La fácil y difícil

The easy and difficult.  

A young woman lost 100 pounds,  ...  she'd lived into her thirties with weight (and health) issues, then was stunned by the difference in how people treated her after she became slender. Having been ignored all her life, suddenly people noticed her, treated her nicely, smiled, held the door open for her. She was really something!

"Except—wait—I had been something before, too! ... Why didn't anyone notice? Why didn't they care? More importantly, why did they care now? 

We live in a society that celebrates and rewards the most ridiculous and arbitrary traits, thinness being way up there on the list."

Size 0 is not normal, is it.  But the fashion industry struggles to portray normal as other than unhealthily thin.

It's easy to see the wrong thinking sometimes. It's difficult to rise above it.

"I want to lose weight," she told us; a pretty young lady. When asked how much she weighed now, "A hundred and eleven pounds."  We laughed about the irrational thinking behind her wish.  She said, "I know it's not reasonable, but it's hard to rise above it and live differently."

Our appearance, like so many other issues, gets taken to extremes. There are deadly results from portraying that which is unhealthy as an admirable goal for our youth.  Unethical is the least severe description offered of the industries involved.

Our weight, our physique, our hair, our shoes and accessories, our manicure, the car we drive, the house we live in ... these are not meaningful life priorities; they occupy too much of our heart and mind and time, men and women both.

Being swept along by such things robs us all. How might we challenge our social norms in a helpful manner?

We can make decisions now that will perhaps help us dig our way out of the nonsense, at least.

• Decisions like health instead of appearance being most important
• Financial choices like budget and saving
• Teaching our children the difference between need and desire
• Choices about a goal for our own personal lives
• Choices about integrity and honesty
• Choices against selfishness and needing to win
• Choices to learn from those who think differently than we do  

We perhaps learn little from those who think like us anyway.  (One of my favorite memories from school, watching a couple of ninth-graders giving each other advice about love.)

Because they're lazy

They have siesta because they're lazy.  That’s what I was told about folks across the border when I was a kid growing up in the south. 

Living in Spain years later, I discovered they had siesta too, and with good reason.  The little town where we lived shut down around noon because it was hot and few businesses had air conditioning.  The shops and stores were like ovens and nobody would go in during the heat of the day.  So they closed and reopened around 5:00 PM after it had cooled down a bit.  They stayed open to 8 or 9; a long day with a break in the middle.  Restaurants wouldn't serve until evening; same reason.  They stayed open quite late. 

Siesta is the short descriptor for their environmental adaptation.  It was wasn't a tradition so much as a well thought out adjustment to circumstances.  We had our evenings at home after work; they had their equivalent midday because that’s the way it worked best.  And they aren't lazy.

Such attributing motive to another is usually inaccurate.  If you catch yourself saying because (as in 'they did this because they're ...'), you're likely off the mark.

Presuming to understand the motivation of another person or another culture in simplistic terms provides for a wealth of inaccurate thinking and off-target response.

Most cultures have a lot to offer to the outsider.  Most are meaningfully rich in new perspective and different thinking. Did you know that in at least one African community, folks are inclined to name their children after people who have helped them make progress as a family.  Pretty cool.

History's Most Successful Serial Killer

"I considered myself to be in a war against poverty, and I feel 

comfortable with the things I did and the decisions I made." 

~ Kermit Gosnell         (AP Photo/Philadelphia Daily News, Yong Kim)

NC-17 Content 

"Most of you here know what it means when 100 corpses lie next to each other, .... To have endured this and at the same time to have remained a decent person ...." ~ Heinrich Himmler, OCT '43

Like Gosnell, Heinrich Himmler persuaded himself he was fighting a noble war.  His 'final solution' argument is made today by Gosnell and others like him who mass-produce abortions as callously as one might kill and clean chickens in a factory.

