MY WORK ... MY PASSION

• Certified Transpersonal Hypnotherapist ; Past experiences: Dream Analysis /10 Years Experience •Psychotherapist / Use of Gestalt, Jungian, Zen, Reality and Energy Therapies /10 Years Experience •EMDR • Men and Their Journey: the neuroscience of the male brain, and the implications in sexuality, education and relationship • Women: Their Transformation and Empowerment ATOD (Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drugs) / 21 years experience •Ordained Interfaith Minister & Official Celebrant • Social Justice Advocate • Child and Human Rights Advocate • Spiritual Guide and Intuitive • Certified Reiki Practitioner • Mediation / Conflict Resolution • “Intentional Love” Parenting Strategy Groups • Parenting Workshops • Coaching for parents of Indigo, Crystal, and Rainbow Children • International Training: Israel & England • Critical Incident Stress Debriefing • Post-911 and Post-Katrina volunteer

MSW - UNC Chapel Hill

BSW - UNC Greensboro


With immense love I wish Happy Birthday to my three grandchildren!

May 22: Brannock

May 30: Brinkley

June 12: Brogan

All three have birthdays in the same 22 days of the year ....what a busy time for the family!

"An Unending Love"

This blog and video is devoted and dedicated to my precious daughter Jennifer, my grand daughters Brogan and Brinkley, and my grand son Brannock. They are hearts of my heart. Our connection through many lives..... is utterly infinite.




The Definition of Genius

"THRIVE"

https://youtu.be/Lr-RoQ24lLg

"ONLY LOVE PREVAILS" ...."I've loved you for a thousand years; I'll love you for a thousand more....."


As we are in the winter of our lives, I dedicate this to Andrew, Dr. John J.C. Jr. and Gary W., MD, (who has gone on before us). My love and admiration is unfathomable for each of you..........and what you have brought into this world.....so profoundly to me.
The metaphors are rich and provocative; we're in them now. This world is indeed disappearing, and the richest eternal world awaits us!
The intensity, as was in each of the three of us, is in yellow!
In my heart forever.........

Slowly the truth is loading
I'm weighted down with love
Snow lying deep and even
Strung out and dreaming of
Night falling on the city
Quite something to behold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world

We're threading hope like fire

Down through the desperate blood
Down through the trailing wire
Into the leafless wood

Night falling on the city
Quite something to behold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world
This disappearing world


I'll be sticking right there with it
I'll be by y
our side
Sailing like a silver bullet
Hit 'em 'tween the eyes
Through the smoke and rising water
Cross the great divide
Baby till it all feels right

Night falling on the city
Sparkling red and gold
Don't it just look so pretty
This disappearing world
This
disappearing world
This disappearing world
This disappearing world


TECHNOLOGY..........

In “Conversations with God”, by Neale Donald Walsch, there is a warning I think of. I refer to it as the Atlantis passage, and I've quoted it a few times before." As I have said, this isn't the first time your civilization has been at this brink,"

God tells Walsch. "I want to repeat this, because it is vital that you hear this. Once before on your planet, the technology you developed was far greater than your ability to use it responsibly. You are approaching the same point in human history again. It is vitally important that you understand this. Your present technology is threatening to outstrip your ability to use it wisely. Your society is on the verge of becoming a product of your technology rather than your technology being a product of your society. When a society becomes a product of its own technology, it destroys itself."

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

How Psychedelic Drugs Can Help Patients Face Death ~ New York Times



Pam Sakuda was 55 when she found out she was dying. Shortly after having a tumor removed from her colon, she heard the doctor’s dreaded words: Stage 4; metastatic. Sakuda was given 6 to 14 months to live. Determined to slow her disease’s insidious course, she ran several miles every day, even during her grueling treatment regimens. By nature upbeat, articulate and dignified, Sakuda — who died in November 2006, outlasting everyone’s expectations by living for four years — was alarmed when anxiety and depression came to claim her after she passed the 14-month mark, her days darkening as she grew closer to her biological demise. Norbert Litzinger, Sakuda’s husband, explained it this way: “When you pass your own death sentence by, you start to wonder: WhenWhen? It got to the point where we couldn’t make even the most mundane plans, because we didn’t know if Pam would still be alive at that time — a concert, dinner with friends; would she still be here for that?” When came to claim the couple’s life completely, their anxiety building as they waited for the final day.

