A few little sight bites

We haven't had a Snippet Saturday on this Whirled in a while. I just wanted to share a few random quotations that caught my eye recently.

Life experience qualifies each of us to render judgment on any number of matters. I have no personal knowledge of a shotgun blast to the face, but I think I'm capable of appreciating the damage that such an occurrence is apt to cause on those who do have the experience...To assert otherwise is ridiculous—tantamount to arguing that a physician must actually be sick himself in order to accurately diagnose a patient with that same disorder. It bears noting that Landmark Forum does not have "personal knowledge" of the lives of the customers who attend its coursework, yet Landmark claims to possess a generic formula for helping those people improve their quality-of-life. Go figure.
~Steve Salerno on Part 1 of his SHAMblog Landmark Forum Series, addressing the notoriously litigious Landmark's implication that anyone who doesn't have personal experience with Landmark is unqualified to criticize it. In particular they were questioning the late Dr. Margaret Singer's qualifications to render judgment on damages claimed by a Landmark participant, because she had no "personal knowledge" of what goes on in Landmark Forum sessions.

Come to think of it...not that I am in any way comparing myself to Dr. Singer (or even to a journalist such as Steve), but this twisted judgment about critics' qualifications, or lack thereof, sounds a bit like some of the responses I've fielded from those who took umbrage at my critical remarks.

Here's Part 2 of Steve Salerno's Landmark series.
Here's Part 3, in which Steve clarifies the right to express an OPINION, although Landmark and other New-Wage schemes/gurus have been known to do their level best to suppress that right.

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Whether or not you believe you are your story, don't trade your own story, however dire or crazy, for someone else's second-hand cockroach fable. Your own story has the potential to get very interesting, at least to yourself, if you take a good look.
~ "Stoic" on a fascinating thread on the Rick Ross Forum, in a side discussion on the merits and deceptions of storytelling.

The "cockroach fable" is a reference to the tale that New-Wage guru-ette Bryon Katie tells of her own "enlightenment." It seems to be an integral part of her marketing as well as her mythology. Seems she was startled awake one morning by a cockroach running across her leg, and she awakened into a state of enlightenment, and was never the same afterward. She went on to create a multimillion dollar New-Wage empire. More than one person has pointed out the irony that a major part of her shtick is to encourage people to divorce themselves from their own "stories." ("Who would you be without your story?") I blogged about Katie a while back.

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The wounded in this world are dying and despairing by the thousands while prosperity preachers are offering up home-brewed remedies of Entitlement theology. These charlatans are selling salve to the sick when salvation is what people really need to fix what's ailing them.
~ Karen Spears Zacharias, Will Jesus Buy Me A Double-Wide? ('Cause I Need More Room For My Plasma TV) (Zondervan)

Okay, this is a link to a Christian book, and I don't often "do" mainstream religion (though I have on occasion), but since "Prosperity/Entitlement Gospel" has so much in common with New-Wage Entitlement "gospel," I thought it appropriate.

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And finally... this isn't all that recent, and I didn't find it on the Internet, but it has stuck with me since I first read it. This is from a book called Taran Wanderer, Book 4 in the delightful classic children's/young-adult fantasy series, The Chronicles of Prydain, by the late Lloyd Alexander. It's a typical epic fantasy that takes place in the fictional land of Prydain, based loosely on Wales. Alexander took much of his inspiration from the Welsh myth cycle, The Mabinogion. (In 1985, Disney released an animated flick, The Black Cauldron, which was very loosely based on a couple of Alexander's books.)

One of the recurring characters in The Chronicles of Prydain is a somewhat bumbling but well-meaning bard named Fflewddur Fflam. Fflewddur isn't really a very good bard, though his cat seems to like his music. But he is a faithful friend and a brave fighter in his own way, although he has a marked tendency to exaggerate whenever he opens his mouth. However, he is constantly kept in line by his magical harp, which noisily busts a string whenever he tells a big one. If he even starts to tell a fib, the harp makes threatening noises. One day he and Taran, the main hero of the series, are discussing some of the area noblemen and their quirks, particularly the nobles' self-satisfaction and habit of boasting about their heroic deeds.

[Fflewddur said], "These...nobles are much alike, prickly as porcupines one moment and friendly as puppies the next. They all hoard their possessions, yet they can be generous to a fault. As for valor, they're no cowards.* Death rides in the saddle with them and they count it as nothing, and in battle I've seen them gladly lay down their lives for a comrade. At the same time," he added, "it's also been my experience, in all my wanderings, that the further from the deed, the greater it grows, and the most glorious battle is the one longest past. So it's hardly surprising how many heroes you run into.

"Had they harps like mine," said Fflewddur, warily glancing at his instrument, "what a din you'd hear from every stronghold in Prydain!"

Today instead of magical harps, we have snarky blogs. And I don't know about you, but it sounds to me as if the din is growing louder all the time.

* Hey, no analogy is perfect.

This is your brain on politix

The piece below was originally part of a longer post I wrote in September 2009, but I decided it didn't really belong in that post, which was already more than long enough. As you probably know, I don't normally "do" politix on this blog, but some things just need saying. I do think it's a shame that disagreement over politics can be so bitterly divisive, but I guess that's part of what makes online life so "interesting."

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We have to get past this notion of politics-as-Super Bowl, where you root for your team and I root for mine, and all that matters is which team wins, and thus there's no hope (nor even any real reason) for conciliation on either side. If we don't defeat that, it will defeat us.
~ Steve Salerno, writing on SHAMblog about President Obama's State of the Union speech 

A few months ago I read a fascinating book called Evil Genes: Why Rome Fell, Hitler Rose, Enron Failed, and My Sister Stole My Mother's Boyfriend, by Barbara Oakley, Ph.D. (Prometheus Press, 2008). I think the book offers insight into the ruthless and power-hungry among us – politicians, corporate tycoons, and even some selfish-help/New-Wage gurus. (The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout may give more insight into the latter, but I haven't read it yet so I can't say for sure.)

But I promised you politix in my little prelude, so I'm sticking to that for now. In a section on 'feel good' politics (pp. 187-192 of the trade paperback edition of Evil Genes), Dr. Oakley cites a brain imaging study by psychologist Drew Westen and his colleagues at Emory University. The study took place at the time of the 2004 Bush-Kerry presidential race, and involved two groups: fifteen committed Democrats and fifteen equally committed Republicans. Participants were hooked up to MRIs to monitor their brain activity. Each group was presented with incidents in which "their" candidate appeared to contradict himself, as well as similar instances in which the opposing candidate appeared to contradict himself, and similar examples regarding a more "neutral" target, such as actor Tom Hanks, who is such a nice guy that most folks, regardless of politics, seem to like him.

