WOW! TONIGHT'S "WHATEVER HAPPENED TO HER?!" QUOTE

Man! This lady used to be funny, I think. Former Saturday Night Live star Victoria Jackson posted an incoherent rant against President Obama on Andrew Breitbart's Big Hollywood website on Tuesday.

Here's Victoria:

"Obama legally kills babies and now he can legally kill Grandmas! Hitler did this. He killed the weak, the sick, the old, and babies and races/religions he didn't like. Hitler also controlled the media. (Where's the public debate between scientists on 'Climate Change/Global Warming?') Hitler had the VW bug invented as the state car. What will O's nationalized car be? So... kill off the weak. That's the plan."

??????????????????????? WHEW!

For reference, click here to see my blog posting: "SAY IT: RACISM IS A PSYCHIATRIC DISORDER!"

YOU TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK OF THIS NEWS FROM THE AP: "THE NUMBER OF CHILDREN OF U.S. MILITARY TROOPS NEEDING PSYCHIATRIC CARE DOUBLED LAST YEAR!"

AP: July 7, 2009 13:43 EST
By KIMBERLY HEFLING

"Children of U.S. military troops sought outpatient mental health care 2 million times last year, and there was also an alarming spike in the number of military kids actually hospitalized for mental health reasons. Internal Pentagon documents show the increases, which come as the services struggle with wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and a shortage of therapists. From 2007 to 2008, some 20 percent more children of active duty troops were hospitalized for mental health services, the documents show. Since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, inpatient visits among military children have increased 50 percent."

HELLO?!!?

TODAY'S LYRICS!

HERE COMES THE SUN

Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right

Little darling, it's been a long cold lonely winter
Little darling, it feels like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Little darling, the smiles returning to the faces
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been here
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun
and I say it's all right

Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...
Sun, sun, sun, here it comes...

Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting
Little darling, it seems like years since it's been clear
Here comes the sun, here comes the sun,
and I say it's all right
It's all right

George Harrison

RICK ON "YOU ARE THE ONLY GAME THAT ISN'T RIGGED! AND THE GREAT AMERICAN BUBBLE MACHINE!!"/PL COMMENTS

Here's Rick with my comments interspersed:

"Finally, unabashed praise for a piece that isn’t politically motivated. Usually on this blog, that type of admiration and adulation is reserved for those who just can’t help themselves. They start with a premise and some convincing evidence but then show their true motivation by bashing with a political baton and conveniently string together unlikely conclusions while avoiding the possibility of another conclusion or set of facts."

PL:

Hi Rick! As Steven Colbert once humorously said at a dinner for George W. Bush, "You can't trust reality because everyone knows that reality has a liberal bias!" It's not "politically motivated" to call a big white elephant a big white elephant, anymore than it is so to call a retrogressive, self-righteous scam artist your typical Republican in the 00's.

Rick:

"Matt Taibbi succeeds in going boldly where few men have gone. Thought you’d might like the Trek reference. As others have mentioned previously, Noam Chomsky speaks the same language. There really isn’t much difference between Bush and Obama as Presidents or Dems or Repubs. The political and economic systems of our country don't allow it. Taibbi constructs a credible case as his argument of corruption spans several presidencies but centers on Goldman Sachs."

PL:

Always love the Trek references! Now, as I've said many, many times on this blog, which you say you read but sometimes I wonder, you will not find one article by me on this blog promoting or praising Democrats. Just reference the word. However, in this era, Republicans have gone out of their way to look sleazy and stupid, if not downright psychiatrically disturbed in a major way. So, I, like many of the writers I reference, point that out because we need a compass that isn't totally skewed and skewered by jingoistic, racist, misogynist, trickle-down bullshit.

Rick:

"Unfortunately, it is a scary system that could implode if it continues. The Romans, 16th century Spain, 18th century France and countless communist countries of the 20th century all overextended themselves, incurred heavy debt and economically collapsed. The examples are there so why are we repeating history? Hubris? People don’t care as long as the individual can feed him/herself + family and feels relatively safe. History proves this as well. Look at the horrible violent dictatorships. Why wasn’t there mass revolution? Castro’s Cuba? Tito’s Yugoslavia? Hitler’s Germany? Stalin’s Russia? Hussein’s Iraq? Today’s Iran? (although there seems to be some movement that might prove revolutionary) These rulers enjoyed relative popularity while they each drove their countries into economic ruin."

