The Introvert Advocate: Is It Just Me? Identifying the Boundaries of Introversion

As an unapologetic introvert, I must speak up for the personality type. Thankfully, The Introvert Advocate provided an opportunity:

When I discovered that there was a word for my personality type, i.e. “Introversion”, I felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I no longer felt alone. Not once did I consider it a disorder, because it’s a personality type. Naturally, I started backtracking to every relationship I had in the past to look again with new eyes. A few memories made sense, some did not. As I continued my education, I began to put a few more pieces together. Life in general helped fill in the rest. To get to this this point I asked the critical question: Was it me? Well, I was surprised how little my introversion played back then, and what that has taught me.

Social Media and The Generation Gap

Social media is effecting social interaction and redefining the social skills of the generation growing up with the technology. To add to the mix, some baby boomers and many of their elders are still coping with the digital world’s impact on social interaction. Introverts have probably had one of their rants thrown in their direction, God knows I have. “She’s too quiet” ,“She needs to talk more” “You need to go out like other gals.” Don’t take it personally. Like homosexuality, cancer, and being an only child, it’s one of those statuses that has since lost their negative diagnosis and to which these generations must adjust their mindset. The may never understand how much social media has helped introverts’ social lives.

Culture

While we’re on the subject of social changes, I must point out on factor that has an impact on social skills regardless of technology – Culture. The way people express one another socially will vary among cultures and in a nation of immigrants, cultural clash will occur.  For example, Russians will not smile at strangers, which they find “insincere”, preserving such gestures for close friends. Japan’s entire social structure is shaped around introversion.  In contrast, United States is still an extroverted culture, so naturally, Japan is often portrayed in US media as “emotionless” negatively or “shy” positively. In return, their portrayals of Americans are boisterous loudmouths. Dont fret though (hehe, like my slang?), being an introvert can prove a pretty positive learning experience for both sides. For instance, while abroad in the Whitby, UK, I was mistaken for Canadian by a local couple because their perception of an American was more like a loud pushy Texan...



Continue reading this article at:
http://theintrovertadvocate.com/identifying-the-boundaries-of-introversion/

Is It Just Me? Identifying the Boundaries of Introversion

As an unapologetic introvert, I had to speak up for this misunderstood personality type. The Introvert Advocate gave me that opportunity:

When I discovered that there was a word for my personality type, i.e. “Introversion”, I felt a weight lifted off of my shoulders. I no longer felt alone. Not once did I consider it a disorder, because it’s a personality type. Naturally, I started backtracking to every relationship I had in the past to look again with new eyes. A few memories made sense, some did not. As I continued my education, I began to put a few more pieces together. Life in general helped fill in the rest. To get to this this point I asked the critical question: Was it me? Well, I was surprised how little my introversion played back then, and what that has taught me.

Social Media and The Generation Gap

Social media is effecting social interaction and redefining the social skills of the generation growing up with the technology. To add to the mix, some baby boomers and many of their elders are still coping with the digital world’s impact on social interaction. Introverts have probably had one of their rants thrown in their direction, God knows I have. “She’s too quiet” ,“She needs to talk more” “You need to go out like other gals.” Don’t take it personally. Like homosexuality, cancer, and being an only child, it’s one of those statuses that has since lost their negative diagnosis and to which these generations must adjust their mindset. The may never understand how much social media has helped introverts’ social lives......

Read the rest of this article at:
http://theintrovertadvocate.com/identifying-the-boundaries-of-introversion/

North Carolina Welcomes the Conjoined

Just finished watching the documentary Bound by Flesh on Netflix, when it occurred to me that North Carolina serves as the final resting place not to just one but TWO sets of famous conjoined twins.

Chang and Eng Bunker

The first set are the original "Siamese twins", Thai - born Chang and Eng Bunker, who originated  the now-archaic term for conjoined twins and have death masks on display at the mutter museum. After a lifetime of traveling on the sideshow circuit, the Bunker twins eventually settled in Mt. Airy, NC, where most of their descendants reside to this day. Chang and Eng's shared plot can be found at the White Plains Baptist Church Cemetery in Mt. Airy.

Daisy and Violet Hilton

The second set of twins are the Hilton Sisters: Daisy and Violet. Film buffs may recognize them from Tod Browning's 1932 Horror Freaks. They also serve as the basis for Sarah Paulson's characters Bet and Dot Tattler in American Horror Story: Freak Show (although the characters' upper-torso conjoining more closely resembles that of the sisters Abigail and Brittany Hensel than the Hiltons, but I digress).

Born in Bristol, UK,the Hilton sisters followed the Bunkers' path on the vaudeville and sideshow circuit before finding their way to Charlotte, NC where they settled in their final years. The Hilton sisters's final resting place can be found in the Forest Lawn West Cemetery in Charlotte, NC.


Feel free to learn more about the Bunkers and the Hiltons in the links below, as well as Hensels for a modern day lifestyle comparison.

Chang and Eng Bunker
http://chnm.gmu.edu/lostmuseum/chang/

Daisy and Violet Hilton
http://thehairpin.com/2014/06/bonded-and-bound-by-flesh-the-story-of-daisy-and-violet-hilton

Brittany and Abby Hensel
http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-22181528

The Pleasant.....Resurrection?

After 14 years of underground marketing, I came across what has to be The Pleasant Company's first television advertisement....ever.

Seriously.

