Triad Today

If you’ve kept up with current affairs lately, you won’t be shocked to learn that an old familiar aggressive world power is embroiled in yet another conflict.

This is a nation that feels it can interfere with or invade any country it desires.
It has anti-gay laws. It has the world’s largest prison population.
It has excessively long sentences for minor offenses.
It can detain a person indefinitely without right to trial.
It uses tasers on suspects, and often employs police brutality on its citizens.
It has unfair and unethical immigration laws.
Its female population earns considerably less money for the same job done by a man.
Its children are going hungry in record numbers.
It collects phone records of private citizens, and it surveils its own lawmakers and members of the press.
It offers sub-standard care for veterans.

It allows people to lose their homes because they can’t pay their medical bills.
It has made dozens of drone strikes on civilian homes.

No, I’m not talking about Russia. I’m referring to the good old United States of America.

Following pro-Western protests in Ukraine, which led to the exile of its President Viktor Yanukovych, Vladimir Putin sent in troops to stabilize the Russian-speaking region of the Crimean peninsula. Putin then announced that a March 16 referendum would be held to determine whether that region should become part of Russia.

I’m not saying that Putin’s actions were justified, but at least they were bolstered by some modicum of logical pretense. To his way of thinking, something had to be done to protect Russians who lived in Ukraine. What I am saying is that President Obama and both parties in Congress who feigned moral outrage, should check their hypocrisy at the door.

I almost gagged when I heard Secretary of State John Kerry proclaim, “You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests”. This is the same John Kerry who supported attacks on Damascus because he mistakenly thought the Syrian government was using sarin gas.

The fact is that the United States has a long and storied history of interfering in and invading other countries in order to assert our interests. In the 1950’s we injected ourselves into a war between the two Korea’s and today all we have to show for the lives lost is an even more dangerous, nuke-ready North Korea. We also propped up the Shah in Iran from the 1950’s until he was deposed in 1979, and then we ended up having to negotiate with the Ayatollah Khomeini for the return of American hostages. Today Iran hates us even more, and is quick to remind us that it has nuclear capabilities as well.

In the 1960’s we stopped sending advisors to Vietnam, and instead started sending soldiers, who then died in record numbers for nothing.

In the 1980s we trained and armed Afghan rebels whose leader was a young man named Osama Bin Laden. Less than twenty years later our ally masterminded the murder of 3,000 Americans on 9/11.

And then there was our arrogant, misplaced invasion of Iraq in 2003, a nation who had no weapons of mass destruction, nor any ties to 9/11. Under Bush, then Obama, the result of that initial invasion and subsequent occupation, was the death of over one million innocent Iraqi men, women, and children.

So now we’re rattling our sabers at Putin and making threats against a country with nuclear capabilities, which had been cordial to us until we decided to appoint ourselves the world’s policeman.

Yes Putin rules with an iron fist, hates gays, and keeps a close watch on the press. And yes maybe this former KGB operative longs for a return to the old Cold War. But America doesn’t have the right to scold him. Former President Jimmy Carter writing in a 2012 New York Times column said that the United States was guilty of widespread human rights violations, and because of that, “our country can no longer speak with moral authority”. Carter pointed out that in 2012 alone, President Obama ordered 30 air strikes on civilian homes in Afghanistan before Hamid Karzai demanded a halt. After which, Obama continued strikes on Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

And let’s be honest here. Who do you think funded and organized the protest movement in Ukraine in the first place? Dave Lindorff of CounterPunch reminds us it’s the same country who supported similar movements in Egypt and now in Venezuela. Good old USA. In fact, last week we sent one billion dollars to Ukraine just to hedge our bets. That’s one billion dollars we could have used to fight childhood hunger here at home, or subsidize teacher raises, or offer better health care to veterans.

For more than 60 years now, whenever America sticks her nose into other countries’ affairs, we always come up short, and since 9/11, we look even shorter in the eyes of the world. Super powers who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw stones. And right now, Mr. Obama has some pretty big stones on him to think he can judge Putin for violating anyone’s freedoms. I don’t know about you, but I want my billion dollars back.

Last year a nursing home in Eastbourne England made news when it was discovered that prostitutes were hired to service elderly male residents. Men who received ladies of the evening, put a red sock on the door knob to ensure privacy. That makes sense because you never want your knob exposed in those situations. Nursing home manager Sue Wyatt told the Times of London that the “third party ‘consultants’ helped residents with their needs”. Helen Barrow, who formerly managed that same facility told the Sun, “professionals offer a service that is both therapeutic to residents … and helpful to staff”. She was referring to how the presence of hookers has spared staff nurses from being groped on a regular basis. As shocking as this sex saga seems to some of us, it is not an isolated incident, nor is it a new phenomena.

