incipit vita nova

America Dying of Obesity - Give More Food Stamps!

Here is a candidate for World's Fattest Woman, Suzanne Eman, who is deliberately eating her way to this title, as told to the UK Daily Mail last year.

Suzanne is only 33 years old, and has 12 and 16 year-old sons (pictured with her). 

I can't find a better picture to illustrate the perverse situation that America finds itself in.

Young single mother Suzanne's career path is eating her way to fame, fortune and an early grave, smothered in hundreds and hundreds of pounds of fat and retained water. This young woman who should be at the height of health and well-being has to ride a shopping cart to stock up on the trash that is killing her, one bite at a time.

According to the Daily Mail interview last August, "The unemployed mother - who cannot work because of her weight - claims she stays active by doing simple exercises and having regular health checks."

There's no question that Suzanne Eman receives Food Stamps. The U.S. Congress has been debating the Agriculture bill this week, and it has been little-reported in U.S. media that Congressional Republicans have voted to rein in the explosion in the Food Stamp program that has occurred in the past four years.

This Agriculture bill may be the single biggest reason Americans are slowly dying from inexorable weight gain, rampant increases in heart disease, diabetes, and weight-associated cancers. Eighty percent of the bill is Food Stamps. The other 20% consists of subsidies for Big Agriculture which benefit genetically-modified foods, and the Big Chemical Food Industry.

Those who want to continue the Food Stamp "program" as it has expanded over the past 4 years (70% increase in enrollment, more than 70% in expenditure increase, with 46 million now receiving the benefits) are killers.

Nearly 36% of Americans were obese in 2011 according to the CDC. Not "overweight" - obese. The states with the highest rates of Food Stamp participation also have the highest rates of obesity, and all the related diseases: Michigan and Mississippi (20 and 21%). Vast numbers of studies have been done that correlate "poverty" and "obesity" in the US.

The frequently-given explanations are lies from the 60s and 70s. "Food deserts," etc. Well, these deserts are rich in the foods produced by Big Food, created only by Big Scientific Agriculture.

It's not potatoes, rice and beans making people fat. It isn't inexpensive, starchy food. This isn't the 19th century. Cheetos, Doritos, Coca-Cola, Snickers, Hamburger Helper, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch, Pop Tarts, Sara Lee, and even Lean Cuisine are the culprits, as well as fast food - plentiful everywhere, and eligible for Food Stamp benefits. These foods are addictive and filled with preservatives, additives, and chemicals. They are created in labs using addictive substances that increase appetite, like dairy derivatives and high fructose corn syrup. Food deserts? We have made it nearly impossible for people to grow and sell real food, while the deadly, addictive, unhealthy foods are everywhere.

So, the US government subsidizes Big Ag and Big Science Lab Food to produce these poisonous, addictive foods. Then it subsidizes Food Stamps and wants to sign up more and more people for them, and give more to each individual receiving them. When the people eat the foods and enter the cycle of food addiction and weight gain, the US government then provides "free health care" of a maintenance nature, up to and including dialysis for kidney failure in end-stage diabetes. 10 and 12 year old children now have heart disease.

So by all means, give more food stamps. Smother people in a hefty coating of fat and poison them with horrific chemical foods. Fail to educate them. Make sure there are no demanding jobs and they get as little physical activity as possible. It would sound like a sci fi apocalypse - but it's real life. 

Oh - and we are borrowing 40 cents on the dollar to make this dream come true. We are excusing this wholesale slaughter of generations who will never know health, never know freedom, and who at age 33, like Suzanne Eman, must ride a "fat cart" to load up on their free, delicious "groceries." Look how happy those two boys look in the picture. We should all feel so proud.

 

Reese Hopkins: Almost Free

Reese Hopkins was falsely accused of child rape . . . now, years ago! Reese spent over 2 years in Rikers Island, unable to pay for a private attorney or pay for bail. He had his first trial in March, which was declared a mistrial - but the jury voted 11-1 to acquit Reese. His second trial is coming up within days.

