From the Conspiracy Department: "Well, it's their fault for bringing kids into a battle."

I'm sure everyone has an opinion regarding those people who leak government secrets.  Edward Snowden, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are the latest. We held Manning for three years without charge while he was kept in a small cell, most of the time he was naked, the lights were on 24/7 and he was provided no blankets.  This "torture" was for his own safety. 

Manning leaked a video to Assange who then posted it on Wikileaks.  The government said that the video put American lives at risk.  I provided a link to the video so you may see our national security being compromised.  The two murdered men which the video highlights are Reuters News Services photographers each carrying cameras.  After the massacre, a van pulls up to help the wounded.  In the van was a father who was bringing his two children to school or to visit a relative.  While driving by, he saw one of the wounded men and stopped to help him.  No good deed goes unpunished.  The video is located here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yw442y2fTeU

You can read about the video here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007_Baghdad_airstrike

Manning is just now, three years later, being formally charged for treason because he leaked that video.  There are legal avenues to blow the whistle on the government but, there is no way the government would release this video on its own merit had Manning even pursued those avenues. 

The soldiers' demeanor in the video raises other issues.  There are many people who harshly judged them although no charges or punishment was lodged against them.  I admit I wouldn't want any of them as neighbors but this sort of activity and behavior is what they are trained to do.  They are trained, rewarded and some would even go so far as to say "brainwashed," into taking joy in what they do:  Killing.  The alternative is PTSD or not being able to do their job when it most counts.  They are like police dogs who are trained to attack.  Police dogs are not being vicious, they are having fun when they attack, it is mostly play for them.  That's how they are trained.  That is why they are effective at fighting crime.  If a dog didn't like what he was doing, he probably wouldn't do it, at least not effectively. 

Military training is one reason why there are so many unemployed veterans.  Employers know the type of training military soldiers go through and don't want to take a chance on one of them going "postal."  An interesting movie on the topic is "Jack Reacher."  It is about a military homicide investigator who digs deeper into a case involving a trained military sniper who shot five random victims because he was trained to kill and was never afforded the opportunity to do it.

The other bane veterans have lurking in their corner is that many of them entered the military fresh out of high school and despite having some of the best training in the world, they don't have college degrees.  So a nurse, trained in battlefield triage, who has amputated limbs, stitched gaping wounds, stabilized traumatized bodies, set broken bones and even performed her job while under enemy fire, is not qualified to take your child's temperature in your local school.  Given the rise in school shooting incidents, I think I'd rather have her at my school than someone with text book training in boo-boo management. 

So, Manning, Assange, Snowden - are they patriots like so many of our national heroes who came before them by doing much the same and made this country what it is today or are they enemies of the state?   Sure, Snowden just informed every terrorist in the world that we are reading their emails and listening in on their phone calls (like we didn't know this ten years ago when Bush signed the Patriot Act) but don't you think that that too is a deterrent?  How many armchair terrorists have second thoughts because they now realize that trying to pull something off is too risky or difficult with the government listening in on their calls? 

We were warned after the Tsarnaev brothers pulled off the Boston bombings that there would be copycat bombings.  Well, after learning that there is a camera on every corner, in many cars, in every shirt pocket, in most stores, how many would-be-bombers decided not to do anything because they now know they can't pull it off?  I don't think Snowden put as many American lives at risk as we think.  He may have actually saved some. 

Isn't that the reason our country criminalizes honesty?  If someone admits to completing a crime we send them to prison.  Not because they are necessarily a threat to society, but the punishment is designed to serve as a warning to others not to commit the same crime.  In reality, if someone has designs to commit a crime, they're going to do it anyway because they are not thinking of the consequences, they are thinking about the immediate payoff.  They all think they can get away with it, that's why they do it and that is why deterrence sentencing doesn't work. 

Reading peoples' emails, Facebook accounts and cell phone records is a good way to stop crime as it is happening.  Knowing that the government is reading emails, Facebook accounts and cell phone records can also deter crime so it doesn't happen.  Knowing there are cameras in stores prevents shoplifting although, everyone knows that most store theft occurs by the employees in the back rooms.  You know - the people who passed the background and drug checks. 

