The Bipolar Gay Times

2002-06-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

THE SONS AND DAUGHTERS OF LIBERTY
'All of Us Are in Danger'

by Nat Hentoff

VILLAGE VOICE

Friday, 21 June, 2002

In 1756, in Boston and other cities and towns, the coming of the American Revolution was speeded by mechanics, merchants, and artisans who organized against British tyranny. Calling themselves the Sons of Liberty, they set up committees of correspondence in the colonies to spread detailed news about British attacks on their liberties. They focused on the general search warrant, which allowed customs officers to invade and ransack their homes and offices at will.

In the spirit of the Sons of Liberty, on February 4 of this year, some 300 citizens of Northampton, Massachusetts, held a town meeting to organize ways to--as they put it--protect the residents of the town from the Bush-Ashcroft USA Patriot Act. On that night, the Northampton Bill of Rights Defense Committee began a new American Revolution. Similar committees are organizing around the country.

Speakers at that town meeting were defying John Ashcroft, who threatened dissenters in his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee last year. He denounced those "who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty. . . . Your tactics only aid terrorists, for they erode our national unity and diminish our resolve. They give ammunition to America's enemies."

But speakers at the meeting emphasized that the USA Patriot Act and the the succession of unilateral Ashcroft-Bush orders that followed apply not only to noncitizens but also to Americans in that very hall. William Newman, director of the ACLU of Western Massachusetts, pointed out that law enforcement agencies are now permitted "the same access to your Internet use and to your e-mail use that they had to your telephone records"--and may overstep their authority. "The history of the FBI," Newman warned, "is that they will do exactly that."

Also speaking was University of Massachusetts professor Bill Strickland, whom I first met when he directed the Northern Student Movement during the civil rights campaigns of the 1950s and 1960s. Said Strickland, "The elements of the Patriot Act place all of us in danger."

One result of that meeting was a petition, signed by over 1000 Northamptonites, urging the town government to approve a "resolution to defend the Bill of Rights." Thanks to a persistent organizing drive, that resolution passed the Northampton city council by a unanimous vote on May 2. It targets not only the USA Patriot Act but also all subsequent actions by Ashcroft and others that "threaten key rights guaranteed to U.S. citizens and noncitizens by the Bill of Rights and the Massachusetts Constitution."

Among those key rights: "freedom of speech, assembly, and privacy; the right to counsel and due process in judicial proceedings; and protection from unreasonable searches and seizures."

The city of Northampton officially asks, from now on, that "federal and state law enforcement report to the local Human Rights Commission all local investigations undertaken under aegis of the [USA Patriot] Act and Orders; and that the community's congressional representatives actively monitor the implementation of the Act and Orders, and work to repeal those sections found unconstitutional."

This is a signal to the mostly passive members of Congress that actual voters are watching them.

In April, similar resolutions to defend the Bill of Rights from the Bush administration and from complicit members of Congress afraid to challenge Ashcroft were passed in the nearby towns of Amherst and Leverett. And Dr. Marty Nathan, of the ever industrious Northampton Bill of Rights Defense Committee, informs me that "the city councils of Ann Arbor and Berkeley passed civil liberties resolutions in January," as did the Denver city council in March and the city council in Cambridge, Massachusetts, on June 17. Other cities are also preparing resolutions.

You would think this grassroots movement to secure our liberties would be of interest to the national media, but I have seen little of it on television or in the print press.

To find out about these campaigns around the country, and about a range of organizing tools, you can visit the Northampton Bill of Rights Defense Committee's Web site, and its links: www.gjf.org/NBORDC.

At the town meeting in Leverett, Massachusetts, Don Ogden, who initiated the resolution, noted--and I hope the FBI transmits this to John Ashcroft--that "it is truly Orwellian doublespeak to call such unpatriotic efforts a 'patriot act.' "

Like Northampton, the town of Amherst also passed its resolution unanimously. Select Board Person Anne Awad did not at all see Ashcroft's "phantoms of lost liberty," but rather a clear and present danger to our constitutional rights.

"As members of the Select Board," she said, "we want to know that all residents and visitors to our town feel safe. We do not want to support profiling of particular types of people. If one group is viewed suspiciously today, another group will be added to the list tomorrow."

A further indication that many Americans are ahead of their representatives in Washington in wanting to be safe from Ashcroft is an April 24 Associated Press report: "Despite the fear of future terrorist attacks, a majority of Americans are unwilling to give up civil liberties in exchange for national security, according to a Michigan State University study. Nearly 55 percent of 1488 people surveyed nationwide said they don't want to give up constitutional rights in the government's fight against terrorism. . . .

"The telephone survey, sponsored by the National Science Foundation, was conducted from November 14 through January 15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.7 percentage points." Sixty-six percent "opposed government monitoring of telephone and e-mail conversations."

The original Sons of Liberty were an instrumental cause of the American Revolution, and they spread the liberating news without an Internet. Think of how much more and swifter organizing can be done on the Web now. Let me know, at the Voice, what other towns and cities are doing to keep the Bill of Rights alive. Please do not use e-mail.

(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)

2002-06-29T21:25:00.000-07:00

PLEDGE RULED UNCONSTITUTIONAL

Wed Jun 26, 7:35 PM ET

By DAVID KRAVETS, Associated Press Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Stunning politicians on both the left and right, a federal appeals court declared for the first time Wednesday that reciting the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools is unconstitutional because of the words "under God" inserted by Congress in 1954.

The ruling, if allowed to stand, would mean schoolchildren could no longer recite the pledge, at least in the nine Western states covered by the court.

Critics of the decision were flabbergasted and warned that it calls into question the use of "In God We Trust" on the nation's currency, the public singing of patriotic songs like "God Bless America," even the use of the phrase "So help me God" when judges are sworn into office.

In a 2-1 decision, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ( news - web sites) said the phrase "one nation under God" amounts to a government endorsement of religion in violation of the separation of church and state.

Leading schoolchildren in a pledge that says the United States is "one nation under God" is as objectionable as making them say "we are a nation `under Jesus,' a nation `under Vishnu,' a nation `under Zeus,' or a nation `under no god,' because none of these professions can be neutral with respect to religion," Circuit Judge Alfred T. Goodwin wrote.

In Canada, where President Bush was taking part in an economic summit, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said: "The president's reaction was that this ruling is ridiculous."

"The Supreme Court itself begins each of its sessions with the phrase `God save the United States and this honorable court,'" Fleischer said. "The Declaration of Independence refers to God or to the creator four different times. Congress begins each session of the Congress each day with a prayer, and of course our currency says, `In God We Trust.' The view of the White House is that this was a wrong decision and the Department Justice is now evaluating how to seek redress."

The ruling was also attacked on Capitol Hill, with Senate Majority Leader Thomas Daschle, D-S.D., calling it "just nuts."

After the ruling, House members gathered on the front steps of the Capitol to recite the Pledge of Allegiance en masse — the same place they defiantly sang "God Bless America" the night of the Sept. 11 attacks.

And senators, who were debating a defense bill, angrily stopped to unanimously pass a resolution denouncing the decision.

The government had argued that the religious content of "one nation under God" is minimal. But the appeals court said that an atheist or a holder of certain non-Judeo-Christian beliefs could see it as an endorsement of monotheism.

The 9th Circuit covers Alaska, Arizona, California, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state. Those are the only states directly affected by the ruling.

However, the ruling does not take effect for several months, to allow further appeals. The government can ask the court to reconsider, or take its case to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Congress inserted "under God" at the height of the Cold War after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, religious leaders and others who wanted to distinguish the United States from what they regarded as godless communism.

The case was brought by Michael A. Newdow, a Sacramento atheist who objected because his second-grade daughter was required to recite the pledge at the Elk Grove school district. A federal judge had dismissed his lawsuit, which named the school district, Congress and then-President Clinton.

Newdow, a doctor who holds a law degree and represented himself, called the pledge a "religious idea that certain people don't agree with."

The appeals court said that when President Eisenhower signed the legislation inserting "under God" after the words "one nation," he declared: "Millions of our schoolchildren will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty."

The appeals court noted that the U.S. Supreme Court has said students cannot be compelled to recite the pledge. But even when the pledge is voluntary, "the school district is nonetheless conveying a message of state endorsement of a religious belief when it requires public school teachers to recite, and lead the recitation of, the current form of the pledge."

The ruling was issued by Goodwin, who was appointed by President Nixon, and Circuit Judge Stephen Reinhardt, a Carter appointee.

In a dissent, Circuit Judge Ferdinand F. Fernandez, appointed by the first President Bush, warned that under his colleagues' theory of the Constitution, "we will soon find ourselves prohibited from using our album of patriotic songs in many public settings."

"`God Bless America' and `America the Beautiful' will be gone for sure," he said, "and while use of the first and second stanzas of the `Star-Spangled Banner' will still be permissible, we will be precluded from straying into the third."

Fernandez said the same faulty logic would apply to "In God We Trust" on the nation's currency.

Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., was one of many lawmakers who immediately reacted in anger and shock to the ruling.

"Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves. This is the worst kind of political correctness run amok," Bond said. "What's next? Will the courts now strip 'so help me God' from the pledge taken by new presidents?"

Harvard scholar Laurence Tribe predicted the U.S. Supreme Court will certainly reverse the decision unless the 9th Circuit reverses itself. "I would bet an awful lot on that," Tribe said.

The 9th Circuit is the nation's most overturned appellate court — partly because it is the largest, but also because it tends to make liberal, activist opinions, and because the cases it hears — on a range of issues from environmental laws to property rights to civil rights — tend to challenge the status quo.

The nation's high court has never squarely addressed the issue, Tribe said. The court has said schools can require teachers to lead the pledge but ruled students cannot be punished for refusing to recite it.

In other school-related religious cases, the high court has said that schools cannot post the Ten Commandments in public school classrooms.

And in March, a federal appeals court ruled that Ohio's motto, "With God, all things are possible," is constitutional and is not an endorsement of Christianity even though it quotes the words of Jesus.

2002-06-29T19:00:00.000-07:00

CITY LIVING: SIZE MATTERS TO GAYS, LESBIANS

Ari Bendersky
Gay.com / PlanetOut.com Network
Thursday, June 27, 2002 / 09:43 AM

A study published in the May/June issue of POPULATION TODAY reveals the top 10 places gay and lesbian couples reside, with San Francisco ranked at No. 1 with gay male couples and Santa Fe, N.M., on top of the lesbians' list.

The study, "Out of the Closet: Demographics of Gay Men and Lesbians," compiled data from the U.S. 2000 Census long form. The research was presented last March to the Population Reference Bureau (PRB) by researchers Gary J. Gates of the Urban Institute in Washington and Seth Sanders, an associate professor of economics at the University of Maryland.

While the information is as near as complete as possible, it's not 100 percent perfect, Gates said.

"I think the census captured between 60 and 70 percent of all gay couples, based on my best educated guess," he said. "It's a challenge to figure out how accurate the census is."

The 2000 U.S. Census captured approximately 600,000 gay and lesbian families, compared with about 145,000 families 10 years earlier. Gates explained that the huge increase could be contributed to a few factors, including better reporting and more people honestly completed their census forms.

In addition, the 2000 Census included "same-sex unmarried partner" as an option for other residents in the home; in the past it only gave the choice of husband or wife, Gates explained.

Another difference between gay and lesbian homes is the presence of children. According to Gates, lesbian households tend to have more children, with 23 percent of lesbian homes having at least one child under 18, compared with only 6 percent of gay homes. It is for this reason that lesbians move to smaller towns.

"You need bigger housing to have a family, but still want gay-tolerant and friendly environments," Gates said. "That's where college towns come into play -- they're fairly tolerant and progressive in attitudes toward gays and lesbians."

And while 99.7 percent of all counties in the country report at least one gay or lesbian couple, gay people lean toward more populous metropolitan cities. "Gays and lesbians tend to live in amenity-rich areas with pleasant environments," Gates said.

"There's kind of a circular thing that goes on: a nice place attracts gays. Having a lot of gays attracts gays. We have evidence that shows that gays and lesbians are much more mobile than the general population. If you're moving, you tend to move to nicer places."

Following San Francisco, gay men's top residential preferences include Miami/Ft. Lauderdale; Santa Fe, N.M.; Atlanta; San Diego; Orlando, Fla.; Los Angeles; Seattle; Austin, Texas; and Portland, Maine.

After Santa Fe, lesbians generally reside in Burlington, Vt.; Portland, Maine; Springfield, Mass.; San Francisco/Oakland; Corvallis, Ore.; Madison, Wis.; Albuquerque, N.M.; Eugene, Ore.; and Iowa City, Iowa.

The metropolitan area with the lowest number of reported gay and lesbian couples compared to total couples, according to the 2000 Census, is Dubuque, Iowa.

2002-06-25T22:38:00.000-07:00

"Americans will put up with anything provided it doesn't block traffic." -- Dan Rather

2002-06-23T20:14:00.000-07:00

The following is also from McMan's newsletter (and it particularly thrills me, since it validates my view of Biblical -- in fact, most religious -- characters:

MY FAVORITE SOCIOPATH

In a letter published in the Feb 2001 Archives of General Psychiatry, a team of psychiatrists at the University of California at San Diego concluded that Samson of Biblical fame met DSM-IV criteria for antisocial personality disorder, which is the closest the DSM-IV comes to calling certain people sociopaths. The authors cite Hair Boy’s burning of Philistine fields, repeated involvement in fights, cruelty to animals, gloating after killing foes, and other behavior as Exhibits A through Z, with the clincher being Samson’s own people, the Israelites, ultimately capturing Samson and delivering him to the Philistines.

But a letter in this month’s Archives by Ilan Kutz MD of the Shalvatah Psychiatric Center in Israel takes issue. "Killing a lion, in a society of warriors and hunters," he writes, "is mistakenly labeled by them as ‘cruelty to animals.’ Similarly, they misunderstand that in such a society, self-praise after vanquishing one's foes is the norm, rather than the antisocial thing to do."

"If the authors were to superimpose DSM criteria on other ancient characters," he goes on to say, "every biblical or warlike mythological hero would receive a diagnosis of ASPD, and every ancient prophet would be found to suffer from a delusional disorder or schizophrenia."

The real Samson and his modern day equivalent, he suggests, "both manifest the compulsion to repeatedly reenact the experience of betrayal by a woman, followed by destructive attacks of rage against others and ultimately against their own tormented selves."

Click here for details

2002-06-23T20:09:00.000-07:00

Bipolar I patients are depressed more than they are manic:

A multi-center/NIMH prospective study of 146 bipolar I patients published in the Archives of General Psychiatry found they were symptomatically ill for 47.3 weeks over a mean of 12.8 years. Depressive symptoms (31.9 percent of total follow-up weeks) predominated over manic/hypomanic symptoms (8.9 percent of weeks) and cycling/mixed symptoms (5.9 percent of weeks). Subsyndromal (not full-blown) symptoms, minor depressive, and hypomanic symptoms combined (29.9 percent of weeks) were nearly three times more frequent than syndromal-level major depressive and manic symptoms (11.2 percent of weeks). According to the study’s authors: "Bipolar I disorder is expressed as a dimensional illness featuring the full range (spectrum) of affective symptom severity and polarity."

Click here to read the full study

2002-06-23T20:04:00.000-07:00

***********************************
The following info is from the latest
issue of McMAN’S DEPRESSION
AND BIPOLAR WEEKLY
(June 19, 2002 Vol 2 No 22)
***********************************

NEW BIPOLAR GUIDELINES

In April, in a 50-page supplement to the American Psychiatric Journal, the American Psychiatric Association published its new Practice Guideline for the Treatment of Patients with Bipolar Disorder. The Guideline is the product of a seven-person work group chaired by Robert Hirschfeld MD of the University of Texas, together with the input of more than 50 experts. Significantly, the Guideline lists its therapeutic goals as "return to normal levels of psychosocial functioning" and "remission," though at the same time acknowledges both the severity and the long-term course of this illness by emphasizing the need for the psychiatrist to establish and maintain a therapeutic alliance with his or her patients. Perhaps in recognition of what little we know, the Guideline sticks to the tried and true, making no mention of newer medications such as Topamax and Neurontin, much less novel treatments such as omega-3. Thankfully, the authors of the Guideline feel comfortable in recommending Lamictal as a first-line treatment for bipolar depression.

To summarize:

ACUTE TREATMENT FOR MANIA OR MIXED EPISODES

The Guideline suggests that an atypical antipsychotic such as Zyprexa or Risperdal combined with either lithium or Depakote may be more effective than either of these agents alone. For less ill patients, monotherapy with one of these drugs may be sufficient. Alternatives to Zyprexa or Risperdal include Seroquel and Geodon, and alternatives to lithium or Depakote include Tegretol or its chemical cousin Trileptal (with a better side effects profile). For mixed states, Depakote may be more beneficial than lithium. Short term treatment with a benzodiazepine (eg Ativan) may also be helpful.

Because antidepressants may precipitate or exacerbate manic or mixed episodes, the Guideline recommends their tapering and discontinuing.

If psychosocial therapies are used, they should be combined with pharmacotherapy.

The first option if patients continue to experience episodes is to optimize doses. Severely ill or agitated patients may require an antipsychotic or a benzodiazepine. Medications should exert some appreciable effect by the tenth to fourteenth day of treatment. When first-line medications fail, alternative options include adding another first-line medication or adding Tegretol or Trileptal, adding an antipsychotic (if not already prescribed), or changing from one antipsychotic to another. Clozaril may be particularly effective for treatment-refractory patients, according the Guideline. ECT is another option.

ACUTE TREATMENT FOR BIPOLAR DEPRESSION

The Guideline recommends lithium or Lamictal for first-line treatment. For severely ill patients, some clinicians may combine lithium with an antidepressant, though there is limited data to support this. Monotherapy with antidepressants is not recommended owing to the risk of precipitating a switch into mania (the risk is considered smaller for those with bipolar II). For patients in life-threatening situations or with psychosis, ECT represents a reasonable alternative. Interpersonal therapy and cognitive behavioral therapy may also be useful when added to medications treatment.

Optimizing doses should be the first option for nonresponders, then adding Lamictal, Wellbutrin, or Paxil. Alternative next steps include adding other newer antidepressants (eg an SSRI or Effexor) or an MAOI. Tricyclic antidepressants carry a greater risk of precipitating a switch into hypomania or mania and are not recommended. For severely-treatment resistant patients or for those with episodes with catatonic features, ECT should be considered.

ACUTE TREATMENT FOR RAPID CYCLING

Contributing medical conditions such as hypothyroidism or drug or alcohol use need to be identified and treated. Antidepressants should be tapered, if possible. Lithium and Depakote are first choices, with Lamictal an alternative. In many instances, combinations may be required, including combination with an atypical antipsychotic.

MAINTENANCE TREATMENT

Owing to the risk of tardive dyskenisia, the Guideline recommends slowly tapering and discontinuing antipsychotics unless they are required to control persistent psychosis or provide protection against recurrence. At the same time, the Guideline notes the addition of an antipsychotic may be warranted. Lithium and Depakote have the best data to support their use in the maintenance phase. Maintenance ECT is also an option. The Guideline makes no specific recommendation for long-term treatment of bipolar depression, though it notes the addition of an antidepressant may be required. In general, the Guideline suggests patients will benefit from therapies that address illness management (such as adherence and early detection of symptoms) as well as interpersonal difficulties. Patient support groups are also recommended.

SPECIAL FEATURES

Psychotic symptoms such as delusions and hallucinations occur in more than one-half of manic episodes, with most psychiatrists prescribing antipsychotics. Catatonic features (motor excitement, mutism, strange movements) may develop in up to one-third of patients during a manic episode, with Ativan and ECT especially useful. For suicide prevention, long-term treatment with lithium may be effective.

SUBSTANCE ABUSE

Lifetime substance abuse among the bipolar population, according to the Epidemiological Catchment Area study cited in the Guideline, is 46 percent compared to 13 percent for the general population (a much smaller percentage has substance abuse at any one time). The Guideline recommends treatment for bipolar and substance abuse to proceed concurrently when possible. Alcohol-related dehydration may raise lithium levels to toxicity, and hepatitic dysfunction from alcohol abuse may alter plasma levels of Depakote or Tegretol.

CO-OCCURRING CONDITIONS

Patients with co-occurring personality disorders generally have greater symptom burden, lower recovery rates from episodes, and greater functional impairment. Co-occurring anxiety disorders may predict a longer time to recover from mood episodes. Treatment for bipolar and anxiety disorder should be concurrent.

GENDER ISSUES

Women suffer more from hypothyroidism and may be more prone to the antithyroid effects of lithium. Rapid cycling is also more common in women. Treatment with antipsychotics, and to a lesser extent SSRIs, may elevate prolactin levels, resulting in galactorrhea (spontaneous flow of milk), sexual dysfunction, menstrual disorders, and impaired fertility.

PREGNANCY

Since Tegretol, Trileptal, and Topamax increase the metabolism of oral contraceptives, women taking these medications should not rely on oral contraceptives (other bipolar meds are safe with oral contraceptives).

Potential harm to the fetus must be balanced against the risks of episodes resulting from discontinuation. First trimester exposure to lithium, Depakote, or Tegretol is associated with greater risk of birth defects. In lithium, the risk for Ebstein’s abnormality, a heart defect, is one to two per 1,000. Tegretol and Depakote during the first trimester are associated with neural tube defects (eg spina bifida) of up to one percent and three to five percent, respectively. Little is known about Lamictal, Neurontin, or other newer mood stabilizers. The older antipsychotics such as Haldol may be a safe alternative to lithium. Less is known about the atypical antipsychotics. Risk to the fetus is thought to be small for benzodiazepines. The antidepressants are relatively benign. ECT may represent less risk than medication.

Women who choose to remain on their mood stabilizers should be screened for fetal neural tube defects before the twentieth week of gestation and go for unltrasound at 16 to 18 weeks to detect any cardiac abnormalities in the fetus. Since pregnancy can affect medication levels, periodic monitoring is necessary. At delivery, lithium levels rise dramatically unless care is taken to ensure hydration or lowering the dose or both.

POSTPARTUM

Women are at "markedly greater" risk for relapse postpartum (as high as 50 percent). Lithium and Depakote may prevent postpartum episodes. New mothers need to be mindful that loss of sleep in caring for their newborn can precipitate mania.

BREAST-FEEDING

Because lithium is secreted in breast milk at forty percent maternal serum concentration, its use is not recommended. Lamictal levels in the infant may reach 25 percent of maternal serum levels. Less is known about Depakote or Tegretol. There are few reports of adverse effects of antipsychotics, antidepressants, and benzodiazepines, though these drugs are found in measurable quantities in breast milk and "could conceivably affect central nervous system functioning in the infant."

CHILDREN AND ADOLESCENTS

One-year recovery rates of 37.1 percent and relapse rates of 38.3 percent have been reported, necessitating a minimum of 18 months with a maintenance agent after stabilization.

GERIATRIC PATIENTS

Older patients may require lower doses and may be more sensitive to side effects affecting cognition, involuntary movement, and balance, resulting in higher risk of falls and hip fractures.

