Sam Cooke: "Barack, is a change gonna come?"

“A high heart ought to bear calamities and not flee them, since in bearing them appears the grandeur of the mind and in fleeing them the cowardice of the heart.”
-- Pietro Aretino, 1525

Those of you that read my “Corrections Officer Interview” would know I’m a staunch advocate of abolishing the death penalty. FYI: According to Amnesty International, 135 countries have abolished the death penalty. The US isn’t among them. The US is the only industrialized nation that still uses the death penalty.

While this post takes up yesterday’s Supreme Court’s decision barring the death penalty for the rape of a child, its larger purpose is to outline my politics. While everyone knows how I feel about Bush, it should not be assumed that I’m what some conservatives call a “Kool-Aid Drinker” (someone who blindly follows the Democrat’s ideology without questioning their specific policies). As most of you know I’m far to the left of the kind of liberalism that now passes for the Democratic platform. With this in mind, I want to examine some of what I consider to be Barack Obama’s positions on key political issues.

THE DEATH PENALTY

Regarding the Court’s decision, according to Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, there is “a distinction between intentional first-degree murder on the one hand and nonhomicide crimes against individual persons, “ even “devastating” crimes like the rape of a child (Linda Greenhouse NYT, 6/26/08). Given that there were over 5000 reported rapes of children under 12 in 2005 alone, Kennedy concluded that, “we have no confidence that the imposition of the death penalty would not be so arbitrary as to be freakish.” He went on to say, “we cannot sanction this result when the harm to the victim, though grave, cannot be quantified in the same way as death of the victim.”

Recalling Thurgood Marshall’s admonition that “the death penalty is racist, unfair to the poor and mentally retarded, and often ends in the state sanctioned murder of innocents,” here’s some facts: over 113 people on death row have been exonerated since 1973; 68% of the death penalty convictions between 1973-1995 were reversed; and Capital punishment is applied to a higher percentage of minorities than whites.

According to Human Rights Watch, since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, at least 35 people with mental retardation were executed in the US. The exact number is not known; experts believe 200-300. Because of their mental retardation, they do not understand what they did wrong and cannot comprehend the punishment that awaits them. While they have the bodies of adults, their mental function is that of children. 25 states permit capital punishment for offenders with mental retardation. The US Supreme Court has ruled execution of persons with mental retardation is not cruel and unusual punishment prohibited by the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution.

So what’s Obama’s stance on Capital Punishment? “I think that the rape of a small child, 6 or 8 years old, is a heinous crime [as we all do, Barack], and if a state makes a decision under narrow, limited, well-defined circumstances, that the death penalty is at least potentially applicable.” He added that the Supreme Court “basically [imposed] a blanket prohibition, and I disagree with the decision.” Is this, as Ralph Nader suggests, an example of Obama’s “wanting to talk white?”

In my view, a real agent of change, particularly a candidate of color, would unequivocally oppose the death penalty precisely because it is carried out disproportionately, is not cost effective, and does not deter crime. Given his endorsement of the death penalty, it seems logical to think he ignores Marshall’s charge that the application of the death penalty is “racist, and unfair to the poor.”

AMERICAN HEGEMONY

While Obama is for pulling out of Iraq, his overall foreign policy maintains the status quo in terms of our world wide military presence. For Barack, American Imperialism is a matter of exercising greater prudence and efficiency in ruling the globe, rather than posturing us to assume our place in a New World Economic Order about to supplant us in the twilight of American Empire. Writing in The Nation (6/23/08), Alexander Cockburn suggests that a legitimate agent of change “would announce that by the end of his first term America will have withdrawn from at least half the roughly 1,000 overseas bases it occupies, quitting the rest at the end of eight years.”

CUBA & COLOMBIA

Speaking to the Cuban American National Foundation in Miami on May 23, Obama said, There has been injustice and repression in Cuba….I won’t stand for this injustice….I will maintain the embargo.” Fidel Castro’s response? "Presidential candidate Obama’s speech may be formulated as follows: hunger for the nation, remittances as charitable handouts and visits to Cuba as propaganda for consumerism and the unsustainable way of life behind it.” Regarding the thoroughly corrupt Uribe regime in Colombia, and the presumptive Democratic nominee’s unswerving support for another lost cause, the war on drugs, Obama said, “We’ll work with the government to end the reign of right-wing paramilitaries. [These are gangster thugs who are in tight collusion with Uribe’s stooge government.] We will support Colombia’s right to strike terrorists who seek safe haven across its borders.” Here Obama gives his tacit approval to incursions into Ecuador to assassinate key FARC leaders, utterly disregarding the notion of national sovereignty.

IRAN

Bowing to AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee), America’s pro-Israel lobby, Barack had this to say, “I will do everything in my power to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Everything in my power. Everything.” I guess we “Kool-Aid” drinkers should take comfort in the fact he stopped short of using Clinton’s bellicose rhetoric that we would “obliterate” them.

Cockburn writes, “The assignment of every supposed liberal on the presidential campaign trail is to engage in the task of political redefinition, so that bankers, CEOs of the Fortune 500, Rupert Murdoch, the Sulzbergers, the Grahams, the Joint chiefs of Staff, Abe Foxman and the others all deem that candidate ‘safe.’ Lately Obama has shown an eerie and relentless skill in these tasks of reassurance. Though necessary to a certain extent, it’s an ominous talent.”

A FINAL WORD ON RACE, SOCIAL JUSTICE, AND REAL CHANGE

Nader, a true populist, has questioned Obama’s commitment to the lower classes. In Nader’s view, in his zeal to gain corporate approval, Obama’s neglected the plight of the inner city and rural poor, as well as the sufferings of a diminishing middle class. In an interview with The Rocky Mountain News in Denver, Nader said of Obama, “There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American. Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white?” For all of Obama’s grand oratory about race, I sometimes think he puts class pandering above a commitment to social justice.

NOTE: The most excellent Obama image courtesy of an anonymous artist friend. If you like her work, see related links on blog.

sUpErmAn'S BIG sister

“We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.”
-- Tennessee Williams, “Camino Real,” 1953

I’m listening to K.D. Lang’s version of Joni Mitchell’s “Help Me,” so beautiful, such a voice. George Carlin died. First saw him on Ed Sullivan as the Hippy Dippy weatherman. Here was a weatherman that knew which way the wind blew. “There’s a line of thunderstorms moving in from the north; but there’s also a line of Russian ICBMs moving in, so don’t sweat the thunderstorms.” Brad Mehldau? If you like cool, jazz piano, he’s it. Now Dylan. “Desolation Row” from “No Direction Home,” it’s 10+ minutes long.

How about an urban legend from Mackinaw Island? Christopher Reeve’s horrible accident is said to be the result of an Indian curse placed upon him for defying the island’s rule against using motor vehicles. He drove his MG around and pissed off the mighty Indian God, Goralinac. It’s no accident he was stuck down riding a horse, Goralinac’s favorite mode of transport. “She ran calling Wildfire, she ran calling Wildfire. By the dark of the moon I planted, but there came an early snow…. “ I know, it’s silly to sprinkle in musical references (It’s what I’m listening to as I write. My daughter Sarah always loved “Wildfire”). So, yep, Christopher Reeve, victim of an ancient Ojibwa Fatwa (or was it Osage?). Now he’s wheeling around the happy hospice ground in the sky. Ah, the smell of horseshit, fudge, and Superman’s exhaust, how heavenly. I read the news today, oh boy. About a lucky man who made the grade. And though the news was rather sad, well I just had to laugh, I saw the photograph.”

“Also, please be advised that cleaning of the sanitary sewers may cause minor agitation of the sewer system due to the use of hydraulically propelled and high-velocity wash equipment. Precautions will be taken to ensure that operations will not cause wash water to back up in your private service lead connected to the Township sewer system. However, as an extra precaution, the Township requests that you consider keeping your household toilet seat covers closed when not in use during the work day.”

Now I find this letter! I guess that’s a good thing, otherwise I wouldn’t have gotten my settlement from the Township. Had I read the notice earlier, I might not have used Brigitte’s toilet on that fateful day in May (was she trying to Claus von Bulow me?). I suppose we’ll never know.

What I can say with some certainty is that it was she who entered me in the contest. I suspect she knew the combination of my post-jalapeno-eating-contest victory celebration and the Township's use of excessive sewer force could work to her advantage. They don’t call her the Mata Hari of Canton for nothing. What she couldn’t know was that her plan would back fire (excuse the pun). She knew it was my habit to take my morning constitutional precisely between 8:24 and 9:06. I can’t prove it, but I think she alerted an admiring sanitation worker via her cell phone.

