dahn batchelor's opinions

Creeps: Part IX

2012-01-27T03:46:00.000-08:00

It is most unfortunate that our world has really gross creeps in it. It is also unfortunate that many innocent people fall victim to these creeps. What follows is the story of a creep who has been referred to as Doctor Vulture and Doctor Frankenstein. When you read this story, you will understand why he is called by those names.

When Raul Fain boarded Turkish Airways Flight 1017 from Istanbul to Kosovo on July 25, 2008, he was no ordinary tourist. The ailing investment consultant from North York, Ontario had just paid $127,000 to purchase a kidney and, according to European investigators, he was engaging in the controversial but growing practice of transplant tourism.

Also on board that flight was Anna Rusalenko, a 45-year-old woman from the isolated stretches of eastern Siberia. She and other victims had been lured by “false promises” of money they never got from a sophisticated organ-trafficking ring that spanned three continents and trapped impoverished people into selling their body parts, according to a court-filed indictment in the Kosovo capital of Pristina.

Within hours of landing, Fain and Rusalenko were both whisked to the Medicus clinic in a rundown neighbourhood of the city where a team led by Dr. Yusuf Sonmez, a notorious Turkish surgeon dubbed “Dr. Vulture and Doctor Frankenstein” quickly removed a kidney from Rusalenko and transplanted it into the Ontario man's body.
Jonathan Ratel, the European Union's special prosecutor in Kosovo in charge of organized crime, is spearheading a high-profile trial against seven people linked to the clinic. They are charged under Kosovo law with several counts of “trafficking in persons for the purpose of exploitation — namely, the illegal removal of human organs.”

Ratel, a native of North Vancouver said, “Western nations are fuelling this burgeoning illicit trade in human body parts. We are now engaged in the illegal harvest of the poor and vulnerable for their body parts, to the exclusive benefit of the wealthy.”

Desperation forces people to sell their organs and patients in Canada and elsewhere will die without a new kidney and that is why they are so desperate to get one for themselves that they will go to any lengths to obtain a new kidney. These organs play a vital role filtering toxins out of the bloodstream. Failure in both kidneys means a quick death unless a person is hooked up to a dialysis machine or gets a transplant.

There are more than 3,300 Canadians on waiting lists for a kidney transplant — almost double the number 20 years ago — and close to a third of them are from Ontario, according to the Canadian Institute for Health Information. More than 300 people from Ontario on those lists have since died in the past decade because they didn’t get a kidney.

38,000 is the approximate number of Canadians living with kidney failure in 2009, more than triple the number (11,000) living with the disease in 1990. Diabetes is the main cause — one in three Canadians with kidney failure has diabetes 5,400 Number of newly diagnosed Canadian patients with kidney failure in 2009, more than double the number of newly diagnosed people in 1990 592 Number of kidneys transplanted in the first half of 2011, more than all other organ transplants combined. Almost half of those came from living donors, mainly relatives.

Fain now finds himself embroiled as a key witness in the Kosovo trial, set to resume in two weeks. He is not charged with any crime, and there is no suggestion he was involved with the alleged organ-trafficking ring.

Rusalenko and the two dozen other victims recruited by the ring walked away without the money they were promised and got no follow-up care to monitor their health, according to prosecutor Ratel. What kind of creep would do such a thing to these unfortunate people? Obviously, someone like Dr. Yusuf Sonmez, the notorious Turkish surgeon dubbed “Dr. Vulture and Doctor Frankenstein.”

Fain, meanwhile, flew home to enjoy a healthy and active life as a result of the new kidney he got three years ago from the unfortunate woman who was not only cheated out of one of her kidneys but also cheated out of the $20,000 she was promised if she donated one of her kidneys.

Buying organs is illegal in Canada, but no Canadian law prevents citizens from purchasing body parts abroad.

Still, the Kidney Foundation of Canada and several major medical associations have endorsed the 2008 Declaration of Istanbul, a non-binding international statement of principles which denounces transplant tourism.

“You can't justify the commercial trade in organs and transplant tourism,” says Paul Shay, national executive director of the Kidney Foundation of Canada. But he understands why someone would be tempted to buy an organ abroad.

He said, “If you had a son or a daughter whose kidneys had failed you would probably be ready to make tremendous sacrifices to find a kidney. We have to be extremely sensitive to the dilemma of people living in situations of tremendous angst and stress waiting for a kidney. But that doesn't lead us to say that buying a kidney is a solution to that.”

The World Health Organization estimates that organ trafficking accounts for as much as 10 per cent of the approximately 70,000 kidney transplants performed annually throughout the world.

No one knows how many Canadians are going abroad to buy organs. “It is not the kind of thing people are reporting,” says Shay, but he notes the Kidney Foundation has “lots of anecdotal evidence” of Canadians shopping overseas for an organ.

Ontario has one of the longest wait lists in the country for a kidney transplant—a median time of 4.5 years. This is why so many people in need of a kidney die before they get a kidney.

I have some mixed emotions about this practice. If you are dying because you can’t get a kidney transplanted into your body, is it so wrong for you to get one from someone who has offered to donate one of his or her kidneys for $20,000 or more?

Quite honestly, I don’t think it is morally wrong providing of course that the donor is well compensated for the sacrifice he or she is prepared to make. Keep in mind that the human body has two kidneys and a donor can function with one kidney.

Moshe Harel, who is described in court documents as Sonmez's middleman and the financier of the operation is now listed as a “wanted person” by Interpol for “people smuggling” and trafficking offences in Kosovo.

According to Fain's statement outlined in the court record, he sent his medical records to Harel “for analysis in Turkey” and was soon notified that “a kidney suitable for transplant had been found.” On July 15, 2008, Fain transferred 87,000 euros (about $127,000 Cdn.) to Harel's bank account in Israel through the Bendix Foreign Exchange Corp.

About nine days later, Fain flew to Istanbul with his wife. There, according to the indictment, he underwent “further medical testing” with Sonmez.

Sonmez, boasts on his website that he has performed close to 2,400 kidney transplants — all of them legal, he insists. In an email exchange with the Toronto Star, he declined to answer questions about his career unless money was paid to a charity of his choice. “Thank you for your interest in my story but I have also my rules,” he wrote.

“Sonmez is a key figure in the global trade of human organs — an enigmatic individual driven by greed and profit,” says Ratel.

Less than two weeks after meeting Sonmez, Fain — along with another client, from Germany — was en route to Kosovo. On board their Turkish Airways flight were the prospective donors, Anna Rusalenko and another woman from the former Soviet Union.

Rusalenko and Fain were met at the Pristina airport by the Medicus staff. The next day, according to the court papers, Sonmez removed kidneys from Rusalenko and the second woman and transferred them into the bodies of Fain and the German man. Fain left Kosovo July 30th and returned to Canada via Turkey.

The indictment does not spell out what happened to Rusalenko, who came from a small town near Vladivostok, but prosecutor Ratel says the victims are inevitably dispatched on a plane back to Istanbul, where “they are cut loose without any post-operative care.” It makes me wonder how she would have gotten back to Siberia if she wasn’t given any money for her sacrifice. I don’t know if Fain even offered to help the poor woman when he learned that she received nothing from the evil doctor who is a creep extraordinaire for her sacrifice.

Rusalenko's story fits the pattern of the other so-called “donors” from Russia, Kazakhstan, Moldova and Turkey who hoped to escape “extreme poverty or acute financial distress,” according to the indictment. Ratel says his investigation revealed the victims find out through the Internet or from someone in their village that they can make money for an unspecified “medical procedure.”

They are encouraged to send in blood samples. Emails and phone calls eventually lead to face-to-face meetings. “They are slowly warmed up to the idea of selling their organs,” Ratel says. “They are the vulnerable poor and induced by false promises of vast payments.”

The people who do make a lot of money are a brand new echelon of organized crime — medical professionals engaged in organ trafficking who also cheat the donors out of the money they are promised.

They apparently work closely with the more traditional gangs who provide the victims, “low-level mob-type organized crime engaged in trafficking narcotics, weapons, sex slaves and now organs.

“Profits are obscene since an accomplished surgeon like Sonmez could perform several transplants a day, charging over $100,000 for a kidney from donors who will see little if any of the $20,000 they were promised.

Ratel says Sonmez's operations in Kosovo came to light in November 2008 when a sickly Turkish man fainted at the Pristina airport and authorities discovered a fresh scar on his abdomen. He blurted out the words, “Somebody stole my kidney.”

United Nations and Kosovo police then raided the Medicus clinic, uncovering medical files, emails and financial statements — including correspondence between Fain and middleman Harel as well as the North York man's medical records.

On July 6, 2009, Ratel filed a request for what is called “international legal assistance” with the Department of Foreign Affairs in Ottawa, identifying Fain as a client of the Medicus clinic, which was under investigation. The RCMP was dispatched to interview Fain.

The trial which is presided over by three judges and with seven Kosovars as defendants, including a prominent physician and a former top government health official accused of granting the clinic an illegal licence finally got underway in October.

If all goes well, Fain will testify by video link, sworn in under oath in the Supreme Court of Ontario, sometime after the proceedings resumes in Kosovo on February 6th. Incidentally, testifying in this manner was the subject of a paper I wrote and which was distributed to the conferees by the United Nations at one of their conferences held in Vienna.

The doctor who performed the transplant on Fain is not so fortunate. Ratel traveled to Istanbul to interview Sonmez several times as a suspect and he handed the authorities 26 binders of evidence. Sonmez was arrested in Istanbul last January for illicit organ trafficking and is currently out on bail. According to local press reports, the Turkish public prosecutor has requested a 171-year prison sentence.

Sonmez has always insisted all the donors who supplied the kidneys for his operations signed consent forms and were never coerced. “There is no such crime.

There is no organ trade,” Sonmez told reporters, according to Turkey's semi-official Anatolian News Agency. “There can't be evidence for something that doesn't exist.” Sure and the world is also flat and the moon is really made of cheese.

Sonmez, who lives in a seaside villa in Istanbul and enjoys skiing in Austria, has been arrested several times in the past by Turkish authorities but never convicted.

Moshe Harel, the alleged financial broker, remains at large, but Ratel travelled recently to Israel and authorities there have reportedly started their own probe. Israel passed a law in 2008 setting stiff penalties for buying and selling organs.

“We have had excellent co-operation with authorities in both Turkey and Israel with regard to these two fugitives from justice,” says Ratel. He got indictments in the Kosovo courts against Sonmez and Harel last June for “trafficking in persons” and “organized crime,” but they are not part of the current court case because they are not in the country.

Ratel studied law at the University of Victoria but has spent most of his career in trouble spots like Kosovo. The organ-trafficking trial is just one of several organized crime cases being handled by the Canadian prosecutor, who has been tasked by the EU to help rebuild Kosovo's justice system. But his outrage is evident. He says, “There is a moral bankruptcy in the exploitation of the human body.” He has tried unsuccessfully so far to locate and find out what happened to Anna Rusalenko. He said, “We have no information about her health.”

I hope these monsters, especially Dr. Vulture goes to prison for the rest of their lives. After all, aren’t monsters supposed to be caged?

A great man’s legacy has been forever tarnished

2012-01-25T04:03:00.000-08:00

There is no doubt in my mind that Joe Paterno was a great leader in sports. He did so many good things for some many people – including his own football players and many students in general. In 2011, Paterno's base pay was a little less than $600,000. Yet, he and his wife, Sue, reportedly gave the university $4 million. Penn State College named both a library and campus spirituality center after both of them. Those buildings will remain on campus but alas, the legendary former Penn State football will be remembered by many for the little he did when an alleged child sex-abuse scandal was going on under his watch.

And yes, while it was former Penn State College's defensive coordinator Jerry Sandusky and not Paterno, who allegedly sexually abused boys—some abuses taking place even on the Penn State College campus, it was impossible not to blame Paterno for his wrongdoing as well when the details of his role in the matter came out this past November.

The incident that brought shame to Paterno which was presented to the grand jury shocked many, both the people in the city of State College, Pennsylvania and everywhere else. His penchant for extreme secrecy has left him with a sordid legacy.

In 2002, in the Penn State College football complex, assistant coach, Mike McQueary allegedly caught Sandusky in a shower, naked, with a young boy who was also naked in a position that seemed to McQueary as being sexual in nature. It wasn’t just the appearance of being sexual, it was sexual as it is alleged that Sandusky was anal raping the ten-year-old boy and this is what McQueary actually saw.

Although McQueary informed Paterno of what he had seen, Paterno didn’t bother to call the police or even asked Sandusky about the incident. Instead, Paterno simply told the school’s athletic director (Tim Curley) and washed his hands of it. That is somewhat the same as Pontius Pilate washing his hands after condemning Christ to the cross.

That lack of action was denounced by many and a week after the scandal became public, Paterno was fired by Penn State College’s board of trustees as coach after 46 years of service in the university because of the intense publicity by the media. It was six weeks before his contract was set to expire and the university didn’t allow Paterno a chance to win his 549th game, which would have been the most ever by a Division I coach in U.S. history.

And although Paterno's official cause of death was lung cancer, many believe it was brought about by a broken heart as well.

After so many years of doing good, doing what’s right, Paterno dropped the ball. Many believe he turned his head when he decided to overlook the welfare of those young boys in his football program. It was wrong of that there can be no doubt.

People soured on Paterno, affectionately known as Joe Pa. Many believe that once you hear of any unlawful behavior, especially with an adult and a child, you just jump in to stop any kind of abuse happening again. Unfortunately Paterno didn’t do that. The legacy of Paterno who didn’t do the right thing when it was needed is also damaged forever.

Paterno’s unfortunate death doesn’t put the scandal to rest. It has damaged Penn State College forever. You won’t be able to tell the Penn State College story and not mention what took place when Paterno was the coach of the football team there and Sandusky was one of his assistants.

When asked why he didn’t do more than he did, he replied, “…to be frank with you, I don’t know if it would have done any good because I never heard of rape and a man.” That is an odd statement. And worse yet, he also said, "I was afraid to do something that might jeopardize what the university procedure was."

I thinking he was trying to say that he never heard a statement from the assistant coach that the latter saw Sandusky anal raping the boy. But he did hear the assistant coach express his concern as to what might have been going on in the locker room with Sandusky and the boy. That information alone should have been sufficient enough to jump start Paterno into speaking directly with Sandusky as to what was going on between Sandusky and the boy. What he should have done was question McQueary further and obtain all the details of what McQueary actually saw.

Doing that certainly wouldn’t have jeopardized the university’s procedure because he was Sandusky’s immediate boss. What he did instead as he explains it, was to turn the matter over to the university’s officials whom he believed had more expertise in matters such as this one. It appears that their so-called expertise was seriously lacking in what goes with expertise—common sense.

Millions of people were outraged that a man of Paterno’s reputation for being a good man and also being a smart man did so little when he became apprised of the allegation of sexual misbehavior by Sandusky who was one of his assistants.

On November 4th, 2011, a grand jury which had been convened in September 2009, indicted Sandusky on 40 counts of sex crimes against young boys. The indictment came after a three-year investigation that explored allegations of Sandusky having inappropriate contact with a 15-year-old boy over the course of four years, beginning when the boy was ten or eleven years old. The boy's parents reported the incident to police in 2009. The jury identified eight boys that had been singled out for sexual advances or sexual assaults by Sandusky, taking place from 1994 through 2009. At least 20 of the incidents allegedly took place while Sandusky was still employed at Penn State College. If this is what really happened, then Sandusky is a serial child molester.

Penn State College's athletic director Tim Curley and senior vice president for finance and business Gary Schultz (who oversaw the Penn State police department) were charged with perjury and failure to report suspected child abuse by Sandusky. They were also fired from the college.

According to the indictment, in 2002, assistant coach Mike McQueary, then a Penn State graduate assistant, said he walked in on Sandusky anally raping a ten-year-old boy. The next day, McQueary reported the incident to Paterno, who informed Curley. Ultimately, it is alleged, the only actions Curley and Schultz took was to bar Sandusky from bringing children to the football building, take away his keys to the locker room, and report the incident to Second Mile. These actions were approved by school president Graham Spanier. The indictment accused Curley and Schultz not only of failing to tell the police, but also of falsely telling the grand jury that McQueary never informed them of the alleged sexual activity.

McQueary was fired and rightly so. How could he witness a boy being anal raped by an adult and do nothing to stop it?

The question that begs to be answered is, “Why didn’t Paterno report this matter to the police?” What he did do was report what he had been told by McQueary to the Penn State College's Atheletic Director and concluded at that time that he had done all he could have done.

Unfortunately, the police were not called and the reason is obvious. If the police had been told what McQueary claimed he saw, it would soon become public knowledge that an assistant coach at Penn State College was raping a ten-year-old boy on university property. Penn State College has been the subject of significant media criticism for allegations that several members of its staff, ranging from the University President down to a graduate assistant, had jointly covered up Sandusky's alleged assaults. It reminds me of the late President Nixon when he tried to cover up the Watergate break in. His attempt to cover up what had been going on brought about the end of his presidency.

What Paterno should have done was to press the college into firing Sandusky. But this he didn’t do. He washed his hands of the affair. That was a very big mistake on his part. His hands were still dirty when he died because of this most unfortunate incident in his lifetime.

I find it hard to believe that Paterno was so naïve that he had no idea that Sandusky was acting suspiciously. There were warning signs that he could have looked for that would have indicated to him that Sandusky had less than honest intentions with young boys. For one thing, showering naked when the boys were in Sandusky’s presence would have been a clue that something is not right with Sandusky’s conduct.

Preferential child molesters and pedophiles have distinct patterns of behavior that are highly predictable. As a parent, it would have been crucial that Paterno learn to identify certain patterns as warning signs, as they are an extremely valuable tool in assessing whether someone represents a risk to one’s children.

He would have learned that Sandusky showed an intense interest in young boys. Now when someone works with boys, there is nothing wrong with having an interest in the welfare of the boys you are caring for. But when that interest becomes intense, it should be of considerable concern to anyone who has the best interests of the boys in his or her mind. There is a balance between average or appropriate interest, and excessive interest. Sandusky had an excessive interest in young boys and it would appear that his interest was more of a sexual nature than simply the wellbeing of the boys.

A pedophile may refer to children as pure and innocent, and put them on a pedestal. They may think of children as projects, offering them extra help after school, for instance, or arranging meetings with the child for ostensibly good and honest reasons. They will likely invest a great deal of time and effort in one or several children, rather than offering equal attention to an entire group of kids. Some pedophiles have a belief that they are looking out for and have genuine love for children. There is no doubt in my mind that Sandusky fits that particular profile.

According to the testimony given at the grand jury, his interest was centered on at least eight boys whom it is alleged that he had some form of sexual relationship with them.

For obvious reasons, a pedophile needs access and privacy to commit the abuse. He will avoid inviting other adults on planned events or outings. He works and plays in areas where children congregate.

Pedophiles typically choose work environments that allow access to children. This may include working in a school (as a teacher or in some other capacity) or daycare, as a coach or as a volunteer in a community centre, or in any other profession that is child- focused. This was what Sandusky was doing.

It's unfortunate that pedophiles like Sandusky who are likely to abuse kids' trust with sexual and emotional exploitation don't wear big warning signs. There are many particular traits that we all should be aware of, so that we can prevent sexual predators from gaining access to children where children are likely to be in or at.

A person’s perfectly innocent hand on a child's shoulder or back is not a sign of a sexual motive although if the child has a ‘creepy’ feeling when someone touches him or her, that's a red flag that something may be wrong.

The profile of a pedophile is hard to detect. They are CEOs. They are homeless beggars. They are friends, neighbors, teachers, priests, aunts, uncles, mothers, fathers and yes, even coaches. He may even be married. A key distinction in the profile of a pedophile is his sexual interest in kids.

It was not only Paterno’s moral obligation to report the abuse to the police, but his legal obligation also. He shouldn’t have relied entirely on his superiors doing the reporting. Obviously they didn’t report Sandusky to the police and that should have been of considerable concern to Paterno but unfortunately, it wasn’t. And for this reason, Sandusky continued to sexually abuse more boys and this fact alone was enough to bring shame upon Paterno. That is the real sad part of this story. A great man has had his legacy tarnished because he chose to wash his hands of an affair that had eventually got out of control and which subsequently did more damage to the University he loved than had he acted properly when he learned of what had happened in the locker room.

How far should we stretch our right to freedom of speech? (Part 2)

2012-01-23T05:10:00.000-08:00

Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights states that ‘Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms: ... freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication.’

We are also protected by article 19 of the Human Rights Charter: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”(The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, in Paris.)

But just how far can we as citizens stretch our right to our freedom of speech?

Well for one thing, we can’t publicly accuse someone of a crime they didn’t commit. To do so would bring about the consequences of a defamation suit against us. We can’t advocate genocide against any race of people. To do so would being about the consequences of being sent to prison.

A neo-Nazi leader and former university math lecturer has recently lost a court appeal that bolsters the power of the embattled Canadian Human Rights Commission to enforce its orders against those spreading hate.

Regina’s Terry Tremaine, head of the National-Socialist Party of Canada, which uses the Nazi swastika and images of Adolf Hitler to promote itself, was originally cleared of a contempt of court ruling on a technicality in the law.

Even though he ‘deliberately flaunted’ an order of the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal to stop his online hate messages, imposed in 2007, he won an appeal last year at the Federal Court of Canada, which said the tribunal, as a ‘quasi-judicial’ body, could issue orders but not enforce them.

It was a point not lost on Mr. Tremaine, who declined to remove his Internet postings, made under the moniker “mathdoktor99,” which called Jews a “parasitic race,” said “blacks are intellectually inferior to whites” and “Hitler was a lot nicer to the Jews than they deserved,” according to the tribunal’s judgment.

This hate monger said to the higher court, “My purpose in ignoring the cease and desist order was to address the urgent matter of impending white extinction.”

There is no doubt in my mind that this man does not have all of his marbles in order. “Impending white extinction?” Give me a break. It is true that the so-called ‘White Anglo Saxon Protestant’ (WASP) that whites bragged of being a member of is something of the past but there will always be humans who are of the white race. They will not become extinct.

But the Federal Court of Appeal last week breathed new life into the ability of quasi-judicial tribunals — not only those dealing with human rights — and the court also said that when they issue orders, those orders must be complied with.

Anti-hate speech activist Richard Warman, an Ottawa lawyer who launched the human rights complaint, praised the appeal victory. He said, “This says that tribunal orders, generally, are deserving of much greater respect and much greater weight than they seem to have been in the past.”

He added, “It gives weight to the Human Rights Tribunal’s orders and says these are not orders to be ignored. These are orders of a quasi-judicial body that Parliament has given authority to issue and they shall be respected. I think that’s really important, because without that power behind it then tribunals are really rendering their orders into voids. The ruling means contempt complaints are valid from the moment a breach occurs, not just from when a court adopts the order.”

Mr. Warman’s complaints also led to Mr. Tremaine’s firing from his post as a lecturer at the University of Saskatchewan, where he taught a first-year math course.

After the original hearing, the tribunal ordered Mr. Tremaine to stop posting discriminatory messages and fined him $4,000. He ignored the ruling.

Mr. Tremaine must now return to the Federal Court for sentencing on his contempt finding. The maximum penalty is five years in prison and a fine of any amount. His National-Socialist Party of Canada website still was publishing the same or similar material and the other online posts were still accessible.

The American Nazi Party (ANP) was an American political party founded by discharged U.S. Navy Commander George Lincoln Rockwell. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Rockwell initially called it the ‘World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists’ (WUFENS), but later renamed it the American Nazi Party in 1960 to attract maximum media attention. The party was based largely upon the ideals and policies of Adolf Hitler's NSDAP in Germany during the Third Reich but also expressed allegiance to the Constitutional principles of the U.S.'s Founding Fathers.

On August 25, 1967, Rockwell was killed by John Patler, a former party member whom Rockwell had ejected from the party for allegedly trying to introduce Marxist doctrine into the party's platforms. While leaving the Econowash laundromat at the Dominion Hills Shopping Center in Arlington, Virginia, two bullets entered his car through his windshield, striking Rockwell in the head and chest. His car slowly rolled backwards to a stop and Rockwell staggered out of the front passenger side door of the car, and then collapsed on the pavement.

These neo-Nazis are into Holocaust denial which is the act of denying the genocide of Jews during World War II, usually referred to as the Holocaust. The key claims of Holocaust denial are: the German Nazi government had no official policy or intention of exterminating Jews, Nazi authorities did not use extermination camps and gas chambers to mass murder Jews, and the actual number of Jews killed was significantly (typically an order of magnitude) lower than the historically accepted figure of 5 to 6 million. Let me say from the get go that I believe that the Nazis really did murder that many Jews and others during World War Two.

However, I have some concern that people who deny facts in history may be charged as criminals.

The Toronto-based photo retoucher Ernst Zündel operated a small-press publishing house called Samisdat Publishing, which published and distributed Holocaust-denial material such as Did Six Million Really Die? written by Richard Harwood (a.k.a. Richard Verrall – a British neo-Nazi leader). Ernst Zündel, was charged under a private complaint laid by Sabina Citron, a founder of the Canadian Holocaust Remembrance Association, with the criminal offence of ‘spreading false news’ likely to cause racial and social intolerance. The charge was later assumed by the Crown and led to two lengthy jury trials in 1985 and 1988, both of which ended in convictions. Years later, he was deported back to Germany and at the time of this writing, he is in a German prison.

Admittedly, some puzzling facts emerged at his 1988 trial.

During the 1988 trial, Germar Rudolf, a chemist in Germany, investigated the sites of the alleged gas chambers of Auschwitz and took samples for the purpose of determining cyanide levels. Tests on the samples showed no or minimal traces of cyanide. Rudolf's report concluded that the alleged gas chambers at Auschwitz could never have been used for gassings.

The primary component and killing agent in Zyklon B gas is hydrogen cyanide (HCN), which is a positive hydrogen ion bonded to a negative cyanide ion. The toxicity of HCN is caused by the cyanide ion, which halts cellular respiration by inhibiting an enzyme in mitochondria called cytochrome c oxidase. The gas, hydrogen cyanide (also called Prussic Acid) is twenty-four times more deadly than carbon monoxide. Hydrogen cyanide can cause rapid death due to metabolic asphyxiation. Death can occur within seconds or minutes of the inhalation of high concentrations of hydrogen cyanide. Sources report that 270 parts per million is fatal after 6 to 8 minutes, 181 parts per million after 10 minutes and 135 parts per million after 30 minutes. It is highly probably that the Nazis chose this chemical and that particular ingredient because of its toxicity despite the statement of Germar Rudolf saying otherwise.

I was invited to inspect the prisons in California in 1972 and one of the prisons I visited was the San Quentin penitentiary in San Francisco. I sat in the gas chamber in that prison and discussed capital punishment with the deputy warden. He told me that after a condemned prisoner was gassed with the hydrogen cyanide, the air in the chamber was sucked out by a powerful fan and the guards could then enter the chamber. If hydrogen cyanide elements lingered on the walls and the floor of the gas chamber in the penitentiary over a period of time, the effects of the gas would be obvious to those that entered the chamber. As I see it, the hydrogen doesn’t linger on walls. The poisoned air in the gas chambers in Poland was sucked out of the chambers after the victims were dead. Further, it is highly unlikely that cyanide would later linger about on the rubble of the gas chambers after the wind constantly blew over the rubble. This would explain why Rudolf couldn’t find any traces of the cyanide.

During that trial, Canadian crematory expert, Ivan Lagacé, testified that the thousands of persons alleged by Holocaust historians to have been cremated in Birkenau and Auschwitz daily were “ludicrous and beyond the realm of reality.”

Walter Lüftl is a professional engineer with a large engineering firm in Vienna and is president of the Austrian Chamber of Engineers.

In 1992 Lüftl wrote a report calling the alleged extermination of millions of Jews in gas chambers “technically impossible.” He pointed out that the design of the crematories themselves showed that they were incapable of handling the number of victims alleged. "Corpses are not flammable material. To cremate them requires much time and energy.”

According to the Cremation Association of North America, cremating bodies at the optimum temperature (1400-1800 degrees), the average weighted body takes 2 to 2 1/2 hours. If we presume that the two bodies that could be placed inside each oven in Auschwitz would take two hours to be cremated and there were 46 individual ovens in that camp and it took two hours to cremate the 92 bodies in those ovens at one time, and if the ovens were being worked for 24 hours a day, then as many as 2,208 bodies might be cremated in that 24-hour period in that one camp alone. That means that 15,456 would be cremated in a seven-day period and in a 30-day period, as many as 66,240 bodies would be cremated. It is conceivable that thousands could have been cremated in both Auschwitz and Birkenau each day, despite what Canadian crematory expert, Ivan Lagacé said in his testimony.

Now you may ask; what does this all have to do with freedom of speech? Let me explain.

Keep in mind that Zündel believed that he had the right to express his views about the Holocaust. In his case, he did not have that right. I will explain my reasoning behind that statement.

His trial was before a judge and jury. The jury was the decider of the facts of the case but the judge was the decider of the law. It was his responsibility to explain the law to the jury. In doing so, he would have said something like this—

“If you are satisfied that the defendant actually believed in his public statements with respect to the Holocaust, then you cannot conclude that he willingly broke the law as there must be the criminal intent in his mind for him to break the law in order for you to convict him. If on the other hand, you believe that he knew that what he was saying was false and he still made such false public statements, then you must convict him. However, there is a third alternative for you to consider. If you believe that he made no effort to verify his statements other than to look at only one source of each of his statements, then he made his statements recklessly and being reckless in bringing about one’s deeds is not a defence to those deeds.”

In Canada and other Commonwealth countries, it is against the law for a jury to publicly state how they reached their verdict so I don’t know for sure how Zündel’s jury reached its verdict but it is quite conceivable that they concluded that he was reckless in determining what he believed to be the truth and for this reason, they found him guilty.

Legal systems, and society at large, generally recognize limits on the freedom of speech, particularly when freedom of speech conflicts with other values or rights. For example, American members of Westboro Baptist Church have been specifically banned from entering Canada for their hate speeches. They are the people who walk about with placards that say, “Thank God for Dead Miners” and attend the funerals of dead soldiers so that they can insult their families. The reason why the Canadian authorities won’t permit these kinds of people in Canada is that their presence would bring about a disturbance.

In On Liberty (1859) John Stuart Mill argued that “...there ought to exist the fullest liberty of professing and discussing, as a matter of ethical conviction, any doctrine, however immoral it may be considered.”

He was right and that is why people who are in favour of abortion are permitted by law to state what their position is even if many people think that their views are immoral. Offending someone is less serious than harming someone and that is why the penalties imposed should be higher for causing harm. That is why Ernst Zündel was sent to prison. He was reckless as to how his statements would have an effect on the survivors of concentration camps where they lost their loved ones.

A woman in Newfoundland complained that a song that had been played on Canadian radio for 25 years used the word faggot. The council didn’t look at the context of the song, they didn’t look at the meaning, they just ruled that it used the word faggot and was therefore homophobic and was essentially banned on commercial radio in Canada.

They reversed themselves after a public outcry, a good dose of public ridicule and after looking at the context of the song.

Tom Burlington claimed he was a victim of reverse discrimination, in being terminated for asking whether it was okay to use the word “nigger” on the air in a story about the NAACP in Philadelphia holding a symbolic burial for the word. His co-anchor, Joyce Evans, who is African-American, confronted Burlington after the meeting, allegedly telling him he was being insensitive about trying to use the n-word. Evans was not actually present at the meeting. Burlington again used the word at a meeting with management to describe what happened during the newsroom discussion. He was then suspended, and fired three days later.

A year ago, a federal judge in Pennsylvania had agreed to allow a white television news anchor who was fired for using the word “nigger” in a June 2007 newsroom meeting, to proceed with his lawsuit against his former employer, WTXF Fox 29. Judge R. Barclay Surrick said, “When viewed in its historical context, one can see how people in general, and African Americans in particular, might react differently when a white person uses the word than if an African American uses it. Nevertheless, we are unable to conclude that this is a justifiable reason for permitting the Station to draw race-based distinctions between employees.”

An African-American employee, John Jervay, used the word “nigger” three times in an email to management describing what Burlington had done. Because Jervay was not disciplined, Surrick ruled that a jury could reasonably conclude that WTXF’s management had engaged in race-based discrimination.

The use of the word ‘nigger’ is a highly contentious issue in American society. Its roots come from the word "negro", and was used by slave owners and, later, it was used by segregationists. Today, it is highly taboo for a white man to use the word ‘nigger’ to describe or insult a black man. Yet, it also has become widely used within the black community in a diversity of ways, both endearing and insulting. Many within the black community have subsequently called for banning its use. In March of 2007, for example, the word ‘nigger’ was banned by the New York City Council.

As you can see, the use of some words conflict with our right to freedom of speech but because some words are insulting, they should not be used.

Freedom of expression is a cornerstone of democratic rights and freedoms. In its very first session in 1946, before any human rights declarations or treaties had been adopted, the UN General Assembly adopted resolution 59(I) stating “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and ... the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.”

Freedom of expression is essential in enabling democracy to work and public participation in decision-making. Citizens cannot exercise their right to vote effectively or take part in public decision-making if they do not have free access to information and ideas and are not able to express their views freely. There may be certain extreme forms of expression which need to be curtailed for the protection of other human rights. Limiting freedom of expression in such situations is always a fine balancing act. One particular form of expression which is banned in some countries is “hate speech” and rightly so.

We can advocate a change in government but we cannot advocate the violent overthrow of our government. The former is democratic and the latter is treason.

Certainly wise people before they speak, consider what they will say, to whom they will say it, where they will say it and how what they will say will affect the sensibilities of those who hear what they have to say. To do otherwise is to demean the intent of our right to free speech.

Should the sex of a fetus be kept secret?

2012-01-20T07:09:00.000-08:00

Sex ratio is the ratio of males to females with respect to population. In humans the sex ratio was commonly assumed to be 106 boys to 100 girls. This number is also reported as the male proportion of total births or 106/206 = 0.514 = 51.4% are born as boys. The CIA estimates that the current world wide sex ratio at birth is 107 boys to 100 girls. In 2010, the global sex ratio was 986 females per 1,000 males and is believed to have been reduced to 984 per 1,000 males in 2011.

Combining all the years studied, older mothers (40 to 44 years of age and 45 years and up) have the lowest total sex birth ratios 1,038 boys to 1,000 girls and mothers 15 to 19 years of age had the highest sex birth ratio 1,054 boys to 1,000 girls. The more children a woman has, the more likely she is going to give birth to an equal number of boys and girls.

For all available years combined, Chinese had 1,074 boys to 1,000 girls and Filipino mothers had 1,072 boys to 1,000 girls. These two races had the highest differences between the number of boys born versus girls, while non-Hispanic black mothers had 1,031 boys to 1,000 girls and American Indian mothers had the lowest where the ratio was 1,031 boys to 1,000 girls.

Most recently, public health scientists in Canada have reported a sharp drop in the sex ratio of a First Nation community (Chippewa) near Sarnia, Ontario, a heavily industrialized region in the province. In fewer than 10 years, the ratio dropped from the norm, around 50:50, to roughly one-third boys, two-thirds girls. The cause of this decline has not been identified, but the pattern is very strong.

But not all parents have more boys than girls. The sex of children born to parents exposed to dioxin in the 1976 dioxin accident in Seveso, Italy, is one reason. It was discovered that the father's exposure level was the best predictor of sex of offspring. Higher dioxin exposure of the father decreased the likelihood of having sons compared to daughters. Fathers exposed at a young age (younger than 19) were significantly more likely to have daughters than sons if their exposure to dioxin was relatively high.

Even with more boys than girls being born, women still outnumber men in the United States. For example, in 2003, the Census Bureau estimated a total of 144,513,361 females of all ages, compared to 138,396,524 males. I think that can be explained. More men are prone to being killed at work and at war than women are. Also, men are more reckless than women.

But why are more boys in some countries born than girls are?

The sobering answer is that in the vast nation of China, now the world's fastest-growing economy, is confronting a self-perpetuated demographic disaster that some experts describe as gendercide—the phenomenon caused by millions of families resorting to sex-selection abortions and infanticide to make sure their only one child is a boy. The age-old bias for boys, combined with China's draconian but necessary one-child policy imposed since 1980, has produced what Gu Baochang, a leading Chinese expert on family planning, described as the largest, the highest, and the longest gender imbalance in the world.

I can appreciate why China passed the law that said that couples should only have one child. China was becoming over populated. But surely the Chinese government must have foreseen gendercide as a consequence. For centuries, Chinese families without sons feared poverty and neglect. The male offspring represented continuity of lineage and protection of their parents in their parent’s old age.

After the Communists took power in 1949, Mao Zedong rejected traditional Malthusian arguments that population growth would eventually outrun food supply, and firmly regarded China's huge population as an asset which by then had an annual birth rate of 3.7 percent. Without a state-mandated birth control program, China's sex ratio in the 60's and 70's remained normal.

Then in the early '80s, China began enforcing an ambitious demographic engineering policy to limit families to one-child, as part of its strategy to fast-track economic modernization. The policy resulted in a slashed annual birth rate of 1.29 percent by 2002. This brought about the prevention of some 50 million births either by abortion of the fetuses or by parental neglect after the female babies were born. The Chinese government is hoping that the current population which is close to 1.3 billion won’t increase dramatically.

From a relatively normal ratio in China of 108.5 boys to 100 girls in the early 80s, the male surplus progressively rose to 111 in 1990, 116 in 2000, and then in 2004, it was close to 120 boys for each 100 girls according to a Chinese think-tank report. This abnormal imbalance is a direct result of parent’s choices either before birth or after birth. This means that there are 32 million more men in China than there are women.

The loss of female births in China due to illegal prenatal sex determination and sex-selective abortions and female infanticide will affect the true sex ratio at birth and at young ages, creating an unbalanced population sex structure in the future and resulting in potentially serious social problems. The Chinese Academy of Social Sciences estimates that by the year 2020, there will be 24 million men in China who will be unable to find a woman to marry.

China isn’t the only country that is facing that problem of an unbalanced population sex structure. There are mothers around the world who are predetermining what the sexes of their fetuses are so that they can have an abortion if their fetuses are girls. Because of this, there are another 50 million female fetuses in other countries in Asia besides China that are aborted or alternatively, who die by parental neglect after the female babies are born.

A fetus's gender should not be revealed until after 30 weeks of pregnancy, according to an editorial in the Canadian Medical Journal. “This change in procedure for a fetal ultrasound, where the sex is usually disclosed to parents at 20 weeks, would help prevent female feticide,” says Rajendra Kale, editor-in-chief of the CMJ. I totally agree with him.

In Canada, doctors rarely perform abortions after 22 weeks of pregnancy unless the baby has a lethal fetal abnormality or the mother's life is in danger because of the pregnancy. But sex-selection abortions are still occurring in Canada. The euphemism is ‘family balancing’ which is brought about by couples who already have a boy or a girl and want their next child to be of the opposite sex.

Kale says that in countries such as India, China, Korea and Vietnam, female fetuses are commonly aborted because of a preference for sons. He also said that though it is by no means widespread, the practice is carried out by some immigrants who come to Canada.

