from Memri… I have emboldened phrases below to highlight the difference in tone between the fatwa the old Ayatollah laid on Rushdie, and the fatwa that this particular Ayatollah has laid on Ahmadinejad (newly ‘elected’ leader of Iran) and his regime, army, appointees and cronies. See below, how the wording of this fatwa uses language very different for Ahmadinejad, than was and continues to be impelled forward relentlessly on Rushdie. The ‘now’ fatwa may bode well. On...

I’m steeped in the high stylizations of funerals of blacks and funerals of immigrants. Between them one could not decide which one was more ornate, symbolic and filled with near suicides, screaming, singing, clothing fit for high opera, even dancing on the rails of the pews, or afterward, getting dead drunk to celebrate the rising of the soul of the loved one into heaven. It was because where I grew up those two groups, blacks and immigrants, were still deeply tribal in their recognition of the...

Pundits and Press are likely making a mistake in calling Governor Sarah Palin down for the count, or TKO’d. I listened to her complete speech, and like many others thought it rambled on. But, as a shrink who from time to time analyzes documents and speeches for criminal lawyers, I know that rambling is often only a sign of impassioned assertion and ….not reading from notes that would normally rein in most ‘ramble.’ I applied to Governor Palin’s speech some of my customized...

The flag was still there. And so are we Americans in the United States. We are a radical, radical people. It’s no wonder the world often says, Oh, Ach, Ay! Those Americans. We were not founded on fluffy words, but on blood-drenched ones. Dont forget: We are still here, not by luck, but by hard-won “luck” in a mysterious land that often has wide margins for error, a self-healing fabric often, open wounds that still require medicine, and millions of hearts and hands and backs that...

THE LITTLEST LAZARUS How can you have died? No, no. ‘Tooo young, tooo young,’ hoot the owls in the night pines… How can you have died with your wings spread out so beautifully, two little silver-gray fans with vanes perfectly aligned, literally zipped shut so as to make your feathers air-tight, impervious to being split by wind… All so you could fly. So you could sing. And fly. Weren’t you meant to remain airborne little dear one? I can see you fledged from the two-hundred...

Please excuse me, I’m a military USAF wife for twenty-one years, and I’ve heard all cuss words, even those not yet invented. I rarely swear… except when something is so outrageous that only the Saxon mean can tell it like it is. In military talk, we say about stump stupid acts; Never, ever sh– where you eat, and especially, Do not sh– in your mess kit. But today the Washington Post Newspaper is trying to not only clean the immense fecal pile off their plates, but also...

When I was barely 23 in 1969, I drove the entire Pan-American Highway from the Rockies to the tip of Panama, then floated Jeep around the Darian Jungle to South America. One of those inspired dead-dangerous things young people do. I barely made it home alive. Especially while driving my battered Jeep through the jungles and mountains and lakelands of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador where the US Embassy said everything was fine… when in fact I ran face-first into wars and thugs and US-backed...

Hi there, Dr. E. here. Writing and photographing under the name Michael M’Guire, a colleague in New York has sent me this exclusive photo of just a small part of today’s NY courthouse-encampment– in which we see early-muster photogs and reporters bristling with their silver and black weaponry. The red and white sign in the upper left field says, No Standing Anytime. And below too is Mr. M’Guire’s commentary on the scene prior to Bernie Madoff’s denouement this...

You’ve probably heard the 911 call by an anonymous man asking that an ambulance be sent as soon as possible. It turns out while on the 911 call, the phoner says that the doctor is applying CPR (and doing everything) to Mr. Jackson and that Jackson is not breathing yet. The doctor is Conrad Murray, who is said to have practices across three states. The doc has a few problems, as stated by ABC news: Dr. Murray has been taken to civil court in Clark County twice in the past year by Capital One...

Perhaps you saw how as the attendants moved Michael Jackson, his body lay nearly flat on the stretcher, as though there were an ironing board underneath the sheet, rather than the body of a full person. My guess from just a glance, is that he weighed around 100 pounds or less. Not slender, not thin, rather… entirely skeletal. Most people are familiar with anorexia nervosa, an emotional disorder characterized by an obsessive, sometimes nearly psychotic longing to lose weight. This condition...

After reading on blog-sites and in some media hugely inaccurate portrayals of Justice Clarence Thomas’s opinion about fourth ammendment rights re underage children being searched for drugs at school, including having the chid disrobe… for what some call a strip search… take a look for yourself. Firstly, what is left out of most reports I’ve read, is Justice Thomas’s opinion clearly states that he concurred with the rest of the court in part, and dissented in part…...

In the case of Amelia Bennecke, Plaintiff vs The Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, the widow, Mrs. Bennecke brought suit to recover $2000 on the life insurance policy of her deceased husband. The insurance company had refused to pay because it said it warned Mr. Bennecke that his policy would be voided if he traveled south of the ‘limits of residence’ proscribed in the policy, namely to the city of New Orleans, where he promptly died of yellow fever. the SCOTUS upheld the lower...

It’s dangerous to be a king. In ancient times a young man was each year groomed to be king, given all beautiful things in excess, lulled with praise, adored as more than human, and in the end, drugged and taken by the venerating populace to the cliff, to the pit, to the cenote, the well to be drowned. And once the king died/ was put to death in the most adoring of ways, the populace turned to look for another king to fluff and pet. Another blood sacrifice to cavil over, another king of great...