Then the participants were asked to give opinions about their candidate, the opposing candidate, and the neutral target, based upon the information they had just been given. All of them, Democrats and Republicans alike, found a way to put a positive spin on "their" candidate, despite the ostensibly damning information, and they also found a way to put a negative spin on the "other" candidate. As Drew Westen explained in the introduction to his own book, The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation,* they clearly saw the opposing candidate's inconsistencies and contradictions, rating him close to an average of "4" on a 4-point rating scale. For their candidate, on the other hand, the ratings averaged closer to a "2."
As for the neutral target, their conclusions were more balanced and seemed to be based upon the information they'd been given. None of that is terribly noteworthy, but what was noteworthy was the difference in brain activity when emotions were at stake. Dr. Oakley writes:

When this "emote control" began to occur, parts of the brain normally involved in reasoning were not activated. Instead, a constellation of activations occurred in the same areas of the brain where punishment, pain, and negative emotions are experienced (that is, in the left insula, lateral frontal cortex, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex). Once a way was found to ignore information that could not be rationally discounted, the neural punishment areas turned off, and the participant received a blast of activation in the circuits involving rewards – akin to the high an addict receives when getting his fix. In essence, the participants were not about to let facts get in the way of their hot-button decision making and quick buss of reward. "None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," says Westen. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."

On the other hand, when participants had no particular emotional investment in their opinion – as with statements concerning Tom Hanks – a completely different process occurred in the brain. It was a more straightforward, rational process, involving only the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, which is associated with reasoning as well as conscious efforts to suppress emotion. 

Oakley writes that Westen's study was the first to describe the neural processes underlying political judgment and decision making, though the significance of the findings ranges beyond the study of politics. One obvious takeaway lesson is that all of us are far less rational than we often like to believe, as Dr. Oakley writes:

...simply looking at the research results, one must conclude that people's first emotional response about what's wrong, who is to blame, or how to proceed, particularly in relation to complex issues, must always – always – be considered suspect. There is no simple algorithm for teasing rationality from emotion. An ardent Democrat or Republican, a dyed-in-the-wool communist union organizer, a young devotee of Scientology, a Palestinian suicide bomber, or a KKK grand kleagle could each read the above paragraphs and think, I'm not irrational – it's those other idiots who can't see the obvious. But we all have pockets of irrationality, some large, some small, no matter if we are mathematicians who make our living doing proofs, wealthy philanthropists, or stay-at-home housewives.

This research definitely raises the question of how the brain scans might differ between, say, livid Obama critics who originally protested his September 2009 speech to school kids but admitted that they changed their minds after reading or hearing the speech, and livid Obama critics who read or heard the speech but continued to grumble that it was "indoctrination," that the original speech had been "cleaned up," and that Obama has sinister hidden agendas for the US. Or, for that matter, the respective differences in the brains of those who thought his January 27 State of the Union speech was either (1) masterful and even brave, because he dared to criticize the Supreme Court; or (2) the same old crap from a "socialist" President who had the unmitigated gall to publicly criticize the Supreme Court; or (3) a pretty good speech overall but still not necessarily a harbinger of real change in this country. (I'm in category number (3), by the way; I thought it was a good speech and an eloquent plea for bipartisanship, but I rather suspect that we're in for another round of the same old politix. Call me jaded, but that's pretty much my default mode, though I would love to be proven wrong.**)

And Westen's research certainly sheds some light on why many folks are crowing triumphantly about Scott Brown's recent victory in Massachusetts, claiming that "the people have spoken" in that state about what they think of Obama's health care plan; and why many other folks are more easily able to see that Massachusetts already had a cushy state health care system in place, for which Brown himself voted. (For the record, I think the national health care plan(s) currently before us stink, being unthinkably costly and offering the worst of everything for everyone but the insurance companies. Something has to be done, but this ain't it.)

Let's face it: We all have an endless capacity for rationalization, especially when it comes to our politics or other belief systems. We all rationalize. I do it. You do it. The proud, patriotic, we-don't-need-no-stinkin'-health-care-plan folks who love to bash "the libtards" do it. Progressives do it. Conservatives do it. Democrats and Republicans and Libertarians and Green Party folks do it. For that matter, skeptics and believers do it. (Birds and bees and even educated fleas probably do it too, at least to the extent that their cognitive hardware will allow, but we just don't understand their respective languages yet enough to really tell.)

Sometimes, agreeing to disagree is the best option, and it really can be done without childish name-calling or contemptuous dismissal of the other person.

Not that this is going to keep me from my own childish snarking about the stuff in the New-Wage/selfish-help/McSpirituality industry that I find snarkworthy, mind you, but I just thought I'd put in my two-cents' worth about politix.

* Regarding Drew Westen's book, some have criticized him for going beyond reporting on the data, and suggesting that politicians can use his research to their advantage, or, as one reviewer on Amazon put it, "actually encouraging political candidates to explicitly rely on fallacious red herring tactics in political debate."

**As for that controversial Supreme Court decision striking down part of a campaign financing reform law that no lesser a Republican than Senator John McCain co-sponsored, perhaps we need to, as a widely quoted AlterNet blogger put it, "rid ourselves of "the perverse notion of corporate personhood."

On January 28, syndicated newspaper columnist Clarence Page published a good piece on corporate personhood as it relates to human rights historically and currently. He notes:

If the populist Tea Party movement is truly worthy of its touted “populist” crusade against Wall Street and other powerful interests, it could find common ground with President Obama's call to curb runaway political spending — unless the Tea Party believers think corporations are people, too.

Good point, Mr. Page, but I think it's going to go over a lot of folks' heads.

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The Mayans called. They want their calendar back.

12/21/2012 will be so uneventful that it’ll make Y2K look like the Harmonic Convergence.
~Steven Sashen

I wasn't going to even write about 2012. Really I wasn't, mainly because the topic has already been covered so well by some of my fellow wags and social commentators, such as the above-quoted Steven Sashen. Like most of them, I've known about the 2012 hysteria for many years, long before it actually became hysteria. For that matter, I was hip to it long before the Y2K panic became a panic. I first became cognizant of 2012 predictions way back when the world was still recovering from the utter letdown that was the Harmonic Convergence (the latter of which I mentioned in passing, along with one of the countless "ascensions" related to the number 11, in an old piece I wrote for Skeptical Inquirer).

I knew about 2012 by virtue of having friends, and later clients, who were into New-Agey stuff and were fascinated with the Mayan calendar and the usual hodgepodge of ancient prophecies. One of my clients, who later became a friend, did some channeling occasionally, and some of her Guides told her all sorts of stuff about massive catastrophic changes coming in 2012. One told her the s--t would actually start hitting the fan some time in 2009, and it would just begin escalating steadily for the next three years, culminating in the Big Whatever of 2012.

In the past couple of years, as it became apparent that 2012 was the new Y2K, I toyed with the idea of doing a blog post about it. Other topics captured my interest more, though, and I let it slide.

But now comes the new disaster flick, 2012, which opened in theaters across the United States today. (It's fitting, I suppose, that it would be on a Friday the 13th.) So far the movie critics have been less than kind, although reg'lar viewers have tended to cut the movie a little more slack. I'm pretty easy on movies myself, and will probably see 2012 at some point after it comes out on DVD; I've enjoyed several of director Roland Emmerich's other works, and I adore John Cusack, despite the fact that he may have some woo-ish leanings himself. During yesterday's interview on CBS' Early Show, Harry Smith asked John if he had been aware of the 2012 hoopla before he got involved in the movie. John said yeah, he'd been into that stuff for years. Here's a link to the video of that interview, which has become famous in its own right for the fact that the f-word just sort of popped out of John's mouth (at about 2:45 into the video).