His editorial cites a small U.S. study of about 65 immigrant East Indian women of which 40 per cent had terminated earlier pregnancies and 89 per cent pursued abortions in their most recent pregnancies after learning they were having girls. Previous Canadian research has suggested that sex selection is occurring in Canada in certain groups when families have had girls and are seeking a son. The practice has created a gender imbalance in these communities.

“A pregnant woman being told the sex of the fetus at ultrasonography at a time when permissible abortion is possible is the starting point of female feticide from a health-care perspective,” writes Kale.

A study done in Canada found a distorted ratio of male to female births in the Indo-Canadian community, particularly among couples that already have two daughters. That being the case, it is clear that female feticide is happening, especially at the time when the third child is a female.

Kale wants to see gender disclosure policies at 30 weeks adopted by the provincial colleges that govern doctors. He said, “Such clear direction from regulatory bodies would be the most important step toward curbing female feticide in Canada.”

The Society of Obstetricians and Gynecologists of Canada said Kale's proposal is inconsistent with their policy, which states that “a patient's request for disclosure should be respected, either directly or in a report to the referring health professional.” In an email to CBC News, the obstetricians group said it believes it is the right of the patient to be informed of the gender of the fetus.

The editorial however did not consider tests on the market that give expectant parents a fetal sex determination of high accuracy as early as eight weeks into a pregnancy. People will always try to get around regulations but that's no reason not to have regulations.

The obstetricians group says it doesn't condone abortions based on non-medical reasons such as the gender of the fetus. I find that them making that statement rather silly when you consider the fact that it is meaningless to those parents who upon learning that the fetus is a female, demand that the fetus be aborted.

"The SOGC feels strongly that it is the cultural values and norms in specific segments of the Canadian population that must change to ensure that females are not confronted with procedures and intolerant environments before or after they are born," the association said. That is another foolish statement that is also meaningless to those parents who want the fetus aborted if it is a female.

Couples can go to clinics in the U.S. that advertise early sex determination in Indian newspapers. Cultural factors such as dowry and the belief a boy is needed to carry the family name, are the main causes.

Dr. Samuel Soliman of the New Life Fertility Centre in Mississauga said some patients have told him they've had abortions after having a girl or two. “I think it is part of the whole spectrum of violence against women, which starts from inside the uterus to the outside and the value of women,” says Soliman. “While the rule against disclosing gender might work in Canada, it would not apply in the U.S.,” Soliman notes.

Although this problem of sex-selective abortions and female infanticide has been known for a long time, it has been selectively put out of most people’s minds. You know the adage—out of sight, out of mind. Particularly notable for their lack of concern is the abortion-rights community in the West which appears to sacrifice literally millions of little girls in the service of the abortion licence. As far as I am concerned, the practice of female feticide is barbaric.

My wife and I had hoped for a boy. My wife recognized that most men like to have a boy that they can relate to. We ended up having two girls. I cannot imagine either my wife or me wanting to abort either one of them. They are grown up and are both professional women with university degrees and both have given us grandchildren which we love dearly.

When we learned that my wife was going to give birth to girls, we were just as excited even if they weren’t boys. But at the same time, I understand the concerns that the parents in India have when they discover that their children are going to be girls. This means that the parents will have to provide the dowry for their girls to be married (even though dowries in India are illegal) and the girls will not remain behind to help on the farm when they grow up and get married or care for their aged parents when the latter are unable to care for themselves.

But at the same time, the slaughter of female fetuses really is quite disturbing. To deny life to that which you have created is a terrible thing to do if the motive is merely to have a boy instead of a girl.

When the baby comes out, the first question the parents ask is, “Is it a girl or a boy?” I say this to prospective parents, “If you really want a child, you don’t need to be inquisitive about what’s between their legs. Be grateful that the child is born normal.” It is ironic when you think about it. If our mothers had been aborted, none of us would be alive today.

Smoking cigarettes: Mankind’s stupidest act

2012-01-18T05:41:00.000-08:00

Tobacco has been used for enjoyment for thousands of years. Native Americans are believed to be the first to use tobacco. At one time, it was a capital offence to use tobacco in England. Over the years the use of tobacco has become so widespread that is can be found in every country.

Around 5.4 million deaths a year are caused by smoking tobacco. This means that for the first eleven years of this century we are in, as many as at least 59,400,000 smokers have died prematurely because they chose to smoke cigarettes. This also means that probably 500 million smokers died in the last century as a direct result of smoking cigarettes. Compare those figures with the number of deaths by war and oppression during the 20th Century—203 million. Compare those figures with the number of people killed each year in traffic accidents—at least one million. Each day, about 13,500 people worldwide die from smoking-related diseases.

Smoking is set to kill 6.5 million people in 2015 and 8.3 million humans in 2030, with the biggest rise in low-and middle-income countries unless smoking is prohibited. An estimated 1.3 billion people are currently smokers worldwide according to the World Health Organization and according to that organization, every 6.5 seconds; a current or former smoker dies as a direct result of that person inhaling nicotine into his or her lungs. Over 443,000 Americans (over 18 percent of all deaths) die because of smoking each year. As many as 650,000 Europeans die each year from tobacco-related diseases. In India, about 900,000 Indians a year die from smoking-related diseases. That's nearly one in 10 of all deaths in India. Half of Indian males use tobacco and it is becoming more popular with younger people. As many as 1.2 million smokers in China each year die because of smoking. That's 2,000 people a day. It is estimated that between 33 percent to 50 percent of all smokers are killed by their habit and on average, they die at least fifteen years earlier than non-smokers do. The use of tobacco is now the primary cause of death around the world. The continued use of tobacco will kill 1 billion people in the 21st century if current smoking trends continue. Despite years of anti-smoking efforts by public health officials, smoking still remains a thriving habit throughout much of the world. About one-fifth of the global population presently smokes tobacco, and the number of smokers is expected to rise in coming decades, especially in the developing world. While rates of smoking have declined in the developed world in the past few decades, they have continued to climb in less developed countries.

These statistics are frightening but even though smokers are aware of the risks, they continue to smoke cigarettes. If they want to die a horrible death and submit their bodies to an early death, that is their right but unfortunately, secondhand smoke kills about 50,000 non-smokers each year in the USA alone even though steps have been taken to prohibit smoking in enclosed areas.

Unfortunately, smoking is linked to an increased risk of contracting and dying from tuberculosis. Researchers from a variety of disciplines at the University of California, San Francisco, developed mathematical models to predict smoking's expected impact on the future of tuberculosis. Their model examined smoking-related tuberculosis cases for the next four decades. The statistics are grim: Between 2010 and 2050, more than 18 million new cases of tuberculosis and in excess of 40 million deaths will be due to the respiratory infection as a result of smoking tobacco. The link between smoking and the risk of developing tuberculosis is so strong that public health officials have identified smoking cessation as a key goal of any viable program to eradicate tuberculosis.

Nicotine is an alkaloid substance found in cigarettes. It is responsible for the mood-altering effects of smoking. Nicotine, derived from tobacco plants, is responsible for aiding in addiction to cigarettes and for this reason it can be extremely harmful to the body. Nicotine is carried directly into the lungs where it then crosses through the lining of the lungs and into the blood vessels and then the nicotine travels to other areas of the body, including the brain and nervous system.

Within the respiratory system, nicotine can wreak havoc. The drug irritates the system and causes inflammation. The nicotine also causes constriction of the blood vessels, making air exchange more difficult in the lungs. This, in turn, can cause difficulty breathing. Those with asthma may find that the effects of their condition are exacerbated by smoking cigarettes. Smoking can also cause chronic bronchitis.

Continued cigarette use can lead to emphysema, which can develop into chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Emphysema occurs when tobacco smoke damages the air sacs within the lungs. Because the air sacs cease to function properly, it becomes more difficult for the oxygen to enter the bloodstream. Those with emphysema experience chronic coughing, shortness of breath, breathing difficulties, fatigue and weight loss, among other symptoms.

I suffer from congested heart failure brought about by having excess fluid in my body even though I don’t smoke. I too experience, chronic coughing, shortness of breath (on occasion) and fatigue so I have some idea of what these smokers who are suffering from emphysema are experiencing. Shortness of breath is an extremely frightening experience because it feels like you are suffocating.

Continued cigarette use can also lead to lung cancer. Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of death around the world. The majority of these cancer cases are caused by smoking. Cigarette smoke, which contains nicotine in addition to a plethora of other carcinogens, can promote the growth of tumors within the lungs.

Nicotine binds to an area of the brain known as the adrenal medulla, which increases the flow of adrenaline. This in turn causes increased blood pressure, heart rate and respiration, and these conditions exacerbate existing heart and blood pressure problems. Nicotine can contribute to sleep disorders. It stimulates the nervous system and when taken at nighttime it ensures that the user is alert and awake rather than deep in restorative sleep.

Cigarette smoke contains over 4,000 compounds, many of which are toxic and damage human cells. Included in these compounds are acetone, used in nail polish remover; arsenic, often found in insecticides; benzene, a cancer-causing agent; ammonia, used in dry cleaning; and cadmium, which causes cancer of the liver, kidney and brain damage. Tar is the main cause of lung and throat cancer in smokers. It stains teeth and skin, and damages the fine hairs in the lungs making breathing difficult and reducing their protective effect against infection. Around 70 per cent of the tar in cigarettes is deposited in a smoker’s lungs. The tar damages airways and causes them to narrow, making it harder for air to pass in and out of the lungs.

Today with near-universal awareness of the health risks, a billion adults around the world still choose to smoke cigarettes. Why would anyone in his or her right mind want to put all that poison in their bodies?

Nicotine by itself is not carcinogenic, (cancer forming) but it is highly addictive. After the inhalation of smoke, nicotine reaches the brain within 20 seconds and its effects are felt within a minute. Nicotine is five to ten times more potent than cocaine or morphine in producing behavioral and psychological effects associated with addiction, including feelings of pleasure, according to a report produced by the U.K.’s Royal College of Physicians in 2007. Nicotine dependence is reflected in the difficulty associated with trying to quit smoking. A 2006 report by the U.K. Office for National Statistics found that the majority of smokers (around 70 per cent) want to quit, yet the success rate remains very low. Fewer than 20 per cent of people who embark on a course of treatment to quit smoking succeed in abstaining for as long as a year.

Over five years, researchers out of the Harvard School of Public Health tracked 787 people attempting to quit smoking in three groups: people using a nicotine replacement therapy (in the form of patches, gum, inhaler or nasal spray) with counseling, those using a nicotine replacement without counseling and finally-those using nothing at all. Results revealed that people who used nicotine patches weren't more effective at quitting smoking in the long term, compared to those who quit without a nicotine replacement. What the data showed was that people who quit smoking using nicotine patches had just as high a return rate to smoking as people who quit cold turkey. It's conceivable that those who quit cold turkey were less addicted to nicotine (they could quit without aids), so you would expect their return to smoking rate would be lower since they got off cigarettes with less effort.

The point of nicotine patches is to treat the withdrawal symptoms that former smokers experience for the first six months of quitting, which dissipate after that time period. They are not meant to work long term. You need to arm yourself with multiple defenses against smoking in order to remove the desire to smoke forever. Unfortunately, people often get sporadic counseling, and use nicotine therapies on their own, usually for less than the recommended minimum of six weeks.

Steps have been taken to reduce smoking. Governments raise taxes on cigarettes. They pass laws prohibiting anyone from smoking in enclosed public places. I have a neighbour whose wife has told him that if he wants to smoke, he can do it in their garage. This he does, even when the temperature inside the garage is below the freezing mark. The Ontario government (and I am sure other governments also) have weaned tobacco farmers into growing other kinds of crops instead of tobacco crops. Cigarettes in Ontario cannot be sold to people under nineteen years of age and no cigarettes can be visible in stores that sell them. Drug stores in Ontario no longer sell cigarettes and all packages have warnings on them along with scary pictures of badly infected lungs. There are also many smoke-free work places where people will not suffer from secondhand smoke.

There is only one way to solve this problem. That is to outlaw smoking altogether. But alas, that isn’t as easy as you think. The tobacco companies are among the world’s most sophisticated and successful marketers. They spend billions of dollars to promote their deadly products, prevent governments from protecting their people and mislead tobacco users and potential tobacco users regardless of the impact on public health. The tobacco companies recognize the impact of the steps undertaken to curtail the smoking of their cigarettes and actively fight against these efforts because they curb their sales. Time and time again they have used their resources to kill these policies, water them down when they cannot stop them altogether, and undermine their enforcement when they are passed. Their efforts take many forms.

For example, they distort the science of the health effects of tobacco use and secondhand smoke. One of them was promoting illicit tobacco trade (smuggling). They challenge government timelines for implementing laws, influencing legislators with contributions and using public relations efforts claiming to be responsible corporations to mask their harmful behavior, just to name a few of the forms they undertake.

In 2000, WHO released a report detailing the tobacco industry’s tactics in obstructing tobacco control policy processes. The report found that the tobacco companies spent vast amounts of money “diverting attention from the public health issues raised by tobacco use, attempting to reduce budgets for the scientific and policy activities carried out by WHO, pitting other UN agencies against WHO, seeking to foster views that WHO’s tobacco control program was a ‘First World’ agenda carried out at the expense of the developing world, distorting the results of important scientific studies on tobacco, and discrediting WHO as an institution.” A 2002 study exposed internal industry documents showing that in 1997, Philip Morris hired public relations firm Mongoven, Biscoe & Duchin to lobby against the FCTC to weaken its regulations and discredit the WHO officials behind the effort.

This begs the question; “Is the tobacco industry really a corporation that has the best interests of human beings as a paramount factor in their operation?” The answer is obvious. The tobacco industry only has its own interest at heart even though their interests are killing millions of people. Consider the following information.

In August 2006, U.S. District Court Judge Gladys Kessler ruled that the tobacco companies use of the terms “light” and “low-tar” is false and misleading, and subsequently banned them from using these terms. The major tobacco companies then argued that they should still be allowed to continue to use the terms outside the U.S.

In March 2007, Judge Kessler ruled, “The Court sees no justification, either legal or ethical, for concluding that Congress intended to allow defendants to continue to tell the rest of the world that ‘low tar/light’ cigarettes are less harmful to health when they are prohibited from making such fraudulent misrepresentation to the American public.” Nonetheless, the tobacco companies continue to use these misleading terms both in the U.S. and where not specifically banned elsewhere.

Three weeks after Mexico ratified the FCTC, Philip Morris and BAT conducted secret negotiations with the Ministry of Health that led to an agreement that prevented the government from raising tobacco taxes if the corporations funded certain unrelated health programs. This agreement led to the defeat of numerous tobacco control regulations, including tax increases and advertising bans called for by the treaty. When meaningful policies were introduced, policymakers friendly to the tobacco industry argued that the proposals would lead to cuts for these other health programs. After international uproar about the agreement, Mexico finally refused to renew it in 2006, and the Congress successfully passed annual tobacco tax increases through 2009.

In 2004, tobacco manufacturers, including BAT, spent 7 million in Kenya Shillings (about USD $87,000) to take Members of Parliament on a luxurious “workshop” to Mombasa to discuss and build support for amendments to weaken the Tobacco Products Control Bill, which would “provide a legal framework for the manufacture, sale, promotion an use of tobacco products,” including banning outdoor tobacco advertisements. Although a bill requiring large health warnings and banning public smoking passed, BAT then complained that the regulations were untenable because of the company’s lack of involvement in the process and sued the government to delay enforcement.

In April 2006, Peru’s Congress passed legislation to implement the global tobacco treaty – a giant step forward for tobacco control in Peru. Then, the tobacco industry secured a seat for the National Society of Industries on Peru’s newly-formed Multi-sector Commission, which was created to implement and monitor tobacco control efforts. In violation of FCTC Article, the National Society of Industries was represented on the Commission by two BAT employees. Only after national and international outcry, the Minister of Health removed the BAT employees.

In 2001, to counter efforts to raise tobacco taxes in the Czech Republic, Philip Morris released a report that touted the “positive effects” that early mortality due to smoking had on the country’s economy. Although Philip Morris issued a public apology after its action was exposed, it was discovered that they paid for similar studies in Poland, Slovakia, Hungary and Slovenia.

According to the industry’s internal documents, Philip Morris executives reported, in 1987,that “Philip Morris and the industry are positively impacting the government decisions of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE through the creative use of market specific studies, position papers, well briefed distributors who lobby, media owners and consultants.”

Industry documents show that, since the 1970s, tobacco companies actively sought out scientists in Germany to bolster the industry’s credibility, oppose tobacco control scientists and improve their image with the German government and German government officials. Further, in Germany, tobacco companies influenced science by suppressing research results that could hurt their industry, diluting “genuine” anti-tobacco science with pro-tobacco science, producing research on other possible causes of illness rather than smoking, concealing scientists’ ties to industry, and manipulating research presentations or speeches.

Tobacco companies also seek to develop relationships with journalists, to create positive media coverage of the tobacco industry by the tone and content of their articles. Tobacco companies have sponsored media symposia, training, and offered all-expenses paid trips to promote their company and “discuss” tobacco issues.

The industry has argued that it has, in fact, saved the US medical system $2 billion in nursing home costs, as smokers die prematurely and need less long-term care. Since people die earlier from the cigarettes, the medical system saved several billion dollars. The mouthpieces for the tobacco also say that the tobacco industry helps save the government money so they should be allowed to continue with their business.

Those arguments are as shallow as the brains of the lawyers presenting their clients. If we were to follow that kind of reasoning, then the automobile industry could claim that it would be better to build cars in which they are unsafe so that people will die earlier and thereby make it possible that the government won’t have to pay old age pensions to millions of people after they reach the age of sixty-five.

Finally, the lawyers speaking for the tobacco companies state that everyone has the freedom to make his or her own choice. As lawyers for the incriminated tobacco companies point out, “The decision to smoke is an individual choice. People make the decision to smoke, not the tobacco industry.”

Let me quote Scrooge in A Christmas Carol. Bah! Humbug!

We as a concerned community on earth can’t stop the fools who choose to smoke tobacco and bring about their early deaths but we should be able to put an end to the firms that are killing them.

It is ironic when you think of it. If illicit drugs were sold in the same way that deadly cigarettes are sold, the governments and the police would crack down on those that sell illicit drugs like a hammer against an anvil. But because tobacco is not considered an illicit drug, the politicians are too gutless to fight the tobacco industry.

Name me one politician anywhere who has publicly stated that the manufacturing of tobacco products should be made illegal.

I believe that the only way to stop this evil practice is for the governments to pass a law that legislates than in five-years time, all tobacco manufacturing firms are to be shut down and anyone who manufactures any form of tobacco product in which it is inhaled, should be sent to prison for a minimum of ten years.

We as human beings should have a vivid sense of the splendor of human life —something that is clearly lacking in the minds of those who would thrust cigarettes in the mouths of other human beings just to make a buck. Cigarette smoking is really quite unnecessary and the industry that promotes it should be swept away as if a tsunami hit it.

There will be screaming and weeping by those in the industry but I would rather listen to them bleating because of their woes than listen to the families weeping because of the loss of their loved ones who died from smoking cigarettes.

Should walking or driving while nude in public be illegal?

2012-01-16T03:03:00.000-08:00

Back in the mid 1950s when I was living in Victoria, British Columbia, I was living in my boss’ home and on one weekend, I was lying on the grass in our backyard while I was in my bathing suit. The woman next door threatened to call the police if I didn’t put some other clothes on. I told her to go to Hell. She called the police and they came and told me that I had every right to lie on the grass in our backyard while in my bathing suit since I was on private property.

Now had I being lying on the grass while nude, I would have been arrested even though I was on private property.

Years later, a man in Toronto, Ontario was lying on the grass in Toronto’s large High Park while in his bathing suit. The police were called and he was charged under the city’s nudity law. He represented himself in court and argued that the law permits everyone the right to lie on the ground in their bathing suit if they are near a body of water. Although he was several hundred feet from the lake in the park, he was only a couple of feet from a stream that was going down the hill towards the lake. The court ruled that even a stream of water is a body of water.

The city fathers were so embarrassed with the law that they changed the law and permitted everyone the right to be in their bathing suit no matter where they were.

New York's highest state court ruled that women could be top free in public. Since 1992, women in the highly populous State of New York have enjoyed the right to bare their chests because men could do so. As one New York Justice wrote in his concurring opinion, “One of the most important purposes to be served by the equal protection clause is to ensure that 'public sensibilities' grounded in prejudice and unexamined stereotypes do not become enshrined as part of the official policy of government.”

A woman represented herself in the District of Columbia (City of Washington) Court of Appeals and won a court victory stating that the D.C. nudity law did not apply to any body part but genitals. Since then the District of Columbia has been legally female top free because her body parts included her breasts.

When my wife and I were in Rio de Janeiro in 2010, we saw a great many young women going topless on the two main beaches in that city.

Five women who went topless in the Columbus, Ohio Gay Pride parade were arrested. The charges were dropped one month later. Indeed, in the Ohio Law statute, breasts are not considered ‘private parts’. Therefore, women exposing their breasts in public is not considered indecent exposure. In 1998, three of the women who had been arrested three years earlier, sued the city of Columbus for false arrest and won their case . They were paid $15,000 in total for damages. Since then, the police force is being educated not to arrest top free women but warns that if the site of a top free woman causes disturbance, they have the right to ask the topless woman to leave. If she doesn’t, she can be charged with creating a disturbance. Note that not all the cities in Ohio seem to honor this statute.

The Province of Ontario, Canada's most populous province became legally top free due to a criminal court challenge by Gwen Jacob. Because the highest court in Ontario was interpreting a Canadian federal law, this case has set an important precedent for all of the other provinces in Canada. Attempts to change the law to re-criminalize women have not been supported by Canadian voters. Keep in mind that half of the voters are men and they certainly wouldn’t want to re-criminalize that law.

Some twit complained when she saw a woman breast feeding her child while on a subway in Toronto. The court wisely ruled that it is not an offence to breast feed a child in public even if the mother’s breasts can be seen.

It is not an offence to be nude in a nudist camp or at a nude beach because they are on private property. The question however is; ‘Is it illegal to be nude even in the privacy of your home?’ The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on such a case in 2005 that bears retelling.

A man was in his illuminated living room masturbating near an uncovered window one evening and was seen by a man and his wife while in their darkened bedroom that was over 90 feet away. He was arrested and charged under section 173 of the Canadian Criminal Code. The pertinent subsection of section 173 states;

Section 173(1)(a) makes it an offence to wilfully perform an indecent act ‘in a public place in the presence of one or more persons’; s. 173(1)(b), on the other hand, makes it an offence to wilfully commit an indecent act ‘in any place, with intent thereby to insult or offend any person’.

The key words in this subsection are; ‘indecent act’ and ‘public place’

The trial judge convicted the accused under s. 173(1)(a) after finding he had converted his living room into a ‘public place’ but acquitted him under s. 173(1)(b) after finding that it did not appear the accused knew he was being watched or intended to insult or offend any person. The Superior Court and the Court of Appeal of British Columbia upheld the conviction. The Court of Appeal concluded that the accused had “intentionally conducted himself in an indecent way, seeking to draw the attention of others.”

The case finally ended up before the justices of Canada’s Supreme Court. The court said in part;

“The facts as found by the trial judge do not support the accused’s conviction. The accused’s act was not committed in a ‘public place’ within the meaning of ss. 150 and 173(1)(a) of the Criminal Code. A ‘public place’ is defined in s. 150 as “any place to which the public have access as of right or by invitation, express or implied”. ‘Access’ means ‘the right or opportunity to reach or use or visit’ and not the ability of those who are neither entitled nor invited to enter a place to see or hear from the outside, through uncovered windows or open doors, what is transpiring within.” unquote

This raises an interesting question. Back in the mid 1950s, had I been sunbathing in the nude in my backyard and had been seen by the neighbour, under this 2005 ruling, would I be guilty of intentionally conducted myself in an indecent way, seeking to draw the attention of others? If I was nude in the house, the answer would be that it is not an offence to be nude in one’s home even if seen by neighbours but being nude in my backyard is something else again.

Parliament has also created two different offences in ss. 173(1)(a) and 173(1)(b) of the Criminal Code. The former concerns indecent acts committed in a public place in the presence of one or more persons; the latter, indecent acts committed in any place, public or private, with intent to insult or offend any person. Here, the appellant was acquitted under s. 173(1)(b). His conviction under s. 173(1)(a) can therefore not be supported.

Therefore, if I was lying on the grass in my backyard while I was totally nude and was seen by that nosy neighbour, under the 2005 ruling of the Supreme Court of Canada, I would be found innocent unless it could be established that I was lying on the grass nude for the sole purpose of insulting or offending the neighbour. Had she said that I insulted her and offended her by being nude, I would have been convicted. In any case, I didn’t go that far to test the law.

The trial judge was not convinced that the appellant (who was masturbating) had committed an indecent act ‘with intent thereby to insult or offend any person’, as required by s. 173(1)(b) of the Code. He therefore acquitted the appellant of the charge laid against him under that subsection. He was probably acquitted of this aspect of the law because it was established in court that he didn’t even know that he was actually seen masturbating by the neighbours. If he knew that he was being watched and continued masturbating, perhaps the ruling would have been different because the judge may have interpreted that act as someone wishing to insult and offend his neighbours. But surely lying on the grass while nude in your own backyard is not necessarily doing so for the purpose of insulting one’s neighbours especially if you are sunning yourself. If the neighbours don’t like what they are seeing, they have the option of looking somewhere else. They wouldn’t necessarily apply if the neighbours had small children in their own backyard.

An accused named Keir had exposed himself while standing in a private lane next to a public street, from which he was seen by passing girls. Justice Harris in separate but concurring reasons; held that “It was always the law that if this offence was committed in a place visible to any one passing along the streets it was punishable.” If that is so, then it must mean that lying nude on your front lawn which is right next to a public street is against the law.

Speaking for the other four judges of the higher court. Justice Mellish approached the matter differently with respect to the appellant who was masturbating in his living room. His opinion was;

“An indecent act is thus committed not only where the offender is performing it, but also in the place where the witnesses to it are physically situated. I am not at all persuaded that Keir was correctly decided. But even if it was, Keir affords no support for the conviction in this case, since the appellant’s indecent act did not occur in a public place, even within the expanded meaning of Keir.” unquote

In Buhay the accused was charged under the predecessor to s. 173(1)(a). While standing in the front doorway to his house, he had exposed himself to two boys on the street. The trial judge acquitted Mr. Buhay on the ground that he had been charged under the wrong provision: while a lewd comment uttered by the accused in that case afforded sufficient evidence of his intent to insult or offend, warranting a conviction under the predecessor to s. 173(1)(b), the indecent act did not occur in a public place and was therefore not caught by what is now s. 173(1)(a).

The appellant (the masturbator) did not contest the trial judge’s finding that he committed an ‘indecent act’ within the meaning of s. 173(1)(a) of the Criminal Code. He conceded, at least implicitly, that masturbating in an illuminated room near an uncovered window visible to neighbours can be ‘indecent; within the meaning of that section.

The appellant contended however, that he did not wilfully commit this indecent act ‘in a public place in the presence of one or more persons’, as required by s. 173(1)(a). He raised three grounds: first, that his living room was not a ‘public place’ within the meaning of s. 173(1)(a); second, that the complainants were ‘surreptitiously watching him from beneath the blinds of a window in their own private bedroom some distance away’ — and, therefore, not ‘in his presence’, as likewise required by s. 173(1)(a); third, that he cannot be said to have wilfully committed an indecent act in the presence of anyone, since the trial judge found there was no evidence that he knew he was being observed.

Section 150 of the Criminal Code uses the word “access” in reference to a “place” — in this masturbating case, a private home. And my concern is with access to that place ‘as of right or by invitation’. In common usage, ‘access’ to a place to which one is invited or where one has a right to be, refers to entering, visiting or using that place — and not to looking or listening in from the outside. When we are told that someone has access, as of right or by invitation, to an apartment, a workshop, an office, or a garage, this does not include a mere opportunity or ability to look through a window or doorway and to see what is happening inside.

First, interpreting ‘public place’ in a manner consistent with physical as opposed to visual access; renders the whole of s. 173(1) more coherent. The offences under ss. 173(1)(a) and 173(1)(b) are circumscribed in distinct ways. Section 173(1)(a) prohibits indecent acts in public places, while s. 173(1)(b) prohibits indecent acts in any place — public or private — when they are committed with intent to insult or offend against public decency or order.

Parliament has distinguished in the Code between conduct that is criminal because it occurs in a public place and conduct that is criminal because it is exposed to public view. Section 173(1)(a), as we have seen, grounds liability in the fact that the prohibited act is committed in a public place. The offence of nudity is set out in section 174 of the Code:

(1) Every one who, without lawful excuse, (a) is nude in a public place, or (b) is nude and exposed to ‘public view’ while on private property, whether or not the property is his own, is guilty of an offence punishable on summary conviction.
Now under that law, if I had been lying nude in my own backyard, I would have committed an offence contrary to section 174 of the Code.

The key word here is ‘public view’. How do we define it? It is a place where the general public can actually see what is going on. It includes any private place such as a bar or one’s backyard.

It would have been easy however to circumvent the law by the wearing of some microscopic garment. The last paragraph of s. 2051)(a), a deeming provision, accordingly assimilated scantiness of dress to complete nudity provided that scantiness of dress was such as to offend against public decency or order.
This brings to mind a recent decision arrived at in the Superior Court in Bracebridge, Ontario. The appellant (Brian Coldin) had appealed his conviction in that court.

Brian Coldin likes to wear as little as possible and so, with nothing on but sandals and sometimes a necklace to hold his cell phone, he went about the banalities of living: strolling in a park, puttering about his property and enjoying the convenience of drive-through windows at the local A&W and Tim Hortons.

Police in Bracebridge, Ontario, 180 kilometres north of Toronto, charged Mr. Coldin with three counts of being nude in a public place and two counts of being nude while in view of the public while on private property after his unencumbered errands in 2008 and 2009. His lawyers argued that by charging Mr. Coldin when there was no evidence of a sexual or prurient motive or of actual harm, the state infringed on his Charter rights ensuring freedom of expression and liberty.

The businessman and avowed naturist had used his court fight against the charges to challenge the constitutionality of Canada's nudity laws, putting the legal imperative to cover the genitals as much on trial as Mr. Coldin's actions.

His lawyers argued. “Mr. Coldin is a naturist. As a naturist, he believes that being nude in nature fosters greater respect for self, for others and for the environment. He expresses his naturist beliefs by wearing as little clothing as is practical. By charging Mr. Coldin when there was no evidence of a sexual or prurient motive or of actual harm, the state infringed on his Charter rights ensuring freedom of expression and liberty.” unquote

Crown prosecutor Zachary Green balked at the notion. He said in part;

“The Charter does not confer a right to public nudity. Section 174 of the Criminal Code, which prohibits public nudity, protects citizens from those whose state of undress is such that it interferes with other people's use and enjoyment of public places.” unquote

While the constitutional arguments draw from case law, legal analysis and expert testimony, court also heard from people who saw Mr. Coldin on his travels. Eight witnesses described the encounter as creating fear, embarrassment or a reluctance to return to where they saw him. On May 8, 2009, it was Amanda Fernick's first day on the job working the window of a Tim Hortons drive-through in Bracebridge. She told court she leaned out to provide Mr. Coldin change and saw he was not wearing a shirt or pants and his genitals were visible. It rattled her and she walked away from the job. I think she is too sensitive. My immediate response to her actions is “Get a life.”

Four days later, Mr. Coldin was a passenger in a car with two other men, all naked, that pulled up to an A&W drive-through window. The clerk there, Jessica Cramer-Swift, was similarly startled. There was joking inside the car, as the men pretended to look for a wallet in their non-existent pockets, court heard.
Police were called. Mr. Coldin and the driver, John Cropper of Orillia, were both charged with public nudity.

In 1978, the Supreme Court of Canada ruled that ‘nude' does not mean 'shockingly bare,' or 'offensively bare,' it simply means 'completely bare,' without reference to public decency or order. It is an important point. Court heard that Mr. Coldin was wearing at least sandals during each encounter.

If the accused wears some small article of clothing, yet leaves the private areas exposed, he is not completely bare within the meaning of the statute and it could be argued that he is not guilty.

Whether someone's lack of clothing was offensive to public order, used to be decided by a ‘community standards of tolerance’ test, whereby residents of some communities may be more relaxed about such things than others. This was scrapped as being too subjective and now a harm based test is used.

The Supreme Court outlined that merely being an eyesore or eliciting disapproval is not enough. None of the witnesses, Mr. Coldin's lawyer elicited in cross-examination, sought counselling or required assistance.

Mr. Coldin claimed the law violates his Charter right to free expression and that because he was wearing sandals he wasn’t actually nude. Mr. Justice Jon-Jo Douglas didn’t agree with those arguments. The judge said in part in his decision on January 12th:

“A free and democratic society remains so only to the extent that the liberties exercised by each one of us are reasonably circumscribed by the responsibilities of each to one another. Requiring people to wear some modicum of clothing when in public is a reasonable limit.”

He later said;

“Even partial nudity could be against the law if it disturbed public order. Indecent partial dress is criminal. Decent partial dress is not.”

Many years ago while I was still I was practicing law before I retired, I was asked by a client to go into his tavern to watch his female waitresses who were nude except for the shoes they wore and determine in my own mind if they were breaking the law. I concluded that they were not breaking the law for two reasons. The first one was that they were wearing shoes therefore they weren’t actually entirely nude. But the second reason was equally interesting because I concluded that no one in the tavern was insulted or offended by being served beer by semi-nude waitresses where the customers could see everything other than the soles of their feet. The owner of the tavern was never charged and although the tavern later moved elsewhere, it still has partially naked women serving beer to its customers.

But in the case being heard by Justice Douglas, there were at east eight persons who felt insulted, offended and also disturbed at what they were seeing when Mr. Coldin and two of his buddies showed up in a public place nude other than wearing sandals.
There you have it. It is against the law if being nude in a public place if you’re being nude insults or offends people. But what about the thousands of people who participate in a nude-in on public streets? That has occurred in a number of cities and none of those people were charged with offences relating to their public nudity. Well for one thing, there is a public announcement that such a nude-in will take place at a certain street which will be set aside for such an event on a specific day Those kinds of people who would otherwise feel insulted, offended and disturbed at seeing so many naked men and woman of a city street, have the option of not being on that street during that event. This means that those who do watch the event, will not be insulted, offended or disturbed.

Justice Douglas saw the businessman’s actions differently. In his decision, he said in part;

“Defendant Coldin not only chooses to go unclothed, but clearly chooses to do so in places and in a manner that more or less ensures he will be confronting the clothed. Mr. Coldin displayed if not a sense of exhibitionism — then certainly some missionary zeal. He appears more interested in either asserting his right to do so or to somehow converting the clothed among us and is disconnected from the tenets of naturism, however fluid these may be.” unquote

I suppose Coldin could claim that he has the right to attempt to convert clothed people into becoming nudists and that any attempt by the authorities to prevent him from do that is in effect, contrary to his constitutional right to freedom of speech. At the time of the A&W arrest, he said, he and supporters were distributing posters promoting a nude protest rally to be held in front of the local Ontario Provincial Police detachment. If he had been clothed, then there would not have been a problem. He would have been able to exercise his right to free speech.

However, having the constitutional right to exercise free speech does not include insulting and offending and otherwise disturbing clothes people who have no interest in looking at the genitalia of men who have no qualms about displaying them in public.

Eight witnesses described the encounter with Coldin as creating fear, embarrassment or a reluctance to return to where they saw him. Just one complaint alone would be enough to convict this man.

Mr. Coldin was fined $3,000 and given two years’ probation during which he must refrain from public nudity outside of his resort.

Now if you won’t feel insulted, offended or disturbed, I am going to remove my clothes while in my study as it is very warm in that room. Since I am doing it in the privacy of my home and no one can see my genitalia, I know that the police won’t be coming to my door unless an earthquake comes and the walls of my house fall down and I am standing there in my room for everyone to see me in the buff. But even then, I would be acquitted because I wouldn’t be forming the criminal intent to insult, offend or disturb my neighbours while standing nude in all that rubble.

Do you have trouble recognizing faces?

2012-01-13T04:59:00.000-08:00

The temporal lobe of the brain (forward part of the brain) is partly responsible for our ability to recognize faces. Some neurons in the temporal lobe respond to particular features of faces. That particular lobe is also important for the processing of semantics in both speech and vision. The temporal lobe contains the hippocampus and plays a key role in the formation of long-term memory. Some people who suffer damage to the temporal lobe lose their ability to recognize and identify familiar faces. This disorder is called prosopagnosia. It has been estimated that at least 2% of the general population suffer from this infliction and it isn’t necessarily because of an injury to the right occipitotemporal cortex. The occipital lobe is the visual processing center of the human brain and is at the back of the brain.

Prosopagnosia is also known as facial agnosia or ‘face blindness,’ and it is a neurological disorder that makes facial recognition difficult or impossible. According to Lawton and Reichenberg-Ullman (2007), 66% of those with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) and other social developmental disorders also have some difficulty recognizing faces (Wendt et al., 2005, found a lower prevalence of 46.6%). Research suggests that up to two-thirds of those with autistic spectrum disorders (ASDs) have difficulty recognizing faces until they have interacted with individuals on a number of occasions.

The human brain contains a number of different sections, which are responsible for different functions. And although these sections are very indistinct, with some sections possessing the ability to take over the functions of other sections if those sections are damaged in some way, these sections do exist.

Individuals with acquired prosopagnosia might have had normal face recognition abilities which have been impaired due to brain damage, such as head trauma, stroke or degenerative disease. However, those with developmental prosopagnosia have never, from earliest childhood, developed the mechanism for normal face recognition.

We all have a ‘Broca’s region of the brain, which plays an important role in speech. There is also more relevantly a particular section of the brain that is responsible for the recognition of faces. When this region is damaged, an individual may completely lose their ability to recognize faces, even those faces that belong to close relatives or friends. Prosopagnosia runs the gamut from being mild to being extreme.

Fortunately, prosopagnosia doesn’t interfere with one’s ability to read facial expressions. In other words, those with this infliction can still differentiate a smile from a frown.

Another theory holds that the inability to recognize faces may stem from a relatively low social interest in others and the avoidance of eye contact, which may necessitate looking away from faces and thus not developing a clear memory of their characteristics. If such behaviors begin in childhood, perceptual expertise for remembering facial elements may not evolve.

Many people (and I include myself) have found themselves in an embarrassing situation where they are at a party and they approach someone and introduce themselves to that person and then discover that they had met thirty minutes earlier.

Fortunately for me, once I get to know a person, their face is stamped into my mind and I don’t forget what they look like. If you can't recognize people, you feel like you're socially inept. You're always worrying that people will think you rude or aloof. It can be very embarrassing.

