Wyzga On Words

A March In Manhattan & A Trek Across The Gobi Desert: What Do They Have In Common?

I'm a big believer in "timing & location" being applicable to more situations than real estate.  Helen Thayer has been pulling off explorer-naturalist excursions for decades and only a few weeks ago did I hear her name. She was being interviewed on NPR prior to a speaking engagement in San Diego.  What caught my ear was her plans for an upcoming trek with her husband, Bill: 1500 miles across India to study the culture.  Never mind that Bill is 82 and Helen is 71. She was 63 and he was 74 when they walked across the Gobi Desert: 1,600 miles in 80 days with temperatures often topping 110 degrees.

"Walking the Gobi" is part thriller, part adventure story, part feat of endurance.  And a very early call about the disastrous effects of climate chaos/global warming. Remember that Thayer walked in 2001.  She published her book in 2007. Back when she and Bill were making their way west to east across a forbidding landscape, Mongolian nomads who make their homes here, raise their children, raise herds and flocks of sheep and goats, had been telling her there had been no rain in three years.  Mongolians date to at least Genghis Kahn.  These people are desert nomads. They know the climate of their home.

You might wonder why a desert needs rain.  Green things grow in the desert.  Animals adapted to this ferocious life find sources of water and forage.  As do people.  When there is no rain and winds kick up to 50, 60 , 70 more miles per hour, huge sandstorms fill the sky and carry beyond borders.  The natural equilibrium of the desert is thrown off balance and everyone suffers.

Believing that grass roots efforts are what really get things done, thousands of men and women and children met up in Manhattan on Sunday to march for correcting climate chaos.  As reported in the NYTimes, Taking a Call for Climate Change to the Streets, legions of marchers with no more affiliation than this one shared planet demonstrated that the time had come for ordinary people to turn things around. Marches were also held all over the world as ordinary people on every continent realized that the heating up of Planet Earth is not some joke of the scientific community.

I am gearing up for a pre-trial legal research, otherwise known as a focus group.  As one of a series of political compass questions I am posting to the potential participants, there is this one: "Is climate chaos/global warming some error of science or a real disaster in the making?"  To my astonishment, well over half of those being recruited in SoCal call it a scientific error. Here in California we are looking at Year 3 of a record drought. At a time when other folks are getting ready to don wool socks and prepare soup for dinner, we are reeling from weeks of triple digit temperatures. As reported in the NYTimes:

Last week, meteorologists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced that this summer — the months of June, July and August — was the hottest on record for the globe, and that 2014 was on track to break the record for the hottest year, set in 2010.

It was concern about the consequences of that warming that drew people to the march, organized by a dozen environmental, labor and social justice groups, and that inspired some of the event’s most sober and most outrageous expressions, some of them not even on the route.

Whether you are two elderly foreigners leading camels across the Gobi or one of many marching in Manhattan or your corner of the globe, the message is still the same: this is real - do what you can with what you have.  There is no Plan-et B.  

 

Breast-feeding & Chemicals. What's A Mother (& Baby) To Do?

    There are a million and one reasons why breast-feeding a newborn beats formula.  As reported by Pam Belluck writing for the NYTimes, "Hospitals Ditch Formula Samples to Promote Breast-Feeding," it's generally healthiest for mom and baby.  Excerpt.
  

"Breast-feeding decreases babies’ risk of ear infections, diarrhea, asthma and other diseases, and may reduce risk of obesity and slightly improve I.Q., experts say. "

So why send mom home from the hospital after giving birth with some nifty little gift bags packed with sample cans of formula?  Some argue that the samples are too convenient at helping to deter a mother from breast-feeding when she learns how easy it is to just pop the top.  Others argue that babies do just fine on formula.  And still others argue that hospitals should be in the business of health - spelled mother's natural breast milk - and not canned formula.  Excerpt.

 

"The question is whether samples tempt mothers who could breast-feed exclusively for the recommended six months to use formula when they’re exhausted or discouraged if nursing proves difficult. The C.D.C., the World Health Organization and breast-feeding advocates say samples turn hospitals into formula sales agents and imply that hospitals think formula is as healthy as breast-feeding. Health experts warn that even small amounts of formula dilute breast-feeding’s benefits by altering intestinal micro-organisms and decreasing breast milk supply, since women produce less when babies nurse less. They say that while some women face serious breast-feeding challenges, more could nurse longer with greater support, and that formula samples can weaken that support system."

