US Lesbians not following Sappho's Model

The National Institutes of Health has awarded $1.5 million to study biological and social factors for why 75% of lesbians are obese and why gay males are not, calling it an issue of “high public-health significance.” Gay men are usually leaner than straight men.

A number of hypotheses can be raised from the raunchy and graphic, to the sexist and chauvinistic, via the quasi-medical and scientific. From all I have read so far, nobody seems to wonder whether these lesbian women became obese over the years AFTER they came out of the closet; or did obesity lead them somehow to become lesbians, or was a contributing factor. Whereas the former could be attributed to nurture and environment, the latter could suggest some genetic linkage between obesity, homosexuality and the X chromosome. Or it maybe a default or forfeit situation: the ones who are too fat to “catch” a man just settle for women.

Are people in sexual relationships with men, heterosexual women and gay men, more under pressure to look thin and attractive than do people in sexual relationships with women, lesbians and heterosexual men. Is that because MEN ARE FROM MARS? Around men’s libido, there is usually more of a “hunt” going one, more of a studly behavior, hence the trimmer figure. Does heterosexual sex also burn more calories...or is it just a PHALLACY?

However, there seems to be increasingly strong evidence for a genetic link between obesity and sexual behavior. We know obese men’s morphotype can look a bit female (gynecomastia, shrunken penis, fat rolls in mid section). The obesity of the type II diabetic reminds us that Insulin is a Yin (female) hormone. It makes one gain weight. So do most anxiolytics like Paxil, Prozac, Lexapro that are much more often taken my women than men. Are these more often taken by lesbians? That will certainly be part of the explanation.

Be that as it may, one meaning of the word lesbian derives from the poems of Sappho, who was born in the island Lesbos and who wrote with powerful emotional content directed toward other females, making her the spiritual leader of the lesbian movement. The third-century philosopher Maximus of Tyre wrote that Sappho was "small and dark"  not obese, and that her relationships to her female friends were similar to those of Socrates (with his male friends of course).

Lesbos is one of the Greek Islands. It is forested and mountainous with two large peaks, Mt. Lepetymnos at 968 m and Mt. Olympus at 967 m, dominating its northern and central sections. The island’s volcanic origin is manifested in several hot springs and the two gulfs. A helicoptered view evokes a female body with the two equal mounts and the golf below (see picture). Maybe the Greek Gods on Mount Olympus wanted it this way.

I can imagine what Sappho could say to her American woman lover:

There is definitely more of you to love my Muse

Too Big To Jail so Follow the Money Trail

HSBC UK and USA laundered $881 million dollars of drug money, on behalf of drug cartels from Bogota, Columbia to the crime ridden streets of northern Mexico, and has openly admitted to this. In addition, the company violated economic sanctions imposed by the U.S. government in dealings with rogue regimes like Iran, Libya, Cuba, Burma, and the Sudan.

Of course, no one has gone to jail, no one has been brought to trial, and everyone is keeping their bonuses. The company has paid a fine of $1.92 billion, which is a little less than six weeks of company profits.

U.S. Senator Elizabeth Warren sounded off on the Department of Justice's utter lack of accountability in taking HSBC:

"If you're caught with an ounce of cocaine, the chances are good you're going to jail. If it happens repeatedly, you may go to jail for the rest of your life. But evidently, if you launder nearly a billion dollars for drug cartels and violate our international sanctions, your company pays a fine and you go home and sleep in your own bed at night…”

It is not just fundamentally wrong, it shows something far more concerning: The banks and the government are in business together, and as a result there are two sets of laws in America. One preview of what these strange bed fellows can do together is what is happening in Cyprus right now:

In a radical departure from previous aid packages, euro zone finance ministers want Cyprus savers to forfeit a portion of their deposits in return for a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout for the island, which has been financially crippled by its exposure to neighboring Greece (Cypriots anxious about savings tax proposal);

When a government is addicted to spending and they ALL are, they cozy up to the money sources where they can get it. The banks will gladly pay big penalties because they will get it back in all kinds of fees from customers. There is a Yo-yo effect that settles in which both parties seem to be comfortable with.