Failure to recognize people one has met before can act as a serious social impediment. A prosopagnosiac may meet someone, have an interesting conversation, and then not recognize that person when that encounters him of her again, which can lead to social embarrassment and anxiety, and make it more difficult to establish friendships. Prosopagnosia is especially problematic in the workplace when the individual is unable to recognize coworkers and bosses.

It is quite conceivable that when Oscar Bartholomew, a Canadian who originally lived in Grenada, bear-hugged a woman police officer he thought he recognized when in fact, he had never met her before. Unfortunately for him, a number of police officers beat him to death when the woman cried out that she was being raped which obviously she wasn’t being raped. Of course, there is another factor to consider. There are many people world wide who look like us. I have seen pictures of people who look like me. Years ago, the Life magazine showed pictures of fifty different men who actually looked exactly like President Eisenhower. It is possible that the woman that Oscar bear-hugged looked like another woman that he knew.

Faces are not processed by the human brain in the same sort of way that other information is. In 1971, the scientists Goldstein and Chance conducted a series of tests in which subjects were shown a number of photographs of women’s faces, magnified snowflakes, and ink blots. Fourteen from each were shown for 3 seconds at a time and following an interval of 48 hours the subjects recall was tested. It was then found that faces were the most easily recalled, this was followed by ink blots, and finally by snowflakes. Thus showing that facial recognition (unlike name recognition) is a key part of human perception.

The fact that we all possess such a specialized region in our brains, which is dedicated to the recognition of faces shows us that facial recognition is essential to being human

Prosopagnosiacs do not easily commit whole faces to memory in the way that most people do. Rather, they must rely on unusual features and other aspects of a person to make an identification until they know the individual very well. In extreme cases, facial recognition can never be achieved, even for family members and close friends, but this is quite rare.

There are various ways that you can recognize people’s faces. Link that image to the individual concerned. To accomplish this, you simply need to pick out the features or characteristics of the individual that stand out the most to you. This could be a dimple on his chin or a freckle on her nose, or even a limp in their left leg. Does he have a mole that is prominent? Are his teeth skewed? Does he have warts all over his face? Does he have a bulbous nose? Does he have a scar on his face? If his face pock-marked from having suffered from Small Pox.

Those with prosopagnosia often rely on hairstyles, clothing, context (i.e., an area of the workplace where the person is most commonly seen), and objects (such as an individual’s car or the glasses he wears) to identify acquaintances. This is a good start, but it creates difficulties when people change hairstyles and colours, adopt different styles of dress, get contact lenses, or appear in a different context. Someone who can be recognized in one place, for example, at work, may be difficult to identify during a chance encounter at the beach.

Previous studies have shown that when humans analyze others they tend to focus only on one part of the face at a time. Scientists believe that our brains take the information they need to identify a person primarily from their eyes. After processing this information the mind then moves onto the mouth and the nose, rather than attempting to gauge a person's face as a whole. Scientists believe that certain facial features give the most reliable signals which set apart one person's face from another's. The study looked at 868 female and 868 male faces to judge how decisions about recognition were made.

In order to remember that a woman whom you have just been introduced to—who happens to have long, red hair—goes by the name of Miss fields. All that you would need to do, would be to simply visualize an image of her, lying in a large, green field, with her long red hair spread out around her head. See it twisting around the long green grass. You might also try exaggerating the length of the hair, in order to emphasize the link between her hair and the field. This is so that when you see her (and her hair) again, you will immediately be reminded of her name ‘Fields.’

To remember that a man that you have just met at a party, is called Mr. Taylor, first pick out his most outstanding feature (say thick eyebrows) and imagine him with eyebrows so long that they reach down to the floor. Imagine him in this amusing predicament, whilst he is in the process of being measured for a new suit by his tailor thus you are linking his most outstanding feature to his name, ‘Taylor.’

To remember the name of a dimpled young lady named Miss Standwick, you could try picturing her face, with a number of large candle wicks standing in her exaggeratedly oversized dimples. Stand wicks – ‘Standwick.’

In order for you to remember a Mr. Hill (who happens to possess a wide forehead), you could imagine the man’s forehead, with a miniature mountain stuck in its centre. You might even like to visualize a large, snowy peak on its top. This is in order to make the image that much more amusing and thus more easy to recollect.

Sometimes people who suffer from a stroke can no longer recognize the faces of people they have known all their lives. My mother suffered from a stroke and she couldn’t recognize anyone she had known for years by the time she was ninety but she recognized my voice as soon as she heard me speaking to her. When Jo Livingston, a retired librarian from Bexley, Kent, was with her grandson in the park one day, a woman sat next to her on the bench. It was only when the woman spoke that Jo realized she was her daughter.

There's a spectrum of prosopagnosia, ranging from people who have a vague awareness of being ‘bad with faces’ to those who have trouble even recognizing themselves in photographs, The celebrated neurologist, Oliver Sacks suffered from problems with facial recognition. He attributed this problem for shyness and social ineptitude. He could recognize members of his immediate family but not recognize members of his extended family. On one occasion, he apologized to a bearded man he bumped into only to realize that he had bumped into a mirror and hadn’t recognized his own face. Now that is prosopagnosia in the extreme. I can’t imagine me forgetting what I look like. I mean, how can anyone forget a handsome face? I see that you recognize a tint of narcissism in me.

Unfortunately, many an innocent person has been convicted of a crime he or she hadn’t committed because people have mistakenly identified them as the criminal that committed the crime. This is why facial ID is recognized as a poor means of determining the guilt or innocence of an accused person.

I once was assaulted by a man and had him charged. When his trial came up, I didn’t recognize him and he was acquitted and rightly so. After that, I began looking for characteristics in people’s faces and that’s when I began remembering faces.

The worst experience I had in a trial was when I was a witness to a hit and run incident. At the trial, two women showed up. They were twins. One of the two women was the driver and as such, she was the accused. How I managed to pick the right one is beyond all understanding but when she giving evidence on the stand, she admitted that she had been the driver.

One day a man I had know for years shaved off his mustache. I didn’t recognize him when he passed by me.

Claire, a mother of four from Peterborough, developed prosopagnosia after contracting viral encephalitis in May 2004. The illness also left her with such severe memory loss that she was unable to return to the nursing career she loved. The 48-year-old said, “Initially, I couldn't define age, gender or even colour from looking at someone's face. I'd look at a dark-skinned gentleman and think he was my husband, Ed. (who is white-skinned).

If you find yourself in the embarrassing position of forgetting the face that you saw an hour ago, tell that person about your problem of remembering faces so that they won't suffer from hurt feelings if you don’t recognize them at that next meeting. It is nothing to be ashamed of. Millions of others are similarly afflicted with the same problem.

Don’t be scammed by the scammers

2012-01-11T07:11:00.000-08:00

Remember this. If you come across something you are not sure about, exercise caution. Your best defence against scams is to say no, or don't respond. If you are interested in an offer that has been made to you, make sure you seek independent advice before going any further. Also go to a search engine like Google and see what others have said about the so-called deal you are being offered.

Beware of scam online classifieds ads for smart phones, tablet devices and other small electronic items which are never delivered following payment.

Erase your hard drive before disposing of old computers. Scammers can download the information from your old disk drive and use that information against you. Simply deleting individual files is not enough to remove personal details.

Beware of scam callers asking for payment to deliver parcels

Beware of scam callers pretending to be from your post office and requesting payment to redeliver an undelivered parcel.

Beware of scam gift voucher & product offers on social networking sites users to beware of scam posts which offer fake gift vouchers or products for free. The vouchers are offered in exchange for personal details such as your date of birth etc.

Protect your credit card details from lottery scammers. They will tell you that you have just won a great deal of money but they need your birth date and bank information to transfer the money to you. Sometimes they will ask for sums of money from you to pay the tax on the winnings.

Be wary of scammers who offer bogus government rebates for the installation of solar panels. After you pay for the panels, you will discover that the government didn’t offer rebates.

Beware of scam websites making fake claims of government affiliation. Many times their websites look real so contact that government to confirm what you have seen on the suspicious website.

Beware of scam calls offering carbon compensation payments. Be alert to scam calls offering to pay carbon price compensation into your bank account and asking you for your bank information.

Be alert to scam telephone surveys which gather your personal and banking information and use it to make future scam phone calls you receive appear legitimate.

Beware of fake Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) emails which claim that you’ve visited illegal websites. These emails are a scam. If you receive one, delete it! Don’t open any attachments. There will be a virus or worm in it. NEVER click on pop-up anti-virus alerts.

Beware of scam callers pretending to be from the Government or a bank and asking for an upfront fee to reclaim your overcharged bank fees.

If you’re shopping online for a Mother’s Day gift be alert! Scammers use online classifieds and auction sites to post scam ads, taking your money but leaving you without that perfect gift for your mum.

Be wary of scam calls claiming that your computer is infected with viruses. How would they know this if they haven’t hacked into your computer?

Thoroughly check the legitimacy of charities when donating to Japan disaster relief or any other relief especially when they contact you by email.

If you meet someone special online, be careful: scammers use online dating websites too but they’re not genuinely after your love, only your money!

Could you really be lucky enough to win a new car or money in a promotion or lottery you did not enter? Don’t be fooled.

A state-of-the art DNA test that will reveal the blueprint of your genetic code and hold all the answers to your health, wealth and personal prosperity? Not likely! Don’t be fooled by that garbage. It stinks to high heaven. You will pay for the garbage you get.

Be cautious if you are approached on holidays by strangers offering travel club memberships which seem too good to be true.

Be on the lookout for scam online classified ads for residential and holiday rental properties. Say goodbye to your money before you give these crooks your money.

Check the authenticity of flight booking websites before making any reservations for domestic and international travel.

Be cautious of investing in expensive betting schemes and software packages which make false claims of guaranteed winnings.

Beware of scammers who call offering fake government grants. They want your personal information.

Don’t let someone trick you into paying to have your number listed on the Government’s free Do Not Call Register. It’s free.

Be cautious of classified ads for pedigree pups at prices that are too good to be true.

Beware of scammers offering compensation for disrupted travel plans.

Be wary of advance fee fraud disguised as bogus job offers.

Be on the lookout for an email purporting to be from the federal Taxation Office (trying to trick consumers into providing their private details.

Be very wary of door-to-door salespeople offering to sell you digital television products in your home.

If you are selling something over the internet or through the classifieds, you may be targeted by scammers posing as legitimate buyers! They will pay you with bad cheques.

Be wary of advance fee fraud scams disguised as 'winnings'.

Be careful when purchasing vouchers for discount holiday accommodation.

Be wary of bogus security software or 'scareware'.

Steer clear of sports investment schemes.

Some Facebook subscribers get a hoax email under the guise of a password reset email. They just want your information.

Businesses should watch out for unsolicited emails or letters that claim to offer 'free' business directory listings.

Use caution when entering competitions or responding to ‘free’ offers online and purchasing concert tickets from fake fan club websites rather than official ticket sales.

Be extremely cautious about getting involved in business opportunity schemes that promise a lot of income for little or no effort.

Avoid fake job offers and investment grants sent by scammers in an attempt to steal personal information and money.

Be wary about a fake Police email that claims your credit card has been used in transactions related to criminal organizations. They are looking for your card number.

Be wary about an email that invites recipients to claim a bogus tax return of $452 by completing an online application.

Small to medium businesses should be on the look out for unusual or complicated orders from overseas, particularly orders which are being paid for by credit card.

Don't tell scammers your holiday plans! They will show up at your house when no one is home.

Protect yourself from identity theft when using social networking sites especially during the holiday season.

Avoid telemarketing calls promising ‘free' holidays’.

Be wary of fake rental properties and shared accommodation listings. After they get your money, you then discover that you have been scammed. If the owner makes various excuses as to why you can't inspect the property, run away.

Beware of an airline ticketing scam that can download malicious software onto your computer.

Be wary of inheritance scam letters from scammers.

Beware of fake advertisements offering used vehicles for lower than expected prices continue to appear on car websites, online classifieds and online auction sites.

People who use the internet to buy goods from overseas should be wary of fake emails asking them to pay 'Customs' a range of fees, duty or taxes before their goods are released to them.

Domain name renewals – don't be dot conned! Small business operators and individuals with their own internet sites continue to be confused and caught out by unsolicited letters warning them that their internet domain name is due to expire.

Have you recently received a spam email offering you work as a 'transfer manager' or 'financial' manager for an overseas company? These 'job offers' are scams!

Beware of calls from anti-virus sellers. They will pretend they know your computer
It’s a consumer scam that reached epidemic proportions in Canada last year.

You get a call from someone who says your computer is at risk of crashing because of a virus or malicious software. The caller may suggest he or she works for Microsoft and is aware of issues with your Windows operating system.

You may be asked to open a program called Windows Events Viewer, whose contents are worrisome. They look like a long list of errors, some labeled critical. The caller offers to guide you through the steps to fixing it.

Some victims report being scammed after responding to Internet pop-up ads for anti-virus software.

The irony: By falling for a service that falsely claims to remove viruses from your computer, you may be installing viruses that are even harder to remove.

Once you have downloaded their software, there is no guarantee that any reputable anti-malware program will get rid of it. So, now you also have to go to the added trouble and expense of reformatting your hard drive.

The selling of fake anti-virus programs — often called shareware or spyware — has gone viral in Canada.
A scammer sent me this message by email on January 8, 2012.

Dear Subscriber,
Virus Notification

A DGTFX Virus has been detected in your rogers folders. Your email account has to be upgraded to our new Secured DGTFX anti-virus 2012 version to prevent damages to our web mail log and to your important files. Click your reply tab, Fill the columns below and send back to us or your email account will be terminated to avoid spread of the virus.

Email:
User name:
Password:
Reconfirm Password:

First of all, Rogers is always capitalized. That told me right away this was a scam. Second, I contacted Rogers and they told me they didn’t send that message.
Obviously, the scammer wants my username and password. Naturally I didn’t give it to him or her.

On December 18th, 2011, I received the following scam.

This is an Official alert to inform Rogers account users.

We regret to announce to you that with the rate at which we have newly registered members everyday, our data base is getting congested and now we have decided to under go deactivation of all unused account and some other of our account we find error on for both premium and free accounts.

Every account owner that receives this message has encountered this error and will have to update his/her account with the requested information below.

Please be sure to click the REPLY button first before attempting to fill the info.

User name:
Password:
Date Of Birth:
Occupation:
Country Of Residence:

After you must have filled this information and have it sent back to us, your Rogers account will not be interrupted/terminated and will continue as normal.

Did you notice that the scammer used the word account when in fact he or she should have used the word accounts? That tells me that the scammer is not educated very well. He or she is probably from a third-world country.

Naturally I didn’t give them that information. The scammer could have used it to get credit in my name or even apply for my birth certificate and use that to get a passport in my name.

As much as 70 to 80 per cent of the frauds are reported daily, says the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre. The centre, formerly known as Phonebusters, is operated by the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police and the federal Competition Bureau.

If you put your name on the national Do-Not-Call List, you’re not immune to such pitches. These people don’t have to follow the law since they’re calling from outside Canada. Hang up right away. One such scammer told me that I couldn’t be on the Do Not Call List if I didn’t pay the fee. I knew he was full of shit because there is no fee to be on that list. The fact that he called me is proof that he is not a registered telemarketer because those that are registered have copies of that list.

Don’t give the caller your computer access codes and don’t provide any credit card information.

Be proactive about malware. Use anti-virus software that you have acquired from reputable sources. Keep it up-to-date.

The U.S. Federal Trade Commission made an $8 million settlement with sellers of bogus shareware called Winfixer, Drive Cleaner and XP Antivirus. The average refund mailed to 300,000 consumers last month was $20.

The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says payment for the repair service sold by phone or online ranges from $35 to $469 a call.

Allowing a third party to download software or remotely access a computer carries risks. They can use key loggers to capture sensitive data such as your online banking user names and passwords.

If someone calls you out of the blue offering to provide this kind of help, it’s probably a scam. Remember, it’s not rude to hang up on somebody who’s trying to steal your money and information. Tell them to go to Hell.

I get calls from scammers offering duct cleaning services but the companies they claim they are representing aren’t listed in the phone book. I usually then ask the following question. “We don’t eat ducks but we do eat chickens. Do you also clean chickens? By then, they realize that I am aware of their scams.

An ounce of awareness is better than a pound of anxiety.

SOMALIA: The sinkhole of the world

2012-01-09T04:50:00.000-08:00

Sinkholes for the most part capture surface drainage from running or standing water.

There are countries in the world such as Iran, Yemen, Mexico, Nigeria, Sudan and others where people really don’t want to visit because they are very dangerous places to be in. But the worst of them is Somalia. Even putting a foot into that country is like stepping into quicksand. You may never be seen again. It is a sinkhole in which even the United States armed forces fear to walk into.

It is a country located in the Horn of Africa. It lies in the eastern-most part of Africa. It is bordered by Djibouti to the northwest, Kenya to the southwest, the Gulf of Aden with Yemen to the north, the Indian Ocean to the east, and Ethiopia to the west. It has the longest coastline on the continent, and its terrain consists mainly of plateaus, plains and highlands.

The year, 1991 was a time of great change for Somalia. The Barre administration was ousted that year by a coalition of clan-based opposition groups, backed by Ethiopia's then-ruling Derg regime and Libya. Following a meeting of the Somali National Movement and northern clans' elders, the northern former British portion of the country declared its independence as Somaliland in May 1991. Although de facto independent and relatively stable compared to the tumultuous south, it has not been recognized by any foreign government.

Since the outbreak of the Somali Civil War in 1991 there has been no central government control over most of the country's territory. The basis of most of the conflicts is clan allegiances and competition for resources between the warring clans. But terrorism in Somalia has raised its ugly head and the terrorists are primarily Shabab militants who claim that raping women is their right in a holy war.

Harakat al-Shabaab means ‘The Youth’ and is a militant Islamic group of terrorists in Somalia. Al-Shabaab's troop strength as of May 2011 is estimated at 14,426 militants.

Al-Shabaab is said to have many foreigners within its ranks, particularly at its leadership. Fighters from the Persian Gulf and international jihadists were called to join the holy war against the Somali government and its Ethiopian allies. Though Somali Islamists did not originally use suicide bombing tactics, the foreign elements of Al-Shabaab are blamed for several suicide bombings.

Formally a predominantly nationalist organization, Al Shabaab has repositioned itself as a militant Islamist group that also attracts a large cadre of Western devotees. The outfit's foreign recruitment strategy has been active in the United States, where members have attempted to recruit from the local Muslim community.

Somalia has been steadily worn down by decades of conflict and chaos, its cities in ruins and its people starving. Just this year, tens of thousands have died from famine, with countless others cut down in relentless combat. Now Somalis face yet another widespread terror: an alarming increase in rapes and sexual abuse of women and girls.

Consider the following incident in a young girl's life in Somalia.

The girl’s voice dropped to a hush as she remembered the bright, sunny afternoon when she stepped out of her hut and saw her best friend buried in the sand, up to her neck. Her friend had made the mistake of refusing to marry a Shabab commander. Now she was about to get her head bashed in, rock by rock.

“You’re next,” the Shabab warned the girl, a frail 17-year-old who was living with her brother in a squalid refugee camp. Several months later, the men came back. Five militants burst into her hut, pinned her down and gang-raped her. They claimed to be on a jihad, or holy war, and any resistance was considered a crime against Islam, punishable by death, the same death her friend had been subjected to.

The Shabab militant group, which presents itself as a morally righteous rebel force and the defender of pure Islam, is seizing women and girls as spoils of war, gang-raping and abusing them as part of its reign of terror in southern Somalia, according to victims, aid workers and United Nations officials.

Short of cash and losing ground, the militants are also forcing families to hand over girls for arranged marriages that often last no more than a few weeks and are essentially sexual slavery, a cheap way to bolster their ranks’ flagging morale. The Shabab, who are fighting Somalia’s transitional government and imposing a harsh version of Islam in the areas they control, can no longer pay their several thousand fighters the way they used to. Much as they seize crops and livestock, giving their militants what they call “temporary wives” is how the Shabab keep many young men fighting for them. There’s no cleric, no ceremony, nothing, Shabab fighters had even paired up with thin little girls as young as 12, who are left torn and incontinent afterward. If a girl refuses, she’s killed by stones or bullets.

But it is not just the Shabab. In the past few months, aid workers and victims say, there has been a free-for-all of armed men preying upon women and girls displaced by Somalia’s famine, who often trek hundreds of miles searching for food and end up in crowded, lawless refugee camps where Islamist militants, rogue militiamen and even government soldiers rape, rob and kill with impunity. For the Shabab, forced marriage is another aspect they are using to control the population.

More Somali women are being raped right now than at any time in recent memory. In some areas, they say, women are being used as chits at roadblocks, surrendered to the gunmen staffing the barrier in the road so that a group of desperate refugees can pass.

Somalia is a deeply traditional place, where 98 percent of girls are subject to genital cutting, according to United Nations figures. Most girls are illiterate and relegated to their homes. When they venture out, it is usually to work, trudging through the rubble-strewn alleyways wrapped head to toe in thick black cloth, often lugging something on their back, the equatorial sun burning down on them.

It is often single women, with children in tow, who set off on the dangerous odyssey to refugee camps.

One 18-year-old who asked to go by Ms. Nur, her common last name, was married off at 10. She was a nomad and says that to this day she has never used a phone or seen a television. She spoke of being raped by two Shabab fighters at a displaced-persons camp in October. She said the men did not bother saying much when they entered her hut. They just pointed their guns at her chest and uttered two words: stay silent. Being in a refugee camp is no means of being protected by these rapists.

It is time for the United Nations to step in more forcefully and get some of its members to offer military assistance to the legitimate government of Somalia. If the militants aren’t removed from Somalia, then the country will continue slipping deeper into the sinkhole it has already found itself in.

Book burnings are still with us

2012-01-06T05:19:00.000-08:00

Book burning is the practice of destroying by fire, often ceremoniously, one or more copies of a book or other written material. In modern times, other forms of media, such as phonograph records, video tapes, and CDs have also been ceremoniously burned, torched, or shredded. The practice, usually carried out in public, is generally motivated by moral, religious, or political objections to the material.

On April 6, 1933, the German Student Association's Main Office for Press and Propaganda proclaimed a nationwide "Action against the Un-German Spirit", to climax in a literary purge or "cleansing" ("Säuberung") by fire. On May 10, 1933 the students burned upwards of 25,000 volumes of "un-German" books, presaging an era of state censorship and control of culture. More were burned later.

For years, school boards have banned text books and books of fiction from school libraries because of their objection to the contents of the books. For the most part, their objections are ludicrous. Here are some examples:

I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings Maya Angelou. Reason: Rape scene, "anti-white"

Of Mice and Men John Steinbeck. Reason: Profanity Go Ask Alice Anonymous. Reason: Drug use, sexual situations, profanity

A Day No Pigs Would Die Robert Newton Peck. Reason: Depiction of pigs mating and being slaughtered.

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn Mark Twain. Reason: It has the word, ‘Nigger’ in it.

Do we remove mythology and Arthurian legends because of its references to magic? Do we strip the shelves of medieval literature because it presupposes the existence of saints? Do we remove Macbeth because of the murders and witches?

In 1978, an Eldon, Missouri library banned the American Heritage Dictionary (1969) because it contained 39 "objectionable" words. And, in 1987, the Anchorage School Board banned the dictionary for similar reasons, i.e., having slang definitions for words such as "bed," "knocker," and balls.

The Olathe, Kansas school system ordered all copies of Annie of my Mind removed from high school library shelves. It is a story of two women who meet and fall in love and struggle with declaring their homosexuality to family and friends.

In 1986, Graves County, Kentucky, the school board banned As I Lay Dying (1932) by William Faulkner, a book about a poor white family in the midst of crisis, from its high school English reading list because of 7 passages which made reference to God or abortion and used curse words such as "bastard," "goddam," and "son of a bitch." None of the board members had actually read the book.

The book, Catcher in the Rye by J.D. Salinger is a perennial favorite of censors and has been banned in the U.S. and Australia. In 1960, a Tulsa, OK teacher was fired for putting the book on the 11th grade reading list. The teacher was reinstated, but the book was permanently removed from teaching programs. A Minnesota high school administration was attacked for allowing the book in the school library.

The book, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury is about censorship and those who ban books for fear of creating too much individualism and independent thought. In late 1998, this book was removed from the required reading list of the West Marion High School in Foxworth, Mississippi. A parent complained of the use of the words "God damn" in the book. Subsequently, the superintendent instructed the teacher to remove the book from the required reading list.

A young children's book called Families written by Meredith Tax is a book that creatively describes different family structures. It was removed by the Fairfax County school board. Meredith Tax's beloved book had been under attack for a long time, during which many individuals and organizations rose to its defense. What's more, Families was praised by the board's own review committees.

The book, Forever by Judy Blume is a wildly popular teen novel. It was attacked for its frank treatment of adolescent sexuality and was removed from an eighth-grade optional reading list in a school in Rib Lake, Wisconsin, The school district principal had the book removed from the library after confiscating a copy from a student in the lunchroom, finding "graphic descriptions of sex acts."

I could go on listing banned books for hours but time and space forbids it however, I want to bring to my reader’s attention, a recent banned book in Toronto.

A nationalist Turkish group has succeeded in banning a recommended high school book on genocide. The banned book, which included a chapter on the WWI extermination of Ottoman Armenians, has been replaced by works of two genocide deniers.

The book, Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide is about genocide and has been pulled from the recommended reading list of a new Toronto public school course because of objections from the Turkish-Canadian community.

The Turks have for over a century repeatedly denied that their ancestors massacred over a million men, women and children in Armenia, despite enormous evidence to the contrary.

Barbara Coloroso’s book was originally part of a resource list for the Grade 11 history course, Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity, set to launch across the Toronto District School Board this fall.
The book examines the Holocaust, which exterminated six million Jews in the Second World War; the Rwandan slaughter of nearly one million Tutsis and moderate Hutus in 1994, and the massacres of more than a million Armenians in the years of 1895, 1909 and 1915.

The Turks have mounted a worldwide campaign objecting the book, which is not surprising because of their ongoing denial of the genocide. Her book was replaced by works by Bernard Lewis and Guenter Lewy, who are deniers of the Armenian genocide.
The Armenian Genocide was carried out by the "Young Turk" government of the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1916 (with subsidiaries to 1922-23). One and a half million Armenians were killed, out of a total of two and a half million Armenians in the Ottoman Empire.

The Armenian Genocide was directed by a Special Organization (Teshkilati Mahsusa) set up by the Committee of Union and Progress, which created special "butcher battalions," made up of violent criminals released from prison. Some righteous Ottoman officials such as Celal, governor of Aleppo; Mazhar, governor of Ankara; and Reshid, governor of Kastamonu, were dismissed for not complying with the extermination campaign. Any common Turks who protected Armenians were killed.

First the Armenians in the army were disarmed, placed into labor battalions, and then killed. Then the Armenian political and intellectual leaders were rounded up on April 24, 1915, and then killed. Finally, the remaining Armenians were called from their homes, told they would be relocated, and then marched off to concentration camps in the desert between Jerablus and Deir ez-Zor where they would starve and thirst to death in the burning sun. On the march, often they would be denied food and water, and many were brutalized and killed by their "guards" or by "marauders." Bodies of starved mothers and their children were found everywhere along the route. The authorities in Trebizond, on the Black Sea coast, did vary this routine: they loaded Armenians on barges and sank them out at sea.

The Turkish government has always denied the killed that many Armenians and even to this day, they still deny that there was an Armenian genocide. They claim that Armenians were only removed from the eastern "war zone." The Armenian Genocide, however, occurred all over Anatolia [present-day Turkey], and not just in the so-called "war zone." Deportations and killings occurred in the west, in and around Ismid (Izmit) and Broussa (Bursa); in the center, in and around Angora (Ankara); in the south-west, in and around Konia (Konya) and Adana (which is near the Mediterranean Sea); in the central portion of Anatolia, in and around Diyarbekir (Diyarbakir), Harpout (Harput), Marash, Sivas (Sepastia), Shabin Kara-Hissar (þebin Karahisar), and Ourfa (Urfa); and on the Black Sea coast, in and around Trebizond (Trabzon), all of which are not part of a war zone. Only Erzeroum, Bitlis, and Van in the east were in the war zone.

The Armenian Genocide was condemned at the time by representatives of the British, French, Russian, German, and Austrian governments—namely all the major Powers. The first three were foes of the Ottoman Empire, the latter two, allies of the Ottoman Empire. The United States, neutral towards the Ottoman Empire, also condemned the Armenian Genocide and was the chief spokesman in behalf of the Armenians.

In any case, this piece is not about the Armenian genocide. It’s about the fools in the Toronto school board who are so willing to bow down to the pressure exerted by Turks who will forever deny that Turkey killed so many innocent men, women, children and babies in the early part of the last century.

If these fools had the intestinal fortitude to stand up for the rights of all school children, they would permit the book Extraordinary Evil: A Brief History of Genocide to be read by the students along with the books written by the deniers. Needless to say, for such a book to be included in the school’s libraries would require the OK by the school board and unless those in the school board have brains and intestinal fortitude, the book will not be included.

Remember Galileo? Cardinal Bellarmine, acting on directives from the Inquisition, delivered him an order not to "hold or defend" the idea that the Earth moves around the sun and the Sun stands still at the centre. Suppose the schools adhered to that principle, where would we be now in the field of astronomy?

History books are the legacies left behind so that those that follow us will have a better understanding of what occurred in the past. If we destroy these books or even ban them from our children, what will they learn on their own about their ancestors and the world they lived in?

I think Jesse Lee Bennett said it best when he said and I quote;

“Books are the compasses and telescopes and sextants and charts which other men have prepared to help us navigate the dangerous seas of human life.”

Even the untouchables can rise economically

2012-01-04T07:02:00.000-08:00

The caste system in India was a disgrace against the rights of those whom Indians regarded as the low of the low—the untouchables. Even the blacks in the United States prior to the 1960s were treated better than the untouchables in India were.

The blacks in the US had to sit at the back of the bus, they couldn’t use washrooms or drinking fountains or even restaurants that whites used and further, most of them weren’t even permitted to vote. But the untouchables were treated even worse in India.

Dalit is a designation for a group of people traditionally regarded as ‘Untouchable’. While the discrimination based on caste system (not the caste system itself) has been abolished under the Indian constitution, evidence still exists that there is still discrimination and prejudice against Dalits in India. The word ‘Dalit’ comes from the Sanskrit, and means ‘ground’, ‘suppressed’, ‘crushed’, or ‘broken to pieces’.

In the context of traditional Hindu society, Dalit status has often been historically associated with occupations regarded as ritually impure, such as any work involving leatherwork, butchering, or removal of rubbish, animal carcasses and waste. Dalits work as manual labourers cleaning streets, latrines, and sewers. For centuries, they could never hope to rise above those occupations.

Engaging in these activities was considered to be polluting to the individual, and this pollution was considered contagious. As a result, Dalits were commonly segregated and banned from full participation in Hindu social life. Dalits were not allowed to drink from the same wells, attend the same temples, wear shoes in the presence of an upper caste, or drink from the same cups in tea stalls as those in the higher castes. They could not enter a school and they were required to live outside of the villages. By 2011, more than 200 million people in India were considered as Untouchables—people tainted by their birth into a caste system that deemed them impure—less than human.

Human rights abuses against these people, known as Dalits, are legion. A random sampling of headlines in mainstream Indian newspapers tells their story: "Dalit boy beaten to death for plucking flowers"; "Dalit tortured by cops for three days"; "Dalit 'witch' paraded naked in Bihar"; "Dalit killed in lock-up at Kurnool"; "7 Dalits burnt alive in caste clash"; "5 Dalits lynched in Haryana"; "Dalit woman gang-raped, paraded naked"; "Police egged on mob to lynch Dalits".

The people of India should feel ashamed for mistreating their fellow human beings in such an outrageous manner. Many do feel ashamed but unfortunately, a great many do not. They think that they are above others who are of a lower caste than they are.

Nearly 90 percent of all the poor Indians and 95 percent of all the illiterate Indians are Dalits. However, the so-called ‘untouchables’ have within their ranks extremely intelligent people who have risen out of the filth they were forced to endure and who now are much more superior to those in the higher castes who abused them.

Ashok Khade of India was born into India’s Dalit, or ‘untouchable’ caste. Khade was raised in a mud hut in a rural village and grew up poor and hungry. On his barefoot trudge to school decades ago, a young Ashok Khade passed inescapable reminders of what he was: the well from which he was not allowed to drink; the temple where he was not permitted to worship. At school, he took his place on the floor in a part of the classroom built a step lower than the rest. Untouchables like him, considered to be spiritually and physically unclean, could not be permitted to pollute their upper-caste neighbors and classmates.

But as a young man, he managed to land a position as an apprentice draftsman at a government-run ship-building company. He worked extra hard, learned as much as he could, and after a few years, he took the enormous risk of launching his own company which builds and repairs off-shore oil rigs. His company filled a new and growing need in the marketplace, as India’s emerging economy developed an ever-growing appetite for oil, then he began expanding his business into the Middle East. Today, Khade’s $100 million company employs 4,500 people.

He is the living proof that everyone who has a normal brain has the ability to rise above the filth they may have been in as a child and surpass the efforts of those who thought that they were better than them. Khade is just one example of the democratizing impact of capitalism and free market economics on Indian society and in many other parts of the world.

For most of India’s history after independence, the government was the only thing that could improve the ‘Dalits’ lot. For nearly all Indians but especially for Dalits, a government job, even a low-level one, was the surest ticket out of poverty, guaranteeing education, housing, a salary and a pension. Few in the socialist government or in India’s generally risk-averse society saw entrepreneurship as an attractive option.

But that has started to change. Since 1991, when India’s economy opened to the world and began its astonishing growth trajectory, hundreds of thousands of new businesses have been created, leaving an opening for millions of people who never imagined that owning their own business was even possible. A small handful of Dalits were uniquely poised to take advantage. They had the drive, the ambition, the willingness to work hard and the intelligence to rise above their station in life.

It is indeed most unfortunate that so many so-called untouchables were denied the opportunity to go to schools of higher learning. If they had been given those opportunities, India as a nation would surely have benefited. But when a nation suppresses 200 million of its people so that they remain illiterate, as a nation, it will truly suffer. India is only learning that now. The United States began learning that lesson in the 1960s. No one prior to that would have ever envisioned that the head of the armed forces in the US would have been a black man or later, the president of the United States would be a black man. It is conceivable that some day in the future, the leader of India will have been a former untouchable. When that happens, India will have recognize that it is not their caste that makes each of their citizens succeed—it is their drive, their ambition, their willingness to work hard and their intelligence that will make them succeed in their endevours. And when that happens, everyone benefits.

I speak with some authority on this subject. I was initially raised in a two-room shack with no water, electricity or an indoor toilet. My crib was the bottom drawer of a beat-up dresser and I failed in school three times. But I put myself through university and ended up addressing over a hundred nations as a speaker while attending United Nations conferences around the world on matters of justice and human rights. If people like me and like Ashok Khade can better ourselves as we grow older, so can anyone else who has the drive, the ambition, the willingness to work hard and possesses normal intelligence. We are not untouchables. We are like everyone else who makes the effort to better themselves in life.

Syrian leaders must be punished

2012-01-02T08:15:00.000-08:00

The United Nations Human Rights Council strongly condemned Syria on the 30th of December 2011 for gross and systematic violations by its forces, including executions that it said may amount to crimes against humanity. The 47-member forum adopted a resolution put forward by the European Union (EU) by a vote of 37 states in favor, four against including China and Russia, with six abstentions.

The text called for the ‘main bodies’ of the United Nations to consider a U.N. report which found that crimes of humanity had been committed and take appropriate action against the leaders of Syria.

The meeting was called to address the findings of the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, appointed by the Human Rights Council earlier last year, which said 307 children had been killed since the March crackdown.

“We condemn in the strongest possible terms the ongoing slaughter, arbitrary arrest and torture of peaceful protesters,” U.S. ambassador Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe said at the council’s third emergency meeting called to discuss Syria since the repression began in March.

A U.N.-appointed investigative panel found widespread killings and abuse of dissidents since the start of the crackdown, which has claimed more than 4,000 lives, according to the United Nations.

“November was the deadliest month so far with 56 children killed,” said the head of the panel, citing “reliable sources.” “To date, 307 children were killed by state forces,” Paulo Pinheiro told the Geneva-based body.

One former soldier who said he decided to defect after witnessing an officer shoot a 2-year-old girl in Latakia, then claim he killed her so she wouldn't grow up to be a demonstrator. The Egyptian weekly Al-Ahram reported in its English edition that "there are dozens of video footage of bodies of children from Deraa, Homs, Latakia and other Syrian areas showing severe signs of torture, pulled-out nails, gorged eyes and severed limbs." Despite international pressure, the Syrian regime does not hesitate to describe these young and innocent victims as "terrorist infiltrators."

In May 2011, Hamza Ali al-Khateeb, who was only 13 years old, was among the many Syrian children to have been killed by the Syrian security apparatus. After his death, he became the symbol of the Syrian regime's brutality. It was revealed that the young boy was killed after being tortured, "suffering numerous fractures and broken bones." The Globe and Mail wrote, "His jaw and both kneecaps had been smashed. His flesh was covered with cigarette burns. His penis had been cut off.

Other injuries appeared to be consistent with the use of electroshock devices and being whipped with a cable." A video of his mutilated body circulated on the Internet, raising criticism from all over the world against the Syrian President Bashar Al-Assad.

Asharq Al-Awsat reports that other Syrian children were subjected to torture prior to death, among them Tamer al-Shari, aged 15, Abdullah Jeha of Homs, aged 13, Malik al-Masri, aged 17, and Nasser al-Saba, aged 16. "Reports that the Syrian security forces have tortured and killed children in their custody would, if confirmed, mark a new low in their bloody repression of protests," said Philip Luther, Deputy Director of Amnesty International's Middle East and North Africa Program.

Many other children have been victims of the regime's brutality. Some of them were shot in demonstrations or at home with their families, others died by suffocation from tear-gas, still others have been abducted. Al-Ahram reports that Moussa Al-Wadi, aged 12, was shot in the head, rendering him brain-dead. In August, in the capital Damascus, 25 members of security forces and death squads chased 15-year-old Ramy into a mosque. The Egyptian weekly writes that "soon afterwards protesters in a nearby street heard a single shot". Ramy's mother is still awaiting his return.

In May, Hajar Taysir al-Khatib, aged 10, was instead killed after being run over by a Syrian security forces vehicle. She was soon after named by the Syrian opposition as "the flower of Syria's martyrs." Hamza Balla, aged 10, was also killed after being hit by an Army's vehicle. Al Ahram reports that some infants died in hospitals after Syrian authorities deliberately cut off power there. "Activists said that more than 20 infants died in their incubators because of the power outage," the weekly states.

Asharq Al-Awsat also reports that a large number of Syrian children became prey of organ harvesting; some Syrian children were even abducted from hospitals prior to death. In July, Umar Hama-Kazo, aged 12, was killed by security forces and his dead body was taken away by those forces. Murshid Abu Zayed, aged 18, was killed after being abducted from the hospital and his body was found to be missing some of his organs.

