Descended of Wolves.

All modern breeds of dogs are descended of wolves and DNA studies are the proof. There is one exception--the one that proves the rule, so to speak. This exception is a bit of a mystery in some other ways, too. And this (exceptional) dog might prove something besides the rule. This exceptional dog is the Chihuahua, which is descended of foxes.

Baby Chihuahua, the smallest of puppies.

Paco, The Devil Dog of Pipers Landing, loves blondes but hates cameras and cameramen.

Native of the Lybian desert and smallest of foxes: the Fennec fox (Vulpes zerda). This is the closest wild relative of the Chihuahua.

The range of the Fennec fox extends across North Africa. Note how the Arabian peninsula was once part of Africa and ought still, in my opinion, to be shown on maps as Africa's NE shoulder. It is departing Africa because it rides its own tectonic plate, but including it in Africa gives the mother continent better symmetry.

So how did the Fennec fox derived "dog" now called the Chihuahua get across the Atlantic ocean? PreColumbian clay figurines of Chihuahuas are common, even our Norton museum has shown them. Aztec royalty kept hundreds of the tiny dogs in their palaces. They served the rulers in this life and in the next. (And, you guessed it, the Conquistadors ate the little guys. "Meat of the Gods" same as the chocolate tree, Theobroma cacao.) Legends abound and are told even today--we heard wonderful tales on the way to the Mexico City airport years ago. The following example was told to us by our cab driver:

"An old, old man is very poor and still working hard to earn enough for food and shelter. His only companion is his old Chihuahua. Every morning the old man gets out of bed before sunrise to fry two eggs, one for his Chihuahua and the other for himself. Then he heads out the door and walks to the fields where he will labor until near sundown. Well, this old, hard working man has painful arthritic feet. His malady threatens to prevent his working and that would mean starvation for both him and his dog. So, when he turns in for the night he tucks his tiny dog under the covers, pushing him all the way to the foot of the bed. Then he climbs in and rests his gnarled, aching feet on the little dog. In the morning, lo and behold, the old man has no pain in his feet and is able to prepare the eggs and head out for another hard day in the fields. Meanwhile the faithful little dog limps painfully from the bedroom to the kitchen, having taken the pain from his master."

My wife has survived very serious illness and surgery. At 5:20 PM on June 30, 2002, she had the onset of extreme chest pain. She was sitting in her favorite chair. I came home to find her in great pain and agitation. Our Chihuahua was clinging desperately to her chest. She said she had to get him off her chest it hurt so much. I said she should perhaps move to the couch. She said she doubted she could make it to the couch (12 feet away). I said let's go to the hospital. The little dog risked life and limb to cling to her chest--she wanted to throw him off her chest. I could not dislodge him. She is a survivor of the same ailment that claimed a famous star of TV, a sudden, catastrophic failure of the proximal thoracic aorta.

Recently, my wife had the influenza 2009 H1N1 and developed bronchospasm and localized asthma. Once again, our Chihuahua braved life and limb to cling mightily to his mistress' chest and do his best to take the asthma and dyspnea from her. He wheezed away night after night. Now that antibiotics and inhalant medication and time have cured his mistress both she and he sleep soundly, no wheezing. Paco has not yet tried his healing on me. Maybe he senses I am an orthodox doctor and that his unorthodox healing might either offend me or not work on me or both. I could go on and on.


The Mexican dictator General Antonio López de Santa Anna, outfoxed so to speak at the Alamo, kept dozens of these little wonder dogs with him on campaign. He believed as do many Mexicans past and present (despite the exterior trappings of devout Roman Catholicism) that the Chihuahua will go ahead of the departed soul into the underworld. This legend is a scene out of Black Orpheus: seven rivers, cold, dark, and scary; a ferryman poling his empty raft; enigmatic and arcane questions requiring correct answers. But the ferryman looks just like a Chihuahua, at least the head. A jackal headed figure is poling the raft. Your Chihuahua hails the ferryman and gives the signs. He goes on to tell the ferryman about his dear master, emphasizing the good features and playing down the bad. He negotiates passage across the seven rivers aux champs elysees. This whole thing smacks seriously of Egyptian, don't you think? And there is the matter of how this descendant of tiny indigenous foxes of Egypt's Libyan desert ended up in the temples of Aztec royalty. To paraphrase Winston Churchill, the Chihuahua is a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma.

This has the appearance of a crime scene, but appearances can be misleading. Now, nobody is perfect, and neither is our Chihuahua. He is known in our neighborhood of elderly people and small dogs as the Devil Dog of Pipers Landing. His full and proper name is Lord Pacal of Palenque, "Paco" for short. He of the good medicine, in the sense of Indian medicine bundle. He is tiny, but as noted above, appearances can be misleading. He is totemic.

Paco views people in black and white. He worships our eldest grandchild, loves our daughters, hates our son, our daughter-in-law, our son-in-law, both grandsons and both younger granddaughters. He adores my wife and loves me. He arrives at these polar opinions instantaneously, and they remain constant and irreversible for ever after. In ten years only one person has managed to move from the hate column to the love column, and it took her five years to do it. Once a cousin from Kansas came to visit. Paco came to check the family out. He immediately growled at the wife, snarled at the husband, and wagged his tail in greeting for their daughter. He despises anyone who comes to work on the house, including electricians, plumbers, gardeners, carpenters, and delivery people. All others he divides into two groups: blond and brunette. He loves the former and hates the latter. He confuses gray/white hair and blond. He makes no distinction between natural blond and bottle blond. In the case of the cousin from Kansas, the mother was brunette, the daughter red headed, and the father bald. He hates most other dogs but accepts one of our neighbors' two pugs. He likes Chester because he is a Yankee from Connecticut and very gentlemanly. He dislikes Winston who is from the South and overly demonstrative.

He is tiny on the outside but very big inside.

Once our eldest granddaughter was running down the street well ahead of me. I heard a scream and hurried to see what was the matter. A very large and friendly chocolate Labrador retriever had run across her yard to play with my granddaughter. Paco took this as an attack and engaged the enemy with a preemptive attack of his own. When I got to where all this was taking place I saw an amazing sight. This little girl was standing in front of this very big dog with a tiny dog hanging for dear life onto the base of the big dog's wagging tail. Paco is an eighty pound dog in an eight pound package. (Yes, he is fat for a Chihuahua but his mother believes food is love.)

Chihuahuas have a surprisingly fast "clock" in the sense of a computer system. They will walk along side you even when you are walking quite fast. This means their legs are a blur. Same with their tail which can wag so fast it is a blur on camera. Their relative the Fennec fox is surprisingly athletic and known for its leaping attack onto the back of prey. This looks almost like the lion and the gazelle. Both Fennec and Chihuahua have elongated toes on the front feet, large eyes, tiny faces with small jaws, and ears with character. It would be worthwhile to study these two with DNA for distant kinship. I know of no such studies.

The tail wags so fast it is a blur on camera. There is no greater love than a Chihuahua's.

"Legend and history are rich in tales of the ancestors of the present Chihuahua. He is described as a popular pet, as well as a religious necessity. The Techichi, companion of the ancient Toltecs, is believed to be the progenitor of the Chihuahua. No records of the Techichi are, so far, available prior to the 9th century, but it is probable his ancestors were present prior to the Mayans. Dogs approximating the Chihuahua are found in materials from the Pyramids of Cholula, predating 1530 and in the ruins of Chichen Itza on the Yucatan Peninsula.

There is little question the Chihuahua’s principle home was present-day Mexico but the breeds immigration to Europe may be the result of the travels of Christopher Columbus. A historical letter written by Columbus to the King of Spain makes reference to the tiny dog.

The Chihuahua as we know it today is a much more diminutive dog than its predecessor. It is theorized that the Chinese Crested, brought from Asia to Alaska across the Bering Strait, was responsible for the reduction in size. Modern Chihuahuas are also found in a myriad of colors. The Chihuahua is an older breed by American Kennel Club standards, first registered in 1904."

This is courtesy of the American Kennel Club web site.

Fennec Fox Profile courtesy of the National Geographic Society site:

"The fennec fox is the smallest of all the world's foxes, but its large ears, measuring 6 inches (15 centimeters), appear to be on loan from a bigger relative.

Fennec foxes dwell in the sandy Sahara Desert and elsewhere in North Africa. Their nocturnal habits help them deal with the searing heat of the desert environment, and some physical adaptations help as well.

Their distinctive, batlike ears radiate body heat and help keep the foxes cool. They also have long, thick hair that insulates them during cold nights and protects them from hot sun during the day. Even the fox's feet are hairy, which helps them perform like snowshoes and protects them from extremely hot sand. The fox's feet are also effective shovels for frequent digging—fennec foxes live in underground dens.

These foxes dwell in small communities, each inhabited by perhaps ten individuals. Like other canids, male fennecs mark their territory with urine and become aggressive competitors when mating season arrives each year.

Fennec foxes are opportunistic eaters. They forage for plants but also eat rodents, eggs, reptiles, and insects. Like most desert dwellers, the fennec fox has developed the ability to go for long periods without water.