The young woman who accused Reese has changed her story many times. Reese was alleged to have committed the crime years ago, and the young lady made a very serious mistake. She stated Reese raped her when she was only age 11 - but gave the time and location an apartment that not only wasn't occupied by Reese, his girlfriend and stepchildren at the time - it was not OCCUPIED AT ALL. That's right, a man sat in jail for over 2 years and is still not 100 percent free based on a charge easily able to be disproven immediately. The accuser, by the way, now says the "crime" occurred at a different month and time. Her descriptions of the rape from time #1, to the March mistrial, are almost completely opposite.

And, the detective to whom she made the original accusations, is now the only witness for Reese Hopkins' defense. That's right: he no longer believes the accuser. He is testifying as to what he was told prior to Reese's arrest, so the jury can contrast it with the current accusations. However, I believe that the young woman will not be testifying at all at this time.

 

 

Hitler's Qualities of Leadership

Say what you like about Adolf Hitler -- he possessed a number of critical qualities for effective leadership.  I watched yet another of the awesome History Channel exposes the other night:  this one was about the infamous "Night of the Long Knives" in June, 1934, during which Hitler used his growing SS organization to destroy potential opposition to his taking absolute power in Germany.  Chief among those destroyed were Ernst Rohm, leader of the SA or "Brownshirts," an independent brigade of 3 million disaffected young men who had helped bring Hitler to initial power.

 More than a thousand people were arrested, and about a hundred were confirmed to have been killed.  This carefully-orchestrated orgy of terror was meant to ensure Hitler's complete, unquestioned authority as leader of his newly-minted Reich - the one with the thousand-year plan.

But one very important part of leadership is the ability to recruit the best people for the job, whatever that job may be.  In the case of the SS - personal guard to Hitler, not the eventual 2-million member military arm of the SS, the Waffen SS - the job was removal of obstacles or difficulties to Hitler and his vision for a pure, dominant, "Aryan" Reich.  Efficiency and permanency were the by-words of this part of the SS.  The architects of these plans, beginning with the "Nacht de Langen Messer," or Night of the Long Knives, were Mr. Commemorative Death Mask Stamp pictured here (Reinhard Heydrich) and Heydrich's boss, in what must surely have been a very odd relationship, a man known today as history's most famous mass-murdering former chicken farmer - Heinrich Himmler.

It's easy to laugh today at the funny Nazi names, at their pomp and circumstance, and consider the murderous, yet compelling ideas they espoused to be insane.  We have seen films dramatizing the famous 1942 "Wannsee Conference," at which Reinhard Heydrich called 15 top Nazi bureaucrats to the table, outlining his detailed plan for ridding Europe of 11 million Jews and assorted other "undesirables."

It's probably worth noting that, in the extensive, thorough minutes of the Wannsee Conference, which were all carried out as discussed, Heydrich said that, "The possible final remnant [of Jews not killed in forced labor or concentration camps] will, since it will undoubtedly consist of the most resistant portion, have to be treated accordingly, because it is the product of natural selection and would, if released, act as a the seed of a new Jewish revival (see the experience of history)." Emphasis is mine.

It should be clear by only a brief review of the Wannsee minutes, that the people at the meeting, Heydrich included, were not insane.  They had a plan, it was detailed, and their reasons for doing it were quite clear.  So in what box do we put "organized, orchestrated, persistent mass murder of millions"?  Clearly, this is a thought many people have had throughout history.  Historically, we know that Hitler, and quick-study Heydrich, learned from Stalin's tactics of repression (imprisonment, exile, torture, work camps, starvation and mass murder).  We know also that other brutalities have been perpetrated in organized, horrific ways throughout history -- and that many of the perpetrators were quite clear-thinking.  

However, also very interesting:  only 5 months after this horrific conference that directed the Holocaust, Reinhard Heydrich was riding in an arrogant, unprotected fashion through his protectorate of Prague, capital of what the Germans were calling "Bohemia and Moravia" (Czechoslovakia) - having already earned the title of "Butcher of Prague."  Heydrich purposely drove around in an open, unprotected green convertible car to show the population how effective his intimidation had been, and how futile any resistance would be.  Therefore, on May 27, 1942, at a sharp turn in the road in Prague, Heydrich's open car slowed down and was attacked by Free Czech resisters who had been trained in Britain and sent back to occupied Prague to do exactly what they did:  fire at the car and throw a bomb into it.  They succeeded in fatally wounding Heydrich with the gunshots and bomb, and he died eight days later from blood poisoning from the infected wounds -- shrapnel, pieces of the car upholstery, and even pieces of his own "death's head" SS uniform.

