Clarification

I need to clarify a point. I am not a sickly person. I become ill a bit more frequently than is optimal, in part because of a sometimes recurring intestinal condition, in part because I have no spleen, and in part because i am sometimes forced to work insane hours. When I'm not sick, however, I am 100% fine. Sickly people are never totally well. I am well a far greater percentage of the time than I am sick.

More Mood Swings

I am experiencing mood swings, and I believe Ellen DeGeneris is responsible for them. 

Vegans, Vegetarians, and Related Matters

 

    I've been absent for a time. I mostly didn't have computer access. I did post a few tweets and comments, as well as answer a few emails, using my phone, and I very briefly had access to the computer of the kid who lives in this house, but this is the first time in almost two weeks that I've touched my own computer. I developed an illness  My medical care has been excellent, and I am recovering rapidly. The condition has been painful, but my greatest source of discomfort once progressing past the acute phase of the illness has been the almost terminal case of boredom I have experienced.

     I will very likely be allowed to return to work on an at least part-time basis next week. The medical school personnel are doing everything in their power to ensure that I will have the knowledge I need to pass the shelf exam in psychiatry even though the hours I will have spent in the department are laughable. To date, I have not yet been under the direction of anyone in any way connected to the psychiatry department for as much as an isolated nanosecond. I could not point even one of them out if I were required to do so in a police lineup. The medical school has some degree of obligation to work with me and to ensure that, at least on paper, my time here hasn't been entirely wasted, though, and they are doing so most honorably.  Canadians, I have discovered, are mostly good people (I'll talk a bit more about some of the Canadians I have gotten to know in a later blog), though I had to all but make the no-return float down the Ganges River to discover this.

     I was in the process of writing a response to a recent post of Knotty's concerning vegetarians. It became unwieldy and morphed into its own blog. It is somewhat presumptuous to post a response to a blog that is almost as long as the original blog. The blog (my blog, not Knotty's original blog) is  pointless, but so are many of my blogs. I'm almost ready to give up on it because my finger strength is so nonexistent that I'm hitting the keys and no letters are appearing on my monitor. Nevertheless, I shall persist. If anything I type makes even less sense than what I normally type, I shall blame it on medical causes even though we all know I'm merely making excuses for my normally abysmal typing.

     The university at which I did my undergraduate studies is considered the second-most liberal university in the liberal state of California. Predictably, the enrollment included a relatively large number of vegetarians. This was my introduction to the idea that a person could be simultaneously vegetarian and sane.  In the small university town in which I spent the bulk of my childhood and youth, there must have lived vegetarians, but I didn't know any of them, or at least I didn't know they were vegetarians. The only vegetarian of of whom I had ever heard was a relative of a relative.

     My uncle-by-marriage has a vegetarian sometimes-vegan-sometimes-not sister who occasionally appears at family functions at which members of my immediate family are also present. Actually, this should have been stated in the past tense. My family no longer attends because my aunt for some reason feels that everyone in attendance at the gatherings must maintain a vegetarian diet whenever her husband's sister is present. My aunt is a terrible vegetarian cook. She's not all that great at preparing non-vegetarian cuisine either, for that matter, but thus far she hasn't royally screwed up many take-out orders. I don't know if my aunt is trying to delude her sister-in-law into thinking that she, her husband, and their twin young adult children are also sometimes-vegan-sometimes-not vegetarians or if she simply feels that asking a vegetarian to witness carnivores doing what most of them do best is asking too much, but eating my aunt's failed attempts at vegetarian epicure is something my dad is no longer willing to tolerate. My mom isn't all that thrilled with it, either, but if she has the option of blaming my dad for anything, she does.

     One year we had Christmas dinner there.  My mom found out on our way that the Christmas dinner entree was to be eggplant lasagna, as in faux lasagna in which the noodles have been replaced by thin slices of eggplant. (Why the fuck did it need to be eggplant lasagna, for that matter? My aunt could have made perfectly acceptable meat-free traditional lasagna since it wasn't in the middle of one of her sister-in-law's vegan binges, but that might not have been more-vegetarian-than-thou or whatever it was my aunt was hoping to accomplish.) On our way to their home, which was at the time about three or four hours from our house depending upon who was driving, my mom had my dad stop at a grocery store (it was a three-hour trip that day) to pick up a Tombstone frozen pizza for the kids to eat since my mom knew that my aunt's two children weren't any more likely to eat the eggplant lasagna than Matthew and I were. 

     My mom should have gotten a whole lot more than one of the semi-edible frisbees, though. My parents tell me that frozen pizzas are much better now than they were back in the day. I wonder how such a thing could even be possible. My cousin once baked one without first removing the cardboard on which it was packaged. It didn't taste any different than frozen pizzas normally taste; if anything, it might have been better with the cardboard than without. If there is any truth to what my parents say about it, I would hate to taste whatever it was that passed itself off as frozen pizza in the dark ages.  The debatability of the quality of frozen pizza nothwithstanding, the frozen pizza was the sought- after item on the menu that night. Even though the Tombstone pepperoni pizza was supposed to be for the four children present, I don't think any of us got even a sliver of it. I don't know who actually ate it, as no one brought it to the dinner table, but the adults, including the brother of the sometimes-vegan-sometimes-not vegetarian, had more than their share.  I'm not sure about the other kids, but I just ate candy for dinner that night, and my mom didn't even try to stop me. I remember bringing my stocking to the table and devouring one chocolate marshmallow Santa after another, placing the foil wrapper of each on my dinner plate at the table.  The vegetarian lady spent the majority of the meal just looking at me and shaking her head. 

