Friday, September 25, 2009

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Brian Lee Randone Murder Charge: Former Reality Show Contestant Charged With Killing Girlfriend Top
LOS ANGELES — A self-proclaimed preacher who was on the TV beauty pageant "The Sexiest Bachelor in America" will be arraigned next week for allegedly torturing and murdering his girlfriend, an ex-adult movie actress. Brian Lee Randone, 45, was charged last week with one count of murder and one count of torture. He was scheduled for arraignment on Sept. 29 and faces 25 years to life in prison if convicted, said Jane Robison, a spokeswoman for the Los Angeles County district attorney's office. Randone remained jailed Friday on $2 million bail. Robison did not know whether he had an attorney. Randone was arrested on Sept. 11. Prosecutors said he beat and choked Felicia Lee during a domestic dispute at their apartment in the foothill community of Monrovia, northeast of Los Angeles. He then dialed 911 to report she was unconscious, investigators said. "It appeared to be torture prior to the murder," Sgt. Brian Schoonmaker, a homicide detective working the case, said Friday. Lee apparently suffered dozens of injuries in the 24 hours before she died, Schoonmaker said, but he did not provide details. The two had lived together for only a few months, Schoonmaker said. Investigators were still trying to determine the motive for the killing. In 2000, Randone appeared on the Fox special "The Sexiest Bachelor in America." He vied with contestants from other states but did not win. A Fox spokeswoman said Friday that she was not immediately familiar with the show. Lee, who was born in Singapore, had parts in the movies "Rush Hour 2" and "The Fast and the Furious" and had done some modeling for the Playboy television channel, according to her Web site, which she shut down last year. She also appeared in several adult movies under the name Felicia Tang. Candace Kita, a model who had worked with her, said Lee was nude in the movies but did not portray any sex acts. Randone was involved in ministry as a mime and did "some evangelistic types of entertainment," Schoonmaker said. He did not know when or where Randone performed. According to the CBS blog "48 Hours Crimesider," Randone had a Web site in the early 2000s advertising a ministry that offered "critically-acclaimed performances." According to "Crimesider," Randone said on the Web site that he had no plans to "try to be sexy" in the pageant, where he represented his home state of Nebraska. "I hope to talk about qualities that are really important, what's inside, such as faithfulness, love, commitment and self-control, the masculine characteristics of a Christian," he said. He also wrote that "we are all sinners" and that sin "is as small as thinking a bad thought and/or as big as murder." "Because of sin, we deserve hell. I know that if there is one thing I deserve in life its (sic) hell," he said. Randone has a bachelor's degree from Moody Bible Institute in Chicago and a master's of divinity degree from Southwestern Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune reported. He worked as a mime on the campus of Baylor University in Texas in 1996, the newspaper said. Lee's murder is reminiscent of another case last month, in which Ryan Jenkins, a former contestant on the reality TV show "Megan Wants a Millionaire," allegedly killed his wife, ex-model Jasmine Fiore, in Los Angeles, then fled to Canada and killed himself.
 
Gorilla At Colorado Springs Zoo Treated By Local Doctors Top
It was a house call that Dr. Joseph Hegarty and others won't soon forget. Hegarty, an ear surgeon from Colorado Springs Ear Associates, performed surgery on Rafiki, a 25-year-old silverback lowland gorilla, early this month at the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo. Hegarty was one of many from the local medical community who donated their time and services to come to the ailing Rafiki's rescue.
 
Dr. Tian Dayton: Adult Children of Alcoholics ACoAs: Qualities and Traits Top
September is national recovery month so I thought I'd blog about a population most dear to my heart, ACoAs. Shows like Intervention along with celebrity after celebrity photographed in sunglases entering various treatment centers..... has gone a long way to break down walls when it comes to looking at the pain caused by addiction. But what about the rest of the family? The addict isn't the only person who needs help to become well again. Growing up in an Alice in Wonderland like world where one pill makes you large and another small (at least on the inside) messes with everyone's sense of reality and predictable life order. Nothing is the way it's supposed to be in an alcoholic family. Dates are cancelled, lies are told and relationship connections alternate from being close and warm to cold and distant.Children vacillate between having no power at all and way too much as adults fall in and out of normal functioning. It's NATIONAL RECOVER MONTH......so here goes, let's recover. It has long been clear to me that being an ACoA needs agressive and long term treatment. Ignoring the damage only allows it to leak out in intimate relationships in ways that make them hard to live in and to manifest in the next generation. That's because growing up with addiction is traumatizing and the symptoms of trauma can emerge much later when we create our own families. This is what PTSD is all about, it's a reaction to trauma that occurs long after the fact. Following is a list of characteristics that I have been compiling for around twenty years in an attempt to help clients wrap their minds around the toll that growing up with addiction can take. So here goes, it's a little longer than my other blogs but you can take it in sections. Problems with Self- Regulation: Broad swings back and forth between feeling overwhelmed with intense emotion then shutting down, characterize the trauma response. We go from zero to ten, and ten to zero, with no speed bumps in between bypassing four, five and six. We become uncomfortable living in the middle range and used to living on the edges. Twelve step programs have found a colloquial expression for this cycling, referring to it as "black and white thinking." Hyper Vigilance/Anxiety When we're hypervigilant, we tend to scan our environment and relationships for signs of potential danger or repeated relationship insults and ruptures. We constantly try to read the faces of those around us so that we can protect ourselves against perceived danger. When we're hypervigilant we're constantly "waiting for the other shoe to drop," or "walking on eggs shells." Unfortunately, this may also create problems because we may perceive danger even where little exists or become overly reactive to perceived slights, making ourselves hard to be around or even driving a situation toward problems. (see Bessel van der kolk) Hyper-reactivity/Easily Triggered Living with relationship trauma can over sensitize us to stress. Consequently we may over respond to stressful situations blowing conflicts that could be managed calmly out of proportion; we over react. People who are hyper