In the past several months I've been seeing some more acerbic commentary about this whole 2012 thing. I don't know if any of it will make a dent in the growing hysteria, but I applaud the writers' efforts nonetheless. In October, Mark Stevenson published a piece on the MyWay site about how disgusted many people of Mayan descent are about the 2012 phenomenon. Astronomers are pretty irate as well.

At Cornell University, Ann Martin, who runs the "Curious? Ask an Astronomer" Web site, says people are scared.

"It's too bad that we're getting e-mails from fourth-graders who are saying that they're too young to die," Martin said. "We had a mother of two young children who was afraid she wouldn't live to see them grow up."

Chile Pixtun, a Guatemalan, says the doomsday theories spring from Western, not Mayan ideas.

A significant time period for the Mayas does end on the date, and enthusiasts have found a series of astronomical alignments they say coincide in 2012, including one that happens roughly only once every 25,800 years.

But most archaeologists, astronomers and Maya say the only thing likely to hit Earth is a meteor shower of New Age philosophy, pop astronomy, Internet doomsday rumors and TV specials such as one on the History Channel which mixes "predictions" from Nostradamus and the Mayas and asks: "Is 2012 the year the cosmic clock finally winds down to zero days, zero hope?"

Although 2012 does have some archeological significance, which Stevenson explains in his article, it's just not gonna be the end of the world as we know it.

More recently, on the h+ Magazine site, Mark Dery wrote a scathing piece, 2012: Carnival of Bunkum. He rips into 2012 "expert" Daniel Pinchbeck (whose asininity has had my pal Chris Locke at the Mystic B blog tearing his own hair out for quite some time now). Dery writes:

But the worst of the 2012 bandwagon, epitomized by Pinchbeck’s lectures and writings, is the blithe cultural arrogance and staggering anthropological ignorance evident in the movement’s appropriation of Mayan beliefs and history. In a discussion hosted by Pinchbeck’s online magazine Reality Sandwich, the cultural theorist Erik Davis puts his finger on the minstrelsy implicit in the ventriloquization, by white, first-world New Agers, of the Maya. “[I]t seems to me that there is very little concrete sense of what ‘the Mayans’ (whoever that grand abstraction represents) thought about what would happen in the human world on 2012,” he writes. “To my mind it is kinda disrespectful to the Mayans to force them into our own narrative.”

Dery also talked to journalist Xeni Jardin, who does not claim to be an expert on or spokesperson for the Mayan people. However, her adoptive father is "of indigenous descent," and Xeni's work with his nonprofit organization in Guatemala to make things better for the poorest of the poor there has brought her in close contact with the Mayans. Here's what she had to say about Pinchbeck:

What makes me angriest about Pinchbeck’s bogus, profiteering bullsh-t isn’t so much him, but the fact that that many people are racist enough to believe any asshole white guy who declares himself an expert in Mayan culture. Did it ever occur to anyone to ask practicing Maya priests out in the villages? [...] It absolutely enrages me that while people I know in Guatemala, traditional priests, are struggling to figure out how to provide clean drinking water to their families, how to feed their communities, how to avoid being shot by the gangs and thieves that plague the roads more than ever---while they’re struggling to survive and keep their communities intact, assholes like Pinchbeck are making a buck off of white man’s parodies of their culture.

Of course, Native Americans have been hollering for years about the wholesale exploitation of their culture and religious traditions by New-Wage hustlers and their followers, the latest newsworthy example being James Arthur Ray's infamous Death Lodge. In fact, the Lakota tribes of North and South Dakota have just filed a lawsuit against James Ray, the owners of the Angel Valley Resort, the state of Arizona and the United States. Here is a PDF of the pleading. (And years before Sweatgate there were other disasters, not only with sweat lodges but with large-scale New-Wagey events such as the increasingly ludicrous Burning Man.)

But back to 2012. Despite the serious efforts of people such as Mark Dery and Mark Stevenson, people are going to believe what they want to believe. Almost certainly the silliness will continue unabated, and perhaps the best way to fight it is with yet more silliness. I kind of like Steven Sashen's approach. He has a mighty prophecy of what will occur on December 22, 2012, which is the day after the world is supposed to end.

...when the “planetary alignment” occurs, without the warned-about mayhem, here’s how the 12-ers will spin it:

“YOU DID IT, HUMANITY! You made the shift in consciousness that we needed to avert disaster and have ushered in a new era in global connection and enlightenment.”

One of his readers responded:

What’s amusing to me is that there’s pretty solid proof that the Mayan Calendar was created several hundred years after year zero. i.e., the makers extrapolated back to make things fit the way they wanted to. So year zero is completely arbitrary, just like year zero in CE calendars is arbitrary (seeing as how Jesus was probably born in 4 BC).

Here's my prophecy about 2012: The one thing the movie about it will accomplish, besides making big bucks at the box office, will be to finally bring the conversation even more into the mainstream. It will give the talking heads and the blogging hands something to talk about and blog about, and it will give the worrying public something else to worry about for a while, until the next trendy worry du jour comes along. End-timers of the New-Wage sort will come forward with still more products to help humanity through this "transition." (I wouldn't be surprised if Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale, for example, came out with his own exploitation project – perhaps a moviemercial about "Hypnotic Marketing Secrets of the Mystical Maya." After all, he went to Peru last summer and got photographed looking deeply wise in Machu Picchu. That has to be good for at least one infoproduct. It would be just the thing to add to his world series of magickal offerings, such as the Russian Wish Dolly and the Polish Money Attractor.) Meanwhile, end-timers of the Christian fundamentalist kind will righteously assert that Jeezus H. Christ Himself said we don't know the hour or the day the world will end, but that in any event we shouldn't be listening to those pagan Mayans.

And the Whirled will just keep right on spinning.

PS ~ Here's the Wikipedia entry on 2012.
And here's the even more authoritative Uncyclopedia entry.

On arrogance, atonement, and ambivalence

This paradox lies at the heart of so much of public life: individuals of dubious character and cruel deeds may redeem themselves in selfless actions. Fidelity to a personal code of morality would seem to fade in significance as the public sphere, like an enormous sun, blinds us to all else.
~Joyce Carol Oates, in an essay penned after Teddy Kennedy's death
 
This isn't normally a political blog, but a few politicky matters have been on my mind in recent weeks, most notably, the death last month of Senator Edward Kennedy. I know this topic has already been blogged within an inch of its life, so I hope you'll bear with me for weighing in with still more. In any case, this isn't really about politics. In fact, I'm not sure exactly what all this post is about, or even exactly what points I am trying to make, and I'd better warn you right off the bat that I will probably be all over the place with this one. I just felt a need to start writing and see where it goes. So here it goes...

As I noted on a recent discussion on Steve Salerno's SHAMblog, I neither canonize nor demonize Ted Kennedy, but, like many Americans, I have at times bought into the sheer romance of the Kennedy myth. How could I not? Apart from their public lives as progressives, idealists, altruists, and torchbearers of compassion, the private lives of this perfectly lovely and deeply haunted family have constantly been on parade as well, for much of the past century and all of this one so far. While detractors almost gleefully focus on the royal screw-ups, the drunkenness, and the perceived depravity, the more lasting Kennedy images, for many, have been more wholesome and so thoroughly American: the sun-kissed skin and tousled hair and radiant toothy smiles, the touch football games on the sprawling lawn of the huge family compound, the sailing jaunts on Nantucket Sound. (Non-fans might point out that even the loveliness is transitory, for as they age, Kennedy women tend to get sun-baked and leathery, while the men just get red and bloated.)

