Dazed and confused?

        What follows is not based on personal religious belief (or lack thereof) but is rather my commentary on the hypocrisy on constant display by those who, while carping constantly about the “scriptural foundations” of their lives, prove the lie of that statement in their daily action and attitudes.

            There are about 3,000 verses in the Bible that are concerned with social justice, taking care of the poor, the stranger, attitudes of kindness and compassion. It is dominant in the Old Testament (with the occasional time out for mass murder and selling one's daughter into slavery) and the New Testament and there is very little ambiguity in the texts. (Caveat here: this is never actually read in the original by ranting and raving muscular Evangelicals,)    

        So why are those issues not the dominant concern, of professing Christians, today? If abortion continues to be the number one priority for so many Christians at the expense of the issues the Bible does instruct on, are those who make it their only priority not giving the issue an almost idolatrous seat? I’m not saying abortion cannot be an important personal issue to a Christian, but there is no, as in zero, scriptural or historical justification for its being the number one issue, at the expense of the “least of these” who are suffering and have suffered at the hands of “good Christians” now and over the previous thousands of years.

       At this point I’ll “preface" my conclusion, which is that the abortion/prolife controversy is, in truth, fairly recent and that, only because it has been hijacked as a trigger point by evangelical preachers and their political cronies. It is instructional that Donald Trump became a “right to lifer” as a candidate after urging his pregnant girlfriend to abort her pregnancy rather than marry her, which he did when she refused. In so proclaiming, he garnered the immediate allegiance of the Evangelicals who have bought into this single issue at the expense of true moral behavior.   

       Not only did most well-known Christian theologians not take a strong stance on abortion, but neither do the strictest laws of the Old Testament. Anyone who has studied Old Testament law knows that very little goes unaddressed, from hair style to fabric choice! Yet, as Ignacio Castuera points out in A Social History of Christian Thought on Abortion, “The only passage that deals directly with the death of a fetus is Exodus 21: 23, which describes the penalty to be incurred for hurting a pregnant woman accidentally during a fight between two men. According to the Septuagint, if the fetus has not yet assumed complete human shape, the penalty is a monetary fine; but if the fetus is fully formed, the penalty is death. Thus, in ancient Israel, killing a fetus that was not viable was never considered murder.” Even today, most Jewish teachings hold that life begins not at conception but at birth and, unsurprisingly, 83% of America Jews believe abortion should be legal in most cases.

       In the New Testament, there is no direct teaching on abortion. Jesus does not address the topic specifically and not one of His parables talks about ending a pregnancy. Neither do any of Paul’s letters mention abortion. Let me restate: There is absolutely no New Testament discussion re: abortion.  Abortion was very prevalent in many of the places Paul visited – we know this from other historical texts, and as he mentions in his letters, these cities were brimming with prostitution and illicit sexual activity. In fact, Paul never had a problem speaking out on any topic he believed followers of Christ should pay attention to!

        This makes it very interesting that abortion was obviously not a topic of enough priority for Paul to even mention because, contrary to the many people on Facebook/Twitter/church signs/billboards who confront us with a challenge to “READ THE WORD ABOUT ABORTION,” he never does (mention it). And Paul was not ambiguous or shy about addressing anything he deemed important for a Christian life. There is no “Word” on abortion.

       So, when and why did the shift in mainstream Christianity and the Catholic Church against abortion take place if it had been unprecedented among all the other Christian controversies throughout history? The various factors are numerous and too esoteric to explore in-depth in this rant, however, the principal and constant underlying theme of these changes in Catholic Church doctrine, conservative Protestant socio-economics, politics and culture would seem to be a reaction towards movements to advance women’s rights and liberalism. There was a gradual shift of resistance towards such changes and views and laws on contraception, and abortion started changing within that resistance. Ultimately, it would become a political tool feeding the increased use of propaganda rhetoric that would take over thousands of churches in the 1980s.

         While the Church had always held that stopping a pregnancy around week 23-24 was morally wrong and it sometimes held the position that this was akin to murder, strong teaching and laws against late-term abortion due to concern for the mother’s health and first and second trimester abortion restriction was a new thing starting around in the late 1800’s. Another new thing about the same time - the idea of women’s independence, leadership and the suffrage movements at the turn of the century. You decide if this is coincidence or not; but I believe that the evidence suggests otherwise.

