A Great Run

I am sad and grieving this morning. Not for the loss of a loved one, thank God, nor even for a beloved pet, but for a music festival. After 20 years, our friends and show promoters, Jan and Terry, announced that this would be the final Naperville Bluegrass festival.

My wife and I were at the show yesterday, when they came up onstage together. They gave no reason, and simply expressed gratitude to all the fans that have supported them over the years. We always considered this to be our hometown festival because it was the only one in northern Illinois.

We so much enjoyed going that I almost died one year trying to attend. In 2008 we had tickets for the end of March, but in the beginning of March, I had to go in for emergency spinal cord surgery. Against the wishes of the doctors, I checked myself out of the hospital the day before the weekend show. I slept soundly through the entire Friday night performance, and woke up Saturday morning in so much pain that we could not stay for the rest of the festival.

Except for that one year, bluegrass has been very good to me. One time we went to a show in Ottawa by Starved Rock. We stayed at the local Hampton Inn and combined the festival with amazing dining and hiking adventures. Hampton Inn published a nationwide hotel magazine that was provided for every room in the chain. In the back of the magazine was a feature article about a guests' experiences while staying at the hotels. I wrote up a story about our trip and submitted it.

A few months later I got a call saying that my piece was selected for inclusion and that we had won a free weekend package. At that time, my folks were going to some of the shows with us, and we again stayed at a Hampton Inn for the outdoor festival being held at Rockome Gardens in central Illinois Amish country.

We hadn't said anything to my parents about my wife and I appearing in the magazine, but as soon as we checked in, I opened our copy and there it was, my article and a very nice color picture of me and the Mrs.

A few minutes later, my mom called from her room to ours and said that my dad was shouting in the hotel bathroom because he saw our faces. We had a hard time making him understand that the feature was in every Hampton Inn room in the country, and not just that specific location.

I couldn't have been more pleased, my wife was very proud, my dad was beside himself, and Jan and Terry thanked us for the publicity.

When they made their announcement yesterday, my heart dropped into my stomach. The music took on an added poignancy. I knew it couldn't last forever (Jan and Terry, like all of us, are getting older), and we had a great run. The Greater Northern Illinois Bluegrass Festival will be greatly missed.

Peter Piper Picked A Peck

I haven't heard a good tongue-twister in a while, so try saying this 3 times fast - 

Flagrantly fragrant...

For These Fellows, It's Anchors A-Whey

This is a story that hits close to home. I was privileged to work, for many years, in the gourmet food department of an upscale wine retailer. The store had a humidor so fragrant you would catch a buzz just standing in it. We had a wine cellar stocked with bottles worth thousands of dollars apiece. The liqueur aisles showcased the finest spirits from around the world. The entire back wall displayed imported beers and ales from a hundred different countries.

It was a blast to work there. My co-workers and I were a wide-awake team, each of us experts on the products we offered. I was the resident wise guy and cheesemonger.

The Gourmet Grocery featured a fifteen-foot-long, floor-to-ceiling, open-air cheesecase. Picture three shelves full of sharp, aged, English and artisinal domestic cheddar; half rounds of golden, nutty, Swiss Emmentaler; luscious, decadent, triple-cream Bries from France; pungent, cave-ripened blues; smooth, tangy goat's milk cheeses; and eighty pound wheels of lemony, toothsome, Parmigiano-Reggiano.

Imagine then my reaction when I read a story about cheesemakers in a Russian dairy, bathing in the vats of warm, fermenting milk.

“What happened in this dairy plant is, of course, a case of sheer idiocy, but nowadays there is nothing to prevent such idiots from indulging in similar outrages," said Dmitry Yanin, the board chairman of the Russian Confederation of Consumer Societies.

Photographs and a video posted by an employee, who participated in the New Year's Eve festivities, surfaced on a Russian social network, and prompted regional authorities to close the facility for a thorough inspection.

Artyom Romanov, who shot the footage of himself and his naked co-workers relaxing in the tub, said, “In reality our work is very boring."

Trade House Cheeses, a dairy producer in Omsk, Siberia, about 1,600 miles east of Moscow, was ordered closed for 90 days.

The deputy chief of the Omsk region's sanitary inspection agency stated in a report, “The production and service facilities are in an unsatisfactory sanitary condition. Conditions for personal hygiene are lacking.”

Ya think...?

Consumer reaction was swift. After the video appeared on Russian television network, NTV (not to be confused with MTV, where such actions would be acceptable), many residents of Omsk refused to buy products made at the plant.

Dmitry Yanin explained, "Russia has been practically exercising no control over consumer production after a law was introduced limiting inspections of such facilities to only once every three years. This has led to dire consequences, especially in food production and catering services, resulting in thousands of health-related cases every year.

“But for the video appearing on a social net, we would have never known about the risks of using this facility's products. The entire sphere of food production is now completely out of the state's control, which means that none of us are safe when we buy food in Russia these days.”

While researching this story, several titles and taglines came to mind, such as - 

Say Cheese!

These workers put the butt in butter

The cream rises to the top

Is this where head cheese comes from?

Rub-a-dub-dub, five men in a stainless steel tub

Inspectors Are Lactose Intolerant

and the ever popular, 'Don't Pee in the Brie'

You can watch the video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S82oEZ0URIg#t=37

War of Attrition

I've been blackballed!

As many of my long time Facebook friends know, I enjoy a Facebook fan page called "Big Butts." It is only one of hundreds of such fan pages on Facebook, and while it may not be everyone's cup of tea, these pages are harmless fun.

Believe it or not, the comments on the page are respectful and appreciative of the women who send in photos. In fact, most of the pictures on the site are shared from other Facebook pages, and are of professional models.

Also, in accordance with Facebook policies, all the photos depict women wearing g-strings, with no frontal nudity, and of course, no sexual acts whatsoever.

There is the age old argument that these type of pages demean women, perpetuate stereotypes, and facilitate oppression. All I will say to these arguments is that all parties involved are consenting adults, and censorship is a slippery slope.

All the ladies in my life - my wife, sisters, mom, daughter-in-law, Facebook friends, sisters-in-law, co-workers - can attest to my deep and abiding love and respect for women, and that they have no advocate more outspoken than me in support of equal rights, legally and culturally.

Unfortunately, in this day and age, any busybody, has the power to prohibit tens of thousands of people from exercising their right to the "pursuit of happiness." Entities such as Comcast, Mediacom, Facebook, and Youtube, wield their delete button like a sledgehammer, and there is no recourse when the blow falls. There is no right to face your accuser, no right to be judged by your peers, no appeal process.

The Big Butts administrators knew that I wrote a blog, and that I am paralyzed from the waist down. I had mentioned to them that the page provided me with a distraction from the constant pain I am in. I was invited to be an admin, which meant that I could answer messages sent to the page and post pictures sent to us by subscribers.

So you can imagine my shock when the following message showed up yesterday in my email and on my personal Facebook page:

Notice of Facebook Feature Restrictions for Big Butts
Facebook
To Me
Mar 26 at 3:22 AM
Facebook

Your Page Big Butts has been unpublished for violating Facebook's Terms. If you think your Page was unpublished in error, you can appeal the decision. If your appeal is denied, your Page will be deleted permanently.

This message was sent to xxxxxxx@yahoo.com. If you don't want to receive these emails from Facebook in the future, please unsubscribe. Facebook, Inc., Attention: Department 415, PO Box 10005, Palo Alto, CA 94303
Reply, Reply All or Forward | More

I went to the page, and sure enough, it had been taken down. Later in the day I received a personal message on Facebook from one of the page owners who said they sent in an appeal, but Facebook would not even respond with what the violation was, let alone where the complaint came from.

Since it was out of my hands, I let it rest, but today I woke up to this message in my email, and when I went to Facebook, this message appeared in the center of my screen, and I had to check a box that said I had read the notice before I could access my Facebook page.

Facebook Warning
Facebook
To Me
Today at 1:04 AM
Hello,

Your Page "Big Butts" has been removed for violating our Terms of Use. A Facebook Page is a distinct presence used solely for business or promotional purposes. Among other things, Pages that are hateful, threatening or obscene are not allowed. We also take down Pages that attack an individual or group or that are set up by an unauthorised individual. If your Page was removed for any of the above reasons, it will not be reinstated. Continued misuse of Facebook's features could result in the permanent loss of your account.<br><br>If you need further assistance with this issue, please visit http://www.facebook.com/help/contact.php?show_form=page_disabled.

