With an estimated 40,000 lives lost in the cyclone three days ago, the Burmese dictatorship has said they will today allow humanitarian aid to come into Burma, along with aid workers. There may be tremendous good come from this horrible disaster – that the Burmese receive sypathetic and kind touches from others for once. – that stories come out of Burma via the aid givers; true stories instead of those filtered through the regime. Hopefully Senior General Than Shwe wont require all...

What do you have when you have two intelligent people who are married to one another and are suddenly in the White House and it’s 2008 not 1778? I think you have some amalgamation of at least a president and a half, if not a dual presidency. Can one reasonably expect in this day and age for high profile spouses to suddenly become just gravy for the biscuits? Rather than one of the Entrees? Bill Clinton will be as much President as Hillary Clinton, in terms of advice, policy development, insight,...

We’ve seen our last First Lady of a certain kind. Genteel, always attempting to be background instead of foreground or middle ground. Laura Bush will likely be the last of a long line of smart women who stayed behind the scenes for the most part, or else led lives ‘out there’, like Eleanor Roosevelt who most of the time seemed as though she wasn’t married to the President, but rather to ideas. We have seen the signs of the remarkable transition from genteel little lady with little...

UPDATE: Latest reports say 15,000- Burmese dead from cyclone. Given that dictator Than Shwe said only three monks died during the peaceful demonstrations by Buddhist holy people last September, when in fact the numbers maimed and murdered were in the thousands… and given that after the September 2007 peaceful demonstrations, Than Shwe confiscated all cell phones and computers amongst the citizenry, jailing anyone or ‘disappearing’ anyone who had one…. thus Than Shwe managed...

PETA is demanding changes after Eight Belles’ death. From Game On page: Because of the Kentucky Derby collapse and death of filly Eight Belles, the horse racing world is about to find out what PETA’s spurs feel like. PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) has called for the suspension and investigation of Eight Belles jockey Gabriel Saez, and also has started an online petition to change the rules of thoroughbred racing. Flatly ignoring PETA’s suggestions could be risky...

I’ve written a sometimes column at The Moderate Voice, called “Our Hometown,” mostly real news from my hometown and the outlying villages and towns around it. Like the young guy in the wheelchair whose handle grips got caught in the grill of an 18 wheeler and the trucker drove five miles on the interstate with the guy in the wheelchair like a cow catcher on the front of his rig before the police stopped him. Normal things like that. I grew up in Indiana, in a small town population...

It’s hard to see how it will be avoided. See YouTube. Keywords: “John Hagee” or “Hagee Catholic Hitler.” As Mr. Frank Rich over at the NYT so descriptively put it: [on Youtube, you will see] Rev. John Hagee, lecturing in front of an enormous diorama. Wielding a pointer, he pokes at the image of a woman with Pamela Anderson-sized breasts, her hand raising a golden chalice. The woman is “the Great Whore,” Mr. Hagee explains, and she is drinking “the blood of the Jewish...

China, meaning those men and women at the top of all things, has sent out a country-wide alert to try to get Chinese citizens to wash their hands more often and to spray disinfectant – all in order to deal with a disease called Entero-virus 71, described as a hand, mouth and foot virus. (not the same as hoof and mouth disease in cattle) In one city alone, Entero-virus 71 has killed 22 children in the last week. Tens of thousands are said to be hospitalized across China, and in one city , over...

Barbaro. Now Eight Belles. My father comes from a place where the old men and old women still consider horses to be gods who came to earth. In Hungary, every tiny village had a council of elders: the old men in their szurs, long wooly white shepherd’s capes, the old women in their red boots with the black heels, the fine leather pleated and stitched with red thread all the way up to the knees… the old men who smoke pipes with drawing bows 18 inches long… the old women who if need...

This is Abebe Bikila. He is from Ethiopia. He was overlooked and did everything wrong. His was not an auspicious beginning. His father was a shepherd, and it was expected Abebe would be a shepherd too. But, he decided there would be more food for him and his family if he joined the Regimental Bodyguards. He did so, but did not progress past the rank of private. He was good enough, but nothing to write home about. The Bodyguards held maneuvers. A Finnish fellow, Mjr. Onni Niskanen, was brought...

In psychology, there is a concept called Normalization of Violence, that comes strongly into play in our times. It puts people to sleep in the midst of being surrounded by assault. ‘Normalization of violence’ sometimes leads people to act like the people of Oceania in Orwell’s 1984, having the equivalent of Two Minutes Hate daily, and then back to life as usual. Or unusual. But in any case, not thinking, speaking, caring. Afraid of being extinguished. I would venture that it is...

Shakespeare is a greater psychologist and political strategist than most famous others. Shakespeare spoke more insightfully and poignantly about what happens when a republic/ empire becomes mired in war than the current candidates, Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain, who essentially speak of timelines only, “100 years” if need be, or “Out” right now. Their points are useful for placing each candidate’s view somewhere on the ‘war graph’ for measuring runners. But...