        In 1860 the American Medical Association initiated the biggest change in abortion views ever recorded in history. Castuera says, “Although their motives were blatantly tinged with self-interest, these mostly Protestant doctors persuaded a number of states to adopt anti-abortion laws that stayed on the books for a century. With these efforts, the AMA managed to put some of its competitors out of business, restrict the public role of women in bourgeois society, and strengthen the control of conventional male doctors over the field of medicine. It simply cannot be argued that abortion did not exist in Biblical times or during the time of Augustine and every other century until the 19th – the only thing that did begin to change was a liberation for women due to progress and a change in cultural and social values in the late 1800s.

        I believe the evidence suggests that political forces and resistance to change, the increasingly strong suffrage movement and later women’s rights movements, are truly behind the shift in views on abortion and women’s health, and the topic has become an intersection for conservative politicians to reach voters. Women in such groups have been gulled into campaigning and voting against their own self-interest.   

        Understand the implication of the above:  In a very real sense, the medical profession transformed abortion from a moral issue into a medical procedure and imposed the authority of physicians over it.” This shift also impacted women’s health in the 19th century as doctors started becoming pressured to not perform abortions or stop pregnancy from occurring, so women found at-home ways to end pregnancy, which often resulted in their deaths. Most, except maybe some on the very far left, believe that once a child is able to live on its own outside the womb, abortion should be out of the question apart from cases of the viability of the fetus and health of the mother. Furthermore, only 1.3 percent of abortions are “late term” (after 21 weeks), and these are almost always the result of a danger to the mother’s life or incurable illness within the child. It is a heart-breaking decision for parents and one that has had to be made for hundreds of years, amidst great devastation.

       The next big shift occurred in the 1980s when political conservatives organized around the topic of abortion and the “moral majority” and Religious Right churches were borne. Over the years, and in personal conversations or reading the writings of both conservative and progressive evangelicals, Christians of varying denominations and Catholics, a consistent theme emerges. Whatever their position now, most if not all, consistently maintain or at least, if honest, will admit that before the 1980’s, abortion was never a prioritized topic of the church except rarely in minority groups. It was not a measure of one’s Christianity as it seems to have become today and being called a “Christian Democrat” was not an unusual nor taboo thing. This major shift came about, not because of a “new Christian doctrine” or new book added to the Bible (there was no Dead Sea Scroll on abortion found in 1980…), but through political efforts by the GOP and conservative groups.

       This “political doctrine” has become religious and scriptural doctrine for millions, without question. A good part of this knee jerk response to the natterings of Evangelical preachers is the parallel elevation to iconic stature by political figures of men like Billy Graham, Oral Roberts and other shamans selling God by the pound on TV. You know “Abortion is wrong and oh yeah, send me the money you reserved for medication.”

       There is no doubt of the sincerity of many Christians who hold an extreme anti-abortion view. Sincerity should not, however, be conflated with validity. The Zodiac killer was sincere, so were Idi Amin and Stalin. This not an argument in any way that the topic of abortion is not an important one, or to be taken lightly in any way. However, as mentioned earlier, it is simply impossible to justify the prioritization of the abortion issue over a host of other issues from a Biblical and historical viewpoint, especially when Biblical passages concerning other social and moral issues are so prominent.

        In summary: It simply cannot be argued that abortion did not exist in Biblical times or during the time of Augustine and every other century until the 19th – the only thing that did begin to change was a liberation for women due to progress and a change in cultural and social values in the late 1800s, and abortion opposition became a political propaganda tool which would take over thousands of churches by (and primarily in) the 1980s. The church has moved to the extreme Right on this issue, to the point that anyone holding even a moderate view on abortion, is portrayed as a far left radical and in fact an accessory to murder! Remember, these moderate views held by many Progressives are in fact to the Right of the Bible and the founders of the Christian faith. 

       The majority of Americans do not fit into either a “pro-life” or “pro-choice” box but believe in a moderate view that protects both women’s rights and the unborn. The major point here is: if more Christians would only start prioritizing the things Jesus their scriptures tell them, their focus would look drastically different than it does now as a Body.

