“What is a sonofabitch, exactly?”

That question has stumped many great minds.

Not Darcey. He can answer that age old query, “What is a sonofabitch, exactly?“

Over The Rainbow And Other Places You Want To Check Out

Fausta has an excellent post today, in which she discusses the Durham rape case and provides some excellent links to blogs and articles. of course, Fausta being Fausta, links to other interesting- and irresistable stories.

She covers ‘House’ star Hugh Laurie, Homeland Security, Art and a link to a really interesting link to a post by Kobayashi Maru.

There is more, so head on over.

The Anchoress posts today are just…sublime. In particular, her post, How A Non Catholic Respectfully Communes At Mass, is a post that ought to be framed. What is said, what is left unsaid and what is partially said, are instructive and insightful on every level. Her remarks are personal, political and are a not so subtle moral statement. Another post, Incurioser & Incurioser- Bush Or The Press, is another keeper- and an eye into insight.

Dr Sanity is discussing Pinnochio, Tom Sawyer and D’Artagnan. There’s a reference to Freud we could make, but we will contain ouselves.

Neo has a couple of fascinating reads, not only because the subject matter is fascinating, but because Neo is also a great writer.  Her post, A Trip Back In Time: Khomeini And The Revolution, Part One appears to be the preamble to a fascinating time in history, with repucussions that are still being felt today.

Shrinkwrapped posts a missive from a reader- a retired career intelligence analyst, who as Shrinkwrapped notes, “knows how to construct a position. Reasons For Optimisms: Part One, is a post that forces us to look at reality through a different set of lenses. You might be surprised at what you see.

Order, Chaos And Insight

Order from chaos. A big part of our lives is derived from engaging in that endeavor.

Any teacher will tell you that a child learns by finding order in the chaos of new ideas, to make sense of the world around him or her. The best teachers encourage that exploration and the questions that are a necessary component of learning.

The organized study of science has been broken down into various disciplines, so that we might better understand our universe, is also about finding order and understanding scientific phenomena. The miracle drugs and technologies that have so impacted our lives, came about as the result of finding understanding and harnessing the order from the chaos. The cure for cancer and other diseases will come about because scientists diligently examine and learn from studies in chemistry, biology, anatomy and a host of other scientific disciplines.

The primary goals of psychologists and psychiatrists, are to help their patients find order in the chaos that has overtaken their lives and in some cases, to recognize the ‘triggers’ that might upend their lives, by teaching the patient that they can manage heir own lives- again, order out of chaos.

Religion, faith, the search for God and finding meaning, is very much about finding order from chaos.

So what happens when our natural instinct and need to find order from chaos is impeded?

Yesterday, we quoted Maxed Out Mama, as she opined on a post by Eteraz:

I think there is a war here, but it is not a war between religions, but as Ali says, between Violence and Reason. Violence has a theology, but so does Reason [emp-SC&A]. And coming back to the Anchoress’ point, I think that failure to confront and examine the “war within the Law of God” will leave people in the US with the impression that this is a different war, and that all Muslims are prone to go off like popguns in Jewish neighborhoods. I think it’s time to come to grips with what Violence is truly saying in order to let Reason prevail.

I want to reiterate this: for every act of violence in the west, there are ten in the Muslim world. The ideology of Violence must be defeated, because it will never surrender – but that need not mean that Muslims must be outcast, or that being Muslim is at all incompatible within being humane and just. What we should do is speak and live reason, even if we have to carry a gun to do this. I must, in the end, have a radical addiction to freedom, because I would rather live in an armed society than in one which carried out pogroms against innocent Muslims.

Now, let’s examine this a bit more closely. For those who would place violence over reason, there is clearly an attempt to subvert those who might seek order from the chaos. In societies, cultures and even religions, the notion of order from chaos is upended if violence is given reign over reason. When violence or a culture of violence is given dominion over reason, we are going back in time, reverting to more basal instincts.

Those for whom reason and order are the ‘primary directive,’ cannot allow the wholesale degradation of a people into violence or chaos, led by a few dysfunctional and evil men. This is not a matter of religion. Anyone, regardless of religion or even belief, realize that real believers understand that we were not put here to blow each other off the face of the earth. If we turn a blond eye or ignore the plight of Muslims under these repressive an dysfunctional regimes, we do so at our own peril.

We noted in Peace In The Middle East Starts At Home, that

The biblical tale of Abraham and Isaac is instructive. Now matter how willing his servant is, God does not allow Abraham to sacrifice his son.

God does not demand from Abraham that he obviate his role as a parent. He insists rather, that Abraham resume his natural role as a parent. God does not need Abraham’s son as a sacrifice.

God demands Reason over Violence, and order and not chaos. We are not meant to sacrifice our children- to use them in fact, as weapons to kill others- in His name. To parent and elevate our children is to find order and Reason in a part of our lives.

If we are to help each other, nourish each other and support each other as we fulfill the human destiny of progress, we accept that our mission on this earth is not to destroy each other, but rather, must accept as truth that the principal part of our lives is to keep Reason and order as an anchor against the vile and foul winds that are Violence and chaos. This is the message we repeat over and over again. The problems in much of the Islamic world are very fundamental and are in no way the result of anything other than a spectacular dysfunctionality. To place the blame elsewhere (on America, Israel, Jews, Christians, etc.) is no more than an attempt to validate the idea that chaos can take precedence over order, if and when that serves a particular need.

The accumulation of our contributions, as we endeavor to always demand and expect order rather than chaos, are what defines civilized society. Those that do not contribute or demand to that chaos rule the day, exclude themselves from civilized society.

Our adversaries, by deeds, actions and own admission, have come to value violence over reason. They have destroyed much and wish to destroy even more. They wish to upend the truth that we are not meant to destroy each other.

We do not exclude others easily nor do separate ourselves from others with great pleasure. In fact, this country was built on the principles and foundation of inclusion. We wish peace with our neighbors. Peace by definition, means order and Reason, a live and let live culture. Tragically, there are those that claim to want peace- but only if that peace is based on the threat of violence and capitulation to an evil that destroys, hates and rules by threat of chaos.

Dr Sanity, in Repression And The Mirror Of Insight, prefaced her remarks by noting “Freud is reported to have said that the very act of entering into civilized society entails the repression of various desires, impulses and feelings.”

In her post, Dr Sanity discusses order over chaos, albeit indirectly:

The most psychologically healthy… are those those that allow us to transform the primitive instinctual energy of even the most destructive emotions into works of art or entertainment that give pleasure to others (sublimation and humor); or behavior that is socially beneficial (altruism, anticipation, suppression). People who achieve optimal psychological health are those who have come to satisfactory terms with their neurobiology. They are people who have learned to accept their anger, rage and other potentially deadly emotions and, instead of destructively acting out, repressing, denying or projecting; have creatively expressed those feelings in a way that improves life both for themselves and for others…

Insight is a wonderful thing. The power or act of seeing into a situation and apprehending the inner nature or motivation of one’s self–especially the why–can be extremely liberating… Only by being aware of these kind of hidden truths and inner motivations can a person gain control over them and correct the behavior that they generate.