At the summit on December 30th, Syria’s ambassador Faysal Khabbaz Hamoui gave an angry speech that even won support from Russia, China and Cuba. “The Syrian problem is one that can be resolved only by Syrians. It is only a domestic, national solution that is possible,” he said, referring to reforms promised for 2012.
“The solution cannot come from the corridors of the international community,” he said. “It is only resolutions trying to put more oil on the fire.”

It didn’t surprise me one bit that Russia, China and Cuba supported the statement of the Syrian ambassador. These three countries have for many generations been abusing their own people.

On that same day, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden urged Syria’s Bashar al-Assad to quit, adding to growing global pressure on the regime over its crackdown on dissidents. Biden told the Hurriyet Daily, “The United States’ position on Syria is clear. The Syrian regime must end its brutality against its own people and President Assad must step down so a peaceful transition that respects the will of the people can take place.” The vice president called for a peaceful transition in Syria, saying: “Lasting stability can come when there is a government that listens to its people and addresses their needs, rather than turning their guns on them.”

Wilfred Penfield, a neurosurgeon said, “In all the studies of the brain, no mechanism has been discovered that can force the mind to think or individuals to believe anything.” unquote If Biden believes that Bashar-al-Assad, the Syrian butcher will listen to the people of Syria, then Biden’s brain needs a closer examination to see if he really can think.

Europe and the United States tightened economic sanctions on Syria the 29th of December, including bans on exporting gas and oil industry equipment and trading Syrian government bonds in an effort to choke off funding.

Biden also praised Turkey’s “real” leadership on Syria under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Ankara also hosts Syrian army defectors and an umbrella opposition group, the Syrian National Council. “Turkey has been a real leader on this issue. I commend Prime Minister Erdogan’s recent call for Mr. Assad to step down because of the regime’s treatment of its people, as well as Turkish leaders’ calls for others in the international community to support the Syrian people,” he said. Turkey, a traditional NATO ally of Washington, announced tough sanctions on the Syrian regime including a freeze on trade and a break in links with the Syrian central bank. The United States and its Western allies are leading a campaign to isolate Assad over the bloody crackdown.

European Union chair Poland told the U.N. rights council that those guilty of abuses must be prosecuted. “Perpetrators of the human rights violations must be held to account, in particular those who committed crimes that may warrant the attention of the International Criminal Court,” ambassador Remigiusz Henczel said. “This report deserves full consideration not only by this council, but by all relevant U.N. bodies, including the Security Council,” he added. High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay added her voice to widespread fears that the crackdown has brought the country to the brink of civil war. “The Syrian authorities’ continual ruthless repression, if not stopped now, can drive the country into a fully fledged civil war,” she told the opening of the meeting. Pillay repeated a call to the Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the ICC.

However Russian ambassador Valery Loshchinin said the global community had been given a “one-sided” report of events in Syria. That statement is utter nonsense.

Tens of thousands marched in protests across Syria calling for Turkey to create a buffer zone to protect civilians, activists said. In the Deir Baalba district of Homs protesters also called for the overthrow of President Assad and urged Western powers to impose a buffer zone on Syria’s borders.

The largest protests were held in the central Homs province and in the northern town of Hama, said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. “In 17 districts (in the city of) Homs and at least nine neighboring towns, tens of thousands of people called for the creation of a buffer zone to ensure their protection,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

Witnesses told AFP Syrian troops also fired across the border into Lebanon, wounding three people among refugees who had fled an attack on the village of Tal Kalakh on December 30th which the Observatory said left dozens injured.

Obviously not enough is being done to protect the people of Syria from their butcher and his minions. Here is what I propose should be done.

Close all borders so that only refugees can exit Syria. No vehicles should be permitted to enter or leave Syria.

Ban all flights in and out of Syria.

All nations should cancel any trade agreements with Syria.

No bank transactions should be permitted that will transfer money in or out of Syria.

No Syrian leaders and generals should be permitted to leave Syria for any reason whatsoever.

All Syrian embassies and consulates world-wide should be closed and the Syrian staff of these institutions should be sent back to Syria.

All oil contracts should be suspended.

All foreign companies doing business with Syria should be ordered to cease doing business with Syria until further notice.

Warrants for the arrest of Syrian leaders and generals accused of human rights violations should be issued.

Any nations that ignore these sanctions and comes to the aid of the Syrian leaders and generals should suffer consequences, beginning with sanctions.

Now I am aware that this will create hardship for the people of Syria but they are already enduring hardship under the regime of their butcher.

The United Nations and NATO should assist the people of Syria to overthrow their butcher in the same way that as what was done in Libya.

The world community should not stand by and merely wring their hands in hopes that the butcher will change his ways. Even if he did change his ways, he will always be answerable to the International Criminal Court and that is why he really has no intention of quitting what he is already doing.

A verse in the Bible says, “The wicked flee when no man pursueth.” unquote However, they do make better time when their pursuers are close behind them.

Christians being attacked by power hungry terrorists

2011-12-30T05:03:00.000-08:00

Muhammad found Christianity a most sympathetic religion, although he had certain serious reservations. Accepting differences to be ‘as they are’ was the first step in establishing peaceful relations between the Christians and Prophet Muhammad some fourteen hundred years ago.

In today’s western world, millions of Christians would prefer to not rock the boat with Islam and rather try to accommodate it. It is also apparent to honest and sincere and peace-loving Muslims that Christians and Muslims believe in and pray to the same God. Both Muslims and Christians ask for help and forgiveness from the same God. Both of them declare the importance of ‘peace’ so, it is only natural to expect that the followers of the two traditions would be able to establish peace together all around the world.

He who takes his religion seriously and therefore also tells the other one where and why he sees things differently recognizes the importance of dialogue. He who is rooted in his own religion will also recognize the right of the believers of the other religion to practice their own religion. Christians, for example, must not blame a Muslim or feel offended when he sees everything, including Christianity, from the Qur'an's point of view, even if he cannot follow Mahammad’s teachings in many things. The same applies to Muslims.

Christians must not tell Jews and Muslims how their religion is to be understood. He who is not ready to detect the other religion as being different and to see its inner logic will never be able to do it justice to the followers of the other religions and to enter into a real dialogue with the followers of other religions. Everyone should therefore be able to explain his own religion to those who follow that religion and be able to do so in peace. Further, queries from outside one’s own religion must be allowed to be directed to every religion providing that it is done respectfully.

The ultimate aim should not be conversion or the creation of a universal religion or agreement on the smallest common denominator but rather mutual enlightenment, openness to each other, communication in order to promote justice, freedom and a peaceful living together for all the people on this earth.

The co-operation (instead of fighting each other) of the three God-related religions in this cramped, conflict-full world demands the deepening of one's own faith, the conversion from superficial regulations to the spiritual core of each other’s religions, so that we as human beings are able to give each other and the world the things which we owe to everyone in it by the will of their common God. Christians and Muslims understand their religions as universal. In the past Christians often thought that the whole world had to become Christian. Today the churches understand their mission differently: as service and as invitation, without compulsion or the desire to drive away other religions.

Jews, Christians and Muslims have as a common principle the faith in the one God, the creator of all beings. From that basis the basic attitude results primarily to recognize others as God's creatures. Meeting members of other religions is therefore primarily recognition of other people's existence.

World peace is at stake and from a world of violence Mankind must move into God's world of universal brother-sisterly love, as each human being must walk in peace on that common path that is before all of us.

The three monotheistic religions have in the past fought against each other rather than have peace with one another. One of them has currently disputed one of the other's right to practice its own religion in peace and has been doing this even in this present era. In doing this, the terrorists are following an edict of Muhammad who stated in Sura (chapter) 9:4-5—“If you have made a treaty with infidels, do not break the treaty until the holy months are past. Then fight them and kill them wherever you find them and then take them captive and besiege them and ambush them.” unquote

It is most unfortunate however that there are Islamic terrorists around the world who are murdering many followers of Christianity and using Sura 9:4-5 as their justification. These Islamic terrorists have already forgotten the teachings of their own prophet, Muhammad or alternatively, they haven’t forgotten them but instead they are ignoring many of them especially the edict in which he says that the followers of other religions should be left in peace.

Their desire to denounce the beliefs of those whom they deem to be non-believers encourages religious fanatics who encourage violence and who are ignoring those holy texts of other religions and at any rate, disputes the rights of those they have deemed as non-believers to worship God in their own way.

The Christmas Day (2011) attacks in Nigeria show the growing national ambition of the sect known as Boko Haram, which is thought to be responsible for killing as many as 504 Christians this year in Nigeria alone. The sect, that aims to impose sharia law across the country, claimed responsibility for the three church bombs, the second Christmas in a row the group has caused mass carnage with deadly bombings of churches.

The first explosion struck St. Theresa Catholic Church in Madalla, a town in Niger state close to the capital, Abuja, killing at least 35 and wounding 52. The church was packed when the bomb exploded just outside.
Hours after the first bomb, blasts were reported at the Mountain of Fire and

Miracles Church in the central, ethnically and religiously mixed town of Jos, and at a church in northern Yobe state at the town of Gadaka. Residents said many were wounded in Gadaka, but there were no immediate further details. Last years Christmas Eve bombings in Jos left at least 32 dead and 74 wounded.

The city of Jos is located on the dividing line between Nigeria's predominantly Christian south and Muslim north. Thousands have died in communal clashes there over the last decade. Shariah law exists across Nigeria, a multi-ethnic nation of more than 160 million people.

The White House condemned the violent attacks in Nigeria on Sunday, which it said appeared to be acts of terrorism. “We condemn this senseless violence and tragic loss of life on Christmas Day,” the White House said in a statement released from Hawaii, where President Barack Obama is vacationing. “We have been in contact with Nigerian officials about what initially appear to be terrorist acts and pledge to assist them in bringing those responsible to justice. The White House said the attacks appeared to be acts of terrorism. The White House further said: “We condemn this senseless violence and tragic loss of life on Christmas Day”

The Vatican has also denounced the attacks as a sign of 'cruelty and absurd, blind hatred' that shows no respect for human life. A Vatican spokesman said the church hoped “this senseless violence does not weaken the will of the Nigerian people to live peacefully and promote dialogue in their country”.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague called the bombs ‘cowardly attacks on families gathered in peace and prayer to celebrate a day which symbolizes harmony and goodwill towards others’.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy ‘condemned these acts of violence in the strongest terms’ and ‘expressed solidarity with Nigeria's fight against terrorism’, his office said.

Italian foreign minister Giulio Terzi condemned ‘vile attacks ... against the universal principles of civilization.’

Although billions of dollars of oil money flow into the nation’s annual budget, Nigeria’s National Emergency Management Agency sent texts to journalists asking for more ambulances. The wounded filled a government hospital, with TV images showing them weeping.

Nigeria's National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA) has acknowledged it didn't have enough ambulances immediately on hand to help the wounded. Co-ordinator Slaku Luguard said an angry crowd that gathered at the blast site hampered rescue efforts as they refused to allow workers inside. “We're trying to calm the situation, said Luguard. “There are some angry people around trying to cause problems.”

Government spokesman Pam Ayuba said gunmen later opened fire on police guarding the area, killing one police officer. Two other locally made explosives were found in a nearby building and disarmed, he said.

When the bomb went off, there were scenes of chaos, as shocked residents stared at the wreckage in disbelief.

“Mass just ended and people were rushing out of the church and suddenly I heard a loud explosion. Cars were in flames and bodies littered everywhere,” Nnana Nwachukwu said. Father Christopher Barde, Assistant priest of the church, said: ‘The officials who counted told me they have picked up 27 bodies so far. I happen to also live close

After the bombings, a Boko Haram spokesman using the nom de guerre Abul-Qaqa, claimed responsibility for the attacks in an interview with The Daily Trust, the newspaper of record across Nigeria's Muslim north. The sect has used the newspaper in the past to communicate with public.

The U.S. Embassy in Nigeria's capital of Abuja had issued a warning to citizens to be 'particularly vigilant' around churches, large crowds and areas where foreigners congregate.

Several days of fighting in and around the north-eastern city of Damaturu between the sect and security forces already had killed at least 61 people, authorities said. The local police commissioner Tanko Lawan said several explosions had struck
Damaturu, including a suicide car bombing.

Lawan said that the blasts happened around noon, targeting the headquarters of Nigeria's secret police, the State Security Service, in the area. The State Security Service later issued a statement saying the bomber targeted a senior military commander and killed three officers in the attack.

In the last year, Boko Haram has carried out increasingly bloody attacks in its campaign to implement strict Shariah law across Nigeria, a nation of more than 160 million people.

Boko Haram claimed responsibility for a November 4th attack on Damaturu, Yobe state's capital, that killed more than 100 people. The group also claimed responsibility for the August 24th suicide car bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Nigeria's capital that killed 24 people and wounded 116 others.

The sect came to national prominence in 2009, when its members rioted and burned police stations near its base of Maiduguri, a dusty north-eastern city on the cusp of the Sahara Desert.

Nigeria's military violently put down the attack, crushing the sect's mosque into shards as its leader was arrested and died in police custody. About 700 people died during the violence.

While initially targeting enemies via hit-and-run assassinations from the back of motorbikes after the 2009 riot, violence by Boko Haram now has a new sophistication and apparent planning that includes high-profile attacks with greater casualties.

Boko Haram has splintered into three factions, with one wing increasingly willing to kill as it maintains contact with terror groups in North Africa and Somalia, diplomats and security sources say. Sect members are scattered throughout northern Nigeria and nearby Cameroon, Chad and Niger.

Boko Haram—which in the Hausa language spoken in northern Nigeria means 'Western education is sinful'—is loosely modeled on the Taliban movement in Afghanistan. The group considers all who do not follow its strict ideology as infidels, whether they are Christian or Muslim. It demands the adoption of sharia, Islamic law, in all of Nigeria.

What is all comes down to is not about the right of Muslims to practice Islam as they already have that right. It is all about power. The terrorists are seeking power and attacking other religious as a means to obtaining their goal of acquiring power over their own people.

Chemical castration and sterilization: Do they really work?

2011-12-28T09:22:00.000-08:00

This article is not for the faint hearted.

Chemical castration

Throughout history, castration has been used to punish sex offenders. Of course, the use of a knife for this form of punishment isn’t used in Democratic countries but chemical castration is. Even that kind of castration causes a shudder in the consciousness of many libertarians in civilized countries. Not only is "chemical castration" in the thoughts of legislators and judges across the country, it is also actually happening. California, Arizona and Florida for example each passed a law that mandates chemical castration as a condition of parole for repeat sex offenders and the discretionary chemical castration of paroled one-time sex offenders.

Child molesters, rapists, and other sex offenders are perceived as among the vilest members of society. It is not surprising; therefore, that the Florida Legislature revived an ancient method of turning these condemned men into temporary eunuchs.

Let me say right from the onset, chemical castration is a misnomer. The organs remain intact. The only thing that is removed is the desire to have sex. The lawmakers in Florida advocated the use of drugs, not the surgeon’s scalpel, to accomplish their objective. Further, the chemical castration is not permanent. The statute mandates court-ordered weekly injections of a sex-drive-reducing hormone to qualified repeat sex offenders upon release from prison and while they are under the authority of the parole officials or the courts.

Although this news may shock and surprise some, upon a closer examination and unraveling of the issues, chemical castration may not be such a bad idea after all and may be here to stay as part of our jurisprudence.

While medical advances have made chemical suppression of the sex drive possible as a treatment for some sex offenders, the procedure is not free from criticism by medical, psychological, and psychiatric professionals.

The Arizona Supreme Court first used the term “chemical castration” in reference to a punitive measure for sex offenders in 1982. The media referred to the court-imposed administration of medroxyprogesterone acetate (MPA) to sex offenders as ‘chemical castration’ hence the term stuck.

This chemical is synthetic progesterone more commonly known as the female contraceptive Depo-Provera, the brand name used by the manufacturer, the Upjohn Company. In adult males, studies have proven that the prolonged use of MPA can reduce testosterone to the level of a prepubescent boy.

In Florida, the statute holds that ‘in lieu of treatment with (MPA), the court may order the defendant to undergo physical castration upon written motion by the defendant providing the defendant’s intelligent, knowing, and voluntary consent to physical castration as an alternative penalty.’ For example, if a convicted sex offender is sentenced to twenty years in prison (and that kind of sentence is not unusual in many states of the USA) the felon may be given the opportunity to accept as an alternative to imprisonment, physical castration. A convicted sex offender in Canada many years ago, asked the court to permit doctors to physically castrate him as an alternative to a long term of imprisonment. The court refused his request. I doubt that there would be any doctors in Canada willing to undertake such a task, even if the prisoner gave his permission since their peers would consider the castration of the prisoner as a form of punishment.

Enforced sterilization

In a famous American case, (Skinner v. Oklahoma, 316 U.S. 535, 536 (1942) the court struck down an Oklahoma statute that authorized the sterilization of recidivist criminals. That decision was not made in favor of the prisoner because forced sterilization on a prisoner in the United States would be just as heinous as forced sterilization by the Nazis in Germany. The Court held that the Oklahoma law permitting the sterilization of habitual criminals violated the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The state law invidiously discriminated against the indigent by exempting defendants who had repeatedly been found guilty of white-collar crimes.

The sterilization of women in mental hospitals in Saskatchewan occurred the 1930s, much to Canada’s shame. In 1928, the Legislative Assembly of Alberta, Canada, enacted the Sexual Sterilization Act. The Act, drafted to protect the gene pool, allowed for sterilization of mentally disabled persons in order to prevent the transmission of undesirable traits to offspring. At that time, eugenicists argued that mental illness, mental retardation, epilepsy, alcoholism, pauperism, certain criminal behaviors, and social defects, such as prostitution and sexual perversion, were genetically determined and inherited. Further, it was widely believed that persons with these disorders had a higher reproduction rate than the normal population. As a result, it was feared the gene pool in the general population was weakening.

During the time the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act was in effect, 4,725 cases were proposed for sterilization in the Province of Alberta, of which over 2,800 received approval. Examination of sterilization records demonstrates that legislation did not apply equally to all members of society. Specifically, the Act was disproportionately applied to those in socially vulnerable positions, including: females, children, unemployed persons, domestics, rural citizens, unmarried, institutionalized persons, Roman and Greek Catholics, persons of Ukrainian, Native and Métis ethnicity.

In 1995, Ms. Leilani Muir sued Her Majesty the Queen in Right of Alberta for stigmatization as a moron, wrongful confinement, and sterilization. At the age of 10, Ms. Muir, an unwanted and abused child, was admitted to the Provincial Training School for Mental Defectives (PTS) in Red Deer, Alberta. She was confined to the facility until 1965, when she left against medical direction. Years later, during struggles with infertility, failed marriages and depression, Ms. Muir later learned that she had been sterilized during an appendectomy while detained at the PTS. Further, IQ testing would later reveal that Ms. Muir did not suffer from mental deficiency.

The Hon. Madame Justice J.B. Veit, presiding over the Court of Queen’s Bench in Edmonton, ruled in favour of the plaintiff and awarded Ms. Muir $740,780 CAD and an additional sum of $230,000 CAD for legal costs. This precedent setting case opened the doors for other individuals seeking reparation for suffering under the Alberta Sexual Sterilization Act.

In Florida, the defendant does, however, have a choice: he may choose surgical castration in lieu of chemical castration but it is unlikely that many defendants will choose this option unless they are being sentenced to prison for a great many years as an alternative.

The issue facing society is whether mandatory chemical castration is a medically acceptable and constitutionally permissible alternative to incarceration for sex offenders. If applied as an alternative to imprisonment, would it reduce the number of incarcerated prisoners? Considering that it costs the taxpayers in Canada at least $50,000 a year to incarcerate each prisoner, this alternative would weigh heavily on the minds of the average taxpayer.

In 1995, as many as 97,460 forcible rapes were reported to the police nationwide in the United States, representing the lowest number of reported rapes since 1989. The arrest rate for all sexual offenses (including forcible rape but excluding prostitution) dropped 16% between 1993 and 1998. In 1998, 82,653 arrests were logged for all sexual offenses, compared to 97,955 arrests in 1993. Let’s say for argument sake that 75,000 persons in the USA were convicted of rape in any given year and the cost of incarcerating each of them was $50,000. That would cost 37.5 million dollars for the first year and 75 million for the second year with the additional 75,000 convictions and 112.5 million for the third year with another 75,000 convictions. If you extrapolate into the many years that would follow, you are looking at billions of dollars a year it would cost to incarcerate that many sex offenders. Obviously, there has to be an alternative to consider because to imprison that many offenders over a period of time would cost more to imprison these felons than it would cost the Americans to conduct a full-scale war.

Up to recently in Canada, some sex offenders who were child molesters or whose sex crimes did not include assault causing bodily harm, were given conditional sentences; that is their homes were their prisons. (except when going to work, grocery shopping, going to church or to a doctor or dentist) But unless they are given some form of treatment for their problems relating to their uncontrolled sex drives, there is a chance that they will re-offend again. For example, in the United States, sex offenders are about four times more likely than non-sex offenders to be arrested for another sex crime after their discharge from prison –– 5.3 percent of sex offenders versus 1.3 percent of non-sex offenders. These figures would probably apply to those who are under house arrest also.

Chemical castration would appear to be the solution to this problem; however it is not a permanent solution. Once the chemical treatment stops, there is nothing to prevent the offender from re-offending again since committing more sex crimes is a direct result of a compulsion that many of these sex offenders have no control over.
If the courts order chemical castration to be permanent, that is, to be applied until the offender is at least 70 years of age (when the sex drive is greatly reduced) the offender would be denied the opportunity to procreate and that could have a disastrous effect on his married life. Further, it’s unlikely that such a court order would survive a constitutional challenge.

I must confess that thus far, I cannot find a satisfactory solution to this problem. Chemical castration is temporary, permanent chemical castration is not possible and physical castration is too obscene to even consider. There may however be a solution to this problem.

Cigarette smokers put a patch on their arms or chew a special kind of chewing gum that takes away the desire to smoke cigarettes. Alcoholics can take a certain pill that will induce vomiting when they ingest alcohol.

It is conceivable that some day in the future, sex addicts will be able to place a patch on their arms or on their upper thighs that will put synthetic progesterone into their system that will reduce their sexual cravings. And those who wish to have it on occasion; can remove the patch for a day or so and their desire to have sex will return. For those felons on probation or parole who are under a court order to have the synthetic progesterone continuously injected into their bodies will have to keep the patch on for the week until they have it removed by their probation or parole officer for the next patch. If for example, the patch turns a certain colour after being illegally removed, the authorities will know and they can then deal with the felon as having breached his probation or parole.

Taking the pill to induce vomiting when ingesting alcohol is not enough to stop the cravings. That is why Alcoholics Anonymous is so effective. It seems to me that the same applies for sex addicts. They too need similar treatment. With the combination of the ingestion of synthetic progesterone into their bodies and psychiatric counseling in their minds, this may be the solution needed to reduce the number of sex offenders walking our streets and living in our homes.

During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, there were in increasing number of biologists and other scientists who, together with social workers, philanthropists, and politicians, were concerned that the population of the United States was moving away from the Anglo-Saxon superiority to a lower level because of the increased immigration from southern and eastern Europe.

Interest in eugenic sterilization in the United States began in the late 19th century because of concerns about criminals, the insane, and feebleminded persons. This concern quickly expanded to include alcoholics, paupers, orphans, derelicts, delinquents, prostitutes, and those unable to support themselves. At first, reformers were optimistic about helping such individuals. However, by the end of the century more reformers came to believe that these conditions resulted from deficient heredity and thus could not be ameliorated or eliminated by environmental procedures. An important event preceding the rise of sterilization programs was the 1875 publication of a study of the Jukes, a New York family with a propensity for almshouses, taverns, brothels, and jail

Until 1921 the United States had maintained an open-door immigration tradition for people of most nationalities. At the close of World War I, there had been an initial attempt to pass an immigration-restriction law based largely on economic positions. A temporary measure was passed in 1921 to combat unemployment resulting from the slowdown of the economy and the return of soldiers from the front. Between 1921 and 1924, however, eugenicists, in conjunction with the Immigration Restriction League, worked for the passage of a more comprehensive and permanent law.

Laughlin played an important role because of his appointment, in April 1920, as the expert eugenics agent of the House Committee on Immigration and Naturalization. During the debates over immigration restriction, he appeared before the committee on several occasions, always presenting the view that the biologically inferior new immigrants were threatening to wipe out the established Anglo- Saxon population. Laughlin's evidence for such a statement was unjustified by the facts which he brought forth. He included references to the persistence of degeneracy in immigrant families, to their low scores on IQ tests, and to claims that conditions such as shiftlessness, alcoholism, and insubordination were genetic traits appearing far more frequently in the new foreign-born immigrants. Herbert Spencer Jennings of Johns Hopkins was finally called to testify by the Committee on Immigration and Naturalization.

However, Jennings, who was a strong opponent of the eugenics movement, was given only 5 minutes to speak on the final day of the hearings. If given more time, Jennings and other scientists cold have discredited some of the earlier testimony and explained that IQ tests were given in English to immigrants who, in many cases, could not speak or read the language. There were significant differences among members of the House as to how to regulate immigration. After much debate, it was agreed to base immigration on the 1890 census. Under this interpretation, immigration of the so-called Nordic or Anglo-Saxon stock namely, people from northwestern Europe and Great Britain-was greatly favored over immigration of those from southern and eastern Europe, particularly Jewish immigrants. Laughlin felt that immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, especially Jews, were so radically different from and genetically inferior to the current American population that any racial mixture would be deleterious.

The passing of the Johnson Restrictive Immigration Act of 1924 was perhaps the greatest triumph for them American eugenics movement, particularly for Laughlin, Davenport, and the ERO. In retrospect the passage of the Johnson Restrictive Immigration Act can be seen as the misuse of pseudoscientific and incorrect genetic information in order to justify prejudicial viewpoints.

During the 1890s, campaigns for legislation which prescribed the sterilization of the "unfit" were begun.

In 1897 a bill calling for the castration of both the feebleminded and certain criminals was introduced and discussed in the Michigan state legislature, where it was ultimately defeated. Some institutions proceeded to sterilize without legal authorization. For example, at the Kansas State Institution for Feeble
Minded children, Dr. F. Hoyt Pilcher castrated 44 boys and 14 girls before strong public disapproval forced him to stop. I

n 1907, Indiana became the first state to pass an involuntary-sterilization measure based on eugenic principles. This law required the sterilization of inmates of state institutions who were insane, idiots, imbeciles, feebleminded, convicted rapists, or habitual criminals. This procedure had to be recommended by a board of experts which was determined by each state. By 1931, 30 states had passed involuntary sterilization measures. Some of these laws applied to, a very wide range of "defectives," including "sexual perverts, drug fiends, drunkards, epileptics, and diseased degenerate persons."

During the 1 960s, the practice of sterilizing retarded persons in state institutions virtually ceased, but the laws remained. In 1961, there were still eugenic-sterilization laws in 28 states. There has been a trend tomrepeal the laws, and, as of 1987, eugenic sterilization of institutionalized retarded persons was permissible in 19 states; but the laws are now rarely invoked. A few states have even enacted laws that expressly forbid sterilization of persons in state institutions.

During the past 10 years, the discussion of sterilizing the mentally retarded is no longer in a genetic context. The main issue is how to protect the incompetent person -and the right of that person to be sterilized if he or she is being sexually abused. The courts must be convinced that the operation will benefit the patient.

A review of the history of eugenic sterilizations in the United States makes it evident that many abuses have occurred since thousands of persons who were not mentally retarded were forcibly sterilized. Many individuals were also involuntarily sterilized mainly because of their race (black) or because of poverty and inability to pay for the care of themselves and their children.

Summary

With respect to chemical castrations (which really aren’t castrations but rather they are sex inhibitors.) This technique only works when the subject continues the treatment. If he stops using the drug then the sexual drive will return. It is for this reason that chemical castration is not the kind of words that should be used when the intent is to merely inhibit the sex drive of the subject and nothing more.

With respect to sterilizing people, I have some mixed emotions about this practice. I can appreciate the need to sterilize a woman who has a successive number of births of badly deformed children or has children who are continuously born mentally defective. But to sterilize a woman simply because she is bad is absolutely morally wrong.

Where I see a real problem is when a woman who shouldn’t have children refuses to be sterilized. Even though her children are born disabled, does society have a right to sterilize her against her wishes? I can think of one such kind of woman who should be sterilized against her own wishes. I am thinking of a woman who kills her own children. She definitely should be sterilized whether she wants to be or not to be sterilized.

What is the real Christmas story?

2011-12-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

Let me say right from the start of this piece that there is no doubt in my mind that Jesus Christ really did exist. Flavius Josephus, a contemporary of his times who was a Jew and also a Roman citizen and a prolific writer, stated in one of his writings that there was a prophet in Jerusalem called Jesus who was crucified on the orders of the Roman governor. This makes Jesus’ existence, a matter of fact.

But the question that has plagued historians, scientists and religious leaders is; how much of the Christmas story is really fact and what parts are myths? It is my purpose in this piece to give you some of the facts that we already know and compare them with the myths.

Was Jesus born on December 25th?

That question is the easiest to answer. He was not born on that date. The early Christian church did not celebrate Jesus' birth. It wasn't until 440 A.D., that the church officially proclaimed December 25th as the birth of Christ. This was not based on any religious evidence but on a pagan feast. Saturnalia was a tradition inherited by the Roman pagans from an earlier Babylonian priesthood on December 25th and it was used as a celebration of the birthday of the sun god. It was observed during the winter solstice. The early Christians were well aware of the dangers facing them under Roman rule so they wisely decided that they would celebrate the birth of Jesus on the same day as the pagan feast, Saturnalia. That way, anyone else seeing them celebrating Jesus’ birth would presume that they are really celebrating the pagan feast.

December 25th was the winter solstice according to the old Julian calendar, and it was on that day that Mithraism, chief rivals to Christianity during the fourth century, celebrated the birth of their god, Mithra. The Christians figured that those who believed in Mithraism would assume that the early Christians were also celebrating that religion when in actual fact; they were celebrating the birth of Jesus and wouldn’t be harassed by the non-believers.

The Bible itself tells us that December 25th is an unlikely date for Jesus’ birth. Palestine is very cold in December. It was much too cold to ask the Roman citizens to travel to the city of their fathers to register for taxes. Also according to the New Testament, the shepherds were in the fields (Luke 2:8-12). Shepherds were not in the fields in the winter time. They were only in the fields early in March until early October. This would place Jesus' birth in the spring or early fall. It is also known that Jesus lived for 33.5 years and died at the feast of the Passover, which is at Easter time. He must therefore have been born six months prior to Easter thereby making the date of his birth around September or early October.

John the Baptist also helps us determine that December 25th is not the day that Jesus was born. Elizabeth, John's mother, was a cousin of Mary. John began his ministry in the 15thyear of Tiberius Caesar. Jesus began his ministry when he was 30 years old. As Emperor Augustus died on August 19, A.D. 14, that was the accession year for Tiberius. If John was born on April 19-20, 2 B.C., his 30th birthday would have been April 19-20, A.D. 29, or the 15th year of Tiberius. This would seem to imply that the year Jesus was born was 2 B.C. Since John was 5 months older, this implies that Jesus was born sometime in the autumn of 2 B.C.

I am however more inclined to believe that Jesus was not born in 2 B.C., but instead, he was born in 10 B.C. Most experts agree that Jesus was born between 12 and 4 B.C., as King Herod, who ruled over Judea at the time, is recorded as dying in 4.B.C. therefore his alleged murder of the babies in Bethlehem had to have obviously occurred prior to his own death. Augustus had held a complete census of Roman citizens three times during his rule. They were held in the years 29 B.C., 8 B.C., and 14 A.D. The reason why Joseph who was living in Narzareth at that time, went to Bethlehem in 8 B.C., was that he always went to Jerusalem once a year for religious purposes, not unlike Muslims going to Mecca at least once in their lives if at all possible. The year 14 A.D. is obviously not the year of Jesus birth and 29 B.C. simply goes too far back. This leaves us with the year of Jesus birth as being 10 B.C. since he was already two years old when he and his parents arrived in Bethlehem to stay while visiting Jerusalem nearby. I will explain that later in this piece.

Matthew claims that the birth of Jesus occurred during the reign of Herod the Great of Judea, a puppet king of the Romans, whom we know died in 4 B.C. Luke also tells us that Jesus birth happened during Herod's reign. Luke even adds what appears to be detailed and historical evidence of the period. He writes that Jesus was born during a census or registration of the populace ordered by emperor Augustus at the time that Quirinius was Roman governor of Syria (Luke 2:1-3). In reality, this has to be a fabrication because Quirinius was not governor of Syria and Judea during Herod's kingship. Direct Roman rule over the province of Judea, where Bethlehem was located, was not established until 6 A.D. In other words, ten years separated the rule of Quirinius from Herod.

Based on the foregoing, the birth of Jesus being the 25th of December in the first century is a myth.

Was it a star that drew the three wise men from the east to Bethlehem?

Ask yourself this question. How far away is our nearest star from Earth? Proxima Centauri is the closest star to Earth. It is 4.2 light years from us. Sirius is the brightest star in the sky but it is 8.6 light years from us. Neither of those two stars (other than our own sun) are the brightest lights in the sky at night. The brightest light in the sky (other than the sun and moon) is the planet Venus. It follows that neither the light of these two stars or the reflection of the sun from Venus would be sufficient enough to be lighting up Bethlehem even on the clearest of nights.

It therefore follows that the existence of the star we have seen countless times in paintings, Christmas cards and in the movies showing Bethlehem being lit up by a star, is a myth.

First of all, let me clear up another myth right now. The three men were not kings. It had been said that they were from the Orient. That does not mean that they were from China, Korea or Japan. The term ‘Orient’ is derived from the Latin word ‘oriens’ meaning ‘east’. The word ‘magi’ refers to the ancient Zoroastrian priests, so they would most likely have come from a country where the Zoroastrian religion was widely practiced. This would be either Iran or Iraq which is obviously east of Bethlehem. The three men were astrologers. That would justify calling them ‘wise men’. Babylonian astrologers were thoroughly familiar with the movements of the stars and planets and that is what makes me believe that these three men came from Babylon, Iraq.

The Bible says about the three wise men, “And, lo, the star, which they saw in the East, went before them, till it came and stood over where the young child was.” This would imply that a star began moving from the east and stood on top of Bethlehem. Stars don’t move and then suddenly stop, because when the Earth turns each day, the position of Earth in relation to the stars in the sky shifts. For the star of Bethlehem to stop would mean that the Earth would have stopped spinning. Obviously the star stopping and then standing over Bethlehem is another myth.

It is also hard to believe that the so-called star was needed as a guide to direct the astrologers from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, a mere eight kilometers away especially since there was a road that led directly from Jerusalem to Bethlehem and I might add, still does. I know. I have been on it.

What then were these three men following? They weren’t following anything because to follow something is to follow an object, person or animal that is moving and the light that drew them to Jerusalem was stationary. What then was the light in the sky that made them choose to go westward to Jerusalem?

Scientists have extrapolated the stars and planets back to 8 B.C. and have concluded that during that year that Jesus was two years of age, there were two planets in the western sky that caused a great light to shine from them. They were Jupiter and Saturn. Now normally these two planets are not in line with each other however there is an ancient Babylonian clay tablet dated at 8 BC, which describes the celestial events for then upcoming 13 months. The tablet shows that Jupiter and Saturn would remain together in the constellation of Pisces for eleven months and come in close conjunction three times. This would account for the much larger light in the sky during that time.

To the Babylonian astrologers, Jupiter represented the star of Marduk, the supreme Babylonian god. Saturn was the steady one of the two planets because it was the planet Jupiter that moved in line with Saturn. The conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn in the sky predicted from the Babylonian's viewpoint, the end of the old world order and the birth of a new king chosen by God. To the three astrologers, this meant that a new king was being born west of them and the only kingdom west of them was the Kingdom of Herod. They likely had read and discussed the Messianic prophecies and were anxious to see when this Messianic King would appear and if so, their interpretation of the conjunction of the two planets would be correct in foretelling of the birth of a new king in Judea.

The Bible tells give is remarkably little about the star, with only the Gospel of St Matthew mentioning it. He records the wise men asking: “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews? For we have seen his star in the east and have come to worship him.” I believe that when they said that they saw Jesus’ star in the east, they really meant that they were in the east when they saw the star. My conclusion is based on logic because if they were heading towards it, the light from the two planets would have been west of them.

The three Wise Men from Babylon saw the conjunctions of Jupiter and Saturn all three times in the eleventh-month period and by the time it occurred the third time, it was then that they decided to go to Jerusalem to see if their theory about a new king being born west of them was true. They would have arrived there sometime in the autumn of 8 B.C.

Why didn’t the three Wise Men go directly to Bethlehem?

I don’t know how much the three Wise Men knew about the history of the kings that ruled west of them but I think I am safe in saying that they at least knew that King Herod ruled Judea and that his palace was in Jerusalem, hence their journey to Jerusalem was to confirm their belief that a new king was in Jerusalem.

According to the Gospel of Mathew, the three Wise Men, from the East are said to have visited Jesus after his birth, bearing gifts. They are mentioned only in the Gospel of Matthew, which says that they came “from the east to Jerusalem to worship the Christ, “born King of the Jews”.

I don’t see how these three men could have possible suspected that a baby called Jesus would eventually be called the King of the Jews many years after his birth so that part of the Gospel is a myth.

Why did they then after being in Jerusalem, go directly to Bethlehem?

King Herod always feared that he would be usurped. That is why he ordered the deaths of two of his own sons. When he learned that there were three men from the east making enquires as to where the new born king was, he had his soldiers search for them and bring them to him.

The text describes the three Wise Men explaining to Herod about the purpose of their visit by use of a quote from a prophet: “But you, Ephrathah (it was an earlier name for Bethlehem) though you are little among the thousands of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are from of old, from ancient times. ― Micah 5:1-3

Let me quote from the Gospel of Mathew. “When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born. They told him, ‘In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it is written by the prophet: `And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will govern my people Israel.’ Then Herod summoned the wise men secretly and ascertained from them what time the star appeared; and he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, ‘Go and search diligently for the child, and when you have found him bring me word, that I too may come and worship him.’

Of course, it is conceivable that the prophet was referring to King David who was born a thousand years earlier. In any case, Matthew's introduction of the three Wise Men gives the reader no reason to believe that they were present on the day of the Jesus’ birth. It is conceivable that they found Jesus around two years after his birth, rather than on the exact day of his birth. This may explain why later in the scripture, Herod allegedly ordered that all babies in Bethlehem who were two years old or younger were to be killed. If he thought the so-called new king had just been born, he would have ordered only the newborns to be killed.

Herod must have concluded that if there was a new king having been born within the previous two years, he would have been born in that small town just four miles southeast of Jerusalem. Now who better to send to Bethlehem than the three men who proclaimed that their purpose for the visit to Herod’s kingdom was to find the new king? They wouldn’t raise any suspicions.