Reinhard Heydrich was only 38 years old at the time he died with the blood of millions on his hands.  When he started coming up in the Nazi hierarchy to become a favorite of Hitler, he was under 30.  Even people who disliked him acknowledged his brilliance.  He was without question a model of a certain sort of German gentleman, whose father was a composer, and whose mother also came from a highly-cultured German musical family.  He was also a Catholic, which means he must have utterly cast aside all prior beliefs to kill as he did, and had some type of Jewish ancestry, which was used by other Nazis to exert some control over him once he came to power.  It is possible that Heydrich's own background, being somewhat ostracized and teased for a Jewish background, could have met common cause with Hitler's own "issues" to create the excellently efficient plan of the "Final Solution".  After an early career in the real German Navy, Heydrich was cashiered because of cheating, womanizing ways that got him into trouble with superior officers (maybe that's when Catholicism went out the window - it sounds like he was way too busy to even pretend to keep up with Confession).  Almost immediately, in 1931, the 27 year-old good-looking former Naval officer was recruited to the SS by Heinrich Himmler, in what may have been one of his "best" hiring choices.  

This thing snowballed all the way to the Wannsee Conference in 1942, with Heydrich proving his usefulness time and time again, and hundreds, then thousands, then tens of thousands lost their lives.  Heydrich was also the one who created and instituted the use of the infamous SS and Gestapo "index cards" upon which the fate of life or death was so often written.

Although in pictures, he looks much older, Heydrich's recruiter and nominal boss, Heinrich Himmler, was in reality only four years older.  He was 31 when he recruited Heydrich, and only 34 years old on the "Night of the Long Knives."  He was barely 42 at the Wannsee Conference.  After the end of the war, having unsuccessfully attempted to flee Berlin, Himmler bit down on one of the famous Nazi cyanide capsules, thus cheating the Nuremberg hangman.  Himmler, like Heydrich, was born a Catholic.  In one of the many ironies of the horrible Nazi period, Himmler's father, principal of the school that Himmler attended, recognized his son's talent at being an officious little prig eager to rat out his schoolmates, and recruited him to spy on kids misbehaving around the school and report back so they could receive punishment.  Supposedly even his own father said he was a "born criminal."  Prior to the famous "Beer Hall Putsch" in 1923, in which Himmler participated, fighting on behalf of Ernst Rohm, the man he would, 11 years later, advocate to assassinate, Himmler struggled financially, and was a poor chicken farmer at the time he met and married his wife.

By the end of the war in 1945, Himmler actually tried to negotiate with both the Americans and the British for German surrender, but the whole thing was falling apart, and nothing worked out for him.  Abandoned and hunted by both sides, Himmler eventually fell into the path that led to his suicide after capture.  However, I didn't know until today that Himmler's attempts to surrender while Hitler was in his bunker may have been one of the chief causes of Hitler's eventual suicide (I'm not sure, but I think there was at least a 6-hour delay between poor Eva Braun's suicide, and Hitler eventually putting a bullet through his sorry head).

Oh, these people are so pathetic and contemptible to us today.  But in their day, they were worldly kings of all they surveyed.  Hitler convinced people to do things that under nearly any other circumstances, they would never have done.  Under normal circumstances, Heydrich would have been an ordinary Naval officer, he would have played the piano - maybe he would have been a womanizer - probably, considering what he did do during his life.  Himmler might have been a weasel, spying on others, backtalking and backstabbing them, but mass murderer of millions?  None of these people would have done these things had they not been whipped into a lather of paranoia mixed with fear for their own lives, and mad dreams of vast wealth, glory, and being famous for posterity.  Hitler's approach was that of ultra-sophisticated schoolyard bully or "mean girl."  Many, many accounts show how he used alternate reward and devious emotional punishment to extract the desired results from his subordinates.  That -- is a quality of leadership.  Leaders who produce "good" results use those techniques.  No one ever said that the same tactics could not be used to produce horrific results as well.

