IS THE WORLD SICKER AND MEANER OR DO WE JUST HEAR IT ALL FASTER?

There is so much proof today that some politicians, and those who work for them, will lie and say anything to get themselves or their candidate elected. 

Ken Mehlman, former head of RNC, has come out as being gay. He is not the first to feed discrimination of gays, withhold equality by working towards it,  In the Huffington Post article by Amanda Terkel, She writes:  " He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would be asked about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California's ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8."

 To finally come to grips at age 43 with one's homosexuality defies all that has forever been known about human sexual development and gender identity.  Having seen so many epiphanies coincide with threats of being 'outed' I must confess to my own speculations on timing and change of direction of life goals and political aims.  The article ends with this:  "Mehlman headed the RNC when the Republican Party was pushing anti-gay initiatives and increasingly speaking out against marriage equality. Former RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie and Mehlman's longtime friend called Mehlman's coming-out "significant," but added that he remains opposed to gay marriage." 

Marc Ambinder, politics editor The Atlantic, writes:    "Mehlman arrived at this conclusion about his identity fairly recently, he said in an interview. He agreed to answer a reporter's questions, he said, because, now in private life, he wants to become an advocate for gay marriage and anticipated that questions would arise about his participation in a late-September fundraiser for the American Foundation for Equal Rights (AFER), the group that supported the legal challenge to California's ballot initiative against gay marriage, Proposition 8."

Is this an example of how one's integrity and values are determined by the job and income it will bring to one?
It also makes me wonder about what the surviving partner of a gay relationship who was shut out of the hospital where his/her partner lay dying, who was subsequently shut out of all planning for burial, memorials, splitting joint assets or whatever other business Mehlman helped keep an insurmountable obstacle,

WIKILEAKS HAS DONE IT AGAIN

While there are naive Americans who would like to believe the goodness in all that is a part of them, and evil for everyone else, it is time to Americans to hear the wake-up call.   Sooner or later, even the most blinded among us will realize there is terrorism in its most subtle form.  The divisiveness fostered by the Bush Administration has festered all too long and has been fed by many visible and audible sources in media and, especially, talk radio but has also had some very interesting backers.  Wikileaks released CIA  'exporter of terrorism' report.

While Islamophobia is being fed to inflame all those too willing to believe their's is the only true and acceptable religion, those same people watch Fox News without realizing that that it is owned in partnership with a Saudi Arabian with powerful money to spend.  Knowing that Osama bin Laden is a Saudi Arabian who threatened to break the American economy, I have previously expressed my wonder about whose help he may have elicited in that endeavor.  With George W Bush listening to his self-serving advisers, he is not likely the one with the most subtle power to destroy the economy other than with wasteful spending and a Legislative body with two houses who could refuse him nothing. 

Of more concern are Koch and his son and many other extremely wealthy Americans who can afford to influence the markets and many other maneuvers that do not make the middle class any better off and can assure that policies and laws remain in place to keep the status quo, even if it eventually kills off the entire middle class so that we are left with two classes, obscenely rich and a majority of poor. 

Just as there has always been a philosophical argument about free will in mankind, one must examine what the human sheep are doing.  Palin, Bachmann, Beck, Limbaugh and so many others are like the Pied Piper leading them to wherever they wish.  What makes the people of this country so unoriginal in their thinking that they can only think of terrorism as violent.  T'ain't so, Charlie!  We are slowly being eaten up by propaganda and brain washers insidiously making people believe untruths as though they were gospel,  Obama was born in America; he is not a Muslim nor a Socialist and he has fought for this country's survival.  

Republicans being chosen as candidates are unprepared to do the task ahead of them, for the most part with rare exception.  The country has much more important issues to face than tying the hands of abortionists and bringing unwanted children into our poverty stricken, unemployed worker households.  Neighbors should be helping neighbors and families should be supportive as they had to be in the early 20th C when immigrants didn't have social networks provided by the government to fall back on.  Some things have not changed since the 19th C ,when in England, the poor who were unable to pay their debts were thrown into prison where there was no hope of them being able to work to make the money to pay off the debt.  We can only hope the electorate will be enlightened enough to see through some of the falsehoods they are currently believing.

BUILDING CORTISOL (THE STRESS HORMONE) IN WAYS YOU LEAST SUSPECT

Today's society is over stressed and stimulated.  A man was speaking on NPR whose name I didn't catch, but who had recently written a book (the title which I also missed) on his independent research on stress in our daily lives.  He said that people who claim to be multi-taskers cannot really be that as only one stream of verbal information can be taken in at a time.  I would not argue that he is probably correct.  I, however, read while I watch the news on TV.  Somehow my brain scans what my conscious mind may not be tuned into and tells me when key words come up that I want to hear more about.  It is true I do not then continue to read while I listen.

However, we have five senses that are not verbal trails into our brain.  I remember playing a Festival organ in the 60s.  It had two ranks  and pedals.  When you have to be aware of all those things as theater organists do magnificently, I believe that is multi-tasking.  When translators hear one language and simultaneously translate it to orally to another, that is another example to me.  Be sure to watch the videos on this site to illustrate my point;  It may be true that words cannot be handled by the brain in tandem but, clearly, other functions can.

Years ago, a psychiatrist, with whom I worked in a mental hospital, speaking English (though Viennese was his native language), had the audacity to say people who learn two languages have to be schizophrenic.  I had been bilingual all my life and resented this.  I clearly translated one language to the other when necessary.  I am constantly thinking of the steps involved in what I am doing and adjust my actions to make maximum efficiency.  I got things done faster and just as efficiently though I was being told to finish one job before starting another.

