We get told all the time to buy more stuff. If we really needed the stuff then we wouldn’t have to be told, am I right? I mean, we don’t need TV ads to tell us to get more food. We have hunger for that!

But capitalism depends on consumption. Make stuff, buy stuff, throw stuff away, buy new stuff. And on and on. Forever. Until the entire planet is a trash heap.

Most of the shit we buy we don’t need. We just buy it because we don’t know what else to do.

EUMENTICS™ is the path forward. This new science of mental health will set you free from the chains of consumerism!

We know that TV is bad for you. That’s why the practicing Eumenticist™ has learned and implemented the first two lessons:

Always watch sports with the sound off and always watch TV while in the grip of a mild hallucinogen.

And of course we need humor to cope with the recent horror that has been foisted upon us. That’s why we engage lesson three whenever we can:

Imagine everyone wearing diapers.

Lesson four (be sure to waste time) helps to free you from the Puritan Work Ethic and as well as the Tyranny of Modern Psychology and the horrors of FOMO.

Lesson five (learn to smile vacuously and say “I’m fine”) acknowledges the painful reality that we have to listen to idiots all day long.

Among those idiots are the people who write commercials. Good grief, commercials are really bad for you! I always love it when Budweiser tells us they are the “king of beers” and they keep telling us that over and over again to the point of nausea. If the beer is so great, why do they have to shove it down our throats? Can’t it stand on its own greatness? Of course not! It’s just another ordinary consumer product. Only the billions of dollars spent on marketing hype makes people think otherwise.

One thing we poor, struggling, wannabe Eumenticists™ can do is keep our wallets in our pockets. That brings us to lesson six:

QUIT BUYING STUPID SHIT YOU DON’T NEED.

Be creative. You probably already have what you need. Remember the three R’s (reduce-reuse-recycle). Shopping is not therapy. In fact, it is a symptom of the disease. We are all infected with the consumerist virus—it is our birthright as Americans. And I think we can all agree that real-life super-villain Jeff Bezos does not need any more Amazon customers. You’d think 300 million suckers would be enough, but apparently not. (If your business isn’t growing, it’s failing.)

Bob Marley says in “Redemption Song” (and I believe he stole this from Marcus Garvey) Emancipate yourself from mental slavery;/None but ourselves can free our minds.

A mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Cerium (Ce) is the most abundant of the lanthanoids. You find those in row (period) 6 of the periodic table. The two periods on the bottom of the chart (row 6 and row 7, the actinoids) make up the “rare-earth” elements. In our tech-sodden world demand for REEs (rare-earth elements) continues to grow. All of these elements were first isolated as oxides.

The oxide of cerium (CeO₂), known as ceria, has a variety of uses. The one that interests me is in automobile catalytic converters. (When people were stealing these things they were going after the platinum and other precious metals, not the ceria. Rare-earths aren’t all that rare!)

The Environmental Protection Agency mandated automobile exhaust emissions control as a result of the 1970 Clean Air Act. By 1975 almost all cars were equipped with catalytic converters. The impact on air quality (and thus public health) was noticeable in every city but particularly in the LA basin. Smog in Los Angeles had been part of the landscape for so long people were astonished to see the mountains after decades of pollution-obscured vistas.

A lot of short-sighted people hollered about such government interventions (like banning lead in gasoline) back in those days. The same idiots are still screaming today even though we have proof that environmental regulations can, and do, improve life for everyone. I wish we could count on the Holy of Holies—the “marketplace”—to get clean air. But we can’t. We have to order the assholes who pollute the air to stop doing it.

And we have to look in the mirror, too. Our insatiable demand for more of everything comes at a cost.

Scientists in Ireland have synthesized ceria (they call it cerianite) in the laboratory. Although the element cerium has no known biological function the compound cerianite shows potential as an antioxidant and as an anti-inflammatory agent. Here’s a picture of some of the particle types they made:

They range from nano-particles (1-100 nm in diameter) to micro-particles (100-2500 nm). A nano-meter (nm) is 10^-9 or one-billionth of a meter. The scale on the photo shows 0.001 milli-meters which is 1000 nm.

A molecule of the simple sugar glucose is about one nanometer across in size. A bacterium would be on the order of one thousand nanometers. (Wolfram Alpha is a fun resource!)

Lesson Three in the Eumentical™ canon is imagine everyone wearing diapers.

This can be applied to groups or to individuals. For example:

There. I feel better already.

Let’s review. Here are the EUMENTICS™ Lessons so far:

Lesson One: always watch sports with the sound off.

Lesson Two: always watch TV while in the grip of a mild hallucinogen.

Lesson Three: imagine everyone (or someone in particular!) wearing diapers.

Lesson Four: be sure to waste time.

