Lynne Stewart released

Good news for the new year. Political prisoner Lynne Stewart has been freed on 'compassionate release' grounds.

We interviewed Lynne Stewart's spouse, Ralph Poynter, on our radio show back in July. At that time, she was very ill from late-stage cancer. It has taken months, but some activists believed she wouldn't get out at all.

From The Brooklyn Paper:

A former Park Slope lawyer convicted of helping a jailed terrorist communicate with his followers is coming home after a judge ordered her release from a Texas prison where she has been dying of cancer.

The federal-prison-bureau-requested release of Lynne Stewart, 74, ends four years of imprisonment, much of which Stewart spent suffering from breast cancer. She was known for representing poor, politically active, and sometimes deeply unpopular clients as a defense attorney before her 2007 disbarment and subsequent jailing for communicating on behalf of blind cleric Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, convicted of plotting to blow up the New York landmarks including the United Nations and the Lincoln and Holland tunnels. Her family cheered the decision to allow her to return home, but lamented the circumstances.

“We were pretty surprised — it is very bittersweet,” said Stewart’s son and lawyer Geoffrey Stewart. “Freedom is the most important thing, and we still feel like she should have never been put through this in the first place.”

Stewart will arrive home on Jan. 1, according to the Justice for Lynne Stewart support website. The release ruling cuts short a 10-year sentence and follows a global outpouring of support for the firebrand advocate and an order from the Bureau of Prisons recommending her freeing. Backers argued that her conviction threatened the constitutional right to counsel, but multiple courts disagreed, finding that her transmission of messages from Rahman, nicknamed “the blind sheik,” to his supporters in Egypt’s “Islamic Group” was conspiracy to provide material support to terrorism. Judges overturned and quadrupled an initial 28-month sentence following a press conference where Stewart said she could do that time “standing on [her] head.”

U.S. District Judge John Koeltl granted the compassionate release appeal after denying the same bid in April because the federal Bureau of Prisons had not approved it. The prison bureau and the justice department recommended Stewart be freed on New Year’s Eve morning and the Koeltl signed off on Stewart’s release in the afternoon. In his decision, the judge pointed out that Stewart is near death and unlikely to commit further crimes.

The freed advocate will live in her son’s Flatbush home because a granddaughter lives in the Park Slope pad the agitator owns, a supporter said. She will be excited to check out Prospect Park’s new ice-skating rinks and to listen to jazz with her husband, her son said.

“I know she has a lot of people that she wants to thank, have private meetings with, and catch up with,” he said. “She will be amazed at all the changes in Brooklyn.”

Reach reporter Megan Riesz at mriesz@cnglocal.com or by calling (718) 260-4505. Follow her on Twitter @meganriesz.

More about Lynne Stewart's release:

Dying defense lawyer Lynne Stewart released from jail (CNN)

Dying Radical Lawyer Lynne Stewart Freed From Prison On "Compassionate Release" (Gothamist)

Civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart 'compassionately released' from prison by federal judge (Allvoices)

Lynne Stewart, Dying Ex-Lawyer Convicted In Terror Case, Released From Prison (Huffington Post)

Exclusive: Dying Lawyer Lynne Stewart’s Jubilant Return Home After Winning Compassionate Release (Democracy Now)

"Dexter"-type murders have upstate SC riveted!

At left: Jeremy Lee and Christine Moody, of Lockhart, SC, charged with two counts of murder each. Photo from THE STATE.






The victim was a registered sex offender and his wife. Apparently, these two had a list of sex offenders they were working from, DEATH WISH/DEXTER style. Clint Eastwood, call your office!

Maybe we shouldn't be celebrating vigilante behavior in films, comics or (as in the recent case of George Zimmerman) real life. Maybe the wrong people are getting the wrong message?

From Go Upstate:

Investigation into Jonesville double homicide 'wide open'

Sheriff says more charges could be filed Friday
By Jenny Arnold

Even though two people are in jail, the investigation into a double homicide in Jonesville is still “wide open,” Sheriff David Taylor said Thursday.

Jeremy Lee Moody, 30, and his wife, Christine Moody, 36, both of 213 S. 1st St., Lockhart, were arrested early Wednesday and charged by the Union County Sheriff's Office with two counts each of murder in the deaths of Charles Marvin Parker, 59, and Gretchen Dawn Parker, 51.

Jeremy Moody has told investigators he targeted Charles Parker because Parker was a registered sex offender. Jeremy Moody had “no beef” with Gretchen Parker, but she was home at the time and was a “casualty of war,” Taylor said.

Authorities think the Parkers were killed inside their home sometime Sunday, with their bodies being discovered after a concerned resident called 911 after he couldn't get the Parkers to the door Monday night. Both Parkers had been shot and stabbed.

The sheriff's office plans to bring additional charges against Jeremy Moody and Christine Moody, likely Friday, Taylor said.

Authorities said Jeremy Moody may have seen himself as a vigilante, and told investigators that he had written down the name of another sex offender he had planned to kill on Wednesday. About 3:45 a.m., he and his wife were arrested at the home of his parents in Lockhart, before he could carry out the third killing, according to the sheriff's office.

Investigators are working to determine whether the Moodys are affiliated with any white supremacy or other hate groups. Jeremy Moody has a prominent “skinhead” tattoo on the front of his neck, along with the words “white power” tattooed on the top of his bald head. He also has an eagle and swastika and “Made in America” tattoos.

Jeremy Moody also has told investigators that he is involved in other crimes, including homicides. Officers are following those leads, although Taylor has said that Moody could be bragging. He wouldn't comment on whether there were any specific cases investigators were checking out.

“We're still going wide open, as much as we were yesterday,” Taylor said. “We're following up on the information he's given us, getting evidence ready to send to SLED and trying to identify her tattoos, what they mean and what groups they may be associated with.”

Taylor said Christine Moody’s Facebook page seems to link the couple to a white supremacy group called Crew 41, based in Nebraska. Jeremy Moody has a Facebook page under the name Jeremy Mengele, but there are few posts. He posted that he keeps getting banned from the social network.