These foxes are cream-colored with black-tipped tails. Their adorable appearance makes them favorites of the captive pet trade, and local peoples also hunt the fennec fox for its fur. Little is known about the status of wild fennec fox populations."


Note the comments below by John P. Jackson, Article Directory:

"Urban legends are also known as folklore, often these tales are concocted by people of a bygone time period who have tried to offer up explanations about the unexplained. Some of these mythical tales and stories still exist and linger on, even today. There are several stories that surround different dog breeds, Chihuahuas included.
Chihuahuas Cure Asthma and Allergies:
One such legend for Chihuahuas hails from Mexico, which states the dogs have an uncanny ability to transfer the illness of the owner to itself and thus freeing the owner from such illnesses as allergies and asthma. This legendary folklore resurfaced in America where Sandra Billitz of Warrior, Alabama, states she bought a Chihuahua with the strict intention of having the dog cure her mother of asthma.
Bigchihuahua.com disputed the claim that a Chihuahua can cure or lessen the effects of asthma, even though Ms. Billitz stated that it cured her mother. Devoted Chihuahua owners commenting on the site claimed that their Chihuahuas truly cured or lessened the symptoms of their asthma. However, Bigchihuahua.com backs up their statements by citing there is no specific information to lend credence to this claim.
Many possible explanations exist because of the way a Chihuahua owner feels pure love, "the power of faith, belief and suggestion." Also since a Chihuahua can either have a smooth or longhair coat, it is possible that a smooth coated Chihuahua owned as a family pet, can produce less dander and other airborne allergens which can be triggers for asthma and allergies in some people.
Chihuahua Being Swept Up By a Hawk:
Occurring in Manhattans Bryant Park, this incident happened when a tourist had her pet Chihuahua on a leash and saw a trained hawk, who was part of the recreational program of the park, swoop down and carry the dog away in its sharp talons. Apparently, the Chihuahua ended up being released and suffered only minor injuries.
No proof was offered to back up these claims that a tiny Chihuahua was almost a meal for a trained hawk. The hawk more than likely believed the animal to be a rat or other vermin. Officials at the park have since taken extra precautions to prevent something like this from happening. They are continuing their hawk recreational program, which was implemented to get rid of the pigeon population in the park. The program has been a success and park officials say they are not going to get rid of the program because of one small mistake.
According to David Emery of "Your Guide to Urban Legends and Folklore," this hawk story should be considered a "near myth." Emery also states that it could become a real urban legend if the Chihuahua had not been tethered to a leash at the time.
Nonetheless, an urban legend still exists where a small pet like a Chihuahua is commonly being caught and snatched up by birds like hawks, pelicans and other large birds. Most likely, it is a coyote who would hunt down a Chihuahua and other small animals.
A Tourist Buys a Chihuahua Which is Really a Rat:
Another story widely reported on the internet was that a couple from America purchased a Chihuahua to bring home with them. It turns out the dog was strange looking, but the buyer reassured them it was really a Chihuahua. Once the couple returned to the states, their veterinarian confirmed that they had actually purchased a hairless, Mexican sewer rat.
There are several versions of this story circulating around, some have stated the dog was a stray and the couple took a liking to it, others have said the dog was close to drowning and was rescued. Still other sources state that the vet confirmed the animal was a number of different species of rat; Korean, Chinese and Guatemalan are just a few. Other variations of the story claim that the hairless rat was allegedly dying by the time it reached a veterinarian. Again, like all the other stories, this one is also an urban legend."

By: John P Jackson Article Directory: http://www.articledashboard.com
http://www.articledashboard.com/Article/Chihuahuas--Urban-Legends-And-Myths-About-The-Breed/973422

Well, my first hand accounts of Chihuahua/Health are for real, I guarantee that. No rehashed urban legends there. As for Jackson's article, make up your own mind. Or buy your own Chihuahua and see what follows. I did not tell you all the adventures Paco and my family and I have had for the past ten years. I should have told you that I did have a golden eagle swoop down in an abduction attempt. I felt the powerful left wing as it dropped over my shoulder. I reflexively pulled in the leash and avoided an aerial tug-of-war with the big raptor. And yes the landing gear was down and very impressive! My wife had a similar experience years before with an osprey which she batted away. And it is not uncommon to see the osprey pair who live behind us circle overhead when we are taking our walk. Once I was working on the boat, standing in the back of the boat and Paco was nosing along the shoreline where the manatees browse. Suddenly I saw what looked like a submarine missile launch five or six feet behind the boat. A large dark form shot out of the water toward Paco. I shouted loud but Paco was already hightailing it up the bank and to the house. Alligators claim a lot of dogs here in South Florida. But I doubt they catch many Chihuahuas. That's the kind of canine intelligence that's useful here in Florida.

Some interesting background facts on the Mexican state and city that gave the Chihuahua its name, Chamber of Commerce material:

"Chihuahua, capital of the state of Chihuahua, is a prosperous city of almost 700,000 people located in northern Mexico amidst an unforgiving landscape of sun-baked hills and mesas. Travelers usually spend little time in Chihuahua, treating it merely as a starting point for the spectacular Copper Canyon train ride. However, Chihuahua´s unusual museums, historic architecture, and friendly citizens make it a pleasant city to linger in for at least a day or two.


The first settlers in this area of Mexico were miners digging for silver in the nearby Sierra Madre mountains. They were followed by Jesuit and Franciscan missionaries sent to Christianize local indigenous peoples. In 1709, the Spanish established a town called San Francisco de Cuéllar on the present site of Chihuahua. It eventually grew into a large administrative and military center.

After Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, the city was given the name "Chihuahua," thought to be a corruption of a word from the Nahuatl indigenous language meaning "dry and sandy place."

In more recent times, Chihuahua´s best known son was the actor Anthony Quinn who died in 2001. Quinn was born in Chihuahua on April 21, 1915, during the Mexican Revolution. Fleeing the war, his family moved first to Texas and then to Los Angeles, where Anthony Quinn eventually became a Hollywood star, often playing the rebel in feature films. A statue of Quinn performing his famous dance from the movie "Zorba the Greek" can be seen in Chihuahua´s Palomar Park."

Didn't you love Anthony Quinn's Zorba? Six degrees of separation or less, favorite dog to favorite movie character.

This is the point at which the paths crossed: this embro whose face looks like a Chihuahua puppy is actually a human embryo. So much for six degrees of separation!

Ήμουν ακριβώς αστείος: το embro δεν είναι ανθρώπινο!!

Latter Day Atheists get thumped.

Rational, punk-theist Vox Day, aka Theodore Beale, author of books and blog Vox Populi.

In his book The Irrational Atheist, Dissecting the Unholy Trinity of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, author Vox Day aka Theodore Beale takes a sharp scalpel to the bloated prose of those three preeminent, latter day atheists. (2008, ISBN 1-933771-36-4) These authors and others have it easy in the post Christian era, though. It would have taken genuine courage to slander belief and believers years ago. And it would have taken more intelligence and logic than demonstrated by these three to have crossed swords with Thomas Aquinas or Augustine. These three, Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, are flayed in The Irrational Atheist. There is the old joke: "what is the difference between an onion and a Frenchman?" Answer: "no one cries when the Frenchman is cut up." Ditto for atheists. And no politician aspiring to high office will proclaim his or her atheism, either. (Even Nancy Pelosi who is either Roman Catholic or Argentine Jew will not divulge her true beliefs, and will certainly not proclaim her atheism.)

"On one side of the argument is a collection of godless academics with doctorates from the finest universities in England, France, and the United States. On the other is Irrational Atheist author Vox Day, armed with nothing more than historical and statistical facts. Presenting a compelling argument (but not for the side one might expect), Day strips away the pseudo-scientific pretensions of New Atheism with his intelligent application of logic, history, military science, political economy, and well-documented research. The arguments of Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Michel Onfray are methodically exposed and discredited as Day provides extensive evidence proving, among other things that:

More than 93 percent of all the wars in human history had no relation to religion.

The Spanish Inquisition had no jurisdiction over professing Jews, Muslims, or atheists; and executed fewer people on an annual basis than the state of Texas.

Atheists are 3.84 times more likely to be imprisoned than Christians.

"Red" state crime is primarily committed in "blue" counties (of those red states).

Sexually abused girls are 55 times more likely to commit suicide than girls raised Catholic.

In the twentieth century, atheistic regimes killed three times more people in peacetime than those killed in all the wars and individual crimes combined.

The Irrational Atheist provides the rational thinker with empirical proof that atheism's claims against religion are unfounded in logic, fact, and science."

This is from the publisher.


I read and enjoyed this book. The author is amazing and his logic is hard to refute. It is not an apologia for religion but is a reasoned analysis of the neoatheists' logic, data, and conclusions regarding religion's fallacies, crimes against humanity, and evil influence in our modern world.

Please read the book. I am not recommending other books of his, just this one.

