Song of the Midnight Whistler

It's all about Control

2011-10-08T08:54:00.000-07:00

My wife, Eileen just read in the paper that the European Central Bank is guaranteeing loans by smaller banks throughout Europe, to keep them from going under in this time of financial instability.

Aha! So that's why there is financial instability, so that the ECB can come to the rescue. So now all those smaller banks will owe money to the ECB and it will be in control.

And like I said in my conspiracy trilogy: Deadly Research, Research Triangle and Terminal Research, it's all about control.

Gawd! I hate it when I'm right.

Doing a job on Steve Jobs

2011-10-07T15:54:00.000-07:00

Marilyn Monroe came along and the world was not the same thereafter. She changed the game for bathing beauties everywhere. It was not long before she was dead of a fatal overdose.
Elvis Presley, AKA The King, came along and the world of music was changed forever. It was not long before he was dead of a fatal overdose.
Michael Jackson came along and became The King of Pop, unstoppable, but he had drug problems of his own. It was not long before he was dead of a fatal overdose.
Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, River Phoenix, Heath Ledger: all standouts in their fields, all incredible talents. Where could they have gone if not … well, it's only speculation. But still, I see a pattern forming.
Steve Jobs came along and changed the way we communicate, the way we do business, the way we spend our leisure time, what we had in our pockets, what students carried to class and the whole game. Before he came along, there was the typewriter, the Ozilid machine, the font template, and art was done by hand with a brush and toxic paints. After Steve Jobs, it was all done on the computer. He came along and the world was different.
The terrible thing was that the world was better, and therefore, Steve Jobs had to go. So they threw him out of his own company. What could he do? He started the most successful animated film company ever. He conceived of the iPod, the iPhone and the iPad. And he got his company back. Take that!
He was also heckled and hounded, badgered and bothered until he was sick. But he beat the sickness. Take that!
He got sick again. And this time the sickness won. Steve Jobs died. He was ten years younger than I am, but then I haven't done anything near as grand, so I am relatively overlooked.
Somewhere in a ragged, overused notebook, in Steve Job's handwriting, are a thousand ideas for a thousand things you and I have not even thought of. They will change the world. Once put into production and released to the public, we will wonder what we ever did without them.
There are people in this world who are evil, who look at someone doing good and want to destroy them. There are people who latch on to a celebrity, an upcoming talent, and seek to bring them down. We should have formed a circle around Steve Jobs and protected him from such people.
You can say, “well, after all, it was cancer. No one can give someone cancer.”
But we don't know that. We don't know enough about cancer yet to say what brings it on or how one gets it. That “no one knows” theory is mighty handy, if you are someone evil and want to get rid of someone who is really making the world a far more interesting place. After all, the old “died of an overdose” line is getting a bit worn, don't you think?
One thing's sure: the man who changed the world is gone. Who will change the world now? I'm sure there are a few who are pretty smart guys and gals who are saying to themselves, “Better not get too effective. Remember Steve Jobs.”
But that's rather the point, isn't it? If you make it dangerous to achieve, the smart ones will stop achieving. The evil people win. And that's the whole idea, to be the one who wins.
Right now you are saying, “That's insane!”
That's right.

How Bad Laws Go National: Case Study HB 235

2011-08-01T15:42:00.000-07:00

WRITTEN BY BEVERLY K. EAKMAN

At this writing, a piece of state legislation in Maryland, HB 235, has passed the state House in Annapolis and is poised to be fast-tracked through the state Senate via the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee within a matter of days. Conveniently, there will be no public hearing on the Senate side, because there is no Senate version of the bill. This is not exactly an anomaly, but it’s not Standard Operating Procedure, either. Almost no one likes the bill, as it involves using the force of law to impose cross-dressing, "transgenderism," and a range of related behaviors in public places. As written, the bill appears designed to intimidate average citizens, most of whom, despite Maryland’s liberal bent, still lean, in practice, toward traditional values and standards.

Because HB 235 defines gender identity as “a gender-related identity or appearance of an individual, regardless of the individual’s assigned sex at birth,” the bill:

requires Maryland employers, including government agencies, to hire, promote, and include cross-dressers in all facets of the workplace without bias, with business owners facing threats of lawsuit or punishment if, say, men cannot wear dresses to wait on customers.
extends into public schools and day-care centers, which will be legally bound to hire cross-dressers and “transgenders,” if they apply, to teach and work with children.
normalizes "transgenderism," cross-dressing, and related behaviors and incites activists to promote bizarre sexual conduct through diversity-training workshops targeting businesses and school assemblies.
covers real estate transactions — further eroding the right of choice in renting or selling units and homes.
provides for easy access by “transgenders” — and sexual predators — to restrooms in stores, restaurants, schools, day-care facilities and workplaces.
forbids genetic testing to determine the actual sex of any employee or applicant.
It should be noted here that attempting to change one’s sex is biologically impossible, as every human cell’s chromosomes identify one as male or female. While it may be true that secondary sex characteristics occasionally get mixed up, there’s a medical term for that: birth defects. By lumping together homosexuals, exhibitionists and those with bona fide birth deformities (i.e., rare instances in which male babies are born with undersized genitalia or, at onset of puberty, breast development; and females who never menstruate), HB 235 is bureaucratic overkill.
Opponents of the bill are expected to fight it on moral and religious grounds. Advocates backing and promoting HB 235 are counting on that, because it gives them a psychological advantage. They already know that neither the U.S. Constitution nor the Bill of Rights provides any stipulation about individuals having a “right” to choose their gender or change their mind about which sex they want to be.

Moreover, undercutting traditional norms and religious beliefs are, for advocates, only spin-off returns from this bill. Proponents have a larger stake — namely, compromising property and ownership rights, thereby diverting more authority to government to regulate people’s lives. Miss this causal relationship, and taxpayers lose — twice.

The fact that there is no Senate version of the bill to debate facilitates the process of taking what is essentially a “pilot project” in Maryland from the blueprint stage to a national mandate. Passage of model legislation in one state serves as a precedent for others. Once a number of states have passed similar bills, the national/federal version is usually a slam-dunk.

That is how the “medicinal” marijuana tactic helped normalize and legitimize marijuana use; how the “civil unions” approach assured passage of same-sex “marriage” in state after state; and how psychological screening of schoolchildren under the cover of health reform made privacy violations part and parcel not only of the educational experience, but normalized interrogations, searches and seizure projects that spread to other demographics.

A prime example is the New Freedom Initiative (NFI). It blazed a trail in federalizing unpopular state initiatives. What began as survey to identify troubled schoolchildren now covers nursing-home residents, pregnant women and others. More significantly, it promotes the use of newer, more expensive antipsychotics and antidepressants as a sop to drug companies which, of course, can bankroll politicians.

Here’s how the scheme worked: A 1995 blueprint called the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) was funded via a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation “philanthropic” grant and support from then-governor George W. Bush. While Texas was enacting the TMAP blueprint, Illinois was drafting the national legislative model: Its state legislature passed the $10 million Illinois Children's Mental Health Act creating a Children's Mental Health Partnership (ICMHP), which promptly was picked up, with a phrase changed here and there, by other states. (Such well-coordinated efforts are frequently facilitated by the Commission on Uniform State Laws.) ICMHP required the Illinois State Board of Education to develop and implement a plan that — get this! — incorporated social and emotional standards as part of mandatory Illinois Learning Standards. Social and emotional standards became the benchmarks for universal mental-health screening — the New Freedom Initiative (NFI), ostensibly an early-detection strategy.

By 2004, pre-emptive mental-health screening was ubiquitous, even though it didn't work. President George W. Bush created the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health in 2002 and instructed more than 25 federal agencies to develop a nationwide implementation plan based on the old TMAP blueprint (Read "What? Are You Crazy?" by this author). NFI was born. The U.S. Congress passed it by a large majority, making behavioral “health” a priority, with assessment of private opinions, and referrals to psychiatric services. Other states jumped on the bandwagon with their own versions of mental health screening, expecting monetary “incentives.”

Inevitably, such federal incentives to state and local entities translate to government dictating how citizens must live. As columnist and Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafly stated in her March 2005 analysis of TeenScreen, an integral part of NFI aimed at youth depression, parents find themselves facing coercion and threats from school staff; permanent, stigmatizing labeling of their children; charges of child neglect for refusing privacy-invading surveys; and an avalanche of unproved, even deadly, medications.

What does this have to do with Maryland’s HB 235? Just this: The route to nationalization is following a familiar course, in the name of pre-empting discrimination in housing, education, employment and providing tax-supported social services.

In an effort to explain her support for the bill, Maryland Senator Karen Montgomery wrote to this author in an e-mail that “[t]his bill is just clarifying that it is not acceptable to discriminate against people regardless if it is a choice, part of their genetic make-up, or a ‘shifting psychological state’…. ”

So, HB 235 isn’t about disability. It is a blank check aimed at providing sexual license and, in so doing, also restricting the property rights and decision-making prerogatives of citizens who balk.

Consider: Most people with embarrassing medical conditions do not wear a sign announcing their ailments. An individual with migraine headaches or kidney disease may approach a potential employer with the caveat: “I get migraines and occasionally need to lie down,” or “my kidney condition requires dialysis at specified times. But I'm good at what I do; please hire me anyway." If the job-seeker’s credentials and background are otherwise solid, many employers would go the extra mile.

If, on the other hand, a job-seeker approaches an employer (or an apartment owner) loudly announcing his or her sexual proclivities, then that candidate is a provocateur. In an era when special keys or codes are required to enter an office restroom and abductions and sexual murders by deviants are almost daily news, accommodating exhibitionists is counterproductive — unless, of course, there is another agenda entirely, one that utilizes sexual license as a side-show to divert attention from ulterior motives.

Let’s hope Marylanders see through this one before HB 235 goes from state model to federal law. Right now, most of the advocacy seems to be on the side of the bill’s proponents, while its real originators sit back and watch outraged traditionalists miss the larger issue — again.

Got Meds? Not Necessarily, Say U.S. Hospitals

2011-06-03T12:40:00.000-07:00

WRITTEN BY BEVERLY K. EAKMAN
FRIDAY, 03 JUNE 2011 14:37

Over the Memorial Day weekend, while many were getting their first taste of summer — ergo, not reading the news — it was reported that U.S. hospitals were experiencing shortages of both common and specialized drugs, so much so that they are looking for substitutes and combing the globe for overseas suppliers. An Associated Press story announced that some “89 drug shortages occurred in the first three months of this year, according to the University of Utah’s Drug Information Service (UUDIC)…which tracks shortages for the American Society of Health-System Pharmacies.”

Turns out, this is not a new problem. According to Linda S. Tyler, Pharm. D., FASHP, Pharmacy Manager, Drug Information Services, University of Utah Hospitals and Clinics, the first drug shortages in the United States occurred in 1996, during the Clinton Administration, when data collection on the topic began. At the time, there were only five drugs affected, but that number rose swiftly to 20 drugs between 1997 and 2000, according to UUDIC tracking. In 2001 the number of shortages grew to 120, most of which were resolved by the following year because they didn’t rise to the level of adversely affecting hospitals and patient care. Today, that has changed.
Shortages are not only inconvenient, but expensive. Tyler wrote that “[c]hanges in drug supply can alter the way medications are prepared in the pharmacy, the way they are administered to patients, and, in some cases, whether patients receive medications at all.” She estimates that “many organizations spend between one-half and three full-time equivalent (FTE) personnel on the management of drug shortages. These extra FTEs spend their time investigating the reason for the shortage, finding alternative agents, working with wholesalers, finding alternative suppliers, compounding a replacement product internally, or communicating with other practitioners.”

The knee-jerk public response to this news is along the lines of: Do we make anything in this country anymore? Is there anything that is not still outsourced, imported, or subject to rationing?

The real factors are more complicated, and more disturbing. In 2003, Tyler categorized several reasons for shortages, summed up as regulatory issues (7 percent), product discontinuation (20 percent), raw materials issues (8 percent), manufacturing problems (28 percent), and supply-and-demand (10 percent). In her updated publication, Tyler notes that this leaves some 27 percent of shortages unexplained. Deeper, more hidden, reasons include “Grey” Market Vendors, Prime Vendors and Just-in-time Vendors, Industry Consolidations, Market Shifts, Manufacturer Rationing, Restricted Distribution, Manufacturer Discontinuation — and the fact that sometimes drug companies are loathe to reveal the details of shortages for fear of a public, legal or other backlash.

