Woodstock CT Café

To the Stone Bridge Press,

As Anders Behring Breivik goes on trial this month for his bombing and mass murder in Norway, the focus of the headlines and story will be on how extremist verbal attacks on Islam and Muslims can encourage horrific crimes by well-armed culture warriors.

The Villager opinion pages have frequently published letters with incendiary language inappropriate for a general-circulation community newspaper. This spring, these have included two letters that Mr. Breivik would have read with enthusiastic agreement.

I attach here a 750-word letter by Gary Menard, printed in the Villager on March 9th, and my response, which was printed the following week, March 16th. Gary wants to warn us of the impending takeover of our legal system and abrogation of our Constitution by Muslims and their sympathizers. This is exactly what motivated Anders Breivik to act in defense of his country and culture.

As I pointed out in my 503-word response, the Judge in question was not employing Sharia Law but the respected legal principle of “Fighting Words,” considered in line with our own First Amendment. Thank you for publishing my rebuttal, but you should have rejected his original letter as inflammatory racist hate-speech suitable only for certain AM talk-radio shows.

Ignoring my points, Mr. Menard, in an 826-word letter published March 30th, renewed his attack on what he considers a violent, intolerant religion and on us purposefully ignorant apologists. I refer you to my 542-word response, emailed Monday, April 2nd at 9:00 AM, to explain how dangerous and un-American I think his letters are. But my letter wasn’t published the following Friday, or this next Friday, either. Read the rest of this entry »

from John

I thought I’d try to right about the “mommy wars” without knowing what to say. I guess a good place to start is with my own mother. Here’s a picture of her in the early 1960s having her monthly luncheon/tea party with the “tea bags.” That’s the waterfront behind them. (Click to enlarge)
I’m not sure who took the picture but it might have been Stefan Shnabel, a successful Broadway and character actor in the movies. I mention Stefan because he coined the name “tea bags.” My mother, June, is second from the left in the enlarged picture and the other ladies are very familiar Rowayton mothers in my childhood. None of these women ever had a job that I know of. They were all raising families in the 1950s. Probably the only woman who was divorced (an remarried) in Rowayton then was Jane, the woman second from the right.

I noticed at the Rowayton Hysterical Society website that my mother is still remembered for founding the Rowayton Garden Club 54 years later. We always had a great flower garden. I don’t think of my mother as exceptionally smart, especially because of the time in the 50s when she was writing a letter and asked me if you spell cat with a “k” or a “c”. I remember telling her it was with a “k”. However, my mother was an exceptional artist. Here’s just one small example. Her artistry was what made her stand out more than anything else. I am sure each of these tea bags had a special talent of their own.

I’m not sure why but I always liked girls and women who were very smart. This is one of the reasons I ended up with Becki who has many talents and started showing these at an early age. I’m sure Mrs. Romney does too. My kids all paid for most of their college with scholarships excepting our daughter Mariah who has other fortes. My eldest daughter, Elizabeth, is now struggling in raising three young kids, and my second eldest daughter, Christina, is raising a son and teaching acting and theatre production in the Tulsa area, and also is a successful actor in her own right locally. I talk about what’s special about Christina in “Friday Night Lights.” Much to my surprise and JTO’s bewilderment we had a run of several hundred visitors to the Café to that article on Thursday and Friday over and above the usual suspects at the Café and some actually read the article which makes me happy because she is so special. Must have been something in the news that brought them here by way of Google, Bing, and Yahoo. My son, Drew, is having twins this coming week. But of course it is his wife, Michelle, who is going to have to endure the pain if there is any. Michelle decided after their first child to quit work and focus on being a mommy. Now she’ll have more of a challenge. When you decide to be a mommy only, this doesn’t mean you lose your identity and talents. I hate to see kids in daycare, but the sad reality today unlike the 50s and early 60s is that some families and single mothers cannot pay the basic bills unless the mom works.

All women have a different story to tell and have to deal with disadvantages in the work place, as well. It’s hard enough for a guy to find a job but imagine how much more difficult it is for women, in general, to find decent rewarding jobs. Mrs. Romney has been disadvantaged for her entire adult life by her wealth … but what would you do or how would you turn out to be if you won the lottery?

I heard a female senator opine this morning that women are only 16% of the congressmen; and she suggested that things would be very different in Congress if the genders were 50:50.

I’d love to see it.

To Becki

We are still devastated by the loss of our son Trayvon Martin, and nothing can bring him back. But today, we are heartened to tell you that justice may finally be served for Trayvon.