Before the advent of our modern, pompous and fumbling neoatheists there was a genuine powerhouse critic of religion. I refer to Henry Louis Mencken, the sage of Baltimore. He loved to point out human foibles, and he did so in a classy way so unlike our present crop of neoatheists, those who are rudely hoisted with their own petards in Vox Day's book. Witness H. L. Mencken's s epitaph, a line from one of his many works: "If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner, and wink your eye at some homely girl." Arguably H. L. Mencken's finest book, Treatise on the Gods, is still in print and makes for very enjoyable reading. Henry Louis Mencken is a giant to the Unholy Trinity pygmies. Here is a review of Treatise of the Gods by Keith Otis Edwards:

Whatever merit Treatise on the Gods has in the intelligent speculation and worthy scholarship shown thus far, I am of the opinion that the book’s real appeal lies in its final part which consists of one short section entitled, “Its State Today.” Here Mencken contradicts the goal of objectivity stated in the introduction as he takes off the soft gloves, grabs the subject by the neck and begins to handle it roughly.
He declares that religion is a vestige of that dark and frightened past when man had to dream up explanations for the world around. This manner of thinking is obsolete as we now have science to account for the details of our universe. Whatever effect prayer has as a treatment for disease has been displaced by the highly effective means of scientific medicine. The decline of Christianity began in the Renaissance which “was a reversion to the spacious paganism of Greece and Rome,” but it was not until the Seventeenth Century when enough facts and exact knowledge were able to convince intelligent men that “Christian theology was a farrago of absurdities.” Of course, the benefits of skepticism have not been limited to the modern era—in every society of every era human progress has not come from the faithful with their capacity to worship, but from those with a capacity to doubt and flout the gods. “Everything that we are we owe to Satan and his bootleg apples."
Why then is there usually a religious revival in progress? It is because the growth of scientific knowledge has been too rapid for “the ignorant and ignoble” to comprehend. And with the introduction of those of meager intelligence into the ring what began as a dispassionate examination of religion has turned into a battle royale with Mencken taking on all comers. Along with Christianity, censorship, Prohibition and American democracy each are pummeled, as according to Mencken they are not separate topics but merely different manifestations of the same disease: the mass of stupid and foolish people obstructing the freedom of those capable of independent thought.
This is classic Mencken at his most ferocious. Those who are unfamiliar with Mencken’s work and want to discover what he is all about will do well to look here.

Well, here you have it--Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens for today's brute force bludgeoning of religion; H. L. Mencken for yesteryear's witty but hard hitting critique of belief and believers, past and present; and Vox Day's data intensive, cool and logical dissection of neoatheism. The thinking believer might enjoy reading these arguments.

I intend to put my own analysis of religious belief into cyberspace. The crux of the problem of religious belief is that there undoubtedly was evolution in the production of Homo sapiens. There is no doubt of that. But evolution gets us to some forebear such as Homo erectus, and no farther. Something or someone "jump started" our further evolution from Homo erectus to Homo sapiens and gave us the many human faculties that separate us from our cousins the chimpanzee and the bonobo ape. There is the matter of six million missing years (of evolution). One possibility is that the someone who upraised us is the same person known to ancients and moderns as their God, or the gods. Gods, by which I mean beings of extraordinary learning, possessed of marvelous technology, of either terrestrial or extraterrestrial origin, certainly made a presence on this planet of ours. They are described in writings that are impossibly ancient and, in one instance, in a language (Sumerian) that bears no relationship to any other known tongue. These writings describe how they, the gods who came from space and counted the planets from farthest from the sun inward (terrestrials would count them from nearest the sun outward, at least as I see it), created the first humans. The individuals responsible for this feat of genetic engineering are named (Enki/Ea and Ninharsag). The process is described. Before our present knowledge of molecular biology and cloning techniques these ancient accounts would make no sense whatsoever. Sapienti sat. Now mankind is in a position to reevaluate these writings including our own bible accounts. But note that uplifting Homo erectus to Homo sapiens is not creating the universe with its billions of galaxies and too numerous to count stars and who knows how many planets--and life forms, some of them self-aware and intelligent.


This Creator of All was none of the above in the pantheon of the Twelve Great Gods. The Creator of All is alluded to by the gods themselves, but their own sometimes shockingly immoral behavior suggests that they were not closely supervised by their creator. The ancient writings also suggest that the lower case "g" gods violated a major rule when they created humans. And that the Creator of All seems to have sent a messenger to Enlil, head of the Council of Twelve, requiring the gods to leave humans to their own resources and "pack it in." This they did 2500 years ago. Or so the ancient writings tell us. As for the Creator of All, his messenger Galzu, what He has planned for us, if anything, and what present day religions have to tell us about all this, I haven't a clue. This is what I do know:


The Gods were not omniscient, omnipresent, all merciful, solitary, without face or form. They were embodied beings with great learning who possessed splendid technology. They taught our forebears, the black headed people of Sumer, astronomy, city planning, reading, irrigation, warfare, governance, commerce, engineering, and so much more. These splendid beings were either survivors from Atlantis that sank beneath the sea, or were from space. They were variably benevolent or destructive. Some of them liked humans and others detested them. Noah and the ark is our modern tale, fashioned likely in Babylon during the captivity of Judea. It is a recounting of a much older story describing a very distant event that marked the end of the most recent Ice Age. The being Enki/Ea who liked humans broke the code of silence imposed by his own High Council of Twelve Great Gods by instructing Ziusudra, a human and one of his staff, to make a great ark and prepare for a cataclysmic end to the age. The god of Egypt known as Ra was one of Enki/Ea's sons. For better or worse the God of the Jews was Enlil, half brother of Enki/Ea. And so forth and so on. We know so much about these beings who were known also to the Indus Valley civilization, the Akkadians, the Hittites, the Greeks, and the Romans. These same gods were present in the New World and were described by the Mayans, Aztecs, and Incas. What happened to the Twelve Great Gods and lesser gods? Where are they today? Where will they be in the future?


Well, the answers to those questions make for a long story that deserves its own article. Suffice to say several of these gods died on earth--the story of Horus and his evil uncle Seth. Another was the Great God who was denied passage back home--Marduk. (He who was sought out by Alexander the Great because an oracle had told him that Marduk as Ra was his natural father, and that Ra was also the father of Hatshepsut, female pharoah of Egypt). When Alexander arrived in Babylon he requested an audience with the Great God Marduk. The priests in Marduk's temple told Alexander an audience was not possible. Alexander was persuasive, (in an age before water boarding, in a land where it has been helpful). Eventually the temple priests showed Alexander the dead body of Marduk, embalmed in oils and laid in a casket. The moon god Suen or Sin, after whom the Sinai is named, retired with his wife and servants to a home on the coast of the Red Sea. Some say he is Allah. (For the facts that he is the ancient god of the Arabian peninsula, and that the crescent moon above all mosques is his sign.)With a few exceptions--those who died, those who were exiled, and those who chose to retire to earth--the company of gods, Greater and Lesser, left this planet 2500 years ago. Promises to return are recorded in ancient legend and writings. Check your bible. Check this web log . . .

ACORN, corporate corruption, mighty oak tree . . .

Even with our American style, short attention span most of us no doubt have heard of the organization ACORN. Irregularities of voter registration in the last federal election come to mind. Now we are shown undercover journalism video of ACORN offices in various cities aiding and abetting various criminal activity including prostitution, tax evasion, illegal immigration, and child molestation. One could be excused for failing to see the forest for the trees. To extend the metaphor a bit further, what comes after the acorn sprouts and takes root?

A seedling Quercus alba destined to grow into a mighty white oak.


The following courtesy of http://www.phrases.org.uk/meanings/247100.html:

Mighty oaks from little acorns grow

Meaning: Great things may come from small beginnings.

Origin:

The word acorn doesn't come from 'oak' and 'corn', as is popularly supposed, but from the Old English 'aecern', meaning berry or fruit. The tree genus Acer comes from the same root.

Before oaks were mighty they were first either great, tall, sturdy or even just big. Examples of early variants of 'mighty oaks from little acorns grow' are found in Geoffrey Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde, 1374,

"as an ook cometh of a litel spyr" [a spyr, or spire, is a sapling]

Thomas Fuller's Gnomologia, 1732:

"The greatest Oaks have been little Acorns."

and in an essay by D. Everett in The Columbian Orator, 1797:

"Large streams from little fountains flow, Tall oaks from little acorns grow."

The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations states that 'great oaks from little acorns grow' is a 14th century proverb. Unfortunately, they don't include any details to support their view.

The 'mighty' version is known, in the USA at least, from the middle of the 19th century. It appeared in A. B. Johnson's The Philosophical Emperor a Political Experiment, 1841.




"ACORN Exposed" courtesy of The American Spectator:
By Matthew Vadum on 9.14.09 @ 6:08AM

ACORN's relentless death march continued last week as undercover sting videos surfaced in which the group's employees counseled reporters posing as a pimp and a prostitute on how to set up a house of ill repute using tax dollars.