     One time we were in the presence of the sometimes-vegan-sometimes-not vegetarian when I think the occasion was a celebration of the university graduation of one of my cousins, though that's neither here nor there. Someone asked another of my cousins where he planned to attend college.  One of the possibilities he mentioned was California State University, Chico. The mere mention of the name "Chico" very nearly sent my uncle's sister to a full-blown grand mal seizure-like state.  She immediately launched into a diatribe about the various iniquities associated with the city of Chico. I know almost nothing of the city of Chico now and knew even less then. I have no clue as to the validity of her claims, but if she is to be believed, a person would emerge both saner and safer after doing time either in Gary, Indiana, or Rexburg, Idaho, than after spending the same amount of time in Chico. The coup de grace to her remarks was , "And I've heard," her voice dropped to almost a whisper, "that they even have a butcher school in Chico."

     By this time, as we had been at my aunt's and uncle's home for more than five minutes, any filter my dad possessed, which would have been a thin one under the best of circumstances, would have been effectively obliterated by his consumption of alcohol.  "Do you think," my dad asked my uncle's sister, "that it would be somehow more humane if butchers learned their craft by trial and error?" 

     My uncle grabbed his throat as a piece of the beef jerky he and my dad had been passing back and forth in a Skoal Bandit container (it was less offensive to my uncle's sister that they were inexplicably chewing and swallowing tobacco right in front of her than it would have been to openly eat beef jerky) became wedged, as his sister ran from the house, howling for the benefit of the entire neighborhood. My aunt stood roughly equidistant between her choking husband and the open front door left that way by her sister-in-law, unsure of whom to aid. She solved the quandary by just standing with her mouth agape, assisting neither. My dad put his drink down and Heimliched my uncle a couple of times until the beef jerky shot out of his mouth about twelve feet and landed squarely in the center of  the six-feet-by-six-feet living room window, then slowly slithered its way down. My aunt emerged from her stupor, grabbed a cloth and some Windex, and removed the unslightly blurb from the picture window. My uncle's sister returned to the house as though nothing had happened, bringing with her some pamphlets about seal-hunting off the coat of Labrador, which she handed out to everyone present, including a fourteen-month old baby who belonged to one of my cousins.  My dad used his pamphlet as a coaster. The baby gnawed on his.

     My cousin told me that once every three years his aunt gets arrested in a protest against fur and realistic-looking fake fur (Why would anyone waste time protesting against any fake fur no matter how realistic it might look?) that takes place annually on Black Friday in San Francisco's Union Square. She is arrested only once every three years because the members of the animal rights organization sposoring the protest take turns being arrested. It's all essentially choreographed, and the organization's members know years in advance of when it is their turn to be arrested. One of the years in which she was arrested her husband (who is not a member of any of her animal rights organizations and, in fact, consumes meat on par with the very best of carnivores) imbibed too freely on his way to bail his wife out. He hit a fire hydrant and was subsequently charged with, among other things, DUI. My uncle had to make the three-hour drive to bail both of them out. The sometimes-vegan-sometimes-not vegetarian was predictably livid. "I ask you to remain sober one day of every three years, and you can't even do that!" she practically spat at him.

     The most memorable thing I ever heard the sometimes-vegan-sometimes-not lady say was at another family gathering. I don't even remember the occasion. I just remember what she said when the squeal of a car's brakes and the screeching of its tires were heard, followed immediately by a high-pitched wail. "I certainly hope that was just a child and not a dog!" the woman blurted. 

Peyton Place in the Great White North

     
     Real life hit in a major way.  I managed to get caught in the midst of someone else's marital (or, more correctly in this cse, livng togehter without a marriage license) drama. How typical of my life it is that I managed not to get one ounce of either fun or romance out  of the experience. 

     The owner of the apartment in which I reside while in Canada is a doctor. The person who more or less oversaw the rental was the lady of the house, whom I assumed to be his wife. I was wrong. The two had been living together for roughly two years wthout the beefit of a marrige license, which is absolutely their prerogative, as they're consenting adults.  her only child lives on another continent. Two of his children are away at college. The third child of his preious marriage, which ended in his wife's death roughly ten years go, still lives at home. i had no idea the lady of the house was not his mother. He looks far more like her than he does like his father. Those odd coincidences pop up at times.

     It all would have unfolded without my being any the wiser until I saw the woman move out were it not for the ridiculously long shift I worked. It's apparently a tradition at this medical school to abuse those serving visiting clerkships, externships,  or internships during their first week here. I spent most of the week in the emergency room, not even being allowed to come home to shower or to sleep from Sunday until Thursday morning. 

     The woman's nephew, who has an alleged close relationship with illegal substances, showed up on the doorstep of the house to which my garage apartment is attached. The nephew had been a guest in the home on a prior occasion. Following the nephew's visit, cash, jewelry, and drugs were discovered to be missing. When the nephew showed up earlier this week, the man of the house refued to let him sleep in a guest room or on the sofa. The lady of the house, a doctor herself, knew of the medical school's tradition o treating visiting
medical students like indentured servants and didn't expect to see me back anytime soon. She gave the guy her key to my apartment.

