Charles Ramsey is a hero, but not just for the reasons you think

The house where Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus, Michelle Knight were held for ten years. –AP

Charles Ramsey Interview, rescuer of Amanda Berry, a missing Cleveland woman

1:22 Seconds into video

Ramsey: “About five minutes after the police got here, the girl Amanda told the police ‘I ain’t the only one, there some more girls up in that house.’ So they go up there, thirty, forty deep and when they came out, (it) was just astonishing. I thought they were gone come up with nothing. I figured, I mean, whoever she was and like I said, my neighbor; you’ve got some big testicles to pull this off, bro.”

Ramsey: Cause we see this dude, everyday! I mean, everyday!

Reporter: How long has he lived here?

Ramsey: “I’ve been here a year. You see where I’m coming from? I barbequed with this dude. We eat ribs and whatnot and listen to salsa music, you see where I’m coming from?

Reporter: And you had no indication there was anything wrong?

Ramsey: Not a, bro, not a clue that that girl was in that house or anybody else was in that house against their will because how he is, he just comes out to his backyard, plays with the dogs, tinker with his cars and motorcycles and goes back in the house. So he’s somebody you look and then you look away because he’s not doing nothing but the average stuff. There’s nothing exciting about him. Well. Until today. (nervous laugh)

Reporter: What was the reaction on the girls faces, I can’t imagine, to see the sunlight, to be around people?

Ramsey: Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a Black man’s arms. Something is wrong here. Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway.

Reporter: Charles Ramsey, thank you very much.

 Cultural Insensitivity

When I first started hearing about this story, I did my patrol of the news articles and discovered a disturbing trend. So many people (a large number of them men) kept saying “Why didn’t they leave? Why didn’t they escape? Why didn’t three women overpower this one man?”

I found those statements to be galling and frustrating. As we would later find out, there were three men involved. The door was blockaded and barely able to be opened as Mr. Ramsey attested and the police used a large number of officers to break into the place to rescue the women successfully. There were also statements indicating the men proposed violence to the young women when they were still very impressionable. They were said to have told the girls “I took you from your home, I can go back there and harm your family any time I like. If you leave, I will do that.”

With such a threat hanging over their heads and without any knowledge of how they were physically constrained at the time, how could any compassionate individual make the statement WHY DIDN’T THEY JUST ESCAPE?

I started my transcript at the 1:22 mark because of the statements Mr. Ramsey made I found to be the most telling about this incident.

“We see this dude, everyday!” At least one of the suspects made no attempts to hide. He interacted with the neighborhood, he shopped, he was seen in the yard, he liked his dogs, his cars, barbeques and salsa music. This is the nature of their pathology. They were completely able to blend into the neighborhood looking just like anyone else. The boldness of his actions meant he had no expectations of ever being caught and for ten years or three thousand, six hundred and sixty five days (at least) three women lived in daily terror of their lives.

I mention this because I have been studying human trafficking and believe there is more of it taking place than we are ever truly aware of. This case is a perfect example of an abduction which left no clues long enough for the children who were abducted to be declared dead and the case considered cold if not completely closed.

Our nationwide lack of compassion toward children/women, hell anyone, who has been abducted and held against their will is poisoned by the idea that people will escape their captors, in a fashion similar to depictions in Hollywood. Bold, daring and completely self actualized, these characters find a way to foil their captors and return to their lives, barely changed by the event.

The truth is far more terrible. They are stolen as children, prevented from reaching a sense of agency, a sense of purpose, they are abused, misused, psychologically mutilated, bereft of identity and left in conditions often worse than if they were fending for themselves on the streets. These are not the heroes of cinema, they are the victims of a nightmare which for many have gone on so long, they have little hope of escape. And if their captors are competent, any will to escape is eroded by abuse, drug addition, torture and examples of what may happen if you try to escape. These victims are psychologically broken, often unable to escape unless a clear opportunity presents itself.

We, as a nation, need to be more aware of the nature of human trafficking, more aware of its effects on our society, our way of life and on the victims of it. They are victims, questioning their willingness to escape is the same as empowering the idea they should have been snatched from their lives and turned into slaves in the first place.

No doubt, more of this sorrid and terrible tale will be made available and as it is, it will be up to us to decide how we want to be involved in the reduction of human trafficking in our neighborhoods. Yes, no matter where you live, this insidious monster could be living right next door to YOU. And you have no idea of it.

Yes, Charles Ramsey is a hero. But not for the reasons you think. His greatest contribution to this conversation is to point out the temerity and boldness with which such monstrous behavior wanders invisibly into and out of our lives. That is the second greatest gift he could give to all of us.

He is an everyday hero who stepped up when he could have gone back into his home and never given it a second thought. Personally, I am so glad he didn’t turn away. There is too much of that going on already in this nation. Well done, sir, well done.

Not Dead Yet

In my LinkedIn account a member of our writing group asks the question: Is the short story a viable medium today or should people just write novels?

My Answer: The Short Story is very much alive today. (Now, perhaps, more than ever.)

Not only is it alive but it must continue to thrive. There are far too many writers out there who believe that telling stories is about stretching out a tale. They have learned the greatest tricks for embellishing and creating tangents which don’t add to the story, only extend it. The short story forces you to choose. To chose something, anything, and get to the heart of the matter. Telling the story.

Is the medium for stories harder to fit into? Maybe, but I don’t think so. We are living in an age where the issue is not finding someplace that will take our work, but competing against an entire planet of people who have the capacity to place their work into the arena with yours. A battle-royal of literary significance takes place whenever we write now.

Believe it or not this is a good thing. Pretenders will fall by the wayside, even as books such as Twilight get their moment in the sun, that time will pass. Only writers who stay the course, master the craft and connect with reputable distribution methods (whether that be through self publishing, small press, or the Big Six (er…Five)) opportunity waits around every corner.

There are 300 channels on television waiting to have something to be seen there. Internet television is growing at an exponential rate as well. Thousands of magazines, online and print pop into and out of existence each year, like the quantum foam underlying the universe. Blogs, news services, radio programs, movies, all sit waiting for that vital resource that short story writers have: crazed imagination willing to delve into the darkest corners of human experience to find the light (or more darkness, if that is your thing). We live in an age where, if we do our jobs right, force companies to acknowledge the value of the CREATIVE engine, we could conceivably change our world.