reactive may become easily triggered. This hyper reactivity can emerge whether in a slow grocery line, in traffic, at work or in relationships. Stimuli reminiscent of relationship trauma, such as feeling helpless or humiliated can trigger old vulnerability; or being around yelling, criticism; even certain facial expressions may trigger a stronger reaction than is appropriate to the situation for the ACoA. Emotional Constriction Homes that do not encourage the expression of genuine feeling along with the emotional numbing that is part of the trauma response may mean that those who have experienced relationship trauma have a restricted range of feelings that they are comfortable feeling and expressing. Loss of Trust and Faith When our personal world and the relationships within it become very unpredictable or unreliable, we may experience a loss of trust and faith in both relationships and in life's ability to repair and renew itself. This is why the restoration of hope is so important in recovery. It is also why having a spiritual belief system can be so helpful in personal healing. Unresolved Grief ACoA's have suffered profound losses. There has been the loss of parents to rely on, the loss of family members to addiction and possibly death, the loss of a feeling of safety, the loss of the secure family unit, the loss of trust, the loss of a stable and smooth early development. There are the losses of the comfortable family events, rituals and holidays, and as children the loss of normalcy and the security of knowing that their parents are in the position to parent them and meet their changing needs. ACoAs often need to mourn not only what happened, but what never got a chance to happen. Traumatic Bonding Traumatic bonds, are unhealthy bonding styles that tend to become created in families where there is significant fear. Traumatic bonds have a tendency to repeat themselves, that is we tend to repeat this type of bond in relationships throughout our lives, often without our awareness. Because it is so deeply disruptive to our sense of normalcy, trauma impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately. Siblings and other children will often form a trauma bond with each other, much as soldiers in or prisoners do, in a phenomenon referred to as twinning. Children who are lost and frightened may "rescue" each other, increasing their sense of loyalty and bonding. These bonds carry with them a sense of "surviving together" and may create a feeling that loyalty should be maintained at all costs, even if this bond becomes problematic or dysfunctional. Learned Helplessness When we feel we can do nothing to affect or change the situation we're in, we may develop learned helplessness, we may give up and collapse on the inside. We may lose some of our ability to take actions to affect, change or move a situation forward. Somatic Disturbances Because the body processes and holds emotion we may experience our unconscious emotions as somatic disturbances. Some examples of emotional pain affecting the body are back pain, chronic headaches, muscle tightness or stiffness, stomach problems, heart pounding, headaches, shivering and shaking. Tendency to Isolate People who have felt traumatized may have a tendency to isolate and withdraw into themselves when they are feeling vulnerable. They have learned to recoil into a personless world and take refuge in avoiding connection.. Isolation is also a feature of depression. Unfortunately the more we isolate, the more out of practice become at making connections with people, which can further isolate us. Cycles of Reenactment The reenactment dynamic is one of the most common ways that trauma from one generation gets passed down through subsequent generations. We tend to recreate those circumstances in our lives that feel unresolved, perhaps in an attempt to see the self more clearly and master or resolve our pain or perhaps because we are locked in circuits of brain/body patterning that are largely unconscious. We repeat and repeat the relational patterns that are familiar even if they do not work to get us what we really want. High Risk Behaviors (van der Kolk) Adrenaline is highly addictive to the brain and may be a powerful mood enhancer and mood alterer. Speeding, sexual acting out, spending, fighting, drugging, working too hard or other behaviors done in a way that puts one at risk are some examples of high risk behaviors. Survival Guilt The person who "gets out" of an unhealthy family system while others remain mired within it, may experience what is referred to as 'survivor's guilt." This is a term originally used to describe what soldiers who left mates on the battlefield experienced. This person may become overly preoccupied with fixing their families because the thought of being happy when their families remain locked in dysfunctional ways of living, can be very disturbing. Shame For the person growing up in an addicted environment, shame becomes not so much a feeling that is experienced in relation to an incident or situation, but rather a basic attitude toward and about the self. Both shame and guilt can be difficult to identify because they are so pervasive, a part of the very fabric of the personality. Shame, for example, can be experienced as a lack of energy for life, an inability to accept love and caring on a consistent basis, or a hesitancy to move into self -affirming roles. It may play out as impulsive decision-making, or an inability to make decisions at all. Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses People who are consistently being wounded emotionally and are not able to address it openly and honestly may develop rigid psychological defenses to manage their fear and pain. Dissociation, denial, splitting, repression, minimization, intellectualization, projection are some examples of these defenses. Relationship Issues- Those who have experienced trauma within the context of primary relationships may tend to recreate dysfunctional patterns of relating in the present that mirror unresolved issues from the past. This can occur through psychological dynamics such as projection (projecting our pain onto someone or a situation outside the self), transference (transferring old pain into new relationships (transference)), reenactment patterns (recreating dysfunctional patterns of relating over and over and over again). Depression with Feelings of Despair The limbic system regulates mood. When we are deregulated in our emotional system through living with the pain and chaos that often surrounds addiction, we may have trouble regulating feelings such as anger, sadness and fear, all of which may contribute to depression. Research both in animals and in people show that stress or trauma early in life can sensitize neurons and receptors throughout the central nervous system so that they perpetually over-respond to stress. (van der Kolk) Distorted Reasoning We make sense of situations with the developmental equipment we have at any given age. When we're young we make child like meaning which may be laced with magical thinking or interpretations that are based on the natural egocentricity of the child