How Obscene

     I recently watched the movie "Spotlight." The movie is about the Boston Globe team that did an expose about the sexual abuse of children within The Catholic Church. As a sexual abuse survivor I wasn't sure that I was going to be able to view the entire movie. The movie is very well done and I had no difficulty with any evoked strong emotion except for the normal shock, horror and repulsion, that any human would have to the content. As the movie ended I was thankful that I was not overly upset. But my night was not over.

     I rarely watch the final credits of any movie. As the final scene faded to black they posted a sentence that stated that their research had revealed that similar events (to Boston) had occurred in the following locations... As I watched row after row, page after page unfold I got quite nauseous. I was aghast at the numbers.

     Every week our "great guardians of morality" seek to terminate funding for Planned Parenthood supposedly because one doctor misspoke about "selling fetal tissue." Regardless that subsequent investigation has clearly shown that Planned Parenthood is not in the business of selling body parts they remain steadfast in their moral indignation. The volume of their hypocrisy is amplified by their silence and inaction with The Church. 

     As I listen to the Republican contenders for the presidential nomination try to outdo each other with their war talk and repulsion for outsiders I remain totally dumbfounded that they claim to speak for God and morality. Yes, let's turn the desert into glass and carpet bomb everyone in the area. Yes, let's save a few dollars in Michigan by providing lead tainted water.  Yes, let's try to convince people that "big government and over regulation" are the problems.    

Republican Weather Reports

     One of the things that surprised me the most when I moved to Nashville from New Jersey was they way that people reacted to the weather. People seemed to freak out over the possibility of some form of precipitation. Unfortunately the presence of that precipitation highlighted the reality that the general population probably got their driver's licenses on the internet.
     Earlier this week there was a light dusting of snow in the forecast and that got all the juices going in the local TV stations. There were dire warnings about everything. The next day I watched a bit of the latest Republican debate and I was shocked to realize that it sounded exactly like the local weather forecasts. The style, tone, and even the words used all sounded the same.
     Modern day Republicans prey on fear, mistrust, and danger. They thrive on ignorance and prejudice. Of course there are times when people do need to be warned about real dangers both in weather and world events. But I would much rather live in a world that functions to engender understanding and compassion rather than hatred and mistrust.

I Couldn't Agree More

Sometime during 2002-2003 I was contacted by a woman identifying herself as a producer for the Dr. Phil TV show. She wanted to know if I would do some marriage counseling for a couple that she knew and then come on the show to discuss their treatment. My response was to tell that woman that I did not view therapy as a spectator sport so I declined her invitation. A few years later one of my wife's favorite activities was to watch me scream at our TV while we were watching the HBO series, In Treatment. The therapist was so inappropriate in his behavior and there was no way for the viewing audience to know it. The following is a posting from today's Daily Beast written under the pseudonym of Russell Saunders entitled, "Doctor: Why Quack TV Docs Like Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil Need to Go." http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2015/04/25/doctor-why-quack-tv-docs-like-dr-oz-and-dr-phil-need-to-go.html?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning

Dr. Oz has come under fire due to his ‘egregious lack of integrity,’ but he pales in comparison to the fame-whoring Dr. Phil. Here’s why it’s time to get rid of the ‘daytime doc.’