According to Mathew, King Herod told the three Wise Men to go to Bethlehem and find the new king and to then report to him where the new king was so that he too can worship the new king. Of course, he had no intentions of worshiping anyone other than God. He hoped to kill the young usurper.

Did the three wise men arrive in Bethlehem on the night of Jesus’ birth?

Matthew's introduction of the three Wise Men gives the reader no reason to believe that they were present on the day of the Jesus’ birth. It is common knowledge nowadays that they found Jesus around two years after his birth, rather than on the exact day of his birth. This may explain why later in the scripture, Herod allegedly ordered that all babies in Bethlehem who were two years old or younger were to be killed. In the words of Matthew 2:16-18: “Herod perceiving that he was deluded by the wise men, was exceeding angry; and sending (soldiers), killed all the men children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the borders thereof, from two years old and under.”

I have to accept the common belief that the three Wise Men found a baby they believed may have been the new king and that baby was Jesus when he was two years old. Why they chose him rather than another is beyond my comprehension.

Did King Herod really order the murder of the infants in Bethlehem?

This cruel deed of Herod is not mentioned by the Jewish historian Flavius Josephus or any other historian of those times, including the writer Luke although Josephus relates quite a number of atrocities committed by the king during the last years of his reign. If he did order the slaughter of the small children in Bethlehem, the number of these children would have been so small that this crime would have appeared as being insignificant amongst the other misdeeds of Herod and subsequently not mentioned at all. Further, King Herod needed Roman authority to kill that many people since he needed that kind of authority when he asked the Roman emperor for permission to execute his own grown sons. There doesn’t appear to be any record of him asking for Roman authority to kill the babies in Bethlehem.

This then raises the likelihood that the reported massacre and its association with King Herod were introduced into the scriptures by the writer of Matthew in order to give Jesus at least as high a human standing within emerging Christianity as Moses held within Judaism.

If the massacre did take place, it does not make sense that the Herod's surviving son later recalls nothing about Jesus nor his importance later as he was preaching to the multitudes. If his father had ordered the murder of the babies in Bethlehem in order to eliminate any possible usurper taking his kingdom from him, Herod's son wouldn't be oblivious of a man called Jesus. Moreover, if Herod and all the people of Jerusalem knew of Jesus’ birth (Matt. 2:3), why is it that later in Jesus' career, the same author of Matthew claims that people had not heard of his miraculous origin and still questioned his miracles and his teachings (Matt. 13:54-56)? I think Herod got a bum rap for a crime he didn’t commit.

Was Jesus really born in Bethlehem as we know it?

Surprisingly, Luke knows nothing about the star, nor the three Wise Men, nor the exact place Jesus was born other than it was in a manger, but note that there is also no reference to a stable and animals surrounding the birth of Jesus. This scene is a product of later Christian imagination based on a text from Isaiah, “......the ox knows its owner and the donkey its master's crib (manger), but Israel, does not know, my people do not understand.” Isaiah 1:3).

Luke's reference to the baby being wrapped in swaddling clothes is copied from the birth of Israel's famous King Solomon, son of David. This sign of identification sends an important message to Luke's Jewish-Christian readers that Jesus was to be even greater than Israel's wisest king. Luke's gospel describes the visitors to the baby Jesus as shepherds, not the Wise Men. According to the later writers of the gospels, the shepherds hear of the birth from an extraterrestrial, which the Bible calls an angel. That version would even make Jesus’ birth appear as if divine when in fact it was simply a normal birth. I should add that many Roman emperors tried to convince the populace that their births were also divine.

The Bible mentions two Bethlehems. The one most familiar to Christians is Bethlehem south of Jerusalem. (Micah 5:2) It is one of the oldest towns in Palestine, and was already in existence at the time of Jacob’s return to the country. Its earliest name was EPHRATAH, OR EPHRATH or EPHRATAH. (Genesis 35:16,19; 48:7) After the conquest, Bethlehem appears under its own name, BETHLEHEM-JUDAH. (Judges 17:7; 1 Samuel 17:12; Ruth 1:1,2) The book of Ruth is a page from the domestic history of Bethlehem. It was the home of Ruth, (Ruth 1:19) and of David. (1 Samuel 17:12) It was fortified by Rehoboam. (2 Chronicles 11:6) It was here that Jesus was born, (Matthew 2:1) and here that he was visited by the shepherds, (Luke 2:15-17) and the Magi. (Matthew 2.)

The other Bethlehem lies 71 miles north of Bethlehem-Judah. After Israel’s entry into the Promised Land, when the land was being divided up among Jacob’s twelve sons, Bethlehem is listed as one of the cities given to Zebulun, not Judah. (Joshua 19:15) This Bethlehem is in Galilee and is located 6 miles north west of Nazareth and north east of Tivon, on the northwest side of the Jezreel valley not far from Mount Carmel. That is the area where Jesus grew up as a child and as a young man.

We know that there was a Roman census two years after the time of Jesus birth and all heads of Roman families and their families were to report to the towns of their births. Luke got his facts wrong about the census of Augustus. Such an imperial census would only apply to Roman citizens of the empire, not to Joseph, a Galilean who was not under direct Roman rule. That being as it is, it is beyond me as to why Joseph, who was not an ignorant man, would take his wife and child on a long journey to Bethlehem for the census taking which didn’t apply to him.

The Gospels do not, unfortunately, give the date and place of Joseph's birth nor his death so we have no idea for sure as to whether or not Joseph was born in the Bethlehem near Nazareth or the one near Jerusalem but for some reason for which I do not understand, he chose to take himself and his betrothed, Mary to the Bethlehem near Jerusalem unless it was to stay there during one of their annual visits to Jerusalem.

All that is known from the canonical Gospels is that Joseph lived at times in Nazareth in Galilee and also stayed for a couple of years in Bethlehem in Judea. This may be proof that Jesus was born two years previous to the visit by the three Wise Men since according to the gospel of Mathew; Joseph would have fled Bethlehem shortly after the visit by the three Wise Men in 8 B.C.

It was important, however, for the authors of both of these gospels, (Mathew and Luke) that Jesus be born in Bethlehem because it was the city of David from where, it was prophesied, Israel's ruler would come (Micah 5:2). Even so, John's gospel, contrary to Matthew and Luke, relates the common knowledge that Jesus was not born in Bethlehem, and that he was not a descendant of David (John 7:41-42).

Was Joseph a descendant of King David?

One of the first examples of things not ringing true can be found in the attempts by the authors of Matthew and Luke to trace the ancestry of Jesus back to the Jewish king, David. It was from the royal house of David that the messiah was expected. However, upon close examination, the tables of descent in these gospels become transparently artificial, with many errors and downright contradictions. For example, the two gospels cannot agree on the lineage of Joseph, the father of Jesus. Matthew has 28 generations between David and Jesus, while Luke has 41 for the same period of about 1,000 years. In Matthew's gospel, Joseph's father (i.e. Jesus' grandfather) is said to be Jacob, while in Luke it is claimed that he is Heli. They cannot both be right. I guess we will never know the answer to that question.

The claims in the early chapters of Matthew and Luke that Jesus was of royal lineage are further weakened by the fact that elsewhere in all four gospels, there is no indication during the ministry of Jesus that he and his father were of noble descent. Rather, he appears as a man of humble background from an obscure rural village in Galilee. Furthermore, according to Mark, Jesus himself appears to reject the belief that his messiahship was dependent on Davidic descent (Mark 12:35-37).

Was Jesus conceived by a holy spirit?

The apostle Paul makes no reference to the virginal conception by the mother of Jesus when speaking of Jesus' origins and divinity. His epistles were written during the 50's A.D. and predate all of the four gospels. Although Paul never met Jesus (who died about 30 A.D.), he personally did know James, the brother of Jesus and yet, despite this eye-witness link to Jesus, Paul apparently knew nothing of the virgin birth, for he states only that Jesus was ‘born of a woman’ (Galatians 4:4) and was ‘descended from David, according to the flesh’ (Romans 1:3), thereby implying a normal birth. Why then does the Bible say that Jesus was conceived by a holy spirit?

Mary and Joseph were betrothed at the time Jesus was conceived and being betrothed in those days meant that a man and woman could live together but they could not sleep together until they were married. That meant in simplest terms; no sex until they were married. When it became apparent that Mary was pregnant, this created a great problem for Joseph. The law of the land at that time was that if a woman who was betrothed became pregnant as a result of having sex with another man who was not her betrothed; the betrothed man was obligated to stone his betrothed wife to death. Joseph was very much in love with his wife and the last thing he wanted to do was to kill Mary, his betrothed.

I am convinced that Joseph impregnated Mary but since it was considered a sin for him to do so while they weren’t married, he and Mary had no other choice but to declare that a holy spirit impregnated her. Nowadays, if a man told us that was how his wife became pregnant, we would say he was nuts. But in those days, the people were highly superstitious and such a claim would be believed it if was uttered by someone who was highly respected. The doctrine of the virgin birth of Jesus, so central to the traditional Christmas story, was not part of the teachings of the first Christians, whom it should be remembered, also remained within the Jewish faith in those early years of Christianity.

The silence of the earliest Jewish-Christian authors about the miraculous birth of Jesus seems strange, given that they were trying to convince their readers that Jesus was divine. This silence raises doubts about the authenticity of the later nativity stories with which we are so familiar.

Was Jesus born in a manger?

According to the Bible, Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem in Judea. As I said earlier, Jesus was born in 10 B.C. and his birth wasn’t in Bethlehem, Judea. Further, I don’t believe that he was born in the Bethlehem near Nazareth since Joseph already had a home in Nazareth as that was where his carpenter shop was located.

A manger was a stable or what we now call a barn where animals were kept. I don’t question the fact that Joseph and his wife and child went to Bethlehem in Judea for their annual visit but when they arrived, they had no other choice but to spend their initial time in such a shelter. Many Roman citizens living in Jerusalem also were born in Bethlehem and had to go there and stay there temporarily while the census was being taken. Bethlehem was terribly overcrowded at that time.

My wife and I have visited the so-called birth place of Jesus and when I saw it, I realized then that it was not possible that Jesus was born in that exact location. Bethlehem is rife with caves and it follows that the holy family would have had no other choice but to stay in a cave until they could get better lodgings. It was the practice in those days that the shepherds would keep many of their sheep inside the caves at night.

The so-called birthplace of Jesus is on flat terrain and it is not conceivable that it was previously a cave. Admittedly, there is a nearby hill but that could have had caves in it but that is not where the church says that Jesus was born. The holy family could have been in a cave in that hill or another nearby hill where they stayed. The road to Jerusalem from Nazareth was a long one and if Joseph didn’t have enough money to rent lodgings in Jerusalem, it would cost them nothing to sleep in one of the many caves surrounding Bethlehem which was only four miles from Jerusalem.

Did Joseph really flee to Egypt?

According to the Gospel of Mathew, Joseph had a dream that told him to flee to Egypt soon after Jesus was born. I don’t doubt that Joseph may have had a dream to flee Bethlehem but it wasn’t right after Jesus was born since Jesus was born approximately four years earlier. Remember that he was born in 10 B.C., and in 8 B.C., his father Joseph took him to Bethlehem with his mother during one of their annual visits to Jerusalem. Then the three of them stayed in Bethlehem for two years before he had his dream and left that town and headed back to Nazareth.

It is also impossible to reconcile Luke's account of the family of the newborn Jesus soon returning to Nazareth in Galilee, with Matthew's assertion that the family of Jesus immediately fled to Egypt for several years to escape Herod's wrath (Matthew 2:13-14). Luke has Joseph and Mary present with Jesus in the temple in Jerusalem when he was forty days old, and then returns straightaway to Nazareth (Luke 2:22,39). Also, Luke records that each year the family went to Jerusalem for the Feast of Passover (Luke 2:41) this does not tally with Matthew's claim that they were hiding out in Egypt. Matthew, with his predilection that Old Testament prophecies be fulfilled in the life of Jesus, appears to have invented the massacre of the innocents to fulfill a prophecy of Jeremiah (31:15), and the consequential flight to Egypt to fulfill Hosea's prediction that “out of Egypt I have called my son.” (Hosea 11:1).

I don’t believe that Joseph took his family to Egypt. The journey would have been a fairly long one. They would have had to have traveled to the coast and then south along the coast to the border of Egypt. The distance would be at least 80 miles. Then to get to an Egyptian city the size of Jerusalem in Egypt would be Qantara el Sharqiya which is another 120 miles. That means he would have chosen to go 200 miles into a country he knew nothing about. If he wanted to flee, he would take his family directly back to Nazareth which was his original home and which was only about 70 miles north of him along a route he was familiar with. He would be safe in Nazareth.

Matthew's stories of the Wise Men's visit to Herod and Jesus and Herod's massacre of the innocents which caused the holy family to flee to Egypt; are all historically improbable. Moreover, it should be noted that Luke also got his facts wrong about the census of Augustus. Such an imperial census would only apply to Roman citizens of the empire, not to Joseph, a Galilean such as Joseph who was not under direct Roman rule.

In ancient times it was often claimed that important people had miraculous births. Plato was said to have been born by the union of the god Apollo with his mother. Likewise, Alexander the Great was said to have been conceived when a thunderbolt fell from heaven and made his mother Olympias pregnant before her marriage to Philip of Macedon. In the Book of Genesis we read that sons of gods had intercourse with women to produce heroes (Genesis. 6:4). Even the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls tell of the miraculous birth of Noah and how his father Lamech was suspicious that his wife had been made pregnant by an angel. Also the writings of Philo of Alexandria, who was born about 20 B.C., contain evidence that some Jews of the period were speculating about miraculous births of religious heroes. Philo relates how Hebrew notables such as Isaac and Samuel were conceived by barren women by the intervention of the divine Spirit.

Fundamental Christians believe that the Bible is the ‘word of God’, an infallible record of the Almighty's influence on his creation, and therefore to be taken at face value. The Bible is definitely the word of Man and the last interpretation of it took place in the Sixteenth Century when King James ordered that the Gospels were to be rewritten into one final book. A careful study of the nativity narratives of Matthew and Luke indicate that the supposedly unerring ‘word of God’ is full of contradictions and inventions. The most plausible conclusion is that the familiar Christmas stories in Matthew and Luke are religious myths, awkwardly grafted onto an earlier non-miraculous tradition about Jesus' birth. They appear to be legends recorded by later Jewish-Christian writers who were attempting to explain the origins of a man whom they considered divine.

None of what I have written here is intended to belittle the man called Jesus. He existed and his teachings which have been passed down to us for almost two thousand years; are still as valid now as they were when he told them.

Christmas has always been a great time of the year for me and my family and no doubt millions of people around the world. But as time has moved on, there have been attempts at trying to push Christmas aside. For example, In Texas, a fight has erupted over whether to remove a nativity scene from a courthouse. In England, the idea of replacing “Christmas” in some areas with the term “Winterval” has provoked outrage and rightly so. Many people disagree over whether it’s a time of religious observance or as an alternative, a commercialized revel. What really pisses me off is the many stores around the country commercializing Christmas in November. They could at least wait until the beginning of December.

The early Christian church, as it did with many things, kind of appropriated or co-opted the holidays or festivities that were already going on, that had nothing to do with Christ or with the Christian church. They finally chose December 25th as the day of Jesus’ birth.

Although the so-called wisemen brought gifts to the baby Jesus, this didn’t bring about Christmas gifts for centuries after that particular time in history. For many centuries, Christmas was celebrated by feasts and revelry and of course, much drinking of alcoholic beverages. Of course, times haven’t changed anything. That still goes on nowadays also. that aspect was maintained in the Christmas festivities in Britain and in much of Europe well into the late Renaissance, even into the 18th century. You have in the Renaissance all kinds of partying and every court, every household, would appoint a “Lord of Misrule” who was a master of the party for the 12 days of Christmas. His job was to stir up the revelry, stir up the disobedience, and play with the idea that this was a time to break from the ordinary routines of their lives. The church didn’t like that aspect, but that’s how people celebrated the days before and on Christmas in years past.

How then did Christmas re-emerge as a quiet family event in the home?

That was really a 19th-century development. By the beginning of the 19th century, a lot of the Christmas festivities had gone out of fashion. The Puritans completely turned up their noses at the Christmas revelry. They felt it was inappropriate for the occasion. They passed laws against the public celebration of Christmas. Various invested parties in the 1830s, 1840s started to revive interest in Christmas. They were reviving a nostalgic vision of merry old England, a vision that never really existed, but it was attractive — this idea of the family getting together. At this point Britain was getting increasingly urban, so there was this movement the cities, that advocated bringing the celebration of Jesus’ birth into the house rather than a public celebration in the streets or in the village.

There wasn’t a lot of gift giving associated with Christmas at all during those years. The gift-giving event was on New Year’s. Christmas wasn’t declared a bank holiday until 1834. In the late 17th century, when the Puritans had a lot of sway, there were years there when Parliament sat on Christmas Day. It was a workday. And even after it was declared an official holiday in Britain in 1834, a lot of people preferred to take New Year’s as their holiday. You may recall that in Charles Dicken’s A Christmas Carol, Scrooge wanted his clerk working in his office all Christmas Day. Dickens in the manuscript wrote about Scrooge’s clerk wanting Christmas Day off so he could be with his family that day.

"You'll want all day to-morrow, I suppose?" said Scrooge. "If it's quite convenient, Sir." "It's not convenient," said Scrooge, "and it's not fair.”

This makes me suspect that in England and elsewhere, Everyone who had a job had to go to work on Christmas day as if it was simply another work day. Of course, if Christmas fell on a Sunday, they wouldn’t have to go to work.

So singing carols and a quiet night with the family — that never existed? Well, that existed among the middle class. So if you had the money to have a household staff to run that, then you would have done that. It cost a lot to acquire all the accessories to create that kind of scene, to bring in the food, to create all of that glamorous elegance.

It was Queen Victoria's German-born husband, Albert who popularized the Christmas tree in Britain after their marriage in 1841, the first Christmas card in 1843, and a revival in carol singing. However, it turns out that according to the rules of polite English behavior, Christmas trees shouldn’t be put in in the home until Christmas Eve. I for one and I sure that I speak for millions of people, would like to see my tree up for at least a week before Christmas and at least a couple of days after Christmas.

Some families open their presents after a late supper on Christmas Eve. My family opens their presents after breakfast on Christmas Day. Some people believe that Christmas presents should not be placed under the tree. My family members place the presents under the tree. It’s fun watching my grandchildren prowling under the Christmas tree to see if any presents have been left behind. One thing I have noticed about Christmas trees is that rarely does anyone buy the ‘icicles’ (thin strips of silver paper) to throw onto the trees anymore. They were hard to remove for the next year.

Boxing Day was a far more charitable day than Christmas was. It referred to the literal boxes that might be given by a landowner to his workers. Boxes were also given to the poor. By the 19th century those boxes would eventually be given to your household staff. They’d be working like dogs on Christmas Day to support your party, and on Boxing Day they might have a half-day off or a full holiday, and they might be given a little box of money, small tokens, some biscuits or homemade wine.

I have always loved Christmas. The carols and other Christmas songs certainly bring cheer to Christians everywhere and no doubt many non-Christians also. When I lived in the small town of Wells in the middle of British Columbia, a group of singers would go up and down the small streets singing carols on Christmas Eve. I would get all goose pimply when I would hear I’m Dreaming of a White Christmas because in Wells, during every Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, soft snow was always falling to the ground.

As a child, I always believed in Santa Claus. I was never convinced however that he only brought toys to good children. I think even us bad children got toys at Christmas. When I lived in a small mining town in British Columbia as a young child during World War II, the two mines bought toys for every child in the town and Santa was there at the community centre handing them out to our outstretched hands when our names were called. When my two daughters were of an age when they would no longer believe in Santa Claus, my wife and I told them that we would stop hanging the stockings from the mantel of our fireplace. I said however that if they still believed in Sanata Claus, he would visit us and fill their stockings. My daughter’s weren’t stupid. They told us they believed in Santa Claus even when they were in their late teens and Sanata always filed their stocking at the mantel above the fireplace year after year.

How did the kindly Christian saint, good Bishop Nicholas, become a roly-poly red-suited symbol for merry holiday festivity and commercial activity? History tells the tale.

The year 1821 brought some new joys of Christmas with publication of the first lithographed book in America, the Children's Friend. This ‘Santa Claus’ arrived from the North in a sleigh with a flying reindeer. The anonymous poem and illustrations proved pivotal in shifting imagery away from a saintly bishop. Santa Claus fit a didactic mode, rewarding good behavior and punishing bad, leaving a long, black birchen rod, directs a parent's hand to use when virtue's path his sons refuse. Gifts were safe toys, pretty doll, peg-top, or a ball; no crackers, cannons, squibs, or rockets to blow their eyes up, or their pockets. No drums to stun their mother's ear, nor swords to make their sisters fear; but pretty books to store their mind with knowledge of each various kind. The sleigh itself even sported a bookshelf for the pretty books. The book also notably marked Santa Claus' first appearance on Christmas Eve, rather than December 6th.

The jolly elf image received another big boost in 1823, from a poem destined to become immensely popular, A Visit from St. Nicholas, now better known as The Night Before Christmas. This year, I gave my grand children a special gift that was in book form. It was The Night Before Christmas. Except, I read the story and my voice was recorded in the book and when they turned each page, music would follow and then my voice would continue reading them the story.

I sincerely hope that your Christmas was an enjoyable time for you and your families. To those of you who don’t celebrate Christmas, I wish you seasons greetings.

SANTA'S GIFTS

2011-12-26T06:23:00.000-08:00

I wrote this story in October of this year and it will be part of my second book of short stories that will be sent to the publisher next year.

The 1920s was an exciting decade. No one realized that the hard times of the Great Depression in the 1930s were on their way. Lavish new skyscrapers went up, radio was the newest popular invention and electric appliances appeared in people's homes for the first time. In 1921, the population of Toronto was 522,000. But not all those living in Toronto found that year or even that decade to be exciting.

The Thompson brothers were not living the good life in Toronto. Their parents were killed in a fire when Billy Thompson was fifteen years of age and his younger brother Sammy was ten. In 1914, when Billy was seventeen, he joined the Canadian armed forces and spent four years fighting the Germans in Europe before he returned to Canada at the end of the war in 1918. While Billy was serving his country overseas, his younger brother had been living with their aunt and uncle.

When Billy arrived back in Toronto he discovered to his horror that in 1917, his uncle had painted Sammy’s room with leaded paint and while the paint was drying as Sammy was sleeping, he inhaled the deadly paint fumes and the next morning, he was found unconscious. Within days, the doctors realized that the paint fumes permanently damaged his brain and he was no longer the bright boy everyone knew. He was now seriously retarded and only had the mental abilities to function as a six-year-old. Billy never forgave his uncle for what he had done to his brother so when Billy got himself a job, he removed his brother from the home for mentally retarded children he had been sent to and brought him into his small flat to live with him.

Eleven years later, just as the Great Depression had begun, Billy lost his job (as did thousands of others in Toronto and elsewhere) and within a month, he and his brother were evicted from the flat for non-payment of rent. Now they (along with thousands of other people in Toronto) were homeless.

In 1930, Billy had found a place where they could sleep. It would protect them from the rain and snow but it wouldn’t protect them from the freezing winters. Bill had found a badly worn mattress in a dump and he and his brother carried it to where they were sleeping. When night would come, they went to their newly found abode and would sleep on the mattress without any blanket to cover them or pillows to lay their heads on.

Their abode was a space under a large concrete loading dock of a warehouse on the western outskirts of Toronto. Where they slept was far enough under the loading dock so no one was aware that two homeless men were sleeping under the loading dock. This was the main reason why they left it before sunrise and returned to it after it got dark. They didn’t want to be evicted from the only place they could sleep. They didn’t have any difficult in finding food to eat. There was a restaurant approximately a mile from the warehouse and there was plenty of food thrown out that they could eat.

The problem that Billy always faced was what to do with his younger retarded brother if Billy was able to find a job. He didn’t want to leave Sammy alone under the loading dock for an entire day but he also didn’t want to take him with him on the job and letting him stay with their aunt and uncle was out of the question. As he saw it, he had no other choice but to have them both continue living as they were from hand to mouth and sleeping under the loading dock.

One cold night in January 1933, Billy woke up after smelling smoke. He looked out past the opening of the dock and saw that the snow was reflecting the flickering of a fire. When he stepped outside, he discovered that there was a fire in the warehouse and the fire was seen through the windows. He went back under the dock and woke up Sammy and together they left the area of the dock. Billy remembered that there was a phone booth next to a construction site that was nearby and because he had a nickel, he was able to call the fire department.

The fire department arrived five minutes later and was successful in putting out the fire before the damage inside the warehouse became extensive. When the firemen and the owner of the warehouse finally left the area, Billy and his brother slipped back under the loading dock and within minutes, they were asleep again.

On December 21st 1933, both men were asleep under the loading dock and eleven at night; Sammy woke up because he needed to go to the portable toilet that was at the construction site a block away so that he could urinate. Just as he was about to walk into the open and the blizzard of snow blowing about, he suddenly saw a large truck backing up to the loading dock. As he hid behind one of the pillars supporting the loading dock he heard one of the men who exited the truck say to another man, “Are you sure that this is the place where all the radios are being stored?” The other man replied, “The sign says Abrahams Warehouse. This is the place.” The first man then said, “Good. Then let’s break into it and steal the shipment of radios and get out of here.” Then Sammy heard nothing more from the mouths of the two men but he did hear glass being broken.

Sammy returned to the mattress and woke up his brother. He then said, “I have to go to the toilet and two men are stealing radios from the warehouse.”

Billy sat up with a start and said softly to his younger brother, “Let’s leave here quietly.”

The two men slipped out of the area under the loading dock and after walking past the unmanned truck, Billy led his brother to the phone booth near the nearby construction site. While they were walking there, Sammy recited word for word what he had heard the other two men saying to one another. When they got to the phone booth, Billy pulled out a nickel and after inserting it, he reached the operator. “Connect me with the police!”

Seconds later, he was connected. Then the man who answered the phone said the following words, “This is the police.”

Billy spoke directly into the mouthpiece. “My name is Billy Thompson and my brother Sammy is going to tell you what he heard a few minutes ago.”

The officer then asked, “Where are you calling from?”

Billy yelled into the mouthpiece, “Just listen to what my brother is saying to you!” Then Billy turned to his brother and said, “Tell the officer what conversations that took place after you woke up.

Sammy began speaking, “Are you sure that this is the place where all the radios are being stored? The sign says Abrahams Warehouse. This is the place. Good. Then let’s break into it and steal the shipment of radios and get out of here. I have to go to the toilet and two men are stealing radios from the warehouse. Let’s leave here quietly.” Then Sammy said rather urgently. “Billy. If don’t go to the toilet right now, I will do it in my pants.”

Billy pushed his brother aside and spoke directly into the mouthpiece. “My brother is retarded and because of this, he misunderstood what I meant when I told him to repeat all the conversations but he is a savant and as such, he remembers everything he hears and sees.”

The officer on the other end of the line said in return, “I understand. Ask your brother if he saw the men?”

Sammy told Billy that he didn’t see the men but he did hear glass being broken. He conveyed that message to the officer.

Billy immediately hung up the phone and said to Sammy. “Go to the toilet right now and get it over with. We have to get under the loading dock before the police arrive otherwise we will be stuck outside in this blizzard.”

As they ran back to the warehouse, they could hear the sounds of police sirens in the distance and then the sounds of the sirens stopped as the police vehicles were approaching the warehouse. Just as the brothers slipped into the area under the loading dock, three police vehicles pulled up to the loading area.

For several minutes they heard yelling and finally they saw the police taking two men towards the police vehicles. A minute later, the vehicles left the area and the two brothers were alone again so they cuddled up to each other for shared body warmth and went back to sleep.

On the 24th at noon, Jacob Abraham was led into the office of the district police Superintendant. As soon as he entered the office, the superintendant said as he motioned Jacob to the chair in front of his desk. “Mister Abraham. Please have a seat. Thank you for coming so promptly.”

When both men were seated in their chairs, the superintendant asked, “Do you know anyone who goes by the name of Billy or Sammy Thompson? The last name could also be spelled T..h.o..m..s..o..n.”

“Well as you can appreciate, Superintendant, I have a great many friends in Toronto and although I know some families whose last names are similar as to how you described them but I don’t know anyone that has Billy, William, Sammy or Samuel as their first names as part of those last names. Why do you ask?” “Apparently two men called the police three nights ago and one of them described what he heard about the break-in. Their first names were Billy and Samuel.”

Jacob paused for a moment and then said, “There are thirty men working in that particular warehouse but none of them have those first names.”

The superintendant opened a file on his desk and then said to Jacob, “What I find most interesting is that the one of the voices that was recorded on the phone last night was the same voice that was recorded earlier in the year when that person was reporting a fire in your warehouse.”

Jacob said, “Obviously whoever that person is, he was close to the building on both occasions and quite honestly, Inspector, I find that most peculiar.”

“As do I, Mister Abraham.”

Jacob continued, “Perhaps it is a homeless man who was sleeping nearby. We have plenty of them everywhere.”

The superintendant thought for a moment and then asked, “Is there anywhere on your property where your warehouse is located where such a person or persons could be sleeping at night, such as a shed?”

Jacob paused in his thinking and then said, “We don’t have a shed on the property however the only place I can think of might be where that person or persons could be sleeping would be under the concrete loading dock.”

The inspector looked in the file and was reading the transcript of the telephone calls made by the persons making the call and suddenly his eyes lit up. He exclaimed,

“One of the men said that his brother told him that he heard glass breaking. This means that he had to be very close to the building. Yes. Under the loading dock could be the area where they are sleeping at night.” The inspector then called out to an officer standing next to the Inspector’s office. “Wilson! Come in here!”

When the officer entered the office, the inspector said, “Sergeant. Take four men with you and arrest anyone you find under the concrete loading dock of the Abrahams Warehouse and bring them here.”

Fifteen minutes later, the five police officers arrived at the warehouse and they began searching the area under the loading dock. It was then that they saw Billy and Sammy lying on the mattress. One of the officers tried to rouse them but he was unsuccessful.”

“Are they dead?” asked the sergeant.

The officer replied, “I don’t think so but they are definitely unconscious.”

“Get them out of there!” The sergeant then addressed his words to the man next to him. “Johnston, go in there and help him remove the unconscious men.” Then the sergeant spoke to another officer standing nearby and said to him, “Go into the warehouse and call an ambulance. These two men could be freezing to death.”

The day before Christmas is a happy day for most people especially for the children who are expecting a certain person to drop by later that night while they are asleep. One person who wasn’t expecting anyone to drop by was Sammy Thompson. When he finally woke up after nearly freezing to death three days earlier, he saw an old white bearded man in a red suit. Sammy exclaimed, “Santa! You really are for real.”

The old man smiled and said, “I have brought some presents for you and your brother.” He pulled the packages out of a large cloth bag and placed them at the foot of each bed. “They are warm clothes and warm jackets for both of you.”

The old man looked at the nurse standing next to him and asked, “How is the other gentleman?”

The nurse replied, “I think he is OK, Mister Abrahams. He woke up earlier several hours ago and asked how his brother was.”

“Fine! Fine! See that they get the best of care while they are in the hospital.”

The nurse smiled and replied, “When we learned that you are a member of the board of directors of the hospital and that you were paying for their hospitalization out of your own pocket, everyone on staff was more than happy to make sure that these two men got the best of care any patient in this hospital could ever ask for.”

“When do you think they can be released?”

“They are well enough to be released tomorrow but Sir, I believe that they are homeless. Do you really want to have us release them onto the street on Christmas Day?”

“I assure you, Nurse Randall that they won’t be released onto the street. Leave their future to me. Meanwhile, I am now going to the sick children’s hospital and play my annual role as Santa Clause with them.”

“Bless you Sir.”

“Merry Christmas, Nurse Randall.” Then he smiled at Sammy and waved his hand at him and turned and left the room with a big smile on his face.

Snow had covered the ground overnight but Christmas morning was sunny by the time Sammy and his brother Billy had woken up. They were given a warm breakfast and after breakfast, the doctor who had cared for them entered the room and said, “Gentlemen. Good morning to you and Merry Christmas.”

Both men didn’t look all that happy considering the fact that they knew that soon they would be leaving the warmth of their room and heading back out into the cold weather that was waiting for them.”

The doctor then said, “You will be leaving the hospital today but you are going to be the guests of one of the directors of our hospital. He has arranged for his car to take you to his home.”

The two men looked at each other with surprised looks on their faces and while they were getting dressed in their new clothes, Billy asked his brother, “Did you see who brought us these clothes?”

Sammy smiled and replied, “It was Santa Claus.”

Billy replied, “Yeah, sure it was.”

“It was Santa. I saw him last night when he entered our room. He even spoke to me when he told me about the new clothes and sleeping bags he brought us.”

While the two men were being driven into the posh area of Forest Hill in central Toronto, their eyes widened at what they were seeing. They had never seen homes in the Forest Hill area of Toronto before. Finally, the limousine they were in was driving up a winding driveway towards a beautiful house. When they reached the door, a man of about fifty opened the door and as soon as Sammy saw the face of the man and heard him say, “Welcome to my home.” he cried out. “Santa! It’s you.”

Jacob looked puzzled and asked, “How did you know it was me that visited you last night?”

Billy responded to the question by saying, “Although my brother is retarded, he has the uncanny ability to remember everything he sees and everything he hears. I guess he remembers the features of your face and the tone of your voice.”

“That is indeed a magnificent gift, you have, Sammy.” Then he smiled and said, “Gentlemen. Please come in.”

The two men joined Jacob’s family and had a sumptuous turkey dinner with all the trimmings. There were also other gifts for them, including a watch for each of them.
For a week, they stayed with Jacob’s family and right after New Years Day, Jacob asked his two guests to join him in his study.

“I know that you have been sleeping under the concrete loading dock of my warehouse but I don’t want you sleeping under that dock anymore.”

“But Sir,” began Billy, “it’s the only place we could find where we are protected from the rain and the snow.”

“Billy.” began Jacob. “You and Sammy are going to sleep inside the warehouse where it is warm. For the past week, I have had carpenters build a two-bedroom apartment in the corner of the warehouse for both of you to live in. It is completely furnished. You won’t have to worry about food because, Billy, I am going to hire you as a security guard in my warehouse and Sammy, I will hire you as a floor sweeper in my warehouse.”

Jacob kept his word and the two men spent seven years living in the apartment which also included two bedrooms, a bathroom, a kitchen and living room. Then in 1939, just after Canada declared war on Germany, Billy married a woman he had fallen in love with and with Jacob’s help, Billy and his wife were able to buy a four-bedroom home. Sammy had his own room in the home he shared with his brother and his brother’s family.

Every Christmas, Jacob and his family had Christmas dinner at Billy’s home and every New Years day, Billy, his brother and Billy’s family had their New Years day dinner at the Jacob’s home.

Emerson said it best when he said; “Nature magically suits a man to his fortunes by making them the fruit of his character.”

UNEXPECTED CHRISTMAS GUESTS

2011-12-24T23:33:00.000-08:00

What follows is an excerpt from my memoirs.The event took place in 1964

I was in my early thirties and I was living alone in a small room in a rundown house with no relatives of my own within thousands of miles so it goes without saying that I hated Christmas. It was that time of year when I (and thousands upon thousands of other lonely people living by themselves ) hoped that a family would adopt me on Christmas so that the pain of loneliness would go away at least for one day of the year.

Well, I guess I could say that I nearly did get adopted one Christmas day. A gentleman and his family, whom I met on the beach several times during the previous summer, must have remembered me because I got a phone call from the gentleman on the day before Christmas of that year. I was asked if I was still living alone. I told him that I was. He asked, “Would you like to spend Christmas Eve and all of Christmas Day and Boxing Day in my home?”

Would I? Is the Pope Catholic? Both questions are academic. I arrived at their home in Forest Hill at seven in the evening as promised. And what a home it was. A high iron fence surrounded the property and the driveway winded its way up a small hill and past some trees to where the house was situated. House? Compared to where I was living, it made the house where I had a room look like a hole in the ground with a tarp over it.

My host met me at the door and shook my hand vigorously and invited me in. There, standing just past the massive oak door was his family—his wife and two children, the boy, age ten and the girl, age fourteen. I felt like a light bulb just turned on—glowing and warm.

The gentleman began, “Danny. I want you to think of our home for the next two days as your home. Help yourself to anything you want in the fridge, turn on the TV and watch what you want and drink whatever is in my liquor cabinet whenever you want.” Then his wife took me upstairs and showed me where I would be sleeping in one of the guest rooms. It had its own bathroom and that was the first time I had ever been that close to a king-size bed. As I heard the children laughing downstairs, I had visions of sitting at their huge dining room table and eating turkey and plum pudding and even getting gifts. This was going to be a real Christmas for me. One I hadn’t had since I was a child.

This was not to be. I discovered the horrible truth as soon as I walked back into the foyer.

My host and his family where dressed for travel and as I looked to him for an answer, he said, “Danny. My family and I are visiting my parents a few hundred miles away this Christmas and we won’t be back until the day after Christmas. I am grateful to you for coming over and house-sitting our home. With someone in the house while we are gone, there is less risk of vandals breaking in.”

I was totally devastated. I couldn’t believe what was happening to me. They were deserting me and submitting me to another Christmas of loneliness. At least in the past, I reduced some of the pain of loneliness by talking to the waitresses in a restaurant after ordering a turkey dinner. Now I couldn’t even do this.

As they put on their shoes, the children cheerfully wished me a merry Christmas and my host’s wife kissed me on my cheek and said softly, “You have a good time and remember, there is plenty of food in the fridge for you.” I tried to smile and finally managed to get one on my face, although my smile was as artificial as their friendship.

I saw them get into the car and then I closed the door behind me and stared at the door thinking that I had to be the biggest fool in town to think that that family or anyone else would care enough to adopt a lonely man for Christmas.

The hours went by as I watched movies after movies on TV and stuffed myself with food. As you may have guessed, there was no turkey or plum pudding in the fridge. I finally went to bed and to sleep to the sound of Christmas music coming from somewhere outside. Amongst all that splendor, this was the worst Christmas Eve of my life.

I awoke at about nine the next morning. I looked out the window. It was sunny but judging from the way people on the street were bundled up, it must have been bitterly cold. I saw children playing next door as they laughed and played with their toboggan. I envied them. They had each other and their parents to share their Christmas with. I had no one.

I made myself some bacon and eggs and after breakfast, I pretended that the house was mine and that I was entertaining my guests who had come to visit me in my splendid home.

Just after eleven, I heard the chimes at the front door ring. Excitedly, I ran to the door to see who it was. Anyone would do. I opened it and standing before me was a family of four---two adults and two children. The four were each carrying shopping bags filled to the brims. It wasn’t the family that had deserted me the day before. It was another family.

“Hello, Sir. I am Abraham Goldstein.”

“Damn!” I cursed myself for opening the door in the first place “Another Jew to harass me.” I had just previously worked for one and he fired me a month earlier and I was still bitter from that experience.