On her Facebook page, Christine also uses the last name Mengele, the last name of German physician Josef Mengele, known for his inhumane medical experiments on twins and other prisoners at the Auschwitz concentration camp during World War II. The page also contains code numbers for words and phrases associated with the skinhead subculture. Christine Moody makes posts in which she is trying to recruit new members for Crew 41 and uses racial slurs.

Christine Moody identifies herself as a “skin byrd,” or female skinhead. In one post, she states, “The census bureau for the first time in U.S. History have declared that this year, more White people died than were born. The extinction of the White race is upon us. This is undoubtably one of the saddest posts I have ever made.”

Taylor said Christine Moody appears to be trying to recruit new members for Crew 41.

“This is the first time I’ve seen this group,” Taylor said. “We’re doing more research on it. We’ve been in contact with the FBI about it.”

Also on her Facebook page, Christine Moody claims to have cancer.

“We have been told she has cancer,” Taylor said. “Our medical staff has followed up on that.”

Even scarier: I am fairly certain I have run into these two before, back when I used to work at Greenville Mall. (They are, you know, kinda easy to remember.)

We will be talking about these two colorful characters today on our illustrious radio show, so tune in, live at five. (LIVESTREAM HERE)

In addition, another vigilante wacko, Michael Dunn, has murdered another black teenage male (Jordan Davis) in Florida, and is claiming (wait for it!) STAND YOUR GROUND laws, as his defense. We will be discussing that also.

The word for today is CARTE BLANCHE, boys and girls.

Usage in sentence: Since the Zimmerman verdict, the racists now believe they have CARTE BLANCHE.

Latest in Nuke News

Last week, we interviewed Mary Olsen (of Nuclear Information and Resource Service) on Occupy the Microphone. (For the best in recent nuke news, check out NIRS.org)



Some of the news Mary shared with us:

[] In March, the NRC denied a third reactor to Calvert Cliffs nuke in Maryland:

The five-member commission [that oversees the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission] upheld an earlier Atomic Safety and Licensing Board ruling on the Calvert Cliffs 3 new nuclear reactor application, which had denied UniStar Nuclear Energy LLC’s application because of its failure to meet NRC foreign ownership requirements for US power reactors.

On Aug. 31, the three-judge ASLB denied a license for the proposed Calvert Cliffs unit 3 project because UniStar was bought out by Electricite de France in November 2010, resulting in 100-percent French ownership of UniStar.

[] In April, the Crystal River nuke in Florida was permanently shut down due to cracks in the containment dome and other problems; it has been offline since 2009 and has been a long-term headache for Duke Energy ever since:

The Crystal River plant in Citrus County, Florida, is operated by Progress Energy Florida. A failed repair to its thick reactor containment building led to repeated problems with cracking concrete in the structure.

Duke cited differences with merger partner Progress Energy last year over Crystal River’s condition. Progress CEO Bill Johnson, who was fired as chief executive of the combined companies, had favored repairing the 36-year-old plant.

But a Duke-commissioned engineering report late last year concluded that, while repairs were feasible, they could cost up to $3.4 billion in a worst-case scenario.

[] In May, the Kewaunee nuke in Wisconsin was permanently shut down:

The Kewaunee plant, which opened in 1974, was sold in 2005 to Dominion, based in Richmond, Va., by its owners, the Wisconsin Public Service Corporation and Wisconsin Power and Light. In the past, the lengthy decommissioning process that nuclear power requires was in the hands of local companies, which have had the option to go to a public service commission and ask for a rate increase to pay for the job if it proved unexpectedly difficult.

But Kewaunee was a “merchant” plant, a sort of free agent on the grid, selling its electricity on contract, at a price set by the market, not by the government.

...

Earlier this year, [Rep. Edward Markey] pointed out, the owners of the Crystal River 3 plant in Florida decided to retire it rather than repair its containment structure, because of unfavorable economics. Industry experts say that several reactors are operating at a loss while their owners wait for the glut of natural gas to disappear. How long that will be, and how many will last, is not clear.

“Once these old nuclear reactors shut down — as we’re seeing now — it will take 60 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to decontaminate them,” Mr. Markey said in a statement. “Taxpayers should have assurances that these nuclear relics don’t outlive their corporate owners and their ability to fund nuclear cleanup costs, leaving ordinary Americans to foot the bill.”

[] The NRC denied a license to Nuclear Innovation North America LLC for their proposed South Texas 3 & 4 Project (a joint venture between NRG Energy and Toshiba) because Toshiba owns a controlling interest in the nuclear reactors, in violation of US law:

The federal regulator denied the application of Nuclear Innovation North America LLC for a license to build the reactors, noting that Toshiba’s ownership stake in and “overwhelming financial contributions” to the project afford it a degree of control over the nuclear power plant that exceeds the limits of the Atomic Energy Act.

“The staff has determined that Toshiba, a Japanese corporation, through Toshiba American Nuclear Energy Corp. … its American subsidiary, is the sole source of financing for NINA,” the commission said in a letter denying the license.

[] Nuclear plant San Onofre 2 & 3 in California, has been shut down permanently, due to one disaster after another:

[The] nuke plant’s two operating reactors had already been shut down since January 2012. Southern California Edison’s decision to give up the ghost can be traced to its pattern of extreme mismanagement of plant operations, consequent huge financial losses, and the tenacious opposition that rallied local communities to take action to keep the unsafe plant shut down.

San Onofre is the largest nuclear power plant to be shut down in the US. One reactor was retired in 1992. The other two, just cut loose, formerly generated 2200 Megawatts of electricity to 1.5 million households. Located between San Diego and Los Angeles, the plant supplied power to 1.5 million households. 8.7 million people live within 50 miles of it. The two reactors at San Onofre had been scheduled to operate until 2022.

...

Long before Fukushima, San Onofre had already been having its own problems.
Reactor Unit 1, started up in 1968, had to be shut down in 1992 after problems with equipment that came back to haunt Edison with a vengeance in recent years at its other reactors.

In 2006 workers found radioactive water under Unit 1 that was 16 times more radioactive than EPA permitted levels for its presence in drinking water. And this was 14 years after that reactor had been shut down.
In August 2008 the Los Angeles Times reported “Injury rates at San Onofre put it dead last among US nuclear plants when it comes to industrial safety.” Later that year it emerged that a battery system, key to providing backup power to pump water to flood Unit 2’s reactor in case of a potential meltdown “was inoperable between 2004 and 2008 because of loose electrical connection,” the Nuclear Regulatory Commission reported.