I'm not sure how I feel about entrapment.  Should we turn the lights out and leave our doors unlocked so we can entrap criminals and burglars or should we warn them that there is a pit bull inside and and out of fear, they don't do the crime in the first place?  Currently the government is the biggest distributor of child pornography.  They distribute it so they can catch people downloading it.  If the government didn't distribute it, would the criminals exist?  Is it a wise investment to spend $30,000 per year to incarcerate someone who would otherwise be a taxpayer had we not entrapped him?  We then put them on the sex offender registry where they will be unemployable and a drain on the largess of the social service department.  Although, the new Farm Bill denies people convicted of violent crimes, such as downloading child pornography, of food stamps and other benefits afforded to people who can't find jobs or housing.

Contrary to what everyone opines, Manning, Assange and Snowden were not thinking about an immediate payoff, fame or fortune, they were thinking about the consequences and the actions by our government.  They knew they were sacrificing everything for what they thought to be the greater good:  Knowledge and transparency.

One thing these patriots/whistleblowers/traitors/snitches do reveal to us is why so many other countries in the world view America as the terrorists. 

Criminalizing Shopping

Councilwoman Margaret Chin is in charge of the Chinatown district, and she's hoping to pass a law that would prohibit the buying of counterfeit goods with the threat of a $1,000 fine and a year in jail.   She said that "More needs to be done to crack down on counterfeits, which cost the city $1 billion in annual tax revenue."

It costs the city nothing for, if I didn't buy my $20 fake Rolex watch, I certainly wouldn't buy the $34,000 authentic Rolex watch.  The state lost nothing and at least my $20 supported some person who probably couldn't find a job otherwise. 

Bargain hunters from around the world flock to Manhattan’s Chinatown for bags, jewelry, perfume, electronics and other accessories bursting onto sidewalks from storefronts along Canal Street.  While tourists are there, they are spending money on other products, food, transportation, hotels and entertainment.  Margaret Chin is criminalizing shopping and does not take into account the innocent bargain hunter who doesn't know they are buying a fake and simply thinks they are getting a great price on an item.  Buyer beware.

Margaret Chin's legislation will only hurt the city, hurt Chinatown and fill their already overcrowded jails with grandmothers, unaware shoppers and poor people.  I would imagine that the police have bigger fish to catch than naive little old ladies or people who can't afford to buy the overpriced real item and is willing to settle for a fake at a fraction of the cost.  At least the fakes are not made by underpaid third world child labor. 

I know a priest who purchases a fake Rolex and cologne each year.  He knows he is getting what he pays for and doesn't mind.  He also can't afford the real thing.  Nobody is losing anything by his purchase but his trip to the city does provide other forms of revenue. 

Of course we want to protect the innocent person who thinks they are buying the real thing at a too-good-to-be-true price but, carnival games, casinos, lotteries and horse races are designed to take your money, too.  Nobody seems to mind if those people are ripped off and taken advantage of by impossible odds.

When is Margaret Chin up for reelection?  Chinatown should make a statement.  Maybe instead of spending money on the undercover cops it will take to scare off and entrap unwitting shoppers, she should put up an information kiosk educating people on the difference between fakes and the real thing. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HonBu7yUrts

Why Some Dogs Pee and Poop in the House

When I was about 13 years old, I had a significant growth spurt.  All of a sudden my bones grew faster than the rest of my body.  My muscles and tendons couldn't keep up with my bones and as a result I had minor growing pains.  Another area my body had difficulty compensating with was in muscle memory.  I was always tripping over nothing, falling up the stairs and misjudging leaps.  I had suddenly, and for no apparent reason, become rather clumsy.  I was embarrassed around friends, provided great amusement to my parents and convinced myself that I had some disease which would propel me into the pantheon of Jerry's Kids.

Muscle Memory.  Just as your foot knows exactly where the brake pedal is in your car, or you hand knows where the snooze button is on your alarm clock, if you were to suddenly grow three inches, your body would have have difficulty finding these items, you would need to re-learn the distances but it would only take a brief period of time.  Since our bones, muscles, ligaments and organs don't grow at the same rate, our brain is constantly compensating for these evolving differences and sometimes it takes time for instinct to find its way.  I grew out of my temporary clumsy stage only for the unfortunate malady of another growth spurt to reassert itself several months later.  D'oh!

