Saturday, February 20, 2016

10 Sources for Free Computer Programming Courses Online

Free Online Course Info

Students can work at their own pace to complete the following courses. While college credit cannot be earned, the information needed to learn about computer programming is available through lecture videos, text, quizzes and other training materials.

Computer Science for Everyone

The Start Learning How to Write Programs course offers training through video tutorials. This course provides 17 units that cover topics in algorithm design, pointers, memory allocation, data structures, data types, program flow and binary. The Writing Basic Programs course presents training through lesson transcripts. Topics offered during this course include related mathematics, preparing to write a tic-tac-toe program, arrays, casts, multi-dimensional functions and additional information on data structures. Students can also participate in quizzes at the end of every unit for both classes.

Google Developers

Google's Python Class offers information through text and lecture videos. At the end of each lesson, exercises are available for students to apply learned concepts. Students may encounter topics in strings, lists, dicts, files, utilities, lists, sorting and regular expressions.

Hobart and William Smith Colleges

Introduction to Programming Using Java, Sixth Edition is a free textbook offered online by Hobart and William Smith Colleges. This book's chapters cover topics such as subroutines, multi-processing, GUI programming, arrays, objects, classes and networking. Along with programming exercises and quizzes, students can also find a glossary that provides common terms and definitions.

Informit.com

These resources are online books from Sams Publishing, with text, coding examples and pictures. Students can also access quizzes and activities. Topics covered by Teach Yourself Java 2 in 24 Hours include the basics of programming, repeating actions, describing objects, building user interfaces, creating threaded programs, writing files and working with graphics. Teach Yourself Visual Basic 6 in 24 Hours teaches about analyzing programs, controls, properties, looping, dialogue boxes, database basics and ActiveX. The Visual C++ 6 Unleashed book provides training in MCF programming, using dialog boxes, creating property sheets, Internet programming, debugging, multi-threading and database programming.

Landofcode.com

The Introduction to Computer Programming lesson is tasked to familiarize the online student with terminology, common concepts, definitions and different programming languages. All of the materials are presented through text and can culminate in a comprehensive quiz. This lesson can also lead to tutorials related to Java, CSS, HTML, PHP and VBScript.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Introduction to Computer Science and Programming course offers training through video lectures, assignments and exams. Most of this course's readings can be found online. This course covers common code patterns, abstractions through functions, floating point numbers, binary, code testing and debugging. ThePractical Programming in C class provides students with lecture notes and assignments. Lab guidelines are also provided. During this course, students may encounter topics in variables, control flow, dynamic memory allocation, concurrency, function pointers and external libraries.
Structure and Interpretation of Computer Programs has resources that include lecture notes, video lectures, recitations, reading materials, project guidelines and exams. Topics covered include higher-order procedures, computer processes, compound data, generic operators, computational objects, logic programming and storage allocation.

National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning

Principles of Programming Languages covers concepts in type checking, monomorphism, normal forms, structured data, programming commands, environments, syntax and binding. This YouTube lecture series consists of 40 videos that last up to 35 hours. Many of these video lectures include visual aids to help demonstrate topics.

Programming Video Tutorials

Tutorials offered by this website are presented through training videos and text. The C++ Tutorial consists of 35 chapters that cover topics in arrays, pointers, operators, constructors, variables, namespaces and constants. Students using this website also have access to additional tutorials that cover C#, SQL, Java, PHP, CSS, HTML and XML.

University of Southern Queensland

Object-Oriented Programming in C++ doesn't provide students with the required reading materials detailed in the list of readings. Students must use lecture notes and training modules for most of the course. These lectures provide audio files and PowerPoint presentations. The training modules provide texts, concept charts, exercises, examples and readings. This course covers topics in helper functions, class relationships, file access techniques, limiting access, design patterns, streams and functors. This course also provides students with assignments, exercises and an examination.

Universiti Teknologi Malaysia

Computer Programming III was created to train students in multiple programming languages, including XSLT, XML, HTML, KML and PHP. Course materials are presented through .PDF files that offer coding examples, training charts, text explanations and links to external sources. This course also provides students with additional resources that include tests, labs, exercises, an assignment and final examination guidelines.

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Be Better Not Bitter

Don’t Let:Negative, Small-Minded People Steal Your Joy!