Most of these categories appear to be self-explanatory, although the motives pretty much revolve around demand (read: money). Thus persons with legitimate, but rare, disorders who rely on particular drugs may find their doctors hard-pressed to locate a new source or alternative (the National Association for Rare Disorders helps), while well-hyped, trendy complaints (like attention-deficit “disorder” and depression) see a new pill on the market several times a year. War is certainly a factor, when soldiers require an unexpectedly large quantity of a certain product, creating temporary shortages in the U.S.

But “grey market vendors” are more troublesome. Tyler explains that “the profitability of [certain] pharmaceuticals attracts vendors who [then] create artificial shortages by selectively purchasing excessive quantities of products, … thereby depleting the available stock. These vendors then re-sell the products back to the users at inflated prices.”

“Prime Vendors and Just-in-Time Inventories” are another development that makes for concern. Tyler explains:

The increased use of prime vendors may have contributed to the drug shortage situation by reducing the amount of product available in the supply chain. It is no longer easy to weather shortages by relying on stockpiled inventories because both wholesalers and health systems maintain minimum levels of stock. As a result, manufacturer supply issues are transmitted directly to the user without the benefit of an inventory buffer, thereby increasing the number of short-term shortages that may impact [larger] institutions.

The practice of maintaining minimum supply levels could be disastrous, especially as we contemplate bio- and chemical weapon attacks, not to mention out-sized, super-toxic strains of E. coli that have now killed some 18 Europeans and sickened 1,600 via an unknown, salad-vegetable-borne contaminant. Persons who get any E. coli infection can suffer horribly (somewhat reminiscent of Hemorrhagic Fever (Ebola)/Renal Syndrome [HFRS]), as this one attacks the kidneys, too, and is apparently drug-resistant.

Furthermore, many of the drugs that are ubiquitous and easy to get are also the most misleading (e.g., Exedrin Migraine and Extra Strength Exedrin contain identical ingredients, including the percentages of each compound; Eli Lilly’s antidepressant Prozac gets only a new color (pink) and a new name (Sarafem) for treatment of so-called premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD), dubbed a mental illness in women.

Warehousing medicines are not in the same category as warehousing books. A case can be made for no longer warehousing books, as computerized printing and the Internet have made doing so unnecessary, given easy on-demand operations. Warehousing medicines, however, is critical, even as a stop-gap measure until a better drug can be researched.

Moreover, the medical and pharmaceutical community may need to work to get a handle on the supply-and-demand problem quickly, giving the heave-ho to misrepresented drugs and quick approval and distribution for critical ones, including those for rare diseases. Shortages are not an option.

Conservatives Lose Ground on Social Issues

2011-06-03T08:53:00.000-07:00

The Agenda Game: Part I -
FRIDAY, 03 JUNE 2011 00:04 BEVERLY EAKMAN

Conservatives and traditionalists appear to be hopelessly outclassed when it comes to organizing and strategy. How else to explain the lack of bang for the conservative buck, even with umpteen nonprofits, volunteer groups and lobbying organizations devoted to promoting a traditional approach to social issues? Inboxes overflow with “urgent” admonitions to contact members of Congress over one issue after another: the Defense of Marriage Act, gays in the military, women on submarines, pro-homosexual curricula. This past May, it was the politically-correct censorship of six year-olds (“Candy Cane Case”) and transgendered classrooms.

The very concept of marriage now appears to be in trouble—a cornerstone of the pro-family, conservative movement—even as celebrities brag on and on about conceiving out of wedlock. Focus on the Family President Jim Daly, in an interview just published in WORLD magazine, allowed that pro-family leaders probably are losing the battle for traditional marriage among younger generations of Americans, “as casual ‘hookups’ continue to replace the romance of dating”. A combination of factors has contributed to this result: teen magazine articles; hypersexual advertising; and age-inappropriate, graphic sex education. The one in four girls reported to have had a sexually transmitted disease (STD) in 2008 hasn’t changed much from year to year—a little more among some demographics one year, a little less in others.

Any way you look at it, promiscuity is pervasive, and risky sexual behaviors increasingly are expected and normalized, despite the emotional and physical toll on girls, in particular.

Then, there are ongoing issues like crime, low academic performance, loss of personal privacy, the practice of sending naughty and/or “slow” children to psychiatrists for therapy and drugs, human trafficking and dozens more that have seen little or no gain for traditionalists since heaven-knows-when.

Even when we win one, it’s soon back to Square One. For example, the organization MassResistance gleefully reported May 23, that Kevin Jennings will be leaving his post as the U.S. Department of Education’s “Safe Schools Czar” this coming July. Jennings has been the driving force behind pro-homosexual curricula and “tolerance,” as well as founder of the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Educational Network (GLSEN), which has so much money invested in getting its message out that it even managed to register-trademark (®) its own slogan. Jennings is credited with helping to introduce Bill 4530 in Congress that would require normalization of homosexuality, transgenderism, cross-dressing, etc., in America’s public schools. (Two copycat “transgender” bills at the state level are already taking a toll in California schools; AB 433 and SB 48 are poised to be passed by the California Legislature, but at least one elementary school in Oakland is already indoctrinating kids starting in kindergarten about “gender diversity.”)

No sooner had Jennings announced he was exiting as Safe Schools “czar,” than he was slated to head up an outfit called Be the Change, described by MassResistance as “a turbo-charged community-organizing organization founded by well-known Massachusetts liberal activist Alan Khazei,” who is poised to run for U.S. Senate against a Republican. Khazei, a fellow whom most conservatives never heard of, founded City Year in 1998 as a program for organizing youth, in the spirit of Hitler’s Youth and the communists’ Comintern and Young Pioneers, his goal being to “put their idealism to work” through “community transformation.” (This is the type of “community activism” Barack Obama cut his teeth on in Chicago.) The organization now has 22 offices across the US, and also in places as far removed as London and South Africa, given its slew of high-profile corporate sponsors. Jennings’ new role will not only give him access to Khazei’s fortune and influence, although he may have had it all along, but he will now be poised to include adults and take City Year to even greater heights once he takes the reigns of Be the Change.

With the 2012 election less than a year and a half away, conservatives are asking why things like this keep happening. Why, they wonder, can’t conservatives slam the lid shut whenever a new radical activist-turned-“expert” comes out of the woodwork?

They are finding that, just as housing prices are all about location, location, location, success in politics is all about strategy, strategy, strategy. Conservatives keep trying to recycle the same strategies—and sometimes even the same candidates—year after year. That is one factor in the rise of the Tea Party: the feeling that it’s time for some new blood.

It’s not that conservative ideals are blown off by the public—in fact, most Americans, when push comes to shove, actually identify more with the traditional social mores than not. Polls show that most people value their privacy; they don’t want to be snooped on. They zealously guard what they see as personal property. They expect schools to turn out knowledgeable kids and to instill discipline, not just kids who will be “team players.” They still admire the traditional white wedding, and they’re a bit squeamish about sharing bathroom and sleeping quarters with homosexuals.

So, what exactly is the problem?

It’s the hostile political environment. By the mid-1980s, even with the Reagan Revolution in full gear, the Marxists and anarchists of the 1960s had been trained to carry the day. They became the wealthy, the focused, the movers and shakers. They knew exactly how, and where, to invest their money (media, media, media) and learned to push conservatives’ hot buttons over and over so that traditionalists were left flailing about, hopelessly divided, at each other’s throats, disorganized and angry.

For 35 years, the left has used “the dog-bone strategy.” It tosses one outrageous issue after another to conservatives, and the conservatives always bite. Today, “medicinal” marijuana, tomorrow government bail-outs, the next day gay pride, and the day after that universal government health care. Pretty soon conservatives are left sputtering, grasping at straws, desperately latching on to something they hope will be the issue that carries them to victory—Medicare, school “standards,” energy shortages, taxes. They rarely have time to think anything through, so as to have something substantial to bring to the public table. Just about the time they do get a proposal together, they get kicked into another outrageous “crisis” that must be addressed—right now!

Every month, conservatives must seize a new crisis—climate change, the deficit, sex scandals—launching yet another pitiful exhibition of outrage, while the left-wing laughs all the way to …well, the presidency.

Many conservatives now realize they need to change the dynamics of this game. They know they must take the debate—and the agenda—away from the Left and devise a means of getting the leftist-liberal-anarchist cabal to debate on conservative turf. To do that, conservatives must first figure out where the conservative turf is.

That topic will be taken up in Part II in this series.

Beverly Eakman -- Please Don't Plug the Potholes

2011-05-25T13:58:00.000-07:00

Beverly Eakman -- Please Don't Plug the Potholes

Same Old Song

2011-04-03T08:49:00.000-07:00

My wife woke me up for Face the Nation this morning. She does that. She knows I like the show. I hate that it is on at the same time as Meet the Press, as I'd like to see both shows. Getting a fair and balanced view of what is happening in my state, my country, my world, is near impossible, with so many opposing sound bites out there.
By the time I had a cup of coffee and was focused on the guest speaker, Harry Reid, D – Nev, Senate Majority Leader, the question on the table was “Will the government shut down at the end of the week?” It was a question he did not answer. Instead he sang the same old song: Oh, the poor children! Oh, the poor vets! Oh, all our favorite causes!
The senator hit the high notes right on cue: “We're going to have to cut Helping Hand, all the aid to orphaned children and homeless veterans.” Every time someone brings up actually running the government on a budget, out come the widows and orphans, the homeless vets. Next comes the police, fire and education. (See my earlier blog on balancing the budget.)
What, does Senator Reid say, is causing the difficulty? It's the Republicans and the Tea Party causing all the trouble. Congress is afraid of the Tea Party, when there aren't any members around. Sn. Reid says that at the last rally, “there weren't thousands, there weren't hundreds, there were tens...”
We're talking about 12% of the budget, right? So what about the hundreds of redundant government agencies and top heavy bureaucracy? There are more people in the Department of Agriculture than there are farmers. If you go in with a paring knife and carve out some of the fat and waste in the government, you will find that we can run the country on a budget.
Going for the heart, lungs and brain as the first to go when cutting out fat is insane. Let's get rid of the crazy people and put someone sane in the government.
Then came Lindsey Graham, R – South Carolina, who brought up another ghastly waste of government funds, the proposed State Department Army.
Our choices seem to be, in Libya and other countries, 1) putting soldiers there for years and years, 2) arming the rebels or 3) putting a State Department Army there for years and years (see option 1 – only more expensive.)
Remember that we poured money into Libya for the current regime to stay in power. Now we should pour more in to oust him and put in another government? The rebels we arm today will be the enemy we fight tomorrow – and they will be armed with our guns. We have squandered American taxpayers' money giving it to other countries and now we are throwing good money after bad in expensive “Police Actions” which will be followed by expensive rebuilding. The United States is the only country in the history of the world that rebuilds a country after it destroys it. How stupid are we?
Teddy Roosevelt, a Democrat, gave us the Big Stick. We should , as Senator Graham has suggested, take the fight to the leaders, sitting fat and happy in their stronghold, and end this thing. Then let them rebuild without us. It will be a lesson to the rest of the world: “Mess with us and we leave you broken.”
Arm the rebels? No! Build a State Department Army to hemorrhage money onto foreign soil? No! Take the fight to Gadhafi and his crew? Yes – and then stop sending our money overseas, we have need of it here. You want to rebuild something? Rebuild New Orleans.
When there is a bully in the neighborhood, you take him out and then you go home. You do not then become the next bully. And when there is a household budget to trim, to make it fit within your income, you do not cut the buying of food, clothing and shelter first.
It has been a song heard too long by government voices, all chanting in unison: if you want to cut the budget, the first things to go will be the fire department, police department and education – then all your favorite charitable agencies. Oh, weep for the widows, orphans and homeless vets. They are the chorus of the old familiar song. What is missing from the song is the billions showered on the Middle East and countries that want us dead. Time for a new song.

Television Sells!

2011-03-21T12:59:00.001-07:00

I can always tell when the government, medical or psychiatric organizations have been dabbling in our television shows, the message is singular, obvious and insane.