So, as I was settling down with my Weekly Standard and battery-operated-nose-hair clipper, septic boy lets go with the hydraulically pressured, high-velocity butt-washer. Aside from suffering a torn anal hypostula and sprained colon, by some miracle, I escaped the horrible fate of another unsuspecting resident: a fatal retocillation and disembowelment of the sub diaphragmatic abdomen.

Why was I spared, you ask? Simple. At the same moment that the full fury of the sewer cleaner’s wrath spewed forth, I unleashed what can only be described as a once in a lifetime super-sphincter-spasm. You’ve heard the old physics conundrum, what happens when an immovable object meets an irresistible force? It was sorta, kinda like that.

After the Township doctors examined my case (and my butt), the Grand Poobah Township Commissioner authorized a $1250 payment as recompense for my distress, which we subsequently lost in two casino visits.

THE END

Politics & Music: FUBAR, Live at Top Of the Park, June 28, 2008

“Politics is not the art of the possible. It consists in choosing between the disastrous and the unpalatable.” -- John Kenneth Galbraith, 1969

POLITICS

As Bob Dylan, or Abe Lincoln, or somebody said, you can please some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t please all of the people all of the time. I say bull. We have the surgical and technological know-how to rectify our polarities and redeem our nation. Hence, I am proposing a revolutionary ticket that involves going back…errr…forward to a one party system. We could use the money saved on campaigning to win the war and save the world. Rather than have voters go to the polls we could simply have the talking heads make up their own vote counts and bloviate accordingly (that’s a big word that everyone's using now). Race, gender, and ignorance will be equally represented. So here’s the ticket: to the left, the president (on motorcycle), to the right, the vice-president.

MUSIC

Let’s start with a poem:

SLOW DRAG BLUES

I don’t believe in sex

After marriage
My wife does, just

Not with me.
I plead the Fifth

of whiskey. I am close

to perfecting a theory
of forgettability.

Grief a dog
That keeps dogging me---

Good Grief,
I say. It’s me

He’s teaching to beg---

My next anniversary
is newspaper, yesterday’s---

lining my cage---
Tomorrow the day

I hope to learn to stay.

-- Kevin Young

Next Saturday night, June 28, at 7PM, FUBAR takes the stage at Ann Arbor’s Top Of the Park, they will be followed by Lady Sunshine and the X band, a very cool soul group. Whenever I see Slick Rick and Lady, I request Tyrone Davis’ “Can I Change My Mind.” The guitar riff in this is sick-boss (my word).

As a way of describing what FUBAR’s about, I thought I’d take you through the set we’ll be playing next Saturday. Mike Betzold, writing in the Ann Arbor Observer, had this to say about our lead singer, “Out front is the unprepossessing Sophia Hanifi, formerly of Map of the World, who doesn’t look or act as if she has the kind of tart, tangy, soulful voice that can jolt your heart. The contrast between her almost evanescent stage presence and the power of her interpretations is disconcerting.”

We’ll start the set with an Andy Adamson original, “You & I.” Since you’ll recognize most of the covers we play, I’ll save the descriptions for them. Regarding the originals, I’ll use quotes from reviews as a way of suggesting their interest. Betzold liked “You & I” so much he mistook it for a song by a group that’s been a major influence on me: “When FUBAR covers songs from well-known groups such as the Byrds, it’s likely to be something obscure like “You and I” rather than “Mr. Tambourine Man.”" Reviewing FUBAR’s disc, “Suddenly,” Roger Lelievre of the Ann Arbor News wrote, "Noteworthy originals include Andy Adamson’s "You and I.""

Next up is “Article of Faith (R. Tessier),” another FUBAR original. The hook in this one is the words, or lack thereof. My intention was to have the title reflect the chorale intent of the song. The melody is sung, but has no lyrics. If the singing so compels you, you will integrate a sonic, rather than lyric, narrative in your head. It’ll be on our next disc.

Wanda Jackson’s frenetic “Let’s have a Party” follows. Think of Little Richard rave-ups, like Tutti Frutti” or “Rip It Up,” as sung by a woman, and you’ve got it. It’s a song, where, as Betzold puts it, “Hanifi is belting out the half-crazed lyrics and the band is at full tilt.”

For our only slow song of the evening we’ve selected The Cardinals' beautiful 1950s love ballad, “The Door Is Still Open.” Never heard of it?” It’s no accident. We try to be obscure, eclectic, and too cute. Again. Betzold, “Apart from some highly compelling original material, most of their numbers are covers—but not of the standards that oldies stations have played to death.” Lelievre describes Sophia’s singing this way: “Listen closely to the dynamic, soulful vocalist Sophia Hanifi. This one is pure ear candy.” Reviewing this song for Current Magazine, Sandor Slomovitz writes, "Dave Cavender's soulful harmonica and trumpet along with Andy Adamson's varied keyboard sounds shine in well-deserved moments on this one."

Then comes “A House Is Not a Motel," a song by the 1966 group, “Love.” Betzold writes: "Most remarkably, FUBAR tackles the 1960’s San Francisco cult group ‘Love.’ Spinning out energetic, inventive covers of two of that enigmatic group’s most complex songs.” The other one’s “Alone Again, Or.”

Stephen Stills’ always relevant, unfortunate as it may be, “For What It’s Worth,” fills this slot. I can’t think of a cooler protest song. It takes no sides, and no prisoners. Anybody that needs a copy of our version, I’ll be glad to send you one FREE. Commenting on FUBAR's political commitment, Slomovitz writes, "Then the subject was Vietnam, now it's the current conflict, spelled out in Tessier's acid comments."

At number seven comes Bill Withers’ “Use Me Up.” Key to this song is the relentless bottom Oni Werth and Jim Carey provide. Describing Oni and Jim’s groove, Betzold writes, “They play with energy and skill that would be the envy of far-better-known bands.” To my mind (of course, I’m biased), Betzold is on target when he describes Oni’s playing as having a “surging power,” and the band as being anchored by “the driving beat of Jim Carey.” Slomovitz writes, "the rhythm section of bassist Oni Werth and drummer Jim Carey does exactly what's needed." Check out Dave Cavender’s Freddie Hubbard stylings (“First Light” CTI) on this. Betzold called Cavender, a “musician’s musician.” You have my promise, on this one I’ll try to live up to Betzold’s review, “Tessier is a wild man—like a caged animal shaking his cell bars.” Praise God!

Let’s get the duet going here. “Jackson” (Leiber/Wheeler), recorded by Lee Hazelwood and Nancy Sinatra, as well as Johnny Cash and June Carter, is next. We follow the Carter, Cash version.

At this point in the evening we’ll bring up a horn section. A baritone, saxophone, and trombone, will join Dave to take us out in a Soul Tsunami. We’ve dubbed them “The Valves of Houston” (Google it [hint] it’s an anatomical destination).

I’ll let Betzold introduce this one: "This six-piece ensemble is equally adept at reinvigorating catchy but little-heard R&B tunes, such as Maxine Brown’s infectious 'Oh, No. Not My Baby.'”

Jackie Wilson’s “Higher and Higher?” OK, so we do one that’s “been played to death.”

The Foundations' “Build Me Up Buttercup.” FUBAR magic is in the house. Presto chango! Repeat after us: Kitsch, camp, cool; kitsch, camp, cool…don’t worry, we’re renaming ourselves the “Panderer Bears.”

For the grand finale, it’s sing along with Mitch time. Follow the bouncing ball….yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah…You got it, Sly & the Family Stone’s “Sing a Simple Song,” try a little do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do…

I’ll sign off with a final quote from Betzold: “The combination of Hanifi’s sassy vocals, Tessier's rebel-rock attitude, and the rest of the band’s talent and verve restores the heart and soul and unrepentant energy that rock used to have before it was hijacked by self-obsessed ironists.”

We hope to see you there.

PS: Right after the Maxine Brown song we're going to play "Testify," by Parliament. Sorry, I forgot.

fiction

“I curse everything that you have given. I curse the day on which I was born. I curse the day on which I shall die. I curse the whole of my life. I fling everything back in your face, senseless Fate. With my last breath I will shout in your stupid ears:’Be accursed, be accursed!’”
-- Andreyev, “The Life of Man,” (1906)

Walking up the steps to the south verandah at the Casa Iguana hotel in Mismayloya, Stakel noticed a threadbare hammock slung in the corner outside of the stucco manager's office. Faintly visible under the mosquito net was the silhouette of a sleeping man; and if his shape was barely discernable, the sound of his snore was crystal clear. It was Frank Rossi.

