Obama, Afghanistan, and the "Long War"

Is it a coincidence that the same day Tom Hayden writes about The 'Long War' quagmire, Obama pops up in Afghanistan on an "unannounced trip?"

Probably--but the implications of Hayden's op-ed piece are dire: in the absence of an ongoing "Cold War" to stoke the fires of unbridled defense expenses, the neocons will need to promote 80 years of undeclared war against "insurgent groups from Europe to South Asia."

Of course, along with defense contractors keeping in business--big business--there is the untold correlating hardship of casualties of Americans in the field.

So is Obama in Afghanistan today to reassure troops on their mission, to discuss options for the long haul with his generals? Or is he developing a way to sell the taxpayers on why they need to pay for 100,000 ground forces in a country who's biggest export is based on the opium poppy seed?

The Pope Turns His Back Again

The Catholic Church is mind boggling to me. Most formal religions' teachings are pretty far-fetched, but my exposure for most of my life is to the basic tenets of Christianity, some of which are man as God, virgin conception, rising from the dead--not to mention innumerable miracles, more like magic tricks, that we haven't seen the likes of since--are simply...mind boggling.

And I am surrounded by people who call themselves Christians, and I have learned through the years that some of these people actually know what beliefs they are following, including the ones mentioned above.

I'm really not trying to start a discussion of religion--I'm more interested in how far from any concept of morality and grounded spirituality the Catholic Church has strayed. Granted there was the Inquisition, among dozens of other historical transgressions across the centuries. But now in the middle of mass media and internet scrutiny, the Pope himself is turning his back on the victims of sexual abuse caused by his own flock under his own nose--right there in Europe, even Italy, where the tourists flow to the Vatican to get back to the origin of the religion. And he's done it before--

Christopher Dickey puts this bit of monumental hypocrisy in trenchant perspective -- Newsweek on line: When Death Came For the Archbishop.

Hey bartender, Gimme some Pig Virus

Federal health authorities recommended Monday that doctors suspend using Rotarix, one of two vaccines licensed in the United States against rotavirus, saying the vaccine is contaminated with material from a pig virus. (CNN)

Infants have an immature immune system that naturally gets challenged all the time by germs and toxins from the environment and people. This constant exposure helps the complex primary (mucous membranes and gut) and secondary (cellular blood cells and antibodies) human immune systems to keep the body as free from disease as possible.

Vaccines play havoc with this interweaving of and interplay of organic chemistry and which has an effect on every part of the development of the child. This interference is evident in the latest story of the rotavirus vaccine having a DNA contaminant from an animal during its manufacture. this discovery was by chance through a research group's examination of vaccines looking for any such contamination.

Rotavirus symptoms in babies and toddlers tend to be much more serious because of their developing immune system. (www.whattoexpect.com)

Doesn't it stand to reason that the "developing immune system" is also heavily tested by vaccines?

Around 4 to 5 million babies are born in the US each year. 100 infants have been reported by the CDC to die from rotavirus each year, which is a severe stomach ailment. We'll never know the huge toll getting vaccines takes on infants because the government, pharmaceutical manufacturers, and establishment medicine, close their eyes to this travesty in favor of the money to be made from vaccines. 1 million children received the vaccine for rotavirus already this year.

Almost all children have become infected with rotavirus by their third birthday. Repeat infections with different viral strains are possible, and most children have several episodes of rotavirus infection in the first years of life. After several infections with different strains of the virus, children acquire immunity to rotavirus. (www.medicinenet.com)

Vaccines for rotavirus require multiple doses, and most vaccines do not confer lifelong immunity, as do the antibodies to the actual germs.

And, as the drug companies like to state, the bottom line is that no one can prove the efficacy of any vaccines because there has never been a scientific double-blind study to prove they work. The statistics cited by the CDC are admittedly self-serving and vague in order to provide P R for citizens to line up for their vaccines.

As for me--my own DNA is quite enough, thank you. I'll pass on the pig virus.

Kinda Makes me Chortle

Let's talk about middle-aged men taking photographs of adolescent girls. Dressed in provocative poses, or naked, all in exquisite style...photographically.

I don't like the subject, and I'm sure the reader isn't at ease with it either. Surely a man caught engaging in such activity would be arrested for child endangerment at least.

There are several organizations devoted to the interest and caretaking of the life of Charles Lutwidge Dodgson, who indeed took pictures of young girls at the dawn of the age of photography, a century and a half ago, and who used the pseudonym of Lewis Carroll for his books about Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass.

The fascination with Lewis Carroll is partly due to his creative proclivities crossing over from knowledge and studies of math and logic to his use of words and story telling, and partly from the huge success of his books.

Who knows if he was a pederast? I heard similar stories about Walt Disney when I worked at Disney Studios in the 1980's. Supposedly--he was an anti-Semite who employed Jews; he was a skirt-chaser about whom Julie Andrews gushed as if he were a father-figure; he was an alcoholic who I loved to watch once a week in the 1950's, when he appeared as host of a TV show called"Disneyland." This TV show used Disney's movies and was sponsored by ABC, which financed the amusement park experiment, Disneyland.

Years later when I heard and read the truths and rumors about Walt Disney, the actual man, it was like waking up and getting it right. Like when I found out Mickey Mantle was a roaring drunk, and not the "hero" I watched play baseball when I was 8 years old.

Even if only a percentage of the rumors about Disney were true, there were enough to make me realize this wasn't the same "Uncle Walt" I enjoyed watching as a kid.

My favorite "Disneyland" show was "Alice in Wonderland," divided into segments over several weeks, on a 19 inch black and white television set. It was mesmerizing, especially the caterpillar "dude" with the hookah (bong?) blowing smoky letters of messages out to little Alice (just as Carroll wrote her she was a young girl in the animated version).