Bank of America for example will pay $10 billion to federal mortgage issuer Fannie Mae to settle allegations that mortgages were improperly handled during the financial crisis. The bank will pay $3.6 billion in cash related to how it sold and distributed certain residential mortgage loans. (BAC) will also repurchase $6.75 billion worth of residential mortgage loans it and its Countrywide Financial unit sold to Fannie Mae, about 30,000 loans, from January 2000 through December 2008.

Another similar story:10 banks settle foreclosure claims for $8.5 billion.

In addition to forfeiting $1.256 billion as part of its deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) with the Department of Justice. That DPA sure sounds like a cleverly crafted legal gimmick to allow the HSBC executives to buy their freedom.

HSBC has also agreed to pay $665 million in civil penalties: $500 million to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC) and $165 million to the Federal Reserve for its anti-money laundering program violations. Is that to help up shore up the dollar and fund the Fed’s Quantitative Easing policy? It sounds a bit fishy to me. 

To top it all the DOJ Office of Public Affairs released a long document (12/11/12) online delineating all cartels, agencies involved and laws broken. It seems there was four felony counts for breaking four acts or laws (long names each) and it took about 10 principal government official for more than 7 agencies to catch them. The document is carefully mentioning everybody with lots of kudos. I wonder how many will get promoted after this (that will cost the taxpayer more money too!).

Let us do a quick comparison. Remember my blog Laughing ist Verboten… where I tell the story of a disabled man Robert Schiavelli who received two summons for laughing too loud in his home. Each ticket was $250 or 15 days in jail. Compare to HSBC and DO THE MATH!

Money IS Everything…You Can Take That to the BANKS

Should Religion Righteous Veer Left?

Jorge Mario Bergoglio (76) is the 266th and current Pope of the Roman Catholic Church, elected on 13 March 2013. A native of Buenos Aires, Argentina, he was ordained as a priest in 1969. He served as head of the Society of Jesus in Argentina from 1973 to 1979. He chose the papal name Francis in honor of Saint Francis of Assisi. He is the first pope to be a Jesuit (Poverty is one of their three vows, with Chastity and Obedience), the first to come from the Americas, and to come from the Southern Hemisphere. Francis is the first non-European pope since St. Gregory III, who died in 741. On a pilgrimage to Rome, Saint Francis of Assisi joined the poor in begging at St. Peter's Basilica. The experience moved him to live in poverty. He later founded the Franciscan Order. 

For the 1.2 billion Catholics, it seems that the Church will be from now on the Church of the poor and downtrodden, more than it has ever been, which brings about a part of the Sermon of the Mount that always gave me pause (Luke 6):

“Blessed are you who are poor; the kingdom of God is yours. 21

But woe upon you who are rich; you have your comfort already”. 25

It appears from Jesus’s own teachings that one has to be poor to inherit the Kingdom of God. What does that say about working hard to accumulate good income and give a good life to one’s family and good education to one’s children? At first look, the Jesus’s Church seems to be denigrating Capitalism and rejecting the accumulation of wealth, but then remember the Parable of the talents in Matthew 25:14-30:

It tells of a master who was leaving his home to travel, so he entrusted his money of 8 talents to his servants. One servant receives five talents, the second two talents, and the third one talent, according to their respective abilities.

Returning after a long absence, the master asks his servants for an accounting. The first two servants explain that they have each put their money to work and doubled the value of the property they were entrusted with, and so they are each rewarded. The third servant, however, has merely hidden his talent in a hole in the ground, so the master punishes him:

"You wicked and slothful servant. You knew that I reap where I didn't sow, and gather where I didn't scatter. You ought therefore to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received back my own with interest. Take away therefore the talent from him, and give it to him who has the ten talents. For to everyone who has will be given, and he will have abundance, but from him who doesn't have, even that which he has will be taken away. Throw out the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth."

This famous parable does seem to stress profitability, banking, return on investment and all other capitalist tenets. The “poor” servant was actually punished and the rich is rewarded. What gives?

I do not think Jesus ever meant to chastise the wealthy or to condone the lazy who chooses to stay poor. Hence some of the misinterpretation among members of the clergy who are veering left and advocating “fair” distribution of wealth in sort of a social democratic regime.

The left brings with it: contraception, abortion, gay marriage, removal of God from the pledge of allegiance, abolishing school prayers, nativity scenes and Christmas trees, women’s right to priesthood, priests marriage, etc. I am certain the clergy does not support any of that so why would they even consider voting left?