Thank you Jesus! Mighty is our God and His works. I want to encourage you today to not give thought to those who criticize you, those who don’t give you credit where credit is due. I realize you can try to meet other people approval, but always seem to fail. Let me give you some spiritual advice.Don’t entertain Negative people. Pray for them!
Sometimes you have to loose (cut-off) those negative friendships, and relationships that always looking to critique you, or looking for a free handout. Some people will never realize your worth. Don’t waste your time with negative people. I have learned not to waste my time getting approval, seeking others opinions of me. Small-minded people are always belittling you, or finding fault. Oh, or trying to make you jealous or feel inadequate!
Many would not be happy with your blessings from God. Some will just need to know details just to belittle you, or find fault. When someone is jealous or trying to hinder me, I open my wings and soar even higher. Distractions are for the pigeons, and Determination is for the Eagles!  I’m an Eagle! Don’t let anyone steal your joy. Some people pretend to support you in words, but with no action behind it. They smile in your face, while hardening their hearts .
They cannot be Happy for you, or with you because they Hating!
I’m celebrating my gifts, and found that God is sending the people who are supposed to be in my circle, and uplift my gifts from God. They know my worth. I had to distant, and loose those who were draining me. God is the head of my life, and I say to you don’t let nose pickers move you astray, down the wrong path. Some people will never like you, no matter what you do.
I don’t focus on anyone or anything, anymore because you will be depressed and drained. This is for someone who feel like they must reap other’s approval, or buy friendship. I say let go, and let God. When you spend time trying to win relationships, there is a hidden message in it. ” Some people never liked you, and never will because they don’t like themselves”. Still be kind to them but at a distant.
I have had many who call themselves friends, and suppose to be supporters, but when you stay before God, He will show you that they are not for you.  I don’t sit anymore questioning why this person didn’t call, or why this person lied. Or better yet they make up stuff.  Some people believe they are the it factor. There are manipulators, and people who envy where you are.
So you must be doing something right because you are out front. When you step into your blessings, then know the critics, and jealous, small minded people are on their way. Don’t worry about nobody, who wants to steal your joy. If you don’t entertain them, then they won’t.
Some people are phony, and not authentic. So put your energy in God’s purpose for you. Some people are materialistic, and don’t know your worth. The more people talk about me, the more God is blessing me. I allow God to fight my battles now.
So what if no one follows your blog, so what if no one celebrates your birthday, so what if no one supports your dreams, or the cause you believe in.  I celebrated the launching of my business with God! Because there are many who thought I was lying about the business because it didn’t happen on their time schedule. Now they shocked!
If God told you He would heal you and He does six months later. Then you shouldn’t be shocked, but praising Him would be expected. Shock is for people who thought you would never rise to the occasion. Shock is for someone who didn’t believe God would heal them. When you believe it’s called Faith.  You don’t know when, or how. You just know.
If you have God then you have all the support you need. Some people will think you think you are all that. Well, you are if you are in Christ! He is the best at what He does.
I’m celebrating today, tomorrow, today, tomorrow like it’s nobody business.
Storms will come, but I will be in the EYE of the storm where there is Peace.
To the so call friends, just because I’m kind, and don’t throw stones doesn’t mean I don’t know the true you! I bless my enemies, and my so call friends, because I don’t have time to be a hater when I got all this love around me and in me. I love Jesus, and I decided long ago that Christ had to fix my heart, and bitterness is not authorized in this temple. So why would I waste time fixing you, or anybody else for that matter? Why waste time pointing your wrongs when I’m working on mine?
Small-minded people will destroy you and drain the life out of you. Be happy with the YOU, that God created! I will wait on the Lord!
God is my new best friend, and I tell Him everything good, or bad. Why? Because He trust me to tell Him, even though I know He knows.  It’s called confessing, communicating with the Holy One!
Shenine
A Woman After God’s Own Heart

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DNA Detection and Measurement on a Smartphone

DNA-smartphone

Fluorescence microscopy relies on tagging biological samples using molecular markers that are excitable in response to light. The glow that emanates from the sample can be detected using specially designed microscopes, but these tend to be large and expensive. Now a small new device that works in tandem with a smartphone has been used to successfully spot and measure the length of DNA molecules using fluorescence microscopy.
Designed at UCLA’s California NanoSystems Institute, the device accepts disposable chips within which the DNA is tagged and stretched out. The actual microscope is attached to a Windows smartphone and basically includes a dark room, lens, laser, thin-film interference filters, and a mechanical adjuster that adjusts focus by moving the sample in front of the lens. Special software was developed that captures the images and sends them to a server for final processing. Results come back and are displayed on the smartphone app, allowing the technology to be used anywhere with a cellular signal, even though the heavy computational processing is taken care of far away.
According to the study of the device in ACS Nano, the scientists “imaged single DNA molecules of various lengths to demonstrate a sizing accuracy of <1 kilobase-pairs (kbp) for 10 kbp and longer DNA samples imaged over a field-of-view of ∼2 mm2.”
***Pedophiles are about to get Jammed!
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8 Tips for Having Productive Conversation

8 Tips for Having Productive Conversation

Let’s face it. Not many of us were born as talkative, outgoing, extroverted individuals. We all have room for improvement, and what better area to improve in than conversation skills? In every area of life, whether it be socially, professionally, or even romantically, productive conversation skills are beneficial. Try adding these nine tips to your daily conversations and see what an impact it makes.