The Facebook Team
Reply, Reply All or Forward | More

I am selective in who I am friends with on Facebook, and I would hate to think that any of them would say, "It serves him right." There is a bigger issue here. So, okay, they removed this one site. Yes, I can simply go to another page, but I probably would never agree to be an admin again, so already the censorship and surveillance proponents have achieved a small victory. In a war of attrition that's all it takes.

We Like Big Butts and We Can Not Lie

(Big Butts profile pic and motto)

Jew For Jesus

Although I was bullied mercilessly throughout my childhood by the Catholic kids in the neighborhood, I have always held a fascination for Christianity.

On Wednesday afternoons, ninety percent of my classmates got out of school early for something called catechism, while I had to attend Hebrew School after regular school got out on Tuesdays and Thursdays, and then again on Sunday mornings. And these were in addition to Friday night services that started right after dinner and went till bedtime, and the unendurably long Saturday service that lasted half the day.

With the slow melting of the snow and the first appearance of tulips and Lily of the Valley, the aisles at the Kresge's Five & Dime would fill up with marshmallow peeps and jelly beans and chocolate rabbits. Our friends' families would color and paint hard boiled eggs, and in school we would blow out eggs and dip the fragile shells in glitter. I would proudly take mine home, but after a day or so, it would be thrown in the garbage.

We had Passover with its strange traditions, one of which was searching our house by candlelight for pieces of stale bread that my mother hid. We would put all the bread (and pieces of cookies and crackers that my little sister stashed behind the black and white console TV) into a paper bag. We, and any other kids who were out, gathered in our driveway, and my father would light the bag on fire, thus "purifying" our home for Passover.

Our family traveled to my grandparents' house, a Marquette Park bungalow, for the Seder, the ritual retelling of the Exodus from Egypt. But the Seders were not fun. They were more like school where we waited anxiously to be called upon to recite Hebrew passages. I could never figure out why we couldn't just watch The Ten Commandments and be done with it.

Moreover, whereas we had plagues and the Angel of Death, they had the Easter Bunny.

In high school, we surreptitiously listened to Jesus Christ Superstar which embodied the political dark side of the Passion, and to a lesser degree, Godspell, a decidedly flower-child interpretation of the parables. Both were looked down on by the "official" Church (which only made it all the more sweeter), and doubly so in my case.

By the time I got to college, I was ready to engage in intellectual debate with my peers on God, the meaning of life, religion, politics, death, taxes, and Jesus Christ. I suppose I should point out that most of these discussions were carried out under the influence of various mind altering substances, and the profound revelations that we gleaned by night, didn't hold up so well in the light of day.

Falling in love with the woman who would become my wife opened up a brand new chapter in my spiritual journey. She was a good, church-going, Polish, Catholic girl, and how she ever fell for an agnostic, pot smoking, Jewish rebel, I'll never know. Guidance counselors assured us that such a union was doomed to fail, and I firmly believe that when our marriage was in crisis, it was sheer stubbornness on both our parts to prove them wrong, that kept us together.

Be that as it may, and especially when our sons came along, we were determined to bring them up in the beauty of both religions. They attended the Seder dinner presided over by their grandfather (and where I was still called upon to recite Hebrew passages), and went to church for Easter Mass with my wife's folks the next morning. They went to bar and bas mitzvahs for some cousins and baptisms and communions for others.

I love sitting in church on Easter morning, surrounded by lillies and stained glass aglow with sunshine, delighting in the happy faces of people clothed in lavender and robin's egg blue. Listening to the deeply moving music, and basking in the palpable feeling of goodwill. Awaiting the promise of what's to come.

And not an Easter morn goes by without some little special moment that makes me tip my hat to God. A smile exchanged with a little girl in a pink dress standing backwards on a pew. The way a beam of light shines on the face of the figure on the cross. A particular phrase in a sermon that enlightens.

Being born Jewish, with its proud, stiff-necked heritage, I never seriously considered converting. I did briefly toy with the idea of becoming a snake handler, but we'll leave that one to Sigmund Freud. However, in all earnestness, I did consider joining Jews for Jesus.

Any idea I might have had about them being a loose-knit society of like-minded free-thinkers, who accepted the possibility that Christ was Divine, was quickly dispelled upon researching the group. Quite simply, Jews for Jesus is a religion, as highly structured and strict in its tenets as every other. It would take a lifetime of devotion to absorb all the written material available to a prospective neophyte, and frankly, I had other things to do.

I suppose this is as good a time as any to get a few things off my chest. I grew up in a time and place where it was taught that Jesus was not Jewish, he was Christian. The established doctrine was that Jews put the Lord to death, and were to be shunned, ostracized, and persecuted for it. These prejudices were deeply harbored, by parents and children alike.

I still remember one incident as clearly as if it had happened yesterday. It was 1967 and I was nine years old. Although I didn't understand it, I knew that Israel was at war with the entire Arab nation. One day during class, our teacher, Mrs. McClory, called me out into the hallway and handed me an envelope to give to my parents. Reading the obvious look of concern on my face, she said it was nothing bad, that it was a donation for Israel. We walked back into the room with thirty pairs of eyes watching me holding the envelope. I took my seat and class resumed.

At recess, a bunch of kids surrounded me and wanted to know why I was called out to the hallway. I simply said that the teacher gave me a donation to give to my parents. I went home after school, gave my mom the envelope and thought no more about it.

I was in my room after dinner and I heard the phone ring. A few minutes later, my father threw open the door and started yelling at me, "What did you say at recess?

I fell back on the kids' automatic response, "Nothing!"

"Who did you tell about this envelope!?" was the next question.

"Just a few kids," I replied lamely.

"Don't you know better than to keep your mouth shut? The teacher could lose her job! Well, you just better write a letter apologizing to your teacher."

He walked out, closing the door behind him. Barely stifling back the tears, I sat down at my desk and started writing what I thought, namely that the teacher should not have involved a nine year old child; that she should not have called me out into the hall in front of the whole class; that she never told me it was some big, damn secret; and that I did not believe she'd lose her job, but maybe experience some of the bigotry that I did every day on the playground. Of course, this was all in the words of a little boy who felt wrongly accused.

I finished and signed my name, walked out of my room and handed the paper to my father. He took one look at it and went berserk. "You call this an apology!? You get right back in there and write a proper letter!" Oh, I thought, you don't want to hear what I think, you just want to hear what you want to hear. I sat back down, wrote out a bunch of insincere words, and learned a very valuable lesson.

I have always asserted that Jesus was a populist rabbi who roamed the land preaching to all who cared to listen. His message, that God resided in the heart, not in empty gestures, was a spit in the eye of the powers that be. Rome couldn't have cared less about this wandering rabbi, or about the discomfort of certain factions in the Sanhedrin. In fact, an advocate of peace was much more to the Roman Governor's liking than the proponents of violence who populated Jerusalem's streets. But Judea was a subjugated country, and such civil rights as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly were very harshly restricted.

It must also be remembered that Judea of 2000 years ago was awash in crippling poverty, ignorance, and disease. Leprosy was a very real scourge, and those who contracted the highly communicable affliction were forced into a remote valley of stone and caves to live out their miserable lives.

The Roman occupation used hideous tortures to maintain their rule. Scourging with iron-barbed cat-o'-nine-tails, and beatings with heavy chains; sewing a victim into a sack with a wild animal and tossing them into a river; lacing up a man's urethra and force-feeding him wine; and, as a form of torture and capital punishment - crucifixion.

Death from crucifying could take from hours to days depending on method, the victim's health, and the weather. Possible causes of death came from cardiac rupture, heart failure, hypovolemic shock (loss of blood), pulmonary embolism, sepsis from wounds, and dehydration. When the whole body weight was supported by the stretched arms, the typical cause of death was asphyxiation.

Corrupt officials used networks of informers and betrayers to ruthlessly crush rebellion, which fomented continually. Messiahs rose and fell according to the whims of the mob who cried out for the Deliverer. Into this seething cauldron of brutality and despair walked the son of a carpenter who taught that the meek shall inherit the earth.

I believe in miracles. Life is a miracle. The existence of the universe is a miracle. The indomitable spirit of the human soul is a miracle. And the fact that science can provide empirical explanations for these miracles, in no way lessens their impact or significance.