PL:

The corrupt leaders you mentioned, and those that we have been saddled with so often in our own country, may appear to suffer from "hubris," but it is in fact, a psychopathic character structure, very often of the "ominous sociopathic" type, that they are entrenched in. The masses who accept the abuse combine masochistic and oral character structure elements, and simultaneously are very often young souls. Obama is an exception in two ways, although he needs some work: he is more of a mature soul than a young soul, and his character structure, as I once wrote to the protest of your buddy, "LOFF56," is that of a rigid character, rather than a psychopath.

Rick:

"Where or what can we employ to help stave this kind of rampant corruption and destruction? Should we blame Goldman Sachs for playing a game it is allowed to play? Should we destroy the politicians that help perpetuate the game? It is a tough call. Religious leaders, charitable organizations and individuals who promote community may have the key. I like this quote by a religious leader, 'Profit is useful if it serves as a means toward an end. Once profit becomes the exclusive goal, if it is produced by improper means and without the common good as its ultimate end, it risks destroying wealth and creating poverty…The economy needs ethics in order to function correctly — not any ethics, but an ethics which is people centered.'
Can America subscribe to this out of thin air or do we need a revolution? Thomas Jefferson thought we should have one every 20 years because he understood the level of greed + corruption inherent in leaders."

PL:

As John Lennon once sang: "You say you want a revolution? You better free your mind instead."

Until we tackle our own immaturities, insecurities, neediness, inner stagnation and suppressed feelings one person at a time in some kind of serious self-work, what you've seen and will continue to see, Rick, from Genghis Khan to The Wrath of Khan, is what you'll get!

Thanks for the comments.

TODAY'S "HOW UTTERLY STUPID IS THE REPUBLICAN BASE?!" QUOTE

"The Earth has been here for SIX THOUSAND YEARS, and we didn't have any environmental laws, six thousand years, and somehow the Earth hasn't been done away with."
Republican Arizona State Senator Sylvia Allen

IS THIS - - THE NEW WILMA?

U.S. FALLS BEHIND BECAUSE OF SEXUAL REPRESSION!

Whenever I reference the word "sex" or "sexuality" or anything remotely related to the sensual on this blog, the number of people who come here triples! As in TRIPLES!

So, why is that?

Well, just do a search on my blog for any words related to sex and you'll get an understanding.

We are a very sexually repressed country compared to most other western cultures. Only the very repressive regimes that we seem to be constantly at war with are more sexually repressed than the U.S. - Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, etc. We basically are at war with the other countries in the world who are extremely sexually dysfunctional and who repress the women in their culture along with the feminine aspects of life. Sad to say, but that's the club we belong to. They are our siblings that we are in rivalrous relationships with. The French, the British, the Scandinavian countries, even Japan, wouldn't engage in battle with us because they have no interest in our infantile, pseudo-religious and puritanical retrogressive attitudes. They have no need to prove that their God is right, no need to debate whether or not women should have the right to decide what to do with their bodies, etc.

We have fallen behind, folks.

The Islamic world was once the flower of Planet Earth, the most enlightened, the most scientifically innovative and technologically advanced culture of its time, and a true world power. But when they refused to move with the western cultures towards the liberation of women, around 500 years ago, Islam began to fall behind.

The United States runs the same risk.

During the last forty years of right wing rule, while we have focused on suppressing the rights of women and homosexuals and anyone who would dare to celebrate sex other than for procreation, we have fallen behind in technology, science and education, and now finally, our economy is in shambles, as well. This is not a coincidence, but cause and effect.

Think about it.

Study history.

Think about it.

Then, come on people, come visit me tonight because of the title of this blog entry, and demonstrate how much we need to free ourselves up sexually in order to enter the modern, enlightened world.

AVOIDING MARRIAGE AND AVOIDING HAVING KIDS IF YOU ARE MARRIED! BRING IT ON!!

Ah, it's a beautiful morning, after a solid month of record rain... what better time to take another shot at the sacred institutions of marriage and parenthood and get the hard-liners and the hunkered-down mad at me again.

I'm spinning off an article about the upside of avoiding marriage, written by Bella DePaulo, author of "SINGLED OUT" and the "LIVING SINGLE" blog.

Here's a clip from Bella's post:

"I don't equate being married with being loved; my view of love is far broader and less hackneyed. So the question I actually do address is this: Who is happier, physically healthier, psychologically stronger, less lonely, more likely to live longer, and more engaged with neighbors, friends, and family - people who got married and then got unmarried, or people who stayed single? The answer, in just about every study I've ever reviewed, is people who have stayed single."

