Bill Gates: Vaccinations Reduce Sickness, Improve Quality of Life, Develop Economies

Bill Gates is expanding his humanitarian focus and outlines in his Annual Letter of 2013 why worldwide vaccinations are essential.

Fewer Diseases Result in Stronger National Economies

Gates said that "In the same way that during my Microsoft career I talked about the magic of software, I now spend my time talking about the magic of vaccines. Vaccines have taken us to the threshold of eradicating polio. They are the most effective and cost-effective health tool ever invented. I like to say vaccines are a miracle. Just a few doses of vaccine can protect a child from debilitating and deadly diseases for a lifetime. And most vaccines are extremely inexpensive." 

He claims vaccinations lead to better quality of life with more health, education, and business opportunities. And vaccinations reduce sickness from disease, both the initial temporary acute sickness, and the permanent mental disabilities and the effect on cerebral development for survivors. A brain needs nutrition to develop, and cannot do so with sickness in the body that vaccinations help prevent. 

A child can lose a lot of potential by five years of age. And Bill Gates has found studies that  correlate lower IQs to high levels of disease in any country. And although IQ tests are imperfect, the dramatic effect on the population is "a huge injustice" to all citizens, he says. Vaccinations are important because they make people healthier. And healthier individuals can help develop economies. 

Vaccinations begin a Virtuous Circle

Another benefit of vaccinations is that parents have fewer children. "It might seem logical" Gates says, "that saving children's lives will cause overpopulation, the opposite is true." It might take years, but "as the childhood death rate is reduced, within 10 to 20 years this reduction is strongly associated with families choosing to have fewer children."

The rate of childhood deaths is reduced as a direct benefit of vaccinations. And parents with fewer children tend to have more time and money to spend on each one because vaccinated children live longer. And these children tend to get more education and job opportunities. So it's a virtuous circle, a constantly re-inforced win-win outcome all round.

Gates said that UNICEF, headed by Jim Grant, raised vaccination rates from 20% to 70% between 1980 and 1995. A free copy of Grant's book is here.

Gates writes that "Vaccines are the best investment to improve the human condition." And that's a weighty statement from the individual who was wealthiest person in the world for many years, and the former head of a global computer giant. And computers have infinitely improved the human condition. Bottom line: vaccinations improve business.

And Gates adds that childhood health issues are key to so many other issues, such as "having resources for education, providing enough jobs and not destroying the environment."

You can read his letter in its entirety here. And thank you for reading my summary.

Boston Marathon Bystander Gives Firsthand Account

Here’s an email sent me Tuesday afternoon after the Boston Marathon on Monday. I'm preserving the privacy of the participants at their request and edited very little. True story.

*********************************************** 

“Thank you all for your concern.

 

We’re staying in a furnished apartment just off Boylston Street, behind the Lord and Taylor Department Store a block before the finish line of the Marathon.  This morning (Tuesday) the whole area is cordoned off, but happily we've just got back into the apartment.  We can’t see what’s going on out on Boylston Street because our windows face the other direction.  There’s yellow crime scene tape stopping traffic – foot and car – all around the area, and lots of police.  Our car is in a lot under the building and we don’t dare take it out anywhere, because we won’t be able to get it back here if we do.

This is DK’s third Boston Marathon, and he's done others to qualify for it.  I did one marathon some years back but find they take far too much time to train for.  I do distances between 5K and half marathons, but walk every step - fast.  I did 31 races last year, and three in February when we were in Florida.

Yesterday morning I went downstairs to see the wheelchair winner whiz by.  I was standing behind the crowds – three deep – right across the street from where I presume the second explosion occurred.  The atmosphere was jovial and encouraging, just what you’d expect.  A while later I met up with DK’s mother and two nieces (and two babies) and we watched the elite runners fly by on Hereford Street. We went back to the apartment for lunch and then headed out to see DK.  We avoided Boylston Street, even though we were right there at the finish, because there were so many people there.  We could never have got to the front of the crowd to have a clear view of him, so we went down to Commonwealth Avenue and got a good spot there, about two-thirds of a mile from the end.

DK had left for Hopkinton on a bus from the Common at 7 a.m., along with thousands of other runners.  He had started the race about 10:45, and was running a bit slower than he wanted.  Yet he looked good when he passed us. He ran up to us, gave me a quick kiss, and headed down the underpass to turn onto Hereford Street.  The nieces headed home, walking across the Mass. Avenue bridge to Cambridge (and eventually all the way to Harvard Square!). 

TK (DK’s mom) and I headed back to the apartment where we’d arranged to meet him.  We hadn’t walked a block when we heard a huge kaboom.  We looked at each other, confused.  Not thunder, since the weather was okay.  A cannon in honor of the Patriots Day holiday Massachusetts was celebrating?  Weird.  Then another.  Even more confusing.   I looked back at the underpass and was astounded to see it empty, meaning the runners had been stopped:  OMG, something terrible’s going on. 

Very quickly there were streams of policemen on bikes riding headlong toward the finish.  Police motorcycles and cars came screaming by.  Somebody mentioned explosions at the finish.  I calculated that DK couldn’t have had time to get to the end, and held onto that thought.  He had to be okay.

TK and I worked our way back toward the apartment through pandemonium.  People streaming away from the race and we were going toward it.  Policemen gesturing wildly, cars coming and going, people on phones, everyone looking around wildly.  I’m sure I wasn’t the only one thinking of 9/11.  We were turned away from going through the Prudential Center and when we walked all the way around the outside of it, we were turned away from the little road leading to our apartment.