This evening, Florida State Attorney Angela Corey announced that she will charge George Zimmerman with 2nd degree murder, weeks after he confessed to killing Trayvon – and now he’s in custody.

For weeks after Trayvon was killed, authorities refused to arrest Zimmerman. We couldn’t believe that in 2012, public officials would turn a blind eye to our son’s killing. We couldn’t let that happen.

More than 2 million people joined our call for Zimmerman’s arrest. We are so much closer to justice with the decision to bring charges against our son’s killer. We feel less alone knowing that so many people stood with our family during this impossible time.

When Trayvon was just nine, he ran into a burning house to save his father’s life. He may be gone, but he is still our hero. We are so thankful to all of you who fought to honor his memory. 

Thank you for standing with us, and with Trayvon.

- Tracy Martin and Sybrina Fulton

The series of Letters below are from Leslie Sweetnam to the Villager. Leslie’s came as a result of Gary Menard’s Letter of March 9th alleging that Sharia Law was being added to our justice system. Leslie responded with a Letter that was published the following week, the 16th of March. Then two weeks later on the 30th of March, Gary Menard published a second Letter in the same vein. However,  Adam Minor failed to publish Leslie’s response to Menard’s March 30th Letter in the April 6th edition of the Villager.

Leslie asks that anyone who has strong feelings about the Villager editorial pages, and this issue of hate speech, should contact editor Adam Minor directly, as he seems to think Leslie is just a voice in the wilderness.

Here is Leslie’s current Letter to the Villager.

(To Villager) Editor Minor,

Few newspapers would print the kind of sectarian hate and slander against Muslims as a group that you printed last week from Gary Menard. I do hear it occasionally on talk radio, but most Americans agree that such efforts to divide us in to Us and Them is compromising any attempt to address the challenges we face as a nation and a world. Further, not since Father Coughlin’s attack on international Jewery has it been acceptable for Americans to demonize an entire religion, which is what Mr. Menard clearly is doing in his last several letters.

Shame on you for printing such incendiary language and more shame on you for not printing my rebuttal in a timely manner. If the deadline for submission has changed from noon, Monday, I want to know.

There may be a fine line between printing controversy and printing sectarian slander, but Villager Newspapers should know when its is crossed. The difference between angry letters about the United Nations and angry letters about Muslims is that we have a community of Muslims in Putnam and publishing letters about dangerous Muslims may lead to some incident for which Stonebridge Press would bear some responsibility.

I include my letter to the editor and below it the letter I sent the last time you delayed my response, which explained why delaying a response to these diatribes affects how readers judge the Villager Newspapers.

Respectfully,

G. L. Sweetnam
Woodstock

Leslie’s Letter submitted on Monday, April 2nd.

To the Editor,

Demonizing Islam as an inherently and uniquely hateful and dangerous religion is unwise, unethical and even unChristian.

It’s unwise because it alienates the many Muslims who are not extremists but who are our most important and valuable agents in the fight against Muslim terrorists. Denigrating the religion of your allies, especially those in a position to observe and report on the plots of your true enemies, is folly. Read the rest of this entry »

This data was published by the British newspaper The Guardian. My goodness, see what the anonymous commenters are saying under the article HERE. For example warmachineuk says: “Lagging behind Australia or the Scandinavian countries is unfortunate but nothing to be ashamed of. Only three ranks ahead of the US in mathematics, a country that generally doesn’t value intellect, is embarrassing.”
Source of Data: Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, OECD PISA (Program for Student Assessment) – 2010 Data.

“Are students well prepared for future challenges? Can they analyse, reason and communicate effectively? Do they have the capacity to continue learning throughout life? The OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA) answers these questions and more, through its surveys of 15-year-olds in the principal industrialised countries. Every three years, it assesses to what extent students near the end of compulsory education have acquired some of the knowledge and skills essential for full participation in society.”

Around 470,000 15-year old students from 41 countries participated in the assessment. The countries included all major industrialized nations (results for Britain were not available) and 26 other nations that chose to participate. The test scores are from 2010.

Read the rest of this entry »

from John

The video (taken 40 minutes after the killing) of Zimmerman entering the police station shows no blood or broken nose, nothing that suggests that Zimmerman was in a fight. So the police are part of this conspiracy with their phoney police report. The coroner saw no evidence of a fight on Trayvon.

I don’t believe any of this defense that is being put forth on behalf of Trayvon’s killer, George Zimmerman. They are trying to build a case against the slight and innocent black kid that doesn’t jive with bystanders’ testimony. If indeed Trayvon broke Zimmerman’s nose, which I don’t believe for a minute, the evidence suggests that he was fighting for his life against a would be, self-serving, bigotted wanna-be policeman with gun drawn who was stalking Trayvon even after being told “…don’t follow him.”

from Nuclear Hobbit

Nuclear’s previous post.