In a time when established medical practices did more harm than good, Jesus was a healer. In the so-called missing years between his teaching in the Great Synagogue as a child and his baptism by John, did Jesus visit the Orient, and in so doing, learn of healing arts unknown in the Mideast? Did he bring a man, who for all intents and purposes, appeared dead, back to consciousness? Was he able to survive his ordeal on the cross and through the power of his will heal himself so as to arise and appear before his disciples? Or were his powers truly of Divine origin?

In answer to those questions, I must now use the F word - Faith.

In one of my all time favorite movies, Miracle On 34th Street, John Payne says to Maureen O'Hara, "Faith is believing when common sense tells you not to. Don't you see? It's kindness and joy and love and all the other intangibles. Someday you're going to find that your way of facing this realistic world just doesn't work. And when you do, don't overlook those lovely intangibles. You'll discover those are the only things that are worthwhile."

American novelist and religious satirist, Peter De Vries said, "It takes a lot more faith to live this life without faith than with it."

I'm a doubting Thomas. I want to believe. I want to take that leap into thin air. But I need to touch the Risen body. I cannot get beyond the rationalization that we are biological entities. That the soul is a product of electro-chemical processes in the brain. That we come from nothing and return to nothing. That all of human history - art, war, love, greed - are all acts of denial in the face of this unassailable truth. That religion is born out of the desperation of fear.

I do not want this to be true. I want to believe that when we die, our consciousness lives on and we are reunited with loved ones, including pets, in everlasting peace, free from the physical, emotional and spiritual pain of life on earth.

And whether I believe in it or not, if there is a Heaven, I believe that I am ready to stand in judgement before its Ruler.

To me, Easter and Passover have always been inextricably linked. The heart of the Christian religion is the Resurrection of Christ, and the heart of the Jewish religion is the Exodus from Egypt. It is no coincidence that both holidays are celebrated in the springtime because both stories speak of rebirth.

Surely in this day and age, it is common knowledge that Jesus went up to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, and that the Last Supper was in fact the Passover Seder. Even the symbolism of the two holidays is intertwined.

The Eucharist received at Mass is taken from the unleavened bread that Jesus bade the Disciples to eat. The roasted lamb shank which appears on the Seder plate recalls the roasted lamb which God instructed the Hebrews to eat on the eve of their departure from Egypt. Jesus is called the Lamb of God. The Seder plate also contains a roasted egg which symbolizes the animal sacrifice that was brought to the Temple in Jerusalem before each Passover. The egg, a symbol of life in all cultures, is an Easter icon.

I know that theologians would vehemently disagree, but I also think that Judaism and Christianity have even more in common. Both religions are awaiting the coming of the Messiah, and whether it's the First or the Second Coming, makes no difference to me. Whether these are in fact the end times according to the Book of Revelations or not, our world is in a pretty bad place, and it sure looks as if things are going to get much worse before they get better.

I don't completely understand this whole Rapture thing, but it seems to me that whisking all the true believers off the planet just when we'd need the strength of people of faith the most is pretty chicken-livered.

I have always asserted that in storytelling, the better the bad guy, the better the good guy. Dramatic tension increases exponentially when good is confronted with overwhelming evil, where the villain holds all the cards and the forces arrayed against the hero are seemingly insurmountable.

Armageddon is the ultimate expression of this concept. I cannot help but think that the Four Horseman are galloping wildly towards us even as we speak. The signs and portents seem to be there. Whether you believe in conspiracy theories or not, it is clear that greed has reached a zenith unparalleled since man first walked upright.

The powers that be seem hell bent on poisoning our planet and poisoning us, so that we will slowly die after being wrung dry.

We have an energy industry that poisons our air with carcinogens and greenhouse gases.

We have a farming industry that poisons our water with runoff from chemical fertilizers.

We have a waste management industry that poisons our oceans with toxic garbage.

We have a pharmaceutical industry that poisons our DNA with molecular degradation.

We have a food industry that poisons our bodies with additives, preservatives, and genetically modified organisms.

We have an educational industry that poisons our minds with propaganda.

We have a financial industry that poisons our hearts with greed.

We have a news industry that poisons our spirits with misinformation and half-truths.

We have a religion industry that poisons our souls with bigotry, hatred, and violence.

We have a government that at least enables, if not coordinates, these atrocities.

I think the ultimate goal of the "One Percent" is to create an "Elysium" here on Earth. Secret technology is always 50 years ahead of public knowledge. I think that the point where humans can virtually live forever is a reality. I think the automation is in place where the "Haves" no longer need the "have nots," not even as slave labor. I believe a barely hidden war is being waged against us.

Is this God's plan? If there is, was, and ever shall be an incomprehensible entity that knows all and sees all, and It does have a plan, then all is futility anyway and we are mere pawns. If It is just sitting back to watch what happens, then the question, "Why do bad things happen to good people?" is answered.

And if there is a conscious God, is there a conscious Devil?

On the other hand, is the multiverse an AI? Scientists have just proven the theory of the Big Bang. But this proof comes with a price tag. The very idea of a Big Bang insinuates that there may have been an infinite number of Big Bangs before the one that we now appear to be existing in. And each one of those Big Bangs may have manifested completely different physical truths. At some point did reality become conscious?

Is there simply Yin and Yang? Is it positive energy and negative energy in a universe that quantum mechanics tells us that everything, including us, is energy?

Is it somethingness versus nothingness? In the final analysis, we may never know, and I have come to the conclusion that it does not matter.

Morality, immorality, and amorality, good and bad, right and wrong, taking the high road, are very subjective matters. The interpretation of these concepts are not black and white, but a different shade of gray for every one of the seven billion of us currently sharing this time and place.

Yet, I do believe that we all have a part to play, that we all have a purpose. We need to stand up and stand together against evil, in whatever form it takes, before it's too late.

I have always liked this passage from J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Chapter 2: The Shadow of the Past -

'Ah!' said Gandalf.... 'Always after a defeat and a respite, the Shadow takes another shape and grows again.'

'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.

'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us. And already, Frodo, our time is beginning to look black. The Enemy is fast becoming very strong. His plans are far from ripe, I think, but they are ripening. We shall be hard put to it.'

They say the Lord moves in mysterious ways. Six and a half years ago, I developed a neurological disorder that rendered me paralyzed from the waist down and in constant pain. I had to leave a job I enjoyed. We almost lost our home. I was depressed and suicidal.

Out of the depths of this despair, my son helped me find my voice again. My gift, my calling, my avocation that I had avoided and rejected and abandoned and lied about for many years.

Essayist, John Ruskin, said, "Hundreds of people can talk for one who can think, but thousands can think for one who can see. To see clearly is poetry, prophecy and religion, all in one."

I cannot help but believe that God brought me low for a purpose. A purpose that I am now fulfilling. To give testament to His being in my own way.

I have always believed that all of Christ's teachings, His birth and death, His reason for dwelling among us (in spite of what's been done in His name for the last two millennium), is summed up in just one word - love.

That I can believe in.

Can A Turnip Be Far Behind

Scientists can now literally squeeze blood from a stone.

Using fine-grained oil shale, researchers at the Polytechnic Institute of Johannesburg, South Africa have discovered a method of pressurizing the sedimentary rock into a superfluid. Kerogen shale, a solid mixture of organic-rich chemical compounds, is introduced into a micro-hydraulic chamber developed by Siemens International.

Employing state of the art nanotechnology, the molecules of the resulting slurry are injected with atoms of Calcium (Ca), Magnesium (Mg), Potassium (K), Sodium (Na), Sulphur (S), Phosphorus (P), Iron (Fe), and Zinc (Zn), the basic components of blood. This compound and a saline solution are then emulsified in a microhematocrit centrifuge, producing a plasma like substance that can be used for transfusions and surgical procedures.

Project Director, Dr. Myles Vanderboer, said, "This breakthrough will aid greatly in catastrophic situations, such as earthquakes and hurricanes, when blood banks simply cannot provide vital blood plasma in sufficient quantities. This research will save lives."

Every word you just read is one hundred percent made up. There is not a stitch of truth in it. It is purely a product of my imagination. Sure, I looked up a few facts on Wikipedia, but there is no scientific basis whatsoever for these claims. There is no Polytechnic Institute of Johannesburg, South Africa, no Dr. Myles Vanderboer, and sorry to say, no breakthrough in artificial blood plasma.