It was clear as a bell when the popular (for a while) television show, Touched by an Angel, came out in favor of psychotropic medications. In that episode, a jazz musician was a danger to himself and his family if he was not on his medication, but he was not creative or even a good musician when he was all doped up like that – in fact, he hated it. So he didn't take his meds, got creative and was happy playing music to die for. The “Angel of the Lord” came and told him, “Your medication is a gift from God. You must take it.” Thereafter, he did “the right thing,” taking his meds and opting for mediocrity instead of musical greatness. That was the last time I turned that show on. It was canceled soon after.
The other night, I was doing late work and my wife was watching “Law and Order.” The culprit was a loving mother who did not believe in getting her child vaccinated. Her failure to get her child vaccinated caused another child to be sick and die. They arrested the mother, took her child away and the world was again safe. The message repeated again and again during the show was “Get your child vaccinated.”
For years I have feared that there was something going into the vaccine that the government wanted us to get but that we wouldn't stand for given the choice. The answer: remove the choice. There are many parents who will not have their child vaccinated. They do not believe in it, or they do not believe in government intrusion. Perhaps they are organic people and do not believe in the artificial, chemical, Brave New World that is being sold to us daily.

For years, I have had a rule: Where there is a hard sell, there is something of which I should beware. Now here is none other than the “Do no evil” cops of “Law and Order” telling us we should get vaccinated. I say “No!” Just because the government or some medical organization or psychiatric organization (especially a psychiatric organization) says to line up and get stuck with a needle full of something mysterious and magical, that is no reason for me or anyone else to do so. In fact, when they sell it to us so hard, that's a good reason to be extra careful.

It was Karl Marx who said, “Give me a child before he's five and I'll have him for life.” I fear that what is in that vaccination is something that will be in my child for life and not to his betterment. The proof of the pudding is that the powers who want that needle in the kid's arm have gone to the writers of popular television shows to sell it to us.

Shame on you, Law and Order.

The PBS-NPR Debate's Unmentionable Dilemma

2011-03-15T10:35:00.000-07:00

WRITTEN BY BEVERLY K. EAKMAN
MONDAY, 14 MARCH 2011 14:59 The New American (www.thenewamerican.com)
As House Republicans pushed to eliminate federal funding for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) this month, Democrats fought back with a vengeance. Barack Obama even upped the ante a whopping $6 million, by asking $451 million for CPB as part of his $3.7 Trillion-Dollar Baby. This is the same historic 2012 budget that many lawmakers say is already trimmed to the bone (with a gross federal debt approaching $14 trillion).
In response, NPR and PBS stations nationwide stepped up their rhetoric to listening and viewing audiences, going so far as to ask them to “stop the Senate” (and even “Republicans” in particular) and “defend federal funding” for public broadcasting. Some legislators and opponents predictably cried “foul,” insisting that CPB and/or its affiliates had violated laws that ban nonprofits and government-funded entities from lobbying.
Try telling that to leaders at the National Education Association, which for years has not only produced a highly politicized, and barely education-related, Legislative Agenda, but by advocating for every leftist cause imaginable. It also owns a big, apparently tax-exempt, office building in the heart of Washington, D.C.
Weekly Standard writer Philip Terzian has pointed out in his recent article that just because “public broadcasting depends on federal funds does not mean that it cannot subsist without federal funds"; and advocated breaking its “welfare dependency.” He also notes that “If NPR and PBS were to go private, that would not only end the perpetual tension … between taxpayer funds and public accountability, it would leave them exempt from political pressure and interference” so they could air whatever they wanted.
All true. But Mr. Terzian’s best point broaches an issue rarely discussed in public, although frequently in closed company: “…while it is theoretically possible that a certain number of stations in marginal markets would succumb, that might well be the cost (if it happens)….” The underlying issue here is a topic that other countries, such as France, once believed to be crucial. Like our own nation, France, too, wound up overwhelmed by what some disdainfully describe as “the popular culture,” despite a Ministry that worked for years, in their case, to avoid what one appointee once described as “the horror of American radio and television.”
Mr. Terzian opined that the kinds of radio and television he likes — classic jazz and classical music, as well as documentaries on history, literature, and science — were nearly nonexistent on the air, except on PBS and NPR, but that “the market has demonstrated that no private broadcaster would [ever] fill the vacuum.”
He is not alone in his basic complaint, but it is far from clear that the “market” per se has demonstrated any such thing. If Mr. Terzian is correct in his view that the typical fare presented on commercial radio and television is “predominantly … or relentlessly lowbrow” whereas “the kind of elitist fare” he likes is found only on PBS and NPR, then it might be because the “market” for lowbrow entertainment has been artificially subsidized.
Beginning in the 1950s (read about "Payola"), disc jockeys were lambasted for taking kickbacks from managers and other interested parties to play certain songs and music, to feature the works of particular entertainers, and, finally, to offer only “reliable” genres like soul, country, classical, or rock to the public. Stations were often bought and sold with that in mind. By the 1990s, many people were turned off by the nonstop howling and screeching of so-called popular music, not to mention noisy, crass commercials. They didn’t want to set their alarms and wake up to such cacophony.
So, radios started being sold that had an accompanying audiotape feature so one could awake to a favorite tape, commercial-free. As digital came along, Sirius and XM satellite providers provided listeners with the capability to access their favorite genre 24/7, even in their car. No more station-fade-out problems on the road or local jabber when traveling through an unfamiliar part of the country.
The only problem was that one didn’t get any weather, traffic updates or news that way. That is probably the largest reason why local radio stations stayed in business. Even those who like “popular culture” listen to MP3 players and iPods; they are not necessarily listening to the radio the way Baby Boomers did. Talk shows, of course, are in a class of their own, and conservative hosts have to carve out their own niche instead of having it handed to them. Some do not listen to talk shows at all, of course, conservative or otherwise.
But the thorniest dilemma in Mr. Terzian’s piece is the part about it being “theoretically possible that a certain number of stations in marginal markets would succumb [without government subsidies]."
The problem is that not everyone can be a one-man Annie B. Casey Foundation or a Pew Charitable Trust. We live in a mobile society, and that means people transfer with their jobs — lots of people. Dallas, Texas, for example, abolished its PBS stations a few years ago, which meant not only classical music disappeared, but financial TV shows such as "Wall Street Week," which caters to an audience a bit more sophisticated that the one that listens to Dr. Phil. As classical music stations dwindled to the point of no return, anyone wishing to listen to complex orchestral pieces was forced to purchase a CD player, CDs, subscribe to satellite and/or cable (a sizeable outlay in some cases), and change out the radios that once graced the nightstand.
So, when we talk about a “market” for music, are we willing to say that only the elite, the rich, could possibly be attracted to Harry Connick, Jr.? Or guitarist Chet Atkins? Or what is, perhaps, the greatest stage musical of all time, Les Misérables? Now that’s a stretch….
Yet the musicians and musicals above were among the cream-of-the-crop features of PBS channels during last week’s Pledge Drive, not the music of controversial political figures, regardless of their merits at other times of the year. So, it is obvious that PBS executives know what the public likes best and what kind of programming is apt to draw pledges. If they know, so do a lot of other media moguls, philanthropists, and heads of charitable organizations — including conservative patriots.
In Tony-award-winning actress Patti LuPone’s new autobiography, she describes how she and her fellow thespians lived for years out of suitcases, traveling all over the country to perform before throngs of enthusiastic audiences, some of them out-of-the-way locales. The stages ranged from relatively small, as in college towns, to medium-sized like the Dallas Theater Center, to larger venues the size of The Strathmore in Kensington, Maryland, or The National Theater in Washington, D.C., and, of course, the biggest of them all, Broadway in New York City. The point, however, is that there is no dearth of fans for sophisticated entertainers, even among those who cannot afford large donations. In fact, many an individual’s one big splurge for the year might be for a chance to see, say, Andrea Boccelli, the blind Italian tenor from Tuscany whose incredible voice was first heard by many people on PBS. Boccelli then proceeded to pack sold-out houses the size of a football stadium around the country.
That kind of thing is going to change as young people and those living in outlying areas, long distances from major cities, hear nothing but boorish performances from the likes of Christina Aguilera and Eminem. Without a PBS around, they will never know whether they might have enjoyed operatic-crossover tenor Josh Grobin; or the dance phenomenon of Riverdance fame, Michael Flatley; or the Irish-Riverdance-spinoff female group, Celtic Woman — all seen for the first time by most people on PBS.
Of course, our “Ministry of Culture,” as it were, is called the National Endowment for the Arts. But it, too, has surrendered to political correctness, proliferating the works of extremists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, the “artist” of gross-out homosexual works, and Annie Sprinkle, the talent-challenged goofball who urinates in public.
In the present political climate, where even children’s programming is rife with leftist messages, junk science, and psychobabble, however subdued, it is probably a mistake to support CPB with taxpayer dollars. However, if the culture is ever to be turned around, conservative traditionalists need to step up to the plate and get on the boards of organizations that will present the kinds of high-culture programs that PBS does. The Left managed to get hold of the reins of the media, not by calling themselves The Marxist Entertainment Group. They simply got their act and funding partners together until they held a majority on most boards in journalistic circles, film, and television.
Monikers such as National Public Radio and Public Broadcasting carry no self-defining political terminologies. Conservatives, on the other hand, stupidly advertise themselves — and, thus their intentions — by labeling their networks, programs, and groups using religious and conservative titles right up front, so the Left doesn’t have to do it for them.
The result is hundreds of channels and stations to choose from and, more often than not, nothing uplifting to hear or watch.

_______________
Beverly K. Eakman began her career as a teacher in 1968. She left to become a science writer for a NASA contractor and went on to serve as a speechwriter — for the Voice of America and for the late Chief Justice Warren E. Burger when he chaired the Commission on the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution. She was an editor and writer for the U.S. Dept. of Justice before retiring from federal government. She became an expert on education policy, mental-health issues, data-trafficking and political strategy with six books and dozens of speeches, feature articles and op-eds to her credit. Her most recent works are A Common Sense Platform for the 21st Century and the 2011 Edition of her ever-popular seminar manual, How To Counter Group Manipulation Tactics (Midnight Whistler Publishers). Mrs. Eakman can be reached through her website at www.BeverlyE.com .

Social Media is Keeping Me from My Friends!

2010-03-24T06:15:00.000-07:00

When I joined MySpace, I did it as myself - then I found out you could have one with music, so I signed up as a "band" - but then I've been writing more lately, so I signed up as me - the author. Then I got invitations from my friends to join Naymz, LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter. Local events are organized on Capture Carolina and Inside 919, as I live in Raleigh, NC. Then I have my email, my music email, author email, publisher email, an old email that still has a few things sent to it and one I keep for offers and newsletters - though offers and newsletters tend to show up everywhere. I put a blog on this site and one on another as me, the author. There are blogs on all three MySpace sites as well. And my friends wondered why I didn't have time for them!

So now, I have pared down my social media sites. I am trying to keep up with Inside 919 but have let go of Capture Carolina. Sorry, guys. I'm keeping Twitter and Facebook, but the rest have cobwebs on them. All my MySpace sites have been sadly neglected and I am turning my sites to my email situation. But first, let me handle my blogs.

I've opened a blog on my home page of www.jonbatson.com and that is going to be it. If you have been reading my blog - then I thank you. Now you can go to www.jonbatson.com, click the blog link and read on.

Thanks for your attention.

Jon

Tea Party Party

2010-02-02T09:42:00.000-08:00

My friend, Bev Eakman, wrote an article, Saving Civil Society and a Culture of Merit, (http://tinyurl.com/y9zo2qy) in which she said,

A flurry of new conservative websites, groups, and talk-show hosts have emerged in the wake of failing dominoes: ObamaCare, federal takeovers, bailouts, and stimulus packages. Tea-Partiers represent but a smattering of upstart activists that increasingly feel alienated from old stalwarts of the conservative movement: among them, the Heritage Foundation, American Conservative Union, Conservative Political Action Committee and Americans for Tax Reform, Empower America, and even the old Silent Majority and the Dr. Laura show.

Today, the very term “conservative” has a bad rap. The trusty dictionary and thesaurus define conservative variously as “conformist,” “unadventurous,” “old-fashioned,” “old school,” “cautious,” and “conventional.” Nothing exciting, expansive, or smacking of the can-do spirit there. Thus, the “conservative” moniker fails to reflect the level of political anger of those who once were loyalists of a constitutionalist-traditionalist Republican Party, the one fashioned out of the old Revolutionary War-era Whig Party that supported the supremacy of Congress over the Executive Branch and fought for independence as opposed to autocratic rule in alignment with the Founding Fathers.