Complaints against Gosnell

• 1989 and 1993 – cited by Pennsylvania Department of Health for having no nurses in the recovery room.^[20]
• 1996 – censured and fined in both Pennsylvania and New York states, for employing unlicensed personnel.^[20]
• Around 1996 – Pediatrician Dr Schwartz – the former head of adolescent services at the Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and as of 2010, Philadelphia’s health commissioner – testified that around 1996 or 1997, he had hand-delivered a letter of complaint about Gosnell's practice to the Secretary of Health’s office and stopped referring patients to the clinic, but received no response.^[21]
• 2000 – Civil lawsuit filed on behalf of the children of Semika Shaw, who had called the clinic the day after an abortion to report heavy bleeding, and died 3 days later of a perforated uterus and a bloodstream infection. The case alleged that Gosnell had failed to tell her to return to the clinic or seek emergency medical care. It was settled out of court in 2002 for $900,000.^[12][22]
• 2001 – Gosnell claimed to be providing children’s vaccines under a program administered by the Health Department’s Division of Disease Control, but was repeatedly suspended for failing to maintain logs and for storing vaccines in unsanitary and inappropriate refrigerators, and at improper temperatures.^[23]
• 2001 – ex-employee Marcella Choung gave what the Grand Jury would later call "a detailed written complaint" to the Pennsylvania Department of State, one which she followed up with an interview in March 2002.^[24]
• 2006 – Civil lawsuit filed by patient but dismissed as out of time. The complaint was that Gosnell had been unable to complete an abortion, but then apparently failed or refused to call paramedics or other clinical emergency personnel, after the patient had needed help. The patient reported, "I really felt like he was going to let me die."^[16]

Forty-six lawsuits had been filed against Gosnell over some 32 years.^[25] Observers claimed that there was a complete failure by Pennsylvania regulators who had overlooked other repeated concerns brought to their attention, including lack of trained staff, "barbaric" conditions, and a high level of illegal late-term abortions.^[26]

2010 Drug Raid

Gosnell's clinic was raided on 18 February 2010 the FBI and state police after a months-long investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), the Philadelphia Police Department, and the State's Dangerous Drug-Offender Unit. The investigation had revealed the suspicious death of patient Karnamaya Mongar in 2009, which had in turn brought to light further information about unsanitary operations, use of untrained staff, and use of powerful drugs without proper medical supervision and control. Thus, when the February 2010 raid took place, staff from the Pennsylvania Department of State and Pennsylvania Department of Health also attended, as these issues were under their remit:^[27]

When the team members entered the clinic, they were appalled, describing it to the Grand Jury as 'filthy,' 'deplorable,' 'disgusting,' 'very unsanitary, very outdated, horrendous,' and 'by far, the worst' that these experienced investigators had ever encountered. There was blood on the floor. A stench of urine filled the air. A flea-infested cat was wandering through the facility, and there were cat feces on the stairs. Semi-conscious women scheduled for abortions were moaning in the waiting room or the recovery room, where they sat on dirty recliners covered with blood-stained blankets. All the women had been sedated by unlicensed staff – long before Gosnell arrived at the clinic – and staff members could not accurately state what medications or dosages they had administered to the waiting patients. Many of the medications in inventory were past their expiration dates… surgical procedure rooms were filthy and unsanitary… resembling 'a bad gas station restroom.' Instruments were not sterile. Equipment was rusty and outdated. Oxygen equipment was covered with dust, and had not been inspected. The same corroded suction tubing used for abortions was the only tubing available for oral airways if assistance for breathing was needed…"^[28]

[F]etal remains [were] haphazardly stored throughout the clinic– in bags, milk jugs, orange juice cartons, and even in cat-food containers... Gosnell admitted to Detective Wood that at least 10 to 20 percent... were probably older than 24 weeks [the legal limit]... In some instances, surgical incisions had been made at the base of the fetal skulls. The investigators found a row of jars containing just the severed feet of fetuses. In the basement, they discovered medical waste piled high. The intact 19-week fetus delivered by Mrs. Mongar three months earlier was in a freezer. In all, the remains of 45 fetuses were recovered ... at least two of them, and probably three, had been viable."^[28]

Gosnell's license to practice was suspended on 22 February 2010,^[29] and these and other findings were presented to a Grand Jury on 4 May 2010. Public discussion focused on claims of unsanitary conditions and other unacceptable conditions at the practices. Media reports stated that furniture and blankets were stained with blood, freely roaming cats deposited their feces wherever they pleased, and that non-sterilized equipment was used and reused on patients.^{[30][31][32][33]} 

According to the grand jury report, patients were given labor-inducing drugs by staff who had no medical training. Once labor began, the patient would be placed on a toilet. After the fetus fell into the toilet, it would be fished out, so as not to clog the plumbing. In the recovery room, patients were seated on dirty recliners covered in blood-stained blankets.^[34]  Prosecutors alleged that Gosnell had not been certified in either gynecology or obstetrics.^[25] The Grand Jury estimated that Gosnell's practice "took in $10,000 to $15,000 a night" additional to income from his exceedingly high level of prescriptions.^[35]

2011 Gosnell's Arrest

Gosnell was arrested on January 19, 2011, five days after the certification of the Grand Jury's report. He was charged with eight counts of murder.^[36] Prosecutors alleged that he killed seven babies born alive by severing their spinal cords with scissors, and that he was also responsible for the death in 2009 of Karnamaya Mongar, a 41-year-old refugee from Bhutan,^[37] who died in his care. Gosnell's wife, Pearl, and eight other suspects were also arrested in connection with the case.^[16][37][38] The Drug Enforcement Administration, The Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Office of the Inspector General also sought a 23-count indictment charging Gosnell and seven members of his former staff with drug conspiracy, relating to the practice's illegally prescribing highly-addictive painkillers and sedatives outside the usual course of professional practice and not for a legitimate medical purpose.