1. Pay attention to the other person

Active listening is one of the most important components of good conversation. If the person speaking can see that your attention is elsewhere, they will quickly lose interest in sharing what they have to say and in listening to what you have to share. So turn off the TV, quit glancing at your phone every five seconds, and give that person your undivided attention. You’ll find the favor returned when it’s your turn to speak!

2. Let people sell themselves

It’s simple. We as humans love to talk about ourselves or things that are happening to us. Productive conversations involve people sharing about themselves, stories of their past or present, and their dreams of what the future may hold.
People are literally waiting to stalk about their latest hobby, their new car, or the funny thing that their toddler said at the dinner table. Let people tell their story! You will get to know them and connect more easily.

3. Summarize others’ viewpoints

One way you can show that you are indeed paying attention is to summarize what the other party has just said. Although people love to talk, going without responses that indicate that you are understanding and following along will cause them to feel like you have zoned out.
A quick recap of what has just been said, especially if the other person has been talking for a while, helps the conversation move along smoothly.

4. Don’t interrupt

It’s simple. Don’t be rude. Unless an urgent issue arises in the conversation, don’t interrupt. Give the other person the space to communicate.

5. Make eye contact

A key part of active listening in a conversation is making eye contact. Now, I’m not suggesting you stare intently at the speaker’s eyes without blinking. That’s a staring contest, not a conversation. You can even look somewhere close, that may not be their eyes like their forehead or nose. But an attempt at eye contact lets the speaker know that you are present and listening.

6. Ask open questions

Ask questions that bring out more than just a yes or no, or one word in response. Open questions like “Why did you decide to study biology?” allow a person to open up and share more about themselves than simple one word answers, which can halt the flow of a conversation.

7. Smile

It’s interesting that most of the tips in this list about conversation have nothing to do with you talking. But your body actions definitely are important. So smile! Your body language is crucial to creating a warm and welcoming environment for the other person to share.
Even when talking on the phone, smiling and other signals of body language can have a tangible effect on your tone, and therefore the conversation as a whole.

8. Find things in common

It is much easier to talk to someone when you know that they have an interest in what you are talking about. This way, you don’t feel like you’re boring them or forcing them to listen to a lecture. Conversation comes easier, and people connect more quickly when there are commonalities.
How can you find out what you have in common? Try some of the previously mentioned tips. Ask questions, listen to their story, take notice of the things around them and maybe you can spark up a connection on high school over the class rings you both are wearing.
Have any other interesting or helpful conversation tips? Share them below
Nervous about just starting a conversation? Try these 10 of the Most Effective Ice Breakers for Starting Meaningful Conversations
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"Harper Lee", lesser known champion for the Afro American

TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD

Harper Lee

Summary & Analysis

Part One, Chapter 1
Chapters 2–3
Chapters 4–6
Chapters 7–8
Chapters 9–11
Part Two, Chapters 12–13
Chapters 14–15
Chapters 16–17
Chapters 18–19
Chapters 20–22
Chapters 23–25
Chapters 26–27
Chapters 28–31
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Alcoholic? AA Does Not Work


Why What You Think about Alcohol Probably is False

 I should like to discuss three tentative constructs. These ideas have to do with the phenomenon of Alcoholics Anonymous and its generally accepted philosophy, which most Americans unreflectively and unreservedly probably believe are "correct." In other words, because of various social and cognitive conditions, we accept various ideas about drinking, and most Americans accept AA to be the expert on drinking.

 For your consideration, I would like to suggest four facts about AA that are opposite how most people think of AA:

 1. Alcoholic Anonymous can't work;
2. Alcoholic Anonymous doesn't work; and
3. Alcoholic Anonymous is un-spiritual (or, more properly, a-spiritual).

 A fourth construct is even more outrageous, but it can not be dealt with completely in this paper and will be discussed at another time:

 4. Whatever AA is about, it is not primarily about drinking.

 I have come to conclude that AA is like a decrepit old billboard calling attention to itself, which obscures a perfectly healthy, natural, and accurate view. But the billboard is always there, and because it is so commonsensical that it is there, that we have come to conclude that it not only should be there, but that it is good that it is there. But the billboard is shoddy, decaying, and should be torn down.

 II. Why AA can't work

 A Logical Approach

 According to AA, if I ask you, "are you an alcoholic?" you are an alcoholic if you answer either (1) "yes," (confirmation), or (2) "no" (denial). The third answer is equally problematic, because, of course, if you answer, (3) "I don't know," then the answer would be, of course, that you are still an alcoholic. Logically, this is absurd.