Even for Kennedy lovers the picture is bittersweet, because, of course, there are the tragedies as well. This only makes the Kennedy family saga all the more compelling to some romanticists who can't get away from the Camelot metaphor. Well, I say Camelot, Schmamelot; I know the real story. Many years ago, a mystical-minded artist friend of mine – the very same person who got me into New-Age stuff in the first place – told me that he had it on good authority, from another mystic he knew, that the Kennedy family is in fact a reincarnation of some branch or other of the great Hapsburg (alternative spelling: Habsburg) dynasty of Europe. This, he said, explains the thread of tragedy woven throughout the Kennedy family story, as well as their amazing penchant for do-goodism; these are all karmic phenomena to balance out the cruelty and decadance of that old dynasty. Some would argue that some of the Kennedy men have done their part to keep the tradition of decadence alive and well, though apparently not in the incestuous way of the Spanish Hapsburgs. And some would contend that the tragedies suffered by the Kennedy family were karma for their own misdeeds in this life. Joe Kennedy Senior alone apparently racked up enough bad karma to last for generations, including arranging to have his own daughter Rosemary lobotomized in the crude way that it was done in the early 1940s, and then hiding her away forever. But that's another story...
 
All mythology, metaphor, and mysticism aside, even many conservatives agree that despite his private failings, Ted Kennedy did an enormous amount of good in his decades of public life. And for the benefit of those who scoff at the notion that a member of the plutocracy can truly identify with the less fortunate, I think that it is indeed possible for a person to be extraordinarily wealthy and still have genuine compassion for those who are not. I think of one of our late local (Texas) heroes, Marvin Zindler who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth as well, but never forgot that "it's hell to be poor." Throughout his long life, Marvin never stopped working on behalf of the downtrodden. The same can truthfully be said of Ted Kennedy. Despite his wealth and access to the best that life had to offer (including, of course, the very best health care), he did seem to have the ability to truly empathize with the majority who weren't so fortunate. As President Obama said in his September 9 speech to Congress, regarding Kennedy's passion for health care reform*...

...Ted Kennedy's passion was born not of some rigid ideology, but of his own experience. It was the experience of having two children stricken with cancer. He never forgot the sheer terror and helplessness that any parent feels when a child is badly sick. And he was able to imagine what it must be like for those without insurance, what it would be like to have to say to a wife or a child or an aging parent, there is something that could make you better, but I just can't afford it.

For me, it really isn't so difficult to believe that someone born to wealth and privilege can actually care about those who weren't.

Oh, black water...
Without vilifying Kennedy or his legacy in any way, however, I still cannot get Mary Jo Kopechne out of my mind. I'm looking again, as I have so many times over the past couple of weeks, at the cover of the August 1, 1969 issue of Time magazine, which I rescued years ago from the chaos of my mother's house. There we see a gritty black-and-white photo of Teddy, still in a neck brace, looking grim after Mary Jo's funeral. A diagonal banner on the upper right-hand corner reads, "The Kennedy Debacle: A Girl Dead, A Career In Jeopardy." Yes, even though she was eight days shy of her twenty-ninth birthday at the time she died, Time referred to Mary Jo as "a girl," probably because she was unmarried. That was simply one of the conventions of journalese in those last days before the new wave of feminism hit.

In the decades since Teddy's black 1967 Oldsmobile plunged into the cold waters of Poucha Pond, countless magazine and newspaper articles have been written about the incident, as well as more than fifteen books, including a fictionalized treatment, Black Water, by the prolific novelist Joyce Carol Oates. (Here is the link to the essay quoted above, which Oates wrote after Kennedy's death.)

Today many folks are saying, "Enough already; it's ancient history." But I wonder, as so many others have, what Mary Jo's family (if any are left) and her friends have been thinking these past few weeks, what with all of the accolades and tributes and such. They have, it seems, been silent on the matter, even as they've kept mostly silent for the past several decades. But surely they have opinions, and I wonder if they believe that Teddy's decades of good works in any way atoned for what happened that night at Chappaquiddick. 

As might be expected, the consensus among Kennedy's fans and admirers is yes, while his detractors indignantly say no. Not surprisingly, most people's opinions about the matter – at least in the U.S. – seem tied to their own political and/or religious leanings. As columnist Kathleen Parker wrote recently, regarding those who tend to vilify Kennedy (particularly on moral/religious grounds):

One can’t help wondering, nonetheless, how those same Old Testament celebrants would have treated Kennedy had he, as recompense for his sins, embarked on a crusade against abortion and same-sex marriage instead of [for] universal health care. My modest guess is that they would have found a way to forgive him and insisted that a man’s worst moment is not the sum of his life.

Conversely, I have no doubt that if Teddy had spent the rest of his life crusading against abortion and gay marriage and for the Christian conservative vision of "family values," liberals would have the ones been carrying the "Remember Mary Jo" banner.

In any case, as Cathleen Falsani wrote in a recent Religion News Service piece, "Ted Kennedy refused to be defined by his worst moments. None of us wants to be reduced to the sum of our mistakes, deadly or otherwise." She added that it's uncommon to be able to rise above terrible mistakes without becoming paralyzed by guilt or regret. (Now, that last bit may be true in politics or even in the lives of ordinary folk, but I'm thinking that Cathleen must not be familiar with the New-Wage guru biz, which is riddled with masters of self-reinvention who regularly sweep their sordid misdeeds under the carpet, often leaving all manner of "collateral damage" on their road to success. But I'll get to that later.) Naturally, Kennedy-haters see his "refusal to be defined by his mistakes" as a mark of arrogance or even sociopathy.

So who's right? Damned if I know. But I do agree with Kathleen Parker that much of it comes down to partisan politics. And as we all know, when politics come in the door, rationality flies out the window. Just ask Emory University psychologist Drew Westen, author of The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding The Fate of our Nation.

Of course I too have my biases and irrationalities, as may be abundantly clear in any of my blog posts. In regard to the question of atonement, however, specifically Ted Kennedy's, I am hopelessly undecided, despite the fact that I hold generally liberal views on social issues (pro-choice, etc.). I can't bring myself to side with either the Kennedy detractors or his admirers, though I lean more towards the latter. At the risk of sounding simplistic, though, one point that sticks with me is this: Although Chappaquiddick may have privately tormented Ted Kennedy for the rest of his life, and there's no doubt that it permanently ruined his chance at the presidency, he still, in a sense, "got away with it." At the very least he never thoroughly answered the questions about what happened. And at the time it happened, he did not have to deal with scrutiny from the press or the public in a way that he would have if the incident had happened today.

A close friend of his, author and editor Ed Klein, said in an interview following Kennedy's death that eventually Kennedy was even able to make jokes about Chappaquiddick, and it was one of his favorite topics of humor. (And I hope you will forgive me for bringing this matter up; I know it has been a pet topic of Kennedy-haters everywhere, but I am not one of them.) "It’s not that he didn’t feel remorse about the death of Mary Jo Kopechne," explained Klein, in an interview on The Diane Rehm Show), "but that he still always saw the other side of everything and the ridiculous side of things, too."