Go to the site (URL above) to see the entire article.

Bev has been asked to do some writing for the Tea Party movement, in anticipation of a new party. Always up for a party, I will look forward to when it is and what I should bring. I wonder if they need any protest songs.

Please comment back: Are you in the mood for a new, third party?

Selling the Concept: Take Your Meds!

2010-01-26T13:11:00.000-08:00

It started with “Touched by an Angel” when the “Angel of the Lord” tells a musician that his medication is a “Gift from God” and he should be on it. The poor fellow couldn't function without his meds, but couldn't be creative while on them. The Angels told him he had to make a choice and give up being creative. Some choice!

Today, TV is selling the concept of medication.

“Criminal Minds” has a fellow who is psychotic because he is off his medication. If he had been on his meds, he would be all right. To the message is “Stay on your meds.”

On “The Mentalist” a police detective tells the consultant, who is acting unusual, “Are you off your meds?” Just another hint to stay on your meds if you don't want to be considered odd or off-kilter.

Do I sound like an alarmist? Should I just ignore one little wise-crack among friends? Or is this part of a new wave of sales techniques for the message of the largest sponsors.

For years everyone on TV smoked. Lighting up a cigarette was a statement, a show of emotion, an offer of love and so on. Have you notice that everyone on television drinks? They meet in a bar, have wine with dinner, have a beer after work or on the weekends. They never get drunk and never have a driving-related accident, unless a character needs to have a shady past – then a DWI comes in handy. But the message is “Have a drink, you won't get drunk or wreck your car.”

And now, the message is creeping in: “Take your medication.” There is no assumption that someone would get along better without artificial medication, just the presumption that someone would be silly enough to think they might. The message is that they had better not try – terrible things happen!

Every time I see that the writers of a show have run out of ideas, the show becomes about the lead character's long lost child from a former flirtation. Ex-soap-opera writers seem to invade every show sooner or later. Soon after, the show dies, replaced by the latest clone of the latest most-watched show.

Lately, I also turn a show off as soon as I see Big Pharma sticking its nose into the writers' business. They'll look for a twist and stick in a pro-psychotropic message, as with The Mentalist – a casual quip between friends. Or they'll write a whole new show around the message, as with Criminal Minds.

There are surely more examples, but truth be told, I don't watch all that much TV of late. One thing I did watch is a video by Citizens Commission for Human Rights, called Making a Killing.

The video covers one of my favorite beefs – the commercials that tell you to “Ask your doctor if Xyzzyx is right for you.” Take a look: Watch it at http://www.cchr.org/#/videos/making-a-killing-introduction.

We're all in China now!

2009-10-31T09:30:00.000-07:00

A new article by Beverly Eakman, one of the smartest people I know, has me shivering, but I know it to be true. Read on, you who are stout of heart.

New Initiative Launches Police State Under Guise of Mental Health
by Beverly Eakman,
Author, Educator
Former Editor-In-Chief, NASAs Newspaper

It’s zero hour in America. Do you know where your country went?

Now that America’s education system and parenting “experts” have brainwashed a generation of now-grown schoolchildren-cum-parents into believing that what we once called personality quirks, character flaws and moral issues are, in essence, mental disorders, politicians have taken the ball and run with it. Law enforcement agencies and the judicial system are in the process of adopting Stalinist and Mao-inspired methods of controlling dissidents at home.

Only a few, short years ago, what was held up as independent thinking; speaking one’s mind; and robust dialogue is now decried as a prelude to terrorism. In America’s increasingly left-leaning climate, our nation’s leaders are pulling off communist-style thought-control by implying that any words uttered in print or out loud that runs contrary to “accepted wisdom” (and that can change in a “New York Minute”) is the result of mental illness.

Don’t believe it? Well, “google” this:

A recent report out of Missouri labeled “not-for-public-distribution” circulated anonymously by a shocked and patriotic police officer) specifically describes supporters of the three presidential candidates as “militia”-influenced terrorists and instructs police to be on the lookout for bumper stickers and other paraphernalia associated with, of all things, the Constitution—such as “Campaign for Liberty.” Even a few Members of Congress were implied to be security risks and potential domestic terrorists. The document, entitled “The Modern Militia Movement” (February 20, 2009), emanated from the Missouri Information Analysis Center (MIAC), one of several so-called “Fusion Centers” established by the federal government around the country.

Most people are probably not familiar with the term “Fusion Center.” These were originally intended to allow local and state law-enforcement agents to work alongside federal officers after 9/11 so that terrorist-related activities could be identified, then pounced upon by all three entities at once. “Fusion Center” offices, therefore, incorporate local, state and federal law-enforcement personnel, a strategy which, prior to the launching of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), was deliberately avoided to maintain independence and preserve impartiality. Predictably, these Centers got out of hand and fell into what is referred to as “mission creep.”

Mission creep is defined by Wikipedia as:
“the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes…. [I]t is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to [other] fields, mainly the growth of bureaucracies.”

Recent improvements in tracking and monitoring of opinions via magazine subscriptions, charitable gifts, school and household surveys, and other computerized data collection has made political prediction on hot-button topics that much easier to secure. “Predictive computer technology” (already a staple of school assessment testing) entails the use of behavioral psychiatrists with concurrent degrees in statistics. This same capability has greatly accelerated mission creep among the nation’s Fusion Centers.

The PBS News Hour (not known for its conservatism or, for that matter, for being “alarmist”) recently reported on how political dissidents in China are forced into psychiatric hospitals Video: Chinese Dissidents Committed to Mental Hospitals. In the segment, aired September 13, 2009, the manner in which complainants (called petitioners), whistleblowers and outright protesters are “managed” bears an eerie resemblance to a policy shift right here in America. States’ rights (or the 10th Amendment) are among the first casualties of a top-down, federal effort to minimize, and eventually suppress, dissent.

Psychopolitics is the art and science of asserting and maintaining dominion over the thoughts and loyalties of individuals, officers, bureaus, and “the masses,” via various techniques ranging from “group dynamics,” “cognitive dissonance,” “de-sensitization,” “super-imposing alternate value structures,” artificial disruption of thought,” the Delphi Method, the Tavistock Technique, through negative or positive “reinforcement.”

If you don’t recognize any of these, don’t feel too badly, because they are not part of any school curriculum. The people who created them are, for the most part, unknown in our own country, except among those groomed by extremist political organizations to become “change agents,” professional agitators or “provocateurs.” The pioneers of psychopolitics, including attitude prediction, include individuals such as Wilhelm Reich, Kurt Lewin, Theodor Adorno and Erich Fromm (Germany); A. S. Neill, A. J. Oraje and John Rawlings Rees (Great Britain); Antonio Gramsci (Italy); Anatoly Lunacharsky and Georg Lukacs (Russia); G. Brock Chishom and Ewen Cameron (Canada); and the U.S.’s own Ralph Tyler and Ronald Havelock.

Although psychopolitics originated under Vladimir Lenin as “political literacy” and “polytechnical education” in the old Soviet Union, and was carried to the free world via Peter Sedgwick (1934–1983) a translator for Victor Serge, author of PsychoPolitics and a revolutionary socialist activist as well as a member of the Communist Party of Great Britain, the term psychopolitics found its way into the American lexicon via Isaac Asimov, a master of the sci-fi genre. But psychopolitics is no science fiction adventure, and never was.

By the 1970s, a slew of enablers were establishing a system of numerical codes for so-called mental disorders that would accommodate computerization. This lent legitimacy to what would otherwise have been considered “questionable illnesses.” The goal was to ensure that medical professionals, the media and government accepted these terms as they might “diabetes,” thereby ensuring that the mental illnesses so codified would remain indelible, beginning with the youngest and most vulnerable.
The long-term game plan of psychopolitics is the conquest, usually by proxy, of enemy nations through “mental healing,” better known as “re-education.” This entails what we know as “encounter groups,” extensive self-disclosure surveys and peer pressure to conform. If all that doesn’t work, if certain individuals are still not amenable, then the first step is marginalization as “mentally unbalanced.”
Example: A study by the National Institute of Mental Health and the National Science Foundation, funded by U.S. taxpayers to the tune of $1.2 million, announced on 1 August of this year that adherents to conventional moral principles and limited government are mentally disturbed. NIMH-NSF scholars from the Universities of Maryland, California at Berkeley, and Stanford attribute notions about morality and individualism to “dogmatism” and “uncertainty avoidance.” Social conservatives, in particular, were said to suffer from “mental rigidity,” a condition which, researchers assert, is probably hard-wired, condemning traditionalists to a lifelong, cognitive hell, with all the associated indicators for mental illness: “decreased cognitive function, lowered self-esteem, fear, anger, pessimism, disgust, and contempt” (Jost, J. T., J. Glaser, et al. (2003). “Political Conservatism as Motivated Social Cognition.” Psychological Bulletin 129(3): 339-375 online at http://www.apa.org/journals/bul/503ab.html).

This is the sort of unprovable, but nevertheless libelous condescension that is heaped upon anyone from talk show hosts, to authors to patriots who dare to contradict “common wisdom” (a.k.a. “political correctness”). If that doesn’t work, contempt may be followed up with “mandatory [psychiatric] counseling” (already a feature of the American judicial system), or even forcible psychiatric drugging (well on its way to legitimacy in this nation’s schools). Finally there is incarceration in a psychiatric hospital, which gratefully is not yet a fixture in American democracy, but the handwriting is on the wall, as the expression goes.
Totalitarian states like Communist China and Russia may be more blatant in their affronts to human rights and personal property — inasmuch as they don’t need a “reason” — but the differences are narrowing precipitously.

As emphasized during interviews on the PBS segment, the Chinese system is set up in such a way as to pre-empt complaints. The Chinese government doesn’t wait around to wait for somebody to sound off; it pre-emptively seeks out individuals likely to become troublesome, by assigning a mental-health diagnosis to anyone at the first sign of a provocative or inflammatory remark.

This lies at the heart of what is going on here in America, and we absolutely must put a stop to it, if it isn’t already too late. Data-mining (which actually pre-dates 9/11), along with longitudinal tracking (that’s tracking over long time periods) and, therefore, ongoing monitoring of individual perceptions, worldviews and beliefs is gaining momentum with every moment that computer technology evolves — which means constantly. When you combine this with the practice of assigning mental-illness labels to private opinions, based on snippets of various information — with anything that might be favorable to the individual conveniently left out!

This “diagnosis,” like the American school child’s, follows the person for life, often compromising his or her college and career prospects. And why not, after all? Computerization makes it impossible for anyone to prove that an erroneous or falsified accusation has been purged from the system with no backup copy.
Today’s Chinese authorities, like Josef Stalin, Adolf Hitler, and Mao Zedong (Tse-tung) before them, in order to avoid drawing attention to policies that may be morally or ethically distasteful abroad (e.g., the one-child policy and forced abortion) or invite protests that coincide with an event at which international media attention is expected (such as the Olympics), they employ spies, block careers and intimidate family members.

It may be shocking to hear from your college-age children that we are going down the same road. Several universities, like the University of Delaware, in which a lawsuit was filed, have planted paid opinion-monitors in university dormitories (called “resident assistants,” or RAs).

Adam Kissel, Director of the Individual Rights Defense Program, Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, explains in a 2008 speech:
The freshman arrived for her mandatory one-on-one session in her dormitory at 8 pm. Classes had been in session for about a week. Her resident assistant handed her a questionnaire. He told her it was “a little questionnaire to help [you] and all the other residents relate to the curriculum.” She “looked a little uncomfortable.”
“When did you discover your sexual identity?” the questionnaire asked.
She wrote in response: “That is none of your damn business.”

Another question: “When was a time you felt oppressed?”

Her response: “I am oppressed every day [because of my] feelings for the opera. Regularly [people]… jeer me with cruel names.… But I will overcome! Hear me, you rock-loving majority?”

The resident assistant felt appalled…. He wrote up an incident report and reported her to his superiors.

This one-on-one session was not a punishment… for a recalcitrant student who had committed an infraction. It was mandatory sensitivity training, indeed, but it was part of a program that was mandatory for all 7,000 students in the University of Delaware dorms. It was a thorough thought-reform curriculum that was designed by the school’s Residence Life staff in order to treat and correct the allegedly incorrect thoughts, attitudes, values, and beliefs of the students….