Jay Baker, the subject of Stakel's visit, once a promising heavyweight fighter, had lost a leg in a stateside car accident. The injury occurred in Boloxi, Alabama. The driver and front seat passengers were killed outright, while Baker's girlfriend, Nadine, received a spinal injury so severe that it left her a permanent quadriplegic. Baker might have considered himself lucky to have lost just a leg. But instead, he took to the bottle and became a hopeless alcoholic. That kind of insidious drunk who feels it their duty to shmooze that certain type of tourist whose reason for travel springs from that illusion that one can flee troubles that are less a physical than psychological. The accident had changed him.

His psychic mutation took the form of mental deterioration. He perceived his mutilation as something wholly tangible, without realizing he had lost more than his physical moorings. His missing limb, conspicuous in its absence, was correlative to a flaw in his core self. That innate sense of identity prior to language and thought, his reptilian brain, seized on an intuition churned up from the murk of his being and transformed him; much as the smooth pink skin that covered the seam between his stump and phantom limb had become a simalacrum of his leg.

He never admitted his change, but his secret self acquiesced to this sudden metamorphosis. And in solidarity with what was lost he began to find ways to extend the domain of his phantom self.

He drifted south to Mexico City. It was here that Baker took to selling his body to those gay travelers who would have him. It was here also that he met Frank Rossi and quickly exhausted the exotic imaginings of his homoerotic desire.

It was these cumulative changes in Baker that caused his parents to have him involuntarily committed after luring him to Ishpeming on the pretext of a death in the family.

As Stakel poured a steady stream of shots from a silver flask, Rossi recounted Baker's AIDS riddled ranting about his time at Newberry.

According to Rossi, Baker had such an aversion to a fellow inmate that he refused to say his name. It seems the man had taken a fascination to Baker’s stump.

Guerre’s Journal: I often fantasize about the fit of your prosthesis. My obscenity offends you? No. I don't think it’s that. You're too numb to feel shame! But that bizarre appliance is so, so, personal, like false teeth. I want to caress it. You act coy, but you crave my curiosity. I envy your difference. It is so unlike my own, like most of ours. Let me stroke it, pet the alloy and polymer. You love how I attach it and re-attach it; the holster like snugness of the stump saddle. I have you when I have it, a physical part of you.

Given the uncertainty of Baker's age, there ensued what could only be called a violently sodomistic period of forced abuse: A phase that was Baker's introduction to deviance that equated violence with sexual satisfaction. This man had promised that, because his love for him was so strong, Baker would never leave the place alive.

The man became an arch-angel of death; a grim reaper, collecting the sheaves of the once living; and a grim professor whose monomania was so convincing that Baker came to regard it his duty to document his life.

Using the shorthand he had learned as an Army stenographer, Baker meticulously transcribed the man's dictation on his worldview. He would sit at his spare desk, or lie on his cot, while the television hawked a material world so alien it functioned more as a cacophonous sound track, a jabber of babble providing the background to the mix of truth and fantasy Baker dutifully recorded.

The man, let's assume it was Guerre, described a cartoonish world; psychotic, full of mayhem, sometimes chaotic, sometimes monotonously predictable and depressive, and sometimes violent; never comfortable, and never hopeful. Occasionally Guerre would make his own notations apart from the journal. Of the few times that Baker saw this, he remembered Guerre as having used a stub of lead pencil while chain- smoking Kool non-filters. Guerre maintained that he was working on a memoir to be given to his younger sister, Leslie Franklin. Before retiring each night, he would carefully scrutinize Baker's notations and hide the journal and his own jottings under his pillow while he slept. Of course, Baker couldn't know these things exactly in this way, nor did Stakel record them as such; but this was how it happened.

"So how and why did you steal the journal?" Stakel prodded.
"There were too many facts about myself that would have led Guerre to find me. I knew that if he kept it he would easily track me down. He had already promised me I would never leave the place alive. Besides, it was something I had on him, a detailed account of his crimes.”

After his third shot of Jamesons, Rossi retrieved the journal from a threadbare knapsack and handed it to Stakel. Seemingly relieved of an overwhelming burden, Rossi, for no apparent reason, recalled Baker's suicide; his body hanging in the sunlit alcove behind the hotel; and how an enormous iguana, brilliant orange in the sun, perched motionless on his gray strangled head, its cold eyes sstaring at nothing.

As Stakel's plane climbed north into the Pacific sunset he began to read the journal. The more he read the more he became absorbed in the story behind Don Merryweather's killer; and the more he dreaded meeting Guerre.

Stakel would eventually do an exhaustive reading of everything pertaining to, not only Guerre, but to his infamous son, Zeke Pluto. His initial reaction, no doubt related to his skills at detection, compelled him toward those passages relevant to Merryweather case; carefully singling out those entries that seemed circumstantially related to the materials Nicole had given him.

So it is safe to say that Stakel wasn't alone in puzzling over the moral imperatives implicit to Guerre's worldview? His distorted assumption that one must earn the right to appear as they do dovetailed nicely with the more general tenet that good is a relative term; a matter of utility rather than universality; a value rather than a virtue. That achievement should trump respect as the yardstick of human value implied his dogmatic adherence to the idea that identity is forged by the appropriation and obliteration of otherness.

No. Stakel was uninterested in these things. He was as practical in his way as Guerre, but their unequivocal allegiances had staked out opposing definitions of good and evil. For Stakel, the journal posed less lofty questions: Who was the girl in the obituary? Lina Flately? But it was inevitably those obtuse theoretical underpinnings of the confessions that plagued Stakel's deductions.

The mixture of intellectual deception and psychotic revelation made a muddle of any concrete conclusions he arrived at. How did this bizarre man, a lunatic, a predictor of pink-thonged monks and Madisonian Ambassadors, square with the uncertain bloody mayhem his memories implied.

The constant aporias produced by Stakel's attempt to read the document through the lens of its assumed logic caused him to abandon this reading strategy in favor of a hermeneutic that privileged the journal's non-rational aspects. He began to focus on passages more reflective of Guerre's mental history; those marginal entries that heretofore functioned as asides, pushed him toward the resolution of the intractable cognitive dissonance that endlessly deferred any definitive meaning Stakel had attached to the writings previously.

Guerre’s Journal: What makes me crazy is that right now he doesn't recognize me, denies I'm his son. Why do I want to draw on myself...whistle. Footsteps. Screaming, an inmate having an episode. What makes the drawings a blueprint for the razor-knife is the thought of him seeing a patient in New York. As if I never happened! Does he see me when he asks the questions, ever...? Isn't he always talking to me? Why can't I hear him? Right now he's probably pruning some cabbage-brain, or prescribing an antidote for jealousy, while he fantasizes about the pink thong on the blunt-faced monk in the waiting room. Tell them about your son, dad! Talk to your clients, your friends, your family, anyone--about him. Do I wear a pink thong? You don't know me. You analyze, you advise, you lie.

BIID: "Assisted Disability" A Teacher's Essay

“What is it that every man seeks? To be secure, to be happy, to do what he pleases without restraint and without compulsion.”
-- Epictetus, “Discourses,” 1st century A. D.

Date:
Thu, 19 Jun 2008 14:37:45 -0700 [06/19/2008 05:37:45 PM EDT]
From:
Sean
To:
rlt@umich.edu
Subject:
[You Are Here: Disease as Performance] New comment on Eng. 325 Student Essay BIID (Body Integrity Identi....
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Sean has left a new comment on your post "Eng. 325 Student Essay BIID (Body Integrity Identi... First off, I must say, I am impressed by the quality and insight of this essay. The author does not get everything right, but makes many statements that are *right on*.

Thank you.I am someone who has BIID. I need to be paralysed. I have been feeling like this for over 35 of my 40 years. It is not something I have control of. It is not something sexual (though it is for some people).

One thing to correct is in the very opening statement, saying that BIID is only for people who need an amputation. That is inaccurate. Recent research is confirming that the condition may also manifest by people needing to be paralysed, or blind, or deaf, etc.