who feels that the world circulates around and because of them. This kind of reasoning can be immature and distorted. When our family unit is spinning out of control, we may tell ourselves whatever is necessary to allow ourselves to stay connected. We may tell ourselves that our drunk mother has the flu or that our sexually invasive father loves us best. We may deny the truth that is right in front of us in an attempt to make more palatable meaning out of confusing, frightening or painful experiences that feel senseless. We may carry this distorted reasoning into adult relationships. Loss of Ability to Take in Caring and Support from Others The numbing response along with the emotional constriction that is part of the trauma response may lead to a loss of ability to take in caring and support from others. Additionally, as mistrust takes hold, our willingness to accept love and support may lessen. We're perhaps afraid that if we let our guard down, if we let connection feel too good, we'll only set ourselves up for more pain when the inevitable happens and we're disappointed again and again. So we protect ourselves as best as we know how imagining that by avoiding meaningful connection we will also avoid hurt. (van der Kolk) Desire to Self Medicate The emotional, psychological and physiological set up that accompanies relationship trauma, can lead to self medication; in which we seek a chemical solution for human problems. Self medicating can seem to be a solution in the immediate moment, as it really does make pain, anxiety and physiological disturbances temporarily disappear, but in the long run, it creates many more problems than it solves. As addiction creates life complications, we reach for more and more medication to manage the increasing turmoil in our inner and outer worlds. All too often the ACoA becomes an addict, part of getting and staying sober for this person will be facing the pain they carry from growing up with addiction that might trigger relapse. (van der Kolk) Click here for RECOVERY MONTH Interview of Tian Dayton on SAMSHA site http://www.recoverymonth.gov/Voices-for-Recovery/Stories/Dr-Tian-Dayton.aspx More on Addiction & Recovery
 
Dr. Tian Dayton: Adult Children of Alcoholics ACoAs: Qualities and Traits Top
September is national recovery month so I thought I'd blog about a population most dear to my heart, ACoAs. Shows like Intervention along with celebrity after celebrity photographed in sunglases entering various treatment centers..... has gone a long way to break down walls when it comes to looking at the pain caused by addiction. But what about the rest of the family? The addict isn't the only person who needs help to become well again. Growing up in an Alice in Wonderland like world where one pill makes you large and another small (at least on the inside) messes with everyone's sense of reality and predictable life order. Nothing is the way it's supposed to be in an alcoholic family. Dates are cancelled, lies are told and relationship connections alternate from being close and warm to cold and distant.Children vacillate between having no power at all and way too much as adults fall in and out of normal functioning. It's NATIONAL RECOVER MONTH......so here goes, let's recover. It has long been clear to me that being an ACoA needs agressive and long term treatment. Ignoring the damage only allows it to leak out in intimate relationships in ways that make them hard to live in and to manifest in the next generation. That's because growing up with addiction is traumatizing and the symptoms of trauma can emerge much later when we create our own families. This is what PTSD is all about, it's a reaction to trauma that occurs long after the fact. Following is a list of characteristics that I have been compiling for around twenty years in an attempt to help clients wrap their minds around the toll that growing up with addiction can take. So here goes, it's a little longer than my other blogs but you can take it in sections. Problems with Self- Regulation: Broad swings back and forth between feeling overwhelmed with intense emotion then shutting down, characterize the trauma response. We go from zero to ten, and ten to zero, with no speed bumps in between bypassing four, five and six. We become uncomfortable living in the middle range and used to living on the edges. Twelve step programs have found a colloquial expression for this cycling, referring to it as "black and white thinking." Hyper Vigilance/Anxiety When we're hypervigilant, we tend to scan our environment and relationships for signs of potential danger or repeated relationship insults and ruptures. We constantly try to read the faces of those around us so that we can protect ourselves against perceived danger. When we're hypervigilant we're constantly "waiting for the other shoe to drop," or "walking on eggs shells." Unfortunately, this may also create problems because we may perceive danger even where little exists or become overly reactive to perceived slights, making ourselves hard to be around or even driving a situation toward problems. (see Bessel van der kolk) Hyper-reactivity/Easily Triggered Living with relationship trauma can over sensitize us to stress. Consequently we may over respond to stressful situations blowing conflicts that could be managed calmly out of proportion; we over react. People who are hyper reactive may become easily triggered. This hyper reactivity can emerge whether in a slow grocery line, in traffic, at work or in relationships. Stimuli reminiscent of relationship trauma, such as feeling helpless or humiliated can trigger old vulnerability; or being around yelling, criticism; even certain facial expressions may trigger a stronger reaction than is appropriate to the situation for the ACoA. Emotional Constriction Homes that do not encourage the expression of genuine feeling along with the emotional numbing that is part of the trauma response may mean that those who have experienced relationship trauma have a restricted range of feelings that they are comfortable feeling and expressing. Loss of Trust and Faith When our personal world and the relationships within it become very unpredictable or unreliable, we may experience a loss of trust and faith in both relationships and in life's ability to repair and renew itself. This is why the restoration of hope is so important in recovery. It is also why having a spiritual belief system can be so helpful in personal healing. Unresolved Grief ACoA's have suffered profound losses. There has been the loss of parents to rely on, the loss of family members to addiction and possibly death, the loss of a feeling of safety, the loss of the secure family unit, the loss of trust, the loss of a stable and smooth early development. There are the losses of the comfortable family events, rituals and holidays, and as children the loss of normalcy and the security of knowing that their parents are in the position to parent them and meet their changing needs. ACoAs often need to mourn not only what happened, but what never got a chance to happen. Traumatic Bonding Traumatic bonds, are unhealthy bonding styles that tend to become