 Three different answers to a question can, of course, if you want to do logistical jumps, mean the same thing; but such leaps of logic counter the Socratic, Platonic, and Aristotelian traditions on which any Western philosophy or science is built. When you insist that "yes," "no," and "I don't know," can not mean simply, "yes," "no," and "I don't know," but really a "yes," "yes," and a "yes," it doesn't seem too much to say that you're in a bit of trouble of finding out any truth. If there's only one answer in three contradictory forms, why ask the question in the first place? At best this way of asking questions is useless; at the worst it is dishonest. The logical thing to do would be to find new or better questions which have answers that mean what they say. This AA -- for reasons to be seen -- stubbornly refuses to do.

 You see, the essential problem in AA's curious way of putting things is the definition of what is an alcoholic. More simply, the most obvious problem is that there is either unclarity, dishonesty, or just a plain error in these questions. Here's an example: Let me ask you, (1.) "Have you accepted Jesus as your personal savior?," (2.) "When did you stop beating your wife?", and (3.) "Why is the sun as blue as an orange?" A short reflection will reveal that there is such a thing as insincere or erroneous questions. All these three questions rely on a premise which may or may not be true: that you are indeed in need of "saving," that you are "a wife-beater," and that the sun is capable of being as "blue" as an "orange." In point of fact AA asks what appears to be a sincere question, which has three possible answers, but only one correct answer, "yes." In this case the question is, at best, useless, and at worst, dishonest. As we shall see, the error is that there is such a thing as an "alcoholic" in the first place.

 A primary line of AA thinking really considers everyone to be an alcoholic. As absurd as it seems, this is actually maintained in many of AA people's belief systems. Hear me out:

 The pro-AA person consciously is likely to balk at admitting openly that everyone is an alcoholic. Indeed, he or she is likely to disagree, maintaining that there are really three genuine answers to the question. Concerning alcoholics: There are people who are, and there are people who are not alcoholics. Those who do not know may sincerely not know they are alcoholics; for instance, they may never have wanted or been in a socially approved position to take a drink of liquor, or they might have gotten drunk once and have forsworn liquor, or they might be labeled "heavy drinkers," or they might be dope fiends who don't need alcohol, and so on. Cloistered nuns, Native Americans of the 12th century, and heroine addicts all can state truthfully that they do not know if they are alcoholics. Let us assume for a moment that there is such a thing as an "alcoholic" and that there are some who are and some who are not this creature.

 According to the AA "religion" you are required to begin every statement in meetings with "Hello, I am (first name), and I am an Alcoholic." This phenomenon is indicative of how important this concept is to the religion of AA Apparently there is some unproved and unsupported "genetic" disposition in some people to be alcoholics. It is, at the very least and most, part of their being, like brown eyes, or flat feet. If that is true, so the argument goes, there must be people who are not alcoholics, who don't have that genetic switch.

A second and rarer viewpoint holds that we all must be alcoholics to some extent, though some have "it" "in control," and a second group do not have "it" "in control." Again, in the second case, we revert to a situation where we have a "disease" model of alcoholism. This disease model was central to the formation of AA sixty years ago; it did not need the concept of a "genetic disposition" at that time, but, of course, has readily accepted this construct, no matter how unbounded in empirical evidence it is.

 However, we immediately have several problems if we follow AA's line of thinking.

 The first difficulty is sheer inconsistency: As discussed above, you can't ask a question that has three answers which somehow are only one answer -- at least not most of the time in the real world. Furthermore to do so smacks of not wanting the truth, but of intellectual entrapment -- Remember the Jesus, the wife beating, and the blue sun questions. To ask such question implies that the question is invalid.

 Secondly, there is a violation of the law of proximate inferences: Because two phenomena occur at the same time does not indicate causality. Because a person drinks too much does indicate in any sense that there is a defective gene or even that he is "diseased," anymore than believing that when you open your eyes in the morning causes the sun to come up over the horizon.

 Thirdly I would like to point out Occam's Razor or the Law of Parsimony: Because a person drinks too much indicates only that he drinks too much, the phenomenon of a person "drinking too much" is more only just "drinking too much" than it is any thing else, or any larger phenomenon, such as bringing in "genetic" or "diseased" complicated and unfounded models.

 And, I should add, that because such a pattern of individual drinking may be quite destructive, does not in any sense add to the quality of what drinking in itself is. No geneticist would maintain, as does AA, that there is a gene that is a "switch" for any behavior. For various reasons (mainly because AA is an evangelical organization), AA needs to maintain that our environment -- a world that is often absurd, cruel, grossly unfair and arbitrary -- simply has no bearing on the so-called genetic "alcoholic switch" being on or off. This is patently absurd. In point of fact, most people who drink too much do so most of the time because it simply makes them feel better than they would without it, not because they are some creature named an "alcoholic" who has some genetic "switch."

