I just wanted to share this fascinating article with you
Why won't this man blink?
Rapid blinking suggests nervousness, or deceitfulness. So what does it mean when someone -- like Gen. Wesley Clark -- rarely bats an eye?
By Anna Holmes
Feb. 2, 2004 | As everyone now knows, Democratic presidential candidate Gen. Wesley Clark is a retired Army general who served as the supreme allied commander during the U.S. military operation in Kosovo. But when I tell you that Clark doesn't blink, I don't mean that he doesn't blink in the face of adversity (although for a war hero and big-shot military man, that certainly seems true). I mean that he literally doesn't bat an eyelash, or does so very infrequently.
According to researchers, the average adult human blinks between 15 and 20 times a minute. That's once every three to four seconds. But, according to my rough calculations, Clark blinks between two and four times a minute, once every 15 to 30 seconds. This may not seem startling in writing, but in action, it can be truly extraordinary, as can be seen in this clip available from Clark's own Web site.
It's so noticeable that the Clark campaign has even prepared a spin for it. "Gen. Clark is aware [that he blinks infrequently] and that's just him," says Bill Buck, Clark's national press secretary, adding after a beat: "Basically, I'd say that the American people can rest assured that as president, Wes Clark, when facing down terrorists, will not blink."
But blinking, it turns out, is a serious, strange business. Serious because it enables the gift of sight by helping to lubricate and clear our corneas. Strange because, like breathing, everyone does it but no one really thinks about it (unless, of course, you happen to be watching Malcolm McDowell get the eye-speculum torture in "A Clockwork Orange"). And most studies on the subject tend to focus on those who blink a lot and on what that means (very roughly, it tends to suggest someone is nervous or behaving in a deceptive manner). What it means when someone blinks infrequently does not appear to have been extensively studied.
full article
http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2004/02/02/blink/index.html
This is so bad, I mean what do you have to do to become a journalist ? She speaks with psychologists and even with an anthropologist, about what it could mean that he blinks like he blinks...
It could have been quite easy to get behind the story...
On June 7, 1966, the day before graduation, Clark was preparing for what should have been the most glorious day of his life. He was going to receive five top honors at a graduation ceremony that was to be attended by Vice President Hubert Humphrey. But Clark, who had traded his thick glasses for contact lenses, apparently left the contacts in his eyes for too long. A long-forgotten photo shows Clark, huge bandages covering his eyes, in a hospital bed, shaking hands with the academy superintendent.
"Top man at West Point was in hospital," said the caption on the Associated Press photo, published in the June 8, 1966, edition of The New York Times. "Cadet Capt. Wesley K. Clark of Little Rock, Ark., No. 1 man in his graduating class and a Rhodes Scholar, is visited by his parents and Maj. Gen. Donald V. Bennett, the academy superintendent. Cadet suffered corneal abrasions of both eyes, apparently from overwearing contact lenses Monday." The accompanying story described Clark as "about the saddest of all the graduates."
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/clark/articles/2003/11/16/boy_from_little_rock_chooses
_military_path/