A Brief History of LSD

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As her fears intensified, Sakuda learned of a study being conducted by Charles Grob, a psychiatrist and researcher at Harbor-U.C.L.A. Medical Center who was administering psilocybin — an active component of magic mushrooms — to end-stage cancer patients to see if it could reduce their fear of death. Twenty-two months before she died, Sakuda became one of Grob’s 12 subjects. When the research was completed in 2008 — (and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry last year) — the results showed that administering psilocybin to terminally ill subjects could be done safely while reducing the subjects’ anxiety and depression about their impending deaths.
Grob’s interest in the power of psychedelics to mitigate mortality’s sting is not just the obsession of one lone researcher. Dr. John Halpern, head of the Laboratory for Integrative Psychiatry at McLean Hospital in Belmont Mass., a psychiatric training hospital for Harvard Medical School, used MDMA — also known as ecstasy — in an effort to ease end-of-life anxieties in two patients with Stage 4 cancer. And there are two ongoing studies using psilocybin with terminal patients, one at New York University’s medical school, led by Stephen Ross, and another at Johns Hopkins Bayview Medical Center, where Roland Griffiths has administered psilocybin to 22 cancer patients and is aiming for a sample size of 44. “This research is in its very early stages,” Grob told me earlier this month, “but we’re getting consistently good results.”
Grob and his colleagues are part of a resurgence of scientific interest in the healing power of psychedelics. Michael Mithoefer, for instance, has shown that MDMA is an effective treatment for severe P.T.S.D. Halpern has examined case studies of people with cluster headaches who took LSD and reported their symptoms greatly diminished. And psychedelics have been recently examined as treatment for alcoholism and other addictions.
Despite the promise of these investigations, Grob and other end-of-life researchers are careful about the image they cultivate, distancing themselves as much as possible from the 1960s, when psychedelics were embraced by many and used in a host of controversial studies, most famously the psilocybin project run by Timothy Leary. Grob described the rampant drug use that characterized the ’60s as “out of control” and said of his and others’ current research, “We are trying to stay under the radar. We want to be anti-Leary.” Halpern agreed. “We are serious sober scientists,” he told me.
Sakuda’s terminal diagnosis, combined with her otherwise perfect health, made her an ideal subject for Grob’s study. Beginning in January 2005, Grob and his research team gave Sakuda various psychological tests, including the Beck Depression Inventory and the Stai-Y anxiety scale to establish baseline measures of Sakuda’s psychological state and to rule out any severe psychiatric illness. “We wanted psychologically healthy people,” Grob says, “people whose depressions and anxieties are not the result of mental illness” but rather, he explained, a response to a devastating disease.
Sakuda would take part in two sessions, one with psilocybin, one with niacin, an active placebo that can cause some flushing in the face. The study was double blind, which meant that neither the researchers nor the subjects knew what was in the capsules being administered. On the day of her first session, Sakuda was led into a room that researchers had transformed with flowing fabrics and fresh flowers to help create a soothing environment in an otherwise cold hospital setting. Sakuda swallowed a capsule and lay back on the bed to wait. Grob had invited her — as researchers do with all their subjects — to bring objects from home that had special significance. “These objects often personalize the session room for the volunteer and often prompt the patient to think about loved ones or important life events,” Roland Griffiths, of Johns Hopkins, says.
“I think it’s kind of goofy,” Halpern says, “but the thinking is that with the aid of the psychedelic, you may come to see the object in a different light. It may help bring back memories; it promotes introspection, it can be a touchstone, it can be grounding.”

This article has been revised to reflect the following correction:
Correction: April 22, 2012
An article on Page 56 this weekend about the use of psychedelic drugs as part of the treatment for patients with terminal diseases misspells, in two instances, the surname of a cancer patient who was given one of them, psilocybin. As the article correctly notes elsewhere, she was Pam Sakuda, not Saduka. And an earlier version of this correction misspelled psilocybin as psylocybin.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

Not so Secret Service: A column about responsibility and morality..by Cal Thomas

Boys will be boys, but men should be men; real men, not "Mad Men," or the promiscuous men lauded in "men's" magazine that are always on the prowl for new conquests. I'm speaking about men of honor and integrity who are the same in the dark as they are in the light........