Never mind drugs (this one makes you small, this one makes you tall) the interest for me dates back way before the 1951 animated feature. Walt's initial fame came from drawing "Alice" adventures back in Kansas in the 1920's using a real child model and putting her in animated settings. This was a clever and creative expression at the time.


It doesn't seem fair to compare the current Disney "Alice" mega-millions-budgeted 3D release with the lineage from the past. Just for starters--the "Alice" character in the new movie is 19, and she is being proposed to for marriage. The innocence of the 7-year-old "Alice" of the books is already lost before the movie begins. Obviously Tim Burton & co are not interested in maintaining Carroll's or Disney's point of view of this little girl getting into big trouble, or any otherwise psychological dysfunction. Why should they?

The "Alice" I remember is bizarre, frightening, and wildly imaginative.

So if the forest trees don't scare the crap out of me and Snow White, Bambi's mother doesn't get shot, Pinocchio doesn't turn into a donkey, and little girls napping out by the tree don't fall down a menacing hole with weird-speaking unbelievable beings--

Then I guess 3D "Alice" notwithstanding, my happy childhood fairy tales are over.

"Cap'n, thar be whales here!" -- Scotty, Star Trek IV

As the dolphin becomes just another victim of
humanity's utilitarian attitudes towards the Earth, it
seems as though the ancient friendship between our
respective species is no longer entirely reciprocal.

Such exploitation is nowhere more evident than in the
capture and display of cetaceans for profit. Stripped of
their natural identity, deprived of their own culture
and environment, the dolphin and whale incarcerated
within the oceanarium not only symbolizes an abuse of
that ancient relationship, but above all our
estrangement from nature as a whole.

Prince Sadruddin Khan

The Bellerive Symposium on Whales and Dolphins in Captivity (1990)

I'm not a vegetarian. I love a juicy red and char-
blackened steak. Hopefully, the more of Temple Grandin's

methods for humane slaughter of cattle are adopted, the more

times I'll eat meat with a clear conscience.

Never mind the carbon-footprint aspect, which negates
all the humanity stuff. I didn't say I had no vices.

If I thought the fat and sodium wouldn't kill me at an
earlier age, I'd eat bacon all the time. And pigs are
considered one of the more intelligent animals.

I don't eat veal, which I used to love, because I found
out how grossly inhumane the animal is treated.

I wouldn't advise reading up about how chickens get to
market if you like eating them either.

I'm not an "animal lover," though logic and morality
demand a recognition of the co-members of nature
taking up a percentage of space with us humans on
this planet, including plants and fish. Even crystals are
known to exude and transmit energy, so maybe rocks
and dirt for that matter have some input in our shared
existence.

After all, on a molecular level, we're all made of the
same stuff that comes from the creation of stars...

I know there are no coincidences. Two days
after a Killer Whale in an amusement exhibit in
Orlando killed its trainer, a book review
appeared in the Los Angeles Times about how

whales have been mistreated in the world over

the last 250 years.

'The Whale' by Philip Hoare describes instances of total
thoughtlessness on the part of humans' use of an
animal:

"As their land-borne counterparts drove buffalo from
sixty million to extinction, so these oceanic cowboys
pursued whales to the brink. . . . For America, the
common enemy was the wilderness; and just as that
wilderness was in fact full of animals -- and native
peoples -- so the American seas were full of whales,
ready for the slaughter."

The Russians don't escape blame either in this
century:

"During the Cold War, gargantuan Soviet factory ships
dispatched and processed their quarry with grim
efficiency.

Lamps no longer burned whale oil during the 1950s
and 1960s; whales were made into lipstick, margarine,
vitamins, lubricants, fertilizer, glue, leather and food
for minks and other fur-bearing animals."

The overall issue is about the animals we live with.
There has been a long term outcry against making fur
clothing from animals. Very recently I have seen increasing
activism about so-called "puppy mills" where dogs are
bred beyond the ability of the demand of puppy lovers
to absorb them so that many have to be killed.

We got our dog from a shelter, and there were hundreds of
other dogs there waiting for a home they'd never see.

We have no control over our fellow citizens of the
earth in other countries where tigers have been
poached down to near nonexistence.

Then PETA makes a silly ad comparing the
problems with tigers to the problem of a guy named
Tiger in order to make a point--but not a good point.

So they pulled the ad.

Animals kept in captivity, in zoos, aquariums, or in
any of a number of other unnatural habitations

is not healthy for them, or for our human
perception of them. If a parent thinks the child will
become more knowledgeable about an animal by
observing it in a zoo, circus, or constrained in water
when it was meant to roam the sea, that parent should
realize that the real lesson the child learns is how
people can be bullies over even the most powerful of
creatures. That's what I learned from seeing monkeys
in a zoo or graceful dolphins in a small area, or huge powerful

lions chasing their tails over and over in confinement.

It is especially souring that a woman who is said to
have loved her relationship with the great Killer
Whales, was killed by one of them in an accident.

This incident needs to bring to the headlines that these
animals need to be let loose and out of captivity.

The news reports are even blaming the trainer for dangling her

ponytail in the water, and this confused the Killer Whale. Her fault

was not in trying to embrace and love this whale, it was the fault of

a system that says that humans can invade the world of nature with

no consequence, and no thought. In the wild, a human would never

try to interact with a large Killer Whale. It's not natural. Dogs are

domesticated animals over several thousand years--Killer Whales, not.

Circuses need to be disbanded, and animals fit for the
wild need to be released into their native habitat.

Let Sea World hire James Cameron to develop a huge multi
-screen "Avatar"esque 3D show about how Orcas live,
eat and produce in the wild. Show them sneaking up
on the California Grey Whale calves and munching
down in a few bites as the Greys make their way with their
mothers down to Baja to spawn. It's terrifying,
grotesque--but it's natural and none of our business--
go ahead and film it for the sake of educating our
children. Sea World would thrive on punching
those tickets for that filmed 3D show.