If it is to help the poor, this is a sheer human task that neither right nor left has a monopoly on, except the left demagogues more to its advantage. There is a lot more charity giving in the USA than anywhere else in the world and most of it is done by rich people and corporations. Members of the clergy should remember that when they take a political stance.

History gives us a plethora of examples of leftist regimes where religious freedom was all but abolished and people’s incomes were equalized using the LOWEST COMMON DENOMINATOR, meaning they all became equally poor. I do not believe the Church wants that. Pope Francis maybe wants to reduce the Vatican’s Pomp and Circumstance, lavish expenditures and trappings of wealth. That would be commendable and I wish our government will emulate him. I trust both Francis and Obama remember that they are Pope and President of both rich AND poor.

Honoring and Aiding the Poor is NOT to be confused with Glorifying Poverty and  the sense of Entitlement

CHAVEZ-el-Assad and Kim Jong LOON

He floridly lambasted "imperial" American policies, compared George W Bush to Hitler and even warned that exporting Halloween to Latin America amounted to "terrorism". He had many Hollywood friends: Kevin Spacey, Don King, Naomi Campbell, Danny Glover, Benicio del Torro, Sean Penn, Harry Bellafonte, etc.

But now Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, variously portrayed as a six-times elected champion of the people or a constitution-fiddling demagogue, is dead.

Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has mourned the death of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez as a “great loss” for Syria: “The demise of this unique leader is as much a great loss for me personally and the Syrian people as it is for the people of Venezuela,”

During a visit by the Syrian president to Caracas, in June 2010, Chavez had stated: “How not to support the government of President Bashar al-Assad since it is the legitimate government of Syria? Who to support? Terrorists, who want a transitional council, who kill people on all sides?"

That remark came despite the fact that Assad was appointed by his late father and Syria’s previous unelected leader, Hafez al-Assad (Chafez’s almost namesake!)

Assad is reported to have recently sent his deputy foreign minister, Faisal al-Miqdad, on a trip to Cuba, Ecuador and Venezuela to sound out their respective leaders about the possibility of asylum. All three countries have left-wing governments that are, to varying degrees and in different ways, antagonistic toward the US.

The most likely destination for the Syrian despot would appear to be Venezuela. Who knows the son of Hafez may take over for his buddy Chafez. Lots of Syrians and Arabs in Venezuela!

Another close ally to Bashar-el-Assad, Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was also a close ally of Hugo Chavez (Iran invested billions in Venezuela)  and the two leaders clearly got on very well together. In many ways, they had a similar style - both showmen and adept at talking directly to the man on the street. Iran has declared a day of mourning for President Chavez, and in an emotional statement, Mr. Ahmadinejad said Mr. Chavez was a "martyr" who would one day return.

During the protests against the result of the 2009 presidential elections, Mr. Chavez backed Mr. Ahmadinejad, and the Iranians find it hard to forgive him so they had this short and to the point comment on the Baztab site: "Chavez, please take Ahmadinejad with you!"  Why did they leave Assad out?

The Onion announced that North Korean supreme leader Kim Jong-un, 29, has officially been named the newspaper’s Sexiest Man Alive for the year 2012. GUESS who was named for 2011: the one and only Bashar-el-Assad of course. I guess being a terrorist and a dictator is sexy! That explains everything.

With his devastatingly handsome, round face, his boyish charm, and his strong, sturdy frame, this Pyongyang-bred heartthrob is every woman’s dream come true. Blessed with an air of power that masks an unmistakable cute, cuddly side, Kim made The Onion’s editorial board swoon with his impeccable fashion sense, chic short hairstyle, and, of course, that famous smile.

So well said. I would not have put it ANY different. Of course after the visits of celebrities like Eric Emerson Schmidt, the Executive Chairman of Google; William Blaine "Bill" Richardson III, an American politician who was 30th Governor of New Mexico, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations and Energy Secretary in the Clinton administration; and now the luminary Dennis Keith Rodman, a retired American Hall of Fame professional basketball player from Trenton NJ, who played for the Detroit Pistons, San Antonio Spurs, Chicago Bulls, Los Angeles Lakers, and Dallas Mavericks, Kim Jong-Un may win that sexy title again in 2013, or maybe his buddy Ahmadinejad.