2002-06-21T08:39:00.000-07:00

FUNDIES MISUSE SCIENCE TO BASH GAYS

Radical fundamentalist activists are trying to once again peddle the lie that gays want to rape small children. (Never mind that Newsweek as late as May 6, 2002 reported quite categorically that "The evidence is that homosexuals are no more likely to abuse children than heterosexuals.")

Well, apparently one of the doctors cited in the new fundie "study" is screaming mad, since his research actually reached the OPPOSITE conclusion: Namely, "that homosexual males pose less risk of sexual harm to children (both male and female) -- from both an absolute and a proportionate incidence rate -- than heterosexual males."

The entire text of Dr. Groth's angry letter to the Family Research Council (the anti-gay fundamentalists) is below. Any time in the future a fundamentalist militant in your area tries to talk about gays and pedophilia, pull out this letter and show your local opinion makers (city council, school board, newspaper) that the accusation, and the fundies' overall anti-gay agenda, is based on lies.

June 10, 2002
Timothy J. Dailey, Ph.D.
FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL
801 G Street N.W.
Washington, DC 2001

Dear Dr. Dailey:

On the web site www.frc.org you reference my work in your article on "Homosexuality and Child Sexual Abuse". I am writing you to object to my name and research being associated in any way, shape, or form to lend legitimacy to the views proposed in your paper.

If you are, in fact, familiar with my research, you must realize that my studies have indicated that homosexual males pose less risk of sexual harm to children (both male and female)--from both an absolute and a percentage incidence rate--than heterosexual males. Your statement that "the evidence indicates that disproportionate numbers of gay men seek adolescent males or boys as sexual partners" appears to come from the assumption that if an adult male is attracted to a male child, this adult male's sexual orientation is ipso facto homosexual.

Since your report, in my view, misrepresents the facts of what we know about this matter from scientific investigation, and does not indicate that my studies on this topic reach conclusions diametrically opposed to yours, I would appreciate your removing any reference to my work in your paper lest it appear to the reader that my research supports your views.

Yours truly,
A. Nicholas Groth, Ph.D.

2002-06-21T08:34:00.000-07:00

ARE GAYS WORSE THAN TERRORISTS?

This week, the head of a lead "Christian conservative" group invoked the war on terror when discussing the urgent need to fight against the civil rights of gays and lesbians. Venting her anger that the Department of Justice (DOJ) is holding gay pride celebrations, and that the Deputy Attorney General is speaking at a DOJ gay pride event, Concerned Women for America (CWFA) president Sandy Rios said "It won't matter if we dismantle terrorism if we implode from within. The presence of a top aide to the Attorney General at an event celebrating 'gay pride' is a clear endorsement of homosexuality." Excuse me? The war on terror won't mean squat so long as the Justice Department celebrates gay pride? How warped can you be?

Equally troubling was CWFA's apparent suggestion that US government officials should act in accordance with "God's law," regardless of whether the laws of the United States say otherwise. "One has to wonder why John Ashcroft would not stand against those who promote the deviant lifestyle of homosexuality? Excuses have been given by DOJ folks to answer this question but none of them have substance... [One such excuse given by DOJ is:] 'Concern about the law and whether [the Attorney General] is 'allowed' to cancel [the gay pride event].' What about God's law? What about the fact that the Attorney General is the highest ranking law enforcement official in America and the homosexual movement is using him to promote their cause?" - Culture and Family Institute, an affiliate of Concerned Women for America, 6/19/02.

While they'd like us to believe otherwise, militant fundamentalists aren't simply "good Christians" who have a different point of view. They are extremists with a Taliban-esque political agenda who would like nothing better than to impose their own narrow-minded pseudo- religious dictatorship on America, and the world. In their world view, homosexuality IS just as bad as terrorism (remember Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson blaming gays and feminists for September 11th?), and they would like nothing better than to throw out all US law and impose their own blasphemous (and rather angry) view of God on everyone who isn't like them. And if you don't believe me, check out this recent article from the WASHINGTON POST detailing how America's "Christian right" is secretly saddling up with Islamic extremists (including Iran and Iraq!) to oppress the rights of women, children and gays around the world.

2002-06-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

Militant fundamentalists are continuing their assault on Will & Grace's advertisers, this time targeting Energizer batteries. The religious extremists apparently feel that shows with gay characters have no place on television. Particularly offensive, though not surprising, is the militants' tactic of using bigoted language to describe gays and lesbians when issuing these assaults on US companies. In the case of Coke and Bell South, two companies that are sponsoring Pride in Atlanta, the anti-gay far right is claiming in its action alerts that "Coca-Cola and BellSouth will help advance a lifestyle that continually leads to death, disease, and personal anguish. Self-destruction comes from making poor choices in life. This is the life of homosexuality." The alert goes on to claim that gay men suffer from everything short of leprosy, then equates being gay with chain-smoking and binge-drinking. I wonder what they think of a lifestyle that teaches you to hate your fellow man in the blasphemous name of a deity who can't stand how you're abusing His good name?

2002-06-20T15:03:00.000-07:00

WASHINGTON POST, June 17, 2002

ISLAMIC BLOC, CHRISTIAN RIGHT TEAM UP TO LOBBY U.N.

By Colum Lynch, Special to THE WASHINGTON POST

UNITED NATIONS - Conservative U.S. Christian organizations have joined forces with Islamic governments to halt the expansion of sexual and political protections and rights for gays, women and children at United Nations conferences.

The new alliance, which coalesced during the past year, has received a major boost from the Bush administration, which appointed antiabortion activists to key positions on U.S. delegations to U.N. conferences on global economic and social policy.

But it has been largely galvanized by conservative Christians who have set aside their doctrinal differences, cemented ties with the Vatican and cultivated fresh links with a powerful bloc of more than 50 moderate and hard-line Islamic governments, including Sudan, Libya, Iraq and Iran.

"We look at them as allies, not necessarily as friends," said Austin Ruse, founder and president of the Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute, a New York-based organization that promotes conservative values at U.N. social conferences. "We have realized that without countries like Sudan, abortion would have been recognized as a universal human right in a U.N. document."

The alliance of conservative Islamic states and Christian organizations has placed the Bush administration in the awkward position of siding with some of its most reviled adversaries - including Iraq and Iran - in a cultural skirmish against its closest European allies, which broadly support expanding sexual and political rights.

U.S. and Iranian officials even huddled during coffee breaks at the U.N. summit on children in New York last month, according to U.N. diplomats.

But the partnership also has provided the administration an opportunity to demonstrate that it shares many social values with Islam at a time when the United States is being criticized in the Muslim world for its continued support of Israel and the nine-month-old war on terrorism. "We have tried to point out there are some areas of agreement between [us] and a lot of Islamic countries on these social issues," a U.S. official said.

"The main issue that brings us all together is defending the family values, the natural family," added Mokhtar Lamani, a Moroccan diplomat who represents the 53-nation Organization of Islamic Conferences at the United Nations. "The Republican administration is so clear in defending the family values."

Lamani said he was first approached by U.S. Christian non-governmental organizations, or NGOs, at a special session of the U.N. General Assembly on AIDS in New York in June 2001.

Liberal Western activists and governments, he said, had offended the religious and cultural sensitivities of Islamic countries by proposing that a final conference declaration include explicit references to the need to protect prostitutes, intravenous drug users and "men who have sex with men" from contracting AIDS.

"It was totally unacceptable for us," Lamani said. "The Vatican and so many NGOs came up to us saying this is exactly the same position we are defending."

The Islamic-Christian alliance claimed an important victory at the U.N. children's meeting last month.

The Bush administration led the coalition in blocking an effort by European and Latin American countries to include a reference in the final declaration to "reproductive health care services," a term the conservatives believed could be used to promote abortion.

The U.S. team included John Klink, a former adviser to the Vatican at previous U.N. conferences; Janice Crouse, a veteran antiabortion advocate at Concerned Women of America; and Paul J. Bonicelli of Patrick Henry College in Purcellville, Va., a Christian institution that requires its professors teach creationism.

The Christian groups and Islamic countries have been seeking to build on those gains at subsequent U.N. gatherings, pressing for greater restrictions on abortion at an annual meeting of the World Health Organization last month and later at a U.N. preparatory conference on sustainable development in Bali, Indonesia.

"The rest of the world saw a shift in the debate" at the children's summit, said Patrick Fagan of the Heritage Foundation, a Washington policy group. "It wasn't just pure defense. They are on the offensive here."

Some Western countries and liberal activists say they are alarmed by the influence of the Christian right at the United Nations, where more liberal women's rights organizations have held sway for the past decade.

"They are trying to undo some of the landmark agreements that were reached in the 1990s, particularly on women's rights and family planning," a U.N.-based European diplomat said. "The U.S. decision to come into the game on their side has completely changed the dynamics."

"This alliance shows the depths of perversity of the [U.S.] position," said Adrienne Germaine, president of the International Women's Health Coalition. "On the one hand we're presumably blaming these countries for unspeakable acts of terrorism, and at the same time we are allying ourselves with them in the oppression of women."

The World Policy Center, a Mormon group established in 1997 to promote family values through an alliance that includes conservative Christians, the Catholic Church and Islamic governments, is holding a conference next month at Brigham Young University School of Law. It will bring antiabortion advocates and legal critics of the United Nations together with more than 60 U.N. diplomats, including delegates from conservative Catholic and Islamic countries.

Ruse first outlined his strategy for maximizing the conservatives' leverage at the United Nations at a 1999 meeting in Geneva of the World Congress of Families, a gathering of advocates of conservative family values. It involves "lavish[ing] all our attention" on a coalition of 12 antiabortion countries that are willing to fight for their cause at U.N. sessions, he said. Religious leaders and politicians in the United States and in these select countries in the developing world should be persuaded "to encourage these governments to defend life and family at the United Nations."

He also boasted that his tactics were beginning to seize the initiative from advocates for the rights of children, women and gays. "Our team was in a tiny conference room leaning over the backs of diplomats, assisting with the drafting of the conference document," he said.

"We broke all the rules of U.N. lobbying, which forbids leafleting on the floor of a U.N. conference. We had our people fan out across the floor of the conference and we placed this letter in the hand of every delegate."

2002-06-20T14:36:00.000-07:00

BUSINESSWEEK
JUNE 24, 2002
Developments to Watch
Written by Faith Keenan
Edited by Neil Gross

WILL CHIPS MAKE PILLS AND SHOTS OBSOLETE?

As long as pills and injections remain the standard methods of delivering drugs, patient compliance is likely to be a problem. People afflicted with diabetes, cancer, or AIDS would certainly appreciate an easier way.

John T. Santini Jr., president and chief scientific officer of MicroCHIPS Inc. in Cambridge, Mass., says that within five years, he may be ready to market an appealing option for some types of drugs.

The company is revving up development of a small but smart drug-delivery device. It's a chip packaged in titanium, about the size of a quarter, that would be implanted in the body, probably near the abdomen. It contains 400 wells that hold concentrated drug dosages, along with a microprocessor and a battery that can last a year.

The chip would be programmed to release medication when a patient needs it by dissolving a microscopic gold electrode that caps each well. The advantage this method has over other implants and medical patches is that it can deliver more than one drug at different intervals. That would be especially useful for cancer patients, who often take several types of chemotherapy.

Down the road, drug doses might be customized for patients and timed to attack a cancer cell at a precise moment in the cell cycle, says Philip C. Smith, director of drug-delivery systems at GlaxoSmithKline PLC.

Hormones could be delivered in periodic bursts to mimic the body's production rather than in steady flows. And the chip need not be removed if the schedule changes:

The patient or doctor could reprogram it using a handheld wireless device.

Copyright 2002, BUSINESSWEEK magazine
by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
All rights reserved.

2002-06-20T10:45:00.000-07:00

BUSINESSWEEK Commentary:THE CREDIBILITY GAP IN DRUG RESEARCH

JUNE 24, 2002
Science & Technology
By Paul Raeburn

COMMENTARY: THE CREDIBILITY GAP IN DRUG RESEARCH

It's supposed to be the gold standard of medical research: Doctors randomly split research subjects into two groups, with some getting a new drug, others a sugar pill. To avoid any bias, the researchers don't know who's getting what.

This ritual -- the randomized, double-blind clinical trial -- often takes years and costs tens of millions of dollars, but it produces clear, unbiased data on the benefits of drugs.

At least that's the way it's supposed to work.

In fact, the reports of those results are often misleading or incomplete.

On June 1, THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL published a report critical of a Pharmacia Corp.-funded study of its $3 billion-dollar-a-year arthritis drug, Celebrex. The report claimed the study's favorable results omitted contradictory data. And on June 5,THE JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSN. (JAMA) published a series of reports critical of the way trials are done and reported, and the way conclusions are often couched to make new treatments seem better than they are.

The Celebrex case illustrates one such problem. The study, reported in JAMA by company-funded researchers two years ago, concluded the drug was associated with fewer ulcers and ulcer complications than two other drugs, Ibuprofen and Diclofenac.THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL says the article was misleading because it omitted data that found no safety benefit for Celebrex. (The additional data were later made public at a Food & Drug Administration advisory committee meeting.)

G. Steven Geis, Pharmacia's (PHA) vice-president for research, says information was omitted only because it was not reliable. On June 7, however, the FDA decided, using all the data, that the study "did not show a safety advantage in upper gastrointestinal events for Celebrex."

Critics blame industry sponsorship for these problems.

It is not only the published studies that cause concern but also the studies that never appear, says Dr. Drummond Rennie, a deputy editor at JAMA and professor at the University of California at San Francisco.

When a study starts going wrong, its sponsor may be tempted "to stomp on the investigators and say, `You must keep this quiet."' And "companies have yielded to that temptation," he says.

Others agree. "In situations when there are large economic interests, you just cannot be sure whether the problems in the trial have been resolved in a fair way," says the author of THE BRITISH MEDICAL JOURNAL article, Dr. Peter Jani of the University of Bristol in Britain and the University of Berne in Switzerland.

"That's not true," says Mark Grayson, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research & Manufacturers of America. Drugmakers support efforts to assure the independence of academic researchers who participate in industry-sponsored trials, he says.

Rennie thinks editors at the prestigious medical journals are getting better at policing these issues. He is still rankled, however, by JAMA's publication of the Celebrex study. The study's authors, including Pharmacia, "were not open with us," he says. "They signed letters saying the studies have all the relevant stuff," but "they had contradictory results when they sent us this paper, and they should have revealed them to us. And they didn't."

Says Pharmacia's Geis: "We've tried to work real hard with JAMA to resolve any misunderstanding. We value JAMA."

Rennie says universities and their researchers must insist on guarantees from company sponsors that the results can be freely reported. Juni says the industry could fund an independent agency to finance studies.

The FDA, which often has more data than the journals, does point out discrepancies, says Dr. Sandra Kweder, deputy director of the FDA's Office of New Drugs. But "it's difficult for us to police every potential journal," she says. "We don't have a department of journal review to catch those things."

The aim is to restore confidence in the findings of medical studies.

As was the case with Celebrex, these studies are often widely circulated in the medical community. Many doctors begin prescribing drugs based on the findings, before the FDA rules on whether the studies have met its standards. If confidence in the veracity of medical research is lost, however, it is the pharmaceutical industry that will suffer.

Raeburn covers science and medicine in New York.

Copyright 2002
BUSINESSWEEK magazine,
by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc.
All rights reserved.

2002-06-20T10:16:00.001-07:00

WARNING SIGNS OF SCHIZOPHRENIA

There is no test for schizophrenia, and doctors make a diagnosis based on symptoms. Here is a list of some of the early warning signs of schizophrenia:

Hearing or seeing something that isn't there.

Constant feeling of being watched.

Peculiar or nonsensical way of speaking or writing.

Feeling of indifference about important situations.

Deterioration of academic or work performance.

Changes in personal hygiene and appearance.

Personality changes.

Increasing withdrawal from social situations.

Irrational, angry or fearful response to loved ones.

Inability to sleep or concentrate.

Inappropriate or bizarre behavior.

Extreme preoccupation with religion or the occult.

Source: National Mental Health Assn.

2002-06-20T10:16:00.000-07:00

GETTING HELP FOR SCHIZOPHRENIA

The National Mental Health Assn.: (800) 969-NMHA.

The Mental Health Assn. in Los Angeles County: (213) 413-1130.

Office of Consumer Affairs, Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health: (213) 637-2370.

National Institute of Mental Health: (301) 443-4513 or http://www.nimh.nih.gov.

National Alliance for the Mentally Ill: (800) 950-NAMI or http://www.nami.org

.The National Empowerment Center, a patients' rights organization: (800) 769-3728.

Support Coalition International, a patients' rights group: (877) 623-77433 or http://www.mindfreedom.org.

2002-06-20T10:15:00.000-07:00

STILL, THE STIGMA REMAINS

PEOPLE WHO HAVE OVERCOME SCHIZOPHRENIA AND REGAINED THEIR MENTAL HEALTH HAVE TO CONTEND WITH SOCIETY'S NEGATIVE PERCEPTION OF THE ILLNESS.

L.A. TIMES, Health Section

By Linda Marsa, TIMES Health Writer

Nina Wouk's early childhood was marked by trouble in school, anxiety attacks and hallucinations. Things got worse in her teens when she was diagnosed with schizophrenia and sent to mental hospitals, where she spent years "totally numb" from the effects of powerful drugs.

Her symptoms gradually abated, and, with great difficulty, she weaned herself from medications.

By her late 20s, Wouk began picking up the pieces of her life, though the label of ex-mental patient hampered her efforts: Employers were reluctant to give her a chance, and health insurance companies wouldn't offer coverage.

Today she is a self-described "twitchy" person, with a nervousness that may have resulted from years of taking antipsychotic medications.

But the 51-year-old Menlo Park, Calif., woman works in an occupation that is the very symbol of the clearheaded, organized personality that eluded her in her youth: She's an accountant. She also owns a home and has been in a stable relationship for 22 years. "I am not a crazed killer," she says. "In fact, I'm highly typical" of recovered schizophrenics.

Extensive research conducted in this country and abroad indicates that Wouk's right: The stereotypical tortured souls who wander the streets responding to voices only they can hear are the exception, not the norm.

With the right treatment, more than 75% of diagnosed schizophrenics have a complete or at least functional recovery, experts say. While they may suffer occasional symptoms, they "hold responsible jobs, have relationships and lead satisfying lives," says Dr. Raquel E. Gur, director of neuropsychiatry at the Schizophrenia Research Center at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine in Philadelphia.

Today, an estimated 2.5 million Americans -- roughly 1% of the population -- are diagnosed with schizophrenia. The illness usually emerges between the ages of 13 and 25 and often appears earlier in males than females.

Symptoms include disordered thinking, paranoid delusions, hallucinations, and extreme apathy and social withdrawal.

The National Institutes of Health pegs the total costs of the disease, including long-term care, at more than $30 billion annually. Yet many experts say that our mental health system is ill-equipped to treat people with schizophrenia and that the psychiatric profession clings to outdated notions that patients deteriorate, not improve. It's no wonder, they say, that one of every 10 schizophrenics commits suicide within 10 years of diagnosis.

Because the disease carries such a profound stigma, those who do recover often live secretive lives, revealing their psychiatric histories only to their closest intimates. So the public seldom hears about the thousands of success stories.

Instead, we usually hear about headline-grabbing cases such as that of Michael Laudor, the charming Yale law graduate who was a poster boy for recovery from schizophrenia. With a movie deal based on his autobiography reportedly in the works, Laudor stabbed to death his 37-year-old pregnant girlfriend in 1998. According to reports, he had stopped taking his medication. The New York State Supreme Court later committed Laudor to a state mental institution for his crime.

Although studies show that even severely mentally ill patients, if they receive treatment, are not any more violent than the average person, the negative image persists.

"I spend so much of my time countering negative images; the label discredits and marginalizes people," says Dr. Dan Fisher, a psychiatrist and former schizophrenic who is co-director of the National Empowerment Center, a patients' rights organization in Lawrence, Mass.

Indeed, some sufferers, like Wouk or Fisher, seem to go into full remission, meaning they have no symptoms and don't need to take medications.

Others with residual symptoms learn to ignore them. "I still hear voices, from the refrigerator, the television, the washing machine--all the major appliances," jokes Bill Compton, who takes medication to control the paranoid delusions that overtook his life when he was 42. Compton, 55, is director of Project Return: The Next Step, a self-help organization for people with mental illnesses. Compton worked for theater companies in New York and Los Angeles before his psychotic break. He bounced around the mental health system for two years and lived on the street for nine months, convinced that he was waiting to be anointed as an archangel. He landed in a board-and-care home a decade ago, where he began his long climb out of the depths of madness.

Disturbed Patients Were Deemed Hopeless

The public's pessimistic view of schizophrenia has its origins in the research of Swiss psychiatrist Eugene Bleuler, who coined the term schizophrenia in the early 1900s to describe the disordered thinking, suffocating anxiety, and vivid auditory and visual hallucinations his deeply disturbed patients exhibited. He thought such patients were hopeless.

However, his son, Manfred, also a psychiatrist, realized there was a big piece missing from the picture: The patients his father studied remained hospitalized, which is why the disease seemed intractable.

When the younger Bleuler tracked down those who had drifted way, he discovered they were leading relatively normal lives. "But he was dismissed as a cockeyed optimist and his findings discounted," says Sarnoff A. Mednick, a professor of psychology at USC who has studied schizophrenia.

However, a landmark study that was launched nearly half a century ago confirmed Manfred Bleuler's observations. In the 1950s, Yale University researchers began following 269 chronic schizophrenics at Vermont State Hospital. The patients, most of whom were middle-aged, poorly educated and had little social support, participated in a comprehensive rehabilitation program.

"The head of the hospital asked the patients what they needed to get out of the hospital, and they told him -- jobs, friends and a decent place to live," recalled Courtenay M. Harding, a member of the Yale research team.

Patients in the Yale study lived in a hospital ward designed to resemble a home-like setting. They received self-help therapy, vocational counseling and jobs, and were linked to family and friends to provide support. When researchers checked back with the patients 20 and 25 years later, they were astonished to find that one-half to two-thirds of the patients showed no signs of schizophrenia, though they may not have been working or were socially isolated. Slightly more than 25% were completely well and had jobs, families and friends.

These were patients who had been considered hopeless, "who had been languishing in the back wards for years and couldn't dress themselves and had forgotten how to tell time," said Harding, who is now a professor at the Sargeant College of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences at Boston University.

For less severe patients who receive treatment, the recovery rates might be as high as 90%, Harding said.

"But the belief that schizophrenia is incurable is so deeply embedded," she noted, "that no amount of facts seem to make a difference."

Scientists don't know what causes schizophrenia, but the illness normally appears when the body undergoes hormonal and physical changes in late adolescence and young adulthood. Scientists speculate that people with schizophrenia may have an imbalance of dopamine and serotonin, two key brain chemical messengers that affect the way a person's brain reacts to sensory stimuli. Consequently, when these people face a crisis or are under stress, their senses become overloaded by sounds, sights, smells and tastes, which can spill over into hallucinations and delusions.

Schizophrenia seems to run in families, too. Compton, for instance, had an uncle with schizophrenia.