By the way, Bella, an ex-mother-in-law I knew didn't equate being married with being happy either. When explained to her that her daughter and husband were splitting up because they weren't happy together, she admonished as if the young couple were naive, saying: "Happy?! What's happy got to do with marriage?!"

Right. But what about the children, Bella?

Bella:

"As I've noted here and in Singled Out, there are even ways in which children from single-parent households do better than children of married parents. I'm not arguing that you should create a single-parent household for the good of your children, but let's also not pretend that the children of single parents are doomed. Consider, for instance, what Melissa Harris-Lacewell (whom you may have seen on the Rachel Maddow Show) has said about Barack Obama in her thoughtful essay in the Nation: 'Had his father been present he might have had less adolescent angst, but then again that angst was part of what sent him into a world of books from which he emerged a formidable intellectual. Part of Barack Obama's greatness is his fatherlessness."

I would add that if you've ever watched "The Actors Studio" with James Lipton, you've often heard him remark on the phenomenon of great stars frequently arising from "broken" homes - homes where both parents weren't present due to divorce or death.

Whew! I can here the long-suffering, toughing-it-out-for-the-kids married folks with plateaued sex lives hissing now. But let's put aside our frozen "traditional" beliefs for a moment, and our resentful needs to believe that there's some greater good that comes from sacrificing happiness, and just examine what's evolved and what might be going on today.

First and foremost, marriage is indeed an institution, meaning, it was created and instituted as a societal entity to serve a purpose for the societal entity that created it. In other words, marriage, as an institution, with rules and contracts and socially dictated behavioral norms and structures and rites, did not evolve organically.

In fact, early on, love didn't even have anything to do with marriage.

Marriage served the purposes of diplomacy or maintaining property rights not that long ago, especially among the ruling classes, and still does in some regressive cultures. It also served as a means of creating cheap labor - i.e. - children - for the purposes of serving agricultural society. And finally, marriage served the dual purposes of fidelity (mainly mandated for women) and consumerism, both of which served as a means of control by churches and capital-based governments.

Secondly - and I'm speaking from many years of experience and thousands of therapy sessions with individuals, couples, families and children - a vast majority, and I mean a vast majority of people who get married do so because they are insecure about getting older and "being alone" or insecure about their financial well-being or insecure about how they'll be seen by others if they don't "succeed" at landing a spouse and having kids. You can do a search on this blog or on any search engine and you'll find innumerable articles on all the wrong reasons people get married.

Is there a right reason?

Well, the paradox is, if you are truly in love with another, blessed with a high level of love, Eros and sex with a partner that you're also really compatible with as a personality, you most likely feel that getting married is not a pressing priority. You could do it - for the fun and pomp and public announcement of your joy - but you know you don't need to. If you've ever really been in love, you know what I'm talking about here, right?

Okay, then - the kids?

Don't get me started. You can find a hundred articles on this blog alone about the damage that parents do to kids. I have said often that the least qualified people to raise kids are their parents.

Why?

Well, first of all, for many of the same reasons listed above as the dysfunctional reasons born out of insecurity that we get married. We try and live through our kids. We hope that they will boost our sagging self-esteem by loving us unconditionally, and raise our outer esteem in the eyes of others by how well they play soccer or guitar. We imagine that by having kids, we'll never be alone.

Hello? It should be easy to see how all of that kind of dependency on our kids damages them, but you'd be amazed at how ignorant most parents are of the negative effects of their own subconscious acting out.

But perhaps even worse than the above damage from dependency is that caused by the vice-grip of a bind that parents put children into by making them live in a 2-parent home where the passion, romance and sex has flattened out or died. It is this that led Alexander Lowen to once say that "99% of all children are abused."

The gulf in love, Eros and sex between two parents playing out the string creates a vortex, a black hole that children cannot help being sucked up into. This is the real cause of eating disorders, depression, OCD and all the so-called alphabet learning problems that kids are labeled with. It's not brain chemistry or genetics that are causing kids to be distracted, hyper or angry. It's that they have to give up being their true selves because they are being used as pawns in their parents' desperate attempts to fill a void they don't want to deal with through some tough self-work.

No wonder that so many great people came from single-parent homes. They only had half the burden and abuse to deal with.