Without real insight, we are playing a kind of lottery.

In one form or another, we are all weighted down. We all carry some kind of baggage- our responsibilities, our homelife and the influences of our childhood all contribute to the ‘load’ each of us bears. It is true that with the help of a therapist, we can learn to ‘unload’ that baggage and bask in a kind of new found freedom. That said, without real insight into ourselves and understanding why individually and collectively, we must constantly work at finding order from within chaos, we will find oursleves weighted down again, very quickly. Without real insight, freedom from chaos soon becomes ethereal, because learned dysfunctional behaviors and biases reassert themselves.

In other words, a prerequisite to civilized society a clear demand that we find order in chaos. We must come to insight- to understand what motivates us and to recognize our biases and those dysfunctional behaviors that influences the choices we make. When chaos or violence, even dressed up as ‘reasonable expression,’ is allowed to the fore, our ‘civilized society’ suffers- and we and society reverts back to more primal behaviors.

Now, to be sure, some chaos is good. Art can make us see things in new and different ways and help us understand our world. Religion, too, can provide a kind of chaos. Like art and literature, religion today asks those things that challenge the status quo.
Those voices that call for and defend the policies of those who place Violence over Reason and demand chaos over order, are equally as dysfunctional as those for whom the ideologies of violence and chaos are a reality- and they are equally threatening to civilized society.

“Every time I step into a classroom, Jane is there.”

Now that the school year underway for many, and about to begin for everyone else, we wanted to republish a post about what makes the kind of teacher that changes lives. This post was originally published September 28, 2005.

Everyone knows we are big fans of Mamacita. We have written about her, and she has, on more than one occasion, written a guest post on this blog. See this, this and this, as an examples of what teachers know but won’t necessarily share.

Irrespective of degrees, CEU’s, awards and prizes, a teacher’s only real credentials are her former students.

The following appeared on another blog. It was written by one of Mamacita’s former students- one of the many that taken together, make up her Doctorate in Education.

I was asked to respond to a point in a discussion somewhere about Gifted and Talented programs in schools. This got me to thinking about teachers I have known, and I felt my response was worthy of being posted here as well. And yes, the teacher referenced has her own blog – I’m proud to link to it.

Anyhoo, enjoy.

—

In an ideal world, all children would have access to a quality education and given the opportunity to achieve their full potential. Of course, we do not live in an ideal world. Therefore, those of us who have taken the mantle of teacher – for my money, the single most important mantle in the world – have to find ways to get kids to that point in some hideous circumstances.

I count myself fortunate beyond compare that Jane was my teacher, because she believed in me when it looked like no one else really cared. Here’s my story.

In fourth grade, they took three of us from my elementary school and pulled us out for G/T class 2 or 3 times a week. If memory serves (and years of college will dull the memory of elementary school somewhat), we took a class on basic computer use. (In rural Indiana in the early-to-mid 1980s, a computer was a wonder.) This class wasn’t much, but it was something. It sent me a message – that the school district, while still believing strongly in educating every kid, felt that certain kids showed the promise of greatness to justify extra opportunities. I grew up on a hog farm; my family was not (and to this day is not) wealthy (indeed, for most of the 80s, we were no more than one missed payment from foreclosure – I still don’t know how we made it). I was not rich, connected, or related to a member of the school board. Yet, because I showed aptitude, I was given a great opportunity.

The next year, there was no G/T. One of the three junior high schools wanted a new gym floor, so they cut the G/T program to pay for it.

For three years, I was rarely challenged. I kept up my grades – what choice did I have? – but I learned to loathe the small minds and xenophobics that populated my school district.

Then I had Jane for 8th grade English. She encouraged me and believed in me when, as I said above, my entire community was sending me the message that good enough was good enough. She exposed me to culture unavailable to the average son of a hog farmer. She took me up to the nearest College town and let me explore the bookstores up there.

Because of her, I believed in myself again. Because of her, I went on to college (it was not a given – my two brothers are quite intelligent, but they have no degrees) and then to grad school. Because of her, I knew what a good teacher is. Every time I step into a classroom, Jane is there.

And it’s all because she believed in the spirit of what a G/T program should be. All of her students get a good education – but she finds those with potential and sends them to places they couldn’t have imagined otherwise.

And you can quote me on that.

WF

“Violence has a theology, but so does Reason” And Other Oddities

The Anchoress notes

Can you imagine, if someone had (God forbid!) driven a car into 14 gay people, how quickly the press would have managed to cover the story? Can you imagine that Mayor Newsom would call it “road rage” and suggest that there really probably wasn’t a “hate crime” attached to the action?

Commenting on the same Anchoress post, Maxed Out Mama connects a few dots  with a post by Eteraz. She says,

I think there is a war here, but it is not a war between religions, but as Ali says, between Violence and Reason. Violence has a theology, but so does Reason [emp-SC&A]. And coming back to the Anchoress’ point, I think that failure to confront and examine the “war within the Law of God” will leave people in the US with the impression that this is a different war, and that all Muslims are prone to go off like popguns in Jewish neighborhoods. I think it’s time to come to grips with what Violence is truly saying in order to let Reason prevail.

I want to reiterate this: for every act of violence in the west, there are ten in the Muslim world. The ideology of Violence must be defeated, because it will never surrender – but that need not mean that Muslims must be outcast, or that being Muslim is at all incompatible within being humane and just. What we should do is speak and live reason, even if we have to carry a gun to do this. I must, in the end, have a radical addiction to freedom, because I would rather live in an armed society than in one which carried out pograms against innocent Muslims.

Now, keep that in mind as you consider these ideas, also presented by The Anchoress. In Fascist- Word Only Noteworthy When Used By GOP, she notes that there are other imbalances, closer to home, and that there appears to be a concerted effort to keep Reason from the conscience of the American public.

When the president or conservatives use the word “fascist” and “fascism” to describe a means of movement and an ideology, well…that’s all a “tactic.” It’s been focus-grouped. It’s just a cynical ploy to which no one need pay attention. They’re just floundering around with that word, they don’t really know what it means, after all. Of course they don’t. They’re too stoopit.

But when the left uses the same words, it’s not cynical, it’s not a political tactic – it’s apparently something real and noble.

Interesting, too… G.H.W. Bush calling Saddam “Hitler,” and the ensuing controversy which arose from that…but never mentions that G.W. Bush is routinely called “fascist” and “Hitler” to…to…to the sounds of crickets chirping and a hollow wind blowing all around. No controversy, there!

It’s amazing what is “remarkable” to some people. It is even more amazing to me that when the administration finally gets around to using the right word, some in the press immediately work to dull the effect.

This in fact, is more than partisan politics. This is an attempt to assign credibity- or take it way, by a media with a clear agenda -and a part of that agenda is to preclude Reason, as MOM notes, from prevailing.  As she so perfectly notes, “Violence has a theology, but so does Reason.” Some agendas don’t want you to think about that.

How does that agenda manifest itself? See Donkey See, Monkey Do, a more than disturbing editorial on the ideas that are embraced by the rank and file Demorat supporters.

Plus ca change, plus ca reste la meme. 

Flea Market Democracy

What happens when democracy is imposed?