Many other features — the mandatory one-on-one and group sessions throughout the year; the “confrontation” training to help RAs challenge students who were not complying [with political correctness]; the posters with [politicized] messages spread throughout the dorms; the zero-tolerance policy against anything deemed “oppressive”; the individual files on students and their beliefs, in some cases called “portfolios,” which were to be archived after graduation; the RA reports on their “best” and “worst” one-on-one sessions; the scientific analysis of the questionnaires in order to measure improvement toward the “educational objective”; the “strong male RAs” who were hired to break the “resistance to educational efforts” among [especially] the young male students — all of this, according to the university’s own materials, was part of a cutting-edge educational model that had won awards from a professional association for university administrators, the American College Personnel Association.

As if this weren’t enough to prove that psychopolitics is alive and well in America, with the pervasive undercurrent of “mental illness” as justification, schools below the college level have thoroughly succeeded in exchanging academic testing for mental-health “assessment”; left out, rewritten, and altered history texts until virtually nothing is left of the Framers ideals of a constitutional republic; redefined and watered down morality into something called “situation ethics”; removed the physiology from health classes and replaced it with graphic sex education, beginning in kindergarten.

Already, we see the results:

Do you vocally promote the right to self-defense? Do you voice support for the intact family; national sovereignty and strict interpretation of the U.S. Constitution? Do you criticize easy immigration (i.e., without a citizen-sponsor); unrestricted free trade; free condoms hanging on some college freshmen’s dormitory doors; formalization of same-sex unions; abortion on-demand; mandatory mental-health screening of all pregnant women and schoolchildren? Do you have a problem with the policies of the Federal Reserve; with “traffic” cameras and other surreptitious surveillance devices; industry-wide bailouts; no-fault divorce and illegitimacy? Then, my friend, you are not merely holding to a “divergent viewpoint,” to use the 1950’s term; you are mentally ill and a prospective terrorists. You are a person who is ripe for radicalization and therefore suspect. Did you volunteer for certain political candidates in the 2008 election? Do you, by your choices of magazine literature and religious preference, show that you have “bought in to” theological tenets such as the Creation?

If any of these apply to you, good luck in ever securing a government grant or contract, or getting your child into a top university, when there are others who carry none of this psychological “baggage.”

Americans are supposed to view any opposition to all this as “paranoia.” Of course, the term paranoia carries a chilling effect, because it screams “mentally unbalanced” to the world.

Once it becomes possible, via technology, to track and legislate private opinions — and even to classify those that don’t conform as “mentally ill” — then we have left the realm of politics and moved into coercion. We have facilitated the stigmatization of political dissent and vocal objection using labels like such as “acute stress disorder” or “paranoid schizophrenia,” just as they do a right now, today, in China, according the aforementioned PBS segment.

As a former employee of the U.S. Justice Department, I personally saw several precursors to this document — “watch-out” reports (for lack of a better term) on a smaller scale under Janet Reno’s tenure there. These were distributed to employees following the first anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Obviously, it has been greatly expanded, what with a network of government “Fusion Centers” in state after state.

With pharmaceutical company moguls and politicians sitting on each other’s boards (Sidney Taurel sat on the Homeland Security Council under George W. Bush’s administration); with nationwide mental health assessments like the New Freedom Commission sizing up the political “health” of schoolchildren, and the curriculum altered accordingly; and with “behavioral detection officers” (“BDOs”) looking for a sign of irritation among model citizens in airport security lines, while U.S. borders are left open for drug-runners who then get to sue Border Patrol agents for shooting them, America is in big trouble.

“Political dissent” is now in the eye of the bureaucratic beholder — or the surveillance camera, erected under the guise of traffic safety to pursue revenue and meaningless “gotchas.”

We’re all in China now.
_______________
Beverly K. Eakman is a CCHR Commissioner, a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies and as editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper at the Johnson Space Center. Today, she is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent work is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers).

The Low-Down on Depression and Mental Illness

2009-10-09T16:55:00.000-07:00

Featured this week, an article by Beverly Eakman:

http://www.jbs.org/jbs-news-feed/5190

The Low-Down on Depression and Mental Illness
Written by Beverly K. Eakman
Thursday, 06 August 2009 01:20

Fox News just informed viewers that 27 million Americans are being treated for depression. The Washington Times ran a three-part series this week on the tsunami of mental illness in New Orleans four years after Hurricane Katrina, mostly depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). A rash of additional articles has appeared nationwide on obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), including one from last Sunday’s (August 2) Washington Times “Pure suffering for OCD Patients,” by Cheryl Weinstein. All news sources, regardless of political persuasion, lend the aura of medical legitimacy to these phenomena.

But just three years ago, we were hearing a vastly different story: “Cheer up: U.S. not so depressed,” a 2006 Washington Times headline proclaimed, the gist being that reports of epidemic levels of clinical depression were greatly exaggerated — and possibly bogus, along with statistics on alcoholism and anxiety.

The problem — and nearly every news source and medical professional acknowledges it — is that mental illnesses, especially depression, PTSD and OCD, are difficult, if not impossible, to diagnose or quantify. There is no X-ray, blood test, DNA or other chemical analysis that nails these as bona fide sicknesses, such as one might seek, say, for a brain injury or diabetes. And while there is little question that people do suffer from acute, long-term sadness, stress and compulsive behaviors, there exists no direct, medical proof for the notion of biologically-based brain disorders, contrary to the claims of pharmaceutical companies and mental-health advocacy groups like the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

What that means for average citizens is that there is no magic bullet, no medication, to “cure” what are essentially human phenomena, not medical conditions.

NAMI, the National Association of Mental Health, and the American Psychological Association, all of which receive federal and state dollars via grants and other subsidies, pump out one press release after another touting genetic and biological mental illnesses as well as “medicalized” mental disorders brought on by life events. But as most medicated individuals and their families eventually discover, affected sufferers do not seem to get better on psychotropic drugs and therapies.

Dr. Peter Breggin, one of the more outspoken medical authors addressing the issue of mental health treatments, especially psychotropic medications, describes antidepressants, tranquilizers and even some antipsychotics as essentially “brain-blunters,” meaning that they “dull” the emotions so that the patient doesn’t feel them as intensely as before, depending on the dosage. Otherwise, psychiatric drugs do little, if anything — except produce ghastly side-effects.

Stimulants like Ritalin may jolt the brain, say after a stroke, to “wake it up” a bit, but for strictly psychiatric uses, Ritalin is called a stimulant in adults and a tranquilizer in children — rather difficult to reconcile in an identical drug.

Now that black box warnings are appearing on one antidepressant after another, due to high-profile deaths among children and violent rampages by teens — beginning with the carnage in Columbine, Colorado — it would seem that the mainstream media, Congress and the medical industry in general would rethink their support for psychiatric labels, mental health screening, psychotropic substances and the mental health industry.

In Dolton, Illinois, for example, 6-year-old Kierra Garner was found dead in her home in January 2006. Nine weeks later, toxicology reports surfaced, pointing to intoxication from the drug amitriptyline, commonly used to “treat” manic depression or bipolar disorder, two supposedly biologically-based mental illnesses. In a 6-year-old! A pharmacist told the local NBC affiliate that the drug is not meant for children and would likely prove to be fatal in any dose if given to a child that age. Yet, the medication was prescribed.

Last April, Gabriel Myers, age 7, died by suicide in his South Florida foster home, hanging himself on an extendable shower hose. According to staff writer Kris Hundley of the St. Petersburg Times (May 8), the little boy was taking two powerful psychiatric drugs at the time of his death — Vyvanse, an ADHD drug, and Symbyax, a combination of the antipsychotic Zyprexa and the antidepressant Prozac, neither of which had been approved by his parent or a judge, as required by state law — when he killed himself. Symbyax carries a "black box" warning that it might lead to suicidal behavior among children and adolescents, especially when first prescribed. Documents made public in connection with a state investigation into Gabriel's death show that foster care workers repeatedly ignored the necessity of obtaining consent for psychotropic medications in a child under the state's care — apparently not a rare occurrence.

The media has historically been the public’s first line of defense against wrongheaded notions and policies. But today, with 52 million students and 6 million adults who work at educational facilities about to be screened for mental illnesses under the New Freedom Initiative (funded by the U.S. House of Representatives in 2004), using the psychiatric bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) as a guide, most media services have dropped the ball. Most DSM labels cannot be verified through any medical test, yet impending government-subsidized universal health care proposals includes all aspects of mental health in lawmakers’ plans.

The point is that psychiatric therapies and drugs do not have good track records, especially in the long term. Some initially claim they feel better, but that may well be the power of suggestion inasmuch as it doesn’t appear to last long. The news article by Weinstein on post-Katrina mental health in New Orleans inadvertently confirms the point: Sufferers who had been treated and were on medication said they were no better, just as the infamous killers of their classmates and the offspring of “sick” mothers like Houston’s Andrea Yates apparently did not fare well on their prescribed, psychotropic “cocktails.”

What used to be approached as a personal or character issue, or even a religious concern, is now being “medicalized” without basis. What happens to a person in response to life events, even tragic ones, does not lend itself to a medical diagnosis. People can, of course, choose to live differently; to move elsewhere; to tackle problems such as anger, resentment and frustration squarely; to jettison unwarranted fixations on beauty, sex or even counterproductive “checking” and “hoarding” behaviors (as per OCD)…or they can succumb to a permanent condition of sadness and stress. In most cases, it comes down to a personal decision, one that a trusted friend or clergyman might be able to influence.

Unfortunately, the media, lawmakers and the medical profession have jettisoned principles once espoused in America through its religious institutions and families. They have instead created a new “religion” called Psychiatry — a state-sponsored religion complete with bible, doctrine and tax-supported institutions.

The United States — indeed the free world — now serves as hosts to hundreds of mental health advocacy and “behavioral science” institutions (especially those within university settings), all of which sup at the public trough. The “silent victims” are the troubled and upset individuals themselves — many of whom may have good reason to be upset and troubled. What’s different today is that they no longer have a legitimate advocate based in constitutionally recognized right of self-determination or religious choice.

Beverly K. Eakman is a former speechwriter for the heads of two federal agencies, a sought-after lecturer and the author of four books (including the best-selling award-winner, Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality Through Education) on education policy, mental-health and illicit data-trafficking. Her latest book is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Creating a Nation of Sitting Ducks. She can be reached through her web site: www.BeverlyE.com.

Psychiatric Drugs, Violence and Suicide

2009-09-11T09:53:00.000-07:00

I like bringing you articles by my own author, Beverly Eakman, but today, I'm bringing you an article from an author I wish I published. K. L. Carlson is a former pharmaceutical representative and knows of what she speaks. Her book is being shopped now.

Psychiatric Drugs, Violence and Suicide

K.L. Carlson
Former Pharmaceutical Rep.

People often go through times of depression due to job loss, relocation, loss of a loved one, divorce, and many other situations that cause us to feel insecure. Our bodies do have natural ways of dealing with these emotions especially if people use healthy means including adequate sleep, exercise, healthy eating and emotional support from friends and family.

SSRI/SNRI (Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors/Selective Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors) are antidepressant drugs that interfere with the body-mind’s normal functioning. These drugs are literally mind-altering. They can cause people to terminate loving, supportive relationships with family and friends, the very relationships that are extremely important to helping people recover from depression. The drugs can cause hallucinations, paranoia, and mania.

There is a direct correlation with the increase of antidepressant drug use and the rise in extreme, senseless violent acts. There are experts who have been trying to bring this to the attention of physicians, the FDA, and the public for more than a decade. Depression is not the problem. The drugs are the problem.

In 2001, GlaxoSmithKline was ordered to pay $6.4 million to the surviving family members after 60 year old Donald Schnell flew into a rage and killed his wife, daughter, and granddaughter only 48 hours after he began to take Paxil.