So, come on folks, send me your protests. But understand, I understand that we are all on a continuum here, towards being fulfilled and healthy and wise. As always, my point is that we all have problems, but if you're not doing something about it for real, then you are the problem. And please, try not to waste our time pointing out that there are exceptions. Of course there are. There are happily married people having great sex-lives, enjoying their careers, and raising kids without any expectations of them fulfilling any unmet needs from the parents' childhoods. I know that there are fully self-actualized, married parents out there.

I just haven't met any yet.

BILL MAHER - ONE OF THE BEST QUOTES EVER!

“We don’t have a left and a right party in this country anymore. We have a center-right party... and a crazy party. And over the last thirty-odd years, Democrats have moved to the right and the right has moved into a mental hospital. So, what we have is one perfectly good party for hedge fund managers, credit card companies, banks, defense contractors, big agriculture, and the pharmaceutical lobby – that’s the Democrats. And they sit across the isle from a small group of religious lunatics, flat-earthers and Civil War re-enactors, who mostly communicate by AM radio and call themselves the Republicans, and who actually worry that Obama is a socialist. Socialist? He’s not even a liberal... Shouldn’t there be one party that unambiguously supports cutting the military budget, a party that is straight up in favor of gun control, gay marriage, higher taxes on the rich, universal health care, legalizing pot and steep, direct taxing of polluters? These aren’t radical ideas. A majority of Americans are either already for them, or would be if they were properly argued and defended. And what we need is an actual progressive party to represent the millions of Americans who aren’t being served by the Democrats, because bottom line - Democrats are the new Republicans."
Bill Maher (on "REAL TIME last night)

TODAY'S QUOTE

"Caribou Barbie is one nutty puppy."
Maureen Dowd (on Sarah Palin's latest loony tap dance)

WHEW!!

THIS IS NOT A DOCTORED PICTURE. Read the story HERE.

BREAKING: SARAH PALIN RESIGNING AS GOVERNOR!

MORE TO FOLLOW

CELEBRATE INDEPENDENCE FROM FANTASY!

"Reality is unforgiving. There is no escape. We live in a culture opting for fantasy over reality. As with so many other things, we don’t want to know."

The above lines are taken from an Op-Ed piece by Bob Herbert today in the NY Times about how the Michael Jackson phenomenon relates to a disturbance in our culture. Bob is absolutely right. People so often choose to believe in and live out the fantasies stuck in their heads from childhood, layered upon year after year by the intellect and the ego until they become as all-encompassing as a tidal wave.

But make no mistake - living in fantasy is not an alternative to living in reality. Reality is the only thing there is. There isn't a "choice" involved, because there isn't something else to choose. We all live in reality. Period.

Drastic plastic surgery never made Michael Jackson look better than he did before, no more than anyone's plastic surgery ever makes them look more attractive. Think about it. Anybody you know who has had plastic surgery looks like they had plastic surgery!

Reality wins.

More from Bob Herbert:

"The craziness [begun in the 1980's] played out on a shockingly broad front and Jackson’s life, among many others, would prove to be a shining and ultimately tragic example. Ronald Reagan was president, making promises he couldn’t keep about taxes and deficits and allowing the readings of a West Coast astrologer to shape his public schedule. The movie 'Wall Street' would soon appear, accurately reflecting the nation’s wholesale acceptance of unrestrained greed and other excesses of the rich and powerful. In neighborhoods through much of black America, crack was taking a fearful toll. Young criminals were arming themselves with ever more powerful weapons, and prison garb was used to set fashion trends."

Indeed, Bob. Claiming that "Trickle-Down Economics" and the wanton deregulation of our markets to favor the wealthiest and the most corrupt would benefit all Americans didn't make it so anymore than Gordon Gekko saying "Greed is good" made it so. Reality wins, and as a result, millions of Americans who bought into the "Morning In American" fairy tale sold by Reagan, himself a grown man who called his wife "Mommy," lost.

Likewise, as we wear the masks and live according to the beliefs created in our childish minds when we were under the duress of the untenable realities of being parented by unactualized adults, we suffer.

"If childhood was a game, you lost!" someone wise once said. It is so. Our parents held almost all the cards because we were totally dependent upon them for survival, emotionally as well as physically. And the reality was that our parents were riddled with so many personality issues and no requirement to do anything about them before or even while having kids, while we, as children, couldn't do anything about our plights. So, to avoid the devastating feelings of loss, we resorted to fantasy. We idealized. We created imaginary friends. (That's clearly what Reagan was to so many - an idealized, imaginary friend who would somehow do everything wrong and magically make it turn out right. Oops! Reality won again, didn't it?)

