There, I said it: I DON'T SUPPORT OUR TROOPS

   

     In America, our sacred cow is our "courageous, noble, selfless young men and women in uniform."  We have been indoctrinated to support our troops blindly, passionately, stupidly, and self-destructively. It has become our national religion. Stray from it, and you'll have hell to pay. 
    And now, as of May 2014, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is launching a $70 million program to study how electrodes implanted in our troops' brains might improve their moods and their ability to tolerate traumatic events, and allay their anxiety about what they're doing. The new program will fund development of high-tech implanted devices able to both monitor and electrically stimulate specific brain circuits, according to a May 27, 2014 NPR story. Does that sound like a good thing to you? How can anyone object to more efficient killing machines?

Homelessness is Where My Heart Is

  

  

    Home, they say, is where the heart is.
    But my heart resides, instead, with the homeless.
    It’s been 35 years since my last interlude of homelessness. I’m still haunted by it, and I think there’s a part of me that will never recover.

The Magnificence of Massimo, 1921-2013

"Massimo" means the utmost, the ultimate -- and he was.

    Massimo Costanzo, my beloved Joe's father, was a man of majesty, modesty and physicality, whose priorities were to care for others and to relish the bountiful world that his God had created.
    Massimo died on Friday at age 91. His wife Rita, the light of his life, died nearly two years ago, and he really never recovered (http://kronstantinople.blogspot.com/2011/05/dearest-rita-farewell.html).
    When I met him and his wife, more than 30 years ago, I was immediately struck by his aura of ease and  warmth, solidity and gentle humor. Just before he offered me a shot of whiskey, to celebrate our new friendship, he gave me a hearty embrace. Then he kissed my hand. 
    No one had ever kissed my hand before. It was a surprisingly beautiful gesture, and there would be many more of them in the ensuing years.

Darling Rita, Farewell

   

     Joe's mother died in her sleep Thursday night after an extended period of ill health.

     I met Rita Costanzo and her husband Massimo about 30 years ago. They emigrated to Salt lake City from Italy aboard the Andrea Doria in the early 1950s. 

    They were from a very poor, isolated village in Calabria, Southern Italy. They bravely came to America with nothing except for a determination to make a good life for themselves and their four children.

Beyonce: Put Those Knees Together, Please

    Hey Girl: You’re getting a very great honor tonight at the Billboard extravaganza. The Millennium Award -- that is so cool!
   You really, really deserve it. Kind of.
    Your fellow singing sensation, Shakira, recorded a tune a while back called “Hips Don’t Lie.”
    Your hips do.
    Your hips say you are a hypersexualized slut.

Operation Alzheimer's: The next civil-rights struggle

Somebody's mother.

   (5/20/13)  It is not unreasonable to regard American history as an ongoing series of battles for equality, respect and acceptance. African-Americans, immigrants, women, veterans, the disabled and the LGBT community have had to advocate heroically on behalf of themselves, decade after decade. and their progress has been agonizingly slow. We who are in the majority should have had enough integrity and compassion to take the lead in demanding fair treatment for these oppressed groups (don't we have any sense of responsibility, humanity or moral outrage?). We should have embraced and celebrated their differences, instead of forcing them to cry out, "I am a human being!"
    But now, we in the majority really must act: We must give a voice to the millions of Alzheimer's patients who suffer silently in the darkest corners of our collective lives, cruelly stripped of their personhood. We are all they've got, and we're failing miserably. We must wage a War of Interdependence. Shall we overcome?

IMF guy should suffer in the cellblocks like everyone else

    For 18 months, I  served as the Inmate Advocate at the notorious House of Detention for Men on Rikers Island in New York. If I were still there, I would vehemently object to putting former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn in protective custody. He is being given outrageously special consideration because he is a rich white guy.
    The rationale for shielding "the world's top banker" from the realities of prison life, according to corrections officials, is that he might be harmed if he is placed in general population.
    Everybody in general population "might be harmed." They’re all being harmed! Why should he be any different?  Here is a man who has been graced with extreme wealth and privilege since he was born. So what do we do with him? We give him more privilege.