It was getting cold and we had little information on what was happening, and we had no idea where DK was.  I was worried about him getting cold.  That happens so quickly when you stop running and it was getting to be late afternoon on a cool day. 

I tried to text DK and check the news on my phone but was worried about using up the juice too fast.  So many people called and texted and emailed but the phone lines were jammed and I wanted to conserve the charge so had to make quick updates. 

Meanwhile, DK was running up Hereford Street when the first explosion happened.  He'd turned onto Boylston Street and could see the finish line a few blocks ahead when the smoke from the second explosion burst out.  Suddenly a policeman stood in front of him blocking his way, stopping him from going further and telling him to leave the area.  He made his way to the packet pickup area and was lucky to get his bag (so he had some clothes to put on).  

After that, DK headed to a place as close to the apartment as he could get. Thank goodness he was a few minutes slower than he planned.  And thank goodness we didn’t find a spot to wait for him on the sidewalk outside the apartment.  

We searched for DK through all the thousands of people in that big area. TK happened to gaze in a certain direction when her son appeared, ten feet away. And to our great relief, thank goodness we finally found one other.

We wandered idly along a nearby street as the police turned everyone away from the area.  A lovely couple offered DK a cup of water.  A hotel lobby allowed us in and we spent a little time regrouping, grateful for the warmth. But it didn’t have a television so we were getting information piecemeal.  The T (subway) had been shut down as well as the Mass Ave. bridge, and it was evident we weren’t getting back into the apartment any time soon. 

We had a call from a friend, and the three of us including TK spent the night at their house in Milton.  MP and WP are truly wonderful people who welcomed us very graciously.  We went from feeling like refugees to royalty immediately.  Thank you, thank you, thank you.

We both had many people try to contact us, wishing us well.  It was really wonderful to hear from so many friends, but we simply couldn’t respond to everyone.  Thank you for understanding. 

And heartfelt wishes to those who were terribly injured, including friends of MP and WP.  Presumably we'll be leaving for Spain on Saturday night.  We have even more reasons to light a few candles over there now."

*********************************************

And here's another of FK's later emails to me: 

“It was a very intense experience...Yesterday (Monday) was remarkable.  Such confusion for the ordinary person, but the police swung into action immediately and within a few minutes there were so many ambulances they stretched over blocks....We had to show our ID and keys to get back into our apartment today (Tuesday).  Thank goodness the area right here is still restricted and the police/security presence is very heavy.  Thank goodness our flight to Spain wasn't scheduled today...It was an experience that reminded us of the many things we're grateful for.”

Thanks go out to the writer, my sister. Have to thank her for allowing me to share it. Amazes me that family members of mine survived the attacks. They’ve lived in Sandy, Utah near Salt Lake almost twenty years, and before that in the Boston area for twenty years. Isn't it an amazing description?

Call For Action Day

Today is national "Call for Action Day" in America because weapons of war don't belong on American streets.

Weapons of war are on American streets because they can legally be so. And why they are is a curious contradiction for a country that appears safe for the most part.

And that's exactly the trouble with guns: you're safe and secure and in peace until you aren't, and here's what the President said.

"It's not over until it's over" President Obama, March 28, 2013.

The President stood in the White House for a televised speech with Vice-President Biden surrounded by mothers affected by gun violence... 

Parents haven't forgotten. The entire country pledged we would do something about it after Newtown. "Shame on us if we've forgotten those kids" said President Obama. "Americans haven't moved on to other things" the President said. He says "Millions of voices" are asking for change.

More from President Obama's speech today:

"Waiting until another innocent child is gunned down? Have to do something about it. Everyone listening should make themselves heard. We need everyone to remember how we felt after Newtown and make sure we meant it, and that it wasn't "Just a bunch of platitudes." Now is the time to act. Tears aren't enough. Expressions of sympathy, speeches aren't enough. We've cried enough, known enough heartbreak. Legislation won't solve every problem. There will still be evil. But we can make a difference, "we can do better than this." If Members of Congress would only lead...That's who we are, it's our character." More at whitehouse.gov.

There isn't really any choice in America if it wants to have a safe country other than to ban guns from convivial and friendly gatherings. America's a country where demented mass shooters like to take aim in movie theaters, in schools at all levels, primary, secondary, and universities and colleges. Happens in businesses, music concerts, places of worship, too.

In a free society anywhere around the world, nowhere is really completely safe or unsafe. It's safe until it isn't, and someone with a gun and a violent disposition disrupts the peace, or even just one or the other.

So the mission of society, while people freely pursue their interests and daily lives should be to make peace and safety a pair of respectable goals. And the only way to do that, and I know my proposal is controversial, some might say blasphemous to the almighty Second Amendment, in today's social and political environment in the United States.

But it's to entirely and completely banish guns.

Gasp if necessary, but taking away weapons of all sizes is good for society and for everyone in it who depends on peace and safety to live. America hasn't been able to wrap its' collective mind around the prospect of banning guns, although individually certain Americans agree and gun ownership in percentages supposedly has fallen in the last decades. But I just don't see any different choice that's effectively going to make a huge difference in America. And this is not a conspiracy or revolution I'm suggesting. This is just me and what I want, my attitude in favor of a minor change if you will, and my voice on this platform.

If Someone Says Rape Happened Then It Did

An interesting story on NPR about rape in the military is opening old raw wounds for me. The women interviewed claimed they were raped when they served in the military.