“I keep asking, when is somebody going to see this? But we’ve been so brainwashed about drugs. We think legal means safe,” Ann Blake Tracy, Ph.D. explains. “Most people don’t know that LSD once was legal and prescribed as a wonder drug. That PCP was considered to have a large margin of safety in humans. Most people don’t know that ecstasy was prescribed and sold for five years to treat depression. ”

The adverse effects of psychiatric drugs are regularly misdiagnosed as more signs of depression, anxiety or some other created-by-vote psychiatric disorder. Then patients are prescribed additional psychiatric drugs or the dosage is increased. That was the case of California teenager Dominique Slater. Only 14 years old she was on several antidepressants including Celexa and Wellbutrin. When her erratic behavior worsened her doctor prescribed double dose of Effexor. Fifteen days later she killed herself. She was barely a teenager yet she was prescribed multiple antidepressant drugs at high doses. The year was 2003. Britain had already sent letters to all physicians sternly warning against the use of any of these drugs in anyone under the age of 18 years. It took the FDA another year to issue awarning of increased suicide in youths under 18 years old. No letters were sent to physicians. And the drug companies created marketing campaigns specifically to get antidepressants into the offices of all types of physicians, not just psychiatrists.

More than 10 million prescriptions for antidepressants are issued each year for children younger than 18 in the U.S. Any physician, not just psychiatrists, can write prescriptions for psychiatric drugs. The age of children being given these powerful mind-altering drugs continues to get younger. Ohio physicians in the month of July 2004 prescribedpsychiatric drugs for 696 babies aged newborn to 3 years old covered by Medicaid.

“It’s shocking,” said Dr. Ellen Bassuk, associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. “These medications are not benign. They can have dangerous side effects. Who is being helped by children being drugged, the babies or the caregivers?”
Scientific Evidence of Antidepressants’ Effects on Newborns

“When we put pregnant women on antidepressants, they can’t get off them,” an unconcerned gynecologist told my friend C. when she told him she had spent years trying to get off the antidepressant he had prescribed to her. Three years before this callous physician’s comments to C., the extreme health risks to the fetus had been reported in medical journals.

A study published in The New England Journal of Medicine in February 2006 reports pregnant women taking antidepressants have babies who are 6 times more likely to have primary pulmonary hypertension (PPH) or a developing lung disorder. PPH is extremely serious. A baby’s organs such as brain, kidney and liver are stressed due to lack of oxygen. PPH requires neonatal intensive care. PPH can be fatal and for babies who do survive there is often long-term health problems including breathing difficulties, seizures and developmental disorders.

Women taking SSRI/SNRI drugs during the first trimester of pregnancy are at 60 percent greater risk of their babies having heart defects and 40 percent greater risk of their babies suffering malformation.

“In conclusion, our results suggest that maternal exposure to fluoxetine (Prozac, Luvox, Sarafem and Symbyax) during pregnancy and lactation results in enduring behavioral alterations… throughout life,” a study reports in Pharmacology, spring 2007. Although the study was done with mice the physiological systems are similar to humans. There is nothing preventing drugs a pregnant woman takes from going directly into the bloodstream and then all the tissues of the fetus. And as this study indicates, antidepressants are also transferred to the baby through the mother’s milk.

As of February 2009, the drug companies, using their puppets and financial influence, are lobbying the U.S. Senate to pass a bill called the Mothers Act. This insane bill has already passed the U.S. House of Representatives. Supposedly this bill is meant to address postpartum depression. The truth is that it’s the drug industry influencing legislation in order to have more taxpayers’ money flow into drug companies’ profits. The1,200 drug industry lobbyists on Capitol Hill are greasing the skids well so that this dangerous legislation that will harm, not help mothers, babies, and American families will easily pass. It’s about money, not health.

You know the Nation is in Trouble When...

2009-08-27T14:10:00.000-07:00

by Beverly K. Eakman
Friday, 21 August 2009 01:51

When a child gets in more trouble for opening a lemonade stand in a public park than does a “student” at a tax-supported university traveling to a foreign country to install a terrorist state detrimental to America’s existence, you know our nation is in trouble.
The specifics of this particular “disconnect” in U.S. law-making and enforcement involve two news reports in one week: First, an August 16 story in the New York Post revealing how police with the city’s Parks Department slapped a $50 fine, without warning, on a 10-year-old and her flummoxed dad, who responsibly accompanied her, for setting up an “unlicensed” lemonade stand, something every child used to do 25 years ago no matter where it was.
The very next day, the Washington Times carried a report by Iason Athanasiadis concerning how, in 1978 (the height of Boomer student activism), a brash young man named Moshen Sazegara “quit his studies at the University of Illinois to join Ayatollah Rubollah Khomeini’s return from exile to lead Iran’s Islamic Revolution” and to help establish “Iran’s Revolutionary Guard…an ideological army entrusted with safeguarding the principles of the revolution”.
Apparently, the student’s eventual fall-out with the abusive, terrorist regime proved a reality check, and Sazegara returned to the U.S. to lead a global opposition movement to the regime he once so brashly supported.
This story, picked up by several news outlets, unfailingly implied an endorsement of this “resistance leader,” despite the fact that in his youthful arrogance, Sazegara bears substantial responsibility for the overthrow of a pro-Western government and for plunging Iran into an 8th-century horror. One woman who escaped Iran relays how her young, female colleague, forced into burqa-like garb, accidentally allowed her black head shawl to slip backward. One of the Revolutionary Guards yanked the heavy scarf down to “where it ought to be,” took a short nail and hammered the shawl into the woman’s forehead. That’s the kind of “peace and nonviolence” the naïve, young Sazegara thought he was installing to replace the old shah — admittedly no saint, but at least with visions of a more democratic nation. Some of that was sparked when the shah was forced by old traditions to divorce his beloved wife, Soroya, when she could not bear him an heir. But such was forgotten in the rush to demonize anything pro-Western.
The larger point here is why Sazegara, who caused so much harm, was allowed to return, or indeed why he, and others like him, are allowed to intervene in the affairs of potentially hostile nations. Apparently, he was an undergraduate student at both Sharif University of Technology in Iran and the Illinois Institute of Technology while a leader of the student movement against the shah. This smacks of dual citizenship, but could not be confirmed in an online search.
What is striking is that both then and now Sazegara is a supporter of “civil disobedience” and “protest movements.” Where did he learn that? Not in Iran, for sure. He learned it in America, where universities are steeped in Marxist strategies of inciting dissent through mob psychology. He would have been better off setting up lemonade stands.
Sazegara’s post-graduate work in multiple countries is impressive, yet one has to wonder at our system of “law enforcement” which has since the 1970s glossed over important connections to terrorist organizations, illegal immigration, and other matters of national security and public safety, yet has no trouble delivering a citation to a ten-year-old over a lemonade stand.
From idiot programs like “click it or ticket,” to non-programs like “aggressive driver imaging” (which never focuses on anyone driving erratically), to so-called “airport security” that plays tough with elderly women, the message is: Good citizens are easy; but we don’t mess with really dangerous folks.”
There have been thousands of warnings since the volatile 70s that out-of-control, violent crime; terrorist attacks; and grandiose fraud scams, to mention just a few of the societal changes that now affect everyone, were coming — without intervention from the courts or “the law.” As By Ron Ewart, President of the National Association of Rural Landowners, put it in an article, “How Can We Undo It?”: “We are a country under the rule of law all right, but we have taken law and rule-making to the extreme edge of absurdity, if not insanity.”
Mr. Ewart cites the 80,700 pages in the Federal Register to make his case. “The United States Code is perched on multiple shelves and is 16,845 pages, according to the government printing office. The Tax Code, Title 26 [alone], is 3,387 pages. This doesn't even begin to cover millions of pages of state and local laws, regulations, restrictions and ordinances...[many of which] are patently without constitutional authority.
The duty of government is to protect Americans from all enemies, foreign and domestic, and to support parents in their efforts to protect children from harm. But what if it is our own elected officials, both by their sins of omission (in failing to read the bills it passes, and insist on enforcement of existing criminal statutes) and its sins of commission (passing “gotcha” ordinances that restrict normal, everyday activities of individuals, such as “unlicensed” lemonade stands), who are doing the harm?

Beverly K. Eakman is a former teacher and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies and as editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper at the Johnson Space Center. Based now in Washington, DC, she is a freelance writer, the author of five books, and frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent book is "Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks" (Midnight Whistler Publishers).

Psychiatry Goes Back to the Future

2009-08-25T06:18:00.000-07:00

Beverly Eakman has been a friend since we were in theater together at age 15. She has become a best selling writer and speaker. She so impressed me with her notes for a book that I insisted she publish it and she challenged me to publish it myself. Midnight Whistler expanded to include books at that point. Below is her latest article.

Psychiatry Goes Back to the Future

Friday, August 21, 2008

By Beverly Eakman
New American Magazine

The New York Times’ Benedict Carey reported this week that the Army “plans to require that all 1.1 million of its soldiers take intensive training in emotional resiliency.” The Times says it “learned of the [psychological resiliency training] program from Dr. Martin E. P. Seligman, chairman of the University of Pennsylvania Positive Psychology Center, who has been consulting with the Pentagon.”

The training is being billed as “the first of its kind in the military,” with a goal to “improve performance in combat and head off the mental health problems, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide,” allegedly affecting “one-fifth of troops returning from Afghanistan and Iraq.”

First to receive what is essentially psychological training will be “active-duty soldiers, reservists and members of the National Guard,” then it will be “made available to family members and to civilian employees.” The term “made available” implies that something is voluntary, but when government uses it, the word “mandatory” soon follows.

Ah, how quickly people forget the lessons of the past!

First off, this would not be “the first [training] of its kind in the military.”

In 1943, psychiatrist and British military officer, John Rawlings Rees, head of England’s famous Tavistock Clinic, an outgrowth of the Tavistock Institute of Medical Psychology, provided such “training” to American and British soldiers, ostensibly to prepare them for combat and capture or interrogation. What he wanted to ascertain, however, was whether, under conditions of induced or controlled stress, groups of normal individuals could be made to behave erratically. In particular, he wanted to find out whether they would “let go” of firmly held beliefs under pressure, including peer pressure, in order to conform to a predetermined set of “popular” beliefs. Like political organizer and activist Saul Alinsky later on, Rees believed that one of man’s worst fears was ridicule and ostracism, so his experiments centered on what we now know as “encounter”-style strategies — high-stress, spirit-breaking, psychological “conditioning.”

Rees also field-tested various techniques of inducing “mass neurosis,” based on methods established by — of all people — German psychologist Kurt Lewin (“thought reform” strategies) and infamous Soviet psychologist Alexander R. Luria (the “artificial disruption of behavior”). Luria’s defining book centered on “the artificial disruption of behavior,” in which he praised Kurt Lewin as being among the first to succeed in provoking “acute disruption of the psyche” by alternately applying stress and reassurance until individuals and groups became so confused that they couldn’t sustain their train of thought — i.e., “emotional chaos.” Rees, upon applying Lewin’s method to soldiers, boasted that he could turn an adult population into the emotional equivalent of little children.

So successful was Rees’ “Tavistock Method,” based upon a combination of Lewin’s and Luria’s work, that at the close of the war, Rockefeller Foundation Medical Director Alan Gregg toured the clinic and asked whether anyone would be willing to apply the Army’s enemy-analysis research in social psychiatry to civilian populations. Tavistock was not only willing, but able, and it received a Rockefeller Foundation grant that redirected its work and changed the clinic’s name in 1947 to Tavistock Institute of Human Relations.

Among the first visible successes attributable to this redirected “preventive psychotherapy” was the rebellion and protests of the 1960s. In an astounding turnabout, children of high-functioning, patriotic, and mostly religious World War II veterans — men and women who had sacrificed life and limb to protect their country and families — were suddenly “letting go” of the values they had been taught to cherish. These youngsters embraced, instead, an essentially foreign counterculture of promiscuity, drugs, virulent anti-Americanism, and irresponsibility. Their parents, for the most part, never knew what hit them. They didn’t realize that their kids were being “turned,” if you will, in school. Anti-authoritarianism was a psychological tool developed by Lewin, and colleagues like Erich Fromm, that undermined parental discipline, applied “social pressure” via songs, surveys, and encounter-style class “discussions.” These were takeoffs on wartime psychological experiments that, used with children, set the kids up to need their peers more than they needed their principles. Suddenly, young people did not want to be seen as mavericks or as sticking up for themselves; they wanted only to “fit in” and “be popular.”

The New York Times article reveals that the “new” $117 million psychological program, similarly aimed at “preventative psychology” for soldiers, will “be introduced at two bases in October and phased in gradually throughout the service, starting in basic training.” Then in a telling statement, the article states that the program “is modeled on techniques that have been tested mainly in middle schools.” (Italics mine.)