Shockingly cavalier: Scientists charge a-head with their brain bedazzlers

The latest from Copenhagen. So scary, it'll curl your hair. No thank you!

    (5/17/2014) The mad scientists of the world seem obsessed with shooting electricity into our brains to see what strange and/or fabulous results they can trigger, hoping -- of course -- to become billionaires in the process.
    It is literally mind-boggling to read about all of their varied approaches -- including implanting electrodes directly into the brain -- in order, theoretically, to treat virtually every affliction known to man. (http://kronstantinople.blogspot.com/2013/09/our-future-everything-in-modulation.html.)

Let's just open up that skull and screw a few things into your brain, OK?
If it doesn't work (and it probably won't) the electrodes can't be removed.

    The newest and silliest of these Grand Inventions was unveiled this past week in Copenhagen.

This Magic Moment

It took me by surprise.

     (May 2014)  I am coming to realize that I am in the midst of a Magic Moment: A tipping point between youth and old age. I am still young in so many ways -- in how I feel and behave, and in my tastes, energies and attitudes. By most measures, though, I will soon be a senior citizen. I am stunned by this. Every time I think about it, I am stunned all over again.
    In a couple of weeks, I will be 65 years old. This moment is magic because I have all the considerable benefits of age, but I am not yet impaired by it. I am enjoying a "sweet spot" -- an interlude in which I have the best of both worlds. I am ever-mindful that it can't last. My sense of triumph, and even joy, will probably seem like naive hubris before long.  Most of us go downhill as elderliness creeps in and takes over, and I can already sense that I will not be one of those lucky ones who remains vigorous, sharp and competent into my later years. I'm getting arthritis everywhere, although so far I'm able brazenly to ignore the pain, push right through it, and do everything I always have. Ha, ha, you bastard! I do seem to be falling down for no reason, but I just laugh (after lying there for a while) and theorize that my bruises and sore muscles will upstage the arthritis. Ha, ha, again, you bastard! I can sense the specter of Alzheimer's leering inside my head. I leer back. Because right now, in many respects, I am the best I've ever been.

The Violinist and the Sunset

    Sergiu Luca was shocked and irritated that I had never heard of him. He was a fiery, forceful man who obviously expected to be treated with deference. I wouldn't have complied, except that he both intimidated and intrigued me. In exchange for my good behavior, I was treated to one of the most memorable evenings of my life.

Don't be STUPIDO! These are cheap, easy, "staggering" Alzheimer's antidotes

CAFFEINE, NICOTINE & CINNAMON,
PLUS 3 VITAMINS -- JUST DO IT!
 

   ( 3/14/14) Vitamins and spices have a demonstrably greater impact on the prevention and treatment of Alzheimer's disease than the tortured chemical confabulations being put on the market by the pharmaceutical industry, according to scientific literature. Why are we being kept in the dark? Why do you think? 
    A study in the May 2013 issue of  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences indicates that a simple, 30-cent daily regimen of Vitamins B12, B6 and folic acid slows the loss of gray matter from 5.2 percent per year to 0.6 percent in those with mild cognitive impairment, a common prelude to Alzheimer's. Nothing produced by Big Pharma has slowed the progression at all.  

     “It’s the first and only disease-modifying treatment that’s worked,” said A. David Smith, professor emeritus of pharmacology at Oxford University in England and senior author of the study. “We have proved the concept that you can modify the disease.” 

    The results were characterized as "staggering" by  the Academy. Has your doctor mentioned this to you?

NO CLASS: Overpaid university presidents show contempt for students

"Summon the limousine forthwith, Reginald."

    According to the Chronicle of Higher Education's annual report on university presidents' compensation, released Monday, the top ten earned between $819,000 and $2.5 million  in 2012.
    I guess this makes them feel very good about themselves. It puts them well into the ranks of  The Top One Percent, along with all the other Masters of the Universe. Way to go! Rake it in! Cover your bed in it and roll around, if you must. High six-figure salaries continue to be the norm in American higher education, despite huge cuts in state funding. The median salary among public college presidents is well over the cutoff point for joining the Top One Percent. I wonder how they feel about the "little people" below.
    Seriously: How can they be so clueless? Why do they think they need or deserve all that money, when hundreds of thousands of young people are priced out of higher education by 10 percent annual increases in tuition, and student loan debt soaring to a trillion dollars?
    What kind of message does the callous, casual greed of their elders send to our children? Where is the compassion? Where is the sense of equity and proportion? Where is the call of duty?