     At about 6;35 on Thursday morning i was finlly allowed to leave the emergency room after being on the premises just over ninety-seven hours. i had been kicked out of the medical students' sleeping quarters by someone who called himself the chief of the four-year medical class. We don't have chiefs among the medical student ranks where I normally study, so I don't know if he really holds a position of leadership or if he was full of bullshit. Wednesday morning at about 3:25.a.m., when I was given ninety minutes to rest, he woke me up and said he didn't know me, and asked to see my ID. I reached for it around my neck and showed it to him. The hospital apparently bought a new machine to make ID cards, and the new ones look considerably different than the old ones. He concluded that my ID was a fake, that I was a homeless person or a teenaged runaway taking advantage of the hospital's hospitality, and he demanded that I leave. Taking a cue from Dr. David Dao, I refused. He summoned a security guard, who told me I would be cuffed and stowed away until the authorities arrived to pick me up if I did not vacate the premises voluntarily. I went back to the E.R. Essentially the same thing happened around 2;00 on Thursday morning.

     When I fell asleep standing next to a wall Thursday just after 6:00 a.m., a resident said I needed to go home. I didn't wait around for someone to contradict the guy; I grabbed my belongings and sprinted out of the place. I drove home, wanting nothing more than a hot shower and to climb beneath the covers of my bed. It took almost more energy than I could muster to drag myself up the steps. I unlocked my door, opened it, and flipped the light switch. Immediately I heard a deep "What the fuck!?!?" coming from the direction of my bed. I screamed. "Get the fuck out of here and turn the god-damned light off!" the voice growled at me.

     I suggested that he might want to be the one to get the fuck out, as it was my apartment. At this time, the lady of the house made an appearance. "Alexis, what are you DOING here?" she screamed at me.

     "I was going to go to bed," I answered her.

     "That's not possible," she answered. We argued for several minutes.

      The cops or the mounties (or whatever they call them here) showed up. Oh, I forgot. I did dial 911.

      The druggie was angry because I woke him. The lady was angry because I called the cops on her nephew. The cops (or mounties) were upset because they had better things to do. The lady asked me to leave. I found my lease. The cops (or mounties) said she couldn't force me to leave because I had a lease. I took one look at my bed and knew that there wasn't a chance in hell that I would sleep in it until the bedding had been replaced and the matress had been steamed clean. I grabbed a suitcase, tossed enough clothing to last for a few days, grabbed my toiletries, and got a hotel room.

     The next day I paid the doctor who owns the home a visit in his office. He had heard part of the story. He told me to stay put in the hotel room until Saturday, when the lady and the nephew will both be gone. He said he would pay for the hotel room. I'll believe that when I actually feel the cold cash in my palm.

     My Vicodin (ten tablets) is missing. I reported it to the police with my landlord's blessing. He said he will replace it for me. I'm not sure that's any more likely to happen than my being reimbursed for my hotel expenses.

Crash and Burn: An Epic Fail of a Helicopter Parent

     We've all read about them and may know a few of them.  Many of us have accused our parents of being one of them. Some of us were correct. In the case of a student in my medical school one year behind me, she was right on the mark when she referred to her mother as a helicopter parent. The mother proved her daughter right.

     A twenty-five-year-old woman in the medical school class immediately following mine scored poorly on an exam. She then made the mistake of mentioning the failing test score to her mother, who has in the past has shown a tendency to hover.  Her mother first emailed, then telephoned the medical school professor, requesting that her daughter have the opportunity to retake the exam. The professor denied the request. The mother then called the dean, who decined to take her call. Here's the kicker: we, the student's fellow medical school students, would likely  have no way of knowing that the student's mother called a medical school professor. The professor might mention the call over drinks with a fellow professor, and he might even share the story with a class a few years down the road, but odds heavily favor the side that he wasn't going to share the information with any of us -- at least not at any time in the near future. And the dean, whom none of us count among our drinking buddies, certainly wasn't going to clue any of us in regarding the hovering parent situation.

     So how do we now about it? I heard about it, despite being more than thousand miles away, from my friend and colleague Celinda. Celinda heard about it directly from the horse's mouth, or, more correcty, from the foal's mouth. The second-year medical student was so filled with misplaced pomposity that she actually boasted of her omnipotence by virtue of her mother's willingness to behave like a scorned Harper Valley PTA president whose daughter lost her place on the school's honor roll to the brazen hussy Mrs. Johnson's daughter. At the point when the second-year student boasted of her mother's interference in her life, she actually believed she would get a second chance on the exam. 

     Medical school, however, is a bit like real life. Sometimes when a person screws up, he or she does not get a second chance.  If a physician or surgeon kills a patient, there are no second chances where that patient is concerned.  It's probably fitting that medical school should prepare all of us for the real world of medicine by not offering redos on exams. Get it right the first time or forever hold your peace.

     Unfortunately for the second-year medical school student, along with not getting a chance to retake the test, she doesn't get to redo her response to having failed the test, nor does her mother. I don't know the student in question particularly well as the two of us have little in common beyond attending the same medical school, but from what Celinda has told me (Celinda has a cousin who is a second-year student at our med school this year and is, thus, privy to such information), the test fail was not an anomaly for the student.  The woman has reportedly struggled since entering medical school, and barely survived the cut to be allowed to return this year. She allegedly hid that information from her mother. The bettors at our school have declared even odds regarding the student's survival as a student at our medical school. (Some people would bet on anything under the sun, including but not limited to their own grandmothers' deaths. It's a cold, cruel world.)

     This incident has caused me to rethink my past practice of having referred to my own parents as helicopter parents. I mis-applied the term when I used it in reference to them. My parents were Nazi disciplinarians, grammar police, and generally overprotective parents. My parents didn't run in circles in attempt to protect me from the consequences of my actions unless the consequences of my actions posed legitimate safety hazards. I grossly misunderstood the meaning of the term. 