The clique of these four musketeers: Hugo, Bashar, Kim and Mahmoud brilliantly illustrates the French proverb:

 Dis-moi qui tu hantes et je te dirai qui tu es  (Tell me who you frequent and I will tell you who you are)  

To Protect and to Serve...Cooked on a Platter

New York City “Cannibal Cop” was convicted last Tuesday of charges he plotted to kidnap and cook women to dine on their "girl meat". He was arrested around Halloween last year interrupting a ghoulish plan to "kidnap, torture, rape and commit other horrific acts on young women."

An analysis of officer Gilberto Valle’s computer found he was taking concrete steps to abduct his wife and at least five other women he knew. He  admitted to a fetish for talking on the Internet about cannibalism (they will have ANYBODY do ANYTHING on that spider web!). He looked up potential targets on a restricted law enforcement database (advantages about being a cop).

For those of you who don’t know, Cannibalism comes from Caníbales in Spanish, name for the Carib people, a West Indies tribe formerly well known for their practice of cannibalism, which is the act of humans eating the flesh or internal organs of other human beings

Cannibalism was widespread in the past among humans in many parts of the world, continuing into the 19th century in some isolated South Pacific cultures, and to the present day in parts of tropical Africa. In a few cases in insular Melanesia, indigenous flesh-markets existed. Fiji was once known as the 'Cannibal Isles'. Cannibalism has been well documented around the world, from Fiji to the Amazon Basin to the Congo to Māori New Zealand.

Cannibalism is NOT illegal in most countries, including the US. What IS a crime is the abducting, killing and/or cooking that one has to do prior to eat the victim. There is justice after all!

“Cannibalism for survival” has been occasionally practiced as a last resort by people suffering from famine, including in modern times. A famous example is the ill-fated Westward expedition of the Donner Party, and more recently the crash of Uruguayan Air Force Flight 571, after which some survivors ate the bodies of dead passengers.

Although some mentally ill people obsess about eating others and actually do so, such as Jeffrey Dahmer and Albert Fish, there is resistance to formally labeling cannibalism as a mental disorder, probably because health carriers won't pay for it (what else is new!)

In modern day society, until officer Valle came about, the word cannibalism was most commonly use to describe Identity thieves cannibalizing your bank accounts. Although our sensitive stomachs, destroyed by fried starches and others, would consider eating a bit of horse meat inside Swedish meatballs as a form of cannibalism. The Ikea folks still cannot figure that one out, since for instance horse meat is a delicacy in France (so is snails and frogs)! Here it is the holly horse; in India it is the holly cow; in Christians, the lamb of God! Couldn't we all agree to eat goat or fish? 

Valle’s emphasis on women and “girl meat” suggests Sexual cannibalism. This is a special case of cannibalism in which a female kills and consumes a male of the same species before, during, or after copulation, and NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. Valle had it all wrong. He should have been the eated (by a female) not the eater! This reminds me the movie Eating Raoul (a 1982 black comedy film about a married couple living in Hollywood who resort to killing swingers for their money and end up cooking and eating their locksmith Raoul). The movie was politically correct, even in those early days, and Raoul was an equal opportunity food for both male and female in the movie.

Sexual cannibalism has been observed in arachnids, insects, amphipods, gastropods, copepods, cephalopods, and most families of spiders and scorpions. For a starving female, a courting male's value as food is higher than his value as a potential mate. GO FIGURE! As a result, hungry females are more likely to cannibalize than gorged females. Food for thought!

So please heed my advice:

Stay Away from a Hungry Female, especially a NYPD Cop!

Does the Salt of the Earth Assault its Own?

Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount is one of his main teachings on morality and discipleship. He uses salt as a metaphor for his disciples:

“Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost its savor, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out and trodden under foot of men (Matthew 5:13–16).

Diametrically opposite to these teachings, when you are listening to politicians, take what they say with a grain of salt.

The salt paradox is a day-to-day matter: Rubbing salt in the wound may hurt but salt water is cleansing and disinfecting for a wound.

Salt is what keeps you from being dehydrated, getting a heat stroke or even die when in a long bicycle race or a marathon. It helps you retain the precious water. On the other hand, too much salt would make you swell up and have edema and high blood pressure.

