus. and we chatted for a bit. He remarked that that German class had really gone very poorly. He remembered my background and ended up hiring me as a tutor for his daughter in 7th Grade Math.

Flash forward 15 to 20 years. I'm browsing through the Dallas Morning News one Sunday morning, and I happened to notice a letter to a column from Archie Moore. The Archie Moore? Yes, the former light-heavyweight Champ and American Goodwill Ambassador was asking a question. "In my travels all over the world, I have rarely found myself in a situation where no one spoke English. Worldwide, how many people speak English?", or words to that effect. And then what really grabbed me? The Columnist was Dr. Lawrence McNamee! Sadly, I have never been back to (now) TAMU-Commerce.

Dr. McNamee passed away on July 17, 2006, at age 89. RIP, sir.

A&M-C's renowned Prof McNamee dies - North Texas e-News (ntxe-news.com)

Pulling in the Derrick (If Blood is Yellow, I'm Bleeding to Death!)

 

This tale is based on my dad’s accounting of a fairly significant event in his life - an accident which contributed to the demise of using the old steel derricks left over from the pre-portable drilling rig era that were still standing around in older oil fields for workovers.  Ironically, perhaps, my dad’s occasional work in the oil fields began even before those steel derricks were built, when he worked as a wooden rig builder in the east Texas oil fields.

Dad went to work for the Texas Company, later renamed Texaco Inc., in 1944 after having worked as a derrick man on drilling rigs in west Texas for a while. With the Texas Company, he worked as a derrick man for a workover pulling gang based out of Hamlin TX.

The gang pusher's name was Newt Cotton (Cotten? We called him Uncle Newt.) The other guys on the crew were Virgil Dockins and Beady Mason. The gang became an extended family, going on fishing trips together down on the Concho and Colorado Rivers, attending sporting events together, and getting together at each other's homes. In the summer of 1952, they also had a work-study student (or apprentice, I'm not sure of his formal status) named Johnny Moran who was a Cajun studying petroleum engineering at LSU. My older sister, Pat, 13 at the time, was totally crushing on Jonny Moran.

My oldest sister, Gwen, had gotten married earlier that year to Ed Baker, a South Carolinian who was an Air Force cook stationed at Shepherd Air Force Base in Wichita Falls. He had subsequently been transferred to Ellington Air Force Base in Houston. On the day before we were to leave on vacation to visit them, the gang was assigned to do a pump replacement on a well out of Rotan, Texas.

In that day, there were many of the old steel derricks still standing in the oil fields. It was common to use them for workover jobs, as it saved considerable time, since you had to unscrew fewer joints of pipe, compared to when using the shorter derrick of the workover rig. On this particular well, my dad had previously observed that the derrick seemed to be getting very weak. In the morning meeting, he recommended that they not use the existing derrick for that job, but that they use the workover pulling unit’s derrick, instead. Alternatively, could they put off the job until the next day after he was on vacation. My dad was the Safety Coordinator for the Department, and he felt his recommendation should carry a lot of weight. However, the boss, either Mr. Richie or Mr. Rose, overrode his recommendation. My dad reacted angrily, telling everyone in the meeting, “If I get killed today, you are all my witnesses, and I want my wife to own a big part of this company as a result of this decision.”

So they went out and strung up their pulling unit on the old derrick. The pulling unit is a big truck with a big old Waukesha engine that drives a huge windlass with enough cable to reach down to the bottom of the hole.

If you’ve ever driven around in oil fields, you’ve seen pump jacks – teeter totters atop elevated fulcrums with one end connected to a motor and counterweights and the other with a “horsehead” bobbing up and down with a rod going down into the ground connected to it. The pump sits at the bottom of the hole and is connected to the horsehead by a string of rods. To bring the pump to the surface for replacement, you do a “rod job”. With the pulling unit in position, the derrick man carries a light line up and runs it through the pulley at the top of the derrick, so that it can be used to haul the main cable up and around the pulley and back to the ground. The string of rods is secured to the pulling unit and then the rods are disconnected from the horsehead. The derrick man is then positioned in the crow's nest midway up the derrick. The cable is then connected to the rods, and then the string of rods is pulled up the hole. After the top of the string of rods arrives at the crow's nest, the rods are clamped down at a point below a convenient joint and the floor gang unscrews that section of rods. They are then swung to a side platform and stacked by the floor man and the derrick man. The cable is then attached back to the top of the string of rods still in the hole. The process is repeated until the pump arrives at the surface. The pump is then replaced, and the process is reversed to put it back down into the hole.