        There simply is no “pro-life” label in the Bible, but there is one instance in which Jesus did label believers. It is in Matthew 25, in a parable called the Sheep and the Goats, in which he labels those who did or did not help the sick, the poor, care about those in prison and care for the stranger (he doesn’t specify that they must be “documented”). As portrayed in the New Testament and proclaimed as the “Word of God” by those rabid Evangelicals, their Savior made clear His priorities, yet many true believers, rather than following these  simple instructions,  have chosen instead to be used by politicians who have succeeded for several decades in transforming their  Christian culture into a voting machine by pushing the “abortion  button.” They are using the unborn and even the tragic circumstances surrounding abortion to do it, and that is the real disgrace.

Fake News and Bigotry

                                

       I’ve had a couple of interesting exchanges via e-mail over the last several days with a dear friend who happens to have somewhat different political beliefs than I. It started with him forwarding to me a spam chain e-mail which has been around for over five years. Purporting to be from a “union retiree” it is a list of the same old discredited claims re: the Obamas. It ranges from the “birther” controversy to the “fake” Social Security number thingy to the Law license “suspended,” to you name it. It even carps because the Obama girls’ birth certificates aren’t available for public scrutiny and that “no one remembers Barack from Columbia.” Maybe my (un) favorite is the whining complaint re: “Why can’t I find and read his ‘thesis’ from Columbia.” This begs the issue that a no liberal arts (Political Science) Baccalaureate degree is a “thesis” issue in the first place and apparently what is being referenced is a paper written for a political science seminar. I wrote many of these, I have retained none. So, sue me.

        Every single one of these false allegations has been discredited multiple times. The “thesis” thing floors me because no one has ever asked for any such document from any other president that I am aware. Moreover, who the hell cares anyway, since the man is out of office?  Why the continual efforts to cast aspersions on this particular former president? My personal theory is that it is a concerted effort to take attention from the pathetic tantrum prone man-child currently in the White House. Having dispensed factually with all the fake news “charges,” one has to ask “so why the continuing disaffection? Can it be the Obama attempts to make sure more Americans have health care, even if it was flawed by a recalcitrant Congress? There is no other single legislative talking point ever mentioned in these attacks, save the occasional anti-Muslim rhetoric.     

        There is a logical reasoning tool which can be applied here. “Occam’s Razor” refers to its originator, William of Ockham, an English Franciscan friar, scholastic philosopher, and theologian. It is a thought tool for arriving at logical conclusions when presented with multiple data sets. It  is usually stated thus (paraphrased in the modern by Swinburn): ... “The simplest hypothesis proposed as an explanation of phenomena is more likely to be the true one than is any other available hypothesis, that its predictions are more likely to be true than those of any other available hypothesis, and that it is an ultimate a priori epistemic principle that simplicity is evidence for truth.”  

        I know – “huh?”  Let’s apply Occam here: when all allegations of impropriety/ obfuscation/ and poor behavior related in any way to the Obamas, their children and their dog have been dispensed with as simply slanderous maligning, all that’s left is the matter of race. Period.

         My friend, yes, he is and will always be my friend, because civil persons can disagree and remain friends, stated after about three e-mail exchanges, “I wish you’d forget that he’s Black.” I actually laughed out loud at that, because the response which immediately came to mind was two-fold. The first was “You wish I would, because you can’t.” The second was like unto it, “Reminding you that racism drives your anti-Obama sentiment makes you uncomfortable.” In my friend’s case, it probably does because he is, at heart, a truly decent person and a product of environment and experience.

        When I analyze the attitudes of the anti-Obama faction, I simply cannot grasp any other factor which accounts for the maltreatment visited upon this American family in the absence of race as the factor. The Bush girls were law breakers, ditching their Secret Service details to go drinking illegally on fake IDs, and brother Neil was a financial disaster, whose daddy (H.W.) engineered a massive bailout of his failed S & L. As a younger woman, in 1963, Laura Bush killed a young man in an auto accident where she was at fault. Ever hear of it? Texas officials attempted for years to keep it under wraps.  Didn’t think so.