A friend of mine had an eight year old son who stood at five foot ten.  He was extremely tall for his age.  This eight year old boy had a bed wetting problem and his parents punished and humiliated him severely for it.  His problem (besides bad parents) was that he had an adult body with an eight year old child's kidneys.  His bones and muscles grew fast but his kidneys and other organs hadn't caught up yet.  He was constantly hungry and had a voracious appetite.  His body was processing adult portions of food but his kidneys couldn't keep up.  He couldn't make it through the night without the need to void three or four times.  This unfortunate and uncontrollable process often happened while he was asleep. 

My German Shepherd dog could be left locked up in the house all day and if I had to be away, she was able to "hold it" until I got home late in the evening.  For many dogs, their mutual body and organs were designed for their size.  That is the way God/Nature/Time had designed them through the process of natural selection. 

Enter man who then begins to mess around with canine breeding and DNA.  We're not as proficient at evolution as God/Nature/Time and have bred animals who no longer have sympathetic body parts designed for their breed, size, metabolism and body. 

Sure, you can figure out a way to take the tires off of a Hummer and put them on a KIA but it will look really stupid and not be very functional.  Likewise, you can probably figure out a way to take the KIA tires and put them on your Hummer.  Again, it will look really stupid and will definitely not be very functional.  Why do we do this to dogs?

So the next time you leave your dogs locked up for ten hours and you come home to find that they messed in the house, don't blame them.  Blame your breeder.  And the next time you come home after having left your dogs locked up for ten hours and there is no mess, praise both your dog and God/Nature/Time for their time tested and perfect creation. 

There is one other thing; Why are you leaving your dog locked up for ten hours?  What's wrong with you?  At the very least, hire a dog walking service to come over and let them out one or two times each day. 

Post tornado double rainbow in Rotterdam, NY.  05/29/13

Which way is this train moving?

Why The Month You Were Born In Can Make All The Difference In Your Life

Have you ever noticed that some people excel at sports with great aplomb and confidence while others may lack confidence or are always second rate players?  I bet if you were to make a graph of the most successful football, basketball or hockey athletes, you will find that most of them have something in common: The months they were born. 

Let's say that you want to enroll your child into a little league team.  The rules may be that your child has to be ten years old to join the team and the enrollment date is June first.  Little Johnny turns ten on June first so he has no problem signing up for the team.  Billy turns ten on June second so, he has to wait another whole year before he is eligible to sign up. 

That means, next year, when he is finally old enough to join, he is ten years old just like everyone else who is signing up but, in reality, the next day, he will be one year older than most of the other kids.  He will also be one year larger, stronger, smarter and wiser.  He has a distinct time advantage of one year over his "peers" who are seemingly the same age.

Most likely he will be better than his peers in every aspect of the game and his coaches will quickly recognize his superiority and use him more.  This will further his self confidence as praise engenders confidence while reducing the confidence of the "younger" players who may receive less attention, less favor and be used less often on the field or court.   This innocent practice  of segregating athletes by a date patently delineates and expands the gulf in the skill level between the two "equals." 

I was a January baby.  My parents had the choice of allowing me to start kindergarten at the age of four and turning five halfway through the school year or waiting a year so that I would start school at the age of five but turning six halfway through.  They opted for the first and as a result, I was always a little bit larger, faster and stronger than my peers. In the ninth grade I was on the track team with the eleventh and twelfth grade kids because I was faster than the kids in the ninth and tenth grade track teams.  My skills were further augmented by the coach giving me passes out of study hall and on occasion some of my classes so that I could get additional workout time with the team.  This was great for my self esteem since I was the best in my field among my class.  It was also bad for my self esteem because the coach made me the worse on the field as I competed against the older kids.  Because of my slight age advantage, I was also the first to get my license, the first to get a car and the first to drink as 18 was the legal age back then.  Although, all my friends were drinking long before that.  It also didn't hurt that my dad would take me out driving when I was only fourteen. 