In the early 1990s, I exposed one of those programs in Pennsylvania schools under the banner of “assessment testing.” I pointed also to an infamous psychological training ground for teachers called the National Training Laboratory in Bethel, Maine. It was eventually run under the auspices of the nation’s largest teacher union, National Education Association, which lured teachers to undergo (and emulate) encounter-style, high-stress tactics, and take them back into in their classrooms. Teachers taking the course still have to sign a disclaimer prior to enrollment, absolving the NEA of all liability in the event that they experience an emotional breakdown while pursuing their studies at the NTL!

In a major article (Oct. 20, 1993) for Education Week, the primary newspaper of the education establishment, I wrote “It’s About Mental Health, Stupid!” describing the shift toward psychological calisthenics over academics. I explained how both test questions and curricula were increasingly focusing on personal opinions, emotional temperature-taking, “coping skills,” “self-esteem,” and “finding one’s own value system.” I explained how this instant-success concept was, in reality, having a demoralizing effect on the students, causing them to become apathetic with the lack of real, substantive challenges. I noted that teachers were becoming frustrated and emotionally drained from spending their days as babysitters and entertainers and that many were changing professions as a result.

Due to the outpouring of reader response to my article — including one irate bluster from the former head of Pennsylvania’s Division of Testing, who I named as complicit in the psychologizing of educational testing and curriculum — I wrote a follow-up on December 15 of that year, adding (in response to his demand), that I was submitting copies of everything to Education Week to provide “evidence substantiating that psychological curriculums had been devised to improve scores on the psychological tests” out of his office — all passed off to the public as “academics.” The federal monetary connection was often right on the covers.

Thus, it’s no surprise to me that this latest brainstorm in “emotional resiliency training” emanates from the University of Pennsylvania’s Positive Psychology Center.

As Jay Leno has famously quipped, “Gee, who could have seen that coming?”

“Resiliency” is not something learned in a “crash course.” It’s a backdrop for what we used to call “character,” something parents and religious organizations instilled over years. You can have all the “resiliency” classes and role-playing and “conflict resolution” strategies you like, but if it is not in keeping with the underlying personality of the individual, it won’t work in the end. Let’s face it: people are extremely complicated, which is why so many are enticed by psychology as a field of study. Yet, while behavioral “scientists” have concocted hundreds of labels to describe and categorize human behaviors, and devised manipulative strategies, some of them successful, to make folks amenable to suggestion (or “stimuli,” in technical parlance), nobody can quite explain why one person can hold up to years of torture and abuse, while the fellow next to him falls apart upon seeing a dead body in the road. This phenomenon speaks to the existence of “individuality,” or “soul,” which serves as an inborn antidote to manipulation and brainwashing. Mind-altering drugs can break down this inherent check, which is why the military (and terrorist training camps) sometimes resort to them. Drug-induced effects are heightened in children, vulnerable individuals and fanatic groups, who are easier to provoke into acting impulsively (for example, in response to surreptitious or inflammatory marketing campaigns). But the fact remains, most people in the end will “default” to their individual wiring — i.e., to conduct in keeping with their unique personality. This is what psychiatrists like Rees, Lewin, and Luria tried desperately to alter, with disastrous results, and which the U.S. Army, under the pretense of “teaching resiliency” now apparently is attempting to modify again.

As we pass the 60th Anniversary of World War II and the Holocaust — with its time-honored shouts of “never again!” — highlighting the grisly discoveries, critical milestones, battles, armistices and accords, let us also call on any American and British soldiers who may still be alive to attest to their ordeals at Tavistock in the 1940s. Now is the time for them to speak up, as it appears we are about to repeat history.

Beverly K. Eakman is a former educator and retired federal employee who served as speechwriter for the heads of three government agencies and as editor-in-chief of NASA’s newspaper “Roundup.” Today, she is a Washington, DC-based freelance writer, the author of five books, and a frequent keynote speaker on the lecture circuit. Her most recent book is Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks (Midnight Whistler Publishers www.midnightwhistler.com).

We the people are coming!

2009-08-23T09:26:00.001-07:00

While I do not want to turn this into a political statement, after all, the business of Midnight Whistler is publishing, I feel that given the state of the economy today, someone has to speak out. Here is a letter that says it as well or better than I could, so I am reprinting it here.
Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.
The following letter, read on Glenn Beck's show, is rapidly circulating around the country. Americans everywhere identify with this 53-year-old woman. She has given us a voice.

GLENN BECK: I got a letter from a woman in Arizona. She writes an open letter to our nation's leadership:

I'm a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me.
Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. There must be someone.

Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me?

Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution.
P.S., I'm not a racist. This isn't to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over.
There is more to say.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don't you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations.
I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why -- what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid? We will pull together.
Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try -- please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let's just slow down and get some input from some non-politicians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law.
I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired.
I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face.
I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane.
I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making.
We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington.
Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you?
We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work, pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you.
For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office. We have canceled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish.
We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when he will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us. Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it.

You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired.
Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you. If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are.
If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent?

Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

H/T Shelly

WALKING TARGETS makes a comeback

2009-08-07T06:53:00.000-07:00

The economy. All you have to say is those two words to send shivers up the spine of most folks. Jobs have been lost, companies have gone under and predictions made in my novel of last year, DEADLY RESEARCH, are coming true. I'm afraid to write my next novel. So with money tight and attention elsewhere, it looked like WALKING TARGETS, B. K. Eakman's latest book, would not be selling much. Education, after all, is not on anyone's mind - unless you're a parent, or a teacher, or a home-schooler, or a policy maker, then your attention is firmly on education.

WALKING TARGETS, How Our Psychologized Classrooms are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks, is also coming true with a vengeance. Not that we wanted it to. But with two-income families becoming three-income families, which still doesn't pay the bills, the chapter on "Outsourcing Parenthood" is oddly foreboding.

Implant IDs are in the news again and being touted as the latest miracle to handle your missing pet, child, aging parent or soldier in the field. Bev's article, "Implanted IDs: Click Here" brings that into focus.

So WALKING TARGETS is still moving out to people who want a viewpoint on what's happening. And Beverly Eakman is still a trustworthy predictor of things to come. You can view the book and order it at http://www.midnightwhistler.com.

The short story blog is at http://jonbatson.blogspot.com

Jon

Scandal at Shady Point

2009-08-07T06:51:00.001-07:00

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 2

Randy Turner had been in love with Dana since he first saw her in history class. When his folks moved to the city, he changed schools and Dana took up with Mike. Randy hadn't seen her since. Now he was lying beside her all sweaty and warm. He felt as if he had completed something, like he could strike an item off of a list and move on with his life, now that it was complete. He had wanted to bed her since junior year; now he had.

But the front door opening made them both sit up. They didn't look at each other, they jumped up in different directions. Randy scooped up his tighty-whities from the floor and put them on, then his shirt. He looked for his jeans, then remembered he had left them in the living room. He picked up his boots and one sock. The other one wasn't within his field of vision and he wasn't going to waste valuable time looking.

Dana had thrown on her cleaning shift and ran out to cut off her husband, closing the bedroom door behind her.

“You're all sweaty and I'm in the middle of cleaning our bathroom.” Dana said, pushing him away before he could smell another man's cologne on her. “Go on into the other shower and get cleaned up before you even try to kiss me.”

When the door closed and the shower could be heard running, Randy Turner came out of the bedroom with his boots in his hand. He grabbed the jeans from the back of the couch and pulled them on, trying not to make a noise or fall down. He barely got them zipped when Dana motioned to him from the front door.

“Go!” she whispered, and she pushed him out, closing the door behind him.

Randy Turner wasted no time running, barefoot and holding his boots, to his dusty gray Honda up on the road. He jumped in, pulled the visor down and caught his keys in his right hand. Randy pulled out into the lane, thankful that it was a quiet Saturday afternoon and not a busy weekday. He was hoping none of the neighbors had seen him leave. He wondered if anyone had witnessed their innocent meeting at the book store or the way they warmed up to each other at the coffee shop next door. He hoped none of Mike's friends observed one thing leading to another until they fell into bed, heaving and sweating, entwined like grapevines.

Randy Turner pulled the up to the curb in front of his small townhouse, turned off the engine and sat, staring out of the windshield. Once inside the house, he threw down his boots, flopped on the couch and reflected on the mess he had made of things. “But at least,” he thought, “I got out of there without getting caught.”

Still it didn't feel right. He didn't feel right. Even his pants didn't feel right. There was a lump in his jeans that didn't make sense. He felt the front pocket and found a set of keys ― truck keys, and a house key. Randy could feel the blood drain from his face. These were not his jeans!

When Mike came in, he had in a long, dusty case from the garage. In the case was a rifle. He was one of the few residents of Shady Point who did not have a firearm handy, but that changed now, he had his old rifle in the house. He opened a box of .22 shells, pulled the bolt, loaded a shell into the chamber and closed the bolt. Dana heard the sound. She shuddered to hear it.

“Sooner or later,” he said, calmly to the bedroom door, “you will tell me who he is. Then I'll kill him.”

The locksmith charged triple to come out on a Sunday. Mike didn't care.

“Double-key, I want to be able to lock the door from both sides,” he said.

“Sure, no problem,” replied the locksmith.

Mike sat in the large, central living room, with a glass of whiskey in his hand, keeping an eye on every door and window, in case the culprit should come back to speak to his wife. He doubted the man would show up at the door to return his wallet and keys.
“I'm sorry,” Mike imagined him saying, “I got your jeans by mistake when I was stumbling over myself getting out of your house after banging your wife.” Yeah, Mike could just imagine that apology going down.

“All done,” said the locksmith.

Mike stood by the door watching the locksmith drive away. He closed the door and locked it with his new key. “No one's getting in – or out – of this house now,” he thought.

“Harry,” Mike told his boss on Monday morning, “I'm taking some time. I've got leave coming, so I'm taking it.”

“Everything OK, Mike? Is Dana OK?”

“I'll get back to you on that.”

“Well if there's anything I can do...”

“Thanks, Harry. I'll let you know.”

Mike hung up the phone. The call was a courtesy to Harry; Mike didn't care about the job – not anymore. He still had on the same khaki pants and shirt. He had slept on the couch in them. He nibbled at snacks, but wasn't hungry. He hadn't drunk much of the whiskey, most of it was left. He wasn't drowning his sorrow, he was numb to it.

If he had thought about it, he would have wondered if Dana was hungry, but he didn't think about it. He didn't think about her at all.

At nine, he showered in the guest bathroom. He heard Dana moving about the house. When he came out, he saw the bedroom door open; Dana was not in sight. Mike went into the bedroom, dressed in clean slacks and a shirt and left for the bank; without his wallet, there were arrangements to make.

Upon his return, Mike found Sheriff Willis waiting for him outside the house. Sheriff Willis had caught Mike and Dana necking after the prom a few years back, warned Mike not to drive drunk at his bachelor party and later, attended their wedding in his only fitting suit. Now he was at their door in his uniform.

“Dana tells me you've locked her in,” said Sheriff Willis.

“I locked the door to keep strangers out. If she was inside when I did it, then there you are.”

Mike took out his house key and went to the front door. He opened it to find Dana standing there in blue jeans, cloth shoes and a large, cable-knit sweater. She had been crying. She wore no makeup and her hair was pulled back into a hasty pony-tail. She looked terrified.

Sheriff Willis stepped through the door and looked from Mike to Dana.

“Doors open, Dana,” said Mike. “If you want to leave, no one's stopping you. There is one thing I'd like to know: the name of your lover.”

Dana turned pale as fear overcame embarrassment. Sheriff Willis looked from her to Mike, sizing up what he had to deal with. Dana ran past them out of the door, up the drive and onto the road.

“Let me talk with her. Maybe I can help you sort this out,” said Willis.

“If she won't tell me, I'll find out sooner or later,” said Mike, throwing the keys on the counter. “Until then, she can stay out there for all I care.”

“Mike, don't do anything hasty. Let this simmer some, you and Dana have a good thing going. Don't let one stupid mistake screw it up.”

Mike just looked at the sheriff with lowered eyes, tight lips and clenched fists. It was plain that the conversation was over.

