Sawbones: A Marital Tour of Misguided Medicine - Sawbones: Left-handedness

Episode Date: February 25, 2014

Welcome to Sawbones, where Dr. Sydnee McElroy and her husband Justin McElroy take you on a whimsical tour of the dumb ways in which we've tried to fix people. This week: We shake the devil's hand. Mus...ic: "Medicines" by The Taxpayers (http://thetaxpayers.net)

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Saubones is a show about medical history, and nothing the hosts say should be taken as medical advice or opinion. It's for fun. Can't you just have fun for an hour and not try to diagnose your mystery boil? We think you've earned it. Just sit back, relax, and enjoy a moment of distraction from that weird growth. You're worth it. that weird growth. You're worth it. Alright, time is about to books! One, two, one, two, three, four! We came across a pharmacy with a toy and that's lost it out. We were shot through the broken glass and had ourselves a look around.
Starting point is 00:00:56 The medicines, the medicines, the escalators, my cop, for the mouth Everybody welcome to saw bones a marital tour misguided medicine. I am your co-host Justin McRoy and I'm Sydney Sydney, it's a big week this week here at the McRoy Ranch. That's true Yeah, McRoy Ranch. McRoy Ranch. I don't know. I don't think we have enough land for it to be a ranch. That's fair. We were celebrating your mom's birthday. That's true. This week. My mom's birthday week. Birthday week. Yes. Your mom doesn't narrow her, she doesn't limit herself to one birthday. Well, why limit yourself to just one day when you could just be born every day for several days and then get more presents? Give the quick version of why your mom does not have a birthday or just her birthday. My mom does have a birthday multiple. When she turned 16, her dad picked her up from school to take her to get
Starting point is 00:01:59 her driver's license and he had stopped by the courthouse to get a copy of a birch tiff kit beforehand. And when he did so, he got she got in the car all excited to go get a license and he said, I have some bad news. You are 15 still. Now how that happened? Well, she was told until she was just about 16 years old that her birthday was February 20th. However, when they went to get her birth certificate on her 16th birthday, it said February 21st. That is crazy. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:33 She does not, she has two birthdays, basically. Yes. Her mother always swore that it was the 20th. There was a nun in the delivery room who swore it was the 19th, strangely enough. That is weird. But her birth certificate says it 21st. So I try to be safe, cover all bases, I figure, hey, mom deserves it. She can have two to three birthdays, consecutively if she wants to.
Starting point is 00:02:55 Now the funny thing about your mom learning that way is, of course, your mom wouldn't have been able to get her gyroslicens and is still not permitted to because of her left hand in this. Wait, what? Right. As we all know, left handed people, all the knobs and switches and stuff from the right side. So left handed people are not permitted to drive.
Starting point is 00:03:18 It's just one of many challenges that left handed people have faced in our country. Oh, okay. Well, I mean, yes, my mom is left handed, but... And yes, your mom can't drive. I didn't say that. You did. You can answer for that later. Although you're one to talk, really. Fair. Okay, that's fine.
Starting point is 00:03:39 But left handed people can drive. But they can't vote, which is weird. Whoa, no, they can. They can. What? You don't seem to know much about left-handed people. Well, said me that sounds like an opportunity to me a podcast opportunity. Would you like to know more about handedness? Would you like to know more? Yes, I would. Okay, I think it's about time since you apparently think that left-handed people can't drive or vote legally in this country. time since you apparently think that left-handed people can't drive or vote legally in this country.
Starting point is 00:04:11 School me. I do want to say thank you to Christopher by the way. Thanks Christopher. He suggested this topic. If you want to suggest top it for a shrieking email, a saw bones at maximumfund.org. So the thing about the concept of hand-dness or like a or lateralization you may hear, the idea that you favor the use of one hand over the other, basically, is that this has probably been around. This, the humans, you know, prefer to use one hand as long as humans have been around. Makes sense. If we go back like one and a half million years ago and look at tools that early humans used, we can tell from the way that they were chiseled and then the way they were used, like the wear and tear on them, if they were predominantly used by the right or left hand, which I think is kind of interesting.