     Mom and Dad, you were fascists and you were ridiculously overprotective, but you were not helicopter parents. 

The Triangle of Life: The Safest Place to Be During an Earthquake, and Why the Duck and Cover Method Isn't Such a Great Idea After All

It may not be such a great idea after all.

     I recently read an article about earthquake safety. I won't summarize or even paraphrase the entire article, as I do not have permission to borrow someone else's work, although the author might not object to my doing so. Eric Carroll, the author, seems committed more to getting the word out than to getting credit for it. Carroll actually appropriated the highlights of of another article, thi one by Dough Copp, who holds the title of Rescue Chief and Disaster Manager of the American Rescue Team International. I will offer by way of a disclaimer that Copp's arguement has been refuted in numerous places on the Internet. Be that as it may, you should take the refutations with a grain, or perhaps with an entire shovel, full of salt. Everything from Elvis' death to the chemical composition of water has been refuted on the Internet.

     The article that Eric Carroll summarized began with Doug Copp walking into a school following the 1985 Mexico earthquake. He discovered that a deceased child, crushed to the width of his or her bones, lay underneath almost every desk. Anyone who took refuge in a doorway suffered an even worse fate. (Bracing oneself under a doorway always seemed to me to be a profoundly bad idea, anyway.) The key point is that the safest spot during a severe earthquake is likely to be next to a sturdy object as opposed to directly beneath it. Don't take my word for it, however. Read the article.  

https://injapan.gaijinpot.com/uncategorized/2011/04/25/where-to-go-during-an-earthquake/

DANIELLE BREGOLI AND CYBER-BULLYING: WHAT IT IS AND WHAT IT ISN'T

The word bullying is tossed around liberally now. The act of bullying receives far more attention and far greater scrutiny than it has in the past. What once was written off as kids being kids is now taken more seriously, which is a very positive change in how those in authority and with the power to effect change now deal with intimidation and mistreatment.  Predictably, though, whenever any societal dilemma receives greater attention than it has in the past and becomes the topic of the day, week, or decade, the issue sometimes becomes a bit too popular in that individuals lay  claim victimhood to it when doing so stretches the definition of the issue.

Bullying has been defined in many ways. Most definitions encompass essentially the idea that bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, aggressively dominate, or ostracize others. The inclusion of ostracize is not absolute here, as if the ostracism were to come about as the result of extreme bad-acting on the part of the one being ostracized, the term bullying would not apply. If the ostracism were due to the victim having funny clothing or hair, the term bullying would apply. It's subjective, it's not kind and gentle, but it is society's way of self-policing its members. 

Classic bullying as most of us conceive it is has probably occurred  since whatever time formal institutions for the purpose of education first were created if not before. The most characteristic examples of bullying most of us have either seen or experienced probably have occurred in schools. While such is not to say that bullying happens only at school or that children are the sole perpetrators or victims of bullying, the most cut and dried cases of bullying probably continue to happen among groups of youngsters. Bullies who are not stopped, though, don't necessarily outgrow the practice, and often continue their bullying ways in whatever settings they next find themselves. Hence, we have workplace bullying, PTA bullying, Kiwanis Club bullying, church bullying, and many forms of delightful social interactions in which people show their true colors and which are all very genuine bullying.

I won't go to the length of detailing what is or isn't bullying, as I'm not the final arbiter, and we wouldn't all necessarily agree on every specific instance anyway. Still, not everything that anyone -- adult or child -- describes as bullying is technically bullying. In discussion of bullying, caution should be exercised not to overuse the word bullying, because its overuse and overextension reduce the term's impact and devalue the meaning in cases where it is legitimately applied. Moreover, unjust designation of the term bully can itself, in some cases,  be a itself form of bullying.

Bullying used to be largely an on-site activity. It happened most often where young people gathered -- most frequently at schools but sometimes in other places. A brazen bully might have called a victim's home to further the abuse, but the incidence and impact were limited. A parent might have answered the phone, and if the victim knew and told the parent the identity of the abusive caller, trouble might ensue for him or her. Then came computers, the Internet, and the advent of social media. Later still came cell phones with text-messaging capacity and Internet capacity, following most young people into the privacy of their own rooms even if they did not personally own computers. Harassment came through text-messaging and on such forums as Facebook, giving birth to Internet- or cyber-bullying. 

This new form of bullying was especially devastating in that young people often had no escape from it, leading at times to depression and even to suicide.
While few of us would dispute the cataclysmic potential of cyber-bullying, like old-style bullying, the term cyber-bullying can potentially be over-extended or corrupted, lessening its power and taking away from those who genuinely suffer its effects.

For illustrative purposes, let us pretend that a group of students at the Jan Crouch School for Christian Girls, in an online forum to which most of the students had access, discussed the degree to which a particular classmate possessed ugly teeth. As "ugly teeth" is a subjective term, no one who weighed in with an opinion would be guilty of libel, and no one presumably expressed a threat or incited others to harm the schoolmate with ostensibly ugly teeth. Nonetheless, in the climate of the modern-day high school, this could, without over-extension, and despite the lack of force, threat, or coercion,  be construed as a from of ostracism. The ostracism, which would not have been as a consequence of bad-acting, would thereby be unjustified (even if the student's teeth really were ugly), and would, therfore, be a case of bullying.