It is impossible for me to sit quietly and watch TV.  I have always had to be drawing, painting, embroidering, knitting or some other activity with my hands.  Otherwise I would fall asleep.  I have been calling that multi-tasking but, according to this gentleman's definition, it is not. Oddly, I feel far more stressed when I don't have something to keep my senses occupied than when I try to focus on only one sense.  I wish someone would invent a cortisol reader for the home.  I feel much more stressed out when I watch a violent, suspenseful movie.  It is no guess that I no longer watch them but enjoy 'feel good' books and movies.

Lastly, I realize I get stressed out physically as I grow older over things that used to be simple to me...like finding my way to an appointment in a place I have never been to before.  I allow plenty of time but feel my pulse rate rising if I get lost and fear I will be late...even to doctor's offices when doctors are never on time.

As I reread this, before publishing it, I realize we have backed into the old 'One size does NOT fit all' argument that I have frequently cautioned against.  There are those who get charged up by being frightened and watching violence.  I am not one of them.  Not everyone relishes kicking in their adrenalin or norepinephrine.  I prefer kicking in my endorphins.  They make me feel good.

WALK OF FAME FOR ENTREPRENEURS SUGGESTED IN CAMBRIDGE, MA

Too often our immature society values only entertainers and sports figures.  Now a professor at MIT. Bill Aulet,  has come up with an idea to celebrate the brains in so many local business and scientific geniuses.  Mitch Kapor  is a first nominee.  For those unfortunate enough not to know who he is, read his biography here.  (He founded Lotus Development Corporation) in 1982. 

Aulet requests suggestions for more who might be considered for this walk of fame. One I would heartily recommend is Amar G. Bose, Founder of Bose Corporation.  Arthur D. Little, Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. and many, many more.  I would hope it would not be limited to just MIT grads because I'd like to see Dean Kamen on that list. 

Ray Kurzweil is yet another who should make this list. He was even a part of MIT.  His educational and music systems are phenomenal. With the seeming brain dead people who populate too much of our political system,  we can see that something should be done to change that.  Obviously. when one searches the current crop of candidates, it is clear that they are not MIT grads nor grads of any highly disciplined academic institution with rare exceptions, like Obama who made it to the top.  So them to see. We don't hear as much about the people who make the great medical, scientific and technological breakthroughs by reading PEOPLE magazine and SPORTS NEWS.

Yet those who make in those seldom noted fields outside their own areas are viewed as lucky.  We know that luck is defined as the place where opportunity and preparation meet.  Unfortunately agents and publicists don't create geniuses.

TEMPEST IN A TEAPOT BY TEABAGGERS

The GOP Right wingers are destroying our country, negating and devaluing our Constitution. The latest in a long string of religious wars in our country is over of Muslims, Islamophobia as it termed by some.  David Rosen of Counter Punch has written an excellent article on why  Shameless Schemers Like Sarah Palin, the Tea Partiers and Right-Wing Christians Trying to Start a New Religious War Against Muslims.  On 8/22, there were two opposing demonstrations near where the proposed Islamic Community Center is scheduled to be.  Rosen writes: " The construction of the center, often referred to as a mosque, has become the latest rallying issue for the Christian right, Tea Party proponents and Republican operatives in their war to impose moralistic and corporatist values on America."  He cites that over the last four centuries, Quakers, Mormons, Catholics, Jews and many others have been targets of religious persecution, often the victims of imprisonments, hangings, lynchings and other acts of violence.

I ran across another blogger, Arthur Sidos, who, I think, wrote quite eloquently much of what I would have written...had I written it first.  But he did, I did not.  Therefore, read him and not me on this.  

CRY OF FOUL WHEN ROMANCE NOVELS DON'T FOLLOW THE FORMULA

Some of us read romance books because we like to sublimate to have our bodies and minds feel good. 

There are  formulas for a romance novel.  One definition is: "A romance novel is a work of prose fiction that tells a story of the courtship and betrothal of one or more heroines.:"  Formula is a subset of genre.  Silhouette suggests 50,000 words.  Category romance, very contemporary, fast paced, fun,flirtatious, entertaining, upbeat and sexy.  For those who wish to understand the genre and not necessarily have a plot to read and relax, I suggest buying A Natural History of the Romance Novel by Pamela Regis (who wrote it in true academic style, quite readable with excellent organization)

Pride and Prejudice was one of the earlier ones that has remained read by many readers today.  'What if...' books and sequels have sprung up.  While many provide interesting and enjoyable reading, none of the more than 70 I have now read surpass Jane Austen.  Clearly, many authors are capitalizing on her coattails and many are most enjoyable reading.

Recently I have read a few that sneak in a plot, occasionally move it along in between the history book under which it should be filed..  Other authors have spent more time describing, to give us mental images no doubt, of food, furnishings, gardens and clothing.  My fantasy is that these are written by people who are unable to get to a point without wandering off and editorializing so that the listener or reader's head has wandered off as far in the opposite direction.

Each writer elicits different emotional reactions for the reader.  If I wanted the carnage and violence of the Gladiators, I would not choose to read a romance novel, yet some authors add all that to the 'action'.  The appeal seems to be to all tastes from the stereotypical frail, dependent female who is dutiful and without courage- to the independent female who stands up to oppressive, bossy males even though it against the custom of the historical time.  Since it is a novel, the author can take great liberties with the characters, clearly against all research as to how people behave, given their makeup and the situation.

However, I enjoy many genres and any book that has a happy ending which has traditionally been an accepted rule of the romance novel.  Recently I read one listed as such in which the hero and heroine had been happily married but he gets murdered near the ending, leaving her widowed, with twins less than two years old, who will have to be brought up without their father.  If one is looking to feel good, this is not a book to read; it did nothing to perk me up.  Too many modern women are single mothers (even while married)...it is not fun and not the story within which one wants to be wrapped when looking to be cheered.