Starting point is 00:05:03 Also weird, if we look at those tools, we find that there was a slight right-handed predominance at the time, but only like 56%. So we had a lot of left-handers back then. That's the thought. There is a theory, too, that as tools got more refined, we saw more and more evidence that they were using their right hand to make them. So the idea was that the tools, the early tools were so rough, they could have been made
Starting point is 00:05:30 by either hand really. It's easier to tell as time goes on. So yeah, the more detailed tools we could easily tell. But it may indicate that for a while, humans were almost 50, 50 left and right handers. But then this change, as time went on. We can also tell, you know another way we figure this out, is tooth wear. Of what? We look at their teeth and we see which side shows the most wear and tear and then they can
Starting point is 00:06:00 reconstruct which hand they use to hold the food. Wow, that's bizarre. Isn't that crazy? That's really crazy. And so they could also tell that it was more common to hold your food in your right hand, which we would interpret as being, you know, right handed. I think that's the thought. So roughly 44% back at the beginning of time, where are we at more recently? So there must have been some kind of evolutionary advantage, I guess, to
Starting point is 00:06:29 right handedness, because we slowly see the proportion shift to about, at about 10,000 years ago, 10% of the population was probably left handed. And that's about the same today. So it shifted and then has remained really steady ever since. That's where do you think that left handed people are still on a downturn? Like do you think they'll eventually be bread out of existence? Well, I mean in the last 10,000.
Starting point is 00:06:54 Like the other imperfections? Okay, it now see you're going to make a lot of, well, you're going to make 10% of our listeners very upset. No, because it's not necessarily a disadvantage. And I mean, for the last 10,000 years, it stayed pretty steady. That's weird that it would get to a certain spot and hover there.
Starting point is 00:07:14 It is kind of weird. Now that varies from culture to culture. And part of that is genetics, of course. But then part of it is also thought to be because, as I'll talk about, left-handed people have been discriminated against historically and have also been encouraged to become right-handed. Because the history of medicine is nothing, if not a history of discrimination through the ages. Oh, yeah. We don't, we don't miss a beat when it comes to discriminating against
Starting point is 00:07:40 minorities, whatever the minority, we're not picky find people's differences treat them for them and then Cerminate against them. Yeah So so like if you look at some Eastern cultures you will find Like one percent of the population is left-handed and that may be because they're more rigid about Correcting court and I use that loosely, correcting left handedness. Whereas in our country, you would see maybe 10 to 12%. So somewhere in that range, and then of course, like I said, genetics is part of that. But as I mentioned, throughout the ages, right handedness has been associated.
Starting point is 00:08:23 And I mean, in all these times where we have writings and, you know, things to indicate how people felt at the time, right-handed people would have been the predominant people. I mean, the vast majority would have been right-handed. But right-handedness was seen as not divine, but definitely better. Better. Definitely better. That makes a lot of sense. Well, you would, but definitely better. Better. Definitely better. That makes a lot of sense.
Starting point is 00:08:47 Well, you would, you're right handed. Full disclosure, we both are. Yeah, we tried to interview some experts on the topic. And so sorry, this is coming from people who could never really put themselves in your shoes. We can't understand what you're saying. We're in your gloves. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:09:04 In your weird shoes that are both the same. No, wait, hold on. I think they're all the same. I think gloves and shoes are the same. Okay, okay. You just tie them differently. Wrongly. If you look back at the gods and Egyptian cultures,
Starting point is 00:09:20 Greek cultures, Mesopotamian cultures, they always blessed or healed people with their right hands, and then their left hands were used for cursing people. The Egyptians in their writings and paintings depicted all of their enemies as left-handed. It's interesting, isn't it, that the majority decides that whatever is Whatever most of us are doing is probably the thing that is holy
Starting point is 00:09:54 Exactly correct and right and blessed. Well, and can you imagine if you were a left-handed Egyptian? Oh, I Mean, I guess you wouldn't be you wouldn't tell anybody. It would be a terrible secret Although it would have been much easier at the end of the the crying game Although it would have been much easier. At the end of the crying game, the Threaten in Sanskrit is at the end, it turns out that the right-handed person has been left-handed the entire time. In the hierarchical fiction.