• The third degree murder charge relates to Karnamaya Mongar; according to prosecutors, Gosnell's staff gave the 90-pound woman a lethal dose of anesthesia and pain killers. 
• The seven other murder charges are all of first degree murder; they relate to babies, whom staff have testified they saw move or cry after complete birth, and whose deaths are alleged to have resulted from subsequent lethal action.  
• Steven Massof, a clinic employee who pleaded guilty to similar charges in 2011, testified that he (Massof) had snipped the spines of more than 100 infants after they had been born alive, and that this was considered "standard procedure" at the clinic; a number of other employees had also testified to the same point.^[41] 
• The Grand Jury report states that "A medical expert with 43 years of experience in performing abortions was appalled. This expert told us, 'I’ve never heard of it [cutting the spinal cord] being done during an abortion'."^[42]

The United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania also alleges that Gosnell's former office staff at Family and Women's Medical Society (WMS) ran a prescription "pill mill." From June 2008 through February 18, 2010, Gosnell allegedly engaged in a continuing criminal enterprise by writing and dispensing fraudulent prescriptions for thousands of pills of the frequently-abused tablets OxyContin, Percocet, and Xanax, and the frequently-abused syrups Phenergan and Promethazine with Codeine. Authorities further allege that Gosnell and his staff allowed customers to purchase multiple prescriptions under multiple names. Gosnell, with the assistance of his staff, is said to have distributed and dispensed more than 500,000 pills containing oxycodone; more than 400,000 pills containing alprazolam; and more than 19,000 ounces of cough syrup containing codeine.^[43]

Gosnell's lawyer states that "Everybody's made him the butcher, this, that and the other thing without any trial, without anything being exposed to the public and everybody's found him guilty, that's not right".^[44] He accused the government of a "lynching" and stated, "This is a targeted, elitist and racist prosecution of a doctor who's done nothing but give (back) to the poor and the people of West Philadelphia."^[39]

Kermit Barron Gosnell, a physician in Philadelphia, ran an abortion clinic and was a prolific prescriber of Oxycontin.  In 2011, Gosnell, alongside various co-defendant employees, was charged with eight counts of murder by gross medical malpractice, as well as 24 felony counts of illegal abortions, and charged with 227 counts of violating the informed consent law. The murder charges stemmed from a patient who died while under his care and seven newborns said to have been killed after being born alive. 

2013 Conviction
In May 2013, Gosnell was convicted on three murder charges, 21 felony counts of illegal late-term abortion, and 211 counts of violating the informed consent law. After his conviction, Gosnell waived his right of appeal in exchange for an agreement not to seek the death penalty. He was sentenced instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.^[2] 

Gosnell has been described as a serial killer, with ABC's Terry Moran saying "Kermit Gosnell is probably the most successful serial killer in the history of the world."^[3][4][5][6]  The charges represent only those few of his actions that were adequately evidenced for prosecution. The actual number of murdered children is unknown but reported by staff as "more than 100".

Culture has fractured world wide on the issue which has been politicized by governments' attempts to regulate and by 'choice' advocates. The distressed mother who would be better served by support and encouragement, is offered the opportunity to 'change her mind' about her baby.  The excuse of pre-viability is offered as though the baby were not fully viable in the womb. In some regions, women are encouraged to 'do-it-yourself'.  Young mothers are perhaps as much victims of the debate and upheaval as are their sacrificed children. At some point in the process, a mother ceases to be alone with the outcome of her decision; a second person bears the consequences with her.  

"We were faced with the question: what about the women and children,"  Himmler explained in 1943.  He and others chose to kill them all, even the infants, lest they be troubling later.  He insisted that he remained 'a decent person'. It's the same argument used today.

Looking back just forty years, the bloodiest period in human history, it is difficult to understand how such a large segment of humanity could choose in favor of generalized abortion despite the simple biological and moral questions involved. Genocide, legalized but still genocide.

Every year since Roe v. Wade, thousands at first, now millions around the world participate in the annual March for Life.  The Roe v. Wade decision was brought about by the question of a woman's rights.  Unfortunately, given the legal right, it now becomes unclear what is morally right.  Gosnell and other are the result of such thinking.