And also in 2008, the Radiation and Public Health Project reported, in the European Journal of Cancer Care, that the counties nearest San Onofre, had the highest child leukemia mortality rates, of counties near nuclear power plants studied for the years 1974-2004.

...

All this led to 2009 and 2010, when Edison found it necessary to replace the four massive steam generators in San Onofre’s units 2 and 3. The original steam generators lasted over a quarter century, though they were supposed to last for the life of the reactors, 40 years. Steam generators facilitate the creation of steam to turn turbines to generate electricity in the type of nuclear plants most common in the US. Water pipes run through reactors and are heated by nuclear fuel. But this water also picks up lots of radioactivity. The steam generators have tubes that pass on the heat to another set up pipes that make the steam, while not passing on the radioactivity, which otherwise would escape into the environment and contaminate it. Thus the steam generators are key to keeping these nuclear plants running safely. Edison reportedly spent $680 million on the replacement steam generators. Since the plant was not originally designed to need replacements, the utility had to cut huge holes in buildings to get them inside.

And then they turned to junk in just a few years.

In a March 2012 report , Arne Grundersen, of Vermont’s Fairewind’s Associates, a former nuclear industry engineer, described the decisive moments when San Onofre’s shut down began in January 2012: “Unit 3 was operating at full power and experienced a complete perforation of one [steam generator] tube that allowed highly radioactive water from inside the reactor to mix with non-radioactive water that was turning the turbine. As a consequence, an uncontrolled release of radiation ensued, and San Onofre was forced to shut down due to steam generator failure.”

[] And finally, Warren Buffett's MidAmerican Energy has shelved all plans for a nuclear reactor in Iowa, opting for wind turbines instead:

MidAmerican Energy has scrapped plans for Iowa’s second nuclear plant and will refund $8.8 million ratepayers paid for a now-finished feasibility study, utility officials said Monday.

The utility has decided against building any major power plant: “We opted for what was in the best interest of our customers,” MidAmerican vice president for regulatory affairs Dean Crist told The Des Moines Register.

Mid­American will focus on its plan to build up to 656 wind turbines in a $1.9 billion project across Iowa, which also will trim power bills by saving fuel costs.

Thanks to Mary for coming on our show; she will be revisiting us soon.

Check those spots!

We were in Atlanta around October 12th, and I saw this AWESOME ANTIQUE AUTOMOBILE! (As always, you can click to enlarge.) DEAD AIR regulars know how much I love old cars, and simply can't resist snapping a photo whenever I see them.

Not sure of make and model, since I didn't get a good shot of the front.

~*~





I had a BIG BROWN BLOTCH (I guess that would be the most accurate description) surgically removed from my left calf yesterday. They are biopsying it and I will find out if its harmless or not. I also had cryosurgery on another strange-looking facial spot diagnosed as seborrheic keratosis. As a middle-aged blonde, I am finally taking all the admonitions about skin cancer seriously and having my various odd skin-blotches looked at. And the big one on my left calf got chopped off in short order... yow! Four stitches, which isn't so bad.

But hey, they don't waste any time, do they?

I also learned the name of the THING on my finger: myxoid cyst. (That sounds so much more impressive than, the thing on my finger.) This happened after I smashed my finger in a drawer, years ago. Now, my nail grows just like a canoe, as Roseanne Roseannadanna once said. (And she described it perfectly!)

You know all those online skin-cancer questionnaires? The question that made me laugh hardest is, "Have you ever had a blistering sunburn?" Are they joking with that one? I mean, they aren't serious?

How many blistering sunburns a YEAR would be the question.

The dermatologists look suddenly GRIM when you say that. They do not find this amusing AT ALL.

Thus, duly chastened, I am being a serious person and finally getting my skin examined and taken care of. I feel so responsible, like when I quit smoking in 1989.

~*~

Flipping through all the post-mortems of the debate, as both sides claim success... drinking delightful Pumpkin Spice Silk (it's SO good)... getting my laundry done and intermittently enjoying relaxing Yoga Sol, a music compilation by Shiva Rea.

The fact that my leg feels like a huge animal bit me, doesn't bother me too much at all.

Public health notice: Get those blotches and bumps checked out, especially you blondes and redheads. We were supposed to be living in Ireland, where it rains all the time, not hiking the Appalachian Trail and/or hanging out at Myrtle Beach and scorching! Wear hats and sunscreens, and start answering those unpleasant questionnaires directed at baby-boomers that ask funny questions about those hundreds of sunburns.

At some point, you will think, OMG! and do exactly as I have done. Better safe than sorry.

I'll keep you posted. :)

Levon Helm 1940-2012

I heard from my friend Blue Heron that Levon Helm had passed, which just broke my heart.

I adored his raspy Arkansas voice. I also loved him in Coal Miner's Daughter and The Right Stuff, which he narrated wonderfully in his trademark twang.

We will miss him so much.

Levon Helm, Drummer in the Band, Dies at 71
By JON PARELES
New York Times

Levon Helm, who helped forge a deep-rooted American music as the drummer and singer for the Band, died on Thursday in Manhattan. He was 71 and lived in Woodstock, N.Y.

His death, at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, was from complications of cancer, a spokeswoman for Vanguard Records said. He had recorded several albums for the label.

In Mr. Helm’s drumming, muscle, swing, economy and finesse were inseparably merged. His voice held the bluesy, weathered and resilient essence of his Arkansas upbringing in the Mississippi Delta.

Mr. Helm was the American linchpin of the otherwise Canadian group that became Bob Dylan’s backup band and then the Band. Its own songs, largely written by the Band’s guitarist, Jaime Robbie Robertson, and pianist, Richard Manuel, spring from roadhouse, church, backwoods, river and farm; they are rock-ribbed with history and tradition yet hauntingly surreal.

After the Band broke up in 1976, Mr. Helm continued to perform at every opportunity, working with a partly reunited Band and leading his own groups. He also acted in films, notably “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (1980). In the 2000s he became a roots-music patriarch, turning his barn in Woodstock — which had been a recording studio since 1975 — into the home of down-home, eclectic concerts called Midnight Rambles, which led to tours and Grammy-winning albums.