On this Independence Day, folks, why not celebrate your independence from fantasy and wake up to the freedom of living in reality. It's not about flags or fireworks or hot dogs. It's about freedom. Read the Declaration of Independence today. It's a remarkable document. It's about "Self-Evident Truths."

Self-Evident Truths.

RICK PROTESTS PL'S "AVOIDING MARRIAGE" PIECE/PL RESPONDS!

HERE'S RICK:

"Well PL, you keep asking to hear from others as you throw down the gauntlets. Maybe we should revisit the “Am I a curmudgeon?” post ha-ha. I enjoy this exercise because you do raise some good questions and come up with some brow raising conclusions that are predictably suspect. Here goes…

"What is the point of trying to argue single people are happier and better parents? Is this another, see look at me, I’m right once again! Is this just the 'Me Generation' getting the best of you? Did you think the same way when married all those years? Or did you, like me, enter a previous marriage that wasn’t based on long lasting principles?

"I have been single, married and divorced. I agree that being single has its benefits but to get to the core of the human spirit, I feel that happiness is at its greatest when shared. Married or not. I have been alone. I have served myself. I have been that non-committal, self-serving man about whom you write so romantically. On some level, I agree that there is a sense 'full permission living.' A sense of freedom. A sense of glorious invigoration. The difference is that whatever I did during those times only impacted me. There were no children or a spouse or even close friends who depended on me to help them live to the fullest. That sucked to have such 'success and not to be able to share it with someone close to me. Married or not.

“I now have a family to which I am committed to provide love, guidance, support and happiness. We may not always achieve those things and it may cost us tremendous sacrifice and pain, but at the end of the day, if I have a choice to take care of them or me, I hope to have the strength to choose them. Ultimately, my pleasure, self, life and love is inextricably linked to them. Their pleasure is mine. That is who I am. For me, and I'm sure to many of your readers, to share those triumphs and feelings bring about another level of happiness that you can’t obtain by yourself. Many years ago, I sat, alone free and fully permitted to live, overlooking the Venetian lagoon, drinking wine and eating cheese. I thought I was at in heaven. Many years later, when I was able to return there and share that with my wife, I knew I was.

"The convenient defaults for why people are not whole or act the way they do are too simplified and dishonest. I agree that marriage does not equal love nor happiness but it doesn’t exclude them as the blog suggests. You do give your cursory disclaimers but clearly they are throw aways to protect the flawed logic. You write: 'I know that there are fully self-actualized, married parents out there. I just haven’t met any yet.' If I am to be intellectually bullied, I would say, 'PL has so much couple therapy experience, and he writes with such conviction, it has to be true.' I would then bow, get on a knee and kiss the ring of the all knowing OZ. Sorry, I may be stupid but am certainly not so myopic to think there is only one way to look at things nor would I ever attempt to paint with a broad brush so many hold dear. Homosexuals, have fought so hard to obtain the right to marry. I guess PL and Bella both find the Gay Marriage movement ridiculous. Why would they fight for something so devalued by these writers? Using their logic, the thousands of married homosexuals are not happy and just crave the institutionalized qualities marriage gives them.

"Last point regarding 'studies show...?' Anyone involved in marketing and politics can easily give you the scientific “data” to support two opposing views. I’ve conducted sociological + political studies and know how easy it is to manipulate not just the conclusions based on “fact” but the actual collection of the data. I trumpeted Truth! Fact! Science! as a way of 'convincing' readers of my conclusions. How right I was! Sound familiar?

"I always keep a pile of grains of salt while reading conclusions from these 'studies.'

Here's PL:

As always, Rick, your comments are thoughtful and from the heart. Thanks for that.

If you check out what I was saying in my post, I said I was just “spinning off” from the article about the upside of avoiding marriage by Bella DePaulo, not parroting it, and my main point wasn’t that marriage is inherently bad or good, but that because it is an institution to so many people who engage in it, it is not often connected to real love. It is treated like an obligation to fulfill, a role to play for social status, etc. My concern is that far too many people get married for reasons other than love. Same with having kids. And that’s why sacrificing becomes a necessary part of it, because if you’re doing something like getting married or having kids for reasons other than true love, you’re attempting to fulfill the dictates of your ego and of childhood images, etc., and you’re going to suffer. This is a recipe for disaster and dysfunction.

It’s not that being single should be essentially better for one’s mental, emotional and physical health. It’s that it may be so in our culture because people feel mandated to get married in a certain way, to a certain type of person, by a certain age, etc., and so enter into the proposition under great duress. That cannot be healthy for anyone involved, the couple or the prospective kids.