In this case, this pump was firmly stuck. When Uncle Newt applied pressure to get it unstuck, my dad observed the derrick start deforming really badly. He described it as going from a square to a flattened diamond. He waved for Uncle Newt to stop, grabbed some rags, and bailed out of the derrick on the dead man. After he was on the ground, Uncle Newt, still thinking the derrick was safe, applied pressure to the pump one more time. The derrick began falling and laid down directly across the top of the gang truck, as everyone scrambled for their lives!

After the dust settled, and everyone started reassembling, Johnny Moran was unaccounted for. They finally located him where he had dived – under the gang truck. They helped him to extricate himself. When they asked if he was hurt, he said, "If blood is yellow, I’m bleeding to death!”

Amazingly, no one was hurt. But Uncle Newt was totally abashed, and he cried for a long time about almost killing his best friend.

The next day we were off for Houston.

I’m not sure if an old derrick was ever again used on a workover job in the oil field, but the practice didn’t persist for very much longer, for sure.

 

It's Time for the Centrists to Stand Up and Take Charge of Our Government

 We are in a situation that is unprecedented in the modern era of our democracy. The Republican Party is paralyzed by a handful of MAGA anarchists that are elated to bring government to a halt. They are unable to come to an agreement on Kevin McCarthy's bid for Speaker of the House of Representatives, even though he has basically given away the farm to their looney objections. We were not that far from a similar situation with the last session, but with a slightly different twist - the Democrats were unable to get a lot of their agenda to move, thankfully, because of a couple of centrists not being on board with a lot of the more extreme measures that were being touted by the wild-eyed liberals on the extreme left.

With more than 70% of Americans in agreement on a wide range of issues, it would be really nice if that 70% had a way to make their voices heard over the rantings of the extremists on both the left and the right. The way that has worked in the past is that the out-of-power party would respond to their constituents by moving back to the center. Sadly, in this day and age of hyper-partisanism and media (where controversy yields advertising revenue) driven misinformation, the old natural correction forces no longer work. So, it is apparent that this impasse in Congress could go on for a long time.

The most sensible solution that I have seen floated is a bipartisan coalition to select a Centrist leaning Republican Speaker, who would be beholden to none of the extremists. In return for the support of moderate Democrats, a power-sharing system on committee memberships, some commitments on agenda, etc, would be part of the deal. This would, indeed, be a really Radical Centrist move.

I would love to take credit for this idea, but it has been floated by a number of moderate pundits in the past few days. An example is here: How about an Alaska-style coalition to end the impasse at the U.S. House? Nice idea, Peltola says. - Alaska Public Media

The Optometrical Folks Just Don't Get Binocular Diplopia (Double Vision)

The Trip Through the System

I was driving home to Vancouver, WA from a physically tough night shift in Lake Oswego, OR on a bright, sunny Sunday morning in January 2012. I found myself struggling to decide which of two roads unfolding before me I should steer toward! I was seeing two images, one at a slightly counterclockwise tilt and displaced slightly down and to the left of the other. Fortunately, the two roads converged enough so that staying on the road did not prove to be a major issue. Still, it was a disturbing phenomenon. And it did not go away. As it turned out, it was my rather unnerving introduction to a condition the docs call binocular diplopia (in layman speak, double vision involving both eyes). In my case it has proven to be persistent and unchanging. My subsequent trip through the optometric industry has proven to be equally unnerving.

After a couple of days, I went to the Casey Eye Clinic at Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU - up on Pill Hill, if you're familiar with Portland) to see what the heck was going on. There was quite a bit of somewhat hushed, instructional-type discussion between the Ophthalmologist and her assistant as they pulled out (dust-covered?) instruments during my exam. The diagnosis was that I had an 8 Diopter twisted displacement in my left eye. No explanation of what caused it was offered. The assistant applied a 4 D (Diopter) stick-on Fresnel prism lens by 3M to the left lens of my glasses. "We want to be conservative and just correct it enough so that the eye is able to accommodate 'naturally', as much as possible."

Well, that lens helped a bit. But the assistant had used tap water in applying it, and it developed water spots under it as that water dried out. (If you've ever watched water droplets dry out under a microscope, you'll understand that.) A few weeks later, I took it off, cleaned it up, and remounted it using distilled water. In the process of remounting it, I discovered that the assistant had mounted it upside down! So, mounting it correctly helped a bit more.  Basically, the 4 D lens would bring the images up to a vertical alignment, but still leave a little twist and horizontal displacement, which the eye would have to " naturally" accomodate for. (Alternatively, by twisting the prism lens a little more, I could get the twist out, leaving a need for both vertical and horizontal 'natural' accomodation.) Still, each day as I got more tired, it became harder and then impossible to keep the images locked together.