Mr. Helm gave his drums a muffled, bottom-heavy sound that placed them in the foundation of the arrangements, and his tom-toms were tuned so that their pitch would bend downward as the tone faded. But his playing didn’t call attention to himself. Three bass-drum thumps at the beginning of one of the Band’s anthems, “The Weight,“ were all that he needed to establish the song’s gravity. His playing served the song. In “The Shape I’m In," he juxtaposed Memphis soul, New Orleans rumba and military tattoo. But though it was tersely responsive to the music, the drumming also had an improvisational feel.

In the Band, lead vocals changed from song to song and sometimes within songs, and harmonies were elaborately communal. But particularly when lyrics turned to myths and tall tales of the American South — like “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” “Ophelia” and “Rag Mama Rag” — the lead went to Mr. Helm, with his Arkansas twang and a voice that could sound desperate, ornery and amused at the same time.

Indeed it could.

~*~

And here is one of those amazing songs that you tend to hear at apocalyptic moments. Not for nothing has it become an ongoing cinema-staple, usually played as the protagonists are figuring out something important.

I remember a fight with my mother as a teenager, and going out on the stoop to pout. Hearing the song at that moment (coming from somewhere across the street) was a spiritual lesson I needed, one of my first tutorials in The First Noble Truth.

When the student is ready, the teacher will appear. And Levon was my teacher, in those few moments.

The Weight - The Band



Requiescat in pace.

Peter Bergman 1939-2012

I really wanted to title this obituary, "Waiting for Peter Bergman, or someone like him," which I think he would have appreciated.




Instead, decided to be properly respectful and just reprint the New York Times obit:

Peter Bergman, Satirist With the Firesign Theater, Dies at 72
By PAUL VITELLO
Published: March 9, 2012

Peter Bergman, a founding member of the surrealist comedy troupe Firesign Theater, whose albums became cult favorites among college students in the late 1960s and ’70s for a brand of sly, multilayered satire so dense it seemed riddled with non sequiturs until the second, third or 30th listening, died on Friday in Santa Monica, Calif. He was 72.

The cause was complications of leukemia, said Jeff Abraham, a spokesman for the group.

Mr. Bergman hosted an all-night radio call-in show on KPFK in Los Angeles beginning in 1966, “Radio Free Oz,” which served as the testing ground for the high-spirited Firesign sensibility. Phil Austin and David Ossman, two other founders of the four-man group, were the producer and director of the show; the fourth founder, Phil Proctor, was a frequent guest.

“We started out as four friends, up all night, taking calls from people on bad acid trips and having the time of our lives,” Mr. Austin said in a phone interview Friday. “And that’s what we always were: four friends talking.”

Mr. Bergman and his friends recorded their first album, “Waiting for the Electrician or Someone Like Him,” in 1968, followed the next year by “How Can You Be in Two Places at Once When You’re Not Anywhere At All?”

By 1970, their mordant humor and their mastery of stereophonic recording techniques had made them to their generation of 20-somethings what Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are to today’s (if Mr. Colbert and Mr. Stewart had a weakness for literary wordplay, psychedelic references and jokes about the Counter-Reformation).

Their records employed sound effects in ways considered pioneering in audio comedy at the time. More generally, they were considered important forerunners of comedy shows like “Saturday Night Live.”

Ed Ward, writing in The New York Times in 1972, described the third Firesign album, “Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me the Pliers,” as “a mind-boggling sound drama” and a “work of almost Joycean complexity.”

“It’s almost impossible to summarize any Firesign album,” Mr. Ward wrote, because most of their albums were so filled with “intricate wordplay, stunning engineering and use of sound effects, breakneck pacing and, of course, a terribly complex story line.”

When the Library of Congress placed “Don’t Crush That Dwarf” in its National Recording Registry in 2005, The Los Angeles Times described Firesign Theater as “the Beatles of comedy.”

Mr. Bergman told people the ensemble’s albums, unlike most comedy records, were never made to be listened to just once or twice. “He said our records were made to be heard about 80 times,” Mr. Austin said.

While the ensemble continued making albums for three decades, Mr. Bergman also wrote and produced several one-man shows, including “Help Me Out of This Head,” a 1986 monologue-memoir that drew on his childhood in Cleveland. He also wrote interactive games, including a CD-ROM parody of the popular adventure video game Myst.

Mr. Bergman was born on Nov. 29, 1939, in Cleveland, one of two children of Oscar and Rita Bergman. His parents hosted a radio show in Cleveland when he was growing up, “Breakfast With the Bergmans.” His father also worked as a reporter for The Plain Dealer.

Mr. Bergman graduated from Yale and taught economics there as a Carnegie Fellow. He later attended the Yale School of Drama as a Eugene O’Neill playwriting fellow. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to pursue a writing career.

He is survived by a daughter, Lily Oscar Bergman, and his sister, Wendy Kleckner.

Mr. Bergman got a taste of radio work when he was in high school, according to a biography on Firesign Theater’s official Web site. But he lost his job as an announcer on the school radio system, it said, “after his unauthorized announcement that the Chinese Communists had taken over the school and that a ‘mandatory voluntary assembly was to take place immediately.’ Russell Rupp, the school principal, promptly relieved Peter of his announcing gig. Rupp was the inspiration for the Principal Poop character on ‘Don’t Crush That Dwarf.’ ”

For good or ill, I hold Bergman and Company responsible for much of my rather bizarre sense of humor.

My consigliere posted the following quote from Bergman on Facebook (originally posted on the Firesign website), and I certainly can't improve on it... could any of us improve on Peter Bergman?:

Take heart, dear friends. We are passing through the darkening of the light. We're gonna make it and we're going to make it together. Don't get ground down by cynicism. Don't let depression darken the glass through which you look. This is a garden we live in. A garden seeded with unconditional love. And the tears of the oppressed, and the tears of the frustrated, and the tears of the good will spring those seeds. The flag has been waived. It says occupy. Occupy Wall Street. Occupy the banks. Occupy the nursing homes. Occupy Congress. Occupy the big law offices. Occupy the lobbyists. Occupy...yourself. Because that's where it all comes together. I pledge to you, from this moment on, whatever it means, I'm going to occupy myself.