CONTINUE READING: Not so Secret Service

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Conservative Politics, 'Low-Effort' Thinking Linked in New Study / Huffington Post / David Freeman

The Huffington Post  |  By  
Posted: 04/ 9/2012 10:44 am Updated: 04/ 9/2012 2:16 pm
Conservatives Lowthought
Conservatives and liberals don't seem to agree about much, and they might not agree about recent studies linking conservatism to low intelligence and "low-effort" thinking.
As The Huffington Post reported in February, a study published in the journal "Psychological Science" showed that children who score low on intelligence tests gravitate toward socially conservative political views in adulthood--perhaps because conservative ideologies stress "structure and order" that make it easier to understand a complicated world.
Ouch.
And now there's the new study linking conservative ideologies to "low-effort" thinking.
"People endorse conservative ideology more when they have to give a first or fast response," the study's lead author, University of Arkansas psychologist Dr. Scott Eidelman, said in a written statement released by the university.
Does the finding suggest that conservatives are lazy thinkers?
"Not quite," Dr. Eidelman told The Huffington Post in an email. "Our research shows that low-effort thought promotes political conservatism, not that political conservatives use low-effort thinking."
For the study, a team of psychologists led by Dr. Eidelman asked people about their political viewpoints in a bar and in a laboratory setting.
Bar patrons were asked about social issues before blowing into a Breathalyzer. As it turned out, the political viewpoints of patrons with high blood alcohol levels were more likely to be conservative than were those of patrons whose blood alcohol levels were low.
But it wasn't just the alcohol talking, according to the statement. When the researchers conducted similar interviews in the lab, they found that people who were asked to evaluate political ideas quickly or while distracted were more likely to express conservative viewpoints.
"Keeping people from thinking too much...or just asking them to deliberate or consider information in a cursory manner can impact people's political attitudes, and in a way that consistently promotes political conservatism," Dr. Eidelman said in the email.
The study was published online in the journal "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin."
What do you think? Are conservatives less intelligent than liberals--or more intelligent? And is conservatism a matter of lazy thinking?

Monday, April 9, 2012

The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed | Media | AlterNet

Authoritarian people have a stronger emotional need for an outlet like Fox, where they can find affirmation and escape factual challenges to their beliefs.

Photo Credit: ShutterStock.com
In June of last year, Jon Stewart went on air with Fox News’ Chris Wallace and started a major media controversy over the channel’s misinforming of its viewers. “Who are the most consistently misinformed media viewers?” Stewart asked Wallace. “The most consistently misinformed? Fox, Fox viewers, consistently, every poll.”Editor's note: This is an excerpt from Chris Mooney’s new bookThe Republican Brain: The Science of Why They Deny Science and Reality.
Stewart’s statement .....



READ MORE: The Science of Fox News: Why Its Viewers are the Most Misinformed | Media | AlterNet

Monday, April 2, 2012

Krugman: Pink Slime Economics from the GOP -New York Times




The big bad event of last week was, of course, the Supreme Court hearing on health reform. In the course of that hearing it became clear that several of the justices, and possibly a majority, are political creatures pure and simple, willing to embrace any argument, no matter how absurd, that serves the interests of Team Republican.
Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

