Physical Handicap Quotes

A negative outlook is more of a handicap than any physical injury.

If one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be *psychologically* disabled as well.

Is this muteness a real physical handicap? One of the many symptoms of being Dead?Or do we just have nothing left to say?

This way of settling differences is not just. This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love.

Nothing short of physical handicap has ever made anybody turn over a new leaf.

You must remain optimistic, for a negative outlook is more of a handicap than any physical injury.

The word “autistic” is accurate. But so are other words that we no longer use to describe people: spinster (unmarried woman), hobo (migrant worker), cripple (person with a physical handicap), and so on. The fact that a person is unmarried or has sustained a mobility-reducing injury or birth defect certainly figures into their life experiences, but it does not define their character—unless they or we let it.

Non-alcoholic ways in which parents may not 'be there' for the children can include: - violence and sexual abuse - workholism - gambling - transquilliser addiction- - womanizing - frequent journeys abroad - death - suicide - being unemployed or unemployable - frequent hospitalisation - mental or physical handicap - excessive religiosity - rigid rules and regulations - homes where children are never allowed to be themselves but must always be pleasing to adults

Seriousness of mind was a prerequisite for understanding Newtonian physics. I am not convinced it is not a handicap in understanding quantum theory.

For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more. Color, gender, class, religion, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, and pedigree are just a few ways in which one group is divided from another. For every person who stands superior, another must be inferior. But what does it say of us as a human race when we push others down for our own needs?

A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look at thousands of working people displaced from their jobs with reduced incomes as a result of automation while the profits of the employers remain intact, and say: “This is not just.” It will look across the oceans and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death. America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing to prevent us from paying adequate wages to schoolteachers, social workers and other servants of the public to insure that we have the best available personnel in these positions which are charged with the responsibility of guiding our future generations. There is nothing but a lack of social vision to prevent us from paying an adequate wage to every American citizen whether he be a hospital worker, laundry worker, maid or day laborer. There is nothing except shortsightedness to prevent us from guaranteeing an annual minimum—and livable—income for every American family. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from remolding a recalcitrant status quo with bruised hands until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

If you are disabled, it is probably not your fault, but it is no good blaming the world or expecting it to take pity on you. One has to have a positive attitude and must make the best of the situation that one finds oneself in; if one is physically disabled, one cannot afford to be psychologically disabled as well. In my opinion, one should concentrate on activities in which one's physical disability will not present a serious handicap. I am afraid that Olympic Games for the disabled do not appeal to me, but it is easy for me to say that because I never liked athletics anyway. On the other hand, science is a very good area for disabled people because it goes on mainly in the mind. Of course, most kinds of experimental work are probably ruled out for most such people, but theoretical work is almost ideal. My disabilities have not been a significant handicap in my field, which is theoretical physics. Indeed, they have helped me in a way by shielding me from lecturing and administrative work that I would otherwise have been involved in. I have managed, however, only because of the large amount of help I have received from my wife, children, colleagues and students. I find that people in general are very ready to help, but you should encourage them to feel that their efforts to aid you are worthwhile by doing as well as you possibly can.

So long as I confine my activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me extravagantly, calling me ‘arch priestess of the sightless,’ ‘wonder woman,’ and a ‘modern miracle.’ But when it comes to a discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of wrong economics—that the industrial system under which we live is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in the world—that is a different matter! It is laudable to give aid to the handicapped. Superficial charities make smooth the way of the prosperous; but to advocate that all human beings should have leisure and comfort, the decencies and refinements of life, is a Utopian dream, and one who seriously contemplates its realization indeed must be deaf, dumb, and blind.

Man is preoccupied with freedom yet laden with handicaps. The breadth of his activity and experience is narrowed by the limitations of his relatively weak, sluggish body. The racehorse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself.

People will often tell me that they have a terrible memory. Hearing that kind of attitude, I believe them. Older adults shown a list of negative words about aging, such as: decrepit, senile, handicapped, feeble. perform worse on memory and physical tests than do same-age subjects shown a list of positive words about aging, such as: wise, elder, vibrant, experienced. Like people, your memory will function better if it has high self-esteem. Speak nicely to and of your memory, and it will remember more and forget less.

We are not always aware of the help we may give by accepting aid, that in this way we may establish a foothold for contact.

for a negative outlook is more of a handicap than any physical injury.

Eragon, you are only a cripple if you consider yourself one. I understand how you feel, but you must remain optimistic, for a negative outlook is more of a handicap than any physical injury.

good hunters, and apparently took care of their sick and infirm. (Archaeologists have discovered the bones of Neanderthals who lived for many years with severe physical handicaps, evidence that they were cared for by their relatives.)

But for all its miseries, there was an unmistakable allure to the jockey's craft... Man is preoccupied with freedom yet laden with handicaps. The breadth of his activity and experience is narrowed by the limitations of his relative weak, sluggish body. The racehorse, by virtue of his awesome physical gifts, freed the jockey from himself. When a horse and a jockey flew over the tack together, there were moments in which the man's mind wedded itself to the animal's body to form something greater than the sum of both parts. The horse partook of the jockey's cunning; the jockey partook of the horse's supreme power. For the jockey, the saddle was a place of unparalled exhilaration, of transcendence.

History shows us we need labels to help define our place. For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more. Color, gender, class, religion, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, and pedigree are

Similar reasoning has promoted educational policies which seek to create more equal outcomes for "special education" students with mental, physical, or psychological handicaps—again with little or no regard for the financial costs of this to the taxpayers or the educational costs to other children in whose classrooms they are to be "mainstreamed," often with little regard to the disruptive effects of their special needs. These financial costs can be several times what it costs to educate the average student, while the educational results for a severely retarded student may be imperceptible. The educational cost can also include a substantial part of a teacher's time being devoted to one or a few students, to the neglect of the majority.

You are only a cripple if you consider yourself one. You must remain optimistic for a negative outlook is more of a handicap than any physical injury.

everyone shares the handicap of mortality. Our individual physical, emotional, and spiritual failures are but symptoms of this disease.