I’m not advocating here that one should live without commitment in one’s life. Not at all. I’m saying that one should be committed first and foremost to being true to one’s heart and soul, rather than to the dictates of societal prescriptions or archaic images.

The highest levels of love, enlightenment and self-actualization are to be found in that most intimate relationship between two human beings who are in-love, Rick. Of that there is no doubt. In isolation, no one can truly find the peak of what it is to be human. It is not a cliché to say that through loving another, we find our own true self.

But it can’t be faked.

RICK'S PART II COMEBACK TO PL'S "AVOIDING MARRIAGE"

HERE'S RICK:

"Thanks for the response. As usual, your responses are much more informative and less reactionary. I just wished you could get to the much more balanced and credible tone the first time around! Your last paragraph indicates a need for connection to others. Who cares what form it takes as long as it is not faked? An agreement. A commitment. A marriage. A civil union. Who cares?
The one benefit of actually institutionalizing one's commitment is to insure that what you build together will remain if one dies. I think "love ran its course" was a phrase you have used. Without the institution, love will not be the only thing that a parter can run away with:)
As I have written before, you clearly have much to offer. Why make it so difficult on your readers to benefit from your experience? What is the point of having to swallow the medicine without the elixir?
Back to the original article. I shake my head regarding single parenthood. A happy parent is a good parent. Single or married. How Bella got those assertions by her editor is truly remarkable.

Part II
Let’s get to some of the claims.

Single people are happier.
The article supports this by stating singles jump into marriage for the wrong reasons or are not ready to be able to give themselves totally. Of course one would end up unhappy. What a scholarly conclusion! It’s like buying a stock because the guy at the barber shop said it was a can’t miss buy. Then, when it tanks, one is surprised when it fails. If you are able to qualify the purchase, just as if you are able to be whole before going into a marriage, happiness/success is much more probable.
Anyone who follows this blog and actually believes in its premise, understands that being single or married has nothing to do with being self actualized. And, if you’re lucky to have someone to help you in giving yourself that permission, all the better. Married or not.
If you’re a banged up individual with lots of baggage from your youth or experiences and fail to work on yourself, happiness becomes that much more elusive. Married or not.
I’ve been both single + married. My character structure demands sharing love + life. Even in my failed marriage, I was truly happier, until the end of course. (Again another brilliant conclusion by the author that as people near a break up and shortly thereafter unhappiness prevails. Duh?)

Single parent children do better than children of married couples.
I should have killed one of my parents when I was 3. That way, I would be more successful!! Gulp Gulp on the Kool Aid!
Once again, if you believe in this blog, if you’re giving yourself full permission to live whether single or married, you will be better parent.
It is impossible to be a mother and father as a single parent. You can only do ½ the job very well. For most, having a single parent leaves a huge void and some serious issues. However, that single parent may give you the tools to allow you to be influenced positively by friends, family and community members.
It is not the absense of a parent that determines success of all those actors, but the struggle one goes through that builds confidence + success. Very healthy families produce stalwarts as well. They instill a sense of discipline, mental toughness and commitment that determine success. These are the same traits that children of single parents or of harden lives need to develop to survive such predicaments. Again, how you get there can be different.
Obama succeeded because his father wasn’t around? If anyone believes this stuff can now move into the Michael Jackson-less Never Never Land.
I have two parents that were married at 20 +21. Erikson would have given the ok for them to marry. Why? They knew who they were and had conviction in their parenting.

I see the results of bad marriages and single parenting through my students. They run the gamut. Both produced greatness and great failures. I would be interested in hearing from those who grew up in single parent households and qualifying their success +/or failures."

TODAY'S BAD OLD DAYS QUOTE

"I wonder sometimes whether the Nixon tapes really will just continue to be the gift that never stops giving. I was in college when Richard Milhous Nixon was first elected president, and I can still remember the profound sense of loathing and disgust that I experienced at the mere sight, let alone the sound, of him and of his most especially repellent sidekick Henry Kissinger. Wiser and older people tell you that the passions of your youth will dry up and that a more sere and autumnal condition will overtake you as maturity advances, but the thought of the Nixon gang in the White House still infuses me with a pure and undiluted hatred and makes me consider throwing up things that I don't even remember having eaten."
Christopher Hitchens (on the most recent harvest from the tapes that the Nixon Presidential Library has released from the early months of 1973, tapes that delineate the obsessive nastiness and criminality from that dark chapter of American history, only to be surpassed, of course, by the utter banality, incompetence and evil of the Bush-Cheney years)

ON THIS DAY LAST YEAR!

