Good ol American Values

Though it is my home, I am admittedly not a big cheerleader for the United States and its politics. However, I am a huge history aficionado. As an American, I learned little about history besides anything that directly related to my American experience. This is regrettable because I feel the history of other parts off the world is much more exciting and intriguing. Nevertheless, I always like to learn the little known facts and the things that were left out or forgotten from my childhood history lessons.

The History Channel is home to a new series called "America: The Story of Us". The first episode was 2 hours long and covered the period from Jamestown until the Revolutionary War. I learned many facts by watching this, which was the goal. More profound to me was the realization that we are not what we claim to be anymore. We have truly lost the American spirit that we preach around the world.

Cooperation and Respect
The residents of Jamestown made a treacherous journey in 1610 across the ocean that lasted several months to use their entrepreneurial spirit to find gold and a route to the orient. Being ill prepared for hard labor and with virtually no survival skills, things were so hard that one man in Jamestown killed his pregnant wife with the intent of eating her. Nevertheless, they persevered.

John Rolf arrived with a few tobacco seeds stolen from the Spanish controlled colonies. He made alliances with the local Native Americans, which led to his marriage to Pocahontas. Within 2 years of his arrival, tobacco was growing in every garden, eventually making Jamestown the first American Boomtown.

Compare this to how we overcome lands today. Iraq is a perfect example. Our government is not honest about why we are really being sent there. We kill and torture the inhabitants (children and puppies included) and destroy the landscape. We force our ways upon them. There is no friend making here; citizens are fleeing Iraq by the thousands every year. A great number of them are refugees in America, where we enforce a policy of bigotry and hate against them.

Religious Tolerance
Ten years after Rolf, a group of religious nonconformists made a similar journey to escape religious oppression. Nineteen families, goats, chickens, pigs, and dogs arrived on the Mayflower with all of the supplies and gumption needed to make new lives for themselves. In the first 3 months, half of them died. They also made alliances with the natives leaving them with the know how to farm the sandy ground. This allowed them to thrive and prosper. The average Puritan was 2 inches taller, averaged 8 children per family, and were 20% richer than their counterparts in England.

America, a land founded partially on the foundation of religious tolerance, now breeds some of the most bigoted and narrow minded people in the world. I feel that as long as you are Christian, you can have all of the religious freedom that you need here, no matter if you play with snakes are have a church practically made of neon created only to make you rich. If not, you can risk everything from simple ridicule to having your place of worship burned to the ground.

Muslims have been in our country since before Columbus with no conflict. Now we allow our media to demonize each one, making each American Muslim part of the 2% worldwide that are extremists. Are we reminded that we aided Saddam Hussein in his failed war against Iran in the 80's? Let's not mention the fact that we trained the most feared of them all, Osama!

Sure, our government gives all religions most of the same legal rights to be a part of our fabric. In Italy, a religion cannot legally exist without a contract with the federal government. Another example is Greece, which barely admits that their "Muslim minority" even exists. Muslims make up approximately 30% of the citizenry of Greek Thrace (who are treated much as legal Mexicans are here in the US) and Muslim refugees from the Middle East are pouring by the thousands into Athens.

These countries were not born of a desire for freedom from religious persecution. They have no moral or constitutional duty to provide it like the United States does. We should look to India, a true faith melting pot, for inspiration. It is the birthplace of four of the world's religions and has true tolerance in both law and culture. This is not to say there is not religious violence in India. However, outsiders and not the citizenry of the subcontinent usually cause the violence. Jains, Hindus, Muslims, and Christians all live together in one village with respect for one another and are entwined in each other's lives. People are not tagged with a label, they are just a neighbor.

Something to Believe In
As the colonies grew, they became ever more important to England. Forty percent of all British exports reached the colonies and the tobacco plantations were making Britain rich. There were huge taxes on all imports and exports. More important was that with their King so far away, Americans had their own way of life. The British were unnecessarily oppressive and gave the colonists no legal representation.

As we all know, the colonists made revolution against the best army in the world, with little chance of succeeding. This revolution is the epitome of courageousness, innovativeness, cooperation, and standing for what you believe in. We won the revolution because we waged war differently, created new and better weapons, and inoculated our troops from disease, a technique taken from slaves.