I am the owner of http://biid-info.org/ which is a resource for information about BIID, and contains the majority of published research about BIID. I am also the founder and principal author of http://transabled.org/ a multi-authored blog about the experience of living with BIID. These two sites might be of interest if you wish to learn more about the condition.

Wow! Sean, I never thought I could be an advocate for this cause, but here goes. What struck me most about your comment is the idea that BIID includes those who desire paralysis, blindness, and deafness, as well as amputation.

A note here: those who seek to be, as Sean terms it, “transabled (the desire to be disabled),” refer to themselves as “wannabes.”

Sean writes, “I well remember the first time I discovered I wasn’t the only one feeling this way. I had a long discussion that evening with Sue, who told me about her desire to be paralysed.

Writing in the “Journal of Applied Philosophy, Vol. 22, No. 1, 2005, Tim Bayne and Neil Levy argue that, regarding the moral arguments against what I will call “assisted disability,” “BIID sufferers meet reasonable standards for rationality and autonomy: so as long as no other effective treatment for their disorder is available, surgeons ought to be allowed to accede to their requests.”

If we eliminate Body Dysmorphic Disorder (BDD), the belief that a part of the body is ugly, or somehow diseased, and Apotemnophiles, a psychosexual disorder whereby one is sexually attracted to amputees and/or excited by the idea of becoming an amputee themselves, we are left with the prevailing view that there is a disconnect between the way an outsider sees their body and their subjective perception of how it appears. Philosophically this distinction is between the phenomenal and self-perceived body. But there are a growing number of moral philosophers who question this assumption.

Bayne and Levy take issue with the idea that the wannabes subjective/objective body mismatch is at the heart of their wish: “wannabees who have had the amputation they desire seem, as far as we can tell, to be content to use a prosthesis. This suggests that the problem they suffer is not primarily a conflict between their body and their body schema”(76). Robert Vickers, a successful wannabee, writes, “I was recently asked, “but doesn’t your use of a prosthesis negate your intent?” Simply, ‘No.’ The prosthesis is only a mobility aid, and when I remove it, there is my stump, my security blanket. After a journey of forty years, visiting places of darkness and deep despair, there is peace and satisfaction in fondling the amputated remnant of my leg.”

Bayne and Levy examine three common arguments (Harm minimization, Autonomy, and Therapy) often cited in favor of amputation requests. The harm minimization justification amounts to a sort of pre-emptive strike against the possibility that the wannabe will botch the job. They cite the ubiquitous presence of websites offering efficient and painless methods of amputation: shotguns, chain saws, wood chippers, and dry ice, for instance. Vickers cites the case of Lily, a wannabe amputee he met on an internet chat group site: “the freezing process with the dry ice did not go quite to plan, and she reached hospital with her legs ‘underdone.’ At first she was to achieve her goal, with the surgeon agreeing to a simple, neat amputation of both legs above the knee. But then the surgeon….Management, ethicists and no doubt media spokesmen and spin doctors, all hearing of the proposed surgery and the desire of the patient, stopped the surgery, patched-up her rather superficial injuries and sent her back home to France….Lily has had nine operations to affect repair. Such was the extent of the damage, Lily’s leg is, in places, bone covered with skin. Grafts are failing, infections are breaking out, she is in constant pain, can’t walk and in a wheelchair. An accident victim with the same injuries would have been offered amputation as the preferred option. Was the surgeon wielding his unassailable power vindictively? He had a patient under his knife, she actually wanted her leg amputated and he was bloody-mindedly determined he was not going to give her her wish.”

But what advice would these sites have for Sean and Sue? Sean writes, “I walked to the kitchen. Picked up a paring knife. Put it against my spine. Stood there in the cold (it’s 10C in the kitchen) and just stood there. I wished I could cry. I finished popping the corn and came back to the lounge and watched TV. Like nothing had happened. Like nothing is happening.” The question also arises, what would Bayne, Levy, and other ethicists say about a physician paralyzing, blinding, and deafening (is that a word?) someone. The harm minimization argument would also seem to apply in these cases. Assuming that no reputable doctor would consent to these requests, black-market disablers would certainly arise to fill the void. The problem here, as Bayne and Levy frame it, is that the “inability to confidently distinguish those patients for whom the desire…might be transient from those who will persist in their demand” presents an ethical quandary.

So what to do? Again, Robert Vickers, “Something inside me collapsed, suddenly my handicap became all consuming. Nothing else mattered. It was as though I had hit a brick wall, and life could not go on until I sorted out my disability; overcame my handicap. It had become the handicap from hell. I lied to my wife, I lied to my employer and took the day off to cure my handicap. The next day I woke from surgery, relieved and elated to see that my left leg had been reduced to a newly bandaged, above knee stump. Nothing short of sheer, unbridled ecstasy would describe my joy. At last to be able to live my life as I had wanted to live it since childhood.”

Regarding the “autonomy” argument, a position central to my opinions on BIID, many contend that the bizarre nature of the request precludes the condition of rationality implicit to autonomy. Bayne and Levy cite Arthur Caplan’s contention that one’s competency comes into question “when they’re running around saying, ‘Chop my leg off.’” What seems obvious here is that, as in most things controversial in a free society, these kinds of requests must be determined on a case-by-case basis. In Vicker’s case, his amputation was a Godsend: “Next time I woke, it was as if in heaven. The leg I had despised and desired to be rid of since a small child, was gone. I didn’t care where, just so long as I had my newly bandaged stump to see me through the rest of my days. Gone in that simple operation was years of depression and sadness, gone any further thoughts of suicide, gone the hatred of myself and my inadequacies. It was the start of the rest of my life, and I was to start it the way I always knew it was meant to be.”

A second objection has to do with the idea that wannabes are fundamentally delusional. As Bayne and Levy point out, some see BIID as a “monothematic” phenomenon, “akin to, say, Capgras’ delusion, (the delusion that a close relative has been replaced by an imposter) or Cotard’s delusion (the delusion that one is dead). The problem with this is that wannabes are not “globally” irrational. Meaning that, while their desire seems irrational, the deliberations surrounding their beliefs are rational, and should be honored.

Robert Vickers: “I couldn’t even get ‘Elementary Suicide’ right. I was severely handicapped, but diagnosed as ‘clinically depressed.’ Psychiatrists treated me without success. None of their tranquillisers and antidepressants worked, but then I could not tell them what was really wrong, what my handicap was. It was too weird, too painful to tell anyone about; it was just there, festering away, destroying me. Two years later, I tried to cure my handicap and failed. This time I got more drugs, more psychiatrists, shock treatment and unwanted surgery over three months in hospital. I told the doctors what I wanted and didn’t get it, but was still too ashamed to tell them why.”

The therapy argument assumes the wannabes perception of themselves is something that can be cured. Vicker’s testimony above surely suggests that the therapeutic approach is as wrongheaded as the idea that homosexuality can be cured. For me, as in the case of assisted suicide and abortion, the issue is one of free choice. Given that one is of age and sound mind, and insofar as a respect for the rights of others is in place, one can do with their body as they wish. In a free democracy it should be assumed that “rationality and autonomy” are fundamental to guaranteeing the free agency of all citizens.

What troubles me (big surprise) is that, as Sean points out, “to read some of the articles [on BIID], blog entries and comments, it’s not just people disagreeing with us. It’s people who are violently and aggressively against us. And this is wearing me down.” Let’s kill those wannabes! Too much!

Bayne and Levy provide some insight into what prompts these kinds of responses. Under the subheading of “Repugnance” they take up the isssue of moral disgust: “Wannabes evoke an affective response not dissimilar to that evoked by the prospect of kidney sales, bestiality, (see ‘Murder in My Heart for the Judge’ post), or various forms of genetic engineering”(84). Certainly, for many, these kinds of reactions are understandable, but, as Bayne and Levy put it, “A large number of morally benign practices—such as masturbation, inter-racial marriage, burial (and cremation) of the dead, organ selling, artificial insemination, tattooing and body piercing—have the ability to elicit disgust responses. Disgust responses can alert us to the possibility that the practices in question might be morally problematic, but they do not seem to be reliable indicators of moral transgression”(84).

As Bayne and Levy rightly conclude: “In an important sense, a limb that is not experienced as one’s own is not in fact one’s own. Disorders of depersonalization are invisible to the outside world: they are not observable from the third-person perspective in the way that most other disorders are. But the fact that they are inaccessible should not lead us to dismiss the suffering they might cause”(85).