I love you. See ya tomorrow.

Ah, he's no fun. He fell right over!

Goodbye old friend. We shall not see your like again.

If Men Had Hot Flashes

Of course, we know that hot flashes are caused by menopause. But what causes them? Why do they continue in some women and not in others? Why do some foods seem to precipitate them? Why do they occur in the dead of night?

As you may or may not know, if you look up "causes of hot flashes"--HOW they happen, the physiological mechanism--you repeatedly read the following:

The exact cause of hot flashes isn't known, but the signs and symptoms point to factors affecting the function of your body's thermostat — the hypothalamus. This area at the base of your brain regulates body temperature and other basic processes. The estrogen reduction you experience during menopause may disrupt hypothalamic function, leading to hot flashes.

Well, duh!

I could have written that. I know what the hypothalamus does. Most of us who wake up soaking wet, have figured out that it's something like that.

But what CAUSES the hypothalamus to go wacky? What is the exact way lowered-estrogen affects the hypothalamus? How and why does hormone-level impact it?

(((crickets)))

Wait, they can figure out how to make hard-on drugs for old guys, but they still don't know what causes hot flashes?????

Now, let me guess. Why do you suppose that is?

Are women, specifically OLDER women, just not that important? Why has some high-end study not been conducted? THIS IS 2011!

Wait, let me guess again. Someone tried to fund a study, and couldn't get funded. The pharmaceutical industry specialized in giving women cancer for decades, and that was judged good enough. It was only when various medical studies came out, definitively condemning Hormone Replacement Therapy as a medical risk, that many women started studying the issue for ourselves. After all, our mothers and grandmothers had used HRT, and we assumed we might also.

But my mother had breast cancer (when she was exactly my age) and my grandmother had fibrocystic breast disease (to such an extent that she had several large, but benign, breast cysts surgically removed). Hm, thought the baby-boomer women. Maybe they're right, and we shouldn't use astronomical levels of hormones? (And why didn't they study the safety of hormones, before dosing millions of women with them? Well, why would they?)

Okay, we thought, let's study the condition, and figure out what might help; first, the cause of hot flashes. If we can isolate the cause, we can figure out what natural or alternative treatments might be. At the very least, we can figure out catalysts and try to minimize their occurrence.

(((crickets)))

They. Don't. Know.

They put a man on the moon (man on the moooooon) -- so yes, it is reasonable to assume they might care about their moms' discomfort. Isn't it?

Ha!

I started menopause in 2006, and as regular readers know, I celebrated my postmenopausal self (defined as one year of not menstruating) by starting this blog in June of 2007. I still have hot flashes, although not the wretched slow-boil kind (known as "ember flashes"), which are mercifully behind me. Some women continue to have those, too, though. Why? And why are they notably less common in Asian women? Is this cultural, and possibly diet-related? A good way to determine this would be to study hot flashes in Asian women still living in Asian countries and eating Asian diets, vs Asian women who live in the USA and eat the usual American diet of processed foods, salty snacks and Taco Bell. Is there a difference in number of hot flashes? Or perhaps there is a genetic component.

And have they done this? I have no college degree, and yet, I can figure out this much.

(((crickets)))

Last night--BANG, in the middle of the night, I woke up and wiped off the sweat. I wondered if it was something I ate at a wedding reception, and then... was instantly peeved: I SHOULD KNOW THIS! I SHOULD KNOW WHAT FOODS TO AVOID, DAMMIT! WHERE IS MY GUIDE FOR THE MENOPAUSAL SWEATY WOMAN, WRITTEN BY SOME ASSOCIATION???!!! As the diabetic associations and the gluten-intolerance associations and the salt-free associations offer guides for their people.

No, they can't provide this, since they are clueless.

Women have lived on this planet as long as men, and yet--? Hot flashes are still described as a "mystery."

And so, in a nod to Gloria Steinem's witty piece titled "If Men Could Menstruate"--here is what occurred to me in the dead of night.

~*~

If Men Had Hot Flashes, there would be a Hot Flashes Association (HFA) with foods marked "HFA" (logo inside a macho male symbol), the way Cheerios have a little heart on them, for "heart healthy." Needless to say, they would KNOW which foods to eat and which not to eat, since extensive research and causality studies would exist.

If Men Had Hot Flashes, the Weather Channel would feature a daily Hot Flash Report, instructing men with maps of Hot Flash Regions for the day (since extensive research will show that weather is a factor). Men at work will ask each other (not in whispers, either), what the Hot Flash Report said that morning: "Did anyone catch the Hot Flash report? Whew, is it hot in here?" Raucous laughter and high-fives.

If Men Had Hot Flashes, there would be hot-flash drugs tomorrow morning. And they would be advertised in pricey, cutesy TV ads, just like Viagra, Cialis, etc. (Drugs with NO female equivalent, BTW, since older women's sexual enjoyment is as low-priority in this culture as the dilemma of hot flashes is.)

If Men Had Hot Flashes, when it's time to toast at the wedding and they flush unexpectedly, they will stand up boldly and proudly announce, "I AM HAVING A HOT FLASH!"--and all men in the room will applaud, laugh and cheer. It will be like announcing which team is going to the Orange Bowl. No shame, no apologies. No giggling by anybody when they turn beet-red. What is to apologize for? It's a sign of MANHOOD, isn't it? And therefore, it would be roundly celebrated.

If Men Had Hot Flashes, women would hear how we really don't understand the mysteries of the human body, the stages of life, the natural progression of age. We would hear jokes about "women menopause"--how women suddenly have to acquire sports cars and young hottie-boys in old age. Or is that just too funny to think about? Yes, you're right, never mind. (Let's skip this one, too sci-fi to be believable.)

If Men Had Hot Flashes, they would brag about how hot it was, how long it lasted, and who had the biggest. They would institute suitable competitions and a Champion thus installed: Hot Flash Champion. And everyone would know this man's name.

If Men Had Hot Flashes, they would probably wake up their wives at night and demand to be taken to the ER. Some Nice Guys(tm) would quietly and politely not wake the Missus, take a cold shower, and go back to sleep... only to be called MANGINA, WIMP, WUSS, PUSSY-WHIPPED and such, by his fellow males. Suitably chastened, Nice Guy(tm) will attempt to make a big fuss next time, like a proper man should.