Patients with insufficient salt may become hypothyroid and so salt in the US usually contains added iodine. However, excessive amounts of iodine have been shown to be associated with a greater risk of autoimmune thyroid disease or thyroiditis.

That very same model is being discussed in an article from the last issue of Nature (March 2013). Does too much salt in the diet lead to a higher risk of autoimmune diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis  and type-1 diabetes? My first instinct is we have been using salt for thousands of years, I do not believe we consume more of it now so why would the recent increase in autoimmune diseases be related to plain old salt?

One group of investigators at Yale University decided that the increasing use of salt in the typical Western fast food diet may be a likely candidate to be an environmental trigger.

Another investigative team at Harvard and MIT looked at a large family of inflammatory mediators that have been implicated in a number of experimentally-induced autoimmune diseases termed Th17. Surprisingly, the most prominent regulator of Th17 turned out to be an enzyme responsible for the absorption of salt.

I will concede that too much salt can be bad for you especially if and when it causes edema, inflammation and swelling, which are after all the incubators of many an ailment, and the object of many a dietary supplement nowadays.

We have to remember that Correlation does not imply causation. The Nature article lists a number of prestigious institutions accusing salt for many ills but the fact is none of it  is really proven yet. It is all conjectures. If you read any dietary label, even bread or sweets they all have salt, more than the 1.5 – 2 g recommended daily. So are we ALL going to suffer autoimmune diseases?

The fact is: Every dietary item should be ingested in moderation and NO we do not need Bloomberg to regulate salt, Michelle Obama to campaign against it or the FDA to ban it. The pendulum has swayed back and forth for coffee, red wine and many other foods. One thing for sure: Without salt there will be a taste buds revolution!

We are the Salt of the Earth implies the intrinsic importance of salt on this earth so let’s not hurry to indict it:

Don’t Insult Salt for Body Assault…yet!

MISS Teen Queen Akin Queen SemiraMIS

Former Miss Delaware Teen USA Melissa King (even had the right name for the job) resigned her crown, she earned last November,  last Tuesday, after an amateur porn site posted a video featuring a woman, looking very much like her, who says she is 18 and competes in beauty pageants, performing sex acts on an unidentified man. King denied she is the woman in the video, dated months before she won the title. My feeling is: If it looks like a fuck, swims like a fuck, and quacks like a fuck, then it probably is a fuck!

Now, porn giant YouPorn.com wants to compensate her for the unfortunate situation -- offering to crown King the first ever "Miss YouPorn" and pay her $250,000 to tour the world promoting the website. Not a bad deal for “going around the world” if you catch my drift. What that offer also means that she INDEED was The Woman in the Window (1944 film noir directed by Fritz Lang that tells the story of psychology professor who meets and becomes enamored of a young femme fatale).

MISStress of deceit King forgot the contract she signed with the Miss Universe pageant:

I represent that at all times prior to the date of this Agreement, I have conducted my activities and life in accordance with the highest ethical and moral standard .…I acknowledge that… having appeared in public or permitted myself to be photographed in a state of partial or total nudity, or in a lewd, compromising or sexually suggestive manner constitutes a violation of this provision (this includes photographs or images that may appear on any web site).

A Historical role model for Miss King: Semiramis was the legendary  Assyrian (today’s Iran) queen of king Ninus, succeeding him to the throne and marrying his son, after his death. Armenian tradition portrays her as a home wrecker and a harlot, although she is credited with inventing the chastity belt. Dante Alighieri sees Semiramis among the souls of the lustful in the Second Circle of Hell.

I would be remiss if I did not include another paragon of deceit much closer to home:  Miss Samira Ibrahim (the name reminded me of Semiramis. The latter is not a namesake, but they are both Chamites,) Miss Ibrahim is the Egyptian activist who was set to be one of nine bloggers, teachers and human rights protesters to be presented with the Women of Courage Awards  by Secretary of State John Kerry and first lady Michelle Obama.

The reason Samira was part of the group: On March 9, 2011, she participated in a sit-in at Tahrir Square in Cairo. The military violently dispersed protest participants, and Samira and other women were beaten, given electric shocks, strip searched, and videotaped by the soldiers. They were also subjected to virginity tests.