On recent trips to Valley Forge and the Princeton battleground, I heard about Baron Von Steuben, a gay Prussian military leader that trained Washington's troops in the winter of 1778. He noted that you could simply tell other armies what to do and they did it with no questions or hesitation. The colonial troops would not do anything unless the reason was explicitly stated and they agreed with it. What happened to that?

America has become a capitalist society that is full of people that expect. We expect wealth, material things, and feel self entitled. We believe we are the best, but no longer have to work for it. We have become lazy and sloppy. This loss of drive and pride and confidence in the status quo has cost hundreds of thousands of American jobs and has made our educational system subpar. Americans complain that immigrants are stealing their jobs. If we were willing to work half as hard as they are, we would be guaranteed a job. We also would not be one of the most overweight nations!

Many Americans now are part of a flock of sheep, guided by the staff of radical Christian leaders to hate, maim, and scream for war against people that just want to live their lives in peace. We do what we are told in response to psychopolitical babble that is veiled in secrecy. Though we know the government and their media whores are misrepresenting and lying, we brand those who are brave enough to try to find the truth as crazy. From the outside we must look like zombies wired to Fox News, only making robotic actions based on the subliminal messages we receive throughout the day.

If America and its government held the ideals that created it in their hearts, this would truly be the greatest place on earth to live. But sadly, though we preach these things, they are not regularly put into practice by average citizens or their leaders. We are holding desperately onto the knots in the rope, being dragged through a cave blind and dumb.

The Origins of Jungle Music

You know that a documentary series has to be cool if Reckoner by Radiohead is its theme song. I checked out Vanguard on Current TV and was impressed. These 30-minute episodes about global issues pack in a lot of information. I watched the episode Forest of Ecstasy, which was about the harvesting of a chemical used to make ecstasy in the Cambodian rainforest.

Drug users are typically not in the habit of, nor do they care where their drugs come from. A good many environmentally conscious casual drug users could benefit from doing a tad bit of research. They would be appalled and may even be able to curb a certain degree of use among the people they know. This is especially the case with ecstasy.

The largest intact rainforest in Southeast Asia supports 12 endangered animals and the Mreah Prew Phnom tree, itself rare. In the Cardamom Mountains, within the pristine beauty of the forest, there are clearings where deforestation has occurred and makeshift factories are found. At ground level, you can smell smoke from constantly burning fires. In many areas, no animal sounds are heard due to excessive poaching and a poisoned water supply.

This is a relatively new phenomenon for the Cardamoms. In the 1970's the Khmer Rouge ruled the area and swept the area with genocide and famine. When they were driven out, land mines were left behind in the forest, effectively keeping people away. The Cardamoms and the Mreah Prew were slowly rediscovered. Deforestation, poaching, and environmental destruction increase each year.

What is so special about this endangered tree? The strong smelling tree is the holder of a very valuable treasure; safrole or sassafras oil. This golden oil has traditionally been used for perfumes, cosmetics, and traditional medicine. However, it also has a similar chemical composition to MDMA (ecstasy) and is a key ingredient in its manufacture.

The tree is cut up and the wood chips are distilled over constantly burning fires for 5 days before the oil is extracted. A large amount of firewood is needed to keep the kettles going, causing deforestation. It is estimated that one ton of trees is felled per day. The oil and the byproducts of its extraction are carcinogenic. It is fabulous to know that everything goes right into the water supply. Even more exasperating is that most of these trees are found in a wildlife sanctuary.

The oil brings in big bucks, but most of the harvesters and the rangers that search for manufacturers do not even know what it's used for. Sold for up to $30/liter and smuggled into Vietnam and China, the oil eventually reaches drug producers in Europe, America, and Australia. Approximately 7,000 pills can be manufactured from one liter with a street value of approximately $200,000.

Besides the 'evils' of drug use, the environmental consequences are huge. Roads and trails are built through the forest as well as clearings for the factories. Deforestation and the resulting erosion is clearly an issue. The byproducts are carcinogenic to the indigent workers and animals in the forest. But, it also allows poachers an easy route through the forest. Some areas have 'Empty Forest Syndrome', where almost no evidence of animal life is found. Please take note that this is happening in a wildlife refuge!!!