Moms, like each of us, should know what's in what we ingest.  Click here to read more about the political nature of "Ban the Bags" program designed to eliminate samples of formula distributed by hospitals to new moms.

Then ask yourself about the more complex story of toxic chemicals that are passed through breast milk to nursing babies. Chemicals like DDT, PCBs, mercury, lead, benzene, perchlorane, and others.

For that information you will have to turn to Florence Williams' book, Breasts, recently reviewed by Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez for ORION magazine, September/October 2012.  Excerpt:

 

"Yes, human milk is like ice cream, penicillin, and the drug ecstacy all wrapped up in two pretty packages.  But, women "off-load" up to90 percent of their own chemical loads  through their breast milk, prompting Norway, the country with "the single highest breast-feeding rate in the world," to consider recommending that women limit their breast-feeding to six months. Firstborn infants are at particular risk of chemical exposure through breast milk."

"Not only are babies and toddlers with high toxic levels of contaminants scoring lower on tests of mental, verbal, IQ, and physical development, chemicals are disrupting puberty.  "Today, half of all the girls in the United States start popping breasts by their tenth birthday," a statistic that is particularly  disturbing when paired with this one: "If you get your first period before age twelve, your risk of breast cancer is 50 percent higher than if you get it at age sixteen."

I guess like the canaries in the mine, womens' breasts are a window to an increasingly toxic world that calls for tighter regulations on food, chemicals, bottled water.  Maybe before banning formula samples we take another look at overall environmental, food and water health to learn who is feeding what to whom.   

 

 

The Appointment In Samarra.

 

A Syrian father weeps over the body of his son killed by suicide bombers in Aleppo. [Manu Brabo/Associated Press]

Many storytellers are familiar with "The Appointment in Samarra."  I've told it on a number of occasions; but in the version I learned the merchant was a father and the servant was a son. 

For some reason I've had this story on my mind as day after day I witness incomprehensible death in Aleppo.  These losses seem to track some of the death and destruction that is part and parcel of my working life as a litigation consultant.

Maybe we have appointments with Death.  Who am I to say?  But do we really want to act in ways that deliver each other to the meeting? 

Here is a version of the story as retold by W. Somerset Maugham in 1933:

The speaker is Death:  "There was a merchant in Bagdad who sent his servant to market to buy provisions and in a little while the servant came back, white and trembling, and said, Master, just now when I was in the marketplace I was jostled by a woman in the crowd and when I turned I saw it was Death that jostled me.  She looked at me and made a threatening gesture,  now, lend me your horse, and I will ride away from this city and avoid my fate.  I will go to Samarra and there Death will not find me.  The merchant lent him his horse, and the servant mounted it, and he dug his spurs in its flanks and as fast as the horse could gallop he went.  Then the merchant went down to the marketplace and he saw me standing in the crowd and he came to me and said, Why did you make a threatening gesture to my servant when you saw him this morning?  That was not a threatening gesture, I said, it was only a start of surprise.  I was astonished to see him in Bagdad, for I had an appointment with him tonight in Samarra."

How Politics Became A Business.

Who wrote the following and when?

"1. The immediate objective is the defeat of the compulsory health insurance program pending in Congress. 2. The long-term objective is to put a permanent stop to the agitation for socialized medicine in this country by (a) awakening the people to the danger of a politically-controlled, government-regulated health system; (b) convincing the people, through a Nation wide campaign of education, of the superior advantages of private medicine, as practiced in America, over the State-dominated medical systems of other countries; (c) stimulating the growth of voluntary health insurance systems to take the economic shock out of illness and increase the availability of medical care to the American people."

Would it surprise you to know it was 1945 in retaliation to a proposal by then President Harry S. Truman? 

Earl Warren, former Governor of California and later Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court had proposed compulsory health insurance for Californians after he had fallen quite ill and wondered how others who were not so well off as he would cope with medical bills.  His proposal was severely trounced. 

Months later President Truman proposed a national program. It was severely trounced. How did this happen?

In her riveting 7 page article that reads like a political campaign whodunit, Jill Lepore writing for The New Yorker magazine, "The Lie Factory," takes us back to the early 1930s when the world of political consulting was born of Leone Baxter and Clem Whitaker.  They named their prodigy "Campaigns, Inc." and political life has never been the same.  

If you think, even vaguely, that you are getting the straight scoop on this election, The Lie Factory may disabuse you of that comfortable notion.  It's downright scary even for a realist.

Mothers, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up To Be Football Players...It's The Helmet.

I don't watch televised football.