The sensational undercover video showed ACORN Housing employees in the group's Baltimore office trying to help the two journalists set up a brothel. The pair told ACORN employees that underage girls from El Salvador were ready to enter the U.S. and start working as child prostitutes.

The video, first shown on Andrew Breitbart's new website Big Government, was featured that day on Glenn Beck's TV program. Hannah Giles, who portrayed the prostitute in the video, told Beck she got involved in the project "to expose ACORN."

"I saw them as a thug organization that was getting my tax dollars," said Giles.

But guess who might be facing prosecution for exposing the group best known for its never-ending voter registration fraud scandals? You guessed it -- the conservative journalists involved in the undercover reporting of course!

Obama supporter Patricia Jessamy, Maryland State's Attorney for Baltimore City, released a statement saying the video might violate the state's anti-wiretapping law that was used against Linda Tripp after she recorded telephone conversations with President Clinton's Oval Office paramour Monica Lewinsky. The law requires consent to the recording by both parties in a conversation . . .

Doing good does not always end up well. Take the case of Jesus of Nazareth. Let us pray for the brave young journalists who risked a lot to shine the light of truth on ACORN. But, so as not to lose sight of the forest here for the fact that they found a great number of trees, one should look at a well documented phenomenon in our modern world: corporate culture. This reflects the fact that corporations are living entities and have a sort of body, mind, and soul. It would surely appear that ACORN as an organization is (morally) ill. The corporate culture, often as not an extension of the top management's beliefs, aspirations, and morality, is one of corruption. Read Wade Rathke's contrary views out of fairness, some expressed below. But use your common sense. And know that corruption is contagious. Let's look at Merriam-Webster for some precision in language:

Main Entry: cor·rup·tion
Pronunciation: \kə-ˈrəp-shən\
Function: noun
Date: 14th century
1 a : impairment of integrity, virtue, or moral principle : depravity b : decay, decomposition c : inducement to wrong by improper or unlawful means (as bribery) d : a departure from the original or from what is pure or correct
2 archaic : an agency or influence that corrupts
3 chiefly dialect : pus

Main Entry: con·ta·gion
Pronunciation: \kən-ˈtā-jən\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin contagion-, contagio, from contingere to have contact with, pollute — more at contingent
Date: 14th century
1 a : a contagious disease b : the transmission of a disease by direct or indirect contact c : a disease-producing agent (as a virus)
2 a : poison b : contagious influence, quality, or nature c : corrupting influence or contact
3 a : rapid communication of an influence (as a doctrine or emotional state) b : an influence that spreads rapidly
Main Entry: 1cul·ture
Pronunciation: \ˈkəl-chər\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English, cultivated land, cultivation, from Anglo-French, from Latin cultura, from cultus, past participle
Date: 15th century
1 : cultivation, tillage
2 : the act of developing the intellectual and moral faculties especially by education
3 : expert care and training
4 a : enlightenment and excellence of taste acquired by intellectual and aesthetic training b : acquaintance with and taste in fine arts, humanities, and broad aspects of science as distinguished from vocational and technical skills
5 a : the integrated pattern of human knowledge, belief, and behavior that depends upon the capacity for learning and transmitting knowledge to succeeding generations b : the customary beliefs, social forms, and material traits of a racial, religious, or social group; also : the characteristic features of everyday existence (as diversions or a way of life} shared by people in a place or time c : the set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution or organization d : the set of values, conventions, or social practices associated with a particular field, activity, or societal characteristic
6 : the act or process of cultivating living material (as bacteria or viruses) in prepared nutrient media; also : a product of such cultivation

Pick a side on the ACORN debate. Then let's all tell our "best congress money can buy" how we want this matter handled. I'd like to see some of the promised transparency that was to accompany change, not otherwise specified.

I'd like to see if this is a RICO situation. Fairness, below:

"Fake Rush, Beck Demo’s and Boycott Betsy’s" courtesy of Wade Rathke's Blog:

Ottawa Going from city to city in California last week and now wrapped in the good spirited soul of Canada, it was all I could do in my brief 30 hours in New Orleans to keep up with the wildness of the city and the hate-eration of these times. One thing that had perplexed me had been a tweet from my darling daughter saying something about Betsy’s Pancake House across from her office, the ACORN building on Canal Street. Catching up on the internet and visiting with the home folks I finally got it. It was another “manufactured” media event where the main story is the imitation of real life.

In what is becoming the modus operandi for the “all-the-news-we-can-make-up-all-the-time” Glen Beck and Rush Limbaugh’s, they had gotten one of their buddies, some fellow named John Osterlink from Massachusetts who is a talkie host on a New Orleans radio station to try to organize a charade “protest” across from the ACORN headquarters in New Orleans. So, the protest had a radio promo by Beck himself it seems, and the call to arms was the following:


John Osterlind was interviewed by Glenn Beck this morning about the ACORN protest he has organized for today, Sept.11 at Betsy’s Pancake House(across the street from ACORN Headquarters) on Canal from 5pm – 7pm. John is urging everyone to bring signs and come make our voices heard about the need for an investigation of ACORN before they receive another dollar of our tax money. I feel it is especially important for us to show up in large numbers as this is the first protest of this kind that’s been called for by a public figure from “outside” the Tea Party movement. If we show up in force and make it a success, John, and WRNO, will be more inclined to take part in these kind of events in the future. Plus, John’s a cool guy and it will be a lot of fun!

Of course it is a well settled question that has been elaborately documented that ACORN gets no federal money, but hey from the crowd talking about death panels all the time, we can’t expect accuracy, can we?

Talking to eyewitnesses, it seems there were 20 or so people, all white, so it is hard to tell where in New Orleans the crowd might have been drawn, who milled around Betsy’s Pancake House late Friday afternoon. There were a couple of signs and a lot of beer! They plugged into Betsy’s electricity and the joint stayed open to service the motley crowd. Betsy’s is cattycorner to the ACORN building and across the large neutral ground and streetcar tracks, so quite honestly if someone hadn’t noticed them as they were leaving work, it might have been an early Saints tailgating crowd coming in from the Parish somewhere.

When some of the ACORN people walked over to see what was happening and talked to Betsy’s daughter who runs the joint now (Betsy was murdered tragically a couple of years ago in a robbery), and asked how they could have stood for this given all of the business the building has given them along with the other non-profits from the United Way and Red Cross along the block, she simply said: “I need the business.”

Well, sister, this is all monkey business and in fact big business for Clear Channel Communications which owns WRNO and promotes the Beck and Limbaugh shows. The following piece from Dave Walker, television reporter for the Times-Picayune on April 16, 2008 when Limbaugh “came over” to WRNO from WWL, a competitor in New Orleans, says it all, and also says quite a lot about how we got a piece of work like this guy Osterlink in the Crescent City . . .

Please read all of the account on Wade Rathke's blog if the spirit moves you to know more. Really reassuring that ACORN receives no federal dollars. Believe that and someone will sell you a bridge over the St. Lucie river.

Courtesy of Dr. David Kaiser

Take the three minutes to read this.

Maybe he is wrong.

What if he is right?

David Kaiser is a respected historian whose published works have covered a broad range of topics, from European Warfare to American League Baseball. Born in 1947, the son of a diplomat, Kaiser spent his childhood in three capital cities: Washington D.C. , Albany , New York , and Dakar , Senegal .. He attended Harvard University , graduating there in 1969 with a B.A. in history. He then spent several years more at Harvard, gaining a PhD in history, which he obtained in 1976. He served in the Army Reserve from 1970 to 1976.

He is a professor in the Strategy and Policy Department of the United States Naval War College. He has previously taught at Carnegie Mellon, Williams College and Harvard University . Kaiser's latest book, The Road to Dallas, about the Kennedy assassination, was just published by Harvard University Press.


Dr. David Kaiser


History Unfolding

I am a student of history. Professionally, I have written 15 books on history that have been published in six languages, and I have studied history all my life. I have come to think there is something monumentally large afoot, and I do not believe it is simply a banking crisis, or a mortgage crisis, or a credit crisis. Yes these exist, but they are merely single facets on a very large gemstone that is only now coming into a sharper focus.

Something of historic proportions is happening. I can sense it because I know how it feels, smells, what it looks like, and how people react to it. Yes, a perfect storm may be brewing, but there is something happening within our country that has been evolving for about ten to fifteen years. The pace has dramatically quickened in the past two.

We demand and then codify into law the requirement that our banks make massive loans to people we know they can never pay back? Why?

We learned just days ago that the Federal Reserve, which has little or no real oversight by anyone, has "loaned" two trillion dollars (that is $2,000,000,000,000) over the past few months, but will not tell us to whom or why or disclose the terms. That is our money. Yours and mine. And that is three times the $700 billion we all argued about so strenuously just this past September. Who has this money? Why do they have it? Why are the terms unavailable to us? Who asked for it? Who authorized it? I thought this was a government of "we the people," who loaned our powers to our elected leaders. Apparently not.

We have spent two or more decades intentionally de-industrializing our economy.. Why?