Sean, here’s my question. Bayne and Levy are university professors in Australia. You are from New Zealand, so what’s the deal? Is BIID more common in your part of the world? Why is it this issue is more prominent down under? Is there a greater public awareness on your continent?

Sean, feel free to use me as a link on your website.

Peace – Randy Tessier

"Pink Pills for Pale People": SUBOXONE

"Any opiate is absolutely contra-indicated for a creative person, because it makes you less aware of what's happening around and inside you."
-- William Burroughs, 1969

"Let us not seek our disease outside ourselves; it is in us, planted in our bowels, and the mere fact that we do not perceive ourselves to be sick makes it harder for us to be cured."
-- Seneca, "Letters to Lucilius," 1st century A. D.

In “from Dawn to Decadence”(2000) Jacques Barzun describes the state of advertising at the turn of the Twentieth century: "Its rapid development was in fact a necessity when the leviathan of the age spewed forth continually new products, many of them for the ordinary citizen and not expensive. Advertising had long existed as simple publicity—at first a few lines announcing a lost article or the opening of a shop. Then the paragraph, descriptive and boastful. The Nineties saw the rise of the craft as we know it: the arresting display in type and picture with repetitious slogans and extravagant claims: Post Toasties, the first breakfast cereal, would cure appendicitis; contraptions with wires implying electric power would relieve lumbago and housemaids knee. Bottled liquids and Pink Pills for Pale People worked miracles….The [product] was shown in association with human figures seductively posed and faces radiating happiness”(601).

Earlier in this blog I described my experience in weaning myself from Oxycodone. The stuff's highly addictive, and Xanax has an even wickeder hook. My brother, my friends, and my son’s friend (a second generation Vicodin addict) are just some of the folks in my circle of acquaintances who struggle, and have struggled, with prescription drug addiction. Many of us are one injury away from dependency. Arthroscopic surgery, Percocet, a glass of wine, that warm fuzzy feeling, disharmony disarmed, and there’s no going back. Craving sets in. But is it you who’s a criminal, or, are you simply hostage to your receptor sites? Is addiction a criminal, or medical, problem? Should this question turn on whether the addict is your daughter or son?

Regardless of blame, somebody profits from the receptor ticklers. The craving is not just a matter of wanting to get high as much as not wanting to be sick, to suffer withdrawal symptoms. So you’re better now and buying it on the streets. But that’s not the drug companies’ fault, you say. Recall Barzun’s description of the advent of mass production as the “leviathan of the age.” That leviathan is now a 10th generation face-hugger. America is a market economy, feeding the market requires money, generating profits requires consumption. It’s that simple. Drugs are big business and the more we take, the more money made, no matter the human wreckage this process leaves in its wake.

Again, from Barzun: “The melancholy individual is the plaything of opposite forces; he despises himself and then acts arrogantly; he is envious of others and knows he is undeserving; he wants friends and lovers but does not know how to make the right approach and he alienates those who begin to feel affection for him. Yet the cause of this perpetual mismatch is not entirely within him. The structure of society exacerbates the disharmony. Burton (Robert Burton, ‘Anatomy' 1632) again and again lashes out at the ways the upper ranks behave toward the lower, without conscience and without reproof”(222-23).

I suppose it’s nothing new to say Americans take more pills and medications than any other country in the world. What’s new is that the comfort with which most Americans take OTC (over the counter) medications for even the slightest discomfort has facilitated their risk for addiction. That thin moral line separating the respectable and the degenerate has become blurred and ambiguous, the term functional alcoholic has been displaced by functional substance abuser. Barzun’s reference to the “upper ranks[']” lack of conscience fits nicely with his description of advertising as a mechanism of commerce. What I take from this is that it behooves the rich, economically and politically, to provide the soma with the bread and circus, the Ambien, Ritalin, Viagra, and Xanax, peddled in the midst of “Idols” and “Survivors.” As Huxley famously put it, soma (my collective name for pharmaceuticals of every stripe) has “All the advantages of Christianity and alcohol; none of their defects." After all the idle distraction has always been key to perpetuating and preserving the status quo. For those rare few who don’t take something, there’s always the Christianity and alcohol. Stay drunk and leave the civic responsibility to God. Having us hooked on drugs makes money and keeps order. Add fear to the mix and you’re in business.

The recent “Florida Medical Examiners Commission” 2007 report offers a snapshot of what’s going on across the culture. Damien Cave’s New York Times gloss on the report notes the commission (6/14/08) “found that the rate of deaths caused by prescription drugs was three times the rate of deaths caused by all illicit drugs combined.” Lisa McElhaney, a sargeant in the pharmaceutical drug diversion unit of the Broward County Sheriff’s Office notes that prescription drug abuse has reached “epidemic” proportions,” adding, “It’s just explosive.” According to Cave, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration reports that roughly seven million Americans are abusing prescription drugs. These aren’t skid row bums, these are our friends, relatives, and coworkers.

Eng. 325 Student Essay BIID (Body Integrity Identity Disorder)

NOTE: THERE ARE 4 OTHER BIID POSTS ON THIS BLOG.
1) BIID: "ASSISTED DISABILITY": A TEACHER'S ESSAY
2) BIID: PHILOSOPHICAL OR MEDICAL ISSUE?
3) ABOUT BIID
4) FOR MY GERMAN BIID FRIENDS: STRICTLY QUALITATIVE

“All knowledge is of itself of some value. There is nothing so minute or inconsiderable, that I would not rather know it than not.”
-- in Boswell, “Life of Johnson,” 1775

One of the questions I’m often asked concerns the nature of the student essays I receive. Typically, I have a set of guidelines, assignment guides, and rubrics that keep the students on track in terms of style, strategy, and purpose. In the upper level sections, however, like Eng. 325, I sometimes allow them to select a topic of their own choosing. Here is one such paper. This is the final draft of an essay I already edited and made comments on. So, while there may still be some syntactic and semantic glitches, you be the teacher. And, yes, I have seen a variety of weird topics and crazy confessionals.



Michael Bigelow
Randy Tessier
ENG 325

Off to Here Please

“In that instant, that very first encounter, I knew not my leg. It was utterly strange, not-mine, unfamiliar. I gazed upon it with absolute non-recognition [...] The more I gazed at that cylinder of chalk, the more alien and incomprehensible it appeared to me. I could no longer feel it as mine, as part of me. It seemed to bear no relation whatever to me. It was absolutely not-me—and yet, impossibly, it was attached to me—and even more impossibly, continuous with me.”

In "A Leg to Stand On," Oliver Sacks, noted author and neurologist, eloquently describes the effect a mountain climbing accident had upon his body image. During his fall his quadriceps muscle was torn from his knee and his femoral nerve was severely damaged. This injury resulted in the loss of the mental “image” of his leg. He rationally knew that his leg was his, but he couldn’t think to move it, he couldn’t grasp the concept of it. Luckily for him, he did, eventually, regain consciousness of his leg and learn to walk again, but his initial experience was intimately similar to what sufferers of Body Integrity Identity Disorder, or BIID, experience throughout their lives.

Like most other body disorders, BIID is a condition in which the suffer experiences an awful discrepancy between their physical bodily form, and their idealized mental image of their bodily form. However, unlike more common conditions like Anorexia Nervosa or Bulimia, this condition relates specifically to the need for amputation of limbs.[1] The sufferer feels that there is something alien about that particular part of their body, and although the limb functions, it feels like dead weight. It’s not about the appearances or attention, but feelings. This is why this condition is most commonly compared to Gender Identity Disorder, because the individual does not feel as though their body matches their brain, and like GID, BIID often begins to manifest itself in the preadolescent years. Most sufferers are believed to successfully ignore the condition, rightly or wrongly so, but without treatment the condition often manifests itself in other ways like manic depression. Therapy is suggested, but, in this case, it’s like taking an Advil to treat a brain tumor. It treats the symptomatic pain to a degree, but can’t change the cause. The only thing shown to truly relieve the patient is surgery. This of course, brings up the question of surgical ethics. Should a doctor, sworn to protect the bodily health of an individual, amputate a healthy limb or not?