We hear things like “we elected a black president,” as if that event was the magic eraser to wipe away all of the racial problems in our country in one fell swoop. But that would be like saying that in 1932, we elected a president with a physical disability, so we should stop building ramps and having reserved handicap spaces because that’s reverse discrimination against the able-bodied

Since we choose our bodies and the lessons that come with living that life, those with crippling imperfections--a physical handicap, maybe, or a psychiatric struggle related to depression or OCD--have done so to grow their souls in some way. I wish my body were a lot of things it’s not--relaxed instead of anxious, five foot seven and a hundred twenty pounds instead of five foot one and…never mind.

I believe that the four elements and the psychological handicaps that they create are the real secret behind the "four princes " described in The Abramelin. Each of the fo ur ancient elements has a positive psycho­ logical potential as well . The earth element can allow mechan­ical dexterity, and the enjoyment of physical affection. Water can provide intuition. Air can provide logic and problem­ solving skill s. Fire can produce the ability to make decisions,and carry through with them. Even if you already experience these things in some degree or another, they are somewhat repressed by self- doubt and anxiety. Once you have attained the Knowledge and Conversation of your Holy Guardian Angel, you will have the ability to be the master of all of these elements, and that will be the beginning of true magi­ cal ability.

History shows us we need labels to help define our place. For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more. Color, gender, class, religion, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, and pedigree are just a few ways in which one group is divided from another. For every person who stands superior, another must be inferior. But what does it say of us as a human race when we push others down for our own needs?

when Sapiens reached the Middle East and Europe, they encountered the Neanderthals. These humans were more muscular than Sapiens, had larger brains, and were better adapted to cold climes. They used tools and fire, were good hunters, and apparently took care of their sick and infirm. (Archaeologists have discovered the bones of Neanderthals who lived for many years with severe physical handicaps, evidence that they were cared for by their relatives.)

In the car inching its way down Fifth Avenue, toward Bergdorf Goodman and this glamorous party, I looked back on my past with a new understanding. This sickness, the “endo-whatever,” had stained so much—my sense of self, my womanhood, my marriage, my ability to be present. I had effectively missed one week of each month every year of my life since I was thirteen, because of the chronic pain and hormonal fluctuations I suffered during my period. I had lain in bed, with heating pads and hot-water bottles, using acupuncture, drinking teas, taking various pain medications and suffering the collateral effects of them. I thought of all the many tests I missed in various classes throughout my education, the school dances, the jobs I knew I couldn’t take as a model, because of the bleeding and bloating as well as the pain (especially the bathing suit and lingerie shoots, which paid the most). How many family occasions was I absent from? How many second or third dates did I not go on? How many times had I not been able to be there for others or for myself? How many of my reactions to stress or emotional strife had been colored through the lens of chronic pain? My sense of self was defined by this handicap. The impediment of expected pain would shackle my days and any plans I made. I did not see my own womanhood as something positive or to be celebrated, but as a curse that I had to constantly make room for and muddle through. Like the scar on my arm, my reproductive system was a liability. The disease, developing part and parcel with my womanhood starting at puberty with my menses, affected my own self-esteem and the way I felt about my body. No one likes to get her period, but when your femininity carries with it such pain and consistent physical and emotional strife, it’s hard not to feel that your body is betraying you. The very relationship you have with yourself and your person is tainted by these ever-present problems. I now finally knew my struggles were due to this condition. I wasn’t high-strung or fickle and I wasn’t overreacting.

Hitler’s cabinet enacted a new law, to take effect January 1, 1934, called the Law for the Prevention of Offspring with Hereditary Diseases, which authorized the sterilization of individuals suffering various physical and mental handicaps.

History shows us we need labels to help define our place. For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more. Color, gender, class, religion, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, and pedigree are just a few ways in which one group is divided from another. For every person who stands superior, another must be inferior. But what does it say of us as a human race when we push others down for our own needs? Does it accomplish the intended goal or simply give

Periods of relaxed social-sexual mores and less structured romantic relationships (such as in the late 1960s and 1970s) are more difficult for borderlines to handle; increased freedom and lack of structure paradoxically imprison the borderline, who is severely handicapped in devising his own individual system of values. Conversely, the sexual withdrawal period of the late 1980s (due in part to the AIDS epidemic) can be ironically therapeutic for borderline personalities. Social fears enforce strict boundaries that can be crossed only at the risk of great physical harm; impulsivity and promiscuity now have severe penalties in the form of STDs, violent sexual deviants, and so on. This external structure can help protect the borderline from his own self-destructiveness.

History shows us we need labels to help define our place. For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more. Color, gender, class, religion, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, and pedigree are just a few ways in which one group is divided from another. For every person who stands superior, another must be inferior. But what does it say of us as a human race when we push others down for our own needs? Does it accomplish the intended goal or simply give rise to a pattern of behavior that can never be broken?

Trump's insults made him the only non-sexist, non-racist, non-discriminator in the country. He'd attack a woman for her looks exactly as he would a man. He ridiculed his rivals and members of the press absolutely without regard to race, ethnicity, or physical handicap. It was as it Trump had attained some sort of Platonic ideal of non-discrimination. One got the sense that he would appoint a lesbian Hindu to be Secretary of the Army if she was the best person for the job, But he also wouldn't care if he ended up with a cabinet of all white men if they were the best people for the job.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand we are called to play the good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: “This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: “This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

I wish I knew what it is you do to me.” She sensed that it troubled him that she could break through that facade of his. She was beginning to understand this man. She was physically handicapped, but Nash was crippled, too. He didn’t want love, but he couldn’t keep himself from needing it, from caring about her, and that worried him. It worried her, too.

But she did inject a new term and new degree of frankness into the debate on what was coming to be called the sexual revolution. Also, by this time she saw birth control as the panacea for all social ills: disease, poverty, child labor, poor wages, infant mortality, the oppression of women, drunkenness, prostitution, abortion, feeblemindedness, physical handicaps, unwanted children, war, etc. “If we are to develop in America a new [human] race with a racial soul, we must keep the birth rate within the scope of our ability to understand as well as to educate. We must not encourage reproduction beyond our capacity to assimilate our numbers so as to make the coming generation into such physically fit, mentally capable, socially alert individuals as are the ideal of a democracy” (Sanger, 1920).