What happens when various political ideologies all compete openly in a democratic environment? Some have stated intentions that would upend democracy entirely, replacing that form of government with a far more repressive regime, while others would maintain a facade of democracy by controlling those institutions  that are the foundation of democracy, all the while retaining an iron grip.

These questions aren’t academic. These are questions that impact us- and our collective security, every day.

Of course, we are talking about Pakistan.

Ali Eteraz, in Free, Free Pakistan, treads where many fear to go. He discusses and examines our relationship with Pakistan and President Musharaff and more importantly, our relationship with that country over time, as the pendulum in that country swung back and forth, from a kind of Islamism to a kind of democracy. The various 20th century Pakistani governments could never quite commit to either, fully- and as a result, there were excesses of mythological proportion, in attempting to define those regimes.

On the surface, it is easy to excoriate the US and other western regimes for supporting Pakistan. There are, by western standards, clear human rights abuses as well as less than savory institutions that serve the regime and not democratic principles.

While it is easy to criticize the Pakistanis, it bears remembering that our support is pragmatic and self serving- as diplomatic relations are meant to be. For example, there are plenty of regimes that abhor the principles on which  US and other western democracies are predicated- and they all maintain relations with western democracies. Cuba, Vietnam, and Venezuela are a few current examples of regimes that espouse ideas that are anti democratic and at the same time, maintain relations with democratic regimes.

It is also clear that we support and deal with some less than savory regimes because there are no viable alternatives. The Saudis, Syrians, Venezuelans and much of the Arab world are examples of that. While there are those that decry our relations with those dysfunctional regimes, there isn’t much groundswell for cutting all ties with those regimes.

Further, we have to examine our own ideals. In the case of Pakistan, do we insist that all democracies look like our own? Would we be willing to sacrifice our democracy without a fight, or would we defend it- and maybe break a few rules along the way?

Eteraz grapples with these issues and makes more than a few observations along the way. He candidly notes that

…a dictatorship that must pander to Western democracies is fundamentally caught in an Orwellian double-think — of holding as faith two mutually contradictory beliefs. It repeats over and over that 2+ 2 is 5 with the hope that others will start to believe the answer of the equation is 5 as well. Western politics are fundamentally at odds with dictatorship and both sides know this The result of this double-think is even more Orwellian because the only logical step the dictator can take is to polish and sharpen his propaganda and hide and muffle his mistakes. In other words, he ends up creating a subterranean untouched space which is hidden from the world — the world of torture and house arrests and strongly worded ’suggestions.’

…even the dictator ceases to be aware of the existence of this abyss. And with clarity in his eyes and true patriotic fervor in his voice he speaks about free speech and free market and free expression and free religion, all the while extracting such freedom from his subjects without having to pat on his gun.

These are truths apply to other ‘elected’ governments and Eteraz goes on to highlight the clear dysfunctionality of those regimes. It is not an election that makes a government legitimate, but rather, the independence of democratic institutions from undue influence that defines the quality- and depth of a democracy.

Pakistan, like every nation, cannot escape it’s past, no matter how much that nation wishes they could. On the other hand, nations cannot escape their own ‘deals with the devil,’ either.

In either case, history cannot really be rewritten.

The Fountain Of Wisdom Overflows Again

The latest installment of the Sanity Squad is up.

Here is yet another opportunity to drink from the Wisdom Waterfalls. The cosmopolitan Dr Sanity, the urbane Shrinkwrapped and the positively sublime Neo-neocon all offer up insight and wisdom found no where else in the blogosphere.
Really.

Hurricane Relief, Part Three

After the magnitude of the devastation Katrina wrought became clear, Mary Landrieu, senator from Louisiana called for the President to establish a ‘cabinet level post’ to direct relief efforts in her state. Why do you think she did that?

In fact, she she has made that extraordinary request so that federal relief officials can bypass and ‘go over the heads’ of state and local officials- officials that Landrieu knew were incompetent. Landrieu understood that dealing with local officials would only delay or prevent help from getting through.

We won’t even discuss what has been left unsaid. Who would want to see tens and tens of billions of dollars, administered by the same people that were incapable of developing and implementing a disaster relief plan? Why would anyone believe that people who could not bring water bottles to those who needed it, would do a better job of moving heavy equipment and concrete into the area?

We are repeating ourselves to make a point: The disaster was exacerbated by State, County and Local officials, who had no plan whatsoever. Despite years of assurances and studies, New Orleans had no disaster plans. It was a sham- all of it.

State and local officials had over a week advance warning- and in that time, virtually nothing was done.

To put this in perspective- 9/11 came without warning- and local and state officials did a magnificent job under incredibly tough conditions, before the arrival of FEMA and federal help.

Despite the reality of one weeks’ warning, the City of New Orleans could not manage to pre position stores of water. The only known New Orleans citizen that access to that precious commodity was the mayor himself, as can be evidenced in virtually every photograph of him during this crisis.
The Anchoress wrote in 100 Hours After Stormfall

But it is easy to Monday Morning Quarterback. That’s the easiest thing in the world to do, and also the most useless, so let’s not do it – let’s focus on what actually happened, for a little bit longer – we were talking about how New Orleans had seemed to have dodged a bullet.

When the levees fell and hell was unleashed, those emergency folk who were in place were faced with a disaster that they’d simply never encountered before. No matter how “prepared” they might have been, they were not – could not be – prepared enough. Suddenly they were not dealing with a mere disaster, they had a true catastrophe on their hands. A catastrophe is not something easily, and neatly managed. It is horrific and sprawling and deadly and by its nature, a catastrophe brings nothing good, leaves nothing good in its wake.

There are some folks out there who seem to think that a sprinkling of pixie dust is all it would take to make everything better, and that the president is being stingy with the twinkles.

As always, The Anchoress is too kind.

So the federal response were not adequate or fast enough for you?

Well, disaster relief and reconstruction aren’t reality TV. There are no quick fixes’ If you think there are quick and easy fixes, you need to get away from the TV set and start dealing with reality.

There is no more a quick fix for New Orleans and the Gulf Coast than there was for the disaster that were the 1997 floods that inundated North Dakota and Minnesota. To be clear, after six years, there has not been a full recovery in all the affected areas. See this, for a peek at what reality looks like. For some reason, the previous administration was not taken to task for FEMA failures in Red River floods.

Every administration in New Orleans and Louisiana knew that ‘the big one,’ would come. No one in state government, Republicans and Democrats alike, were unaware of what might happen. New Orleans and Louisiana fell asleep at the wheel. It was preserving Bourbon street and not preparing for the inevitable that occupied the time at City Hall the state house.

While they cannot be blamed for the disaster, they can be faulted for having absolutely no emergency planning. If there was, there would be evidence of that on our TV screens.

They knew what was possible and they did one lousy job of preparing for it.
We will repeat ourselves, again: The disaster encompassed 90,000 thousand square miles. To be clear, that is an area over half the size of Iraq.

NBC Nightly News reported that in a survey taken in New Orleans just last year, over one third said they would not evacuate, even if ordered to do so.

Nevertheless there were some that would have evacuated if they could.