But genetics doesn't explain all of it.

Scientists believe that disturbances in the creation of normal pathways in the brain -- viral infections during pregnancy that can be toxic to the fetus, delivery complications that can deprive the newborn of oxygen -- can push those with a genetic vulnerability over the edge. "Somehow, the wiring in the brain gets crossed, making people more prone to symptoms," said USC's Sarnoff Mednick.

The good news is that treatment has come a long way from the 1960s and early 1970s, said experts, when the severely mentally ill were written off, given debilitating medications and confined to locked wards.

"I was forcibly drugged and placed in solitary confinement," said Fisher, who had his first psychotic episode in 1968, when he was a biochemist at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Md. "I was so upset, frustrated and frightened," he recalled of the three times that he was hospitalized for treatment. "That's when I resolved to become a psychiatrist. I thought if I ever get out of this, I'm going to unlock these doors and provide help in a way that I wish someone had been there for me."

Typical of that era was the experience of Pearl Johnson, a 71-year-old woman whose life started out with so much promise. An A student who played the saxophone and loved athletics, she ran away from home at age 16. Plagued by intense anxiety, paranoia and auditory hallucinations, she controlled her demons with heroin and other drugs.

Johnson spent the next 45 years on the street or in prison, where she was kept in an isolation cell under heavy sedation and sometimes beaten if she complained. While she was in isolation, her only real companions were the voices in her head.

In 1990, she ended up at Oasis House, a mental health program in South-Central. "Those people loved me to death, and that's where I began my road to recovery," said Johnson, now a community worker for the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health.

Despite the advances in treatment, nearly half of severely mentally ill patients in California avoid treatment, studies have found. For many, the fear of involuntary hospitalization has driven them underground.

"Most people are poorly treated and slip through the cracks of the system," said Ronald F. Levant, dean of the Center for Psychological Studies at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Fla.

"They self-medicate, become addicted to drugs or alcohol, and wind up on the streets, where they get beaten up and further traumatized."

Research indicates that fewer than half of schizophrenics receive any kind of psychological help, only one in four gets vocational help and just 10% receive family therapy. Schizophrenia usually strikes in late adolescence as people are making the transition to adulthood and careers.

The emotional damage can be severe as people see their dreams abruptly derailed. Consequently, they need to learn job and social skills, as well as how to manage their symptoms, to take their place in society. Rehab is not just window dressing, experts said; it's critical to a person's recovery.

"The real tragedy is we knew in the 1950s what we needed to do to reclaim lives, yet it hasn't been applied," said Harding, the Boston University professor. "But there are pockets of excellence."

The Mental Health Association (MHA) in Los Angeles County, for instance, a private nonprofit agency, oversees a number of model programs that help people with mental illnesses become self-reliant. The MHA Village in Long Beach offers a comprehensive treatment program that includes counseling, substance abuse recovery, employment and even money management classes to its 500 participants, about half of whom are schizophrenics.

Project Return: The Next Step, another MHA-funded program, is a network of 75 self-help clubs throughout Los Angeles that are operated by people with severe mental illness. The clubs offer peer support, social activities and part-time positions that provide a toehold into the work force for many of its member.

"People need to have services they can connect to," said Project Return's Compton. "Once they do, they can turn their lives around."

2002-06-17T22:51:00.000-07:00

If you don't like me, try my better half.

There are some people who are genetically two different people. This is called Chimaerism, named after the Greek mythological creature, Chimaera, who was part lion, part goat, and part snake.

When two eggs, fertilized by different sperm, fuse into one embryo, you end up with a person who has two different sets of genetics. Some parts of their body are formed from one set of genes, other parts form from the other set. On some people you can see it in the skin, with some sections of skin darker than others because they are genetically different.

An 8-year-old British boy's mixed genetics consists of a female set and a male set so he's truly neither male nor female; he's an hermaphrodite.

NATURE 20-May-02

2002-06-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

"There are two educations. One should teach us how to make a living and the other should teach us how to live."

-- John Adams

2002-06-17T16:44:00.000-07:00

G.O.P. HISTORY DAY
(www.mediawhoresonline.com, "MWO")

WATERGATE ANNIVERSARY BRINGS BACK MEMORIES

THE MOST CRIMINAL PARTY IN U.S. HISTORY

June 17, 2002 marks the thirtieth anniversary of the Watergate break-in that eventually led to the downfall of Richard M. Nixon.

And here at MWO, June 17 is also G.O.P. History Day -- the day when we reflect on the annals of the most criminal national political party in U.S. history.

The party with the most national criminal scandals, the most convicted and jailed and disgraced White House officials.

Political corruption in American history has, as we all know, involved members of all parties.

The Democratic Party has had its city machine bosses, its Boss Tweeds and Jimmy Walkers, as well as its modern Koreagate and savings-and-loan finaglers.

But for real big-time criminality and convictions at the highest levels of American politics, the G.O.P. is the all-time, once and future champion.

And, as the decades have passed, it's only gotten worse.

Let's take a walk down memory lane...or, rather, a walk around the huge G.O.P. wing of the Politicians' Correctional Facility.

First, the Grant Administration. Although President Grant was personally honest, and has been underrated by historians, the corrupt and criminal Republicans around him came to define the sordid Gilded Age.

There was the Whiskey Ring, a conspiracy involving high federal officials to defraud the government of duties on whiskey. Among those involved: Grant's personal secretary, Oliver Babcock. Broken up in May 1875, the Ring yielded 238 indictments, the most ever in a federal corruption scandal, more than half of which led to convictions -- though (in part thanks to Grant's intercession) Babcock was acquitted.

There was also the Credit Mobilier of America scandal, involving insider trading and bribery of elected officials with railroad stock. Among those involved: Vice President Schuyler Colfax, Representative (and future President) James A. Garfield, and (the chief inside promoter) Massachusetts congressman Oakes Ames. The House eventually condemned Ames, considered impeaching Colfax, and published a list of names of all congressmen involved with Ames in the scheme.

And, of course, the Belknap scandal, when Secretary of War William Belknap was forced to resign from office in order to avoid impeachment over accepting bribes for the rights to sell supplies to Indian tribes.

And the Sanborn scandal, involving an irregular tax collection scheme in which Secretary of the Treasury William Richardson came under heavy fire, and eventually stepped down after the House Ways and Means Committee declared he deserved "severe condemnation."

After the Grant Administration, which takes up practically an entire bloc within the G.O.P. Correctional Wing, we come to the Harding Administration.

The biggest scandal involving Harding's so-called "Ohio Gang" was the Teapot Dome affair, involving the illegal leasing of federal oil reserves to private companies in exchange for favors and bribes. Secretary of the Interior Albert Fell took the fall, was fined, and convicted to a year in prison.

But compared with what was to come, the Grant and Harding criminal scandals were small potatoes.

After 1928, the U.S. enjoyed forty years of largely scandal-free federal government -- with, incidentally, Democrats in the White House for twenty-eight of those years. Then came Richard M. Nixon, and a cavalcade of major scandals and convictions, involving (among other things) such crimes against the state as political burglery, bribery, extortion, wiretapping, conspiracy, and illegal use of the C.I.A. and F.B.I. Most of these crimes are now lumped together under the collective heading of Watergate.

The results:

One presidential resignation.

One vice-presidential resignation.

40 federal officials indicted.

Attorney-General John Mitchell, convicted and jailed.

White House officials H. R. Haldeman, John Ehrlichman, Charles Colson, John Dean, convicted and jailed.

Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy, "plumbers" and ex-White House officials, convicted and jailed.

James McCord, Committee for the Re-election of the President (CREEP), convicted and jailed.

The reaction to Watergate, and to Gerald Ford's pardon of Richard Nixon, brought the election of Jimmy Carter to the White House. Some relatively minor scandals here -- involving Bert Lance and Carter's wayward brother Billy -- brought embarrassment to the Carter Administration, but nothing on the scale of Watergate -- and nothing on the scale of what was to come.

Whereas Nixon had Watergate, Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra -- a catch-all term for a wide assortment of crimes against the state, involving violation of federal law (the so-called Boland Amendment), perjury, and conspiracy to defraud the federal government.

Total number of officials convicted, indicted, subject to criminal investigations:

138 In terms of the numbers of top officials indicted, the worst record in American history.

Six of the most high-profile Iran-Contra indictments and convictions were aborted when outgoing Republican President George H.W. Bush issued his sweeping Christmas Eve pardons in 1992.

Among the more celebrated Iran-Contra cases:

National Security Adviser Robert McFarlane guilty of withholding information to Congress, fined, two years' probation, pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

Lt. Col. Oliver North convicted on three criminal counts, fined, suspended sentence, set aside on technicality.

National Security Adviser John Poindexter convicted on five criminal counts, sentenced to six months imprisonment, set aside on technicality.

Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, indicted on five counts for lying to Congress, pardoned on Christmas Eve, 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

C.I.A.'s Clair E. George indicted for perjury, mistrial, pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

Elliott Abrams, assistant secretary of state, guilty of withholding information, pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

Duane R. Clarridge, C.I.A., indicted for misleading Congress, pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

Alan D. Fiers, C.I.A., plead guilty to charge of withholding information from Congress, pardoned on Christmas Eve 1992 by outgoing President George H.W. Bush.

But Iran-Contra, like Watergate, was only a symptom of the criminality rampant in the Reagan White House.

In addition, there were the cases of:

-- Lyn Nofziger, top White House advisor, convicted on charges of illegal lobbying.

-- Michael Deaver, top White House advisor, convicted on charges of illegal lobbying, lying to Congress, fined one hundred thousand dollars and given three years probation.

Then there were these additional major scandals:

-- The Pentagon Procurement Scandal

-- The H.U.D. Scandals, involving massive fraud and losses of billions of dollars to taxpayers, unearthed only when Reagan left office.

-- The E.P.A. Scandals. E.P.A. Director Anne Gorscuh Burford resigned amid accusations she politically manipulated the Superfund money. Her appointee, Rita Lavelle, fired after accusing a senior EPA official of "systematically alienating the business community." Lavelle later indicted, tried and convicted of lying to Congress and served three months of a six-month prison sentence.

Quite a collection of convicts, jailbirds, and grateful pardonees, isn't it?

All part of the ignoble chronicle we commemorate on G.O.P. History Day.

Oh, and what about the Clinton-Gore Administration? The administration that one right-wing madman and liar, David Horowitz, once called "the most criminal, most corrupt, most cynical administration" of them all?

Well, in the Clinton-Gore years exactly no -- as in zero, zilch, nada -- top federal officials were convicted of any wrongdoing connected to their White House duties.

Webster Hubbell, assistant Attorney-General, was convicted of embezzling funds from the Little Rock Rose Law Firm, a crime that predated his coming to government and that involved the defrauding of the First Lady, Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy was brought up on charges of corruption, but found innocent on all counts, after which the presiding judge admonished the prosecutors for bringing forward such a frivolous case.

Resulting from illegalities around a campaign event in 1996, two mid-level Democratic campaign officials were found guilty of violations of federal election laws.

Oh yes -- and President Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives in a hard-line partisan proceeding following a perjury trap set up by the Office of the Independent Counsel -- but acquitted by a large margin in the Senate.

That's about it. The most investigated administration in American history (by far!) turns out to have been among the very cleanest.

Another point to remember on G.O.P. History Day.

But history shouldn't only be for looking backward.

For, it seems, the ever upward trend of G.O.P. criminality continues.

What, after all, in the annals of American political criminality, can compare with the stealing of an entire presidential election, as happened in 2000 -- complete with Republican goon squads shutting down the vote-counting in Florida, and a Supreme Court majority offering up the most transparently shameful political decision in the court's history since Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896 -- or maybe, even, since the Dred Scott decision of 1858?

And there's so much more to look forward to.

Enron.

The Cheney Energy Report.

The Bush 9/11 coverup scandal.

And, just in time for G.O.P. History day, there comes this in-depth report by the respected British journalist Ed Vulliamy, on the dark underside of Dubya's rise to power in Texas -- and where it might all lead, someday, in the courts:

"Dark Heart of the American Dream," London Observer Magazine, June 16, 2002

So, readers, give this black-letter day the reflection it deserves.

Not just for the 30th anniversary of the Watergate break-in. But for the whole grotesque history of G.O.P. crimes, over the past century and a quarter and more. Let alone the grotesque future of that criminality.

Observe G.O.P. History Day!

2002-06-17T09:00:00.000-07:00

FATHER KNOWS BEST--SOMETIMES IT JUST TAKES HIM AWHILE

TO HIS EMBARRASSMENT, A DAD REALIZES IT'S NOT HIS GAY SON WHO HAS A PROBLEM.

By Jeff Ellis
LOS ANGELES TIMES
June 14, 2002

For a few years after my son, Adam, came out to me, Father's Day became a day of mourning, the day when I was reminded of what I lost.

What I lost was every dream I ever had for my 21-year-old first-born child. He was going to be the captain of the football team. He was going to be the stud I bragged about to my co-workers. He was going to be the husband I'd be proud of, the father of children I would cherish. I grieved that he would become none of these people.

Eventually, as I looked back at the person he did become, I thought about my own role in developing his character, and I wasn't sure I liked what I saw. Even as we do things for our children, we fathers have an underlying selfishness. We unconsciously place unwarranted expectations on them. For instance, I spent hours showing Adam how to throw a baseball.

I told myself it was because I wanted him to enjoy the camaraderie of team sports, but really it was because I was embarrassed by his lack of athleticism. I work in construction. The type of people I hang out with, well, when they saw Adam out in the field, I knew what they were thinking: He throws like a girl.

That stung me like a mad bee. And it kept stinging me for years. I was profoundly embarrassed by him, the depth of which now embarrasses me. I'm still working on forgiving myself.

For Adam, as a young boy, to witness my disappointment in him was possibly my greatest failure as a father. Unfortunately, my failure continued throughout his growing-up years, especially when I found myself living a dad's nightmare: I had fathered a gay son.

I tried to be stoic, but I'm sure my face betrayed the emotions I was trying to hide. I didn't want anyone to know that Adam was gay, and I made sure they didn't. Peer pressure is just as strong at my age as it is at Adam's.

For four years I chose my public image over my love for my son. Homosexuality makes cowards out of most of us.

The conflict between the genuine love for my son and the endless disappointments he seemingly foisted on me eventually came to a head. Was I going to be a stooped old man, burdened by the disappointments of his first-born, or was I going to be something bigger than that?

After a lot of prayer and counseling, I realized that, contrary to my perception of being a self-sacrificing father, I was actually a selfish one. On the field or off, I wanted him to want what I wanted for him. As a child, he disappointed me because he wasn't interested in rough-and-tumble play. As a teen, he disappointed me because he wasn't interested in sports. And now, as a young man, he disappointed me because he wasn't interested in women.

I had a right to be disappointed by his homosexuality. But how long was I going to sacrifice love for self-righteous discontent?

One day, as a Little League coach, I realized I had become what I hated in other fathers. They too had a long list of disappointments that their sons had "burdened" them with, and they did nothing to hide their displeasure. It dawned on me that I was doing the same thing to my son that they were doing to theirs: Convincing him that he would always be a failure in my eyes.

Today, my son and I are closer than we've ever been. I even give him advice on his boyfriends. He still annoys me now and then (he could party less and study harder in college) but he doesn't disappoint me anymore. That's because I now realize that all those dreams I had weren't really for Adam. They were for me.

Adam can't disappoint me anymore because I've committed myself to supporting his dreams, not mine. Father's Day has changed for me. It isn't any longer about what I lost, but what I gained: the ability to love my son unconditionally.

(Jeff Ellis, along with his wife, Patti, are co-creators of the Web site "Family Acceptance," a nonprofit resource for parents struggling to accept their gay children.)

2002-06-17T08:20:00.000-07:00

"We do not have to visit a madhouse to find disordered minds;
our planet is the mental institution of the universe."

-- Johann von Goethe

2002-06-17T08:14:00.000-07:00

JAIL SUICIDES REACH RECORD PACE IN STATE

Incarceration: Last year, 38 inmates killed themselves. Some experts blame the recent surge on forcing more of the mentally ill behind bars.

By JOHN JOHNSON
LOS ANGELES TIMES STAFF WRITER

June 16 2002

More California jail inmates are killing themselves than ever before, and some experts believe it's because mentally ill people are inappropriately landing in jail.

The complete article can be viewed here.

2002-06-16T20:54:00.000-07:00

Great info about Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT) for the Mentally Ill

2002-06-16T20:10:00.000-07:00

MRI A TOOL BEING USED TO DIAGNOSE DEPRESSION

WALL STREET JOURNAL

By Amy Dockser Marcus

June 14, 2002

Diane Eklund used to sit in her car and cry, fearful at the prospect of entering the grocery store. She refused to fly. Sometimes when she got into an elevator, her heart would start to race. She worried that she might be going crazy.

Then Eklund heard about a psychiatrist at the University of Washington in Seattle who was studying panic disorders. She enrolled in the clinical study, but instead of spending hours talking to a shrink, she was given an MRI.

The magnetic resource imaging machine, for years used to diagnose everything from back ailments to brain tumors, is being used as an instrument to detect depression, schizophrenia and other mental illnesses now mostly diagnosed through sessions on a psychiatrist's couch.

While depression affects more than 22 million adults in the U.S., it often goes undetected or misdiagnosed. Talk therapy alone can sometimes result in misdiagnosis because many psychiatric disorders share common features and doctors have to rely heavily on observations by the patient and the patient's family. "You can ascertain within a reasonable amount of time whether someone is psychiatric or not psychiatric," says Deborah Yurgelun-Todd, director of cognitive neuroimaging at McLean Hospital in Belmont, Mass. "But it's difficult sometimes to tell whether it's depression or bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. The MRI can help better determine the right diagnosis and treatment."

Many in the mental-health field hope that MRIs will be regularly used whenever there is a question about the correct diagnosis. Eventually, the scans could routinely help indicate which patients face higher likelihoods of having depression, akin to a doctor examining a patient with a sore throat.

"Your doctor does a culture and tells you what's biologically wrong," says Carol A. Glod, associate professor at Northeastern University, who is using MRIs to study depression in children. "MRIs may help find a biological marker in the brain for psychiatric illnesses."

Most people are familiar with the MRI that produces a black-and-white image of the brain's structure. But new imaging techniques measure the chemicals in the brain. Some require patients to lie down in the machine, look at various pictures, perform certain tasks, or respond to questions in order for researchers to see how specific brain regions react.

But looking at a brain and trying to determine what psychiatric disorder someone has isn't as clear-cut as reading a scan to find a tumor. Even the clinicians touting the potential of MRIs concede that psychiatric illnesses involve subtle changes in the brain.

Eklund underwent a special kind of MRI, called spectroscopy, which measures the chemical activity in the brain. The machine uses high-powered magnets to take rapid, cross-sectional images of the brain and diagnose disorders based on objective measures of brain activity associated with them.

In Eklund's case, the MRI showed that her condition wasn't caused by stress or emotional disturbances. Rather, the scan showed that her brain had a different metabolic regulation than a person not affected by panic disorder.

"It turns out that I'm really normal, but something abnormal is happening in my brain," says Eklund, 54 years old, who sells insurance in Seattle. She is now on medication and feeling fine. She even flies regularly.

Julie Totten, the founder of Families for Depression Awareness, a Watertown, Mass.-based group of families that have relatives who committed suicide or suffer from depression, says the prospect of the MRI being used to help diagnose psychiatric illnesses would make an enormous difference for patients' families.

Totten's teen-age brother, who committed suicide in 1990, went continually to his family physician complaining of headaches, stomachaches and tiredness, but was never diagnosed or treated for depression.

"Right now, depression is such an inexact science," says Totten. "Families end up having to take on the burden of figuring out what the symptoms are and trying to get the right treatment. It would be great to have a technology that puts it back in the doctor's hands."

Copyright 2002

2002-06-14T10:24:00.000-07:00

"Every improvement in communication makes the bore more terrible." -- Frank Moore Colby

"Just because your voice reaches halfway around the world doesn't mean you are wiser than when it reached only to the end of the bar." -- Edward R. Murrow

2002-06-14T10:23:00.000-07:00

"Never let your sense of morals get in the way of doing what's right."
-- Isaac Asimov

2002-06-12T09:43:00.000-07:00

"The creator of the universe works in mysterious ways. But he uses a base ten counting system and likes round numbers." -- Scott Adams

2002-06-12T09:42:00.000-07:00

"Formerly, when religion was strong and science weak, men mistook magic for medicine; now, when science is strong and religion weak, men mistake medicine for magic." -- Thomas Szasz

2002-06-11T18:40:00.000-07:00

"We don't love qualities, we love persons; sometimes by reason of their defects as well as of their qualities." - Thomas Mann, 1875 - 1955

2002-06-11T18:32:00.000-07:00

Ever wonder about those people who say they are giving more than 100%? We have all been to those meetings where someone wants over 100%. How about achieving 103%? Here's a little math that might prove helpful.

If:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
is represented as:
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

Then,
H A R D W O R K
8 1 18 4 23 15 18 11 = 98%

K N O W L E D G E
11 14 15 23 12 5 4 7 5 = 96%

But,

A T T I T U D E
1 20 20 9 20 21 4 5 = 100%!

Now

B U L L S H I T
2 21 12 12 19 8 9 20 = 103%

So, it stands to reason that hardwork and knowledge will get you close, attitude will get you there, but bullshit will put you over the top.

And look how far THIS will take you...

A S S K I S S I N G
1 19 19 11 9 19 19 9 14 7 = 118%

Think about it...and have a nice day at work.

2002-06-11T12:44:00.000-07:00

"He felt that his whole life was some kind of dream and he sometimes
wondered whose it was and whether they were enjoying it." -- Douglas Adams, "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy"

"If God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him." -- Voltaire

2002-06-09T09:22:00.000-07:00

MISSOULA [MONTANA] INDEPENDENT, June 6, 2002

BETWEEN THE LINES -- COMING TO TERMS WITH CHILDREN BORN "INTERSEXED"

by Victoria Tilney McDonough

Cheryl Chase hid in her brain until she was in her mid-30s. An attractive woman with short cropped hair and strong features, Chase was not always that comfortable with herself. Nor was she always what she appears to be. Until she was 18 months old, Chase was a boy. She had a different name, clothes and toys that symbolized boyhood, and a birth certificate that had an "M" inked in the gender box. Then, before she reached the age of two, she was "reassigned" female. She was given a new name, new clothes and toys, and with a new birth certificate in the files, the family moved to a different town where no one knew them. She also underwent a clitorectomy, the surgical removal of her entire phallus, which they reinterpreted as a large clitoris instead of an undersized penis, a procedure that all but destroyed her potential for sexual pleasure later in life. Seven years later as a grammar school kid, she had her testes trimmed and from then on endured yearly trips to the doctor to be poked, prodded, and photographed. No one told her why she was different, though she knew she was. Her parents fought and whispered. Her questions were left unanswered. She felt like a stranger in her own skin, her body a prison of shame and secrecy instead of a temple. It was not until she was in her early 30s that Chase learned the whole truth: She had been born intersexed, what was once called a hermaphrodite.