I posted the preceding status on my Facebook page and sat back to watch what would happen. The post received over a dozen "Likes," two "shares," and several comments praising the scientists and calling it a boon for modern medicine.

You may ask, "Why would anyone do this?"

And my answer is, "Why not?"

During the twenty minutes it took to write the false news story, I was having a ball.

In a Motherboard article titled "How Conspiracy Theories Go Viral," Meghan Neal writes, "Since the advent of the web and explosion of social media, unsubstantiated claims, false reports, and conspiracies both reasonable and ridiculous, tend to spread like wildfire, reverberating through the internet echo chamber and picking up steam along the way until truth and nonsense are indistinguishable."

She then points out that "a World Economic Forum report listed "massive digital misinformation" as one of the main risks for modern-day society."

"Misinformation" needs to be differentiated from "disinformation," which is the intentional manipulation of thought for political, monetary or other personal gain.

A team of researchers at Northeastern University (a real one this time), "studied some 2 million Facebook users to see how they interacted with various pieces of content about the 2013 political election in Italy — stories from traditional news sites, alternative publications, and niche political sites. They then interjected 2,788 untrue or satirical "troll" posts to compare."

To their astonishment, the troll posts received more feedback than the original, accurate reports, and in their words, "wound up triggering several viral stories, bursting the diffusion of false beliefs when truthful and untruthful rumors coexist.”

Neal postulates that when misinformation originates on an alternative news site or subreddit, comments from sympathetic readers add weight to the validity of the ideas and become a self-fulfilling prophecy.

If the misinformation happens to be picked up by a more mainstream outlet such as the Huff Post, or a web community leader like George Takei, "the information snowballs, more and more people start believing it’s true, or at least a possible truth."

At least that's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[The complete article can be found at: http://motherboard.vice.com/read/how-conspiracy-theories-go-viral?utm_source=motherboardfb]

Zoo Day

There was no day more exciting than zoo day. My dad would load our red Radio Flyer wagon and our sisters' double stroller into the car while my mom packed a picnic basket and cooler with bologna sandwiches on rye, fresh fruit, cookies, and most importantly, a bag of Jet-Puffed marshmallows.

The marshmallows were not for us.

We knew the way to the zoo by heart, and our anticipation grew the closer we got. The way the property and streets surrounding the zoo were laid out, we actually had to pass some of the enclosures and the front entrance to get to the parking lot. As soon as our father parked the car, my brother and I would run ahead, down through the pedestrian underpass, yelling at the top of our lungs to hear the echo, and up the other side. At the top of the ramp, on both sides, were concrete cast boulders that were a dominant architectural feature throughout the zoo.

We knew that the farther ahead of the rest of our family we could get, the longer we would have time to play among the rocks. Once our parents emerged from the tunnel, my dad pulling the wagon with the food, and my mom pushing the stroller, we would climb down and go through the turnstiles underneath the large banner that read BROOKFIELD ZOO.

We loved all the animals, even though as kids we thought of them as part of the scenery, and we relished the opportunity to blow off steam out of doors, as much as look at the exhibits. My brother and I would laugh at the baboons' red butts, the big piles of elephant poo, and the rhinos peeing backwards between their legs. We would occasionally be rewarded with seeing an unsuspecting zoo visitor standing too close and getting doused.

I think you'll see a theme developing here. And in between these educational forays, we would bug our dad mercilessly for money for the Mold-A-Ramas.

The highlight of our day would come after a late lunch at the picnic playground, when we would go to feed the giraffes. In those days the giraffe exhibit was constructed so that the public were separated from the giraffes only by a shallow cement shelf with the animals heads at eye level. My mom would open the bag of marshmallows and we would hold them at arms' length. The giraffes would stick out their impossibly long tongues, wrap them around the marshmallows and take them from our hands.

If you tried this today, I believe the park rangers are authorized to shove the flaming sugar you know where.

Many years ago, when I became a parent myself, we were Brookfield Zoo members and we signed our boys up for zoo classes that started before the official opening time. While the boys were in class, my wife and I got to stroll the grounds with no one else around.

One time we went into the Habitat Africa exhibit Savannah House. We stood by the rail and watched a mother giraffe and her newborn. The mother giraffe eyed us curiously and my wife started talking to her and telling her what a beautiful baby she had.

The mother giraffe walked over to the baby and gently nudged him right up to the rail in front of us. We started fawning over the calf as the mother stood there nodding her elegant neck and looking every bit the proud parent.You cannot tell me that this was not deliberate, direct communication between species. One of the most amazing experiences of my life.

These recollections were brought on when my wife posted a story this morning about the last wish of a man dying of cancer. The mentally disabled man had worked for many years at the Diergaarde Blijdorp Zoo in Rotterdam, Holland.

The 54 year old man who goes by the name of Mario, requested that his bed be taken into the enclosure of his beloved giraffes.

Kees Veldboer, founder of the Ambulance Wish Foundation, said, "It's very special to see that those animals recognize him, and sense that he isn't doing well."

One of the giraffes approached Mario, reached down, and tenderly kissed him on the lips.

Mario has little mobility and finds speaking very difficult. "However, his face spoke volumes. It was a very special moment. You saw him beaming," said Veldboer.

I have no doubt that the naysayers will attempt to write it off by saying that the animal was only looking for food, or performing some kind of instinctive behavior.

But that's not how it looks to me.

Be It Ever So Humble

He reduced speed on his two-wheeled intergalactic cruiser with butterfly handlebars from interstellar to suborbital and gracefully soared up the cracked cement driveway and into the cinderblock spaceport. He shut down the power drive, which got its source from thought waves, and disembarked, putting down the kickstand. He reached down and activated the invisibility screen on his belt. He walked around the side of the house, and went in through the front door.

He walked quickly through the living room, barely observing father's gold recliner and the matching sofa, on the wall, above the sofa, a velvet painting in a carved frame of an old Jewish man, robed in a blue and white striped prayer shawl, sounding a twisted ram's horn. He crept past the veneered shelving unit that displayed mother's bric-a-brac, the blonde-wood console TV in glorious black and white, the hanging lamp with amber-colored, plastic prisms, and the gold pile carpeting his feet were compelled to touch (he was still working on his levitation device). He didn't like to touch the carpet - mother was wired to the whole house and if you touched anything she could detect you.

He noted the absence of plants, animals, and people in the living room.

He heard mother in the kitchen fixing dinner. It was Friday night – she would be making roast brisket, kishke, matzoh ball soup, and mandelbread for dessert. She kept a kosher home. Rabbi, who was a widower, would be coming home with father for Shabbos dinner. Children had to wear skull caps and recite the Kiddush. This reflected well on father and mother. He hated Friday nights.

He silently slipped down the hall past the open bathroom door, smelling the pungent, powdery air in the pink porcelain-tiled room. He didn't like the bathroom. It made him feel nauseous. This was where father washed his mouth out with soap for talking back at the table, and  for saying dirty words.

He placed his hand on the doorknob to his control room. Entering swiftly, he shut and latched the door, turned on the blacklight, turned on the music that his parents hated. He lay down on his bed and lit up a joint. He looked at a poster of a magic castle on an inaccessible mountain peak rising out of a mysterious forest. A crescent moon hung in an inky sky, impaled by a turret. He watched the banners flap in the wind that the storm he knew was coming brewed up. He walked under the shadow of the trees, the cold ground beneath his bare feet. Being the son of god on earth was hard work.

His will held the planets in their orbits and the cosmos in its forward rotation, no matter how many times the Evil Maldo tried to kill him. The Evil Maldo – arch rival, but far, far older. The Evil Maldo was the Great Director of all the ignorant actors who performed on the decaying stage of life and carried out the drama:

“To be or not to be? . . .”
And a zillion other questions . . .
And a zillion other quests . . .
And a million billion secrets . . .
And a million billion lies . . .
And a million billion zillion stars in the sky . . .

Yet he had, as always, escaped – barely – to live out another day another second another lifetime. How long would his sword remain sharp, his lance keen enough to repel the advances of the Evil Maldo? Only he stood in the way of the Evil Maldo claiming all existence as his tribute.

“What is it?” he responded to the pounding on the door.

“We're eating!” bitch little sister said.

He set the controls on automatic so that the heavens would not run amok in his absence, and went out to dinner. “Oh, finally decided to join the human race?” said father.

Being the first born, he was expected to say the blessing over the fruit of the vine, but he did so mechanically, which was appropriate since he wished he was a robot.