The interview also opened a firestorm of comments on the NPR website where there are usually very few, so it's obviously hit a raw spot in the popular imagination.

And one troll in particular, Brim Stone, keeps commenting, saying he's been a victim of rape, but doesn't go into details or offer proof, and yet he insists the NPR story lacks proof, and doesn't believe the interviews. Does his skepticism matter? Probably not. But it's typical. And that sort of disbelief is exactly at the heart of extremely typical reactions to rape.

I know firsthand that even family will side with the rapist and deny it ever happened, ignore it, and shove it under the rug. So it doesn't surprise me when men insist that women fabricate rapes, cry rape all the time, or that they easily lie about it.

Because whoever claims women lie about rape is deeply unethical in character. Unjust is another adjective I would use, just to be polite.

Because it's not at all impolite of a woman to claim the truth about an event, especially one like rape that's so private, intrusive and potentially embarrassing. Being raped doesn't make a woman more attractive to the opposite sex, after all, or to polite society either. A women has zero, or even negative, incentive to talk about it. The interview details, for example, how women in the military often kept quiet about it, and exactly why they did so, which was to remain in the military.

In my case, my brother and his wife where I stayed in another city in Canada away from my parents had just bought a house, had jobs they wanted to keep to pay for the new house, and so I had to keep my kidnap incident quiet (though it was not a rape). (My brother's wife who worked with the kidnapper and asked him to drive me home because she couldn't~and this kidnapping coworker forty years older than me drove me around for three long hours with a gun threatening to murder me and then dropped me at their house. And she and my brother did zero. In fact she called me "a slut," and I've never forgiven her. Previously, the same month just a week before the kidnapping, which happened when I was seventeen during my first month at university, I was date-raped by a couple of university students and unconscious for twenty hours, and may have been why she called me a slut). And after that I moved away, changed countries.

So you don't have to believe I was kidnapped if you don't want to.

And more than thirty years have passed, and I don't have any proof, and I don't really care if my readers don't believe me, or blame it on me. I was only seventeen, and I know I did nothing wrong.

But not having proof doesn't mean rape didn't happen.

And by the way, shame on the police for not immediately processing rape kits that they have. There isn't any excuse for that on this planet.

And for those of you who think my story is unusual, or that I did anything wrong, please read this.

In conclusion, the man who kidnapped me is unknown to me, and unpunished to my knowledge. I fled the car and didn't find out his name after he released me. And as for the date-rape, he's a father and a successful lawyer in Toronto, Canada, with a second house in the Muskokas, I believe, according to Google, and I doubt his wife and family knows what he did. All water under the bridge. But like the article says, men should learn that it's wrong, wrong, wrong. Because girls know in their hearts that men who rape are trash.

Aren't Doctors Responsible for Patient Care and the Medical System?

Doctor patient relationships are a timely and important topic in America. For the fact is, medical training and education aren't guarantees of perfection in patient care. And it's time for doctors to take ultimate responsibility for the system.

Doctors have a tendency by virtue of education and authority to issue medical commands and assume they're done. But the command mentality doesn't work in profitable businesses (it may exist only in the legal and judicial systems, but that's a topic for another post).

And doctors must put patients first. It's not wise to put profits ahead of basic patient care. And medical care is different from business; it's like education in putting the needs of students first. But whether for profit or not, doctors need to learn to assess patient care. Because in present-day healthcare, patients go to doctors trusting they'll get competent care, but rely on nurses and office staff to deliver a large percentage.

An essential business issue is that businesses fail. Unless a restaurant's in a location where clients don't have any choice, the restaurant can fail. Or fashion designers can fail if they create clothes that fashionistas won't buy.

And yet doctors can be gruff, patient-unfriendly, and untrustworthy, and get away with it, simply by being in a certain location and invoking and marketing the fact they've been professionally trained and licensed, and so must, ipso facto, be delivering adequate patient care.

But doctors should know they won't be great doctors unless they give great service. And doctors don't even give adequate service if they simply issue commands. Doctors are trusted to do their work if they find out whether their advice has been carried out, and so they must care about patient experience. And they should follow-up better with patients.

Follow-up doesn't happen efficiently in a system where pay-per-visit insurance rules, tests are paid out of pocket in some cases, and where loyalty is uncommon as it is in America. And why should a patient be loyal if the doctor changes insurance plans, moves suddenly, and disappears after signing non-compete clauses. Doctors are also guilty of prescribing dangerous and expensive tests unnecessarily, and not advising patients of results by following through and reminding patients of another appointment. And doctors works in a system that doesn't reward loyalty and least expensive care. 

But isn't the patient the most crucial element of this doctor-nurse-patient triad? Because without the patient, doctors and nurses aren't necessary.

For the doctor who sits as a client at a restaurant and eats a meal is the most crucial element to the restaurant. The restaurant needs clients to profit and continue to exist, and the owner has responsibility for the client's experience. Or if the doctor can't find a sweater in a clothing store, the doctor knows the store is responsible for not providing it.

And what happens to a doctor's patient is the patient internalizes personal needs and complaints, and experiences firsthand the failings of doctors and the entire medical system. But if patient needs aren't met, who exactly is at fault, the doctor or the system?

Obviously, doctors have to become more patient-centered, and care more about the patient. Instead of assuming all will be done according to command, doctors need to be more sensitive and vigilant about patient care. Because doctors have ultimate responsibility. And what they want probably isn't done as they expect and hasn't ever been.