And about all that's left to enjoy at the stadium games is the tailgating.

Maybe it's an occupational hazard having worked on football helmet injury cases, but it is simply too difficult to listen to all that smacking around and wonder which neck will be broken or which brain will be injured with the plethora of inferior helmets on the field.  The helmet is supposed to be designed to protect the neck as well as the head.  In many cases, helmets worn by NFL players are archaic - to say the least - and there is little oversight or help for the players.  “This is our livelihood,” Giants quarterback Eli Manning said. “It’s one of the biggest decisions we make.”  

As I've written previously, the NFL is on notice about the self-regulating National Operating Committee on Standards for Athletic Equipment ("NOCSAE), inferior helmets, concussions, head injuries, and neck injuries.

Football, The Concussion Crisis & Litigation

Some Good News For Lawyers Who Tackle Football Helmet Head Injuries

The Point Of Litigation's Impact On Football

College Players Move Concussions Into Court

Lawyers Suit Up To Take On NFL About Football Helmet Head Injuries

The Focus Group Saw It Differently And That Changed The Game Strategy

and yet,

"Despite Risks, NFL Leaves Helmet Choices in Players' Hands" is today's latest reminder from Sam Borden writing for the NYimes.  Excerpt.

"Even as head injuries have become a major concern, the N.F.L. has neither mandated nor officially recommended the helmet models that have tested as the top performers in protecting against collisions believed to be linked to concussions. Some players choose a helmet based on how it looks on television, or they simply wear the brand they have been using their whole career, even if its technology is antiquated. As a consequence, despite lawsuits related to head injuries and the sport’s ever-increasing speed and violence, some players are using helmets that appear to place them at greater risk.

One of the issues the NFL faces might be its long-term partnership with Riddell. Click here to read more. 

 

You may also be interested in reading A. O. Scott's review of "Head Games" a just-released documentary by Steve James focusing on football, hockey and women's soccer and "the widespread incidence of head injuries that threaten the well-being of competitors at every level, from youth leagues to the pros." 

50 Years - 50 Steps - How We Silenced Rachel Carson.

Books change us.  50 years ago this September Rachel Carson published Silent Spring.  The Environmental Protection Agency is a product of Carson's book.

How did this woman take on the chemical companies?  Click here to read more.

How have we repaid that debt?  We fracked her.

Take time now to read ORION Magazine's report on fracking, how the chemical companies can turn land into a toxic waste dump, convert kitchen faucet tap water into methane, and force families to take it on the chin in the name of natural gas for energy.

Over the weekend I was talking with a family member who was extolling our recent Mars accomplishment.  The idea, I was told, is to investigate that planet as the next Earth. 

I am curious to know how come we would spend all that time, money, ingenuity, effort, creativity, imagination, and intelligence to land a scooter on Mars when we could apply it to figuring out how to heal the wreckage we've caused on this planet and make it a sustainable place to live.  

Sometimes, I have no explanation.

What will we do when we can no longer suck a million gallons of water out of a river to open the gullet of each fracking station?

What will we do when lethal gases trapped a mile under the Earth's crust continue to leak into what used to be clean air?

What will we do when the natural gas runs out? 

What can we rape and pillage then?

 

 

Who Will Speak For The (Illegal) Children?

  Imagine that you are 6 years old, do not speak English, are wearing clothes a few sizes too big for you and a sign around your neck that reads "Juan" which is your first name, and you are in a court of law alone - except for the social worker who cannot represent you.

    What is your crime?  You and your parents risked the uncertain dangers of a trip from your home to the United States to escape the certain dangers of the gangs, drug traffickers and other criminals that terrified that life.  You are illegal.  Now you have to answer for that decision.

    Julia Preston writing for the NYTimes, "More Young Illegal Immigrants Face Deportation," pulls back the curtain on a side of life many of us know nothing about: deportation of children without legal representation.  Excerpt.

"Immigration courts in this South Texas border town and across the country are confronting an unexpected surge of children, some of them barely school age, who traveled here without parents and were caught as they tried to cross illegally into the United States.

The young people, mostly from Mexico and Central America, ride to the border on the roofs of freight trains or the backs of buses. They cross the Rio Grande on inner tubes, or hike for days through extremes of heat and chill in Arizona deserts. The smallest children, like Juan, are most often brought by smugglers.

