Saturday, December 31, 2005

I'm a Proud Big Jar Mayonnaise Mama!

You can (and should) be a Big Jar Mayonnaise Mama or Papa too!
Laughing at Shakespeare

I have been idling my time of recovery away in studying Shakespeare. I stocked up on a few movies from the library and got a few books about Shakespeare, and am all set to read my way through the plays. The fact that my boys are going to need assistance in their English study of Shakespeare for school has been my excuse for shameless indulgence.

Shakespeare alternately amazes and repels me. Some of the subject matter is sublime, much of it ridiculous, and in other places indecent and brings a blush to my matronly cheeks. (There are some obscure and anachronistic terms that I will NOT be interpreting into modern patois for the boys!) The plot lines are improbable and at the same time reveal a startling insight into human nature. And is he ever hard to pin down. It is amusing to hear Shakespearean scholars pontificate about what Shakespeare meant by this or that only to have the next scholar come along and contradict the first. In the end, I don't think you can make Shakespeare a spokesman for any school of thought or the Elizabethan age in the same way Bob Dylan refused to be the spokesman for his generation. I have heard some people claim that he was a great Christian. And then I read some of the bawdy language and have no doubt that this was one of the things that led to the Puritans shutting down the theatres. Was he nihilistic? Realistic? Hopelessly romantic? Depressed? Hard to say. We don't have any of his writings on his own personal thoughts about things and I would greatly hesitate at making his plays or sonnets speak for his actual state of mind or personal opinion on anything. How nice it would be to find a detailed diary that would actually tell us that. Imagine if computers and blogs were around at the time he lived!

All the while I have been reading through some of the plays, especially the tragedies, I have had this Monty Pythonesque desire to do a parody of some of them. Apparently I am not the only one who has had this desire. Some of my most enjoyable moments have come from reading what others have said and done to Shakespeare. Witness:

~ When Big Pharma was an infant in the '70's, one of the enterprising pharmaceutical companies sought to combine the profundity of Shakespeare with a marketing strategy for tranquilizers. They psycho-analyzed the personality disorders of the likes of Lady MacBeth, Hamlet, and Ophelia. Apparently Ophelia's madness and subsequent suicide was more the result of a lack of tranqulizers and psychotherapy than the fact that her lover had violently rejected her and stabbed her father to death.

Of course, if Lady MacBeth had been tranquilized, she might not have dwelt on her guilt over urging her husband to murder Duncan. And then Shakespeare wouldn't have needed to write the play.

~ Shakespeare is beloved, not only by the nations of English speakers, but his plays have been translated into many languages and played in remote places like African huts. The Japanese are no slackers when it comes to admiration for the Bard. Some of Shakespeare's plays translated back into English from Japanese read as follows:

Strange Affair of the Flesh and the Bosom
(The Merchant of Venice)

Lust and Dreams of the Transitory World
(Romeo and Juliet)

Swords of Freedom
(Julius Caesar)

The Oar Well Accustomed to the Water
(All's Well That Ends Well)

and my favorite...

A Sad Case of Early Retirement
(King Lear)

Of course, not everyone was or is an admirer of Shakespeare. Mark Twain is one notable example. He said on one occasion:

"I feel that our fetish [with Shakespeare] is safe for three centuries yet. The bust too -- there in the Stratford Church. The precious bust, the calm bust, the serene bust, the emotionless bust, with the dandy mustache and the putty face, unseamed of care -- the face which looked passionlessly down upon the awed pilgrims for a hundred and fifty years, and will still look down upon the awed pilgrims three hundred more, with the deep, deep, deep, subtle, subtle, subtle expression of a bladder."

The urge to parody Shakespeare's tragedies is not new. Some of the nineteenth century music halls did a lot of business making fun of Hamlet:

Hamlet the Ravin' Prince of Denmark!! or the Baltic Swell!! And the Diving Belle!! A Burlesque Extravaganza in Three Acts

Hamlet a la Mode

Hamlet the Hysterical: A Delirium in Five Spasms

Apparently this was too much for humorist P.G. Wodehouse who wrote

I went into a music-hall but soon came out of it
On seeing some comedians in a painful "Hamlet" skit
And a gentleman who gave some imitations, all alone
Of other people's Hamlets, plus a Hamlet of his own.
It's "Hamlet" this and "Hamlet" that,
And Hamlet day by day.
Shakespeare and Bacon must regret they ever wrote the play.