But we should not allow events in the court to completely overshadow another, almost equally disturbing spectacle. For on Thursday Republicans in the House of Representatives passed what was surely the most fraudulent budget in American history.
And when I say fraudulent, I mean just that. The trouble with the budget devised by Paul Ryan, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, isn’t just its almost inconceivably cruel priorities, the way it slashes taxes for corporations and the rich while drastically cutting food and medical aid to the needy. Even aside from all that, the Ryan budget purports to reduce the deficit — but the alleged deficit reduction depends on the completely unsupported assertion that trillions of dollars in revenue can be found by closing tax loopholes.
And we’re talking about a lot of loophole-closing. As Howard Gleckman of the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center points out, to make his numbers work Mr. Ryan would, by 2022, have to close enough loopholes to yield an extra $700 billion in revenue every year. That’s a lot of money, even in an economy as big as ours. So which specific loopholes has Mr. Ryan, who issued a 98-page manifesto on behalf of his budget, said he would close?
None. Not one. He has, however, categorically ruled out any move to close the major loophole that benefits the rich, namely the ultra-low tax rates on income from capital. (That’s the loophole that lets Mitt Romney pay only 14 percent of his income in taxes, a lower tax rate than that faced by many middle-class families.)
So what are we to make of this proposal? Mr. Gleckman calls it a “mystery meat budget,” but he’s being unfair to mystery meat. The truth is that the filler modern food manufacturers add to their products may be disgusting — think pink slime — but it nonetheless has nutritional value. Mr. Ryan’s empty promises don’t. You should think of those promises, instead, as a kind of throwback to the 19th century, when unregulatedcorporations bulked out their bread with plaster of paris and flavored their beer with sulfuric acid.
Come to think of it, that’s precisely the policy era Mr. Ryan and his colleagues are trying to bring back.
So the Ryan budget is a fraud; Mr. Ryan talks loudly about the evils of debt and deficits, but his plan would actually make the deficit bigger even as it inflicted huge pain in the name of deficit reduction. But is his budget really the most fraudulent in American history? Yes, it is.
To be sure, we’ve had irresponsible and/or deceptive budgets in the past. Ronald Reagan’s budgets relied on voodoo, on the claim that cutting taxes on the rich would somehow lead to an explosion of economic growth. George W. Bush’s budget officials liked to play bait and switch, low-balling the cost of tax cuts by pretending that they were only temporary, then demanding that they be made permanent. But has any major political figure ever premised his entire fiscal platform not just on totally implausible spending projections but on claims that he has a secret plan to raise trillions of dollars in revenue, a plan that he refuses to share with the public?
What’s going on here? The answer, presumably, is that this is what happens when extremists gain complete control of a party’s discourse: all the rules get thrown out the window. Indeed, the hard right’s grip on the G.O.P. is now so strong that the party is sticking with Mr. Ryan even though it’s paying a significant political price for his assault on Medicare.
Now, the House Republican budget isn’t about to become law as long as President Obamais sitting in the White House. But it has been endorsed by Mr. Romney. And even if Mr. Obama is reelected, the fraudulence of this budget has important implications for future political negotiations.
Bear in mind that the Obama administration spent much of 2011 trying to negotiate a so-called Grand Bargain with Republicans, a bipartisan plan for deficit reduction over the long term. Those negotiations ended up breaking down, and a minor journalistic industry has emerged as reporters try to figure out how the breakdown occurred and who was responsible.
But what we learn from the latest Republican budget is that the whole pursuit of a Grand Bargain was a waste of time and political capital. For a lasting budget deal can only work if both parties can be counted on to be both responsible and honest — and House Republicans have just demonstrated, as clearly as anyone could wish, that they are neither.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/opinion/krugman-pink-slime-economics.html

Friday, March 30, 2012

"Death of the Ego" ~ David Loy



The Fear of Death is not an instinct: it is a reaction of the animal who is conscious enough to become aware of himself and his inevitable fate; so it is something we have learned. But exactly what is it we have learned? Is the dilemma of life-confronting-death an objective fact we just see, or is this, too, something constructed and projected, more like an unconscious game that each of us is playing with himself? According to Buddhism, life-against-death is a delusive way of thinking it is dualistic: the denial of being dead is how the Ego affirms itself as being alive; so it is the act by which the Ego constitutes itself. To be self-conscious is to be conscious of oneself, to grasp oneself, as being alive. (Despite all their struggles to keep from dying, other animals do not dread death, because they are not aware of themselves as alive.) Then death terror is not something the Ego has, it is what the Ego IS. This fits well with the Buddhist claim that the Ego-self is not a thing, not what I really am, but a mental construction. Anxiety is generated by identifying with this fiction for the simple reason that I do not know and cannot know what this thing that I supposedly am is. This is why the "shadow" of the sense-of-self will inevitable be a sense-of-lack.
Now we see what the Ego is composed of: death terror. The irony here is that the death terror which is the Ego defends only itself. Everything outside is what the ego IS terrified of, but what is inside? Fear is the inside, and that makes everything else the outside. The tragicomedy is that the self-protection this generates is self-defeating, for the barriers we erect to defend the Ego also reinforce our suspicion that there is indeed something lacking in our innermost sanctum which needs protection. And if it turns out that what is innermost is so weak because it is...nothing, then no amount of protection will ever be felt to be enough and we shall end up trying to extend our control to the very bounds of the universe.


If, however, the Ego is constituted by such a dualistic way of thinking, it means that an Ego can die without physical death and without consciousness coming to an end.


What makes this more than idle speculation is that there is ample testimony to the possibility of such Ego death:
  • No one gets so much of God as the man who is completely dead. (St. Gregory)
  • The Kingdom of God is for none but the thoroughly dead. (Eckhart)
  • We are in a world of generation and death, and this world we must cast off. (William Blake)
  • Your glory lies where you cease to exist. (Ramana Maharshi):
    "All of a sudden, he was seized by a chill of Fear. He felt he was almost dying by an all encompassing Fear of Death. Trying to prevent this feeling from weakening him, he began to think of what he should do. He said to himself:

    "'Now death is approaching. I am dying. What is death? This body gets lost.'