The youths pose troubling difficulties for American immigration courts. Unlike in criminal or family courts, in immigration court there is no right to a lawyer paid by the government for people who cannot afford one. And immigration law contains few protections specifically for minors. So even a child as young as Juan has to go before an immigration judge — confronting a prosecutor and trying to fight deportation — without the help of a lawyer, if one is not privately provided.

So far this year, more than 11,000 unaccompanied minors have been placed in deportation proceedings, nearly double last year’s numbers.

Young migrants say they are fleeing sharply escalating criminal violence in their home countries. Federal agencies have scrambled to muster adequate detention facilities, while legal groups try to find lawyers to represent them. Judges, for their part, have struggled to offer fair hearings to penniless youths who speak little English and often do not even understand why they are in court.

The influx has heightened concerns that young people without legal help may not be able to obtain even the most basic justice.

“It is almost impossible for children to receive relief in immigration court on their own,” said Meredith Linsky, the director of the South Texas Pro Bono Asylum Representation Project, known as ProBAR, a nonprofit organization that defends young migrants in the region. “The reality is they cannot comprehend the system and what is being asked of them.”"

    Say what you will about immigration.  These are children.  What kind of justice is this? 

    Law firms seeking opportunities for pro bono efforts may well look to these cases.  The American Society of Trial Consultants Pro Bono Committee would be a good place to get some assistance. 

    For those asking what's the use of one case among so many, here's one story with one happy ending: a chance to work, to contribute, to serve.  Who are we to say "no" to such determination.?  Excerpt.

"Sometimes, a Victory

When children appear in court without lawyers, it can be distressing for them and for judges. One judge tried to put a boy at ease by asking playfully to share a bit of the child’s lunch. Thinking that he was supposed to have brought food for the judge, the boy burst into tears.

Migrants who have gotten help from lawyers have won immigration cases they could never have attempted alone. Eduín Rodríguez, now 18, was abandoned by both parents in Honduras. He rode the tops of freight trains across Mexico and swam the Rio Grande to Hidalgo, Tex.

Caught and sent to a shelter, Eduín made contact with ProBAR lawyers, who realized he was a strong candidate for a special immigration status for abused or neglected juveniles.

The legal battle wound from immigration court to Texas family court and back to immigration court. By the end, not only Eduín had won a permanent resident’s green card. The lawyers also discovered that his sister, Cintia, who is one year older, had made the same journey before him and was living illegally in Texas. Through Eduín’s case, she also became a legal resident.

The siblings support themselves on their own in Harlingen. They share a small apartment, and Eduín has been working full time, helping his sister while she went to school. Cintia graduated from high school in May with honors and also completed a nurse aide program at a local community college.

“I left Honduras because I didn’t want to be a loser,” said Cintia, who is now working part time at a supermarket while she continues her nursing training. She plans to enlist in the Navy.

“It really was worth it,” Cintia said, “all the pain I went through, the hunger on the trip, the thirst. I’m a successful person now because I graduated and I’m going to college.”

Flashing a smile, she displayed her most vital documents: her Texas nurse aide certificate and her green card.

“Thanks to God I’m here legally,” she said.""

8 Pictures 8 Stories About What a Two Year Deferral Means To 8 Illegal Immigrants.

There is so little over which we as children had control: in many cases our parents determined our religion, our schooling, our neighborhood, our friends, our activities, our gender, our dreams, our aspirations, and so on.

Children whose parents brought them to this country are no different except that their parents' decision created a status of illegal immigrant for many of them.   

Recently I was having dinner with some acquaintances. Over the hours we chatted about this and that.  Toward the end of the evening someone remarked about the various negative changes in California, and that they were looking to relocate.  

Another person commented about the browning of California.  And yet another supported Arizona's efforts to profile the people in its state.  Talk got a little snarkier: how "they" were taking over our Land of Milk and Honey, depleting the limited resources, not paying taxes, and sending what money they earned back home to families.

I asked if anyone had read about the multitudes of young men and women who crowded Chicago's Navy Pier with sheaves of documents in their arms, ready to prove to anyone who asked that they had the credentials necessary to apply for the new two-year deferral so they could go to school earn a living, contribute to the economy, be a real part of their adopted country.   No, they had not; but one person suggested that with so many of them assembled in one place someone should have rounded them up and sent them back to where they came from.

Everyone at that table had grandparents who came from somewhere else.  Our families tell stories about the losses and the gains when you leave home for another home.  I am reminded of my grandmother leaving her village in Poland at the age of 16, arriving in Chicopee, MA speaking only Polish but willing to work at whatever job she could find. 