According to the BIID website, the initial feelings of BIID are thought to be triggered by the first sight of an amputee. The cause, however, as with many other uncommon desires, is under constant scrutiny. Some suggest the condition is driven by the need for attention, others say it’s the manifestation of some unresolved internal conflict, still others believe the sufferers to be sexual deviants: attracted to other amputees on the one hand—a condition known as acrotomophilia—or sexually motivated to become one themselves on the other—known as apotemnophilia. I believe that, as with sufferers of GID, BIID patients, are simply born and hardwired the way they are. It’s not insanity, just nature. This is why therapy doesn’t help cure the actual condition. Where it does help is in the diagnosis, the treatment any resulting symptoms of depression, and the acceptance of the person by themselves. The need for a safe and open environment is especially important for the diagnosis because of the eccentricity of the condition. Sufferers are often so afraid of revealing their condition that the table saw, for them, becomes safer than public opinion. Another problem is that this condition exists far outside the realm of acceptability for many therapists, and fear of that prevents patients from revealing their true thoughts. One of my friends in high school, for example, saw a therapist in our somewhat small and very conservative town. She was suffering from the occasional need for self-mutilation and a mild case of anorexia. The therapist did not want to hear about her alcoholic parents, or the lack of attention she got a school, but rather told her that mutilation of her body was against God’s will. That she needed to clean up her act to satisfy and glorify his name. Her condition was ignored, and she refrained from talking about her real problems. She lied to make the therapist and her parents think she was better. It wasn’t until college and the more open environment provided there, that she—finally—found some relief.

Many sufferers do hide their condition for years, but others are driven to desperate measures. In the June 2008 edition of Newsweek an article by Jesse Ellison describes such as case as that of Josh. Josh is an average man, who is now very happily one-handed. “‘It is a tremendous relief,’ he tells NEWSWEEK. ‘I feel like my body is right”’. The most incredible thing about his story is the number of risks he took to achieve it. First he tried crushing his hand under a truck, and then cutting it off with a table saw, until finally, after practicing on several animal legs[2], he succeeded with an unmentioned power tool. What his family thinks was a horrible accident was really a calculated decision that had been years in the making. According to Dr. Michael First, a professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University: “These people say, ‘Every minute of my life I feel like something is wrong.’” Like someone with GID, Josh was in touch with reality, but with that reality he faced a horrendous inner turmoil. He looked at his hand every day and thought… this isn’t me.

Neurologists at the University of California, San Diego, believe the condition is caused by a variation in the right parietal lobe, the area where the brain makes and keeps its map of the body. Dr. Paul McGeoch says that for them a “unified body-image isn’t formed,” sufferers “can feel that the limb is there, but it doesn’t feel like it should be. It feels like surplus. Something’s gone wrong”. This is why the condition has also been compared to Phantom Limb Syndrome. Sufferers of PLS often try to use their missing limb forgetting for a moment that it’s not there because they still have a sense that it should be. Sufferers of BIID may use the limb in question and suddenly realize it’s there. It’s like there’s some sort of unwanted symbiotic relationship going on. They don’t hate their bodies, they just think they need some work. Would a doctor willing to remove the limb in question be any less moral then one willing to precede with the countless other cosmetic procedures available?

This is the question Tim Bayne and Neil Levy ask in their article for Applied Philosophy: Amputees By Choice: Body Integrity Identity Disorder and the Ethics of Amputation. According to them the moral arguments against these operations are not compelling, and that if a person can rationally decide to proceed with the operation after trying every other form of treatment then that treatment should be permissible. To strengthen their argument they bring up the 1997 story of a Scottish surgeon named Robert Smith. After performing a healthy-limb amputation on a man who had consulted with many psychiatrists, he suddenly had an influx of requests for the same sort of operation, and it was only when the media broke the story, that there was a public outcry and the hospital asked him to stop performing the operation. Was this the right choice? Or is this just another attack of the concept of “normal” on the individual? The man, who had the lower half of his left leg removed, reported that the operation had bettered his life. Should his happiness, however bizarre it may sound to others, be denied, especially when it doesn’t harm others? Is a procedure like this any different then having plastics inserted into various cavities of the body to create a view others will appreciate? It’s considered acceptable that many woman have their toes shortened to fit into certain shoes and both men and woman inject poison into their faces to look better. Do sufferers of BIID suffer from the same sort of cosmetic need, or is their need almost more warranted because their desire rests, not in the quest for physical perfection, but for mental wellbeing. In any case, as with abortion, regardless of public objection, when there’s a will, there’s a way and the unregulated path can prove much much worse and costly.

Successful self-amputators now run websites that suggest relatively “safe” methods of getting rid of “alien” limbs, these include the use of a shotgun, wood chipper, or even freezing the limb with dry ice. When a hospital receives a patient like this they do what they are trained to do—try and save the limb. To come into the hospital begging for an amputation will get you a trip to the psychiatric ward, but only after your injuries are treated. Often too embarrassed to reveal that the wounds were self-inflicted, the sufferers must, begrudgingly, thank the doctor for the great work. This is why there will always be black market doctors.

The problem with a black market doctor is that they really just want your money, not to save you. Like many botched back-alley abortions, not many survive the procedures after the cash transaction. Take for instance a case presented by Applied Philosophy of a seventy-nine year old man who in 1998, died of gangrene after paying $10,000 for a black-market amputation. Cases like this again call into question, what’s the lesser evil? How do we as a society cope with this rare condition, does it concern us? One also has to wonder if more popular knowledge of this condition could “hurt” sufferers of this condition more. If more doctors are aware of the condition how much further will patients have to go to convince them to amputate?

Popular culture has recently started to explore this condition in the past decade. Quid Pro Quo, a 2008 movie directed by Carlos Brooks, is a mystery thriller chronicling the experience of wheelchair bound narrator, journalist Isaac Knott, after he receives an anonymous tip that a man is trying to bribe surgeons to remove his healthy leg for $250,000. His informant, woman who identifies herself as “Ancient Chinese Girl”, instructs Knott to attend what the New York Times calls the “sinister meeting of a support group of able-bodied people who secretly gather to use wheelchairs and crutches; they long to appear disabled in public, but are to ashamed to live out their fantasies.” Ancient Chinese Girl, aka a sexy museum worker named Fiona, actually has an intense desire to be wheelchair bound herself. The Times review continues with: “In Fiona’s mind the medical paraphernalia of paralysis has an erotic power similar to that of the accoutrements of sadomasochism. An elaborate brace, for instance, is the ne plus ultra in sexy lingerie.” What effect does this pop-culture analysis have on actual sufferers of the condition? Does it help or harm? On the flip-side, the people presented in the 2003 documentary Whole, directed by Melody Gilbert seem to present a more realistic view of the condition. Most of the people in her documentary are middle-aged men who have gone to the aforementioned extreme measures to get rid of certain limbs in order to feel whole. Her documentary provides interviews with psychologists and sufferers alike, and at this point in the conditions history, perhaps provides some sort of solace to those with the condition, rather than alienating them further.

Accepting difference is something our culture is slowly starting to do. Up to this point we’ve been going to court-ordered AA, but we don’t want to admit we have a problem. We are addicted to a norm that no one seems to fit. What we need to do is look at each individual and say, what’s your deal? What will make you function? Is there any more research we can do to help? Even though I can’t understand the desire for an amputation, I can understand that happiness is, ultimately, completely relative. Perhaps, even if this condition is proven treatable though medication, eventually, what’s the lesser of two evils now: making sufferers join a hidden subculture like the one described in Quid Pro Quo, or driving them out into the open, actual sentiments intact, and ready for discussion?

[1] Which limb is case specific.
[2]Butcher meat, not pets.

fiction

“Commit a crime, and the earth is made of glass. There is no such thing as concealment.”
-- Emerson, “Essays: First Series,” 1841

At half past three on November 22nd, 2019, Nicole Merryweather showed up in the doorway of Ward Stakel's office. "I apologize for being late." "Only an hour," Mary Flack, Stakel's secretary, drawled sarcastically. "May I introduce Ms. Flack, Ms. Merryweather?" "I hope we didn't keep you," Stakel said sarcastically. "Mrs. Flack and I were just about to order a pizza, won't you join us." Nicole laughed. She was wearing a cargo-pant jumpsuit, a Fubu windbreaker tied at the waist, and a black silk scarf piled on her head after the fashion of a Nubian princess. "May I use your cell phone, sir?"

The deft, flashing fingernails were sparkled mauve, a color that suited her long slender hands. Her deep almond complexion evoked an Egyptian beauty, set off by a delicately featured face, graceful, noble, and thin. She had enormous sea-foam eyes, which at times seemed emerald green, complementing her henna tinted dreadlocks and razor thin eyebrows. She gave him a manila envelope, and without saying a word, disappeared into a building gale.