And now we’ve reached Lesson Five. All day long we have to listen to stupid shit. Am I right? Of course I am. How then does one stay on the Eumentical™ Path? How does one stay mentally healthy despite always swimming in a sea of shite? What does it take?

It’s simple.

Lesson Five: learn to smile vacuously and say “I’m fine.”

CLICK HERE TO SEE WHAT VACUOUSLY MEANS.

This does not mean you have to BE vacuous. Just that everyone will THINK you are an empty, unthinking, harmless creature. This is very liberating. I used to teach high school kids. High school kids worry all the time about what everyone thinks about them. Then they grow up. (Well, some do.) And they learn two things: (1) no one really gave a shit about them long enough to think about them, and (2) it doesn’t make any difference what people think anyway, it only matters what YOU think!

So go forth and arm yourself with Lesson Five and all will be FINE.

The original formulation of Bromo-Seltzer included sodium bromide (NaBr) for its sedative effects. Bromides were pulled from the shelves in the 1970s as they were discovered to be toxic! Seems like capitalists have been trying to poison us for years.

Bromine compounds are still used in veterinary medicine as anticonvulsants.

Bromine, much like its sister elements fluorine and chlorine, is both corrosive and highly reactive. At room temperature it is a brownish-red liquid. Mercury is the only other element that is liquid at room temperature. It’s a metal of course while bromine is a non-metal. Specifically it is a halogen.

The largest commercial use for bromine is in flame retardants. Tetrabromobisphenol-A for example is used in, believe it or not, circuit boards. The stuff is incorporated directly into the plastics and resins to make them fire resistant. All sorts of textiles used in clothing, furniture, and upholstery are infused with BFRs (brominated flame retardants) or related chemicals.

Bromine is extracted from seawater and inland brines. The Dead Sea between Israel and Jordan is a major source. Worldwide production is about 600,000 tonnes.

Do you remember when Lowe’s came out with their new slogan Never Stop Improving?

I have to tell you that kind of corporate advertising crap really grinds my Eumentical™ gears. What’s the matter with these people? Don’t they know how to relax?

There’s this fellow, an Irish storyteller by the name of Tomáseen Foley, and he used a phrase once about the modern world that really stuck with me. He said he was wary of “the rising tide of busy-ness that threatens to engulf us all.”

I live in a town of about 7500 people. I moved here 35 years ago and back then there were about 7500 residents. But the population of the county has dropped by 20%, from 50,000 to 40,000. It’s an economically depressed area. School enrollments are down. Small businesses are shuttered. But the town is WAY BUSIER now than it was then! We have more streetlights and more traffic. We have new “big-box” stores. The town infrastructure (roads, sewers, water supply) just got a major upgrade. It doesn’t make a lot of sense.

We are busier, like Foley said. We’ve been convinced by our puritan ancestors and our corporate overlords that lying about lazily and enjoying the simple things is subversive. So we go out there and make lots of economic activity and run around and do a lot of stuff we don’t need to do just so we can feel better about our lives.

Whatever happened to REDUCE, REUSE, and RECYCLE? Don’t we have enough crap? Aren’t there enough things to do that require only time and labor and don’t require a trip to the shopping center? Why do we let these bloodsuckers decide how we live?

This is where EUMENTICS™ comes in. We’ve covered the first three Lessons. Today is number four. Ready?

Lesson Four: be sure to waste time.

Nothing is better for your mental well-being than telling the world to fuck off and leave you alone! Greta Garbo said “I vant to be LET alone.” (Not “I vant to be alone.) If anyone understood the trappings of modernity, it was the Swedish Sphinx.

There’s a beautiful song by the band Phish called “Waste.” Some people call it a Slacker Anthem. Well, I think slackers get a bad rap.

Anyway, here’s some lyrics: Don’t wanna be a farmer workin’ in the Sun/Don’t wanna be an outlaw, always on the run/Don’t wanna be a climber reachin’ for the top/Don’t wanna be anything where I don’t know when to stop.

And then the singer goes on to implore his partner to “come waste your time with me.”

Yup. That’s very Eumentical™!

Like SIR says: “time’s too short to not waste!”

In a post-truth world it’s hard to find the facts.

But they’re out there.

Here’s a chart with a great heapin’ pile o’facts. This particular style of flowchart is called a Sankey diagram. It is put out by Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory.

This chart tells the story of America and of being an American. The USA consumes close to 100 quads of energy each year. A “quad” is one quadrillion BTUs. A quadrillion is 15 zeroes, so one hundred of them is 17 zeroes. That’s 1 x 10^¹⁷ (or 1 E 17) or perhaps you prefer 100,000,000,000,000,000. Man, that’s a boatload! A BTU (British Thermal Unit) is a standard for measuring heat energy—you’ve probably seen a rating on your home furnace. It’s the energy needed to raise one pound of water one degree Fahrenheit. (A pint weighs about a pound.)