Some days I cannot imagine moving to another state in these United States - never mind to another country with its language, geography, social structure, customs, rules, requirements, and so one.  It takes a certain courage. 

Click here to watch the slide show and read the stories of some of the first 1,500 people who were able to have their applications reviewed by volunteers.  Ask yourself, "Which story isn't like mine?"

Traumatic Brain Injuries Are The Scourge Of Our Soldiers.

Did you know that for every soldier killed in war this year, 25 will commit suicide?

How is this travesty possible?

Like those suffered in the civilian world, traumatic brain injuries as a result of war are silent killers.  You can look pretty normal; and yet you may have lost intellect, cognitive skills, anger management, and the ability to care for yourself.  In the face of a dismal diagnosis and little assistance who wouldn't take a way out?

Lawyers and generals need to read the poignant and searing account of one war veteran who speaks for so many who are losing their minds in "War Wounds" as reported by Nicholas Kristof for the NYTimes.  Excerpt.

"Military suicides are the starkest gauge of our nation’s failure to care adequately for those who served in uniform. With America’s wars winding down, the United States is now losing more soldiers to suicide than to the enemy. Include veterans, and the tragedy is even more sweeping. For every soldier killed in war this year, about 25 veterans now take their own lives.

President Obama said recently that it was an “outrage” that some service members and veterans sought help but couldn’t get it: “We’ve got to do better. This has to be all hands on deck.” Admirable words, but so far they’ve neither made much impact nor offered consolation to those who call the suicide prevention hot line and end up on hold.

The military’s problems with mental health services go far beyond suicide or the occasional murders committed by soldiers and veterans. Far more common are people like Richards, who does not contemplate violence of any kind but is still profoundly disabled.

An astonishing 45 percent of those who served in Iraq or Afghanistan are now seeking compensation for injuries, in many cases psychological ones. It’s unclear how many are exaggerated or even fraudulent, but what is clear is this: the financial cost of these disabilities will be huge, yet it is dwarfed by the human cost."

What's Wrong With A Boy Who Wears A Dress?

I can hear it now.  The answers will embrace a range from "Absolutely nothing!" to "Absolutely everything!"

I am still digesting the stories of "gender fluid" boys and the parents who are raising them as reported by Ruth Padawer writing for the NYTimes in the Sunday Magazine, "What's So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?"

I can tell you that while I recognize biology's influence on who we are and that the expression of our own sexuality takes place across a broad spectrum, I am also uncomfortable with coming face-to-face with children who recognize that things are not so black and white as "girl" and "boy."  I think what I'm saying is that it takes a little personal growth to respect and support the notion of "live and let live" even though it collides with the "right and wrong" world in which I was raised, where adults were right and children were wrong.

Matthew Hutson seems to think there remains a strict moral underpinning to who we Americans are, as discussed in his article, "Still Puritan After All These Years".  A problem with moral uprightness is it can bring out the dark underbelly of bias, judgment, opinion, righteousness, and hatred.

It's often so difficult for us as adults to clearly articulate, "I want to be who I am!"  So, I say to the children and their parents "be of courage and confidence" for behaving in the way that is who you are.  They are not hurting anyone - let us not hurt them nor ourselves as they teach us that we all have a place here however fluid, however uncertain.

Perhaps this story and in-classroom exercise will be of use to those working with anti-bullying:

"Toward the end of the first week of kindergarten, Alex showed up in class wearing hot-pink socks — a mere inch of a forbidden color. A boy in his class taunted, “Are you a girl?” Alex told his parents his feelings were so hurt that he couldn’t even respond. In solidarity, his father bought a pair of pink Converse sneakers to wear when he dropped Alex off at school.

Alex’s teacher, Mrs. C., jumped in, too. During circle time, she mentioned male friends who wore nail polish and earrings. Mrs. C. told them that when she was younger, she liked wearing boys’ sneakers. Did that make her a boy? Did the children think she shouldn’t have been allowed to wear them? Did they think it would have been O.K. to laugh at her? They shook their heads no. Then she told them that long ago, girls weren’t allowed to wear pants, and a couple of the children went wide-eyed. “I said: ‘Can you imagine not being able to wear pants when you wanted to? If you really wanted to wear them and someone told you that you couldn’t do that just because you were a girl? That would be awful!’ ” After that, the comments in the classroom about Alex’s appearance pretty much stopped.

It took Alex several weeks to rouse his courage again. And then, about once a week, he would pull on his pink socks and sparkle kitten sneakers and head boldly off to kindergarten."