Doubt it? Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ridley Scott thought so. He based his career of off that very short, very strange story. He and Phillip K. Dick altered the consciousness of a society, asking questions we didn’t know we would ever have. There is a future out there for writers, short stories or novels, but only if we are willing to seize the opportunity before another movie producer or television hack decides we should have another variation on Sleeping Beauty or Hansel and Gretel.

Find your niche and fill it.

Create your world, your view of it, populate it with beauty and dysfunction, reflect the world in all of its glory. Then release them again and again until they blot out the sun.

Make your place in the shade.

Veni, Scribo, Vici (“I came, I wrote, I conquered” from the Latin)

Thaddeus Howze @ Hub City Blues

Science Fiction and Social Awareness

 

Can science fiction function as a means of creating social awareness around technology and its future developments?

In advance of my interview on #SCIFICHAT on Friday, April 12, 2013, I thought I would write a quick article about my interests in science fiction, fantasy and how I use my love of the genre to promote and pursue ideas around science, scientific achievement, technology, social development under the guise of science fiction (and occasionally fantasy). I happen to agree with Ray Bradbury and believe a little fantasy hiding underneath one’s science fiction never hurt anyone.

I am a writer of all kinds of genre fiction including hard science fiction, social fiction, space opera, fantasy, urban fantasy, sword and sorcery, epic fantasy, and a bit of pulp and horror when no one is looking. I grew up reading the required classics from Asimov to Zelazney: Dune, Foundation, The Moon is a Harsh Mistress, The Chronicles of Amber, The Eternal Champion Sagas, Xenogenesis, Lord of Light and The Hyperion Cantos.

My guilty pleasures included the hard science styling of Ben Bova and Larry Niven, the wild space romps of Harry Harrison’s Stainless Steel Rat, Steve Perry’s The Man Who Never Missed and Jack L. Chalker’s space operas, The Well of Souls Saga and the Four Lords of the Diamond series and so many others…

The failures and the cowardice of modern science fiction

Though I missed the conversation a few years ago on the internet which talked about the failings of science fiction in recent years, I could completely relate to the idea that science fiction wasn’t taking the risks it once did. Its protagonists were mostly white, mostly male and moving further away from being accessible to the readers. Some of those failings included:

• social/racial inequalities in the writing the marginalizing other social groups.
• the rewarding of primarily white men as the best writers of the genre and as the main protagonists
• A failure to acknowledge writers from minority groups who may have different views of the future
• a failure of the genre to address near-future issues due to potential scientific complexity
• science fiction becoming more like fantasy or westerns in space
• losing the exploration of scientific ideas 
• the increasing marginalization of the genre due to lackluster efforts of writers to explore more risky ideas
• the increasingly doom-centric orientation of the genre and the preponderance of dystopian fiction
• the lack of ideas of working toward a positive future
• The lack of scientific interest in the potential audience which reduces the potential quality of stories

As a long time reader of the genre, I am aware of how science fiction has been used to address a variety of social ills. Many such works exist. A quick sampling include:

• The Left Hand of Darkness - deals with a world where gender is almost non-existent except for periods of reproduction. Considered a work of feminist fiction, it addresses a world where many of our planet’s polar extremes of behavior simply don’t exist.

• The Handmaid’s Tale - a tale where the rights of women are completely removed when a neo-Christian movement takes over the government and uses religion to brutally subjugate women.

• Nineteen Eighty-Four - a world of perpetual warfare, psychological manipulation, mind control and the creation of a surveillance society.

• Brave New World - promotes a society which at first glance resembles a utopia, where want has been eliminated along with a segment of free will. Population is regulated, children born in artificial wombs, a caste society is instituted with regimented behavior, drug use and recreational sex being the norm of the society.

While I don’t as yet consider myself in such august company, I have tried to use science fiction to address a variety of social ills and challenges facing humanity today in my collection of short stories called Hayward’s Reach:

• Genetically Modified Organisms -  in my story of the same name, I posit the idea of our constant experimentation with GMOs without a real understanding of how such interactions might affect each other over time. Reinforcing of genetic traits could lead to an alteration of human consciousness.

• Suicide Seed - In a similar vein, I posit the idea of transgenetic mutation of plants by corporate entities using transform viruses. These viruses while originally designed to affect plants cross over into human populations, potentially rendering the human race sterile in the same fashion as large agro-corporations want to do to control seed development and food production.

• The Great White Spot - a story in which I posit an Earth whose runaway greenhouse effect cause by global warming creates a storm similar to the Great Red Spot on the surface of Jupiter. A storm of immense size, ferocity and because of the inability to cool off, eventually erases all life on Earth.

• Pax Cyridian - a tale where genetic engineering of insect-like lifeforms results in new forms of life able to work and live with humanity in relative peace. Instead of an industrial age, the people of Cyridia use organic life to perform the work of machines until a military leader decides to create new lifeforms adapted for war and conquest.

• Paper - a world where the internet has become infected with self-replicating virus programs, information held in books is now more important than ever. A young man in Mexico finds a cache of old magazines and has been selling them to bidders anonymously. His brother’s selfish greed puts them both at risk when he reveals the cache of reading materials and tries to sell them to a criminal enterprise.

• Hub City Blues - in one of my largest projects I am experimenting with creating a positive near-future world where humanity is trying to put off the future of impending global warming by creating a variety of new world arcologies. These super-cities use the most advance sciences known to man in an effort to create a new way of life utilizing a variety of alternative energies. Much of the technology used in Hub City is based from technology being created daily such as programmable matter, diverse solar and wind technologies, new underground building and waste management technologies.

• The Last Divide - I am not above using a variety of different memes to address ideas around our modern world such as the proliferation of social media and its complete invasion of all levels of our society. This piece plays with the idea of social media after death; who maintains our social profiles, could we pre-program our responses after our passing? Could programs be written to approximate our social media habits and continue them, extending our social media existence?