Younger brother made faces when no one was looking, trying to get him to laugh while he was reciting or spill his shot glass of Mogen David wine. Younger brother was good at sports (he always got chosen first for pick-up games at the park, instead of last. Sometimes we were a package deal. You could get the best player for your team, but you had to take the worst). Younger brother had friends. Younger brother had girlfriends. Younger brother went outside and had fun. Younger brother didn't have to worry about holding the universe together.

Mother brought food to the white-linen covered table. The flames of the two Sabbath candles in their brass candlesticks flickered as she set down the dishes. Rabbi broke bread, slicing pieces of the moist, egg-rich, braided challah, and everyone began to eat. Father asked bitch little sister about school, asked younger brother about baseball, asked mother about housewivery. Mother replied, “I polished the silver.” He wondered if she meant the shackles around her neck and ankles and wrists that were obviously the cause of the back pains mother complained about as she slumped around the house stopping occasionally to rub her varicose legs. Mother's breasts were veiny too.

Father then asked him how school was. “Stupid,” he replied.

He was terrified of school. Everyone there was an agent of the Evil Maldo. School took a lot of ingenuity to get through. After school he would fly to his sanctuary, his intergalactic cruiser with orange banana seat traveling at incomprehensible velocities down the avenues of space and time. He would park in the spaceport and retire to his quarters till the next morning when the never ending - never changing parade charade of life would begin again. Why couldn't they just let him attend to the universe in peace?

“Dear,” said mother to father, “we've got to do something about that attitude of his.”

“Why don't you take your fucking attitude and stick it!” he shouted at mother.

“Alright! That does it!” yelled father. “Get in your room and don't come out!”

He trembled as he closed and locked the door. He laid down on his bed and used his psychic energy to set up a force field. He shut off the automatic controls and took charge of the universe once more. He felt the presence of the Evil Maldo mocking him, tempting him, chiding him, deriding him. He saw the leering face of the Evil Maldo hovering in clouds of fog, crowned with a halo of fire. He felt the pressure increase and beat upon him, tossing and turning him in his bed, drawing tears from his despair inflicted, despair inflicting eyes.

“Open up, please open the door. I just want to talk to you,” pleaded mother.

He focused his entire psychic radiation into a beam. The beam smote mother in the heart. She stumbled back at the onslaught. Father sensing the intensity of the attack came to her aid.

“OPEN THIS DOOR ON THE COUNT OF THREE OR I'LL BREAK IT DOWN!”

He quickly drew up the blinds, punched out the windowscreen and jumped out into the backyard. He raced around the house to the spaceport, boarded his intergalactic cruiser feeling the strength return to him as he firmly grasped the dirty white handlebar grips. He launched his vehicle out into the night and sailed past the opening back door.

He increased speed down the driveway, out into the street. He soared madly past rows of flashing houses cursing everyone and everything to eternal suffering. Turned once more to look back at mother, father, younger brother, bitch little sister, rabbi in the driveway.

Turned to meet the oncoming eyes of the Evil Maldo, smiled, said goodbye, and kissed the front end of a Mack truck.

Going On Record

When I was in my teens, I knew exactly who I was and exactly who I was going to be. I was going to become the greatest writer of my time, travel the country in an RV, listening to the hippest music and smoking the best pot, achieve rock star status, and do totally amazing things for mankind with the fame and fortune.

It didn't work out that way.

Right out of college, a buddy of mine and I drove down to San Antonio, Texas and got jobs at Lone Star Ice & Foods. The jobs were fun and they PAID us! When we weren't working, our time was our own. No homework, no studying, and when we pulled an all nighter, it was because we were closing down Cooter Brown's Honky Tonk (think mechanical bulls and Chevy pick-ups), and not because we were cramming for a test.

We only spent a year in the Lone Star State, but I did learn one thing. The Alamo Museum was just across the street from the park that contains the remains of the old mission, and was next door to the downtown Woolworth's. A theater presentation tells the story of the famous battle that included such notables as Jim Bowie and Davy Crockett. But before the assault began, Presidente Generalissimo de Santa Ana offered safe passage to anyone who wanted to leave. Only one man took advantage of this offer, Moses Rose. You won't find his name in any history book. Every remaining defender, to a man, was killed.

We returned to Chicago and got an apartment by the lake and after moving in we walked over to the corner liquor store and got to talking to the owner. All of a sudden he says he's opening a gourmet food and wine shop in Union Station and would we be interested in working there! We jumped at the chance. For the next several years we commuted downtown on the El and had a blast dealing with all the commuters and travelers, and living in Uptown, where we would walk our pet ferrets on their leashes along the lake to pick up chicks.

The store owner lost his lease due to renovations in Union Station. We had a little cash in the bank and before it even ran low, my dad, who was a well-known lawyer in the Oak Lawn area, called me and said a business associate of his had an opening for an operations manager at a local newspaper. I went in and met with the general manager, and at 24 years of age I was suddenly a high profile executive of a well-respected community publication.

I was in charge of all special projects for the paper, and Circus Vargas, the last traveling circus under canvas in America was performing in our area. Their marketing rep and I met and he gave me some glossies and raw copy, and I edited the material into a wonderful series of ads and promotions that ran in the paper. The circus honchos were so impressed that the rep set up another meeting to thank me for the good work, and to offer me a job. I was young and unattached at the time, and I seriously considered it. So that was the time I almost ran away with the circus.

Unfortunately the paper was sold during that decade of corporate mergers and moved out of state. I decided to strike out on my own and use my creative skills, seeing early on the potential of desktop publishing.

Also, at this time, all my friends were getting married and starting families. I was a popular choice for best man because I gave great toasts and looked fabulous in a tux. I, of course, was looking for love in all the wrong places. But I was looking. I was introduced to a girl through a mutual friend and she was a whiz with the new PC's, and we soon became business partners, with me directing, and her producing. I became active in our Chamber of Commerce and was voted onto the Board of Directors (who were mostly bankers). We soon fell in love (me and the girl, not me and the bankers), got married and had a child of our own.

It soon became apparent that we needed steady jobs. I answered a help wanted ad for a high-end wine and spirits retailer that was opening a gourmet food shop that featured a twenty foot, floor to ceiling, open-air cheese case.

For you young folk, a help wanted ad was a form of communication where an employer would let it be known that they had a job offering.

I loved that job. I got to sample and work with foods from all over the world and introduce customers to all the amazing agricultural products that we brought in.

My wife and I decided to buy a house. We had always enjoyed exploring the farm country back roads and small town festivals of north central Illinois, so that's where we looked, with the added bonus that we could get more bang for the buck. We found a beautiful, 1890's, Victorian farm house. Hardwood floors, pocket doors, original woodwork, built-in butler's pantry, exposed brickwork in the kitchen, wooded lot, the works. We wrote up an offer on the spot.

My sons and I lugged heavy furniture up to the second floor, I did landscaping, including excavating and installing a water feature and rock garden, cleaned out fifty years worth of debris from the garage loft, and set up cinder block and plank shelving in the basement for storage.

Then I got sick.

The symptoms struck a year later almost to the day. Doctor after doctor, test after test, failed to reveal the cause. I underwent several surgical procedures, that still failed to provide a diagnosis or prevent the degenerative progress of the disease. I finally had extensive micro-surgery on my spinal cord that almost killed me and left me paralyzed from the waist down.

Okay, now bear with me. I am an early 70's hard rocker. But over the course of the years, my deep love and respect for musicianship has led me to, of all places, bluegrass. One of our favorite performers, a teaching professor in music history, guest lecturer, author, and walking encyclopedia of Americana, would tell long jokes and stories between songs in an apparently rambling way, but would always come to a punchline that would leave me rolling in the aisles. He would punctuate his storytelling by saying, “I tell you that, so I can tell you this,” and then off he'd go again.

Well, I tell you that, to tell you this. I had to leave the job I loved. I applied for Social Security, but in the time it took to get approved, we almost lost our house. I finally did get approved, and with that small monthly check, we've been able to just barely stay in our home. My wife went to work each day and I lay in bed taking prescription medicines to combat the chronic pain. Some of the pills zoned me out so much that I literally didn't know what day it was. I fell into deep grief and depression. I prayed all day and all night for God to take me.

Now I tell you that to tell you this. When I left college for parts unknown, I stopped writing. I still did a fair amount of writing at the newspaper, but work, parenthood, and day to day living, pretty much did away with any aspirations I had about becoming a published author.