It’s hard to make these measurements, calculations, and estimates. But it’s good work. It tells you everything you need to know. I particularly like the gray flows labeled “Rejected Energy” which is a fancy way to say “waste heat.” Your car is mostly waste heat. Only a portion of the energy in gasoline (or diesel) goes into making the car move. The rest is waste heat.

Think about how much energy we waste! Natural resources ought be conserved, that is, used wisely. We can do better than this. (If you click on the chart it gets bigger.)

I introduced my new, revolutionary, mental health improvement system—EUMENTICS™—in my New Year post last week. I’m telling you, it’s the real deal. I keep coming up with new stuff. Remember, EUMENTICS™ is always free, you just have to give me credit. Something like Yreka genius Mark C. O’Connor invented all this awesome-ness will be adequate.

I was a teacher so we have “Lessons” and not “Rules” in EUMENTICS™. And since I’m not a dick we have “recommendations” and not “requirements.”

(I recommend you review my last post!)

Lesson Three: never drive a car when you’re dead. Sorry, that’s just a Tom Waits ear worm.

Besides, who likes being told “never”? I suggest that no one likes never!

By now you are using the mute on your TV (Lesson One) and you are better prepared (Lesson Two) for “the slime oozing out of your TV set.” (Recommendation: listen to Frank Zappa’s “I’m the Slime.“)

So, how else can we improve our mental health? How can we build that path to wellness? How can we achieve the EUMENTICAL™ ideal?

Bob Marley had a song called “Coming in from the Cold” and there’s a lyric in there that goes well, the biggest man/you ever did see/was-was just a baby and that’s the magic formula. That leads to Lesson Three: always play reggae when watching sports on TV with the sound off and under the influence of a mild hallucinogen.

How do you like that? Even if you hadn’t followed my recommendation and reviewed our first two Lessons you still got them in Lesson Three! That’s something I learned by being a teacher. (Always repeat everything ad nauseum or they’ll forget, and even then, they’ll still forget.)

OK, here it is. Lesson Three: imagine everyone wearing diapers.

I had a roomie in college who used to say “everything’s funny in a chicken suit.” Well, I think diapers works, too. But if it works better to picture everyone in a chicken suit, then do that. (It’s very Eumentical™ to be flexible.) This sort of thing keeps people from getting under your skin. Once you see them in a ridiculous light, you’ll be more relaxed, don’t you think?

Oh, and listen to more reggae. (That’s a recommendation!)

If you associate Phosphorus (P) with phosphorescence, or glowing in the dark, you’d be on the mark. Red phosphorus, the most stable form of this multiple personality non-metal, can be converted to the volatile and explosive white phosphorus by simple friction. Alas:

“Fósforos” is how a Spanish-speaker says “matches.” And of course phosphorus is great for fireworks and other incendiary devices.

But that’s not why phosphorus is important. When I took Biology in High School I learned CHNOPS. That stood for Carbon-Hydrogen-Nitrogen-Oxygen-Phosphorus-Sulfur. Those six elements are essential for life and we were expected to memorize that. You may remember learning about ATP and ADP, in both cases the “P” stands for phosphorus. In DNA and RNA molecules the nucleotides are linked by phosphate groups.

In the United States we mine about 30 million tonnes of phosphate rock each year. Wolfram Alpha tells me that all the terrestrial wild animals on earth weigh about 70 million tonnes. That’s just for perspective! Anyway, most of that is used to make fertilizers.

Without fertilizers we would not be able to grow enough crops to feed ourselves and our animals. Vaclav Smil (in Growth, p. 444) estimates that corn (maize) production in the precontact Americas was about one ton per hectare for the societies that practiced cultivation. Eleven tons per hectare is the norm for a 21st century farm. That of course comes at an enormous cost in energy and environmental degradation.

Miners like to remind people that what can’t be grown has to be mined. In the case of phosphorus, it has to be mined so stuff can be grown!

(That’s 2025 for those of you who didn’t go to Catholic school.)

I’m not alone thinking that Descartes got it backwards. He said cogito ergo sum or “I think therefore I am.” It seems like it ought to be sum ergo cogito, or “I am therefore I think.”

This is the source of all our troubles: we think too much.

Either way, whether you cogito first or not, there’s just too damn much of it. Cogitating, that is.

But I’ve come to the rescue. My first, only, and last New Year’s Resolution is/was to quit goofing off on this blog and do something constructive. So, I have. I invented a new thing. I call it EUMENTICS™. Now, you can use it, but you have to give me credit. I mean, it’s free. (But you have to give me credit. That’s what the ™ stands for: This is Mark’s.)

