Thinking Allowed

 Or: Thinking Aloud...

Quick! Stash away your brain. Yes, you know that gelatinous matter between your ears? I realize many of you don’t use most of it (the unused percentage being higher for teabaggers and their black and brown enablers). However, the editors here at the Intersection of Madness and Reality Blog have discovered that your brain is illegal. The U.S. government has criminalized the chemical compounds of peyote, even though one of them (dopamine) is a primary neural transmitter in the human brain. Our brains also produce anandamide, a substance that’s nearly identical to THC, the active ingredient in marijuana.

::watches disdainfully as some fools set their brains on fire::

BTW: So much for the “they hate us and our freedoms” perspective of Islam. According to my computations (not really) more than 1.2 billion Muslims live under democratically elected governments, and there is a steady movement towards democratization, civil rights, and political freedom in many other Islamic nations (click here for source).

And check out this item from our “Good News/ Bad News” department: The U.S. Air force has complied with the Environmental Protection Agency’s ban on ozone-destroying chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). It has removed CFCs from the cooling systems of ballistic missiles that carry nuclear warheads. “If they are ever fired,” Access to Energy reported, “there will be an environmentally friendly nuclear holocaust.”

::blank stare::

A blind German clairvoyant named Ulf Buck claims he can foretell people’s future by feeling their naked buttocks. At last! A man I can admire. I’ve been trying to tell women this all my adult life! Believe me, if I can feel your naked buttocks, sweetie, I will definitely be able to tell your immediate future (“I see you experiencing a refreshing soreness and deeply felt sense of surrender in the near future.”)

The Friday Sex Blog: Sex & The Sense of Smell

Nothing is more memorable than a smell. One scent can be unexpected, momentary, and fleeting, yet conjure up a childhood summer beside a lake in the mountains. -- Diane Ackerman

¡Hola! Everybody...

In light of the recent conservatives attempts to sends us all back to the sexual Dark Ages, I thought some sex talk would be apropos...

I’ll never forget the time I received a panicked telephone call from a former lover. I hadn’t heard from her for years. In fact, I had heard she married and was out of the singles game. We had an affair totally based on sex and she was almost as much of a freak as I was. I always remember her fondly because though ours wasn't a "love story" popularized by chick porn (i.e., romance novels and chick flicks), we shared many tender moments. Anyway, when she calmed down enough to explain, I discovered the source of her anxiety. Apparently, her husband (who, she assured me, she loved, like, forever) went out and bought a cologne that was my signature scent. The scent (by Paco Rabbanne) evoked images and memories of yours truly at the most inappropriate time and it freaked her out. Why she then called me is beyond my understanding, so… LOL! There’s more to this story, but this part is the relevant part.

The sense of smell is probably the oldest of our senses. It is the only sense directly connected to the brain. The reason why my ex-lover was thinking of me after so many years is because the sense of smell is highly involved in sexual function, pleasure, and irritation. It’s also closely related to memory. Scientists speak of the concept of “smell print” in which memories are associated with certain smells. As with my anxious ex-lover (who feared she was having marital doubts), a certain scent will vividly cause a person to recall a memory associated with it. Smells are like fingerprints, highly individualized.