If Men Had Hot Flashes, there would be literary works throughout history about Hot Flashes. Shakespeare's Henry V would have given a rousing speech, "We happy Few! We who burn on the pyre manhood!" (Males thrust weapons into the air and shout in response: AGGGHHH!!!!) TS Eliot would write great poems about his hot flashes, while Hemingway would turn it into an existential drama about hunting. And we would have to study all of this in school, and it would be nothing to take lightly or laugh about. THIS IS MANHOOD WE ARE TALKING ABOUT, people!

If Men Had Hot Flashes, John Wayne would have said: "I gotta hot flash, pilgrim, whats it to ya?" This famous manly comment, shrugging off the tortures of the damned, will make it into Bartlett's Quotations.

If Men Had Hot Flashes, well, I wouldn't even have to write this. ;)

Elizabeth Edwards 1949-2010

It should have been her, not him. She was smarter and had the fire. We all knew that.

Speechless. She meant a lot to the progressives of both North and South Carolina.

Goodbye, Elizabeth.

Odds and Sods: They don't call it lunacy for nothing!

Due to the strangeness surrounding me, I knew it was a full moon, way before I saw it. Sometimes, you just know.


~*~


And the USA careens onward, listing evermore to the right, approaching the fever pitch of November elections. If Obama is re-elected, I expect a partial suspension of government by newly-elected Tea Partiers. Newt Gingrich successfully pulled this nasty stunt in 1995 and you can expect a reprise.

What?--you say, alarmed, they can't do that! Daisy laughs ruefully. THEY can do any damn thing they want to. And the way things are presently going, I am girding my loins and preparing for the worst. (I just hope my generally-congenial personality means *I* am not locked up.)

Yesterday, once again, nearly rear-ended due to the bumper stickers. The guy who did it had an MIA bumper sticker... yes, it's a veritable WAR OF THE BUMPER STICKERS. But that's why I tend to worry about the arrival of fascism... sure looks that way to me.

Several of the guys I work with counseled me to buy a gun. Uh-huh, and I'm sure the MIA guy would also have one, and that is a good way for both of us to end up dead. (Then again, I might end up dead when one of them pushes my little car into oncoming traffic.)

Despite my resolve, I might have to scrub off the bumper stickers. Doncha love how these patriots only want constitutional rights (such as FREE SPEECH) for THEMSELVES and not for the rest of us?

Trying hard not to hate. Damn, that sounds so 70s, but I am really trying not to, and fiercely meditating on impermanence.

~*~

Although African-American women get more abortions than white women, abortion is still regarded as a "white women's issue"--why?

This salient question is what started Faith Pennick on the road to making her documentary SILENT CHOICES, about the silence of black women on the subject of abortion, even (especially?) their own... and the many reasons for this:

According to a 2009 report by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, nearly eight in 10 African Americans claim that religion is very important in their lives, compared with just over half of all U.S. adults. And while black churches have historically served as beacons of political activism in this country, most of them have remained mute on the issue of abortion. “Black churches are very left as far as their political views on certain issues,” Pennick notes, “but when it comes to something like abortion, there’s this weird sort of break, like a split personality.”

One of the most pervasive stereotypes attached to this issue, Pennick says, is the image of the black woman as sexually promiscuous. “If we talk about abortion,” says Pennick, “it might make people think we’re freaks who just love sex. Not that there’s anything wrong with loving sex, but we’re giving the racists ammunition to say, ‘See, look at those sluts.’ “

To illustrate how this stereotype continues to thrive in contemporary society, Pennick points to the discovery in 2008 that Bristol Palin—the 17-year-old, unwed daughter of the GOP’s vice-presidential candidate—was pregnant. “Somehow, for conservative whites, it reinforced their traditional family values because she kept the baby and got engaged,” Pennick says. “But if that had been Sasha or Malia Obama, if they had been 16 or 17 and had gotten pregnant, oh my, every conservative in this country would have been saying, ‘[The Obamas] have no family values, they’re horrible parents.’“

Yup.

Excerpt from SILENT CHOICES. (caution, may trigger, etc)

Interesting that my mother's (illegal) abortion was also "a shot"--but she wasn't hit in the stomach. As a result of the shot, my mother slept for three days during which she bled so profusely, my grandmother thought she was dying.

After that, the pregnancy was gone, but I am convinced the hormonal-overdose might have been a precursor to the breast cancer she developed later.

It was her family doctor; he told her he did it all the time, but you had to "catch it early"...

~*~

RADISHES AND RICOTTA (unabashedly stolen from REAL SIMPLE):

1 cup fresh ricotta in small bowl
Drizzle with 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
Sprinkle w/1/8 to 1/4 tsp each, kosher salt and plain black pepper
Serve with two bunches of trimmed radishes.

Excellent source of magnesium, potassium, Vitamin B6, and alla that good stuff! YUM!

~*~

Botox is bad, which of course, you already know. But not only because you are injecting botulism toxin into your body (((screams for emphasis))) but because of the results. Facial expressions are not simply facial expressions.

The University of Wisconsin is on the case:

[Researcher David] Havas was studying people after a pinpoint treatment to paralyze a single pair of "corrugator" muscles, which cause brow-wrinkling frowns.

To test how blocking a frown might affect comprehension of language related to emotions, Havas asked the patients to read written statements, before and then two weeks after the Botox treatment. The statements were angry ("The pushy telemarketer won't let you return to your dinner"), sad ("You open your e-mail in-box on your birthday to find no new e-mails") or happy ("The water park is refreshing on the hot summer day.").

Havas gauged the ability to understand these sentences according to how quickly the subject pressed a button to indicate they had finished reading it. "We periodically checked that the readers were understanding the sentences, not just pressing the button," says Havas.

The results showed no change in the time needed to understand the happy sentences. But after Botox treatment, the subjects took more time to read the angry and sad sentences. Although the time difference was small, it was significant, he adds. Moreover, the changes in reading time couldn't be attributed to changes in participants' mood.