Anyway, EUMENTICS™ is my new self-help system. The name comes from the Greek “eu-” meaning “well” and the Latin “ment-” meaning “mind.” So EUMENTICS™ is a mental health program. It’s very simple. All you have to do is follow the instructions I deliver here on the blog each week.

(And if you benefit from my program and wish to include me on your yearly donation list, please note I accept only greenbacks and do not write receipts, thank you.)

It’s a post-truth world, my friends. You need to shine a flashlight into all that darkness out there. This is where EUMENTICS™ comes in! Like all good systems, we start small and work our way up. You learn one key mental health lesson each week. At the end of the year your wellness will be off the charts!

Today we have a bonus—not one but TWO lessons. Are you ready?

Lesson One: always watch sports with the sound off.

I mean, really, this one is almost no advice at all. You should have been doing this already! What were you thinking listening to all that inane babble from weird guys in nice suits and bad shoes? Goodness. I recommend (note: ‘recommendations‘ don’t have to be followed, just the ‘lessons’) making up your own commentary. Or getting shitfaced and listening to Captain Beefheart. Anything. Anything at all. Guaranteed mental health improvement, and I mean that in a strictly money-back guarantee kind of way.

Lesson Two: never watch sports.

OK, if you have to, but be sure to follow Lesson One. Those of you who know me know I’m a lifelong San Francisco Giants baseball addict. It’s a curse. A monkey on my back. But I’m dealing, man. I’m coping. I’m going all-in on EUMENTICS™ for this one, not to worry.

I’m happy to update Lesson Two. That’s the best thing about EUMENTICS™, that creativity and spontaneity are encouraged. I haven’t even gotten to the end of the post and I’ve already changed my mind a half dozen times. That’s very eumentical, I should say. Flexibility in the face of feedback. In this case, I can already hear what you are saying.

Lesson Two: never watch TV

See, that takes care of the sports junkies. If there is no TV at all, then they don’t have a case. They aren’t being discriminated against. Everyone else suffers, too! And you gotta have some suffering or else no one will take EUMENTICS™ seriously.

Speaking of seriously, I suppose I’ve gone too far with Lesson Two. Let’s re-write it.

Lesson Two: always watch TV when in the grip of a mild hallucinogen.

A gummy, for example. Stronger stuff will make you psychotic. You just need a gentle reminder that everything you see is packaged for your entertainment. That little black box smooths off the rough edges of life and presents it homogenized and pasteurized and emulsified into intellectual Cheez Whiz. And despite our deepest desires, man cannot live on Cheez Whiz alone.

So, tune in next week for more solid advice. As soon as I come up with Lesson Three you’ll be the first to know. Be sure to tell your friends about EUMENTICS™ and be just as sure to give me credit.

You don’t have to be a tobacco smoker to get lung cancer. Exposure to such hazardous materials as asbestos and radon gas can also lead to a malignant tumor (carcinoma) in the lungs. We associate lung cancer with behavior, but you can just be unlucky, as is the case with radon gas exposure.

Do you live here? These are the places in the US with lots of radon:

The key is hard to read but the red states in this case are those with over 4.0 pCi/L of radiation exposure. The unit is called a Curie (Ci) and this particular measurement is in picoCuries (or 10^-12) and that’s per Liter (L). No one knows what a safe level of radon exposure is. Outside, you get about 0.4 pCi/L so the EPA decided the indoor action level should be 4.0 pCi/L, or ten times that. On the map the yellow states range from 2.0-4.0 pCi/L and the green states come in at less than 2.0 pCi/L. The average level of indoor radon exposure across the US is 1.3 pCi/L.

If you want to get more granular, the EPA has a county-level map here. California has its own indoor radon program.

Radon (Rn, #86) is the heaviest of the noble gases. It hardly exists at all. All the isotopes are radioactive and have short half-lives. Radon is a daughter product from the decay of radium-226, which is itself part of the decay chain of uranium-238. All the radon on the earth’s surface comes via this process. Uranium and radium are naturally occurring metals that are found in rocks all over the world. Mostly radon gas escapes from the soil and dissipates into the atmosphere. But we trap the stuff in our buildings and thus we get exposed.

This hazard—radon gas exposure—is entirely natural. The very ground we stand upon oozes the stuff. It is invisible: colorless, odorless, and tasteless. It’s is also measurable, and thus can be dealt with.

While we rely on private companies to do radon mitigation in buildings, the rest of our radon apparatus is run by the government. Public health agencies and environmental and regulatory bodies at all levels, local, state, and federal, are responsible for radon education and abatement.

The EPA estimates that 21,000 Americans die each year from radon-induced lung cancer.