Then there is the "skinhead" version of Hamlet which reduces a play that was originally about 4 hours long down to four pages. Here, in skinhead vernacular (with appropriate bleeping inserted by me), is Claudius's response to a play-within-a-play:

1 Player: Full thirty times hath Phoebus' cart
Claudius: I'll be ****** if I watch any more of this crap!

And in the final act when Fortinbras enters to find Hamlet, his mother, Claudius and Laertes dead:

Fortinbras: What the ******* is going on here?
Horatio: A ****** mess, that's for sure.
Fortinbras: No kidding. I see Hamlet's *******.
Horatio: Yer.
Fortinbras: ******* shame. ******* good bloke.
Horatio: Too ******* right.
Fortinbras: ******* this for a lark then. Let's piss off.
(Exeunt with alarums.)

Even Prince Charles has taken a stab at reproducing Hamlet's famous "to be or not to be" speech into the common vernacular of our day.

"Well, frankly, the problem as I see it
At this moment in time is whether I
Should just lie down under all this hassle
And let them walk all over me,
Or, whether I should just say, "OK,
I get the message," and do myself in.
I mean, let's face it, I'm in a no-win
Situation, and quite honestly,
I'm so stuffed up to here with the whole
Stupid mess that, I can tell you, I've just
Got a good mind to take the quick way out.
That's the bottom line. The only problem is:
What happens if I find out that when I 've bumped
Myself off, there's some kind of a, you know,
All that mystical stuff about when you die,
You might find you're still -- know what I mean?"

Anyhow, I'm having fun with all this Shakespeare stuff and enjoying most of the videos that I have been able to track down.

By the way, all the quotes from above have come from the book The Friendly Shakespeare: A Thoroughly Painless Guide to the Best of the Bard by Norrie Epstein.

Now tell me: Which is your favorite play or movie version of a Shakespeare play?

Friday, December 30, 2005

Nearly There

We are almost at the end of the holiday madness and we managed to survive it despite the death rattle cough. What started out as a viral infection took on a secondary bacterial infection in moi. For a week or so I have been coughing up dark green gunk from my left bronchial tree and tightening my abs in the process. I am nearly done with the cough though and I am VERY PROUD to say that I did it without antibiotics! Gotta love them herbs and glyconutrients. At times when I was up in the wee small hours of the night feeling like the top of my head was going to part company with the rest of my frame with each cough, I briefly contemplated breaking down and getting some antibiotics. However, the knowledge of the aftermath that abx cause held me firm to my path and I merely had another hot bath so I could snuff up some warm moist air. I also eschewed the dubious comforts of Tylenol and its generic cousins in favor of letting my body's own defense mechanism of fever free reign to kill the pathogens wreaking havoc in my lungs. I woke in the middle of the night when my fever broke to find I had drenched my nighty. After that happened, it was like a switch going on in terms of feeling better.

I hadn't planned on taking time off around the ho ho season with the schooling, but this most recent bout of illness put the kybosh on that. I will continue to take it easy for another few days as I slowly regain lost ground in housecleaning and by Monday I should be back in fighting trim again.

I'm not posting any details, but if he is brought to mind, please say a prayer on behalf of my son, Nathanael.

Tuesday, December 20, 2005

Something is Different, but I Don't Know What or Why

The past few weeks have been instructive ones. For one thing, I have had confirmed in a personal way how big a toll emotional angst can take on one, mostly by losing a lot of it. Spinning one's wheels is a fruitless activity that consumes a lot of emotional, mental, and physical energy. Remove the spinning wheels, and all of a sudden you have energy you didnt' know you had for other things.

I know I am not alone in this ~ so much of my drive to do things is driven by what "they" will think or say. Who "they" are I haven't yet determined. It is like I have this judge and jury in my head composed of a number of friends, family, church members, and other significant others who are waiting to pounce on my every mistake. I realize how ridiculous this is as I write it, because while there has been the odd person here and there who has been critical, it is mostly been from people I don't know well and care even less about.

Some things have changed in my head without me having to work at it. This was an unasked for grace. I have been able to see what my priorities clearly are and this has enabled me to determine what is important and worth spending time on and what is not important and which can afford to wait.

First priority: My relationship with God. More prayer and meditation on God's Word has been happening. Funny thing about my "episode". When everyone else was freaking out about the possibility of imminent death, it hasn't troubled me. I don't claim responsibility for this. God has worked in me to such an extent that while death remains an enemy, it isn't one I fear.