“What do you want?” I asked in a somewhat snarly voice.

He replied, “My family and I are stranded in our car which is a short way down the street. It stopped suddenly and we can’t get it to go again.”

“Do you wish me to call for a tow truck?” I asked.

“I did it from a nearby pay phone.” He replied.

“Then why are you here?” I asked impatiently.

The man shuffled uneasily and then said, “The tow truck firm said it will be several hours before they get here and my children are cold and they have to go to the toilet. Could we stay in your house until the tow truck arrives?”

I don’t know if I didn’t want him and his family in the house for personal bigoted reasons or because I didn’t want anyone in a house that was not mine but in any case I grudgingly let them into the house and after they removed their shoes, I directed them to a doorway leading to the basement. Having prowled the house the night before, I knew that in the basement level there was a large family room and a bathroom adjoining it. They could stay down there and wait for the tow truck, I mused to myself.

As we walked down the stairs, I didn’t want the four of them to think that I was bigoted by not bringing them into the living room so I said, “I am house sitting this house for a friend and his family. I don’t think they will want anyone else in the house but I suppose they won’t mind if you wait in the family room downstairs. There is a washroom right next to it.”

“I understand.” replied the man. “We are grateful to you that you have permitted us to stay in the basement of this house out of the cold while we wait for the tow truck.” The rest of his family mouthed similar words of appreciation.

I deliberately removed the towels and face cloths from the washroom as I didn’t want them being soiled by anyone…at least I think that was the reason. In any case, I turned to the man and said, “Give me the phone number of the tow truck firm and I will tell him to meet you here.” He gave me the number and then I left them alone in the family room while I went upstairs to make the call.

As the hours went by, I heard them singing Christmas carols and other songs such as Jingle Bells and White Christmas. They were obviously having a marvelous time by themselves with their singing and laughing. I thought it odd that they were singing Christmas carols considering that they were Jews but I later learned why. I, on the other hand, while stretched out in the comfort of a large chesterfield in the living room with the fire in the huge hearth warming me up while I sipped brandy, ate cookies and watched TV, was still terribly alone. I resented the Jews in the basement. They were having too good a time and I had no one to share my Christmas with at all. At least they had each other whereas I had only myself—and I was bad company at that.

The tow truck driver eventually phoned and said that he would be there in about five minutes so I opened the basement door and yelled, “He’s here!” The family came up the stairs and walked into the foyer. As they put on their shoes, the man thanked me for my kindness and I relied, “Yeah, yeah.” as if to say, “Leave, will you?”

I wanted them to share some of the misery I was suffering so I said in a smooth sarcastic voice, “I’m sorry there were no towels for you to dry your hands on.”

“Oh, that’s OK” chimed in one of the children. “We dried our hands on a white tablecloth in the family room.” The other child cut in, “Shh.”

As soon as the four of them stepped outside, I slammed the door shut and bolted down the stairs to the basement and within seconds, I was in the family room and there on the small table was the white tablecloth the child spoke of; without a spot on it. But in the middle of it, was something wrapped in deep red cellophane. And on top of it was a piece of paper in which Abraham Goldstein had written;

“I want to thank you on behalf of my family and myself for the kindness you showed us by inviting complete strangers into your home. We were in need and you were there for us. We are Jews for Jesus and we wanted to ask you to come downstairs and join us in our singing of Christmas carols and other music of the season but we decided against it because you appeared to be upset because of our unexpected arrival and intrusion into your privacy and we didn’t want to ruin your Christmas morning any more than we already had. As a token of our appreciation however, we have left you a small gift as we have more of this than we need. Again, our sincerest thanks.” It was a plum pudding.

Regretfully, I never met that family again.

The following year, I met a black friend I hadn’t seen for a while and during Christmas Eve; he invited me to his home for Christmas. I am Caucasian and I didn’t know how receptive his large family would be to me, with me coming over for Christmas as an unexpected guest.

His family adopted me that Christmas and every Christmas after that for the next nine years until I married and had a family of my own to share my Christmas’ with.

I learned a valuable lesson on that Christmas day so long ago, that day I received those four unexpected guests. That was the day that I had mistreated that beautiful family so miserably, a day in which I should have opened my heart to them instead of just the door to the basement. The lesson I learned was that loneliness is brought upon us entirely by ourselves because no one in this day and age should have to experience Christmas alone. We can always find someone to share it with—even if it is a homeless person or someone living alone, irrespective of that person’s religion, colour or standing in the community. Sharing our Christmas with others adds to the joy of the season.

By the way, despite my being alone that Christmas so many years ago, there was one bright spot during that occasion for me to fondly remember. The plum pudding left for me by my unexpected guests tasted so grand.

THE VISIT BEFORE CHRISTMAS

2011-12-24T04:23:00.000-08:00

I wrote this story last Christmas and it is published in a anthology called 'Canadian Imprints' I hope you enjoy reading the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

Many years ago, in a small town far away, there lived a small boy called Jonathan. For the first six years of his life, he had dreamed that at least on one Christmas Eve, Santa Claus would come to his home and leave a toy for him under the tree.

Calling that plastic one-metre-high tree a Christmas tree is akin to calling a telephone pole a forest. But since he was a fatherless boy and his mother only had one leg (she lost the other in the same car accident when her husband was killed) she was a welfare recipient and for this reason, she could only afford the small tree with some trinkets and it was for the boy’s sake that she put it up each Christmas.

Two days before Christmas, she and her son went to the city to visit a friend and while they were there, her friend said that she was going to take her daughter to visit Santa at a large department store and suggested that perhaps Jonathan might like to see him also.

As they walked towards the department store, Jonathan’s mother wasn’t too happy with going there considering the burden she would face if her son asked Santa for something that was beyond her means to obtain. Nevertheless, she finally agreed, especially when she saw tears in her son’s eyes when he thought she would say no.

They arrived at the store ten minutes before it was to close and when they got to Santa’s Village in the middle of the store, they saw Santa waving goodbye to the last child who had just talked with him. As he was standing up and stretching his arms, he saw the two children on the winding path leading to his chair.

He immediately sat down and said in a loud voice, “HO, HO, HO! And which of these two beautiful children am I going to see first?”

Jonathan always remembered what his mother told him about ladies first so he motioned to the young girl to go ahead of him. When she and Santa concluded their talk together, he waved goodbye to her and then motioned Jonathan to come to him. Jonathan was very nervous because he had never seen Santa before and didn’t know what to say to him.

“Sit on my lap and tell me what your name is, my boy”

Jonathan was extremely nervous and excited at the same time. He was nervous because he was convinced that Santa didn’t bring him toys because Santa thought he was bad. Despite that, he was also excited because he thought that maybe Santa would give him another chance. He whispered his name.

Santa asked, “And Jonathan, what would you like for Christmas?” Jonathan looked Santa right in his eyes and said, “You never brought me anything before so I don’t expect you to bring me anything this Christmas either.”

The old man looked at the young boy and tears began to form in his eyes. Then he said with a feigned surprised look on his face, “You mean to tell me that I have never visited your house at all?”

“Never!” exclaimed the boy. “I guess it’s because I am bad.”

Santa smiled at the boy and said, “My boy. I could tell right away when I saw you that you are a good boy. I saw how you let the little girl go ahead of you. That is the act of a considerate boy and a considerate boy is one who is also a good boy.”

“Then why haven’t you visited my home on Christmas Eve and left me a toy?”

The old man knew right away why the boy didn’t get a toy at Christmas time. He could tell from the way that his mother was dressed that she was in dire financial means and since the boy’s father wasn’t with them, he assumed that she was probably caring for her son on her own.

Santa motioned one of his assistants to approach him and then he whispered, “Ask the boy’s mother to give you her address.” Then he turned to the boy on his lap and after stroking his hair, he said, “I will visit you tomorrow night and leave you a toy. Now you tell me what you would like me to bring you?”

The boy smiled and whispered what he would really like for Christmas. The old man was startled, “You mean that’s all you want?”

The boy cried out, “Yes, that is all I want. Please….”

Santa interjected, “Then you will get your wish.”

While the boy was leaving the old man in the chair, his mother asked him, “What did you ask Santa to bring you?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“But you have to tell me, Jonathan.”

Jonathan looked up at his mother and said, “Santa said that I wasn’t to tell anyone.”

As she led her son out of the store in the company of her friend and her friend’s daughter, she wondered just why the old man told her son not to tell anyone what he wanted for Christmas.

Santa meanwhile changed into his street clothes and then walked directly to the office of the general manager. When he was seated in front of the manager’s desk, he told the manager what his plan was.

The manager’s eyes lit up and then he said, “It’s a great idea and once it is done, we will inform the news media. It will be great publicity for our store.”

“NO!” exclaimed the other man. “We must never tell anyone what we are doing.”

“Why not?” asked the manager.

“For two reasons. The first reason is the most important one. It would embarrass the boy’s mother and probably him also. But the second reason is also important.” The old man paused and then said, “You would have hundreds of children coming here with the same story and what would we do for them that we haven’t done for this boy and his mother?”

The manager rose from his chair and reached for the old man’s hand and as he shook it, he said, “Leave everything to me. I will arrange everything and it will be at the store’s expense.”

“And…” said the old man before he was interrupted.

“And it will be done very secretly.” replied the manager.

Jonathan and his mother took the bus home the next day and before they began walking down the street to their left where their home was, she looked at the setting sun in the distance and then wondered why Jonathan wouldn’t tell her what he wanted for Christmas. Was it because he didn’t expect anything? Jonathan’s mother was distraught. For the past six years she has never had enough money to buy a present for her son. Buying him clothes was the most she could afford on her meagre income.

The next day was December 24th and the snow fell quite heavily so by the time it got dark, most people were inside their homes. Jonathan and his mother were asleep when she received a phone call at nine in the evening. The man on the phone said that he was from the post office and that a special delivery was being made at ten that night.

“Who is the delivery for?” she asked

The voice on the other end of the receiver asked, “Do you have someone there by the name of Jonathan?”

“Yes, I do. He is my six-year-old son.”

“Then,” said the voice firmly, “You better get him up at that time because he has to sign for it.”

“I am his mother,” exclaimed Jonathan’s mother angrily. “I will sign it for him.”

The voice paused and then said sadly, “I’m sorry Ma’m but unless the boy signs for it, the delivery can’t be made.”

“Very well,” replied the boy’s mother, “I will have him at the door when you ring the buzzer.” With that having been said, she hung up the phone.

When it was fifteen minutes before ten, she woke up her son and when ten o’clock arrived, so did whoever was making the delivery.

When the sound of the buzzer was heard, Jonathan’s mother motioned to her son and said, “Someone is making a delivery for you.”

Jonathan jumped up from the chair and exclaimed, “It’s Santa. He kept his word. He’s coming to visit me.”

“Nonsense!” exclaimed his mother. It’s the postman.”

“No. It’s not. It’s Santa. He said that he would come and visit me.”

The buzzer rang again and before the third ring, Jonathan opened the door and there before him was the man he recognized from before as Santa Claus.

“Santa!” cried out the little boy with excitement. “You kept your word.”

As the old white bearded man dressed in a red suit and carrying a bag over his shoulder entered the hallway, he smiled at Jonathan and said, “Jonathan, my boy. People, who break their promises, impair confidence in those whom the promise was made but if you keep a promise, you enrich the relationship you have with the one you have given your word to.”

When the three of them were in the living room, Santa began to open the bag and brought out various toys. He smiled and said, “These are the toys I forgot to bring you in previous years.” Then he said, “Oh, there is something I also forgot.” He left the room and went out the front door and in seconds, he returned with a large cardboard box. He looked at Jonathan’s mother and said, “Your son told me that he wished that you both had a bigger Christmas tree and I just happened to have one in my sleigh.”

As he brought it out, he said, “You know, no one has ever let me put up a Christmas tree. Could I help you put up this tree?”

“Of course,” replied Jonathan’s mother. And put it up the three of them did. When it was finally finished, it had coloured flashing lights, silver bells and golden glass balls hanging from the branches.

Then Santa said with a smile, “You know, Jonathan, good boys are supposed to be asleep when Santa comes in the middle of the night.”

Jonathan was no fool. He knew that if he went to bed right away, he would still be on Santa’s good side so while about to be piggybacked up the stairs by his mother he asked, “Will I see you next year?”

“Of course my boy but only when you visit Santa’s Village like you did yesterday.”

“You mean you won’t come to our home again like you did tonight?”

Santa laughed uproariously and then said, HO! HO! my son. I only visit one home before midnight each year and tonight was the only visit I am making before midnight this year. Next year, I will make a another visit before midnight to the home of some other child however, I will bring you another toy when you are asleep.”

Jonathan was pleased as punch, not only for the toys and the tree, but most importantly, for the visit he received as previously promised to him.

The old man looked at them both and while putting his finger to his lips, he said,

“Remember, this visit must be a secret between us.”

Jonathan and his mother nodded their heads in agreement.

As Santa was opening the door, Jonathan cried out, “Santa, do you have a present for my mom?”

“Good Lord! I almost forgot. I am getting so forgetful in my old age.” cried out the old man. “Of course I have a present for your mom.”

He reached into a pocket and pulled out a red coloured envelope. He handed it to Jonathan’s mother and whispered, “I generally only bring presents to children but it gives me great pleasure to hand you this one.”

Then with a quick turn, he opened the door and quickly closed it behind him. Jonathan’s mother opened the red envelope and stared at the letter. It was written by the manager of the department store they had visited in the large city. What was in it was brief. It said; “Please visit my office between December 27th and the 30th as I wish to offer you a position in our store, one I feel that you can handle well. While you are living in our city, I will see that you and your son have a nice house to live in.”

She ran to the door but before she opened it, she heard the old man outside yell,

“On, Cupid! On Donner and Blitzen! Away!”

She opened the door and both she and Jonathan looked outside in every direction.

Not only was there no sign of the old man in the red suit, but strangely enough, there wasn’t any sign of footsteps on the snow-covered sidewalk leading to the street or any signs that there had ever been a vehicle on the street that night that had just been driven away.

Jonathan was confused. He knew that Santa Claus had been in their house otherwise how else could the tree and the presents been brought into the house? But if he was there and it wasn’t all a dream, then how did he disappear so quickly? He didn’t come into the house through the chimney so his sleigh couldn’t have been on the roof.

The boy turned and faced his mother and asked, “Was he really here? Is Santa Claus for real or did I just imagine that he was here and he really doesn’t exist?” His mother thought for a moment while she stared at the snow flakes falling to the ground as they reflected the various colours of their Christmas tree lights shining though the window and then said,

“Jonathan. Santa Claus represents the hopes and dreams of everyone who believes that no matter how bad things may be, life can always be better for all of us. My son. Santa Claus is for real.”

The trial in 1884 was outrageous

2011-12-23T05:18:00.000-08:00

Even in this modern era we are in, we hear about trials that are farces and innocent persons who are convicted of crimes they didn’t commit and judges who interpret the law erroneously and prosecutors who have hidden agendas. And yet, if you are accused of a crime and are facing a trial nowadays, you have a better chance now of getting a fair trial than you would have over a century ago. This article is about a trial of two men that took place in 1884 in Ontario. Calling what they went through a trial is like describing a skunk’s smell as perfume created by Estee Lauder.

The story began around 10 p.m. on December 21st, 1883, at Gilbert and Margaret Jones’s farmhouse near Bloomfield, six miles west of Picton, when two armed men pounded on the door, one wearing a mask, the other a hat and what looked to be a false beard.

The prosecution’s theory was the men had come to rob Jones of $555 he had been paid earlier that day for a load of hops. There was a scuffle after the intruders forced their way into the house and Peter Lazier, a relative who was staying overnight with the Joneses, was shot in the heart and died. The two robbers fled.

Margaret Jones ran to the neighbours, who set out into the night, trying to track the killers through footprints in the snow. The footprint evidence was crucial but flawed. There were large gaps where the trail had broken off and nobody could follow the tracks all the way. As they tramped through the snow carrying lanterns, the searchers left footprints of their own, a confusing pattern of as many as 12 to 15 different boot markings.

This reminds me of a break-in that I as a private investigator was asked to investigate. The burglar tramped through the snow in the backyard of the premises so his footprints would give me some idea of the size of his boots. Unfortunately, by the time I arrived on the scene, there were five more sets of footprints in the backyard. They were the footprints of five cops. Needless to say, no one could differentiate which footprints belonged to the burglar.

The victim’s brother-in-law had arranged for the Belleville police chief, Hugh McKinnon, to come to Picton to head up the investigation. McKinnon obtained boots from the suspects and attempted to compare them with the footprints by placing them directly into tracks in the snow, hopelessly contaminating the evidence. The chief of police was once described as part Wyatt Earp, part security guard, but hardly a Sherlock Holmes.

In 19th century Canada, once the public had decided someone was guilty of a crime, there were few opportunities for changing their minds. An accused person was not permitted to tell his or her side of the story by testifying in their own defence and the law did not allow convicted persons a right of appeal.

The rule against an accused person testifying was meant to protect the right to silence, the thinking being that if a person charged with a crime were permitted to get in the witness box, anyone who didn’t do so would appear to have something to hide and be presumed guilty.

Nowadays, defendants have the right to testify on their own behalf. If they are tried by a judge and jury and they don’t wish to testify at their trial, the judge is obligated to inform the jury that the defendant is not required to testify at his own trial and that they are not to presume from him exercising that right that he is guilty of the crime he is being tried for.

However, if the defendant chooses to be tried by a judge alone and he chooses not to testify and the judge has heard the testimony of an eyewitness that he believes, the judge can make the comment that it would have been helpful if he had heard the defendant’s side of the story from his own lips.

The judge, Christopher Patterson, knew the town of Picton well because he had lived and practiced law there for many years before being appointed to the Ontario Court of Appeal. As was the case then with appeal judges, Patterson had ample free time and often took on extra duties as a trial judge.

Though considered a good judge, he failed miserably at keeping decorum in the courtroom, where the unruly crowd jeered the defence and applauded the prosecution. Mr. Justice Robert Sharp who wrote a book about this trial (The Lazier Murder) said in part;

“The atmosphere in the courtroom at the trial was actually, I think, disgraceful. The jury could not avoid knowing this community wanted these men convicted and desperately wanted that to happen. And that had to have an impact on the result.”

I agree with Mr. Justice Sharpe when he said in an interview, “This was a terrible crime. It shook the community to its core. And there was even talk of lynching the men who had been arrested. Their convictions may have been a miscarriage of justice, the product of amateur detective work and a rush to judgment by a police chief determined to make his name as a crime buster and by a community bent on revenge.” unquote

I would be less than honest if I didn’t point out that we still hear on occasion of similar cases where the convictions were a miscarriage of justice for the same reasons as stated by Mr. Justice Sharp.

Many years ago, I was charged with knocking out a retired boxer with a 14-inch flashlight. I didn’t even have the flashlight with me when I entered the building where that man lived. The cop presumed that I had the flashlight in my hand even though the man I knocked out said he only saw my fist coming towards him. The prosecutor offered me a deal saying that she would reduce the charge to simple assault if I would plead guilty to that charge. She made that deal after she had already spoken with the man, his wife and adult daughter who all told the prosecutor that they never saw a 14-inch flashlight in my hand. Needless to say, I pleaded not guilty and the judge ruled that I was not guilty because I was rightfully defending myself when the man was attempting to drag me back to his apartment after I served his wife with a multi-million dollar claim while I was working as a process server. If the judge had been anything like the prosecutor in my case, I would have been convicted of a crime I hadn’t committed.

It took the jury just over an hour to reach its verdict. They found the two accused men, Joseph Thomset and George Lowder guilty of capital murder.

All these years later, there are lessons to be learned from the case, said Sharpe, who said that judges and lawyers should be ready to rethink how they dispense justice. “When we look back on this case through modern eyes, we see all kinds of things that seem odd,” he added. The case is also a powerful reminder of the potential for wrongful convictions and how the mood of a community can influence the result.”

With respect to Thomset’s and Lowder’s sentences of death, it fell to some leading citizens to plead with the prime minister, John A. Macdonald, to spare the two men’s lives, pleas that were denied despite the tenuous nature of the case against them.
Newspaper reporters were allowed into the jail in the days before the execution and Sharpe uncovered poignant accounts of the men’s final hours. A church bell began to toll at 7:45 a.m. as they were led from their cells. Standing side-by-side on the trap door, they grasped each other’s hands. “Goodbye, Joe,” Lowder said, while Thomset remained silent.

But the tragedy didn’t end just there. The hangman was obviously an amateur. When a condemned man is hanged, he is supposed to drop far enough so that his neck will be broken which will bring about instant death. When the trapdoor was sprung under these two men, they didn’t die right then and there. They were seen kicking violently while they slowly stangled at the end of their ropes.

The hangman’s bill was $40 plus $6.50 for “refreshments,” which seems strangely self-indulgent given how the executions were botched. Actually the entire incident from the time of the investigation, and the trial and the execution was botched to say the least.

Later, it fell to others to speak for them. In the pauper’s section of Picton’s Glenwood cemetery, someone recently found a gravestone, crudely inscribed with Lowder’s name, followed by the words ‘Hanged. 1884. Unjustly.”

Justice is indispensable for the benefit of all members of society. Even the most wicked who live by crime are entitled to their share of it.

SPECIAL CHRISTMAS NOTICE

As a gift to my readers, I am going to give you four Christmas stories that I have written in which three of them are in two of my books of short stories. On Saturday, the story will be THE VISIT BEFORE CHRISTMAS. On Sunday, the story will be UNEXPECTED GUESTS. On Monday, the story will be SANTA'S GIFTS and on Tuesday, I will tell you the real story of Jesus' birth. Meanwhile, I wish you all season's greetings.

The doctor went for broke and lost

2011-12-21T13:15:00.000-08:00

Dr. Ronald Mikos, a Chicago podiatrist was under investigation for Medicare fraud, and subsequently was charged with two counts of obstruction of justice in connection with the case.

Federal agents had been investigating Mikos's Medicare billings for 1995-2000, a period during which he billed more than $1 million for foot operations, including more than 600 operations for just six patients.

Ronald Mikos had held a California medical license since 1982. If he was convicted and incarcerated as a result of the above charges, the California Board of Podiatric Medicine would have grounds to file an Accusation Document seeking revocation of his license and an immediate automatic suspension order that would remain in effect until the outcome of the revocation proceeding.

When you are facing a trial, the last thing you should be doing is tampering with the members of the jury. The prosecutors said that Mikos had been urging potential grand jury witnesses not to cooperate in the fraud probe. A search of Mikos's car turned up "scripts" on coaching patients how to respond if investigators questioned them about the alleged Medicare fraud scheme. In one, Mikos advised the patients, many elderly, to stop the questioning by pretending not to feel well.

One whom Mikos had contacted was Joyce Brannon, a former patient for whom he allegedly billed for 85 nonexistent surgeries. Brannon was found shot to death in her apartment January 27th. Federal prosecutors said that Mikos was the top suspect. Of course, he denied any involvement in the murder.

According to the prosecutor who was prosecuting him for the murder of his former patient, the Chicago podiatrist murdered his former patient just days before she was to testify against him in a fraud probe because the doctor believed she would be the lone witness against him, a prosecutor said Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Attorney, Jeffrey Cramer told the jury in his opening statement that Mikos shot Joyce Brannon three times in the back and then put the gun against the flesh of her neck and fired three more times, emptying his revolver. Brannon, 54, a disabled caretaker, was killed in the basement apartment of the North Side church where she lived and worked.

Cynthia Giacchetti, one of Miko’s lawyers tried to debunk that government’s theory, pointing out that the massive investigation had uncovered that nearly 100 patients who were victimized as part of the Medicare fraud. He suggested that there wasn’t a real motive to kill the woman. He pointed out that killing just one patient could not possibly end that investigation.

If Mikos is convicted of Brannon's murder, prosecutors intend to seek the death penalty from the same jury.

In addition to the murder, the 25-count indictment charges that Mikos, 56, defrauded Medicare of more than $1.2 million by falsely claiming to have performed more than 6,000 surgeries. He is also accused of obstructing justice by recruiting patients to lie to investigators about the fraud.

In opening remarks to jurors, Cramer said Mikos knew that Brannon was among the patients of interest to investigators after he voluntarily met with a prosecutor and agent in the fall of 2001 to try to convince them he had performed all 6,000 surgeries.

By early 2002, Brannon and three others had been subpoenaed to testify before a federal grand jury. One prospective witness, Charles Lobosco, was taking kickbacks from Mikos as part of the fraud scheme and Lobosco's daughter, another would-be witness, was mentally disabled and not a threat to Mikos either, Cramer said.

The other potential witness, an elderly woman, had led Mikos to believe she wouldn't testify against him either, Cramer said. "Only Joyce Brannon stood in his way," the prosecutor told jurors. "He had to do something."

Three days before the murder, Mikos retrieved several firearms of his from Skokie police and called Brannon to plead with her not to testify. But Brannon later told her sister and a friend of the call and said she had refused to lie for Mikos.

After Mikos' arrest, the FBI recovered all the firearms in a storage facility rented by Mikos except for a .22 caliber revolver that authorities believe was used to kill Brannon. An exhaustive search didn't turn up the gun, Cramer said.

In her opening remarks, Giacchetti cautioned jurors not to be swept up by the emotion of the case. She recounted how Cramer had dramatically described certain murder details in his opening but pointed out that Mikos wasn't seen anywhere near Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, 5942 N. Magnolia Avenue. And no physical evidence connects him to the murder scene either, Giacchetti said.

He scoffed at the government contention that Brannon was key to the prosecution case, saying, "There were 90 other patients."
Dr. Ronald Mikos was convicted by the jury for the murder of his former patient who was cooperating in a fraud probe of him. Moments before U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman made final the death penalty imposed by the jury, Mikos, 57, declared in a strong voice: "Your honor, I did not kill Joyce Brannon."

The podiatrist was convicted in a largely circumstantial case of fatally shooting Brannon, a disabled caretaker, at the North Side church where she lived and worked. She was killed just four days before she was to testify against him in January 2002. Prosecutors maintained that the murder evidence was strong against Mikos despite its circumstantial nature. In a search of his car, investigators found a handwritten note of the church's Sunday schedule, showing he had scouted the location, authorities said.

Mikos' lawyer, John Beal, vowed an appeal and said the death penalty was inappropriate because of Mikos' mental illnesses and abuse of prescription drugs and alcohol.

Brannon's mother, Selma, 91; and sister Janet Bunch had attended each day of the trial. But Selma recently died and Bunch chose not to attend the sentencing But in a letter, Bunch said she supported Mikos' execution "as soon as the law allows. I feel that Ronald Mikos forfeited any rights to leniency when he planned and carried out the cold-blooded execution of my sister," she wrote.

Bunch had provided key testimony at trial that her sister called her three days before the murder and implicated Mikos, saying he tried to talk her out of testifying by pleading that he would be ruined.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Jeffrey Cramer said Mikos checked out Brannon's residence at Bethany Evangelical Lutheran Church, 5942 N. Magnolia Avenue three times in advance of the murder. After sneaking up from behind, he shot her five times in the back and neck at close range and then placed the weapon flush against the back of her head and fired a final time, emptying the revolver, Cramer said.

Mikos was also convicted of bilking Medicare of more than $1.2 million by billing more than 6,000 foot surgeries he never performed, including some 70 on Brannon, authorities said.

Mikos is only the second defendant to be sentenced to death in Chicago's federal courthouse since federal death-penalty statutes were rewritten more than two decades ago.

In a bid to persuade jurors to spare the life of Mikos, 56,, his lawyers tried to show he was still a positive influence in the lives of his three young children despite his incarceration. The defense also contended that Mikos' judgment had been clouded by mental illness and abuse of alcohol and prescription drugs.

Mikos showed no emotion when U.S. District Judge Ronald Guzman announced the verdict. The six-woman, six-man jury deliberated over parts of three days before imposing the death penalty on Mikos. Jurors had been told that Mikos faced life in prison without possibility of release if they didn't impose the death penalty.
"This was an inexcusable murder of a federal witness, a woman who had done harm to no one, who was going to do what she thought was right, was completely helpless because of her disability, whose murder was in absolute cold blood," First Assistant U.S. Atty. Gary Shapiro told reporters. "If there is a death penalty and you don't invoke it when the justice system itself is attacked, particularly in this way, then it's probably never going to be invoked."

Brannon's mother, Selma, 91, and sister, Janet Bunch, both of whom attended each day of the trial since its opening on April 19, hugged prosecutors and agents following the death penalty verdict.

"For us, it's still beyond belief that someone could murder Joyce in such a horrible way," the family said in a statement. "... We will always remember Joyce and be proud of her for doing what she knew was right even though, tragically, she lost her life for doing so."

While testifying during the death penalty hearing, Bunch wept when she recalled how Brannon had asked her if she should notify someone after Mikos had called her, pleading with her not to testify against him. "I didn't tell her to," Bunch said. "Instead, I tried to calm her down."

Two jurors, Jacquelyn Savini of Bolingbrook and Evelyn Guzman of Cicero, emphasized how difficult the decision had been to impose the death penalty, but both declined to elaborate further.

Lustig, 60, a document-imaging architect from Bolingbrook, said jurors took their time weighing the issues before deciding in favor of the death penalty. "It wasn't an open-and-shut case," Lustig said. "We tried to put our emotions to the side as best we could."

Earlier, jurors had asked to view a videotape of Brannon's apartment taken weeks after her murder "to look at what Mikos had to do to get to her," Lustig said. "He was intent on going in there to do it," Lustig said. "He couldn't look her in the eye and do it. He did it from behind."

Lustig said the circumstantial nature of the case was an issue during the deliberations at the trial, not in the death penalty hearing. "We knew we had the right person," he said.

After weighing a long list of mitigating factors pushed by the defense, the jury offered one of its own: criticism of state and federal regulators for not shutting down Mikos' medical practice even though they had been aware of violations and troubles for years.

"We did feel very strongly that the system didn't catch him soon enough," Lustig said. But ultimately, the jury felt Mikos had to be held accountable for his own actions, he said.

Attorneys for Mikos left the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse without comment. Mikos has been in custody since his arrest in February 2002.

Since federal death penalty statutes were rewritten more than two decades ago, only Darryl "Pops" Johnson, a Gangster Disciples leader convicted in 1997 of ordering two suspected government informants killed, had been sentenced to death by a federal jury in Chicago before Monday. Johnson is still incarcerated in a federal prison in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Here is the irony in this case. Mikos would likely have been released by now if he had been convicted of the Medicare fraud alone and had not killed Brannon to try to squelch the probe. Now he is sitting on death row waiting for the day when he is to be executed by lethal injection.

Rulers of nations that are bashing gays and lesbians can go to hell.

2011-12-20T03:48:00.000-08:00

Let me state right from the beginning of this article that I am not gay. I am married to a beautiful woman, have two daughters and five grandchildren. However, I do recognize the rights of gays and lesbians to live their lives in the manner they have chosen. Unfortunately, there are still backward countries who think otherwise.

Nigeria's parliament pushed ahead with a bill on December 8, 2011 that would harshly crack down on gay rights despite moves from US President Barack Obama's administration to counter such legislation.

The bill was introduced into Nigeria's House of Representatives on that date after the Nigerian Senate the previous week had approved the measure that would outlaw gay marriage and ban public displays of affection between homosexual couples.

Gay organizations would also be made illegal, leading some to raise concerns over whether funding channeled through non-governmental organizations in Nigeria for AIDS treatment would be put in jeopardy.

A spokesperson for the House of Representatives and a cabinet minister were defiant in the face of Western criticism over the measure. Zakari Mohammed said, "We have a culture. We have religious beliefs and we have a tradition. We are black people. We are not white.”

What does being black have to do with this issue?

He said same-sex marriage “is alien to our culture and we can never give it a chance. So if Western nations will hold their aid to us, to hell with them”. What this dummy was really saying was the hell with the people of Nigeria. Let’s face it. If the Americans cut off its aid to Nigeria, many Nigerians will suffer the consequences. Nigerian authorities really don’t want to piss off the Americans.

The United States last year imported 44 percent of Nigeria’s oil exports, making Nigeria the fifth largest foreign oil supplier to the United States. The U.S. ability to help Nigeria combat public health shortcomings contributes directly to good governance, societal stability, economic growth, and confidence in U.S. concern for the well-being of the Nigerian people. The challenges are considerable. Nigeria has the world's second-lowest rate of immunization coverage, is the global center of transmission of wild polio virus, and has the world's second-highest maternal mortality rate. Malaria causes the preventable deaths of 300,000 children and 7,000 women each year, and Nigeria has the fourth-highest tuberculosis (TB) burden in the world, with 100,000 deaths each year. Nigeria's low contraceptive prevalence rate of 8.9% and high fertility rate of 5.7 children per woman drives an annual population growth rate of 3.2%, which imposes an unsustainable burden on health care delivery services that are already taxed to the limit. U.S. Government maternal and child health efforts focuses on immunization, polio eradication, birth preparedness, and maternity services.

Why would that political mental dwarf tell the Americans to go to hell? That’s easy to figure out. He and his family personally don’t need US assistance. It’s the people in Nigeria that need the help. Their problems are not his problems.

Information Minister Labaran Maku said, “We reserve the right to make our laws without apologies to other countries.”

Well actually, that isn’t quite so. There is the International Criminal Court in The Hague that deals with political criminals who make cruel laws and carry them out — laws that offends the minds of decent people whom these political hacks have to concern themselves with.

The Americans put the fight against gay and lesbian discrimination at the heart of its foreign policy, but stopped short of warning transgressor nations they could be stripped of US aid. That doesn’t necessarily mean that the US won’t stop foreign aid to offending countries.

Obama ordered all government agencies that play an active foreign policy role to take steps to encourage foreign nations to put a premium on gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights. Let’s face it, those countries whose leaders abuse gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender rights of its citizens are too stupid to fully grasp the consequences they face if they continue abusing the rights of their citizens.

British Prime Minister David Cameron has already warned offending countries that his country will consider withholding aid from countries that do not recognize gay rights.

The Nigerian bill passed by the senate would make same-sex marriages punishable by up to 14 years for the couple and 10 for anyone abetting such unions. It also sets out a 10-year sentence for “any person who directly or indirectly makes public show of same-sex amorous relationships”.

Maku told reporters after a routine weekly cabinet meeting on December 8th that foreign nations had the right to comment on any Nigerian laws they were unhappy with. He then blurted out the following mantra; “We live in a democracy, we live in a free country, we live in an independent country.” He added some of the things that are considered fundamental rights abroad can be very offensive to African culture.

What he was saying was that those countries such as Canada and parts of the United States that recognize gay and lesbian rights are offensive to Nigerians. If we are offensive, then why is Nigeria accepting our Aid?

The house has to vote in favour of the bill before President Goodluck Jonathan ascents to or vetoes the legislation. If he gives his approval to the passing of the bill, he will do his fellow Nigerians real harm.

Senate President David Mark said last week that if any country was unwilling to "give us aid or assistance just because we want to hold on to our values, that country can keep her aid and assistance.” Obviously those are the words enemating from another political mental dwarf.

It was unclear why lawmakers decided a ban was necessary, with gay marriage not known to be prevalent in Nigeria and homosexuals already harshly discriminated against. Perhaps they think of homosexuality as a disease that will spread across Nigeria not unlike malaria and other diseases that have plagued the people of that nation. Perhaps these political mental dwarfs believe that if unchecked, the entire nation will become homosexuals.

Nigeria isn’t the only country in Africa that abuses their homosexuals and those who are transgendered. If you are gay or lesbian and wish to travel to Africa, it is wise to do a little research before you plan your trip. Homosexuality is illegal in almost every African country (bar South Africa) and is considered a criminal offense in several top tourist destinations like Egypt, Morocco and Kenya.

In Africa, homosexuality is illegal for gay men in 29 countries and for lesbian women in 20 countries. The legal status in many ways mirrors the widespread homophobia on the continent.

Zimbabwe is more known for its homophobia and extreme statements made by president Mugabe, including various claims that homosexuality is not an African phenomenon but rather a Western decadency. Homosexuality is illegal in Zimbabwe, and some individuals have been prosecuted and convicted for their sexual orientation, including the countries first president, Banana.

On the other hand, there are very active and very visible gay and lesbian organizations in Zimbabwe that have succeeded in creating a (not always too fruitful) public debate on the issue. Even if homosexuality remains illegal and condemned by state officials, these organizations have won several law suits against the Government, trying to silence them, and the matter of homosexuality is coming out of the taboo closet.

In Namibia, the legal situation is even more confusing. ILGA, the International Lesbian and Gay Association, states that the legal position in Namibia is "uncertain", as there are contradictive statements coming from the Government. In April 1999, Namibia's deputy home affairs minister, Jeremiah Nambinga, was seeking to criminalize gay sex because he believed it is evil. This would, however, imply that gay sex was not illegal. On the 25th of June, the High Court ruled that lesbian partners have the same rights as heterosexual couples in a legal suit were a lesbian foreign women fought for her right to stay in Namibia based on her relationship with another woman. Some Government statements, however, have been extremely homophobic, such as a statement by the Minister of Home Affairs, Jerry Ekandjo he made in September 2000to graduating police officers urging them to “eliminate" gays and lesbians from the face of Namibia”. Local gay and lesbian organizations, however, are present and visible and contribute to the national discourse. In Uganda, homosexuality is illegal and persecuted. Uganda has been the last country were gay and lesbian rights groups have been attacked by the Government.

The Uganda parliament is debating an anti-homosexual Bill that would criminalize same-sex relationships. The Bill divides homosexual behavior into two categories: aggravated homosexuality (which I presume means homosexual rape) in which the offender can receive the death penalty and simply being a homosexual in which the penalty is life in prison. The Bill would also include homosexuals who commit homosexual acts while outside of Uganda. Does this mean that an American homosexual who visits Uganda and is discovered by the Uganda authorities as being a homosexual can then be arrested and sent to a Uganda prison for life? At present, anyone in Uganda who is living in a same-sex marriage can be sent to prison for 14 years.

In Malawi, sex between men is already forbidden but now that leaders of that country want to include sex between woman as also being a crime, Gay marriage is also illegal in that country and one such couple was sent to prison for 14 years after they were discovered going though a same-sex marriage ceremony.

The other following African nations have made homosexuality illegal. They are:

Algeria, Angola, Benin, Botswana, Burundi, Cameron, Cape Verde, Djibouti, Ethiopia, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Malawi, Mali, Mauritania, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria, Senegal, Sudan, Swaziland, Tanzania, Togo, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Leviticus 18:6 reads: "You shall not lie with a male as one lies with a female. It is an abomination." A similar verse occurs two chapters later, in Leviticus 20:13: "A man who sleeps with another man is an abomination and should be executed."

Leviticus is a holiness code written 3,000 years ago. This code includes many of the outdated sexual laws we mentioned earlier, and a lot more. It also includes prohibitions against round haircuts, tattoos, working on the Sabbath, wearing garments of mixed fabrics, eating pork or shellfish, getting your fortune told, and even playing with the skin of a pig. There goes football!