Ridiculous...hmm. Well, yes, many of us tend to turn to dark humor at times to deal with the darkness in our lives. Still, the quotation above does come across as a tad callous. Or maybe it's just me.

Or maybe not.

When the rich are (in)different...
I have no doubt that my own personal experiences, rather than my politics, are an influence on my unwillingness to simply dismiss Mary Jo's sad story as ancient history. Whatever else it might be, to me the Chappaquiddick incident is a reminder that the rich and powerful – no matter what their political leanings or religious preferences – do manage to get away with things that would land ordinary people in prison for years, perhaps even for life. And all too often, those without nearly so much money and influence, caught up in tragedy or trauma, are easily manipulated into being accomplices in what could be viewed as a miscarriage of justice.

Many years ago, in the wee hours of a bleak November morning, my father was killed in an auto-pedestrian accident. He had apparently had car trouble and was walking alongside a road near our home to find assistance. Either that, or he was simply trying to walk home, with the idea that he would deal with the car later that day when the gas stations were open. (This was before the days of cell phones and 24-hour gas stations.) I imagine the car that hit him seemed to come out of nowhere; we were told there were skid marks for more than eighty feet. His skull was fractured, his neck was broken, and there were numerous other injuries. He may have lived for a short while after he was hit; there was some confusion on that matter. My mom said she was told that for some reason the police on the scene wouldn't let the ambulance driver through to attend my dad. In any case, he died at the scene, and within a short time the cops were ringing our doorbell.

And life was never the same after that.

The young man who plowed my dad down was intoxicated, and apparently had a history of speeding and drunk-driving incidents, although he had never killed anyone up until then. The incident did not make the front page of the local paper or the top story on the local news, as it might have today. It was just a little paragraph hidden somewhere in the Metro section. This was before the days of M.A.D.D., and drunk driving carried neither the potential legal ramifications nor the social stigma it does today. In those days it was often a far more grievous crime to possess a single marijuana cigarette than it was to get sloshed and get behind the wheel. (In Texas, once upon a time, a second offense for possession of even small amounts of marijuana could result in life imprisonment.) Sure, my dad's death was tragic, but it was just one of those things.

Even so, the crime of vehicular manslaughter existed, as well as lesser offenses related to drinking and driving, and my mother very well could have pressed charges, even if only on civil grounds. You might think she would have had a pretty solid case. But she was strongly advised against taking any legal action. Among those advising her was her own attorney, whom she had retained to help her sort through the quagmire of paperwork following my father's death. It seems that the man who had killed my dad was the scion of a wealthy and privileged family; not only were his folks rich, but he had an uncle who, we were told, was a very influential judge. The family would have enormous resources at their disposal to fight any charges, and it could be a long and expensive battle for us, with no guarantee of victory.

Moreover, my mom was told, my father's own alcoholism – and the fact that he himself was probably a bit impaired at the time he was killed – would surely be brought out during the proceedings. With all of the other nearly overwhelming problems she was now dealing with as a suddenly widowed stay-at-home mom with three minor children, did my mother really want the additional pain of seeing her husband's name dragged through the mud, which the defense team would almost certainly do? After all, if my father hadn't been stumbling down that road at one o'clock in the morning, when decent folk are home in bed, he never would have been hit. (I'm sure those were not the exact words that were used, but that was the gist of the message.)

It was true that my father had a drinking problem, and it had steadily been getting worse. Over the years my mom and several of my dad's colleagues had tried to persuade him to get help, but to no avail. This was before intervention became fashionable. Despite the severity of the problem, he still managed to be a good dad, a dutiful son to his parents, and a very good provider. He was a handsome, friendly guy whom everyone liked; he never knew a stranger, as the saying goes. A brainy man with two master's degrees (yes, real degrees from real universities), he had a respectable job as a geophysicist for a major oil company. He never got noticeably drunk at home, nor did he engage in any kind of violent behavior that I ever saw.

In fact, I never even knew he was an alcoholic till I was about eleven. He did his drinking away from home, in neighborhood bars or ice houses after work, and increasingly stayed out all night, coming home in the pre-dawn hours to sober up so he could get up and drag himself to the office the next day. As the all-nighters grew more frequent, I think we all lived in silent dread that one of my father's binges would result in his being injured or killed, or injuring or killing someone else. So when the doorbell rang on that November morning, my mother knew before she answered why it was ringing. And when she came up to my room and said, "Wake up, Connie...", I knew before she said another word what had happened.

One night, while we were all still numb from shock, the parents of the young man who had killed my dad showed up on our front porch to plead their son's case to my mom. The father, as I remember, was rather dour and silent through the whole exchange, and looked very much as if he would rather be anywhere else; it was the mother who did most of the talking. She explained to my mom that their son had never done anything like this before, and that he, and they, were more sorry than we would ever know that it had happened. "He really is such a good boy," she explained, tears pouring down her face. I do not recall my mom's exact response, only that she listened politely. It could have been that she was just stunned into silence.

Not long after that, my mother found out that the young man had suffered some sort of emotional breakdown and had to be institutionalized. Although still grieving, she was genuinely concerned about him. She had said to us kids that, as terrible as it sounded, if anyone had to die as a result of my father's drinking, it was better that it was my dad. She knew that if he had killed someone else, he would never be able to forgive himself and might not be able to live with what he had done. Her heart went out to the young man, who, she imagined, was being tormented by his own guilt. So she called his parents' home to ask about him and offer whatever moral support she could.

When the family's maid answered the phone, my mother asked to speak to one of the parents, but was told they weren't available. She tried again a few days later, and this time the maid was able to get the dad to come to the phone. "I don't know if you got my message," she told him, "but I called the other day when you were out." To which the man replied gruffly, "I was home, but I was watching a ball game." He was very perfunctory, and my mom, more than a little taken aback, asked him how his son was doing. "He's doing all right," was the terse reply, but he offered no details, and he didn't ask my mom how we were all doing. It was clear that he did not want to prolong the conversation any longer than absolutely necessary. So that was pretty much that.

And life went on. We grew up. I never found out what ultimately happened to the young man. Did he emerge from his breakdown, and go on to lead something resembling a normal life? Did he ever feel that he had to atone for what he did, and did he feel he was successful in doing so? Has he contributed to the world in a good way? Although nothing he could ever do would bring my father back, I share my mom's compassion and would like to think that he eventually found peace. I simply couldn't hold it against him personally that his dad was so arrogant and rude, or that "the system" has always provided the rich with a buffer against their own misdeeds.

I also sometimes think about the fact that the man who killed my father has the same last name as a Texas judge-turned-Congressman who, in his judge days, had a reputation for imposing creative sentences on drunk drivers and other wrongdoers. He really seemed to have it out for drunk drivers in particular, and designed his sentences to make offenders realize the impact of their deeds on the victims. His last name is not a terribly uncommon one, however, and in truth I have no idea if he is related to the man who killed my dad; every Internet search leads to a dead end, so to speak. Still, I wonder. Although I am no fan of the Congressman's politics, I did admire him for his hard-line stance on driving under the influence.