Where were the city, county and state before the storm? Why did we see over 500 buses transporting New Orleans residents after the storm?

As The Anchoress words at the time are as relevant now. She said,

I had written earlier today that I really want to believe that the press wants what is best for America. I still want to believe it. The press understands the power of images – hell, we do not see too many good images from Iraq for a reason, right? If the press wants to filter news on the war because they don’t believe in it, that’s one thing. It’s not right, and it dishonors our men and women who come home with very different sorts of stories than we hear in the press…but it’s “one thing.” If they begin to filter out images of hopefulness and heroism – if they downplay what is positive in the recovery efforts after Katrina, they will not only hurt the president they hate…they will hurt the nation – they will deliver a deep and lasting wound to America’s spirit, its pride and its soul. And that would be unforgivable. We need some more of this, please.

The sad people who sit around like self-gratifying monkeys, constantly working their hate, working it and working it, are longing for release – for an orgasm that can only occur upon the utter political, personal and (for some) physical destruction of a human being named George W. Bush. Until they have that destruction, and that orgasm, nothing else matters. Nothing. And nothing can be seen by them, except through the prism of that hateful desire.

I wish I could talk to some of these folks – really talk to them – but I know I cannot. I know they have no openness to hear anything I have to say. I wish I could ask them – and folks like Jack Cafferty and Katie Couric and others who take the very easy way of simply “blaming Bush” for everything, and who are simply running on hate – where has your hate taken you? Where do you think it will take the country? Assuming you still want what is best for America, do you think unrelenting hate is what she needs at this moment – that it can be the catalyst for recovery and healing in our nation?

I know of no therapy that brings about healing through hatred…

Hate tends to consume the hater, and I read some of the remarks some folks are making and think…are you so in love with your hate that you cannot let it go long enough to say “let us band together and put politics aside, for now…” because this really is not the time to drive political daggers – it is not the time to try to figure out if the traditionally Democratic leadership in this state or that contributed to a city’s unpreparedness and vulnerability. It is not the time to sit and seethe with resentment or guffaw in anticipatory glee…

The Anchoress words really hit the mark.

Also courtesy of The Anchoress comes a link to The Katrina Video Congress Didn’t Want You To See, from Paul at Wizbang.

The implosion of New Orleans during Katrina was bigger than any Fourth of July fireworks display.

Hurricane Relief, Part Two

Before the upcoming ‘Blame Bush For Hurricane KatrinaFest,’ it bears remembering that the MSM, the very privileged and highly agendized group, have a rather poor track record when it comes to reporting the truth about Katrina.

Much to the MSM’s dismay (and Anderson Cooper’s tears), there were no mass murders or rapes inside the Superdome. Malkin has more debunked myths, including a retraction by a ‘civil rights leaders’ that blacks had been forced (by white folks, of course) into cannibalism. See The American Thinker, too. The war in Iraq has no effect on the federal government’s response to Katrine- much to the dismay of the MSM. Remember the MSM outrage at the FEMA for not allowing disaster relief into the area? Well, that was another well crafted MSM fabrication.

Former Oklahoma Governor, Frank Keating, has made clear that initial disaster relief and response efforts are the responsibility of the State. He pointed out that the Federal government ‘does not have jumbo jets on standby filled with doctors’ at the ready.

Governor Keating is no danger of being misquoted, of course. The MSM would have to acknowledge his remarks, clearly remarks they find contrary to their agenda. In fact, inconvenient realities have been ignored by the MSM.

Neither George Bush or global warming caused Katrina. Devastating hurricanes have been around for a lot longer than the internal combustion engine and biggie size fries, those great enemies of the people.

There have been hurricanes far larger than Katrina. Many of them predated the Bush administration and secret Yale fraternities.

If global warming exacerbated Katrina, that is because global warming issues predated George Bush. In fact, if global warming did exacerbate the hurricane, it is because global warming was ignored for decades. The global warming phenomena is not Al Gore’s karma coming back to punish us. The global warming frenzied mobs need to ask why Kyoto is not applicable to the worst polluters- China, India, and Brazil.

As we have noted, emergency preparedness is not part of George Bush’s job description. It is not Mr Bush’s job to keep a list of school bus drivers, ready to call at a moment’s notice. It is not his fault that the mayor of New Orleans and governor of Louisiana were incompetent.
The MSM are woefully ill equipped to make the determination that the federal government was more at fault than the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana. Nor is the MSM responsible for blaming the administration because hospital and nursing home patients weren’t evacuated to safety. They know very well where the responsibility lies- and choose to ignore the truth.

The amount of money (mis)spent on levee construction over the last 30 years totals in the billions, at least. Where the money all went will no doubt remain a mystery. Let’s be clear. Even if the levee maintenance and reconstruction monies were reduced to zero, that in no way has any bearing on having an effective disaster/emergency preparedness plan. As we noted, if there were a real evacuation plans, hospitals, nursing homes, and the handicapped would not have been left behind to fend for themselves, as happened in New Orleans. Do the incompetent New Orleans city fathers think they can assign blame, with the help of the MSM, to the federal government for not having a plan to evacuate New Orleans hospitals and nursing homes?

It was and always has been, FEMA’s role to augment local disaster response and relief. It is not FEMA’s role to be the first responders to a disaster. That is the purview of the governor and mayors of the affected areas. As has been adequately pointed out, New Orleans and Louisiana were monumental failures in the appointed tasks as ‘guardians’ of the city and state.

No one should be surprised that if FEMA and the federal government are requested to perform what are the responsibilities of local government, it takes them a bit longer to respond. They must reconfigure their mission and plans, to accommodate the realities of their new mission- and the expectation that they must fill in for state and local officials.

The real lessons of Katrina are the spectacular ineptitude of Ray Nagin and Kathleen Blanco were transformed into magnificent competence with the arrival of FEMA, federal aid and federal troops.  As soon as the  National  Guard  under General  Honore left the area, and Ray Nagin, et al were put back in charge, reconstruction faltered or fell apart entirely. That has nothing to do with money- it has to do with planning. New Orleans and Louisiana were incompetent before Katrina and they are incompetent now. They cannot even manage to get the garbage picked up- and there is 33 billion dollars of federal aid that has yet to be spent. See The Mudville Gazette, here, for more on the fanatsyland that is New Orleans and Louisiana.

Of course, we have to look at the residents of New Orleans themselves. We noted in The Culture Of Disaster Or The NO Party To The Grave Plan,

Despite the expenditures of billion and billions of dollars in New Orleans in the hope that such a disaster might not ever happen, and the preparation of a response if the unthinkable did happen, there remained a significant number of people who never had any intention of leaving.

Some people just didn’t want to be subjected to some higher authority telling them what to do. Some people, having lived their entire lives in New Orleans, knew very well the credibility level of the people in charge and were smart enough to take anything they heard with a grains of salt…

It isn’t as if New Orleans were a geographically remote location. It isn’t as if New Orleans citizens didn’t understand the inevitability of a massive storm. On the face of it, New Orleans should have been one of the most disaster prepared cities in the world. Instead, it was one of the most complacent.

In fact, preparedness took a back seat to corruption, greed and dirty politics.