For illustrative purposes again, let us now consider that a group of Trinity Broadcasting Network viewers, on a forum frequented by viewers of the Trinity Broadcasting Network, discussed the degree to which Jan Crouch* (may she rest in peace) possessed ugly hair. This, as with "ugly teeth," would be in the eye of the beholder and, hence, non-actionable as libel. Would it be, however, outright bullying? The non-consensus answer I accept  is no, it would not be not outright bullying. Indivduals who appear in the public eye (on television, in movies, or in whatever form) earn both money and public scrutiny. Both adulation and non-libelous criticism come with the territory. Is it kind and charitable for a person to bash the looks or anything else about a celebrity on public forums or other social media? Obviously it is not. Is a person inherently protected from the wrath of God or from the forces of karma for engaging in celebrity-bashing because of the bashed's celebrity status? If the wrath of God and forces of karma actually exist, no, the bashed's celebrity status would not proyect or exempt the individual or individuals who bashed him or her from the wrath of God or from the forces of karma. Bash at your own risk in relation to karmic forces or to the wrath of God.

What if the celebrity being criticized were a minor? Would it be it intrinsically wrong to criticize a kid in an Internet forum? The kid would have, in some fashion, profited or experienced financial gain through appearing in the public eye. On the other hand, unless a minor were emancipated, he or she could not unilaterally have made the decision to appear on a television program or in a movie. In a post at a forum entitled the Tempest, https://thetempest.co/2017/02/22/entertainment/cash-me-ousside-girl-has-a-name-its-danielle-and-we-are-cyberbullying-her/ blogger Aana Syed declared that it is cyberbullying to, as I did last night, criticize Danielle Bregoli, the recent guest on Dr. Phil who behaved in a wholly uncivilized manner both on the show and in other recent instances, and who has become a quasi-celebrity as a result of her misdeeds. 

By way of concession -- because a minor cannot make the final decision as to whether or not to appear on Dr.Phil or any other tV program -- I would not disparage a minor's looks or physical appearance. It could be argued that a minor had control over whether or not he or she wore a particular hairstyle, clothing, or jewelry, but even those may have been decided by the minor's guardian or by the show's producer, and the minor may have had no say. On the other hand, if the minor appears on a program such as Dr. Phil and behaves as a complete ass, it is justifiable to criticize the minor for his or her behavior. Such criticism is a form of the self-policing function of society, without which we would have far more people in our midst who behave as complete asses. Criticism and ostracism are logical consequence for behaving as an ass. I believe Ms. Syed is cutting bad-acting minors far too much slack. I will continue to criticize minors in a non-libelous manner for their bad-acting as I see fit. It is not in the best interest of society for a minor to be protected from the logical consequences of his or her actions by simple virtue of status as a minor. Calling a spade a spade, even when said spade is a minor,  does not constitutes cyber-bullying. Period.


* or perhaps Roger McDuff

Phil McGraw Gains Ratings And Makes Money By Digging Up Pond Scum And Making It Infamous

the one and only Phil Mcgraw

     Against my convictions, I'm posting about a disturbing trend in North American society. Perhaps it's wrong to blame all of North America. I doubt that many people in Mexico or Central America care much about this new trend. If a person ventures very far north into Canada, the people there probably don't give it much thought, either. I don't think the trend is exactly new, but it seems that the degree to which the media is taking it is more extreme than has ever been done in the past. What I have to say is uncharitable, but I will say it anyway.

     Celebrities have probably always existed and have been given publicity -- both negative and positive -- for bad-acting. It's been said, though, that for a celebrity, no publicity is bad publicity. Justin Bieber, Brittany Spears, Lindsay Lohan . . . and the list could be extended practically infinitely.  At least when these people were given publicity, however, they were at least already famous for some ability that could at least be loosely construed as talent. 

     Maybe the downfall really began with Paris Hilton. Why did anyone care about watching a reality show featuring a person who had nothing to offer the public except her own stupidity? She was born wealthy and was pretty; she otherwise had no claim to fame. Then when she ran afoul of the law and wound up being incarcerated, why did anyone outside her circle of family and friends care about it except to the extent of seeing that justice was served and that a person of extreme wealth was not able to buy her way out of justice? Why did hordes of people wait outside the jail at midnight for her release, and then cheer her as though she either had accomplished some great feat or was a political prisoner?

     Then we had or continue to have the train wreck known as the Kardashian family. The Kardashians, Jenners, and others associated with them are at least more or less law-abiding, but what have they done to earn the adulation of the public at large? Why have these people who were already wealthy been made into a financial empire? Why has their fame grown to the point that the younger Jenner daughter, despite having looks and a build every bit as unremarkable as mine, and in possession of even less talent and intelligence than that which I possess, will probably never have to do an honest day's work in her life without having to encroach upon the earnings of her relatives. Why did we as a society enable this?

     Before moving to my major concern, allow me to clarify one point. I would not trade places with Kylie Jenner even if I could. I would not want to be so academically inept that I struggled in traditional high school to the extent that I needed to enroll in a marginal home-schooling program so that I could even call myself a high school graduate. The Jenner daughters "had" to miss a great deal of school, then were very stressed when they couldn't keep up with their peers. They're probably not terribly bright in terms of traditional linguistic and logical-mathematical intelligence in the first place. They may even be learning disabled; Bruce Jenner claimed to be dyslexic, and dyslexia can be hereditary. Then they were raised by parents whose priorities were sufficinetly screwed up to allow girls who were already floundering academically to take on other pursuits that interfered with their school attendance and time to study. Ultimately, the solution was to enroll in a home school curriculum program that took even less time than did traditional high school, yet allowed them to complete secondary school curriculum and call themselves high school graduates. How can a student who is already behind his or her peers finish a high school curriculum by putting in even less time than his or her peers? The only way is for the curriculum to be curriculum. What parents in their right minds would allow this? 

