Sunday, October 28, 2007

Of Cornflakes Sex and Masturbation

John Harvey Kellogg ( 1852 – 1943) was an American medical doctor in Battle Creek, Michigan who ran a sanitarium using holistic methods, with a particular focus on nutrition, enemas and exercise. Kellogg was an advocate of vegetarianism, and is best known for the invention of the Kellogs corn flakes breakfast cereal with his brother, Will Keith Kellogg.

Kellogg did a great deal to warn about the supposed dangers of sexual activity. He outlined his views on this subject in his book 'Plain Facts for Old and Young'. He warned against nearly all sexual activity, including a large chapter about the many “excesses” couples could be guilty of within marriage. He drew on the warnings of William Acton and expressed support for the work of Anthony Comstock. He appears to have gone beyond his own advice, since though he and his wife were married for over 40 years, they never had sexual intercourse and had separate bedrooms all their lives. It has been suggested he worked on Plain Facts on their honeymoon!


He was an especially zealous campaigner against masturbation, recommending extreme methods. In his Treatment for Self-Abuse and its Effects he wrote:

A remedy for masturbation which is almost always successful in small boys is circumcision. The operation should be performed by a surgeon without administering an anesthetic, as the brief pain attending the operation will have a salutary effect upon the mind, especially if it be connected with the idea of punishment. In females, the author has found the application of pure carbolic acid [phenol] to the clitoris an excellent means of allaying the abnormal excitement. ”

Believing that masturbation was a sensual sin of the flesh, self-abuse, and an obsessive habit common to adolescent males and others, he advocated exposing the sensitive glans, which during masturbation would be subject to friction. In addition, the removal of the protective foreskin would further reduce sensory pleasures from the habit. Reducing the sensory pleasure, it was felt, would also reduce boys' rebelliousness. He also claimed that masturbation was a primary cause of acne, extreme mental and physical debility, heart disease, atrophy of the testes, dimness of vision, epilepsy, and insanity. Kellogg also believed that one should guard one's emissions as he believed people possessed a fixed amount of "vital energy." He also recommended, to prevent children from this "solitary vice," that one could bandage or tie their hands, cover the genitalia with a patented cage structure, and even use electrical shocking.


Dr. Kellogg wrote that "neither the plague, nor war, nor small-pox, nor similar diseases, have produced results so disastrous to humanity as the pernicious habit of onanism." He felt that masturbation destroyed not only physical and mental health, but the moral health of individuals as well. Kellogg also believed the practice of "solitary-vice" caused cancer of the womb, urinary diseases, nocturnal emissions, impotence, epilepsy and insanity. Kellogg was the first to mention the psychological role in producing insanity. To fight the urge to practice masturbation Kellogg offered a number of remedies to the young and old. He believed that young and old should maintain an abstemious diet, eating only twice a day. They should avoid stimulating food and drinks, and very little meat if any should be consumed. Kellogg also advocated hydrotherapy and stressed the importance of keeping the colon clean through yogurt enemas.

Kellogg would live for over sixty years after writing Plain Facts. Whether he continued to teach the “facts” in it is not entirely clear, although it appears from the later books he wrote that he moved away from this subject matter. One source, taking a positive view of his nutritional and anti-smoking work, suggests he “dropped his obsession with the evils of sex” around 1920, but another, highly critical source maintains he “never retracted his claims”.!

-courtesy wikipedia-

Friday, October 12, 2007

Visual Bytes # 2

Due to the great inconvenience in editing and arranging the numerous pictures in this post i have restricted the number of questions to a meagre 5. All are connection questions.Hope you enjoy.


1.Connect this series of very unpleasant photographs . i allude it to a question asked at a Greycell's open quiz recently.A few more pics can be added to the list , but i simply found them too explicit , well you may get from google if u really want to view them as well.





















2.Id the connection. an exhaustive and specific list. not in any particular order.









3.What connects these movie stills



4. Bring out the connection.







5. Yeah.And the mega connection question of them all.
Clue :Relates to a myth.(smirk, a pile of help that is..;) )











Thats all the time and effort i am willing to waste for this post. Have fun figuring all this out.So untill next time people.














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Visual Byte Answers.

The first issue of Visual Bytes was a success.If the two genuine attempts at the question in the comments section and a mail in my otherwise empty gmail inbox and a reference link in the Orkut Kerala Quizzers community is anything to go by, this blog might actually get a launch.Thanks everybody.

The Answers

1.
The painting was of Tipu sultan's rocket attack on the British.

In the l8th century in India. Haider Ali, prince of Mysore, developed war rockets with an important change: the use of metal cylinders to contain the combustion powder. Although the hammered soft iron he used was crude, the bursting strength of the container of black powder was much higher. The rocket body was lashed with leather thongs to a long bamboo stick. Range was perhaps up to three-quarters of a mile (more than a kilometer). Although individually these rockets were not accurate, dispersion error became less important when large numbers were fired rapidly in mass attacks. They were particularly effective against cavalry and were hurled into the air, after lighting, or skimmed along the hard dry ground. Haider A1i's son, Tipu Sultan, continued to develop and expand the use of rocket weapons, reportedly increasing the number of rocket troops from 1200 to a corps of 5000. In battles at Seringapatam in 1792 and 1799 these rockets were used with considerable effect against the British.