As far back as 2008, Bloomberg reported on similar activity occurring at a nursing home in Denmark. Meanwhile, according to Daniel Reingold, CEO of New York’s Hebrew Home, residents of his facility are having plenty of sex, not with prostitutes, but with each other. Reingold told About.com reporter Anthony Cirillo, “Anything people do at home, they’re allowed to do here.”

Clearly, nursing home sex is becoming more common. Recently the Journal of Clinical Geriatrics conducted a survey of fifteen Texas nursing homes, and found that 8% of residents had engaged in sexual intercourse, while another 17% said they wish they had. But senior sex is not just occurring in nursing facilities. In 2008, a survey by the New England Journal of Medicine revealed that 25% of people between the ages of 75 and 85 were having sex, and doing it at least once every two weeks.

Late last year, the Journal updated its survey, and found an increase in sexual intercourse among 75-85 year olds. The study also showed that 50% of seniors give or receive oral sex. But those figures might be conservative. New York Times columnist Ezekiel Emanuel cites two other studies (by the National Social Life, Health and Aging Project, and the National Survey of Sexual Health and Behavior) which show that more than 50% of men and 40% of women over 60 are sexually active.

OK, so the good news is that older folks are having sex more often than they used to. Or as comedian Bill Maher said, “70 is the new 69”. The bad news, though, is that many sexy seniors haven’t been too careful in their amorous activities. Earlier this month, the Centers for Disease Control reported that venereal disease among seniors has nearly tripled over the past decade. In particular, Chlamydia among Americans 65 and older is up by 31%, and Syphilis by 52%.

In his column, Emanuel cites four main reasons for the rise in STDs among the elderly. First, we are living longer and we’re in better health. Second is that retirement communities and nursing homes “are becoming like college campuses”. Says Emanuel, “They cram a lot of similarly aged people together and when they do, things naturally happen”. The third
factor is the acceptance and availability of drugs like Viagra which facilitate more sexual activity. But the fourth and perhaps biggest
contributor to the rise in geriatric STDs is lack of protection. Older folks who are now in their 70’s and 80’s came of age during a time when they didn’t have to worry about AIDS and other consequences of unprotected sex. That’s why it’s not surprising that only 6% of geriatric males use condoms. That compares to today’s college age males who use condoms 40% of the time.

In December of last year, University of Chicago sex researcher Dr. Edward Laumann told NBC news, “Most people assume that people stop doing ‘it’ after some vague age”. Perhaps the professor is correct. When I was a kid growing up in the 1950’s and 1960’s, I never imagined my parents having sex. After all, they were in their forties then and that was ancient. Besides, what kid wants to conjure up a visual of his Mom and Dad doing the nasty.

But we can no longer be in denial about the rise in sexual activity among seniors. As Slate.com’s Daniel Engber points out, within a few decades, “nursing homes will be replete with the desires and expectations of almost 7 million liberated baby boomers”.

Obviously we need to educate seniors about the dangers of STDs, but we certainly don’t want to discourage intimacy among them. It also occurs to me that I am now a senior, so I say to all my elderly brethren, either be monogamous, or put a sock on all your knobs.

The National Geographic Society was founded in 1888 with the motto, “Inspire people to care about the planet”. It’s a pretty good motto, especially in this day and time. My Dad cared about the planet and he treasured his collection of National Geographic magazines.

He read them cover to cover, and encouraged me to do the same. For me the magazines inspired a number of school projects. For my friend Bryan Cranston, star of “Breaking Bad”, they inspired something quite different. Bryan once told me that he learned about sex by looking at pictures of naked native women in National Geographic.

To be honest, my Dad and I looked at those pictures too. But most of all, the magazine took us to far away places and taught us about cultures different from our own. In that regard, National Geographic magazine made the planet seem a bit smaller, and much easier to care about.

I suppose that’s what the National Geographic Society intended when it launched the Nat Geo television channel. But somewhere along the way, Nat Geo fell prey to the same economic realities as have other formerly respectable channels, such as A&E, Bravo, and History. Today it’s not enough to present quality, educational programs.

These channels must compete for eyeballs, and that means broadcasting the likes of Honey Boo Boo and Duck Dynasty. Nat Geo’s own line-up includes such inspirational programs as:

Lockdown, Breakout, Amish Out of Order, Polygamy USA, Kentucky Justice, and the worst of them all, Snake Salvation. It’s the latter that made news last week when the star of the series, Rev. Jamie Coots, died from a rattlesnake bite.

