Tetherd Cow Ahead

Sometimes it’s completely baffling to me how a news service decides that something is news. Take this article that has been doing the rounds.

The gist behind it is that a Mr Carl Drews, from the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Colorado (variously described as ‘a scientist’, a ‘Christian engineer’ ((I’m not quite sure why, but that term makes me feel rather nervous. Maybe it’s because I have this image of such a person designing a bridge or a plane or something and thinking to themselves ‘Oh well, that’s good enough. If it doesn’t work, God will hold it up…’)) and a ‘Christian who accepts the scientific theory of evolution’), has used some computer modeling to bolster his hypothesis that the Biblical story of Moses parting the waters of the Red Sea to allow the Israelites to evade the pursuing Egyptian army, has some kind of physical basis in meteorological phenomena.

Gah.

Come on. Which is a more reasonable explanation – that the Red Sea story is an accurate factual account of preposterously unlikely weird and freaky weather conditions, or that, like so much else in the Bible, it is simply an allegory or an exaggerated tale that has expanded in the telling and re-telling over many centuries?

What is it with this need by religious people to attempt to prove that the Bible is a literal recounting of actual events? Why do they feel compelled to have physical evidence of something that they tell us time and time again comes down to a matter of Faith? And how come they can use science to bolster their myths when it suits them, and ignore it when it brings up evidence that doesn’t suit their beliefs?

OK Mr Drews, now that you’ve solved the Red Sea conundrum, how about you start on the story of the loaves and the fishes? What’s the scientific explanation for Jesus being able to feed a ‘multitude’ (supposedly five thousand men) with five loaves and two fishes? I suppose he had some kind of Star Trek-style replicator hidden under his robes? Or maybe it’s just a story…

And news services: why are you giving column space to idiotic non-news like this? Is the next step ‘The Science Behind Little Red Riding Hood’? (This Just In – Science Shows a Wolf can Speak!)

Again. Gah.

Last Monday was a public holiday in the US of A so I got that rarest of things on a Hollywood film schedule – a day off. To celebrate, I decided that I would make my way to the Museum of Contemporary Art in downtown LA and catch myself a little kulture. I have to confess: I am a little at sea with modern art. Some of it I think is beautiful and moving, but there are vasts rafts of it that to me just look like pretentious crap. I don’t know how you are supposed to tell the difference.

MOCA is currently showing a retrospective of an artist named Arshile Gorky whose work just seems to my eye like a semi-competent blend of Matisse, Miro and Tanguy, with none of the originality of any of those great painters. I am probably showing my colours as a Philistine of outstanding magnitude by saying that, but since I shoot my mouth off about everything else here on The Cow, why stop now? Here’s a Gorky that’s like something by Joan Miró painted (but never finished) by a blindfolded and inebriated Yves Tanguy:

It was probably undignified of me, but as I walked around the exhibition, I kept having the thought that Americans only embraced Gorky because they were jealous that they didn’t have any of the aforementioned European painters. ((The fact that he had a miserable life and then an untimely and unpleasant death probably added to the cachet.)) I know that there is a lot of borrowing and re-borrowing in the art world, but this particular instance seems so close to plain plagiarism that it baffles me that Gorky has the reputation he has.

Wandering onward through the nicely laid-out MOCA galleries I was further perplexed by the work of Craig Kauffman – plexiglass creations in bright colours with attached artist statements that were as nonsensical as anything ever written by Edward Lear.

Reading the little cards next to each work, I had the overwhelming impression that Kauffman was pulling everybody’s legs. Which is not to say that he hasn’t actually made some good works, ((I have seen some Kauffman that I quite liked, but MOCA doesn’t have any of those ones.)) but rather (as is, in my experience often the case) that his justification for creating them seems predicated on convincing less intellectually-inclined people that he is doing something profound by using elliptical language and vague philosophical pontifications. Art waffle-speak is as abundant as political waffle-speak, and that’s saying something. I have yet to see an artist statement that says something along the lines of ‘Oh, I dunno – I just started painting something and this is how it came out…’ God forbid that an artist might be proceeding purely along the lines of intuition. ((The reason for this is plain to me – if you want someone to buy your work, then the pressure is on to convince them that its genesis is something more than just your artistic muse speaking to you in incomprehensible-to-the-common-person muse language.))