Well, they are famous.  Just look at Heydrich's "death mask" commemorative stamp.  A "permanent" Nazi memorial was built for him at the corner where the Free Czech partisans got him dashing around in his convertible.  When Czechoslovakia was finally freed, the first thing the Czechs did was tear the memorial to the ground and burn anything that was left.

How does one convince people to go against their upbringing and their culture -- their families and how they were raised -- to adopt or "create" a new morality (in Hitler's case, immorality presented as "morality")?  Well, I suppose it would do well to study Hitler's qualities of leadership, wouldn't it?  And step one is: recruit the right people for the right job - at the right time.  Like Himmler and Heydrich.

Igor & Grichka Bogdanoff: Their Mother Would Be . . .

I covered these guys about 18 months ago, but their surgeon has been busy.  Igor and Grichka Bogdanoff or Bogdanov are French twin brothers who once starred on television.  They are also physicists, or something close to it, and had a popular science fiction series in the 1980's as well.  I swear, I knew nothing of the science fiction when I first featured them for their awful cosmetic surgery habit.

Many know that I'm a mini scholar of awful cosmetic surgery.  I'm the first to admit that once was beautiful-me, is now middle-aged me.  I've never been "perfect."  But the quest for "perfection" and "youth" that strikes some of us produces terrible results, from Michael Jackson to Jocelyn Wildenstein, the famous, or infamous "Bride of Wildenstein."  Poor Hang Mioku is the Korean lady who was so addicted to facial injections that she resorted to injecting cooking oil in her face, with awful, disfiguring results.

But I think the once very handsome Igor and Grichka have simply been sold a line of goods by their cosmetic surgery providers.  They've, uh . . . had a bit more work done since the last time I saw them.

Here's how the chaps looked at the 150th anniversary party for jeweler Chopard - and they're 60.  Er - 1,060.  Er - let's just call them "timeless," shall we?

Here's their "before" picture.  Old, gray-haired, wrinkles . . . guys . . . guys . . . Look, if you made some cryogenic freezing arrangements for your heads, I think the foreign material you've injected in there could cause some problems over time.  I do - really.

 

Here they are at a Jules Verne film festival in France in 2008.  It's not just the cheek implants, it's the eye "thing."  Bad cosmetic surgery that tightens the eyes to an unnatural appearance is very distressing, especially on men.  Both were so very handsome when young, and to my mind, had dark, good skin and lovely hair - all things that usually age very well, in a very nice way.  I just don't understand why two guys like this would ruin their looks this way.  It's so sad.

I am sure they asked for it, but whomever did the chin implants should be shot - they look like deformities.

Please Be Safe and Please Remember Amber

Amber Dubois was one of the missing children on a People magazine that I had for quite a while.  Until yesterday, I did not link Amber with an area that I am very familiar with - the Indian reservation lands in north San Diego County.

Amber was last seen alive February 13, 2009, walking to Escondido High School in her hometown.  Her remains were discovered on the Pala Indian lands yesterday. We were all horrified by the taking of Chelsea King two weeks ago.  Many people remembered Amber's disappearance and connected her case to Chelsea's disappearance and the discovery of her remains near Lake Hodges.  Now, the connection is being made for real, and sex offender John Gardner, already held for the murder of Chelsea, is also suspected in Amber's disappearance and death.

I have limited things to contribute to this discussion, except to say that my heart breaks for Amber's family and friends and for Chelsea's family and friends.  I've already made the point that our society is very, very disturbed if the lives of these beautiful young girls are held at less regard than the life of a monster like the man who seems likely to have murdered them both.  It's equally disturbed in that it can manage to hold a monster like Gardner in prison for five years or less, while incarcerating nonviolent drug users or embezzlers of modest sums of money for much longer periods with no remorse, no thought of parole, and plenty of outrage if leniency or alternatives for them are suggested.  Heck, they even take bank robbers more seriously than they take vicious criminals like Gardner.