Coots had been the spiritual leader of Middlesboro, Kentucky’s Full Gospel Tabernacle, and a snake handler from way back. After being bitten, Coots refused medical treatment because he felt that a true believer such as himself would survive the serpent’s tooth.

And why not? After all, he had cheated death eight times before. But this time Coots’ spirit was no match for the snake’s venom.

Normally I wouldn’t waste space in this column to rail against the act of an ignorant snake handler, but this was different because Coots’ death was facilitated in part by Nat Geo. What really got my goat was National Geographic’s official response to the accident.

AOL News cites an unnamed Nat Geo spokesperson as saying the corporation was, “struck by Coots’ devout religious convictions despite the health and legal peril he often faced …those risks were always worth it to him, and his congregants as a means to demonstrate their unwavering faith. We were honored to be allowed such unique access to pastor Jamie and his congregation during the course of our show, and give context to his method of worship”.

I’m sorry, but that statement is the biggest bunch of horse manure I’ve heard since former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge told us to duct tape our windows to protect against terrorism.

First of all, Coots was a nut case and a criminal who illegally transported venomous snakes into Kentucky, and once helped to kill a congregant. The latter occurred in 1995 when Coots goaded 28 year old Melinda Brown into handling a rattlesnake. Ms. Brown was bitten, and died soon after.

Nat Geo was aware of Coots’ background and the lethal nature of his activities, yet they contracted with him to do the TV series without hesitation. The implication is that the TV channel knew people would tune in each week to see if anyone got bit by a snake, and, in my mind, that makes Nat Geo guilty of sensationalism at least, and facilitation of a suicide/homicide at worst. It also makes their official statement hypocritical and an insult to our intelligence, as they feign honor over and assign faux educational value to a product that was nothing more than a ratings ploy for profit.

I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking that at some point in the last 126 years, National Geographic magazine no doubt featured people who did dangerous things. But reading a single article about snake handlers is far different from watching a weekly TV series about a sadomasochistic guy who is an unchecked, ongoing danger to himself and others.

Philo Farnsworth, who invented television, envisioned that his creation would help to enlighten, educate, and inspire people, not unlike the mission of the National Geographic Society. But increasingly, television has become a repository for showcasing dysfunctional groups and individuals who lower the bar for all of us whether we watch or not.

Duke Energy is quick to ask for rate hikes, but slow, it seems, when it comes to notifying residents about toxic spills. Earlier this month, a 48-inch stormwater pipe broke just beneath a coal ash holding pond at Duke’s dormant Eden power plant, dumping more than 80,000 tons of sludge into the Dan River before the leak was plugged.

According to a report by the Winston-Salem Journal’s Bertrand Gutierrez, Duke Energy did not know exactly how much coal ash had spewed into the river, or how long it had been leaking by the time they discovered the problem, and then it took them 26 hours to notify towns downstream of the contamination. And so we have two problems. The toxic spill, and the unacceptable response time.

Duke Energy has dormant plants and coal ash holding ponds all over the state, and most of them are in violation of one thing or another. The Eden facility, for example, was rated as a “high hazard” by the North Carolina Division of Energy, Mineral and Land Resources. One reason, as was reported by the Greensboro News & Record, is because of the close proximity of the “earthen dike” to the river itself. But in fact, this month’s spill was a hazard waiting to happen. The State’s Division of Energy spokesperson Steve McEvoy told the News & Record editorial staff that though Duke Energy’s dike had been inspected, the pipe had not. Proper monitoring and inspection of the pipes would have required closed circuit cameras, something Duke reportedly never invested in.

And it’s not as though Duke Energy was unaware that they needed to monitor their ponds and pipes. According to the News & Record’s Margaret Moffett Banks, state environmental officials have been after Duke to fix problems at all 12 of their coal-fired plants and 30 ponds, including those at Eden, Asheville, and along the Catawba River. But instead of mitigating problems, Duke Energy has fought the state’s request for accountability and clean-up, tooth-and-nail, which is why our environmental agency had to take the energy giant to court back in August. Meanwhile, the Southern Environmental Law Center is suing Duke Energy to try to force the company to clean up widespread coal ash pollution.

And so, none of us should be shocked, or surprised, that Duke officials sat on their collective asses for more than a day before picking up the phone to let folks know that their river had been contaminated. Still, they broke no law in waiting.

That’s because our archaic and business-friendly state law only requires notification of such spills within 48 hours of discovery. That needs to change. State Representative

Pricey Harrison of Guilford County is pushing for new regulations on how coal ash is stored, so hopefully she will now tack on a provision that requires immediate notification when toxic spills occur.