    "Then he held his breath completely, closed his lips and eyes, lay down as one dead, and began to ponder:

    "'Now my body is dead. They will carry this body, motionless, to the cremation ground and burn it. But do I really die with this body? Am I merely this body? My body is now motionless. But still I know my name. I remember my parents, uncles, brothers, friends and all others. It means that I have a knowledge of my individuality. If so, the "I" in me is not merely my body; it is a deathless spirit.'

    "Thus, as in a flash, a new realization came to Venkataramana. His thoughts may seem boyish fancy. But one thing must be remembered. Usually a man wins God realization by performing tapas for years and years, without food and sleep; he subjects the body to great suffering. But Venkataramana won the highest knowledge without all these. The fear of death left him. Venkataramana became the Bhagavan Sri Ramana Maharshi."


NOTE: It should be brought to the attention of the reader that in 1912, at age 32, fifteen years after Sri Ramana's initial death experience, he was once again confronted by death, in his little known Second Death Experience.


A moving example of death and resurrection is of course one of the sources of Western culture; but examples are found in many religious traditions. The problem is demythologizing these myths, extracting the core of psychological and spiritual truth from the accretions of dogma and superstition that all too often obscure their meaning, in order for that truth to spring to life again within our myth--the technical, objectifying language of modern science (in this instance, psychology). Blake's quotation (from The Vision of the Last Judgment) points the way because it implies that we are not seeing clearly but projecting when we perceive the world in terms of the dualistic categories of birth and death.
Precisely that claim is central to the Buddhist tradition. "Why was I born if it wasn't forever?" bemoaned Ionesco; the answer is in the anaatman "no self" doctrine, according to which we cannot die because we were never born. Anaatma is the "middle way" between the extremes of eternalism (the self survives death) and annihilationism (the self is destroyed at death). Buddhism resolves the problem of life-and-death by deconstructing it. The evaporation of this dualistic way of thinking reveals what is prior to it. There are many names for this "prior," but it is surely significant that one of the most common is "the unborn."
In the Pali Canon, what are perhaps the two most famous descriptions of Nirvna both refer to "the unborn," where "neither this world nor the other, nor coming, going, or standing, neither death nor birth, nor sense objects are to be found."


"There is, O monks, an unborn, an unbecome, an unmade, an unconditioned; if, O monks, there were not here this unborn, unbecome, unmade, unconditioned, there would not here be an escape from the born, the become, the made, the conditioned. But because there is an unborn,...therefore there is an escape from the born...."







Philosophy east and west
Volume 40, No.2 (April 1990)
P.151-174
(C) by University of Hawaii Press



David Loy is a tenured professor in the Faculty of International Studies at Bunkyo University in Chagasaki, Japan. Dr. Loy has also served as a Senior Tutor in the Department of Philosophy at the National University of Singapore from 1978 to 1984. Dr. Loy received his BA degree from Carleton College in Northfield , Minnesota, and his MA in Asian Philosophy from the University of Hawaii in Honolulu, Hawaii. Dr. Loy then pursued his PhD in Philosophy at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Loy undertook a Zen journey in 1971 that included attending a sesshin with Yamada Koun-Roshi in Honolulu, Hawaii. Dr. Loy then moved to Kamakura in 1985 to continue Koan study, and in 1987 he completed the formal course of Koan study and was recognized as a Zen sensei. His most recent publications include A Buddhist History of the West: Studies in Lack (2002) and The Great Awakening: A Buddhist Social Theory forthcoming in June 2003. Dr. Loy also sits on the editorial boards of Cultural Dynamics, Worldviews, Contemporary Buddhism, and the Journal of Transpersonal Psychology.

Thursday, March 29, 2012

"The Horrors of an Ayn Rand World: Why We Must Fight for America's Soul" |Gary Weiss/ AlterNet

The whole damned history of the world is a story of the struggle between the selfish and the unselfish! . . . All the bad around us is bred by selfishness. Sometimes selfishness even gets to be a cause, an organized force, even a government. Then it’s called Fascism.
—Garson Kanin, Born Yesterday

Tuesday, March 27, 2012

How Do Obsessive Compulsive People Think? | Psychology Today

In a previous post Those Damn Unwanted Thoughts I indicated how your anxiety often is a result of your fear of your thoughts and sensations. Let's say that you are obsessive and you have the recurring thought, "Maybe I have cancer". But you don't. You've seen the doctor, she tells you that you are fine, you go home and begin thinking again, "Maybe she's wrong. Maybe I have cancer". Then you think, "The fact that I'm thinking that must mean that there is something to worry about. I need to know for sure. I need to do something." So you Google endlessly every possible cancer and expect to see your pretty face appear on the screen......