Suffering can be triggered by numerous causes over which we sometimes have some power, and sometimes none. Being born with a handicap, falling ill, losing a loved one, or being caught up in war or in a natural disaster are all beyond our control. Unhappiness is altogether different, being the way in which we experience our suffering. Unhappiness may indeed be associated with physical or moral pain inflicted by exterior conditions, but it is not essentially linked to it.

History shows us we need labels to help define our place. For hundreds of years, people have categorized others as less so they could feel like more. Color, gender, class, religion, physical handicaps, sexual orientation, and pedigree are just a few ways in which one group is divided from another. For every person who stands superior, another must be inferior. But what does it say of us as a human race when we push others down for our own needs? Does it accomplish the intended goal or simply give rise to a pattern of behavior that can never be broken? What if we all stood equal in one another’s eyes and felt pride at our reflection? I speak of utopia and chance being ridiculed, but sitting in a village thousands of miles from everything, I will roll the dice. For one day only, maybe we could put aside our differences and come together in our sameness. For one day, we could see that past all the variations, we are all the same with similar hopes, dreams, fears, strengths, and weaknesses. For one day, we could stand together, not apart, and treat others as we would hope to be treated.

If you cannot drop a wrong problem, then the first time you meet one you will be stuck with it for the rest of your career. Einstein was tremendously creative in his early years, but once he began, in midlife, the search for a unified theory, he spent the rest of his life on it and had about nothing to show for all the effort. I have seen this many times while watching how science is done. It is most likely to happen to the very creative people; their previous successes convince them they can solve any problem, but there are other reasons besides overconfidence why, in many fields, sterility sets in with advancing age. Managing a creative career is not an easy task, or else it would often be done. In mathematics, theoretical physics, and astrophysics, age seems to be a handicap (all characterized by high, raw creativity), while in music composition, literature, and statesmanship, age and experience seem to be an asset. As valued by Bell Telephone Laboratories in the late 1970s, the first 15 years of my career included all they listed, and for my second 15 years they listed nothing I was very closely associated with! Yes, in my areas the really great things are generally done while the person is young, much as in athletics, and in old age you can turn to coaching (teaching), as I have done. Of course, I do not know your field of expertise to say what effect age will have, but I suspect really great things will be realized fairly young, though it may take years to get them into practice. My advice is if you want to do significant things, now is the time to start thinking (if you have not already done so) and not wait until it is the proper moment—which may never arrive!

Yesterday while I was on the side of the mat next to some wrestlers who were warming up for their next match, I found myself standing side by side next to an extraordinary wrestler. He was warming up and he had that look of desperation on his face that wrestlers get when their match is about to start and their coach is across the gym coaching on another mat in a match that is already in progress. “Hey do you have a coach.” I asked him. “He's not here right now.” He quietly answered me ready to take on the task of wrestling his opponent alone. “Would you mind if I coached you?” His face tilted up at me with a slight smile and said. “That would be great.” Through the sounds of whistles and yelling fans I heard him ask me what my name was. “My name is John.” I replied. “Hi John, I am Nishan” he said while extending his hand for a handshake. He paused for a second and then he said to me: “John I am going to lose this match”. He said that as if he was preparing me so I wouldn’t get hurt when my coaching skills didn’t work magic with him today. I just said, “Nishan - No score of a match will ever make you a winner. You are already a winner by stepping onto that mat.” With that he just smiled and slowly ran on to the mat, ready for battle, but half knowing what the probable outcome would be. When you first see Nishan you will notice that his legs are frail - very frail. So frail that they have to be supported by custom made, form fitted braces to help support and straighten his limbs. Braces that I recognize all to well. Some would say Nishan has a handicap. I say that he has a gift. To me the word handicap is a word that describes what one “can’t do”. That doesn’t describe Nishan. Nishan is doing. The word “gift” is a word that describes something of value that you give to others. And without knowing it, Nishan is giving us all a gift. I believe Nishan’s gift is inspiration. The ability to look the odds in the eye and say “You don’t pertain to me.” The ability to keep moving forward. Perseverance. A “Whatever it takes” attitude. As he predicted, the outcome of his match wasn’t great. That is, if the only thing you judge a wrestling match by is the actual score. Nishan tried as hard as he could, but he couldn’t overcome the twenty-six pound weight difference that he was giving up to his opponent on this day in order to compete. You see, Nishan weighs only 80 pounds and the lowest weight class in this tournament was 106. Nishan knew he was spotting his opponent 26 pounds going into every match on this day. He wrestled anyway. I never did get the chance to ask him why he wrestles, but if I had to guess I would say, after watching him all day long, that Nishan wrestles for the same reasons that we all wrestle for. We wrestle to feel alive, to push ourselves to our mental, physical and emotional limits - levels we never knew we could reach. We wrestle to learn to use 100% of what we have today in hopes that our maximum today will be our minimum tomorrow. We wrestle to measure where we started from, to know where we are now, and to plan on getting where we want to be in the future. We wrestle to look the seemingly insurmountable opponent right in the eye and say, “Bring it on. - I can take whatever you can dish out.” Sometimes life is your opponent and just showing up is a victory. You don't need to score more points than your opponent in order to accomplish that. No Nishan didn’t score more points than any of his opponents on this day, that would have been nice, but I don’t believe that was the most important thing to Nishan. Without knowing for sure - the most important thing to him on this day was to walk with pride like a wrestler up to a thirty two foot circle, have all eyes from the crowd on him, to watch him compete one on one against his opponent - giving it all that he had. That is what competition is all about. Most of the times in wrestlin

Because Assagioli understood the importance of being grounded in the world, he would treat the ‘whole’ person, initially using his training in psychoanalysis to locate hidden blocks in the personality. As we shall see in the chapter on Subpersonalities many of the blockages are developed in early childhood. This is not necessarily because parents are inherently bad but because they were emotionally handicapped in some way, performing their actions unconsciously as, perhaps, their own parents had done. Rather than blaming our ancestral lineage for being emotionally unaware, we need to remind ourselves that before the early 19th century there was very little opportunity to concentrate on psychological issues as the often physically onerous way of life did not leave room for this. The physical work of earning a living, putting bread on the table and caring for big families where there was little money available, took its toll on the body. Initially, it was only the wealthy and upper classes who had the money and time to explore the deeper issues of the unconscious.