Clearly, Duke Energy is aware that problems exist with its holding ponds, and, up until now, they have been slow to cooperate with state agency requests to fix those problems. But the Dan River spill was high profile and it prompted a high profile response. Governor McCrory met with Duke officials last week and received their assurance that they would “mitigate any current and long term effects of the very serious incident” at the Eden plant. Still, they made no public promise to expedite that same sort of mitigation in their other facilities. The question is, will Governor McCrory hold Duke’s feet to the fire for comprehensive reforms, and not just settle for corrective actions at the Eden plant alone? After all, McCrory worked for Duke Energy for nearly 30 years, and he is also a pro-business, anti-regulation governor.

Regardless of his loyalties and political principles, however, McCrory and his administration will likely keep a close eye on Duke Energy because the Feds are already keeping an eye on all parties concerned. According to WXII news, the U.S. Attorney’s office has issued a grand jury subpoena requesting records from Duke Energy and the NC Department of Environment and Natural Resources. That’s the same agency who said the third-largest coal ash spill in U.S. history did not violate state water quality standards, even though the Dan River is now gray with coal ash sludge, and area residents are now being told by the NC Department of Health and Human Services not to eat fish near the site of the spill, and to avoid any contact with the river.

It seems like after every major spill, the responsible party always assures us that the pollutants will eventually be absorbed by the affected river or ocean. But having a little toxic coal ash in our water is like being a little bit pregnant. Duke Energy’s metaphorical condom broke, and now the rest of us are in a not-so-delicate condition because of their carelessness. Ours is a toxic relationship because the person who screwed us just happens to be our only available source of energy. It makes you sick to think about it, and even sicker if you go near the Dan River to think about it.

Since the late 18th century, America has been known as the world’s melting pot, so called because families immigrated here to seek a better life in a new home. Somewhere along the way, though, it became fashionable for Anglo- Americans to import their own multinational, multiracial families.

In recent times, for example, Angelina Jolie and other celebrities have been seen as humanitarians for their efforts to rescue at-risk children from Third World countries, as well as from more developed nations such as Russia.

It’s not surprising then, that advocates of foreign adoption, like Sen. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, willingly supported the Hague Convention on Intercountry Adoption because the treaty would, according to the Associated Press, “establish ethical standards for international adoption.” But the Hague treaty had the opposite effect on foreign adoptions from what Landrieu and others had anticipated. Commenting to the AP last week, Sen. Landrieu said, “When I helped to pass this treaty, it was everyone’s hope that the number [of foreign adoptions] would go up…. Instead, it’s down by 60 percent.” Landrieu is correct.

In 2004, Americans adopted 22,991 foreign children, but by 2012, that number had dropped to 8,668.

A Nov. 17, 2011 report by NPR’s Alan Greenblatt revealed the decline of foreign adoptions was due primarily to corruption, longer wait times, and closing of adoption centers. South Korea, China, Ethiopia, Guatemala and Russia have all scaled back on the number of children available for foreign adoption, while Romania has halted such adoptions altogether.

But Greenblatt also proffered another reason for the decline in adoptions: “There seems to be a consensus within international child welfare circles that orphans should be kept with their own families or communities, and adopted domestically.”

No matter the reasons for the decline in foreign adoptions, Sen. Landrieu decided that congressional action was needed to ensure the health and safety of orphans in other countries. And so, in September of last year, Landrieu introduced the Children in Families First Act, which has since garnered a modicum of bipartisan support in both chambers. Primarily the bill would encourage more Americans to adopt foreign children, but Landrieu also wants to create a new bureau inside the State Department that will focus exclusively on international child welfare. However, many in Congress as well as officials in the State Department aren’t too excited about creating more government bureaucracy.

Senator Landrieu’s efforts are noble and commendable, but they are neither fair nor practical. As a mother of two adopted children, she is blinded by her own compassion for foreign orphans, and that’s okay for her. But legislation driven by that blind compassion may not be best for our nation as a whole. Depending upon which source you cite, there are currently about 3 million orphans in the United States. How, then, in good conscience can any American adopt a Russian or Ethiopian child, when 3 million children need homes right here in America?

I am reminded of a line from the film The American President in which an overzealous politician is described as “someone who claims to love America, but clearly can’t stand Americans.” The analogous reference is harsh and not directed at any of the 200,000 American parents who have given good homes to foreign orphans over the past 15 years.

But going forward, the last thing we need is a new law and a new bureaucracy that favors international orphans over their American counterparts. If such a government structure is put into place, then we are relegating our own American-born orphans to permanent second-class status, and signaling to them that they must continue to take a back seat to foreign kids when it comes to placement.