The weatherman says a storm is coming? Let’s go down to the French Quarter and party! Let’s go down to the liquor store and load up- have the neighbors over! This is New Orleans- party time!

There was never a culture of disaster preparedness. If there were, the citizens of New Orleans would have better heeded the warnings. Why were liquor stores allowed to remain open? Why was the French Quarter a hub of hurricane party activity? It was up to the city and state to impress upon people the importance of hurricane preparedness…

Rather than meet at the French Quarter to party, New Orleans residents needed to meet at school parking lots, to follow an established evacuation program.

Clearly, there is more to talk about than George Bush.

Had every single National Guard soldier been preplaced in New Orleans prior to the storm, the levees (victim of decades of Democrat neglect and fraud) would have failed.

Had every single National Guard soldier been preplaced in New Orleans, the 1100 buses would still not have been used to evacuate a single resident. Those buses were an integral part of the New Orleans city and state

Had every single National Guard soldier been preplaced in New Orleans, the Superdome would not have provided any better shelter than it did. Despite being a part of the state disaster plan, and then being designated a Katrina disaster shelter a shelter two days before the storm hit, New Orleans was unable to provide even the water the state plan called for. Presumably, the non existent water supplies were managed by the same democrats that oversaw the construction and repairs of the levees.

The 1997 flooding of the Red River- the floods that drowned Fargo, ND and tens of other communities, began at the end of March, 1997. The official response came on May 28, 1997. Clearly, the FEMA response to the New Orleans disaster under this administration, was far better than the response of the previous administration.

There is no doubt that many who chose to ‘ride out’ the storm will revisit that decision for a long time to come. That said, the poorest citizens of New Orleans were betrayed three times by their local government. Firstly, the was almost a week’s notice of the impending disaster. There could have been an orderly evacuation and transition. There were no efforts made to assist these poorer residents with an evacuation. Second, the evacuation orders and warning that came 24 hours in advance of the storm were also not accompanied by any directions or efforts to make that evacuation easier or more comprehensible. ‘Get Out!’ is not an acceptable disaster plan. Lastly, there was no community based disaster plan in place.

Every school and business has fire drills. Law Enforcement and Emergency Services Personnel have emergency preparedness drills.

In every Midwestern city and town, when the sirens or klaxon’s sound during tornado season, people know where to go and what to do. They know where the shelters are and families prearranged meeting places. Relief supplies are prepositioned and are available at a moment’s notice. These plans are available to the whole community, across the economic spectrum.

Imagine a city like Harrisburg PA, in close proximity to the Three Mile Island nuclear plant, not having a community disaster and evacuation plan. Imagine other cities, near other nuclear power plants or dams, not having a disaster and evacuation plan.

Harrisburg, PA is far less likely to experience a disaster than The City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana was to experience devastating hurricane.

Despite flirting with disaster for decades, New Orleans and the State of Louisiana could not be bothered to put a coherent disaster plan into effect.

Last installment, later.

Hurricane Relief, Part One

As the anniversary of hurricane Katrina approaches, the MSM has taken it upon themselves to ‘present’ a post Katrina evaluation to the American public. That would be an admirable endeavor if the MSM had a credible record when it came to reporting on Katrina. Sadly, they do not, Then, as now, the MSM’s record of is nothing less than atrocious (Our post, Hurricane Relief, Part One, can be found here).

Let’s take a short walk down memory lane.

The Katrina disaster impacted 90,000 square miles – unprecedented in modern history. No matter that the levee system in a sinking city was doomed to fail and no matter that even if for the last 15 years, all the levees in New Orleans were brought up to standard, we’d still have 5 years to go before they would be ready. There are those that are stupid enough to think that miracles originate in the Oval Office.

Many critics want to portray the Katrina relief efforts as a complete failure of this administration. Here’s a reality pill: FEMA’s mandate is to coordinate with state and local emergency response personnel to assist and augment state and local disaster plans. It is not the mandate of FEMA to be on the front lines of disaster relief.

The State of Louisiana received an extra 300 million dollars to assist in disaster planning and preparations. Still no word as to where the money went.

Of course, FEMA is not blameless in the ongoing Katrina debacle. It was and is FEMA’s job to coordinate with the states in advance, so as to be better prepared to help. What kind of coordination did they have with the State of Louisiana? When it became evident that Louisiana had no plan, what did FEMA do?

People in the State of Louisiana and the City of New Orleans need to be held accountable for the complete failure of the emergency planning commissions. Those planning commissions are the front line of defence in facing a natural disaster. The complete failure and implosion of those so called plans were inevitable. When the New Orleans and Louisiana disaster plans failed, it is unreasonable to expect the federal government to send fire trucks to the front lines.

The mayor of New Orleans didn’t do ‘his best,’ as he claims. Ray Nagin did nothing but wait for the federal government to respond to what was his problem- and screw up. Ray Nagin didn’t evacuate a single soul from New Orleans- and did nothing to help those who wanted leave, but couldn’t. See this, from The Anchoress. Critics of the administration- including the MSM- don’t like to be reminded of that.

Did we really expect an incompetent mayor and governor to miraculously find their mettle a day or two before the onslaught of a catastrophic event? Where were Michael Brown’s critics before Katrina? Why was there uproar as he oversaw 160 disasters FEMA responded to prior to Katrina?

The critics of the administration don’t give a damn about the victims of Katrina. The hurricane disaster relief efforts were no more than a platform for bashing this administration. Notwithstanding FEMA’s errors, critics demanded the impossible- they wanted this administration to provide miracles. For the critics, the politics are still more important than the needs.

When political gain can’t be had, the critics ignore reality. In Mississippi, a state that suffered horribly, the disaster relief program is working- not perfectly, but working- and that is why the critics refuse to talk about that state. Their own efforts and that state’s coordination with FEMA, was very different from that of Louisiana. They had a real plan. Louisiana did not. No one wants to talk about fabled Louisiana state government corruption.

Part of what made this country great was a ‘can do’ attitude. No problem was too big, no problems were insurmountable. America and Americans make things happen

Katrina has clearly shown that many Americans, even those in government, seem to be frozen, incapable of initiative and lacking the self motivation to ‘do for themselves,’ instead wanting and waiting to rely on ‘the government.’ It is this very inertia that serves as the fuel for terrorism. We appear as if we are incapable of responding to any kind of threat or disaster.

Critics of the administration are gearing up for an overtime effort. With all due respect, when have Harry Reid, Jesse Jackson Al Sharpton, et al, and an become experts on emergency readiness planning? Since when do Harry Reid and Jesse Jackson know more about Louisiana than Mary Landrieu? She has requested that a cabinet level post be established to oversee the relief and reconstruction, so that they they may “go over the heads of local officials.” Senator Landrieu knows what everyone else does- that local officials are corrupt and incompetent.

The critics want to play politics. Well, that goes two ways. The Louisiana levees were ignored for decades. Why didn’t years of successive Democrat administrations in the State of Louisiana, do anything about the levees? As we have noted, emergency preparedness is the responsibility of the state. What exactly did they do for decades with all that money assigned for disaster relief? Where are the water stores, for example. The was no water pre staged by the City or state. They had a full weeks notice- and years of pissed away planning, by both the city and state was revealed. Simply stated, New Orleans and the State of Louisiana screwed up.