created in families where there is significant fear. Traumatic bonds have a tendency to repeat themselves, that is we tend to repeat this type of bond in relationships throughout our lives, often without our awareness. Because it is so deeply disruptive to our sense of normalcy, trauma impels people both to withdraw from close relationships and to seek them desperately. Siblings and other children will often form a trauma bond with each other, much as soldiers in or prisoners do, in a phenomenon referred to as twinning. Children who are lost and frightened may "rescue" each other, increasing their sense of loyalty and bonding. These bonds carry with them a sense of "surviving together" and may create a feeling that loyalty should be maintained at all costs, even if this bond becomes problematic or dysfunctional. Learned Helplessness When we feel we can do nothing to affect or change the situation we're in, we may develop learned helplessness, we may give up and collapse on the inside. We may lose some of our ability to take actions to affect, change or move a situation forward. Somatic Disturbances Because the body processes and holds emotion we may experience our unconscious emotions as somatic disturbances. Some examples of emotional pain affecting the body are back pain, chronic headaches, muscle tightness or stiffness, stomach problems, heart pounding, headaches, shivering and shaking. Tendency to Isolate People who have felt traumatized may have a tendency to isolate and withdraw into themselves when they are feeling vulnerable. They have learned to recoil into a personless world and take refuge in avoiding connection.. Isolation is also a feature of depression. Unfortunately the more we isolate, the more out of practice become at making connections with people, which can further isolate us. Cycles of Reenactment The reenactment dynamic is one of the most common ways that trauma from one generation gets passed down through subsequent generations. We tend to recreate those circumstances in our lives that feel unresolved, perhaps in an attempt to see the self more clearly and master or resolve our pain or perhaps because we are locked in circuits of brain/body patterning that are largely unconscious. We repeat and repeat the relational patterns that are familiar even if they do not work to get us what we really want. High Risk Behaviors (van der Kolk) Adrenaline is highly addictive to the brain and may be a powerful mood enhancer and mood alterer. Speeding, sexual acting out, spending, fighting, drugging, working too hard or other behaviors done in a way that puts one at risk are some examples of high risk behaviors. Survival Guilt The person who "gets out" of an unhealthy family system while others remain mired within it, may experience what is referred to as 'survivor's guilt." This is a term originally used to describe what soldiers who left mates on the battlefield experienced. This person may become overly preoccupied with fixing their families because the thought of being happy when their families remain locked in dysfunctional ways of living, can be very disturbing. Shame For the person growing up in an addicted environment, shame becomes not so much a feeling that is experienced in relation to an incident or situation, but rather a basic attitude toward and about the self. Both shame and guilt can be difficult to identify because they are so pervasive, a part of the very fabric of the personality. Shame, for example, can be experienced as a lack of energy for life, an inability to accept love and caring on a consistent basis, or a hesitancy to move into self -affirming roles. It may play out as impulsive decision-making, or an inability to make decisions at all. Development of Rigid Psychological Defenses People who are consistently being wounded emotionally and are not able to address it openly and honestly may develop rigid psychological defenses to manage their fear and pain. Dissociation, denial, splitting, repression, minimization, intellectualization, projection are some examples of these defenses. Relationship Issues- Those who have experienced trauma within the context of primary relationships may tend to recreate dysfunctional patterns of relating in the present that mirror unresolved issues from the past. This can occur through psychological dynamics such as projection (projecting our pain onto someone or a situation outside the self), transference (transferring old pain into new relationships (transference)), reenactment patterns (recreating dysfunctional patterns of relating over and over and over again). Depression with Feelings of Despair The limbic system regulates mood. When we are deregulated in our emotional system through living with the pain and chaos that often surrounds addiction, we may have trouble regulating feelings such as anger, sadness and fear, all of which may contribute to depression. Research both in animals and in people show that stress or trauma early in life can sensitize neurons and receptors throughout the central nervous system so that they perpetually over-respond to stress. (van der Kolk) Distorted Reasoning We make sense of situations with the developmental equipment we have at any given age. When we're young we make child like meaning which may be laced with magical thinking or interpretations that are based on the natural egocentricity of the child who feels that the world circulates around and because of them. This kind of reasoning can be immature and distorted. When our family unit is spinning out of control, we may tell ourselves whatever is necessary to allow ourselves to stay connected. We may tell ourselves that our drunk mother has the flu or that our sexually invasive father loves us best. We may deny the truth that is right in front of us in an attempt to make more palatable meaning out of confusing, frightening or painful experiences that feel senseless. We may carry this distorted reasoning into adult relationships. Loss of Ability to Take in Caring and Support from Others The numbing response along with the emotional constriction that is part of the trauma response may lead to a loss of ability to take in caring and support from others. Additionally, as mistrust takes hold, our willingness to accept love and support may lessen. We're perhaps afraid that if we let our guard down, if we let connection feel too good, we'll only set ourselves up for more pain when the inevitable happens and we're disappointed again and again. So we protect ourselves as best as we know how imagining that by avoiding meaningful connection we will also avoid hurt. (van der Kolk) Desire to Self Medicate The emotional, psychological and physiological set up that accompanies relationship trauma, can lead to self medication; in which we seek a chemical solution for human problems. Self medicating can seem to be a solution in the immediate moment, as it really does make pain, anxiety and physiological disturbances temporarily disappear, but in the long run, it creates many more problems than it solves. As addiction creates life complications, we reach for more and more medication to manage the increasing turmoil in our inner and outer worlds. All too often the ACoA becomes an addict, part of getting and staying sober for this person will be facing the pain they carry from growing up with addiction that might trigger relapse. (van der Kolk) Click here for RECOVERY MONTH Interview of Tian Dayton on SAMSHA site http://www.recoverymonth.gov/Voices-for-Recovery/Stories/Dr-Tian-Dayton.aspx
 