Walking While Black | Psychology Today

People tend to not be openly racist (at least when filling out a survey) which is not a claim that could be made so confidently in decades past. However, declaring that one is not racist and not behaving in a racially biased manner are two different achievements. In other words, just because someone says, and maybe even believes, that he or she is not racist, does not mean that he or she would not engage in behavior that could be described as racially biased. To illustrate this point let's consider just a few behavioral studies of racism.....


Saturday, March 24, 2012

Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy: "The War On Religion Does Not Exist"

 Apparently, attempts are underway to open a new front in the supposed "war on religion" in my home state of Louisiana as it takes center stage in the presidential primary season. Truth be told, from what I have seen lately, those claiming there is a war on religion are the ones most guilty of waging that assault.......


CONTINUE READING: Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy: The War On Religion Does Not Exist

Friday, March 23, 2012

Paranoia Strikes Deeper By PAUL KRUGMAN

Published: March 22, 2012
Gas prices are bringing out the crazy during this campaign season.


http://www.nytimes.com/2012/03/23/opinion/krugman-paranoia-strikes-deeper.html

Tuesday, March 20, 2012

The Narcissist's Dilemma: They Can Dish It Out, But . . . | Psychology Today

It's precisely this need to be viewed as perfect, superlative, or infallible that makes them so hypersensitive to criticism. And their typical reaction to criticism, disagreement, challenges-or sometimes even the mere suggestion that they consider doing something differently-can lead to the "narcissistic rage" that is another of their trademarks. To.......


"Do Therapists Live Vicariously Through Their Clients?" | Psychology Today

.....In sum, I can think of nothing more important for a therapist than becoming ever more attuned to what their clients have gone through . . . and then communicating to them how such oppressive experiences may likely have affected them. As a direct result of so .....


Afghan Rampage: Who's to Blame? | Psychology Today

Out of context, such a question might sound strange—or possibly stupid. After all, if we're not responsible for our brain and what it tells us to do, who would be? But on the other hand, what if we have a diseased brain—say, a schizophrenic's? Or what if—perhaps because of some combination of traumatic brain injury (TBI), post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and protracted situational stress—we suffer a psychotic break? .............


Wounds That Stay Forever | Psychology Today

The PTSD coach was designed with veterans in mind, but can be used by anyone experiencing the symptoms of PTSD. The app allows users to check in with themselves to determine levels of distress; has features, like the option to upload personal photos or music, that can help manage symptoms; and serves as a complement to ongoing therapy with a mental health professional.......


Sunday, March 18, 2012

"The Real Impact of Food Stamp Cuts" | The Washington Independent

Congress is poised to cut food stamps again, taking more away from an extended benefit created by the 2009 stimulus, before its original expiry date, and setting up an unprecedented “cliff” in food stamps......


"Why I Use Sex Toys to Satisfy My Wife" | AlterNet / Salon

I place the vibrating sex toy, which is packed in a plastic container with the words “Diving Dolphin” written in a wavy blue script, on the counter along with my American Express card. It’s been about one week since Deb and I argued at the Wig and Pen. That’s one week without sex.....


Arizona out-crazies other contraception bills. Use birth control, get fired.

The GOP is all for small government—one that's small enough to drown in a bathtub, but big enough to fill up a uterus......


"This week in the War on Women: Who's ready to go on offense?" ~ DAILY KOS

Raise your hand if you're sick and tired of Republicans waging war on women........

The Truth About The Minimum Wage That Will Make You Gasp

Blame the GOP for $4 gas - Gas Prices - Salon.com

 "......the rise in gas prices has almost nothing to do with energy policy. It has everything to do with America’s continuing failure to adequately regulate Wall Street. But don’t hold your breath waiting for Republicans to tell the truth......"


Friday, March 16, 2012

Natural Born Drillers - Krugsman - NYTimes.com

To be a modern Republican in good standing, you have to believe — or pretend to believe — in two miracle cures for whatever ails the economy: more tax cuts for the rich and more drilling for oil. And with prices at the pump on the rise.........