I have found the oil companies drilling for oil and gas everywhere. It’s as if no one is talking about it. They are fracking in Ohio now. A pipeline that used to be bringing fuel from Colorado and another from the Gulf will now be sending it in the other direction. The number of jobs that will come of it nationwide will be incredible. In North Dakota, the company I was working for ordered 20,000 modular homes, 10,000 of which will be permanently made homes. There are no hotel rooms available anywhere in the region (Dakotas) and they now have more rental vehicles there than in Las Vegas. The Town I was in had one cop two years ago, now they have 18, six cars and a fire department on the way. The craziest thing I have seen was in downtown Torrance, California. You can pick your nose in CA without a permit. A subsidiary of Halliburton came to town, bought the Ace Hardware, leveled it, and built a giant aluminum shed. Inside there is a derrick drilling for oil. An old friend works there. He gets paid $750 a day to shake bottles of mud. Just thought you’d like to know. Been to 27 states so far this year. Got out to Argentina, Chile, and Trinidad Tobago.

“Why extremists always focus on women remains a mystery to me. But they all seem to. It doesn’t matter what country they’re in or what religion they claim. They want to control women. They want to control how we dress, they want to control how we act, they even want to control the decisions we make about our own health and bodies.”

Here’s Hillary’s full address after a one-minute introduction videoed at the bottom of this webpage at the Daily Beast.

From John: Are we living in Afghanistan where women don’t own their own name? Our extremist politicians and certain Cafe commenters remind me of the terrible situation for Afghan women if the US vacates that country. I wonder if the repetitious attacks on teachers’ pay in Woodstock are more an attack on women by arrogant threatened men since women make up the vast majority of K-8 teachers.

from Dean

Those include my friends. Mary, why dont you go to Afghanistan and burn a Koran instead of risking our heroes for your personal idiocy if you think that that is so important. Oh, it is safer to do it here? Shame on you. Only more proof that the extreme right is un-American.

I usually ignore the fools, but not one who doesnt think for a second about risking our soldiers.

from Con

Just to clarify, you (Newcomer) first say that “the issue must ALWAYS remain between each individual woman and her God…and her Church” and “At no point in the decision is there EVER a place for the U.S. government to force a choice on a woman.” I haven’t heard any argument that the Government is forcing a choice directly on a woman – in what way is that happening?

The argument I’ve heard is that by including contraceptives in what is covered by the insurance provided through employment, the CHURCH is being forced by the Government to effectively pay for those contraceptives because they are paying the premiums (even though conservatives always argue that such expenses are actually and in fact paid by the EMPLOYEE because it is passed through in every instance – that would seem to defeat the argument in it’s tracks, but I understand that’s not the case because the Church is the one making the insurance premium payments – just wanted to illustrate yet another way these arguments can so easily be turned on their head by repeating exactly what is said in other arguments).

Anyway, in what possible way is the Government FORCING a choice directly on a woman? She is employed, has coverage that includes contraceptives and it’s her choice whether to use her insurance to purchase contraceptives, right? Or are you employing the argument that I outlined above, that she is really the one paying for OTHERS to purchase contraceptives against her conscience? The first part of your first paragraph is confusing in that way. Anyway…

The manner with which you framed your argument demands that I first accept certain of your buried assumptions upon which your conclusions rely – the sophists used to do this to good effect, but it’s not a valid method of debate and has been exposed to be ‘intellectually dishonest’. The classic example of a ‘forced assumption’ is the lawyer asking the defendant in the witness chair “Yes or no – do you still sell heroine to grade school children?”. I do not accept certain of your assumptions, as I will describe. First, let me stress that I believe that whenever someone makes a truly ‘blanket’ statement like Mary did (and you do a little in your comment), it is incumbent on anyone involved in the debate, no matter what side, to keep the debate honest by challenging such statements. Read the rest of this entry »

from Dean

The graph at this site shows historic gas prices in US over the last 5 years. The prices were higher under Bush (to Mary Mapes).

The reason that fuel prices are so high is for the following reasons:

1) There are two wars going on in the Middle East and lots of other saber rattling. That encourages commodity investors to bet that the price of oil will increase, which it then does. Before Bush began his war of choice in Iraq, gas was below $2 a gallon.

2) China and India are now major comptitors for oil. They werent ten years ago.