So, if you want your child to be the best athlete in their/your chosen sport, either make note of what months the best athletes in that sport have been born in, or find out when sign ups are for that sport. Then all you have to do is add one month, subtract nine, and pursue your procreation activities accordingly [Insert wink, wink here].  It also won't hurt to give them Feldenkrais lessons so they have ergonomic prowess over their peers and will stand less of a chance at developing ligament and cartilage damage at a young age. 

How To Turn Your Head

A few decades ago the American Health Association published a report proclaiming that there was a drastic increase in neck injuries and whiplash.  I was a passenger in a car and the driver turned his head to the left to look for oncoming traffic.  Somehow he hurt his neck.  He pulled over and I drove him to the hospital where the doctor told him that he had whiplash.  So what is the cause for all these new neck injuries?  I blame the legislature.  To understand the answer, we should first consider the elephant.

My mother grew up in a traveling circus and she told me how they would tie a rope around the leg of an elephant and then tie the other end off onto anything.  A fence, a pole, a traffic cone, a bike, a bale of hay or a simple post in the ground.  The elephant would think that he was tied up so he would not attempt to go anywhere.  The horses were the same.  Just drape their reins over a fence and that is where they would remain because in their minds, they were tied up.   Despite the fact that the elephant could probably drag a Hummer behind him, he didn't try to go anywhere because in his mind he knew he couldn't. 

When New York State passed a seat belt law, the same psychological effect which tethered the elephant in its place also affected people in the same sort of way.  People began to move incorrectly or, failed to move correctly.  The seat belt wasn't hampering ergonomic movement but psychologically, it was hampering ergonomic movement.  So how are we supposed to turn our heads even with an innocuous seat belt on? 

The body is designed to work most efficiently in its mid range of motion.  Just because you can move a certain way, doesn't mean you should.  At least not repetitively and not to the extreme.  Since every part of the body is connected to every other part of the body (The knee bone's connected to the - hip bone.  The hip bone's connected to the . . .), our body parts are designed to work sympathetically. 

Don't do this, but from a sitting position, turn your head as far back as you can.   Make note of how far you can actually go. You can mark your spot by picking an object to look at.  You probably only turned your head approximately 90 degrees.  If you moved to your extreme range of motion, you probably felt discomfort, pain or gave yourself whiplash. 

Now, working with your shoulders, stomach muscles and hips; turn from your hips, then add the shoulders, then the neck and you should be able to see about 180 degrees or, almost directly behind you.  Keep in mind that every motion has an equal and opposite motion.  While turning, if you were turning to your left, as your right shoulder moves forward, your left shoulder must also pivot backward.  Don't anchor it. That sympathetic movement should be natural for most people but it isn't.  Whenever you isolate any part of the body, you run the risk of injuring a sympathetic part.  If your right and left shoulders don't work together in the turn, you will not be able to turn as far, or, you run the risk of straining something.

Now, stand up and add the knees and ankles to that mix.  If you were looking to the left, keep your left foot anchored flat to the floor and pivot on your right toe.  You can probably see at a 270 degree angle by turning and using all your body parts (of course, you could just turn your head to the right).

All those movements as I dictated probably have you moving at your extreme ranges of motion.  You should only turn you neck about 40 degrees, then your hips aiding you to about 90, then your shoulders about 130, and your ankles and knees to about 170.  Your eyes can do the rest. 

Because we are all forced to wear a seat belt, some of us let our brains trick us into thinking we can't move so we only look with our necks when in reality, while sitting in a car, we can still pivot with our hips and shoulders while driving.  I have also noticed that because of this seat belt phenomenon, many drivers are not turning to look but relying solely on their mirrors for looking behind them.  In many instances, this is less safe than actually turning our heads and looking.  Even our laws and legislation can have equal and opposite reactions.  Seat belts may save lives, but by stifling good driving habits, they could take lives, also.

By working on full body motion, one can mitigate or palliate the pain and lack of motion due to arthritis, stiffness or tendonitis.  In a few days I will talk about preventing and curing median nerve entrapment (carpal tunnel syndrome) and tendonitis by teaching you how to ring a doorbell.  Most of us do that incorrectly, too. 

-Malcolm Kogut.