They had no plan and the proof is in the pudding. They were incompetent- complete failures. The Feds were put in a position where they had to provide everything- a role that is not a part of their mandate.

The gnawing, lingering question remains: Why didn’t mayor Ray Nagin call for the school buses to assist with the evacuations? That has nothing to do with the levees. Nothing.

Let’s look a little closer at the politics.

Every governor in Louisiana since 1887, with three exceptions, have been Democrats. In other words, it would be very easy to blame Democrats for the failures of the infrastructures in New Orleans and the Louisiana coast.

It should be noted that in Mississippi, every governor since 1836 has also been a Democrat, save for five Republicans and one Union Democrat.

Alabama Governor’s Mansion has been occupied by Democrats since 1819, save for six Republicans.

It is the States responsibility to build, maintain, and support state infrastructure. It is also the state’s responsibility to to maintain local civil administration, emergency planning or emergency response. Those are the responsibilities of local governments.

The fact remains that is is the federal government that had to step in and clean up the mess made by the City of New Orleans and the State of Louisiana, two local governments that imploded.

Playing politics isn’t a one way street. There’s more really juicy reality bites. See So Much News It Can’t All Be Read!, from The Anchoress.

This is just the warmup. More later

Hurricane Relief, part two, can be be found here.

“If You Think Healthcare Is Expensive Now, Wait Till It’s Free”

FREE HEALTHCARE!

How much better can it get when healthcare is free?

While affordable healthcare and universal access are laudable ideas that need to be addressed, we are better off not looking elsewhere for ideas.

From the Fraser Institute report,

Most discussions and studies have come to the conclusion that there are too few physicians practicing in Canada today. That conclusion is supported by the available evidence on Canadians’ unmet health care needs and the relative supply of physicians in this country. For example, in 2003 more than 1.2 million Canadians were unable to find a regular physician. Statistics also show that Canada had many fewer physicians per capita in 2002 than most other developed nations that have universal access health care insurance programs.

Have a nice day.

The Secret To Understanding Women

There was a time, not too long ago, men understood women- and women knew their limits- “Thats’ nice baby, take it off’ and “Where’s my sandwich?” were well understood interpersonal communications. Life was so much simpler, back then.

Yup, things have changed.

H/T Dr Sanity

Turn, Turn, Turn, Updated

A year or so before the passing of my grandmother, we spent a whole day together, enjoying each others company.

We went to lunch (she scolded me for taking her to a place that was “too nice” and wanted to know “How they could get away charging such prices!”) and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. After I insisted that she must absolutely have any dessert she wanted (“Goodness! The price for such a small piece of cake is so dear!”), she selected a piece of chocolate cheesecake. Her eyes literally danced, in anticipation of that delight. It was as if she were a small girl, waiting for the birthday cake to arrive, baked especially for her. I didn’t know if that were the case because she really wanted that special treat (a treat she would never indulge in by herself), or if she was delighted that her first grandchild treated her so generously- to her it was as if that small piece of cake was equivalent to a crown jewel.

My maternal grandparents were very poor. They were both very educated people, but they were never people of means. My grandfather was a teacher- and in fact, never aspired to more. The guaranteed weekly paycheck was a security blanket. My grandmother stayed home and raised three daughters and a son. More about that, later. When her children were in school and the never ending housework and cleaning and laundry were at a lull, my grandmother would read. She read for 50 plus years, every day.

My paternal grandparents were more established. Indeed, my father’s father was a very well to do man. He started life in the east end of London, shoveling coal every morning and evening, so as to help feed his family. He was eight years old at the time.

He never went back to school. His family needed the money he brought into the household. Soon, that coal shoveling money was augmented by 2 paper routes, one in the morning and the other, in the afternoon. My grandfather was proud of that- he used to say that he was one of the first newspaper delivery boys in all of London. At the time, most papers were sold by young boys, standing at a street corner.

My grandfather fought in the ‘War to End All Wars.’ He saw battle at Passchendaele and elsewhere. He saw friends succumb to mustard gas. Many died and some ended up in veterans hospitals, at 18 years of age. They would live out their lives hidden away, their grotesque figures forgotten and never to be seen. He visited those friends for 60 years, till he passed away.

He never set foot in a German car, or owned anything made in Germany, his whole life. It was the mustard gas, he said. The devil’s breath, he called it. He said the same thing about the Nazis and their use of gas.

After the war, my grandfather started his own business and after a few years of the back breaking work a one man show requires, he was to find much success. His family never went without again. My father’s family was to distinguish itself by giving charity and helping all who asked. My grandfather said ‘you never forget going to bed without dinner and knowing there would be no breakfast.’

When my parents first met, both sets of grandparents were against the marriage (there was a time when parents had a say, hard as that is to believe).

My mother’s parents were upset because my father’s family was well to do, and of another, more respected ‘class.’ My mother’s were poor, simple people. They scolded my mother for ‘aiming to high.’

My father’s family were against the marriage because my mother’s family was so educated. Her family was comprised of teachers and professors, and there was even a lower court judge and a few other distant relative notables. They had a house full of books, all read, or about to be read. My father’s father said that he was outclassed. My mother’s parents were ‘educated and well read. Not like us.’

Even though my fathers parents made sure all their children were university educated, my grandfather remained ashamed of his own perceived inadequacies. To be clear, he too, spent 50 plus years, reading, ever so slowly. In fact, he was to become an extraordinary man.

As our dessert appeared, my grandmother and I were engrossed in conversation. So much, she said, had changed in her lifetime. She recalled growing up in a world of horse drawn wagons with wooden wheels. Now, she noted, there were jets that crossed oceans in hours and s space shuttle. Miracles, she said.

She grew up with paraffin lamps, only to see nuclear energy provide electricity. Computers, fax machines, refrigerators and men walking on the moon were to be a reality for the little girl that had a goat for a pet and for whom a simple ribbon, was a birthday treat. She recalled, how she, as young girl, was more impressed with the running water that went directly into a wringer washing machine without have to pump the water, than the washing machine itself. That reality was years away for that girl in the little village, so far from the city.

There were a thousand and one other differences that she noted. She was of the generation for whom God revealed himself, she said, because she was to see antibiotics as common place. She said she recalled the never ending sadness of her mother, who witnessed the death of three of her children to diseases now easily cured. We wrote about the time when burying children was a part of life.

Then she said that life was about change- and that whether we wanted life to change or not, it did. She went on to say that those who fought change were never happy. She said that change was like moving. There are those that take their valuables and cherished possessions and pick up where they left off and there are those whose who leave it all, to start all over again, as if the past didn’t matter.

My grandmother, and her generation, were well qualified to talk about change.

This nation, like her inhabitants, has seen much change. Our domestic policy and our foreign policy have changed and will change again. We will see more technology and become even further removed from the days our grandparents and great grandparents knew.

We are no longer the America we were before September 11, 2001. We, and our children, face horrors that were unimaginable just a few years ago. We cannot pretend who we are as a nation has not changed. Nevertheless, we are a nation that has an important history and an even more important legacy.