We have intentionally dumbed down our schools, ignored our history, and no longer teach our founding documents, why we are exceptional, and why we are worth preserving. Students by and large cannot write, think critically, read, or articulate. Parents are not revolting, teachers are not picketing, school boards continue to back mediocrity. Why?

We have now established the precedent of protesting every close election (violently in California over a proposition that is so controversial that it simply wants marriage to remain defined as between one man and one woman. Did you ever think such a thing possible just a decade ago?) We have corrupted our sacred political process by allowing unelected judges to write laws that radically change our way of life, and then mainstream Marxist groups like ACORN and others to turn our voting system into a banana republic. To what purpose?

Now our mortgage industry is collapsing, housing prices are in free fall, major industries are failing, our banking system is on the verge of collapse, social security is nearly bankrupt, as is Medicare and our entire government. Our education system is worse than a joke (I teach college and I know precisely what I am talking about) - the list is staggering in its length, breadth, and depth.. It is potentially 1929 x ten...And we are at war with an enemy we cannot even name for fear of offending people of the same religion, who, in turn, cannot wait to slit the throats of your children if they have the opportunity to do so.

And finally, we have elected a man that no one really knows anything about, who has never run so much as a Dairy Queen, let alone a town as big as Wasilla , Alaska . All of his associations and alliances are with real radicals in their chosen fields of employment, and everything we learn about him, drip by drip, is unsettling if not downright scary (Surely you have heard him speak about his idea to create and fund a mandatory civilian defense force stronger than our military for use inside our borders? No? Oh, of course. The media would never play that for you over and over and then demand he answer it. Sarah Palin's pregnant daughter and $150,000 wardrobe are more important.)

Mr. Obama's winning platform can be boiled down to one word: Change. Why?

I have never been so afraid for my country and for my children as I am now.

This man campaigned on bringing people together, something he has never, ever done in his professional life. In my assessment, Obama will divide us along philosophical lines, push us apart, and then try to realign the pieces into a new and different power structure. Change is indeed coming. And when it comes, you will never see the same nation again.

And that is only the beginning..

As a serious student of history, I thought I would never come to experience what the ordinary, moral German must have felt in the mid-1930s In those times, the "savior" was a former smooth-talking rabble-rouser from the streets, about whom the average German knew next to nothing. What they should have known was that he was associated with groups that shouted, shoved, and pushed around people with whom they disagreed; he edged his way onto the political stage through great oratory. Conservative "losers" read it right now.

And there were the promises. Economic times were tough, people were losing jobs, and he was a great speaker. And he smiled and frowned and waved a lot. And people, even newspapers, were afraid to speak out for fear that his "brown shirts" would bully and beat them into submission. Which they did - regularly. And then, he was duly elected to office, while a full-throttled economic crisis bloomed at hand - the Great Depression. Slowly, but surely he seized the controls of government power, person by person, department by department, bureaucracy by bureaucracy. The children of German citizens were at first, encouraged to join a Youth Movement in his name where they were taught exactly what to think. Later, they were required to do so. No Jews of course,

How did he get people on his side? He did it by promising jobs to the jobless, money to the money-less, and rewards for the military-industrial complex. He did it by indoctrinating the children, advocating gun control, health care for all, better wages, better jobs, and promising to re-instill pride once again in the country, across Europe , and across the world. He did it with a compliant media - did you know that? And he did this all in the name of justice and .... . .. change. And the people surely got what they voted for.

If you think I am exaggerating, look it up. It's all there in the history books.

So read your history books. Many people of conscience objected in 1933 and were shouted down, called names, laughed at, and ridiculed. When Winston Churchill pointed out the obvious in the late 1930s while seated in the House of Lords in England (he was not yet Prime Minister), he was booed into his seat and called a crazy troublemaker. He was right, though. And the world came to regret that he was not listened to.

Do not forget that Germany was the most educated, the most cultured country in Europe . It was full of music, art, museums, hospitals, laboratories, and universities. And yet, in less than six years (a shorter time span than just two terms of the U. S. presidency) it was rounding up its own citizens, killing others, abrogating its laws, turning children against parents, and neighbors against neighbors.. All with the best of intentions, of course. The road to Hell is paved with them.

As a practical thinker, one not overly prone to emotional decisions, I have a choice: I can either believe what the objective pieces of evidence tell me (even if they make me cringe with disgust); I can believe what history is shouting to me from across the chasm of seven decades; or I can hope I am wrong by closing my eyes, having another latte, and ignoring what is transpiring around me..

I choose to believe the evidence. No doubt some people will scoff at me, others laugh, or think I am foolish, naive, or both. To some degree, perhaps I am. But I have never been afraid to look people in the eye and tell them exactly what I believe-and why I believe it.

I pray I am wrong. I do not think I am. Perhaps the only hope is our vote in the next elections.

David Kaiser
Jamestown , Rhode Island
United States

Ezechiel J. Emanuel, MD PhD; America's Ethicist and Health Czar.

Die wunderkindern Emanuels von Chicago! One of the sons of Dr. Emanuel of Chicago is also a medical doctor and a Chicagoan: Ezechiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD. I have posted a recent photograph and some complimentary biographical comments courtesy of a Chicago newspaper columnist. And I post parts of a recent paper Dr. Emanuel published in JAMA, as below:

WASHINGTON--While the Obama White House is searching for a replacement for health czar Tom Daschle, policy work on health care reform--a priority for the administration--Is ongoing with one key advisor especially well connected.
The brother of White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, Dr. Ezekiel J. Emanuel, a noted bioethicist, is advising the Obama administration on health care reform.
Dr. Emanuel is the Chair of the Department of Bioethics at The Clinical Center of the National Institutes of Health and a breast oncologist.
Dr. Emanuel is a special advisor to the director of the White House Office of Management and Budget for health policy. He told me he is "working on (the) health care reform effort." He is "detailed" to the OMB spot and is still officially an employee of the NIH.
Until last August, Dr. Emanuel was commuting between his Chicago home in West Rogers Park and Washington. He moved to Washington last August after his youngest daughter graduated from Northside College Prep at Bryn Mawr and Kedzie.
One of three wildly successful Emanuel brothers (Ari is a Hollywood superagent) Dr. Emanuel also advised the Clinton White House on health care issues. He is a graduate of Amherst College, receiving his masters of science from Oxford University in Biochemistry. His M.D. is from Harvard Medical School. He holds a Ph.D. in political philosophy from Harvard University. In addition, in 1987-88, he was a fellow in the Program in Ethics and the Professions at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard.
According to his NIH bio, Dr. Emanuel is "widely published on the ethics of clinical research, advance care directives, end-of-life issues, euthanasia, the ethics of managed care, and the physician-patient relationship, Dr. Emanuel's articles have appeared in The New England Journal of Medicine, Lancet, Journal of American Medical Association, and many other medical and ethics journals. His book, The Ends of Human Life, has been widely praised and received the Rosenhaupt Memorial Book Award by the Woodrow Wilson Foundation.
"Dr. Emanuel served on the ethics section of former President Clinton's Health Task Force, the National Bioethics Advisory Commission, and the International Advisory Board on Bioethics of the Pan American Health Organization. He has been a visiting professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine, UCLA, and Brin Professor at Johns Hopkins Medical School."

The Cost-Coverage Trade-off
"It's Health Care Costs, Stupid" (His words, not mine; my italics.) Ezekiel J. Emanuel, MD, PhD
JAMA. 2008;299(8):947-949

Figure. Cost-Coverage Trade-off in the United States by State in 2005
Each state's uninsured rate for 2005 for the population younger than 65 years (because Americans aged 65 years and older are nearly all covered by Medicare) vs family health insurance premiums as a percentage of median state household income to attain a determination of "affordability of health coverage." Controlling for median state income, proportion of minorities, part-time workers, and women in the workforce shows that for every 10% increase in the average family health insurance premium, the rate of the uninsured younger than 65 years increases by 0.55%. The points for Iowa and Florida illustrate how rates can differ markedly between states. The curve was fit using the least squares method.

Dr. Emanuel is the brother of Ari in Hollywood and Rahm in Washington. He is the new Health Czar replacing former senator Tom Daschle. Too numerous articles to cite, much less to quote. The above article will give a little of the flavor, though. He is arrogant, intelligent, outspoken, and ambitious. He is a genuine elite in medicine. And he has pointed out repeatedly that a life is not a life is not a life (as opposed to Gertrude Stein and roses). He puts actual emanuelized values on a human life. Not as a philosopher, either. He is writing as health care czar, bioethicist-in-chief for the Obama administration, and cost cutting theorist in charge. Read some of his writings on the matter of valuation of a human life and cutting the cost of medical care in America and you will wonder how exactly he derived his ethics. I submit to you, dear readers, the oath of Hippocrates, the oath of Maimonides, and the Jewish version of the Ten Commandments. I also submit that there is nothing in atheism to use as a system of ethics, nothing at all. (Moral atheists are borrowing parts of a parent culture to construct their own morality--Jews/Jewish morality; Christians/Christian morality; Muslims/Muslim morality, take the parent culture, extract some elements of its moral code, and arrive at your own atheist morality.) When he puts grandmother on the ice flow in order to free up monies for children's vaccinations he is devaluing grandmother's life. Check for yourself in the Big Three sources for physician ethics. See how many tenets Dr. Ezechiel Emanuel violates.