My entire world was reduced to the four walls of my bedroom. My depression deepened. My family got me to try Facebook and it did help with my sense of isolation. I began posting small jokes and statuses and joined an online support group, but as soon as I posted anything “edgy” or controversial, I caught flack. If it wasn't a cute animal picture, an inspirational quote from the Dalai Lama, or what I had for breakfast, people weren't interested. I actually felt even more alone than I had before.

I told my family that I felt like just a useless eater. My son said, “Pops, you're not useless. Me and Ashly (my daughter-in-law) need you. Mom needs you. Your grandkids need you.” He said, “Not only that but you are by far one of the best writers out there, and we need someone to record the shit that's going down.”

I said, “How do I do that?” And my wife replied, “You can start a blog.” She showed me how to set one up and the floodgates opened. I uploaded my jokes from Facebook, my old short stories and poems, my holiday pieces, and all the pent up frustration, anger, and creativity inside me. In my own humble and unbiased opinion, I have the best written, most insightful, most humorously presented blog in the world. I look forward to waking up in the morning. There is promise in each new day. My pain, physical, emotional and spiritual, is bearable.

I tell you that to tell you this. Every second of every day since I woke up from surgery, my soul has screamed out, “WHY?” Why me? Why now? What could I ever possibly have done to deserve this? What could I ever possibly have NOT done to deserve this? I may be searching for answers where there are none. But if there is a reason, maybe it can be found in this tiny bit of cyberspace.

I tell you that to tell you this.

Gordon

I hooked up with Tommy V behind White Castle's. I handed him two dollars and he slipped me a hit of Windowpane. He warned me to only do a quarter hit because this stuff was pure, so I immediately popped the whole thing.

I went to my next class which was an advanced creative writing course that the school set up for five of us who were so far beyond the regular seniors English curriculum that making us sit through it would have been a joke. Because there was no where else to put us, we met in the back of the junior honors English period.

It was a beautiful, late September day. The sun was shining through the classroom windows, and the leaves on the trees had just a tinge of color.

I opened my spiral notebook and started my writing exercise. It had been about forty-five minutes since I had done the hit, and I was beginning to feel a little fuzzy around the edges. I tried to concentrate but the pale, blue lines on the page wouldn't sit still. I looked around the room at the other kids and listened to the teacher, Ms. Brown.

She was a young, black woman and that day she was wearing a black pants and vest suit with a long-sleeve, lemon colored blouse. She was waving her arms as she spoke and I was seeing vivid trails of yellow pulsating through the air. Trails are what you see when you wave a sparkler around in figure-eights after dark on the 4th of July.

I was really peaking by this time, my mind and sensory perceptions expanding with no signs of leveling out into the long, fun trip. I was becoming paranoid and felt that I needed to communicate with someone.

One row over and one seat up, sat a kid with shoulder length sandy blonde hair. I knew he was cool from his participation in class and that he played bass guitar. I wrote a note telling him I was tripping and having a hard time maintaining.

I passed the note over, not sure how he would take it, as we had never really been introduced. I watched him open the note and write something down. After a moment, he passed the note back. I cannot remember what he said, but it was incredibly funny and enough to break the tension. I was able to relax and thoroughly enjoy the high. For the rest of the class, he kept turning around and making funny faces. It was all I could do not to lose it.

That was how I met Gordon.

(We became fast friends and were roommates in college for my sophomore and his freshman year. His girlfriend Dana also attended NIU and we were like the Three Musketeers. They never made me feel like a third wheel. Unfortunately my teenage fantasies of a ménage à trois were never realized. Gordon and I still keep in touch on Facebook, and Dana is now actually my sister-in-law. Strange, strange world.)

Gordon modeling our high school uniforms

Penis Pumps Sucking Millions Out of Medicare.

A report by the Inspector General for the Department of Health and Human Services said Medicare paid nearly 474,000 claims for vacuum erection systems, totaling about $172.4 million from 2006 to 2011. Yearly claims for the devices nearly doubled from $20.6 million in 2006 to $38.6 million in 2011. To make matters worse, the report further stated that: “Medicare currently pays suppliers more than twice as much for VES as the Department of Veterans Affairs and consumers over the Internet pay for these types of devices.”

Health authorities point out that penis pumps are one of several treatment options available for erectile dysfunction.

In an email statement, Ben Domenici of the Heartland Institute think tank said, “Considering the strain retiring baby boomers will soon be placing on Medicare’s budget, shouldn’t we be focusing this entitlement program on real, life-saving treatment and equipment to serve the health needs of seniors – instead of subsidizing penis pump purchases?”

Voicing what is probably going through most people's minds, he added, “And to those seniors who really do want one, just buy it yourself – you don’t need to send the bill to your fellow Americans.”

In a hilarious segment of the Daily Show, correspondent Samantha Bee addressed the double standard of Obamacare critics objecting to contraceptive coverage for women, and that "women's selfish desire for sexual health and gynecological exams pales in comparison to men's need to deal with erectile dysfunction."

But, of course, "Statistics show that probably some members of our Congress have a vested interested in having penis pumps covered," she added.

“These are hardworking American penises. Should we really be abandoning them at the end of their careers?”

Scientific Crap

The self-contained community centers being brought to impoverished areas of the planet have everything - clean water, cell phone charging stations - and solar powered toilets.

With $1,777,000 in funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Karl Linden, a University of Colorado environmental engineering professor and his team, have invented the Sol-Char.

Using solar panels and fiber optic cables, the Sol-Char turns solid human waste into briquettes that can then be used as fertilizer. The safe to handle, environmentally friendly byproduct is called biochar.

Jack Sim, the head (if you'll pardon the pun) of the World Toilet Organization says, "A major part of the problem is that sanitation isn't a particularly glamorous cause."

He further points out that 2.5 billion, or roughly one-third of the world's population, lacks proper sanitary facilities, leaving them susceptible to a wide range of diseases.

Professor Linden states, "We need to think of sanitation as a business opportunity, and turn the toilet into a status symbol."

As the winner, out of sixteen competing teams, of the Gates Foundation's "Reinvent the Toilet Challenge," Linden's prototype tackled the problem of how to sanitize waste without massive treatment plants. Heat generated by solar collectors on the roofs of the toilets is transferred by the fiber optic cables into chambers beneath the commodes.

Speaking about the community center approach, Linden said, "I think it's hard to make sanitation sexy, but by making it a hub, it can be something more popular."

You can visit Sol-Char's Facebook page at: https://www.facebook.com/SolarBiochar

Organic Produce: Threat To National Security

I was about to do another blog about overzealous police activity, but I thought instead that the headline of the article I read was sufficient in and of itself:

SWAT Team Raids Organic Farm, Confiscates Blueberries

You can read the full article at:
http://wearechange.org/swat-team-raids-organic-farm-confiscates-blueberries/

Actually Scary, Indeed

As a rule, you pretty much keep to yourself. You're not close with your neighbors, but they see you come and go on extended business trips. A father a few houses down sends his son to mow the lawn once a week so the block looks well-tended.

Your home loan and utilities are paid on-time every month through auto-billing. The postman puts your mail, mostly junk, in the letter slot in your front door.

Your parents and most of your siblings have passed on or moved away, and when your remaining sister tries calling, the phone just rings. Your boss assumes you've gone on to greener pastures.

All is well until the bank account runs dry, and letters from your mortgage company go unanswered. A foreclosure sign goes up, an all too common occurrence in your rust belt community. The bank sends out a maintenance crew to fix a leaky roof noticed by the Realtor.

The handyman makes a grisly discovery, and after the police forensics unit removes your mummified body from the backseat of your Jeep, which is parked in the garage, the medical examiner determines that you've been dead for six years.

This is the sad story of Pia Farrenkopf, a resident of a quiet neighborhood in Pontiac, Michigan. If the findings are accurate, she would have been 43 years old when she died.

Neighbor Caitlyn Talbot told reporters, "She really kept to herself. We never really heard anything from her."

"I've been doing this 37 years. Never seen anything like this before," said Undersheriff Mike McCabe of Oakland County.

Initial observations showed no signs of foul play. Dental records were used for positive identification. It will take four to six weeks for a toxicology report, which authorities hope will point to cause of death.

The county sheriff explained that her body was inside a closed vehicle inside a closed garage, and thus, not exposed to outside air or other factors that might contribute to decomposition.