The challenge is: it's time to be responsible, to change and improve patient care. And if the system has to be changed to improve patient outcomes, then it has to be done. Why? Because doctors head the medical system and bear ultimate responsibility for the quality of patient care. And because patients assume doctors have command of the system, and patients would like to be able to trust their doctors in all ways. Doctors simply must take command of their system in any country.

For further reading, an excellent article in The New York Times called "Healing the Hospital Hierarchy" (Mar. 16, 2013) discusses the doctor-nurse hierarchy, and how these relationships in hospitals sometimes break down. Doctors blame nurses, and nurses must either follow doctor's orders, or be terminated.

Immigration: what genius glut?

The New York Times has me shaking my head questioning fact-checkers on opinion pieces at the venerable newspaper. Without direct attribution and proof, the author of the article called America's Genius Glut spouts immigration statistics and refutes them as useless in the same paragraph here:

..."for the sake of our global competitiveness, we shouldn’t train and then return the tens of thousands of Chinese and Indian students who come here every year. But almost 90 percent of the Chinese students who earn science and technology doctorates in America stay here; the number is only slightly lower for Indians."

But if tens of thousands of students leave the United States every year, then how can ninety-percent of them also be staying? Given the small number of visas issued each year that remark doesn't hold water or make any sense whatsoever. Where are the statistics for this? Did he consult either the Census (and if so, where are the figures?) or did he read the writings of immigration lawyers such as "There is no Line"?

It's well-known that many high-tech titans have argued that the admission numbers of skilled immigrants has become too small and tight in America.

Here's what David Desjardins, a founding Google employee, said Feb 8, 2013 on Google+ for example:

...we need a new economic ideology in this country.  The right is so dedicated to anti-government mania that they can't believe we need any common efforts to solve common problems.  But the left can be so obsessed with the equality of every person that they can't imagine there's any more economic value and growth to be created by giving a green card to a science PhD than to a Latino immigrant with a 6th grade education who works really hard.  And so obsessed with an "insufficient aggregate demand" view of our economic troubles that the idea that there might not actually be a fixed, invariable number of jobs for scientists and engineers, but the amount of science and engineering we do depends on how many scientists and engineers we have, doesn't occur to them."

Certainly, the educated should be allowed into America, and achievement should be placed above unproven potential. But at the same time, educating people for the purpose of moving them out of the country has always seemed a double-edged sword.

Immigration should be based on solid policy

 The philosophy behind immigration for a long time has been predicated on the idea that students from around the world flock to first world universities to learn, and then they return to their own countries of birth to live forever and apply their knowledge. This has been going on for decades, since 1924.

The point is, immigration is far from being completely organized, or a democratic department of the government. It's as jumbled and mired in mystery as getting into a private school, for those of my readers familiar with that process. Yet many make sweeping generalizations about immigration as if it were democratic and as if they were experts without being qualified, experienced, and without having any more anecdotal evidence and opinion than I do.

 And how does it make sense to force the educated to leave if they want to stay while allowing in the uneducated?

Certainly those children who have foreign-born parents who've come through the educational system are "American children." Those children will not necessarily wish to, or be able to, for that matter, fit into foreign educational systems.  To turn away children educated here because their parents went against the law and stayed here goes beyond all reason. It doesn't make sense to make a huge investment in the public education of children who will be forced to leave the country if their parents aren't here legally.

It's unethical to have the parents in the country without documents, and foolish to spend money teaching their children. A crucial question is, why were the parents living here without their papers for long enough to raise children? Many have overstayed their visas, are living in the country and paying taxes, but will not maybe ever be able to have citizenship. It's these parents who are here without documents and not innocent children at fault, or rather it's the government at fault for not acknowledging the parents. It's not democratic to be forced to pay taxes and not be allowed the rewards of citizenship, such as voting and...serving on a jury. Everyone who hands over taxes to the government should be awarded citizenship.

So it's important to make it a requirement that all children educated in this country on the taxpayer's backs have parents with documents, with the exception of boarding students on temporary visas. Americans don't want criminals from other countries here, and yet criminals might slip in if government paperwork (now on computers) isn't processed quickly enough. 

And it's important to have an educated citizenry. The countries that educate the world's workforce shouldn't be rewarded with a poorly-educated populace.

But it's also important to have citizenry with legal documents. It's not undemocratic to make it a legal requirement that everyone who enters or stays in the country has to do so with documents, provided (iff) the government in its part does its share, and quickly processes applications. 

Maybe immigration lawyers should have their say in upcoming immigration policy reforms in America. Presidents and lawmakers need to be clear on the facts, and not threaten self-deportation or back-of-the-line policies not firmly grounded in reality. And we need the government to process faster the geniuses who want to be here but are good and don't want to overstay a visa. Just as archivists need to know the extent of a collection to make an archive so, to make changes, the federal government needs to understand the issues and solutions related to immigration problems.

America Has A Gun Culture: And that's the Problem

The husband of former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Mark Kelly no less, was interviewed on CNN with details and statistics about gun violence in America. And what he says makes it unlikely the gun lobby can refute it with logic, even if they can do so successfully without legal impunity. This is an uphill battle for people like me who don't like guns, and here is the point he made:

 "Almost 100 people a day die from a gun, 33 are murdered. We've got 20 times the murder rate of similar countries." And "Up to 40% of gun transfers are made without background checks, and a national survey of inmates found that nearly 80% of those who used a handgun in a crime acquired it without a background check."