There has been much commentary in media about whether Hillary Clinton has been hit with more unbalanced attacks as a result of her gender. It seems a significant amount of what is repeatedly written or said about her negatively, is not an effort to evaluate or weigh, but rather carries a tone of diatribe … as though the speaker/ writer feels they have been harmed by her personally in some way and is lashing out in return. There have been irrational slimes written about her person, voice, laugh,...

A small reprise, given Shaun Mullen bringing news of the possibly suspicious suicide of Deborah Jeane Palfrey, 52, recently found guilty of racketeering, money laundering and other charges for running an escort service that drew many customers including one well known government official, Louisiana Senator David Vitter (R). The small piece of real estate at the V of the human body If I were from Mars, I would wonder why human beings concentrate so hard on what I once heard another human being refer...

The story is as old as Cain and Abel. Jealous that his younger brother’s sacrifice seemed more pleasing, Cain stuck his brother down. Striking down. Striking against. In any group that has struggled so, this is not as rare an occurrence as one would wish. It’s often ubiquitous. There’s an old story told amongst Latinos, An Anglo and a Latino went crab gathering one night. Down to the shore they trudged, and soon their metal buckets were full of live crabs all waving their claws. As...

Rush Limbaugh has been dreaming, he says. I don’t know. John Mark Carr said he was dreaming he killed Jon Benet Ramsey, too And there used to be those old ads in magazines of women in pointy circle-stitched brassieres that made young boys go all whirlygig in the eyes back then… and the caption was always some version of “I dreamed I was flying in my Maidenform bra.” As a psychoanalyst, I seriously put great stock to the symbolic value of people’s dreams. I don’t...

I lived in Chicago for some years in the 60s, and have also lived in the Rockies and Sangre de Cristos for many years. Here in the Rockies, down in Denver, there’s been a nest of meetings between Denver City Council Members and representatives of protest groups… regarding their spaces, durations, permits, etc., at Democratic National Convention scheduled for August 08. The meetings, bristling at times, but needed to insure rights in all directions, have been going on for many weeks now,...

I think of one thing over and over. The caskets. Those very few photos and brief film clips of the caskets. That Rumsfeld and others said no one could see, look at, photograph, no, no. no. The caskets coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan cannot be viewed. Some horrible something will happen… we cannot say what I wonder, since a cell phone user photo-filmed the hanging of Saddam after the entire event was declared off-limits to the press. I wonder, since paparazzi with lenses longer than...

Symptoms: –Following all the pundits and pollsters even as their affect so often seems to be more about placing bets on the ponies or that the elections are just a longer version of the Superbowl, rather than analyzing for content, context, subtext… –watching some on TV who seem to be experiencing a second college-hood, using ‘candidates-gone-wild’ tones of voice –trying to see if anything new is being said by pundits who have clearly taken sides instead of reporting...

In the last hour the cable shows went from not enough difference in votes to comment to too early to call to now, they say, Hillary may take the State of Pennsylvania You also see the chattering of some in the press creating the next storyline: Out of Money, Even If Clinton Wins The issue slowly grinds to one of money alone, that is, according to the amount of time cable news is currently spending on moneymoneymoney versus campaign issues of policy and planning for the future. Reminds me of a corny...

Some posit, there is a zero percent lead by either Democratic candidate as the polls close in Pennsylvania. The Senators Clinton and Obama are presently neck and neck. The certainly of the polls from yesterday, are not so clearly certain tonight. Perhaps that’s because there appear to be entrenched myths can that hamper insightful analysis of office seekers the one with the most ad money, wins the one who is the nicest, wins the one who polls best, wins the one who is the most phlegmatic and...

Programming others to do one’s will, or else… When I first trained in my field, veterans from Korea and those coming back from Nam who’d been POWs, had often suffered extensive efforts by the enemy… to rearrange their impulses, instincts and attitudes. At that time too, deprogramming had become a watchword, and thus we studied deeply the psychological effects of vulnerable human beings being ‘programmed’ by others …Actual brain changes appeared to take place,...

Over 400 children were recently transported by bus away from the isolated Texas commune built by Warren Jeffs (currently in prison for forcing a child to marry an older man) and his brother (currently in charge of all the wives and children back at the ranch)…the brotherly duo being self-acclaimed polygamists and self-anointed heads of their own renegade LDS (Church of the Latter Day Saints– Mormon) temple. The State of Texas will seek to show, provided one or more of the seeming spellbound...

This was a debate? No. It was double jeopardy for both the candidates: the prosecution of an individual twice for the same offense. Take that back. It was umpteenth jeopardy. If most people were forced to watch the OJ trial all over again, they would consider it capital punishment. I sense strongly, that viewers were turning away from watching the kangaroo court, I mean, the debate being held tonight with candidates as defendants, I mean, opponents. Again. Perhaps the issue is who asks the questions. Most...

Much talk recently about the administration wanting to block any number of measures in Congress that are rowing against the President’s mindset on what will and what work re the environment… The President has characterized all measures there as ‘a regulatory trainwreck.’ Today, in a news conference, the President said he had not signed the Kyoto agreement because – it did not bring all players to the table – it would have interfered with growing the USA economy,...