Obama lies; grandma dies; Ezechiels advise.

The Ten Commandments courtesy of : http://www.holidays.net/shavuot/ten.htm.


On the third day of the Hebrew month of Sivan, Moses was commanded by G-d to prepare the Jewish people for G-d's descent and visit. The Israelites washed and purified their clothes and their bodies. Three days later, on the sixth day of Sivan, the people were awaken by thunder and lightning. Thick, dark clouds hung over the mountain. The sounds of the Shofar, the ram's horn, were heard echoing across the desert. The earth began to tremble and shake. Then the Israelites heard a voice, G-d's voice, as he spoke to them from out of the clouds.
And G-d gave them his Ten Commandments*
*(Please note: Because Shavuot is a Jewish celebration we are presenting the Jewish interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Different religions have different versions of the commandments)
"I am the Lord your G-d, Who has taken you out of the land of Egypt, from the house of slavery"
"You shall have no other gods but me"
"You shall not take the name of your Lord in vain"
"You shall remember and keep the Sabbath day holy"
"Honor your father and mother"
"You shall not murder"
"You shall not commit adultery"
"You shall not steal"
"You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor"
"You shall not covet your neighbor's goods. You shall not covet your neighbour's house. You shall not covet your neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his bull, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbour's."
*(Please note: Because Shavuot is a Jewish celebration we are presenting the Jewish interpretation of the Ten Commandments. Different religions have different versions of the commandments)
Moses went up the mountain and returned with the Tablets that contained the Ten Commandments.

The Oath of Maimonides courtesy of www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/rambam-oath.html .

"The eternal providence has appointed me to watch over the life and health of Thy creatures. May the love for my art actuate me at all time; may neither avarice nor miserliness, nor thirst for glory or for a great reputation engage my mind; for the enemies of truth and philanthropy could easily deceive me and make me forgetful of my lofty aim of doing good to Thy children.
May I never see in the patient anything but a fellow creature in pain.
Grant me the strength, time and opportunity always to correct what I have acquired, always to extend its domain; for knowledge is immense and the spirit of man can extend indefinitely to enrich itself daily with new requirements.
Today he can discover his errors of yesterday and tomorrow he can obtain a new light on what he thinks himself sure of today. Oh, God, Thou has appointed me to watch over the life and death of Thy creatures; here am I ready for my vocation and now I turn unto my calling."

The Oath of Hippocrates courtesy of the National Library of Medicine.

The Hippocratic Oath is perhaps the most widely known of Greek medical texts. It requires a new physician to swear upon a number of healing gods that he will uphold a number of professional ethical standards. One of the best known prohibitions is, "to do no harm".

"I swear by Apollo the physician, and Asclepius, and Hygieia and Panacea and all the gods and goddesses as my witnesses, that, according to my ability and judgement, I will keep this Oath and this contract:


To hold him who taught me this art equally dear to me as my parents, to be a partner in life with him, and to fulfill his needs when required; to look upon his offspring as equals to my own siblings, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or contract; and that by the set rules, lectures, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to students bound by this contract and having sworn this Oath to the law of medicine, but to no others.

I will use those dietary regimens which will benefit my patients according to my greatest ability and judgement, and I will do no harm or injustice to them.

I will not give a lethal drug to anyone if I am asked, nor will I advise such a plan; and similarly I will not give a woman a pessary to cause an abortion.

In purity and according to divine law will I carry out my life and my art.

I will not use the knife, even upon those suffering from stones, but I will leave this to those who are trained in this craft.

Into whatever homes I go, I will enter them for the benefit of the sick, avoiding any voluntary act of impropriety or corruption, including the seduction of women or men, whether they are free men or slaves.

Whatever I see or hear in the lives of my patients, whether in connection with my professional practice or not, which ought not to be spoken of outside, I will keep secret, as considering all such things to be private.

So long as I maintain this Oath faithfully and without corruption, may it be granted to me to partake of life fully and the practice of my art, gaining the respect of all men for all time. However, should I transgress this Oath and violate it, may the opposite be my fate."

(Translated by Michael North, National Library of Medicine, 2002.)


Italics are mine, DJH.

The arrogance of the wunderkindern Emanuels is irksome but one would not expect anyone to die of it. In the right circles it might impress people. But in America's Health Care under Obama this arrogance combined with Dr. Ezechiel J. Emanuel's peculiar post Judeo-Christian ethics will propel an ugly agenda in which the lives of all Americans are not equal in value and in which none are sacred. Our new Health Czar is a true medical elite. But he is also one of the Chicago group of thugs and crooks who presently control our country. For now this cabal controls our destiny, too--at least until we wake up and show them all the exit door.

Wolves in sheep's clothing might bruise us in the Treasury Department or Education or Agriculture. They will kill us in Health Care Reform. Literally! A life is not a life is not a life. Write to your senator and representative to demand a better czar!

We the People need to budget.

Just as a ordinary citizens review the household expenses and income weekly or monthly as part of personal budgeting, we the people ought perhaps to review our republic's budgeting. After all, whose republic is it? And, if it is ours, do we trust our elected representatives to do it? Here goes:

GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT: SECOND QUARTER 2009 (SECOND ESTIMATE)
CORPORATE PROFITS: SECOND QUARTER 2009 (PRELIMINARY ESTIMATE)

(Please skim this part fast, get to the highlighted paragraph.)

Real gross domestic product -- the output of goods and services produced by labor and property
located in the United States -- decreased at an annual rate of 1.0 percent in the second quarter of 2009,
(that is, from the first quarter to the second quarter), according to the "second" estimate released by the
Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the first quarter, real GDP decreased 6.4 percent.

The GDP estimate released today is based on more complete source data than were available for
the "advance" estimate issued last month. In the advance estimate, the decrease in real GDP was also
1.0 percent (see "Revisions" on page 3).

The decrease in real GDP in the second quarter primarily reflected negative contributions from
private inventory investment, nonresidential fixed investment, personal consumption expenditures
(PCE), residential fixed investment, and exports that were partly offset by positive contributions from
federal government spending and state and local government spending. Imports, which are a subtraction
in the calculation of GDP, decreased.

The much smaller decrease in real GDP in the second quarter than in the first primarily reflected
much smaller decreases in nonresidential fixed investment and in exports, an upturn in federal
government spending, smaller decreases in private inventory investment and residential fixed
investment, and an upturn in state and local government spending that were partly offset by a much
smaller decrease in imports and a downturn in PCE.

Motor vehicle output added 0.20 percentage point to the second-quarter change in real GDP after
subtracting 1.69 percentage points from the first-quarter change. Final sales of computers subtracted
0.05 percentage point from the second-quarter change in real GDP after adding 0.06 percentage point to
the first-quarter change.

________________________
FOOTNOTE.--Quarterly estimates are expressed at seasonally adjusted annual rates, unless otherwise
specified. Quarter-to-quarter dollar changes are differences between these published estimates.
Percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and are annualized. “Real” estimates are in
chained (2005) dollars. Price indexes are chain-type measures.

This news release is available on BEA’s Web site along with the Technical Note and Highlights related
to this release.
________________________

The price index for gross domestic purchases, which measures prices paid by U.S. residents,
increased 0.5 percent in the second quarter, 0.2 percentage point less than in the advance estimate; this
index decreased 1.4 percent in the first quarter. Excluding food and energy prices, the price index for
gross domestic purchases increased 0.8 percent in the second quarter, compared with an increase of 0.2
percent in the first.

Real personal consumption expenditures decreased 1.0 percent in the second quarter, in contrast
to an increase of 0.6 percent in the first. Real nonresidential fixed investment decreased 10.9 percent,
compared with a decrease of 39.2 percent. Nonresidential structures decreased 15.1 percent, compared
with a decrease of 43.6 percent. Equipment and software decreased 8.4 percent, compared with a
decrease of 36.4 percent. Real residential fixed investment decreased 22.8 percent, compared with a
decrease of 38.2 percent.

Real exports of goods and services decreased 5.0 percent in the second quarter, compared with a
decrease of 29.9 percent in the first. Real imports of goods and services decreased 15.1 percent,
compared with a decrease of 36.4 percent.

Real federal government consumption expenditures and gross investment increased 11.0 percent
in the second quarter, in contrast to a decrease of 4.3 percent in the first. National defense increased
13.3 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 5.1 percent. Non defense increased 6.2 percent, in contrast to a
decrease of 2.5 percent. Real state and local government consumption expenditures and gross
investment increased 3.6 percent, in contrast to a decrease of 1.5 percent.