Starting point is 00:10:13 That's a huge twist. Yeah, it's a harder discern from the hierarchical effects, because they don't have letters or anything. Well, they do. They're just pictures, but. Yeah. Well, anyway, you also, of course, eight with your right hand. Now, as we move forward in history, that's for very practical reasons. You most people ate with their right hand, so it was convenient to eat with your right hand,
Starting point is 00:10:41 you know, because it was most people right handed. And if we're looking at a time when we did not have, for instance, toilet paper, your left hand was necessary for less savory tasks. That is a delicate way of putting that in my dear. I'm trying. So you would always want to be consistent. For sin paper. Dirty duty. Ew, don't say that. But you would want to be consistent
Starting point is 00:11:11 and use one hand for eating and one hand for, you know, everything else. Everything else. And it was just customary. It was tradition that you would use your right hand for eating because most people did. And then of course everybody's heard the, you know, the expression're my right hand man, you will be on my right hand side, you are my right hand.
Starting point is 00:11:31 And obviously that is an expression of favor. You know, the most treasured, the most blessed. Right, the best hand. The best hand. The Greeks agreed that left hand in this was probably bad and they were the first to start correlating it with criminals. So if you were left-handed, you were probably a thief or a murderer or a liar. That's so in it. You know, it's really a word joke. Listen, we like to have a lot of fun here, but it is really interesting that like you can track
Starting point is 00:12:02 a lot of, it's really interesting as a case study for how we treat minorities, right? Because this could not be more benign as an idea, right? Like it could not be more, like it is on par with butter side up, butter side down in terms of like ridiculousness of it. But we still have this propensity to suspect people who are the slightest bit different just because their thumbs are backwards. Well, it really is. When you consider that as we move through history,
Starting point is 00:12:35 these were like periods of time where not everyone would be writing even. The most obvious manifestation of your hand-dness is which hand you write with today, because we all learn how to write. But we're dealing with certain times in human history, where the majority of people wouldn't have even been writing. So we're just mad at people for, I don't know, the way that they show or the hand they hold their sithen when they're harvesting. I mean, like, really, this is where we're mad about. Play-to thought that it was purely a learned activity. While there were some like Aristotle disagreed and said, I think there's something, you know, in aid about it, you know, kids tend to favor one hand or the other early on. And I think
Starting point is 00:13:23 there's something about it that is just part of who you are. Plato was like, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is the fault of shoddy mothering. And he blamed it all on bad mothers and bad nurses who basically didn't discipline their children enough. And if you don't discipline your kid enough the way he rebels is to use his left hand. It's a very mild rebellion. In general, they broke people into two categories, and this just throws in what they think about women. So on one hand, you would have things of the male persuasion associated with straight,
Starting point is 00:14:03 light, good, all on the right side of the body, all on the right side of everything. And then on the left, you would have women and they were crooked and dark and evil. Right, but also creative. At the time, that wasn't something that we believed. They did believe that female children came from the left testicle, sperm from the left testicle. Which is just as we didn't know how anything worked, didn't stop us from guessing about basically everything, right? It's like we think left is bad and we don't like women as much as men. We know you have two nuggies.
Starting point is 00:14:40 So like the left one is probably where the girls are. Yeah, the girl sperm. Well, we don't even know about sperm, because we're weird old cavemen who are just guessing about everything. Or Greeks, but okay. Greeks. Same thing. They lived in caves where they have houses, yeah, right?