So back to the original question...
As for whether or not Ted Kennedy atoned for Mary Jo Kopechne's death, here's what I think: It's not up to any one of us to decide this issue, no matter how strong our opinions may be, no matter how righteously conservative or virtuously liberal we are, no matter in which direction we twirl our cognitive kaleidoscopes (as The Political Brain author Drew Westen might put it). 

While many may agree that there was no real legal justice for Mary Jo's death, it is also true that her family did not pursue action against Kennedy, their stated reason being that they did not want to be perceived as going after "blood money." (Can you imagine such a possibility stopping anyone from litigation these days?) The Kopechnes did, however, receive a payment of nearly $91,000.00 from Kennedy personally, and a check for $50,000.00 from his insurance company. 

Heeding the warnings of her advisers, and no doubt also influenced by the visit from the parents of the boy who killed my dad, my mother chose not to pursue legal action either. My family did, however, receive a settlement from the young man's family for my father's death: a grand total of $2,000.00 – $500.00 for each surviving family member. No, I did not inadvertently leave out any zeroes. You read it right. So in that sense, even though the man who killed my father may have been privately angst-ridden by what he did, it's also true that he – or at least his family – got off pretty easily, all things considered. And that kind of sticks in my craw as well.

Which, irrational as it may be, is probably one reason I just can't let go of Mary Jo Kopechne's story entirely.

Bringing it back to my Whirled...
I would even go so far as to speculate that my family's story also sheds some light on why I am so reluctant to cut any slack to the New-Wage luminaries who seemingly "get away with" things too – the self-help stars who dump their spouses for newer models and either gloss over the situation entirely, or exploit it by making themselves seem like the wronged party or the wise hero; the self-styled financial wizards who cheerfully take hundreds of thousands of dollars of other people's money to fund their own lavish lifestyles, while providing very little of value in return; the gurus who molest their students in the guise of furthering the students' spiritual development; the venerable motivational leaders who dally with the under-aged daughters of their friends or business partners and get away scot-free. You can talk all you want about karma, judgment, or poetic justice, and you may very well be right, but sometimes, justice on a more mundane and obvious level would seem so satisfying.

Is it possible that in some way, at least some of these New-Wage rapscallions** have atoned for their own misdeeds? Even if they have behaved in less than honorable ways in their personal lives, could it be that by giving hope to others they have contributed to the world in a meaningful way? Should we give them the benefit of the doubt, even as so many have given Ted Kennedy that benefit? Or is any willingness to overlook their transgressions merely a symptom of blindness, as Joyce Carol Oates put it?

I just don't know. (In case you haven't guessed yet, I'm not nearly as certain about things as I may appear to be on some of my posts.)

I do find it difficult to give the benefit of the doubt to hucksters who, though they may acknowledge and even be marginally contrite about "past mistakes," continue with their scamming and bad behavior. I still think it's important to call them on their crap – someone needs to, and not that many people do – and this, I suppose, is the main reason this blog still exists. I also realize that some people will think I am insulting Ted Kennedy's memory, or trivializing his accomplishments, by seeming to lump him into the same category as New-Wage hucksters whose main contribution to the world is nonstop self-aggrandizement. That's not my intention at all; I simply see the parallels between people's often irrational attitudes towards political figures and their equally irrational attitudes towards the dubious heroes of the selfish-help industry.

Here's what I do know: we all have our stories, which in their own way are, like the Kennedys, at once perfectly lovely and deeply haunted. "Who would you be without your story?" asks sweetly smiling New-Wage guru-ette Byron Katie of The Work fame, whose entire oeuvre, and much of her appeal, seem to center around her own "story." And her fans, including other successful New-Wage gurus, smile and nod and preach about ridding yourself of your story, or "cleaning" yourself of your memories, or purging yourself of your past. (Some, as noted earlier, would prefer that you purge yourself of stories of their notorious pasts.)

Even so, I have a feeling that Katie's question is one that few of us can really answer, because, for better or worse, we all cling to our stories in one way or another. Sometimes those stories serve us well, sometimes they don't. But most of us, if we're honest, will admit that when all of the blogging and tweeting and commenting and punditry and snarking and sniping and marketing and myth-making are done, when we drag ourselves away from our laptops and TVs and satellite radio and iPhones (assuming that some of us still do that), there really is no single or simple way of interpreting our own stories, to say nothing of anyone else's.

Not that this will ever keep any one of us from trying.

* * * * *

PS ~ Despite all of my going on and on about myself, I haven't forgotten that this is the eighth anniversary of the infamous 9/11 attacks on the US, as the above-mentioned Steve Salerno made note of on SHAMblog. There's an interesting discussion going on there, with some well-written contributions from my own Rev Ron.

* For some entertaining, decidedly partisan blogging on the U.S. health-care crisis, check out my friend Elizabeth Mika's witty and acerbic Middle of Nowhere blog ("Where dogs rule, reality bites, and irony has a liberal bias"). Start with this post.** I just love the word "rapscallion" and have been waiting for a chance to use it in a sentence. There, I just did it again.

* * * * *

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Happy Moon Day!

I just love old magazines, especially significant issues such as this July 25, 1969 Time Magazine that I got from my mom's house. Of course, the first moon walk wasn't the only thing that happened during that eventful summer of 1969. A picture may be worth a thousand words, but below are some pictures of a few thousand words that give a glimpse of what was going on. (Clicking on any of the images will take you to an enlarged view.)

Along with the moon walk, Chappaquiddick was very much in the news. Forty years later, this story is still haunting.

The next page continues a piece on Ralph Nader that began on the previous page. Nader – who had already gained fame and lots of enemies by going after auto manufacturers, unions, and banks – was now setting his sights on the food industry. Say what you will about the ludicrousness of his presidential candidacy in more recent years, but he did play a huge role in making things better for consumers. (Did you know there used to be MSG in baby food?)

And then there's "Doctors' Dilemma," a piece that highlights an event that was a turning point of sorts for the medical profession in the U.S. Protesters disrupted the American Medical Association's semi-annual convention in Manhattan, chanting, "Hip, hip Hippocrates, up with service, down with fees!" The predominantly white, male, middle-aged membership had convened to chew over their "usual bag of proposals to block 'socialized medicine,'" but the protesters reflected some of the criticisms – voiced from both within and without the medical profession – of the A.M.A.'s "ultra-conservative influence on national policies." (The A.M.A. had fought relentlessly against Medicare and Medicaid; had vehemently opposed group practice; and had lobbied to limit medical-school enrollment. A.MA. lobbyists also often teamed with other pressure groups, particularly the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers' Association (big surprise there, eh?)).

The conclusion of the article is particularly revealing:

Nonetheless, there was an unprecedented tone of moderation among the delegates, who wound up by endorsing the concept that medical care "is a basic right of every citizen." In the past, such care had been called "a privilege."

What a difference a few decades make...

And finally I offer you page 24, where, with perfect 20/20 hindsight, one can see shades of the political scandal that many say officially ended the 1960s, even though it didn't happen until the 1970s.

Of course there were several pages in that same issue about a topic not specific to 1969: the war in Vietnam, which by the late '60s was seriously dividing the country. Not mentioned in this issue of Time: Charles Manson or Woodstock. The gods of predestination were saving all of that for August.