Perhaps the work I liked the very least came from James Rosenquist:

Now I suppose there are many and varied reasons why this artist is considered worthy of being displayed in one of the premier art institutions of the USA, but frankly, buggered if I can see ’em. To me, this work, and most of the other Rosenquists on display just look like the kind of thing that a lazy high school art student with little talent would whip up the day before it was due for marking. I mean… can anyone explain to me what’s good about this? Anyone?

It has none of the majesty and gravitas of Mark Rothko:

…or the passion and power of Jackson Pollock:

…or even the wit and elegance of some of the lesser known artists also on display, like Antoni Tàpies:

…or Louise Nevelson:

…or Kenneth Price:

…whose works all show imagination and thought and originality and … well… skill. ((One thing I noticed when making this post was that rendering all these works to small jpegs has a weird consequence: the ones I disliked in the gallery are improved by the process, and the ones I liked don’t seem quite as impressive. It is truly a case of ‘you had to be there!’)) The thing I enjoyed most in the museum was its sizeable collection of the photographic works of Robert Frank. I have, of course, seen Frank’s work before, but seeing them here, in America, so beautifully presented, made them very moving indeed. My favourite work at MOCA? This Robert Frank portrait of a Jehovah’s Witness (it’s a bit hard to tell in this small jpeg, but the key to this image is the ‘Awake’ magazine that the man is holding):

You’re probably aware that Google has just launched their ‘predictive’ search engine Google Instant – a web version of the kind of ‘pre’ search which has already made its way into many desktop and phone apps. It’s actually pretty impressive. Not really the kind of news I care about airing here on The Cow, but the reason I bring it up is as a result of this quote, made by Google VP (the usually sensible) Marissa Mayer at the press launch in San Francisco: ((She also used the vacuous phrase ‘It’s a quantum leap forward…’))

We are actually predicting what query you are likely to do and giving you results for that. There is actually a psychic element to it.

No there is not, Marissa. There is actually no psychic element to it. It’s a technological element. PLEASE. The loonies don’t need any more encouragement.

If you answered wooooooooooooo… to the title question, then you were entirely correct! Yes that’s right – today’s post features woo and sound, two of my most favourite subjects.

Well, as we all know, it seems that for treatment of their medical ailments, more and more people are turning to ordinary water, coloured water, crystallized water, flower water, needles, colours, smells, lack of food, enemas and just about every other nutty thing under the sun except actual medicine.

It was only a matter of time before someone realised that there was a niche for an ‘alternative’ medical treatment based on sound. Today on The Cow, I will examine one such treatment ((Oh yes, there are many more than just one. Perhaps I will cover Tama-Do at some later stage…)) – something named Human Bioacoustics, the amazing cure-all featured on a site called NutraSounds. ((Oh dear. Already with the dumb.)) Human Bioacoustics was created by a personage named Sharry Edwards™, ((Yes, that’s right, she’s trademarked her name.)) who claims that her process ‘has unlimited health and wellness potential.’ Unlimited! Human Bioacoustics can make you weller than well!

BioAcoustics Voice Spectral Analysis can detect hidden or underlying stresses in the body that are expressed as disease. The vocal print can identify toxins, pathogens and nutritional supplements that are too low or too high. In addition, vocal print can be used to match the most compatible treatment remedy to each client. The introduction of the proper ((If you don’t do it ‘properly’, it won’t work…)) low frequency sound to the body, indicated through voice analysis, has been shown ((By whom?)) to control ((‘Control’? What does that mean?)): pain, body temperature, heart rhythm and blood pressure. It has also been shown to regenerate body tissue ((Body tissue regenerates anyway. This means nothing.)) and alleviate ((Alleviate? In what way?)) the symptoms of many diseases (in some cases, even those considered to be incurable). ((Note the equation of the symptoms with the disease itself – a common ploy of pseudoscentific medicine))

Oh yes, there it is! Gobbledigook piled on balderdash layered on crapola. I’ve given you a helping hand with the shifty language and vague promises. I wonder why the disclaimer that is hidden away at the bottom of the NutraSound pages in very small print isn’t placed in slightly closer proximity to the above paragraph?