 You do not need the term "alcoholic" to explain "drinking too much," even if a person is drinking him- or herself into illness and death. You do not need to ignore "the world" as a contributive factor to human despair. There is no evidence that one or several genes, even if found, could explain the phenomenon of drinking. And, should your prove that even if people genetically drank too much, that this is a disease worth curing with a belief system, you still don't need AA or "alcoholism" to explain drinking.

This is getting ahead of things, for now let us say that, from a logical position, AA can not work. AA defines drinking in a complicated, unscientific and illogical manner, and you can't base "treatment" on a falsehood and expect such a treatment to work. AA does have a great deal to do with mid-western Protestantism. AA is prescriptive, not descriptive; that is its foundation is based on what ought to be true, not what is true.

 Why AA Can't Work: The Medical Approach

 If you do not want to go the philosophical route to deconstruct AA, you can go the historical or medical route. It is central to AA that "drinking too much" is a disease with the pseudo-scientific name, "alcoholism." Without much scientific evidence, the medical establishment has allied itself to AA because it seems to be "the only thing that works."

 Historically, simply let me point out that there is no reason to suppose that what two Mid-western evangelical Christians in the early to mid part of this century think of as normative constructs, are normative for anyone else, either then or today. Secondly, medically, let me point out that there is no reason to suppose that what medical "authorities," given our American penchant to believe medical authorities, say is true, is true. Because something seems to us commonsensical, does not, in any way, indicate that it is commonsense.

 Let me give an example. If you presented certain symptoms of stomach pain until quite recently, you would be diagnosed with something called an "ulcer" Indeed it would be seen as having to be true: There'd be a hole in your tummy, in which case you'd be in a lot of trouble. You would be advised that this was due to "stress," and your remedy would to have part of your stomach removed (at the most radical) or instructed to drink lots of milk (at the least invasive). Now neither removing parts of the stomach nor drinking milk has anything to do with ulcers, because "we" -- according to medical knowledge as I understand it as a layperson -- have learned that this phenomenon is caused by a virus.

 But both doctors and patients for decades believed that this was commonsense.

 Right now some people suffer from a disease that makes them loose their hair. The common cause is seen as "stress." Of course there is all probability that there is, in reality, some undiscovered cause which we simply have not found yet. But the medical philosophy seeks "causes"; it abhors the vacuum of "not knowing." A weak and unsupported "cause" is better than not knowing at all. Here the Mayo dictum helps us clarify matters: The more cures for a disease is in inverse proportion that any of them will work.

 If drinking alcohol is a problem for you, you have a duty to figure out what is going on. Yet medicine may not be the agency to help you. In fact, the purpose of medicine is not to find the truth, nor to help you find the truth of your situation. In fact medicine does not seek primarily to study disease, nor does it seek to arrive at any understanding of health; medicine's purpose is to eliminate disease, nothing more and nothing less. If medicine wishes to talk of truth, or to study disease, or to speak of health (which it almost never does), it is primarily in its dealing with what it labels disease or "non-normalcy" (and this is important) as it is found in the real world as doctors define it. Where disease is absent, there is no need for a cure, and certainly not for study of any bodily phenomenon except that such phenomenon is defined by its pathology.

 Here's an example that might help: If the majority of the people walked around with a green lump on their foreheads, and if this caused a mild depression in most, medicine would not study it, because the green lump and the mild depression would be the stance, the normalcy, the starting point for examining those few diseased people who had no lumps on their heads and walked around with grins on their faces.

 Medicine literally does not see what is not a disease, or that which can not, in some way, become diseased. And once a phenomenon becomes problematic, it can see it only through its operant lens, "disease." To put it simply, to a man with a hammer, everything seems a nail; to a man with a pen, everything seems a sentence; to a man with a stethoscope, everything seems a disease. The problem is of course compounded because doctors do not talk to philosophers, poets, or even (surprisingly) scientists. Doctors talk only to doctors.

 There is a problem with the medical model here, as much as there would be a problem with any model: "Normal" is defined in a simplistic and unnatural way, indeed either (1.) as opposed to what is diseased, or (2.) by what is normal, but can become diseased. Homosexuality, masturbation, having red hair, hysteria, "the vapors," apoplexy, and on and on an on, were all diseases at one time, and it is sheer dogged stupidity to assume that we're any better qualitatively, using the same medical method, than we were years ago We may know that wiping scalpels during surgery on the lapels of coats (as doctors did years ago) will certainly infect the scalpels with "germs," but this is quantitative knowledge. There is no reason to assume that the qualitative way that medicine looks at phenomenon is not as flawed now as in the past. That medicine has done "great things" can not be denied, but that it is a way of looking at things that has errors built into it, also can not be denied.

 I repeat here in passing that medicine, as indeed all sciences, take the world as it is as normative. What should be is what is experienced by the masses of (healthy) humanity or what is not experienced by the minority of (diseased) humanity. Healthy and diseased are two labels which must be applied to all phenomenon, whether it be to a bad heart, a case of indigestion, or drinking. Doctors can not accept that most people drink for perfectly clear reasons; they must label those who have a "problem" as "diseased." In fact there is nothing else that they can do.