John, you said that Kennedy wanted to extract us from Vietnam, but the record is not all that clear on that. Kennedy was constantly trying to placate the hawks with the Bay of Pigs, putting nuclear missles in Turkey (creating the Cuban Missle Crisis) and putting advisors and soldiers in Vietnam. He also approved the coup that overthrew and killed Diem in Vietnam and plunged that country’s government in chaos throughout the rest of the war. Kennedy’s cabinet and Joint Chiefs of Staff were all hawks. The reason why Johnston stayed in Vietnam because he was pressured by Kennedy advisors to go win that war.

My pick of best and worst presidents since Roosevelt:

1) Roosevelt-carried country through Great Depression and WWII.

2) Reagan- turned culture of country around from feeling sorry for ourselves to one of pride. Also, will give him credit for winning Cold War.

3) Eisenhower/Truman-Patriots first, did what was best for the country and not for their careers.

4) Clinton- I disliked the guy but give him credit for the economic expansion and financial growth for everyone, Also leaving with a balanced budget.

5) Obama – He has his right wing and left wing critics. But if you can piss off the extremists on both sides, you are doing something right. Avoided catastrophe from the Great Depression, and actually got national health care program done.

more on Obama from Dean:

1) Bush brought us the Great Recession, Obama took over in the depth of it and we were out of the technical recession within 9 months.

2) I read this weekend somewheres (NYT or WSJ probably) that our stock market is the only market among western industrialized countries whose value is higher than from before the start of the Great Recession. We are doing better than everyone else (even though it still sucks).

3) Finally at last started getting some successes in Afghanistan, killed Bin Laden while Bush team management of the war allowed Bin Laden to slip away. Killed more terrorist leaders than Bush with increased drone strikes in pakistan and other places.

4) Passed Health Care Bill. Clinton backed down when he started to catch heat on this. Obama pressed on and I give him credit for that courage. This is something that we need to be competitive in the world market. Our system nw is badly broken and not sustainable.

6) Bush 1 – Very competent administration to get things done.

7) Ford/Carter- Both nice guys with good intentions but not really smart or tough. Didn’t get anything done. But getting nothing done is better than the disasters the others left us with.

8.) Nixon- Did alot of very good things, opened relations with China to isolate Soviets, EPA, Medicare, etc…, but complete lack of moral judgement.

9) Kennedy- Number of disasters or close disasters, once you got past the Camelot nonsense. Almost started WWIII by putting missles in Turkey which caused the Soviets to put missles in Cuba.

10) Johnson -Horrible execution of Vietnam War, Great Society changed culture of country in wrong direction.

11) Bush 2 – What can I say, 2 poorly run wars, lied to country about one of them, worst growth in family income, economic policies lead to Great Recession, dollar at lowest value since Civil War, all time high prices for fuel, could go on and on with this. He wasnt a smart man, Reagan wasnt either but had the good sense to put really smart people around him. Bush put cronies and yes men around him.

READ HERE

from Con

Too many Americans, when speaking about the poor engage this unique pattern of haughty superiority – they feel entitled to pass judgment on how they live, what they choose to buy (while saying how they love un-compromised Liberty) etc., “It’s my money they are spending on Lottery tickets!” is the cry. It’s often coupled with Romney’s attitude, taking his remark IN context, that current programs are absolutely adequate to live well and adequate to the task of not only keeping them treading water, but actually able to seize all the vast opportunities out there ‘if only they weren’t so lazy’ (another value judgment made only about the poor).

‘Just get out there and get a job!’ – there are 14 motivated, qualified candidates for every 3 jobs right now. No matter how you slice it, no matter that some can and do ‘pull themselves up by their bootstraps’ it is a mathematical certainty that some will not be able to do that.

Romney said he isn’t concerned because the current ‘Safety Net’ is adequate. This is the perception of those who don’t have to rely on it. Romney plans to cut those programs, yet he also said ‘and if the Safety Net is broken, I will fix it’ – that simple, huh! Wow, all of the problems of the poor can be summed up like that (and he will have no problem ‘fixing’ the so-called Safety Net can be achieve while at the same time slashing their budget?).

How many honest, motivated people do you know that live in Poverty. There are plenty of them, yet I have not heard them – those who absolutely know best, walk the walk, do not take advantage and are honest, decent people – I’ve never heard any of them deem it their prerogative to make value judgements about their fellow Americans, deciding what they do and do not deserve. How is it anyone’s business to pass judgment on the poor? Read the rest of this entry »

Novel Stem Cell Treatment for Type I Diabetes.

from Jeff Gordon

As a Hematology-Oncology physician, caring for people with blood disorders, including malignant blood disorders, is what I do. The whole field of bone marrow, peripheral blood stem cell and cord blood transplantations is quite fascinating and has offered for many people the opportunities for either long-term control of their cancers or outright cures. It is not a panacea, however, and there are morbidities and moralities to consider. Not every person is a candidate for a transplant.