We are the nation that eschews tyranny in all it’s forms for freedom. That cannot change. We cannot turn a blind eye to those that would hurt us, as if pretending they weren’t there would make them go away.

We cannot pretend that this nation was not founded on the principles of religious tolerance.

We cannot forget who we are. We cannot forget that it was the plurality of ideals that made this nation great- a plurality that included all kinds of divergent ideas and patriots. We cannot forget that there are times we must fight for the principles of freedom. We cannot be self congratulatory as others are kept in the cold and dark. Freedom is not ours to keep for ourselves only, any more than antibiotics are meant to be hoarded and kept from those who are ill.

Mostly, we cannot forget who we are, a nation of diversity. E pluribus unum- out of many, one.

If we forget that, we are exactly who our enemies say we are.

The State of the Union is how we define our union- not by those we agree with, but rather, with those we disagree.

A couple of years ago, on an outing with my daughter, she remarked that the new computer cam she wanted was too expensive. I smiled and thought of my grandmother. Much has changed (my daughter, at a very tender age, once asked if it were true there was a time that TV’s didn’t come with remotes)- and much of who we are, thankfully, has not. There really is a season for all things.

This post was inspired by this piece by Neo-neocon.

Most of this post was originally posted February 1, 2006. We republished this today because it happens to be relevant and because yesterday, we were down at the shore. The water, waves and Jimmy Buffet mindset are hard enough to overcome, even if we wanted to.

“Truth will be spoken, even if our shadows desert us” And Responding To Tragedy

Ali Eteraz deals with a horrible tragedy- and he will not be denied.

His post is a must read- and then read again.

…Muslims must take the Quran and describe what it says based on what they know and what they aspire towards. The Fourth Caliph Ali once said: “The Quran is but ink and paper. It is we who speak.” For quite some time now it has been the demagogues of the faith who have been speaking. They have been the ones who have managed to describe our history according to their self-serving purpose… We must step forward and redescribe our history in such a way that it gives you the result you want: peace and prosperity; instead of being a tool for your destruction.

The post is here.

Broken Pianos And All The King’s Horses

There are some things that cannot be fixed, no matter how much we wish it were so.

We cannot undo lost loves or opportunities. We can atone for our misdeeds, but we cannot undo the damage we might have caused. That is within the purview of those we have hurt.

Many people beieve that therapy is absolution of a sort and offers a ‘fresh start’ with a  painful past magicvally erased. Nothing is further from the truth. Therapy is about learning to live with oneself and learning to live with and overcome one’s limitations- and one’s own individuality. In Listening To The Music And Tuning Pianos, Dr Sanity notes,

Many people have the mistaken impression that psychiatry is an “easy” medical specialty; and I suppose it is if you don’t really care very much about the people you are seeing. Or, if you can’t be bothered to really listen and take in what they are trying to tell you.

And that’s the hard part. To do it right often means letting go to some degree of the internal boundaries we each set up that protect us and separate us from other people; opening yourself to another’s pain in a way that makes you feel it yourself. And then sharing whatever strength you have to offer to help them deal with it.

The art of therapy is to become the other person, but not to lose yourself in the process; to immerse yourself in someone else’s pain, but hold onto the objectivity and knowledge that can bring you both out of the wilderness whole.

The therapist is the lamp, deprived of a map and wandering wiith the patient, illuminating the hidden recesses- or broken pieces. The task is never easy and always takes a toll on the therapist.

Think of the brain as a beautiful, elegant, and melodious grand piano, he told me. Now imagine that someone had taken an axe to that lovely piano, chopping it into millions of tiny little pieces…

Psychiatry is the branch of medicine dealing with the diagnosis and treatment of mental disorders. We are the piano repairmen of the medical world…

There are some things that medication cannot fix. Some pianos that cannot be tuned–maybe because there is a crack in the baseboard; or the materials used in construction were warped; or even that those same materials were irreversibly changed by exposure to malignant environmental factors.

Any piano repairman will also tell you that some pianos start out as lemons (just as some cars) and cannot produce the same sounds as their peers. Some are so broken that even after repair they are not much more than junk…

All the King’s horses and the King’s men, cannot fix what is shattered. Those who try, know that best of all.

Read Dr Sanity, here. Read between the lines.

UPDATE When Christians Become Money Changers

What happens when Christians become money changers, professing faith for reasons that are self serving or to promote a particular agenda or ideology?

We received an email today directing us to this website, a particularly biased, shrill and shallow presentation that emphasizes the victimhood of the Palestinians. In particular, we were asked to note this post, From The Christian Bishops Of Jerusalem, a ’statement’ denouncing Christian Zionism.

The statement issued by various bishops with a pompous moral authority and more than a bit of contrived clerical gravity, is an example of the ‘Islamification’ of some Christian churches- turning a blind eye to the truth and deliberately engaging in deceit to further a particular cause.

Like the biblical moneychangers, these Christian clerics position themselves as close to the Altar of God as they can, purporting that their behavior is sanctioned Godly behavior- and they wag their fingers in an accusatory way at anyone who disagrees with them.

Like the corrupt Muslim ‘religious leaders,’ paid by the dysfunctional regimes, these Christian Bishops purport to speak for God, even as frenzied screams of ‘ITBACH AL YAHUD!- SLAUGHTER THE JEWS! are heard in the background.

While the Bishops shrilly excoriate Israel and her supporters, they make no mention of the virulent anti-Jewish sentiment that has been as pervasive as sand in the region. Some Christian orders claim to run schools and organizations that are models of ‘tolerance’ and ‘acceptance.’

Of course, that is deceit, posturing as truth

There is no shortage of anti Israel rhetoric (often ‘reluctantly’ presented as anti Jewish), there is not one instance of these local good ‘Christians’ to repudiate the repulsive and hateful anti Jewish sentiment uttered. The only time there is a pretense of ecumenicism are in speeches uttered outside the region.

There are very good reasons the Christians in the region are careful not to question the anti Jewish status quo. Persecution of Christians in the region has been long documented. Violence, appropriation of property and even personal safety of Christians are at stake.
While we all like to see a cessation of violence and peace in the region, it would be nice if Christian leaders were to do the Christian thing and behave in a way that might bring honor to their churches and not scorn.

History has taught what happens to the money changers.

More later, if warranted.

UPDATE: It seems textbooks used by PA schools (synopsis) haven’t changed much. The entire article, found here, is astonishing. There is Holocaust denial, blatant anti semitism, war is celebrated as a virtue and ‘martyrdom’ is extolled. The ‘Protocols’ are treated as actual history.

No word yet from the Bishops on when they plan on castigating the Palestinians for the blatant hate, exhortations to violence and anti semitism.

Fatmas Day Is Here!

Fatmas Day is here!

That’s right, it’s a day of celebration!

Turns out the 31 Twinkies, 3 Burgers, VW sized fries and that 10 gallon pail of ice cream you’ve been eating 4 times a week may not be why you are fat.