 Doctors the medical establishment can never understand that the world is an absurd, unfair, or occasionally even a horrible place. If this were true, drink would be seen as a cure. No less that the formative psychologists Henry .Stack Sullivan and Erick Erickson have pointed out that without drink, civilization could not occur. The term "disease" used in a medical sense, referring to alcoholism is not only unhelpful, but untrue.

 Here's a dictum: Just because it seems as if "alcoholism as disease" is a useful meaning making system, it does not follow that is either a valid or invalid concept. It is merely as valid as any other complicated phenomenon without any empirical basis; in fact, it is as valid or as invalid as such meaning making systems as "witchcraft," "cancer," "astrology," "the soul," "Id," "dysfunctional," "gravity" or so on. "Alcoholism" is a complicated set of constructs whose only justification is that it seems "right" that there is such a complicated thing. If by "alcoholism" you mean "lots of people who drink too much" you can be somewhat correct, but if by "alcoholism" you mean a complex quasi-disease which is yet not understood, you violate not only logic but any scientific system of inquiry.

 Here I pass lightly over an allied discussion in which I would prove that even if some "alcoholic gene" were found (a big "if"), it would not mean anything at all, certainly not that "alcoholism" was a "disease," anymore that a tendency to be sexually attracted to the same sex, have blue eyes, or be able to run fast, or to play the violin really well.

 But let's go further. Let's assume against all reason and evidence that there is such a disease and it is called "alcoholism."

 The "disease model" is particularly un-useful in labeling a person "alcoholic." For, if "alcoholism" is a "disease," as many have pointed out, it is a disease that operates like no other disease on the planet earth. Such a "disease model" is so patently absurd that it hardly needs description. "Cancer" patients are not held responsible for their illnesses; they don't carry around little key chains saying "I am responsible" like alcoholics do. Hepatitis sufferers are not sent to twelve step programs, but are treated with drugs. And, may I point out that there are no cancer-drivers out there causing accidents death and havoc. No drunks and drinking are quite another thing than misshapen cell clusters.

 The essential problem is that alcoholism can't be a disease, or we'd have to change what "disease" was until the concept was no longer useful or accurate -- until what we mean by "disease" is not longer "disease." If "alcoholism" is actually a disease it has deconstructed the notion of "disease" until it is useless.

I am sure that readers who have been converted to the AA mindset, may think that I am only engaging in some elaborate form of "denial." I have no doubt that, according to AA, I am in denial. I just think that my way of thinking is more grounded in logic, reality and common sense than theirs is.

 In point of fact AA can't work, because it is inherently illogical and un-empirical -- and that's saying a great deal. We may want it to be true. It may seem very commonsensical. But because it seems to make sense, doesn't make it to be true, certainly not anymore than witches cause bad things to good people, or that bad air causes disease, or that mental disturbances are due to a disturbance of "humours" in the body, or that Jesus is your personal savior, or that you should stop beating your wife, or why you should explain to me why the sun is blue. This brings me to the next point.

 III. AA Just Simply Doesn't Work

 It is simply amazing, if you keep an open mind, that AA is recommended as the only "cure" for alcoholism when it appears to have absolutely no effect on people. If AA were the United States national highway system, we would be a country of wrecked cars with, perhaps, a fraction of the tens of thousands of automobiles per state running around. Let me give two personal observations to clear the air:

 (1.) no person has "given up" drinking gave up drinking primarily because of AA; and
(2.) most of the people who continue to drink destructively continue to drink destructively despite AA.

 AA is that big gaudy billboard -- which should have been torn down long ago, that obliterates our view of that charming scenery behind it, the scenery of truth. Because it's there, doesn't mean it should be. If you substitute "cigarette smoking" for alcoholism, you quickly realize that almost no one quit smoking because of a twelve-step program. And overweight people don't loose weight either because of these programs when aimed at them.

 In point of fact, AA just doesn't work. Even AA is quite up front about it outrageous failure rate, a rate so outrageous that it seems to indicate that, whatever "it" is that AA is doing, doesn't work. But, AA argues that (1) because it is the only plausible model of explaining the phenomenon of drinking "out there," and (2) because that a very few people who attend AA stop drinking, it must be at least the only effective desperate measure that can work. This is, of course, patently absurd.

 Reverse the situation. If a person drinks too much, he or she is almost certainly to be sent to AA; that person might get well, and AA absurdly gets the credit. I point out the well-known and documented fact of social sciences that as many people with "problems" get better, as many get worse, and as many stay the same, regardless of whether they have been "treated" by a psychologist or psychiatrist. Why should we assume AA has even a remotely successful track record, when it patently doesn't.