For now, we should accept the standards that have been established, respect the wishes of governments that want to curtail the export levels of children in their respective countries, and allocate whatever resources we can here in America to placing our own orphans in good homes.

Sen. Landrieu herself said it best:

“Every child needs and deserves to grow up in a family.”

There are three million American orphans who couldn’t agree with her more.

In 1964, Surgeon General Luther Terry issued a report in which he cited the health risks associated with smoking. That led to the passage of a new law requiring cigarette manufacturers to print a warning on every pack. In the 50 years since then, we’ve seen scientific revelations, massive litigation, fines and settlements; yet still, tobacco companies and the government continue to lock horns over the extent of damage that smoking can cause, and how best to rectify and prevent any further harm to consumers.

Whether planned or coincidental, last week’s anniversary of Terry’s landmark report was marked by two major developments. First, our current Surgeon General Boris Lushniak announced that in addition to causing lung disease and cancer, smoking also causes diabetes, rheumatoid arthritis, erectile dysfunction, macular degeneration, and liver and colon cancer.

The second development occurred six days earlier, when an agreement was reached in US District Court requiring tobacco companies to undertake a massive mea culpa. It will include admitting in print and broadcast ads that smoking is addictive, and that cigarette manufacturers manipulated nicotine delivery in their product so as to feed and better sustain that addiction. According to the Huffington Post’s Michael Felberbaum, the agreement (which follows a 2012 ruling ordering big tobacco to pay for corrective statements in advertisements) requires each of the companies to publish full-page ads in the Sunday edition of at least 35 newspapers and their respective websites. They must also air prime-time TV ads on ABC, CBS or NBC five times per week for a year, and print their transgressions on cigarette packs for the next two years.

These so called corrective ads must also be preceded with the statement that tobacco companies “deliberately deceived the American public,” and they must include the following statistics: Smoking kills more people than murder, AIDS, suicide, car crashes and alcohol combined, and that second-hand smoke kills over 38,000 Americans each year.

The affected companies are calling the corrective ads “forced public confessions… designed to shame and humiliate” them. If so, then that’s okay with the American Heart Association, American Cancer Society and American Lung Association, who released a joint statement saying that the ads are “necessary reminders that tobacco’s devastating toll over the past 50 years is no accident. It stems directly from the tobacco industry’s deceptive and even illegal practices.”

What strikes me about the latest health warnings and punitive actions is that it’s taken far too long for us to get to this point. Noted scientists Wyndren and Graham reported as far back as 1950 that 96.5 percent of lung cancer patients were heavy smokers. And in 1963, an in-house attorney for Brown & Williamson circulated a memo admitting that nicotine is addictive and that “we are in the business of selling nicotine — an addictive drug.”

Think of the lives that might have been saved had someone from B&W grown a pair 50 years ago, and blown the whistle on their manufacturing practices. That didn’t happen until 1996 when Jeffrey Wigand, a B&W researcher went public with confidential information about nicotine manipulation. Would people have still smoked had they known the real health risks and accelerated addictive properties of cigarettes early on? Probably, but they should have at least had access to the facts.

The other amazing thing about this 50-year saga is that no one in a position of leadership at the major tobacco companies has ever gone to prison. When the heads of the seven major cigarette makers testified on Capitol Hill in 1994, all seven men said under oath that nicotine is not addictive. The Waxman committee knew those CEOs were lying because six years earlier the surgeon general ruled that nicotine was, in fact, an addictive drug.

Yet no one went to jail for committing perjury. Let some poor slob off the street commit perjury in court and he goes to the slammer. Let some party perv spike a woman’s drink with a date rape drug, and he’ll get to see the inside of a jail. But let tobacco executives lie about spiking their product with a drug that has helped to kill millions of people, and their only punishment is to fund some foundations and run apology ads.

For eight years I watched my father die a little bit each day from COPD. He had been a heavy smoker for over 40 years, then managed to quit, and was smokefree for the last 20 years of his life. But it was too late. The damage to his lungs had been done. Tobacco company executives didn’t force my dad to smoke cigarettes, but we now know they did everything they could to make sure he kept smoking.

Thanks to cigarette makers and their addictive product, thousands of people live the last years of their lives in a sort of prison, tethered to oxygen tanks and wheelchairs. Meanwhile, tobacco bigwigs are living large, untethered, and complaining that having to finally (and publicly) tell the truth will somehow shame and humiliate them. Their feigned suffering would be laughable if my heart wasn’t so heavy.