In June of 2013, I got a dedicated pair of computer glasses (which I highly recommend to anyone that spends quite a bit of time on your computer). Needing another prism lens for them, I bought a new one online. But I cheated a bit - I got a 6 D one for my regular glasses and used the old 4 D one on the computer glasses. So that was another incremental improvement. Still, I have had the same problem with fatigue and eyestrain later in the day.

Along the way, my wife Nancy put on my glasses by mistake one day and shrieked at how much better she could see. (Our refractive corrections are pretty similar.) I believe this was with the 4 D prism on them. At her next eye exam, we had the doc check her for binocular diplopia, and BINGO!  So, she had the prism ground into her new lenses.

Later, when she was having some other problems, she was scheduled for an MRI. I requested that they pay attention to the 4th Cranial Nerve to see if there were any lesions, tumors, or aneurysms impinging on it. (See the next section for why I made that request.) The report came back that they found no tumors and that the 5th Cranial Nerve was clear. (Gee, thanks!)

Since 2012, I have had two ophthalmology visits with refractory at the Northwest Eye Clinic at PeaceHealth St. Joseph's here in Bellingham. At the last, we had a discussion about the binocular diplopia, and it was clear that the doc really didn't have a clear grasp of it. Finally, last week I was very tired and, as a result, was having a lot of problems with the residual double vision and eyestrain. So, I thought maybe the 6 D prism was too much, and I switched back to the 4 D on my regular glasses. O.M.G.! It was horrible! So, I thought back to the original exam back at Casey, and the light bulb finally lit up! I immediately went online and ordered an 8 D prism. I got it yesterday and mounted it, and, viola, when I rotated it to locate the correct angle to mount it, the images came to a perfect overlay - with no twist! I am totally THRILLED!!!

The Science of Binocular Diplopia (Interesting Stuff - Really!)

To understand what causes binocular diplopia, as well as to gain an understanding of all of the muscles and nerves controlling the eyes' movements, settle back and enjoy this really entertaining 29-minute video on Cranial Nerve Palsies by Dr. Tim Root. While it is an instructional video aimed at young eye science students, it is easily followed by us lay folk, too.

So, armed with our new knowledge, we can make a pretty good guess that my sudden-onset problem stems from a little aneurysm that suddenly popped up during that tough night shift I had just worked in 2012. And since the onset of Nancy's problem was so gradual that she was never even aware of it or of the problems that it was causing her, that could argue for her problem being caused by a little tumor impinging on the 4th Cranial nerve. That could even be taken as a warning sign that she might have other tumors in her brain and/or elsewhere. Hence, my request re: her MRI.

Takeaways

The most obvious takeaway from our experiences is that binocular diplopia is not high on the radar of most eye professionals. In fact, it is so rarely encountered that any skills and equipment that they may have had must be pulled out of deep storage to be used. There is a perception that a routine screening for the condition would stretch out the length of the appointment too much. However, I would suggest that without the dusting-off and instructional steps, it would not take that long. And, considering that Nancy had to make a really serendipitous self-diagnosis in order to get the condition addressed, it just may be that this is a really common  condition that is grossly undiagnosed and that is causing a degradation in the quality of life in, literally, millions of people - perhaps without their even being aware of it!

Binocular diplopia caused by a nerve palsy is not a condition that can be improved by muscle strengthening exercises or forcing the eye to make "natural" accomodation. Failing to correct it fully only leads to eyestrain and the loss of clarity when fatigued.

Bearing in mind the fragility of the 4th Cranial Nerve and its long tortuous path from the back of the brainstem to the eye, how many injuries to it are sustained, especially by athletes and by people in, say, automobile accidents?

Often you will hear a baseball player get on a hot streak and say in an interview, "Well, I'm really seeing the ball well right now?" How often could that be due to his being particularly well-rested at that time, so that the eye is better able to "naturally" accommodate to a binocular diplopia problem?

What Needs to Happen?

• Binocular diplopia screening should become a part of every routine eye exam.
• When binocular diplopia is discovered, an effort must be made to determine the cause. Especially in gradual-onset cases, it could be an early warning of a more systemic problem, such as metastasized tumors. 
• Sports organizations should routinely screen their players for binocular diplopia, especially as part of concussion protocols. And some of the streakiness of some athletes, especially hitters, could be improved.