 From my subway stop in Manhattan, it is possible for me to pass one AA meeting place on my way home, and, should I want to go four blocks out of my way, to pass where another takes place. One has five meetings a day, the other has three, a total of seven. At the same time, without going out of my way, it is possible to pass five liquor stores, all of which are open, by a conservative estimate, ten hours a day. They obviously do a successful enough job to stay in business in what happens to be an extremely well-populated neighborhood. At the two local AA meeting are, typically, twenty to thirty persons -- People who are, I might add, desperately attempting to convince themselves that AA works. If you consider the vast amount of people who support these liquor stores, and the limited amount of people who are (mostly unsuccessfully) attending AA meetings, it seems valid to conclude that there are a heck of a lot more people drinking "successfully" than those who are attempting to convince themselves that they are diseased and that only a religious cult can help them.

 But. even if there were people who were "alcoholics" -- rather than there being just people who drink too much -- then the remedy for such an astounding "disease" is highly ineffective. How many AA meeting goers does AA fail. The answer is, by AA's own admittance, an astounding number.

 Most interestingly is the fact that, for AA's consistent and outrageous failure rate, blame goes not to AA philosophy or to the organization or to the intellectual or affective system, but to the "diseased" individual who can not "get with the program," an irony surely, as the vast majority never, ever, get with the program. Again, imagine blaming a cancer "victim" for dying painfully because he has not "gotten with the program" of a particular hospital he has submitted himself to.

 Quite frankly, no matter what anyone may think about it, AA simply does not work for the vast majority of people who go to it for help. If AA were in the business of repairing cars, or selling umbrellas, or baking bread, it would be out of business within a month. Furthermore there is no reason to suppose because the vast majority of people "out there" think of it as "the only" answer in any way makes it a "right" answer. In fact the overwhelming majority of people who drink never go at all.

 A desperate answer does not make a correct answer. An ineffective answer is no answer at all.

 IV. AA is Irreligious

 As stated above, AA was founded by men (the emphasis is intentional) with an evangelical background. The structure of AA is patently evangelical, which, to put it briefly, posits an all-controlling all-powerful god who deems some to salvation and some to damnation. By relinquishing an evil "self" to the will of the almighty, the individual can be "saved." Substitute "drink" for "God," and you'll understand how clear this is: I am powerless before ______ . In point fact no human being is ever powerless. Indeed it is impossible for a human being not to make choice all the time. I would argue that it is inherent in the definition of "human" to make countless choices.

 Quite simply, if there is a god like AA's, this isn't my god. If I believe in a god, I believe in a god who has created humanity to participate in God's act of creation. This notion is in every sense one of uttermost Christian conservatism. Pick up any Bible, or, say, the (protestant) Book of Common Prayer, or a Catholic Catechism, sorry I'm not up on Judaism or Islam -- flip to any page at random, and you will quickly realize that there is nothing in the Judeo-Christian tradition that posits any human as being totally powerless, even in the face of the supposedly most powerful force in the world, God himself. An exception is if you are a fundamentalist, then you are a totally corrupt individual, powerless, in need of saving.

 It seems to me, that, if you were inclined to believe in it, that God deliberately allows humans to make even bad choices if they insist. God, if you believe in him (or her), deliberately created a morally, socially, and personally ambiguous world which must be negotiated. God demands that every person construct a life; he or she may do a bad job of it, but construct a life he or she must. Indeed one can not not construct a life; one can not not make any number of choices. In fact, to be human is to choose.

 The ability to choose in most of life's situations is in no way evangelical, and it would not play well in the place where AA was born in a church basement after Prohibition was repealed. But recognizing that a person has the ability to make choices, choices to love, to work and to change for the better, is essential to any healthy way of living. It seems to me inconsistent, if there is a God, that he or she has created "dependent" children lacking all power to organize their lives or to make meaning of the world. Being "helpless" is not a natural, nor healthy, aspect of humanity.

 But I would like to point out, that the vast majority of people for whom AA is a negative force, agree with me. For many it is patently absurd to "cast their cares upon" Jesus, God, or any divinity. If you believe in a god, terrific, I am sure such a belief can help you. But I know that that mental, physical, economic, and social health involves taking responsibility for my actions and intentions. Not an easy task, though.

 This irregularity comes to mind: according to AA, the "alcoholic" is to carry around a key chain with the words "I am responsible" but at the same time to believe the totally contradictory dictate "I am powerless." This is sheer absurdity.

 Ten Tentative Ideas to Attempt to Move the Discussion Forward--

 So what to believe? Let's put it this way: Once we suspend the firm conviction that "what we believe" is true because "we believe it along with a lot of other people," we find that much of "what we believe" was not "true" at all. We also, in this freedom of inquiry, are able to discover many concepts which we would not considered possible before. To paraphrase Socrates, "Let us seek to find what is true, and if we find that what we thought is not true, let us be comforted by the fact that we know that what we thought what was true, is not."