"When an intersex baby is born, the default is usually to perform surgery. Doctors want to 'fix' what is not right, then slap a diaper on the baby, close the file, and send it off into its life," says Chase, who spoke in Missoula last week. "It is difficult for parents and doctors to think of an infant as a person who will grow up into a sexual being, an adult with drives and the ability to make lifestyle choices."

Despite the myth that intersex babies are rare-anomalies that are as freakish and monster-like as the mythical being, Hermaphroditus, from whom their name was derived, as many as one in 2,000 infants are born intersexed.

An intersex baby is born with ambiguous genitalia, or more precisely, with an anatomy that someone decides is neither standard male nor female. Though there are several dozen variations on the diagnosis, an intersex baby is not born with two sets of genitals, but rather a phallus that can be interpreted as a "mini penis" or an "enlarged clitoris," as well as gonads that can present as either testicles or ovaries. Because nature could not seem to make up its mind in utero, many doctors believe that the best course of action is surgery. That way, the child grows up looking more "normal" (or so it's long been thought), resembling friends and being happier and more well adjusted. But to date, there have been virtually no follow-up studies on intersex individuals who were surgically altered during childhood. "Intersex is definitely a queer issue," says Chase. "I mean, how do you know someone's sex? You might ask them, or you could make a guess based on physical appearance, bone structure, clothing choices, mannerisms, behaviors. You can't see sexual desire. You can't divorce gender identity from sexuality. They are inextricably linked."

Defining gender identity can be a tricky business. Every individual has a chromosomal sex, a hormonal sex, and a "mental" sex or gender, though these don't always line up for everyone. Who is to say that an intersex baby who is assigned male and surgically altered to match that assignment won't grow up to feel like a woman trapped in a man's body? According to Chase, the reason doctors - and parents - often want to surgically "fix" their intersex infant is because they worry the child might grow up to be gay or lesbian instead of heterosexual. Though the medical profession and society at large have come a long way with dealing with issues like death and dying, adoption, and cancer, usually people don't want to talk or even think about intersexuality.

Doctors mean well, says Chase. They don't opt for surgery to be cruel or mutilate these babies. Rather, they are just thinking "inside the box." A lot of times, doctors don't believe in changing a practice unless they have a better one, and this takes education and open-mindedness. "At a medical meeting, a doctor showed a slide of an intersex child's genitals almost as if it were a freak show. The slide included the genital area only, no arms or legs, no face. Implying that surgery is the only choice, the doctor asked rhetorically: 'Would you send this to kindergarten?'" Chase says. "When I went to kindergarten, I wore clothes."

To endure the shame and confusion she felt as a child and later as a young adult, Chase tried to concentrate on her brain instead of her body. "I went to MIT and studied math and science. I learned Japanese. Then I moved to Japan and got a job doing intense computer and translation work. I was good at all the hard stuff, the non-emotional stuff that's considered more masculine," she says. "But I was miserable. Suicidal for a long time. I kept thinking that I'd feel better, but at 35, I realized that the future was here."

In Tokyo, Chase volunteered as an English speaker for a crisis hotline. "To volunteer, we had to go through low-level training for therapists. I thought they would teach solutions to offer over the phone, but I ended up learning how to talk to people, how to deal with myself and others on a more emotional level, something I had never done before."

At 36, Chase returned to America. Finally able to recover her medical records after being lied to and turned away on many occasions, she confronted her mother. "I was a mess. Angry. I found it harder and harder to believe that the people who were supposed to take care of me would have done this," she says. "I was worried my mother wouldn't tell me anything, but I needed her to fill me in on the emotional stuff. She said she didn't have any shame, and yet she still couldn't admit anything. The whole thing had been traumatic for her too. It became too painful for her to see me after that." Chase's mother died 10 years later. They never got the chance to share truths, losses, compassion.

Though the decisions that need to be made for an intersex child are never easy or simple, Chase believes vehemently that a person should be able to make his or her own choices. "Surgery does not make everything perfect. It might make you look more female or male, but it certainly does not make you look or be 'normal,'" she says. "A person should be able to make a choice when they are a teenager, when they have some sense of their sexuality and gender identity. And with all the information on the table, no secrets, no lies, they should have a realistic view of what doctors can and cannot do. Honest and complete disclosure is good medicine."

For Angela, an intersex woman, the choice never belonged to her. She did not present as intersexed until she was 12, around the time she discovered masturbation and enjoyed the pleasure her enlarged clitoris afforded her. When her mother saw her emerge from the shower with what looked like a small penis, she rushed her to the hospital. She was told she had ovarian cancer and went immediately into surgery. She awoke with no ovaries and no clitoris. A boy has a penis, a girl a vagina. A clitoris, she was told, was considered unnecessary. Angela was too ashamed to ask what had happened. She can no longer enjoy her body as she once did.

Another intersex child who was assigned female was given a vaginoplasty, a vagina often formed from a stretch of colon. In order to have it remain open it has to be manually stretched with what amounts to various sized vibrators. The child's grandmother had to hold the baby down as it screamed while the mother did the "therapy."

Vaginoplasties often result in infection. They can separate, leak mucous most of the time, and be very painful. Though this procedure is not used for transsexual operations, it is still used for intersex infants.

Though increasing public awareness and working toward policy change can be slow, Chase already sees the hopeful beginnings of a sea change. At a recent meeting with the National Institutes of Health, Chase says she met doctors whose viewpoints ran the gamut. "One doctor admitted to me that it had never occurred to him that quality of life was an issue for intersex individuals. Just that he made that mental leap was hopeful," she says. Another doctor, a surgeon, recently returned to medical school to become a pediatric psychologist specializing in the children he used to operate on. "I think he, as well as some others in the medical field, are realizing that you can repair a gender assignment, but you can't put back what you've surgically taken away."

The work "to create a world free of shame, secrecy, and unwanted surgery for intersex people" can be slow going. One surgeon Chase met recently said he has never talked to a "formerly intersexed" person, nor done any follow-up studies on adults. "He said he doesn't want to talk to any of them because he might then be swayed by emotion."

According to Chase, counseling is one of the major links missing in helping families and individuals deal with intersexuality. "We need to normalize this by talking about it, not by cutting things off or creating new parts," she says. "Parents of intersex babies feel guilty, ashamed, often traumatized. They need to have tools to deal with their children and the questions and situations that are going to come up. And the individuals themselves need to be able to express themselves in ways that help them deal with being different. They need peers. They need to meet other people who have gone through a similar journey."

To date, there are few therapists equipped for the job. "They are scared that the issues will be too medical, too scientific. They also think the work would be too gender-oriented for their expertise," she says. "They want to know if the person is male or female then go from there. And ironically, many therapists seem afraid of dealing with trauma. People - doctors, psychiatrists, families - still think that by keeping everything secret that they will be helping these children, saving them from themselves."

In 1993, Chase founded the Intersex Society of North America (ISNA). Already, ISNA has made significant steps in education and advocacy for intersex issues, putting forward a patient-centered model that is being adopted in more medical facilities. Chase and her colleagues are in the process of creating a training video and accompanying handbook for doctors, which they hope to ultimately sell to hospitals, psychiatrists, libraries, and schools. Among others, it features Chase, a pediatric-endocrinologist nurse, a pediatric psychologist, a biomedical ethicist, and the mother of an intersex child who was surgically assigned female as an infant and who now, at 9, knows he is a boy.

"If intersex people never get to talk about the issues surrounding their differences at birth, they never get to mourn what they weren't born with, or without," says Chase. "They remain stuck." And like Hermaphroditus, they remain trapped in the myth that they are not right until that myth is shattered simply by the act of speaking and sharing.

For more information, visit the Intersex Society of North America Web site at www.isna.org.

2002-05-30T02:26:00.000-07:00

"President Bush is still in his 'learning phase.'"

Comment made by Brazilian President Henrique Cardosa when asked his reaction to President Bush's question, "Do you have blacks, too?"

Der Spiegel (Germany) 19-May-02

2002-05-30T01:54:00.000-07:00

THE NATION, June 10, 2002

PASS ENDA NOW!

by Doug Ireland

Twenty-seven years ago, Bella Abzug introduced the first comprehensive gay civil rights bill in the history of the Congress. Now the Senate at long last stands poised to pass what remains of that bill - the Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA), which would prohibit discrimination in the workplace on the basis of sexual orientation. As ENDA chief sponsor Senator Ted Kennedy puts it, "More than a quarter-century later, we are long overdue in providing this basic protection to America's work force."

ENDA is likely to be brought to the Senate floor by majority leader Tom Daschle for a vote this summer. Its forty-three sponsors include three Republicans (Rhode Island's Lincoln Chafee, Pennsylvania's Arlen Specter and Oregon's Gordon Smith), and gay lobbyists and Senate staffers believe there are enough votes to pass it by a narrow margin. But even though polls show that nearly two-thirds of Americans support the principles embodied in the bill - no discrimination in hiring and firing, compensation, or advancement on the basis of whom one loves - the puissant religious right is mounting a fierce lobbying campaign against ENDA; and in an election year, fainthearted solons may stray at the eleventh hour.

ENDA's bipartisan support has been won at a high price. The bill in its current form contains exemptions for nearly any institution claiming a religious connection; for small businesses of fourteen employees or less; and for voluntary nonprofits like the Boy Scouts. It specifically prohibits the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission from collecting statistics on sexual orientation or from compelling employers to do so - diluting its enforceability. It does not require businesses to provide to same-sex couples the domestic partnership benefits accorded to different-sex couples. And it contains no protection for the transgendered - even though the visibility of gender-nonconformists makes them high-profile targets for bigotry.

Exclusion of the transgendered is no longer a fringe issue - in just the past few weeks, a number of cities (Dallas, Philadelphia, New York City) have extended civil rights protections to "trannies." ENDA's silence on this matter is one reason the country's second-largest gay rights group, the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force (NGLTF), is less than enthusiastic. "The bill Bella introduced in the seventies included housing and public accommodations, which this watered-down version doesn't," says NGLTF's Betsy Gressler. "And our mission statement was changed four years ago to include the transgendered - which this bill doesn't. We're not opposed to it or trying to sabotage it - we're just not putting a lot of resources into it."

But the history of progress in all civil rights legislation has always been an incremental one, unfortunate though that may be; and with gay conservatives - from the Log Cabin Republicans to the Independent Gay Forum - -questioning the need for ENDA (and thus providing cover for President Bush, who opposes such laws), it's crucial that progressives make the most of this best chance to have the Senate finally go on record and say that job bigotry against gays is illegal.

Steve Elmendorf, chief of staff to House minority leader Dick Gephardt, says, "There is a bipartisan majority in both houses to pass this bill." But the House GOP leadership has made it clear that it will never allow ENDA to get to the floor for a vote. That's one more reason, says openly gay Representative Barney Frank, that Senate passage of ENDA is imperative: "It not only will make an important statement to the country, it will then be clear that it's Republican control of the House that is blocking progress, and allow us to focus on the remaining Congressional political obstacles." And, Frank adds, it will expose the fallacy of "the Human Rights Campaign's insistence on supporting more and more Republicans so they'll vote for it."

In the latest chapter of its wrongheaded, GOP-coddling strategy, HRC, the nation's largest gay lobby, gave a dual endorsement to two Connecticut incumbents pitted against each other in a tossup House contest by redistricting - GOPer Nancy Johnson, whose HRC voting record in this 107th Congress has already declined to only 68 percent, and liberal Democrat Jim Maloney, who has a consistent 100 percent progay voting record. Senate passage of ENDA will help educate gay voters that, as Frank puts it, "HRC's attitude doesn't make sense."

Senator Judd Gregg has announced he'll try to amend ENDA to allow states to exempt themselves from it - effectively gutting the bill. In the fight to pass ENDA, local constituent letters to senators are of critical importance. We urge Nation readers to take just five minutes to write or e-mail their senators, demanding they vote for ENDA with no further crippling amendments. This could well be the last chance to pass ENDA for years if the Democrats lose their one-vote Senate majority this fall. Time's a-wastin'. Do it now.

2002-05-30T01:47:00.000-07:00

"I have no memory of my own mutilation [circumcision] experience. My mother told me recently that I screamed for hours in pain and shock. Because I don't recall it now doesn't mean it wasn't traumatic then. Can you imagine our medical system doing this unnecessary procedure in any other context? I'm sorry but this is an indefensible practice."

--Gay journalist Andrew Sullivan writing at AndrewSullivan.com, April 16.

2002-05-30T01:46:00.001-07:00

"Many people see the footage of gay-pride parades, and there's nothing to balance it with. The stories of people who are happy and have been together for years and years and have adopted children are not nearly as fun to look at as 55 guys in drag on a float going crazy."

--Cher to Out magazine, May issue.

2002-05-30T01:46:00.000-07:00

"Sonny [Bono] just submerged who he was to get to the place that he got to. I mean, Sonny was a dyed-in-the-wool Democrat, a real forward thinker. And to get to where he got to [as a Republican Congressman], he had to become best friends with Dan Quayle. I'd rather walk naked through the fires of hell."

--Cher to Out magazine, May issue.

2002-05-29T18:33:00.000-07:00

HAVING OLDER BROTHERS MAY BE FACTOR IN HOMOSEXUALITY

May 28, 2002

The more older brothers a boy has, the more likely he is to be homosexual, according to researchers at the University of Toronto (U of T). The study claims that roughly one in seven gay men may owe his sexual orientation to the fact he has older brothers

"This phenomenon, known as the fraternal birth order effect, was first shown by Professor Ray Blanchard, of U of T's Department of Psychiatry and the Center for Addiction and Mental Health (CAMH), and has since been confirmed by other scientists," says CAMH post-doctoral fellow James Cantor.

Cantor and his team of researchers authored a study investigating the percentage of gay men whose sexual preference was influenced by the fraternal birth order effect. "This latest study demonstrates just how important that link is," added Cantor.

Using statistical analysis, Cantor and his team evaluated data regarding siblings of 302 homosexual men and 302 heterosexual men. About 15 percent of gay men appeared to have had their sexual orientation influenced by the phenomena.

The study determined that, theoretically, a boy with two and a half older brothers was twice as likely to be gay as a boy with no older brothers. The report did not suggest reasons for the correlation, but did point to increasing evidence that it may be prenatal in nature. Gay men with older brothers have a propensity to weigh less at birth than heterosexual men with older brothers.

The published report can be found in the February 2002 issue of the journal Archives of Sexual Behavior.

2002-05-28T13:23:00.000-07:00

"They're starting to go after the President about September 11. Senator Joe Lieberman said as far as these hijacking threats are concerned, somebody should've put two and two together. Put two and two together? That eliminates Bush right there." -- Jay Leno

2002-05-28T13:21:00.000-07:00

"We hold dear what our Declaration of Independence says, that all have got uninalienable rights, endowed by a Creator."

GW Bush, remarks to community and religious leaders, Moscow, Russia, May 24, 2002

2002-05-28T13:18:00.000-07:00

OK, YOU FIGURE OUT WHO'S THE ASSHOLE HERE...

GREGORY: I wonder why it is you think there are such strong sentiments in Europe against you and against this administration? Why, particularly, there's a view that you and your administration are trying to impose America's will on the rest of the world, particularly when it comes to the Middle East and where the war on terrorism goes next? [In French to President Chirac:] And, Mr. President, would you maybe comment on that?

DUBYA: Very good. The guy memorizes four words, and he plays like he's intercontinental.

GREGORY: I can go on.

DUBYA: I'm impressed -- que bueno. Now I'm literate in two languages.

Dubya taking time out of his busy schedule to belittle NBC News White House correspondent David Gregory, and employing his Spanish "prowess" to do so, press conference with French President Jacques Chirac, Paris, France, May 26, 2002

2002-05-28T13:08:00.000-07:00

THE WASHINGTON POST, May 12, 2002

Letter to the Editor

NO TO FORCED TREATMENT

Contrary to the intimation in an April 27 editorial ["Leaving Treatment Untreated"], the Maryland legislature gave full consideration to the debate on expanding forced-treatment laws. It heard hours of testimony, read volumes of literature on both sides of the issue and concluded that the current law is not a barrier to getting people into an emergency room or a hospital bed. This conclusion was based, in part, on testimony given by consumers, police officers, the Emergency Room Physicians Association and the Mental Hygiene Administration.

The Post continues to repeat the scientifically unsubstantiated claims of organizations that stand to profit from expanded forced treatment or that are funded by drug companies and psychiatric research foundations. Contrary to these self-serving claims, individuals have recovered from a major mental illness without medication.

Most individuals report that, whether medication was helpful or harmful, their recovery did not begin until they overcame systemic barriers, including the lack of access to independent housing, peer-support programs, employment assistance and good-quality health services. Tragically, perhaps the largest barrier to recovery is the stigma created and perpetuated by proponents of forced treatment.

LAURA CAIN

Staff Attorney
Maryland Disability Law Center
Baltimore

RESPONSE FROM ANOTHER LETTERWRITER:

Laura Cain said that the Maryland legislature "concluded that the current law is not a barrier to getting people into an emergency room or hospital." The National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI) has been told by members of the relevant committees that the standard was problematic but that they didn't have enough time this session to consider the issues.

Under the law, persons can be committed only if they have a mental illness, need inpatient treatment, are unable or unwilling to be admitted voluntarily or present a danger to themselves or others, or if no appropriate less-restrictive treatment is available. The reform bill added the alternative standard, "gravely disabled," to enable access to treatment before some people deteriorate to "dangerous" -- meaning suicidal, assaultive or in danger of being assaulted.

If it is "self-serving" to desire timely medical treatment for ill family members, then NAMI members are self-serving. The only "profit" we seek is the assurance that our loved ones are better served and protected by our society and our state.

KATHARINE CRANE

Chair, Maryland Treatment Committee
National Alliance for the Mentally Ill
Chevy Chase

2002-05-28T13:05:00.000-07:00

CONTRA COSTA TIMES, May 22, 2002

MOM TRIES TO AID MENTALLY ILL SON

By Karen Hershenson, Times Columnist

SHE'S BEEN LIVING in a Walnut Creek motel for almost two weeks, and she's not leaving without her son.

Back home in Alaska, there is a room waiting for him, and a huddle of mental-health experts eager to help.

Instead, her son, a 31-year-old schizophrenic, has been bouncing around Contra Costa County, booted from a fast-food job, haunting a local bookstore, even busted for an offense triggered by his disease.

Our streets hold many like him, too sick and disconnected to get their lives together. Yet laws meant to protect their rights often prevent loving family members from stepping in. That's the Catch-22 binding this woman, and it's breaking her heart.

"I know how sick he is," says Robin Duffey. "If I don't stay and help, he's going to end up back on the streets again. He's not going to be able to survive."

Photos on the bed tell the story in vivid detail. Early pictures of the boy in his graduation gown, arm around his best friend, dark brown eyes warm and alive. And a more recent shot, his 6-foot-2-inch frame gaunt, the eyes so empty.

At first Duffey didn't want me to use her name, afraid it would shatter the trust she and other family members have slowly built over the past months. But after another day slamming into brick walls, she's angry, and wants to go public.

The dilemma is that her son is an adult. She can't help him without his consent, and he won't give it, even though his illness may make him oblivious to his plight.

A bill in the Legislature, AB1421, would make it easier for family members to intervene, and Duffey is lobbying hard.

She's been battered plenty on this journey, by rude, insensitive people. The woman at the bookstore who shouted out that her son is "crazy, really crazy." The mental-health worker who dismissed her as a co-dependent and suggested Al-Anon.

Once, she and the boy were close. He was fine during his teen years in Santa Maria and had a steady job when Duffey and her daughter moved to Alaska. It wasn't until years later that she realized he was falling apart.

At first she blamed herself. Abandoned by her own parents, she had him when she was 16. She partied too much, left the kids alone too much. But she always loved them.

He lived with his sister in Salt Lake City for a while, but disappeared for months. Eventually he surfaced in Walnut Creek, working part time at a fast-food restaurant, but it didn't last long.

His arrest after an altercation with a convenience-store clerk gave mental-health professionals a chance to intervene.

Duffey and her sister came, and with the help of a local advocate, tracked him down, living in bushes alongside a downtown creek.

"I about died when I saw what I saw," says Duffey. "Headphones on, black clothes, a backpack, walked like a zombie, did not look around, just straight on."

After watching him pacing back and forth, the women finally approached. But he said they made him uncomfortable and again slipped away.

He's OK for now. Thanks to his mother making noise, he was referred to Nierika House in Concord, a voluntary program for those with mental illness or substance-abuse problems. But stays are limited, and what happens when he gets out is anybody's guess.

The legal troubles aren't resolved, and homeless mentally ill people often become sick, or victims of violent crime. Many kill themselves.

Duffey's plan is to get her son stabilized with medication, and onto an Alaska-bound plane with the help of a nearby uncle.

"I'm his savior," she says. That may be, but for now, she can't save a man who doesn't want to be saved.

2002-05-28T09:28:00.000-07:00

"Let everyone sweep in front of his own door and the whole world will be clean."
- Goethe

2002-05-27T23:02:00.000-07:00

BUSH SEEKS TO REDEFINE ENTIRELY, THE POWER OF THE PRESIDENCY

By Bill Straub /SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

From the DETROIT NEWS

WASHINGTON -- It's not a bad job considering it comes with a rent-free mansion and door-to-door limousine service, but President Bush maintains that the position he holds as the leader of the free world should come with an additional perk -- power.

Bush says the inherent powers of the presidency have eroded to an unsettling degree over the past 30 years and he is moving to reclaim the lost prerogatives of the nation's highest office. He has drawn a distinct line that he has suggested no one dare cross.

"I have an obligation to make sure that the presidency remains robust and that the legislative branch doesn't end up running the executive branch," Bush said.

Ari Fleischer, the president's press secretary, said presidential powers have been diminished "in multiple ways" as part of a "long-standing, gradual process." The president has little say in how the nation's budget is devised and constraints exist over how he uses the military.

Congress also has placed restrictions on the president in military matters with the War Powers Resolution of 1973, Fleischer said. And the spate of congressional investigations into administration activities, particularly during the Clinton era, which involved "the sharing, the yielding of information by the executive branch to the Congress," has tended to weaken the office.

Critics counter that the administration's effort is nothing more than a thinly veiled power grab and that the office of the president is more potent now than at any time in recent memory. Bruce Fein, a former Justice Department official who worked in several Republican administrations, said the United States "has never had a more imperial presidency, at least since (President Franklin D.) Roosevelt during his conduct of World War II."

"What the president is claiming is legally and historically absurd and politically stupid," Fein said.

Mark Racicot, appointed by Bush to be chairman of the Republican National Committee, said the time has come for the president to reclaim lost authority because "the ability of the president to carry on communications and get unvarnished advice has eroded over a period of time."

Fein said that while it's appropriate to cite national security at times, it's ridiculous to claim that anyone will be inhibited by his or her communications with the president if the information is made public.

"He (Bush) hasn't pointed to a single case," Fein said. "I've been around this town a long time, almost 30 years, and I've never encountered one individual who told me he's not going to the Oval Office unless he's promised confidentiality. It's the biggest hoax in the world. Why he's making up all this stuff is utterly and completely baffling."