I have to admit I was a bit embarrassed to be writing stories such as these because they are so far removed from much of the science fiction I see being written today.I’m not disparaging such science fiction because it is both popular and from a writer’s perspective quite profitable. I keep hearing the litany of the writers everywhere: Readers don’t want challenge, they want escapism. So if you make them work too hard, they will put your book down. I just don’t happen to agree with it. Eventually, I believe they will want more. So I write and wait.

Can we as science fiction writers make any changes in our society through our work?

Once upon a time science fiction propelled engineers and scientists to create ideas and technologies which are only now becoming a reality.  Look at our cell phones, submarines, computer monitors, space craft, and wireless technologies, many of these started in the minds of early writers of the genre fiction. For a time, successful science fiction television inspired an entire generation of scientists, astronauts and engineers. We see far less of that today, with science fiction instead promoting a fear of technology or a return to superstition rather than embracing scientific curiosity.

Can science fiction tell potential stories about the human condition and potentially guide policies toward the effective use of science in society?

Some of our science fiction has lent itself to predicting trends in human behavior such as Nineteen Eighty-Four prediction of a surveillance state, similar to the one we find ourselves approaching in 2014. There does not seem to be quite as much of that kind of writing today. I believe part of the reason is the breakneck pace of scientific advancement. It is hard to write a novel about a piece of technology or a technological idea because by the time you finish the novel the idea has been superseded by a more advanced piece of technology in two years it took for you to finish your tale. I think it is a risk few writers are willing to risk their careers on.

After reading Should Science Fiction Die, and other such screeds on the failure of science fiction writers to innovate, to solve problems, take risks, ask questions, challenge the status quo and include complex themes within their body of work, I feel much less like I am on the wrong track and instead just working on a different kind of story-telling.

I’m done being embarrassed about asking questions or trying to find answers with my science fiction. I’m quoting one of my favorite space westerns, Firefly’s Captain Malcolm Reynolds: “So no more runnin’. I aim to misbehave.”

Other related articles: 

Science Fiction Goes McDonald’s: Less Taste, More Gristle; Huffington Post, 2013, Athena Andreadis, Ph.D.

Should Scifi Die?: In the plane of the ecliptic, 2009, Jetse de Vries

Racism and Science Fiction; The New York Review of Science Fiction, Samuel R. Delany

Where is the World in the World Fantasy Awards?: World SF Blog, 2009, Lavie Tidhar

Superficial Darkness and Luminous Ink: World SF Blog, 2013, Athena Andreadis; originally posted at Starship Reckless

Stranger and Happier: A Positive Science Fiction Platform; Strange and Happy, Jason Stoddard

What is Human Wave Science Fiction?: According to Hoyt, Sarah A. Hoyt

Barbarian Confessions; Asimov’s Science Fiction, Thought Experiments, 2006, Kristine Kathyrn Rusch

Mundane Science Fiction; founded by Geoff Ryman

Megastructures: Artwork by Steve Burg © 2012-2013

The Overblown Death of the PC (part 2)

“The PC Market is collapsing.” –Business Insider

“Mobile devices like smartphones and tablets have taken the world by storm. Apple launched theiPhone six years ago. Three years later came the iPad. Google sold its first Android phone in 2008, five years ago. Is the PC dead yet?” –Yahoo Finance with the Business Insider

In Part One of The Overblown Death of the PC we talked about the reasons people believed the personal computer to be on its way out. I disagreed with almost all of them.

But that conversation on LinkedIn continued and the overall message shifted to virtualization, thin clients, and the much ballyhooed “Bring Your Own Device” or BYOD premise of bringing whatever you prefer and just connecting it to the company network.

Bring Your Own Device is not a silver bullet. BYOD is just one of a new strain of network security concerns which continue to abound in our modern age. Malware and other denial of service attacks continue to increase and are working on more sensitive integrated systems every day. As the technology for smarter devices continues to develop and as fast as new apps are being developed, malware is just as quickly propagating across this new interconnected and completely open environment.

What I hear far too little of is an understanding of the new technological ecosystem being developed. In addition to the growing iOS and Android playgrounds where few if any environmental monitoring is being done, almost no malware protections are being enacted and neither security processes, nor human awareness have kept pace with the potential for hackers to invade the privacy of billions of potential devices which lie unprotected for the most part.

Adding to this tech-soup of potential vulnerability are the complexities of virtual computing and remote desktop environments, as well as thin client systems are all becoming dependent on cloud computing technology, wide area networks and client-managed environments. Few are discussing the increasing complexity of these environments where hardware is centralized but use is distributed through a multitude of virtual environments without concern for operational capacity, network stability, and Internet connectivity.

We are seeing more outages of the Internet daily, so much so, there are applications which monitor traffic to let you know which services are currently available:http://www.isitdownrightnow.com/ . Though this tool is primarily for popular web services, Amazon has a version which is also accessible through the internet:http://status.aws.amazon.com/ . Each tool like these is predicated on the idea that no system of computer operation is infallible and the more interconnected we become the more likely we will find the opportunity to see first hand:

For Want of a Nail
For want of a nail the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe the horse was lost.
For want of a horse the rider was lost.
For want of a rider the message was lost.
For want of a message the battle was lost.
For want of a battle the kingdom was lost.
And all for the want of a nail.

The death of the desktop computer is built around the idea we have managed to supersede what the tool has given us.

• That we have managed to secure our environments, to create infrastructure which will support wireless technologies, metropolitan area networks, and the inevitable planetary-area networks we are designing.
• That we are able to effectively isolate and route around failed areas of the largest network which connects us all, the internet. The jury is out.
• That we have greater control of our soon-to-be completely necessary planetary network in such a way, hacking vulnerabilities are a thing of the past, every system which is put on that network is aware of how to deal with potential threats, without human intervention and will do so in a fashion so humans can simply be informed without having to worry about restorations of a failed environment, first.
• That scrupulous use of said planetary network ensures no one will be using it to unlawfully monitor its users, manipulate the users or their data, socially engineer user behavior for profit, perform acts of vandalism or terrorism, using said network as part of a control system and structure for acts of military warfare or sabotage.

So, is the desktop dead? Is that even the right question?