Starting point is 00:14:57 I wonder if there were any like horrible, horrible surgeries done as a result of this. Just to see if the sperm in the left one were like wearing skirts or something like that. I don't know, maybe. They did think there were little humanoid things inside sperm for a while. God. Yeah, tiny, tiny little people.
Starting point is 00:15:17 Taking shots in the dark. Yeah, well, they didn't think the woman was important at all. So all of it came from the man. Sure. The woman just grew it. Yeah, right. It was her punishment. Yeah. I floated that idea past you when you got pregnant.
Starting point is 00:15:29 It didn't seem to get a lot of traction. Yeah. You didn't gain a lot of ground. No, a lot of that humor doesn't sit as well with me now. Much like undercooked eggs does not agree anymore. It's not a lot of have those. I know. I agree with them, but society doesn't agree with my ability to eat them.
Starting point is 00:15:46 Thanks, Doc. Thanks, doctors. Thanks a lot. Science. I miss my runny eggs. Why did you even do that research? Why open that Pandora's box? You knew the effect it would have on people. You knew all we wanted were some sunny side up eggs. We could have just on our bacon and the morning. Listen, listen, we've studied a lot of medical history over the past few months. We don't need an answer for everything. We will just say, I don't know, every once in a while. Sometimes after I eat eggs, I go sickness. I don't know.
Starting point is 00:16:14 Go figure, I can't figure it out. Anyway, back to my eggs. And you know in another 50 years, they're going to be telling all pregnant women to eat as many runny eggs as possible so it doesn't matter. Your baby's needing to feel. Hurry, eat some runny eggs and sushi and wash it down with a couple beers. Bill Gates is mom. She ate runny eggs as possible, so it doesn't matter. You maybe seem to feel. Hurry, eat some runny eggs and sushi, and wash it down with a couple beers. Bill Gates's mom, she ate runny eggs all the time.
Starting point is 00:16:29 I love him. So back to handiness. Ja. Yeah. In ancient Japan, you could, so let's say I'm left-handed, and we are ancient Japanese people. You're taking me all out of emotional journeys, I'm the same thing.
Starting point is 00:16:43 I've been a left-handed person in ancient Egypt, left-handed person in ancient Japan. I feel like I'm playing left-handed wear-and-time as Carmen Sandiego. That was not as popular as the original. No, not a big seller. Well, if I'm left-handed, you could have divorced me. Wow, really?
Starting point is 00:17:03 I wouldn't have for what a twerth. Oh, thanks. A problem. I't have what a twerth. Oh, thanks. No problem. I would have finished a social outcast. You're weird southfall. Sorry, I got really into my character a left-handed ancient Japanese man. Is that what they would have said? You weird southfall? Bound by culture twenties. No, I don't speak Japanese. Sydney. Sorry, I didn't I didn't prep for the episode. Next time could you learn Japanese before we start? Yes. Okay, thanks. Hi. So you're familiar with the custom of shaking hands. I don't know. I'm really having to think outside of the box a lot. Have you ever shaken anyone's hand? the box a lot. Have you ever shaken anyone's hand? Yes. Well, I don't know. You work on the internet.
Starting point is 00:17:50 Yes. But I mean, I do have to go to Benara bread every once in a while. Who's Andy? You shake it. Benara bread. The bread maker. I say, this is excellent. This is an excellent rye. Shake my, I want to shake the hand. I never made this paper nickel. Is there a digital equivalent to shaking hands like on the internet? Like you meet somebody new on the internet? Do you do anything? Sometimes people type fist bump, I guess. Are you serious? Some people, not myself. I see I work in the real world, so I don't know. Meet some people.