There's more to learn in the natural activity of the food
chain than there is in the artificial depravity of human
technology conquering an ignorant beast.

All of this sounds pretty way out and far-fetched--let all the

zoo animals go and close down the circuses...

How do you think it sounded to the Sperm Whales when
they were being hunted and killed to use their oil to
light the gas lamps of London 160 years ago? They
couldn't believe it either!

People are so bizarre. Try talking to one sometime--
you won't believe what you hear next.

There is about as much educational benefit to be
gained in studying dolphins in captivity as there would
be studying mankind by only observing prisoners held
in solitary confinement.

Jacques-Yves Cousteau

Genius on Education: Roger Schank

I have quoted Roger Schank several times regarding the dismal state of the education curriculum in the US. Mr. Schank's background and biography are so complex and profound that my quick take is that he is an expert--possibly THE expert--on how people learn.

Actually, he is an expert on how learning happens, because his initial studies over 35 years ago were not about people, but about how to develop computers that could learn. Schank thinks so far outside the box, it's hard to describe briefly what his field is.

How'd I know about Roger Schank and his amazing research? My dad played in a softball league with him in Florida. As they became friends, my dad told me about Mr. Shank's work, because my dad knew of my interest in the issue of US education--or at least of it's failings. I didn't know of Mr. Schank's work--I received a Master's Degree in film production from Boston University, so what did that have to do with education?

I have now read enough of Schank's work and his anecdotal quotes to know that if he offers advice, you're always better off following it. I am referring to particular advice in terms of how our US publi school system.

It seems to me that most parents take for granted that their children will attend schools grouped by grades, divided by year chronologically, and that they will be taught separate subjects like math, history, English literature etc. The buildings used for classrooms are usually divided into rooms lining a hallway. The rooms may or may not have windows, and children line up a lot to move from room to room, or lunch cafeteria.


On the whole in this country, prisons and school buildings are indistinguishable from each other. Who questions this structure? We've all gone through it. Surprisingly, not all parents swallow this route for their children's education hook, line and sinker.


These people, motivated and stimulated by publicized alternatives to US public school education, have found state-sanctioned recourses such as Montessori, or the new charter schools which are not wholly obligated to the local school district's curriculum.


Some parents even teach their children themselves--home school--although sometimes the reasons for this are not due as much to the education deficiencies in the school district as much as to the religious preferences of how evolution or the bible is taught.

Children also get more homework these days--unless you're a teenage parent, most of us had less homework than our kids do now. In many situations, the heavy homework burden is because "we, the people," decided our "children
doesn't read" as well as they should, or know enough about 'rithmatic, or whatever.


So we fixed it where the powers that be--Bush & Co. "No Child Left Behind," would see to it that these kids'll get the practice they need. And if that means
30 repetitive math homework problems to do every night--instead of dance class, or a singing or piano lesson, or baseball or just plain old playing with your friends...buck up and take your medicine before the Chinese overcome
you and communism rules the world.

Well, maybe that's a little "over the top" as the drama critic says--not every parent who wants his child to succeed, and thinks homework helps, is afraid of the overrunning "Asian hoard"...But Schank isn't the only one who thinks the
"system" is broken, or that kids are inundated with homework.


What if you, as a student or former student, or parent, closed your eyes for a moment, and thought about something you once learned while travelling, or watching a movie, or the History channel? What if you thought about how
much an adult uses advanced algebra equations, who isn't working on sending rockets into outer space, and what if you thought about just sitting around with your friends discussing something that interests everyone?

Some enlightened experts in learning, including Mr. Schank, have asked the question, "why do children have to learn by subject category." Maybe there shouldn't be a demarcation between history, English, Math etc. In fact, why teach math at all, unless a certain student enjoys math and wants to learn more about it--there are some who do!

Here are the core issues: immediately urgent is that kids spend six-eight hours in school every day. Why should their family life be ruined by two to five additional hours of homework?


And ultimately, the entire curriculum and set-up of our school system needs to be re-evaluated and revolutionized to conform with how a human being actually learns. One thing is for sure--people do not learn by being lectured to and repeating by rote what they can remember from the lecture on a test. Yet that's exactly how the public school system is set up to teach our children.

Which brings me to the interesting portion of this post -- my conversation about all the above with the principal of my daughter's middle school in Sherman Oaks, CA.


If you want to speak with your child's school principal, you make a phone call, then leave a message, and eventually you may speak to him or her. In my case, the principal called me! We had a nice talk, and we were in total agreement.


He is unhappy that the system is geared towards "teaching for tests," in other words, making sure students get high test scores so the money keeps funding in from the state and federal coffers to the local school. He agrees with me
about too much homework intruding in family life--especially repetitive math problems. And he says his hands are tied as much as mine to make changes.


I initially thought the principal's phone call would revolve around his explanation of why the schools are set up as they are, and how this was good for children. I was gratified that his end of the conversation was the exact opposite--he agreed that kids are set up to fail, average achievers are discouraged from creatively branching out, and a high percentage of teachers and parents--both sides of whom are ignorant about the subject--think a lot of homework is better for the student. He told me of every 3 parents like me who complain about too much homework, 2 parents think it's just fine as is or that there isn't enough homework!


My daughter still has too much homework, she gets all A's (I personally don't care about grades or tests, but she likes the A's), and she still wants to stay in school. She's as tough as the system itself!

Why did the principal phone me in the first place? He called me because of a letter I wrote to the Superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD). The LAUSD serves around 700,000 students, has around 45,000
teachers, 38,000 other employees, and a budge of roughly $13.6 billion.