In sales work, I often gauge customer satisfaction by facial expression, and have long noticed that the Botoxed crowd is unable to let you know whether they like something or not. They may even WANT to let you know, but have rendered themselves incapable of doing so. I find it disorienting, and I tend to go emotionless in response. (Thus, I foresee a future in which all interactions between older women will be reduced to Stepford Wife/android-conversations.)

Uppity women are now controlled with pharmaceutical drugs and with the law; through advertising and through our reproductive capacities, and now, they can control our emotions, as I wrote three years ago. Women appearing unhappy or pissed off will probably be outlawed when the Tea Party takeover is complete, and the Botox injections will be mandatory.

Michele Bachmann's doctor will be rich, rich, rich! (Okay, I know, that was nasty.)

~*~

I used to read Adrienne von Speyr, when I was in my hard-core, pseudo-Opus Dei period. And I admit, I still like her! If anyone needs some female-authored (and surprisingly woman-centered) Catholic mysticism, check her out.

She once wrote: Anyone who knows the fullness of the light should not live in the twilight for the sake of thrift.

And I've always tried to live by that.

~*~

Closing with some random tunes I posted on Facebook, and some I've just been listening to in my car... starting with my favorite local band! :)

I'm a Country Man - Mac Arnold and Plate Full O Blues



~*~

All I've got to do - The Beatles



~*~

Easy To Be Hard - Three Dog Night



~*~

This is special for Mr Daisy! (kisses)

Peggy-O - New Riders of the Purple Sage



~*~

Big finish! Whenever I hear this song, I always wonder where all the Quaaludes went, LOL. In Ohio, we called em Sopors, while in the UK (and sometimes on the East Coast), the term was Mandrax. This meant: If you hitchhiked or otherwise traveled a lot, you might not know what you were being offered as you left one region for another, so it was important to be informed!

Ah, pharmaceutical nostalgia for all the former lude-heads in my readership! (goes with the whole FULL MOON motif)

Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll - Blue Oyster Cult

Eat your Turmeric!

Suddenly, there is a spate of articles everywhere, talking about the healing properties of turmeric. Apparently, Oprah's health guru, Dr Oz, is a big fan.

Us old hippies and Ayurvedic medicine practitioners, have always claimed turmeric had miraculous powers. (Time to toot our own horns, alternative-medicine folks. Once again, we were right!)


The following article has made the rounds in most Gannett newspapers during the past week:

Can an ancient spice prevent and treat cancer? That's the question researchers are trying to answer.

In certain cultures, turmeric is known as a golden gift from God, a sacred spice that has been used for centuries in Indian Ayurvedic and Asian medicine to treat fevers, stomach aches and cuts.

Indians sprinkle the powder on cuts to help them heal, gargle with it to soothe sore throats and mix it with warm milk for sick kids to sip.

Madhu Sharma, owner of the Green Chili Indian Bistro in St. Petersburg, Florida, uses turmeric in almost all of her dishes.

She says it's also an important ingredient in other aspects of Indian culture.

"We use turmeric when the baby is born. We use turmeric when we get married. We use turmeric when we cook everyday and we use turmeric to worship God and offer to God," said Sharma.

People in India eat turmeric every day in curry dishes. They cook with fresh turmeric root — a bright yellow herb from the ginger family — or they use the dry powder, adding about one teaspoon to every meal.

Daily turmeric consumption is one of the reasons cancer researchers suspect India's rate for breast, colon, prostate and lung cancer is 10 to 50 times lower than in people in the United States.

Dr. Bharat Aggarwal, a professor in the Department of Experimental Therapeutics at the University of Texas M.D. Anderson Cancer Center has been studying the spice for several decades.

"It has enormous potential. It is very safe. It has been around for a long, long, time and for the first time, I think we have evidence that it may be working as well," he said.

Hundreds of laboratory and animal studies have shown that a substance in turmeric, called curcumin, kills a wide variety of cancer cells including colon, breast, prostate, pancreatic, brain and melanoma and slows tumor growth.

The preclinical research has taken the spice from the lab to the clinic.

"We have shown that a wide variety of tumor cells can be selectively killed by curcumin and it does not kill the normal cells but will kill only cancer cells. There are no known side effects in people," he said.

Turmeric capsules are available in most alt-med brands. I highly recommend Gaia Herbs, which I am told has recently run out (!) of their signature Turmeric Supreme.

Simply purchasing some of the spicy herb in bulk and mixing a teaspoon in warm water (yes, gross, hold your nose) and drinking it daily (traditional Ayurvedic remedy for inflammation) --would likely contain substantial health benefits. Although I sell them, I don't think pricey supplements are necessarily required, although the much-sought-after active ingredient (curcumin) is highly-concentrated in supplements. As they say on the net, your mileage may vary.

If you like the taste, make a habit of sprinkling it on potatoes, rice or some other food you enjoy. Keep in mind, it stains mightily, and has also historically been used as a bright yellow/orange dye! (Mucking around extensively in some loose turmeric and attempting to make my own capsules some years ago, my hands and fingers turned bright orange, and I ended up looking like I'd eaten several bags of Cheetos.)

Eat your turmeric!

Obama's grandmother dies in the last hours of his campaign

Barack Obama with grandparents Stanley Armour and Madelyn Dunham in the 1980s. Photo courtesy of Obama campaign.

~*~

This just breaks my heart.

Politico reports:

Barack Obama found out this morning that his grandmother had died in the last hours of his campaign for president, spokeswoman Jen Psaki tells Politico's Carrie Budoff Brown.

A statement from Obama and his sister, Maya Soetoro-Ng:

It is with great sadness that we announce that our grandmother, Madelyn Dunham, has died peacefully after a battle with cancer. She was the cornerstone of our family, and a woman of extraordinary accomplishment, strength, and humility. She was the person who encouraged and allowed us to take chances. She was proud of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren and left this world with the knowledge that her impact on all of us was meaningful and enduring. Our debt to her is beyond measure.

Our family wants to thank all of those who sent flowers, cards, well-wishes, and prayers during this difficult time. It brought our grandmother and us great comfort. Our grandmother was a private woman, and we will respect her wish for a small private ceremony to be held at a later date. In lieu of flowers, we ask that you make a donation to any worthy organization in search of a cure for cancer.