And I like his description of failed background checks:

"...since 1994, more than 2 million folks -- among them, criminals and dangerously mentally ill people -- failed their background checks. But we don't know which of those millions just got in their car and drove to a gun show, or home to their computer to go on the Internet -- both places where anyone can buy a gun without a background check.

"That doesn't make sense. It's like saying, hey, criminals, to board the plane, either go through a metal detector and be checked against the terrorist watch list, or, if you prefer, walk right down that red carpet and take a seat, no search necessary. Which would you choose?"

Glad to hear his organization with former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords called Americans for Responsible Solutions has enrolled over 100,000 members. But I don't waver from my position that far more persuasive work needs to be done in America to persuade Americans to dispose of their guns. 

And that is my position, the government should ban guns. Simply and indisputably, they aren't necessary for a civilized society. It's important from an international perspective as I have. And yes, I go farther into gun control than the Kelly-Giffords do.

Commenters on websites where I have made comments may call me a Gun Prohibitionist anonymously, and it hurts. But the fact that many Americans use the excuse that America isn't a civilized society and that's why they need guns--for self-protection--reflects sourly (actually worse than that) on America, even if they don't see the problem from that perspective. They hurt themselves in so many ways when they say that. They endanger themselves and they cripple their families from taking productive action. Foreigners find their attitudes distasteful, unattractive, and dangerous. They don't see that. Just as smokers support an industry that kills them with lung cancer, so the gun manufacturers are enriched by their hobby that will likely kill them and their loved ones, and homeowners buy guns with the same outcomes. Statistics prove unassailably and irrefutably that gun owners are far more likely to hurt themselves than use it for self-defense or killing a menacing wild animal.

And gun enthusiasts are a problem in America, no doubt about it.

In addition, ProPublica analyzes the lack of research with the person who was last leading the governmental effort until the gun lobby successfully stopped all gun-related research. Dr. Mark Rosenberg led gun violence research the Centers for Disease Control(CDC)'s National Center for Injury Prevention and Control in the nineties.

 What he says, with unassailable logic, is scandalous:

  "One of the critical studies that we supported was looking at the question of whether having a firearm in your home protects you or puts you at increased risk. This was a very important question because people who want to sell more guns say that having a gun in your home is the way to protect your family.
   What the research showed was not only did having a firearm in your home not protect you, but it hugely increased the risk that someone in your family would die from a firearm homicide. It increased the risk almost 300 percent, almost three times as high.
   It also showed that the risk that someone in your home would commit suicide went up. It went up five-fold if you had a gun in the home. These are huge, huge risks, and to just put that in perspective, we look at a risk that someone might get a heart attack or that they might get a certain type of cancer, and if that risk might be 20 percent greater, that may be enough to ban a certain drug or a certain product.
    But in this case, we're talking about a risk not 20 percent, not 100 percent, not 200 percent, but almost 300 percent or 500 percent. These are huge, huge risks." 

So to review, drugs are banned if they have a 20 percent or greater risk of maybe someday causing cancer, but guns with a 300-500 percent chance of maybe killing someone are just fine. 

But Americans neither know nor care. And weapons like guns aren't totally banned. In fact, no one knows how many guns are around, or how many people die each year from guns. How can the country just turn its back on other research it has done on death and dying? Numbers don't lie! How many more lives will be lost before America gets its' act together?

Dr. Rosenberg also says that since 1996 when the gun research was disrupted, 480,000 or more deaths by murder and suicide have been estimated but not actually counted.

He calls phrases such as "obviously the assault weapon ban didn't work, because Columbine happened" kind of like saying "vaccines don't work because someone got the flu."

But of course, the real scandal is that the federal research ended and America has fallen into the vacuum of shameful ignorance. No one knows the true numbers nationwide. Neither side knows numbers for certain, especially the NRA and all those who value and use tactics of fear by spouting slogans and false statistics rather than knowledge. 

The least that can be done is to pass gun bans on large weapons and background checks, but that's not stopping sales of casual weapons.

NPR said there isn't a national registry for such deaths. No one knows which weapons were used or how many people have died in this internal civil war.

Americans need to get rid of problem legislation such as this:

  "In 2003, Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Republican from Kansas, added language to the Justice Department's annual spending bill. It says the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives can't release information used to trace guns involved in crime to researchers and members of the public. It also requires the FBI to destroy records on people approved to buy guns within 24 hours."

To review, gun tracing and gun-approval information can't be done by law. But without real actual knowledge, nothing's going to improve for America, as far as gun violence is concerned. The mental health alleyway is bogus and going nowhere because it limits the actions of those who would restrict gun sales to those who judge someone else is crazy. And those mental health judges are possibly going to become instant targets by rejecting any gun application, and have to be separated from the process. The process should be impersonal. 

The President of the National Rifle Association (NRA) called the following tenets official policy of the organization on the radio (NPR) here. David Keene thinks it's not good to restrict weapons because:

1) Banning assault weapons is not going to stop the real mass killers.

(As opposed to what, may I ask--serial killers or someone who just wants to shoot just one person?) This is silly. He has no evidence or research to support this because none has been done by anyone, officially or unofficially. For proof, please read ProPublica.

2) America with no guns would be total chaos and anarchy. 

Honestly, it sounds to me like anyone saying this is a bit off their rocker, just a bit! What are they talking about? Crazy! How absurd the idea! America needs fewer guns not more. Not having guns, even less than not smoking, isn't going to stop mothers from feeding their newborns.