Starting point is 00:18:18 In the analog world where you shake hands. So you get back to the top of your head and I feel like you're really distracting us. Okay, shaking hands. You're various chronological journeys. So shaking hands has been around for a long time. The original, the origin of it, the thought, is that it was a Roman custom. And where it came from was, traditionally,
Starting point is 00:18:38 you would carry your weapon in your right hand. Because again, it was assumed that everyone was right-handed. And in order to show a person that you were meeting that you met no harm and that you were not carrying a weapon you would touch right hands and so that evolved into shaking hands. So, it was interesting is that it. I didn't prove anything with your left hand though. That was why the left hand people were some of those powerful warriors because they could be shaking hands and then what's that oops. And then they have a sword behind their back.
Starting point is 00:19:06 Darken your throat. There was some, I read that in some cultures, it actually evolved the opposite way briefly and some specific tribes, because you would drop your shield as a way of showing good faith. And so then you would use your left hand because you carried your shield on your left hand. But that's not most of human history. So we'll ignore it. A way with minorities, so ignore it. A way with you, Annick, did that fit our arc?
Starting point is 00:19:34 We're done with you. A lot of people think that the tradition of wearing a wedding ring is because we believe that on your left hand, I mean, it's because that we believe there was a vein, your love vein. have you heard that? The connects your finger, your ring finger, on your left hand, your heart. And yes, many people believe that, but it was also
Starting point is 00:19:54 to help ward off the evil of your left hand from yourself. Keep it in its place. Keep it there in your hand. Your wedding ring used to be tied to a string that would be affixed to your jeans. So it couldn't get much like in the film Idol Hands. It couldn't get up to shady business of its own volition. Let's talk about medieval times.
Starting point is 00:20:16 Perfect. Like the medieval, not the rest of it. Well, okay, I'm just lost interest. In the medieval times, of course, the church really got into the oppression of left-handed people. Yeah. Because why not? Yeah. They were into oppressing everyone. They believed that left-handed people were consorting with the devil. During the days of the witch trials, being left
Starting point is 00:20:39 handed was evidence enough to convict a woman of witchcraft. Yikes. Based that alone you could burn her at the stake throw her off a bridge, whatever Brill And it was used during the inquisition As an indication that you were heathen You think people would be get better at hiding it. I'm sure there were a lot of people who did I'm sure there were there were many left-handed people who just I mean, I don't know like it You didn't want writing. I so I guess.
Starting point is 00:21:07 So we just catch you. You just eat with your right hand. You I guess the best thing to do to be to throw something at them. Right. Got to get them in. See what happens. Yeah. That seems mean.
Starting point is 00:21:19 Um, in the 18th and 19th century, uh, that was when we started trying to reeducate children. I mean, in theory, they were probably always trying to do that on some level, but it became institutionalized that if a child showed a predisposition to use their left hand in school, they would just tell them not to punish them for it. Corporal punishment was part of that. And then in some cases they would just tie the child's left hand behind their back in school so they couldn't use it. There was a 19th century physician that you can still find if you do like a literature search for like actual scholarly research on handiness, which I did,
Starting point is 00:22:07 then you will find this guy's Caesar Lambroso and his writings on left-handedness are still you can dig them up. And he studied tons of different things, not just handiness, but different facial characteristics that were associated with what he thought to be criminal or you know some sort of perverse behavior and a lot of what he focused on were racial differences. So you can imagine Yeah, he's fairly infamous a lot of this research is not real so to speak Accurately correct and so of course course when he studied left handers another minority
Starting point is 00:22:46 He found all kinds of bad things about him. He associated it with savagery and pathological behavior and wrote all kinds of things about how If your kid was a left-hander they were gonna be a criminal when they grow up But no Paul Broca For whom parts of the brain are named Was around. Broca's area. Area.
Starting point is 00:23:08 Good job. Remember that. Uh, there's an aphasia, name for him too. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, he, he was around at the same time and he was figuring out the idea of him as phiric dominance. So kind of what you mentioned about how a left-handed people should be more creative.
Starting point is 00:23:22 Uh-huh. Because they're right-brained, right? Sure. So they're right-brained dominant. The left hand, Domna. It feels like a trick. I'm going to say it right now. No, I'm just going to say it right now.