        Nixon was a spouse abusing, race baiting (the “Southern Strategy)” drunken (read Kissinger’s book re: “too drunk to take a call from Margaret Thatcher”) anti-Semite (the “tapes” prove it) and obstructer of Justice. He still was not a recipient of the level of personal animosity and certainly not the absolute lies hurled at the Obamas. Billy Carter was just a joke. Imagine if an Obama had acted in similar manner. Even the hated (by the right who couldn’t stand his success) Bill Clinton took less flak for his transgressions than the unblemished Obamas.

        So, when all else is irrelevant, what’s left? Too much golf? Trump is well on the way to eclipsing Obama’s golfing frequency, and at greater cost. Still, ask most Obama haters, and they’ll bring up golf. In truth, Wilson and Eisenhower both played more golf than Obama and this was during five years of WW I in Wilson’s case. I am not criticizing either man, but of course, they are Caucasian, so no one else is either.

       How about that damned bailout of the banks “too big to fail?” Ask the man who coined the phrase and signed the TARP legislation, the cost of which, estimated at $63 Billion, actually came in at around $35 billion. That man lives in Texas now, of course, having left the details (and the bill) to the Obama Administration.

       OK, then it must be all those Executive Orders, huh?  Overall, Obama ranks 16th among presidents in total number of executive orders issued and 21st in the average number issued per year, and as a yearly average, behind Trump, Reagan, “W” Bush, Eisenhower and Nixon. While one may disagree regarding the subjects, the frequency is below that of any President since Herbert Hoover.

        So, is it the Immigration issue? The “Muslim” issue? If so, those are also symptoms of the racist bias alluded to earlier. One can’t have it any other way.

        In general, in 75 years of life on this planet, the biggest advantage I have had (other than my wife and children) is that I was raised in a household where I was taught, by example, to take each individual as simply that. The fallacy of classifying by the group (prejudice, bias) is stated so well in the movie “Gettysburg,” by Sgt. “Buster” Kilrain, that I’ll simply close with it.  “Well, if you mean the race, I don't really know. This is not a thing to be ashamed of. The thing is, you cannot judge a race. Any man who judges by the group is a pea-wit. You take men one at a time.”   So it should be.     

John Stossell, Captaining the Ship of Fools

        John Stossel apparently has a simplistic approach to op-ed. If anyone disagrees with a position he holds, his immediate response is to brand them “leftists.”  He did it defending $99 per bottled water sold by extortionate merchants in the wake of Hurricane Harvey and today he has decided anyone disagreeing with the general ban on DDT is also leftist.

        Also, as he frequently does, he spurns research, instead simply finding one other person who agrees with him (or appears to) and extrapolating that to a basic truth binding on all humanity.  Added to that is Stossel’s assertion that the true anti-science Americans are (here’s that word again)  “leftists” citing one author who may be the only person in the world who holds to Stossels’s opinion.

        Where to begin? Let’s start, as I did, by immediately recalling the Bush 43 administration's rapid move to ban any government funding of stem cell research. While I’d call that pretty damned “anti-science” Stossel’s confrere points out that even though all federal funding was cut, private researchers stepped up, so it doesn’t count. Yeah, John, it does, since the Republican administration, encouraged by the “Christian” right, was the massive moving force behind such legislation.

        Stossel devotes a fair amount of column space to slandering a dead woman – the late Rachel Carson, author of “The Silent Spring.”  He derogates her work, questioning her own four years of research, which he apparently simply doesn’t know is based on a mountain of post WW II research on DDT and other pesticides/carcinogens by a host of scientists. A short summary is necessary for those too young to have lived through it.

       

 The above photo pretty much sums up the problem generated by pesticide companies, who, like Big Tobacco would later, simply ignored and denied, when confronted with even the possibility that saturating the environment with DDT could possibly have any downside. The photo shows kids on a beach being subjected to clouds of DDT, suspected than and known absolutely now, to have the following specific properties as well as being a precursor to a host of other cancers:

Dr Suess "Flit" commercial. DDT was everywhere and on/in everything!

The USDA found DDT breakdown products in 60% of heavy cream samples, 42% of kale greens, 28% of carrots and lower percentages of many other foods.

DDT breakdown products were found in the blood of 99% of the people tested by CDC.