Disclaimer: Human BioAcoustics, as originated by Sharry Edwards, M.Ed., does not diagnose or prescribe for medical or psychological conditions nor does it claim to prevent, treat, mitigate or cure such conditions. HBA researchers do not provide diagnosis, care, treatment or rehabilitation of individuals, nor apply medical, mental health or human development principles.

Hmm. On the one hand Human Bioacoustics cures everything and then, somehow, when it comes down to a real-world, write-your-name-here-in-blood guarantee, it doesn’t. Is Ms Edwards a little nervous about getting her ass sued off, one wonders? She certainly isn’t shy of making unsubstantiated claims though. In big bold print on her bio page:

Edwards was named scientist of the year in 2001 for her work in BioAcoustic Biology.

Really? Scientist of the Year! Very impressive! That’s not something you could just make up! Let’s see what teh internets have to say about that! Oh, right, here it is. The award was presented to her by a body called the International Association of New Science. Funny… all those links are either dead or seem to point back to organizations with which Sharry Edwards™ has affiliations. She was given the award by her pals! ((Searching on International Association of New Science turns up some frightening crosslinks. The IANS appears to have been concocted by Dr Brian O’Leary a UFO ‘expert’ and Cleve Backster, who is quite famous for writing books about communicating with plants. The frightening part is that the IANS name also appears in conjunction with legitimate research into climate change. These people are being given government money for their idiotic beliefs… If you follow the links even further, it’s worse – there are ties to the whole anti-vaccination hoodoo and a whole other world of medical stupidity.)) Elsewhere she claims that all her work is peer reviewed. I think she is (obviously purposely) conflating the concept of scientific peer review (which is a strenuous intellectual process designed to weed out errors and bad science) with the idea that you get a few of your ‘peers’ to peruse what you’re doing and give you the thumbs up. ((This is what really gets my goat with these kinds of people – they shamelessly trade on the credentials that genuine science affords, while simultaneously bashing all its accomplishments as worthless. If you adopt science, you adopt science. Play properly by its rules, not by some airy fairy ones that you make up yourself! Otherwise, stay off its turf and name yourselves as the magic peddlers that you really are.))

(By this logic, you, my Faithful Cowpokes, could all agree that I was Scientist of the Year and I could boast that on Tetherd Cow! In fact, what a good idea – I need a few endorsements so that I too can plaster it across my banner! Feel free to wax lyrical!)

The phenomenal power of Human Bioacoustics is completely free to all and sundry in the form of the nanoVoice™ ((Yep, Ms Edwards has her whole racket trademarked up the wazoo.)) program, software which is, sadly, only available for PC. ((Well, technically it could be installed under Virtual PC on my Mac, apparently, but I ain’t running VPC just for this piece of crap.)) Of course, you can only freely download the ‘micro’ version – you have to pay (surprise) for the real deal. ((Curious, when the organization that produces it boasts that it is ‘non profit’…)) nanoVoice ‘uses frequency-based biomarkers within the frequencies of your voice to allow you an enlightening peek into your Secret Self.’

I bet you didn’t even know you had ‘frequencey-based biomarkers’ hidden inside your voice. I certainly didn’t and I’ve been working as a professional sound person for thirty years.

This is how it works, as near as I can make out from reading about it: you load a recording of your voice into the program and it analyzes the ‘frequencies’ ((There are those goddamned frequencies again. Teh woo just loves the vibrations and the frequencies!)) and spits out a bar graph in a rainbow of colours. Here’s what the colours supposedly mean (click to get the full chart):

Gee, now what do all those vague waffly non-specific phrases remind me of… oh, that’s it – the local paper’s astrology section! There are some classic howlers:

Yellow (E): ‘uses words first to convey messages and meaning’

Oh yeah, like that’s not going to apply to everyone except mute people.

Green/Blue (G): ‘likes to mix and manage the physical aspects of life’

What? That could mean just about ANYTHING.

Blue (G#): ‘wants to make a difference’

Oh please.