From the NYT:

In the 30-plus years that Richard Atkinson has been studying obesity, he has always maintained that overeating doesn’t really explain it all. His epiphany came early in his career, when he was a medical fellow at U.C.L.A. engaged in a study of people who weighed more than 300 pounds and had come in for obesity surgery. “The general thought at the time was that fat people ate too much,” Atkinson, now at Virginia Commonwealth University, told me recently. “And we documented that fat people do eat too much — our subjects ate an average of 6,700 calories a day. But what was so impressive to me was the fact that not all fat people eat too much.”- [emp-SC&A]

Theres’ more:

One year ago, the idea that microbes might cause obesity gained a foothold when the Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Louisiana created the nation’s first department of viruses and obesity. It is headed by Nikhil Dhurandhar, a physician who invented the term “infectobesity” to describe the emerging field. Dhurandhar’s particular interest is in the relationship between obesity and a common virus, the adenovirus. Other scientists, led by a group of microbiologists at Washington University in St. Louis, are looking at the actions of the trillions of microbes that live in everyone’s gut, to see whether certain intestinal microbes may be making their hosts fat.

If microbes help explain even a small proportion of obesity, that could shed light on a condition that plagues millions of Americans. Today 30.5 percent of the American public is obese; that is, nearly a third of Americans have a body-mass index over 30 (which for someone of Janet’s height is 186 pounds). The Department of Health and Human Services says obesity may account for 300,000 deaths a year, making it the second-most-common preventable cause of death after cigarette smoking. It’s been linked to various diseases: diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, gallbladder disease, sleep apnea, osteoarthritis and some cancers. “Individuals who are obese,” the department states on its Web site, “have a 50 to 100 percent increased risk of premature death from all causes, compared to individuals with a healthy weight.”

If microbes do turn out to be relevant, at least in some cases of obesity, it could change the way the public thinks about being fat. Along with the continuing research on the genetics of obesity, the study of other biological factors could help mitigate the negative stereotypes of fat people as slothful and gluttonous and somehow less virtuous than thin people.

MERRY FATMAS! IT’S NOT YOUR FAULT YOUR FAT!

Well, not so fast:

On an individual level and for the foreseeable future, if you want to lose weight, you still have to fiddle with the energy equation. Weight still boils down to the balance between how much a particular body needs to maintain a certain weight and how much it is fed. What complicates things is that in some people, for reasons still not fully understood, what their bodies need is set unfairly low. It could be genes; it could be microbes; it could be something else entirely.

Well, somebody is at fault. Somebody call a lawyer.

We’re going out for wienerschnitzel und bratwurst to celebrate

“Dominated By Men?”

From Microbiology Bites ( a really cool blog)- ” that brings you the latest news about microbiology in a form that everyone can understand.”

Supposedly, a quarter of the world’s population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, a long-lived and common brain parasite. The normal host for this organism is the domestic cat, so maybe it’s not so surprising that human infections are also common.

What is surprising is that the parasite is capable of subtle manipulation of its host. Humans become infected by eating infected meat, or more usually by direct contact with soil or cat faeces. However, humans are dead-end hosts as far as the parasite is concerned (no transmission), and it usually only causes mild flu-like symptoms, although severe disease can occur in an unborn foetus or immunocompromised patients. In this situation, the parasite becomes dormant in the brain and other tissues. But that’s not the end of the story!
Can an infectious disease indirectly alter human culture through its effects on personality? People infected with T. gondii experience long-term personality changes:

• Women become more intelligent, warm, outgoing, attentive to others, kindly, easy-going.
• Men show lower intelligence, novelty-seeking and bad tempered.
• Both infected men and women have higher levels of guilt-proneness.

Now a recent paper suggests that male domination of societies worldwide may owe much to T. gondii infection Kevin D. Lafferty, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences , 01 Aug 2006). C’mon girls, tell me that you knew that all the time!

See Fausta And Maxed Out Mama….

Is Cal Thomas Right?

Cal Thomas:

Americans must see past their natural reluctance to paint all members of a group with a broad brush and realize our failure to act now against this clear and present danger in the ways Sam Soloman recommends will lead to a disaster for us that is far worse than our Cold War enemies had envisaged.

What do we do?

Great Minds And Charlie Brown

Remember looking for the hidden images in the tree? You know, you had to see how many of the hidden and camouflaged images you could find. Of course, once you did fnd them, they were clear and obvious.

Dr Sanity’s The Ayatollah’s Answer, is another example of what Dr Sanity does best. She finds all those hidden images- and once she does, they are clear and obvious.

In discussing the Iranian refusal to halt nuclear enrichment and research projects, Dr Sanity notes the following about the Iranians still wanting to ‘negotiate.’

Does this happen to remind you of anything? The same game currently being played by Iran with the international community reminds me of Peanuts. Think of Lucy as Ahmadinejad and the hapless Charlie Brown as the U.N. (thanks to M.B.!)

But Charlie Brown, dupe that he is, believes her every time she promises that next time it will be different. So, he keeps going back for more only to discover that the same thing happens yet again!

To drive home her point, Dr Sanity provides the classic cartoon image of Lucy snatching the football, just as Charlie Brown is about to kick.

To drive home the point that great minds do indeed, think alike, Thomas Sowell is flying in perfect formation with Dr Sanity. In Will Cease-fires Never Cease?, he notes how busy Lucy has been:

How many cease-fires have there been in the Middle East — or is the number too large to remember? Over the past half century, there must have been more cease-fires in the Middle East than in the rest of the world combined.

Why do these phony cease-fire scenarios keep getting repeated? Because there are too many people, including many in the media, who take the corrupt windbags at the U.N. seriously — so our political leaders have to act as if they take the U.N. seriously as well.

This is a costly charade. Among its costs are human lives. U.N. cease-fires are the ultimate in feel-good decisions made by people who pay no price for the repercussions.

The UN- and much of the world community- are no more than real-life Lucy’s, intent on cheating and playing unfairly because that is the only way they can control and win the game. They cannot compete on an equal playing field because in doing so, they insure their dysfunctional agendas and ideologies will be exposed for what they really are will be dealt a crushing blow. In order for dysfunction to thrive, it needs a host and/or environment that will tolerate dysfunction.

Sowell goes in to note the existential issues that face Israel:

New Hampshire is considered to be a small state but it is larger than Israel. So are 45 other states. Lake Erie is larger than Israel and Lake Michigan more than twice as large.

The Middle Eastern places we hear about are very close to one another. From Israel’s capital in Jerusalem to Bethlehem in the Palestinian territory is only a fraction of the distance from Washington to Baltimore.

Imagine living 15 miles from a people that have promised to wade in ‘rivers of blood’- the blood of you and your children-  and then express outrage if you try to defend yourself.

Sowell sees the handwriting on the wall:

None of this matters to those consumed by hate in the Middle East or those in the West wanting feel-good cease-fires, without bothering to think through the actual consequences.

In yet another spectacular example of ineffectiveness and irrelevance, the UN is setting the stage for a nuclear armed Iran blackmailing the civilized world and and an Arab and Palestinian ‘resistance’ movement that does nothing more than widen the gap between the western and Arab worlds.

The  ‘hidden pictures’ aren’t so hidden anymore, are they?