Second priority: My family. My kids are growing and will be gone sooner than I think. I'll never be able to have as much impact on them as I am now while they are still under my roof. All of a sudden homeschooling isn't the chore it was before. Instead it is a way to keep contact with my kids. Looks like I won't be using the Christian school next year. My husband needs taking care of. He's the only one I have and likely to be the only one I will ever have.

Third priority: Everyone and everything else. As important as it is to do good works (as the result, not the cause of salvation), everyone else has to take a backseat to the first two items. Not that I didn't already know this.

Here's what is funny: I have stressed less over messes in the house. The messes are disappearing and I am able to keep up with most of everything.

I am not stressing over the homeschooling, and now all of a sudden it is getting done in a timely and satisfactory manner.

Business is good. I am seeing a steady stream of clients but if they don't show up, well that means more time for other things.

I am content. I still have my ambitions, but I don't have this desperate need to beat the clock as far as getting them done. Naturopathic school will still be waiting for me when the times comes that I can devote my energies to it. In the meantime, I have plenty of good solid work and studies to keep me occupied.

I want to end this post on a note of apology. I have been aware for some time that a number of young women and mothers have looked at me like I was some sort of example to follow -- maybe not in terms of levels of sanctification, but perhaps in levels of sheer activity. For that I am sorry. I would hate for anyone to think that one must always be going, going, going in order to accomplish things of any worth or that the standard of godly womanhood was measured by how much laundry you get done in a day. As important as it can be to do, it is just as important just to be.
Calvin Must Be Spinning

In the country that was formerly one of the cradles of Reformation, thanks to the likes of John Calvin, we now learn that one of the Swiss hospitals in Lausanne will be allowing an organization, which is in favor of assisted suicide, to help terminally ill patients to end their own lives.

The hospital will not accept people whose only goal in entering "is to prepare to
end his life," said Alberto Crespo, who is responsible for law and ethics at the
hospital. "The purpose of a hospitalization remains therapeutic treatment."


Riiiiiiiight....
The Question No Expert is Asking....

Something is rotten in Denmark.

Parents of children with autism who believe that the condition was caused by vaccines have been routinely written off by the experts. It doesn't matter that these parents saw normal behaviour and development before vaccines and a startling regression after. That is pure coincidence.

So where are the studies that compare vaccinated children with autism with rates of autism in children who are not vaccinated? In other words, where are the controls?

Nowhere according to the "experts".

"There have never been any large, prospective, long-term studies comparing the long-term health of highly vaccinated individuals versus those who have never been vaccinated at all," Barbara Loe Fisher of the National Vaccine Information Center wrote in Mothering Magazine last year.

Therefore, the background rates for ADHD, learning disabilities, autism, seizure disorders, asthma, diabetes, intestinal bowel disorders, rheumatoid arthritis, and other brain and immune-system dysfunction in a genetically diverse unvaccinated population remains unknown."

-- "Why hasn't the most obvious research been done -- that is, assess the incidence of autism in unvaccinated children?" wrote Illinois autism activist Dr. David Ayoub this fall.

-- Kennedy, in a white paper called "Tobacco Science and the Thimerosal Scandal," quotes University of Kentucky chemistry professor Boyd Haley as saying, "If the CDC were really interested in uncovering the truth, it would commission epidemiological studies of cohorts who escaped vaccination, most obviously the children of Jehovah's Witnesses, Christian Scientists or the Amish."

Instead, Kennedy said, the CDC has "worked furiously to quash such studies" and prevent access to its own vaccine safety database -- a charge the CDC denies. Kennedy said he asked an official at the Institute of Medicine -- which last year rejected a vaccines-autism link -- why it didn't encourage those studies rather than recommend research money be redirected.

"That's a great idea, no one has ever suggested it before," Kennedy quoted the official as saying. Kennedy commented: "That statement is incredible. ... The idea of finding an uncontaminated U.S. cohort is Science 101. ... In fact, Dr. Boyd Haley has repeatedly urged IOM and CDC to conduct such a study, including at two public and tape-recorded meetings."

All these people are saying the same thing: Given the stakes, where's the study? This winter the government wants all pregnant women and 6-to-23-month-olds to get flu shots, most of which contain thimerosal.
In Case You Have Missed It...