Lisa Napoli: Ticket to the Dalai Lama Top
I should have got up this morning to drive to Long Beach to wait in line to see the Dalai Lama.  A stranger gave me a ticket.  He won't miss that I'm not there.  And I won't miss the throngs, nor the commute.  Instead, I spent 90 minutes on the phone with one of my many unemployed friends, who called from the east coast.  She knows me long enough to know I wake up early, and I always welcome the chance to talk to her.  Life is too busy and there's the time zone thing and it's just not the same not being able to yap in person; we're due for a visit that won't likely happen for a while. So while I chopped onions for tonight's soup, we talked about keeping busy when you have nothing that compels you to keep busy, like a regular job.  That ritual of getting up, bathing, rushing out of the house, going somewhere where you're expected to be that most of us bask in.  Or is it hide behind?  Most of those people aren't necessarily happier; they're just pre-occupied.  The trick is to find something that occupies you meaningfully, or to find meaning in what you do have to do.  No?  Get out and volunteer, I told her.  People need to see you; you're too much of a gem to keep locked up inside, stewing.  Stewing is part of it, but after a while we all need the ritual of seeing people each day, going somewhere, even if it's just to get coffee at the same time each day at the same place, or nodding to people on the bus stop.  During a long period of unemployment, I assigned myself the task of learning to swim, and then going to practice each day.  I liked that the lifeguard came to expect to see me. Going somewhere where people are less well off than you offers another perspective to this malaise of underbusyness.  I spent the past three nights interviewing homeless people on Skid Row here in Los Angeles on a short-term volunteer project and it walloped away any trace of self-obsession that might have been washing over me lately for my own underbusyness.  But that's a whole other story. Since my dear old friend lost her job back in January, she's been reading a lot, she told me.  The classics.  Thinking a lot, too, contemplating the weird tumultuous profession of ours, news, and being a certain age while trying to redefine your life's mission.  Since we all know our profession ain't necessarily ripe with opportunity.  It's daunting the frightening to see the world change around us, but it's also the reality, and the reality is we have to apply our brains and our energies somehow.  If it's incumbent on us to invent how, so be it. Inevitably, we started to talk about politics, but since this blog isn't about politics, I won't go on about that here.  Basically, the upshot of our conversation was, Why are people not marching in the streets?  Why aren't they visibly angrier? "TV," my wise friend said.  "Religion's no longer the opiate of the masses.  TV is." Last night I went to a screening of a television documentary that was projected in a movie theater.   It was a gorgeous old theater, and if you've not spent any time in Los Angeles, you'd be shocked a piece of old architecture like this exists here.  Not to mention that it's a single-plex, not carved into tiny little sub-theaters.  Gold flourishes on the walls, an ornate ceiling, the whole nine.  Anyway, it was really lovely to sit and watch a movie in a group of people who weren't checking their iPhones throughout the two hours.  A committed bunch of viewers, sharing the experience together.  One of the people I was with had never been in a theater in the entire 8 years he's lived in LA, and I thought: This is the only way to have the communal viewing experience. But we've lost so much, not watching in a group, haven't we?   The "bowling alone" phenomenon.  And I'm as independent as they come.  After we chatted a bit post-movie, I went home and tried to watch the Daily Show .  That and South Park are the two reasons to keep this cable TV on, I think.  But watching it by myself just doesn't cut it for me.  Even though I was dying to see how they depicted that maniacal rant by Qaddafi at the UN, I couldn't pay attention. Loneliness isn't something I typically feel, even if I spend hours and days and weeks on my own.  It's a figment of the imagination, like boredom; when the mere suggestion of those things creep up, I challenge myself not to succumb to the laziness of labeling the feelings as such and do something, engage somehow.  But something about staring at the tube, all alone, felt isolating and lonely.  Even though I wanted to laugh at the world with Jon Stewart.  Even though earlier in the week, I took momentary pleasure in eating an avocado sandwich in bed while I watched Jim Cramer do his rant thing.  Maybe that was easier to take because of the food, and the memory of Cramer trying to get me axed after I wrote about him ages ago when I was writing for the NY Times . The other day T. came over and with the TV in the background, we pulled out the all-powerful and much preferable second screen, the computer, so he could show me some TV clips online.  He'd seen them but wanted to share.  As the set whined and whirred, demanding attention but not getting it, i thought: Why am I spending this $40 a month to keep this boob tube up and running?  To indirectly feather the Jon Stewart/Trey Parker/Jim Cramer retirement fund by supporting their networks?  I believe in the power of voting with your pocketbook, absolutely, but there's got to be a better use of this cash.  And yet.  I'm still not ready to get the cable turned off; it has only been a few weeks, after all.  We're still in the adjustment phase of this relationship. I'm glad I didn't go see the Dalai Lama today.  I'm going to give the ticket to a friend, and he can tell me about the experience.  I imagine it'll be a mob scene of devotees packed into the huge convention center, with a translator interpreting his words, His Holiness projected onto a giant screen.  That's fine, and there's got to be a nice energy in the room, with all those Buddhists, but it's too mediated an experience for me.  Instead, right now, I'm going to finish the soup I'm making and go for a swim, my own forms of devotion. More on South Park
 
Christina Applegate Promotes Breast Cancer Awareness For Lee National Denim Day (VIDEO) Top