First, I have to issue a warning to all the young ladies out there who are the age of my students, of my own daughter, and of Amber and Chelsea's age.  Please do not take any chances.  Please, please, always go with friends or family - don't jog alone, and don't even take it for granted that walking back and forth to school alone is safe.  Amber was on her way to school at 7:10 in the morning when she was last seen.  Chelsea had her own car and was an athlete going for an afternoon run - and I'm sure neither girl had the least idea this type of danger was out there.  But - it is.

In 1982, I was on my way to visit my then-fiance in La Mesa, driving down the 15 toward San Diego.  I was driving my trusty (not) VW Rabbit, my first car, and was not very experienced driving it.  I was very nervous and just about died when a CHP siren and lights came on.  I was sure I hadn't been speeding (I probably was - a little bit).  The dark-hair officer pulled me over on a strange offramp.  Right off, he told me that he'd pulled me over because one of my tail lights wasn't working.  He warned me about safety and began to ask a bunch of questions.  First, he asked, "Do your parents know where you are?"  Like an idiot, I told him I lived with my grandmother and where I was headed and why.  He wanted to know why I had so much gum in the front seat (I had spilled a pack of gum).  He asked dozens of questions and I got a really bad feeling.  He asked me to step out of the car, but I said "no."  Then, he suddenly changed and became super-sweet and said I could go.  I got to my boyfriend's house and told him, his father and mother about it.  They poo-pooed my fears that there was something wrong with the officer.  Basically, they said I was exaggerating, and over time, I forgot all about it.  Until last year, when by coincidence, I was flipping through the channels and heard the announcer mention San Diego, and it showed a picture of a beautiful blond girl.  It was a show about the killing of Cara Knott - four years after . . . I watched the whole show, including pictures of the CHP officer who murdered Cara, and did not recognize the officer until they played a clip of the officer, Craig Peyer, who represented the CHP as an official spokesperson on the news.  It wasn't his looks that I recognized so much as his voice - those rapid-fire, obnoxious, scary questions.

You got it.  At age 19, I got pulled over driving alone at dusk by the lone murderous CHP officer, Craig Peyer.  I had a bad feeling . . . but nobody listened.  

So my message is this:  don't take any chances, and if you have a "bad feeling," don't ever, ever ignore it.  Listen to it, and get out fast.  And if your friends/relatives think it's "funny" or think you're exaggerating - remind them of Amber and Chelsea.  No normal person's fears could ever match up to what they, or poor Cara, endured.

Cheating!!

Your moralist here . . . OK, here's the short answer: cheating (and lying) are wrong.

The University of Virginia has had more than its share of cheating scandals, probably because it uses the "honor system," and when cheating is discovered, penalties are severe - expulsion or loss of degrees conferred while cheating occurred. Time and time again, cheating has been uncovered at the Ivy League colleges.  Entire books and movies have been written about cheating, and the recent film "The Informant" highlighted a book I've already read about Mark Whitacre and his role in the ADM price-fixing investigation - as well as his $multi-million embezzlement from the company - mostly in order to pay off the Nigerians who seem to have made him their most high-profile 419 scam.

But what do you get?  Mark Whitacre may be the subject of a film and more than one book, and has now served his time and is currently working again in the biochemical industry, but I doubt very many people would want to trade lives with him.  The students at UVA who got caught cheating wasted all of their time and parents' money spent on their education - they will all have been fortunate to be able to make a fresh start somewhere else - back at square one.

Even those who cheat and think they're fortunate, smarter than everyone else, and haven't yet been caught will eventually find their habits catching up with them. Would anyone want to trade places with former President Bill Clinton on the day he had to admit he had done something with Monica Lewinsky?  How about John Edwards?  He's got a beautiful little girl . . . that he tried to disown in every way possible!  He was publically exposed, not only for cheating on his wife who was dying of cancer, but for doing the sleaziest possible underhanded things to try to escape scrutiny for the cheating, and the little girl that resulted from it. And what about those devilish Nigerians?  Scammed by their own scam - and humiliatingly so.

Nothing good ever comes from cheating, and the people who think they are so smart by "getting away with it" - well, that never lasts.  Remember, "His name is mud?" which supposedly came from Dr. Samuel Mudd, who helped John Wilkes Booth after he assassinated President Lincoln (maybe not - it was apparently used much earlier).  I'm thinking that there will be some future use for "Madoff" as in - "He Madoff with all their money."