The reason she was kicked out of the group: she quoted Adolf Hitler, writing: "I have discovered with the passage of days, that no act contrary to morality, no crime against society, takes place, except with the Jews having a hand in it.” In reaction to a suicide bombing of a bus of Israelis in Bulgaria, she wrote "Today is a very sweet day with a lot of very sweet news.” In 2012 on the anniversary of the September 11 terrorist attacks, she tweeted "Today is the anniversary of 9/11. May every year come with America burning"

And we were going to reward her for THAT! Hilary Clinton and Michelle Obama have been tripping over themselves to pledge into their sorority as many disenfranchised women as they can, preferably Muslim, the browner the better…so they skipped the homework in their rush and eagerness.

Beware what Hides Behind the Burka!.

Incidentally, from the beginning of time, sibling rivalry was a reality. It started with Cain and Able and is still going on with Cham and Sem, both sons of Noah, the former father of the Arabs, the latter of the Jews.  

To conclude, let us summarize what these three women from different times and places have in common:

All three failed the Virgin Test…and the Smell Test!

Laughing Ist Verboten, posted on US Stalag 2013

Hogan's Heroes is an American television sitcom that ran for 168 episodes from September 17, 1965, to March 28, 1971, on the CBS network. The show was set in a German prisoner of war (POW) camp during the Second World War, Luftwaffe Stalag 13, located north of the town of Hammelburg in the Bad Kissingen woods. I can’t remember all the episodes but I could swear I saw the title sign somewhere in there.

Robert Schiavelli, a disabled 42 years old Long Island man, has been hit with two summonses for laughing too loudly in his own home after a neighbor complained to cops about it. “I didn’t know it was a crime to laugh out a window,” Robert Schiavelli, who has frequent seizures and suffers from neurological impairments, told the Post.

Schiavelli has been charged with acting “in such a manner as to annoy, disturb, interfere with, obstruct, or be offensive to others.” Schiavelli and his mother claim that the neighbor, Daniel O’Hanian, regularly taunts and ridicules Schiavelli about his disability. “He tries to intimidate Robert” by calling him “a retard’’ said 65-year mom Suzanne, who added her son “has learned to laugh at him.” What happened to anti-bullying and ADA laws?

Each ticket carries with it a $250 penalty, or 15 days in jail, so that is 30 DAYS IN JAIL FOR LAUGHING. Caning is a widely used form of legal corporal punishment in Singapore and I heard it will be instituted in America for loud laughter.

Bloomberg is the Mayor so this could explain some stuff. After the smokes, the cokes and the calories, we kept asking what next. Now we have it: it is laughter! We could have guessed since he is a bit of a deadpan himself (Pince-sans-rire).

It also appears that Judges have no right to laugh either: Vince A. Sicari is the municipal judge of South Hackensack. He is also a stand-up comedian at such renowned spots as Caroline’s on Broadway in New York City and warming up the audiences of the “The Colbert Report” and “The Daily Show.”

On the bench, the Honorable Sicari presides at twice-monthly sessions of the South Hackensack municipal court’s docket of mostly traffic violations and misdemeanors. He is addressed as Your Honor. On stage, he is the occasionally brash “Vince August.” You can address him as Your Humor. I heard he maybe just as punishing on the stage as he is on the bench!

Just as a Judge can’t be Judged by his black robe….

You Can't Judge a Book by Its Cover (Desperate Housewives, 77^th episode;  George Elliot's "The Mill on the Floss" (1860) as Mr. Tulliver dixit, etc.

Could a judge be a comedian? That is the question in this comedy of errors. The powers at be must legislate, deliberate and pontificate about this very serious matter of National Security!

The Joking Judge is now appealing to NJ’s highest court and he believes:

He Who Laughs Last, Laughs Best!

They Shoot Horses Don't They

They Shoot Horses, Don't They? is a 1969 American drama film directed by Sydney Pollack. In his youth, the main character saw a horse break its leg, after which it was shot and put out of its misery.

She was not a horse but 87-year-old Lorraine Bayless collapsed last Tuesday in the dining room of the Glenwood Gardens independent senior living apartments and the staff refused to initiate CPR because it was against policy, so the woman died awaiting EMS. I wonder if we will reach a point when shooting people like Lorraine Bayless to put them out of their misery will be acceptable practice. Apparently the family did not protest and the woman had a DNR order…so all the ingredients were there except the gun.