Enclosed were three newspaper items: an obituary from the Queen City Gazette, an obituary from the Oakland Observer, and an article from the Detroit Free Press describing a freak mishap on the Mackinaw Bridge. It was the only known instance of a car plunging off the Mackinaw Bridge. Once the authorities had established that a vehicle had in fact gone off the bridge, there was nothing they could do but wait for the storm to abate. There were unconfirmed reports that a small car had swerved, rolled and flipped up and over the guardrail. It was only later, when the car was winched from the icy strait, that the Yugo was linked to Cindy Pluehaar, a grad student from Detroit attending Northern Technological Institute in Queen City. The fact that an elderly couple told a bridge attendant they saw a shadowy figure running off the bridge on the Mackinaw City side went unnoticed at the time, as did the theft of a blue Toronado from the Fort Michimilimac parking lot.

Stakel's question was, who sent these to Nicole, and why?

While these items received extensive local coverage, they were never linked in a way that suggested a common connection. In each case the assailant, or assailants, had vanished without leaving the slightest clue as to whom they might be. Consequently, detectives in Marquette County were unaware of the killings at and below the Bridge, and authorities in Mackinaw County had no knowledge of the attack on Lina Flately.

Weeks, and then years, would pass before the possibility of the killer having a single identity would be considered. As the caskets closed on all but Lina, no one suspected these atrocities might be linked. There were no suspects, not in Marquette, Mackinaw, or Chippewa counties. While Lina's epitaph was yet to be written, Cindy Pluehaar and Don Merryweather were quietly buried in separate suburbs of Detroit.

The connection between the rape and the murder seemed too obvious. But long experience with the workings of the criminal mind had taught Stakel to embrace an Occam's razor perspective. It seemed too easy, find the rapist and the truth would reveal itself. The return address was from Frank Rossi in southern Mexico. Stakel caught the next flight out to Puerto Vallarta.

MURDER IN MY HEART FOR THE jUdgE: tHaT fat old PIG wouldn't bUdGe!

I got murder in my heart for the judge
Murder in my heart for the judge
That fat old pig…err…judge
Wouldn’t budge
(I wouldn’t want any of you sexist, racist, ignorami out there to take umbrage.)


Separation of Church and State?



"With this ring I do thee wed."

Why am I mad at the judge? He wants to spoil my fun. I hope the right wing majority on the Supreme Court keeps letting Scalia yap. What a card. Why wasn’t I blogging in 2003 when the court struck down the Texas Sodomy laws and set the tone for social progress in the area of gay rights? The Lawrence v. Texas decision prompted Scalia’s dissenting opinion that the majority ruling would cause a “massive disruption of the current social order.” Lions, and tigers, and bears, oh my! Scalia couldn’t stop there. “The queers are coming, the queers are coming!” He didn’t say that, I did.

Since we all know Antonin channels God herself, he admonished the non-debauched that state laws ”against bigamy, same-sex marriage, adult incest, prostitution, masturbation, fornication, bestiality, and obscenity” would rule the day. What, no Francophobia? Woe unto you sinners! Let’s ruin my fun backwards. At the risk of sounding like a bad college writer, let me say the dictionary defines fornication as sexual intercourse between partners who are not married to each other. That’s in the middle, stupid. I thought you said backwards. Shut up, Me. Alright, alright, backwards it is. Judgie is a party pooper, Judgie is a party pooper.

No more obscenity? I’ve got one thing to say, FUCK THAT! Bestiality? I can’t tell you how upset Shadow was when I read her this, Satchmo too (that’s my cat). Fornication? Broke that law in 1st, no, 2nd grade. Adultery, hmmm…ok, all right, guilty as charged; but only with four of my wives. Masturbation? Only when I’m driving. Prostitution? Tried it once, but I can’t get it up if they don’t really love me. It was in Atlanta, and her name was Angel. I gave her the money and we watched TV. The guy I was with suggested it, and he had fun. I guess he was tired of my blow jobs. Adult-incest? Whew! Finally, a reason to end up in a cooler section of Hell! Praise God! Same-sex marriage? Nancy drove me to it? It was to an old doctor-playing buddy, he had a nice bedside manner. Bigamy? You’ll notice I didn’t say “previous wives” 15 sentences ago, maybe it was 14.

Love - Randy xxxoo

The Baying of PIGS!

“We do not get good laws to restrain bad people. We get good people to restrain bad laws.”
-- G. K. Chesterton, “All Things Considered,” 1908

“The Supreme Court on Thursday declared unconstitutional a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that, at the administrations behest, stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from the detainees seeking to challenge their designation as enemy combatants” (Linda Greenhouse, New York Times, 6/13/08).

“Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy declared: ‘The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times” (NYT 6/13/08).

“Extraordinary times” indeed! It’s no accident that Bush’s public appearances are carefully selected to preclude any possibility of his being served a warrant for crimes against humanity. How are his actions any different from the Nazi war criminals at Nuremberg? Unlawful imprisonment, torture, the deaths of half a million civilians, don’t these actions qualify as crimes against humanity? Regarding the ethical dilemma of circumventing habeas corpus, Linda Greenhouse reports that, “The majority’s conclusion was that the provision did not permit a detainee to present evidence that might clear him of blame”(NYT 6/13/08). Writing for the majority, Kennedy declared that, “Some of these petitioners have been in custody for six years with no definitive judicial determination as to the legality of their detention. Their access to the writ [Habeas Corpus] is a necessity to determine the lawfulness of their status”(Excerpt from Kennedy’s opinion in the court’s 5-4 decision).

Consider this: “The environmental campaigner and Guardian columnist George Monbiot tried and failed to make a citizen’s arrest of the former Bush administration official John Bolton over alleged ‘war crimes’ committed during the invasion of Iraq in 2003. As Bolton, a former US ambassador to the UN, ended a discussion at the Hay book festival, Monbiot moved towards the stage waving a charge sheet as supporters chanted ‘war criminal’ and waved placards. Monbiot later said, ‘I made what I believe to be the first attempt ever to arrest one of the perpetrators of the Iraq war, and I would like to see that followed up’”(The Guardian Weekly, June 6-12 2008).

What’s “extraordinary” is not the sham war we’re mired in, but the senseless wasted lives of, as Scalia puts it, “our countrymen in arms.” Make no mistake about it, our young men and women were put in harm's way by the perpetration of a scam to spread a failed ideological policy that had nothing to do with 9/11: neoconservative neocapitalism. The current administration’s fantasy went something like this: We liberate Iraq and they embrace western democracy. From this small flame of democracy, an all-encompassing fire of freedom breaks out and engulfs the adjacent nations. The oppressed peoples of these surrounding countries, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia, and others, see the wisdom of the American way and throw off their shackles. Their political liberation, ensured by a military occupation, then leads to an economy of mindless and infinite consumption from which US war profiteers, like Haliburton, Bechtel , Blackwater, and other contractors, pass on the profits to corporate America. What we have instead is an Americo-centrism run amok that has drained the economy and ruined our global credibility.

Assessing the court’s decision, Greenhouse writes, ‘The court repudiated the fundamental legal basis of housing prisoners captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere at the US naval base in Guantanamo Cuba, where Justice Department lawyers advised the White house that domestic law would never reach”(NYT 6/13/08).

Of course, these aren’t the same lawyers Chief Justice John G. Roberts refers to in saying "Lawyers will now arguably have a greater role than military and intelligence officials in shaping policy” (Excerpt from Roberts’ dissenting opinion). When the policy shaped undermines “domestic law” in favor of illegal prosecutions, Roberts is all for it. And doesn’t it seem a bit odd that in a nation where the separation of powers is fundamental to the Constitution we would want “military and intelligence officials” dictating policy?

Writing for the minority, Roberts opined that, “The Great Writ’s majesty is hardly enhanced by its extension to a jurisdictionally quirky outpost”(Excerpt from Roberts’ dissenting opinion).

The Bush administration’s black-ops implementation of “Extraordinary Rendition” gives new meaning to Roberts’ strange turn of phrase, “quirky outpost.” This secret rendition and interrogation program, first, illegally abducted suspected terrorists, and then administered a kind of torture by proxy whereby the moral standards associated with an enlightened western democracy could be ignored in favor of clandestine cruelties more in line with the Spanish inquisition than Geneva Conventions.