And incidentally the President of the NRA's command of the English language wasn't very coherent in this interview, but he was sly, persuasive, and crazy like a fox! 

3) Gun registries lead to gun confiscation by the government and to possible publication of gun ownership. 

Kind of an odd worry considering more than half of gun owners buy or obtain them illegally and keep them in secret. But pity them, there isn't any knowledge to go around from one side to the other. The gun lobby especially is lurching around with blind accusations and slogans that sound rational on the outside rather than obtaining hard facts and numbers. And (the bastards like Keene at) the NRA have successfully stopped such genuine research into gun deaths and arguments in the past. (How? With techniques that include minimizing counter-arguments and using intimidating threats that keep political opponents out of office.)

4) "That's not much." The prodigious ammunition reserves of the Aurora shooter wasn't so large. "You can use up a lot of ammunition in sport and competitive shooting."

In other words, David Keene may have (or have owned) more ammunition in his personal storage than the Aurora shooter! You can read more of his uneducated incoherent nonsense if you want for yourself in the transcript here. Any by uneducated, I checked, and none in the hierarchy of the NRA have doctorates. Most won't even admit to graduating from college level education.

Until guns are totally banned, I believe the numbers won't improve in favor of saving lives, although every little bit of good legislation helps. America will continue to be a violent gun culture at heart. And that's a problem for others even if it's not recognized as such. America won't admit to an addiction problem to guns. They say Mexicans and other countries have more gun violence. But like avoiding another car on a slippery road in winter, Americans can't see the outside picture and the possibilities, and how much trouble they could conceivably cause other countries. America can fight the addiction, but they still need to take real action and catch up to other peaceful cultures as far as guns are concerned. It's past time.

On Nicknames

Is it racist to mispronounce a name that is new to you?

Mispronouncing a word arises from ignorance. So isn't ignorance the root cause of mispronounced proper names? Now it's clearly wrong and patronizing to mispronounce someone else's name or say a person can't pronounce one's own name properly.

Quvenzhané Wallis in the movie "Beasts of the Southern Wild," was in the running for Best Actress at the Academy Awards 2013. And now critics are blaming her loss last night on the fact her name's a challenge to pronounce. The Best Actress award ultimately went to Jennifer Lawrence. 

Sour grapes? First of all, it's not at all clear that the Academy Awards voters view justice as a central virtue and guiding principle. Seems to me, politicking just might happen to be important behind the scenes.

And "Beasts of the Southern Wild" wasn't a huge commercial success. Indeed, I hadn't heard anyone recommend seeing it, not anyone around me. It just wasn't on my radar as much as the other contenders were. Not because it wasn't worthy of being seen, but because it wasn't a well-known movie that played for a long time in lots of local theaters.

That said, the issue has turned into a barrage of complaints online and in the media that Quvenzhane, the leading actress in the movie, didn't win because of her long name. Perhaps another genuine complaint behind the uproar is that the movie didn't win Best Picture...But I think it did very well for a movie I hadn't heard of, and that no one I know even went to see.

I can't address why Beasts of the Southern Wild didn't win Best Picture because I haven't seen it, or all the major movies either for that matter. And I don't know why some movies do better at the box office than many others equally well-deserving. I could maybe have seen the small and foreign films in New York City.

The camera many times gave us close-up shots of Quvenzhane throughout the evening, and she was the topic of a great deal of attention. But I was only hearing about her first on Awards night. (Questioning why that would be is valid.) She's evidently a tiny girl, under ten years old, possibly the youngest ever nominated, although her fame is now enormous and has reached all corners of the earth after the Oscars after last night's show.

Not calling people by their birth names for the purpose of ease and efficiency of use by speakers of English in English isn't racist. Some names can be extremely difficult to pronounce for those unfamiliar with the language, which is why many actresses and writers adopt stage names.   

Names do add or detract from success from my experience, I submit to you. And if the choice is to use a short name or not have your name said much and your livelihood depends on people repeating your name, which way would you want your life to go? Or would you saddle your child with a name that is difficult to pronounce and uncommon out of stubbornness if it possibly held back uncertain success? Could keeping a difficult name be a form of reverse racism if keeping a name from a sense of family pride hurts someone's chances of success? I'd like to hear your opinions in the comment section.

Impressions of the 2013 Academy Awards

As far as the Academy Awards ceremony itself, did you notice the aggressive marketing campaign in the many short commercials by different cruise ship companies in the wake of the recent cruise ship disaster off Mexico? 

And at the same time, even though I'm a fan of the First Lady I didn't approve of her appearance however impressive and perfect at the end of the Show. It seemed to politicize what shouldn't have been a political event, or at least not a governmentally sanctioned event, even if the Awards themselves are rampant with their own kind of internal politics. Hope that trend doesn't widen.

I actually thought the presenter, Seth MacFarlane, was the best maybe ever. But the criticism by William Shatner wasn't helpful, useful, or accurate. Just saying...

I don't think it's racist to use a short word if a proper name is difficult and slow to catch on for the purposes of economy and efficiency. Many worry that Quvenzane Wallis didn't win the Best Actress Award because of her unusual and long name. I've felt guilty myself about calling the volcano with a name that I find unpronounceable in Iceland  'awful' in a previous post because that's exactly what the word sounded like when I heard it, and because I don't speak Icelandic. My point in the post was that such a long name was intimidating. But was it racist to use shorthand of a proper name as a nickname? Please let me know what you think. 

Here are some photos of the stars courtesy of the Los Angeles Times.