Sometimes I like to have a "What was on my mind last year on this day?" anniversary. Well, here it is - "TODAY'S QUOTE" from June 27, 2008, and a piece about lying.

TODAY'S QUOTE (6/27/08):

“Of all the liars in the world, sometimes the worst are your own fears”
Rudyard Kipling

Posted by peter loffredo, lcsw at 6/27/2008:

Lies and the Lying Toddlers Who Tell Them

I was having a talk with someone the other day about the way that people lie. It's true. People lie. Blatantly at times, and seemingly without shame. How is that possible?

Well, there's an interesting little piece in today's NY Times called, "YOUR BRAIN LIES TO YOU, "by Sam Wang, a professor of molecular biology and neuroscience at Princeton, and Sandra Aamodt, a former editor in chief of Nature Neuroscience. Wang and Aamodt are the authors of “Welcome to Your Brain: Why You Lose Your Car Keys but Never Forget How to Drive and Other Puzzles of Everyday Life.”

Without going too much into into the technical details in the article of how the brain accepts lies, and then even reinforces the non-truths, I'll just summarize by saying that the authors claim that the brain stores lies in the hippocampus, a structure deep in the brain, but in the recalling process, the source of the lie is forgotten.

Here's Wang and Aamodt:

"Every time we recall it, our brain writes it down again, and during this re-storage, it is also reprocessed. In time, the fact is gradually transferred to the cerebral cortex and is separated from the context in which it was originally learned. For example, you know that the capital of California is Sacramento, but you probably don’t remember how you learned it. This phenomenon, known as source amnesia, can also lead people to forget whether a statement is true. Even when a lie is presented with a disclaimer, people often later remember it as true."

This is a very convenient truth for psychopaths and politicians, of course, who both want their lies believed and hope you'll also forget the context in which they've said things. But what makes some receivers of lies so much more susceptible than others, and what makes one person a more effective liar than another?

The authors of the Times piece say that "Adding to this innate tendency to mold information we recall is the way our brains fit facts into established mental frameworks. We tend to remember news that accords with our worldview, and discount statements that contradict it."

Okay, now we're talking my language. Molecular biology aside, what I know is that the more we hold onto beliefs and are ruled by established thought patterns, the more we get slammed by reality in our lives. I have often said that opinions are what we hold onto when we don't know the truth, and the stronger the held opinions and beliefs are the more ignorant the person usually is. We all know this. People of very rigid opinions and dogmatic belief systems aren't interested in new information that contradicts what they believe. As Jack Nicholson's character might have said: "They can't handle the truth."

We don't need beliefs, people. They stagnate our thought processes, and they freeze in place our ability to grow and assimilate new information. Eventually, we become so afraid to challenge or let go of our beliefs that we will defend them with all of our resources, at great expense to ourselves and those around us. Sad, because the more we surrender our beliefs and opinions, the more we can see the truth in every situation because we are in a flexible state of mind, able to follow the facts wherever they lead.

Back to politicians and psychopaths, or as Al Franken would call them "the lying liars." Here's the thing - a liar who knowingly lies is not going to be very effective because he or she is feeling out of alignment with themselves and so, their lying will show in their body language - shifting eyes or various other tells that make for a bad poker player, for instance. Indeed, a lying liar who doesn't have a psychopathic character structure will often not be believed by most people, and will easily get caught.

A psychopath has a distinct advantage here. Why? Because true psychopaths believe their own lies. In their brains, they are continually rewriting history and reality to suit their manipulative intentions in the moment. This is not unlike the mind of a two or three year old, as parents can tell you. If said child is not in the mood for apple juice today, for example, he or she will say, "I never liked apple juice," even though they loved it just yesterday. Are they lying? Yes. But that child in that moment doesn't know it's lying because it's still developing mind and ego hasn't attained fully the ability to look into the past for context, and he or she still cannot tolerate frustration or contradiction very well.

Sounds like some successful politicians you know? Yes, but ultimately, who wins if you've got a psychopathic politician on one side, and a belief-free, open-minded person on the other side? Hands down. Who wins if you've got a manipulating 2-year old child versus a mature, clear-thinking and self confident adult? Same thing.