Here's the letter I wrote to Ray Cortines,
Superintendent of LAUSD (the vitriol is self-explanatory):

January 30, 2010


Mr. Superintendent:


Once again my dinner was unnecessarily interrupted by an annoying recorded phone call from you to report about a report card regarding school's performance. Who cares!


It isn't enough my daughter attends Millikan for 7 hours a day, and then has an average of 3 to 5 hours homework per night, and at least 12 hours over each weekend--that's AVERAGE!--but you or someone in the school also send out recorded messages which are either not urgent,nor meaningful, to my daughter's education.


Today is a beautiful Saturday on which my daughter should be outdoors, playing with friends, or having some recreation not involved with indoor school paperwork homework. Instead, she is doing repetitive math problems, a science report she already did in December but has to add to, and other busy-work homework.


If I have to quote you the studies done through the years which prove that the amount of homework a student does is NOT commensurate with his or her achievement in school, or career, then you have a huge gap in your back ground as an educator.


The lack of social interaction due to homework assignments; the immense pressure exerted on students because teachers act more like prison guards than educators, putting utter fear into each student about turning in homework assignments on time; teacher and administration accent on standardized tests which score how a school compares in terms of test scores with other schools; the "tone" of collusion of the LAUSD that all of this is better for our students--these aspects of my daughter's experience in school show a tremendous failing on the part of administrators, and teachers, in understanding of how children learn.


I don't believe this one letter will change any of the amazing damage the policies regarding homework is doing to students.


But I do know that my daughter is an exceptional, better-than average, bright student who is inundated with unimportant busy work homework. So how does a student who doesn't have my daughter's capabilities and acumen even keep up?


No wonder I see so many youngsters throwing up their hands, giving up, and dropping out. Maybe it's time you reassessed this homework barrage. It's wrecking social and family lives.


Signed,
David Goldenberg


ps: I just got another recorded phone call at 6:30 PM Thursday,Feb 4. 2010, informing me that tomorrow is a minimum day and that Monday is a regular day. this was an wasted phone call and a waste of my time. The school and your district has notified parents already of this information. These phone calls are intrusive.


BUT--if I choose not to receive these phone calls, I have been informed that some of your information is ONLY delivered by phone. So I must continue to be a victim of LAUSD intrusion and incompetence.



After this venting, I didn't care who contacted me or not, because I don't believe in this circumstance one voice can make a difference--which goes against everything I ever say or teach about speaking out against injustice and
tyranny.

So I did receive a response:

Dear Mr. Goldenberg,

I apologize for interrupting your dinner. I am trying to be transparent and communicate with parents. I receive complaints that I do not communicate enough with parents, and your complaint is that I communicate too much with parents.

Nevertheless, I do believe that there should be time for play and enjoyment for young people. I have shared your email with the principal and local district superintendent and I have asked them to get in contact with you directly
regarding the homework policy.

Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to communicate with me.

Ray Cortines

Nicole Elam-Ellis
on behalf of Ramon C. Cortines
Office of the Superintendent
213-241-7000



Two items come to my mind upon reading this email from Mr. Cortines:


1 - when someone in authority complains that whatever he or she says or does always pleases some people and rankles others, it's time to get another job. I
knew about this when I hit puberty and don't need the head of my child's school district to remind me.


2 - How does Cortines know I have a busy schedule? That's a huge assumption, and a smear against me being bothered by his intrusive phone calls. Busy or not, I don't like having my time wasted for anything, especially when it's done on purpose.

Nevertheless, that letter lead to the the principal's phone call. And despite the positive tone and discussion between the principal and me, my now assured assumption is that nothing will come from my letter or phone call to change the rotten public school system in this country. I didn't expect it to anyway, but I always like to add one more "weight" to the side of the scale in favor of rationality, in case it could matter.

And in case I wasn't sure about my hopeless assumption, here's an email exchange between me and Roger Schank about the school system, homework, and correspondence from the school district (and my trust and admiration is on the side of Mr. Schank, along with hope after all!) :

Dear Mr. Schank --


I really just want to say you are a tremendous inspiration for me, as someone who has been educated (might as well read tortured...) and has many untutored reservations about how our children are being treated in school.


I have a daughter who is inundated with homework,is one of the top students of her class (out of 650) in 7th grade, and can't see daylight because she fears the system. She also gets all A's (as if that matters to me!!!--only to her) but they've got her, if you know what I mean--they've got her right by the cinder blocks that make up her schools walls.!!


Anyway--I am not an expert in education, and when her principal called me the other day subsequent to the letter I wrote (Not very diplomatic--I was pissed can you tell?) to the LAUSD superintendent who is on the "take" as board member of a company that sells textbooks to the schools...it's a mess...[Cortines has since gotten out of this conflict of interest]


The principal agreed with me (essentially you--since I only have your quotes and studies as a back ground to me) and said it was because of "No child left behind."


Anyway you know all about this.


Sincerely,

David Goldenberg

Roger Schank's Response:

The system is very hard to fight and getting worse every day; my advice is get her out of school; how to do that is another question; we will be offering a new virtual high school from a school here in Florida open to students anywhere if you want to try that option

roger

So there it is--good advice, hard to take. Public school structure needs a revolution in the US. Our legacy is at stake.

There are examples of what really works. Parents have to take note and become informed--unlike most of my children's friends' parents who shrug their shoulders and talk about how much homework they had when they went to school, or how math is good for the brain. My accountant can't even do math.

Maybe if I drank the fluoridated water supply like everyone else, I wouldn't mind so much either...

...At the head of this post--The top photo is a prison, the brick building is a school.

Short Sound Bites & Jack Benny

We've all learned for years about the "sound bites" that sprinkle the news on TV and radio. Anyone under 20 now reads and thinks in even shorter "bites" due to the contractions of texting and Twitter. If you can't speak your piece in 140 characters or less, you're not worth hearing.