Miley Cyrus: Does she have a choice?

Did the girl shape her celebrity world, or did the celebrity world shape the girl?

The celebrity subculture sells the entertainment products of movies and shows and 'reality reporting' about celebrity lives.

It's a fascinating world.  We do know it's largely lies and sensational misrepresentation, but it makes for popular reality shows and commentary. Or perhaps it's more like a train wreck from which we can't turn away.

We call them 'reality shows' knowing full well that there's nothing real about the show or the story line. It's exaggerated for marketability and continually reshaped according to public interest.

So by and large, the presentation of a popular celebrity is staged every step of the way, not real. Even the 'real' parts are staged.  There is no objective reporting; it's always being played.

 

For every celebrity, there are a million adoring fans, more or less, and handler-agents who push hard. The process is formative, the celebrity responds according to the will of the fans and handlers. Or not, some of them.

Celebrities who would have a meaningful life face a difficult challenge. The young, lacking experience, are particularly vulnerable and are swept along with little thought for the cost. Those who would live a life of genuine relationships and thoughtful choice of priorities and values must fight for the chance.

From a fan's point of view, the more spectacular and gritty the story, the better. The more scandalous and talk-show worthy, the better we like it, right?

From a father's point of view, it's mostly just heart-breaking. A father knows when his kid is following popularity and attention.  A father knows the regret his child will face when their shallowly lived years are seen from the other side. It is tragic to see a young person spending the years of their life doing at the behest of another that which has no value, no virtue, no worth at all.

It is the same, perhaps, whether the child is a small town high-schooler or an upper-classer in Beverly Hills. There are always hard choices to make.

Does Miley have a choice? Sure she does.  We do too, but the competition is strong for the substance of all our lives.  We can choose the path that pays the most, that generates the most attention, the most likely venue for political success ...

Or we can do the hard work, discovering what matters, and then choose a path that builds on that foundation. There's a difference, isn't there.  Parents have a stake in the process as well.

From a cultural context, the modern celebrity world is much like the Roman coliseum.  It's the venue from which the masses are entertained by the few, most of whom pay dearly with no meaningful return for their effort.

The exploitation of celebrity is a multibillion dollar industry whose purpose has no beneficial element. Sometimes we wonder why more conservative cultures look at us in disapproval.  This, perhaps, is one reason.  

P.S. I recall a drop-dead gorgeous young lady whom we had to let go. She'd been a 'prom queen, most beautiful' type in school; super popular, and high school culture taught her to play on her attractiveness for acceptance. Unfortunately, in the professional world it’s performance and skill that count. She'd schmoozed her way through the first couple of years but hadn't applied herself to skill development. Perhaps she didn't know she needed to. I don't think she understood her dismissal with any clarity, and I've often wondered how she did in later years. And sometimes I wonder if the play for popularity/celebrity isn't just a stunted life with missing pieces.

47% Wrong

Entertaining transparency
from a rich politician, full of
hubris and bad information.

Romney's comment about the 47% will haunt him for the remainder of his political career.

The Quote:  "There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who ...

1. are dependent upon government, 
2. who believe that they are victims, 
3. who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, 
4. who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement.
5. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what. 
6. These are people who pay no income tax. ...
   
   My job is not to worry about those people.
7. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives."

Most of us winced.  His commentary unveils a common attitude among the uninformed, that the poor as a class are lazy and willingly dependent on government handouts.  He ascribes several motives to the class as a whole which are condemnatory and inaccurate. Each of the above numbered statements is partially or totally off the mark.*

While it is true, there are those who do their best to bilk the system of undeserved benefit, the majority of those who do so successfully are wealthy.

The rich live well and work by choice, the poor live in varying degrees of difficulty and work harder and longer hours, often at more than one job if they're able to find employment.  Converting work to cash is simple for the wealthy, not so much for the poor.

I've heard it expressed that the poor, the unemployed and welfare recipients should somehow get education, get skills, and work at something meaningful.  One suggested to me that the poor should "get off their butt and go earn a living."  In every case, such statements come from the wealthy, revealing an incomplete understanding of culture and economics.

No one chooses poverty.  No one deliberately picks the path that causes them to go hungry or their children to suffer.  It is something that is done to you.

The likely suspects are:

• Choice limited by circumstance
• Disenfranchisement by government policy
• Big business vs family businesses
• Those who extract wealth from the working class
• Cultural discrimination

The argument that the poor arrive at their circumstance through bad choices has a measure of validity, but when considered in the cultural context, it's a bit more complex.  The poor often have fewer options from which to choose.  