2.
The Buddhas of Bamyan were two monumental statues of standing Buddhas carved into the side of a cliff in the Bamyan valley of central Afghanistan. Built during the 6th century, the statues represented the classic blended style of Indo-Greek art.

3.
These are the only Space tourists so far(as on 2007 october)
names in order:

Anousheh Ansari (Iranian / American), 2006 (one of her better pictures !)

Charles Simonyi (Hungarian / American),2007

Gregory Olsen (American), 2005

Mark Shuttleworth (South African / British), 2002

Dennis Tito (American), 2001

Got pics of them in tux just to make it a bit tough.Still cudn't help giving away the shuttle and space station graphics in the back ground of a few .

4.
The connection is 'Kubla Khan'

Samuel Taylor Coleridge ( 1772 – 1834) . English poet, critic, and philosopher who was, along with his friend William Wordsworth, one of the founders of the Romantic Movement in England ,wrote the epic poem oriental Kubla Khan.

The inspiration for this poem comes from Marco Polo's description (from his book Il Milione) of Shangdu and Kublai Khan ,the Mongol and Chinese emperor Kublai Khan of the Yuan dynasty,who is the handsome fella in the final pic.

Legend has it that Coleridge wrote it after an Opium dream ,and while he was at it a certain 'person from Porlock' showed up at the doorstep and engaged him in some business.As a result Coleridge lost the thread and Kubla Khan, only 54 lines long, was never completed.The picture is ofcourse of present day Porlock village.Thus "Person from Porlock", "Man from Porlock", or just "Porlock" has become a literary allusion to unwanted intruders.

William Dalrymple authored the travelogue 'In Xanadu ', which is the tale of the journey of the Polos all the way from Jerusalem to China.During its creation he actually treaded the same path taken by the Polos which renders the book a unique charm.

5.
Yanni's Santorini.Beautiful composition.

6.
Jeff Bezos of amazon fame (hence the head in a bookshelf)

7.
Stuart Broad

Dan Van Bung

Malcolm Nash

All 3 suffered the wrath of batsmen when they were hit for 6 sixes in a single over(by Yuvraj , Gibbs ,Sobers respectively).In addition to this Tilak Raj has also achieved the feat when Ravi Shastri cleared him 6 times in an over.But i couldn't find a picture of him.May be u could help me get a pic of his.I got photographs of them in minimal sporting outfit ,and black n Whitened and photoshoped the 1st two so as to give an 'old pic' look like that of nash's.

8.
Channel 4

9.
Game Cube

10.
Steve Jobs (in 2005) announcing that Apple would be transitioning from its long favored PowerPC architecture to the Intel x86 architecture, because the future PowerPC road map was unable to satisfy Apple's needs. The lowered "e" is a humorous reference to Intel's former logo.

clues
i) Intel HQ and Apple HQ in Santa Clara Valley
ii) The famous Apple '1984' ad .


I hope to keep up the standards in future posts.Do keep commenting.

Adios.

Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Visual Bytes # 1

Ok.this is a set of some interesting Audio visual questions i compiled.Try them out n send me your feed back.

1.

There is a lot of history in the painting shown below by an unknown artist.But i am afraid i'll give away too much if i go into it. I'll give one lead though . Dr.A.P.J Abdul Kalam was thrilled and inspired when he viewed this particular painting at the Woolridge Artillery Museum near London many years ago .Now, tell me what is being shown in the painting.


2.
In March 2001, a decree declared,"Based on the verdict of the clerics and the decision of the Supreme Court of the Islamic in should be destroyed because these statues have been used as idols and deities by the non-believers before. Only God, the Almighty, deserves to be worshiped, not anyone or anything else." Which ancient structure, whose destruction has been caught on film here, became an unfortunate victim to this crude proclamation?


3.
Identify the pretty lady and the very 'corporate' men and find the unique connection.










4.Connect the pictures belowa few have descriptions.


An 18th century Englishman




A quiet coastal village in Somerset, England.








A famous Scottish author.




Nah, just identify this guy.He's the leading part of the connection.

5.In case you are fortunate enough to have a broad band connection please attempt this question.The video is of Yanni's live perfomance at the Acropolis .The question here is to identify the particular piece shown here.







6.


Identify this famous Time Person of the Year and what is he famous for?








7.
Connect the three men shown below.Now, there is one more person who should be there in this list but then i couldnt find him anywhere on Google .An easy one this.




8.


Identify this Logo.The company in reference ,i believe ,had this as their chief logo during 1996-99.I must say this is one of their many logos.


9.
Since we're into Logos i guess i'll give one you more.This one i got for the prelims at TCS IT WIZ 2007 . However , its the sheer ingenuity of the logo design that caught my attention . Of course , this one is a sitter for any game freak.



10.
I'll close with one last visual event.Identify the fellow on stage and what is happening.


To work it out ill give two more clues.




clue i )










Two buildings in a Californian Valley.





clue ii )

A 1980s Ad

Thats all for now.Catch you next time.

ADIOS.