Consider the plight of the televised health professional. There was a time when all it took was the right couple of letters in front of your name and the divine blessing of Oprah Winfrey, daytime TV’s resplendent queen, and you could find yourself hosting a hit television show. With just those advantages secured, both Dr. Mehmet Oz and Dr. Phil McGraw landed themselves eponymous programs with which to dole out their wisdom to audiences at home.
Alas, the bloom has begun to come quite noticeably off those particular roses. And it may be time to ponder whether or not these shows, each proudly affixed with “Dr.” right in their titles, have exploited their stars’ professional credentials well past their sell-by dates.
For Dr. Oz, it’s been a hairy couple of weeks. His current woes started with a much-ballyhooed letter from ten physicians calling on the dean of Columbia University’s medical school to boot Dr. Oz from the faculty there. Citing his “egregious lack of integrity by promoting quack treatments,” among other malefactions, the authors deem his presence at such a prestigious institution “unacceptable.”
This comes the year after Dr. Oz was hauled before a Senate hearing to explain why he frequently touted worthless “miracle” weight-loss supplements. (I should probably take this opportunity to admit that I did not give Sen. Claire McCaskill nearly enough credit when I wrote about it at the time. She gave him far more of a grilling than I thought she would.) Then as now, he was forced to spin the nonsense he spouted as some kind of feel-good self-help mumbo jumbo rather than actual medical opinion.
As it happens, I share the skepticism of some about the motives of those ten physicians, who are enjoying far more celebrity now than they likely ever have before, and who couldn’t possibly have expected an Ivy League medical school to give a tenured department vice chair the heave-ho just because they wrote a letter. Dr. Oz has gone on the offensive about the possible conflicts of interest behind the letter’s writing, and it’s within his rights to question the motives of his critics.
But whatever the academic upshot to this new kerfuffle, it’s forced Dr. Oz to do some damage control. And I am not buying what he’s selling.In an interview with NBC, Dr. Oz strains credulity to the breaking point by maintaining that his is not a “medical show” and that in the logo the “OZ” is really big but the “Dr.” is eensy-weensy so as to make that distinction clear. If anyone believes that Dr. Oz did not leverage his credentials as a selling point for his program, or that his viewers do not tune in in large part because of the legitimacy those credentials presumably give his daily pronouncements, then please contact me about an exciting purchase opportunity for a bridge between Manhattan and Brooklyn.
But it’s within that same interview that Dr. Oz accidentally tells a little bit of truth.
“The purpose is not to throw at you the biggest articles published by doctors that week. Frankly it’s not very much fun to listen to [those], either,” he tells NBC. And he’s right.
Speaking as someone who regularly scours various medical news services for topics that may be of interest to a general audience, the vast majority comprise items that I find fascinating or useful as a physician, but would be crushingly dull to pretty much everyone else. Real, actual medical science is often made up of studies that add little bits to the accumulated body of knowledge already out there, or explore some small treatment effect. The bigger and splashier the supposed finding, the more rigorous the study must be to justify it. Most of the big claims turn out to be baseless garbage. What you don’t do is just report the garbage anyway. (Or, at least, I sure as hell try not to.) You don’t promulgate nonsense you know to be based on shoddy science. You don’t decide that the demand for ratings trumps your obligation to properly inform your audience. I understand that trying to keep the topics limited to those that truly withstand scientific scrutiny would mean The Dr. Oz Show would both struggle to find enough material to fill their airtime, and would probably bore the dickens out of its audience. So perhaps it’s time they drop the “Dr.” bit entirely, rechristen the program “Mehmet,” and have him join all the other daytime entertainers crowding the airwaves with general interest content. It would be a lot more intellectually honest. But one thing I’ll say for Dr. Oz: at least he’s not Dr. Phil.
Another Oprah protégé, Dr. Phil McGraw has used his show to become America’s confrontational truth-spewer-in-chief. Heavily reliant on the questionably effective tactic of “intervention” with his guests, Dr. Phil uses his PhD to gussy up what is really just one more salacious offering wherein people expose their flaws and bad decisions for the entertainment of the audience. Dr. Phil’s unseemly mélange of exploitation, celebrity parasitism and credential mining goes back years, at least until 2008 when he went to visit a hospitalized Britney Spears in the midst of her high-profile troubles then issued a statement about it, much to her parents’ dismay. A couple of years later, after having a pair of serial shoplifters on his program ostensibly for help but mainly just to get them to dish about their deeds, the judge who presided over their subsequent sentencing called him a “charlatan” and a “terrible, terrible man.” Apparently having learned nothing from the Spears fiasco, Dr. Phil has more recently decided to do a deep dive into the fine art of filming minor celebrities when they’re at their emotional nadir. Despite being visibly inebriated and in absolutely no condition to discuss his mental health on camera, Nick Gordon, the boyfriend of Whitney Houston’s comatose daughter Bobbi Kristina Brown, was subjected to one of Dr. Phil’s famous “interventions,” the clinical benefit of which was highly suspect. And following the interview, he took it upon himself to gab to the gossip program Entertainment Tonight about how it went, sharing salacious, highly personal details with ET’s voracious audience.
“He'd go from being able to talk like we’re talking now to just all of a sudden collapsing and wailing,” Dr. Phil told ET. “And then he would pull out his phone and turn on a Whitney song and just start crying.” In a few days, another episode is set to air in which he browbeats troubled Real Housewives of Beverly Hills star Kim Richards about her recent arrest for public drunkenness until she runs off in tears, ending the interview.
Do these people need the involvement of trained professionals to deal honestly with their problems? Quite possibly. Does being confronted with the ramifications of their bad decisions have value for people with various mental health or substance abuse problems? Often it does. Is Dr. Phil actually accomplishing anything of benefit for his hapless subjects when he milks their travails for ratings? Not even slightly. Call this sort of celebrity bottom-feeding what you like, but please let’s not call it therapeutic. It’s a crass pantomime of psychology, no matter what Dr. Phil’s degree. He makes Dr. Joyce Brothers look like Carl Jung by comparison. Like Dr. Oz, if Dr. Phil wants to promote what his show is really about, he can jettison the “Dr.” jive, and take his place openly alongside Maury and Jerry and Montel. They all peddle the same prurient garbage, and he may as well be plain about it. I won’t tune in, but at least I won’t consider him a professional embarrassment. Junk doesn’t turn into worthwhile viewing just because you wrap a diploma around it, and it’s time Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil stopped pretending otherwise.