But there are also other writings in the Old Testament that may make you wonder why everything in the Bible should be accepted as the absolute guide to proper living.
They are:

DEUTERONOMY 22:13-21
If it is discovered that a bride is not a virgin, the Bible demands that she be executed by stoning immediately.

DEUTERONOMY 22:22
If a married person has sex with someone else's husband or wife, the Bible commands that both adulterers be stoned to death.

MARK 10:1-12
Divorce is strictly forbidden in both Testaments, as is remarriage of anyone who has been divorced.

LEVITICUS 18:19
The Bible forbids a married couple from having sexual intercourse during a woman's period. If they disobey, both shall be executed.

MARK 12:18-27
If a man dies childless, his widow is ordered by biblical law to have intercourse with each of his brothers in turn until she bears her deceased husband a male heir.

DEUTERONOMY 25:11-12
If a man gets into a fight with another man and his wife seeks to rescue her husband by grabbing the enemy's genitals, her hand shall be cut off and no pity shall be shown her.

The Bible says clearly that sex with a prostitute is acceptable for the husband but not for the wife. Polygamy (more than one wife) is acceptable, as is a king's having many concubines. (Solomon, the wisest king of all, had 1,000 concubines.) Slavery and sex with slaves, marriage of girls aged 11-13, and treatment of women as property are all accepted practices in the Scriptures.

While there are some people now living in heterosexual marriages who once perceived themselves to be gay, there are millions of gay and lesbian persons who have accepted their sexual orientation as a gift from God and live productive and deeply spiritual lives. The evidence from science and from the personal experience of gay and lesbian Christians demands that we at least consider whether the passages cited to condemn homosexual behavior should be reconsidered, just as other Bible verses that speak of certain sexual practices are no longer understood as God's law for human beings in this day and age.

As I said it earlier in this article, those nations that condemn people who are gay or lesbian and who wish to live together as sexual partners are backward countries. Further, they don’t really understand many of the writings in the Bible. For example:
Jesus said nothing about same-sex behavior.

The Jewish prophets in the Old Testament were silent about homosexuality. Only six or seven of the Bible's one million verses refer to same-sex behavior in any way and none of these verses refer to homosexual orientation as it's understood today.

Most people who are certain they know what the Bible says about homosexuality don't know where the verses that reference same-sex behavior can be found. They haven't read them, let alone studied them carefully. They don't know the original meaning of the words in Hebrew or Greek. And they haven't tried to understand the historical context in which those words were written. Yet the assumption that the Bible condemns homosexuality is passed down from generation to generation with very little personal study or research. The consequences of this misinformation are disastrous.

Over the centuries people who misunderstood or misinterpreted the Bible have done terrible things. The Bible has been misused to defend bloody crusades and tragic inquisitions; to support slavery, apartheid, and segregation; to persecute Jews and other non-Christian people of faith; to support Hitler's Third Reich and the Holocaust; to oppose medical science; to condemn interracial marriage; to execute women as witches; and to support the Ku Klux Klan.

It is time for those in this day and age who would condemn homosexuals to get with it and recognize that human rights really supersedes outrageous laws, be they biblical or man-made that would do harm to other human beings and interfere with their own beliefs.

The Role of Paralegals in the Criminal Justice System

2011-12-19T04:21:00.000-08:00

This is a speech I gave at the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders held in Cairo May 7, 1995

In Canada, everyone, be he or she a citizen or a landed immigrant or a visitor, is entitled to be represented by a lawyer in a criminal court if that person is charged with a serious criminal offence. But unfortunately, not all such accused persons can afford to hire a lawyer to represent them, so they can either represent themselves in court or they can ask for assistance from the provincial legal aid program which will pay for the services of a lawyer to represent them in court.

In the province of Ontario, the second largest of the ten provinces of Canada, that province being more than twice the size of France, in which 11 million of Canada’s 28 million people live, the legal aid program is constantly short of money and for that reason many accused persons charged with minor crimes can no longer look to legal aid for financial assistance in order to hire a lawyer.

Some people can represent themselves in the criminal courts and convince the courts of their innocence and they do extremely well for themselves but alas, for many, those who represent themselves in court later learn to their dismay, that they had a fool for a client and they end up in jail for a crime they didn’t commit.

Some unrepresented accused persons plead guilty to crimes to which they are not guilty of having committed because they believe, or have been convinced by the police who charged them, that they really are guilty. Some police officers who arrest some accused persons themselves actually believe that those persons they have arrested are guilty, when in fact they are innocent. And in cases such as these, an innocent person who is found guilty, may end up in prison or get a heavy fine or even both.

So we are forced to ask ourselves, how do we help these kinds of accused persons who cannot afford a lawyer or get financial assistance from Legal Aid to hire a lawyer? Fortunately, in Ontario, there are two other options open to these accused persons.

Firstly, they can go to a store-front clinic which is operated under the direction of a lawyer and which utilizes the services of law students who will get their hands-on experience through these clinics. Their services are free. Unfortunately, there are not enough of these clinics around Ontario to service the many thousands of people in need of their services. Many of the smaller cities don’t even have them.

Secondly, they can ask an ordinary citizen who is not a lawyer or a law student in a legal clinic to represent them. The Criminal Code of Canada, a code which is the same everywhere in Canada and which was created in the year 1906, has a section in it that states that anyone who is not a lawyer, even if that person is only a visitor to Canada, is permitted to represent an accused person charged with a criminal or quasi-criminal offence.

There are some limitations however that apply to such lay persons—for example, such a lay person representing a friend or a paying client, cannot represent that person in court if that person is charged with murder, manslaughter, criminal negligence causing death or injury, serious sexual assault, robbery, break and enter, assault causing bodily harm, fraud or theft if the loss of money or property exceeds $5000 in Canadian money—and many other serious offences in the Code. The reason is obvious. Would you want a person trained in first aid doing brain surgery on you also?

In Canada, these kinds of serious offences are called indictable offences—what the Americans call, felonies and the accused persons can either represent themselves or they can use the services of a lawyer. Legal Aid has enough money to fund persons who are facing these kinds of charges and cannot afford a lawyer.

There are also quite a number of lesser crimes in which the prosecutor may choose to proceed against the accused person by way of indictment or alternatively, proceed summarily and these crimes are called hybrid crimes. These kinds of crimes consist of; driving while impaired, driving while having consumed alcohol in such an amount that it exceeds eighty milligrams of alcohol in one-hundred millilitres of blood, refusing to blow in a breathalyzer machine, hit and run, dangerous driving, common assault, assaulting a police officer, minor sexual assault, committing an indecent act in public, threatening someone with death or serious injury or intimidating them, theft, possession of certain illegal drugs and other crimes.

If the prosecutor chooses to proceed against the accused summarily instead of by indictment, these crimes will be treated in the same way misdemeanors are treated in the United States and accused persons being proceeded against summarily may be represented by law students or ordinary lay persons.

In each province in Canada, there are many provincial offences such as driving while the driver’s licence is under suspension, fail to report an accident, fail to remain at the scene of an accident, careless driving, driving without insurance and a great many more offences such as breaching building codes, fishing or hunting without a licence, trespassing on private property, and more than a hundred other offences that are not criminal crimes but they are violations of provincial and municipal law. Some of the penalties in these kinds of offences range from imprisonment up to six months and fines up to $25,000 Canadian dollars.

The Legal Aid Plan in Ontario simply does not have enough money to pay lawyers to defend the many thousands of persons in Ontario who are charged with hybrid crimes in which the prosecutors are proceeding summarily or where the accused are charged with provincial or municipal offences. And for the most part, lawyers don’t really want these kinds of cases anyhow. There is no money in it for them because many of these offenders are given fines which range from $200 to $1000. It’s hardly justifiable to charge a client $1500 to defend him when the maximum fine his client would probably get is no more than $200 or up to one thousand dollars.

And it is here that the second option, that is, representation by professional lay persons, comes into play. This option is making great headway in the justice system in Ontario.

These professional lay persons are called, paralegals, court agents or lay counsel. They are for the most part, well educated and are self-taught in the area of law and recognized by the government, the judges, the prosecutors and other lawyers and the public in general, as being for the most part, well qualified to represent accused persons in court. A provincial government study in 1990 on the subject or paralegals representing people in court stated that paralegals do an admirable job when defending their clients in the various courts. Many of them are representing their clients two and three times a week in the criminal courts and other tribunals.

Paralegals also represent people in the small claims courts, landlord and tenant courts, family courts, bankruptcy courts, immigration hearings, and many other tribunals dealing with many legal issues. They are allowed to handle criminal appeals up to the level of a provincial (criminal) court.

There is no doubt in anyone’s mind that it would be better for everyone if paralegals were trained in law, so at present, there are several community colleges in Southern Ontario that have created two-year full-time paralegal programs and smaller schools are conducting one-year, full-time paralegal programs, for lay persons wishing to practice law in our criminal, traffic, civil, family and administrative courts.

The government of Ontario has not yet brought in the legislation that will govern paralegals because the schools and colleges need more time to prepare their paralegal students for the training required to represent their clients properly in the courts. NOTE: At the time I gave this speech16 years ago, the legislation hadn’t been created then. It currently exists and has for several years.

The judges are very pleased when they see persons being represented in their courts by paralegals. They know that such cases brought before them will be conducted in a more orderly fashion when conducted by paralegals than if accused persons choose to represent themselves. However, if a judge is not convinced that a paralegal representing a client in his or her court is qualified to act as an advocate, the judge can order the paralegal right off the case.

This concept of paralegals representing accused persons in the criminal courts as a viable option for accused persons charged with minor crimes and offences is fairly new in Canada although a few paralegals in Ontario have practiced law in the criminal courts of that province for almost a third of a century. The Law Society of Upper Canada that governs the licensing and conduct of the 30,000 lawyers in Ontario, at first resented the idea of 700 paralegals acting for clients in the criminal courts. They even charged a large Toronto paralegal firm with acting as lawyers because they were being paid for their services. The Law Society lost their case and they appealed twice and lost both appeals. Now they have grown to accept the role of paralegals (albeit grudgingly) in our judicial system as a viable option for unrepresented accused persons in need of legal assistance. NOTE: The Law Society in Ontario now governs paralegals and has for several years. Currently, even if the person representing another in the court is not a lawyer or a licenced paralegal, he or she can still represent that person in the criminal court since the Criminal Code is a federal law of which the Law Society has no jurisdiction to decide who can represent someone in a criminal court.

Many of the paralegals practicing law in the criminal courts are former police officers who took the same criminal law courses all the lawyers took in law school, or former parole or probation officers or corrections officers and even criminologists such as myself who have also taken the same criminal law courses the lawyers take.

Many lawyers, especially those who practice only family, civil or real estate law, do not feel qualified to represent their clients in the criminal courts and if their clients are charged with minor criminal offences, they will often send them to paralegals whom they know and trust, and who are, in their opinions, more qualified to represent their clients in such courts than they are. It is not uncommon for lawyers with little or no experience in traffic law, to hire a paralegal to represent them in traffic court.

At the present time, paralegals in Ontario are a regular feature in the criminal courts in that province and when they are finally regulated by legislation and the ones being trained have passed the required exams in order to be permitted to practice law, they will play an important role in our criminal justice system.

The role of paralegals in the criminal justice system works in Canada and it can work in other countries. I respectfully submit that other countries should seriously consider training their non-lawyer citizens to serve its people as lay advocates in their courts as affordable options for those accused persons charged with minor crimes and offences who cannot afford the services of a lawyer.

NATURAL LIFE IMPRISONMENT: The alternative to capital punishment

2011-12-16T03:12:00.000-08:00

In September 1980, the United Nations held a conference in Caracas called the Sixth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders. One of the topics was on capital punishment. Nine countries brought in a resolution in which they asked the nations attending the conference to suspend all executions for the next five years so that an alternative could be found to take its place. I am an abolitionist but I knew that if capital punishment was still on the books, the nations would work all the harder to find the alternative. In my speech, I recommended that capital punishment remain as it is and that the alternative should be natural life in prison. The nine countries withdrew their resolution and many countries began seriously thinking of natural life as a suitable alternative and subsequently they abolished capital punishment in their countries.

I was invited to speak at the Ninth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders held in Cairo, Egypt, May 6, 1995. Again we talked about the alternative to capital punishment. This was the speech I gave on the alternative to capital punishment.

One of the most difficult issues to deal with in criminal justice is whether or not the jailing of certain kinds of murderers for the rest of their natural lives will benefit society. The kinds of murderers I envision that would be suitable candidates for natural life imprisonment are; mass and serial killers, murderers who have murdered a second time, professional killers, torture killers, persons who kill witnesses, kidnappers, rapists and child molesters who kill their victims, assassins and terrorists. Jailing such a killer for a term of his or her natural life would serve three purposes.

First, you punish him. Call it vengeance, call it retribution or simply say that he's getting his just deserts. But by exacting such a punishment, it calms the collective anger of the citizens who might otherwise be tempted to hang him from the nearest tree if they could get to him before the police do, or the anger of the families who lost loved ones who would hunt down the murderer when he is eventually released from prison.

Second, it protects society from a killer who may very well continue to have the same propensity to kill again when he is eventually released from prison and who may subsequently leave a trail of bodies wherever he goes. The National Parole Board of Canada a number of years ago, released a study which pointed out that in the previous 12 years, nine men who were sent to prison for murder or manslaughter, killed again when they were released. The study also shows that 130 persons were killed by parolees. The figures showed that 90 were victims of murder and 40 were victims of manslaughter. From these statistics, it should be quite evident that society was not protected from these killers.

Third, it can act as a deterrence to others who would ordinarily gravitate to this kind of behaviour except for the fear of living out the rest of their lives in prison. Obviously, the threat of natural life in prison doesn't deter everyone but there has been evidence that it has deterred some. There are many who would rather see murderers who are convicted of first degree murder, spend the rest of their natural lives in prison so that other potential murderers would think twice before committing the ultimate crime. The question often raised is, what is the price of the life of an innocent victim? Is it right to imprison for natural life, a hundred convicted first-degree murderers so that the life of an innocent victim will be spared by a potential murderer who is deterred by the prospect of serving natural life in prison? There are thousands of members of families of murdered victims who will answer that question in the affirmative.

When I addressed this issue of revenge when dealing with these kinds of murderers both in my brief to the Canadian Parliament in 1973 and again in my address before the Sixth United Nations Congress on the Prevention of Crime and the Treatment of Offenders held in Caracas in 1980, it unleashed a torrent of anger towards me.

I was told in no uncertain terms that when a murderer is imprisoned for the rest of his natural life, and as such, he is denied any hope of ever being free, he, without that hope to sustain him, will become an animal. Those sob sisters are of the same kind who would bleat for mercy for the home grown terrorist who on April 19th, parked a car loaded with explosives next to the federal building in Oklahoma in which the resultant explosion killed hundreds. They would bleat because the concept of imprisoning such a terrorist is, in their opinion, inhumane.

There are thousands of murderers serving natural life imprisonment in the United States and they, for the most part are no better or worse than their fellow prisoners who will eventually be released.

There are exceptions of course, and two good examples of these exceptions are Yvon Martin and Christian Perreault who were both serving 25-year-minimum sentences in the Archambault Penitentiary, a maximum security prison in Quebec. These killers were animals when they entered the prison and they were monsters when they brutally murdered three prison guards in their hopeless escape attempt in 1982.

One is forced to wonder why some lifers act in such a violent fashion while others serve their sentences almost unnoticed. The question is relatively easy to answer.
Prisons are hotbeds of hatred and fear. It is hatred and fear that drive lifers to desperation, not to mention others who are destined to be released a couple of years after they are sentenced to prison. If you treat any human being harshly, he or she will react and often that reaction turns into violence.

Many of these killers are imprisoned because they cannot cope with the strain of living in a society that does not meet their needs or expectations. And yet it is indeed paradoxal that society places them into a cauldron which then ignites their anxiety and frustration even further.

A long-term prisoner's adaptation to prison life isn't helped by prison guards who urinate on his food, smash his TV set, and beat him under the slightest pretext, acts that were prevalent around the time of the Archambault escape attempt of 1982. The prospect of spending the rest of their lives in that kind of prison environment after killing three guards in the Archambault escape attempt was more than the two murderers were prepared to face, so they killed themselves before the guards could reach them.

In 1981, after being invited to sit on the electric chair in Florida while talking about the death penalty with an official of the Florida prison system, (I did it not because I was ghoulish but rather because I was curious) I interviewed a number of condemned prisoners on death row and later several who had their sentences commuted to natural life. Each of them told me that they would choose natural life in prison rather than die in the electric chair.

One prisoner whom I interviewed was serving his sentence of natural life in total solitary confinement and at the time of the interview, he had spent eight years in isolation. By that, I mean that he was locked in a soundproof cell and his only visitors for the most part, were his jailers who brought him his meals. He had had his death sentence commuted and then killed an inmate while serving that sentence. He was a dangerous man and admitted that it was better for everyone that he serve the rest of his life sentence in total isolation. And yet, this man became a self-taught artist and certainly hadn't lost his mind as a result of his imprisonment in total seclusion. This doesn't mean of course, that every prisoner could endure that kind of imprisonment. In fact, solitary confinement can have a disastrous effect on some prisoners.

The question of whether or not life imprisonment in solitary confinement is cruel and unusual punishment has been answered by the Ontario Court of Appeal in a decision released in September 1987. It rejected Canadian serial murderer Clifford Olsen's argument that spending 23 hours a day in solitary confinement was cruel and unusual punishment. The court ruled that the punishment would only violate the Charter if it was to offend the standards of decency and that no such case had been made out by Olsen. This decision was also reached because there wasn't an adequate alternative since placing him in with the general population of any prison would ultimately bring about his early death—which may very well have been welcome news to 99.9 percent of the population of Canada.

A prisoner in Canada spent 27 years in prison and the last three years in solitary confinement. While in solitary confinement, he fantasized killing people. When he was released, he stalked a woman and killed her. He is back in prison serving 25 more years.

On the other hand, James Folson, 86, who died in the Maine State Prison in October of 1987, after having served 51 years of his life in prison, had lived a tranquil life while incarcerated. He had been convicted of molesting and later murdering a seven-year-old girl in 1936 and after his arrest, he admitted having killed another girl the year before. His imprisonment of just over half a century didn't turn this child killer into a guard-killing monster.

There are prisoners who will become monsters if they are incarcerated for a couple of years and others who will remain tranquil if sentenced to 25 years imprisonment. It is almost impossible to determine who will be tranquil and who will turn into a monster. One mass murderer whom I interviewed told me that he could do life standing on his head. Four years later, he hanged himself in prison. Would this man have ever been ready for release back into society? I doubt it. A man who cared nothing about the four he killed, and nothing of his own life, would hardly care for the lives of others if he was set free.

William Palmer, a psychologist who worked with many lifers in the federal Warkwarth Institution in Ontario, said at the Second World Congress of Prison Health in August 1983, that lifers who have shown that they could be trusted, could be placed into medium security institutions within the walls of maximum security prisons. He then went on to say that after some years have passed, these prisoners could then be placed in a minimum security institution within the confines of a medium security prison.

What this means in essence is that perhaps for the first two years of his sentence, the natural lifer would spend it in a maximum security prison where the regimen is extremely harsh and strict. He is essence, would be softened up and made to accept the fact that if he misbehaves while in prison, it is in that kind of prison that he may very well spend the rest of his life.

If he has behaved himself during those two years, then he can be transferred to a medium security prison. There the regimen is somewhat more relaxed but at the same time, he will be constantly aware that he is expected to work hard and have a limited number of privileges.

If after serving twenty years in that kind of setting he has proved that he is a model prisoner, he can be transferred to a minimum prison for the rest of his life. There, everything is very relaxed, the staff, guards and inmates are on a first-name basis, every inmate (called a resident) has the key to his own room, does only light work and has so many amenities that except for the locked exterior doors, and the high fences surrounding him, his imprisonment would be no different than being confined to a rest home.

I realize that there are many law biding citizens as well as families of murder victims who will say that this is coddling murderers. Perhaps after many years of imprisonment for first degree murder, it is, but we have to ask ourselves what is it we wish to accomplish by this three-stage form of imprisonment. If we merely want to punish them, then we should keep them in a maximum security institution. But if we wish to show these lifers that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, we must put a light at the end of the tunnel. Believe me when I say that to a lifer, who after spending two years in a maximum security prison, and twenty more years in a medium security prison, the prospect of spending the rest of his natural life in a relaxed and amiable minimum security prison is indeed a light at the end of the tunnel.

It is my belief that life imprisonment under these conditions is not unduly harsh and society will be permanently protected from those persons who can’t seem to go through life without first killing another human being.

Atheism

2011-12-14T05:55:00.000-08:00

What is atheism? In a broad sense, it is the rejection of the belief in the existence of God. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no gods of any kind in existence anywhere in the universe or elsewhere.

According to estimates, rates of self-reported atheism are among the highest in Western nations, again to varying degrees: United States (4%), Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).

Legal and social discrimination against atheists in some places may lead some non-religious people to deny or conceal their atheism due to fears of persecution. A 2006 study by researchers at the University of Minnesota involving a poll of 2,000 households in the United States found atheists to be the most distrusted of minorities, more so than Muslims, recent immigrants, gays and lesbians, and other groups of people.

Many religious people don't like atheists and in fact they would rate them alongside rapists on levels of trust, suggests a new Canadian study that claims to be one of the first psychological probes into anti-atheist prejudice.

Researchers at the University of British Columbia and the University of Oregon conducted a series of studies that found a deep level of distrust toward those who don't believe in God, deeming them to be among the least-trusted people in the world despite their growing ranks to an estimated half billion globally.

The research began a few years ago when a series of polls revealed atheists to be some of the least-liked people in areas with religious majorities, which is to say, much of the world. In one poll, only 45% of American respondents said they would vote for a qualified atheist presidential candidate and overwhelmingly preferred to vote for African American, Jewish and female candidates. Americans also rated atheists as the group that least agrees with their vision for the country and the group they would most disapprove of their child marrying.

"It's pretty shocking we get the same magnitude of distrust towards atheists simply because they don't believe in God," said the researcher, who is himself an atheist. "With rapists, they're distrusted because they rape people. Atheists are viewed as sort of a moral wild card."

If an atheist doesn’t believe in the existence of God, does this mean that he is immoral? I hardly think so. Think about it. How many churchgoers have raped and murdered people? How many Catholic priests raped and otherwise sexually abused children? They believed in the existence of God.

Obviously, a belief in the existence of God is not proof that such believers are not immoral.

Another among the six studies conducted by the University of British Columbia found that people are more likely to hire someone for a job that requires high levels of trust, such as a daycare worker, if they believe they are religious. They would hire atheists for a low-trust job, such as a waitress, the study found.

A 1995 survey attributed to the Encyclopædia Britannica indicates that non-religious people are about 14.7% of the world's population, and atheists around 3.8%. Another survey attributed to Britannica shows the population of atheists at around 2.4% of the world's population. If the world’s population is 7 billion, then that means that at least several hundred million people are atheists. Are we to believe that it is unwise to trust that many people because they are atheists?

Several studies have found Sweden to be one of the most atheist countries in the world. 23% of Swedish citizens responded that "they believe there is a God", whereas 53% answered that "they believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and 23% stated that "they do not believe there is any sort of spirit, God, or life force". This, according to the survey, would make Swedes the third least religious people in the 27-member European Union, after Estonia and the Czech Republic.

Since ancient times, Human beings have delved into the problem of deciding for themselves whether or not a superior being exists. Atheism answers in the negative, the different religions answer in the affirmative. Which is truly the right answer?
There are two good reasons why atheists don’t believe in the existence of God. They are:

1. If God exists, then why is it that millions of people pray to God to save them and yet despite their belief in the existence of God, they die anyway?

2. Scientists believe that the universe began approximately 14 billion years ago. Religious people believe that God created the universe and that God has existed long before that. If that is so, then why didn’t he create the universe a hundred billion years ago? Was there ever a time when something had to appear which never before existed, or something has always existed but was never seen? If something has always existed, what was that? Was it life or was it matter?

In this modern age, millions upon millions of people are asking themselves, is there any proof that God really exists or is the belief in the existence of God just a fairy tale dreamed up by humanity to make us feel better about the brutality of human existence?

Atheists will argue that there's no reliable evidence of the existence of God/Yahweh, Allah, Zeus, Thor, or any of the thousands of other gods that people have worshiped. If any of the major gods existed, there would be reliable evidence. Since no such actual evidence exists, then according to atheists, these gods do not exist. They will argue that there's also extensive evidence that they are all just myths, created to help soothe our fear of death, and perpetuated through religion to subjugate the underclass into obedience.

Those who believe that God exists will argue that if God has revealed himself in nature, then in nature there must be some trace of God. Before I go further into that aspect of the belief in God, ask yourself this question: “Why is God spoken of as if he is a male? We always see references to God as Him, Himself, and He. Could God then be a female? Could God be an entity that is non-sexual?

Now no one with any semblance of brains believes that our Earth is the only place in the entire universe in which life in any form exists. There are trillions of stars in the universe so it follows that there also as many planets. Admittedly, not all of them are similar to our own but surely, our planet isn’t the only one that sustains life? That being the case, does it not follow that God (if he or she or it exists) didn’t necessarily create the first human beings (Adam) in the universe. But according to the Old Testament, Adam was the first human being to be created by God.

If that isn’t so, then surely that story is as myth.

Life, as we know it, brings forth life. Man, an intelligent being, with his scientific knowledge, and under the best of laboratory conditions, has tried, but has been unable, as yet, to produce life from non-life. Is it thinkable, then, that, somewhere along the way, non-intelligent matter, by itself, and without any help from any intellect, once brought forth life from non-life? Is this a plausible explanation for the beginning of life? This spontaneous generation of life coming from non-life would be by far a greater miracle than any we have ever heard of. But that isn’t proof that this only came about because of the existence of God.

What about the process of evolution? Again, we are back to the same question, namely, what was the beginning of such a process and what caused the process to start? There just had to be a beginning and if so, with what did our world begin? Where did that, from which everything else evolved, come from in the first place? If you believe in the big bang theory, then that is where the universe began.

If you asked every single person in the world who believes in God to tell you who or what God actually is, you would probably get a different answer from nearly everyone. That is because no one can honestly say that he or she has seen God. Now just because no one has ever seen him, her or it, doesn’t necessarily mean that God doesn’t exist. I for one haven’t seen Australia but I believe that it exists nevertheless.

There is nothing in the world that can prove whether God exists or not. Science can't prove the existence of God. Philosophers can't prove the existence of God. Priests, monks, or spiritual teachers can't prove the existence of God. No human being can honestly claim that they have personally seen God. Further, a thought or belief about God does not and cannot prove that God is real.

I'm personally not into ‘beliefs’. In fact, I try to give up as many beliefs as I can. They're all just made up anyway. When we believe a thought, it immediately becomes real in our experience. As soon as we let go of that belief, our reality changes and we no longer experience that belief in the same way that we previously did. We no longer see the world through the filter of that belief.

Religious scholars will say that there is evidence in history to support their beliefs in the existence of God. They will argue that God’s deliverance of His people, the miracles on Passover night and the parting of the waters in the Red Sea, the virgin birth of Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection from the dead are proof that God really exists. But suppose these so-called miracles were merely myths passed down century after century. If that is the case, then God must surely be a myth also.

When certain empirical evidences are put forth as likely disproving the existence of God, the theist regiments his commitments in terms of his presuppositions, as well. Just as the naturalist would insist that Jesus could not have risen from the dead, or that there is a natural explanation yet to be found of how he did rise from the dead, so the supernaturalist will insist that the alleged discrepancies in the Bible have an explanation—some yet to be found, perhaps and that the evil of this world has a sufficient reason behind it, known at least to God.

Atheists do not say that they can prove there is no God. Also, an atheist is not someone who denies there is a God. Rather, an atheist says that he has examined the proofs that are offered by the theists, and finds them inadequate proof that there is a God.

Religious believers in the existence of God believe that God is a supreme personal being, distinct from the world and creator of the world and the universe.

Theists will argue that life cannot originate from the random movement of atoms, and yet life exists. Therefore the existence of a God was necessary to create life. If we believe that we all originated from primeval ooze, then it is conceivable that life originated by the movement of those atoms mingling with one another.

Theists will argue that the Bible says that God exists, and the Bible is the inspired word of God, therefore what it says must be true therefore God exists. We must not forget that it was human beings that wrote the Bible and being human, they could have been wrong. We can't really use the Bible as evidence as proof of the existence of God, per se.

Theists will argue that the existence of miracles requires the presence of a supernatural force or a God. Because miracles do occur, therefore there must be a supernatural force or God. What appears as being miraculous often has an explanation that shows that it was simply an act of nature. A believer in the existence of God can use miracles as an additional argument, but in and of itself it
doesn't show the existence of a God, because it assumes that which needs to be proven.

Thomas Paine said this about miracles: "When you see an account that is given about such a miracle, by a person who says he saw it, it raises a question in the mind that is very easily decided. Is it more probable that nature should go out of her course, or that a man could tell a lie? We have never seen in our time nature goes out of her course, but we have good reason to believe that millions of lies have been told in this same time. It is therefore at least millions to one that the reporter of a miracle tells a lie."

Theists will argue that God is, by definition, perfect. A necessary quality of any perfect object is that it exists. If God did not exist, it would not be perfect. If perfection requires existence, then God exists. There is a problem with the word exists. In order for something to be perfect, it must first exist. If something didn't exist, the word perfect wouldn't mean anything. First you must have existence, then possibly you may have perfection. So, this again is going backwards; you must first have an existing God, and then you can decide whether God is perfect, if perfection is a quality of God, then God may be perfect but God doesn’t exist then his perfection is academic.

Theists will argue that without the existence of a God, people wouldn't have any reason to live or be good, therefore there has to be a God. Most people believe in a God, therefore there is a God. This really isn't a proof; it is just a wish. It's like saying that it would be nice to have a God (which it would), but that doesn't have anything to do with whether there is one or not.

Theists will argue that the existence of God cannot be proven by the use of reason, but only by the use of faith. The use of faith shows that there is a God, therefore God exists. Reason is a proven way to obtain factual information about the universe. Faith has not been shown to produce true information about the universe because faith is believing something is so because you want it to be so, without adequate evidence. Therefore, faith cannot be used to prove the existence of anything. Faith is what people use when evidence of something is lacking.

Many people have claimed to have a personal experience or encounter with God, therefore God must exist. I've never had such an experience, but I'm sure that people have absolutely honestly thought they've had such experiences. But, the feeling of having met God cannot be confused with the fact of having met God. There is a semantic confusion; and also, we cannot use our own feelings as if they were valid ways to obtain information about the world. They are feelings that we have inside of us, but we cannot demonstrate them to another person. They cannot be used as evidence. If everyone had that same experience; such as us all looking around the room and we all agreed that there is a clock over there, then we might say that the vision of a clock is a consensual one, if everyone agreed on it. Other than that, if you saw a clock and no one else did, then you will have a problem convincing the others that there is a clock in the room.

As you may have fathomed by now, I am an atheist. I remember when I was deeply religious and met a young atheist and heard him spout off his belief that God didn’t exist. I thought he was crazy. But as the years moved on, I began having doubts myself and finally, I eventually realized that I had become an atheist.

Now I know what you are thinking. If God really exists, then I am going to have a problem when I have to answer to him after I pass on. Well, as desperate as I will be, one word that will inevitably come to my mind at that great meeting will be the word, forgiveness. If God exists and he is really as merciful as church people claim he is, he won’t gag on that word when he hears it coming from my mouth.

I would be remiss if I didn’t state that I have read the Bible quite extensively and I found the teachings of Jesus to be extremely useful. If people who accept Jesus as their savior would adhere to his teachings, the world would be a better place to be in. This also goes for other religious leaders in history who preached goodness and justice to all. Even though I am an atheist, I still try to follow the footsteps of Jesus and the other great religious leaders of the past.

Burials in cemeteries

2011-12-12T03:38:00.000-08:00

When I was in my 60s, I decided to look for a cemetery in which my body would be spending the rest of eternity in. I know what you are thinking. If I am dead, why should I care? But I did and do care as do millions of others who are my age—78 and older. Obviously I don’t want my body in a landfill nor do I want it in a cemetery that is overrun by weeds and wild animals.

One thing you can be sure about when you are interred in a cemetery in the province of Ontario—the cemetery is looked after and will be until the end of time because in that province, that is the law. The grass is cut regularly, the weeds are pulled and the leaves in the fall are raked up. The cemetery is akin to a public park and it is not unusual to see joggers jogging along the pathways or just people enjoying a nice walk in the cemetery.

I chose a cemetery in the center of Toronto and was fortunate enough to find two plots (one for me and the other for my wife) that are in a location in the cemetery where you can’t see any signs of buildings or houses and in which all you see is rolling hills, grass, flowers and trees. And for the most part, all you can hear is the wind blowing through the trees. It’s like being in the country. The plots I chose are right next to a beautiful Maple tree and about a hundred steps from a gazebo in which people can go if it suddenly begins to rain.

Further, I chose a funeral home that is only a five minute drive from the cemetery. My son-in-law died on December 5th and his funeral was on the 9th. We had to drive 27 kilometres (17 miles) along two very busy streets from the funeral home to the cemetery. I don’t blame my daughter for choosing that particular funeral home as it was a very beautiful funeral home and she got a good deal with respect to costs. She chose the cemetery because it is just a short walking distance from her home.

There are five ways of memorization. They are:

In-Ground Burial
Above-ground Burial: Community Mausoleum
Above-ground Burial: Private Mausoleum
Above-ground Burial: Lawn Crypt
Cremation

In-Ground Burial

Ground burial is the most popular form of traditional burials. Caskets or urns are placed inside an outer burial container (vault made of concrete), which is then placed in the ground for an earth burial. With in-ground burial you have the option of either placing an upright monument (headstone) or placing a lawn level (flush) granite memorial to memorialize and celebrate a life lived. Our duo plot has an upright monument that is made from dark grey granite.

Some cemeteries don’t permit headstones in their cemeteries and in their place they have lawn level granite or brass plate in its place. Many also have wreaths attached to posts.

Nowadays, most caskets are now placed in a gold-coloured concrete vault so that when the lid to the vault is placed over it and the seal is waterproof, the casket will always remain the way it was when it was purchased. Prior to the vaults being placed in the grave, dirt was shoveled over the casket and as the years passed by, the weight of the earth along with constant rain and snow falling on the surface of the grave, would cause the casket to collapse and the surface of the grave would sink and form a depression.

It is also the custom nowadays not to begin placing the dirt over the vault until the mourners have left as it is too distressing a sight to see.

The average cost of an in-ground burial plot ranges from $750 to $3,000, according to the Funeral Help Program, a funeral-industry watchdog.

Above-ground Burial: Community Mausoleums

Ever since the time of the Pharaohs, above ground interment in tombs and mausoleums has been the burial method of choice for those who preferred something other than earth burial. The name mausoleum comes from a grand tomb built for King Mausolus by his wife (and incidentally also his sister) Artemisia, around 353 B.C.

It wasn’t until the 1870’s that there was much interest in United Sates and Canada in community mausoleums. The rural cemeteries that had sprung up outside most cities were rapidly becoming sculptural and architectural wonderlands, filled with elegant private mausoleums and artistic statuary. The time was ripe to offer above ground burial to the masses. Cemetery promoters touted above ground burial as aesthetically pleasing and much easier on the grieving family than having shovelfuls of dirt tossed on their loved ones’ remains.

Unfortunately, some of the first community mausoleums suffered from shoddy construction and much of the profit realized by the cemetery from the sale of the crypts was soon eaten up by maintenance costs. Nevertheless, cemeteries continued to construct community mausoleums, but with improved construction techniques that lowered maintenance costs. The introduction of the outdoor garden crypt in the 1920’s lowered costs even more—indoor crypts, frequently in a building that also housed a chapel, had to be heated, adding substantial cost in cold climates.

Ironically, the end of the Golden Age of the private mausoleum in the 1920’s spurred community mausoleum sales even more. Those who could not afford a private mausoleum due to hard economic times (the advent of the income tax and the Great Depression), turned to the community mausoleum as a second choice for the above ground burial they preferred. Cemeteries that never before offered above-ground burials are getting in on the tomb building boom.

Mausoleum space can cost anywhere from $1,000 {for a single crypt) to $316,000 {for an eight-body crypt), with extra costs if the crypts are at ‘eye or heart’ level.
On average, single crypts cost $2,500 to $5,000; "true companion" crypts (for two bodies) run $5,000 to $8,300.

Above-ground Burial: Private Mausoleums

It is only just recently that private family mausoleums have become an affordable and viable option for more and more families. Yearly sales have increased considerably during the past 20 years and are expected to increase even more in the near future.

A family mausoleum provides superior above-ground entombment in a private structure avoiding in-ground burial. Loved ones are in clean, dry crypts, protected from moisture and the elements of the earth. Of course, that kind of protection is applicable in below ground burials where the casket is placed in a concrete vault and also is placed in an above ground community mausoleum.

The everlasting testimonial of a family mausoleum is an especially meaningful illustration of the prestige of a family and visually exemplifies the impact they made on the world. What this means is that in many cases, famous people are often placed in such mausoleums. Of course, so are very rich people who have passed on. I am neither famous nor rich but I would like to be entombed in a structure not unlike the Lincoln Memorial but alas, I have to settle for a concrete vault lowered with my casket inside it into the ground.

There certainly are advantages to having a family mausoleum. A family mausoleum provides a single, final resting place for all members of an immediate family even as life pulls them in different directions. Uniting family members in a space-efficient manner eases the path for other generations to connect with their heritage.

They would cost anywhere from $25,000 to $75,000 for a mausoleum that would hold four caskets. Of course, you would have to find a cemetery that would be willing to let you have such a mausoleum built in the cemetery.

Above-ground Burial: Lawn Crypt

A lawn crypt is really an interment space in the cemetery which contains a pre-constructed and pre-buried vault capable of holding a casket. Many cemeteries have them in different areas of the cemeteries. The deceased are buried above ground in these crypts. There may be ten or more of the individual crypts side by side at any one location.

Cremation

With the exception of periods of plague and the battlefield, Christianity had halted for 2,000 years the common disposition of bodies on top of blazing wooden funeral pyres which left nothing but coals—a process as old as the early Stone Age. It was a symbolic way of honouring the dead and also a reassuring way of being certain that embodied spirits would not come back to haunt the living. While ‘inhumation,’ corpse embalming, and coffin and mausoleum burial remain the overwhelming funeral preference, in relatively modern times interest in cremation has been rekindled. (Unquestionably, the Nazi’s use of cremation ovens cast a temporary but heavy pall over this resurgent interest.) The Brunetti cremation chamber, which made use of an even heat that kept flames away from the body, was first shown at the 1873 Vienna Exposition. Almost immediately cremation societies developed in the United States and Europe. By 1875 - 1676, the first crematories were established in England, Germany, and the US (in Pennsylvania).