...I have big problems with Big Pharma and the ethics being used to drive their industry. In their search for increased profit taking, they have turned to third world countries not only for a cheaper workforce but also because the regulations governing testing of drugs is more lax. This allows them to get away with things like the following:

Sun Pharmaceuticals convinced doctors to prescribe Letrozole, a breast cancer drug, to more than 400 women as a fertility treatment in a covert clinical trial -- and used the results to promote the drug for the unapproved use. This reminds me of a story that I heard on CBC radio's science show, Quirks and Quarks a few years ago where the WHO went into a South American country and under the guise of providing vaccines against disease, actually vaccinated women against pregnancy without their consent.

and ...

"Doctors are easier to recruit for trials because they don't have to go through the same ethics procedures as their Western colleagues," Ecks said. "And patients ask fewer questions about what is going on."

Also, critics say study volunteers may be taking risks without the potential for reward. Since many pharmaceutical companies are developing the drugs for markets in industrialized nations, it is unlikely that India's poor will have access to most of the new medicine.

You needn't reserve all your moral outrage for India's poor. Big Pharma is willing to stick it to the poor in North America as well. SFBC International has a 675 bed facility in Miami that has been recruiting undocumented Latinos who are desperate for money, and is paying them to take untested drugs in studies overseen by an unlicensed medical director whose degree comes from an offshore medical school in the Caribbean.

I don't know if any of my readers invest money in Big Pharma as part of their stock portfolio, but if you do, maybe it is time to seek a more ethical way of making money, no?

Monday, December 12, 2005

I Came, I Saw, I Worked Out

I got up early this morning -- like around 5:30 am. This was with some help from Jamesie who was snuffling around for first breakfast (second breakfast is at 9). Usually I would go back to sleep for another hour or two, but my curiosity over lights emanating from the downstairs overcame me, so James and I went downstairs to see what was up. What was up were two girls getting ready to go on their paper route. Something in the air told me that they had eaten or were going to eat. I happened to wander over by the stove which had a dish cloth draped over the top bit where the controls are, and discovered it was warm. I opened it up, and inside were browning popovers. Two girls stood there sheepishly grinning. I predict either naps or an early bedtime for those two tonight.

Sam was roused and joined the girls in their hot popover treat and I shoved them out the door by 6. I then donned a t shirt that wasn't as baggy as it should have been, yoga pants, and runners and proceeded to do 20 minutes of aerobics, 20 of upper body weight training, and 20 minutes of contorting myself into a semblance of Pilates moves.

I can't wait for the elliptical trainer to come. At least I can read a book while I run on it.

Saturday, December 10, 2005

I Love My Work

Yesterday and today I got to work with two clients who live in Vancouver. Whenever they come to PG to visit family, they get me to work on them. One of them has been in a bad way for some time and the doctors and naturopaths down in Lotusland haven't been able to give her much in the way of help. What has helped her is seeing me, according to her and her husband. So....
He's planning on sending her up by plane every six weeks or so to have me work on her. Which I think is a real compliment.

In other news, James exploded today. No, he has not joined the Muslim extremists dedicated to blowing themselves and others up. Instead he did what many breastfed babies do -- he saved a bowel movement for several weeks and then finally exploded in a yellow lava-like flow of poop all the way up his back and out his legs. It is hard to believe a baby could hold so much poop. The tricky part was trying to get his onesie undershirt off of him without smearing it all through his hair. I think I used up half of my homemade baby wipes cleaning him up because I didn't have time to just put him in the bath and be done with it.

It has been a full week since I went to town. I almost went in tonight, but Marc elected to go for me, giving Ben the chance to drive. Hannah is out babysitting, as is Trahern. Only the little kids and I are at home and some of them are laying around in various stages of decreptitude. It looks like it will be a quiet Lord's Day at home tomorrow. Not all the kids are down with the "death rattle" cough, but James is feeling out of sorts from that and teething. Despite the fact that he can't do more than squeak in a pathetic manner, he is still smiling and surprisingly unfussy. Bless him!