Jackie Onassis Powders My Nose

Jackie and Brendan were our heroes that day.

    Last week, the centennial of the spectacular Grand Central Terminal in New York City was celebrated. Nearly 35 years ago, in 1978, I attended an ecstatic Municipal Art Society gathering, after a Supreme Court decision saved the landmark from demolition. My escort was Brendan Gill, who was co-chairman, along with Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, of the committee that fought for three years to preserve the beloved structure.
    An aide directed me to the "VIP Powder Room" moments before the event was set to begin. I dashed in, nearly colliding with Mrs. Onassis, who was exiting the only toilet stall in the tiny pink lavatory.
    It was the greatest toilet seat of my life. In my star-struck state, I felt that she had imbued it with a precious warmth, softness and sweetness. It was magic -- what a lady!

What are you searching for? My readers' inadvertent poetry

 

    (5/10/2014) Maybe I should just lie back and let my readers write my blog. I have been noticing for quite some time that the search terms they use constitute an intriguing, baffling, elegant, twisted poetry. Who are these people? What are they really searching for? Something both profound and mundane, I imagine. 

Wrinkles juicing,

black blondes enchanting, beautiful knees together.
Diaper sexy femme, flavory lips with aroma, Swiss cheese and Metamucil. Cloud flipping off you prayed. Pedo porn torrent, gay hot fuckung kiking vulgaire pig, jade roller for hemmorhoid. Solitary confinement, tears behind mink lashes, massive nippled male muscle morph, in Siberia icy.

Why are "America's Finest" rampant rapists?

An officer and a gentleman - are there any?

    UPDATE:  In a new report to be released on Nov. 4, the Pentagon estimates that 19,000 men and women were sexually assaulted in fiscal year 2014, an eight percent increase over last year, in spite of all the publicity and promises this issue has elicited. The results are bound to draw attention,according to the Assocaited Press, coming just a year after a 50 percent increase in the reporting of rapes and sexual assaults. , but proponents of keeping jurisdiction over such matters within the military chain of command seem to be in the majority.
     A Defense Department study released in May 2013 estimated that about 26,000 people in the military were sexually assaulted in the 2012 fiscal year -- another big jump from previous years -- despite ardent promises of reform by military leaders. (UPDATE: Nov. 7, 2013, Military assaults have risen sharply yet again, according to the New York Times.)  More than 75 percent of women say they have been sexually harassed and intimidated while serving in the military. Defense Department data indicate that an estimated 500,000 troops have experienced sexual trauma while serving. (A new book chronicles the rapes of thousands of French women by American "liberators" in World War II. Our heroes were horny. It's just a part of who they are! Don't judge them!)
    One in five women in uniform says she has been raped by a fellow soldier, although even the Pentagon acknowledges that the number is most certainly higher.  Which begs the question: Where are the "heroes"? Aren't they supposed to be raping the wives and daughters of our enemies?

Young Takes the Mike

 

                                                            MIKE SIEGEL / THE SEATTLE TIMES

    Michael Young,  president of the University of Utah and president-designate of the University of Washington, "made a roomful of UW officials smile by saying he'd take less money than his predecessor," the Seattle Times reported yesterday.

    As Saturday Night Live's Dana Carvey (the church lady) used to say: "Well, isn't that special."

Michael, Row Your Boat Away

 YAY, IT'S MOVING DAY!!

    Now that it seems we are going to lose University of Utah President Michael K. Young to the University of Washington, it might be fun to try a little experiment. 
    Let's offer 25 percent of what we've been paying Young and see how many energetic, experienced, visionary, charismatic applicants we can attract. Those who believe that we need to pay big money to get big talent are wrong, in my opinion.

