Celebrating the Buddhist part of Christmas: I'm swamped. Best wishes for holidays. Will post when/if. Yes, we got snowed in with two feet of snow, plus drifts. 15K people around us lost power; massive clean-up still in process, but it will be a white Christmas for those who celebrate it. Here, we will celebrate the Buddhist Part of Christmas, as usual -- that would be the peace on earth, good will to all sentient beings part of Christmas.
Her father was a rich and powerful man. His name was Francis S. Van Derbur, but his friends -- and he had many -- just called him "Van." He owned mortuaries and made himself a millionaire.More on Ms. Van Derbur here. More on Child Abuse Prevention Month at the National Clearinghouse on Child Abuse and Neglect Information, here.
He was a socialite, a philanthropist, a renaissance man who recited poetry from memory -- and a rapist of children who violated his own daughter hundreds of times.
"Terror was my nightly blanket," Van Derbur writes in her award-winning autobiography, Miss America By Day. . .
When Van Derbur talks about child molestation, her demeanor is fierce, and her turquoise eyes burn with a natural-born warrior's zeal for battle. She rattles off shocking statistics like this: "One in six boys and one in four girls are sexually violated before the age of eighteen in this country; fourteen-year-olds comprise the greatest number of sex offenders of any age group. If those statistics don't frighten you, you are in total denial."
Or sums up the feelings of victims of child molestation like this: "We stay shamed by acting ashamed, when we have nothing to be ashamed of. Together we must say to every violator, 'The child may be mute today, but someday the child will speak her name and your name. The children will speak every single name!'"
Goal: man on moon.
Outcome: man on moon.
Goal: to fly
Outcome: flying
Goal: Medicare Equality for All
Outcome: take steps along path to goal
Cognitive frame: flying is impossible
Outcome: none
Cognitive frame: man on moon is impossible
Outcome: none
Similarly:
Cognitive frame: Medicare Equality for All/ Single=pay is impossible
Outcome: na ga happen
The one time the left pulled the pin, it voted for Nader in 2000. And look how that worked out.
You misunderstand. I’m not talking about the left. I’m talking about the fake “left” that propagated misogyny and CDS and elected Obama. That “left” will never oppose Obama or even attempt to hold him accountable.
No, what I’m talking about is WOMEN needing to play madwoman political bargaining with the Dems. Because when it comes to women’s rights, the Democrats and the Republicans are identical. Women’s rights, including abortion, are nothing more than political bargaining chips.
Let me put it this way: After the Democrats — led by Democrat Bart Stupak — passed the Stupak/Pitts amendment I got all these “call to action” emails from Democrats to save abortion rights by appealing to more Democrats and sending money to more Democrats. It’s deeply, deeply screwed up. And there’s nary a Republican to blame for it.
I’m done. Nothing, not one thing, not a “public option” health insurance plan, not universal health care, not single payer health care, not the success of the historic Obama presidency, not poor people’s rights, not people of color’s rights, not a jobs plan that actually works, not the wars in Afghanistan or Iraq, not the Guantanamo detainees — nothing is worth accepting, putting up with, or losing the battle on this steady erosion of women’s equality. Nothing. My “allies” are on notice. Nothing matters to me but winning this fight on women’s equality. Nobody gets anything from me on any other issue — not money not votes not feet on the street. Nothing.
And voting “yes” or “no” isn’t enough anymore, either. There has to be solid work toward building a coalition that will have the ability and the power to stand firm and pass legislation that will advance women’s equality and thus protect abortion and reproductive rights. And I mean a Constitutional Amendment or a statute that kills the Hyde Amendment, the Global Gag Rule, and Stupak dead for the foreseeable future. That’s all I will accept.
And beyond lack of support, I will oppose every effort that further enshrines or advances women’s inequality. I don’t care what gets scuttled. If you have to suffer until I get my rights, that’s too bad for you. Because nobody gets ahead while I wait. Never again...
As an army psychiatrist treating soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, Major Nidal Malik Hasan had a front row seat on the brutal toll of war. It is too early to know exactly what may have triggered his murderous shooting rampage Thursday at Fort Hood - Hasan is accused of killing 12 people and wounding 32 others before he was wounded by a police officer - but it is not uncommon for therapists treating soldiers with Post Trumatic Stress Disorder (P.T.S.D.) to be swept up in a patient's displays of war-related paranoia, helplessness and fury. .
In medical parlance it is known as "secondary trauma", [vicarious trauma] and it can afflict the families of soldiers suffering from P.T.S.D. along with the health workers who are trying to cure them. Dr. Antonette Zeiss, Deputy Chief of Mental Health Services for Veteran Affairs, while not wishing to talk about the specific case of the Fort Hood slayings, explained to TIME that: "Anyone who works with P.T.S.D. clients and hears their stories will be profoundly affected."