Felony Cyberbullying . . . Missouri is Out in Front

Here's 40-year old Missouri mother Elizabeth Thrasher, charged with felony cyberbullying yesterday for putting photos of a 17 year old girl and suggestive messages about her on the "Casual Encounters" portion of Craigslist.  Who was this girl to Ms. Thrasher and why would she do this?  The girl is the daughter of the girlfriend of Thrasher's ex-husband.  Nothing like going after the kids of your "love rival" as an adult female more than twice the girl's age.

The AOL news poll on this matter asks, "Should cyberbullying be a felony?" The choices are "Yes" and "No, it's 'free speech'".  Currently, about 100,000 respondents are running 93% "yes" and 7% "No."  A slightly larger percentage, 13%, is willing to admit they've posted "mean comments" online.

Mean comments and inviting perverts on Craigslist to harass a 17 year old girl are two very different things.

The Missouri law that was recently enacted was a reaction to horrible Lori Drew, another adult female targeting a teen through MySpace harassment that caused the death of young Megan Meier. Megan's mother Tina said, "This is not a joke.  There have been too many people who have taken their own lives, too many people and their families that have been hurt by this."

Teens are extremely sensitive, and they are still children. The Missouri law says that cyberbullying where an adult targets another adult is a misdemeanor, while adults targeting minors will be charged with a felony.  The crime is punishable by up to 4 years in state prison, or a year in county jail, and a $5,000 fine.  Standard procedure for these types of felonies is to suspend the sentence, with probation and the sentence to be activated if probation is violated (community service and payment of fine). The accused woman has been ordered to not have a computer or internet access during this period, and she's been released on a $10,000 bond.  Her "nice" attorney compared her actions to writing "For a good time call Jane Doe" and a phone number on a bathroom wall. Cutting-and-pasting a girl's picture onto Craig's List and posting that amount of personal information (email, cell phone) takes a lot more effort than that, and has a lot more exposure than a women's bathroom stall.

According to the news reports, this is the first actual prosecution under the new Missouri law.  The actions of this woman's attorney remind me of the anti-death penalty advocates who basically support no penalties for any type of criminal behavior.  There's a reason that images of Justice feature a blindfold and scales.  Apparently, the girl's mother and this Thrasher woman were "going at it" on MySpace.  Thrasher's actions go far beyond online insults and taunts.  It's really about material damage and intent to harm.  The young girl wasn't posting sex ads for herself on Craigs List.  She had the misfortune of being the daughter of a woman who was dating Thrasher's ex.  

The people who do these types of things are always pathetic losers.  In this case, Ms. Thrasher apparently has two minor children that live at home with her.  It's obvious she was only thinking of her sick need for harassment and revenge when she undertook her actions.  But - what else is new?  This stuff is par for the course, and more business for attorneys and other exploiters.

Town Hall Protests - Turn Me in Right Now

I can't say I'm enthusiastic about "fighting" health care "reform," but I am sick to death of ultra-high taxes, of seeing the taxes that I do pay hijacked elsewhere, of fighting for a few pennies to come back to Southern California, and I'm sick of a guy from Searchlight, Nevada conducting highway robbery on my money and my life. 

I don't know why they are bothering to have any type of "town hall meetings" on "health care reform."  The Channel 11 news showed any number of angry protestors at meetings all across the south (why bother having them here?  California is a guaranteed Democrat state, it pays huge amounts of money to the feds, gets nothing back, and apparently nobody here is going to notice that the state budget crisis has some relationship to the Federal government robbing our taxes and our people for its needs).  Or, another way to say this is:  how many more programs and services does Washington, DC need?  They can't hire people to work there, because everyone is already receiving benefits and "services", which are NEVER ENOUGH.   

So this footage is from Austin, Texas.  I guess people inside the Beltway think that Texas is one giant state full of "conservative," mouth-breathing Neanderthals and their potential future voting supporters, "undocumented workers."  Austin is a pretty liberal college town, with a highly-educated, sophisticated and diverse population.

Peggy Noonan covered the issues very well in the Wall Street Journal.