Fighting this is difficult because it can take days to hike out to possible coordinates of sites previously gathered by helicopter. By the time the rangers get to a site that may have been active, it is deserted. When a live camp is found, it is easy for the harvesters to scatter into the dense forest around them. They are also heavily armed.

The Australian government has been trying to help. They assisted in burning several tons of the oil in 2008, releasing chemicals into the air. What a good plan! This is an issue that I would not mind one bit if the US government would stick its dirty little nose in. Oh wait, it would hurt China if we did that. God forbid we do anything to hurt China's economy!

But You Don't HAVE to Look Like a Tree

I discovered a new series in the Science channel a few weeks ago called Humanology.   The episode called "Tree Man: A Search for the Cure" caught my attention.  I settled onto the upstairs futon with my kitty to watch the story of Dede Banatang from Indonesia.  He developed growths that looked like tree branches on his hands and feet after a cut on his leg healed at age 21.  He had no use of his hands and could not care for his children or work because of his condition.

Dede wanted to work, get married, and care for his children properly.  He and all of the people interviewed stated that God willing, a cure would come.  In order to find a cure, you need to know what you are trying to cure.  Doctors in Indonesia never attempted to find out what was causing these huge growths.  Their treatment plan was to cut back the growths periodically.  But, they would start growing back before they could all be cut.

His story caught the attention of Dr. Gaspari from the University of Maryland, who went to Indonesia to meet with Dede.  He took samples and found that this was just a Human Papiloma virus gone wild. Common warts!  He also had untreated Hepatitis B and tuberculosis.  Since he had a low white blood cell count and he had multiple infections in his body, his skin was not shedding normally and the warts were growing to a very large size. 

The documentary focused on the struggle between this American doctor that wanted to cure him, and the Indonesian doctors that just wanted to remove the growths and graft new skin.  Though Gaspari stressed that the warts would even appear on grafted skin, the surgeries remained on the schedule.  The quick fix was on the Indonesian agenda, even if it meant more suffering in the end for the patient.

It has taken me a while to sit down and actually write about the show that I watched nearly a month ago.  I was simply appalled at how this man was treated.  I have not found a way to address it; but the DVR is filling up again and the husband is annoyed.  Before I start, I apologize in advance to my Muslim friends out there for anything that may seem insensitive to you.  

To me, there is an intrinsic link between culture, religion, and psychology.  I find that many people don't concern themselves with what religion someone is when thinking about how they act or do things.  This goes for whole societies also.  Most people do not know a thing about other religions besides what the press feeds them or what they may have learned in that token world religions class.  But, even if someone is not religious, the predominant religion in their culture and family has a strong impact on their morals, behavior, and their thoughts.

Though religion was mentioned in literally one sentence of this whole show, I feel it is the root of why poor Dede went through as much suffering as he did.  Though I am far from ignorant about Islam, I do not think like a Muslim nor can I wrap my head around many of the beliefs or thought processes of a Muslim.  I would love to understand more about the mindset of Islamic Medicine after watching this.  I am well aware that my anger about this show comes from my ignorance on the topic.

From what I know, there are varying degrees of concern with Islamic Law among Muslim doctors.  Some are completely western in their style and methodology while others strictly adhere to law and rely on herbal medicine more than modern treatments.  I wonder on which side of this scale the Indonesian doctors in this film are.

Of more concern to me is the Muslim mindset about illness.  How I have come to understand it, everything that happens to a person, good or bad, is a way to experience God, illness included.  I can grasp this.  I have a hard time dealing with the thought that removing disease is removing ones experience with God.  If the disease is an experience with God, isn't the treatment and cure?

Without Islam, the western world as we know it would not even exist.  Europeans would not have known many of the scientific bases if Muslims had not introduced them.  In my opinion, Islam is the most scientific of all of the major world religions.  What other holy text besides the Qu'ran mentions the "Big Bang" , paths of interstellar objects, sperm creating life, and genes?

It seems to me like there is a disconnect here that can be potentially fatal.  Medical practitioners belonging to the most scientific faith treating diseases for which they have not attempted to name.  If Islam was at the forefront of ancient medicine, why is it running backward now?

Mommy, I'm Not Eating That!!!!