Perhaps the question should be: Is the desktop computer being killed by corporations who want to manipulate users into a cycle of:

• Regular planned obsolescence – creating underpowered devices which need constant upgrade to deal with software bloat, development issues and a constant need for upgrades.
• Consumerism – the technology is really being structured around pushing products, dependence and reliance on said devices (extending the reign of television advertising in the new medium).
• Development Control: by getting rid of users ability to create information this creates a more passive audience waiting for new “products” and “fees” for receiving them. 
• Health issues: The long-term effect of using said devices in terms of user health (eyestrain, inattention, psychological distress) and destroying the environment to feed the engine of gadget production.

Is the death of the PC being artificially hastened to sell portable digital technology, even when financial, economic, social, and technological safeguards for that technology are not currently in place? Oh yes, I would say so, just from watching the industry and its lust for profit.

The PC is not dead. But we are sealing it up alive in the coffin for profit’s sake. Think of how much money can be made while new interfaces are being developed. Think of all the planned obsolescence inherently built into each device, replacing it after only 6-12 months. Imagine all of that technological churn being done, the billions spent on advertising new versions of old devices with only minuscule differences making corporations like Apple some of the most profitable agencies on Earth. Think of the ever-expanding app industry estimated to grow to $25 billion dollars in 2013 and continuing to grow. There is so much money to be made by Apple, Samsung, Nokia, Motorola, and other device manufacturers I can’t see them NOT promoting the device/gadget over desktops. The potential profitability is absolutely astounding. Charge as much for a handheld device as you do for a laptop with 1/10 the functionality, but call it mobile. “Make a gadget cool, and the sheep will follow.”

If the PC is dying, I suspect someone is killing it; for a profit. And it’s not the butler.

See Also: Gadgets: A Perfect Storm of Wrong – Where I discuss the environmental issues around the constant proliferation of gadget/device technology.

Cutting Education: You just shouldn’t do it

How does Paul Ryan or anyone in a position of authority justify cuts in spending to the engine of education?

At a time when we need an technologically-skilled, highly-educated populace, now more than ever, it seems both short-sighted and even destructive to the future development of the nation.

Not that education is doing well at the moment. It is struggling under burdens of defining the correct pedagogy for the era, defining methods, increasing financial pressures, teacher quality assurance issues, the increasing dependence on technology for the delivery of services and the attendant cost of that technology.

Corporate America is both the greatest user of educated workers but also one of its greatest detractors, saying education today has not produced the kind of workers they are seeking.

Corporations are loathe to admit that through their tax-avoidance policies, some of the lasting effects on education development are due to an lack of funding for education nationwide. Corporations directly affect the bottom line of education when they decide to maximize profit before considering the long term effects on the social fabric they are dependent on, but not taking responsibility for by paying taxes.

Teachers are being challenged to educate students whose needs vary widely, whose backgrounds and starting points are quite diverse and expected to create people capable of working in a workforce transformed by both corporate need and corporate greed into a two class system.

The first class is the high-tech worker who will be required to critically think, analyse, devise new ways of problem solving, utilizing new technologies, and being driven to find new levels of profitability against what would be considered our own best interests, environmentally, socially and in the light of a future growing ever more crowded, dysfunctional, unhealthy and psychologically unbalanced.

The second class is even worse off than the first. No real expectation is made of that second class of workers. Since the economy is becoming more service oriented, meaning fewer manufacturing jobs are being created in America, than at any time since the start of the Industrial Age, the service industry is being asked to absorb workers leaving school but lacking the capabilities of the first tier workers.

Exacerbating this problem, service industry jobs are already, unfortunately, unable to absorb the ever-increasing numbers of both second tier workers whose educations were not able to create a first tier worker, but must also compete with first tier workers who cannot get jobs due to the ever-present specter of technological obsolescence built into the Information Age society.

Simply put, there isn’t enough work to go around, no matter what level of technological capability and educational training a person may possess.

The service industry is completely saturated and will remain so for the foreseeable future and while the tech/development/creative/professional parts of society are still in demand, they have not kept pace with the number of educated people coming out of school, let alone emigrating to the US. Far too many highly-educated people are competing for a job whose mantra may be “Would you like fries with that?”

Wealth Inequality: Why it will get worse before it gets better

Wealth Inequality in the United States

Wealth inequality will only grow worse in the coming decade. (Robert Reich: The Widening Wealth Divide, Huffington Post) Most economists already know this but are reluctant to inform the general populace. The reason is built right into the above video. Most Americans already show a remarkable lack of awareness regarding the economic and class structures in place in the United States. The true state of affairs is simply beyond most people to truly understand either the scope or the effect of our political policy on this landscape. The economic elite have both the money and power to alter the behavior of businesses, governments, both local and federal and the media systems which provide information to the public ensuring their continued hegemony.

Just a few of the controls used by corporations to further their growth at the expense of everyone else:

• Avoiding taxation: Yes, large corporations and the very rich are shouldering the burden for the nation’s taxes but since they own 80% of the nations wealth, it makes sense, they should also pay 50% of its tax burden. But with that said, many large corporations pay almost no taxes by using offshore companies, keeping money in foreign banks or utilizing tax havens/loopholes allowing them to reduce their tax obligation.
• Stagnation of wages: Reducing the value of the work done by actual workers while increasing the value of the work done by managers and executives allows firms to force workers to work for less and fight for jobs while wages are systematically reduced. With politicians reducing options for unions, making states ‘right to work’, off-shoring, out-sourcing and other such tactics erodes the worker’s value while still increasing the profitability of corporations at their workers expense.
• Leveraging the value of money: Currently the dollar can be borrowed at fantastic rates, allowing companies to purchase smaller firms (thus our recent merger-mania) in order to gain further economic advantage by absorbing intellectual properties from smaller companies. While this is normally encouraged, during difficult economic times, it gives a greater advantage to companies which already have the capital to invest without risk.
• Control of media: The media is a powerful tool when dealing with the expectations of the public. Control of media agencies gives corporations (and often the politicians they lease) the ability to tailor messages to make themselves appear in a positive light even while they are convincing the people to vote against their own interests, either by making the information too difficult to absorb (i.e. the debt ceiling debate) or wearing people out with the constant bombardment of news coverage until people tune out and are unable to make informed decisions. Media saturation or complete blackouts are both effective ways of allowing corporations to manipulate the mindset of the public.

