Kevin Pezzi, MD

Disagree with something I wrote? So do I! Read more

“To avoid criticism, do nothing, say nothing, and be nothing.”

— Elbert Hubbard, American editor, publisher, and writer (1856–1915)

Trivia: He and his wife, Alice Moore Hubbard, the noted feminist and writer, died aboard the RMS Lusitania, which was torpedoed and sunk by a German submarine on May 7, 1915, when they were heading to Europe to cover the war and interview Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany.

If you disagree with something I wrote, feel free to challenge it. Some of my viewpoints are the antithesis (exact opposite) of what they once were. That isn't flip-flopping; that is changing opinions with scant evidence to support them into convictions with a firmer foundation of facts.

My political philosophy is an amalgamation of libertarian, conservative, and liberal principles. My opinions have changed so significantly that my conservative friends might be horrified by how I strongly believe that liberals are correct on certain issues. I've previously written about some of them, but to make this more fun, I will present others as challenges in which I offer $100,000 to the first person who can refute the logic I used in forming that opinion. Please note that due to my limited time and difficulty using my hands after I broke my neck, I cannot quickly update my previously published opinions. However, now that I am balancing the promptings of head and heart, I strongly disagree with many opinions I expressed in my writings.

I like finding people who make me think, not necessarily those who agree with me. Genius Robert Heinlein said, “I never learned from a man who agreed with me.” If you can educate me, I'm all ears.

“Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions.”
— Albert Einstein

“Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.”
— Albert Einstein

“The ultimate ignorance is the rejection of something you know nothing about and refuse to investigate.”
— Dr. Wayne Dyer

“If everyone is thinking alike, then somebody isn't thinking.”
— General George Patton

“Man's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.”
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

“A lot of people risk their lives in a brief act of heroism, which is kind of cool, but Jill has what I call slow heroism. She is risking her professional life on something that her own calculations show may not work for a thousand years—may not ever. So I like to support people that are risking their lives.”
— ex-Microsoft billionaire brainiac Nathan Myhrvold speaking about Jill Tarter, who inspired the character played by Jodie Foster in the movie Contact. It takes a brilliant person to see that others who go against the grain of conventional wisdom may be sages although lesser minds often ridicule their ideas.

“I am not young enough to know everything.”
— Oscar Wilde

“You have enemies? Good. That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.”
— Winston Churchill

“Talk sense to a fool and he calls you foolish.”
— Euripides, Greek tragic dramatist (484 BC - 406 BC)

“It is socially unacceptable to be right too early.”
— Robert Heinlein

“I'd rather stand alone on the truth than with millions on a lie.”

“The most distinctive mark of a cultured mind is the ability to take another's point of view; to put one's self in another's place, and see life and its problems from a point of view different from one's own. To be willing to test a new idea; to be able to live on the edge of difference in all matters intellectually; to examine without heat the burning question of the day; to have imaginative sympathy, openness and flexibility of mind, steadiness and poise of feeling, cool calmness of judgment, is to have culture.”
— Arthur H. R. Fairchild

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”
— Theodore Roosevelt

“It has been my experience that folks who have no vices have very few virtues.”
— Abraham Lincoln

This reminds me of something stressed by one of my psychology professors, who said that society imposes rigid boundaries for what behavior is acceptable, and applies tremendous pressure trying to force people to conform to the behavioral expectations. Some of the most brilliant and productive outside-the-box thinkers led unconventional lives. One of the side effects of forcing people to think inside the box is that by lopping off outside-the-box behavior, potentially great outside-the-box ideas are lost, too.

“We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty. When the loyal opposition dies, I think the soul of America dies with it.”
— Edward R. Murrow, American journalist (1908-1965)

“You will not do incredible things without an incredible dream.”
— John Eliot

NOTE: Several family members were brutally slaughtered recently, so I will take a break from writing. Their deaths erased my affinity for writing about politics or the economy, thus I'll later limit myself to health and brainpower in addition to completing my book on rapidly overcoming racism and bigotry. BTW, the two men who murdered my father are still on the lam; I am offering up to $100,000 for information leading to their arrest and conviction.

Chicken-human behavioral similarities

Chickens and humans possess many similarities in behavior and social hierarchy. Although chickens are often disparaged as being dumb animals, observant chicken owners know otherwise.

Like many people, before I got chickens, I assumed they were stupid animals devoid of personalities—basically egg-laying machines. However, after I brought them home, I quickly fell in love with them. They exhibit surprising intelligence and marked individuality. I've noticed many parallels between chicken and human behavior. Here are some of them:

People obviously love tasty food. So do chickens. When my chickens were young, they would squeal with delight when given one of their treats, such as currants, but also simple pleasures such as fresh water, which they would instantly devour with zest. As adults, they slowly peck at crumble, their primary food they eat only if nothing else is available, but they peck like animated jackhammers when given something yummy, such as raisins, watermelon, other melons, black olives, flax, green and especially purple cabbage, oatmeal, corn on the cob (a favorite!), sweet potatoes, cheese, scrambled eggs, and egg shells. They also love blackberries, but what I can pick in 15 minutes, they can eat in seconds.