The change in real private inventories subtracted 1.39 percentage points from the second-quarter
change in real GDP, after subtracting 2.36 percentage points from the first-quarter change. Private
businesses decreased inventories $159.2 billion in the second quarter, following decreases of $113.9
billion in the first and $37.4 billion in the fourth.

Real final sales of domestic product -- GDP less change in private inventories -- increased 0.4
percent in the second quarter, in contrast to a decrease of 4.1 percent in the first.


Gross domestic purchases

Real gross domestic purchases -- purchases by U.S. residents of goods and services wherever
produced -- decreased 2.5 percent in the second quarter, compared with a decrease of 8.6 percent in the
first.


Gross national product

Real gross national product -- the goods and services produced by the labor and property
supplied by U.S. residents -- decreased 0.8 percent in the second quarter, compared with a decrease of
6.6 percent in the first. GNP includes, and GDP excludes, net receipts of income from the rest of the
world, which increased $6.4 billion in the second quarter after decreasing $6.1 billion in the first; in the
second quarter, receipts decreased $16.8 billion, and payments decreased $23.2 billion.


(You have arrived:)

Current-dollar GDP:

Current-dollar GDP -- the market value of the nation's output of goods and services -- decreased
1.0 percent, or $34.7 billion, in the second quarter to a level of $14,143.3 billion. In the first quarter,
current-dollar GDP decreased 4.6 percent, or $169.3 billion.


America is a rich country with a huge GDP. But let's look at costs, obligations present and future, and ways to return to fiscal balance. Let's start with Medicare, and Medicaid, costs of which are are projected to grow robustly at the very same time as our economy is projected to grow slowly.

Thoughtful, skilled, and sober experts predict that our unemployment will remain high and inflation will return with vigor at the same time that entitlement spending balloons. The bright light at the end of our (present) tunnel is not daylight. One does not need a degree in economics to see that our country is on a collision course.

Promises have been made to citizens and money has been collected from them, so there is Mandatory Spending. Accurate estimations of these costs can be made into the future. Actuarial science and standard accounting principles leave little room for error here.

Large deficits loom over the entitlements. Was the money never put aside? Did the Great Society #1 raid the lock box? Is it right to have called it a "lock box?" What will Great Society #2 do with the money citizens give back to their government, in good faith, for their health and comfort in old age? Is money being transferred from one segment of the society to another? Will "means testing" eventually disenfranchise the very segment of the society that put the money into Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security? "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need." Except that in this new Obama marxism, if you both put in and need, you will not receive. This goes beyond communism and will be the gift that keeps on giving.



President Obama stated in May 2009: "But we know that our families, our economy, and our nation itself will not succeed in the 21st century if we continue to be held down by the weight of rapidly rising health care costs and a broken health care system...Our businesses will not be able to compete; our families will not be able to save or spend; our budgets will remain unsustainable unless we get health care costs under control."

The present value of unfunded obligations under all parts of Medicare during FY 2007 is approximately $34.1 trillion. In other words, this amount would have to be set aside today such that the principal and interest would cover the shortfall over the next 75 years.[15]

We have an unfunded obligation of 34.1 T, as above, but our annual federal government intake is as below:

This does not look workable. We need to stop our dreaming. Obama needs to do the job we elected him for--put our house in order after the ruination of George W. Bush's terms. (No, he did not have to spend our money on "regime change" and "nation building" in the Middle East.) We the people elected Obama to change the system, true enough. But change it to fiscally responsible, not from free enterprise capitalism (to Social Democrat Labor Unionist). Get on with the job, Mr. President. Balance our budget. Spread the pain and suffering, not spread the wealth. We're all out of wealth right now.

For starters, a budget for Health Care in America:

Inasmuch as our economy is 14 T/year and we are said to spend 15% on health care, we might say that we spend 2.1 T/year for our health care. Let's try an overly simplistic budget for Health Care using these numbers:

1.0 T/year for Medicare

1.0 T/year for Medicaid

Everyone who is older goes into Medicare.

All others go into Medicaid.

Now, we need to make Medicaid more appealing, so we put everyone not in Medicare in Medicaid. Everyone from our president on down is in Medicaid or Medicare. No special deal for unionists, legislators, members of the federal judiciary, members of the executive branch past or present, veterans, Indians, retired railroad workers, big CEO's, fat cats and skinny cats. Even visiting foreigners are in one or the other. I know this would spiff up tired, dowdy, unresponsive, under providing and under performing Medicaid overnight. Do you think Michelle Obama would accept Medicaid in its present form as insurance for her family? Few good doctors will accept Medicaid patients. (And fewer and fewer good doctors and clinics take Medicare patients.)

And we will need to make Health Care more efficient and cost effective across the board. I suggest we employ a version of the methodology used in the French health care system, where government writes the check but hospitals, clinics, doctors, and various other providers of proven beneficial health care compete for the privilege of caring for the citizens. Pay for curative interventions and important palliative maneuvers. Let the people pay for unproved nostrums out of their own pocket. Do not expect better preventive care to save money--it won't. But if it can be proven to be effective, employ it anyway. Improve the methodology of Evidence Based Medicine, and mounting large scale randomized and prospective studies to resolve clinical questions so we have more answers than questions in medicine. Quality, efficacy, efficiency should be the standard. Eliminate the foolish waste of defensive medicine by reworking the system of medical malpractice while still keeping our ancient law of torts.

Health Care is not the only budget buster to be addressed. I believe we need to do some other things, too. We need to stop dreaming of Great Society #2--no money for that right now. We should repeal some of the promises made in Great Society #1 while we are at it--same reason. We must scale back overseas imperial adventures. (Great Britain ceased to be Great because of the Boer War, which was her Iraq, and WWI, which some say she started.) We must scale back our military presence overseas, even though this will leave Japan, Germany, and South Korea unprotected. (Unprotected from whom? Let them buy military paraphernalia from our manufacturers so they defend themselves.) We have to curtail spending on military items no longer of any use--or redirect the money to items likely to serve our purposes better now and in the future. We need to implement the same changes in education and state and federal government that were made by companies in the private sector, and by the same means: eliminate layers and layers of managerial workforce by fully utilizing the power of the computer. We need to modernize or tax code and the methodology of tax collection.

America balanced its budget under President Clinton. Let's ask him to select a commission to balance the federal budget. I think he is likely to be fair and not balance our budget on the backs of those who do not vote blue. Nor would he unfairly disenfranchise the old, the poor, or the sick. We are a rich country with a huge Gross Domestic Product. We can balance our budget. We will need to grow up politically, and heed St. Paul's advice in 31 Corinthians 13: 11 "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things." King James Version, my italics. Amen.

President Obama, get on with the job for which you were chosen. Put us back on the road to fiscal responsibility. Insist on the single payer system but add some of the French essence. Use your supremely skillful oratory to get us back to where we were under President Clinton. Spread the pain and suffering not the wealth. If you want your head on Mount Rushmore, you will need to lead (the people) not follow (your misguided, misinformed, and misplaced) advisers.

Thanks to www sources including the Government Accounting Office and Wikipedia for data displayed.

Evidence Based Medicine.

Our cat "Sweetie" counteracts the deleterious effects of stress and thereby saves lives. This is self evident.

Sweetie is the oldest known name for a cat, as it was found in an Egyptian tomb along with the embalmed cat that went by that name. Our Sweetie has expressed a preference for cremation.

Google hits for evidence based governance: 5,320, vs 2,250,000 for evidence based medicine. I'd like to see more interest in evidence based governance. But I'll write on Evidence Based Medicine this time.

The Great Health Care Debate grinds on. And on and on . . . Let us hope that our congress and president will turn out to be like the "mills of God (that) grind slow, but they grind exceeding fine." Health Care is obviously a right of the citizen in an advanced society. Get sick in Italy and you are taken to an Italian hospital, and cared for. You will not even meet the billing/admission officer (who is the first person you will see in our American hospitals). My wife just spent a week in Cardiac Intensive Care in hospitals in Sorrento and Sarno, regio di Napoli. I am a doctor and noticed the difference between our way and the Italian way. We left the hospital without any bill or statement whatsoever. Medicines for a month cost 40 USD. One of the same medicines cost 189 USD a month later, back home--I switched that one to a generic equivalent c/o Walmart and asked Walgreens to refund the money. I told Walgreens they should have told my wife that the Italian version of an ACE inhibitor was prohibitively expensive but that inexpensive alternatives were available here in America. (Some of our high cost is avoidable, but then not all Americans are physicians or spouses of physicians.)

Well, until we come to grips with the high cost of medication, the high cost of medical technology, the high cost of defensive medicine, and the high cost of life styles deleterious to one's health, we and our Great Debate will grind on without ginding exceeding fine. Let's look at the matter of Evidence Based Medicine--small "p" panacea for Health Care savings in the current planning.

Evidence Based Medicine is an attempt to upregulate the science of medicine and downregulate the art of medicine. This makes good sense and fits our modern mind set in the Age of Information. Add translational research and the widespread use of high quality medical studies and we will answer the perennial questions one by one, and save time and money by getting the diagnosis and proper, effective treatment on the first try. It used to be that medicine was described as an art and a science. The aim of Evidence Based Medicine is to hasten the day that medicine is described as a science.