those who advocate politically correct speech think the proper way to deal with some insults is to punish the insulter. What most concerns them are insults directed at the “disadvantaged,” including members of minority groups and people with physical, mental, social, or economic handicaps. Disadvantaged individuals, they argue, are psychologically vulnerable, and if we let people insult them, they will suffer grievous psychological harm. Advocates of politically correct speech therefore petition the authorities—government officials, employers, and school administrators—to punish anyone who insults a disadvantaged individual. Epictetus would reject this manner of dealing with insults as being woefully counterproductive. He would point out, to begin with, that the political correctness movement has some untoward side effects. One is that the process of protecting disadvantaged individuals from insults will tend to make them hypersensitive to insults: They will, as a result, feel the sting not only of direct insults but of implied insults as well. Another is that disadvantaged individuals will come to believe that they are powerless to deal with insults on their own—that unless the authorities intercede on their behalf, they are defenseless.

One of the greatest difficulties we human beings seem to have is to relinquish long-held ideas. Many of us are addicted to being right, even if facts do not support us. One fixed image we cling to, as iconic in today’s culture as the devil was in previous ages, is that of the addict as an unsavoury and shadowy character, given to criminal activity. What we don’t see is how we’ve contributed to making him a criminal. There is nothing more intrinsically criminal in the average drug user than in the average cigarette smoker or alcohol addict. The drugs they inject or inhale do not themselves induce criminal activity by their pharmacological effect, except perhaps in the way that alcohol can also fuel a person’s pent-up aggression and remove the mental inhibitions that thwart violence. Stimulant drugs may have that effect on some users, but narcotics like heroin do not; on the contrary, they tend to calm people down. It is withdrawal from opiates that makes people physically ill, irritable and more likely to act violently — mostly out of desperation to replenish their supply. The criminality associated with addiction follows directly from the need to raise money to purchase drugs at prices that are artificially inflated owing to their illegality. The addict shoplifts, steals and robs because it’s the only way she can obtain the funds to pay the dealer. History has demonstrated many times over that people will transgress laws and resist coercion when it comes to struggling for their basic needs — or what they perceive as such. Sam Sullivan, Vancouver’s quadriplegic mayor, told a conference on drug addiction once that if wheelchairs were illegal, he would do anything to get one, no matter what laws he had to break. It was an apt comparison: the hardcore addict feels equally handicapped without his substances. As we have seen, many addicts who deal in drugs do so exclusively to finance their habit. There is no profit in it for them.

I don’t know why we don’t speak. I can’t explain the suffocating silence that hangs over our world, cutting us off from each other like prison-visit Plexiglas. Prepositions are painful, articles are arduous, adjectives are wild overachievements. Is this muteness a real physical handicap? One of the many symptoms of being Dead? Or do we just have nothing left to say?

It was time to tell them the story of Jesus Christ. It was time to save their souls. Powerful sermons meant to convert nonbelievers have a certain structure. You’re supposed to talk about your own weaknesses, about how Christianity saved you, about how you once were blind but now you could see. Everett told them a story about his stepmother’s suicide. This was supposed to trigger a powerful emotional response. But after telling this story, he was greeted by laughter. He was hurt and confused. “What’s so funny? Why are you laughing?” he asked. “You people kill yourselves?” the Piraha replied. “We don’t do that. What is this?” It was not that they were mean-spirited or had a cruel sense of humor; it was the very notion of suicide that struck them as unbelievably bizarre and outrageous. And then it dawned on Everett! He had come here to save the Piraha, but they weren’t the ones who needed saving. He writes: I realized they don’t have a word for worry, they don’t have any concept of depression, they don’t have any schizophrenia or a lot of the mental health problems, and they treat people very well. If someone does have any sort of handicap, and the only ones I’m aware of are physical, they take very good care of them. When people get old, they feed them. Still, Everett was determined that his training should not go to waste. He was a true believer; he thought he was doing good by telling them how Jesus would want them to live. So while living with the Piraha, every once in a while, he would pepper them with inspiring anecdotes about Jesus, explaining Christian theology and morality, hoping that the Piraha would change their ways. One morning, he was sitting around drinking coffee when one of the Piraha said: “Dan, I want to talk with you. We like you, we know you live with us because the land is beautiful, and we have plenty of fish, and you don’t have that in the United States...but you know we have had people come and tell us about Jesus before. Somebody else told us about Jesus, and then the other guy came and told us about Jesus, and now you’re telling us about Jesus, and we really like you but, see, we’re not Americans, and we don’t want to know about Jesus. We like to drink, and we like to have a good time, and we like, you know...to have sex with many people, both women and men. So don’t tell us anymore about Jesus or God. We are tired of it.” And then they ate him. Just kidding.

Never had I seen a human being better adjusted to such a humiliating physical handicap. I shuddered with admiration.

Taking inventory of mental assets and liabilities, you will discover that your greatest weakness is lack of self-confidence. This handicap can be surmounted, and timidity translated into courage, through the aid of the principle of autosuggestion. The application of this principle may be made through a simple arrangement of positive thought impulses stated in writing, memorized, and repeated, until they become a part of the working equipment of the subconscious faculty of your mind. SELF-CONFIDENCE FORMULA First. I know that I have the ability to achieve the object of my Definite Purpose in life, therefore, I DEMAND of myself persistent, continuous action toward its attainment, and I here and now promise to render such action. Second. I realize the dominating thoughts of my mind will eventually reproduce themselves in outward, physical action, and gradually transform themselves into physical reality, therefore, I will concentrate my thoughts for thirty minutes daily, upon the task of thinking of the person I intend to become, thereby creating in my mind a clear mental picture of that person. Third. I know through the principle of auto-suggestion, any desire that I persistently hold in my mind will eventually seek expression through some practical means of attaining the object back of it, therefore, I will devote ten minutes daily to demanding of myself the development of SELF-CONFIDENCE. Fourth. I have clearly written down a description of my DEFINITE CHIEF AIM in life, and I will never stop trying, until I shall have developed sufficient self-confidence for its attainment. Fifth. I fully realize that no wealth or position can long endure, unless built upon truth and justice, therefore, I will engage in no transaction which does not benefit all whom it affects. I will succeed by attracting to myself the forces I wish to use, and the cooperation of other people. I will induce others to serve me, because of my willingness to serve others. I will eliminate hatred, envy, jealousy, selfishness, and cynicism, by developing love for all humanity, because I know that a negative attitude toward others can never bring me success. I will cause others to believe in me, because I will believe in them, and in myself.