Here is a twitter-stream and associated documents which expand on this video further in my Storify collection: Wealth Inequality in America

Here are a few of the highlights

Poverty is a weapon and tool to manage and control the wealth and freedom of any group needed for labor. Being poor limits options. #poverty—
Thaddeus Howze (@ebonstorm) March 05, 2013

If your goal is to reduce the cost of resources, both the gathering and the manufacturing, you must reduce the cost of labor. #poverty—
Thaddeus Howze (@ebonstorm) March 05, 2013

Arguably, America is the richest nation in the history of the world for that reason. Long running chattel slavery was profitable. #poverty—
Thaddeus Howze (@ebonstorm) March 05, 2013

One of the greatest lies of the America system is the idea the poor choose to BE poor. (As if anyone would choose poverty.) #poverty—
Thaddeus Howze (@ebonstorm) March 05, 2013

They are poor because they are systematically denied access to resources, education, and options which might uplift them. #poverty—
Thaddeus Howze (@ebonstorm) March 05, 2013

The Incongruence of Man

A Mouse Trap

by Ruchit Doshi

A mouse looked through  the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.What  food might this contain? The mouse wondered… he was devastated to  discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse  proclaimed the warning:

There is a mousetrap in the house!
There is a  mousetrap in the house!

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her  head and said, ‘Mr.Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you, but it is  of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it.’

The mouse turned to  the pig and told him, ‘There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap  in the house!’

The pig sympathized, but said, I am so very sorry,  Mr.Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in  my prayers.’

The mouse turned to the cow and said, ‘There is a mousetrap  in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!’

The cow said, ‘Wow, Mr.  Mouse. I’m sorry for you, but it’s no skin off my nose.’

So, the mouse  returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer’s mousetrap .  .. . alone.

That very night a sound was heard throughout the house — like  the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.

The farmer’s wife rushed to  see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake  whose tail the trap had caught.

The snake bit the farmer’s  wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital, and she returned home with a  fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the  farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup’s main  ingredient.

But his wife’s sickness continued, so friends and neighbors  came to sit with her around the clock.

To feed them, the farmer butchered  the pig.

The farmer’s wife did not get well; she died.

So many  people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide  enough meat for all of them.

The mouse looked upon it all from his crack  in the wall with great sadness.

So, the next time you hear someone is  facing a problem and think it doesn’t concern you,

Remember —- when one  of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this  journey called life..

We must keep an eye out for one another and make an  extra effort to encourage one another.

Remember, each of us is a vital thread in another person’t tapestry; our lives are woven together for a reason. One of the best things to hold onto in  this world is a FRIEND!!!

*  *  *

Appendix:

1. The Incongruence of Man

How can a monster be so magnificent in all that he does?
When creating, masterpieces are born, timeless,
works of art, visions of design, ripped from Logos itself.
When he destroys he rivals Shiva and Kali, ending the existence,
of one and all, with only monuments to ever speak of regret.

How do we reconcile this creature, fearfully made,
fearfully led, fearfully cowering in its own darkness?
Seeking validation, finding none, like the fallen Morningstar
destroying to facilitate a semblance of power, of control
flailing against a universe where no control truly exists?

This is the madness, the dissonance, the incongruence of Man.
Forever seeking, never finding, never willing to understand
that what he seeks, he already has, all he must do is turn to another
and ask.

– John Nox

2. No Man is an Island

These famous words by John Donne were not originally written as a poem – the passage is taken from the 1624 Meditation 17, from Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions and is prose. The words of the original passage are as follows:

John Donne
Meditation 17
Devotions upon Emergent Occasions

“No man is an iland, intire of it selfe; every man is a
peece of the Continent, a part of the maine; if a clod
bee washed away by the Sea, Europe is the lesse, as well
as if a Promontorie were, as well as if a Mannor of thy
friends or of thine owne were; any mans death diminishes
me, because I am involved in Mankinde; And therefore
never send to know for whom the bell

You can enjoy other famous literary poems at Famous Poems Online

3. Planet of the Apes

Despite the fact the movies were by today’s standards of science fiction less than perfect, there were occasional moments of terrible brilliance within them. This line, more than anything else in the movie, has never left me.

“Beware the beast man, for he is the devil’s pawn. Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport, or lust or greed. Yes, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. Shun him. Drive him back into his jungle lair: For he is the harbinger of death.”

The Twenty-third Scroll, Ninth Verse, “Planet Of The Apes”

This quote was found on Cool Quotes Collection.com.

4. Chinese Anti-terrorist Exercise

In this photo released by the official Xinhua news agency, members of China’s armed police demonstrate a rapid deployment during an anti-terrorist drill held in Jinan, east China, on Wednesday July 2, 2008, roughly one month ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games. (AP Photo/Xinhua/Fan Changguo)

Racism in America: The Scarlet Letter of a Nation

Racism in America

Let me tell you a secret. White America’s issue with minorities is a simple one. Blacks in the US are the Scarlet Letter (look it up) on the face of what appears to be a prosperous and significant nation. A high-quality lie to the rest of the world that hard work leads to prosperity and America is prosperous because it works hard. This is a disingenuous truth.

When White America sees a minority face and most importantly a Black face, it is reminded that the wealth of this nation, the invisible labor (yes, the word no one can say) labor, not capital, is what made this country rich. The ability to, for four hundred years, give or take, burn human beings lives like kindling in the forge of what is now a great nation, is what America is built on.

White America is a very poor winner. They want to own the spoils of a war (the complete and total annihilation of an enemy, see: Native Americans) and pretend there were no wrong-doings committed. No smallpox blankets, no extermination orders, no routing of the natives, no Trail of Tears. America just spread its legs and said “come on in” we were waiting for your Manifest Destiny.

We are constantly reminded that Blacks sold other Blacks into slavery. We never question who was buying those slaves, what would happen to those slaves, how many of those slaves would become diseased by being carried like wood, how many of those slaves would die in the greatest human disaster ever (the Middle Passage) and would become part of the most monstrous human engine of progress and destruction called “The North America Project” started in 1492.