© : t r u t h o u t 2002

2002-05-27T22:55:00.000-07:00

MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE, May 26, 2002

HER GAY SON LED JOURNEY FROM GRIEF TO PRIDE

Randi Reitan

Three little words changed our lives: "I am gay." Our youngest son said them to us when he was 16.

We were so ignorant. We were so unaware of what it meant when he said them that we were devastated and filled with a grief that is hard to explain.

We spent the first months grieving for the dreams we had for our dear son. Phil and I shared such a wonderful marriage and family. In our ignorance, we wanted that same life for all of our children. When Jake told us he was gay, we thought he would live a life alone, without a family. That thought brought tears that didn't want to quit.

We didn't know where to go for advice or help. We knew where the church stood, and it was hard to even walk into a church during this time. We did seek out a clergy friend, and he told us Jake could change. He told us he knew many who had done it through therapy. So our next stop was the medical community.

The reaction there was to love Jake as he was, and if we needed help accepting him, then we should seek therapy. Our problem wasn't accepting Jake, it was understanding how best to fight all the discrimination he now faced and how we, as his parents, could learn to understand homosexuality.

We read books. I spent more time in bookstores in those months than I have any other time in my life. I read book after book. Many of the books shared family stories, and that is what I needed to read. They reached out to me and gave me the hope I needed to get our life back.

But what was most extraordinary was our son, Jake. He was loving and patient with us as we searched our hearts and minds for the right path to take as a family. He led us to work to make life better for all in the gay community. We watched him start the first gay/straight alliance at his high school. We watched him talk with friends about what it meant to be gay. We watched him reach out to others who needed a kind voice.

A parent is supposed to lead a child, but our son led us. He taught us how important it was to work for change. He taught us to spend our energy and time on making life better for him by educating ourselves and others. There is a great deal of misunderstanding concerning this issue.

This has become a journey for us as parents. We have met many wonderful people on our way to fully understanding and loving our son. The gay community is remarkable. Its members are treated horribly by the church and society, yet they continue to live with grace and love. We realized we didn't really understand the word grace until we saw it in action time and time again in the lives of our new friends.

I wouldn't have missed this journey. It has given me joy beyond measure. It has given me a passion that I didn't know existed in my soul. It has given me many new friends to love.

Someone asked me, if you could snap your fingers and make Jake straight, would you? It is a hard question to answer. The initial response would be "Yes," because life is much easier that way. But, that doesn't take into consideration the whole picture. Jake is gay. Jake always was gay and that is part of what makes Jake gifted in so many areas. I see those same gifts in many of our new friends. Jake's "gayness" is a part of what we have grown to love in him throughout his life. It is so much a part of Jake that I would not want to take it away.

June is Gay Pride Month. We have heard people complain about the use of the word "pride," but I am bursting with pride in my son. He lives with amazing dignity in the face of discrimination. I want to thank him for taking us on the journey of our lives. I want to thank him for teaching us what it truly means to love as Jesus loved. I want to thank him for teaching us how important it is to work for acceptance and equal rights for all. I want to thank him for the love he shows in all he does every day he walks this earth. No one has more pride in her heart than this mom has for her gay son.

So as we approach the first day of June, from this mom to all the GLBT children, happy Gay Pride Month! My love to you all.

2002-05-27T22:40:00.000-07:00

"Take everything you like seriously, except yourselves."
-- Rudyard Kipling

2002-05-25T07:14:00.000-07:00

"The bridges you cross before you come to them are over rivers that aren't there."
-- Gene Brown

2002-05-25T07:12:00.000-07:00

"The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread."
-- Anatole France

2002-05-24T17:57:00.000-07:00

A little bit of confused mental illness analogy:

ALBRIGHT ATTACKS US FOREIGN POLICY AS SCHIZOPHRENIC

The Administration's world view suffers from an "untreated bipolar disorder" that observes double standards on trade and the rule of law, sends out conflicting signals on the Middle East and is undermining its own policies in Afghanistan, according to Madeleine Albright, the former Secretary of State.

Read the full story.

2002-05-24T17:46:00.000-07:00

REPEAL OF THE ESTATE TAX WILL COST 850 BILLION OVER NEXT 20 YEARS.

The House recently passed a bill to permanently repeal the estate tax.

In addition, an amendment to permanently repeal the estate tax may be brought up in the Senate by Senators Phil Gramm (R-TX and Jon Kyl (R-AZ before June 28th.

Americans For a Fair Estate Tax, a large coalition of nonprofit organizations, are working together to prevent repeal of the estate tax, which has helped to:

- Build fairness into the tax system, so that the wealthiest taxpayers pay their just share to the public good and insure large accumulations of wealth do not become concentrated;

- Stimulate charitable giving; and,

- Provide federal and state revenues that are used to provide community services, including those for low-income and vulnerable families.

For what you can do to make your voice heard against the powerful special interests that are working to repeal the estate tax click here.

2002-05-24T17:42:00.000-07:00

"This is a nation that loves our freedom, loves our country."
-- George W. Bush, Washington, D.C, May 17, 2002

2002-05-24T17:36:00.000-07:00

MELBOURNE HERALD SUN, 23rd May, 2002

SKELETON COMES OUT OF CLOSET

LONDON - Remains of a cross-dressing eunuch found at an ancient burial site reveal an exotic new side of life in Roman Britain.

Archaeologists yesterday unveiled the skeleton of a young man - believed to be a priest who castrated himself in honour of the fertility goddess Cybele - at the Yorkshire Museum in York.

The skeleton was found at nearby Catterick, once the thriving Roman town of Cataractonium.

He wore women's jewellery, including a jet necklace and bracelet, a shale armlet and a bronze anklet. "He is the only man wearing this array of jewellery who has ever been found from a late Roman cemetery in Britain," said archaeologist Pete Wilson. "The find demonstrates how cosmopolitan the north of England was," he said.

Cybele was worshipped by the Romans after being imported from Greece in the third century BC. Her priests, or "galli", castrated themselves on a "Day of blood" in April, following the example of Cybele's lover Attis, who made himself a eunuch out of remorse for his infidelity.

After castration, the priests were regarded as transsexuals and wore jewellery, colourful female robes and turbans or tiaras.

The skeleton was unearthed in 1981 and it took years for archaeologists to work out why the male body was adorned with female jewellery.

Two oval stones found in his mouth are believed to represent his lost testicles, put there so that after his death he would be "whole" when he met his maker. - AP

2002-05-24T17:28:00.000-07:00

THE SCOTSMAN, 24 May 2002

STARTLED MARINES FIND AFGHAN MEN ALL MADE UP TO SEE THEM

Chris Stephen In Bagram

British marines returning from an operation deep in the Afghan mountains spoke last night of an alarming new threat - being propositioned by swarms of gay local farmers.

An Arbroath marine, James Fletcher, said: "They were more terrifying than the al-Qaeda. One bloke who had painted toenails was offering to paint ours. They go about hand in hand, mincing around the village."

While the marines failed to find any al-Qaeda during the seven-day Operation Condor, they were propositioned by dozens of men in villages the troops were ordered to search.

"We were pretty shocked," Marine Fletcher said. "We discovered from the Afghan soldiers we had with us that a lot of men in this country have the same philosophy as ancient Greeks: 'a woman for babies, a man for pleasure'."

Originally, the marines had sent patrols into several villages in the mountains near the town of Khost, hoping to catch up with al-Qaeda suspects who last week fought a four-hour gun battle with soldiers of the Australian SAS. The hardened troops, their faces covered in camouflage cream and weighed down with weapons, radios and ammunition, were confronted with Afghans wanting to stroke their hair.

"It was hell," said Corporal Paul Richard, 20. "Every village we went into we got a group of men wearing make-up coming up, stroking our hair and cheeks and making kissing noises."

At one stage, troops were invited into a house and asked to dance. Citing the need to keep momentum in their search and destroy mission, the marines made their excuses and left. "They put some music on and ask us to dance. I told them where to go," said Cpl Richard. "Some of the guys turned tail and fled. It was hideous."

The Afghan hill tribes live in some of the most isolated communities in the country. "I think a lot of the problem is that they don't have the women around a lot," said another marine, Vaz Pickles. "We only saw about two women in the whole six days. It was all very disconcerting."

A second problem the British found came minutes after the first helicopter touched down at one of the hilltop firebases, when local farmers appeared demanding compensation for goats they claimed had been blown off the mountains by the rotor blades. "Every time we landed a Chinook near a village, we got some irate bloke running up to us saying his goat has just got blown off the mountain ridge by the helicopter - and then he demanded a hundred dollars compensation," said Major Phil Joyce, commander of Whisky Company, one of four companies deployed.

As patrols moved away from the landing zones, the locals began pestering Afghan troops attached to the marines with ever more outrageous compensation demands - topping off at a demand from one village elder for $500 (£300) for damage to a tree by the downdraft from helicopters.

But the marines were under orders to win the "hearts and minds" of local farmers in what is one of the few remaining Taleban bastions. "I managed to barter him down to two marine pens, a pencil and a rubber," Major Joyce said. "He went away quite happy ."

2002-05-23T16:27:00.000-07:00

THERAPY AS GOOD AS DRUGS TO CURE DEPRESSION-REPORT

Thu May 23, 5:03 PM ET

By Maggie Fox, REUTERS Health and Science Correspondent

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Therapy is at least as effective in treating depression as drugs are, and its effects last longer, scientists said on Thursday in a report sure to annoy drug companies that make millions selling antidepressants.

The cost of therapy is about the same as drugs short-term, and cheaper over the long term, the researchers told a meeting of the American Psychiatric Association.

"This will be a surprising, controversial finding for many psychiatric professionals," Robert DeRubeis, chair of the psychology department at the University of Pennsylvania, said in a statement.

"Most believe quite strongly in the efficacy of medication, and psychiatric treatment guidelines call unequivocally for medication in cases of severe depression."

An estimated 20 million Americans suffer from depression, which can lead to suicide.

DeRubeis and Steven Hollon of Vanderbilt University in Nashville studied 240 patients with depression to see if drugs or therapy worked better.

"The question that has most often been asked in studies is, 'What gets people better faster?"' DeRubeis said. "We asked, 'What will keep depression away over the long term?"'

Their patients got one of three treatments -- 16 weeks of cognitive therapy, 16 weeks of antidepressants plus visits to a professional, or 16 weeks of placebo pills plus visits.

Cognitive therapy is a type of talking-out treatment in which patients are helped to question their negative views of themselves.

"By the 16-week post-treatment assessment, response rates were identical (57 percent) for both pharmacotherapy and cognitive therapy," the researchers said in their report.

"Thus, these findings suggest that cognitive therapy may work more slowly in effecting change than does pharmacotherapy, but that by the end of a four-month course of treatment, patients who receive cognitive therapy fare as well as those who receive pharmacotherapy."

2002-05-23T15:24:00.000-07:00

I believe this applies to mental, as well as physical, health concerns....

NEW PEW REPORT ON E-PATIENTS

The second major Pew Internet & American Life Report on e-Patients, "Vital Decisions," is now available.

Here are some highlights from the Report:

62 percent of Internet users, or 73 million Americans, have gone online for health information. About 6 million do so every day -- more than twice as many as consult health professionals.

Health seekers are overwhelmingly pleased with the results of their online searches, which often help them make decisions about when to consult doctors, which doctors to consult, what kind of treatments to pursue, and which medicines to take. 82% of e-patients say they can find the health information they need most or all of the time. Another 16 % say they can do so "sometimes." Only 2% said that they can do so "hardly ever."

We found little evidence to suggest that inaccurate health information on the Web has caused much harm. Just 2% of health seekers say they know of any instance in which online information has caused harm. By contrast, a third of all e-patients, and more of half of those who are ill, say they know of instances in which someone they know has been "significantly helped" by online health resources.

45 million US e-patients now say the Internet has improved the ways that they take care of themselves--an increase of 48 percent from the previous year.

58% said they had gone online because they'd been diagnosed with a new health problem. But a surprising 81% said that they'd done so because a friend or family member had been diagnosed with a new medical condition.

The last time they went online, 9 % had communicated with a real person, e.g. a member of an online support group, the Webmaster of a health site, or an online health professional. And 9% said that they had participated in an online support group.

When e-patients talked to their physicians about the information they had found online, 82 % of the doctors agreed with their online sources while only 4% disagreed.

2002-05-23T10:56:00.000-07:00

STANFORD RESEARCHERS ESTABLISH LINK BETWEEN CREATIVE GENIUS AND MENTAL ILLNESS

Stanford University Medical Center

SCIENCE DAILY

5/22/2002

STANFORD, Calif. - For decades, scientists have known that eminently creative individuals have a much higher rate of manic depression, or bipolar disorder, than does the general population. But few controlled studies have been done to build the link between mental illness and creativity. Now, Stanford researchers Connie Strong and Terence Ketter, MD, have taken the first steps toward exploring the relationship.

Using personality and temperament tests, they found healthy artists to be more similar in personality to individuals with manic depression than to healthy people in the general population. "My hunch is that emotional range, having an emotional broadband, is the bipolar patient's advantage," said Strong. "It isn't the only thing going on, but something gives people with manic depression an edge, and I think it's emotional range."

Strong is a research manager in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science's bipolar disorders clinic and a doctoral candidate at the Pacific Graduate School. She is presenting preliminary results during a poster presentation today (May 21) at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association Meeting in Philadelphia.

The current study is groundbreaking for psychiatric research in that it used separate control groups made up of both healthy, creative people and people from the general population.

Researchers administered standard personality, temperament and creativity tests to 47 people in the healthy control group, 48 patients with successfully treated bipolar disorder and 25 patients successfully treated for depression. She also tested 32 people in a healthy, creative control group. This group was comprised of Stanford graduate students enrolled in prestigious product design, creative writing and fine arts programs, including Stegner Fellows in writing, students in the interdisciplinary Joint Program in Design from the Department of Mechanical Engineering and studio arts master's students from the Department of Art & Art History. All subjects were matched for age, gender, education and socioeconomic status.

Preliminary analysis showed that people in the control group and recovered manic depressives were more open and likely to be moody and neurotic than healthy controls. Moodiness and neuroticism are part of a group of characteristics researchers are calling "negative-affective traits" which also include mild, nonclinical forms of depression and bipolar disorder.

Though the data are preliminary, they provide a roadmap for psychiatric researchers looking to solve the genius/madness paradox depicted in the movie A Beautiful Mind, which tells the story of Nobel Laureate John Nash. The existing data need further review, Strong said. "And, we need to expand this to other groups," he said. How mood influences the performance of artists and genius scientists will be the subject of future research at Stanford. "We need to better understand the emotional side of what they do," Strong said.

The study was funded by grants to Ketter, principal investigator and associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science at Stanford, from the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, and Abbott Laboratories.

Stanford University Medical Center integrates research, medical education and patient care at its three institutions - Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford Hospital & Clinics and Lucile Packard Children's Hospital at Stanford. For more information, please visit the Web site of the medical center's Office of Communication & Public Affairs at http://mednews.stanford.edu.

Editor's Note: The original news release can be found here.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Note: This story has been adapted from a news release issued by Stanford University Medical Center for journalists and other members of the public. If you wish to quote from any part of this story, please credit Stanford University Medical Center as the original source. You may also wish to include the following link in any citation:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/05/020522073047.htm

2002-05-23T10:49:00.000-07:00

SD UNION-TRIBUNE Editorial

PARITY OR PARODY
HOW HEALTH CARE INSURERS AVOID TREATING MENTAL ILLNESS

By Rodrigo Munoz, M.D., psychiatrist
President of the San Diego County Medical Society

Imagine that you have a serious illness, which, left untreated, will lead to lifelong disability or even death. In today's health care system, you may face barriers to care, no matter what your insurance coverage. However, if the organ involved is your kidney, accessing the right treatment is going to be twice as difficult, since your insurance company has decided that kidneys don't count.

Does this scenario sound false? It is, for those with kidney disease, but not for other San Diegans who need specialized medical help ñ for, though insurers haven't yet discriminated against kidneys, they have a long history of discriminating against disorders or a different organ: the brain.

Congress thought it had ended this discrimination when it passed the 1996 Mental Health Parity Act, which barred insurers from setting different lifetime and annual benefit caps for mental illness than for medical/surgical illness. However, the law left a loophole, one that allowed insurance companies to require much higher deductibles and co-payments for mental health treatments than for other diseases.

A bill introduced in Congress to close the loophole faces an uphill battle; however, the concept of parity received some high profile support from President Bush recently. No matter the outcome, San Diegans will continue to be on the short end of the stick when it comes to accessing critical mental health services. That is because of the little-known but powerfully disruptive practice called a "carve-out," which allows insurers to skirt around the laws on mental health parity and deliver the least amount of care for the greatest financial return.

On paper, carve-outs are simple to understand. Insurance industry giant XYZ Health is given the contract to insure the employees of a large corporation, probably by tendering the lowest premium bid. XYZ Health promptly subcontracts with a for-profit company to handle the mental health claims under the insurance policy, severing the mental health benefit from the rest of the policy, usually for as little as 25 cents per member, per month.

If you ask how any company could turn a profit when tit is being reimbursed a quarter a month for each member of the insurance plan that might seek treatment, you're onto something. The only way that these firms (called "behavioral health companies" in industry jargon) can make money is by making it virtually impossible for those in need to get treatment.

There are a variety of ways in which this is accomplished. One of the most common is the phantom provider list, in which most psychiatrists listed do not contract with the behavioral health company, or do not accept new patients from that company. I have been on these lists time and time again, even though I have never contracted with these companies, and have exhausted all avenues to force them to stop this deceitful practice.

These phantom lists make it look as if a company has enough psychiatrists to handle the anticipated patient load, based on national statistics. In reality, there may only be a handful of psychiatrists truly available, which can have terrible consequences for those with serious problems.

Another strategy is routinely long delays in approval to begin treatment or continue treatment. Patients and clinicians regularly complain of arbitrary denials, the inability to actually get someone on the phone, and a bias against approving any treatment that rises above the bare-bones minimum, regardless of the patient's stability or condition. Patients who have been functioning well on one medication, for instance, may find that they get switched to a cheaper, less effective drug once they become the "property" of the behavioral health company.

These companies make it hard for people to see a psychiatrist in the first place, limit the number of times a patient can see a psychiatrist, limit the amount of time they will pay for the psychiatrist to see the patient to 20 minutes and force people out of the hospital before they can safely go home, with no adequate follow-up provided. This is a clear violation of the mental health parity law, but they get away with it, because the benefit has been "carved out."

The saddest thing is that many patients and even the employers who pay the bill don't realize that the HMO they have entrusted with their business and their health has washed its hands of a piece of it. They only find out that XZY Health is out of the picture when they go to access treatment, unsuccessfully.

Those who are already living with a chronic mental health condition are tragically affected when their employer changes insurance plans, as many have a break in treatment. Yet, most of the time, these issues don't make headlines.

They did recently in the case of Andrea Yates, the Texas woman who stunned the nation by methodically drowning her five children. She lost her tenuous grip on reality with a change in her psychiatric relationship, a change in the medication she had been responding to and a hospital stay cut short. After the fact, society sat up and asked, "How this could happen?"

The reality is that it does happen, every day, in our community. And it is time to put an end to it.

Treatment for disorders of the brain should not be carved out and away from the insurance benefit any more than diseases of the kidneys, eyes or heart. "Separate but equal" is no more tolerable in health care than it was in public education. Unless we end the practice, we will have to substitute the word "parody" for "parity" when discussing mental health treatment in San Diego.

Copyright 2002 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

2002-05-23T07:47:00.000-07:00

Men trust rather to their eyes than to their ears. The effect of precepts is, therefore, slow and tedious, while that of examples is summary and effectual.
     -- Seneca

The voyage of discovery lies not in finding new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
     -- Marcel Proust

It is not the clear-sighted who rule the world. Great achievements are accomplished in a blessed, warm fog.
     -- Joseph Conrad, 1857 - 1924

It is sure to be dark if you close your eyes.
     -- Martin Tupper

2002-05-23T07:44:00.000-07:00

"There is a strange fact about the human mind, a fact that differentiates the mind sharply from the body. The body is limited in ways that the mind is not. One sign of this is that the body does not continue indefinitely to grow in strength and develop in skill and grace. By the time most people are thirty years old, their bodies are as good as they will ever be; in fact, many personsí bodies have begun to deteriorate by that time. But there is no limit to the amount of growth and development that the mind can sustain. The mind does not stop growing at any particular age." -- Mortimer J. Adler, PhD, Psychologist

2002-05-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

"Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they've told you what you think it is you want to hear." -- Alan Corenk

2002-05-22T18:35:00.000-07:00

ANTI-GAY CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT

An amendment to the US Constitution that would ban gay marriage was introduced last week in the House of Representatives by a group of anti- gay members of Congress. It's not clear whether the amendment has any chance of success, the religious right has been touting it for a while now, and failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork even wrote an op- ed in the Wall Street Journal last year endorsing the amendment.

How to put into words the utter contempt for humanity that these people have. It's one thing to be a far-right bigot - we've come to expect a regular dose of hate and intolerance from radical fundamentalist political groups and their allies in Congress. But trying to amend the US Constitution to make it blatantly anti-gay? That is simply despicable, and frankly, beneath what even I thought these maggots were capable of. Mark my words, if Congress even tries to pass this legislation, we will mount peaceful protests the likes of which they have never seen. StopDrLaura.com will look like a flea compared to the political hell we'll unleash against any politician who supports anything this crass and humiliating.

Read PlanetOut's coverage of the amendment

Contact your US Senators

Contact your US House Member

2002-05-22T18:32:00.000-07:00

OPERATION ENDURING LIBERTY
by David Cole
THE NATION

June 3, 2002 Edition

Those who believe that civil liberties are a bedrock of a healthy and secure democracy are beginning to win support in cases stemming from the events of September 11. As shock has given way to a renewed appreciation for the rule of law, courts have stood up to Attorney General John Ashcroft and for civil liberties from Detroit, Michigan, to London, England.

In recent weeks:

* a federal judge in New York threw out an indictment against Osama Awadallah, finding that he was threatened and denied access to a lawyer in prison and that the government had violated the "material witness" statute in detaining him;

* a New Jersey state court ruled that the identity of all people detained in its state facilities must be disclosed, including the many who have been held on secret immigration charges in the September 11 investigation;

* a federal court in Detroit declared unconstitutional Ashcroft's decision to try in secret all people picked up on immigration charges in the September 11 investigation;

* a federal judge criticized the government's efforts to bar John Walker Lindh's lawyers from interviewing witnesses held at Guantánamo Bay who the government admits have information tending to show that Lindh is innocent; and

* a federal judge in the District of Columbia questioned the government's closure of the Holy Land Foundation, the nation's largest Muslim charity, without notice, a hearing or even a formal charge that it had engaged in illegal activities.

Ashcroft is losing even in London, where a judge in April dismissed extradition proceedings against Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian man whom US authorities had initially identified as the "lead instructor" of some of the September 11 hijackers but ultimately could not even prove had falsified an application for a pilot's license.