My analysis work proved that there are thirty major reasons for failure, and thirteen major principles through which people accumulate fortunes. In this chapter, a description of the thirty major causes of failure will be given. As you go over the list, check yourself by it, point by point, for the purpose of discovering how many of these causes-of-failure stand between you and success. 1. UNFAVORABLE HEREDITARY BACKGROUND. There is but little, if anything, which can be done for people who are born with a deficiency in brain power. This philosophy offers but one method of bridging this weakness-through the aid of the Master Mind. Observe with profit, however, that this is the ONLY one of the thirty causes of failure which may not be easily corrected by any individual. 2. LACK OF A WELL-DEFINED PURPOSE IN LIFE. There is no hope of success for the person who does not have a central purpose, or definite goal at which to aim. Ninety-eight out of every hundred of those whom I have analyzed, had no such aim. Perhaps this was the 3. LACK OF AMBITION TO AIM ABOVE MEDIOCRITY. We offer no hope for the person who is so indifferent as not to want to get ahead in life, and who is not willing to pay the price. 4. INSUFFICIENT EDUCATION. This is a handicap which maybe overcome with comparative ease. Experience has proven that the best-educated people are often those who are known as "self-made," or self-educated. It takes more than a college degree to make one a person of education. Any person who is educated is one who has learned to get whatever he wants in life without violating the rights of others. Education consists, not so much of knowledge, but of knowledge effectively and persistently APPLIED. Men are paid, not merely for what they know, but more particularly for WHAT THEY DO WITH THAT WHICH THEY KNOW. 5.LACK OF SELF-DISCIPLINE. Discipline comes through self-control. This means that one must control all negative qualities. Before you can control conditions, you must first control yourself. Self-mastery is the hardest job you will ever tackle. If you do not conquer self, you will be conquered by self. You may see at one and the same time both your best friend and your greatest enemy, by stepping in front of a mirror. 6. ILL HEALTH. No person may enjoy outstanding success without good health. Many of the causes of ill health are subject to mastery and control. These, in the main are: a. Overeating of foods not conducive to health b. Wrong habits of thought; giving expression to negatives. c. Wrong use of, and over indulgence in sex. d. Lack of proper physical exercise e. An inadequate supply of fresh air, due to improper breathing.

A true revolution of values will lay hand on the world order and say of war, “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

The author has greatly enjoyed being able to discuss this subject with a few mathematicians and physicists. The greatest handicap to cooperation is certainly the difference in terms between the individual, specialized fields of knowledge. We hope that this chasm will be bridged in time and that through cybernetics, a true bridge between physics and the automaton theory can be built.

Disparity of force can take many forms. Force of numbers is one of the most common. A significant disparity of size and strength is another. Male attacking female, adult violently attacking child, and able-bodied attacking the handicapped also constitute disparity of force. So does highly skilled hand-to-hand fighter attacking the less-skilled. So does position of disadvantage, in which the law-breaking attacker has a huge tactical and/or physical advantage other than disparity of size, strength, or skill as the assault unfolds. Because

Though the United Kingdom limits elective abortions later in pregnancy, a woman may obtain an abortion at any point until birth if her child is diagnosed with “such physical or mental abnormalities as to be seriously handicapped,” a category that includes nonfatal disabilities such as Down syndrome, clubfoot, or cleft palate.

Children were forced to translate English to their parents. Their parents had no one to help them understand English. Bosnian children also drove parents to places like work, stores, doctor’s appointments, etc. because of their physical handicaps. Due to a lack of understanding English, their parents could not get a driver’s license. Imagine barely escaping a genocide, going to a foreign country, leaving everything you own behind, having memories of war and murdered family members, your identity practically destroyed, and then having to figure out where grocery stores, department stores, and malls are in an alien culture. Essentially, they did not have resources and access to information that was trivially available to other people around them.

Just remember this: no one can keep you from the second half of your own life except yourself. Nothing can inhibit your second journey except your own lack of courage, patience, and imagination. Your second journey is all yours to walk or to avoid. My conviction is that some falling apart of the first journey is necessary for this to happen, so do not waste a moment of time lamenting poor parenting, lost job, failed relationship, physical handicap, gender identity, economic poverty, or even the tragedy of any kind of abuse. Pain is part of the deal. If you don't walk into the second half of your own life, it is you who do not want it. God will always give you exactly what you truly want and desire. So make sure you desire, desire deeply, desire yourself, desire God, desire everything good, true, and beautiful. All the emptying out is only for the sake of a Great Outpouring.

A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. On the one hand, we are called to play the Good Samaritan on life’s roadside; but that will be only an initial act. One day we must come to see that the whole Jericho road must be transformed so that men and women will not be constantly beaten and robbed as they make their journey on life’s highway. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look uneasily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth . . . and say: “This is not just.” . . . A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of people normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of spiritual uplift is approaching spiritual death.