Blacks are the Scarlet Letter that says to every country, everywhere: America will eventually fuck you. Yes, we will promise you nice stuff in the beginning, (See: Black Slavers, Native Americans) but in the end, we will take everything you own, everything you believe in and replace it with our religion, everything you dream of, everything you ever held dear, we will grind it into the dust, turn you into labor and then pretend you are capital until we have taken every bit of value from you. Then and only then will we let you die, an ignoble death, bereft of any meaning, any cultural value, reduced to a cypher, reduced to a numerical statistical element, only fit for a ledger. You won’t even get a tombstone. It costs too much.

So when you hear the ranting of Conservative Party X or the mouth-breathings of Tea Bag on the Forehead member Y, you know now what this is really about. The truth of their rantings is found in their own discomfort with what they know to be truth. Their ancestors were not the stuff of heroic legend. Not at all. They were small men and women who despite writing history could not erase the far greater men and women who were destroyed so this nation could exist as a paragon of faux virtue to a world who holds them in high enough esteem to destroy itself trying to be them.

America is a land of wastrels, destroying its populace with mindless entertainment, pathetic blandishments of eternal beauty, sex past eighty, a mechanized fetishism bereft of satisfaction, little more than digital masturbation. Stroking, rubbing, playing with toys keeps the masses calm and quiet while the true monsters continue to promote left is right, right is wrong and freedom is not slavery, guns protect everyone, children should be armed, wealth is only for the rich, unions impoverish the poor, autism isn’t caused by environment, violence is caused by video games, global warming doesn’t exist and America is your friend.

Look through history and find America’s friends. None of them survived the experience. Ask yourself this question: Would White America be so unkind if just once they could imagine themselves in the roles of the victims they have destroyed over the centuries (yes, this means you Great Britain, Spain, Portugal, and any other country which participated in the slave trade).

Spare me the cultural relativism too, while you are at it. Every culture has had slavery in history. We are not talking about those cultures or those histories. We are talking about this history, this culture, this America where minorities, people of color, Blacks are still treated as second class citizens, not as part of a terrible wrong which could have been a right. If White America hadn’t spent and still spends so much of its time pretending didn’t happen, so much time trying to sanitize their evil from the pages of history (See: Kentucky, Slave Triangle). What if they had said: We have done a great wrong to the Natives, let’s make it right, truly right. Find a way to return their some of their land to them, give them sovereignty in this nation, show some measure of contriteness for our atrocities perpetrated by less civilized men. Let’s treat new members of our land with more deference than we had treated the natives who once lived here on land we have stolen from them.

No. That will never happen. Nor will any effort be made to assist the countries, the peoples, the nations, the histories of people destroyed by the social engine of Capitalism, promoted by White people as the ultimate express of human development no matter how many people it grinds into the dust in the name of progress. Capitalism is the engine, humanity is the grain. Widgets are the bread.

Let those who survive the engine of capitalism, poor, huddled masses, quivering in the smoky darkness, awaiting the next dawn with dread and trepidation, waiting outside what was once their home, hoping for the kindness of a stranger but expecting the baton of the police or military, let those masses of tired, hungry and disfranchised masses remember, there are no other shores to go to. There are no other places where you can start over. There is nothing left out there which is not already owned by capitalists who have already tried to claim your water and will soon claim your very breath as their property. You now have no place on Earth where they cannot reach and do not want dominion over.

What will it take for you to fight back against the people who oppress you with their rhetoric of “too big to fail” and use your last dollars, your retirement, your opportunities to power their very wasteful existence. Or will you go quietly to the grave cursing your enemies while playing with your electronic toys, blissfully ignorant of your role in the Great Machine, not as the cog you were promised and the opportunity to exceed your humble station, but as the grist itself.

“Between me and the other world there is ever an unasked question: unasked by some through feelings of delicacy; by others through the difficulty of rightly framing it. All, nevertheless, flutter round it. They approach me in a half-hesitant sort of way, eye me curiously or compassionately, and then, instead of saying directly, How does it feel to be a problem? they say, I know an excellent colored man in my town; or, I fought at Mechanicsville; or, Do not these Southern outrages make your blood boil? At these I smile, or am interested, or reduce the boiling to a simmer, as the occasion may require. To the real question, How does it feel to be a problem? I answer seldom a word.” — W.E.B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folks

Robert Jensen: “The Color of the Race Problem is White”

Author of “The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege”

A video from a class held at the University of Texas at Austin.

“If you look at the data right from the immediate aftermath of the Civil Rights Movement, the late Sixties the early Seventies, look at that racialized gap between White and Black America then, and compare it to the gap today and what you will find on some of those measures on wealth and well-being, you find the gap is as wide today as it was forty years ago. On the measures where that gap is narrowing, it is narrowing at such a glacial pace that it will be decades or in some cases, even centuries before the gap is closed. Before we achieve parity, before we achieve a rough equality in this society.”

“The United States is the most affluent society in the history of the world. There has never been a society in the history of this planet that is as affluent and as wealthy as the United States.”

“If the United States wanted to close the racialized gap between White and Non-White Americans, could it do it? it certainly has the resources. It certainly has the belief in its ability to accomplish such things, yet it hasn’t closed that gap. What does that tell you? What it tells me is that it is still appropriate to call America a White Supremacist society in material terms.”

President Barack Obama’s 2013 inaugural address (full speech transcript, video)

President Barack Obama’s 2013 inaugural address (full speech transcript, video)
By: Politico Staff
January 21, 2013 12:13 PM EST

As delivered and provided by the White House. (See also: Complete coverage of the Inauguration 2013)

—

INAUGURAL ADDRESS

BY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA

United States Capitol

11:55 A.M. EST

THE PRESIDENT:  Vice President Biden, Mr. Chief Justice, members of the United States Congress, distinguished guests, and fellow citizens:

Each time we gather to inaugurate a President we bear witness to the enduring strength of our Constitution.  We affirm the promise of our democracy.  We recall that what binds this nation together is not the colors of our skin or the tenets of our faith or the origins of our names.  What makes us exceptional — what makes us American — is our allegiance to an idea articulated in a declaration made more than two centuries ago:

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.”