Wednesday, March 14, 2012

New York Times: 9/11 Truth Movement

READ! Becoming current again......New York Times: 9/11 Truth Movement

Ex-Senators Graham and Kerrey See Possible Saudi 9/11 - LINK -NYTimes.com

For more than a decade, questions have lingered about the possible role of the Saudi government in the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, even as the royal kingdom has made itself a crucial counterterrorism partner in the eyes of American diplomats........


How We're All Paying for Rush Limbaugh to Take Viagra (And Why it Costs a Lot More Than Contraception) | News & Politics | AlterNet

 
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
When conservative blowhards rant, you know they have something on their minds and it’s almost always themselves. So the people who yell loudest about class warfare have waged it successfully on behalf of the 1 percent. And the conservatives complaining about death panels did not object to the real ones in states............


Tuesday, March 13, 2012

Science Daily: Narcissism impairs ethical judgment even among the highly religious, study finds

 "Devout people who are narcissistic and exercise poor ethical judgment would be committing acts that are, according to their own internalized value system, blatantly hypocritical," said Marjorie J. Cooper, Ph.D., study author and professor of marketing at Baylor's Hankamer School of Business. "Narcissism is sufficiently intrusive and powerful that it entices people into behaving in ways inimical to their most deeply-held beliefs"........


The Sun Magazine / Ralph Earle: "At The Heart Of Healing"

 RALPH EARLE lives in the woods near Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He designs Web-based documentation for IBM and occasionally teaches poetry classes at Central Carolina Community College. His poems have recently appeared in Sufi, Wild Goose Poetry Review, and Redheaded Stepchild.


The Sun Magazine / Ralph Earle--- "After the e-mail saying you forgave me"

 From a North Carolina poet, Ralph Earle:

No Words Needed..............


Monday, March 12, 2012

The Right Wing's Pornography of Resentment" ~ Salon

 When Rush Limbaugh calls women sluts and asks for their sex tapes, he's not the first prude who wants to watch.....

Ohio Bill Would Require Men Submit Affidavit From Sex Partner Confirming Impotence Before Receiving Viagra | AlterNet

Fantasize turning the tables......this doesn't get any better!!!!!


Debra Ollivier: "What Men Can Only Learn From Other Men"

"Act Like a Man" delves into this complex turf and profiles eight different men in a men's group, their often painful life stories, and their struggles to move beyond their personal issues and roadblocks with the help of other men. Solin's raw and honest account of his own life is woven into a mix that covers a lot of ground, from love, sex, marriage, divorce, fatherhood and friendship to violence, abuse, even death....

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Side Effects May Incl'ude

In fall 2010, I (the author of the article: Arnie Cooper) wrote an article for Phi Beta Kappa magazine on the risks of using Adderall and other “neuroenhancers” for undergraduate work. Among students there seems to be a widespread myth that these drugs enhance creativity and mental performance. In fact, those outcomes are greatly overstated, and pronounced side effects are frequently associated with abuse of these drugs. Yet studies show that undergraduates are taking them in large numbers, apparently not recognizing the difference between caffeine and what is essentially a refined amphetamine. .........



Will Occupy Embrace Nonviolence? | The Nation

The greater Occupy movement has rightly understood nonviolence not as a negation, the absence of destructiveness, but as a creative endeavor—a repertory for invention. But Occupy has been reluctant to be more explicit about it. An “Open Letter to the Occupy Movement: Why We Need Agreements” makes the case that Occupy should define itself, explicitly, as a movement of “strategic nonviolent direct action.” By renouncing violence against persons or property, Occupy would enhance its appeal to the disabled and people of color, who have good reason to stay away from volatile confrontations. By isolating those who seize the spot...........


Saturday, March 10, 2012

NIMH · PTSD: Stress and Resilience

NIMH · PTSD: Stress and Resilience

Why No One Would Listen: Corporate Whistleblowers Get the Silent Treatment From Washington | MichaelMoore.com

Whistleblowers have been under intense scrutiny in Washington lately, at least when it comes to the national security state.  In recent years, the Obama administration has set a record by accusing no fewer than six government employees, who allegedly leaked classified information to reporters, of violating the Espionage Act, a draconian law dating back to 1917.  Yet when it comes to workers who have risked their careers to expose misconduct in the corporate and financial arena, a different pattern has long prevailed.  Here, the problem hasn’t been an excess of attention from government officials eager to chill dissent, but a dearth of attention that has often left whistleblowers feeling no less isolated and discouraged......