There are some problems inherent in this venture. For one thing, even though we humans have a scant 30,000 genes and seem to constitute a single species with nearly identical DNA--we are within a percent or two of having the same DNA as chimpanzees--we do not react the same to threats, external or internal; toxins, medicines, the passage of time, diet, and so forth. Everyone has heard of someone's grandfather who smoked like the proverbial chimney for eighty years and died in his sleep at ninety-two. And who never went to a doctor, either. My mother was in her ninetieth year when she told me that she did not like to see doctors because all the people doing so were ill. Structuring what we call randomized prospective high quality studies that have sufficient intrinsic statistical power to resolve clinically important questions is easy on paper. Conducting the study without breaks in protocol because either the patient or the clinician departed from the script is difficult. The studies of cancer treatment must span years and years to accrue enough patients to yield solid answers to the original question. But treatments and styles change over time and so does the cast of investigators. Such basic questions as "does screening men for possible prostate cancer save lives? or does such screening translate to early diagnosis? and does early diagnosis of prostate cancer save lives?" seem straight forward enough. Maybe intelligent lay persons doubt a need to study such questions. Humor me, those issues and thousands of others have not been laid to rest.

But Evidence Based Medicine should answer such questions and let us move on to thornier issues like "do intracoronary stents save lives?" Believe it or not, one can find expert opinion on both sides of the above questions, each of the questions. This is baffling for patients and discouraging for their doctors. There is only one arena in which there is absolute certainty: court of law/medical malpractice/failure to diagnose cancer/late stage prostate cancer. Trial lawyers are not seeking truth, though. They are seeking settlement money. Theirs is all art and no science. But I digress and I apologize.

First let's look at definitions for Evidence Based Medicine. Then let's look at some recent reports in the fine Journal of Evidence Based Medicine.

NHS QIS 2005 (definition courtesy of the National Health Service of Scotland)
Evidence-based clinical practice is an approach to decision-making in which the clinician uses the best evidence available, in consultation with the patient, to decide upon the option which suits the patient best.
NHS Quality Improvement Scotland 2005

Evidence-based practice:
is integration of best research evidence with clinical expertise and patient values
Sackett et al. 2000

The National Mental Health Association is committed to promoting the appropriate use of medications for all illnesses, including mental illnesses. NMHA subscribes to the common definition of evidence based medicine as the integration of the best research evidence with clinician expertise and patient values, and has grave concerns about public policies and protocols that fail to account for this definition. Below please find links to more information on major research findings on the effectiveness of mental health medications as well as issue briefs on EBM more broadly.

When clinicians practice evidence-based practice:
The best available evidence, modified by patient circumstances and preferences, is applied to improve the quality of clinical judgements.
McMaster Clinical Epidemiology Group 1997

Some representative studies in this literature:


Evidence-Based Medicine 2009;14:105; doi:10.1136/ebm.14.4.105
Copyright © 2009 by the Royal Society of Medicine.

THERAPEUTICS

Periodic screening with prostate-specific antigen testing reduced mortality from prostate cancer

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

STUDY DESIGN

Design:
randomised controlled trial (European Randomised Study of Screening for Prostate Cancer [ERSPC]). Current Controlled Trials ISRCTN49127736 [controlled-trials.com] .


Allocation:
not concealed, at least in part.* In 3 countries, randomisation occurred before consent was obtained; in the other 4 countries, only consenting participants were randomised, but allocation concealment was unclear.


Blinding:
blinded (outcome adjudication committees).*


STUDY QUESTION

Setting:
7 European countries.


Participants:
162 243 men 55–69 years of age (mean age 61 y). Some countries also enrolled men outside of this age range, but they were not included in this analysis. Men with a previous diagnosis of prostate cancer were excluded.


Intervention:
screening, on average, once every 4 years with prostate-specific antigen (PSA) testing (n = 72 890) or usual care (n = 89 353). In most centres, a serum PSA concentration >3.0 ng/ml was considered to be an indication for biopsy or additional diagnostic tests. Men diagnosed with prostate cancer were treated according to local standard practice.


Outcomes:
. . . [Full text of this article]


So, using the readily available blood test, PSA or prostate specific antigen, one can find prostate cancer earlier and the mortality or death rate was reduced. This suggests that there is Evidence available for the Basis of Medical practice of screening men with PSA testing. That should help the clinician with good decision making. Ah, but here comes another article reporting another study aiming at answering the same question:


Evidence-Based Medicine 2009;14:104-105; doi:10.1136/ebm.14.4.104
Copyright © 2009 by the Royal Society of Medicine.

THERAPEUTICS

Annual screening for prostate cancer did not reduce mortality from prostate cancer.

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

STUDY DESIGN

Design:
randomised controlled trial (Prostate, Lung, Colorectal, and Ovarian [PLCO] Cancer Screening Trial). ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00002540 [ClinicalTrials.gov] .


Allocation:
{concealed}*.


Blinding:
blinded (outcome adjudication committee).


STUDY QUESTION

Setting:
10 centres in the USA.


Participants:
76 693 men 55–74 years of age. Exclusion criteria included history of PLCO cancer, current cancer treatment, and >1 prostate-specific antigen (PSA) test in 3 years.


Intervention:
annual screening with PSA testing for 6 years and digital rectal examination for 4 years (n = 38 343) or usual care that might include screening (n = 38 350). A serum PSA concentration >4.0 ng/ml was considered to be a positive result. Men and their primary physicians were informed of test results; they decided on further diagnostic evaluation and treatment, according to standard practice.


Outcomes:
incidence of and mortality from prostate cancer at 7 years. {The trial had >90% power to detect a 20% relative reduction in prostate cancer mortality.}*


Follow-up period:
median 12 years.


Participant follow-up:
98% at 7 years (intention-to-screen analysis).


MAIN RESULTS
. . . [Full text of this article]

Steven E Canfield

University of Texas Medical School at Houston, Houston, Texas, USA


So, screening did not reduce mortality of prostate cancer. Opposite conclusions, same issue of the same journal, same clinical question. This illustrates the problem with Evidence Based Medicine: great idea but needs more work.


It is not ready for prime time yet. There is still ample room for art in the "medicine is an art and a science." In fact, look at those definitions again and see if there is not a bit of hedging there. The definitions seem to call for a measure of clinical art of medicine in applying the best available evidence. But perhaps prostate cancer is aiming too high. Let's pick something really basic, like does a vaccination that most young people and many older people get, the pneumococcal vaccine, do any good? This report appeared in the same issue as the two prostate cancer screening reports:


Evidence-Based Medicine 2009;14:109; doi:10.1136/ebm.14.4.109
Copyright © 2009 by the Royal Society of Medicine.

THERAPEUTICS

Review: pneumococcal vaccination is not effective for preventing pneumonia, bacteraemia, bronchitis, or mortality

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

QUESTION
Is pneumococcal vaccination effective for various clinical outcomes in adults?


REVIEW SCOPE
Included studies compared pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine with placebo, other vaccines, or no intervention (control). Studies of children; evaluation of antibody responses only or pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccines as a booster after conjugate pneumococcal vaccine; or animal, laboratory, and observational intervention studies were excluded. Outcomes were definitive pneumococcal pneumonia, presumptive pneumococcal pneumonia, all-cause pneumonia, bacteraemia or invasive pneumococcal disease, bronchitis, all-cause mortality, pneumonia mortality, and mortality from pneumococcal infection.


REVIEW METHODS
Medline (1966 to May 2007), EMBASE/Excerpta Medica (1974 to May 2007), Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials, Latin American and Caribbean Health Sciences Literature, Indian Medlars Centre, African Index Medicus, and reference lists were searched for randomised controlled trials (RCTs) or quasi-RCTs. 22 trials (n = 101 507) met the selection criteria.


MAIN RESULTS
Meta-analysis showed that pneumococcal vaccination did not differ from control for definitive pneumococcal pneumonia (table). The pneumococcal vaccination group . . . [Full text of this article]

Jennie Johnstone
McMaster University Hamilton, Ontario, Canada


Now, that's definitive and would guide practice. Except that an attending physician who neglected to offer the pneumococcal vaccine to his or her Florida patient would be on the wrong side of expert testimony were something bad to happen to that patient. The doctor would be right not to have offered or counseled for the vaccination but the jury would never see that journal report. We need more than just good clear data, we need to rework the medical litigation system in our country. At least study this problem and its high costs.


Any physician who has practiced medicine long enough to have mastered the art of medicine will welcome more science with open arms, including Evidence Based Medicine. But the present state-of-the-art of Evidence Based Medicine, if I can play on words here, is not sufficient to guide much of what goes on in Health Care, far less promise great savings early on. This is something we should invest in now so that the future will be better for patients and doctors and whoever pays for all this. Don't count on Evidence Based Medicine to save money in today's Health Care.