Daddy's Delirium: The Haunted House in a Beautiful Mind

    The lights in Daddy's brain had been extinguished one by one, until at times he seemed to be little more than a potted plant, who sat in the sun for hours with his eyes closed. He still knew who we were, and he when we hugged and kissed him, he always said, "Thank you." He never initiated conversation anymore. The only answers he had to our questions were, "I don't know," or "I don't remember." 

    We didn't dream that some mad thunderbolt could pierce his brain and propel him into a fury of storytelling, urgent confessions, scientific theorizing, twisted reminiscence and vivid hallucinations. If you live to be over 65, it is very likely to happen to you, whether you have dementia or not.

Diary of a Mad Vaper

A colorful, sometimes slightly grotesque, new cultural phenomenon.

    (April 17, 2014) I dove into the delicious waters of the e-cigarette tsunami as a journalistic endeavor, and unexpectedly became a participant, not merely a detached,  note-taking observer. Oh, those tasty treats!

    Like everything I do, I did it to death -- and now I'm through. But it was a great ride. I briefly became a breakout starlet on Spinfuel magazine's news blog, as my stories reached number ten, seven, four and one, out of hundreds of fine articles. I kind of felt like a spokesmodel  -- quite a thrill at my age -- although I wish I could have been spotlighting animal rights, class warfare or ongoing racial discrimination, rather than the charming but relatively trivial "art of vaping." In any case, it was an excellent adventure. It remains for me a provocative topic on many levels: cultural, political, scientific, technological and entrepreneurial.
    The media will be covering the e-cigarette issue relentlessly for the foreseeable future. Lots of people have opinions, some of them reasonable.

    I have removed all but two of my posts from this page and collected them in the tab above: http://kronstantinople.blogspot.com/p/the-e.html.
   

It's Touching

    

    The quiet, rather bland young student at a  New York chiropractic school's free evening clinic did some half-hearted manipulation of my back, and then had me turn over. Much to my surprise, he proceeded to rub both sides of my lower abdomen in a circular motion. 

   "What the hell are you doing?" I asked, more curious than alarmed.

   "I'm giving you an ovary massage to see if we can get those menses back in gear," he said.

   I had him stop. On the intake form, under "gynecological symptoms," I had noted that I hadn't had a menstrual period in several months, but I wasn't pregnant. Still, I thought the concept of an ovary massage was creepy, and even if it were medically valid, I had no desire for my periods to return. 

   For the next three days, I had cramps and a pleasant sensation of warmth "down below." I think he may have known what he was doing.

Updates on Legacy.com, Lupus and Body Donation

   

     As we requested, Media One of Utah has changed its obituary policy, taking down the pay wall on all obituaries, permanently. There will be no charge for viewing older obits, and those forthcoming will remain free perpetually, instead of requiring a fee after 30 days.
    Regarding the class-action lawsuit on the abuses inherent in Legacy.com's user agreement.......

Why Call Them Privates?

        It seems to me that they aren't privates anymore: They are publics! Until I began writing this blog a few weeks ago, I had rarely made any use of Google images. I use the site quite a bit now to find interesting artwork to illustrate my posts. 

   I have been exposed during this short time to far more pictures of human genitalia than I have seen in the rest of my life put together. And I mean like ten times more! It wasn't fun!

A Modest Proposal: Castration at Birth

    

    In 1729, Jonathan Swift penned a satirical essay entitled "A Modest Proposal," which advocated that poor people decrease their burden on society by selling their children to the rich, to be "stewed, roasted, baked or boiled" for a very delicious meal. In today's tiresome jargon, it would be characterized as a "win-win." 
    I have a modest proposal of my own, and I'm not being satirical. Until some way can be found to mitigate testosterone's devastating impact on the world, I advocate that males be castrated at birth.

Please Mr. Postman: Deliver the Letter (the sooner the better)

Nursing Homes Can Legally Deprive Your Loved Ones of Mail

         It is against federal law to interfere with delivery of the mail. But the United States Postal Service is doing just that, by being a willing accessory to the interception and destruction of mail addressed to those who are confined to long-term care facilities.