     I do not claim to be this generation's answer to Nicolas Tesla, but I could have legitimately graduated from a traditional high school with rigorous academic standards at the age of thirteen after having completed one school year. My parents made me stick it out for the full four, as they felt that sixteen was early enough to go away to college or university. Even had I experienced difficulty in academic areas, however, my parents would have ensured that I received the tutoring I needed to be adequately successful in traditional school. They wouldn't have let me complete a bogus home-school course to call myself a high school graduate. Furthermore, I'm not lamenting that my parents demanded more of me academically than Kylie Jenner's parents demanded of her. Rather, I'm happy that I had choices both in terms of universities I could attend and graduate programs in which I could enroll. It's very possible that the Jenner girls' connections might have gained them acceptance into every university into which I was accepted, but the parenting practices used by my own mother and father gave both my brother and me the skills we needed to make it through undergraduate and graduate programs without any creative mathematics in calculating our grades or without my parents having to donate a new academic building to any school.

     I've said all that needs to be said about anyone related to the Kardashians. my very real concern tonight is that the marginal media has developed an infatuation with a thirteen-year-old miscreant and is not only giving her publicity for her despicable behavior, but is actually giving her opportunities to display her horrendous upbringing and flagitious actions for large sums of money. The media should not be censored; the integrity of our government and even of our way of life is dependent in part upon freedom of the press. Nonetheless, the members of our media -- even of our marginal media, as I would describe TMZ,
Elite Daily, The Daily Beast, and other media outlets with questionable discernment and arguably diminished taste, would do well to consider the merits of the stories they choose to report even if there may exist a segment of the lowest common denominator of our society who actually  has interest in the questionable stories. Journalists have within them the power to weigh the right to know against both the need to know and the benefit to society. The exploits of this young moron are not genuine news; they are, instead, merely the exploits of a self- and parent-aggrandizing  juvenile delinquent. 

     It all started with Dr. Phil. Phil McGraw somehow found a creature and featured her in a segment on his program. She insulted and threatened Phil McGraw's studio audience, acted as though she would assault her mother, spoke her own sub-idiotic and unintelligible version of a street dialect, and generally behaved in a manner that was barely human if human at all. Dr. Phil sent the young fool to an outdoor rehabilitation program, at which the girl had some alleged measure of success, if short-lived.

     At this point, or, more correctly, before airing the initial episode featuring this debacle of limited humanity,  Phil McGraw's desire for ratings and for his own publicity came into conflict with his innate sense of right and wrong. Dr. Phil had the power to kill this story, at his own and his company's expense. His production company would have eaten the cost of flying the sub-imbecile and her mother to his studio and back home, as well as the cost of filming and the cost of his own time. Still, this organism would have been denied a platform from which to publicize her uncivility. She likely would have continued her uncouth ways until she ultimately broke enough laws to be put away for good, but I would argue that she is essentially headed in that direction despite Dr. Phil's intervention. She'll make some money in the meantime and she'll probably probably take other clueless young people and their equally clueless parents with her, but she will end up in the same place she would have gone regardless of Phil McGraw's intervention.

     The marginal media loves a train wreck. Low-life radio programs and other sources caught up with the quadriped and gave her further air time. YouTube videos of her became popular. Her instagram account went viral. She appeared in a music video. Abundant footage can be found featuring her in vulgar poses. She and her mother had a major altercation on a commercial airliner, fortunately before it left the ground, resulting in her being banned from the airline. She has been involved in bar altercations, which begs the question of why she is allowed, at the age of thirteen, inside of bars in the first place? She commands five- and six-figure appearance fees. According to TMZ she is fielding offers to appear in her own reality show on an unnamed fourth-rate network.

      The chordate's mother is allegedly under investigation because of a video currently circulating. In the video, supposedly taken by the thirteen-year-old's friend when she was eleven, shows her mother pinning the provocatively dressed eleven-year-old to the ground, shouting at her, hitting her, and calling her a bitch. The video offers some insight as to how the specimen became the product she is today. It's a pity something wasn't done earlier. Perhaps it would be appropriate for authorities to examine her school attendance and those school employees who came into contact with her, as it's conceivable that at least one employee was derelict in his or her duty as a mandated reporter.

     The vertebrate's father, a deputy sheriff in Florida, who has contributed child support but has otherwise largely been absent in her life, is seeking custody according to TMZ. The father reportedly feels that she is being exploited, which isn't a drastic leap from credulity. Granting custody to her father would be a step in the right direction. I'm sufficiently repulsed by her that I really don't have much compassion for her or care what happens to her, but it would seem that society in the form of the government has some obligation to do something to intervene for the sake of her well-being. 

     All the money she may earn likely cannot save her from herself. Her father, if he's willing, should be given the opportunity to try to redeem her. If he fails, she needs to be charged with the most serious offense applicable each time she breaks a law, and needs to be incarcerated for each offense. She should be closely monitored each time she is relesed from custody, and re-charged and re-sentenced as applicable. We as a society do not need this specimen roaming our streets and creating disturbances everywhere she goes. If she can be rehabilited and can live a productive or at least non-criminal life, she should be allowed to do so. If not, she should be locked away each time she does anything illegal that significantly harms anyone else. 