But then, as a conservative with a brain and a heart, I'm used to being called names, too.  It's pretty damn obvious that all these people want is my money until it's gone and my work for free until I keel over.  Then they can send my daughter to one of their "reeducation camps" if they're even bothering with them by then.

I got an email from Arnold Schwarzenegger asking me to call my state representatives and say "No New Taxes," and I did, for the first time ever in my life.  The first person I talked to was polite.  The second was surprised and seemed genuinely upset at receiving so many calls.  End result?  Well, along with hundreds of thousands of others, I seem to have been part of genuinely saying, No New Taxes!  I might well go to one of the "health care" protests if any meetings are held in Southern California.  However, I doubt they will be.  People take the votes and money of people here for granted.  I wonder if the diehard "liberals" around here would feel so "liberal" if they knew that 70 cents of every tax dollar they paid went east of the Rockies and never returned, so they can realistically depend upon about 1/4 of the "universal health care" that's supposedly going to be provided.  They can pay the rest extra themselves, just the way it is right now.  I can't imagine why anybody would complain about that.

I've been working with a lot of things related to the stimulus package lately.  In fairness to the President, it appears that many people involved have tried hard to do things that will genuinely help others and hopefully, alleviate the recession.  In reality's sake, the actual spending of the money (which isn't anywhere near as much as anybody thinks, at least not at the local level) is as clusterfucky as I've ever seen.  All the usual clusterfuck causes:  retardation, laziness, corruption, and everyone's favorite: bossy pig desire to dominate for no good reason.

So, report me now.

Domestic Violence Against Male Victims

Glenn Sacks and Dr. Ned Holstein have written an amazing article about the problem of domestic violence committed by females against males.  While with common sense, most people know that such things do happen, people who haven't worked in the type of field that I have off-and-on for years probably think it's a rare, extreme occurrence.

The type of suffering endured by former Marine David Woods and his children is, unfortunately, all too common.  David's daughter had to coach herself to observe all incidents of violence in the home because every time police were called, they automatically wanted to arrest her father and it was impossible for David to convince them he was the victim.  The article vividly features an incident where David's violent former wife stabbed him, and the police came ready to immediately arrest him.  Only the children's intervention, describing the stabbing, saved him from arrest.  David was then told by the officer that they should use their Kaiser mental health insurance to obtain help for his wife, because "she needed help."

Mr. Woods successfully sued the State of California for discrimination, because California provides funds to many domestic violence programs that only serve female victims, not male victims.  In fact, the only DV programs that serve male victims are typically focused on victims in gay male couples - i.e. a gay male perpetrator and a gay male victim. 

While at Family Service, I encountered this heartbreaking situation.  There are few people more lonely and isolated than a male domestic violence victim and the children in such a situation.  No one cares, and there is little concern for the trauma to these children.  They get the message from authorities that what they see and experience with their own eyes isn't worthwhile, their input isn't wanted, and above all, violence is just fine, as long as it's their mother attacking their father.  They even receive help more slowly and uncertainly than other children that are victims of abuse. 

It is said that men suffer far more stress than do women.  It's not hard to see why, because unlike women who do have some resources (though inadequate) to escape a violent relationship, men have nowhere to turn.  If they hit back, they will certainly be arrested, and as Glenn's article points up, the children will be left in the care of the original abuser.  Domestic violence shelters and aid programs do tend to assist only female victims.  A little-known secret is that many such programs accept only a certain "profile" of victim, and the most commonly-excluded victims are male children over age 10.  There are many rationales for this, but if a female is a victim of domestic violence, and she has a pre-teen or teenaged son, she can forget going to a DV shelter, or she'll have to split up her children in order to receive any "services."  This same exclusion is also true of "regular" shelters for homeless families.  It is also difficult for pregnant women, or women with infants to receive shelter.