The key was found in the ignition, but in the off position. The death is being treated as a homicide at this time, because police say suicide by carbon monoxide is unlikely. Additionally, there was no note.

Oakland County Sheriff Michael Bouchard commented, “It is kind of the perfect storm for a mysterious set of circumstances."

Another neighbor, who wished to remain anonymous, said, “Nobody came over there to check on the lady. It's weird. And it's actually scary.” 

To add to the mystery, recent developments show that, according to Pontiac City Clerk Sherikia Hawkins, there is a record of Farrenkopf voting during the time that she was deceased.

Police are hoping that someone who knew the woman will step forward to shed some light on the situation.

Farrenkopf's sister, Paula Logan, stated, "She had to have had a life."

Pia Farrenkopf's high school photo below, shows a typically pretty and happy teenager who bears a striking resemblance to actress Sally Field.

Fate Lent A Hand

It took the entire weight of the Chicago Public School system to get me to try marijuana.

My freshman year of high school, I attended the Yeshiva, a private, religious institution that was part of the Hebrew Theological Seminary. My father and many of his family members had graduated from there. Even as early as twelve years old, living away from home was a preferable arrangement for both of us.

However, during the early part of my sophomore year, my father was called to the Dean's office and asked politely, but firmly, to withdraw me from the Yeshiva, suggesting that I might do better in a more secular environment.

I moved back home and was enrolled in William J. Bogan High School. I was given my schedule and started attending classes, but one period was marked 'Study Hall' that met in the auditorium. My first day, I walked into the auditorium and a group of older kids were sitting in back talking quietly among themselves and doing homework. I sat down with them and buried myself in a book.

I also noticed that down in the very front of the auditorium was a large class of very unruly students who were being continuously disciplined by a teacher yelling and waving her arms.

Each day I would enter the study hall and sit in the back with the kids who were conversing quietly and doing their work. One day I needed to get signed out of the period and I asked the kids what I was supposed to do. They confessed that they did not know, but the only teacher was the one down front, and maybe I should ask her.

I hesitantly walked down the aisle to the front of the stage and showed the teacher the note. Her eyes literally bugged out of her head and her gray hair stood up on end. She grabbed my arm and led me to the assistant principal's office. After conferring for a few minutes, the teacher left, but the AP started yelling at me that I was cutting classes and was going to be suspended.

They called my father, and once again I sat in a hard, wooden chair in the outer office, waiting for him to leave work and come to school. When he arrived, I tried explaining what happened, and when I repeated the story to the AP, he grudgingly said he'd look into it.

The next day at the beginning of the study hall, the assistant principal took me into the auditorium and questioned the students in the back of the hall. They said that I had been sitting with them every day, and either participated in conversations or did my work.

Apparently what had happened was that the kids in the back were seniors who had open study, meaning they could leave the school for lunch and study periods, but these were the A students who opted to remain in school. The loud, chaotic group down front was the study hall where the teacher took daily attendance.

The AP called my father and it was decided that no disciplinary action would be taken, but of course, from then on, I had to sit with the study hall. That very first day, they sat me next to Pete Valdez, the biggest pot dealer in the school. As soon as I sat down, he started talking to me and asking me how I got sent down to the study hall. He asked me if I had ever smoked pot before. I had never considered it, although in 8th grade we were shown those grainy pictures of emaciated junkies.

By the end of the period we had made arrangements to hook up after school. He took me back to his house and he showed me what pot looked like and how to roll a joint. He lit it up and did a hit, then passed it to me. I coughed it out and he laughed and said don't take such a big hit. We finished the joint and sat back listening to a band named Black Sabbath.

The rest, as they say, is history.

The World Is My Canvas

This is another story that added to the estrangement between me and my father. I started my freshman year of college just before I turned 17. I quickly found many kindred spirits in the dorm, who introduced me to something called a bong. They also introduced me to something to put in the bong, called Colombian, which was a far cry from the rolling papers and Mexican green that I was familiar with.

One afternoon, early in my first semester, a group of us were gathered in Joe's dorm room watching a rerun of "Gilligan's Island." Bob B. was saying that I needed a pen name, when a preview for "One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest" came on, which was just released in theaters.

We were all familiar with the book by Ken Kesey of Merry Pranksters fame. Bob B. said, "R.P. [after Jack Nicholson's character]. You've gotta use R.P."

The show came back on, and Joe started joking about Mrs. Howell's name "Lovie." All of a sudden he blurted out, "Lovie. Dunn-Lovie!"

And that's how I became known as R.P. Dunlovie, a nickname that has stuck with me for almost 40 years.

My parents were getting ready to sell the family home, and they asked if I could help paint some areas on the second floor that they couldn't reach. I made arrangements to come home from school one weekend, and climbed up on the roof to do some painting. I did an excellent job painting the wood in a rich dark brown and the trim in a contrasting color. But just before I climbed down, I got the idea in my head to sign my name to the project.

With a large brush, I printed RP Dunlovie in large block letters all across the roof. It couldn't be seen from the ground, and after cleaning up and heading back to school, I forgot all about it.

I subsequently learned from my brother, who was still living at home, that my father was showing the house to a prospective buyer, and the buyer casually glanced out a side window in one of the upper bedrooms and suddenly exclaimed, "What is that!?" pointing out the window.

My father looked out and almost had a heart attack as he saw my writing on the shingles. It almost kiboshed the deal, and he either had to have that section of roof retiled, or take some money off the asking price.

We joke about it today, but at the time, I can tell you, he was not amused. However, as is the bizarre nature of life, my actual painting job was so good, that when he moved into a new office, I spent a week painting that too - sans my signature on the premises.

The Tie That Binds

I was chatting with a new Facebook friend, and I was telling him about my blog. He asked what kind of stuff I wrote, and I told him, humor pieces, political pieces, news analysis, stories about science and technology, animal stories, holiday essays, movie and book reviews, stories about growing up in the 60's and 70's, fiction, poems - just anything and everything that caught my attention.

He asked me if there was something that tied them all together. I thought for a few moments and a word popped into my head - humanism. We chatted for a while longer, and when we logged off, I Googled the word humanism. I went to Wikipedia, which is always my first line of defense, and found this definition:

Humanism is a philosophical and ethical stance that emphasizes the value and agency of human beings, individually and collectively, and generally prefers critical thinking and evidence over established doctrine or faith.

Humanism dates back to ancient Greece where the philosophy was founded on education and training in the liberal arts, or literally translated as "the good arts."

Founding Father Thomas Paine called himself a theophilanthropist, a word combining the Greek for "God", "love", and "man", and indicating that while he believed in the existence of a creating intelligence in the universe, he entirely rejected the claims made by and for all existing religious doctrines.

Humanism identifies pollution, militarism, nationalism, sexism, poverty and corruption as being persistent and addressable human character issues incompatible with the interests of our species. It asserts that human governance must be unified and is inclusionary in that it does not exclude any person by reason of their personal beliefs.

Philosopher Dwight Gilbert Jones wrote that Humanism may be the only philosophy likely to be adopted by our species as a whole.

In fact, a new psychological perspective rose to prominence in the mid-20th century in response to Sigmund Freud's psychoanalytic theory and B.F. Skinner's Behaviorism. The approach emphasized an individual's inherent drive towards self-actualization and creativity.

"Cosmos" creator Carl Sagan said, “For small creatures such as we the vastness is bearable only through love.”

So perhaps after all, humanism is the modus operandi of my writing, but the tie that binds them together is love.

Love Me

It is not my intention - okay, it is - to toot my own horn, but the Huff Post recently published an article regarding a new study about creativity.

The findings pinpoint many of the "defining characteristics in the personalities" of highly creative people.

Neuroscience has now confirmed that creative thinking goes far beyond the left brain/right brain model, and instead is a conflux of nature, nurture, and random chance.

This is very difficult for me to put down on paper, but it is essential for any understanding of who I am and how I got here.

I was born with a medical condition called hypospadias, generally described as a birth defect in which the opening of the urethra is on the underside of the penis, instead of at the tip. Repeated surgeries to correct this defect were unsuccessful, and the hospitalizations were always scheduled during the summer so I wouldn't miss school.