Psaki said Dunham died between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. Eastern Time this morning.

Resquiat in Pace, Madelyn Dunham.

Sarah Palin's tan lines

I thought it was understood that tanning (as in: baking under the sun's rays, or in a tanning bed) is a dangerous, carcinogenic activity. But there is a whole industry of UV apologists I never knew about until I started Googling graphics for this post.

I've been watching the first season of MAD MEN on DVD, which dramatizes the early-60s advertising counter-attack on critics of tobacco: SMOKING IS FINE, EVERYONE DOES IT. (One amazing thing on MAD MEN is the constant puff, puff, puffing on high-tar cigarettes like LUCKY STRIKES; we baby-boomers grew up with that, and I'm surprised we aren't all dead.)

And now, they are telling us that searing the skin with ultraviolet rays is safe! Well, of course it is!

And guess who?!?

Palin’s Private Tanning Bed in the Alaska Governor’s Mansion

One of Vice Presidential Candidate Sarah Palin’s First Actions as Alaska Governor Was to Equip the State Building with a Tanning Bed

By Al Giordano and Bill Conroy
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
September 15, 2008

“The governor did have a tanning bed put in the Governor’s Mansion,” Roger Wetherell, chief communications officer of Alaska’s Department of Transportation and Public Facilities, confirmed to this newspaper. “It was done shortly after she took office [in early 2007] and moved into the mansion.”

The home tanning bed in the Governor’s Mansion in Juneau adds a trivial fact among the many, big and small, coming to light about the right-wing’s latest celebrity, McCain’s gamble to try and wrestle the election away from Democrat Barack Obama, but one that – tug the thread – leads to other questions about elitism, ethics, public health and the insufferable phoniness that plagues politics and politicians.

Indeed, John McCain claims that he is always careful to use sunscreen, as well as wearing hats, caps and long sleeves. John McCain has had four melanomas, removed in 1993 and 2000.

An expensive, specialized machine, unaffordable and out of reach to most American homes, utilized to artificially enhance one’s appearance, provides an apt metaphor for political image-making in campaigns. In fact, such an energy-hungry appliance, in most cases, requires a dedicated circuit, a voltage regulator and 220 volt wiring (and for some deluxe models, a hardwire connection to the power source) — a set-up not found in 96-year-old homes.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain recently said, of Palin, “she knows more about energy than probably anybody in the United States of America.” That kind of hyperbole can be expected from the guy who picked her out of relative obscurity, but so far both McCain and Palin have claimed that Alaska supplies “20 percent” of the United States’ energy, when, according to factcheck.org, that figure is “not even close… Alaska’s share of domestic energy production was 3.5 percent,” and just 2.4 percent of total domestic energy consumption. Okay, so Palin may not know more about energy than other national leaders, but the revelation that her newly re-wired Governor’s Mansion includes a tanning bed may indicate that in this time of high oil prices forcing most Americans to conserve energy, Palin consumes more energy than the others.

Tanning beds of the kind used by tanning salons can cost upwards of $35,000 each.
Asked whether taxpayer funds were used to equip the Alaska Governor’s Mansion for Palin’s tanning bed, Public Facilities spokesman Wetherell confirmed that the mansion’s electrical system had been upgraded early in Palin’s term. He insisted that the electrical work was not prompted by the extra needs of a tanning bed, but, rather was part of a project undertaken to bring the historic mansion’s wiring up to current building standards.

Since governors (and vice presidents) are generally expected to be healthy role models for the nation’s youth, Governor Palin’s darkening secret raises Edwardsian questions about her habit, which medical professionals and organizations have identified as a threat to public health, a cause of skin cancer, and a problem of abuse and addiction among teenagers and others through a condition that they call “tanorexia.”

Who Paid for the Governor’s Tanning Bed?

Alaska has a very strict ethics law governing public officials. In the case of the governor, the Alaska attorney general, who oversees the state’s Department of Law, enforces the ethics laws.

Judy Bockman, an Alaskan assistant attorney general who administers the states ethics act, says the governor is mandated to disclose any gift exceeding $150 in value if that gift is in anyway connected to her official position or if it is intended to influence the performance of her public duties. And a gift is defined, she says, “as the transfer of property to a public official at less than full value.”

Bockman says she was not aware of Palin’s tanning bed. That fact would seem to indicate that the governor did not list it as a gift, since such disclosures are to be filed with “a designated supervisor,” which in the case of the governor is the state’s attorney general.

Wetherell of the Department of Transportation and Public Facilities confirms that fact as well, indicating that he was informed by the Governor’s Office that Palin purchased the tanning bed “with her own money, so there was no need for an ethics disclosure.”

Wetherell says that Palin bought the tanning bed from a health club, adding that it was not a brand new machine. The fact that the tanning bed was acquired from a business also seems to indicate that it was a commercial model — which can command a hefty price tag as Wiese and Mensik point out.

Wetherell was not able to provide the name of the health club, the model of the tanning bed, nor the price Palin paid for the machine, which means there is no way of verifying, at this point, if Palin did, in fact, purchase it with her own money, and if so, whether she received a discount off market value exceeding $150 in deference to her position as governor.

If, in fact, the tanning bed was donated to Palin or her family, or provided at discount exceeding $150 as a favor due to her position, based on Bockman’s explanation of the state’s ethics law, it would have legally had to appear on her state ethics disclosure filings.

Bockman also explained that it is incumbent on a public official to disclose a gift in any case where that official suspects he or she received special treatment.

“There is an absolute bar against taking any gift that is inappropriate,” she says.

In any event, the examination of a potential ethics violation is handled on a case-by-case basis based on the particular circumstances of the event, Bockman adds.

“We don’t judge the appearance of impropriety,” Bockman says. “We look at the facts.”

The name of the health club that allegedly sold the tanning bed to Palin, its model and cost, form of payment, and that of the state contractor who did the electrical upgrade work at the Governor’s Mansion, are subject of continuing reporting by this newspaper. (Have a lead or a tip? Send it along to narconews@gmail.com)

I guess we need a tanned Vice President, though, don't we? Seems a small price to pay!

(((rolls eyes)))

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Listening to: Patti Smith Group - Till Victory
via FoxyTunes