Today we continue a never-ending journey to bridge the meaning of those words with the realities of our time.  For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth.  (Applause.)  The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob.  They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.

And for more than two hundred years, we have.

Through blood drawn by lash and blood drawn by sword, we learned that no union founded on the principles of liberty and equality could survive half-slave and half-free.  We made ourselves anew, and vowed to move forward together.

Together, we determined that a modern economy requires railroads and highways to speed travel and commerce, schools and colleges to train our workers.

Together, we discovered that a free market only thrives when there are rules to ensure competition and fair play.

Together, we resolved that a great nation must care for the vulnerable, and protect its people from life’s worst hazards and misfortune.

Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.  Our celebration of initiative and enterprise, our insistence on hard work and personal responsibility, these are constants in our character.

But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.  For the American people can no more meet the demands of today’s world by acting alone than American soldiers could have met the forces of fascism or communism with muskets and militias.  No single person can train all the math and science teachers we’ll need to equip our children for the future, or build the roads and networks and research labs that will bring new jobs and businesses to our shores.  Now, more than ever, we must do these things together, as one nation and one people.  (Applause.)

This generation of Americans has been tested by crises that steeled our resolve and proved our resilience.  A decade of war is now ending.  (Applause.)  An economic recovery has begun.  (Applause.)  America’s possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands:  youth and drive; diversity and openness; an endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention.  My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment, and we will seize it — so long as we seize it together.  (Applause.)

For we, the people, understand that our country cannot succeed when a shrinking few do very well and a growing many barely make it.  (Applause.)  We believe that America’s prosperity must rest upon the broad shoulders of a rising middle class.  We know that America thrives when every person can find independence and pride in their work; when the wages of honest labor liberate families from the brink of hardship.  We are true to our creed when a little girl born into the bleakest poverty knows that she has the same chance to succeed as anybody else, because she is an American; she is free, and she is equal, not just in the eyes of God but also in our own.  (Applause.)

We understand that outworn programs are inadequate to the needs of our time.  So we must harness new ideas and technology to remake our government, revamp our tax code, reform our schools, and empower our citizens with the skills they need to work harder, learn more, reach higher.  But while the means will change, our purpose endures:  a nation that rewards the effort and determination of every single American.  That is what this moment requires.  That is what will give real meaning to our creed.

We, the people, still believe that every citizen deserves a basic measure of security and dignity.  We must make the hard choices to reduce the cost of health care and the size of our deficit.  But we reject the belief that America must choose between caring for the generation that built this country and investing in the generation that will build its future.  (Applause.)  For we remember the lessons of our past, when twilight years were spent in poverty and parents of a child with a disability had nowhere to turn.

We do not believe that in this country freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.  We recognize that no matter how responsibly we live our lives, any one of us at any time may face a job loss, or a sudden illness, or a home swept away in a terrible storm.  The commitments we make to each other through Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security, these things do not sap our initiative, they strengthen us.  (Applause.)  They do not make us a nation of takers; they free us to take the risks that make this country great.  (Applause.)

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity.  We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations.  (Applause.)  Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires and crippling drought and more powerful storms.

The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult.  But America cannot resist this transition, we must lead it.  We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries, we must claim its promise.  That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure — our forests and waterways, our crop lands and snow-capped peaks.  That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God.  That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war.  (Applause.)  Our brave men and women in uniform, tempered by the flames of battle, are unmatched in skill and courage.  (Applause.)  Our citizens, seared by the memory of those we have lost, know too well the price that is paid for liberty.  The knowledge of their sacrifice will keep us forever vigilant against those who would do us harm. But we are also heirs to those who won the peace and not just the war; who turned sworn enemies into the surest of friends — and we must carry those lessons into this time as well.

We will defend our people and uphold our values through strength of arms and rule of law.  We will show the courage to try and resolve our differences with other nations peacefully –- not because we are naïve about the dangers we face, but because engagement can more durably lift suspicion and fear.  (Applause.)

America will remain the anchor of strong alliances in every corner of the globe.  And we will renew those institutions that extend our capacity to manage crisis abroad, for no one has a greater stake in a peaceful world than its most powerful nation.  We will support democracy from Asia to Africa, from the Americas to the Middle East, because our interests and our conscience compel us to act on behalf of those who long for freedom.  And we must be a source of hope to the poor, the sick, the marginalized, the victims of prejudice –- not out of mere charity, but because peace in our time requires the constant advance of those principles that our common creed describes:  tolerance and opportunity, human dignity and justice.

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths –- that all of us are created equal –- is the star that guides us still; just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall; just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone; to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.  (Applause.)

It is now our generation’s task to carry on what those pioneers began.  For our journey is not complete until our wives, our mothers and daughters can earn a living equal to their efforts.  (Applause.)  Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law  –- (applause) — for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.  (Applause.)  Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.  (Applause.)  Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity — (applause) — until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.  (Applause.)   Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia, to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.

That is our generation’s task — to make these words, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American.  Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life. It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness.  Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.  (Applause.)

For now decisions are upon us and we cannot afford delay.  We cannot mistake absolutism for principle, or substitute spectacle for politics, or treat name-calling as reasoned debate.  (Applause.)  We must act, knowing that our work will be imperfect.  We must act, knowing that today’s victories will be only partial and that it will be up to those who stand here in four years and 40 years and 400 years hence to advance the timeless spirit once conferred to us in a spare Philadelphia hall.

My fellow Americans, the oath I have sworn before you today, like the one recited by others who serve in this Capitol, was an oath to God and country, not party or faction.  And we must faithfully execute that pledge during the duration of our service.  But the words I spoke today are not so different from the oath that is taken each time a soldier signs up for duty or an immigrant realizes her dream.  My oath is not so different from the pledge we all make to the flag that waves above and that fills our hearts with pride.

They are the words of citizens and they represent our greatest hope.  You and I, as citizens, have the power to set this country’s course.  You and I, as citizens, have the obligation to shape the debates of our time — not only with the votes we cast, but with the voices we lift in defense of our most ancient values and enduring ideals.  (Applause.)