Ticket to Ride There’s an ancient train leaving right on time… it roars through a sudden door cut open in the upper climes. We are shocked the iron horse scooped our beloved out of mid-air… shocked to see the hinge-blown door that has always been right there… c.p.estés And here on Earth, maybe a wisp of that locomotive smoke lingers here, and we are one soul less… one soul less who fit perfectly the shape of some fangled combo of Fred Astaire and Yoruba dance-warrior, one...

Hi, Dr. E. here again tonight, introducing guest voice Mr. Ed Warner, geologist with twenty-six years in exploration geology, including subsurface geology combined with “bright spot”, AVO and 3-D seismic, Offshore Gulf Coast, Michigan Reef Trend, Sacramento Basin and western Kansas Morrow play, and Jonah Field. He is a Libertarian and deeply involved in better outcomes for Zimbabwe. As you will see at end of his article, dictators across the world use the same time-honored scam about elections...

Hi there, Dr. E. here. I’d like to introduce you to Senator Ken Gordon, who served as Senate Majority Leader in the Colorado State Legislature until 2009, when term limits kicked in. Over his long career, he has also been former Senate Judiciary Chair, and former Minority Leader in the House. The sentences I bolded below are ones that may catch your eye most. It is rarer than rain in the Mojave desert to have a politician tell the truth about how politics works. In disclosure, Senator Gordon...

I’ve never seen anything quite like it … and have more than a few shares of ‘protest/march/show up and be heard’ street creds. Here is a must-see film clip from Iran, mounted on the BBC Middle East site Half way through the film clip the most amazing thing occurs…. as the Iranian riot police in tan uniforms start hurling tear gas canisters into the crowd of protesters from afar… the front line of protesters breaks into dots and dashes …and several citizens...

It is said, in Persian, her name, Neda, means ‘the voice.’ And by ordering this young voice to be killed in the streets, the “supreme leader” Ayatolla has made sure by murdering someone idealistic and good… her voice will now live forever, rather than ever die away. According to reports, the pre-meditated murder of Neda was carried out by a member of the Basij, a volunteer paramilitary organization of hotheads who long to be important but failed to make the grade to...

Dr. E. here, bringing you a clear analysis of the Iranian means of protest by Guest Voice, Dr. Omed. His long-lived blog at Salon.com, Dr. Omed’s Tent Show Revival, has now moved here, and continues to be a brew of informed political stance, articulate outrage, and ever fierce heart. Dr. Omed, is an Okie writer who is multilingual as news analyst, poet and artist. You can see his works called ScissorDance, here and here. Update: Embedding of this YouTube video has been “disabled by request”...

My dear Iranian women students: It’s me, your teacher from long ago. I was still a struggling doctoral student back then when your fathers, wanting their beloved daughters to have an American education, sent you across the ocean to the small USA college where I had my very first job as a teacher. It was 1976. And there was tension between our countries. But education seemed the miraculous bridge that united us. …and today in Iran, I see your children and your grandchildren in the streets....

The Obama administration has a new take on the duties and budgets of the EPA, not only different, but startlingly so, from previous admins who used the stalling technique for decades to deal with citizens very real chargers re Agent Orange exposure during Nam Black Lung out of Pennsylvania and West Virginia, and more Radiation exposure deaths in Utah, New Mexico, Arizona Water contamination of cadmium and other heavy minerals, Brownsville Land contamination by uranium heaps, Rocky Flats, Colorado Johns...

You likely read the extensive coverage here at TMV of Burma’s monks and nuns rising up against Senior General in Charge Of Everything, Mr. Than Shwe, the butcher of Burmese tribal people, the over-fed scourge of the poor of Burma. You may have seen the photos I put up from one of my frightened correspondants in Yangoon, photos of innocent elderly monks with their heads smashed like pumpkins, their entire backs black as dirt from being hit relentlessly by soldiers gone mad with their batons...

We carry a joke of sad irony in our family …about elections that took place in the Soviet states during the time of Communism. My father’s large family who farmed in a remote part of Hungary, was over-run by propagandists who claimed Hungary had totally free elections, but in fact, everyone in the little village of 46 families, knew the higher ups bullied, deceived, thieved and took by force, by rifle and tank, whatever they wished… and polluted the rest. My dad József Pínkola,...

I thought the time had passed when emotionally vulnerable young women were called out and excoriated by men… for having loved a man– and become pregnant with new life…. and without having first stood before a someone who said words that sealed under the laws of the state, what is called marriage contract. I haven’t commented on Bristol Palin and her mother Governor Palin, and her father Todd Palin, and the rest of their children, although I did write at TMV about Trig, the older...

I’m working on an article, and could you help me with a math problem? I have gotten lost in all the decimal points and commas and sub-problems. I know from reading comments that some people who visit TMV are gifted at things like this, I’d appreciate any help you can give me: 1. Say there are aprx 6B people in the world. Say about half of them are women. Say that women potentially have childbearing ability from ages 12 through 45. Say that about half of the 3b women in the world are...