A Vast Left-Handed Conspiracy

source

When Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain take the stage for the presidential debates, attentive viewers may notice both candidates scribbling notes with their left hands. Political junkies will remember that such a curiosity has occurred before: In 1992, all three contenders -- George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Ross Perot -- were southpaws.

In the race for the White House, lefties seem to have the upper hand. No matter who wins in November, six of the 12 chief executives since the end of World War II will have been left-handed: Harry Truman, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan, the elder Bush, Clinton and either Obama or McCain. That's a disproportionate number, considering that only one in 10 people in the general population is left-handed.

other links
www.infoplease.com...
wiki.answers.com...

I'm such a loser...

On the other hand (no pun intended) the only emoticons available to use here on ATS also seem to be left handed.



You may be on to something.

If 3 for 3 are left handed, and only 1 in 10 people is right handed....

I better look into this.

My girlfriend is ambidextrous, what's your major malfunction?

reply to post by imd12c4funn


Theres no conspiracy here, I'm a left handed writer, but when it comes to playing the games of the old British Empire such as cricket, I'm actually right handed. I can use any hand on the computer mouse though, as long as the buttons are set for my index finger of the respective hand.

I'm very much to the Left, but I'm right handed, only. (Or, in gun-owner accent, [aksint] "Ahm raht handid").

Wow, what an eloquent, beautifully orated insight to your character.

Are you a writer?

I'm guessing your cursive skills are equally as exacting. Perhaps we'll never know how great this country could have been without your superior intellect guiding the hand of Thomas Jefferson.

Mah cursiv skilz are real egzactin, cuz yu shuld heer me curse! Speshilly when ahm drinkin. Ah nevir gyded Thomas Jeffersin's hand, cuz that Ol Boy's too old for ma virtchoolee Self. He'z a miiiiiiggghhhhht HANDSUM tho, on that thare munny picture.

Now that I am back and have read the replies, I want to comment.

Fisrt, I must disclose that I am left handed.

Second, the day of this post, I had a relative describe and perform practice of penmanship that was tought in the relatives past schooling.
This included much arm movement rather than wrist, anglling the paper, resulting in a forward looking flow of the cursive writings, and the size of the capital and small case lettering.

Evidently this was a requiered course in the earlier part of the past century and was graded according to precision of the "art".

I never had a penmanship course myself, and when attempting this method, as a south-paw, I used almost entirely wrist rather than arm, and my hand position was radically curved in comparison.
No regrets, though my penmanship leaves much to be desired.
Thank God for Fonts and Printers.....

Third,
according to this Source:,

­The research conducted at the Australian National University (ANU) seems to back up earlier studies showing that left- or right-handedness is determined in the womb and that many lefties process language using both hemispheres of the brain, as opposed to righties, who seem to use primarily the left hemisphere for this purpose.

The two hemispheres, or halves, of the brain are pretty much identical, and for the most part, they process the same information, with data passing back and forth between them primarily via one large neural pathway. However, certain tasks, like the language processing mentioned above, tend to take place in one hemisphere or the other. For most people, language processing happens in the left hemisphere. For left-handed people, it might actually take place in both hemispheres. Another area of specialization is that of sensory-data processing: Typically, data picked up on the right side of the body (the right eye, the right ear, etc.) goes to the left hemisphere for processing, and data picked up on the left side goes to the right hemisphere. In the end, the brain essentially combines the processing results from both hemispheres to come up with what we consciously see and hear.


...
So what does this mean? It could mean that left-handers have a slight advantage in sports, gaming and other activities in which players face large volumes of stimuli being thrown at them simultaneously or in quick succession. Theoretically, they could more easily use both hemispheres of the brain to manage th­at stimuli, resulting in faster overall processing and response time. It could also mean that when one hemisphere of the brain got overloaded and started to slow down, the other hemisphere could more easily pick up the slack without missing a beat. Experts also theorize that left-handed people could fare better mentally as they move into old age and overall brain processing starts to slow down: With a greater ability for one brain hemisphere to quickly back up the tasks of the other, left-handed seniors could retain mental quickness longer than their right-handed counterparts.

other links regarding lefty's and brain function:
news.softpedia.com...

Extreme left-handed subjects were 43 milliseconds faster at spotting matching letters across the right and left visual fields than right-handed people. "These findings confirm our prediction of increasing efficiency of hemispheric interactions with increasing left-handedness." said Dr Cherbuin from the research team.

On the Downside:
news.bbc.co.uk...

Research has suggested that left-handed people are more susceptible to a range of problems, including allergies, auto-immune diseases, depression, drug abuse, epilepsy, schizophrenia and sleeping disorders.

Left-handers are thought to have poorer spatial skills, and thus to be more vulnerable to car crashes and other serious accidents.

However, a study published by The Lancet suggested there was no truth in the theory that left-handers are more likely to die prematurely.

In summary, it seems that "WE" have an advantage over right-handed people. Scientific data proves it, except for some diseases (I would like to see a double blind verification)...other "theory" is worthy of contemplation...

Forth: I am a switch hitter in baseball, golf right handed, more power as a left kicker, though accurate with both right handed stringed instrument player. ambidextrious in martial arts, tool use and foraging.

Lastly, JFK Jr. was a south paw
more famous lefties HERE:

I would encourage further comment.

[edit on 26-2-2009 by imd12c4funn]

I have researched this - being a lefty I was interested. I believe that it is decided at birth - if the left side of the brain is not accessible (problems at birth, I was a big baby, over 5kg), the right side takes over and - a lefty is born.
Further in life lefties get a better perspective on things, as they learn to see both ways, and use all the tools in a unique way. So, lefties are like with more life experience...but they do have accidents more, as most of the stuff on this planet was made for right handed people.

Lefties may be more creative, but, again, that is due to the fact that they have more life experience, some of it through struggling. No intellectual advantage other than that.

We are all the same.