I told one of my friends the story of a family I had known of growing up in Redlands.  The grandparents ended up raising their granddaughter, who was really great to her grandmother and grandfather as they grew older.  Their reason for raising her wasn't the same as how I ended up with my grandparents.  They had her because their daughter had married a highly-abusive man during the post-WWII years before domestic violence was widely acknowledged.  She eventually divorced this man, who was also in and out of jail and prison.  While working as a waitress and single mom, one night the ex-husband showed up demanding money of the mother.  The little girl (about 7 or 8) was there at the time, and when her mother refused, he stabbed her nine times.  She protected her daughter with her own body and died right there.  That was how the little girl ended up with her grandparents.  This story stuck in my mind sufficiently that I can see the apartment where it happened in my mind, and know the exact place when I drive by (the killing did not occur in Redlands, but in Highland, CA).

So, domestic violence shelters and programs were set up because people got tired of seeing this type of thing swept under the rug, and seeing mothers like this giving up their lives to try to save their children, against violent, brutal men.

That incident occurred more than 50 years ago.  Now it's time to recognize that anyone can be a victim of domestic violence.  Now it's time to try to help the victims, and to make it known that it's not acceptable for anyone to do this, male or female.  It's also time to tell all victims that they did nothing wrong, and that what happened is not their fault, and give them a chance to heal.

But Why??

Sometimes things happen that make us say simply, "Why?"  The news this a.m. had two extremely disturbing reports.  First, a beautiful, brilliant, talented young Los Angeles girl, Lily Burk, was found dead early Saturday morning in a parking lot near 5th and Alameda (by Skid Row).  Friday afternoon, Lily had gone to run an errand for her mother, who is an attorney.  Lily's father is a writer and Lily herself wanted to be a writer.  She was a National Merit scholar, just as once, many years ago, I was.

In half an hour's time, they have already arrested the person wanted for suspicion of Lily's murder - a 50-year old man.  Apparently, the incident is a robbery gone wrong.

This is the type of thing that makes you simply ask, "Why?" I can only say that my heart goes out to Lily's parents, the rest of her family and her many friends from school, who must be absolutely shattered and asking, "Why?"

Downtown Los Angeles, where I WORK DAILY, isn't thought to be that dangerous, or at least, not as dangerous as when I was working at the LA Times years ago and saw the dead guy in the ivy by my parking lot. 

The parking lot attendants never left their "hut" and hundreds of people walked by this area on Spring St. headed toward the corner of 2nd and Spring (the Times building).  Here I went, and I even think I was wearing my lavendar flowered dress, and I saw this guy lying face down in the ivy, and the sprinklers were on.  There was no doubt he was dead.  The sprinkler was going thwack, thwack over the back of his head.  Even the most catatonically drunk individual wouldn't have "slept" through that.

So I went in and told the parking lot guys and asked them to call 9-1-1.  This was in the days before cell phones.  It took a little blond girl that looked at the time like Alice in Wonderland assuring them that there was a dead guy in their ivy to get them to leave their hut.  One of them started running around in a circle and hollering when they saw the body.  And I was late to work - so I left!  By the end of the day, the gentleman's body was indeed, gone.  Hundreds of people had gone by before me, and I was the only one who stopped. 

And there's more denigration of Michael Jackson, with the report that he wore prosthetic noses, and that the prosthesis was "missing" upon his autopsy, according to the well-known outstanding news source, Rolling Stone.  Most people know that I've written a lot of stories about people with differing appearances, from those who've been genetically altered, to cosmetic surgery, to people born with different abilities, from "Jonny Punkinhead" to Mel in "To Kiss the Star."  

Facial prosthetics are real, and they are used for important purposes.  This is a photo of Robert R. Barron, a former "master of disguise" for the CIA who is now using his talents at creating realistic facial prosthetics to help people with many different types of facial problems who require help.  The realism and effect of Mr. Barron's prostheses is almost beyond belief.

I honestly cannot understand why Lily Burk lost her life, or what conceivable purpose in the world could be served by such horrific evil.

But as to the news reports of further humiliation and denigration of Michael Jackson, I can see a good purpose.  Whether Michael Jackson required a nasal prosthesis or not, if people's attention is drawn to the positive effects of realistic facial prostheses, good can come of that.  There are probably many people out there who are hiding due to disfigurement, whose lives could be immeasurably improved by one of Mr. Barron's incredibly effective, realistic prostheses.  If just one or two people learn about this, and improve their lives because of the news reports - then yes, good will come of that.