New challenges are being filed almost daily. In April the Center for Constitutional Rights filed a nationwide class action contesting the government's pretextual use of immigration authority to detain Arab and Muslim foreign citizens long after they have agreed to leave the country. The center has also brought two suits claiming that the detentions at Guantánamo Bay violate constitutional and international law. A lawyer for a terrorism suspect has sued Ashcroft over his new policy authorizing government officials to listen in on attorney-client conversations without probable cause or a judicial warrant. And an Indian man apprehended on September 12 with box cutters, and still being held, recently challenged the government's conduct in holding him for nearly two months without access to a lawyer.

The more candid of the Administration's defenders might now concede that civil liberties have been curtailed. But if we have prevented another terrorist attack, who's to say it's not worth the cost? The trouble is, one cannot know what might have happened had the government respected basic principles like due process, political freedom and the rule of law. But a single fact suggests that the claims of efficacy are overstated: Of the more than 1,500 people arrested since September 11 in the dragnet investigation of that day's crimes, not one has been charged with any involvement in the crimes under investigation.

Still, don't expect government officials to be chastened. If anything, as the articles in this week's issue make clear, the war on terrorism continues to expand, most significantly at the state and local level. State legislatures are enacting copycat antiterrorist legislation, often going further than Congress did in the Patriot Act. The Justice Department is encouraging further mission creep, seeking to entice local police into enforcing immigration law. And the District of Columbia is installing high-powered public surveillance cameras, despite evidence from England that such cameras have done virtually nothing to make the populace more secure.

[To read the remainder of the article, click on the article title, above.]

2002-05-22T12:01:00.000-07:00

An attractive woman goes up to the bar in a quiet rural pub.

She gestures alluringly to the bartender who immediately comes over to her. When he arrives, she seductively signals for him to bring his face closer to hers. When he does, she begins to gently caress his full beard.

"Are you the Manager?" she asks softly stroking his face with both hands.

"Actually, no ..." the bartender replies.

"Can you get him for me?" she asks, "I need to speak with him," she says running her hands beyond his beard and into his hair. "I'm afraid I can't," breathes the bartender "Is there anything I can do?"

"Yes, there is. Thank you. I need you to give him a message" she continued huskily, popping a couple of fingers into his mouth and allowing him to gently suck them.

"What should I tell him?" he manages to say while not missing a finger.

"Tell Him," She Whispers, "There is No toilet paper, paper towels, OR hand soap in the 'Ladies Room'."..........

2002-05-22T01:14:00.000-07:00

These web brochures on depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia, from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), give descriptions of their respective disorders, list symptoms, give possible causes, tell how the disorders are diagnosed, and discuss available treatments.

Depression
Bipolar Disorder
Schizophrenia

2002-05-22T01:02:00.000-07:00

The mountain remains unmoved at seeming defeat by the mist.
- Rabindranath Tagore

2002-05-22T00:53:00.000-07:00

Twelve priests were about to be ordained. The final test was for them to line up in a straight row, totally nude, in a garden while a sexy and beautiful big breasted nude model danced before them. Each priest had a small bell attached to his penis and they were told that anyone whose bell rang when she danced in front of them would not be ordained because he had not reached a state of spiritual purity. The beautiful model danced before the first candidate, with no reaction. She proceeded down the line with the same response from all the priests until she got to the final priest. As she danced, his bell began to ring so loudly that it flew off and fell clattering to the ground. Embarrassed, he took a few steps forward and bent over to pick up the bell. And then, all the other bells started to ring!

2002-05-22T00:12:00.000-07:00

It's a sunny morning in the Big Forest, and the Bear family is justwaking up. Baby Bear goes downstairs and sits in his small chair at the table, he looks into his small bowl. It is empty.

"Who's been eating my porridge?!!" he squeaks.

Papa Bear arrives at the big table and sits in his big chair. He looks into his big bowl, and it is also empty.

"Who's been eating my Porridge?" he roars.

Momma Bear puts her head through the serving hatch from the kitchen and yells, "For God's sake, how many times do we have to go through this? It was me, Momma Bear, who got up first, it was Momma Bear who woke up everyone in the house, it was Momma Bear who made the Coffee, it was Momma Bear who unloaded the dishwasher from last night and put everything away, it was Momma Bear who went out in the cold early morning air to fetch the newspaper, it was Momma Bear who set the table, it was Momma Bear who put the cat out, cleaned the litter box, and filled the cat's water and food dish, and, now that you've decided to drag your sorry asses downstairs and grace Momma Bear's kitchen with your grumpy presence, listen good, cause I'm only going to say this one more time. I HAVEN'T MADE THE DAMN PORRIDGE YET!!"

2002-05-22T00:06:00.000-07:00

"Conservative proponents of heterosexuality often insist that human reproduction is the chief or only reason for heterosexuality. That is a preposterous argument. They are merely trying to make a virtue of a consequence. In truth, reproducing is seldom why heterosexuals engage in sex. To the contrary, almost all heterosexuals almost all the time do not want their activity to cause pregnancy: In fact, they try very hard to avoid it. They watch the calendar, take drugs, use barriers, have operations, engage in anal sex -- all to avoid pregnancy."

-- Syndicated gay-press columnist Paul Varnell, April 7.

2002-05-21T23:55:00.000-07:00

CALIFORNIA ASSEMBLY APPROVES INHERITANCE RIGHTS FOR DOMESTIC PARTNERS

CAPE-Sponsored Legislation Will Expand Domestic Partner Rights

SACRAMENTO (May 20, 2002) - The California Alliance for Pride and Equality (CAPE) today announced the California State Assemblyís passage of AB 2216. Authored by Assembly Speaker Pro Tem Fred Keeley and sponsored by CAPE, this bill would provide surviving registered domestic partners the right to inherit a specified share of a partnerís estate if a partner dies without a will. The Assembly voted 41-29 in support of AB 2216.

2002-05-21T11:32:00.000-07:00

19 THINGS THAT IT TOOK ME 50 YEARS TO LEARN
by Dave Barry

1. Never, under any circumstances, take a sleeping pill and a laxative on the same night.

2. If you had to identify, in one word, the reason why the human race has not achieved, and never will achieve its full potential, that word would be "meetings."

3. There is a very fine line between "hobby" and "mental illness."

4. People who want to share their religious views with you almost never want you to share yours with them.

5. And when God, who created the entire universe with all of its glories, decides to deliver a message to humanity, He WILL NOT use as His messenger a person on cable TV with a bad hairstyle.

6. You should not confuse your career with your life.

7. No matter what happens, somebody will find a way to take it too seriously.

8. When trouble arises and things look bad, there is always one individual who perceives a solution and is willing to take command. Very often, that individual is crazy. And, often, the solution is correct.

9. Nobody cares if you can't dance well. Just get up and dance.

10. Never lick a steak knife.

11. Take out the fortune before you eat the cookie.

12. The most powerful force in the universe is gossip.

13. You will never find anybody who can give you a clear and compelling reason why we observe daylight savings time.

14. You should never say anything to a woman that even remotely suggests that you think she's pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.

15. There comes a time when you should stop expecting other people to make a big deal about your birthday. That time is age eleven.

16. The one thing that unites all human beings, regardless of age, gender, religion, economic status or ethnic background, is that, deep down inside, we ALL believe that we are above average drivers.

17. The main accomplishment of almost all organized protests is to annoy people who are not in them.

18. A person who is nice to you, but rude to the waiter, is not a nice person. (This is very important. Pay attention. It never fails.)

19. Your friends love you anyway.

2002-05-14T11:11:00.000-07:00

A HISTORY OF SECRET HUMAN EXPERIMENTATION BY THE U.S.GOVERNMENT

from the Health News Network

1931 Dr. Cornelius Rhoads, under the auspices of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Investigations, infects human subjects with cancer cells. He later goes on to establish the U.S. Army Biological Warfare facilities in Maryland, Utah, and Panama, and is named to the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission. While there, he begins a series of radiation exposure experiments on American soldiers and civilian hospital patients.

1932 The Tuskegee Syphilis Study begins. 200 black men diagnosed with syphilis are never told of their illness, are denied treatment, and instead are used as human guinea pigs in order to follow the progression and symptoms of the disease. They all subsequently die from syphilis, their families never told that they could have been treated.

1935 The Pellagra Incident. After millions of individuals die from Pellagra over a span of two decades, the U.S. Public Health Service finally acts to stem the disease. The director of the agency admits it had known for at least 20 years that Pellagra is caused by a niacin deficiency but failed to act since most of the deaths occured within poverty-striken black populations.

1940 Four hundred prisoners in Chicago are infected with Malaria in order to study the effects of new and experimental drugs to combat the disease. Nazi doctors later on trial at Nuremberg cite this American study to defend their own actions during the Holocaust.

1942 Chemical Warfare Services begins mustard gas experiments on approximately 4,000 servicemen. The experiments continue until 1945 and made use of Seventh Day Adventists who chose to become human guinea pigs rather than serve on active duty.

1943 In response to Japan's full-scale germ warfare program, the U.S. begins research on biological weapons at Fort Detrick, MD.

1944 U.S. Navy uses human subjects to test gas masks and clothing. Individuals were locked in a gas chamber and exposed to mustard gas and lewisite.

1945 Project Paperclip is initiated. The U.S. State Department, Army intelligence, and the CIA recruit Nazi scientists and offer them immunity and secret identities in exchange for work on top secret government projects in the United States.

1945 "Program F" is implemented by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). This is the most extensive U.S. study of the health effects of fluoride, which was the key chemical component in atomic bomb production. One of the most toxic chemicals known to man, fluoride, it is found, causes marked adverse effects to the central nervous system but much of the information is squelched in the name of national security because of fear that lawsuits would undermine full-scale production of atomic bombs.

1946 Patients in VA hospitals are used as guinea pigs for medical experiments. In order to allay suspicions, the order is given to change the word "experiments" to "investigations" or "observations" whenever reporting a medical study performed in one of the nation's veteran's hospitals.

1947 Colonel E.E. Kirkpatrick of the U.S. Atomic Energy Comission issues a secret document (Document 07075001, January 8, 1947) stating that the agency will begin administering intravenous doses of radioactive substances to human subjects.

1947 The CIA begins its study of LSD as a potential weapon for use by American intelligence. Human subjects (both civilian and military) are used with and without their knowledge.

1950 Department of Defense begins plans to detonate nuclear weapons in desert areas and monitor downwind residents for medical problems and mortality rates.

1950 In an experiment to determine how susceptible an American city would be to biological attack, the U.S. Navy sprays a cloud of bacteria from ships over San Franciso. Monitoring devices are situated throughout the city in order to test the extent of infection. Many residents become ill with pneumonia-like symptoms.

1951 Department of Defense begins open air tests using disease-producing bacteria and viruses. Tests last through 1969 and there is concern that people in the surrounding areas have been exposed.

1953 U.S. military releases clouds of zinc cadmium sulfide gas over Winnipeg, St. Louis, Minneapolis, Fort Wayne, the Monocacy River Valley in Maryland, and Leesburg, Virginia. Their intent is to determine how efficiently they could disperse chemical agents.

1953 Joint Army-Navy-CIA experiments are conducted in which tens of thousands of people in New York and San Francisco are exposed to the airborne germs Serratia marcescens and Bacillus glogigii.

1953 CIA initiates Project MKULTRA. This is an eleven year research program designed to produce and test drugs and biological agents that would be used for mind control and behavior modification. Six of the subprojects involved testing the agents on unwitting human beings.

1955 The CIA, in an experiment to test its ability to infect human populations with biological agents, releases a bacteria withdrawn from the Army's biological warfare arsenal over Tampa Bay, Fl.

1955 Army Chemical Corps continues LSD research, studying its potential use as a chemical incapacitating agent. More than 1,000 Americans participate in the tests, which continue until 1958.

1956 U.S. military releases mosquitoes infected with Yellow Fever over Savannah, Ga and Avon Park, Fl. Following each test, Army agents posing as public health officials test victims for effects.

1958 LSD is tested on 95 volunteers at the Army's Chemical Warfare Laboratories for its effect on intelligence.

1960 The Army Assistant Chief-of-Staff for Intelligence (ACSI) authorizes field testing of LSD in Europe and the Far East. Testing of the european population is code named Project THIRD CHANCE; testing of the Asian population is code named Project DERBY HAT.

1965 Project CIA and Department of Defense begin Project MKSEARCH, a program to develop a capability to manipulate human behavior through the use of mind-altering drugs.

1965 Prisoners at the Holmesburg State Prison in Philadelphia are subjected to dioxin, the highly toxic chemical component of Agent Orange used in Viet Nam. The men are later studied for development of cancer, which indicates that Agent Orange had been a suspected carcinogen all along.

1966 CIA initiates Project MKOFTEN, a program to test the toxicological effects of certain drugs on humans and animals.

1966 U.S. Army dispenses Bacillus subtilis variant niger throughout the New York City subway system. More than a million civilians are exposed when army scientists drop lightbulbs filled with the bacteria onto ventilation grates.

1967 CIA and Department of Defense implement Project MKNAOMI, successor to MKULTRA and designed to maintain, stockpile and test biological and chemical weapons.

1968 CIA experiments with the possibility of poisoning drinking water by injecting chemicals into the water supply of the FDA in Washington, D.C.

1969 Dr. Robert MacMahan of the Department of Defense requests from congress $10 million to develop, within 5 to 10 years, a synthetic biological agent to which no natural immunity exists.

1970 Funding for the synthetic biological agent is obtained under H.R. 15090. The project, under the supervision of the CIA, is carried out by the Special Operations Division at Fort Detrick, the army's top secret biological weapons facility. Speculation is raised that molecular biology techniques are used to produce AIDS-like retroviruses.

1970 United States intensifies its development of "ethnic weapons" (Military Review, Nov., 1970), designed to selectively target and eliminate specific ethnic groups who are susceptible due to genetic differences and variations in DNA.

1975 The virus section of Fort Detrick's Center for Biological Warfare Research is renamed the Fredrick Cancer Research Facilities and placed under the supervision of the National Cancer Institute (NCI) . It is here that a special virus cancer program is initiated by the U.S. Navy, purportedly to develop cancer-causing viruses. It is also here that retrovirologists isolate a virus to which no immunity exists. It is later named HTLV (Human T-cell Leukemia Virus).

1977 Senate hearings on Health and Scientific Research confirm that 239 populated areas had been contaminated with biological agents between 1949 and 1969. Some of the areas included San Francisco, Washington, D.C., Key West, Panama City, Minneapolis, and St. Louis.

1978 Experimental Hepatitis B vaccine trials, conducted by the CDC, begin in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. Ads for research subjects specifically ask for promiscuous homosexual men.

1981 First cases of AIDS are confirmed in homosexual men in New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco, triggering speculation that AIDS may have been introduced via the Hepatitis B vaccine

1985 According to the journal Science (227:173-177), HTLV and VISNA, a fatal sheep virus, are very similar, indicating a close taxonomic and evolutionary relationship.

1986 According to the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (83:4007-4011), HIV and VISNA are highly similar and share all structural elements, except for a small segment which is nearly identical to HTLV. This leads to speculation that HTLV and VISNA may have been linked to produce a new retrovirus to which no natural immunity exists.

1986 A report to Congress reveals that the U.S. Government's current generation of biological agents includes: modified viruses, naturally occurring toxins, and agents that are altered through genetic engineering to change immunological character and prevent treatment by all existing vaccines.

1987 Department of Defense admits that, despite a treaty banning research and development of biological agents, it continues to operate research facilities at 127 facilities and universities around the nation.

1990 More than 1500 six-month old black and hispanic babies in Los Angeles are given an "experimental" measles vaccine that had never been licensed for use in the United States. CDC later admits that parents were never informed that the vaccine being injected to their children was experimental.

1994 With a technique called "gene tracking," Dr. Garth Nicolson at the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, TX discovers that many returning Desert Storm veterans are infected with an altered strain of Mycoplasma incognitus, a microbe commonly used in the production of biological weapons. Incorporated into its molecular structure is 40 percent of the HIV protein coat, indicating that it had been man-made.

1994 Senator John D. Rockefeller issues a report revealing that for at least 50 years the Department of Defense has used hundreds of thousands of military personnel in human experiments and for intentional exposure to dangerous substances. Materials included mustard and nerve gas, ionizing radiation, psychochemicals, hallucinogens, and drugs used during the Gulf War .

1995 U.S. Government admits that it had offered Japanese war criminals and scientists who had performed human medical experiments salaries and immunity from prosecution in exchange for data on biological warfare research.

1995 Dr. Garth Nicolson, uncovers evidence that the biological agents used during the Gulf War had been manufactured in Houston, TX and Boca Raton, Fl and tested on prisoners in the Texas Department of Corrections.

1996 Department of Defense admits that Desert Storm soldiers were exposed to chemical agents.

1997 Eighty-eight members of Congress sign a letter demanding an investigation into bioweapons use & Gulf War Syndrome.

2002-05-14T10:33:00.000-07:00

POSITION:   Mother

JOB DESCRIPTION: Long term team players needed for challenging permanent work in an often chaotic environment. Candidates must possess excellent communication and organizational skills and be willing to work variable hours, which will include evenings and weekends and frequent 24 hour shifts on call.   Some overnight travel required, including trips to primitive camping sites on rainy weekends and endless sports tournaments in faraway cities.   Travel expenses not reimbursed. Extensive courier duties also required.

RESPONSIBILITIES: For the rest of your life.   Must be willing to be hated at least temporarily, until someone needs $5. Must be willing to bite tongue repeatedly.   Also, must possess the physical stamina of a pack mule and be able to go from zero to 60 mph in three seconds flat in case, this time, the screams from the backyard are not someone just crying wolf. Must be willing to face stimulating technical challenges, such as small gadget repair, mysteriously sluggish toilets and stuck zippers.   Must screen phone calls, maintain calendars and coordinate production of multiple homework projects. Must have ability to plan and organize social gatherings for clients of all ages and mental outlooks.   Must be willing to be indispensable one minute, an embarrassment the next. Must handle assembly and product safety testing of a half million cheap, plastic toys and battery operated devices.   Must always hope for the best but be prepared for the worst. Must assume final, complete accountability for the quality of the end product.   Responsibilities also include floor maintenance and janitorial work throughout the facility.

POSSIBILITY FOR ADVANCEMENT AND PROMOTION: Virtually none. Your job is to remain in the same position for years, without complaining, constantly retraining and updating your skills, so that those in your charge can ultimately surpass you.

PREVIOUS EXPERIENCE: None required, unfortunately. On-the-job training offered on a continually exhausting basis.

WAGES AND COMPENSATION: You pay THEM, offering frequent raises and bonuses. A balloon payment is due when they turn 18 because of the assumption that college will help them become financially independent. When you die, you give them whatever is left.   The oddest thing about this reverse-salary scheme is that you actually enjoy it and wish you could only do more.

BENEFITS: While no health or dental insurance, pension, tuition reimbursement, paid holidays, job supplies or stock options are offered, there are limitless opportunities for personal growth and free hugs for life if you play your cards right. Retirement permits you to watch your own children handle this job on their own and permits you the luxury and opportunity to assist in chaos and confusion.

2002-05-14T10:30:00.000-07:00

Researchers have found folic acid (or "folate", one of the B vitamins) supplements could help keep the arteries healthy and protect against heart disease.

A lack of folic acid has previously been linked to raised levels of homocysteine, an amino acid associated with narrowing of the arteries.

In a new study, volunteers who took folic acid supplements for a year were found to have reduced homocysteine levels and healthier arteries.

Click here for the full story.

2002-05-14T10:20:00.000-07:00

DETROIT NEWS
May 13, 2002
Deb Price

GAYS SEE ADVANCES DURING PAST DECADE

Anniversaries offer a wonderful chance to look back and celebrate both progress and persistence.

And that's what I'm doing this month, as I joyously mark the 10th anniversary of my weekly column, the first nationally syndicated column about life from a gay perspective ever to run in mainstream newspapers.

So much has dramatically and wonderfully changed. On May 8, 1992, when The Detroit News launched my column, I was jittery about suddenly being so publicly out. Today, Joyce Murdoch, my partner of nearly 17 years, and I are nonchalantly out 24/7, slang that's younger than my column.

Ten years ago, neither of our employers offered benefits to partners of gay employees. That turned out to cost us, as a couple, about $16,000, because when Joyce left her newspaper job to write books we had to shoulder the entire expense of her meager but pricey health insurance. Today, Joyce is back in the paycheck world, and both our employers offer partner benefits. Given the same option as married couples, we decided to put me on Joyce's health plan, and my employer compensates me for that step.

Those are just two of the countless ways our lives have improved as the world has grown more comfortable with people like us. In 1992, jeans-maker Levi Strauss was the only Fortune 500 company offering partner benefits. That number has leaped to 163. Today, gay job seekers often have the once-unimaginable luxury of choosing a job depending on whether such benefits are offered because providing them says so much about a company's culture. These corporate trendsetters now include the Big Three automakers and the major airlines.

Progress in the business community spills over into the more conservative political world. In 1992, Congress had never voted on outlawing anti-gay job discrimination. But in 1996, the Senate fell just one vote short of passing such legislation. Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., promises another vote this year. As president, Bill Clinton protected federal civil servants from discrimination based on sexual orientation and was the first to appoint gay people to posts so high-ranking that they required Senate confirmation.

The pace of Republican progress has been perhaps even more remarkable. In 1992, Pat Buchanan unleashed an election-losing attack on gay Americans at the Republican National Convention. In 1995, GOP presidential candidate Robert Dole returned a check from the gay Log Cabin Republicans. Just five years later, front-runner George W. Bush sat down with gay Republicans eager to air their concerns. A few months ago, former Republican President Gerald Ford made history in my column by embracing full federal benefits for gay couples. Just last month, the Bush White House invited gay Republicans to a briefing - a first for a GOP administration.

Amazing legal landmarks have been achieved as well. Beginning in 1993, Hawaii unsuccessfully flirted with becoming the first place to legalize same-sex marriage. That honor went in 2001 to the Netherlands. Meanwhile, in 2000 Vermont created "civil unions" to extend all the state-level rights and responsibilities of marriage to gay couples.

And the U.S. Supreme Court in 1996 for the first time included gay Americans in the Constitution's promise of equality.

So much change happened because of how many gay people have come out to our families, at work and in places of worship. That's triggered a wonderful shift in public opinion.

In 1992, only 25 percent of Americans knew a friend was gay. That percentage has jumped to 41 percent. And, amazingly, one in five Americans now say they have a gay relative. And support for equal job rights for gay workers is sky-high - 85 percent.

Never in history have gay men and lesbians advanced so much in a single decade. Imagine where the next 10 years will take us.

2002-05-14T09:42:00.000-07:00

Private Christian schools in the UK must be allowed to beat pupils with parents' consent, the Court of Appeal has heard.

Forty schools, spearheaded by the Christian Fellowship School in Liverpool, want a change in the law to allow them to use corporal punishment.

Their attempt to challenge legislation banning physical punishment in schools by claiming it did not apply to independents was rejected by the High Court last year.

Read the full story here.

2002-05-12T02:35:00.000-07:00

One day a father of a very wealthy family took his son on a trip to the country with the firm purpose of showing his son how poor people can be.