MT: These texts are at one and the same time very beautiful and obscure; they need to be explicated, clarified. “What is hidden will be revealed.” Why must Revelation be hidden? RG: It's not that it must be hidden, actually it's not hidden at all. It's mankind that is blind. We're inside the closure of representation, everyone is in the fishbowl of his or her culture. In other words, mankind doesn't see what I was saying earlier, the principle of illusion that governs our viewpoint. Even after the Revelation, we still don't understand. MT: Does that mean that things are going to emerge gradually, but that at first they're incomprehensible? RG: They seem incomprehensible because mankind lives under the sign of Satan, lives a lie and lives in fear of the lie, in fear of liars. The reversal performed by the Passion has yet to occur. MT: Insofar as the Church itself has been mistaken for two thousand years and has been practicing a sacrificial reading of the Passion of the Christ, that reading is a way of hiding Revelation. RG: I'm not saying that the Church is mistaken. The reading that I'm proposing is in line with all the great dogmas, but it endows them with an anthropological underpinning that had gone unnoticed. MT: Why not just clean up our bad habits by sweeping them away once and for all in the year zero, making way for an era of love and infinite peace? RG: Because the world wouldn't have been able to take it! Since the sacrificial principle is the fundamental principle of the human order—up to a certain point human beings need to pour out their violence and tensions onto scapegoats—destroying it all at once is impossible. That's why Christianity is made in such a way as to allow for transitions. This is no doubt one of the reasons why it is at once so far from and so close to myth, and always susceptible to being interpreted a bit mythically. When Nietzsche says that Christianity is impossible, that it can only lead to absurdities, to outrageous, insane things, it can be said that he's superficially right, even if ultimately he's wrong. You can't get rid of the sacrificial principle by just flicking it away as if it were a piece of dust. History isn't finished. Every day very interesting things, changes in outlook, are happening right before our eyes. In the United States and everywhere, a lot of current cultural phenomena can be unified by describing them as the discovery of new victims, or rather as their concrete rehabilitation, for in truth we've known about them for a long time: women, children, the elderly, the insane, the physically and mentally handicapped, and so forth. For example, the question of abortion, which has great importance in American debates, is no longer formulated except in the following terms: “Who is the real victim? Is it the child or is it the mother?” You can no longer defend a given position, or indeed any of them, except by making it into a contribution to the anti-victimary crusade. MT

To peruse Larry Flynt's flagship is to encounter laughable facets of necrophilia, dildo-strapped nuns, ambulatory turds, walking anuses, the perceived discrepancy in penis size between black and white males, vaginas large enough to envelop an entire man, physical intimacies with anthropomorphic pets, lesbian love rituals, the ills and quirks of male homosexuality, the corrosive effect of vaginal discharge upon automobile upholstery, the danger that freshly licked African-american lips will accidentally adhere to some glasslike surface, bar sluts, gang-bangs, wastebasket fetuses, flatulence anal and vaginal, the handicapped, Ku Klux Klansmen, lynching, anal sex, prison romance, naked females whose faces are covered by paper bags, sex crimes of the rich and famous, sex in full-body traction, retards as playthings, practical jokes committed by Saint Peter, suicide, consanguinity, animal husbandry in the connubial sense, erectile dysfunction, voyeurs, panty-sniffewrs, menstruation, STDs and philosopher houseflies delivering piquant sophistries while nibbling on corn-studded nuggets of shit.

Prize fighting glorifies violence, exploits the poor, exalts force over reason, glamorizes atavism. It is these very horrors, however, so reprehensible by themselves, which highlight all that is noble in the ring. Courage, the quest for excellence, the overcoming of fear, dreams of transcending one’s social and physical handicaps, boxers’ poetic harmony of mind and body, their competitive strivings past all reasonable human limits - the ring’s dark barbarism makes such qualities glow like fireflies on a Southern night.

Some people are born more beautiful or more coordinated or smarter than others. Should government operate on beautiful people to make them more ugly, or physically handicap people who are extra coordinated?” West looked horrified. “Yes, the idea rightly fills us with revulsion, yet you’re saying that you think it was okay for your government to make productive people poorer to try to ‘even out’ wealth.

Relying on the breadwinner ideal of manhood, those in favor of pension reform began to define disability not by a man’s missing limbs or by any other physical incapacity (as the Civil War pension system had done), but rather by his will (or lack thereof) to work. Seen this way, economic dependency—often linked overtly and metaphorically to womanliness—came to be understood as the real handicap that thwarted the full physical recovery of the veteran and the fiscal strength of the nation.

Due to falling birth rates and a desire to promote Nazi eugenics, it became evident that Germany had to implement programs to increase the population of pure Aryan children. In 1936, Heinrich Himmler built homes where women of acceptable bloodlines were to be bred with SS officers. These homes were called Homes for the Lebensborn. Women who became pregnant out of wedlock could go to one of these establishments and receive the finest of food and care during their pregnancies, with no stigma attached. In fact, they were honored because they were bearing a child for Hitler, for the Fatherland. There was only one stipulation. Once the child was born, if the father was unwilling to raise it, it must be given over to the Home for the Lebensborn. When a woman entered the home, she signed papers to this effect, and the policy forbade mothers from taking their children without marriage to an SS officer. These breeding farms were created in the hopes of repopulating the world with a perfect Aryan race once the Nazis had cleared out all of the undesirables, such as: Jews, Gypsies, Jehovah’s Witnesses, homosexuals, the physically or mentally handicapped, and anyone else Hitler saw fit to destroy.

The only difference between you and me is that you can see my handicap, but I can't see yours. We all have them. When people ask me how I've been able to overcome my physical handicaps, I tell them that I haven't overcome anything. I've simply learned what I can't do—such as play the piano or eat with chopsticks—but more importantly, I've learned what I can do. Then I do what I can with all my heart and soul.

Thus, those who now sharply criticize the public schools speak fondly of an era when most schools were racially segregated; when public schools were not required to accept children with physical, mental, and emotional handicaps; when there were relatively few students who did not speak or read English; and when few graduated from high school and went to college.