Girls exposed to DDT before puberty are 5 times more likely to develop breast cancer in middle age. 

       It should  be noted that Dr. Carson's work, focused on wildlife, as she was a marine biologist by training, but the human effects are just as alarming.

        Even with that damning evidence, DDT was not “banned” as Stossel implies, by “leftists, but by the Nixon administration, which also created the EPA by Nixon Executive order. Was he right to do so? Hell yes, he was; at the time streams like the Cuyahoga River, in Cleveland sometimes actually caught fire due to pools of floating refinery effluents. Lake Erie was almost dead, both of which conditions were alleviated and eventually remedied by EPA regulations. The Cuyahoga is clean, and the lake’s fishery is robust after years of decline pre-EPA. In fact, on balance, I consider the EPA Nixon’s finest hour, and maybe his only real legacy worth claiming. That is not to say that, they don’t ever “overregulate’ but every agency needs external watchdogs.  

          What Stossel omits, almost surely by intent, is the factual matter which frames the issue. There is a parallel here with another “banned” pesticide – Chlordane.

        Nothing kills termites like Chlordane……. that is, until it was banned in 1988 and safe, effective substitutes were soon found. Chlordane or the chemicals that chlordane changes into were found to accumulate in fish, birds, and mammals. Chlordane, carcinogenic like its decay products, stays in the environment for many years and is still found in food, air, water, and soil. Why? because like DDT, agriculturists operated, encouraged by the manufacturers of these poisons, on the premise that, “If a little is good against termites, why not use it on vegetables and fruits?” …and boy did they ever! Chlordane is still commonly found in some form in the fat of fish, birds, mammals, and almost all humans 30 years later! 

        The effects of DDT outlined above are significant to the point that public health concerns, accompanied by an ever-growing mountain of evidence, not, mind you any anti-science conspiracy, resulted in 2001 in a world-wide ban, by accords signed in Stockholm (damned Swedish Socialists!) Reading Stossel’s rant, one will find no evidence of any such global action, but there is a “rest of the story” also missing from his screed. While DDT is banned per the Stockholm accords and US policy that language is accompanied by one significant added caveat conveniently overlooked by John Stossel.  DDT is permitted for use for “public health and humanitarian” usage.

         Stossel mentions Malaria, a crisis illness in much of Africa, blaming it solely on lack of usage of DDT, which in truth could almost eradicate it.  There are several gaping omissions here, however.  

         First, if an African nation really wished to, it could still obtain and use DDT, as malaria is a (“the”) major public health concern in these nations. Why don’t they? Ask the leaders of these nations who live palatially while their people die of a preventable disease  

        Second, there are ongoing studies on many fronts, pesticidal, bacteriological and environmental (like cleaning up/’eliminating standing water and stocking small native fish which eat mosquito larvae.) All have exhibited some degree of success.  Combinations of these strategies have reduced malaria in some areas by more than 50%, but no strategy absent strong local government support (that damned “gummint” again!) will work, be it DDT, insecticide treated sleeping nets, any of a dozen other “approved” pesticides, or whatever.  

        Again, summarizing, John Stossel calls out “leftists” (his catchall label for anyone who disagrees with him) and smears Rachel Carson’s legacy while insulting her scientific creds. Here’s a dose of reality:  

          Attacks on Carson from groups like The Competitive Enterprise Institute and Africa Fighting Malaria portray DDT as the simple solution to malaria and blame Carson, often personally, for “millions of deaths in Africa.” Many of these DDT promoters are also in the business of denying climate change and defended the tobacco industry by denying the health harms of smoking. Folks, these cancer and climate deniers aren’t “Leftists” by any stretch. Their position seems to be that science is "good" if they profit from it, otherwise, Socialist bunk.

           Stossel’s apparent mantra is something like “Profits sighted, damn the consequences, full speed ahead, ship of fools.”

Naked and Afraid

        A former colleague and long-time friend, an attorney and university law professor, messaged me via FB to ask what my thoughts were regarding the possibility of a Trump firing of the special prosecutor. I will, in a few sentences, post her query and my response to her and then, in a second essay/blog post, go on at considerable length on a related topic. 