Wednesday, December 07, 2005

The Thimoserol (Mercury) and Autism Link

I recently read an article from the Boston Globe written by a pediatrician concerning what he thought was a bogus connection between autism and the thimoserol found in many vaccines. His concern was over the numbers of parents who are now refusing to administer vaccines to their children and in doing so were opting for other methods of protecting their children over "herd immunity". In reply to his article, a neuorpharmacologist from Northeastern University who is doing research into the molecular causes of autism replied that there is indeed hard scientific evidence demonstrating a link between autism and thimoserol exposure through vaccination. He summed up his findings with the following:


1. Thiol (sulfur) metabolism is widely recognized as the primary target of mercury (i.e. Thimerosal) neurotoxicity.

2. Autistic children exhibit profound abnormalities in thiol metabolites

3. Concentrations of thimerosal produced by vaccination inhibit methylation activity of the enzyme methionine synthase.

4. Autistic children exhibit impaired methylation activity (Dr. James study).

5. Thiol metabolism plays a key role in inflammation and oxidative stress (e.g. maintaining glutathione levels).

6. Autistic children exhibit neuroinflammation and oxidative stress (Vargas et al. Ann Neurol. 2005 Jan;57(1):67-81)

7. Mercury and other heavy metals cause neuroinflammation (e.g. activation of microglia).

8. Thimerosal causes significantly greater accumulation of inorganic mercury in the brain than does methylmercury. (Burbacher et al. Environ Health Perspect. 2005 Aug;113(8):1015-21)

Ergo, there is indeed substantial scientific evidence of a link between Thimerosal and autism.

Furthermore, and more importantly:
Treatment of autistic children with regimens that:

1. Remove heavy metals (e.g. chelation)

2. Augment levels of glutathione (e.g. GSH or N-acetylcysteine)

3. Support methylation activity (e.g. methyl B12 (not just B12), folinic acid)

4. Reduce neuroinflammation (PPAR-acting agents )

....bring about clinical improvement in a large proportion of children with autism.

What the articles against freedom from vaccination boil down to for the most part is a desire for draconian action on the part of the state to force parents to vaccinate their children irrespective of the desires of the parents to protect individual children from the possible harmful effects they may suffer. Scare tactics alongside fervent declarations concerning the safety of vaccines are commonly employed in order to get compliance. Those who question the connection between vaccines and various disorders are put off with the notion that what they are experiencing couldn't possibly be caused by vaccines and that their observations are not scientific. Autism is caused by something else: it can't possibly be the vaccines!

What is lacking from the pro-vaccine side is the lack of questions: Why are so many children getting sick?

The argument the vaccinators put forward is that the increases in autism are the artifacts of increased awareness and better diagnosis. In short, we had autism before, but it wasn't being diagnosed. However, this is a testable hypothesis and the hypothesis has proven false. Autism spectrum disorders have been rising. Mercury is a potent neurotoxin and the idea that it can be administered safely to infants at what can be 15 times the EPA limits of toxicity in vaccines is, well, just plain stupid. Autism is an environmentally caused condition. However the integration of science and commerce dictates that we ignore the single most probable cause of a preventable condition and furthermore that we attempt to coerce everyone into compliance with it. So some children end up unable to function in society. That is the price we are supposed to pay for herd immunity.

It is clear who the winners are with this sort of program.

Oh, and btw, I think it is highly interesting that Big Pharma has persuaded Congress to protect them from further lawsuits caused by vaccine damage. If vaccines were so safe, would the bottom line need such safeguards?

Tuesday, December 06, 2005

Thoughts on Finitude

It happens to me everyday. I am brought up against my state of finitude in multiple ways.

My children fight and I can never know for sure that I have gotten all the facts and ruled justly because I am finite.

I read the paper and see that such and such a move by the US gov't will likely lead to a rise in this or that commodity. And I wonder if they have all their facts straight or if this is only an educated guess because the commentator is finite.

We argue over which form of gov't is best: democracy, republicanism, socialism or marxism. We all can't agree because we are finite and only see a tiny part of the picture.

We take sides in a controversy thinking we have done our due diligence and are competent to render judgement only to find out later that we were missing some key facts. We are finite.

Despite my best efforts to get everything done, I often wake up in the night with the memory of something that I forgot to do. I am finite.

Finitude can be something to bang your head against in frustrated anger, or it can be a means of being humbled and filled with gratitude because even if you are finite, God is not and He can handle it all.
Seven Seven's

I am taking Sora's general invitation to list my seven seven's since no one else has tagged me. [sniff, sniff]

Seven things I hope to see or do before I die:

1. See all my children serving the Lord and their children after them.
2. Learn to sing all 150 Psalms by heart
3. Become a naturopathic physician
4. Go to the UK and travel all the historic sites I have dreamed of for years.
5. Have a summer home in the Maritimes so that I can visit with my family every year.
6. Lose all my "baby" fat and fit back into some decent sized clothing.
7. Write an autobiography solely for my family's use. I'm not noteworthy enough for wider publication and have no desire for the limelight that way anyhow.