Promotion Parties

🎊 🃏 Promotion Parties 🎉 🎇

I may be the only veteran of my era to have had real promotion parties for attaining the ranks of both 1st Lieutenant and Captain!

22 November 2017 - Quite a significant anniversary in my life. 50 years ago today, I had a rare event on any military post of the day - a promotion party marking my bar turning from butter to silver! In those days, graduating from OCS or being commissioned as an ROTC graduate carried a two-year commitment, with promotion to 1st Lieutenant occurring on the one-year anniversary of your commissioning. The first 11 months were typically served stateside (in my case, as a Basic Training Company Executive Officer at Camp Swampy (AKA Fort Polk, LA)), then after a month-long delay-in-route leave, you shipped out to Vietnam, with your promotion occurring during the trip or soon after arriving in the Jolly Green - not exactly the formula for a big gala. In my case, Nancy was pregnant with Rebecca (who was delivered two days after my party), so I had a two-month deferment on my little trip.

On the day of my promotion, I was up on North Fort Polk going through the Infiltration Course, a three-day session that was required for POR qualification. My CO, CPT Sherwood (Woody) Emory, arranged for a helicopter crew who were getting in some required flight hours to pick me up and take me to the Officers' Club on South Fort for my promotion party.

And a fine party it was!

Oh, my! Did I ever tie one on! Afterward, Woody took me out and poured me into the passenger seat of his TR-4, and we left for his house in Leesville, where his wife would pour coffee down me until time for my pickup back at the chopper pad. There was a little hitch, though, when an MP pulled us over as Woody peeled out of the O' Club access road onto the main artery to Leesville. After a little discussion, Woody agreed with the MP's suggestion that he let "your sober buddy drive the rest of the way". As we started our seat switch, the MP drove off, and Woody said, "Just get us off-post (about a half-mile), and we can switch back!" As I had never driven his car before, he showed me the shift pattern, and we were off, with my only killing it a couple of times before I got the clutch right.

And that has been the total extent of my wheel time in a European sports car.

A lot of water went under the bridge before my next promotion party, a year later, but I'll limit this narrative to those events that enabled that party.

I got to Vietnam with only ten months left on my two-year commitment. So, I spent six months as a Forward Observer in direct support of a grunt infantry company, (Whatever happened to that two-month normal rotation? Well, the Tet Offensive, along with some changes in the supply chain of us cannon-fodder types.) two months as AXO and two months as XO of another 105mm artillery battery. While I was an FO, CPT John Pipia, the CO of the company I was supporting talked me into going "Indefinite", which was an officer's way of reupping. His argument was that the Army needed some good guys to balance out the "ring knockers", AKA West Pointers. That carried a year's commitment and meant that I would be staying in Vietnam for a full year. Then the Field Artillery and the Air Defense Artillery split, with me coming down on the Air Defense side, presumably because I had been in Air Defense as an enlisted man.

Well, it was unexpected, but kind of understandable, when the Battalion Commander called me up on "Secure" one night about the time I became XO and informed me that I was getting a two-month drop and would be going home in late November. I would be reporting to the ADA School at Fort Bliss. He said it looked like I must be going to the same Career Course (ADA Officers' Advanced Course) as CPT (Jim) Sharkey, who was Battery Commander of a sister battery. Wow! Instantly "short", and I hadn't even been on R&R yet! So, after I met Nancy and Rebecca in Hawaii in October, we parted thinking I'd be home in just over a month!

After I got back from R&R, I really had a short-timer's attitude! That month really drug by - stuck out on a hill seven kilometers from the Cambodian border, firing contact missions just about every day and harassment and interdiction fires (H&I's) every night. But it finally got over, and I caught a resupply slick back to Battalion. And I tied another one on! This was three days before my DEROS, but the Old Man walked through the BOQ tent that night and, after congratulating me on making it through that mess, mentioned that he had not received my Port Call yet. He suggested I catch the supply convoy back to 4th Division HQ at Pleiku the next day and see what I could find out.

So it was that I was in a Jeep waiting to fall into the convoy the next day, when the Battalion Sergeant Major came out huffing and puffing at a dead run to tell me that he had just received a TELEX from MAC-V saying that I had been extended in-country for two more months. I looked at him and said, "That's really funny, Top, but please don't f__k with me right now. I have a really, really bad head today." And he said, "No, Sir. I'm serious, they finally noticed that you have only been in country for ten months." I was stunned!