Okay, enough nostalgia. Now, here's what I want you to do to celebrate Moon Day. Go out and howl at that heavenly body as soon as it becomes visible in your skies. Pay no attention if it makes your dog look at you weirdly. You will get used to it after a while. If you don't feel like howling (or even if you do), go out and buy, borrow or rent the 1999 flick A Walk On The Moon, which humorously and poignantly captures the spirit of '69 without getting too corny or cliched, and without either romanticizing or vilifying hippie culture. There's also a terrific sound track and a sexy Diane Lane, who ends up "shtupping the blouse man!" (Viggo Mortensen in his pre-Aragorn days). Oh, yeah, and there's an amusing voice role by Julie Kavner (aka Brenda Morgenstern, aka the voice of Marge Simpson). Go watch it now. Or at least watch the trailer.

Have a good one, and I'll be back to snarking soon. I've got some howling to do first, and there's a whole kennel of fox hounds next door, just waiting to join me.

PS ~ Lest you think I've strayed too far away from my original purpose, here is something else from 1969 that is marginally relevant to the usual subject matter of my Whirled. Let the sunshine in!

Back to Snarky Town...

...and not a moment too soon. Just a few little snippets tonight, Dear Ones.

Another dome idea
Yesterday I was Googling and Twittering and just generally drifting in the great ocean of online time wasters, when I swam across a web site about an ambitious project called the Dolphin Sound Dome. The Dolphin Sound Dome, according to its creators, is "a floating temple over the ocean," meaning that it is basically a place where a class of conspicuously enlightened humans who refer to themselves as "sound practitioners" can gather together to moan and howl in a deeply spiritual way so as to annoy any free-swimming dolphins and whales who might happen by. On the Dolphin Sound web site is a scrolling quotation that the Dolphin Sound people claim is straight from the dolphins themselves: "When you 'think' with your heart, the path becomes clear."

If you allow JavaScript while browsing the site, you'll get to hear some of the human sound practitioners "singing" to the dolphins. "Listen for the sounds of dolphins chuffing into our resonant tones at the beginning of the recording," the copy instructs.

I felt guided to let Chris Locke at Mystic B know about this. So I sent him the link, and Chris wrote back:

"Listen for the sounds of dolphins chuffing..." I happen to know a little Dolphin, and they are clearly saying: "Would you PLEASE shut the f--k up? We were trying to sleep down here!"

Just between you and me, I honestly don't think these so-called sound practitioners are really all that sound, if you know what I mean. I do think they should be a lot more careful, especially in light of the serious scientifical evidence that dolphins and whales really hate us. You've been warned, Dolphin Sound People!

And speaking of dolphins, here's a New-Agey movie I somehow missed. Darn.

Another miracle in a bottle...and another "permanent" weight-loss secret
I know this is going to come as a huge surprise to you, but Joe "Mr. Fire" Vitale has discovered a miracle supplement. Recently he enthused on Twitter: "I'm told this is THE Fountain of Youth http://tinyurl.com/c9nva4 ."

The supplement in question is called, for some reason I've not yet figured out, Astral Fruit – not to be confused with the Astral Projection Pill I wrote about here back in October of 2006.

According to the web site, Astral Fruit contains "a natural small molecule Telomerase activator," and it "supports Cardiovascular Health, DNA Repair, Telomere Repair, lengthening [ahem], Cell Division and Chromosome Health." You can get it for a one-time price of $29.99 for a one-month supply, or get sucked into...er...signed onto an automatic-deduction-into-perpetuity deal for $27.99 a month.

I'm sure that Joe wrote about this miracle in a bottle only because he has his readers' best interests in mind, and not because he is selling Astral Fruit himself, or writing on behalf of one of his buddies who is selling it. I'm sure Joe himself doesn't need another Fountain of Youth, particularly after he discovered that miraculous stem-cell enhancing supplement, StemEnhance, that he blogged about last year. That supplement solved all of his remaining health problems, including his asthma and his food sensitivities.

Something must be working for him, fountain-of-youth-wise, because a couple of nights ago, after his latest Rolls-Royce Mastermind session, he Tweeted:

Told tonite: "Joe, I'm a medical doctor and I can't explain how you look so young." Ahh, compliments. http://www.blog.mrfire.com 11:14 PM Apr 9th from web

Joe provided a link in his Tweet to his blog, in which, in a recent post, he once again promotes the work of his new pal, serial scammer Kevin Trudeau. The implication, I suppose, is that his "secret weight loss" formula, including the stuff he learned in True-Dough's weight-loss book, is what's making him look so youthful. And by the way, Joe also claims in that post to have finally found the permanent cure to weight loss. But I think we've heard that claim before... In fact, I know we have.

Here's what did the trick for Joe, weight-loss-wise, a few short years ago:

I've done several things you've never heard of, from investing $15,000 in a "time machine," to having "karmic surgery" done, to wearing a magic ring blessed by a group of Indian mystics, to training with world-famous body builder Frank Zane, to working out with T.R. Goodman, the man who trains actor James Caan, to -- well, I'm not going to tell you everything.

Of course, I also had to learn how to elevate my consciousness about food and exercise. I had to get mentally tough and spiritually aware. It's been a process of awakening.

As for the weight-loss secret du jour that Joe is currently sharing (and about which he is now apparently planning to write an entire book), an important part of it involves the program Kevin Trudeau touts in his weight-loss book. This program includes a 500-calorie-a-day diet. In his blog post, Joe writes:

Kevin says the diet is easy, which is the only thing I disagree with him about. Eating 500 calories a day (you get the rest of the fuel from HCG burning fat) is not easy, especially in social situations.

A little later, however, when responding to a comment from an MD who disagreed with Joe about the Trudeau-recommended program, Joe wrote:

I also found the diet a ssnap [sic] to follow. What you can eat is spelled out so its [sic] a no brainer. That’s easy. I admit eating in social situations was more of a challenge, as everyone is gorging while you aren’t, but I did it.

Unless "ssnap" is some code word for "challenging," it appears that Joe is contradicting himself. (I know: like that's never happened before.) Here is someone else's commentary about the weight-loss plan Trudeau outlines in his book, which might give you an idea of how "easy" it really is.

Joe claims that the real difference in this radical program – the factor that makes the caloric deprivation cause your body to lose unwanted fat instead of healthy muscle – is a substance called HCG, which, although not illegal in the US, requires medical supervision. Joe doesn't 'splain what HCG is, so I will. HCG, which is administered as daily injections (for 45 days!) during Phase 2 of the Trudeau program, is short for human chorionic gonadotrophin. This is a hormone found in the urine of pregnant women. (And yes, urine is a rich source of remedies. The traditional Rx drug for menopause is made from pregnant mare's pee (that would be Premarin). And HCG for weight loss is a substance found in the pee of pregnant women. Wait...pregnant women gain weight. Pregnancy can make a person huge. What the...?)

The HCG protocol was originally created in the 1950s by a Brit doc named Dr. Albert T. Simeons. It has been pretty much discredited, and today HCG injections are primarily used for treating fertility problems. (Now, that makes sense.)