Selma

Over the past weekend I had the good fortune to go see the movie, "Selma." After seeing the movie I too find it outrageous that it did not get one Academy Award nomination. But that is not the intent of this post. I am certainly old enough to remember the events of the 1960s. Nevertheless I cringed as I watched with horror the events that are portrayed. I found myself crying and I intuitively knew that my tears were coming from a very deep place that went beyond what I was seeing.

There is no doubt in my mind that if the situation was reversed and the majority of the population were people of color who were treating a minority white population in a similar fashion the subsequent events would have been quite different. It is my belief that in this hypothetical situation the United States would view the threat of ISIS as a very low priority. It is my belief that in such a situation the white people of America would have armed themselves with Uzis and they would be out indiscriminately killing as many black people as they could. I find the fact that this has not happened within the minority community with the reality of America to be astounding.

As I now watch the efforts to once again disenfranchise the minority communities under the guise of preventing voter fraud I am quite nauseous. So many politicians like to refer to America as the greatest country in the world. It really would be so lovely if one day this was true.

The State of America

I have never done this before but this article communicates what I'd like for you to read. It is from "The Nashville Banner" and was published on February 4, 2015.

The Republicans Eat Their Own

And other thoughts on Haslam's failed health initiative

By Bruce Dobie

| February 4, 2015 4:44 pm |

Death to the legislation, which arrived on a stretcher anyway, came quickly. Gov. Haslam's plan to join ObamaCare, and insure hundreds of thousands of Tennesseans at virtually no cost to the state, came loaded with the political baggage of being tied to Obama. Tennessee's Tea Partiers seethed. Conservatives raged. The right-wing came unstuck.
To those in the fact-based community—moderate Republicans, businesspeople, those in the health care community—the facts were inarguable and arrived at a different analysis: at little to no cost, hospitals would stay in business and hundreds of millions of dollars would be pumped into the state's economy.
What's not to love?
On top of that, there was a public policy argument to tug on the heartstrings. For poor people, this was a solution. The plan would add a measure of comfort to thousands of the impoverished, and hey, isn't that what we humans are all about?
In the end, though, as even Haslam seemed to suggest when he called the session together, the death knell to the plan was its association with a Democratic president, one who is despised by many of our state lawmakers. Yes, the proposal might have seemed a no-brainer. But it is also true that no-brainer arguments are hard to intellectually absorb when you don't have a brain to begin with.
When the Senate was called into session to consider the Haslam plan, the preacher reading the invocation asked God "that we would not be forced into these edicts from Washington D.C." Instead the preacher prayed that we "let the people know that our (healthcare) coverage is the same as with Moses and the children of Israel when they went through the wilderness with only the divine providence of almighty God."
What is one to say?
Have we lost it?
Maybe, to extend the preacher's primitive religiosity, we should all abandon our health insurance. Maybe we should all go Paleo and descend into some pre-historic living undertaking, in which we commence to eating locusts, and commuting to Jimmy Kelly's after work on camels, and doing without any modern healthcare whatsoever because, darnit, if Moses could get by without a Blue Cross Card, then we all can.
Were one to identify positives, I can find one, optimist that I am.
Opportunities are always rare for Democrats. But here is some advice to the new Democratic Party chairwoman, Mary Mancini: Affix sign to door. "The Democratic Party is Open for Business."
Tell every health care company in Tennessee—and Nashville is ground zero for corporate health care in the United States—that the NEW Democratic Party here would like to see health care endeavors thrive, but that Republicans do not. Spread the same message to those in the construction industries, to small business owners, to Chambers of Commerce, and to doctors and nurses everywhere.
Now is an opportunity to announce on friendly terms the Democrats' willingness to work with business, because in a strangely cannibalistic way, the Republicans are avariciously chowing down on the hands that feed them. The mostly small-town, non-business-minded, religiously occluded conservatives in the party are in control; the more urban, urbane, business-oriented Republicans are left to suffer the consequences.
The moneyed poo-bahs of the GOP have taken a big hit. So Mary, go offer them a home. At the very least, outline a partnership where the quacks and the crazies aren't in control any longer.