        The concept of special prosecutor in the US actually originated in the states, and it wasn’t until after the Civil War that the first federal special prosecutor was appointed. While this was a Presidential appointment made by Grant directly, all subsequent such appointments have been made via the Attorney General’s office. It is important to remember that the Attorney General’s office is now the presumptive (for 150 years) hire/fire nexus for special prosecutors.

         The first, John B. Henderson, was appointed by Ulysses Grant in 1875 to investigate the Whiskey Ring scandal. After attempting to stifle Henderson's investigation of the president's personal secretary (who was almost certainly “dirty” and involved), Grant fired Henderson on the basis that Henderson's statements to a grand jury regarding Grant were “impertinent.” (yes, really – impertinence!) I must admit that if “impertinence" was still a firing offense; my own CV would be significantly different. The real issue was a thinly veiled allegation that Grant had lied in a deposition to protect his secretary, a former general serving under him in the war. Following public criticism for the blatant protection, bordering on perjury,  of his secretary, Grant appointed a new special prosecutor to continue the investigation.

Here’s the original post from my friend:

“Mike Dorman, Tim Langham and any other history buff- your thoughts please on Justice Department lawyers potentially making some kind of public protest in advance of Trump working to fire the Special Counsel. Hearing that something like that happened when Nixon was President. I can google this, but I'd like your take in relation to the modern day.”

My response:

“Cindy: Nixon did order Archibald Cox fired after he subpoenaed the White House tapes, and, after AG Elliott Richardson and his second in command refused to do so, the third man in line, one Robert Bork, (later failed USSC nominee and all-around dick) was more than willing and Cox was fired. This whole fiasco has been styled "The Saturday Night Massacre". 

       Nixon then declare the special prosecutor gone (mandate dissolved), but the hue and cry was such that Leon Jaworski was appointed by Bork as Cox's replacement. As we know, Jaworski doggedly insisted on getting the tapes and they were so damning that, in the light of the tapes and the testimony of Alexander Butterfield, John (“Cancer on the Presidency”) Dean and Jeb Magruder, Nixon resigned, facing almost certain impeachment otherwise.

        Now...are we even considering that Jeff Sessions has Elliott Richardson's backbone or character? Not a chance. I have a better chance of playing center for the Magic. Sadder yet, is that there are those among our citizenry who believe every word uttered by the bigot in chief. For them, the quest for truth is not about all the things Trump, his reprehensible spawn and co-conspirators/spawns-in-law have (collusion with Russia/campaign fraud) done or haven't (tax releases/divesting of interests) done. As In Living Color sang, “it's the cult of personality.” The emperor is naked and afraid and no one gives a shit among his sycophant base. All those things he tells them are threats aren't...he is.”

        After writing this, I resumed the inner search to try to, at some level, understand why Trump’s supporters still support such a venal and corrupt man. While most of their reasoning, such as it might be, eludes me, there is one factor which is so contradictory as to make my head hurt. 81% of Evangelical Christians voted for Trump, and most of those because, after urging Marla Maples to consider aborting his first child (Tiffany, the daughter we rarely hear about) he became, coincidentally right around election time, pro-life. More about that mystery next blog post.  

A "Healthy?" Skepticism

       Anyone who knows me knows that I am a skeptic in some areas. Religion, Political motives and the altruism of Donald Trump are examples. I am also, however, likely to be skeptical in some areas where it’s just me and for no particularly good reason.

        “The XXXX that doctors don’t want you to know” is a personal alarm bell. Like Seinfeld asks, “Who are these people and why don’t they want us to know?”  Sadly, if one gets suckered into reading an article with such a heading it’s usually something truly banal and a sales pitch, like “Our Beet juice and raisin cocktails are nature’s laxative.”

        Anything labeled as “Crazy” gets my guard up. “Use this ‘crazy’ technique to improve your (your issue here)”. Especially when used in conjunction with “Hack,” it is almost always something not only not crazy, but not even really unusual or effective.

        Any man who calls himself “Bull.”  This screams of deeply embedded inner assumed inadequacy. “Buck” and “Duke” are close seconds. A related category and close second is the invented name, like “Jeb” or “Chip.” This is, of course, unless your name really is something like “Jebediah” or “Chipworth.” I can also spare the criticism if your name is the three initials J.E.B. as in Jeb Bush, although the names "JEB" and "W" would seem to imply that the elder Bushes had difficulty remembering the actual names of their spawn. Neil, apparently doesn’t even rate an acronym.  