With the exception of the M.D. who disagreed with Joe on the Trudeau...er...Simeons protocol, the majority of the comments to his secret-weight-loss formula post were positive. (One person did weigh in with her own scientifical explanation and protocol. She's Dr. Maureen Maples, a chiropractor and naturopathic physician who just happens to peddle a line of "emotion potions" that balance your chakras and such.)

At any rate, here's the real skinny on HCG, according to Dr. Stephen Barrett's Quackwatch site. As for Joe, he's looking fit and says he's feeling fine these days. But then again, he said that back in 2005 or so, when he named himself the Charles Atlas of the Internet. I'm just sayin'...

Cosmic Connie gets taken to task yet again
As you may recall, recently I was read the read the riot act about what a rage-filled and frightened twerp I am. Naturally, I was devastated (well, not really). But the criticism just keeps on coming. Today I received a comment to a post that is over two years old. This was actually one of my more thoughtful pieces, in which I expressed my doubts and ambivalence about some of life's deep questions, and discussed some of the factors that keep me from being a complete skeptic about everything.

A few folks liked the post. But a person named Anonymous (I get a lot of those) wasn't at all impressed. Here is what Anonymous wrote to me (my words, as quoted by Anon, are in pink, and Anon's remarks / "rereading" are in blue):

My reread of the amazing philospher [sic] and logician Cosmic Connie:
I’ve never been a big Deepak Chopra fan. (Does it show?) Chopra gets points off in my book for several things, including his considerable ego, unlike my own small, reasonable and totally deserving ego demonstrated by the fact that I've posted my thoughts, along with my photo here, for all the world to study:, the Q.M. (quantum mysticism) factor which he doesn't understand, but I do with my degree in quantum physics, quantum mechanics and Superstring Theory: his former close ties with the Maharishi,who I also don't like, disapprove of and arbitrarily declare a phony: and just the general fact that he's been a New-Wage cult figure for over fifteen years, and everybody kowns [sic] that trends, truths and fashions of the day change and we should move on. Who listens to Dr.Phil anymore?? I rest my case.

Setting aside the fact that my correspondent only addressed the first paragraph or so of my post, which actually had little to do with the deeper message I was attempting to convey, I have to admit that the idea of your Cosmic Connie as a logician or quantum physics expert is pretty hilarious. But then again...well, just click here for my response.

PS ~ Shortly after I published this post, I checked my email, and apparently the "Anonymous" person I quoted above does have another name. He sent not one but two private emails to me that repeated, verbatim, the comment sent to my blog (just in case I was too dense to get it the first time, I guess). The subject line: Free Speach [sic]: A Waste for those with Nothing (worthwhile) To Say. I know your name now, Anon, but don't worry; I won't share that it is John Gast in Canada. Oops.

Meaningless quotation(s) of the day
"The greatest gift u can give others is an attitude of 'unconditional positive regard' -- acception without limitation."

That gem comes to you from master motivator Brian Tracy. Never mind that "acception" isn't even a word, and that "unconditional positive regard" of someone or something is not necessarily a good thing, say nothing of "the greatest gift." Hey, it's Brian Tracy, after all! If he says it, it has to be profound.

Actually, I first ran across the Brian Tracy quotation as a "re-Tweet" on Secret teacher John Assaraf's Twitter page. Once again I was reminded of that "magic circle jerk of mutual self-admiration" that Chris Locke mentioned in the post I quoted the other day. I was reminded even more of it when I saw John Assaraf following the standard Twitter hustlers' practice of "re-Tweeting" a compliment given to him by someone else:

RT @InnoFuture: @OneCoach John, reading Answer, fantastic, your own twits r proof that u walk the walk &have a great life balance, congrats!

InnoFuture, the Twitterer who gave John Assaraf the compliment he felt compelled to re-Tweet, is a Melbourne, Australia woman named Margaret Manson, who describes herself on her Twitter page as, "Don Quichote [sic] for innovative Australia; collector of modern philosophers; hooked on innovation, coffee and Italian culture." The Tweet that apparently inspired her to praise John was this one:

using the next 10 minutes to think and be, no doing. Connect to the source as I call it.

Pretty darned profound, huh? By the way, John also recently Tweeted about a video of his "Best Year Ever" speech, a pep talk in which he told his audience that he refuses to play along with the recession. Frankly, though, he sounds just a tad desperate.

This one won't grow up and rip your best friend's face off
Finally, although this isn't about New-Wage stuff, it is about strange/silly/sad obsessions, so you could say it is marginally related to my normal subject matter.

A few months ago the ABC show 20/20 had a show about mothering, and there was one segment about how some women indulge their maternal instincts by collecting super-realistic baby dolls, also known as "reborns." This topic has been rather widely covered elsewhere as well. On a fairly frequent basis, I come across ads for one of those expensive "collectible" baby dolls in a magazine or Sunday newspaper supplement. They are noteworthy not only for the product itself but for the schlocky ad copy.

But the one that really takes the cake (or, more likely, the banana) is "Little Umi." I saw an ad for "Little Umi" not long after I watched that 20/20 segment (you don't suppose this could be one of those synchronicity things, do you?). "Little Umi" is lovingly brought to you by Ashton-Drake and beloved doll artist Wendy Dickison.

I scarcely knew whether to laugh, cry, or hurl as I read the ad copy:

Fall in love with Little Umi, a collectible orangutan baby doll you have to see to believe, and the first-ever So Truly Real® baby monkey doll! Beautifully crafted, her head and limbs are of collector-quality silicone that recreate every realistic detail of her face, hands and feet. Hand-rooted wispy red hair covers her from head to toe. Offer Little Umi her FREE pacifier and watch as she gazes up at you with gentle, trusting eyes.

This irresistible collectible monkey doll by renowned doll artist Wendy Dickison is available exclusively from The Ashton-Drake Galleries. Best of all, a portion of the proceeds from your purchase of Little Umi will be donated to support rainforest preservation! Don't wait to let your love for Little Umi nurture the miracle of birth and life across our beautiful world. Strong demand is expected, so order now!

In regard to the title I chose for this snippet*, I am aware that "Little Umi" is a baby orangutan (and, of course, not a live one),** whereas the ape that was recently in the news for attacking a woman was an adult chimpanzee (and, though once alive, no longer is). However, I think that maybe the kind of people who would buy a monkey doll are precisely the kind who should be reminded that orangutans, though cute and cuddly when infants, are just as dangerous to humans when they grow up as chimps are.

Unfortunately, these facts haven't stopped some people from trying to adopt apes as pets. And, of course, the apes' smaller brethren, monkeys, have long been popular pets (or at least they are popular until their owners find out how loud and messy monkeys really are). Take a look at this early-1960s back-pages magazine ad:

By the way, if you really want to get p.o.'d about how humans treat some of our fellow primates, click here.

Oh, but I don't want you to leave mad. I want you to leave here charmed and delighted. Here, then, is some real live cuteness. Yes, it's captive cuteness, but captive presumably in the interests of preserving a species rather than indulging someone's longing for an exotic pet.

So...from snarky to Snuzzy: that's quite a trip, and I'm tired. But I'll be back soon.

And more than likely, I'll be snarking.

* My alternative title was "Ape misbehavin'"...but I think I used that somewhere before.
** Memo to people actually considering buying this item: You do know that "Little Umi" is not a live monkey and is not literally gazing at you with trusting eyes, right?