For one example, leaving school before finishing is rarely an option for a child in a stable, healthy home.  In just one inner city classroom in our study, however, many of the students had a family member in jail, many had lost a family member to street violence, most were from single-parent households, many had mothers who survived by prostitution.  The chance of doing well academically is quite low for a child in such a community and home environment.  Their likelihood of finishing school is less than for their middle class counterparts. Typically, the child in poverty doesn't do well academically, perhaps doesn't finish, and doesn't get offered further opportunity.  They will usually attempt employment, some will fall in with others in illegal activity or succumb to the sex trade for survival, most will be unsuccessful in attempting to establish a stable family life.  Another generation of persistent poverty will ensue despite repeated efforts to rise above, to find a way forward.  Only a few will escape.

The poor families whom I know personally are aggressively searching for better employment, for some opportunity.  They work long hours at hard jobs, often shift work that the more fortunate can avoid.  They struggle every day to make ends meet.  They work much harder than I or any of my associates do.  Much harder.  And they strive daily toward a better world for their children.

Those who have read this far, do us all a favor.  Don't think like Romney and his ilk.  Get informed; make a difference.


*True or False?
According to 2011 data from the Tax Policy Center, more than half of the filing units not paying income taxes are those with incomes less than $16,812 per year. Nearly a third - 29.2 percent - of those paying no income taxes are tax filers earning between $16,812 and $33,542, and 12.8 percent are those with incomes between $33,542 and $59,486. In other words, the poor are least likely to pay federal income taxes, but many middle-class families are also exempt. Smaller but significant numbers of the higher-income earners are also exempt: The same data shows that in 2011, 78,000 tax filers with incomes between $211,000 and $533,000 paid no income taxes; 24,000 households with incomes of $533,000 to $2.2 million paid no income taxes, and 3,000 tax filers with incomes above $2.2 million paid no income taxes.

Overall, according to the Tax Policy Center, "of the 38 million tax units made nontaxable by the addition of tax expenditures, 44 percent are moved off the tax rolls by elderly tax benefits and another 30 percent by credits for children and the working poor."

1. are dependent upon government.  Generally inaccurate; the 47% are (a) the elderly who paid for the small social security benefits they receive, and (b) the lower income working class. The majority receive no welfare or other government assistance benefits.  
2. who believe that they are victims,   Perhaps true for some, but hardly common to all.
3. who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them,   Unlikely; the common attitude is one of gratefulness that there's a safety net.
4. who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it -- that that's an entitlement.  False; entitlement thinking is most common in the upper classes and most pronounced in their children.
5. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what.   False; the 47% are broadly spread across both parties and available candidates.
6. These are people who pay no income tax.  Partly true but misleading; most pay little or no federal income tax due to low income and to age exemptions.  The majority of them do pay social security and medicare taxes, along with state and local income taxes, sales and property taxes.  Their tax burden is proportionally much greater than that borne by the wealthy.
7. I'll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives." Poorly worded, but suggests a lack of awareness of personal responsibility among the poor as a class.  False; even the destitute carry a clear sense of responsibility as their personal choices immediately affect their circumstances.  The wealthy, however, share no such clarity. They're free to luxuriate, to waste, to misbehave with minimal personal consequence. They often recognize no personal responsibility for the harm they do to others by their financial and business practices and the policies that perpetuate poverty which they endorse or allow without objection.  

From a an objective view, the comments are generally indicative of a hubristic perspective from a position of wealth and privilege with little understanding of the world where 80%+ of humanity lives.  

The Party

From a variety of sources, we discover that our concerns are perhaps not represented in the available national forums.

The issues are broad, and they require and deserve more than emphatically proffered simplistic answers.

• The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate. (~Chomsky)

For some time, we've been trying to somehow qualify the liberal/conservative discourse we see in U.S. government and the media.

We have the two parties (and some fringe groups), but it appears they are just feuding fragments of the same family, the MarketPlaceParty.  Republicans and Democrats represent and are funded by the same corporations, the same business interests, and they all jump through whatever might be the hoops-du-jour.

Of the top one hundred donors to the political parties, 80% divided their money between the parties and candidates, sort of a hedge bet or maybe a derivative equivalent.

As to performance, graph the major indicators.  Bigger government, both parties.  Smaller government, both parties.  Budget restraint, both parties.  Budget explosion, both parties.  Increasing and decreasing regulation, both parties.  Despite the leanings, both follow the business world's leading with little resistance.  Both are members of the MarketPlaceParty.



It doesn't matter that they offer themselves as left or right, liberal or conservative.   They're neither with any consistency or credibility.  Have you considered your own position?  Are you well represented?