For those who suffer from Attention Deficit Disorder, this shortening of the pay-attention span is a good thing. Since I may be one of those (at 60 years of age now, I was too young to be diagnosed waaay back then), the sound bite delivery works for me. It just doesn't happen to be illuminating or enlightening, but the basic info is there.

Although I still read long articles, and even books (I hate to brag), but I have to retrace sentences or even paragraphs at a time often to cover up for where my thoughts wandered.

But I digress (naturally-that's my ADD)--how far back do you think this contraction of information started? I can't answer that, but I was surprised to see the following story about Bob Newhart, now 80 years old, in the Los Angeles Times, and about how he had to shorten his stand up comedy stories over 45 years ago because people's attention span at that time had dwindled!

Newhart says he learned comedy from the best, especially Jack Benny, with whom he became close friends.

"I would watch the Sullivan show, the Paar show and 'The Steve Allen Show,' but I would watch the comedians clinically," he says. " 'Why did they use that word? I understand where they are going.' For a comedian, there is nothing better than watching another great comedian."

Another classic routine from his first album featured Abraham Lincoln being coached by his press agent before giving the Gettysburg Address.

"Abe Lincoln came out of a book by Vance Packard called 'The Hidden Persuaders,' " says Newhart. "It was a book about subliminal advertising. I read the book and somehow I made a connection, because all comedy has a connection and an association with something else."

It was Benny's favorite routine. "I was at the Crescendo on Sunset and Jack came in with Mary [his wife] and George Burns and Gracie Allen. They came back afterward and Jack said, 'If we are ever in the same city and I'm in the audience, finish whatever bit you are doing and do Abe Lincoln.' "

Fast forward a few years and Newhart is winding up his engagement at the Palmer House in Chicago. "He's about to open there and he's in the audience. So I do Abe Lincoln. Jack comes back afterward and says, 'You left that out, you left this out. . . .' He was absolutely right. I had tightened it because of the attention span of the public. It was around the time of 'Laugh-In,' and I could tell in Vegas that you couldn't do eight-minute routines anymore. You had to do it in about five minutes."

Haitians R Us

The earthquakes in Haiti have caused a huge, terrifying, catastrophe. The people affected by tragedy in Port Au Prince represent a large plurality of the people of this planet:

...our world is home to 6.7 billion people.

In 2005, almost 1.4 billion people lived below the international poverty line, earning less than $1.25 per day.

1.02 billion people across the world are hungry.

There are a lot more statistics to show that the average middle class existence of an American family is unusual, in fact almost amazing, compared to so many people around the world.

Naturally, in an environment which is not immediately affected by the problems of hungry and poor people, the US citizens who are eating every day and don't go to bed hungry, may tend to take for granted their amazingly good fortune. Even though many of us see homeless people begging for money right under our noses.

The one-two punch of the earthquakes striking near a major city of Haiti, a totally poor country, and the mainstream media able to get stories and visuals back to American citizens so quickly, provides a clue of how bad off much of people of the world really are. But we still have to be told that Haiti's problems, which began before the earthquake, are more universal than unique.

Unlike the tsunamis which were half way around the world, this natural event is much more close to home--680 miles from Miami.

An act of nature on this scale makes a rational person want to see an end to the petty squabbles of various groups within the species of humanity, and recognize the real enemy is within each of us, and not from someone else.

Bra Baby and Mark McGwire

You see the picture of the "Bra Baby." This is an item I purchased in K-Mart in Burbank, because I was intrigued that the entire box is covered in lettering written in Hebrew. Since Burbank is not known for a large Jewish population, I could only assume that the shelves full of this item with Hebrew blurbs on it was because Jewish immigrant women need to wash their bras and keep the cups from collapsing more than other women. Even if a lot of Jews lived in Burbank and the women need "Bra Baby's," how many of them would be fluent in Hebrew enough to understand the packaging?

If the Bra Baby explanation seems strange, it's nothing compared to what follows, which is mostly current events:

Sarah Palin's going to be paid to comment on Fox News; Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid not only got caught making telling racial observations about Obama's chances as a man with black blood to be elected president, he substituted the arcane term "negro" for "black," not to mention he got the issue right! The big banks who got bailout money from taxpaying citizens, are now reporting huge profits, and they are planning to reward the rank and file with huge bonuses as they continue to foreclose on homes of the taxpayers from whom they got the bailout money.

So my big beef about Mark McGuire's confession of steroid use when he broke Babe Ruth's home run record possibly inching him closer to acceptance by the sportswriters as a member of the sacrosanct Baseball Hall of Fame seems out of place, priority-wise.

Actually, the number one issue is that while we, the people, once again are committing untold billions of dollars, manpower, and time, to pound the crap out of some warlords in Afghanistan, thousands of little terrorist-wannabes all over the world--yes, even in our United States--are trying to create little explosive messes to get their 15 minutes of fame and martyrdom or whatever by killing innocent people and only the NYPD has a clue where some of them are.

The CIA, FBI, TSA--you spell it--are more concerned with strip searching every single last ethnic-looking Muslim-possible coming onto or off of any plane from any number of countries who have big numbers of Muslims in them. Which should include the US where over 6 million Muslims call home.

My problem with McGwire is that he was taking drugs to "enhance" his performance, which some consider cheating against another player who wasn't doing that. And of course, the possibility of becoming dead from steroids, or at least having a vastly altered organic system detrimental to your health, and standing there as a role model from young kids (or even 50+ year-olds like myself) who love baseball and want to emulate the "heroes" who make and break records--doesn't feel right to me to have this person in the hall of fame.

When I was growing up, prior to modern baseball parks, and modern cork-filled bats, and modern bouncier baseballs, and steroids, there were a few heroes in the game who stood out. My favorites were Babe Ruth and Mickey Mantle. Both of them, I found out by the time I reached middle age, were drunk most of the time. Ruth also over ate. Not like we do at Thanksgiving. He ate so much during a single game--the bat boy brought him over a dozen hot dogs--he was hospitalized and had to have his stomach pumped.