It's entirely possible that other factors may have acted as a trigger for Hasan . . [who] . .had developed strong objections to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he was also due to be shipped out to Afghanistan, drawing him closer to the terrible scenes described in detail by his patients. At army hospitals dealing with P.T.S.D. patients, the staff is required to periodically fill out a 'resiliency' questionnaire that is supposed to gauge how well they are coping with the burden of their patients' emotional and psychological demands. [filling out a questionnaire? Wow, what a profound therapeutic intervention!] "It takes its toll on people," says one officer at a Colorado military hospital. "You cannot be un-affected by the terrible things these soldiers have undergone."
Most army psychiatrists now have a full caseload of men and women returning from combat zones with P.T.S.D.. A survey by the Rand Corp. last April revealed that one in five service men and women are coming back with post-traumatic stress and mental depression. Previously known as "combat fatigue" or being "shell-shocked", P.T.S.D was only diagnosed as an illness in the 1980s, but it has been around for as long as men have been killing one another and undergoing fearful experiences. It can lead to outbursts of rage, emotional numbness, severe depression, nightmares, and the abuse of alcohol and pain-killers. In extreme cases, P.T.S.D. sufferers have committed suicide and murder. Since the late 1980s, doctors have also learned that over time, along with drugs and therapy, P.T.S.D. is curable.
As part of their therapy, PTSD sufferers are typically asked to dredge up their worst wartime memories. [this is crap. it is also not standard of care. Note the "dredge up' frame, too.]Hearing these nightmarish experiences can stir up powerful reactions in even the most seasoned therapists [note how writer demonizes empathy]. One Colorado sergeant, diagnosed with P.T.S.D., who had served as a dog-handler in Iraq, told me how his psychiatric counselor had broke down sobbing after the soldier described how he had been sent out to find the remains of his close friend, a helicopter pilot, shot down in southern Iraq. "I looked up, and there she was crying," the sergeant says. "I didn't want that from a shrink." [well, that's crap, sergeant.]
But there is a major difference, says Veteran Affairs' Zeiss, between a therapist being moved by combat horror stories and being traumatized by them - though it can happen. "Psychiatrists are trained to notice their own reactions and emotions, and if there's something hard to deal with, they should turn to their peers," she says. [This is incorrect. One should not turn to one's peers. One should go get oneself a competent therapist] But according to some news reports, Hasan's unprofessional conduct was red-flagged early on; at Walter Reed he was given a poor performance report, but that did not hinder his transfer to Fort Hood.
And for even the most hardened army psychiatrist, that would be a grueling assignment. [note how sentence equates "hardness" with competence. Besides being a sexist frame, "hardening" is more like "numbing," a symptom of PTSD] Fort Hood has the highest suicide rate of any army base in the country, largely because so many service men and women stationed there have undergone severe trauma while deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. At Fort Hood, in other words, there was no shortage of horrific tales that could have set loose the demons in Hasan's mind.
Deaths in US army base shooting
. . . Lieutenant-General Bob Cone, the base's commanding officer, said the shooting took place at about 1:30pm local time (1930 GMT) on Thursday at a Soldier Readiness Facility.
The suspect has been named as Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a 39-year-old army psychiatrist.
"There was a single shooter that was shot multiple times at the scene. He was not killed as previously reported. He is currently in custody and in stable condition," Cone said.
Hasan was born in the US to Muslim Palestinian parents who had emigrated from a small town near Jerusalem, US media said. . .
Josh Rushing, Al Jazeera's correspondent at Fort Hood, Texas, said: "[Hasan] is a first-generation American. He joined the army after high school and went to the Virginia Tech university to get a psychiatry degree through a military programme.
"He became a psychiatrist at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington ... where he counselled soldiers coming back from war.
"Every day, he heard how horrible those stories were and he really started to question the wars, according to what his cousin and sources who knew him said.
"Hasan became more devout in his religion and started arguing with soldiers about whether the wars were right or not, to the point where he received disciplinary action and negative work reviews.
"He was transferred to the medical facility here at Fort Hood, where apparently these feelings continued.
"It raises a major question - how can a person responsible for the mental health of soldiers returning [from war] be allowed to continue in this profession when he has these kinds of questions himself?"
The rampage occurs at a time of stress for the US armed services burdened by two wars, with commanders struggling to ease the effect of repeated combat tours on troops and their families.
Repeated deployments
Suicides in the army hit a record level last year, with at least 128 taking their lives, and are on track to set a new high this year - surpassing the rate among the wider civilian population.
US commanders believe repeated deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan have played a role in the spike in suicides, as well a surge in post-traumatic stress and depression.
Hasan faced his own imminent deployment for military service, officials said.
Nader Hasan, a cousin, said Hasan was "mortified by the idea of having to deploy" and that he had been harassed by other soldiers for being a Muslim.
He told the New York Times newspaper that Hasan had retained a lawyer and sought to get out of the army before the end of his contract.