Canada's Safe Even From Zombies

Here's a light hearted minute of funny Canadian comedy. The venerable Canadian Parliament was at play in February...warm, silly, and well-intentioned. Happened in the thick of another frigid Canadian winter (and yes, some may have risked
their lives driving through inclement weather to hear this in person).

Can British Royalty Honestly Expect Privacy Abroad?

 

Courtesy: Chi  

An Italian magazine has printed a flattering picture of the royal couple, shown here. And as usual, the Royal Palace isn't allowing the British people to see them as all the rest of the free world can.

With all due respect, it's unethical. Most couples aren't photographed and hounded in this way, it's true. And the Royal couple assumed they were walking on a beach in privacy, and that their privacy would be respected. It turns out, however, that their assumptions were mistaken. The private became public.

But that was the royal couple's mistake, and probably no one else's. It was a risk they took to walk outside. Why exactly why did the Royal couple assume their photographs wouldn't be taken? What in their past made them assume, with some exclusionary royal prerogative, that they wouldn't be photographed? Why should they assume that they can buy their way out of being photographed anywhere in the free world? Most of the world evidently has a press freer than the British press.

The couple seems to be making a legal issue about expectations of privacy, and they sound rather churlish and whiny. The public has the opposite concerns. The Royal couple are undoubtedly public figures and are expected by the public to behave as such in public locations, and at all times.

This mischievous behavior isn't something the Queen of England has ever done. One would think she should be more disappointed with her son's wife than with the press recording an event. But pregnancy doesn't last long, and the beautiful Princess didn't learn her lesson in France last summer on the topic of "assumption of privacy." If she's going to be out and about in public, she's likely to be photographed, she evidently might be even where she assumes it's private.

The press is certainly making the issue balloon larger, but it's good for publicity in the business of entertainment. The names of the magazines involved in these photos, for example, were previously unknown to me, and probably most Americans.

Commenters online have looked at the photos and asked why the Royal couple are in full emergency alarm mode about these photos. This is a flattering photo and at least the princess was wearing a bikini (unlike last August).

So I would issue free advice to the Royal couple. They should assume their photos will be taken unless they are within the perimeters of the Royal walls of their castles, or in more remote areas with better security. And they should definitely take the consequences if they walk around in public in a foreign country dressed like this and they should stop threatening legal action. That's just plain impolite. (And by the way, I need more photos for this blog. I'm dressed for work, although it's so cold I could be wearing pyjamas writing this post. Maybe I wouldn't mind vacationing wherever they are now.)

Is America Imploding? NRA Lists Enemies

The American organization, the National Rifle Association (NRA) has published a list of American organizations and celebrities they believe do not further their gun-manufacturing proliferation goals. The NRA, for my international readers, is a government lobbying group in the United States that works by scaring American politicians, by intimidating them, and winning their support through financial contributions (a.k.a. bribes). They work by scaring the general population with slogans, that Americans need more guns for self-defense, and that they have a right to any gun they want. Scaring Americans furthers the aims of the NRA to sell more guns. Strangely enough, they believe that by gathering names of businesses and celebrities who aren't helping them, they're winning as a public relations organization! Sounds like when Hitler published the names of Jews he didn't like in the Second World War. And we all know how wrong he proved in history.

Honestly, the NRA is just a silly, but noisy organization, capable of financing political mayhem, and financially supportive of encouraging American people to buy more guns to kill other American people. The NRA, and similar pro-weapons organizations in America that try to promote a lot of gun use, have flimsy pathetic aims that break apart under the sharp light of examination and common sense. And what could these goals possibly be?

1) They promote twisted testosterone-laden visions of total world domination.

    To counteract, I would say that the beautiful soft visions of world-renowned celebrities of both sexes they've listed have already (un)arguably achieved world domination.

2) And as for the ability to kill hundreds of people in minutes with assault rifles if they have the whim?

     The bombs of WWII killed many more than that in Japan.

3) Guns are useful for self-defense because there's supposedly the constitutional right to bear arms.

    Surely there are other more rational methods of self-defense (self-defense classes spring to mind). By the time Americans have to resort to the use of firearms, it means that all other vestiges of civil society, including conversation, have failed. And as for constitutional rights, certain sensible and experienced legal scholars want to limit or dispose of that idea.

The NRA and similar organizations are hurtful and upsetting, and no good ever comes from them. Seems to me nearly every major American business should be business enemies of the NRA, and most businesses who aren't on the list should be. For the NRA list is, at its core, anti-business, anti-government, anti-religious, anti-nearly every celebrity--and is wrong-headed and wrong-hearted.

Why would any serious business in America profess to be pro-gun proliferation except for guns and parts manufacturers? And the Second Amendment doesn't give Americans the automatic right to bear any kind of arms, as the articles below prove, and as most sensible people already know. Why Americans don't just dispose of their guns, I haven't the foggiest.

Publishing names of businesses, celebrities, and journalists who supposedly don't agree with the goals of the NRA is useless. We don't have any clear idea why these particular ones were singled out, but they're automatically my friends, if true. The point is, calling them enemies is not a productive use of any organization's time and energy.

Can you imagine the United States being a nice place to live if real estate agents perceived people who won't sell houses as their enemies and published lists of their names? Or if any business, for that matter, published the names of people who do not like their products, who will not want to go along and buy them, and further, went ahead and singled out individuals and called them enemies? Businesses would break down and implode....just as Germany imploded and took years to recover when Hitler outlawed Jews and began the Second World War. Hasn't America learned enough about intimidation? Or is it going to start another civil war, the Second Civil War?