The colours are also arbitrarily tied to various kinds of organs and body parts. When I say ‘arbitrarily’ I mean that there is absolutely no scientific substantiation to say that, for example, the colour green has anything to do with your kidneys, or that the colour blue ‘retrieves nutrients from your bowel’. This is just utter, unmitigated hogwash. And Sharry Edwards™ knows it, or else she wouldn’t have put the comprehensive disclaimer on her site. ((I’m sure she justifies the disclaimer by saying that she ‘was forced to do it’ by the ‘system’ which ‘persecutes her for her beliefs’. A song that we’ve heard many times before.))

For an example of nanoVoice’s extraordinary powers of deduction, you can amuse yourself by visiting an analysis of Mr Mel Gibson’s phone ‘conversation’ with his estranged wife Oksana Grigoreiva, in which he uses bad language, racist terms and is generally an obnoxious prat. I want to say two thing here: first of all, the pages of unbelievable rubbish that you will find here could be attributed to just about anyone, viz:

You have an unusual sense of time. Not having all the information needed to make a decision stresses you. Your reputation is very important to you. You will go to great lengths to protect it. It is important to you that spirituality be a part of everyday life. You think that feeding the mind is just as important as feeding the body. You are aware of how painful thoughtless words can be. You push yourself and others to finish the job. You love new ideas that mean you can have a project to work on. A sense of belonging is important to you.

… and secondly, these ‘frequency’ analyses were made from a telephone recording. To someone like me who knows anything about sound, this constitutes the epitome of ridiculousness. Telephones severely restrict the frequencies of voices, in order to squeeze intelligibility down the lines. Ms Edwards is asking us to believe that her software uses inherent voice ‘frequencies’ to make its divinations, but is simultaneously independent of frequency restrictions. It is the utmost peak of buffoonery. Not only that, it demonstrates without any equivocation, that Sharry Edwards is completely ignorant about how sound works. ((Oh, I’m sure she’d come up with some piece of silliness to ‘explain’ how she can get readings from a telephone conversation – I’d be disappointed if she couldn’t!))

Like many similar pseudoscientific concepts, Human Bioacoustics uses as its basic modus operandi the general ignorance of most people in a specific field of expertise. Few people understand how sound works, but to someone like me who does, Human Bioacoustics, nanoVoice, ‘vocal profiling’ and the ‘Institute of Bioacoustic Biology’ look about as convincing as a pig in a tuxedo.

Good morning Acowlytes! How are your livers this morning? Nice and squeaky clean? Not sure what I’m on about? Then allow me to introduce you to Tsetsinka, Goddess of Liver Cleansing. If you travel over to CureZone.com (‘Educating Instead of Medicating’), you can read Tsetsinka’s mind-boggling instructions on how to cleanse your liver without using oil or lemon juice! Incredible, I know! To you and me it sounds completely ridiculous, but it’s true! Instead of unpleasant oil and lemon juice concoctions, Tsetsinka has come up with a method that uses… oil and LIME juice! And egg yolks!

“But Reverend,” I hear you exclaim, “My liver isn’t even dirty!” Well, Tsetsinka begs to differ. According to her, your liver is a filthy steaming worm-infested putrid lump. You might want to read the entire text of her ‘method’ before we carry on (I was tempted to quote the whole damn thing here, but on reflection I decided you might just prefer to come back for the highlights).

OK. Has the urge to laugh (or vomit) subsided? Very well, let’s begin.

Have you asked yourself… why do i have to endure such unpleasant moments when flushing my liver of Gallstones and filth? I have!

Yes, but more importantly my dear Tsetsinka, have you asked yourself why you have gallstones in your liver?

You certainly don’t have feel unconfortably during the flush at all. there is a much easier and more pleasant way of cleaning your liver ducts and gall bladder, and even your intestants get cleaned from this procedure.

Intestants! Now there’s a word you don’t hear every day. ((It’s a word that imagine could be coined to describe the participants of a medical quiz show…))

I believe you will look at least 10 years younger and more beautiful! No need for oil and lemon juice, when you are using this method. it amazes me that this information is not posted here or anywhere else on the liver detox knowledge pages of this website.