Presently, the body is first placed in either a cardboard or a wooden casket, either of which was made specifically for cremation. An alternative is a cardboard box which fits into a ‘rental’ traditional-looking casket, removed just before cremation. The ‘retort,’ the chamber within the cremation oven, is lined with heat-retaining bricks. The propane or natural gas burns at between 1,400° F to 2,100º F. After 2 hours all that remains are ashes and scorched bone. One pound of live weight yields one cubic inch of ash; for example, a 175-pound person would fill an urn 11 inches high and about 8 inches in circumference or a shoebox. Everything is swept into a grinder leaving the final ash and tiny bone fragments (collectively called, cremins—although many reject the term as being rather gross) representing about 5% of the original body weight. The chemistry of the ashes includes mostly phosphate, calcium, sulfate, potassium - along with chloride, carbonate, and oxide compounds.

In 1913 in the US 52 crematories assisted in over 10,000 cremations; in 2003, hundreds more crematories facilitated 693,742 cremations - 28.63% of the total deaths. By 2010, it is projected the number of Americans choosing cremation will rise to 35.07%, and by 2030, 50%. In Canada, it was close to 50% in 2000. In 2002, there were 5,135 cremations in Louisiana, 12.13% of all the deaths; Alabama was the lowest, 4.44%, Nevada, the highest, 60.69%.

Once the ashes are collected in the urn, there are various options.

1. Delivered to the cemetery—40.7%. Of these, 25.6% (51,308) had urns and their contents placed in the cemetery’s columbarium (dove cote—a wall with niches); the rest were either buried or scattered in a designated area of the cemetery.
2. Taken home—35.8% for the mantle or closet.
3. Scattered—17.8%. Of those, 27% was scattered on land and 72.7% on water. My mother and stepfather who lived in Hawaii had their ashes scattered in the ocean right next to their home.
4. Not picked up—5.7%. The crematorium is legally responsible to store them but not place anything but a number on the urn so that it can be identified later if necessary.

Monuments (gravestones)

One of the most enjoyable afternoons I ever experienced was when I was walking in the main cemetery in Genoa, Italy in 1985. There was a huge one-story structure that had four long hallways in which the deceased’s caskets were placed into the walls. But what got my undivided attention was the statuary. Each of the areas where the caskets were placed, were statutes carved out of marble. Two of them really got my attention. The first one was of an older man who had a grandchild in his arms and three other grandchildren were at his feet. The second one was of a man who was standing at the wheel of the kind you would find in old sailing vessels. I was later told that the faces of all the statues were the faces of those who had passed away.

Many people who died insisted that certain phrases be inscribed onto their monuments. Some of them are extremely funny. According to a blurb in a 2006 Reader Digest: Humorist Spike Milligan, an early partner of actor Peter Sellers, made sure that he had the last word on his grave. His epitaph read, “I told you I was Ill”

Here lies Johnny Yeast, Pardon me for not rising!! Ruidoso, New Mexico
This is what I expected but not so soon. Reese, 1872 – aged 21 New England
I am ready to meet my Maker, whether my Maker is prepared for the great ordeal of meeting me is another matter. Winston Churchill

Tombstone epitaphs are a reflection of one's existence highlighting their personality traits or accomplishments in life. In some cases they may also tell the story of the circumstances that brought them to their death. Even though tombstone epitaphs have varied over time one thing remains a constant. That is that epitaphs are a meaningful way to give respect to the deceased.

Tombstone epitaphs take on many forms and are derived from many sources. One of the most popular forms are taken from biblical scripture. Bereaved family members often choose a biblical verse as an epitaph as it may exhibit some virtuous quality that was a characteristic of the decedent's life.

Some choose to write a tombstone epitaph detailing the accomplishments of the decedent's life. Maybe the person was a great doctor who selflessly gave his time tending to the sick, or one who was known for their philanthropy or community service.

My tombstone does list some of my accomplishments but I have done something with my tombstone that no one else that I know of has done. Having studied cryptography (secret codes) I have inscribed on my monument my own motto using a secret code I created for the occasion. No one will ever crack it unless they are connected to a super computer.

Serial killers should never ever be released from prison

2011-12-09T03:50:00.000-08:00

I don’t know just how long serial killers have been with us but I’m sure that they have been around for a very long time. Many who were caught were executed so that they would never kill again. But in countries like Canada and in some of the states in the US who have also abolished the death penalty, these murderers are as a rule, imprisoned for life.

Dubbed ‘The Wicklow Mountains Sex Beast’, Larry Murphy, suspected of killing, New Yorker, Annie McCarrick among other missing women in Ireland, walked free from Arbour Hill prison, Ireland, at the beginning of August 2010.

The suspected dangerous sexual predator and murderer was shockingly allowed to refuse any treatment while in prison. When he was released, the Irish public were not told where he would be living in Ireland.

Murphy was jailed in 2001 for the kidnapping and repeated rape of a woman from County Carlow. He was also the suspect in several missing person’s cases in Ireland including that of New Yorker, Annie McCarrick.

McCarrick, from Long Island, New York disappeared in 1993 in Wicklow. Her body was never found. Her family spent a great deal of time in Ireland trying to piece together what happened to her but no information could be found. She was last seen leaving a bar alone.

Murphy is still a prime suspect in the disappearance of McCarrick. He has been questioned on various cases to do with missing women in Ireland but refuses to cooperate with the police.

When Murphy was released he was placed on the sex offenders’ register in Ireland.
"Murphy had been in custody for 10 years but had not been subject to any rehabilitation programme. There's hardly a more dangerous prisoner in the system,” a court officer told the Evening Herald. "We are now looking at a situation where one of the most dangerous men in the country will be back on the streets in weeks, with no treatment. It's deeply worrying.”

Murphy was to serve a 15-year sentence having been found guilty of the kidnapping and rape of the woman from Carlow. However, having been a model prisoner his sentence had been reduced.

While in prision, Murphy had been questioned over the disappearances of Annie McCarrick and two Irish women who are also missing Jo Jo Dullard and Deirdre Jacob. He was also a suspect in a total of six missing person’s cases in Leinster from the 1990s.

Earlier this year police found a plot, which seemed to be a gravesite at Humewood Castle in County Wicklow – just two miles away from Murphy’s final residence in Boley. One of the locals who happened upon the grave said “"It was dug out like a grave. It was six feet long, two and a half feet wide and three feet deep."It looked like it was dug a number of years ago, there was moss growing in it. It is in a pretty open area and can be seen from the road.”

The question that has to be answered is; should he have been released from the prison. Unfortunately the answer is yes. Since he had not been convicted of any of the murders he was suspected of having committed, the prison authorities had no other choice but to release him.

Coral Eugene Watts may be the most prolific serial killer in U.S. history. He's already admitted to killing more than a dozen women, but authorities believe the actual number may be closer to 100.

Watts was scheduled to be released from prison by 2011, after serving just 24 years of a 60-year sentence. How can that be?

It turns out Texas authorities made a deal with the devil back in 1982. They agreed to a plea bargain they thought would keep Watts behind bars for the rest of his life. But, as correspondent Steve Kroft (60 minutes) reports, the deal has come back to haunt them and Watts may become the first serial killer ever to be set free.

For the past 22 years, Watts had been locked up in the Texas prison system---all but forgotten. "What's amazing to me is everybody in America has heard of Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, and Jeffrey Dahmer. But when you mention the name of Coral Eugene Watts, 99.99 percent of the public have no clue who you're talking about.

As director of the Crime Victims Office for the Mayor of Houston, he tried to find some way to keep Watts from being released. "I guarantee you, if he is released, women are gonna turn up murdered," says Kahan. "There's no ifs, ands, or buts. This was a man that by his own admission stated that 'I'm gonna kill again if they ever release me.' You do not rehabilitate a serial killer."

Watts has been in trouble since he was 15, when he attacked a woman on his paper route. He's been in and out of psychiatric hospitals, and in college, he was the number 1 suspect after a young woman was stabbed 33 times. Police, however, had no evidence linking Watts to the murder. He was also a suspect in a series of slayings in the Detroit area, but once again there was not enough evidence to arrest him.

Watts' ability to elude authorities followed him to Ann Arbor, Michigan. It was in 1980, when three young women were brutally murdered by someone the police and newspapers dubbed the ‘Sunday Morning Slasher.’

Paul Bunten, now the police chief in Saline, Michigan was the lead investigator in the case and says Watts quickly became the prime suspect. "He knew that I suspected him of three homicides, even to the point where I demonstrated," says Bunten. "I said, 'Coral, I know exactly how you did it. And I stood up and I put my arm around his neck. And I said, 'You did it just like this.'"

By then, Bunten had put Watts under 24-hour police surveillance. When Watts decided to skip town, Bunten tracked him to Houston and sent police there an urgent warning.

"We put this very large packet of information including fingerprints, photographs, photographs of his car, highlights of our reports," says Bunten. "And I called Houston homicide and talked with the detective down there, and told him, 'I'm mailing this down. This is guy is a predator. You need to watch him.'"

When Watts showed up in Houston in 1981, it was the perfect hunting ground for a serial killer. Houston was the murder capital of the United States that year, with more than 700 homicides. Police were underpaid, understaffed and overwhelmed. So when Watts began killing young women in Texas, no one suspected that it might be the work of one man.

Watts would later confess to stalking and killing 12 Texas women. The first victim, Linda Tilley, was drowned. Elizabeth Montgomery was stabbed, and two hours later, so was Susan Wolf. Ellen Tamm was hanged, Margaret Fossi was asphyxiated, Elena Semander was strangled and left in a trash dumpster. Emily LaQua was just 14. Anna Ledet was a medical student. And Yolanda Gracia, Carrie Jefferson and Suzanne Searles were all killed as they returned home.

Watts killed at random. There were no patterns, no motives, no eyewitnesses, and no evidence. "If we had the goods on Coral Eugene Watts, we wouldn't be talking today. That's how good this guy was," says Kahan.

But Watts' luck ran out on May 23, 1982. He spotted a woman leaving a Houston nightclub and followed her home. Michelle Maday was killed on her 20th birthday, and her body was dumped into a bathtub. Then, Watts moved on to another apartment complex, where he would confront his last two victims.

"He came in and grabbed me and started choking me. And he told me if I screamed, he would kill me," says Melinda Aguilar, who had just turned 19. Watts tied up Aguilar, and her roommate, and began filling the bathtub with water. "He was excited and hyper and clappin' and just making noises like he was excited, that this was gonna be fun," recalls Aguilar, who had no doubt that Watts was going to kill her. "He clapped and jumped at one time, and that's when I knew that I had to do something."

As Watts tried to drown her roommate in the bathtub, Aguilar managed to escape, throwing herself off the second floor balcony. Neighbors called police, the roommate was saved, and Watts, then a 28-year-old bus mechanic, was arrested as he tried to flee.

But on the day Watts was set to go to trial, a deal was struck with the Houston district attorney. In exchange for a guilty plea to "burglary with the intent to commit murder" and a 60-year prison sentence, Watts offered to confess to 12 unsolved homicides if he was given immunity for them. In the eyes of the district attorney, it was a good deal. It got a mass murderer off the streets for a long time and resolved a dozen open cases.

Det. Tom Ladd, who was brought in to take Watts' confession, says there is no evidence linking him to the crimes he confessed to. Despite that, it took Watts more than a week to describe how he had stalked and killed each of his victims and he led investigators to three shallow graves.

What was he like? "He was very congenial. He didn't act like a killer until you started listening to what he's telling you or following his directions to his crime scenes," says Ladd. "He had an excellent memory. He was very, very intelligent. He never got the facts of one murder mixed up with the facts of another murder. He never missed."

So why did he do it? "We'd ask him. We said, 'Well, why'd you kill this girl or that girl?' And he goes, 'They have evil in their eyes,'" says Ladd, even though almost all of his victims were picked out at night. "We said 'Coral, you couldn't see her eyes.' And he said 'Yeah. She's got evil in her eyes.'"

How did he operate? "He'd get in that car of his, and he'd drive around," says Ladd. "Sometimes, he'd drive all night long. And then he'd see a female, and whatever it was about that female, which we still to this day don't know, why he picked one girl, and passed up 20 others."

Once he picked his victim, Watts killed quickly. None of the victims were sexually assaulted. Most were killed just steps from their front doors. "One girl, he just walked up and she turned and he stabbed her one time in the heart and turned around and ran away," says Ladd. "Probably didn't spend 15 seconds there even at the scene, and then an hour and a half later, he killed another one."

At one point, Watts said he was willing to confess to 22 murders in Michigan, and a call went out to detectives like Bunten in Ann Arbor. "The next day, we sat down with our prosecuting attorney and we all agreed that you don't give immunity to somebody who's committed murder. There's just no way you can do that," says Bunten.

Even to clear up cases? "Just because we couldn't prove it doesn't mean we don't know who did it," says Bunten.

Did he ever give any indication as to why he had committed these murders? "He says, 'I'll take that to my grave with me,'" says Bunten. "He's driven to do this. What drives him, I have no idea." But Bunten said he did manage to have one last conversation with Watts in a Texas penitentiary: "I said, 'Coral, I haven't got enough fingers and toes to count the number of people you've killed, have I? And he looked around the room and said, 'There's not enough fingers and toes in this room.'"

There were four people in the room, which would mean 80 victims. Does Bunten believe he is capable of killing that many people? "Don't know. I asked him if he confessed to everything down in Texas, and he said, 'No,'" says Bunten. "I said, 'Why didn't you?' He made the statement to me that he doesn't want to go down in history as a mass murderer. And I said, 'You know what? That ship sailed.'"

At the time, it seemed a moot point, because everyone assumed Watts would die in prison an old man. But a series of court rulings changed that. As a first-time offender, Watts was granted time off for good behavior – three days off his sentence for every day served. So instead of serving a 60-year sentence, under Texas law, Watts would automatically be released after just 24 years.

"He'll have served less than two years for every Houston homicide victim that he murdered. That's incredible. It's never happened before in this country's history," says Kahan. Because Watts had been given immunity back in 1982, there was nothing Texas could do to keep Watts in prison. But Michigan was another story.

As soon as authorities in Michigan found out that Watts might be released, they created a special task force, headed by Lt. Bill Hanger, to begin digging through every unsolved homicide that Watts might possibly be linked to. Hanger says there are "roughly 90 cases we still consider him a suspect on."

They've got a suspect, but now they're trying to find the crime. Usually it works the other way around. "He said that he would confess to 22 or so Michigan cases if he was granted immunity," says Hanger. "So I know there's at least 22 out there."

Assistant Attorney General Donna Pendergast says appeals were made to the public for information – and it took less than 24 hours to get the first lead.

"It's really miraculous, but out of all the hundreds of cases that the task force was looking at, a witness from one of them said 'Hey I know something' and he came forward," says Pendergast. "I got a note on my desk, 'Saw one of Coral Watts' murders.' And my first reaction, of course, was 'Sure, you did.'"

The eyewitness, Joseph Foy, was the same person who called police in 1979 to report the stabbing death of 35-year-old Helen Dutcher in an alley of a Detroit suburb. According to the police reports, it was dark. Foy didn't describe seeing the actual murder, and only saw the killers' face for a brief moment.

"They're looking for anything, any murder, any witness, any anything that they can pin on him," says Ron Kaplovitz, the court-appointed attorney for Watts.

He says his client may be a confessed serial killer, but he says there is not much physical evidence that he killed Dutcher: "It's hard to believe that a person who could see a person in an alley for a few minutes, a dark alley, 25 years ago, could come into a courtroom, point to that person and say 'That's the guy I saw in the alley 25 years ago.'"

But after two years of investigating, this is the best case the State of Michigan has been able to come up with. Prosecutors may be counting on Watts to convict himself with his own words.

The judge in the case has just ruled that the jury can be told about the murders Watts confessed to in Texas, and the jury will also be allowed to hear from his last victim, Melinda Aguilar.

Is she worried about him getting out? "Absolutely. He has admitted to killing again if he was to get out. And I believe he will," says Aguilar. "I can still remember when I had to identify him just the way he looked at me was one of those looks like 'You just wait when I get out.' All I remember is his evil eyes."

Coral Watts was scheduled to go to trial for the murder in Michigan the first week in November, but the special task force was still looking for other homicides to charge him with, in the event that Watts was acquitted in this case.

Watts' trial for the Steele murder began in Kalamazoo, Michigan on July 25, 2007; closing arguments concluded July 26. The following day the jury returned a guilty verdict. Watts was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole on September 13th. He was incarcerated at a maximum security prison in Ionia, Michigan. He died of prostate cancer on September 21st in a Jackson, Michigan hospital.

Watts had claimed that he had killed 40 women, and has also implied that there were more than 80 victims in total. He would not confess outright to having committed these murders, however, because he did not want to be seen as a "mass murderer". Police still consider Watts a suspect in 90 unsolved murders.

Imagine if you will what he would have done had he not been sent to Michigan for trial. Texas blundered terribly by making a deal with his serial killer that made it possible for him to be released after serving only 24 years in prison.

Usually when serial killers are caught, they are locked up for good and the public can take comfort they will never kill again. However, this didn’t apply to \ Michael Wayne McGray.

In November 2011, he was sentenced to his seventh life term for first-degree murder, a strangulation as coldblooded as the previous six killings with one difference: This time he committed a murder while imprisoned in his cell for his other crimes.

Appearing by video from the prison in Quebec where he is now being held, McGray refused legal representation and told the British Columbia Supreme Court he wanted to plead guilty to the November 21, 2010, killing of Jeremy Phillips who was a fellow prisoner.

Phillips, 33, was nearing the end of a six-year, nine-month sentence for aggravated assault when he was found lifeless in the cell he shared with McGray at the medium-security Mountain Institution in Agassiz, B.C. He had been strangled with a ligature made from a cut bed sheet and beaten in the nose and cheek. Immediately after the body was discovered, McGray, 46, admitted to the killing, and he has said from the beginning he intended to plead guilty.

The real question surrounding the death is how a man who has said his need to kill is like a hunger ended up with a cellmate in a medium-security prison. First of all, he should never have been placed in a medium security prison in the first place.
Inmates have told the National Post that McGray's arrival at the Mountain Institution a year ago was met with dread. His reputation as a killer was legendary.

After being arrested for the 1998 Moncton, N.B., murders of Joan Hicks and her 11-year-old daughter Nina, McGray gradually confessed to other murders. He had stabbed Robert Assaly and Gaetan Ethier in Montreal in 1991 while on a threeday pass from prison. In 1987, he had killed Mark Gibbons, his accomplice in a Saint John, N.B., robbery. In 1985, he had murdered Elizabeth Gale Tucker, a 17-year-old hitchhiker, in southwestern Nova Scotia, near his hometown of Argyle.

Speaking to reporters while awaiting trial, he eventually pleaded guilty to all six murders. He actually bragged that those were only a fraction of his crimes. He claimed his killings totaled 16, stretching from Seattle to the Maritimes as he drifted across the continent in the 1980s and '90s.

He told the National Post in 2000 serial killers had fascinated him since he was young and attributed his urge to kill to beatings he suffered as a child. I find that hardly a sufficient reason to kill people. Many youngsters were beaten as children and they didn’t become killers when they were adults.

This particular killer said, "It's something that builds up, and gets stronger and stronger and stronger over the months. It starts out like an urge, but then it's so strong in the end that it's almost like a hunger. It's something I need. When I kill it's a big high for me." unquote

McGray warned he would kill again if he did not receive proper treatment. He said, "Just because I'm locked up in segregation doesn't mean I can't kill somebody. I have a chance every day." This raises an interesting question, “Why should he be in a position to be able to murder someone while he is in his cell? I will get to that shortly.

His words did not prevent his transfer from the maximum-security Kent Institution to the neighbouring medium security Mountain Institution last November. That decision to make that transfer was unquestionably one of the stupidest decisions made by prison officials.

An inmate at Kent told the National Post even the most hardened criminals were wary of McGray. "Everyone walked on eggshells around him," he said.

At Mountain, inmates said, McGray was angry over having to share a cell and Phillips wanted nothing to do with his new cellmate. He said, “I have to move. I have to move now.” The stupid prison officials turned him down

Another inmate, Jean-Paul Aubee, noted in his diary when Phillips asked to switch cells, a prison officer told him to “suck it up.” Why is that prison officer still employed with the Penitentiary Service? Prisoners have a right to be protected from stupid prison officers.

Phillips' parents are suing the Correctional Service of Canada, alleging its staff showed ‘reckless indifference’ and negligence in allowing McGray to share a cell with their son. The Federal Court lawsuit is seeking $11-million in damages. The family's lawyer took exception to the account of the killing provided to the court Monday.

Crown counsel Grant Lindsey said McGray told police the two cellmates had plotted to stage a hostage-taking that would lead to Phillips being taken to the infirmary and McGray being returned to Kent, where he would not have to share a cell. Then McGray decided to end Phillips' "bullshit," according to the account provided to the court. "For whatever reasons, that inspired McGray to kill him," Mr. Lindsey said in an interview.

He said, according to McGray, "Phillips knew who he was and didn't seem to have a problem with him. But this is all McGray's account. I've got no reason to disbelieve him, but I've got no reason necessarily to trust what McGray is saying either."

Myer Rabin, the lawyer for the Phillips family, said there is no substance to the theory of a mock hos-tage-taking. Phillips "was eligible for parole in six weeks, he was planning on coming home, so it made absolutely no sense that he would get involved in this type of activity," Mr. Rabin said. "I find it bizarre that they would raise this scenario." I agree with Rabin. The prison officials are trying to put the death of the inmate entirely on his own shoulders.

McGray's seventh life sentence will be served concurrently with the others, with no eligibility for parole for 25 years.

Corrections officials appear now to have a full appreciation of the danger he represents. His transfer in November was to the special handling unit of the SteAnne-des-Plaines Institution, the highest-security prison in Canada. Other inmates include biker boss Maurice Boucher, New Brunswick killer Allan Legere and, until his death this year, serial murderer Clifford Olson.

McGray should never be released from prison, he should never be transferred to a prison where the security is not maximum security and he should always be kept in his cell 23 hours a day and alone when he is released for one hour a day to exercise or to be taken to another part of the prison, at least three guards (big guards) should accompany him and he should be leg ironed and manacled when out of his cell.

I blame the deaths of some of the victims of serial killers on prison authorities and prosecutors who obviously did not have the best interests of society at heart. As far I am concerned, these bums should be fired.

SORRY

2011-12-08T09:55:00.000-08:00

Notice to my Readers:

My computer went on the blink on Wednesday. I couldn't open it so I couldn't put in an article for Wednesday. My computer is OK now so I will put one in tomorrow for Friday's article.

Dahn Batchelor

The presidential candidate who shot himself in the foot

2011-12-05T03:45:00.000-08:00

Let me say right from the get go—I have no problem seeing a black man as the president of the United States. Blacks per se are just as capable leaders as are whites. But I do draw the line on stupidity. And Herman Cain straddled that line time and time again in his political career.

Finally, after keeping everyone in suspense, he had some semblance of common sense to announce that he was suspending his Presidential campaign—effectively dropping out of the race.

According to his statement in a news conference in Atlanta, he said in part; “I am making the decision because of the continued distraction, the continued hurt, caused on me and my family by recent sexual harassment allegations. I am at peace with my God. I am at peace with my wife and she is at peace with me.” He added that he will soon be announcing his endorsement of another candidate.

Whatever Cain is, he is not a pedophile but if he was, would you as a presidential hopeful want Cain to endorse your candidacy? Of course you wouldn’t. However, he has been accused of sexually harassing women and until it is established that he is innocent of such allegations, any candidate that Cain is considering endorsing, should seriously decline Cain’s offer.

Let’s look into those allegations.

It appeared as if the worst might have been behind the Herman Cain campaign. There had been no new allegations of sexual impropriety in weeks and the candidate’s polling numbers, while waning, were not yet toxic. Then Ginger White came upon the scene; the woman who claims to have carried on a 13-year affair with Cain, one that continued until relatively recently. Cain, for his part, acknowledges a personal relationship with White, but insisted in an interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN that it was purely platonic. For those who don’t know what a platonic relationship means; it is a relationship in which there are no sexual relations going on between the two parties. If there was no sex between them and he was paying some of her bills over the years, he had to be one of the worst salesmen in history. Thirteen years and no sex? Either both of these two are lying, or Herman Cain is the worst deal closer in the history of extramarital affairs.

Are you wondering why he broke off that relationship after he decided to run for office? Well for sure he knew that everywhere he went; the news media would be sure to follow.

I am aware that former presidents Clinton and Kennedy cheated on their wives and yet they did their jobs as presidents quite satisfactorily. Further, I am convinced that before President Eisenhower was president and was the Commander in Chief of the Allies in Europe near the end of World War II, he was having an affair with his private secretary even though he had a wife and yet that didn’t make him any less a commander.

However, what does concern me is Cain’s denial that there was no sexual relationship going on between him and Ms. White. If the allegations of him sexually harassing other woman are true, then his denial of having a sexual relationship with Ms. White is highly suspicious.

Cain would not discuss how much he gave Ms White. He said he believes someone offered her 'a lot of money' to make the claims. Has he proof that she was paid money by a third party to destroy his campaign? Of course he doesn’t have proof. He merely said it so that the black paint in the bucket representing his character may have some white drops of white paint dropped into the bucket so that his character doesn’t appear to be totally black.

Appearing on CNN, Cain's attorney, Lin Wood said in part; “He's not obligated to come out and tell you the details of that (relationship) and violate the privacy of people he's helped.' As we all know, privacy was not a problem that Ms. White was concerned with but as sure as God made little apples, it was certainly a problem that concerned Cain.

In any case, Mr. Wood sent a letter to a lawyer representing Ms. White, asking that Cain's campaign be provided with a document showing calls and text messages between them. Hey! I thought Cain didn’t want to violate the privacy of people he helped.

With Cain’s presidential bid hanging in the balance, Cain's team decided to demand that Ms. White show them the cell phone records that she claims prove the two were carrying on an affair. That was a big mistake. Never ask for particulars when you have no idea what info is in them.

As proof of their lengthy relationship, Ms. White offered her cell phone, which has Cain's private number. Ms. White also showed mobile phone records dating back four months that have 61 phone calls and text messages to or from Cain as early as 4.26 am and as late as 7.52 pm. Remember, their relationship wasn’t just four months old. I can’t even imagine how many phone calls they made to one another over a thirteen-year period.

Further, I don’t know what was in those text messages but the mere fact that there were so many of them, I hardly think Cain could say that there wasn’t some sort of an affair going on between him and Ms. White even if it wasn’t sexual.

Elaborating on her claims of an affair, White said; "This was not a consistent love affair that went on every day for the last 14 years. So he is correct when he made that statement.' But Ms White also said Cain gave her gifts and money consistently over the last few years, although she claimed the relationship wasn't a matter of 'sex for cash.' As far as providing further proof of her story, she said: ‘You really don't enter into something like that holding on to receipts, holding onto gifts or notes or anything like that.' According to Ms White, she took several trips with Cain, even attending a boxing match between Mike Tyson.

I am forced to ask this rhetorical question. Why would any man who is married, choose to pay some of the bills of anther woman, shower her with gifts and take her on several trips to watch boxing fights and at the same time, not expect to be rewarded with some sexual favors?

Cain's lawyer said in a statement; “This appears to be an accusation of private, alleged consensual conduct between adults - a subject matter which is not a proper subject of inquiry by the media or the public.” The statement, however, did not explicitly deny the affair.

He said that the media has no business inquiring about the relationship between Cain and Ms. White. He is wrong. If all he did was on a few occasions giver her some money to tide her over some difficult financial times out of the goodness of his heart, then I agree with what the lawyer said. But texting her a great many times, giving gifts to her and taking Ms. White on trips with him—well that is definitely gist for the mill. The man is married to a woman who apparently is a good wife so cheating on her tells you something of his character.

Admittedly, I did say that some presidents cheated on their wives but they still did the job they were elected to do. Cain on the other hand is a wannabe who hasn’t shown anyone that he is capable of being the president of the United States.

Cain has been accused of sexual harassment by four other women, two of whom have come forward publicly with their allegations. However, to this point, the only accusations were about inappropriate advances or comments. Ms White was claiming that he cheated on his wife for more than a decade.

The former pizza company executive was becoming less a serious candidate than the butt of late-night comedy jokes after a string of accusations of sexually inappropriate behaviour were hurled at him.

For example, four women accused Cain of sexual harassment and two of them complained when he was the head of the National Restaurant Association. That organization settled the claims of those two women. One of the other four women claimed Cain groped her when he was interviewing her for a job and another woman claimed Cain tried to force her head into the area of his crotch.

Republican strategist Kellyanne Conway said it rather well when she said; "It's the daily dose of the wince-and-cringe factor that leaves people wondering what could be coming next."

What came next was a statement of this buffoon in which Cain vowed during campaign stops in Ohio that he would not be pushed out of the race by 'character assassination' by his critics. Pushing him out of the race was so easy considering the skids his campaign was sitting on were greased. Every time he opened his mouth to speak, the skids got even that much more greasier. His comments were so slanted; his critics didn’t need to push him out of the race. Gravity alone would have been sufficient.

Cain is an opponent of the legalization of marriage for same sex couples in the United States. He supports the Defense of Marriage Act. He would seek to reinstate the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy.

Some comments made by Cain regarding Muslims have caused controversy. For example, he said that he was "uncomfortable" when he found that the surgeon operating on his liver and colon cancer was a Muslim. He later explained: "based upon the little knowledge that I have of the Muslim religion, you know, they have an objective to convert all infidels or kill them." He was right about one aspect of his statement. He knows little about the Muslim religion.

He had also spoken of his distrust of another doctor when his name "sounded too foreign", telling the audience at a Biblically-themed amusement park, "My mind immediately started thinking, wait a minute, maybe his religious persuasion is different than mine! She, the nurse could see the look on my face and she said, 'Don't worry, Mr. Cain, he's a Christian from Lebanon'”.

He was asked in March 2011 if he would feel comfortable appointing a Muslim to his administration, or as a judge. Cain responded: "No, I will not. There's this creeping attempt, there's this attempt, to gradually ease Shariah Law, and the Muslim faith into our government. It does not belong in our government." Cain also campaigned for Muslims to be banned from building an Islamic Center at a site in Tennessee, claiming that it was "an infringement and an abuse of our freedom of religion" and "just another way to try to gradually sneak Shariah law into our laws". Cain declared that communities in the United States had the "right" to ban mosques.

Those of us that were alive during the great depression in the 1930s are aware that Hitler had the same attitude about Jews and we know what he did to the Jews in the 1940s.

Cain defended his foreign policy knowledge. "I'm not supposed to know anything about foreign policy. His ridiculous statement on policy issues was clear evidence that at least he told the truth when he said he implied that he knew nothing about foreign policy. God Almighty! Did he really believe that the people of the United States want a man sitting in the Oval office who knows nothing about foreign policy?

Cain said, "I could see myself freeing all Gitmo detainees for one American hostage.” He later abandoned this position. Well, well. There is some sign that some of his brain cells are working when he realizes that something he said doesn’t sit well with Americans.

Cain advocates the use of capital punishment in the United States. When asked if the death penalty should be thrown away when evidence (of innocence) comes into question, he replied "No. If you do away with it; that will only brainwash people into thinking that they can do whatever they want and get away with it." He is obviously not aware that many states in the US are replacing capital punishment with natural life in prison because of the overwhelming evidence that many people who were on death row were later found to be innocent.

Cain supports a constitutional amendment stating that children born to illegal immigrants in the U.S. are not U.S. citizens. Cain has also said that he does not support changing the Fourteenth Amendment, which states that all persons born in the U.S. and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States.

In the early 1990s, following the Clarence Thomas hearings, Cain as the then-CEO of Godfather's Pizza expressed concern about laws making it easier for women to sue their supervisors for sexual harassment: “This bill opens the door for opportunists who will use the legislation to make some money....I’m certainly for civil rights, but I don’t know if this bill is fair because of what we’ll have to spend to defend ourselves in unwarranted cases.” It’s obvious that he was thinking of the alleged sexual harassment accusations made against him.

It’s not my intention to go into all those issues mention in this article except to say that when he shot himself in the foot, he used a double barreled 12-gage shotgun. Has he any idea how many people he offended when he made that statement?

If this buffoon had been elected the president of the United States, I shudder to think what would happen to the people of the United States and people in other countries such as Canada. For one thing, I am sure he would never permit Muslims to enter the United States and eventually, he wouldn’t permit gay couples entry also. Then he would order all children born of illegal immigrants, children who are now adults and who work and pay their taxes and play an important role in society—to get out.

Fortunately for all Americans, the media trashed this buffoon so that he could slip away and hopefully never, ever come to the surface again with ambitions of running for political office. I wouldn’t even want to see him run for the office of dog catcher. If he got that job, he would look for ways to decide whether or not the dogs are Muslims, gay, undocumented immigrants or whether or not they should be euthanized, even if there is evidence that they have done no wrong.

Should religious training be done at home, at school or at a religious facility?

2011-12-02T04:31:00.000-08:00

There appears to be less people going to church nowadays than years in the past. I don’t know if it is because people don’t have the time to attend church or whether they have simply lost interest in participating in religious functions or activities. I remember going to church as a child in the 1940s and for the most part, the churches were almost filled to the brim so to speak. Nowadays, a church minister is lucky if he gets more than twenty people sitting in the pews and they for the most part are elderly people.

Church attendance in Canada is declining rapidly. Atheism is rising. Christian moral values are being replaced by secular ones. Canada is no longer solely a Christian nation and Canadian Christians may eventually become a minority.

Is it possible that many people have lost interest in the teachings of the Christian bible? Is it because the church condemned homosexual conduct, abortions and divorces and for these reasons, they have alienated the younger generation.

This article isn’t going to deal with why church attendance is on the decline but rather whether or not religion should be taught at school, at home or only in a church etc.

A problem surfaced at the Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute in Toronto recently. A few dozen interested parties attended a discussion on religious accommodation within the Toronto District School Board. This may have the perverse effect of reigniting a debate that had died down since the summer, when a tiny group of angry Hindus objected to Muslim prayer services being conducted on Friday afternoons in the cafeteria at Valley Park Middle School, just across the street from Garneau C.I.

A lot of very reasonable people, not just militant secularists and feminists, were profoundly unsettled by the idea of congregational prayer being held during class time in a public school and by the gender segregation that this entails. The most interesting revelation at this event was how easily the school came to the decision to bring Friday prayers in-house, and how easily this could have been avoided if anyone in charge shared these concerns.

Jim Spyropoulos, who is the TDSB’s coordinating superintendent, inclusive schools, student, parent and community, laid out the now-familiar rationale: Students were leaving school to go to mosque on Fridays. Some weren’t making it there, and some weren’t making it back — and were a disruption to the other students if they did return. And what if something happened on the journey? Valley Park is at a busy corner. Six lanes of traffic cross four. Would the school be held civilly liable if they were injured crossing the road?

A retired teacher argued this isn’t any of the school’s business — Friday prayers are just like 300 kids having dentist appointments at the same time, and it’s up to the parents to get them there and back. But allowances have always been made to the public school calendar for the faithful children it inconveniences. It’s perfectly logical to treat Friday prayers like a religious holiday that comes once a week.
Islamophobes and secularist jihadis aside, this would address everyone’s concerns. It would ensure the public school day remains free of religious proselytization and the perceived negatives that go with it. And it would eliminate the question of choice.

When I went to school as a child and later as a teenager, we always said the Lord’s Prayer before the first class of the day but that has changed and rightly so because many of the students in today’s schools are not Christians. And when I went to a Catholic residential school for a school year, I don’t remember being taught religion as part of the curriculum.

Studies have shown that parents are able to provide children with some of the most comprehensive and persuasive forms of teaching. This is due to a wide variety of factors that cannot be attained at school. Among them are the fact that children love and trust their parents and the fact that children spend a great deal more time with their parents (and have since an early age) than they do with virtually any other person. Because of this, it's crucial that you don't just leave the instruction on tolerance to a teacher or another figure in your child's life; you are the best source of information for your own child.

My mother never taught me religion when I was at home but she did send me to Sunday school when I was a young child and later when I went to church as a member of a choir, I learned a fair amount about Jesus and his disciples and even about those persons named in the Old Testament.

I do not believe that it is a public school’s place to facilitate children’s attendance at religious services — and that if anything, it is private family's business. The very idea of a student feeling pressure to fulfill an unwanted religious obligation on public school property, during the school day, is outrageous.

The Guidelines and Procedures for the Accommodation of Religious Requirements stipulates that “where possible, schools should allocate space for congregational prayer.” It doesn’t say that it is absolutely necessary but rather if it at all possible.

Public schools don’t belong to any one group of parents and schools—they belong to everyone. But if a school wishes to set aside a room in which students can gather to pray as a group or as an individual, I don’t see a problem with that providing that the room is used only for prayer and not for teaching religion or as a gab fest.
Devout Muslims pray at least five times a day. Such a room as describe in the previous paragraph should also be available to Muslim students and any other students of other religions.

Now should we as a society expect the parents of children to teach religion in their homes? That is placing demands upon parents that we shouldn’t be placing on them. Further, how can we expect parents who are not really that religious teaching their own children religion?

There are many families however that are very religious and the parents of such families are more than qualified to teach their children religion. They should take care however not to overdue it. Too much religion can be counter productive and alienating your children just so that you can jam religion down your children’s throats will invariably backfire when they are old enough to leave home.

I think that a parent should answer questions their children give them with respect to religion. For example, suppose your child is brought up as a Christian and she has a friend who is Jewish and she wants to know what the difference is between the two religions. You could tell her that Jews and Christians are alike because they believe in the very same God. This will immediately establish a similarity in her young impressionable mind. This element alone can often dispel any myths the child may have heard, and impede any thoughts of prejudice. Then you could go on to explain that while the Jews believed Jesus lived and was a great teacher, they don't believe as Christians do that he was the son of God.

Jehovah's Witnesses do not celebrate holidays, including Christmas and even birthdays. Many Jehovah's Witnesses keep their children home from school on the day of a holiday party or celebration. This may confuse a Christian child.

Teach your child to respect these children's religion as well. Their beliefs honor the principals of their religion, and it is only respectful to be considerate of these beliefs. Again, encourage your children to ask questions of their friends, although emphasize that they should use a positive tone when asking the questions.

Many parents overlook the importance of teaching religious tolerance at home. In today's world, where children are exposed to a variety of different backgrounds, belief systems and cultures, it's more important than ever that kids grow up learning to be tolerant and accepting the difference of faiths of other people.

Tolerance of this kind begins at home, and it's up to you as a parent to help teach your child the proper behavior in this respect.

Studies have shown that parents are able to provide children with some of the most comprehensive and persuasive teaching. This is due to a wide variety of factors that cannot be attained at school. Among them are the fact that children love and trust their parents and the fact that children spend a great deal more time with their parents (and have since an early age) than they do with virtually any other person.

If parents feel uneasy about teaching their children various aspects of their religion, they should send them to Sunday school if they are Christians, to temples if they are Hindus or Sikhs or mosques if they are Muslims and synagogues if they are Jewish. Those are the places where the children will get a good education about their religions.