The major concern of the staffer in question was liability of course. Lawyers out there, this could have been your mother, unless of course you react like her family.

The Good Samaritan approach is not only rarely practiced anymore but it is strongly discouraged, especially if you are a nurse or a doctor, because you can be sure you are facing a malpractice suit if there is death or complication. It is the ZEROES (at the right of 1) that make everybody tick NOT the HEROES. The latter are good for a short news segment then bye bye.

Sadly this is cheapening the value of human life In America, at a time where respect for animal life is at an all time high…so is the actual cost of living (no relation but thought I put it there).

As I mentioned in previous blogs, many things have been contributing to cheapening human life: violent video games where lots of people are blown off like nothing, same in Hollywood movies, drone attacks that make war seem very remote and Starwars-like, mass murders by single nobodies (Fort Hood, Aurora, New Town, etc.) or rudimentary methods (manure, turning our own planes against our own WTC).

Of course there were also natural disasters that contributed to the cheapening and sense of frailty of human life: Thailand tsunami, Japan Tsunami, numerous earthquakes, Katrina, Sandy and others.

Nothing however is as cheapening, disheartening and disconcerting as the latest discovery about drones. In the last of INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN OTHERWISE, drones can actually target American citizens and execute them just based on the belief that they may be terrorists. Collateral damage is something we blame others for. We are back to the Far West where we shoot first and worry about it later, where we hang horse thieves on the spot. At least then the duals tried to preserve a modicum of fairness and the opponent had skin in the game.

I can picture members of the administration sitting in the  situation room watching it all on a TV monitor, like for the Bin Laden kill…except popcorn and refreshments will be served this time around. It would be Reality TV at its finest and most sinister. Wouldn’t that drone video feed closely mimic those very violent videos that we are all starting to blame for gun violence?

What do 00BAMA, H00LDER  and 007 have in common?

A License to Kill…from the Sky!

Farther Higher than the Eye Can See, what a Leader Makes

A documentary film based on the project, Blindsight, was released in 2006 and my family and I enjoyed recently at the children’s’ school: Erik Weihenmayer (born September 23, 1968) is the first blind person to reach the summit of Mount Everest, on May 25, 2001. He also did the same for Mount Ararat, and completed the Seven Summits in September 2002. After he became blind, at first, Weihenmayer did not want to use a cane or learn Braille. He wanted to prove that he could continue living as he had. He tried to play ball, but once he understood that he was incapable of doing so, he learned to wrestle. In high school he went all the way to the National Junior Freestyle Wrestling Championship in Iowa. Erik is an acrobatic skydiver, long distance biker, marathon runner, skier, mountaineer, ice climber, and rock climber. He is a friend of Sabriye Tenberken, whom he visited in Tibet to climb with teenagers from the school for the blind (in the movie). Another documentary, Fellowship of the Andes, was produced by Dutch filmmaker Bernd Out.

Erik Weihenmayer is the only blind person to climb Mt. Everest and the "Seven Summits." He has also skied from the summit of 18,500-ft Mt. Elbrus, the tallest peak in Europe, 10,000-ft from top to base camp. He recently skied the Haute Route, 80-miles over the high Alps, from Chamonix, France to Zermott, Switzerland.

In the last ten years, the number of totally blind US skiers has decreased on the ski slope. In America, they are practically absent from ski competition. The best blind skiers are coming out of Europe and Australia, far surpassing the U.S in innovation and technique. A variety of reasons account for this downward trend. A large part of the problem lies in the current way totally blind people are guided in recreational skiing and the overly difficult process used to transition them into competition thereafter.

When it comes to recreational skiing, 99% of blind people in the US are led from behind by their sighted guide, as compared to Europeans. The argument for this is safety for the guide who feels more comfortable seeing the blind person and the slope below - all without turning his head. With this technique, however, the blind skier has to constantly turn his head back in order to hear the quick and vital commands. By turning shoulders and craning, it promotes bad posture and defensive ski position. Further more, at a high speed, it is difficult for a blind skier to hear a guide's calls from behind him. Obviously this limits progress, over-all confidence, and pleasure.