I underwent seven surgeries until the age of twelve when my father took me to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota. I remember visiting the Mayo Museum of Medicine and Hygiene, but mostly I remember the endless series of invasive tests and, of course, the inevitable surgery. In those days, anesthesia was delivered through a large, black, rubber mask that covered half your face. Despite the reassurances of all the adults around me, I remember being very, very scared. This operation, performed by the nation's most renowned urological surgeon, was also unsuccessful.

If anything good came from this experience, it was one of my dad's favorite family stories. I was recovering from the operation, and he stepped into my hospital room one morning and saw a large group of doctors surrounding my bed staring down at me in total concentration. His heart fell thinking the worst, and he hurried over to find that I was soundly thrashing the greatest medical minds in the country in a game of chess.

But from early on, all the procedures left profound physical and emotional scars. I mean that quite literally. I could not urinate standing up (which contributed to my lifelong affinity for the fairer sex), I had great difficulty controlling my bladder, and I was embarrassed by my disfigurement. When I was in first and second grade, I sometimes had accidents at my desk. I would shrink down inside myself until one of my classmates called it to the teacher's attention. I would be taken into the restroom where I had to wait until my father, a young, practicing attorney, could be reached and bring me clean clothes. My father was angry at having to tear himself away from clients or court, the teacher was angry at having her lessons interrupted, and to say that when walking back into the classroom, I felt about - and wished I was - two inches tall, does not adequately convey my thoughts and emotions.

As you can imagine, this caused immense problems when I reached dating age. And high school swim class, where for some ungodly reason we swam nude, was a nightmare.

All these issues were compounded by the double-promotion. Because my birthday fell in September, I had just turned five when I entered kindergarten. Most of my classmates were six months to a year older than I was, and after skipping a grade, I was nine years old in 5th grade sitting among boys and GIRLS who were eleven or even twelve. I was a small kid anyway, and being a strange, brainy, Jewish, introvert in a predominantly Irish Catholic neighborhood, was a recipe for disaster. Nature, nurture, random chance.

In fact, as the Huff Post reports, there is "an emerging field of psychology called post-traumatic growth which suggests that many people are able to use their hardships and early-life trauma for substantial creative growth. Specifically, researchers have found that trauma can help people to grow in the areas of interpersonal relationships, spirituality, appreciation of life, personal strength, and - most importantly for creativity - seeing new possibilities in life."

Researcher and psychologist Scott Kaufman explains, "A lot of people are able to use that as the fuel they need to come up with a different perspective on reality. What's happened is that their view of the world as a safe place, or as a certain type of place, has been shattered at some point in their life, causing them to go on the periphery and see things in a new, fresh light, and that's very conducive to creativity."

Many creative people, myself included, daydreamed their way through grade school. As a student in the Chicago public school system, I was disengaged from my surroundings. For the subjects I was interested in, such as reading and writing, my aptitude was so far beyond the level of the curriculum, that I quickly lost interest. For subjects that I was curious about like history, I was more interested in "why" than in the repetition of dates and names without context. Math and science, the way they were taught, turned me off, and let's face it, although they may have been qualified and well-meaning, the teachers were not inspiring.

Yet despite my inattentiveness, my classroom and standardized test scores (using the old number 2 pencil) were so high that I was double-promoted from 3rd to 5th grade.

The study concluded that contrary to popular opinion, far from being "mindless," daydreaming actually involves a highly engaged brain state, where insights and connections rise unbidden.

Another trait displayed by creative individuals is that they observe everything and see possibilities everywhere. Just think of a comedian who goes through life constantly looking for new material. But what the creative individual observes most is themselves. American author, Joan Didion, wrote, "However dutifully we record what we see around us, the common denominator of all we see is always, transparently, shamelessly, the implacable 'I.'"

Psychologist Rollo May remarked, "You need to get in touch with that inner monologue to be able to express it. It's hard to find that inner creative voice if you're not getting in touch with yourself and reflecting on yourself."

Creative people need - and take - the time to think. The study refers to this time as "solitude." In case after case, the iconic character conceived by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, focuses his intellect on an inanimate object and draws inferences that boggle the mind of Dr. Watson - as well as the reader. And invariably, after Holmes explains his deductions, Watson remarks on how easy the mental exercise seems.

Creative people make it look "easy," because all the 'thinking' that went into the finished project is hidden.

Creative people also understand that their avocations are a job. They may not adhere to a 9-5 schedule, but as with any other form of employment, they establish a schedule that works best for them. Some creatives prefer early mornings, while others prefer the dead of night, but the one thing they all know is that "genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration." If artists just sat around waiting for some divinely inspired revelation to strike them, they would achieve very little. By the way, the quote is from Thomas Edison.

These work habits - solitude and scheduling - are part and parcel of the creative process.

Another essential aspect of the creative mind is curiosity. These individuals readily seek out new experiences, often crossing the line into danger. Anyone who knows me or has read my blog, knows that I have continuously put myself into situations where things could have quickly gone south. Brushes with the law, experimentation with drugs, binge drinking, hitchhiking, shoplifting, joyriding, skitching on the backs of cars, were the dark side of thrill seeking.

But openness to different kinds of music, cultures, and most importantly, ways of thinking are the bright side of the coin. Psychologist Scott Kaufman explains it this way: "Openness to experience is consistently the strongest predictor of creative achievement. This consists of intellectual curiosity, thrill seeking, openness to your emotions, openness to fantasy. The thing that brings them all together is a drive for cognitive and behavioral exploration of the world."

This innate and irresistible curiosity extends from the infinite to the infinitesimal. Curiosity led, for better or worse, from the splitting of the atom and quantum mechanics, to the exploration of deepest space. It reaches from the beginning of time to the fate of the universe. It challenges the existence of God, the meaning of life, and our place in the cosmos. It leads from heights of glory to crushing despair.

Socrates sentiment that "the unexamined life is not worth living," is a mantra for creative minds.

Creation is also a very risky business. A true artist puts everything out there for all to see. They literally expose themselves, much as I have done earlier in this piece. They open themselves to failure, ridicule, banishment, embarrassment, and worst of all, indifference. But they do it anyway because they have no choice.

As the Huff Post says, "Creative people tend to be intrinsically motivated - meaning that they're motivated to act from some internal desire, rather than a desire for external reward or recognition."

Creative individuals are keenly aware of their "gift" or "curse," as the case may be. The Handbook of Creativity states, "Eminent creators choose and become passionately involved in challenging, risky problems that provide a powerful sense of power from the ability to use their talents."

When highly creative people have been asked, "What frightens you most?" the number one answer is, "a blank page." That rectangle of white emptiness that mocks and dares. Fortunately there is nothing a creative person likes more than a challenge.

Steven Kotler wrote in Forbes, "Creativity is the act of making something from nothing." But I disagree. It's been said that in even the most altruistic act of charity is selfishness. Creativity is the ultimate act of sharing - of time, talent, effort, and the innermost self.

Huff Post notes, "Many of the most iconic stories and songs of all time have been inspired by gut-wrenching pain and heartbreak." Sharing this pain is cathartic for both giver and receiver.

Yet, time and again, when I read a great work of literature, look at a great painting, listen to a great piece of music, I can see the writer, painter, and musician smiling as they flex their creative muscles. My deepest hope is that others see the same in me. Whether I achieve that is up to others.

Creatives are able to tap into what is known as the "flow state," or being "in the zone." Huff Post explains, "Flow is a mental state when an individual transcends conscious thought to reach a heightened state of effortless concentration and calmness, that allows them to create at their highest level."

One finding of the study that I found personally enlightening was that creative individuals feel compelled to surround themselves with beauty. Again, as everyone who knows me is only too aware, I love decorating, and I take great pride in my collection of vintage and handmade one-of-a-kind holiday ceramics, textiles, and artwork. And these items of 'beauty' need not be expensive. In fact, my brother calls me "the master of the five dollar knickknack."

In its simplest form, creativity is the ability to connect two ideas that have never been connected before. This is the essence of humor. Steve Jobs explains it thusly: "Creativity is just connecting things. When you ask creative people how they did something, they feel a little guilty because they didn't really do it, they just saw something. It seemed obvious to them after a while. That's because they were able to connect experiences they've had and synthesize new things."

Finally, there is a goal, a method to the madness. Psychologist Scott Kaufman says, "Creative expression is self-expression. Creativity is nothing more than an individual expression of your needs, desires and uniqueness."

Indeed, I have always thought of my writing as a seduction. Award winning sci-fi writer Harlan Ellison said, "Love me, love my writing." Creativity is as simple as that.