     As much as I would like for the government to assert a bit of censorship in terms of coverage of this life form, the rights of the media to report news and to create programming must continue. It would be ideal, nevertheless, if journalists and the Phil McGraws of the world were to exhibit a modicum of news judgment. Not every miscreant needs fame. That, however, will do nothing to rid us of the scourge upon society that Phil McGraw has already unleashed in the pursuit of ratings. My dream solution would be for the cellular mass to which Phil McGraw gave a platform leading her to infamy to live next door to him. 

A Juvenile Delinquent Graduates

I had a terrific time skiing today. A friend I met last time I was here was able to arrange his schedule to take his spring break this week and made the trip into the mountains with me. We took his car, which has better snow tires than the car I'm driving while here and also is equipped with chains in the event they're needed. More importantly, he is accustomed to driving in snowy and icy conditions. I'm safer with him at the wheel than if I'm driving. Tomorrow two more frriend will come just for the day.

Tonight after we retired to our separate rooms, I caught an episode of the incubus' show (Judge Judy) with a particularly noxious defendant. The case involved a pre-meditated attack by one middle schooler against another one. 
The parent of the assailant was somewhat typical in her "I know exactly what happened because my daughter who would never lie told me" sort of way. It's possible in this case that the daughter really did tell her mother the truth, because the mother and the assailant daughter both seemed to think it was perfectly acceptable course of action to grab another person's hair and punch her just because you didn't like the way she looked at you. The mother looked as though she had probably beaten up more than a few people herself. 

The case itself was forgettable. The only reason I'm discussing it now is that I googled the name to see if there were any hits. There were. I googled it in part because at thirteen, the girl had been a flawless beauty. I was curious as to whether or not she retained her  [physical; she was ugly as ugly can be in every other way] beauty. She didn't. She now looks like the Tongan thug that she probably is. She works at the front desk of a Hilton that I will avoid. According to the Target baby registry, she had a child near late May of 2016. Lucky child. 

Among other things, I came  across while checking out the google hits a video made for the girl when she graduated fom high school. The video had cheesy music, pictures of the girl at various ages, and numerous pictures of her at her senior prom and at her high school graduation. This is neither here nor there and certainly no fault of hers, but the high school she attended was incredibly shabby in appearance. I thought the school may have been in Hawaii, as I've seen numerous high schools that looked like it there. In Hawaii, I would have expected schools to be built so that they could withstand monsoons, but the ones I saw looked like they wouldn't hold up to the wimpy sort of spring storms that happen once in a blue moon in southern California. I honestly didn't know public schools were built to look like that anywhere in California. Perhaps the design is an inexpensive way of making schools earthquake-safe, as even if the roof caved in on students during an earthquake, it probably wouldn't hurt anyone, as the roof looks like it's made of tagboard. The flimsiness of the school, however, is immaterial.

My real concern is the big deal that the girl's family made of her high school graduation. Since when is high school graduation a big deal? I'm reasonably certain that my brother's cat could graduate from high school if she could grip a pencil. A person has to pass X number of classes -- typically a person could fail one class every other semester and still have space in his or her schedule to re-take the failed clsses in order to graduate. At some point in his or her high school career, in order to graduate, a student has to pass the CAHSEE -- an exam so incredibly rigorous that  a seventh grader who is meeting grade level standards would ace the esam. It's not like the olden days when a family desperately needed its able-bodied offspring to work in the fields, and sending them to high school might have meant the family couldn't harvest its crops before the autumn rains came. Back then, high school graduation came only with major sacrifice from an entire family.

Even now in some cases a kid may have to work a night shift somewhere to help support his or her family, then drag himself or herself to school and try to remain wake. Such young people have more drive and determination than I can imagine. Such was not the case, however,  for the little thug who lured another girl to the mall so that she could attack the unsuspecting girl.  That kid didn't encounter significantly more hurdles than I did in completing high school.  She was scarcely worthy of the paper on which her diploma was printed, much less of the sickeningly sentimental video made by her relative.

Hello, or, if you prefer, Bon Soir!

It looked this way not too long ago near where I will go tomorrow.

Greetings from The Great White North! It's not nearly as white as it was two months ago, but we may  get a bit of snow tonight. I'm intentionlly sleeping lightly so that I can check out the window periodically to examine the sky for snow.If any snow materializes, I will go outside and revel in it even though doing such may cause anyone who sees me to question my sanity. If they knew me better, for that  matter, they would almost certainly conclude that I have no sanity whether or not I went outside to enjoy the snow.

I arrived here, following an uneventful flight, late this afternoon. The woman who, along with her husband, owns this garage apartment, along with the garage itself and the house attached to it, very nicely laundered and put the new sheets and comforter, which I ordered and had sent to her house, on the new bed I had delivered. It's a queen-sized bed, which is bigger than any bed that has ever been mine. i ordered the queen-sixed frame, box speing, and mattress because I'm leaving the bed and sofa in the previously unfurnished apartment in exchange for one month's rent. The property owners thought the queen-sized bed would be more versatile for future occupants. The woman also laundered and hung up two of the new towel sets I ordered and had sent to her house, and stocked the refrigerator and the small pantry with basic groceries. She's a pediatrician who works full-time. I'm not sure where she found the time to make things so nice for me, but I deeply appreciate it.