Starting point is 00:23:31 You're lowering me into admitting the wrong thing. I'm saying you know this stuff. Okay. You could teach. So if you're right-handed, what side? Student, what side is dominant? What? You're right-handed.
Starting point is 00:23:41 Yeah. Which side? Come on. You got this. It's open to inter-perfection. It's the left, there's no trick here. There's no trick. There's no trick.
Starting point is 00:23:56 Broke was figuring out this concept at the same time that this crazy Lambroso guy was writing about how life-thanded people were all going to jail. But unfortunately, there wasn't much interest in it, so it didn't help anybody. It wasn't until the 1970s that people started rediscovering this and going, what does that mean if you're right-brained or left-brained? I mean, it clearly means more than just, I like art than I like math. So, in the late 19th and going into the 20th century, we're going into the Victorian time, and everybody had these weird ideas
Starting point is 00:24:32 about what a perfect person was. And so part of that was a guy named John Jackson founded the Ambedecstrial Culture Society. What the hell is that? Well, what he said was, forget this right-left-handed nonsense. Think how much better off we'd all be if we could all use both hands.
Starting point is 00:24:51 Oh my God. Do you realize how little you must have to worry about in the Victorian era if you're devoting any of your mind-jelly units to trying to make your left hand be good at things. These people must have had money and time to spare. Well, let's be more honest. They didn't have TV. I've got to fill the hours somehow. I might as well write my name 100 times with my left hand.
Starting point is 00:25:20 Here we go. It's eight o'clock already time for bed. Man, I love Victorian times. I wonder if this became like unpopular the moment like radio programs were introduced. You hear this? I'm never gonna write my name again. Forget that. There's left hand. I'll just live with it. This was not very popular. This was short lift. Yeah. And I mean most right-handed people did not feel the need to use their left hand because as is true a lot of time today.
Starting point is 00:25:49 It's the devil. No. The world is created for right-handed people, unfortunately, for left-handers. I'm sorry about that, everybody. In the mid-20th century, we were still discriminated against lefties. A psychoanalyst named Abram Blow still was writing, you know, their official psychological papers published that this was the result of
Starting point is 00:26:15 perversity and emotional negativity. So if you're amazing, so like two millennia after Plato, he's still banging that drum. Yep, that if you're a really negative person, you end up left handed. It was kind of like, and he likened it to, if your child refuses to eat their vegetables. With the right hand. With the right hand. He thought that he warned that if you didn't fix,
Starting point is 00:26:40 you know, again, I'm using air quotes, fix your left handed child. They would become stubborn, rebellious, rigid, and obsessed with cleanliness. Not a bad thing. Not a bad thing. Does it seem like the worst thing in the world? No.
Starting point is 00:26:51 Sounds... Of course you wouldn't think that. I would think that I would hope my future child will be at least into cleanliness. It depends on if it's coming from me or you, really. Yeah. Good luck, kid. Best of luck. I hope our child likes to clean, because I don't. It depends on if it's coming from me or you really yeah good luck kid
Starting point is 00:27:10 best of luck. I hope I hope our child likes to clean because I don't yeah I need some help around the house um now with the old chimney swing, it'd be nice as we as we move into the mid 1900s uh a guy named John Dewey started um and I'm sure there are a lot of people who were in the education fields that know this name. I'm not as familiar with them, but he kind of fathered the progressive education movement. And part of that was that we should treat left-handed people like they're normal. Because they're radicals. So at the same time as we, you know, the the IDM public school was to stop trying to correct left-handedness.