They spent a couple of days and nights on the farm of what would be considered a very poor family. On their return from their trip, the father asked his son, "How was the trip?"

"It was great, Dad."

"Did you see how poor people can be?" the father asked.

"Oh Yeah" said the son.

"So what did you learn from the trip?" asked the father proudly.

The son answered:

"I saw that we have one dog and they had four.

We have a pool that reaches to the middle of our garden and they have a creek that has no end.

We have imported lanterns in our garden and they have the stars at night.

Our patio reaches to the front yard and they have the whole horizon.

We have a small piece of land to live on and they have fields that go beyond our sight.

We have servants who serve us, but they serve others.

We buy our food, but they grow theirs.

We have walls around our property to protect us, they have friends to protect them."

With this the boy's father was speechless.

Then his son added, "Thanks, Dad, for showing me how poor really we are."

Too many times we forget what we have and concentrate on what we don't have.

What is one's persons worthless object is another's prize possession.

It is all based on one's perspective.

Makes you wonder what would happen if we all gave thanks for all the bounty we have instead of worrying about wanting more.

Take joy in what you have and see the treasure in it.

2002-05-12T02:25:00.000-07:00

WHY IS AMERICA BEHAVING THIS WAY?: A LETTER TO EUROPEAN FRIENDS
By Bernard Weiner
t r u t h o u t | May 11, 2002

Dear Jacqueline and Wolfgang:

You say that as Europeans, you can't figure out why the U.S. is "rampaging around the globe, behaving like an arrogant bully." So, while we're waiting for the attack-on-Iraq shoe to drop, let me try to offer a few perspectives that put the current U.S. government's actions into an understandable context.

To begin to discern the global tides, one must first understand the domestic currents. The key event in America's recent history is the collapse of the Soviet Union and its empire. The U.S. no longer had a simple world to navigate: our enemy, the one who provided a balance-of-power container, wasn't there any more.

Internally, the American right wing, which had always organized itself around combatting communism, desperately needed a new enemy. The fast-changing world was frightening, scary. The new enemy became that very confusion itself. For the Right, the political symbol of that chaos and uncertainty -- and, most importantly, moral laxity -- was the liberal Democratic Party and its supporters. And thus began the move toward the current nasty Cultural Civil War in America.

As in other societies, in America the confusions of the modern world had led to the swift growth of fundamentalist religious organizations, which promise to explain away the terrors with simplistic enemies: the Devil, '60s ex-hippies, secular humanists, abortionists, homosexuals, atheists, non-believers among the faithful, you get the idea.

So there we were with no unifying Communist enemy, no clear-cut answers to life's confusing complexities, the social fabric already fraying because of the near-civil-war we experienced over Vietnam, no clear direction provided us in this new, open-ended world. Democrats began to resemble Republicans as everyone more or less hovered for psychological safety around the middle part of the spectrum, sometimes a little bit Right (Nixon, even Reagan), sometimes a little bit Left (Carter, Clinton), but mostly operating from the center out, while the country tried to figure out where to go.

The HardRight

But there was one group that quickly was getting its act together: the HardRight. Motivated by economic greed and a lust for power, they quickly saw the opportunity ahead for seizing total control. After all, in global terms, the U.S. was now the world's only superpower; who was there to stop America? In domestic terms, near-total control is a bit trickier to bring off, being a democracy and all, but remained the goal.

The HardRight -- a coalition of religious fundamentalists, corporate movers and shakers, and political extremists, many of them politicians -- grew out of the traditional Conservative movement, But these HardRight types thought, given that the liberal/centrist approach would take the country to ruin and continued moral decline, that the normal rules of civil political debate, and the checks-and-balances system, were too confining. It would take these zealots far too long to get anything done if they remained straight-jacketed by the usual rules of democracy and the politics of civility and compromise. (Of course, in Europe and elsewhere, similar movements began to develop, with not a little smell of neo-fascism in many of those parties and organizations.)

The HardRight leaders were desperate. Their chance to take over -- and thus move their greed-and-power agenda through quickly -- was in jeopardy, inevitably getting smothered in the give-and-take of traditional politics, one party in power and then the other, etc. Something had to give.

They were all poised for total control of the three branches of government: the Congress (led by the likes of such GOP HardRightists Gingrich and Armey and Delay and Lott), the Courts (more and more packed with HardRightists), the Executive (Democrat Clinton was looking more and more vulnerable and irrelevant). And then, surprise of surprises, Clinton got re-elected, and continued to exercise his veto over the HardRight's more outrageous proposals. Clinton was anything but a Leftwinger -- he operated mostly from the center -- but so strong was the HardRight's ability to set the agenda in the country that they had effectively moved the parameters of discussion, thus making the center "the left". Clinton was blocking the way and had to go.

Thus the HardRight's ferocious assault on Clinton, the aim being to wreck his presidency, one way or another. As in the HardRight's other fights, the only object is to win, to destroy the other side; doesn't matter if you lie, smear, make 180-degree turns in your own expressed principles. Only victory will suffice. Clinton, unable to control his own adolescent impulses, stepped into the trap; true, he wasn't removed from office, but the never-ceasing attacks and investigations -- which, of course, ultimately yielded no illegalities, only consensual sex (we'll ignore for a moment the adulterous hypocrisies in the GOP) -- basically destroyed his effectiveness as a Chief Executive, and gave the HardRight an organizing point in ratcheting up the Cultural Civil War.

(There have been earlier books by journalists and other uninvolved outsiders detailing the HardRight's campaign to seize power, and now, finally, there is a book by a very-much-involved insider, David Brock's "Blinded by the Right," which names names and dates and places where the HardRight conspiracy did its dirty work. Brock was the journalist who smeared Anita Hill in the Clarence Thomas episode, and who got the Paula Jones/Bill Clinton story started. In this book, he recants his sleazy HardRight role, and apologizes to those whose reputations he ruined.)

HardRight Agenda Gets Blocked

Just as the GOP did itself in by nominating the bland Bob Dole, because it was "his turn," the Democrats four years later nominated the bland (and, by association with Clinton, somewhat tainted) Gore. His campaign was a see-sawing disaster, but, even so, Gore managed to win the popular vote, by about a half-million ballots. The other side, which nominated a none-too-bright and inexperienced front man, George W. Bush, played political hardball all the way, and the traditional liberals and centrists surrounding Gore never knew what hit them. In the end, ideological HardRightists on the U.S. Supreme Court, totally reversing their principles on states' rights, simply pulled the plug on counting all the votes and installed Bush as President.

Now the HardRight could move quickly to establish total dominance over the three branches of government, and ram through their agenda: everything for the wealthy and big corporations, the moral/cultural issues for the fundamentalist base of the party, the dismantling of the New Deal/Great Society programs and policies, the destruction of environmental regulations, etc. etc.

All was looking good until Republican Senator Jeffords, out of principle, deserted the conservative party and chose to vote with the Democrats, thus taking control of the U.S. Senate away from the HardRight Republicans. This meant that the entire HardRight agenda was now in jeopardy, as the centrist Democrats could block any meaningful Bush&Co. legislation. Something had to be done.

The 9/11 Attacks

Now please don't get me wrong. I am NOT saying that the Bush Administration ordered or supported the September 11th attacks on the U.S.; there simply is no proof that they knew the targets and date of the attack, only that "something big" was coming. What I am saying is that those attacks were used mightily by Bush&Co. -- perhaps with plans drawn up earlier -- to accomplish what could not be accomplished by other means: the seizing of fuller power, the movement of America closer to a martial-law society, the evisceration of key civil liberties, the cowing of the Democratic opposition in the name of support-the-war "patriotism," the speedy passage of legislation designed to roll back the social programs of the past 40 years because money to pay for them was taken away (either locked up for a decade in huge tax cuts to the wealthiest Americans and corporations, or spent in war-related adventures), the weakening of oversight agencies that normally would be protecting consumers and the environment, etc. etc.

Again, don't misunderstand what I'm saying. Once the U.S. was attacked, it had to respond vigorously in defense, and even go on the offense in some way. These are vicious religious extremists, who must be stopped. The point I'm making here is that, right or wrong in methodology, the Bush Administration has been highly manipulative in using the 9/11 tragedy to its ideological advantage and to the advantage of its corporate sector, especially in the energy/oil arena. Those who disagree are treated as unpatriotic.

On the global front, the hawks in the Administration saw that, as the remaining superpower on the planet, they could do more or less what they wanted in military terms, setting up and supporting friendly regimes (Afghanistan, Israel, et al.) and engineering the demise of those deemed unfriendly (Iraq, Venezuela, et al.). In all cases, the grays of complexity were overlooked and simplistic black-and-white, you're-with-us-or-against-us diplomacy ruled the day.

Europe, the United Nations, global treaties -- nothing and nobody was permitted to stop the U.S. unilaterist approach to foreign relations. What the U.S. elephant wanted, the U.S. elephant moved to take or control, always for the benefit of its corporate-class sponsors. European and other complaints were heard and brushed aside as irrelevant to the task at hand: the establishment of a Pax Americana across the globe.

Hopeful Signs

Normally, the U.S. population and Congress would debate such sweeping moves toward the establishment of what amounts to an empire abroad. But Bush&Co. could breathe easy. Everything was couched in the name of "national security" and the "war on terrorism," so they didn't have to worry much about being questioned or attacked by the Democrats, or by the media (mostly owned by huge corporate conglomerates, in any case). Even now, as the U.S. prepares to invade Iraq, there has been no debate in Congress -- the branch of government under the Constitution given the sole power to declare war -- about the wisdom and consequences of such a military adventure.

Bush&Co. constantly heighten the fright level, and have told the citizenry to get used to a "permanent war." The public is beginning to lose its enchantment with Bush's policies, especially in the domestic area, but there still isn't a broad groundswell of opposition to his foreign policies, even when they aren't working or are thoroughly confused and inconsistent.

So you, and your other European friends, ask why America is behaving the way it is. Bush&Co are doing so because they can get away with it. They cleverly have folded their permanent "war on terrorism" into the HardRight agenda, and not enough citizens have noticed or cared.

On the other hand, arrogant bullies always go too far, and invariably get caught out and implode, often as a result of their overweening greed and power-seeking. The lurking Bush&Co. influence-peddling and other scandals, when allied with obvious foreign-policy and military mistakes, are starting to eat away at Bush's support. If the Democrats do well in the November elections, perhaps even inflicting an embarrassing defeat to the GOP in the Congress, the Bush house of cards will begin to wobble and may even collapse. More Congressional investigations will be launched. Resignation or impeachment is not outside the realm of possibility.

To aid in this process, not only does the liberal/progressive Left in America need to increase the pressure on Bush&Co. but our friends in Europe and elsewhere must maintain their questioning posture and pressure from the outside. A better day will come, the shadow forces will recede, we will move back to a saner, more centrist balance. Keep the faith, and keep on keepin' on.

Bernard Weiner, Ph.D., has taught American government and international relations at Western Washington University and San Diego State University; he was with the San Francisco Chronicle for nearly 20 years and has published in The Nation, Village Voice, The Progressive, and widely on the internet.

© : t r u t h o u t 2002

2002-05-11T08:27:00.000-07:00

Do you think we'll find out that there are Bipolar Dogs?

A Japanese firm has unveiled a gadget which converts dogs barks into human expressions of emotion.

Toy-maker Takara is marketing the Bowlingual device, which translates growls, barks and yelps into six human feelings.

The hand-held device works like other computerised voice-recognition devices for the human voice.

Click here for the full story.

2002-05-11T08:24:00.000-07:00

BOSTON GLOBE, May 11, 2002

'CELEBRATION' CONTINUES FOR WELLESLEY FILMMAKER

By Catherine Foster, Globe Staff

A 6-year-old boy, looking anxious, steps up to a microphone and looks out over a crowd of friends and relatives. He looks at his mother and then announces, ''I am a homosexual.''

It's his coming-out party, and people in the crowd erupt in cheers, shake his hand, or burst into tears. At the end, he looks a bit puzzled.

This unconventional 4 1/2-minute film, ''Celebration,'' has won its young filmmaker a number of worldwide film festival awards and is sending him to the Cannes Film Festival. Heady honors for someone who is only 23 - and who happens to be straight.

Daniel Stedman, who spoke by phone from his home in Wellesley while preparing to leave for France, says his first film is more about identity than sexuality. ''I think my film speaks to all audiences, because it's about the struggle to find your identity in a society that expects that you will put a label on your identity, and then they judge you critically for your decision.''

For a film that's been out only since August, ''Celebration'' has achieved fame quickly, winning the award for best American short film at the New York/Avignon Film Festival, the Teddy Award from the Berlin International Film Festival, and the Audience Award from the Turin International Gay and Lesbian Film Festival.

Shooting the film took only two days, but casting took two years. ''I started in the beginning of my junior year of college,'' Stedman says, ''but I could not find a family who would let their little boy play the part. I even paid a casting agent.''

The next year he held an audition in New York. "I rented a studio, put ads in Backstage and Variety, and held what I thought was my all-out audition,'' Stedman says. ''Two children showed up.''

Perhaps that's because the ads mentioned something about ''adult content.'' Still, the 7-year-old Alex H. Krinsky and his mother, Heidi, showed up. Both ''were incredible,'' Stedman says.

''He's really intelligent and sophisticated. Here's a story I tell whenever I'm asked to talk about the film: The morning before the shoot, Alex said, 'If it's hot out and I haven't taken a bath, I'm going to say I'm a hot, dirty homosexual.' This is straight out of the mouth of a 7-year-old! I couldn't believe it!''

Stedman filmed the $9,000 film over two days in late August on the chapel lawn at the Belmont Hill School, which he had attended. Stedman got extras for his crowd scene by walking the streets of Boston and handing out fliers. ''That was one of my greatest successes,'' he says. ''Seventy people arrived on a rainy day.''

They had been lured by the offer of lunch, film credit, and transportation. Did they know what they were cheering about? ''No,'' Stedman says. ''We shot the scene of Alex making his statement separately.''

Most of the reaction to Stedman's film has been positive, but there are dissenters. ''I've met people who were upset about it, who thought it was ridiculous, outrageous, who thought it didn't deserve to be made into a film,'' he says.

Stedman also says he doesn't know much about the psyche of 6-year-olds, or whether self-knowledge would be likely in one so young. ''I've spoken with psychologists, and they've said it's unlikely or rare. But there are definitely people out there who knew at an early age and who wished that they'd had a ceremony like this. And that is a great example of the ways my film has touched people.''

. Catherine Foster can be reached at foster@globe.com.

2002-05-11T08:13:00.000-07:00

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
-- Mark Twain

2002-05-10T23:44:00.000-07:00

FUNDAMENTALIST CHRISTIANS BOYCOTT "WILL & GRACE"

Not that this will surprise anyone, but militant fundamentalist activists are now demanding that American companies stop advertising on TV shows that have homosexuals in them. The latest victim: Ford Motor Company and NBC's hit show "Will & Grace."

I would say ignore these bozos, but they've have had some recent success getting advertisers to drop other TV shows. One of the ways they create their censorship success is by creating auto-email websites that allow Evangelical and Fundamentalist Christians to contact sponsors easily and directly.

Ford is the main sponsor of Will & Grace. It would be great if they could hear from you -- Americans who oppose bigotry and admire the company's stance in favor of equality and human rights for all Americans.

So I recommend you visit the fundies' site and take them up on their offer to help you contact Ford Motor Company and tell the company where you stand on this issue of American companies recognizing the civil and human rights of all Americans, and all their customers.

Click here to contact Ford Motor Company

2002-05-10T23:37:00.000-07:00

Take away love
And earth's a tomb

-- Robert Browning

2002-05-10T18:39:00.000-07:00

DALLAS BANS DISCRIMINATION!

Finally some good news. By a vote of 13-2, the Dallas City Council passed an ordinance this week that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation in employment, housing and public accommodations. Not surprisingly, gay groups were elated. "This vote sends a message of tolerance and fairness to the entire south because Dallas is recognized as regional leader," said Seth Kilbourn, HRC's National Field Director. "This ordinance is also good for business and that is why it received strong corporate support. We also want to thank the mayor for her outstanding leadership and efforts to end discrimination." According to HRC, an American Airlines exec even spoke out in favor of the ordinance. (Hear hear for American.) According to HRC's "WorkNet," a project that monitors gay issues in corporate America, there are 2,142 employers with non-discrimination policies that include sexual orientation, including 294 Fortune 500 companies.

Find out more about this story at HRC.org

2002-05-10T18:29:00.000-07:00

CANADIAN PRESS, May 10, 2002

GAY COUPLE CAN GO TO PROM, JUDGE RULES
RULING SENDS MESSAGE TO CATHOLIC SCHOOLS, MARC HALL'S LAWYER SAYS

By Amy Carmichael, Canadian Press

OSHAWA, Ont. (CP) - A gay Ontario teenager put on his white tuxedo and blue tie Friday and set off for his high school prom, hours after a judge ruled board officials could not stop him from attending with his boyfriend.

Superior Court Justice Robert MacKinnon granted 17-year-old Marc Hall an injunction Friday afternoon preventing the Durham Catholic School Board from refusing him entry to the end-of-school dance if he escorted his boyfriend of one year, Jean-Paul Dumond, 21.

In his ruling, MacKinnon wrote that "the idea of equality speaks to the conscience of all humanity, dignity and worth.

"Marc Hall is a Roman Catholic Canadian trying to be himself. He is gay. It's not an answer to Section 15 Charter rights on these facts to deny permission to attend a school function to celebrate the end of his high school career with his classmates."

Hall beamed broadly as he and his date set off for the dance Friday afternoon.

"I (took) it to trial in order to set a precedent so that nobody else will have to go through what I had to go through," he said.

"I feel at ease now, just knowing that we're getting free of discrimination."

Dumond, who works as a manager at Radio Shack, said he felt the ruling gave legitimacy to the couple's relationship.

"When all this started, it kind of felt like they were putting down our relationship and that we weren't worth anything to anyone. This just proves them wrong."

At the site of the prom later Friday, some students said they were unhappy with the court's decision.

"I think the ruling went a little too far," said Chantal Phillip. "As long as he doesn't bother me or make a scene about it, I guess it'll be OK. I hope he won't rub it in everyone's faces."

Others were cautiously supportive.

"Marc's a good friend of mine, so I'm glad he's able to go," said Jen Kreisn. "But a lot of people are upset about it. As long as he doesn't engage in any sexual practices with his boyfriend, I think it'll be fine."

The judge's ruling was also decried by right-wing group Canada Family Action Coalition, an Alberta-based organization devoted to traditional family values.

The group said in a statement it is "deeply disturbed by the subversion of justice and the violation of the Charter rights (of the school)."

Hall's lawyer David Corbett said the ruling tells Catholic schools "you can't discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation when you're dealing with young people. You shouldn't be able to do that with anybody, but especially not young people in their care."

Corbett noted that the judge's decision is only an interim ruling, but that the board has indicated it wants to argue its position in a trial. Corbett said Hall is prepared to do the same.

"We'll take it all the way to trial to get a clear precedent. We'll take it all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada if we have to."

Mary Ann Martin, chair of the school board, said the prom at Monsignor John Pereyma school may have been the most stressful in history.

"It would be an understatement to say this has been a very difficult time for everyone involved in this case," she said at a news conference held in front of a statue of Jesus and a picture of the Pope.

Martin said the Catholic school system in Ontario has a responsibility to teach Catholic values and that "homosexual romantic activity such as dating" goes against those values.

"In our value system we endeavour to treat all people with respect and dignity," she said. "Respect and dignity has been shown to Marc Hall."

Peter Lauwers, the lawyer for the school board, said he would be taking the case to trial.

"This decision is bad law," he said.

The school board had previously suggested gay students would not be allowed to dance together at the prom, but on Friday Martin said every student at the prom will be dancing.

Roger Hutchinson, a professor emeritus of theology at the University of Toronto, said he didn't think the decision would "open the floodgates" and make way for concrete change. But he said it would send a strong message that gay people have basic human rights that must be protected by public institutions.

"It will make all Catholic schools think twice before they make anti-gay decisions."

Hutchinson said that since the 1960s the church has been faced with the question of whether homosexuals deserve the full rights afforded to people of different races and genders.

"The church wouldn't dream of banning a Jewish date from the prom, and the public outcry would likely be greater if they did," Hutchinson said.

Earlier this week, Lauwers told court the school board has the right under the Constitution to run its schools in accordance with Catholic teachings and if Hall doesn't like it he can go to a public school.

Lauwers called Hall a bad example, and said while the school board accepts gay people, they can't condone or allow homosexual behaviour at a school function.

Corbett argued the board violated the Ontario Human Rights Code, the Education Act and the provincial Code of Conduct, which all bar discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation.

Corbett argued the church's right to consider religious values when regulating students' conduct doesn't trump Hall's human rights.

The boy's fight has drawn high-profile support from politicians, TV stars and union bosses.

Industry Minister Allan Rock wrote an open letter to the school board asking trustees to reverse the ban.

"I encourage you to set an example, for all Canadians, of social justice in action by not discriminating against a student based on sexual orientation," Rock wrote.

Hall was feted at a gay rights group gala on Parliament Hill last month.

Guy Gagnier, host of PrideVision TV's current affairs show Shout!, and actors Jack Wetherall and Sherry Miller from the popular television series Queer as Folk were there to offer support.

The cause has even vaulted Hall onto the small screen, with appearances on the reality show The Lofters and an upcoming episode of Queer as Folk.

2002-05-10T09:15:00.000-07:00

"Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet deprecate agitation, are men who want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the roar of its many waters." - Frederick Douglass

"No loss of flood and lightning, no destruction of cities and temples by hostile forces of nature, has deprived man of so many noble lives and impulses as those which his intolerance has destroyed." - Helen Keller, 1880 - 1968

2002-05-09T23:18:00.000-07:00

sfgate.com (San Francisco Chronicle site) has a very brief (less than 30 seconds) video animation about gay priests. See it here.

2002-05-09T23:14:00.000-07:00

SYDNEY MORNING HERALD
May 9, 2002

"DOC HOLLYWOOD'S CHURCH SEPARATES QUEER FROM FEAR"

It's one of the fastest-growing Christian denominations in North Amerca: half of its leaders are women and a policy of zero tolerance towards sexual misconduct from its clergy has been in place for years.

An idealistic vision of the church of the future? Perhaps.

But Rev. Elder Dr. Troy Perry, from West Hollywood, believes mainstream Christianity could learn from his fledgling Metropolitan Community Churches network.

"Zero tolerance of pedophiles is crucial in our church," says the MCC founder and moderator, "because I've been accused of pedophilia all my life." The accusations have come consistently and exclusively from Fundamentalist Christians in the United States.

Dr. Perry, who was licensed to preach in the Church of God by the time he was 15, outed himself as a homosexual in 1963. The 23-year-old pastor, who was married with two children, was promptly excommunicated from the Pentecostal Church.

Convinced that God had not created homosexuals "so he could sit around and have someone to hate," Dr. Perry founded MCC five years later. The movement has since grown into the largest international Christian denomination with a specific outreach to homosexuals, bisexuals and the transgendered.