    If you are serving a life sentence for murder in a maximum security prison, you are entitled to receive your mail. It cannot be opened, censored or withheld without a court order.

    But care faciliities operating under the same U.S. Constitution have been allowed by the United States Postal Service to intercept mail -- letters, legal documents and gifts -- addressed to sick, lonely, aged residents. The residents aren't even made aware that mail has been sent to them. Even legal documents informing the resident of his or her rights can be withheld. Thanks to explicit postal service policy, this could easily happen to you or a loved one.

Lancing a Boil with Metallic "Deathiness"

  

     I guess it is fitting that my brief immersion in the world of death-metal music began on a dark and stormy morning, complete with lightning and thrashing trees.

A Morose Little Vehicle, Running on Emptiness

continued from yesterday's post

    What stands out most in my mind is that I was always starving -- and on the vibrant, poignant streets of New York City, the fragrance of food was everywhere. I was in a near-swoon most of the time. I wanted so much to eat -- to eat everything! -- but I wanted not to eat even more. Out of nowhere, I had developed a humongous fear of being fat. (This was ironic, because the two best female friends I'd ever had were obese. They were beautiful and sexy. They were fresh and clean. They were smart and compassionate. Their love enveloped everyone around them.  So what was my problem?)
    Food had become my adversary. My hunger could not be managed except by stomping it down.

IMPATIENT: Just give me the stethoscope, and get out of here

Since you're all so busy
I'll take care of MYSELF!

  (March 31, 2013) Under today's greed-driven, production-line health-care system, doctors apparently don't have time to take care of patients properly. I have the time, and I have the Internet. I want to be the Doctor In Charge of Me. If I screw up, that's my problem. But I really think things are already about as screwed up as they can get.    
    Medical care has become a numbingly impersonal, sloppily organized, hugely bureaucratized, scarily negligent, and thoroughly exhausting process.
    I understand that most people are too busy to take charge of their own care, and the majority wouldn't want to, anyway. But I am tired of feeling like a slab of diseased meat on a factory-farm conveyor belt. I want to be cured --  at least as cured as cured meat! -- and I want the right to do it my way.

I'm not hungry -- I'm starving

   I have recently felt myself to be in danger of slipping back under the incredibly seductive spell  of anorexia. The secretive thrill of seeing how well you can starve yourself has my heart pounding almost constantly.
    By coincidence, there was an article in the New York Times Tuesday about the epidemic among older women of eating disorders, which have generally been associated with girls in their teens and early twenties. For some in the 60-plus crowd, it is a new phenomenon. For others, it is the resurgence of an obsession with food from their younger years.

  

University Health Care is infected again with false pride

   University of Utah Health Care is once again revealing its unhealthy need for recognition and status that it hasn't earned. These people have some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder that is manifested by manic braggadocio.
   Will somebody please grab a hypodermic and fill it with some dignity and integrity?? They could use a big shot of it.
   As we reported in February, the U. finessed its way to being named the Number One academic medical center in the country by essentially reverse-engineering a top-secret ranking algorithm, so it could focus on those criteria that were going to be measured. It was a brilliant strategy, but ethically dubious.
   Now it is claiming that it has been named first among the region's health care providers by U.S. News & World Report. 
   That isn't true. 

Who's Got Your Back?

    Tens of thousands of people are induced, one way or another, to donate their bodies "to science" each year. Those who sign up probably don't realize that their bodies will not be reposing comfortably and rather gracefully on a table, while the medical professionals of the future look on with quiet awe. Not by a long shot! Their bodies will be expertly butchered , as per customers' needs -- for various joints, limbs, organs, etc. -- then shrink-wrapped and shipped off on ice, like specialty cuts of meat. And it is very expensive meat, indeed.
   The demand for "human cadaveric material" has exploded, and, naturally, money-hungry entrepreneurs have rushed in to satisfy the need. They are all over the Internet, luring potential donors with soothing and uplifting words about the "priceless gift to mankind" that their donation would represent.
    Who's got your back if you make this selfless donation? Who is there to make certain that you are fully informed about how your body will be used? Who is there to ensure that the use of your remains is within legal parameters, including the prohibition against selling human cadavers, in whole or in part?
    Basically no one. As one body broker put it, "It's the Wild West out here."  
     Read more about it behind the "Busy Bodies" tab above.