Just to make a good Hollywood ending, the Babe Ruth Story in 1948 starred William Bendix as Babe Ruth--and Bendix had been the bat boy at that game!

So if Ruth and Mantle could bang out home runs, and make plays in the field--in fact Ruth was one of the all-time great pitchers in major league baseball before they realized he packed in bigger crowds hitting home runs every day instead of pitching every four--while handicapped by booze and late nights etc, then it seems to me like McGwire is nowhere near their league.

McGwire might have been sober, in shape, and a good family man, but when you take a drug--a steroid, or human growth hormone--to make you a better hitter even though that drug may have a bad effect on your health, you don't belong in the same class as the great ballplayers who were drunks and whore mongers who didn't cheat by artificial means.

And if you think that doesn't make sense--look at the big stories this week: Leno may move to 11:30 and Conan may go to Fox. Simon Cowell says this is his last year on American Idol.

Who really cares about Geithner and the emails?

If I were really focusing on what's important, I'd be worried about Pete Carroll leaving USC for the Seattle Seahawks and the scandals in that wake. But I'm really a baseball fan, and the machinations of the economy and banking are something I could never understand. If it involves people, I'm always confused.

Are You Trying to Seduce Me, Mrs. Goldstein?

When I graduated high school in 1968, my girlfriend lived across the street from me. Her mom was a very attractive middle-aged lady who I liked very much. Like an aunt. Maybe more like a sexy aunt with a great figure!

That really isn't the point. It seems that a well-known politician in Northern Ireland, has a wife who is fooling around with a teenager. So the story makes news because of the name, "Mrs. Robinson."

The report alleged that Iris Robinson — then aged 59 and, like her husband, a well-known politician in Northern Ireland — had obtained $80,000 from two property developers for a 19-year-old man, Kirk McCambley, with whom she had been having an affair. According to the report, the teenager allegedly used most of the money to set up the café but saved $8,000 to give back to his lover, the appropriately named Mrs. Robinson.

Interesting that over 40 years after the book and movie, "The Graduate," that "Mrs. Robinson" still makes news.

I tend to notice these tidbits because my girlfriend's mother's name was...not Mrs. Goldstein.

Can you imagine the kidding I got about "Mrs. Robinson" across the street? Actually, I didn't get kidded very much--in Hartford, CT in 1968 it seems that movies were not the pinnacle of interest that I thought they were. Even my girlfriend's mom, Mrs. Robinson, thought it was humorous -- but not THAT humorous.

I used to say, "What are the odds?" Now I say, "There are no coincidences."

Good night, Irene! (That's what I call Mrs. Robinson.)

Barfing is the New Fucking

Obama is sending 30,000+ troops to Afghanistan, with all the infrastructure and money that entails, and I'm writing about vomit--what's wrong with my viewpoint? you ask...

All of us Americans, three-hundred-million of us, are going through the daily routine, making "ends meet" or not, miserable or thrilled--whatever. There are a billion people on earth facing starvation every day, and that's a fairly unfathomable number.

Many people, in many countries around the world, work and strive to make the miserable life of those less fortunate more comfortable, or at least livable. In short, everyone needs a break from the horrors of the news, the world, even just from the traffic.

So for my "break," I turn on the TV and look for clever writing, or a dandy documentary, or something to take my mind off of the ongoing mundane problems of us all.

Tonight, I watched an episode of "The Office," which featured a scene in which one person got sick to her stomach, threw up on camera, and initiated a sequential gagging and vomiting of everyone in the "room." I am personally put off by seeing someone else throw up, I have never found it entertaining, and in fact it brings up memories of people I've been with who were terribly sick or terminally ill, who were vomiting almost in a state of unconsciousness. Still, it is disgusting to me to watch in real life, but when I want to use TV or movies to "escape" reality, as we used to say in the 1960's--"escapism,"--watching an actor pretend to throw up by spitting out some stuff he or she got from the crew is not entertaining, enlightening, illuminating, relaxing, or clever.

It's a way to go to the "edge" in TV the way sex used to be used for shock value. In the movie North by Northwest, the characters played by Cary Grant and Eva Marie-Saint share a sleeper unit on a train travelling across country. There is no doubt, from the sequences of their kissing and the dialogue, that they will make love in this sleeper car. But the humping and heavy breathing is never shown on screen. When I saw the 50th anniversary screening by the AFI of the restored version of this film recently, Ms. Saint, who was present, said she was glad Hitchcock only inferred the raw sex, because in today's films, it would have to be shown to meet audience expectations.

I wonder what she would have thought about all the vomiting that's been going on in the movies and on TV lately. I don't understand why the sex act in movies and on TV is scary to Americans, while violence and bloodshed is more tolerated--and now, everyone is regurgitating in all sorts of TV and movie venues, and for me this is worse than violence or sex--on TV or in movies that is.

So now I'd rather read about troops in Afghanistan and mayhem murders around town, than go relax in front of my TV watching people vomit without warning.

Jenina and Margaret and Love and Tolerance

"Fuck you what are you looking at? I'm a fucking little girl and your mothers eat shit from whores, you assholes!"

Little Jenina was quickening her pace. She couldn't have been 5' tall and she was trying to stay out of range of the 2 menacing men who were following her. They were wearing thick long coats and carrying rifles. They could have caught up with her if they wanted to, but they enjoyed taunting her. They were asking Jenina for "identification papers."

It was mid-1940's, a town in Poland, and Jenina had no such "proper" papers. As a Jewish girl she wasn't free to walk about the streets of the town.
She should already have been rounded up like all the other Jews, and carried by cattle car train to Auschwitz, where Jews were sent to be killed.