Hematopoietic cells in healthy adults come from the bone marrow. Before birth, the spleen and even the liver make such cells, but there is a shift from such soon after birth.

There are different types of levels of stem cells, some “uncommitted” to a defined hematopoietic pathway (such as to make white blood cells, red blood cells or megakaryocytes [these through a process of budding make platelets]) and some more committed.

There are a lot of internal processes in the bone marrow. It is an active organ system and since there is a lot of bone marrow in adults, it is a big organ system. I think technically the skin is the largest organ system. There is a lot of interesting processes outside of the bone marrow that interact with the bone marrow.

At a basic level, I have always found it a wonder that cytotoxic chemotherapy can be given at basically lethal dosing to blank out the bone marrow (and hopefully the malignant blood process as well) and that someone’s own (autologous) or someone else’s (allogenic) bone marrow or stem cells can be given via infusion and these cells know where to go, how to set up shop, and how to repopulate the marrow. Read the rest of this entry »

Romeo Blackmer said: “…the use of the ‘Synthetic Marijuanas’ like K2 and “Spice” are being looked at by the DEA as possibly causing deaths. These chemical “copycats” of marijuana have contributed to recent deaths/suicides among users.”

From John

I put ‘synthetic’ in semi-quotes because this term can be a mis-nomer when the amateur chemist has no idea what he has synthesized.

No doubt many readers of this article have heard about the “frozen addicts” of Santa Cruz CA. Santa Cruz is about 25 miles southwest of the western edge of San Jose where I was once Scientific Director of the California Institute for Medical Research (CIMR) located behind Santa Clara Valley Hospital.

One of our investigators was Bill Langston, MD, an Associate Professor in the Department of Neurology at Stanford University, 15 miles up the San Francisco Bay penninsula next to Palo Alto where Becki and I lived in the 80s and 90s. You can find him on Google and Google images along with references to the 1980s PBS Nova production and the book on this interesting story.

Bill was the physician on duty at the back door emergency entrance across the street from CIMR. I used to enter the hospital through that back door quite often eight years later. Often I was met with a jolting shout out from a handcuffed and chained criminal lying on a gurney waiting for medical attention. Well,  one day, around 1980-81, Bill was there on duty when some very strange patients seeking attention staggered in.  Bill, a specialist in degenerative neurological diseases immediately recognized their symptoms as being like that of severe Parkinson’s disease. But these staggering patients were fairly young and after interviewing the people that brought them to the hospital, Bill learned that their symptoms came on very quickly. By contrast, Parkinson’s symptoms develop slowly but progressively over decades.

Bill quickly learned that these were heroin addicts that produced their own heroin and sold it on the streets of Santa Cruz. Like good chefs, though, they tasted their own product as a kind of ‘quality control’ before they distributed to others.

The police and Langston visited the home of the main Nobel honcho to see what they could find. What they found was a laboratory in the basement where the synthetic heroin was cooked up. They found pages ripped out of a chemistry journal that described the method for synthesis of synthetic heroin there in the lab. These pages led the investigators to visit Stanford’s Lane Medical Library on the center of the Stanford campus, a library where I spent many hours pursuing answers to my own scientific questions. The investigators went to the relevant journal issues and found that these pages had been torn out from these very issues.

I knew the chemist, Ian Irwin, who had determined the chemical structure of the compounds in this precious stash of heroin that was going to make these Santa Cruz ‘chemists’ rich. He found basicly two predominant compounds, one was heroin and the other was a compound eventually named MPTP. These two compounds were present at approximately 50:50 ratios.

Left to right: Ian, MPTP, and Heroin.

There’s an interesting picture of the crime scene in the basement lab where the ‘synthetic heroin’ had been made. A large wall thermometer in the picture read 90 degrees, too hot a temperature for optimal synthesis of synthetic heroin… but who’da thunk it.

After several years, Bill was able to explain the neurotoxicity of MPTP. Experiments on animal models sadly demonstrated that MPTP destroyed the substantia nigra of the lower part of the brain irreversibly. The substantia nigra is the site in the brain where a defect in dopamine metabolism causes Parkinson’s disease.

The only solution for these victims of their own greed and stupidity was a BRAIN TRANSPLANT! But no donors lined up.