Would someone please tell Suze Orman to shut the f**k up?

 

   Suze Orman's grand roll-out of "urgent changes" we need to make in our financial priorities is way, way too late. 
    The "New Reality" she's suddenly discovered has been my mother's reality for 92 years, and the reality of millions of others of her generation. It is the reality of cheerful thrift and charming modesty. It is the reality of living within your means, saving for the future, and shunning excess and extravagance. It is the reality of comporting oneself with dignity and class, not flaunting your gold-encrusted net worth. It is not "keeping up with the Joneses" -- it is keeping your eyes on the real prize: an emotionally and intellectually satisfying life.
    Orman has written about "The Courage to be Rich." It really doesn't take courage, Suze. It just takes blind ambition and questionable priorities.

Your crime: dementia. Your sentence: solitary confinement

This should be our next civil-rights battleground

Don't feel bad. He doesn't even know he exists.

    Do you ever envision yourself as old and alone? Can you imagine that you -- that active, attractive, sociable you -- might someday essentially be a prisoner in an institution that runs your life? And that nobody will care -- you will be forgotten?
    Maybe your memory and your volition will have deteriorated, but you will still be you. No one seems to realize that. Each day at the nursing home, you get washed off, spoon fed, strapped into a wheelchair, and abandoned in your darkened room. Deeper and deeper you sink, into inconsequentiality.
    You grow pale and gaunt. Your eyes are increasingly haunted. You will be here until you die. Someone needs to be shouting: "WAIT A MINUTE ! THERE'S A PERSON HERE!"

Dreama wants your body

 

     
   She really, really does. Not right this minute, though -- she isn't that kind of girl. 

    The totally dreamy Dreama wants your body, but not until you're dead.

As a whole, they're doing fine

     But they won't be whole for long. These donated bodies will be dismembered piece by piece as  medical students learn what is appropriately referred to as "gross anatomy.'
   "The body is destroyed once the year is over," a Northwestern University medical student says. "There's nothing left."
    He won't be donating his body to science, and he doesn't want his mother to, either.

    On a rational level, this humane gesture makes perfect sense. But very few people -- a small fraction of one percent -- actually go through with it.

    My father did, and I regret it. The story is above, behind the tab, "Daddy." 
    In an upcoming post, I'll explore the sordid, multimillion-dollar marketplace for body parts.

Obit site's CEO claims heavenly motives

  

We received a cordial email last night from the CEO of Legacy.com, the online obituary site that is affiliated with 124 of the country's 150 largest newspapers. It features obituaries and Guest Books for more than two-thirds of people who die in the United States. In total, it services 800 newspapers in North America, Europe and Australia.

    As our previous posts have noted, Legacy not only charges you for access to the obituaries you have written and paid handsomely to have published. It also -- without your knowledge or consent -- claims a sweeping array of rights with respect to your intellectual property and to details about your family. Its business model, plain and simple, is to make money from the writing, the stories and the grief of millions of people while giving NOTHING in return.

    Judging from the email sent by Legacy's CEO, Stopher Bartol, either he is stupid or he thinks that we are.

Large panel of experts calls Dr. Oz's "miracles" bogus, a new study concludes

The show is all about him, and his disrespect for his audience..

    (12/20/2014) Nearly three years ago, I posted a 30,000-word expose of The Dr. Oz Show (Oz1, Oz2, and Oz3, behind the tabs above). These articles, plus those titled "Saving Face: Dr. Oz escorts us into a wrinkle-free world," and "Is there a Dr. Oz in the house? Millions of 'large ladies' eat up his miracles" have attracted tens of thousands of readers, and are still going as strong as ever.