Us it doesn’t amaze so much.

you will experience a perfectly pink tounge in just 3-4 days and your skin will begin to glow like a peach and you will get long, very shiny hair, your nails will grow rapidly and you will feel like you can lift a mountain.

I’m not entirely convinced I want to look like a hairy peach with long nails and a pink tounge. Or tongue, for that matter. Even if I was preternaturally strong.

Tsetsinka goes on to give us a step-by-step outline of her recipe, which consists solely of limes, egg yolks and sunflower oil. A cup of sugar and you could make a nice Key Lime pie, but I digress.

8. using a wooden utencil (any utencil except for metal), gently beat the mixture only a couple of times. simply a couple of stirs are sufficent to get the juice and yolks to mix.

Gee whiz – that’s so EASY! Almost as easy as being able to spell ‘utensil’ and ‘sufficient’ correctly!

11. you may feel the urge to sleep almost immediately after that, so you may want to drink this potion right before bedtime, instead of in the morning. most importantly, be sure that you have not eaten or drank anything in the last 3 hours.

12. when you wake up from your nap, after 2-3 hours have elapsed, you will feel like you have 10 horse powers instead of 1 human power. the energy you will aquire from this is instant and perminant.

Your horse powers come at a cost, however – a depletion of your spelling powers. It’s a small price to pay for having a mane and hooves.

13. your nose will feel clogged. this is because your liver has just purged an incredible amount of tixins and dirt into your intestine. even if there is nothing blocking your nose cavity, your nose will feel clogged. for those who have done Liver Flushes will know what i am talking about. this is the very feeling of stones and gunk leaving the liver and entering the entstine.

Ah, the ol’ enstsine! Just next to the intestants, if I remember my medical studies correctly. Of course I didn’t aquire my doctorate, but luckily I had sufficent utencils to deal with tixins and was confortably able set up my site at CureZone.com!

14. finally, if you have an enema kit, you need to use very warm water to clean out your intestines, and it is imperative that you use 2 full enemas with very warm water, in order to draw the gunk out from the top of the small upper instestine to the lower one and then out. ((Does anyone else get the impression that Tsetsinka is rather… er… fond… of enemas? Just asking…))

I guess if you try every possible combination of letters, you’ll get it eventually.

15. unbelieveable things will come out of you, sometimes green stones, sometimes plaque, sometimes worms and parasites and sometimes just black, black, black filty water.

I…. er… well… BLEURRGGGHHHH. Oh. Sorry about that. Green stones? Plaque? Worms and parasites? Tsetsinka, my dear, you really might like to think about changing your diet.

you will be literally wowed at the results after the first day and double-wowed of the results after the 2, 3,4th day. by the end of the week, you will feel like you can take over the world! yes, the feeling is incredible!

Ehhhh. I dunno…. I’ve never been ‘double-wowed’ by anything Oh… yeah I guess there was that thing that Cindy Lawler could do with her tongue… but passing black black black filt(h)y water doesn’t sound like it would be double-wowing so much as just plain disgusting.

If you feel unconfortable using an enema, stones, gunk, mucouid plaque, worms, parasites and eggs can still come out, but not as full-capacity as when you flush with an enema

Oh, well, yes, with a sales pitch like that everybody definitely wants the full capacity enema. How could anyone possibly resist the allure of a comprehensive flushing sluice of worms, parasites, eggs and mucuoid plaque! My imagination is just going wild here – maybe Tsetsinka should consider whipping that sentence up into a screenplay and seeing if she can get some traction in Hollywood with an Alien sequel!

If you have any questions, email me at neprotivo@yahoo.com! i answer all emals.

There ya go Acowlytes. She answers all emails! Your mission, should you choose to accept it – ask Tsetsinka some questions and get back to us here with the answers!

And if your brain isn’t reeling after all that, then I suggest that for some further mucuoid plaque fun you might like to delve into the thread replies of Tsetse’s ((Oooops. I made a spelling mistake…)) post. Me, I’m having a hard time believing it’s not all some kind of elaborate practical joke. And yet….

Above all, remember : CureZone.com ‘Educating Instead of Medicating’!

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A big shout out to the redoubtable Ed for digging this one up.

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