 Suppose that a doctor or a psychiatrist was as reliable as the bartender in your average bar, and vice versa. Free up your mind a bit to attempt to shed some convictions that what you think is true is only true because you think it's true, or because everyone seems to think it's true. Think for a moment that the doctor, the psychiatrist and the AA practitioner actually had more of an interest in making you believe what they told you than the bartender had in serving you a drink. If you get drunk, the bartender will stop serving you, and this should never happen or you do have a problem, it is only because the bartender knows that to continue drinking is very bad for you. The bartender pretends to no other knowledge that you really shouldn't have another drink right now. The doctor, the psychiatrist and AA, on the other hand, can not stop serving you their advice, no matter how useless or detrimental it is to you, no matter how destructive, because they would have to invalidate their own beliefs, and this they can not do. They would rather see you harmed than change their precious belief-systems.

 Imagine for a minute that it may be true that some people drink too much because their lives are not going well. Imagine for a minute that the problem is not "alcohol," but "life." Imagine that alcohol is a time-tested "cure" for the problems of life, while admitting that, like all cures, it carries a price and a danger.

 Is it not then absurd that if I went to a "doctor" and was "diagnosed" as "depressive," that it would be alright, indeed mandated, that I take several pills per day to "cure" or "manage" this "disease," and that I would have to take these pills for the rest of my life; but that, if I attempted to control the same "disease" with alcohol, not only would I be an "alcoholic," but that such a "disease" would be progressive. This is patently absurd. It is absurd because even the AA religion allows (sometimes, anyway) that many people are not progressive alcoholics. But it is even more absurd that a medication that has been around since human hunters and gatherers settled down should be an "evil" while an relatively untested pill is a "benefit." Doesn't make sense.

 Speaking personally, I have never landed in a hospital for "drinking," but I have for taking pills prescribed by a doctor. And I can hardly pass up commenting on the phenomenon that there have been a great many pills pushed by the official medical establishment these days, that, while they may or may not be effective for the disease they address, seem to have harmful -- if not deadly -- effects. Miracle drugs are withdrawn monthly. I am not saying that the drugs a doctor prescribes are necessarily bad; I am only saying, based on my experience, that they are certainly as risky as taking a drink

 Equally absurd is the construct that if I am "suffering" a "pain" such as depression or anxiety, that the problem is with me and not with a world that, at best, functions with imperfection. AA and the medical establishment ignore that pain, poverty, suffering, loss, disease, and sorrow really can affect a person's life.

 I can not fathom why it is medically acceptable (if not preferable) to prescribe drugs that have been in existence less than three years to "cure" the "disease" of "depression" and "anxiety," while a remedy that has been in existence since human beings settled down from huntering and gathering into stable groups. Indeed, as has been pointed out, the first thing the !Kung people did when they settled down into farming was to brew beer.

 Indeed it is more atypical (if a thing can be "more" atypical) for a person not to drink alcohol than to drink alcohol, and it is foolishness, religious fundamentalism, medical incorrectness, and absurdity to assume that such a phenomenon as drinking should not be the norm.

 At this point you will probably have dismissed my argument: It can't be true. It's too outrageous. It's too un-commonsensical. I can only add that you only need to take a walk around to see where unreflected "commonsense" has gotten most people most of the time. If taking a walk is too much, pick up a newspaper or flip on the t.v. There you will see and hear the aggregate "norm," and it is none too pretty.

 To cut this discourse short, let me give ten tentative constructs which you might consider or not to consider. Some of them might be true:

 1. "People who drink to much" are only "people who drink too much" more than they are anything else.
2. Drinking is a normative, constructive aspect of living in human civilization.
3. AA is logically unsound, empirically false, and spiritually invalid.
4. Alcohol is a better and less dangerous remedy for anxiety and depression than anything else for many people most of the time.

 The following are not part of the above discourse, but, I think, are provocative enough to include from an anti-AA perspective:

 5. The less alcohol is available, the more people will drink; the more alcohol is available, the less people will drink. Human nature loves, above all, freedom to choose. Abstinence encourages failure.
6. If the world were such a great place, people wouldn't need a drug to cope with it.
7. People who do not have "vices" are not only more boring, but more destructive, than people who do.
8. People are free to make choices; such is the definition of being a human
9. Most people love the comfort of an unreflective group ideology.
10. People are more free when they can think things through than when they have to submit to some group's ideology which may or may not fit with their situation.

 *Moderator note: I especially like this piece as I have been there. I've been sober for many years, can't remember the date I quit and I'm not trying to remember.
In a nutshell, I quit when I got my mind right. "Right" definition? I exited indoctrinated values and posteriori, priori concepts.
            
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