Speaking of “quirky outposts,” and America’s innovative detention methods, Kennedy’s unwittingly ironic reference to “extraordinary times” brings me to this from the latest issue of The Guardian:

“The US is operating ‘floating prisons’ to house those arrested in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of the detainees….The analysis, due to be published this year by the human rights organization Reprieve, also reports there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped….Detainees are interrogated aboard the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed locations.” (The Guardian Weekly, June 6-12 2008)



Linda Greenhouse writes, “Of the two dissenting decisions [Roberts and Scalia], Justice Antonin Scalia’s was the more apocalyptic, predicting ‘devastating’ and ‘disastrous’ consequences’ from the decision. It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed,’ he said. ‘The nation will live to regret what it has done today’” (NYT 6/13/08). Scalia condemned the ruling as a decision that duped ‘the nation’s commander in chief [and] will make the war harder on us’”(Excerpt from Scalia’s dissenting opinion).

Scalia’s on target about the “devastating” consequences wrought by a president that caused more casualties than necessary with the first death in Iraq, just as he’s right about the nation’s “living to regret” the consequences of his fateful appointment. He’s probably the worst gangster of the bunch. Then again, it’s difficult to choose, when you have Roberts in charge, and Thomas and Alito as willing yes-men.

Finally, this from the main editorial in the Times:

“For years, with the help of compliant Republicans and frightened democrats in Congress, President Bush has denied the protections of justice democracy and plain human decency to the hundreds of men that he decided to throw into never-ending detention….It is sobering to think that habeas hangs by a single vote in the Supreme Court of the United States—a reminder that the composition of the court could depend on the outcome of this year's presidential election. The ruling is a major victory for civil liberties—but a timely reminder of how fragile they are”(NYT 6/13/08).

And so it goes…

Regarding the Hitler/Bush 08 Ticket

Date:
Tue, 10 Jun 2008 19:29:13 -0700 [06/10/2008 10:29:13 PM EDT]
From:
RJ
To:
rlt@umich.edu
Subject:
[You Are Here: Disease as Performance] New comment on Jacques Verges, George W. Bush, and the Marquette ....

RJ has left a new comment on your post "Jacques Verges, George W. Bush, and the Marquette ...":

So have I been reading "froth" on your blog? I thought I was reading literature. Hitler/Bush: geez, dontcha think that one is too easy? Surely you could come up with something more clever!(Giggle):-D

Posted by RJ to You Are Here: Disease as Performance at June 10, 2008 10:29 PM

Date:
Wed, 11 Jun 2008 06:38:18 -0400 [06:38:18 AM EDT]
From:
rlt@umich.edu
To:
RJ
Subject:
Re: [You Are Here: Disease as Performance] New comment on Jacques Verges, George W. Bush, and the Marquette ....

Dear R.J.:

I thought the Verges interview merited the comparison. Also, those that voted for Bush might find this "too easy" because it's such an obvious truth. He's undermined our civil liberties, tortured people in ignoring the Geneva Conventions, incarcerated foreign citizens without due process, stripped our veterans of their benefits, undermined the care of the elderly, ignored domestic tragedies (Katrina) in favor of pursuing a war in which he deceived the American people, a war that has resulted in 4000+ dead young soldiers, countless wounded, and the deaths of a half a million civilians. Perhaps I should have put Satan himself on the ticket. But that would be an insult to the devil. Maybe tomorrow. I wish it were "literature," but unfortunately this nightmare is no fiction. As Mia Farrow says in “Rosemary’s Baby," ‘this is no dream.’ "Too easy"? I get plenty of weird hits from D.C.. I see it as having the courage to tell it like it is.

More troubling to all Americans should be the fact that he has lowered the status of United States in the eyes of the world in every way, whether you’re a liberal or conservative. Saber rattling no longer works when you’re a toothless tiger that’s the victim of your own bad dentistry. Consider today’s front page story in the New York Times:

SOUTH KOREANS ASSAIL U.S. PACT, SHAKING LEADER

New Cabinet Offers to Resign

SEOUL: Tens of thousands of demonstrators filled central Seoul on Tuesday, hobbling the Administration of the country’s new president and threatening his efforts to improve relations with the United States. The protests, the culmination of six weeks of popular discontent have dealt a sharp blow to President Lee Myung-bak, who in December championed a new approach to managing ties with Washington. The demonstrations prompted Mr. Lee’s entire cabinet to offer to resign. Some South Korean analysts say Mr. Lee may now come under pressure to take a less accommodating line with Washington. The broad unrest reflects popular worries, as well as a reaction against Mr. Lee’s attempts to push through new trade and regulatory policies favored by foreign investors and big businesses.

Peace and love – Randy

Jacques Verges, George W. Bush, and the Marquette Police Log 6/5/08

WWW.SONICBIDS.COM/A2FUBAR



"What is the object of human society? Is it to dazzle the eye with an immense production of useful and elegant things? Is it to cover the sea with ships and the earth with roadways? Is it, finally, to give two or three individuals out of each 100,000 the power to dispose of wealth that would suffice to maintain in comfort those 100,000?"
-- Sismondi, "Studies in Political Economy," (1818-36)

"How comes it that trade is too often disguised cheating? Law, chicanery? Medicine, experimental manslaughter? Literature, froth? Politics, a lie? And society, one huge war?"
-- G. Ludlow in "Politics For The People," A Christian Socialist Weekly, (May 13, 1848)

“History is a set of lies agreed upon.” – Napoleon Bonaparte

Real life. Where do I begin? It’s 11:34. What prompted me, a drunken, failed Christian, to write this? Was it personal letters and alcohol? My dear friends, Nick G. (Nick’s lucky, no one can spell his name, which means less earthly harassment) and Kristine Cool K., sent me a letter as an enclosure with my recent editorial in the Thursday, June 2008 edition of the Mighty, Mighty, Mining Journal. Praise God, REVEREND PHELPS! Little did these unsuspecting lambs of God know that they were unwittingly sending me BLOGFODDER!

Thank you Nick, you know how I love you.

Here goes.

MARQUETTE POLICE LOG!

WEDNESDAY:

8:55 a.m., destruction of property, vehicle keyed, 400 block of W. Washington.

12:22 p.m., report of vagrancy, 800 Block of W. Baraga (Is that where Glorias is?).

12:41 p.m., Burning trash in a barrel, 300 block of W. Bluff.

2:04 p.m., report of bear sighting, 400 block of N. Seventh.

4:22 p.m., man with a child approached a goose, then kicked the adult goose, reported at police station.

4:32 p.m., aggravated assault, child with a dagger or sword, 100 block of W. Hewitt.

4:35 p.m., in-laws drove by residence making hand gestures, 100 block of W. Arch.

5:00 p.m., two lawn chairs, not resident’s, left in yard during the night, 600 block of Mesnard.

5:43 p.m., juvenile runaway, later returned, 200 block of Wright.

8:40 p.m., barking dog, Dobson Place.

9:56 p.m., odor of marijuana, 1900 block of Presque Isle.

TODAY:

12:12 a.m., dead deer in roadway, M553.

3:45 p.m., drunken person passed out, Marquette Commons.

5:23 a.m., drunken man in hot tub refusing to leave, 400 block of W. Washington.

To whom it may concern, avoid Washington street when in Marquette, it’s a high crime area.

LESS NEWSWORTHY ARE THE FOLLOWING ITEMS:

“White House aides say Bush likes to emphasize how differently future generations may come to view him. Unfortunately for the president, many historians have already reached a conclusion: In an informal survey of scholars this spring, just two out of 109 historians said Bush would be judged a success; a majority deemed him the ’worst president ever’….Bush’s disapproval rating is the highest of any president since Gallup began asking the question in the 1930s.”
(Dan Eggen, “The Washington Post,” 6/8/08)

“The lawyer Jacques Verges sits back in his Paris office, lights a Cuban cigar and recalls the highlights of his notorious client list. He defended the Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, advised the Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic and acted for the terrorist mastermind Carlos the Jackal. A Buddha head given to him by friends in Cambodia’s lethal Khmer Rouge regime watches over him from his desk. Asked if he would have defended Hitler, he smiles, puffs, and says: ‘I’d even defend George Bush. But only if he pleads guilty’….’When you treat the accused as a monster, you give up trying to understand what happened. And if you don’t try to understand what happened, you deprive yourself of any reflection on how to stop that thing happening elsewhere. If the Americans had reflected on the moral defeat that torture represented for the French army in Algeria, what has gone on at Abu Ghraib would certainly never have happened.”
(Angelique Chrisafis Interview, “The Guardian,” 30.05.08)