MCC's code of zero tolerance, police checks on its clergy and mandatory police reporting is applied across all 325 parishes spanning 19 different countries, including five in Australia.

Here to participate in MCC Australia's 2002 Queer Sexual Ethics conferences, Dr. Perry admits he has had an affection for this country ever since his first visit in 1975, when the gay rights group, CAMP, cancelled sponsorship of his tour on the grounds he was "too religious."

Stranded with his US colleagues in Joh Bjelke-Petersen's Queensland, the group resolved to handle their own publicity handing out leaflets in what appeared to be Brisbane's extraordinary number of gay bars. "We knew nothing of this country's mateship culture, of pubs where women didn't drink," he roars. "Here was this place down under with what we thought already had a thriving gay culture!"

On that trip Dr. Perry debated on ABC television an idealistic young man with political aspirations - the Rev. Fred Nile. The two locked horns again in 1997 when Dr. Perry returned to Australia with 1200 MCC delegates.

Rev. Nile said he would be happy to debate Dr. Perry again, provided it was conducted in a respectable fashion. But MCC's growth, he added, was worrying.

"Jesus said 'I forgive - go and sin no more', not 'I forgive - now go and sin some more'," he said.

"These people are now recruiting among the young ... their message can be attractive to those who are vulnerable and confused. It's dangerous and misleading."

2002-05-09T23:10:00.000-07:00

THE SCOTSMAN
9 May 2002

SCOTLAND TO APPROVE SAME-SEX WEDDINGS

James Doherty

Gay marriages could soon be sanctioned by registrars in larger cities, allowing the public registration of same-sex relationships, The Scotsman has learned.

Civil partnership and commitment registers have already been introduced in London, Manchester and Liverpool.

Although symbolic, the ceremonies do not have the same basis and rights in law as traditional marriages.

Any proposals to approve the partnership ceremonies were yesterday criticised by the Catholic Church in Scotland as potentially "damaging" to the institution of marriage.

However, councillor Archie Graham, Glasgow City Council's equality spokesman, said: "We tend to look sympathetically on any requests made by the gay community on the grounds that they are a group which is discriminated against.

"Therefore, we would be likely to look at least at the possibility of meeting their needs now that the issue is coming to the fore in England." Robin Harper, the Green MSP, has won the backing of almost 20 MSPs in calling for the Scottish Executive to set up a national register of civic partnership which will allow gays, lesbians and unmarried couples protection under the law.

He said: "There are many thousands of people who live in mutually dependent relationships, who are unable to pass on things such as pension, property and inheritance rights."

2002-05-09T23:07:00.000-07:00

SAN FRANCISCO CHORNICLE
May 9, 2002
Sylvia Rubin, Chronicle Fashion Editor

KEVYN AUCOIN - MAKEUP ARTIST TO THE BRIGHTEST STARS

Master makeup artist Kevyn Aucoin, who enhanced the already beautiful features of some of Hollywood's A-list celebrities, died Tuesday in New York from complications relating to a pituitary brain tumor. He was 40.

Tormented by schoolmates for being gay, Mr. Aucoin fled to New York at age 20 from Lafayette, La. As a boy, he found solace in fashion magazines, studying the makeup and practicing his budding skills on his sister Carla. After enduring cruel taunts - and worse indignities when two high school classmates tried to run him over with a car - Mr. Aucoin dropped out of school at 15 and moved five years later to New York, where he quickly made a name for himself.

He did his first Vogue cover in 1986, working with Richard Avedon. At his death, Mr. Aucoin was commanding as much as $6,000 a day to expertly blend eye shadows and blush for the rich and beautiful. His client list included Naomi Campbell, Gwyneth Paltrow, Julia Roberts, Sharon Stone and Barbra Streisand, among others.

Makeup artist Konstanze Zeller from the Workgroup agency in San Francisco saw Mr. Aucoin a few weeks ago at a Vogue magazine shoot, where, she said, he was upbeat and optimistic about his illness.

"Kevyn was one of the friendliest and most generous people you ever want to meet," she said. "From the driver to the doorman, he walks up, introduces himself, talks to everybody. He was always telling stories, always in a good mood. He always made everybody laugh."

As a makeup artist, Mr. Aucoin was an innovator, said John Lucca, owner of Artist Untied, a makeup artist booking agency in San Francisco. "He opened doors and blazed new trails. He was unafraid to be himself in ways that lots of makeup artists try to be but can't really pull off."

Mr. Aucoin shared his makeup secrets with the public via appearances on talk shows, a monthly column in Allure magazine, and several best-selling beauty books, including "The Art of Makeup" and "Face Forward."

He had been scheduled to start a new book and recently started his own product line. He was also an outspoken gay rights activist.

"I've known him for as long as I can remember, and we've been friends all of that time," Stone said in a prepared statement. Stone is the wife of Chronicle Executive Editor Phil Bronstein. "We never went for a walk or spent time together that somehow a good deed wasn't done. He was just that kind of person. Losing him is like losing a piece of nature - it's hard to breathe without him here."

2002-05-09T15:42:00.000-07:00

An American study suggests office computers can harbour many more germs than staff loos.

The University of Arizona survey found some contained 400 times more bacteria than the average toilet.

Author microbiologist Charles Gerba says many offices workstations go months without a clean.

Click here for the full story!

2002-05-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

The Lambda Literary Foundation gave its 14th annual Lammy Awards recognizing excellence in lesbian/gay/bisexual and transgender (LGBT) literature. The following is a list of the 24 awards presented Thursday, May 2, in New York City:

Gay Men's Fiction: The Practical Heart by Allan Gurganus (Knopf)

Lesbian Fiction: Days of Awe by Achy Obejas (Ballantine)

Lesbian Mystery: Merchant of Venus by Ellen Hart (St. Martin's)

Gay Men's Mystery: Rag and Bone by Michael Nava (Putnam)

LGBT Biography: The Scarlet Professor by Barry Werth (Doubleday)

Memoir / Autobiography: Noonday Demon by Andrew Solomon (Scribner)

Anthologies (Fiction): Diva Book of Short Stories edited by Helen Sandler (Millivres Books)

Anthologies (Non-Fiction): The Greatest Taboo edited by Delroy Constantine-Simms (Alyson Books)

Humor: Fraud by David Rakoff (Doubleday)

Science Fiction / Fantasy: Point of Dreams by Lisa A. Barnett and Melissa Scott (Tor)

Lesbian Poetry: Fox by Adrienne Rich (Norton)

Gay Men's Poetry: The Source by Mark Doty (HarperCollins)

Religion/Spirituality: (a tie) Queer Commentary and the Hebrew Bible edited by Ken Stone (Pilgrim Press) and Escaping God's Closet by Bernard Duncan Mayes (University Press of Virginia)

Photography/Visual Arts: Dear Friends by David Deitcher (Harry N. Abrams)

Children/Young Adult: Finding H.F. by Julia Watts (Alyson Books)

LGBT Small Press: Conversaciones by Mariana Romo-Carmona (Cleis Press)

Erotica: See Dick Deconstruct by Ian Philips (AttaGirl Press)

Bisexuality/Transgender: Omnigender by Virginia Ramey Mollenkott (Pilgrim Press)

Romance: Pages for You by Sylvia Brownrigg (FSG)

LGBT Studies: Courting Justice: Gay Men and Lesbians v. the Supreme Court by Joyce Murdoch and Deb Price (Basic Books)

Publisher Service Award: University of Wisconsin Press's "Living Out" Series

Lambda Literary Foundation Pioneer Award: The Astraea Lesbian Action Foundation

Editors' Choice Award: Edinburgh by Alexander Chee (Welcome Rain)

Lambda Literary Foundation Bridge Builders Award: I'm the One That I Want by Margaret Cho (Ballantine)

2002-05-08T01:29:00.000-07:00

"God has no religion" (Mahatma Gandhi)

2002-05-05T04:46:00.000-07:00

The only normal people are the ones you don't know very well.
-- Joe Ancis

In all matters of opinion, our adversaries are insane.
-- Oscar Wilde

2002-05-05T04:37:00.000-07:00

As reported by ANANOVA

PROZAC PLACEBOS 'DO TRICK FOR DEPRESSED PATIENTS'

Depressed patients tricked into thinking they are being treated undergo healing brain changes similar to those produced by Prozac, scientists have found.

The discovery is conclusive proof of the power of the "placebo effect" - the mind-over-body influence of believing that a drug will work.

Patients given a dummy pill containing no active ingredients experienced brain changes remarkably like those induced by Prozac, the world's most popular antidepressant.

In the first study of its kind, scientists at the University of Texas, San Antonio, US compared brain scans of depressed patients either given Prozac or a placebo pill.

Seventeen depressed, hospitalised men took part in the study. Neither the patients nor the researchers knew who received the placebo until after the experiment.

The positron emission tomography (PET) scans tracked a radioactive form of the body fuel glucose to pinpoint which areas of the brain were most or least metabolically active.

Both groups of patients shared a pattern of increased activity in the cortex - the "thinking" part of the brain - and decreased activity in the limbic regions which govern emotion.

The researchers pointed out that such a response was necessary for a therapeutic benefit.

Of the 15 patients who completed the six-week study, eight showed improvement in their symptoms, half of whom had received the placebo.

Chief investigator Dr Helen Mayberg, from the Baycrest Center for Geriatric Care in Ontario and the University of Toronto, Canada, said: "Our findings are consistent with the well-recognised placebo phenomena that 'expectation' that a treatment will be helpful is a critical part of the therapeutic relationship between a patient and their doctor."

However, there were important differences between the way the two sets of patients responded.

Those who took Prozac experienced additional changes in lower areas of the brain - the brainstem and hippocampus - not seen in the placebo group.

The researchers, who reported their findings in the American Journal of Psychiatry, said the increased activity in these regions probably helped to sustain the cortical and limbic changes.

"It could be that these additional changes facilitated by the active drug are necessary to stay well over the long term," said Dr Mayberg. "In other words, the drug is a placebo-plus. If you respond to a placebo, this may mean that your brain has an inherent capacity to heal itself - but it is likely to be a short-term effect."

Previous studies had shown that patients who have responded to placebos tend to relapse sooner than those given active drugs.

2002-05-04T17:49:00.000-07:00

BRITAIN ALERTS DOCTORS OVER SCHIZOPHRENIA DRUG
Fri May 3, 5:35 PM ET
By Richard Woodman

LONDON (Reuters Health) - Britain's Medicines Control Agency said on Friday several patients had developed diabetes-related complications after taking Eli Lilly's schizophrenia drug Zyprexa (olanzapine).

In its Current Problems newsletter, the regulatory body said that the antipsychotic drug "can adversely affect blood glucose."

Forty reports "of hyperglycaemia (elevated blood sugar), diabetes mellitus, or exacerbation of diabetes have been received in the UK. Four were associated with ketoacidosis and/or coma including one with a fatal outcome," according to the newsletter. "The precise mechanism of this suspected adverse drug reaction has not yet been elucidated and is currently being investigated further.

"An increase in body weight, which may be marked or rapid in onset, may follow initiation of olanzapine and this may precede the development of hyperglycaemia or exacerbation of pre-existing diabetes."

The agency said that the drug label had been changed in the light of the reports of diabetes and ketoacidosis, a life-threatening condition that develops because of excessive breakdown of fats. Closer monitoring is now recommended in diabetics (news - web sites) and in patients at risk of diabetes taking Zyprexa, according to the regulatory agency.

Some of the symptoms of ketoacidosis are nausea, vomiting and dehydration. Most cases of ketoacidosis occur in people who have insulin-dependent diabetes, either because they have not been receiving insulin therapy regularly or because they develop an illness that predisposes them to extensive breakdown of fats.

Last month, the Japanese Health and Welfare Ministry issued an emergency safety report to Eli Lilly Japan KK concerning side effects of Zyprexa after the deaths of two diabetic users of the drug.

It said seven other patients had lost consciousness or become comatose after taking the drugs in the last 10 months.

The Japanese Ministry said no new diabetes patients should be treated with the drug and ordered Eli Lilly to warn doctors to closely monitor diabetics already on the medication.

A company spokesman in Britain was not available for immediate comment.

2002-05-03T12:37:00.000-07:00

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing happened." -- Winston Chuchill

2002-05-03T07:54:00.000-07:00

"Patriotism is the willingness to kill and be killed for trivial reasons." -- Bertrand Russell

"If you believe the doctors, nothing is wholesome; if you believe the theologians, nothing is innocent; if you believe the military, nothing is safe." -- Lord Salisbury

2002-05-03T07:46:00.000-07:00

***********************************

McMAN'S DEPRESSION AND BIPOLAR WEEKLY
(May 1, 2002 Vol 4 No 16)

***********************************

ROLLING OUT THAT ALGORITHM

Newsletter 3#48 reported on algorithms, which essentially seek to answer "What next?" when initial treatment fails. Algorithms represent an attempt to replace shoot-from-the-hip psychiatry with step-by-step guidelines representing expert consensus, though they are not meant to replace empirical clinical judgment.

Algorithms were pioneered by the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), which issued its first guidelines for bipolar in 1998, with a revision in June 1999. In Oct 2001, TMAP came out with the "roll out phase" of its bipolar algorithm,TEXAS IMPLEMENTATION OF MEDICAL ALGORITHMS (TIMA), involving the wide-scale training of clinicians for use in the public sector.

As an illustration of what a difference two years make, 1999's algorithm listed a choice of Depakote or lithium for patients presenting with mania or hypomania, and Tegretol or Depakote for mixed episodes or cycling. It was a full five stages down, at desperation level, just before ECT was considered as an option, that an atypical antipsychotic such as Zyprexa was first mentioned, and only as an add-on. By contrast, TIMA has Zyprexa right at the top, as a first choice stand-alone treatment for either euphoric mania/hypomania, mixed or dysphoric mania/hypomania, or psychotic mania.

The new guidelines (TIMA) also give first-time recognition to Lamictal, for treating bipolar depression, and to Trileptal, similar chemically to Tegretol but with fewer side effects. Significantly, TIMA lists its goals as "symptomatic remission, full return of psychosocial functioning; and prevention of relapses and recurrences," all which imply there are smarter ways to use the medications available to us.

The TIMA project is headed up by Trisha Suppes MD, PhD and Ellen Dennehy PhD, both of whom were lead authors in the earlier TMAP algorithm. In addition, a report on TIMA in April's Journal of Clinical Psychiatry lists an all-star roster of authors including Alan Swann, Charles Bowden, Joseph Calabrese, Robert Hirschfeld, Paul Keck Jr, Gary Sachs, M Lynn Crismon, Marcia Toprac, and Steven Shon. Owing to this, and to the fact that a bipolar algorithm is about to be applied on a significant scale for the first time, this Newsletter will take an extended look at the new TIMA guidelines, bearing in mind the recommendations are no substitute for what you and your psychiatrist may decide:

MANIA/HYPOMANIA

TIMA stresses the primacy of the mania/hypomania algorithm, even when bipolar depression is involved. For patients presenting with euphoric mania/hypomania or psychotic mania, the choice is between lithium, Depakote, or Zyprexa. For mixed or dysphoric mania, Depakote or Zyprexa are the two options. TIMA distinguishes between divalproex and valproic acid, recommending the former due to "significantly better tolerability." (Abbott Labororiesí Depakote is divalproex sodium.)

For a partial response with good tolerance, the recommendation is to move to combination therapy with two of the following: lithium, Depakote, or Trileptal, or one of the same three mood stabilizers plus either Zyprexa or Risperdal. For stage three, the physician is asked to keep one agent from the previous combination and change to a different drug out of the same group. In stage four, Seroquel and Geodon are added as options (as part of a two-med cocktail), and in stage five we graduate to a three-med combination, with lithium plus one of the anticonvulsant mood stabilizers plus one of the atypical antipsychotics. At stage six, the option is ECT or adding Clozaril. At stage seven, the algorithm begins to lose clarity with "other" options as add-ons, including Lamictal, Topamax, and conventional antipsychotics. Lamictal has its function on the depression side of the equation, but why Topamax is relegated to the bottom is not discussed.

BIPOLAR DEPRESSION

TIMAís emphasis is on treating the patient for hypomania and mania, using its depression algorithm as a concomitant treatment strategy. Accordingly, stage one for both the mania/hypomania and depression algorithms are the same, using a mood stabilizer or Zyprexa. Stage two adds an SSRI, Wellbutrin, or Lamictal to the existing medications. TIMA implicitly concedes it is stepping out on a limb for its stage one and stage two recommendations by acknowledging that stage three "begins to rely more heavily on clinical consensus and expert opinion." Even so, "there is only limited data on treatment of bipolar depression following failure in stage two." Stage three offers the choice of adding lithium or switching to an alternate antidepressant including Effexor or Serzone or adding an antidepressant (for a double combination). The double combination extends into stage four, with Lamictal considered an antidepressant for TIMAís purposes. In using a combination, TIMA suggests antidepressants from different classes (eg an SSRI plus Wellbutrin). Stage five involves switching to an MAOI or adding an atypical antipsychotic. Stage six represents the kitchen sink, from ECT to tricyclics to omega 3 to acupuncture to hormones. Why tricyclics should be brought in at this late stage (and after MAOIs are tried) is not explained.

DECISION POINTS

Week two into treatment involves the first critical decision point for physician (and presumably the patient), building up to weeks six and eight, where moving to the next phase of treatment needs to be considered should symptoms persist. TIMA recommends that if a medication is to be discontinued, the new medication should be started and brought to a therapeutic level, then the medication to be discontinued should be gradually tapered over a period of at least one month (unless the side effects from the first drug increases, in which case, according to TIMA, the taper should begin earlier).

SIDE EFFECT MANAGEMENT

GI upset: Take medication with food and large amounts of liquid; consider lowering the dose; use sustained release preparations when available; use histamine blockers such as Tagamet and Zantac.

Mild tremor: Decrease dose; add 20-30 mg propranolol (a beta-blocker).

Parkinsonian tremor: Decrease dose, divide dosing; add one to two mg benztropine, 100 mg amantadine (both anti-Parkinsonís), or 25-50 mg Benadryl.

Sedation: Change dosing schedule

Extrapyramidal (tics, tremors, etc): Reduce dose; 20-30 mg benztropine, amantadine, or Benadryl for akathisia, or clonidine (an anti-hypertensive) or lorazepam; one mg benztropine for preventing or managing dystonia or one mg lorazepam for managing dystonia.

Tardive dyskinesia: Lower dose; vitamin E in high doses (1,000 units/day) may help.

Insomnia: Change dosing schedule; add 5-10 mg Ambien, 10 mg Sonata, or benzodiazepine.

Sexual dysfunction: Use 4-7.5 mg yohimbine three times a day, 4-8 mg cyproheptadine (a hay fever drug) shortly before sexual intercourse, or 75-300 mg/day Wellbutrin.

THE CONTINUATION PHASE

Mania/Hypomania: TIMA recommends simplifying the medication regimen, with gradual tapering, though it notes "little is scientifically known about the relative need for combined mood stabilizers long term." Continuation with mood stabilizers is recommended for those who underwent ECT in the initial phase of treatment. TIMA recommends a lifetime regimen of mood stabilizers for those who have had two manic episodes, or one severe episode with a family history of bipolar or major depression. For a patient with one episode and no family history, medication and tapering may be considered six months into remission (allowing for individual circumstances).

Bipolar depression: Here TIMA enters into potential controversy by recommending tapering and discontinuing antidepressants one to three months after full remission for first-time depression patients. The recommendation squares with The Expert Consensus Guidelines for the Treatment of Bipolar Disorder published in 2000 (Gary Sachs MD of Harvard lead author), but goes against the grain of research conducted by Michael Thase MD of the University of Pittsburgh showing that discontinuation of an antidepressant leads to high relapse rates. Moreover, there is increasing recognition by bipolar experts of the depressive side of the illness. As Ross Baldessarini MD of Harvard put it at last weekís DRADA conference in Baltimore, bipolar depression "has been raised on my list to public enemy number one." TIMA concedes it may be on shaky ground by acknowledging that "guidelines are limited due to few scientific studies on the long-term management of antidepressants in bipolar patients."

DRUG INTERACTIONS

TIMA goes into considerable detail, noting that caffeine is one of the drugs that may lower lithium levels. This report will restrict itself to the depression and bipolar drugs that may interact with each other, including:

* Depakote: Increases Lamictal levels, may increase tricyclic levels and possibly SSRIs. May be decreased by Tegretol. May be increased by SSRIs.

* Tegretol: Can induce the metabolism of Lamictal, Depakote, benaodiazepines, and tricyclics. Trycyclics may decrease Tegretol levels. Using Tegretol with Clozaril is not recommended.

* Zyprexa: Elevated levels when used with Luvox. Fifty percent increase in clearance from the system when used with Tegretol.

* Clozaril: Luvox and Serzone may raise levels and inhibit its metabolism.

* Seroquel: Luvox and Serzone may increase blood levels. Tegretol may decrease blood levels.

* Geodon: Tegretol will decrease levels.

* Topamax: Can potentially decrease Depakote levels. Depakote and Tegretol appear to decrease Topamax levels.

* Lamictal: Depakote inhibits its metabolism; therefore Lamictal should be increased slowly when these medications are combined. Tegretol induces the metabolism of Lamictal; therefore higher doses of Lamictal are required when used with Tegretol.

* Prozac: Results in increased concentrations of tricyclics, antipsychotics, and Tegretol. Should not be taken with MAOIs or in a patient who has recently discontinued an MAOI.

* Paxil: Causes increased tricyclic levels.

* Zoloft: Causes increased tricyclic levels.

* Wellbutrin: Should not be given with MAOIs.

* Serzone: Can increase plasma concentrations of MAOIs, Haldol, and benzodiapines.

FURTHER READING

You can check out the complete TIMA bipolar algorithm at:

http://www.mhmr.state.tx.us/CentralOffice/MedicalDirector/TIMABDman.pdf

click here

LIGHT THERAPY

A Yale University study of 16 pregnant women with depression has found three weeks of light box therapy improved depression symptoms by 49 percent. Those who continued the treatment for five weeks experienced a 59 percent improvement.

http://my.webmd.com/content/article/1663.52988

click here

***

Check out more than 190 articles on all aspects of depression and bipolar, plus a bookstore, readers' forum, message boards, and other features at:

http://www.mcmanweb.com

SUBSCRIBE

If someone has passed this on to you:

You are invited to subscribe for US $29 a year for 48 issues. You can pay by credit card online at: http://mcmanweb.com/newsletter1.htm

For three free sample issues, email jmcmanamy@snet.net and put "Sample" in the heading and your email address in the body.

John McManamy

"Knowledge is necessity."

Copyright © 1994-2002 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

2002-04-26T10:30:00.000-07:00

PBS AMERICAN EXPERIENCE: A BRILLANT MADNESS

From the PBS series program, American Experience: "A Brilliant Madness: The story of Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash." Mr. Nash is the scientist whose story was used to make the recently released film, A BEAUTIFUL MIND.

The PBS documentary will be broadcast on Sunday, April 28, 2002 at 9:00pm EST.