    Now my assertions about the absurdity and fraudulence of his claims has been proven by a large group of physicians, pharmacists and other researchers from Canada, who have written in the prestigious British Medical Journal that The expert researchers were able to find "only 11 percent of the recommendations made on the show could be backed by "somewhat believable"evidence. 
     "Nearly 4 in 10 of the assertions made on the hit show appear to be made on the basis of no evidence at all," they add. In other words: He just makes things up, for your amusement and his financial health. As I have written, he has sent his huge audience of trusting women on countless scavenger hunts to buy up his latest "game changing," "astonishing," and "miraculous" products before they disappear from store shelves, which they always do. Even so, viewers remain fat, wrinkled and exhausted as ever. His "tricks" and "cheats," and his exotic potions, lotions, teas and rain forest discoveries are generally worthless.

Happy Saint Joseph's Day, My Saintly Joe

   The first time I saw Joe Costanzo, more than 30 years ago, I had no idea that his Italian immigrant parents had named him after a saint, but what I saw in his face was a serene glow of saintliness, and that is truly the word that entered my mind that day. What I have experienced ever since has reaffirmed that perception time and time again. 

Reclaiming Our Legacies: a progress report

    Thanks to those of you who have offered financial support for our legal challenge of the "terms of use" agreement imposed by Legacy.com, the online site that handles obituaries for the vast majority of U.S. newspapers. I will be happy to contribute the relatively modest fees needed to proceed, and we have found a lawyer who is excited to be involved. He will represent us on a pro bono basis. He retired just a few months ago from a New York firm, where his primary focus was estate law, but doing First Amendment and intellectual property law is what launched his career, and he said he is "psyched" at the prospect

Muscle Your Way Into Lifelong Brain Health

Move over, Mr. Tiny Pants!

     (5/17/12) Let's all drag out our inner Schwarzeneggers and say to ourselves, affectionately but sternly:

"I am going to pump you up!"    

     Weight training doesn't just give you a toned, shapely body. It also offers powerful protection against Alzheimer's, according to a new study.

     The recently released MRI evidence is too dazzling to ignore: Strength training vividly lights up areas of the brain responsible for problem-solving, decision-making and memory. It can can prevent or delay cognitive decline, and even reverse it. Plus: You'll feel like Wonder Woman!

NPR's purple prose shows little mettle

   Wow, NPR reporters finally did some investigative reporting this morning! They had to have someone to hold their hand, though, so the excellent ProPublica team was brought in to help uncover a TERRIBLE SCANDAL: Some soldiers who get concussions are not receiving Purple Hearts. 
   Surely NPR could have found an injustice somewhere in the world -- and probably in any American city -- that is more worthy of what little investigative energy it has.
   More than 45,000 Purple Hearts have been hauled out

Crazy Little Thing Called Love

The question is: Can a once-obscure hormone, synthesized and squirted up my nose, make me a more loving, generous and trusting person? Or will it just make me lactate? I'll keep you posted as the possibly disastrous, possibly hilarious Oxytocin Chronicles unfold.

   Several years ago, I was watching one of those wonderful "Nature" programs on PBS. This one was about elephants, which I have come to regard as some of the most poignant animals on Earth, although I have become quite emotionally attached to most animals, thanks to public broadcasting.

   An elephant was giving birth, and as the big little baby came slopping out of her massive behind, she turned her head to see what she had wrought. It was at this moment, the narrator said, that a hormone called oxytocin flooded the mother's bloodstream, and forged in her a strong maternal bond with her perky, adorably clumsy newborn. 

    That was my introduction to oxytocin. I learned that in the animal kingdom it not only instigates maternal behavior but also can create "pair bonding" among monogamous species and cooperative relationships among tribes of animals.

   What was interesting to me was that just as the narrator was describing the hormonal surge in the mother, I felt a surge in myself, and I felt that I was falling in love with the baby right along with her.

Scar Tissue

    I've always admired the actor James Earl Jones for his dignity and his deep-voiced diction, but there was something about the way he spoke that subtly distressed me. I felt an uneasiness -- which  was almost like a mild fear response -- and I couldn't figure out why.

   Then, a couple of years ago, an interviewer asked him how he had developed such a refined elocution, and he replied that he had endured a terrible stuttering problem in his youth. Even now, he added, he had to speak with care and control to avoid relapsing into his old impediment.