Move over, Casual Fridays. Here's a truly compelling reason to wear your favorite pair of jeans to work -- Lee National Denim Day is coming on October 2. Since its creation in 1996 by a group of Lee Jeans employees, Lee National Denim Day has become one of the largest national single-day fundraisers for breast cancer research. Companies nationwide are encouraged to invite their employees to go casual for a cause, in exchange for donating $5 to to Lee's campaign. Co-workers at companies have teamed up to donate, incorporating creative event ideas, such as a pink-themed pancake breakfast, costume contest, or a pink mani/pedicure party to incentivize each other. Denim-themed ideas have been submitted from participants around the country, which you can find here . From Denim Day's official site: "The Women's Cancer Programs of EIF receive 100% of the net proceeds raised for Lee National Denim Day. Funds are used to support groundbreaking early detection and treatment research and community educational services nationwide in the fight against breast cancer." An estimated 800,000 individuals in the United States wore denim in 2008 to show their support, and over $70 million has been raised to date by the annual fundraiser. Actress Christina Applegate, who had her own brush with breast cancer in 2008, is the official ambassador of this year's Lee National Denim Day. Past ambassadors include Lucy Liu, Pierce Brosnan and Mariska Hargitay. Take a look at Applegate's touching video, and get involved:
 
Retired Couple Save Abandoned Pets Top
A retired couple in Eastern Michigan has opened their home and their hearts to desperate cats abandoned by their owners as they were forced out of their houses. Eugene and Nancy Lottie care for the animals, refusing to see them starve or freeze, but are having problems affording food and are now looking for people to take them in. The couple refused to give the cats -- as many as 32 at one point -- to animal shelters, many of which are already filled to capacity and often euthanize the animals, reports Catherine Minolli of the Tri-City Times . "They lost their houses, I presume through no fault of their own and that's tragic," Nancy says. "But what's not tragic is to leave animals behind. That's just irresponsible. It's heartbreaking." When the cats left behind began wandering over to Nancy and Gene's barn for food, she couldn't shoo them away. "They were hungry and I thought 'that's fine,' I couldn't be mean," Nancy says. ****** A family of humanitarians in Toledo continues its father's legacy -- to feed and care for the less fortunate. Rev Harvey Savage St. opened the MLK Kitchen for the Poor in 1969 and his four children have carried the torch after he passed away, writes Michael Driehorst of the Toledo Free Press . Savage's children know of no other way of life than to give to others -- a poignant memorial to the Reverend's spirit. "I grew up in it," said Juanita Savage Person, 55, who's served as executive director for about 15 years. Person, one of Rev. Savage's daughters, said she started helping at the kitchen when she was 15 years old. "This is all I know. It's the only job I've ever had." ****** A campground in Tennessee has become home for people struggling to remain out of homeless shelters and off the streets. The AP reports that campgrounds offer a flimsy version of permanence for the nearly-homeless as tents and campers replace houses and apartments. [Tony] Ballard, who at 52 has worked as a songwriter and construction worker, tries to make the best of his situation. Outside a mesh window of his tent, an electric air conditioner blows a cool breeze into the nylon dome, which can heat up like a greenhouse under the Tennessee sun. Wooden pallets covered in carpet scraps cover the floor of the tent keeping his bed, coffee maker, electric two-burner unit and toaster oven off the sometimes soggy ground. "The cool thing is, it's a place to live and I don't feel homeless as long as I have this," said Ballard, who is behind on campground rent payments. "But we're about to lose this. ****** A unemployed man in Detroit has started to ask on the Internet for money to leave his home town , along with its crime, drug use, and crippled infrastructure, reports Ron French of the Detroit News . Sean Bush, 36, started www.helpmeleavedetroit.com to help him flee a city that has become a symbol of poverty and a crumbling economy, and move to California, like some recreation of Dust Bowl dreams. As of Thursday morning, Bush hadn't received any donations. Like the city he wants to abandon, he's short of funds and low on hope. "I grew up here," he said. "It's a beautiful place. But the economy, the crime, it's too much. You can only fight so much." ****** A man in Southeast Missouri was denied insurance because of a pre-existing condition before receiving third-degree burns on his arms, face and hands . A gasoline explosion burned Darian Egan on a piece of land where he was hoping to build a new house for himself and his pregnant wife. Now all his money is going to medical bills, says Zakk Gammon of local CBS affiliate KFVS, and the future is daunting. "I don't have anyone to help take care of me, or my wife and the home we're gonna buy and put on this property. Now I'm not gonna be able to work or do anything for several months. She's pregnant, and I want to do the best for my family I can," Egan said. Even through all of his trouble, though, he says he's thankful he survived. Now he says he's working [on] recovering while trying to find the money to pay for his medical bills. ****** Five Massachusetts hospitals ended a surcharge for late-night emergency room visits , reports Elizabeth Cooney of the Boston Globe . The fee, which has become a burden on the uninsured, was attacked this week by a health care union affiliated with local doctors. "The general feeling is if it could cause one single patient not to seek emergency care, then we don't want it,'' Dr. Richard Wolfe, chairman of emergency medicine at Harvard Medical Faculty Physicians and Beth Israel Deaconess, said after talking with physicians at the five hospitals. "We've instructed our billing company to no longer bill for that code.'' More on Bearing Witness 2.0
 
Tom Gregory: Mindless Stars and the Glamour of the Gun Top
The children of the sixties learned about the danger of guns before we learned the alphabet. My first indelible memory was the assassination of JFK, then Malcolm X, the University of Texas massacre, Dr. King, RFK, Kent State, Gerald Ford, and even the Manson murders. Throughout the Vietnam War, Walter Cronkite counted the dead as never-seen-before live images of men and women dying or broken frightened my childhood innocence away. I was born into a world of exploding bombs, terrified Vietnamese, and lots and lots of bullets, bombs, and guns. Several years ago while walking from home to my car, a man rushed me sticking a revolver my face. Even though I sparked a thought to bargain, I quickly handed him my cash. Weeks later the police telephoned. A suspect had been caught. He was charged with assault over a victim who wasn't as quick on the draw as I had been with my cash. This guy had actually fired upon a young woman, irreparably injuring her spinal cord with a single shot. The echo of a bullet and my abhorrence of violence convinced me long ago that there was nothing romantic or fashionable about a gun. Then came children caught in gang-war crossfire, school shootings, terrorism at the point of a rifle, and more and more war. Even after Columbine -- and scores of other high profile rampages -- film, music, television