Cheat, lie, break the law? Chances are, you’re rich - The Globe and Mail

Compliments of Want To Know.info
Cheat, lie, break the law? Chances are, you’re rich
2012-02-27, Globe and Mail (One of Canada's leading newspapers)
Posted: 2012-03-06 08:40:51
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/report-on-business/cheat-lie-break-the-law-cha...
The wealthy really are different from everyone else: They’re more likely to cheat, lie, and break the law. At least that’s the unflattering conclusion of a team of professors from the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management and the University of California, Berkeley, who ran a battery of tests involving more than 1,000 people, seeking to answer the question of whether being rich or poor influenced ethical behaviour. In results from seven separate studies, they found a consistent tendency among those they termed “upper-class” to be more likely to break the law while driving, take valued goods from others, lie in negotiations, cheat to increase their chances of winning a prize and endorse unethical behaviour at work. The reason for the ethical difference was simple. Wealthier people are more likely to have an attitude that greed is good. At first glance, it might seem more likely that poorer people would be more tempted to cheat or break the law, in order to improve their lot in life. But a growing body of research is coming to the opposite conclusion – that it’s people at the top of the income scale for whom honesty, integrity, and generosity seem to be a challenge. In the United States, for instance, despite the perception that the rich are great philanthropists, data show that upper-class households donate a smaller proportion of their incomes to charity than do lower-class families. Other research has found that those who are well off have a reduced concern for others......


Vets feel abandoned after secret drug experiments - CNN.com

 (Courtesy of Want To Know.info site)



Vets feel abandoned after secret drug experiments
2012-03-01, CNN
Posted: 2012-03-06 08:46:03
The moment 18-year-old Army Pvt. Tim Josephs arrived at Edgewood Arsenal in 1968, he knew there was something different about the place. "It just did not look like a military base, more like a hospital," recalled Josephs, a Pittsburgh native. Josephs had volunteered for a two-month assignment at Edgewood, in Maryland, lured by three-day weekends closer to home. "It was like a plum assignment," Josephs said. "The idea was they would test new Army field jackets, clothing, weapons and things of that nature, but no mention of drugs or chemicals." But when he went to fill out paperwork the morning after his arrival, the base personnel were wearing white lab coats, and Josephs said he had second thoughts. An officer took him aside. "He said, 'You volunteered for this. You're going to do it. If you don't, you're going to jail. You're going to Vietnam either way -- before or after,'" Josephs said recently. From 1955 to 1975, military researchers at Edgewood were using not only animals but human subjects to test a witches' brew of drugs and chemicals. They ranged from potentially lethal nerve gases like VX and sarin to incapacitating agents like BZ. The military also tested tear gas, barbiturates, tranquilizers, narcotics and hallucinogens like LSD. Josephs, 63, believes the chemical agents he received during his two-month stint at Edgewood [harmed] him, triggering health problems that continue to plague him four decades later.


 CONTINUE READING: Vets feel abandoned after secret drug experiments - CNN.com

Robert B. Reich: The extra dollars you're paying at the pump are going to Wall Street speculators - chicagotribune.com

Nothing drives voter sentiment like the price of gas -- already up nearly 30 cents from the start of the year and hitting $4 in many places. The last time gas topped $4 was 2008.


And nothing energizes Republicans like rising energy prices. House Speaker John Boehner is telling Republicans to take advantage of voters' looming anger over rising prices at the pump. House Republicans have passed a bill to expand offshore drilling and pressure the White House into issuing a permit for the Keystone XL pipeline. The tumult has already prompted the Interior Department to announce expanded oil exploration in the Arctic.


Friday, March 9, 2012

Sounds Crazy, But This Could Be Year of the Woman | Womens eNews

Two days after she announced she would not run again, Olympia Snow was the sole Republican to vote against the Blunt amendment. Defeated in a 51-48 vote, it would have permitted any employer to refuse to provide insurance for contraceptive or other health care based on "moral objections" .........


Why Can’t You Smoke Pot? Because Lobbyists Are Getting Rich Off of the War on Drugs / AlterNet

John Lovell is a lobbyist who makes a lot of money from making sure you can’t smoke a joint. That’s his job. He’s a lobbyist for the police unions in Sacramento, and he is a driving force behind grabbing Federal dollars to shut down the California marijuana industry.......


"there were no words, but images flooded every cell in her being ...4 and a half decades!"

"there were no words, but images flooded every cell in her being ...4 and a half decades!"