Let us, each of us, now embrace with solemn duty and awesome joy what is our lasting birthright.  With common effort and common purpose, with passion and dedication, let us answer the call of history and carry into an uncertain future that precious light of freedom.

Thank you.  God bless you, and may He forever bless these United States of America.  (Applause.)

END

12:10 P.M. EST

 

© 2013 POLITICO LLC

Legitimate Rape Shall Rise Again

From Slate:

Rep. Gingrey of Georgia Says Akin “Legitimate Rape” Comments Were “Partially Right”

By Daniel Politi

Posted Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, at 11:49 AM ET

Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-GA) said he doesn’t “find anything so horrible” about making the distinction between “legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape”

Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

Rep. Phil Gingrey, a Republican of Georgia, knows that comments about rape have cost fellow Republicans their seats in Congress. But that didn’t stop him from wading deep into controversial territory during a breakfast meeting in his home state, reports the Marietta Daily Journal.  The lawmaker talked mostly about gun control but then opened the floor up for questions and was asked about abortion. And that’s when Gingrey, who made sure to point out he has been an OB-GYN since 1975, mentioned controversial comments about rape and pregnancy made by former Reps. Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana, that many say contributed to their electoral losses last year. This is the Journal’s account of what Gingrey said next:

“In Missouri, Todd Akin … was asked by a local news source about rape and he said, ‘Look, in a legitimate rape situation’ — and what he meant by legitimate rape was just look, someone can say I was raped: a scared-to-death 15-year-old that becomes impregnated by her boyfriend and then has to tell her parents, that’s pretty tough and might on some occasion say, ‘Hey, I was raped.’ That’s what he meant when he said legitimate rape versus non-legitimate rape. I don’t find anything so horrible about that. But then he went on and said that in a situation of rape, of a legitimate rape, a woman’s body has a way of shutting down so the pregnancy would not occur. He’s partly right on that.”…

“And I’ve delivered lots of babies, and I know about these things. It is true. We tell infertile couples all the time that are having trouble conceiving because of the woman not ovulating, ‘Just relax. Drink a glass of wine. And don’t be so tense and uptight because all that adrenaline can cause you not to ovulate.’ So he was partially right wasn’t he? But the fact that a woman may have already ovulated 12 hours before she is raped, you’re not going to prevent a pregnancy there by a woman’s body shutting anything down because the horse has already left the barn, so to speak. And yet the media took that and tore it apart.”

Posted Friday, Jan. 11, 2013, at 10:59 AM PT

I tried to post my letter in response on their board but I suspect the censors were displeased with my answer:

Dear Republicans,

Have you learned nothing from Todd Akin? Have you failed to understand no matter what stupid ideas you present, the only person you are hurting is yourselves (and by proxy, your constituents)? To be fair, you are either, not representing them well at all, or worse you are, and this is a statement as to the capabilities of the folk in your districts. But I choose to believe you hid your ignorance well, under a fine suit, with honeyed words, with promises of pork-barrel largess if you were elected. Who knew beneath all of that refinement and Southern charm, lurked the heart of an ignorant, barely-civilized, misogynistic bigot. Now I don’t mean you, I mean your behavior, is that of a bigot. You may be a fine upstanding citizen who only sounds like a bigot.

All things considered I want to say, perhaps Mr. Gingrey, you simply don’t know of what you speak. You are, after all, a product of the American education system, not currently known for its excellence. You may have gotten a degree from a university which may have cut science and human biology which may explain your inexcusable ignorance of the human condition regarding sexuality AND rape. Since you are not a woman, I will even try to excuse your lack of understanding of female physiology because let’s face it, even women have difficulties understanding their bodies at times. Oh wait, you were supposedly involved in the medical industry at some point. An OB/GYN? That might make you the worst practitioner ever. I pity your former clients.

What I cannot excuse is your inability to, when in the presence of the media, speak on things you know absolutely nothing about? I thought you were supposed to be a politician, a person who is supposed to be leading and guiding the nation into making good decisions around issues of the PUBLIC good. If you are going to be a rape advocate, meaning you are going to tell women they should understand “rape happens” and if it happens “they won’t get pregnant” because their mystical vaginal powers of “seminal extermination” will resolve the issue, then, sir, you have proven beyond a shadow of a doubt, of both your ignorance of the human condition, of which you are supposed to be advocating for, the state of women in this nation and across the world who are raped, sold into sexual slavery, abused, and murdered for the sake of men with minds similar to yours.

You are a disgrace to the idea of Republican ideals (not the current madness, the Neo-Republicans are espousing, another totally different can of worms) of decency, personal fortitude, and social responsibility. Your beliefs (which should not be part of how you are supposed to govern) are Medieval and parochial, at best, and would be quite at home in the 12th Century. But this is the 21st Century and you have an obligation to represent your constituents with intelligence, compassion, a concern for their lives, especially if they are different than your own.

Perhaps we should define this condition of yours and Mr. Todd Akin as its own particular brand of psychological instability. If we called it “Akin-Gingrey Syndrome” we might have to help people recognize it’s symptoms:

1. A complete lack of scientific understanding regarding human anatomy and physiology even if you went to school to study it.

2. Further ignorance of female reproduction and biological operation (even if you practiced medicine on women)

3. An inability to recognize women as human beings deserving of respect

4. An inability to recognize the statistics revolving around rape and pregnancy in the US. (32,000 rape victims per year become pregnant, not so rare)

5. A pathological inability to not seek out media attention to espouse such ridiculous ideas whenever possible.

6. An inescapable need to run for office to show as many people as possible just how ignorant you can be, in public.

7. The overwhelming urge to embarrass as many actual good Christians who don’t believe your particular brand of madness as possible.

8. A complete inability to know when to shut the fuck up and retire to one’s personal lair of insanity.

It is in my non-medical opinion, which so far is as good as your medical one, you suffer from ‘Akin-Gingrey Syndrome’ and from what I understand about the condition, there is no cure. Perhaps you should retire to your plantation in Georgia, drink tall frosty drinks, discuss your days in office with fondness, and never bother respectable folk again with your brand of complete ignorance and barely-contained sociopathic behavior.

Yours in disgust,

Thaddeus Howze @ebonstorm - (Acting MD, for the purposes of this article only)