Starting point is 00:27:47 Um, there still in some parochial schools existed even into the 60s and 70s. The belief that left-handedness was something to be corrected and they would, the children would be chastised, again punished and I mean physically punished and accused of being either the devil or a communist. There were a lot of other countries, you know, we've talked a lot about the U.S. but a lot of the Soviet block countries banned left-handedness. It was mandatory to use your right hand in Spain, Italy, any of the iron curtain countries. It was illegal and punishable as a crime in Albania. Yikes. But of course today that mostly has passed, the world, as I mentioned, is still largely designed
Starting point is 00:28:33 for right-handed people, which doesn't seem very fair. And there are still some people today who try to adapt to use the right hand because of that, but it is not institutionalized. For the most part, people are good about accepting that it's just a normal thing. Please leave the lefties alone. Do you think it's something that you could correct, like that it will ever feel right, or do you think that it's always going to feel like you're pushing the boulder up the hill? I think it's hard to imagine, but there are certainly a lot of examples
Starting point is 00:29:06 of left-handed people who develop the ability to at least write with the right hand or do some tasks, you know, some degree of ambidextarity, probably as a result of being forced to when they were younger. That's part of why, you know, one of the things we talk about a lot with left handed people is there have been a lot of studies, are there health differences? Are you more likely to develop certain diseases?
Starting point is 00:29:30 Is your life expectancy less? And some of the life expectancy studies are really flawed because if you look at people in their 20s, you'll find this 10% number of left handers, but if you look at people above 50, you'll find like 5%. But it's probably not because left-handed people aren't living that long. It's because these are still people who may have been corrected as children.
Starting point is 00:29:57 Corrected again in Airquits. Right, so these may have been people who were born lefties, but have been changed into right-handed people in their lives. So I don't know. I think time will really tell if that's true or not. That's the same thing. There's supposedly an increase risk of breast cancer among left-handed women.
Starting point is 00:30:16 There's actually been a few studies that have shown this, and it's not that left-handedness causes you to get breast cancer. It's the same risk factors that they think may predispose you to cancer also make you left handed. Weird. It has to do with estrogen exposure when you're in the uterus. But this is very highly criticized. I should mention these are really controversial studies. Nobody is really clear that this is true.
Starting point is 00:30:40 This is a hypothesis. There is no increased risk of schizophrenia. Did that used to be a... Yes, that was a commonly held belief that there was an increased risk of anxieties, schizophrenia, and all kinds of psychiatric disease among left-handers. That is not thought to be true anymore. And of course lots of people have managed to overcome their disability to become successful people in their own right.
Starting point is 00:31:07 Well, again, not a disability. But there are a lot of famous left-handed people. If you look online, you'll find lots and lots of lists. Now, I should warn you, there are lots of untruths. But many of our presidents have been left-handed. untruths. Really? But many of our presidents have been left-handed. Barack Obama, our current president, is left-handed. James Garfield, Herbert Hoover, Henry Truman, George H.W. Bush, Bo Clinton. Now, Ronald Reagan was actually initially left-handed, but he trained himself to be right-handed. Oh. I think that sounds very Reagan-esque. It was the majority thing. A lot of crap. It was the most popular thing to do. So, hey, I'll go with it.
Starting point is 00:31:51 There are Bill Gates. Sure. Is left-handed. Or is left-handed. Oprah Winfrey. Babe Ruth. Jimmy Hendrix was left-handed. Paul McCartney.
Starting point is 00:31:59 Lots of creative people. David Bowie, ladies up. You know you have to string your guitar differently. I didn't know that. Yeah, you got to string the, you have to put the strings upside down, basically. That makes sense. Yeah. This is also the one time that I think you would ever read a list that includes Jimmy Hendrix,
Starting point is 00:32:21 Paul McCartney, David Bowie, and Justin Bieber all together. It's a fine company. It's for the Bebes. I know. This is the best list he will ever be a part of, I would say. You know that there are positions in baseball. You mentioned Bay Breuth position in the baseball that left hand, there are a lot of great left hand pitchers, but there are some positions that left handers. Very rarely you almost never play, like Ketcher,
Starting point is 00:32:47 shortstop because the position they have to get into, cover and throw from the position. And to throw or like third base. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that makes sense to me. I can see that. I don't think there's been a, Ketcher I think is the most notable one.