Other than the movie promos and news stories featuring the stores, there have never been any advertisement directly promoting the dolls.

The doll featured was Samantha, the girl from 1904 and one of their three original American Girl dolls. From what I could determine from the brief TV spot, the doll still comes with her (now updated) book, and her secondary outfits. After searching for the spot on You Tube, I found three other adverts for their more build-a-bear type dolls. Samantha's ad follows the same formula as the former three with the only deviation of briefly mentioning her time period.  This may be an attempt to resurrect the retired line through re-absorption into the current one. Whether it's a success is for another update.

Dogs gone Wild.......ly redundant

Feral Dogs in Romania

I was having a discussion with someone about the packs of feral dogs in Detroit when the conversation took a turn that annoyed me severely. What could they have said to annoy me so much to write a blog article? It's not that they said the dogs pose a potential threat to communities. Of course they do, especially if they have aggressive tendencies. It’s when they indicated that the concept of a feral dog was unnatural. Have we’ve forgotten what animal the dog has evolved from?

Don’t get me wrong, I had a dog for 17 years, but I also have no delusions about the canine nature. They’re animals, not human infants, as too many old rich ladies seem to believe. The behaviors we associate with dogs, like dependency and loyalty, are the result of being raised by man.

The reality is that average people have convinced themselves that dogs have diverged further from their lupine ancestors than reality would present.  We've forgotten that behaviors we associate with dogs, like dependency and loyalty, are the result of being raised by man.

The dog many vary in shape, size and hair type, but if they return to living independently from humans, their ancient pack instincts always kick in. How else can you explain a roving pack of chihuahuas in Arizona? Yes, it sounds hilarious, but remember that chihuahuas ARE DOGS, and their size is not a factor to them when they revert to pack survival mode.

They don’t see humans as “mommy, daddy and siblings” but rather "pack leader” and "pack mates". It never left them. Dogs who were never raised in a human home have only their instincts to rely on.  Because they are no longer in forests, they must adjust in a more human-populated environment.  Humans are no longer a pack member but competition in nature…... or prey.

We fear this feral nature, because we cant walk up to it and pet it. We can’t talk "baby talk" to it. We can’t sooth our guilt by giving it a bowl of kibble. We fear feral dogs because like our prehistoric ancestors, we no longer have full control of them.


I’m not excusing or defending the attacks on people by feral dogs, especially in Detroit. Humans created the mess, humans must clean it up. Outside of behavior problems caused by inbreeding, abuse and neglect, people need to see that there is nothing abnormal about the formation of dog packs in and of itself. It’s not a good safety scenario for humans but at least dogs who’ve only known the streets can finally have a fair chance in the fight against humans who really do mean them harm.



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Renovations under way (again)....

Blogging is a progress for each individual. In my case it's been developing with my own life goals. As I grow and change, so does my blog. You may have noticed a subtle name change. I still go by the name "Gorgon Transplant", but only on my new Wordpress blog, now covering topics strictly related to illustration, cartooning and that professional field. This Blogger account will now take the name that used to go to my (now deleted) cartooning blog--Mi, Misma y Me.

Nothing else has changed but the name. You'll continue seeing more of the same topics that you follow me for. Hope no one's confused.

If interested, visit the NEW Gorgon transplant here:
http://thegorgontransplant.wordpress.com

Marissa Alexander: Immovable Object Meets Unstoppable Force

Our story has a villain.

While the American justice system allows trigger happy white men to give in to their paranoia,  Florida's in particular does that and allows draconian state attorneys to play judge and jury as they please.

As of this post, Marissa Alexander thankfully still remains on house arrest, close to her children. I wish I could say that's the end of the story, though. Like a modern day Inspector Javert, the State Attorney Angela B. Corey does everything she can to get Marissa Alexander back in Jail. After the appeal of the first trial, she fights Alexander's bond for house arrest, then in the letter to the Judge Daniel to revoke Alexander's home detention bond, Corey accuses her of violating parole. To push the Javert analogy further, her letter to the circuit court judge exposes so many unsubstantiated presumptions towards Alexander that she barely hides in her professional language.

Wow. "Hair Salon?" "Shopping Mall?" That's oddly specific.

Finally, Corey pushes a third retrial for a triple 20-year sentence--that's right, a 60-year sentence. For a woman who neither killed nor harmed anyone. After one appeal, and house arrest from the initial single 20 years of the first trial, this woman tries to up the ante.

However, it turns out that Corey has a history of overcharging defendants, including getting a 12 year old boy put in solitary in an adult prison, then threatening to sue the editorial reporter who criticized her for doing so. Angela Corey is not only Javert, but Zimmerman with a law degree and a vagina. A rotten, pus-filled vagina. (Let's see if I get an email for that one).

Like South Africa's Apartheid, the system in Florida is finally set so black people cannot properly protect themselves from any violence without receiving punishment. And Alexander is here to present that message.  Not on my watch.

Keep supporting Marissa's defense team and donate to the link below. They're going to need all the money they can get. Corey will make this a long trial.

http://igg.me/at/freemarissa2


Even Inspector Javert eventually confronted the reality regarding Jean ValJean and killed himself, unable to live with it. A creature like Corey will not (and may not be able to) do the same and can only be stopped by a third party, if so. In the rare chance she ever has her law license revoked, I wouldn't put it passed this woman to pick up a gun and follow her many male counterparts outside the law.