   It was a revelation to me to realize that I -- a former stutterer myself -- had been so attuned, subconsciously, to his ongoing anxiety and that it produced anxiety in me.

An Appointment with Disappointment

Part Three of "Impatient"

    (april 14, 2013) How do people who are really sick -- who hurt, who are weak and dizzy, who are feverish and nauseated -- manage to survive the arduous process of getting help in today's vast, dread-inducing health-care monstrosity?
      It is a test of endurance that really ought to be reserved for those of us who are flushed with robust vitality. We need to march in there, and confront a doctor, and say: This system is terminally ill!

Inside the Bubble: Breathing Room

       The past few weeks in Salt Lake City have given us by far the longest stretch of decent air quality that I can remember. I still can't have my bedroom window open at night, though -- which I have enjoyed for most of my life -- because of all the wood burning. And there are still people who insist on warming up their cars in the morning, which fills the air with toxic fumes when I'm jogging.

   But for the most part, it has been incredibly refreshing not to regard breathing out of doors to be hazardous to your health.

   Over the past many years, though, the air has been so bad so much of the time that it has had an impact on me psychologically as well as physically. It was very ominous and oppressive. I felt trapped and powerless. Ultimately, though, I found a solution.

An Eye for an Eye: Compassion in the Flesh

      In a city park somewhere, dozens of ducks float contentedly in a large pond while dozens of others roam around on the surrounding grass, taking in the sun, pecking at the dirt and occasionally squabbling. One duck is far away, waiting expectantly at the curb, her head raised in anticipation, but for what? At last he arrives, zooming up on his metallic red scooter: A nice-looking gray-haired gentleman who takes off his helmet and warmly greets his feathered friend.

      They were featured in a story on the national news last week, which showed them taking their daily, amiable walk together around the lake. She looked up a him with such affection and joy as she waddled along beside him, and when he looked down at her, it was obvious that the feelings were mutual. If any other duck, or any other person, approached, she warded them off. This was her man. It was incredibly touching.

       When a reporter asked the guy if the relationship had changed him, he promptly replied, "I don't eat poultry anymore."

Happy Sabbath: On the Religion of Running

 

     Today is a Sunday, as it was then. I was jogging through my beautiful, tree-lined old neighborhood near Liberty Park. It was a mild, fragrant spring morning with all the Disney effects: chirping birds, scampering squirrels, daffodils and violets, and a coral-colored glow in the clouds. I had been running for an hour and hadn't seen even one other person. Then, in my peripheral vision, I sensed someone across the street, on the sidewalk, going in the opposite direction. I didn't look over there, but I soon felt that what had gone past had a rather odd silhouette. I came to a full stop in the street and looked back. At the same moment, an elegant deer with a face of pure innocence stopped and looked back at me. (She must have thought that I had an odd silhouette as well.)

Dead Right

  

In some situations, suicide can be a dignified,
 rational, generous and courageous act.

    It was very sporting of the Founding Fathers to let us have the right to life and liberty, but I am claiming a human right that is just as fundamental, which is the right to die, whenever I decide I want out. I refuse to be bound by any official criteria (“terminally ill"), or to seek anyone‘s permission, or to travel halfway around the world to get it taken care of “legally.” My life is mine and only mine -- it doesn‘t belong to the state (that‘s a medieval concept that we can “live“ without). My right is not subject to the ideologies of those who regard suicide as immoral or those who believe we are obliged to bear our burdens with dignity and humility until a “natural death" comes to the rescue. Go ahead, if that’s what you’re into. But leave me -- and everyone else who disagrees with you -- out of it  What we do with our lives is none of your business.

Controversy over obituary site takes on a life of its own

 

    Since my first post on February 22, I have received 192 emails from around the country regarding the fraudulent and predatory policies of Legacy.com, the online obituary web site. I answered them for awhile, but I apologize for not being able to keep up.

    The controversy has become national thanks to Jim Romenesko, who graciously placed a link to my coverage on the widely read media site Poynter.org. 
    And it is a national issue,