I Feel Fine, Okay, Happy, Perfect, Great, Good, Alright...

New York Times articles: I will eventually find one that interests me. Here's a couple:

Statisticians at the University of Vermont are saying that song lyrics and blogs are adding to a new group of psychology. They state that song lyrics and blog posts are not reactive as surveys and polls are when stating one's emotional levels. These researchers feel that by using today's technology they can get results that are volunteered by people rather than getting a forced or canned answer to questions. "They’re not being surveyed in the usual way. You mess with people when you ask them questions about happiness. You’re not sure if they’re trying to make you happy, or have no idea whether they’re happy. It’s reactive.”

These researchers downloaded 232,000+ songs from 20,000+ artists. They also found 9 million sentences in blogs from 2005-2009 that included the verb form "I feel..."They even analyzed all the State of the Union speeches to find the emotional level of our country. Some findings were pretty much expected with September 11, 2001 at the low point. However, when Barack Obama was elected Americans used the word "proud" predominantly. They're even doing this in Europe, statistically finding out how the economy affects people. Danes in Denmark statistically rated the highest emotionally.

"Christmas and Valentine’s Day regularly popped as positive times, although words like “guilty” were associated with Christmas and “waste” and “lonely” with Valentine’s Day.
The researchers also analyzed the emotional content of blogs by the age of the blogger, and they found a curious pattern. Teenagers, true to form, rated the lowest, with an abundance of “sick,” “hate” and “stupid.”" So how do you feel?

I also read an interesting article about this great neglect of feet and all things foot. People are just plain embarrassed by their feet. I mean, we'll take the time to shower, shave and apply lotion, but most of us ignore our feet. Those who do pay any attention just paint their toes different colors.

"Dr. Nicholas Romansky, a podiatrist with two offices near Philadelphia, Pa., said he had patients so ashamed of their feet that they didn’t allow their spouse or fiancé to see them. “They have sex with socks on,” he said. “Some people think their feet are ugly. You see nice hands, but feet take a beating.” That’s in part because of neglect. “People don’t think about their feet until they fail them,” Dr. Romansky said, adding that many of his patients think soapy water is all that’s needed to clean the feet and don’t bother to rub with a washcloth.“We need to be proactive,” he said. “Most Americans are always in a rush or too fat to bend over.”"

I suppose it's just that feet simply smell, and get dirty more easily. Of all the body parts, they do all the work, taking the beating and rarely get any care. Suppose when it comes down to it that we just don't like the idea of messing around with our feet. Not to mention I have this friend that has podiaphobia.