All the Jews in Europe knew about this Nazi program, and Jenina knew she was in jeopardy. She was trying to figure out how to keep away from the bullies. She had just bought a loaf of bread to take home to the gentile family she was staying with.

We've all known bullies. I have--from when I was a little boy in the back seat of my mother's car, and the older kid up front kept punching me, and everyone said "stop crying, David--it's no big deal." To when I was a teenager and saw my friends pick on an effeminate guy, so I thought it would be cool to do the same thing. I found out pretty quickly that it wasn't cool after all. And I felt sick about it-which is no apology, but here is the truth after all.

So I was a bully too.

Don't give the Germans under Hitler and Nazis all the credit--it's part of human nature, and not a very pretty part, to somehow "lord it over" someone else even
when you don't have the merit, to make yourself feel somehow better than that person.

It doesn't really work, I unfortunately can remember.

So these two grownup bullies, Nazi soldiers, thought it would be a good job to harass or even abduct a young girl, little Jenina. Put another notch on their rifles--caught another wayward Jew.

They didn't do it--why not?

In those days, Jews were not known to use bad language. In fact, it was a mark of their honor that they didn't swear--use "curse words." So when Jenina told off her followers using the worst language she could remember, the two Nazi soldiers said, "She can't be a Jew--they don't use language like that!" And they left her alone, and let her go.

Jenina's son, Robbie, a handsome middle-aged fellow to whom I have often waved hello--we lived across the street from his mom, Jenina, and dad,
Frederich, for 2 years--told that story at Jenina's funeral last week. That's how I know about it.

Jenina was a "Holocaust survivor." Most of her family at that time were not survivors.And Robbie related his mother's story of how her life was saved that first time, one of many.

When we lived across from Jenina, who was now in her 80's, she and my wife loved each other. It was only natural--my wife loves everyone, and is interested
in all the underpinnings and experiences--and Jenina was exactly the same!

We moved into a house in Studio City with so much "history," in which only I and my wife would be interested. Bobby Troupe, the great singer, and
his wife, Julie London, my 1950's heartthrob and another great singer, lived next door years earlier to where we moved, and Abbot and Costello owned two houses in the English Tudor tradition on the next block...it goes on and on--and Jenina and her husband Frederich knew them all.

My wife would say, "I'm going over to Jenina's for a minute to return the pie pan." Jenina would cook dishes and cookies all the time and bring
them to us. Then hours would pass and my daughter would say, "Where's Mama? I want to go to bed." and Mama was at Jenina's talking for
hours and hours.

Jenina and Frederich were married 56 years. He was in England in WWII and helped translate coded messages. He was entirely fascinating despite his hearing deficiency and old age. I would pick his brain about the Nuremberg trials and other events to which he was a first-hand witness--amazing and fascinating.

My wife's mom died three weeks ago. My mother in law was a non-judgmental, un-envious, gentle person. Margaret was always happy for someone else's good fortune. Everyone was impressed by that. And she led a simple life, with no frills. Yet in her calm wake she left many people touched by her kindness, her compassion, and her genuine interest. My wife and her mom were lucky to have each other, and they both knew it.

Margaret didn't live through the trials and near-death experiences like Jenina. She did live a life of joy, balance, and calm, despite whatever hair-raising stuff was happening around her, including an alcoholic husband and drug-addicted mother. She was an example of how to live a life each day as it comes. And Jenina was the example of life as a matter of love, no matter what. I am lucky to see the embodiment of both in my wife.

And my wife took care of her mother, and she loved Jenina very much.

For me it is fitting that the final resting of these two women came in the same month that a piece of humanistic legislation finally became a law.
This bill had a history of development, and birth, as difficult as any law in US history, and yet it seems so obviously appropriate and needful in its
immediacy. In other words, what took so long?

"The Matthew Shepard Act, officially the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, is an Act of Congress, passed by
Congress on October 22, 2009, and was signed into law by President Barack Obama on October 28, 2009, which expands the 1969 United States
federal hate-crime law to include crimes motivated by a victim's actual or perceived gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability."

A separate essay would be required to summarize the almost decade-long attempts led by Congressman John Conyers and Senator Edward
Kennedy to introduce and reintroduce this legislation, which extends the parameters of the federal hate-crime law.

Jenina, a holocaust survivor, and Margaret, with humility and animosity toward no one, would not understand what the opposition to such a law
could be. But there was plenty of opposition, from many varied quarters, mostly right-wing, conservative, and irrational.

Some examples:

...James Dobson, founder of the socially conservative lobbying group Focus on the Family, opposed the Act, arguing that it would effectively "muzzle
people of faith who dare to express their moral and biblical concerns about homosexuality."...

...Senator Jeff Sessions, among other Senators, was concerned that the bill would not protect all individuals equally.[16] Senator Jim DeMint of
South Carolina spoke against the bill, saying that it was unnecessary, that it violated the 14th Amendment, and that it would be a step closer to the
prosecution of "thought crimes"...

The details of the law's history are immense--it was added as an amendment to other bills several times, passed by the House and Senate in various
forms, and finally last month made it to Obama's desk for signature.
Such a simple concept: tolerance of our fellow human beings' personal freedoms.

To answer "what took so long...?" is that everyone is not like
Jenina and Margaret, simple in the highest values, and profound in wisdom. I'm sure they would have easily understood the legislation's necessity.
It's part of my memory of them.

Flu Tall Tale

Your doctor is like a cab driver on a very rainy night with potholes all over the road. You're in good shape, he's a good driver who wants to get you where you need to be. But there are all sorts of hindrances and possible disasters in the way.

Right this minute, you aren't sick. You haven't shown symptoms of the new H1N1 influenza virus. Reports are that this bug can make someone feel really sick. Some theories hold that we are surrounded and inhabited by various viruses and bacteria all the time, but that our immune system, bolstered by our general health, keeps them harmlessly at bay.