and video games still market gun violence as an accepted and expected part of the American experience. The counter-intuitiveness of romanticizing violence is too repugnant for me to dwell on -- much less promote, but that's just what LA based clothing company Future Heretics is doing with its threatening, vile and violent fashions. Since 1977 the ubiquitous "I Love (heart) NY" campaign has spoken for up optimism and pride by every community who has adapted it for their own use. Like the smiley face before it, the slogan nourishes good cheer along with a strong sense of community dignity. But now Future Heretics has replaced the heart with an Uzi sub-machine gun and the "NY" with "LA." Across the pages of People , US , and leading fashion magazines mindless stars with thin careers are being showcased wearing these t-shirts. Hayden Panettiere, Khloe Kardashian, Sarai Givati, Fergie and Lindsay Lohan are among the stars whose candid photographs the company is using to market their wares. But Future Heretics hasn't stopped with Los Angeles, they have waved the automatic weapon at Santa Barbara in a special-issue "I (UZI) SB". Everyone is frightened of everyone; no one can be trusted. Arm and aim or be a victim. It's the idiocy of war, terrorism, and violence in everyone's bedside drawer. Even as it's been reported that gun and bullet sales are at unimaginable levels , we cannot allow violence and threats to be fashion. Maybe these starlets aren't callous, perhaps they are just not aware that guns kill, maim, and cause unbearable pain to thousands of people across America every year. Future Heretics and these young women are just incredibly overrated and unwittingly they are co-opting a violence that may someday, as it did to me, turn a real gun on them. Oh, what I would do for a peace sign these days. www.ShowBizTom.com More on Lindsay Lohan
 
Property In Landmark Eminent Domain Supreme Court Case Never Used Top
NEW LONDON, Conn. — Weeds, glass, bricks, pieces of pipe and shingle splinters have replaced the knot of aging homes at the site of the nation's most notorious eminent domain project. There are a few signs of life: Feral cats glare at visitors from a miniature jungle of Queen Anne's lace, thistle and goldenrod. Gulls swoop between the lot's towering trees and the adjacent sewage treatment plant. But what of the promised building boom that was supposed to come wrapped and ribboned with up to 3,169 new jobs and $1.2 million a year in tax revenues? They are noticeably missing. Proponents of the ambitious plan blame the sour economy. Opponents call it a "poetic justice." "They are getting what they deserve. They are going to get nothing," said Susette Kelo, the lead plaintiff in the landmark property rights case. "I don't think this is what the United States Supreme Court justices had in mind when they made this decision." Kelo's iconic pink home sat for more than a century on that currently empty lot, just steps away from Connecticut's quaint but economically distressed Long Island Sound waterfront. Shortly after she moved in, in 1997, her house became ground zero in the nation's best-known land rights catfight. New London officials decided they needed Kelo's land and the surrounding 90 acres for a multimillion-dollar private development that included residential, hotel conference, research and development space and a new state park that would complement a new $350 million Pfizer pharmaceutical research facility. Kelo and six other homeowners fought for years, all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2005, justices voted 5-4 against them, giving cities across the country the right to use eminent domain to take property for private development. The decision was sharply criticized and created grassroots backlash. Forty states quickly passed new, protective rules and regulations, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Some protesters even tried to turn the tables on now-retired Justice David Souter, trying unsuccessfully in 2006 to take his New Hampshire home by eminent domain to build an inn. In New London the city's prized economic development plan has fallen apart as the economy crumbled. The Corcoran Jennison Cos., a Boston-based developer, had originally locked in exclusive rights to develop nearly the entire northern half of the Fort Trumbull peninsula. But those rights expired in June 2008, despite multiple extensions, because the firm was unable to secure financing, according to President Marty Jones. In July, backers halted fundraising for the project's crown jewel, a proposed $60 million, 60,000-square-foot Coast Guard museum. The poor economy meant that donations weren't "keeping pace with expenses," said Coast Guard Foundation president Anne Brengle. The group hopes to resume fundraising in the future, she said. Overall, proponents say about two-thirds of the 90-acre site is developed, in part because of a 16-acre, $25 million state park. The other third of the land remains without the promised residential housing, office buildings, shops and hotel/conference center facility. "If there had been no litigation, which took years to work its way through (the court system), then a substantial portion of this project would be constructed by now," said John Brooks, executive director of the New London Development Corp. "But we are victims of the economic cycle, and there is nothing we can do about that." A new engineering tenant is moving into one of the office buildings at 1 Chelsea St., and a bio tech firm with as many as five employees is getting ready to move into an existing building on Howard Street, Brooks said. Kelo, paid $442,000 by the state for her old property, now lives across the Thames River in Groton, in a white, two-bedroom 1950s bungalow. Her beloved pink house was sold for a dollar and moved less than two miles away, where a local preservationist has refurbished it. Kelo can see her old neighborhood from her new home, but she finds the view too painful to bear. "Everything is different, but everything is like still the same," said Kelo, who works two jobs and has largely maintained a low profile since moving away. "You still have life to deal with every day of the week. I just don't have eminent domain to deal with every day of the week, even after I ate, slept and breathed it for 10 years." Although her side lost, Kelo said she sees the wider ramifications of her property rights battle. "In the end it was seven of us who fought like wild animals to save what we had," she said. "I think that though we ultimately didn't win for ourselves, it has brought attention to what they did to us, and if it can make it better for some other people so they don't lose their homes to a Dunkin' Donuts or a Wal-Mart, I think we did some good." Scott Bullock, senior attorney for the Institute for Justice, argued Kelo's case before the Supreme Court. He calls "massive changes that have happened in the law and in the public consciousness" the "real legacy" of Kelo and the other plaintiffs. The empty land means the city won a "hollow victory," he said. "What cities should take from this is to run fleeing from what New London did and do economic development that is market-driven and incorporate properties of folks who are truly committed to their neighborhood and simply want to be a part of what happens," he said. More on Supreme Court
 