I wasn’t sure about the Amazing Eccentrics series on Current TV.  But with the hard drive wiped on the DVR, beggars cant be choosers.  So, tonight I watched the episode about food delicacies from around the world.  I was expecting disturbing.  Some of it exceeded my expectations. 

The first clip was about a restaurant in China that only served animal penis.  Apparently eating the penis of another animal improves virility.  I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to be with a guy that eats dead cooked penis. The penises mentioned in the clip were goat, horse, yak, ox, donkey, and deer.  The correspondent went on to describe the texture and taste of each. I’ll spare you the gory details.

Next, Las 7 Regiones de Oaxaca Restaurant in Los Angeles was profiled. Here, they serve chapulinas. Do you really want to ask what this is?  Grasshoppers soaked in lime and water roasted in oil.  Not so shocking.  As an anthropology major in college, I saw plenty of films featuring people eating insects.  Grasshoppers are seemingly nutritious and delicious.  Where 100g of McDonalds hamburger has 12g of protein and 9g of fat, the chapulinas have 20.6g of protein and 6.1g of fat. 

They traveled to Vietnam next, one of 2 dozen countries that eats dog meat.  Dog meat is said to also increase virility because it warms the body.  I wonder about the dog penis.  That must be very special.  The dog part wasn’t so disturbing, though I’m a dog lover.  I know people eat it.  When he was served the still beating heart from a snake, that was sincerely disgusting.  No further comment.

Hidalgo, Mexico was the next stop.  They went to a food festival of local food delights.  On the menu were rattlesnake soup, worm tacos, BBQ iguana with rice, armadillo stew, and skinned rodent.  The only spectacular part of that was the heads of the dead ‘rodents’.  The teeth. I don’t know how to express how much that disturbed me.

Last, curiles were eaten in Honduras.  You’re going to ask aren’t you? Live clams is the answer. Not surprisingly, they are an aphrodisiac and are known as natural Viagra.  The live clams are served on a plate and don’t look very much alive until you squirt lemon juice on them. Acid kills them, so they squrm around quite a bit. Then you eat them. Nasty. 

When you travel, you should definitely try the local cuisine.  I’m not very adventurous when it comes to food. I just started eating Mexican maybe 5 years ago.  By Mexican, I do not mean grasshoppers or skinned rodent.  More like fajitas and flautas. More power to the people out there who can go to a foreign country and eat things that are completely out of their cultural norms. I am not one of you.

MINOR Disaster

Last night we lost our satellite signal.  My husband was trying to fix the problem before calling DirecTV.  He reset the DVR. Makes sense, right? HA! Well, there are 2 different resets on the box, the soft and hard reset.  He clearly was not aware of what he was doing. The hard drive was wiped clean. Approximately 40% of the disc space was taken up by documentaries.  I would estimate that I lost about 20 hours of shows.  I can't really be angry, but I am in a state of awe and disbelief.

This morning I was able to get the signal back by hanging out the upstairs window and tearing down vines that had grown up the side of the house.  We still have a weak signal because of all of the huge trees in our neighbors yards, so we will have to get the technician to come out at some point and realign the satellite. 

So, today will be spent trying to remember and set up what season passes we had and setting a bunch of documentaries to record.  Not exactly what I had planned for the day! 

January is Schizophrenic

Though I missed most of the specials for psych week on Discovery Health, I was able to catch “Born Schizophrenic: January’s Story”.  This is the story of the Schofield family and their daughter January, called Jani, and their battle with childhood schizophrenia.  Jani is one of the youngest children to ever be diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Her family has been on a wild ride, to say the least.  An article about the show can be found here.

This scary disease has touched my life and has always fascinated me.  I had a good friend that became schizophrenic after the suicide of his mother. Though he always had emotional issues, it was confusing, frustrating, and frightening to watch him spiral downward into a world of hallucinations and bizarre thoughts.  He was a drug and alcohol abuser, so his medication was never taken correctly and did not help very much. He started out as an outgoing, oversexed, but disturbingly intelligent guy and became a violent cocaine addict, an alcoholic, and criminal that died in a state prison just a week before his 33rd birthday.