        Claims by Chiropractors to actually be doctors. I know, I know, you love yours, but I don’t give a shit. The originator of this sham “medical” field claimed to be able to cure Smallpox by spinal manipulation, and there are those who still ascribe to the “Palmer method.” "Doctor" Palmer also invented the word "subluxation" to describe what he identified as  "misalignment" which, according to him,  caused actual bacterial diseases as well as general discomfort. (yes, really, I'm not making this up.) 
       Modern chiropractors have at least had the decency to admit that there is no such thing as "subluxation."  Likewise, claiming to cure a cold with spinal manipulation implies that viruses can be killed with external pressure. They cannot. There are, I’m sure, some practitioners who still cling to the title probably because it sounds so good to be called “doctor” with about the same amount of education as a master’s in any real discipline.
        A good licensed massage therapist will treat you with proven manual manipulation methods until you are better; most chiropractors will treat you forever, as long as you have money. That is, assuming they don't kill you with gratuitous vitamin overload or electric shock first.

        Gratuitous and ludicrous labeling of all sorts. Actual label: “Warning, contains nuts” on a package labeled "mixed nuts" with a picture of the alleged nuts on it. It had f*****g well better contain nuts! Similarly, “premium” bottled water labeled “kosher, gluten free and organic.”  The technical meaning of "organic" has become so bastardized as to be almost irrelevant. In fact, all the meat and veg we eat are organic, in that they contain carbon, while the water mentioned above is H₂O, ergo non-organic! “Gluten free” is the worst, since all that is required in most cases is the addition of those words to the label. Of course, orange juice, peas and potato chips are gluten free; they don’t contain wheat.
        Sadly, this is compounded by the current myths surrounding gluten. Gluten is an issue if you have celiac disease. If you are one of the less than 1% of Americans with celiac, avoid it. People who have celiac disease have strong digestive distress when they eat food containing gluten and can even react to trace amounts. When they eat gluten, their immune systems turn on their bodies and attack the lining of the small intestine.
       Some mythically believe a gluten free diet helps with weight loss. Horse puckey. Reducing gluten won't reduce your "glutes." Between organic (Whole Foods Market's slang for “more expensive and insect damaged”), Non-GMO and Gluten Free, we have become a nation of label watchers, rather than informed consumers and judges of what’s actually healthy for us individually.

      Now, if you'll excuse me I'll return to writing my latest poem, "Ode to my Organic, non-GMO, Vegan Bicycle."

Recent Darwin Award Winners, posthumously bestowed as always!

       Darwin awards are annual acknowledgement of proof(s) of Charles Darwin’s observation/postulation of the survival of the fittest. Unfortunately, these awards tend to focus on the demise of the unfittest and most mentally challenged. Some recent ones are submitted for your chuckles and gasps of disbelief. (c’mon, you know you’re gonna laugh over at least one!)

(June 2017, Russia) In a tale of Russian intelligence--or lack thereof--an amorous couple died while procreating in the back seat of their Russian-made Niva SUV situated near a beautiful lake. I stipulate "Situated" rather than "parked" because they left the vehicle’s transmission in neutral. The rocking motions of the passengers, Mr. Chernov and Ms. Kryuchkova, caused the small SUV to roll into the lake and below the waterline, whereupon the 22-year-old man and woman were drowned. One is inclined to believe that vodka may have been involved, as well.

(25 March 2017, Mexico) Standing on a truck on an airport runway, our Double-Darwin Award Winners Nitzia and Clarissa chose a very poorly selected and, ultimately, regrettable location for a cell phone selfie. Ms. Corral, 18, and Ms. Miranda, 17, were attending horse races that were held on a track adjacent to the runway. According to the Diario de Chihuahua, the noise of the races and the desire for a new profile picture distracted the young women. They didn’t hear the motor of the descending aircraft, and the wing of the small plane struck and killed them instantly. This does, however, provide just one more good reason to hate the current selfie craze.