I went back and talked to the Old Man, and he said, "I'm really sorry about this mix-up. But on the bright side, I'll be able to promote you to Captain, and we can have a great Promotion party!"

And a fine party it was!

You Are Your Cultural Influences

I was musing about technology advances, and got to thinking about stereo systems. What was your first stereo sound system? For many (most for my generation and earlier) of us, it was in our car. For me it was the first brand new car I ever bought - a 1971 Plymouth Fury station wagon. I bought it in Las Cruces, NM while I was stationed at Ft. Bliss, TX. (New Mexico exempted service members from the state excise tax.) I also bought a new Honda 350 CL Scrambler  motorcycle at about the same time. I was, indeed, living large! When they first came out, I added an 8-track to the car.

I started amassing a number of albums on 8-track, one of which was very instructive in a totally unexpected way. It was a "Favorites" compilation by a pretty poor cover band. Poor enough that listening to the album was pretty painful at first. But I persevered, and after awhile I got used to it.

Then I heard one of those songs being performed by the original group that had recorded it, and I (multiple choice here): a) realized just how bad the cover band was; b) realized that both of them really sounded pretty much the same; c) hated the original band's version.

Logically, we have good taste and can tell the good stuff from the bad - right? So the answer should be a), right? BUZZZZZZ! Wrong! My ear had been knocked so totally out of tune, that bad was good and good was bad. c) is the correct choice.

The same thing happens with our tastes in other areas as well. In Mexico, the people that harvest the high quality arabica coffee beans are not allowed to use them, because of their relative scarcity and value as an export crop. Instead, they are given the plentiful cheaper robusta beans. They learn to like them, and when they are given the chance to try the arabica variety, they can't stand it, so I'm told. Think, too of the folks down in Louisiana and their "coffee".

Our children grow up thinking McDonald's makes a great hamburger. Cubs fans grow up knowing you can never win it all. Yankees fans grow up expecting to win it all - every year. Little boys growing up watching sports nowadays know they'll have hard choices to make in the years to come - Bud Lite or the Silver Bullet; F-150 or Silverado; Viagra or Cialis. 

Increasingly, the media seeks out or fabricates conflict to win ratings to enhance the ad rates they can charge their sponsors. A good fight just reaps bigger audiences. Reality shows, the Bachelor, MMA. Even the mainstream news programs feature things like "Crossfire" where frothy-mouthed zealots from both ends of the political spectrum scream at each other over hot button topics. The worst part of this whole development is that the moderators, presumably (at least, ideally) level-headed intelligent types can't jeopardize their ratings by expressing their disgust with the whole panel of guests, kicking them off and then commentating on the issues. So they're becoming more like their guests - screaming and goading and trying to foment conflict. And viewers are never presented with any but the deep blue or the deep red views. What ever happened to well-reasoned, thoughtful, respectful conflict resolution? It doesn't sell Viagra, that's what! It was cancelled!

So folks lean a little one way or another and then go off and watch MSNBC or Fox News. Boy! There are a couple of places you can hone your diplomatic and negotiating skills. NOT!

We see clips of boys in extremist religious Islamic schools on their prayer mats doing their hypnotic head-bobbing chants and smugly think, "It's a good thing we're not into brainwashing in this country." Oh, really! Wake up and smell the chicory!

The first time you get shot at in combat is a sort of reality check. Here is some regular guy from another country, another culture, that hates you enough to want you dead, just because you are who you are. You may have a flash of realization that, except for the results of the crapshoot we call birthplace, our positions could be totally flipped. (Maybe you need to table that thought for right now, or he may succeed in his efforts to fulfill that deathwish on you. War is the ultimate "Him or Me" game. So don't do anything to jeopardize winning it. Think your profound thoughts after the battle.)

As humans, we are born helpless and ignorant. We reach adulthood mostly as a product of our upbringing. Nearly everything we think has been taught to us. 

Fortunately, or unfortunately, our societal attitudes and tastes are as pliable as our ear for music or our taste for coffee. With the right influence, we actually can refine and improve our tastes and attitudes. Or under the wrong influence, the exact opposite may occur. Our brains can be patterned, for better or for worse, through a process called neuroplasticity. We can be strongly influenced by those around us. 

The single best piece of advice a person can be given is this: Surround yourselves with the very best people possible. Because that neuroplasticity is, indeed, a sword that can cut both ways.