Tonight I had dinner with my landlord family, which tonight consisted of the professor from the medical school, his pediatrician wife, and their sixteen-year-old son. Their older son and daughter are away at universities.  After dinner I walked around the corner and halfway down the block to visit briefly with the medical school professor and his wife with whom I stayed when I came here a couple of months ago. The wife had a baby girl ten days ago. I remembered at the last minute that she should have delivered by now. A group of my friends from medical school met me in the city for brunch late this morning before my departure, and afterwards I detoured to a department store in in Union Square to pick up a baby gift. New babies are fascinating. I could have amused myself for hours just watching the baby make faces as she slept.

I have a relatively easy day tomorrow, so I can afford to sleep sporadically. My first official day of work isn't until next Sunday, but I would like to begin on Friday, so I need to have my ID made and I need a brief and very basic orientation so I'll at least know where to report. Following that, I plan to make the six-hour trek to a ski resort. I'll stay there for three nights. I snowboarded there on my earlier trip and had a lovely time except that it was a twelve-hour round trip, and we made the entire trip in one day. It will be much nicer to spend three nights and to get in two-and-one-half days of skiing before heading back Thursday afternoon. If I get sleepy on the drive there tomorrow I can pull off in a safe location and snooze for a bit until I'm sufficiently rested.

The apartment is cozy and my comforter is warm. Although I've only spent about seven hours here, I can tell already that living alone is something I enjoy. Cable is already hooked up to the TV I ordered. The land phone line is connected. My brother thought it was wasteful to have a land line, but I like the idea of being able to dial 911 [it's the same phone system as in the U.S.] and have the 911 operator know from where the call is coming. The land line will cost me only about $100 for the six to eight weeks I'll be here. One-hundred dollars is a small price to pay for peace of mind. The apartment is alarmed along with the house's alarm system, though it has a separate key pad just inside my entrance.

There is no snow yet, but it's getting colder even with the clouds moving in. I   remain hopeful that the downy flakes will appear before morning.

Bertha Butt Goes to The Great White North

I will soon depart for Canada, where I will spend the next six to eight weeks. I will travel with only carry-on baggage, as most of the belongings I will need have been sent already and will be waiting for me when I get there. My housing situation has taken a dramatic turn for the better. I was originally slated to have a bedroom in the home of a medical school professor. Due to unforeseen circumstances, the apartment above the family's garage was vacated early when the student who occupied it departed unexpectedly. The professor offered me the option of renting the garage apartment. I jumped at the chance. It will cost me about five thousand dollars by the time I pat two months' rent (they're not asking for a deposit!) buy a bed, a sofa, and a TV, but that is a small price to pay. I will have the use of a car owned by the uiversity affiliated with the medical school I will be attending. I need only pay for my own auto insurance for the time I'll be using the car and for my gas, obviously.

This will be the closest to being on my own that I've ever experienced. As long as I'm not hosting noisy parties, engaging in illegal activities, or damaging the property, the professor and his wife do not give a rat's butt what I do. My parents don't presently interfere in my life on a daily basis, but I still don't feel 100% independent living in the condo that they own.

The day following my arrival, I'll go through a bit of an orientation, get a photo ID, and will meet my supervising attending psychiatrist. Then I will leave for the nearest ski resort. The ski season is still going strong in The Great White North. I'll spend roughly three days skiing, then will return to my home base. I'm not expected to be on duty until Sunday, but I will report for work on Friday in order not to be viewed as a slacker. 

At least one reader of my blog is vehemently opposed to the time-out technique. The person views it as wholly inappropriate for anyone with any sort of mental or neurological disorder. There certainly may be children for whom it's not the best way of curbing antisocial behaviors. I'm far from the definitive expert on such matters at this juncture of my career. Nonetheless, I maintain that for the child with whom I dealt, even if he is afflicted with a mild case of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, which at this time is  considered a neurological disorder, it was appropriate for him to experience an unpleasant consequence for having hit his mother when she took an electronic device from him that belonged to someone else because he handled it carelessly and threatened to break it. 

Children have to learn that they cannot seize the belongings of others, cannot destroy the property of others, and cannot hit others. Had this child lived before 1970, and in many places even after 1970, he probably would have faced physical consequences for his acts of defiance and violence. I remain not firmly convinced that such would have been inappropriate. Still, I can accept the premise that problems are best solved without violence. I understand why it's important to be able to discipline a child without hitting him. It did bother me that the child had esentially no consequence other than the self-imposed consequence of dragging his original five-minute time-out into a multi-hour ordeal for hitting, kicking, and spitting at me as I took him back to the time-out space repeatedly, but I knew that such would be the case when I signed on to help with the behavioral intrvention. Had the boy been my own child, after roughly the third unauthorized instance of leaving time-out, I would have found a large bag and would have stuffed the child inside it and would have put him out with the day's refuse. I was joking. I would actually have located the large bag and would have  taken possession of one of the child's toys each time he refused to remain in the time-out space, and I would have moved bedtime forward incrementally as well. I'm not a bleeding heart.

As I continue my education, I will come across the complete panorama of experts, from the James Dobson types who think a child can be cured of almost anything with enough spanking to those who believe that time-out is a cruel if not unusual punishment and that a child should have a voice in all matters concerning him.  I don't think it's a fluke that the incidence of the neurological, sensory, and mental health issues that would theoretically cause a child to behave in an antisocial manner have increased exponentially since tolerance of the behaviors associated with such disorders has become so prevalent as it is in today's world. If that makes me a troglodyte, call me one of the Butt sisters.