Taste matters to chickens, but so does color. They prefer brightly colored food: red, blue, purple, yellow, and green. Picking foods with such natural colors is a smart way to obtain powerful antioxidants and essential nutrients. A ScienceDaily article, Colorful Plates Boost a Picky Eater's Appetite, said:

It's more appealing to chickens, too. :-)

Chickens love sugar. I recently gave my chickens oatmeal as a treat, placing it on a paper plate I'd used to eat gluten-free pumpkin bread with a light sugar glaze, some of which stuck to the plate and dried. Chickens like oatmeal, but enjoy sugar even more; they seem to have radar for it. It took precisely one peck for the chicken to find the small nuggets of dried frosting adhering to the plate. She used that as a handle to pick the plate up, which dumped the oatmeal on the ground. She then walked around for a few minutes holding the now-vertical plate in her beak, as other chickens pecked at other sugar blobs on the plate. The amount of sugar totaled less than 1% of the oatmeal, which the chickens ignored even though it was in a surprisingly neat pile. Sugar is more yummy.

Chickens want what others have. Put a plate full of treats on the ground and the first chicken to reach it will often run off holding a treat in her beak while other hens run after her, trying to steal the food away, evidently thinking her treat is more valuable than the ones remaining on the plate: treats they could have all to themselves instead of chasing after a bird determined to keep what she has. Similarly, humans sometimes assume that what others have (such as a particular partner) is automatically more desirable than what they have. Cognizant of this, some women increase their appeal by inviting a male friend to accompany them.

Chickens are inquisitive and love to explore, even things that obviously contain no sources of food. For example, my chickens often hop onto my tractor or bulldozer while I work on their engines. They'll peer inside, tilt their heads, look at me, and keep doing that.

Chickens get bored eating and doing the same things. They crave variety. If they are free, they frequently move from one spot to another, such as hunting for bugs in the forest leaves, then in the grass, then in another grassy spot, and another. Then it might be time for a dust bath, or just basking in the sun, followed by more hunting in various places. Then they might hang out around me to see what I am doing or beg for treats, after which they might spend an hour or two in one of their favorite shady hang-out spots. Then more hunting for bugs as they slowly meander back to their coop in the evening. Once there, it's always time for a bedtime snack.

Unfortunately, most chickens in developed countries are either slaughtered for meat when they are very young or confined in cages so crowded they're like sardines in a can. Once chickens are given a taste of freedom, they—like humans—relish it, valuing it even more than safety and security.

As proof of that, consider my chickens, who know they are safe in the large pen attached to their coop that gives them considerably more square feet per bird than average. While in that pen, I've never seen them display the defensive behaviors they exhibit when they are free and exposed, such as frequently looking in the sky for predatory birds or listening and responding to potentially threatening sounds. In that pen, they have everything they need: water, food, and even a variety of tasty treats they attack like starved teenagers gobbling a pizza.

While chickens crave freedom once they experience it, chickens who don't know what it is like to be free are more tolerant of restrictions. My chickens rarely return to the safety of their pen or coop during the day unless they are terrified by a predator. Even when they are on high alert and are constantly looking and listening for sounds that signal danger, they would rather be free and in peril than safe and secure. Thus, chickens want freedom even if they have everything they need in captivity.

My chickens are content in their pen only for a few minutes in the morning after exiting their coop. After a quick breakfast, they are eager to be freed so they can hunt for worms and assorted bugs on land that is strangely devoid of them. It doesn't matter. They often prefer hunting and striking out to eating crumble (their usual “chicken food” fare) or even platefuls of treats I know they love. If I don't free them to run around, they quickly get bored. Some will mope around as if they are depressed while the more vociferous ones make pitiful loud squawking sounds analogous to human crying, voicing their displeasure at being deprived of an accustomed pleasure.

Seconds after letting them loose, they make happy chicken sounds, analogous to happy baby sounds, and they are infused with energy as they scratch the ground and overturn leaves looking for something to eat. Hours of that activity yields less food than what they can wolf down in less than a minute while eating treats they clearly prefer to crumble. Thus, hunting for food is often more fun than eating it. Even when chickens have an endless supply of tasty food, they usually prefer to hunt for bugs, even if the search is fruitless.

The chicken at the top of the pecking order often isn't the smartest, just the most willing to ruthlessly attack others to put them in their place.

Those at the top of the pecking order get more resources (food in the case of chickens) that enables them to become larger and more powerful: the rich get richer.

Those at the top of the pecking order don't give a hoot about fairness or helping others even when there are more than enough resources for everyone. They hog resources and intimidate or attack others to deter them from getting their fair share.

Those at or near the bottom of the pecking order behave in a submissive manner and may appear dull or stupid, but can come out of their shells and blossom if given a chance.

Chickens have favorite buddies to hang out with, but their friendships may change over time.

Chickens have favorite hang-out spots, which may also change in time.

Chickens are more likely to behave if they had their fill of fun that day. If they had only a couple hours of freedom that day, it is often difficult to coax them back into their pen and then coop. If they didn't obtain their MDR (minimum daily requirement) of fun, they will stay out past the time when darkness—and its associated dangers—otherwise compels them to head in for the night. However, if they were free most of the day, getting them into the pen and coop is much easier.

Chickens have a long-term memory of danger, which I discussed in another article after showing a picture of Mark Zuckerberg holding a dead chicken he likely killed.

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