What is real help to mankind? There are three types of negative people in this world, and they make up the vast majority of humans. Those that are selfish. People that live their lives without considering the needs of others, and live solely for their own personal gains. Those that are destructive. People that live their lives and consciously bring pain upon the lives of others, and or destroy the environment for their benefit. Those that are beggars. People that live their lives and expect to be given things without giving anything in return, and who do not appreciate what they are given. They see what they are being given as a just a salary. These people are worthless human beings. They do not contribute to the betterment of mankind. There is absolutely no point to their existence. If you help these people by giving them food, shelter, clothing, etc., you are only increasing the standard of living in which they negatively affect the world from. If you help these people by providing them with health care, you are only prolonging their existence and prolonging the suffering and destruction in which they inflict upon humanity. These people do not deserve either type of help. However, you can give them one type of help that is beneficial, and can be considered a true way of helping mankind. You can provide them with the knowledge to properly and virtuously live their lives in a positive way. Then and only then can you help them with their standard of living or the prolongation of their life. Otherwise you are simply aiding in the destruction of mankind yourself. I will give you a two personal and practical examples from my own life. When I hire someone I will gladly pay them an excessive salary if they are a good hearted person and truly deserve it. I could find someone else to do the job, to the exact same standards as them for less money. Even if they do a worse job than another person because they are physically handicapped, have poor health, or have family responsibilities, I will still gladly pay them an excessive salary. This is not at all because of my kindness. It is because a good-hearted person truly deserves it, they have the value of what they are being given. Furthermore, if an upper-class citizen approaches me to buy some of my products, and I do not need the money. I will not sell it to them. If I sell them my products I am only enabling their negative and destructive lifestyle. I would rather not make money, than have my products contribute, and help people further their path of negativity.

No matter how shut in we are by weather, by physical handicaps or by such mental conditions as we manufacture for ourselves, we are still free people as long as the mind functions, the imagination is stirred and the desire to reach out, to experience, feel and know, is with us; as long as the heart beats and with it the pulses of love, interest, and empathy for and with other people.

Screen foster families carefully, monitor them closely and train them well. Too many vulnerable foster children suffer physical, emotional and sexual abuse, neglect and even death at the hands of those charged with protecting us. Maltreatment by caregivers damages our emotional stability, creating trust issues and other psychological problems that fester deep inside, negatively affecting our behaviors and outlook on life, often . . . too often . . . translating into adjustment problems that handicap our potential to adapt and succeed in childhood and beyond. Monitor our progress carefully, being sensitive to sudden or dramatic changes that may symbolize our unsophisticated “cry for help.” Advocate on our behalf and safeguard us as you would your own children and we will flourish. Fail to do so, and as surely as day becomes night, we will suffer the consequences both during and after we leave the system.

Mimetic theory explains the presence of disabilities and infirmities in a great many mythical stories. When there is no ground for making a victim of someone—because he isn't guilty of anything—people act as children do and make a scapegoat of someone who is physically unattractive, or who is an outsider. The number of outsiders in myths is quite extraordinary. And why are so many victims lame? My work is scientific because it tries to solve the puzzle constituted by these clues, to explain why outsiders, many of them handicapped, are made into victims and forcibly expelled from a community. The burden falls on anyone who doubts my theory to supply a better explanation, or else to adopt mine for want of a more satisfactory one.

Layoffs were upon us. They had been rumored for months, but now it was official. If you were lucky, you could sue. If you were black, aged, female, Catholic, Jewish, gay, obese, or physically handicapped, at least you had grounds.

The second essay was in response to a letter from a student on how to overcome caste and communal distinctions. ‘I do not believe in caste in the modern sense,’ remarked Gandhi. ‘It is an excrescence and a handicap on progress. Nor do I believe in inequalities between human beings... Assumption of superiority by any person over any other is a sin against God and man. Thus caste, in so far it connotes distinctions in status, is an evil.’ That said, Gandhi continued to believe in varna in sofar as it defined and marked ‘four universal occupations—imparting knowledge, defending the defenceless, carrying on agriculture and commerce and performing service through physical labour. These occupations are common to all mankind, but Hinduism, having recognized them as the law of our being, has made use of it inregulating social relations and conduct.’ This system, believed Gandhi, had been corrupted over the years, resulting in ‘unnecessary and harmful restrictions’ on inter-dining and intermarriage. But as Gandhi understood it, the ‘law of varna has nothing to do with these restrictions. People of different varnas may intermarry and interdine.... [A] Brahmin who marries a Sudra girl or vice versa commits no offence against the law of varna.’ This was Gandhi’s first statement of support for inter-caste marriages, a considerable advance on his earlier position. However, he wasn’t prepared to go so far as to prescribe marriage between a Hindu and a Muslim. He saw ‘no moral objection to such unions’; yet, in the present atmosphere, he did not believe that ‘these unions can bring peace. They may follow peace. I see nothing but disaster following any attempt to advocate Hindu–Muslim unions so long as the relations between the two remain strained. That such unions may be happy in exceptional circumstances can be no reason for their general advocacy'.

The percentages for marriage were much higher for disabled men than for handicapped women. “Women have more compassion than men. Most normal men think more of their own needs. It takes an exceptionally compassionate and understanding man to marry a woman who isn’t physically normal.

Handicapped is not the one with a crippled body, Handicapped is the one with a crippled heart.

Yes, here it is. ‘Though we are limited physically, our spirit is limitless. So let the generation after us, and everyone else, see what two handicapped individuals have accomplished. Even after we’re gone, they will see that a blind man and an armless man have left them a forest.’ “And that,” said Jane, “is a wonderful example of how friendship can give hope to the hopeless. And a marvelous illustration of what can be accomplished by the indomitable human spirit.

It is possible to identify numerous ways that students with disabilities are controlled and taught their place: (1) labeling; (2) symbols (e.g., white lab coats, “Handicapped Room” signs); (3) structure (pull-out programs, segregated classrooms, “special” schools, inaccessible areas); (4) curricula especially designed for students with disabilities (behavior modification for emotionally disturbed kids, training skills without knowledge instruction for significantly mentally retarded students and students with autistic behavior) or having significant implications for these students; (5) testing and evaluation biased toward the functional needs of the dominant culture (Stanford-Binet and Wexler tests); (6) body language and disposition of school culture (teachers almost never look into the eyes of students with disabilities and practice even greater patterns of superiority and paternalism than they do with other students); and (7) discipline (physical restraints, isolation/time-out rooms with locked doors, use of Haldol and other sedatives).11

I am told it can be the next stage of evolvement. They are not yet comfortable inhabiting the body at that new stage. Sometimes people who are born severely retarded or with severe body problems are at a new level of evolvement, so they get to live life more as an observer than a participant.” I thought of Jennifer (Chapter 3), whose sons, Ryan and Bradley, had planned physical handicaps so they could be more in the role of observer. “Does ‘next level of evolvement’ mean that most of those souls are incarnating for the first time, or does it mean they’re taking on new lessons?” “More often than not it’s their first physical incarnation at a new level of evolvement, not their first physical incarnation,” Staci said, relaying what she was hearing from her guide. “There are cases, though, when it is somebody’s first physical incarnation, specifically, people who have gone through other planetary schools and then come to Earth.