THE FAG TIP

     A few days ago a  20 year old waiter in Missouri received the following message instead of a tip from a couple he had just served. "Thank you for your service, it was excellent. That being said, we cannot in good conscience tip you, for your homosexual lifestyle is an affront to GOD. Queers do not share in the wealth of GOD, and you will not share in ours. We hope you will see the tip your fag choices made you lose out on, and plan accordingly. It is never too late for GOD'S love, but none shall be spared for fags. May GOD have mercy on you."
     It is fascinating to me that many in our society would like us to believe that Islamic Fundamentalism is a threat to the survival of our enlightened existence. The notion that a loving God would be offended by any of HIS/HER children's sexual preference alone makes no sense to me. The couple praises the waiter's behavior but insults his being for no other reason than their prejudice. The wisdom of the separation of Church and State by our Founding Fathers has served all of us exceedingly well. I pray that it continues.

WELCOME TO 1984

          In 1966 I was a college student in Queens, New York. It seemed apparent to me and many of my friends that the war in Vietnam was a mistake. We felt compelled to participate in protests in New York and in Washington, DC. We did not think of our actions as any big deal. We were doing what we could to change governmental policy. In the intervening years that passion and awareness appears to have entered into a comatose state across America.

         In his book, "1984", George Orwell made popular two terms that appear to have become our norm. Those terms were, "doublespeak" and "doublethink." Orwell did not invent these terms but he made masterful use of them in his novel. "Doublespeak is language which pretends to communicate but doesn't. It is language which makes the bad seem good, the negative seem positive, the unpleasant seem unattractive, or at least tolerable. It is language which avoids, shifts or denies responsibility; language which is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language which conceals or prevents thought. William Lutz, "Doubts About Doublespeak." State Government News, July 1993.

         Examples of doublethink from Orwell's book are: "The Ministry of Peace concerns itself with war, the Ministry of Truth with lies, the Ministry of Love with torture and the Ministry of Plenty with starvation. These contradictions are not accidental, nor do they result from ordinary hypocrisy: they are deliberate exercises in doublethink"... "Until they became conscious they will never rebel, and until after they have rebelled they cannot become conscious."..." Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing."

         For the past four or five years all we have heard is that our deficit is the biggest threat to our well-being. We have been told that there is no money to repair our infrastructure or to provide school lunches or adequate healthcare. In fact the Republican Congress has voted 40 times to repeal Obamacare. It is as if Obamacare is allowed to continue we will all die a slow agonizing death. It also appears that once Obamacare is repealed the next biggest threat to our national interest is National Public Radio. The runners-up appear to be making sure that the poor and minorities lose their voting rights, ensuring that the minimum wage never goes up and the abolition of all trade unions.

         Our esteemed leaders are now debating whether or not we should "punish Syria." Of course we should be aghast at the use of any weapons. But I find it curious that the rest of the world finds it so easy to sit back and watch us "take care of it." Wouldn't it be fascinating if in a few years we learn that the chemicals in our food have killed and maimed far more people than anything done by Bashar al-Assad.

         In the world of doublespeak we have a president who has won the Nobel Peace Prize while at the same time ordering a surge of troops in Afghanistan. The following figures may not be exactly accurate but I do believe they are fairly close. There were 2996 people killed in America as a result of the attacks on 9/11/01. Since then 3274 coalition troops have been killed in Afghanistan along with approximately 17,000 Afghans. Over 8000 coalition troops have been killed in Iraq and the civilian estimates are between 200,000 to over 1 million. During this time period we had fired over 2000 cruise missiles. The estimates for the cost of one cruise missile go up to $1,400,000 apiece. When I used my calculator to total this it just read "E" because the number of zeros exceeded my display. And this total is just a very small percent of all the costs associated with war. Remember we can't afford to feed our children. We can't afford to provide healthcare. It may be the case that the zombie apocalypse has already happened as manifested by the silence of all the parents whose gorgeous children have been maimed while "protecting us." These same children get inadequate healthcare and they can't get jobs once they come home.

         It isn't exactly clear what the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have actually provided for us. We are told that Al Qaeda is in ruins. But 13 years later we have instability all over the Middle East. Terrorist attacks have occurred in the Philippines, Bali, and numerous other places around the world. Many believe that the prison in Guantánamo has resulted in far more youth all over the world being recruited into the ranks of those that hate what we have done. I also find it quite ironic that the war in Iraq did not result in America controlling Iraqi oil and the first mining contract in Afghanistan has been awarded to China. Why aren't the Tea Party geniuses screaming that we can't afford another war?
     In 2008 I wept tears of joy when Obama was elected. In true doublespeak fashion the man who was going to bring change and the end of the abuses of the Bush administration now has the NSA checking the contents of our farts to see if we have ever eaten hummus.

         Our schools produce children that don't know how to make change if the cash register is broken. Our children have the attention span of 140 characters. A few days ago the British Parliament said no to Britain's participation in Syria. I was able to watch that live because my cable network carries AlJazeera. No American network covered it live. We appear to have the best government that money can buy. I wonder what it will take to wake us out of our coma.