Politics, Religion, Sex and Health (PORSH)

We are in the middle of another Palestinian/Arab attack on Israel. There has been a quietly accepted level of civilian death and violence on both sides since 1948 that has coalesced into larger conflicts in 1948, 1956, 1973, 1982, and 1987. Yesterday, Netanyahu declared war, a word avoided with great care since 1973. The pattern of the violence since that time has been Arab provocation and instigation, followed by a measured Israeli response bounded by international outcry and the Geneva laws. The current violence, however, is much more intense. From 2000-2010, 741 Israeli civilians were killed, 74 per year. So far more there are about 3000 civilian casualties in a single day, with between 2000 and 5000 rockets launched from the Gaza Strip or by Palestinian fighters in Israel.  Whatever Israel does, her response will occur in a milieu defined by Western meddling and International law.  Modern Western interference in the Middle East began with the Versailles Treaty. Despite bot...

 I broke a tooth today. I've done that before; I inherited my mother's horrible teeth, and if not for crowns I would have the smile of any drug-addicted homeless man in the street. But the tooth broke, rather than the crown coming off. I've had that happen a couple of times, and it's nothing. After all, the tooth is just fake, held on by cements similar to the ones I use for my models. This time, however, I have to have the root extracted so I can get the modern version of a bridge. And this new dental experience has reduced to me to jelly, this not helped by the condescending, sexist comments of the dental assistant. I have a long, longe memory, my first recollections coming from age 2. I have well-developed, detailed memories from age 3 onward. I vividly recall being at the dentiswt as a child, when it was fashionable to fill baby teeth. I can recall being left there by my mother as a 14 year old, on the day I was paid for working as 'the 5th ace' at Camp Maga...

 In doing years of medical teaching, I have told students that teaching and learning are not directly related. I can teach and teach, but you may never learn. Conversely, you may learn continuously without me teaching you a thing. 'I teach' and 'you learn' are two separate, active processes that may overlap or coincide. The same is true of forgiveness. I am an unforgiving man. I am the very opposite of God, who is slow to anger and of great kindness. I am quick to anger and very slow to forgive. I'm kind and insightful with people generally, but when mistreated or insulted I am not kind at all, nor do I forget, or forgive.  The Bible tells us to do something else. We are told to forgive. In Matthew 18:21, Peter asks Jesus how often he should forgive his brother's sin. The Jewish standard was three times. Like the young man in the story of the Samaritan, who asks who his brother is in order to know to whom he should be loving, Peter appears to be asking for guida...

We've been watching Outlander. For those who haven't already watched or heard, the books and show are based around a time-traveling nurse, Claire, whose 'real life' is in 1947. She travels back through some magical stones to 1743, in the Scottish Highlands arond Inverness. Here she has a relationship with James Alexander Malcolm MacKenzie Fraser. Its development, and the characters surrounding it, made for an engaging and believable first season.  Then came the rest.  And then came today. The first season is built around several very interesting and believable elements. One is Claire's anachromistic problems- getting used to a very different role for women, different clothing, and the lack of medical care. She quite reasonably acquires a reputation as a healer, and the ailments of the 18th century are well represented. Naturally she and Jamie end up married, through a complex plot machination, and she discovers the joys of her primitive husband, and the differences ...

 We just returned from a 9 day Alaska cruise. I had a bad experience on my last crusie, 15 years ago, and I haven't wanted to go again. My wife, however, wanted to see Alaska, and a cruise is the way to do it, short of a seaplane taking you to the interior to hunt and fish. I had a good time, and saw things I never imagined seeing, which I will talk about in a separate blog. This evening I want to talk about elements of the cruise experience. It was truly a modern All-American experience, and each element I saw reminded me of America. Modern cruise ships are enormous. Ours was 20 years old, and yet carried 2000 passengers. It has a gross tonnage of 78,000. This is a non-linear measurement of interior space, and has nothing to do with displacement. Deadweight tons is a measure of carrying capacity, the weight of all cargo, fuel oil, etc on the ship. Our ship had a deadweight tonnage of only 7100 tons, a measure of how inefficient, from a cargo perspective, a crusie ship is. People w...

 I gothate mail for the first time on this blog. Anyone who reads it knows I don't publish profanity or ad hominem attacks, and I've heretofore never gotten either, even when I've angered readers with my views. This time was different. The commenter called me a bigoted white male, and then made specific references to my family. This means they know me, or a member of my family, and know us well enough to make specific relational references. Of course, they commented anonymously, as all angry cowards do. As one of my friends says, a comment is worth the signature on it. But despite its anonymity and pathetic nature, it tells me something about the writer. They are liberal, and from the phraseology, likely young. Few people my age refer to bigoted white males. It also tells me they see the world in racial and sexual terms, and are therefore likely deeply entrenched in the values of sexual, racial, and disability oppression politics. It tells me they are so invested in this po...