(April 2017, Argentina) "Divine punishment," said the judge, explaining his decision not to imprison a man who shot himself in the testicles while carrying an illegal weapon in his waistband. The man lost his family jewels, his job as a security guard, and was faced with years in prison until the court ruled that he had been punished enough by a higher authority. Instant karma? Certainly, instant neutering, at least.

(9 April 2017, France) Locked in his bedroom in Rouen by his mother, a 47-year-old French man attempted to leave by climbing down the ethernet cable. He chose this rout(er?) because his concerned mother had locked him in his room to prevent him from intoxicating himself. Being heavier than a few gigabytes, his weight was too much for the cable and he crashed to the street from the 9th story apartment. The doctors could not resuscitate him after this “rapid download”, yet one must believe that anyone this determined was bound to have ultimately found another way to remove himself from the gene pool.

(5 September 2017, California) In what any southerner would recognize as a “Hey you guys watch this” lapse of judgement, moment, a fun-loving clown’s last act was to pilot a golf cart towed by garden hose behind a vehicle on State Highway 4, east of Angels Camp. The golf cart swerved across the double yellow line and directly into the path of a Ford truck, causing a head-on collision that instantly killed the 28-year-old. It’s probably just as well, as he was planning to put a sheet around his shoulders and jump off the roof next.

(14 February 2018, Berlin) A 19-year-old and his soon-to-be-ex were walking along the beautiful Havel River, quarreling.  The frustrated man suddenly shoved the woman into the icy river, jumping in to push her under again and again!  In a truly Darwinian twist, she could swim, he could not...! She swam safely to land and quickly recovered from hypothermia. He sank and lost consciousness in the 2°C waters and was pulled out by police and transported to hospital in Berlin, where he fell into a coma, and an arrest warrant was issued against him for "attempted homicide for low motives." He was never tried, because although the crime was committed on December 19^th, the perpetrator died on February 14th-- an ironic date indeed--from irreversible brain damage.

The woman fully recovered (and is arguably better off without this madman) while the diabolical and drowned deed-doer was Darwinian-dumb.

(30 January 2018, Gaza) An Arab sexagenarian was examining his personal weapon in his home when he inadvertently shot himself in the face. Twenty-one days after accidentally shooting himself, Abu Hamam, 62, succumbed to the self-inflicted head-bang and died clutching a Darwin Award. But, as they say, there’s more!

Abu was known to the world as Imad al-Alami, a founding member of Hamas, a militant group that has been the de facto governing authority of the Gaza Strip since 2007 and declared a specially designated global terrorist by the United States

One would assume that a senior member of Hamas knew how to handle a gun--yet Abu's incautious "personal weapons inspection" was unexpectedly daft. This Darwin’s for you, Abu!

Most of us when driving are trying to “beat” traffic, but…..(22 January 2016, Michigan) Referred in the police report to as a "distracted driver," Clifford Ray Jones, 58, was driving without pants -- without seatbelt -- and with a porno flick screening on his mobile device. Add a wide-open sunroof on a cold winter Sunday, and you have a recipe for disaster. He should have kept his hands on the wheel instead of the “stick.”  In the wee hours (at 3:40am) Clifford's Toyota went out of control on the onramp to I-75, rolled, and crashed, “ejaculating” our hero through the sunroof in a spectacular “climax” to his life. Come and gone, Clifford and his beloved winky will be fondly remembered in Darwin Award archives.

And finally, answering the age-old question, “Just how f*****g stupid can one human be?” here’s a vintage Darwin escapade from 1992.

(1992, California) Snakes flick their forked tongues in the air to "smell" the world, collecting molecules and analyzing them by pressing their tongue tips them into small olfactory pits. An inebriated twenty-year-old man, apparently unaware of this biological fact, took umbrage when a wild rattlesnake stuck out its tongue at him. Not to be outdone, he held the rattler in front of his face and stuck his tongue out right back. The snake expressed its displeasure at this turn of events by biting the conveniently offered body part. The toxic venom swelled the man's face and throat, choking him to death. (I got nuthin’ here, it’s just too damned dumb!)

I hope you enjoyed seeing that no matter how bad your day has been, it could be worse.  So, until next years’ awards….