Some of my friends don't believe me when I say that I'm not "political," that I don't subscribe to any dogma or philosophy. They don't believe me because I've supported the nomination and election of Barack Obama. But you see, for me, it's not Obama's policy statements that are moving me to vote for a presidential candidate for the first time in 28 years. It's his body language, his alignment with himself, the clarity in his eyes that make him a potential leader like we haven't seen in the better part of our adulthoods (if you're my age). I know and trust what I'm seeing through my own clear eyes. Obama is not a lying liar.

Remember folks, it's always the adult side of us, and the truth, that ultimately wins in life. Shed your beliefs, open your mind, seek the truth, and the lying liars will become mere toddlers in your life.

TODAY'S QUOTE

"I have a lot of anger right now at the enabling doctors that perpetuate this, there's a tradition, there's a culture of this in Hollywood, and I think it's about time we did a real investigation into this culture of legalized drug pushers; that's what they are."
Deepak Chopra (on Keith Olbermann last night discussing the nefarious contribution of the medical profession to Michael Jackson's death)

THE MAN IN THE MIRROR

I'm Starting With The Man In
The Mirror
I'm Asking Him To Change
His Ways
And No Message Could Have
Been Any Clearer
If You Wanna Make The World
A Better Place
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change
Take A Look At Yourself, And
Then Make A Change

Clarence Thomas Stands Up for the Right to Strip Teenagers Naked!

Yep! Thomas, the right wing Bush, Sr. appointee, was the 1 in the 8-1 decision making it illegal for school officials to strip teenagers. Here's an excerpt from a piece by Andrew Bergman on the matter:

"Hats off to Justice Clarence Thomas for his courageous stand on behalf of school officials' right to strip teenagers naked in an effort to find prescription pills. This great man has more than justified George H.W. Bush's faith in his character, dignity, and wisdom. Hopefully, one day school administrators will be free to strip all children bare-ass naked each and every morning, perhaps during the Pledge of Alliance and the Prayers to God, so that parents can rest assured that pills of any sort will be kept out of class, not to speak of the weapons of mass destruction that could easily make their way through our nation's school doors. Is it too much to suggest that with the Republican Party in such a moral wasteland with the activities of Messrs. Ensign and Sanford, that its leaders look to Justice Thomas to lead them back to the promised land in 2012?"

HOW SEXUALLY REPRESSED ARE WE?!

This may have to be the start of a new column, like the one I ran last year - "HOW STUPID ARE WE?" (Sorry Rick, but like Forest Gump's mother said, "Stupid is as stupid does.")

Anyway, here's a breaking headline from our nation's sexually repressed capital:

WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court ruled Thursday that a high school's strip search of an Arizona teenage girl (as in 13 years old!)accused of having prescription-strength ibuprofen was illegal. The court ruled 8-1 on Thursday that school officials violated the law with their search of Savana Redding in the rural eastern Arizona town of Safford. Redding, who now attends college, was 13 when officials at Safford Middle School ordered her to remove her clothes and shake out her underwear because they were looking for pills - the equivalent of TWO ADVILS!!!

Now, here's the uncomfortable question I'm asking you - do really think that no part of this was about making a teenage girl get completely naked in front of an intruding adult? Are you kidding me?!

TODAY'S... "HOW STUPID IS HE?"... QUOTE

Here's Rush Limbaugh on what led Governor Mark Sanford to go AWOL and pursue an affair with a South American reporter:

"The South Carolina Governor had emerged a broken man from the battle over stimulus funds. With the battle lost, and only a limited time before the Federal Government took over and set about abolishing freedom, Sanford decided: 'What the hell? the federal government is taking over, I want to enjoy life.”

LOLOL!!

LET HE WHO IS WITHOUT SIN...

... JUST SHUT-UP, ADMIT YOU'RE LYING AND SAVE US ALL SOME TIME!

Here's an excerpt from a column by Gail Collins in today's NY Times, called "THE LOVE PARTY," on the sexual peccadilloes of hypocritical Republican blow-hards:

"First of all, we may want to consider the possibility that the governor’s decision to reject the federal stimulus money was not a mighty stand against government spending but instead an early sign of total nuttiness.

"Second, perhaps it is time to rethink the idea of constantly electing middle-aged heterosexual men to positions of high importance.

"Third, although the governor-run-amok thing is worrisome, South Carolinians can take comfort in the fact their state gives its chief executive slightly less power than a game warden.

"Fourth, before this search for a presidential nominee goes any further, I’m thinking it’s time for the Republicans to apologize for putting us through the Clinton impeachment. We seem to have pretty well established that sexual stone-throwing is a dangerous sport."