I had encounters with other schizophrenics, such as one of my college roommates that came to me straight from a stint at the institution.  That girl was the best roommate I ever had! She was the only one that could handle my eccentricities, shared common views on things, and left me alone! Plus, she had a TV. That is always a plus. 

What I have learned through the years is that this disease waxes and wanes like the moon.  It is a chameleon. It is a shark and a mouse.  It manifests itself differently in everyone affected.  If you’ve met 50 schizophrenics, you haven’t seen it all. With each individual there does seem to be a disjointed cycle of lucidity and madness. You get to know the signs and understand what they are saying in times of utter madness. You learn to brace yourself and put on your “dealing with a schizo” persona. But sometimes, like a scorpion hiding in the sand, it strikes without warning leaving you feeling panicked and paralyzed.

This is definitely what Jani’s parents are feeling.  From seven days after her birth when she completely stopped sleeping, Jani was not a normal child.  At first they thought she was just a genius, pointing to different body parts at 5 months.  From what I’ve learned over the years, it seems severe biological mental illness (especially schizophrenia) accompanies a high level of intelligence.  Here are just a few famous schizophrenic ‘geniuses‘:

John Nash, subject of the film A Beautiful Mind.
Jack Kerouac, American writer and artist
Syd Barret of Pink Floyd
William Chester Minor, creator of Oxford English Dictionary
Pablo Picasso, Spanish artist

Unfortunately, Janis illness got her removed from school permanently in first grade.  Violence towards herself and other children was the main reason for this.  She has been known to choke herself and try to jump out windows.  The family actually has two apartments so that her younger brother Bodhi is safe from her. 

After years of different diagnoses, at age 6, Jani was finally diagnosed with schizophrenia.  Jani goes to school now an hour a day by herself, but still has trouble concentrating for that long.  Her parents have created a group for parents of schizophrenic children. As a result Jani has been able to spend time with children like herself.

I can’t imagine the hell that parents of these young children go through on a daily basis.  I have only encountered schizophrenic adults. They became schizophrenic as a result of a trauma in their teens.  Children haven’t the life experience to understand what is ‘normal’ to properly separate what is real and what isn’t.  We can only hope that someday effective treatments become available.

Through Pain Comes Great Strength

On Sunday morning I wanted to watch something a little longer to  possibly  clear more than 1% disc space on the DVR.  I decided to watch something a little less educational, Dad's in Heaven with Nixon.  Wow.  This was simply put, a great film.  It is the story of a the struggle and survival of the Murray family of New York.   It was advertised as a story about the enduring love of a mother for her autistic child.    It was so much more than that. 

Chris Murray, the filmmaker's youngest brother, suffered oxygen deprivation at birth and did not hit the normal childhood milestones. Born in 1960, the medical world was not friendly to Chris.  As a child, he was not diagnosed with autism.  The doctors and psychiatrists constantly told his mother that he should be in an institution; that he had no hope of a normal life.  The more she was told, the more determined she was to see Chris succeed.

A great deal of the film was spent on the emotional struggles of the grandfather and father.  Both clearly struggled with what we now call bipolar disorder.  The grandfather was an alcoholic who had a very poor relationship with his youngest son, the filmmaker's father.  He felt his father hated him and often felt rejected by him.  In the end, this disorder caused the filmmakers family to lose everything, endure divorce, and even lose their father at an early age. 

Everything that their father was made the family weak, but  Chris' disability made them strong.  Chris has a simple appreciation for life and has taught his family so much about the nature of love, life, and the world around them.  Left confused and empty by their father, I feel Chris filled a void.  Chris could definitely feel that his father could not connect with him.  In his desire for that closeness, he developed an almost mystical ideal of his father after death. 

We often think of things in such a logical, linear, scientific way.  Your son is autistic. Look at the awesome  struggle you will face.  This family used Chris to be closer together. They pooled their energy into making him succeed.  Their father's distress had such a deep impact on all of them, but Chris softened the blow.  Things happen for a reason. 

Chris lives on his own, holds two part time jobs, and became a successful painter after the death of his father.  The Long Island drowning at the spot where the family used to spend summers sparked a desire in Chris to start paining.  Through his art, he has grown.  It seems his father's weakness has always brought him strength, though usually indirectly.  In turn, his strength has held up the family over a dark cloud, allowing them to always see the sun.