Seven Things I Cannot Do

1. Willingly drink soda pop. Every time I try, I think of how the phosphoric acid drains the calcium from my bones and how the 10 - 12 teaspoons of sugar wrecks my immune system and affects my blood sugar.

2. Relax when my house is a mess.

3. Sit still for very long. I am not happy unless I am busy with something.

4. Read books for long. This is because I am constantly interrupted by little people and big kids wanting this or that.

5. Take a bath without a baby or two wanting in.

6. I can't stop kissing Jamesie. He's just too adorable for words.

7. Homeschool four grade levels at the same time and keep my sanity. One-room school house teachers have all my admiration!

Seven Things that Attract Me to my Spouse

1. His chest hair.

2. His sense of humor. It is odd and not everyone gets it, but I do.

3. His faithfulness and loyalty. I have never known Marc to say a bad word about me to anyone.

4. His diligence in working for years at a job he hated in order to provide for the children and me.

5. His ability to provide some calm and short circuit my ravings when I get worked up over things.

6. The practical things he gets me. I know a lot of women like receiving romantic gifts of flowers and jewelry, but it says more to me that he is thinking of me when he provides me with the tools I need to do my work.

7. His appreciation for the things I do for him.

Seven Things I Say Most Often:

1. Who made this mess?

2. Whose job is it to ________? (insert name of chore)

3. I love you too.

4. ________ (insert name of child) come hang up your coat and put your shoes away!

5. Did you clean your room?

6. Suppertime!

7. It's time for family worship!

Seven Books or Series that I Love.

1. Lord of the Rings

2. Anne of Green Gables and all the other "Anne" books by L.M. Montgomery

3. The Chronicles of Narnia

4. All of Dorothy Sayers' novels

5. Anything by P.G. Wodehouse

6. Anything by James Herriot

7. The Sovereignty of God by A.W. Pink

Seven Movies I Would Watch Over and Over Again if I had the Time

1. The Princess Bride

2. Lord of the Rings

3. A&E's version of Pride and Prejudice

4. BBC production of Dickens' Our Mutual Friend

5. Sense and Sensibility with Emma Thompson

6. The Horatio Hornblower series with Ioan Gruffud

7. Emma with Gwyneth Paltrow

Seven People I Want to Join and Do this Meme

Anyone who wants to join in!

Monday, December 05, 2005

Martin Luther on Diapers

Now observe that when that clever harlot, our natural reason . . , takes a look at married life, she turns up her nose and says, "Alas, must I rock the baby, wash its diapers, make its bed, smell its stench, stay up nights with it, take care of it when it cries, heal its rashes and sores . . . ?

What then does Christian faith say to this? It opens its eyes, looks upon all these insignificant, distasteful, and despised duties in the Spirit, and is aware that they are all adorned with divine approval as with the costliest gold and jewels. It says, O God, because I am certain that thou hast created me as a man and hast from my body begotten this child, I also know for a
certainty that it meets with thy perfect pleasure. I confess to thee that I am not worthy to rock the little babe or wash its diapers, or to be entrusted with the care of the child and its mother. How is it that I, without any merit, have come to this distinction of being certain that I am serving thy creature and thy most precious will? O how gladly will I do so, though the duties should be even
more insignificant and despised. Neither frost nor heat, neither drudgery nor labor, will distress or dissuade me, for I am certain that it is thus pleasing in thy sight. . . .

God, with all his angels and creatures is smiling--not because the father is washing diapers, but because he is doing so in Christian faith.


Now doesn't that quote make you want to have a better attitude about your chores?

Saturday, December 03, 2005

Take the Harvard Reading Test Below ...

This was developed as an age test by an R&D department at Harvard University. Take your time and see if you can read each line aloud without a mistake. The average person over 40 years of age can't do it!

This is this cat
This is is cat
This is how cat
This is to cat
This is keep cat
This is an cat
This is old cat
This is person cat
This is busy cat
This is for cat
This is forty cat
This is seconds cat

Now go back and read the third word in each line from the top down.
Hmmmm......