When skiing through crowded resort situations, with a guide in front, the blind person has voice commands to actually follow, along with the helpful sound of the guide's skis. By skiing behind the guide in a consistent trajectory, with a consistent ski turn width/radius, it gives the blind person the capability and security to easily ski through those crowds. Also, with the guide in front calling commands, he and his voice become a crowd clearer, parting the seas for the blind skier, hence MORE SAFETY FOR ALL.

When it comes to race competitions, when you have to do your best performance, almost 100% of blind skiers are guided from the front..

So what does the blind person get out of skiing: 1) A sense of independence. Although the instructor is right there the blind skier is ultimately responsible for their own turns and stops; 2) Confidence that they can accomplish a high adventure physically demanding sport like skiing that many sighted people can’t or don’t do; 3) Knowledge that they have challenged themselves in a non traditional area for visually impaired people, knowledge witch gives them the confidence to challenge other things in life

These words, independence, accomplishment, confidence, challenge, are so foreign to the America youth these days. Should they all become blind to see the light? Should they be thrown out of their comfort zone in order to learn how to cherish this comfort and be grateful for it?

As we explained above, LEADING FROM BEHIND is treacherous and unhelpful. It only helps for the safety of the leader not the person being led. Does this all sound familiar?

We need leaders like Erik Welhenmayer. If he was able to lead a bunch of blind students up Mount Everest, he certainly did not do it from behind. People of his ilk (there are a few out there), if given half a chance, would undoubtedly be able to lead Americans out of this chaos…

Better the Blind Leading the Blind, than an Impaired-vision Man Passing for King in the Kingdom of the Blindfolded

Charité bien ordonnée commence par soi-même

This French proverb is of medieval origin and is close to the following aphorism that is shared by Christians, Buddhists, Muslims, Jews and Hindus alike: Practice what you Preach!

The French proverb does bring home more accurately the point that If you want others to follow what you say and recommend, start by abiding by it yourself, be the role model. This is at the heart of our problems today in America. Our leaders impose things on us that they believe do not or should not apply to them, like the monarchies of the Middle Ages.

First there was Obamacare that is supposed to be so good for all of us, so much so that our rulers conveniently exempted themselves from it.

Now we are in Sequestration and our President is scaring us about the looming Obamagedon that it will cause, yet he is out playing golf with Tiger Woods to the tune of a couple of million dollars, and his wife must have spent another little fortune on her dress, entourage and cameo appearance on Oscar night. I heard that Francis Ford Coppola was planning a sequel to Apocalypse Now to help prepare the people. Hollywood is always ready to support their White House buddies.

…and they return the favor: In the January Fiscal Cliff deal, a provision was snuck in (Section 181 of the tax code) allowing qualifying productions to write down the first $15 million of expenses from their corporate tax bill. The program will cost an estimated $430 million in deductions in fiscal years 2013 and 2014, according to estimates by the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Hollywood moguls like Steven Spielberg, David Geffen and George Lucas are among the biggest backers of President Obama's candidacy, and it looks as though Democrats have found a way to return the favor. So much for combating cronyism, nepotism and influence peddling in the campaign speeches. To top it all, Organizing for America is asking for $500K donations to allow you access to the President once a quarter. 

All in all, about 7 billion dollars were spent last years by all candidates in the elections,more than the third in the presidential election alone. Instead of being used to brainwash us and feed us lies, this money could have made a little dent in the Federal budget deficit. How could anybody believe that elections are fair and free when that kind of money is being thrashed around?

Think about it: These kinds of numbers surely must tip the odds towards the “richest” candidate to win the election. Weren't we all told that Romney was the evil out-of-touch guy to avoid at all cost BECAUSE he was rich. How could these huge sums “level the playing field” in any way. At least half should be sequestered by the Treasury. For one, that will clear the airs!

Jesus summed it up when he said about those in power (I do not think they were even elected in his time, so what is our excuse? ):

“…You should do all the things they tell you to do. But their lives are not good examples for you to follow. They tell you to do things, but they don't do those things themselves. They make strict rules that are hard for people to obey. They try to force other people to obey all those rules. But they themselves will not try to follow any of those rules.” (Matthew 23:1-12)