Starting point is 00:32:59 I don't think there's been a, left-hand Ketcher in quite a long time, like since 1900, to get crazy amount of time. It was also thought that lefties are better fighters, so the fighting hypothesis, because there's more surprise. I guess we... Whoa, what was that guy's got to do with hands?
Starting point is 00:33:17 I guess we're conditioned to take a punch from a right hand. But that may not be true, although if you look in certain like leagues, like boxing leagues and, you know, ultimate fighting champions and stuff, you'll find more left handers. When you put them head to head with a right hander, it's, they're no more likely to win. Well, they just, that's just because left handed people have had to fight their entire life. Just, just, just, just to get their own get their fair share Don't look kind of true again. I feel I feel bad. I know that You know that the whole world is designed for us right handers. Yeah, well listen I've joked about you left hand people, but I realize that you're just like us in a way and I think that
Starting point is 00:34:01 I'm sorry about your struggles Me too except I will say that my mom's handwriting is just a tracheus. Oh boy. And the way she holds her pen, I don't even... She may, she may have been. How is that even possible? She like curls her hand all the way around?
Starting point is 00:34:13 She actually may have been right handed this whole time. I don't know. I think about it. Maybe it was just a, maybe they were trying to put the pen in her right hand. Like no, seriously, look at your handwriting. It's terrible. Well, happy birthday, Sydney's mom, and happy birthday Sidney's mom and happy birthday to you.
Starting point is 00:34:26 Happy birthday mom. Happy birthday to you at home. If it's your birthday. If it's your birthday that one three hundred and fifty-sixth of you I'm sure are celebrating birthday today so congratulations. And if it's not just play this episode again on your birthday. Listen to it again. Thank you to people tweeting about the show like Ali Dreyer and Drea Shield Matt Jones
Starting point is 00:34:48 Michael Dancy Indie Geek Linus from all Kip Fred Wood Harlequin Clarity Fini Samus Sarabe David Belmore Jameson Borough Emily Allen. Thank you to everybody who told people to, Emily told another friend of hers, Emily, to listen to our program. Maybe just to make she knew, but either way, she told her, and I'm like,
Starting point is 00:35:20 sure appreciate people spreading the word like that. You can use solboneshow.com as a link to share there. If you want or just like directly to our iTunes page. And thank you for the wonderful game we just received. Yeah, for our friends at GameSwipe Playdate, they made a solbones game. We just received, we haven't gotten a chance to play it yet. We just went through it right before we recorded the show and I am excited.
Starting point is 00:35:42 It looks really neat. So thank you to you guys. I'm gonna beat Justin. Probably. Stay in the series and you're much show and I am excited. It looks really neat. So thank you. I'm gonna beat Justin. Probably. Stan's the reason you're much more than I am. Thanks, honey. Yeah, that's my pleasure. Listen to other shows on the Maximum Fun Network.
Starting point is 00:35:54 Why don't you? Now that you got to free time on your hands, subrate your birthday with Jordan Jesse Goe, just John Hodgman, stop podcasting yourself. Wambam, pow, one bad mother. My brother, my brother and me. Thank you so much, the goose down, international waters. So so many other programs for you to listen to.
Starting point is 00:36:12 They're just waiting there for you. And why are there, Max? I don't know what you had over the forums. You can talk about this episode and every single episode on the entire network of the ever industry. There you go. We're assuming you have a lot of free time. Thank you to the taxpayers for letting us use their song medicines for entering outro
Starting point is 00:36:27 music and go download all their stuff at their website and follow them on Twitter. It's the taxpayers. So thank you to them and thank you to you. Make sure you join us again next Tuesday for another episode of Saul Bones. Until then, I'm Justin McElroy. And Sydney McElroy. He's always. Don't true lawfully. Go ahead.
Starting point is 00:36:45 And... Music Music Music Alright! Yeah! Maximumfund.org Comedy and culture. Artistone.
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