I tell John about what’s known as the psychological immune system. Just as the physiological immune system helps your body recover from physical attack, your brain helps you recover from psychological attack. A series of studies by the researcher Daniel Gilbert at Harvard found that in responding to challenging life events from the devastating (becoming handicapped, losing a loved one) to the difficult (a divorce, an illness), people do better than they anticipate. They believe that they’ll never love again, but they do. They think they’ll never love again, but they do. They go grocery shopping and see movies; they have sex and dance at weddings; they overeat on Thanksgiving and go on diets in the New Year – the day-to-day returns.

For instance, look at Malgiolio. He takes no responsibility for his personal life and has no interest in the public. In varying degrees this might be true of all of us. If one is not absolutely destitute and downtrodden or physically handicapped, one probably gets the life one deserves. From this it follows that one gets the sort of government one deserves. I mean, if my fellow citizens are fighting in the streets, am I not to some degree responsible? ...Things happen to a person; that is, life deals you a set of cards and you play them as you are able. If I do my best I can and make no trouble for my neighbors, then surely I cannot be blamed either for my existence or my government. There are forces that buffet us through life that nor mere individual can withstand. Better to stick to my books and musings about literature and leave the government to those who know best. That was certainly was what I believed for years, but this evening I had begun to wonder, foolishly perhaps, if it wasn't that sort of thinking which had helped bring about this current state of affairs.

Racists segregate others not because of physical handicaps or illness, but as a result of specific attributes that distinguishes them from the members of the monocultural society

I’ve always thought that exceptional beauty was as great an affliction as any physical handicap—perhaps more so. It is so difficult for the beautiful person, male or female, to develop a good character, isn’t it? The odds are stacked against them from the start.

street children and children from slum colonies, children of migrant laborers, and physically and mentally handicapped children”:

The lizards died of having too much body and too little head,' said Rampion in explanation.'so at least the scientists are never tired of telling us. Physical size is a handicap after a certain point. But what about mental size? These fools seem to forget that they're just as top-heavy and clumsy and disproportioned as any diplodocus. Sacrificing physical life and affective life to mental life. What do they imagine's going to happen?

What are our problems telling us? Physical symptoms and other problems have corresponding thoughts. If we are able to understand these corresponding thoughts, we will have uncovered the meaning of our problems. All problems – physical, mental, emotional, experiential – are reduced to the thoughts which essentially make up the problem. Far from being a handicap, our problems are our guideposts. They point out the many ways in which our thoughts are founded on unhelpful, incorrect, and harmful concepts. Once the meaning of our problems is understood, we can spiritually correct our thinking. This change in thought will inevitably bring some sort of healing. Healing will manifest in a more beautiful, calm, healthy, loving, and beneficial life.

Hear Joni Tada once again as she brings this idea home in a powerful manner: "You probably know at least a few disabled people. But did you ever think of the Lord Jesus in that category? No, he didn't have a physical disability, but he did handicap himself when he came to earth...Talk about handicaps! To b e God on one hand...yet to make yourself nothing. What a sever limitation! If you have a handicap, you're not in bad company. If anything, you're in an elite fellowship with Christ himself.

By the early 1800s, these prison/asylums in western Europe were, therefore, populated mostly by criminals, drunkards, heretics and the blasphemous, the unemployed, the homeless, and the physically handicapped, but only occasionally by the people we today would think of as having mental illnesses or intellectual disabilities. The only thing the residents had in common was that they didn’t work.

That Pakistan should face a particularly acute challenge in forging a coherent national identity will scarcely surprise those who have long pointed to its artificiality as a nation-state. Indeed, at independence, the country was largely bereft of the prerequisites of viable nationhood. The exceptional physical configuration of the new state, in which its eastern and western territories were separated (until 1971 and the secession of Bangladesh) by more than a thousand miles of Indian territory, was an immediate handicap. So was its lack of a common language. Its choice of Urdu—spoken by a small minority—to serve as a national language was fiercely resisted by local regional groups with strong linguistic traditions. They expressed powerful regional identities that separated the numerically preponderant Bengalis of the country’s eastern province from their counterparts in the west, where Punjabis dominated over Sindhis, Pashtuns and Balochis. Pakistan’s national integration was further handicapped by the lack of a common legacy grounded in a strong nationalist narrative informed by a mass anti-colonial struggle. Yet, these severe limitations were judged to be of secondary importance when set against the fact of a shared religion—Islam—held up by Pakistan’s founder, Muhammad Ali Jinnah (1876-1948), as the real test of the Muslim ‘nation’ that would inherit Pakistan.

Left-Handedness The 10 percent of human beings who are left-handed have long been considered unlucky, deceptive, or even evil in cultures the world over. During the Spanish Inquisition the Catholic Church condemned those who used their left hand. Zulu tribesmen of the 1800s placed the left hands of children into holes filled with boiling water to discourage their use. The nineteenth-century criminologist and white supremacist Cesare Lombroso lent dangerous authority to the long-standing social stigma, claiming a scientific connection between left-handedness, moral degeneracy, and the “savage races.” No wonder schoolteachers continued discouraging it in students, often through physical abuse. J. W. Conway’s 1935 On Curing the Disability and Disease of Left-Handedness argued that being a lefty was a handicap in a world that was industrializing and standardizing. Handicap? Turns out being a southpaw is a fast lane to the West Wing. Seven of our last fifteen presidents—that’s a whopping 47 percent—have been left-handed. I’m not sure what that means but I’m sure a CNN panel will eventually sort it out.