Remember “1984” by George Orwell? Best seller book read by a jillion people. Supposedly a satirical novel wherein government was omnipresent in people’s lives and exerted, among other things — public mind control. Individualism and independent thinking were termed thought crimes. Who guided, lead and inspired the populace? Why, Big Brother of course. In the name of the “greater good” Big Bro ruled as the quasi-divine leader.

Just thought I’d mention it as I have discovered that Big Brother has established workshops, lectures and bombastic brouhaha for dealing with “Noxious People.” Something called Institute for Brain Potential is offering seminars to a raft of “health care professionals” to teach them how to deal with “High-Conflict Individuals.”

I read about the seminar in a brochure that I found in my mailbox — addressed to someone else. When I read the blurb on the outside of the leaflet that said, “Noxious People: Living and Working with High-Conflict Individuals,” I wondered if that meant me. Then I saw the addressee’s name was not mine. Right mail box. Wrong name.

I further perused the pamphlet. It defines “noxious people” as having “problematic relationships that can engender mental or physical illness in others.” Now, don’t that beat all. Know anyone who hasn’t experienced a “problematic relationship?” Think teen-agers, anybody’s first spouse or Slobberin’ Joe, last summer’s hired hand.

The seminar purports to teach all sorts of “health care” professionals how to recognize and deal more effectively with individuals with disorders of personality, mood, thought and impulse control. Oh, be still my heart! At last, the answer to all worries! Naturally, any “health-care professional” is wholly balanced, thinking only pure, clear, clean, non-noxious calming thoughts. Angel wings sprout from health-care persons put there by Big Bro personally.

Country people, cowboys, ranchers, anybody in agriculture automatically fall into the “noxious” category. For instance it’s lambing and calving and darned if the earlier warm weather didn’t turn cold and snowy which made hundred percent successful live births problematic. Not to mention the weather might engender physical illness such as a bad head cold. Passing said cold to a spouse could create a mood disorder in the spouse. She/he might then become noxious. Quick! Phone for a “health professional.”

Losing a calf to bad weather could put a rancher/cowboy into a low mood right off. Which might lead to a depression.

And then there’s the matter of impulse control. It’s a cold morning. The gelding Cowboy Zeke is about to mount has his back arched high as a croquet wicket. That Cayuse is in a sorry mood. What you might call a high-conflict noxious equine.

I can no longer continue with this column as I have just been arrested by the thought police. I am on my way to Washington where I’m to be sequestered with Congress. ❖