WaPo Reports On Environmental "Debate," Fails To Note That One Side Of Debate Is Bunk Top
An article in today's Washington Post reports " New Groups Revive the Debate Over Causes of Climate Change ." We are told that a "fractious debate" is brewing! We are further informed that "assumptions are being challenged!" All of that is true. What the article fails to report is that on one side of this debate are lying energy industry shills, which means that these "assumptions" are being "challenged" by people operating in bad faith. All of this comes under the heading of the Washington Post 's "Green: News About The Environment" banner, which would lead one to believe that it's a source that would strive to actually inform readers, instead of badly misinform them. In this case, they carry a brief for an outfit called " CO2 Is Green ," whose P.R. strategy is based in playing people for fools by means of the promotion of reductive reasoning and oversimplification. Their central premise is basically: "But human beings breathe out carbon dioxide, so it must be good to produce even more of it!" Normally when one hears this sort of statement being made, one pauses to make sure it's not being made by a seven-year-old child. If it is, it can be forgiven, because one day, God willing, said child will grow up to obtain what is colloquially known as a "high school education." When this idea is promulgated by adults, however, it requires an adult to dispense some reality-based facts. Since the Washington Post is more concerned with the whole "who's up and who's down" politics of the matter, and cannot be bothered with actual information, I shall take up the cause. CO2 is Green, right on their webpage, happily inform visitors that "Humans inhale and exhale CO2 with every breath. How could anyone expect you to believe it is a human health hazard?" Well, in the first place, this sort of ignores the fact that human beings exhale CO2 for a reason . If you want to appreciate how CO2 becomes a health hazard, you really ought to try inhaling pure CO2 for a period of time. See, there's this whole thing called the Krebs Cycle by which oxygen is converted into adenosine triphosphate, which helps to form the building blocks of proteins and amino acids and allow for the replication of human DNA, all of which allows the human being to...how should I put this? "Live." Breathing in pure CO2 would not allow any of this to occur, which would eventually lead to the state of "not living." But more to the point. Yes, human beings produce carbon dioxide and then plants, through photosynthesis, metabolize this exhaust and convert it back into oxygen. All of this is part of a naturally occurring cycle that functions well when it's in equilibrium. But what the good folks at CO2 Is Green -- fronted by "a veteran oil industry executive" and supported by the "chief executive of and leading shareholder in Natural Resource Partners, a Houston-based owner of coal resources that lets other companies mine in return for royalties" -- want you to believe is that when the fossil fuels they shill for are burned, it's just as easy and natural as respiration. It's like breathing, only lots lots more of it! But the carbon captured in fossil fuels is not a part of the naturally occurring process of respiration. That carbon is the result of centuries of organic decay. Left on its own, it would take millions of years for fossil fuels to "exhale" their carbon dioxide. When fossil fuels are burned, however, it's released into the atmosphere on a much shorter timeframe of a few centuries, thus increasing the amount of carbon dioxide in the environment. That throws off the equilibrium established between respiration and photosynthesis. This is where the whole concept of "carbon offsets" come from as a means of restoring this healthy equilibrium. Another important part of this equilibrium is the ocean, which acts as a natural "sink," or storage place for carbon. However, humans have so quickly and vastly increased the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere in the last 150 years, the ocean is losing its ability to absorb this CO2 . In 1960, a metric ton of CO2 released into the air would result in about 400 Kg of it remaining in the atmosphere; in 2006, about 450 Kg remain because of the ocean's decreased ability to absorb it. If we continue to pump increasing amounts into the air, this trend will only continue, meaning more and more of all greenhouse gases released will remain in the atmosphere. CO2 is Green also makes a blanket claim that "lowering levels of carbon dioxide would actually inhibit plant growth and food production," the idea being that we should burn fossil fuels like crazy to increase vegetation and plant life. This is what is known as a "gross oversimplification ." In the first place, plants require more than just carbon dioxide to thrive. They need water and nitrogen. Plants in different climates need varying amounts of these ingredients to thrive. Many forms of plant life have biological mechanisms that regulate their intake of CO2, making an increase in its level irrelevant. Air pollution also contributes to an increased amount of ground level ozone, which inhibit plant growth. Increases in CO2 also lead to the acidification of oceans, which inhibit the growth of phytoplankton, which inhibits the development of marine plant life. Because CO2 in the atmosphere traps heat, warming the earth's atmosphere, many plants are also now suffering the negative consequences of this warming. Higher winter temperatures have allowed pests to survive at increasingly northern latitudes, subjecting more and more crops to increased pest stress. Forest fires are also becoming more frequent as hot, dry weather becomes the norm. Scientists have overwhelmingly concluded that the negative impacts of climate change to forestry and agriculture will FAR outweigh any small positive consequences of increased levels of CO2. CO2 Is Green also sort of glosses over the point that if you want more plants to grow, you have to let that happen . If they want to promote more plant life, they'd get there a lot faster by simply supporting sustainable forestation. And so, you see, one whole side of this great debate thrives only because the reporters hired to write for an environmental section of a newspaper cannot be bothered to learn even the basic facts of their topic area. What the Washington Post has essentially done here is place nonsense on the same footing as science. It's as if they've taken up the flat-earth cause. Now, is there a time and a place to debate whether the earth is flat? Sure! That time and place, however, was in the goddamn 12th century, not a major American newspaper circa 2009. [Would you like to follow me on Twitter ? Because why not? Also, please send tips to tv@huffingtonpost.com -- learn more about our media monitoring project here .]
 

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