There has been plenty of discussion in this blog about the dangers and lack of efficacy of any vaccine, including a flu shot. So there's one pothole we're going to avoid and tell our favorite physician sorry, no shot--no thanks again this year.

He shakes his head, like the cab driver who says, "You really want to go through that flooded street instead of over the bridge? In my cab?" And you say, "Trust me--that's a reflection. There's no flood--just drive." And he's still shaking his head telling you about endangering your family and children etc...

Now you handle a bunch of family business, professional business, and stress. You're losing sleep, and your body gives up on the immunity support because it's too busy dealing with your over-wracked brain.

You left the door open. So one of those virulent persistent mean little microscopic DNA/chromosomal poor-showing-for-a-cell wannabe flu viruses gets a foothold on your unsuspecting, unaware, unprotected cell tissue. As your body responds with all the antibody immunity it can muster, you start to feel really bad.

Billions of those little viruses--not one of which can live alone but has to parasitically feed off of one your cells--are causing your body to produce histamine, antibodies, fever, and more. Each of these reactions makes you feel awful. That's how nature cures you. No one said this would be easy, but it works and lasts forever.

The doctor used to tell you to stay home and rest. The cab driver used to drive more carefully and get you to the door...

NOW -- The cab driver says, "I've got wings and a sea-plane underpinning built into this cab, so we can FLY over the flood and avoid the bridge altogether--even get you to your destination that much sooner!"

What that means is that the doctor has told you about Tamiflu. Now that you have the flu (whether or not your kindly doctor has swabbed your throat for a culture to test for sure that it is one of any number of hundreds of influenza viruses, is another story), your doctor says that you can take a little pill the drug companies came up with, in case the vaccine doesn't work, which it doesn't, called "Tamiflu," which they tell you will lessen the painful symptoms of your body's immune system defense, and maybe even shorten the number of days you feel bad.

It's like a Disney movie where the good fairy waves her wand and the magic dust comes out and ... the flu goes away.

And if you're over 12 and you still believe in fairies, you should go get a flu shot and stock up on Tamiflu.

There are a couple of problems with the cab driver's wings and sea-plane landing gear--you're likely going to crash into the Hudson River without a floatation device and either be sick or dead: Tamiflu doesn't work.

That's not my big left-wing-reactionary-"I hate big pharma"-scream. It's a quote from the CDC (U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention):

The director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says that the prescription drug Tamiflu isn't working against the virus strain that is causing this year's [2008] influenza in the United States.

Now, to really confuse you, the cab driver tells you to avoid the wings and sea-plane add-on after all, because he got a call from one of his fellow cab drivers with the same contraption, and that other cab is now sinking into the briny depths of the Hudson River--the wings were too small and the sea-plane buttress was made for a bicycle, not a car! But you don't know what the cab driver is talking about anyway because he doesn't speak English:

Confusing directions on liquid suspensions of the antiviral drug Tamiflu may inadvertently cause parents to give either too little of the drug, impeding the child's recovery, or a toxic overdose, physicians warned in a letter published Wednesday in the online version of the New England Journal of Medicine...

...Jacobson and her husband, an internist, had to do a Google search, then solve an equation to determine the correct dose: 5 ml. (volume of a teaspoon) x .75 x 12 mg./ml. of Tamiflu = 45 mg. It took them both working together for 30 minutes to solve the equation, and they suspect that many parents would have greater difficulty doing so.

I swear I'm not making this up. Except for the cab driver.

Lou Dobbs Wrong Again

I have been writing and referencing, in this blog, the positive cultural and economic effect immigrants have in our country.

Here is another expert's input which adds that there is a safety net due to immigration as well. Chris was asked about his book, Securing the City, about the efforts of the New York City Police Department to prevent terrorist attacks.

“Immigrants are a strength because they come to build lives and come to build the country. The NYPD doesn’t ask immigrants their status because you can’t have someone who is afraid of the police and then recruit informants [from immigrant communities]. CIA analysts have said that a big part of what goes on in the United States is the ‘American dream’. So the safest big cities in the United States are those with the highest number of first generation immigrants.” (Christopher Dickey interview in "Epoch Times")

Back to School (The Prison Block)

My daughter's back in school. Prison. I mean school--it looks like a prison to me. No windows, cinder blocks for walls. One girl spoke out in class today and the teacher gave her a "detention." I think that means the girl has to be in a room without anything to do for at least an hour.

My daughter wanted to attend this school because it has a performing arts program that she wanted to be part of. Last year, in the 6th grade, she got too much homework. She didn't want me to tell her counselor she was unhappy with the amount of homework because she didn't want to call attention to herself.

My daughter got all these plaques and honors which we have used as wallpaper for her room because she is a top student in her class, of which there are 650 students.

I went to see her counsellor yesterday, her first day of 7th grade, because I didn't want to have a year again like last year--where my daughter couldn't have any extra-curricular activities, or see any friends on weekends, because she had so much homework to do for school.

Believe me, if my daughter, a top student among 650 students, has trouble finishing her homework and can't go out on weekends or have friends over because of the amount of homework, is having a problem with the amount of work required after spending 7 hours a day in school--then there is a problem, because the "average" student must by overwhelmed by this requirement.

And anyway, schools look like prisons, not like a place for children to be all day.

Now I find my daughter doesn't want to go to school. She doesn't like it and she doesn't like her teachers. I know this sounds familiar -- but she enjoyed school last year...except for the homework and "pressure." I know we adults have a lot of "pressure" and "homework" etc--but children deserve a childhood and a schooling that is nurturing and rewarding--not prison, with dictatorial unprofessional people who don't belong in the teaching profession, and "educators" who have no clue about what education is all about.

Which is what we have now.