As a real estate agent myself, I am terrified of the idea of entering a house with guns. I have seen them in Broker's Open Houses, it's true, but these aren't desirable possessions, in my view. If the aim is self-defense, they have only one purpose, and that is to shoot someone. Weapons aren't productive properties to own if possessions have to earn their keep. They take up valuable household space if they're securely stored, and the news media repeatedly assures me they often aren't stored properly and accidents happen. The same accidents wouldn't happen without weapons.

And, I'd like to point out to Americans, finally, that for many millions of people who don't live in the United States, America doesn't sound like a very safe and desirable place to live. That's a delusional idea Americans use to comfort themselves. I'm just thankful the NRA didn't list my name.

Here's the NRA list of over 500 names. Here's scholarly opinion on limiting the Second Amendment, and more recently here and here.

Violence Control: The Wider American Problem

Governor of New Jersey Wishes to Widen "Gun Control" Discussion to 

"VIOLENCE CONTROL"

Governor Chris Christie, the Governor in my home state of New Jersey wants to widen, broaden, and deepen the topic of gun control. According to this article in the Daily Beast, he sees "Violence Control" as a three-part problem:

1) Violent video games could be a cause of shooting sprees.

2) Illegal drugs need to be regulated and controlled.

3) Mental-health needs to be monitored.

The article queries how:

"Christie’s new campaign pans out. As a practical matter, regulating which games people play, which drugs they ingest, and which mental-health tests they submit to may be even harder than regulating the size of the magazines in their Glocks."

While I think Governor Christie's "Violence Control" discussion is a lurch in the right direction, and I must give him credit points for trying, I have to wonder:

Can violent video games be regulated? And didn't shooting sprees happen before video games were invented?

How can the war against illegal drugs be won? Illegal drugs have been around for generations now, and haven't gone away. Keeping the focus on police enforcement of illegal drugs can't hurt, I agree.

How can mental health professionals be responsible for predicting exactly who will be a mass shooter?

So many questions. So few answers. I still think it's best to focus on passing stricter gun control measures as soon as possible. For that, I give Democratic President Obama my highest praise. Banning weapons is certainly the quickest and single most important way to cut down on gun violence statistics.

UPDATE: Another fascinating statistic comes from an article in the New York Times:
"According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 38,364 Americans lost that fight in 2010 and committed suicide; 19,392 used a gun."

Tighter Gun Laws: A Hot Topic in America

 ProPublica published an article with statistics on gun control. Pictured are politicians involved in many sides of the issue in an article called "Where Congress Stands on Guns" including funding from the NRA. The issue raises so many questions in my mind for investigators that I wrote the publication this letter.

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My Letter with Questions to ProPublica

Thank you for this informative article about gun control. To find out who is on the other political side of the issue from where I write on my blog is very useful. Until recently it hasn't been a hot-button political issue for years because many politicians have tried to stay away from the topic and keep it out of the limelight. But that is no longer a possibility, not after Aurora and Newtown, and the practical issue of gun ownership is becoming extremely personal and divisive. So it's useful to know the facts as the issues become more discussed and as Americans form personal opinions about an issue so heavily shaded by experience and family values.

An article in the UK newspaper, The Guardian, yesterday published a chart of gun laws state by state. The article didn't promise their statistics were 100% accurate. But it did show many, many states have ZERO gun laws. That was huge news to me, so I blogged about that. Getting more numbers like this would be useful.

So more hard facts like these in your article are very useful to me personally. From your article, it appears that more politicians are in favor of an assault weapons ban than not. That's good news. I wonder about their attitudes about handguns, temporary licenses for guns, banning gun sales at shows, stronger gun registry for all weapons, including inherited?

I'm also concerned about how medical and sociological and psychological research into gun violence has been effectively muzzled, completely unfunded, and profoundly discouraged by intimidating pro-gun groups. Would like to hear more details about that. Incredible to hear that freedom of speech doesn't extend to official statistics: why violence happens, who is affected, how gun injuries and deaths affect victims for years, and where gun violence is most likely to happen. How are police rewarded or discouraged from dealing with gun-related violence if their weapons are less powerful than assault rifles?

 The Supreme Court should not allow civilian weapons in all situations, in my view so that is a very grey, foggy topic. But what about the attitude of the Supreme Court, as well as the general population, to the controversial Second Amendment? Just as yelling fire in a crowded theater isn't allowed, neither should weapons be. It's very off-putting to go to a movie theater with 12-24 theaters [as I did last week] and see a similar number of armed guards!!! A ban makes life so much easier.

And most politicians take money from the NRA. What's not clear is how many other gun groups provide them with money. It's not clear why politicians have the attitudes towards guns they have, and whether family experience with guns changes their attitudes. If they have guns for self-defense, have they ever used their guns?

And if mental health professionals must now add more names to a database to stop patients from buying guns, isn't that going to slow (and probably stop) patients from getting the help they need from doctors and psychologists? It's well known that the Rolling Stones gained more help from a judge who forced them to get help with the drug problem they had instead of imprisoning them.

With over 14,000 murders in the US [last year] compared to minimal numbers in the remainder of the civilized peaceful world where guns aren't encouraged, banning guns is a no-brainer to me, but the statistics help.So while everyone stops and thinks about gun laws, we need to have the facts, which is where you can help so much. Thank you for this article. Please keep them coming on this crucial topic.

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