All through the night, Mike's demons danced through his head, keeping him only half asleep. His jeans, his house, his wife; his anger. The man had taken his wallet and keys. He could steal his truck anytime, but he couldn't get into the house, not anymore. He could still get into his wife, though, wherever she was. So what! He didn't care anymore. He was cold and numb. Priorities had shifted.

Health Care – Yes! Mental Parity – No!

2009-08-02T20:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. President,

What has not been mentioned in the debates about mental health, because there are those who don't want it mentioned for fear that we will realize that the wool is being pulled over our eyes, is Mental Health Parity. MHP (ask your doctor if heavy drugs are right for you) is the mistaken belief that a medical doctor and a psychiatrist are the same, that a broken leg and a feeling of depression are equal.

The medical health world has tests and cures. You check this, you see that, you drink this bottle, you're cured. The mental health world has no tests; there are only hunches, best guesses and things that certain chosen ones agree should be what a certain thing should be called. The names change. Schizophrenia is not Bi-Polar, but not quite. There are invented names, RLS – Restless Leg Syndrome, PPD, Postpartum Depression – which, incidentally, can be handled hundreds of ways which involve no drugs. I could go on, but you are the President and your time is valuable.

Two outlandish lies become glaringly obvious if you look closely, which is why mentioning it in the debates is frowned upon. One is that the whole end product of the mental health industry is to sell drugs, not to heal the sick. The end game is profit, not wellness. Water is more effective than Prozac, with no side effects. Chocolate is a better treatment for depression than any drug on the market. The second lie is that anything gets cured. As there are no tests, there is no test for a patient being well. When a student goes crazy from his medication and shoots his classroom pals, the doctors say he needed more medication or different medication, or he went off his medication – meaning you should take it for the rest of your life. There are plans in place to screen every new mother, every student, and to put those who have a disorder on drugs. There's a defiant disorder, like when your teen doesn't want to clean her room – if you want to sell drugs, everything's a disorder. The Big Pharma companies want every man, woman and child, even your pet, on drugs for life – at seven times the cost of any other country.

Psychiatrists admit that there is no cure and no way to test for a cure, just as there is no way to test for the disorder. It's all opinion and “what do we have to do to sell drugs?” So to place “Mental Health” on an equal par with “Physical Health” is like comparing apples and albatrosses. The drug companies and those who make a fortune dispensing their poisons are hoping it will pass with parity because then they can insist that people see a shrink and take the drugs. It will then be law that they have to take the drugs, that the average person will have to pay for the psychiatric research to find new and more serious mental disorders for which they just found the “cure” in the form of a new pill – that you can get for only a small king's ransom.

In short, Health Plan? Yes! Mental Health Parity – No! Mental health, of which the great proliferation of drug ads on television is just a symptom, is one of the biggest frauds ever perpetrated on this country. If you give it legitimacy, you also give a death sentence for the sanity of this country.

Jon Batson
Raleigh, NC

I hope he fails – and by 'he' I mean Rush.

2009-08-02T08:25:00.000-07:00

I voted for the other guy. But say what you will, after the dust had settled, the other guy is not in the oval office. The guy who is now running things is my president and I will stand behind him. While I do not agree with everything he is doing and has done, I also don't have all the facts, so it's a moot point and not one I'm going to debate here. No, here my only point is that Rush Limbaugh said on radio for all to hear, “I hope he fails!” Well, I don't. For that and many other thoughtless statements, I hope Rush fails.

If President Obama fails, the implications will resound for decades to come, but it will also resound today for you and for me. If he fails, the economy fails, the major companies fail and an awful lot of minor companies will fail. I have held opinions that bailing out people who already get billion dollar bonuses is wrong. But I hope he proves me wrong. I hope he succeeds and the economy recovers. I hope we enter into an era of prosperity hitherto unknown and that everyone who, like me, voted for the other guy says to himself, “Boy! Was I wrong! The guy succeeded!”

So you might be saying that I sound like one of those “My president, right or wrong” guys. Perhaps that's what I've become. I want his decisions, his programs, his leadership to be spot-on the money each and every time. Sure, I've heard all the nay-sayers before and after the election, all the junk shooting around the Internet, all the “proof-positive” about this, that and the other – and if he screws up, there will be a lot of very smug people folding their arms and saying that they told us so. I hope they never get the chance. For one thing, I hate that! But I hope they never get the chance because I hope he doesn't screw up, I hope the economy recovers and we bring the troops home victorious and that the nations of the world will come to love us and a hundred other things that were impossible but a few months ago.

Call me a cock-eyed optimist, but I want our President to succeed beyond our wildest expectations. May healthcare be easy, cheap and fun, yet rewarding for the practitioners. May the economy spur a new era of growth and well-being for all, with jobs and opportunities a-plenty. May art and music flourish, may other nations see the goodness in us and seek to emulate us, creating a world-wide prosperity boom. May there be peace on Earth, without everyone dying in order to achieve it. I hope he succeeds.

The Short Story Episodes Continue

2009-07-30T06:11:00.000-07:00

It's nearly August and the long, hot summer continues. The economy is on everyone's mind. Some pundits say the recession is over, but we're not sure if we can survive the recovery.

Midnight Whistler Publishing marches on, and in future weeks will endeavor to bring you hopeful words from author Beverly Eakman and founder, Jon Batson - being me.

For now, let me say that the only thing you can really count on is you and your own ability to make things go right in spite of everything.

The short stories will continue, but not here. For that, please go to my personal blog, http://jonbatson.blogspot.com. The first episode of the next story, Scandal at Shady Point, is up today.

Luna Nightmares

2009-07-24T09:11:00.000-07:00

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 7

At the arraignment, I plead guilty. A murmur was heard behind me. I didn't turn. I knew who was there. Alice was there. The kids were not. They were with their grandmother, Ted's mom, who was home crying.

The judge struck his gavel and the room got quiet. He spoke. I didn't hear it. I'm sure he said something, but I have no idea what he actually said. I knew more or less what he said, that I would be going away for 25 years to life for premeditated murder. Somehow, the fact that I had lost everything didn't hit me, either that or I just didn't care. I had lost most of it anyway.

The guard lead me from the table to the door off to one side. I couldn't help a last glance over my shoulder at Alice, standing to leave the courtroom. Her face was contorted with pain and she cried out to me, “Why?” The guard tugged at my arm and Alice turned to go through the large double doors. I replied, though she could not hear me, “Because I love you and the kids.”

The sign on the wall by the dispensary says, “Now accepting test subjects for a new anti-depressant, Lunaxypryn. Sign up at the dispensary.”

“Unless I'm mistaken, that's pure Luna-C,” I mutter.

The sign-up sheet is on the table, a pen on a chain next to it. I pick up the pen. Before I can write, a hand reaches out and takes mine. It's an old man, short with wire glasses. His prison grays are starched stiff and look new, though I know he has been there a long time.

“They'll make you sign a waver. Last two tests they did every subject died. They covered it up, called it a construction accident. The first one wasn't pretty. The second was quieter, but those guys are still dead.”

I shrug my shoulders, as if 'so what'. The old guy lets go of my hand. He backs off, distancing himself from the crazy man who is putting his name on the paper of certain death.

I feel something I had not felt in a long time, a smile. I'm smiling. Ted and I engineered Luna-A, then Luna-B and finally Luna-C. Now I will get to see if it works or if it'll have similar results. Secretly I hope it will have the same result as Luna-A, so I will get to experience what Ted did in his last minute. I would like a painful and wretched death. But just as much I hope it's a Luna-B death, so I could just slip off quietly. Either way, I know that I have been the engineer of my own fate and that my nightmare will soon be over.

The End

Luna Nightmares

2009-07-15T13:40:00.000-07:00

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 6

Ted opened the door, “Phil? What's up?”

“You know,” I was thinking fast but talking slow, I hadn't thought this through. “I'm just perplexed by this whole thing and I thought, you know, that we have, you know,” I realized that I had said 'you know' three times in a sentence. “that we don't spend any down-time together. We used to do that, and I thought it would be a good idea ...” My eyes fell on a cut-glass decanter of Scotch on the counter, “... if we could just have a drink together...” I looked at Ted, an innocent smile crossing my face. Ted just looked back at me. It seemed like an hour, but it was only a few seconds before he spoke.

“Sure, Phil, it's a little early for me, but I have no plans, so why not. I'll get us a glass.” Ted took out two short glasses with heavy, cut-glass bottoms. They were part of the set with the decanter. He poured two of what I knew to be first class Scotch and added water from a bottle in the fridge. As he opened the fridge door to return the bottle to the shelf inside, I emptied the pink envelope into Ted's glass. I watched the few tiny crystals disappear into the Scotch.

“Here's to a successful test and a popular product,” I said, lifting my glass.

“I'll drink to that,” responded Ted, drinking half the glass in a gulp. I drank as well, looking around for something to take the attention off of the glass, just in case there was a taste.

“Have you redone the kitchen?”

“Nope. It's the same as the last time you were here.”

“Hmm! That was Thanksgiving...” I realized that I had brought up a memory of Carol and decided to stop there. “Well, I must have forgotten what it looked like, you keep it so nice, it looks new.” I smiled, taking another sip.

Ted finished his drink on that cue. We stood there regarding each other. Then Ted got a look on his face; he stiffened, moving his hand to his belly. His face questioned what he felt, then the answer was written in his eyes. Ted looked straight at me. His mouth opened. I expected him to ask, 'What have you done?' but he didn't, he just gagged and his eyes lost focus.

Ted convulsed and fell on the floor, writhing out of control. I stepped back, giving him room to flail against the floor and cabinets. He spat up some ugly, colorless gunk and jerked to a stop. His arms and legs, hands and feet were all at right angles; his fingers splayed. Ted spasmed once, twice, a third time and then released across the floor, completely limp. The eyes were open.

Standing there, watching my friend of so many years, I couldn't help but feel that this was the right thing to do. In his front pocket, I pulled the paper, torn from the pad at work, with a corner missing. It said, “I love you and the kids.” It was exactly like my dream, only it was Ted on the floor, not his wife and kids. I reached into his shirt pocket and took out the blue envelope.

“Ted? Are you home?” sang Alice, coming in the front door. I ran to stop her from coming into the kitchen. She was surprised to see me. “Phil! Uh, how nice to see you. You haven't visited in a while. Where's Ted?”

“Alice, you've got to go upstairs.”

“What are you talking about?” Alice gave a shallow laugh, then became afraid. “What's going on? Where's Ted?”

“Alice, just go upstairs now. Everything will be all right, but I need you to go upstairs right now.” A noise at the door revealed my worst fear, the kids were with her. “Alice, go upstairs and take the kids. Please!”

“Phil, you're scaring me.”

“Go! Now!” I cried.

“Tyler, Spencer, come with mommy.” Alice reached her hands for her children and lead them upstairs, her face pale, her eyes wide with fright.

There was only one thing for me to do; go to the phone and dial 911.

“911 Operator,” said a male voice.

“I've just killed my best friend,” I told him.

Luna Nightmares

2009-07-15T13:39:00.001-07:00

Luna Nightmares

2009-07-09T10:51:00.001-07:00

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 5

Not drinking the night before agreed with me. I felt better.

“Rensler's in the office. Better come,” said Ted as I poured a cup of coffee.

I felt a chill run through me. Charles Rensler was the board liaison. When they wanted to tell us something, it was Mr. Rensler who came out of the elevator and into our lab. Not Charlie or Chuck, but Mr. Rensler. He didn't know a test tube from a shoe horn but he gave the orders, or at least relayed them.

In the lab, Rensler was leaning with one hand on the table, as if he had been waiting for me to finish playing with myself. He looked disturbed, but then he always looked that way.

“Gentlemen, we are going into testing in a week.” (“Ready or not,” said the word-bubble over his head.) “You have been playing with this new concoction long enough. It's time to take it to the subjects. We want this ready for market before the snow falls.”

Rensler's eyebrows were furrowed, admonishing his wayward children who never did as they were told. He had already decided that we were holding up this project on purpose. He had made up his mind about us; we were bad.

“It's not ready,” said Ted.

Rensler flared, his eyes wild. “Well, get it ready! The board wants to know if we've made a mistake with you two. The holidays are a stressful time and we want our new anti-depressant out and on the market in time to deal with it. You get it ready to go or it's you who will be going. No more hold ups, no more excuses.”

Rensler strode to the door, turned and put one hand on the door, he was making his grand exit. “We're calling it 'Lunaxapryn' and it had better be ready by the time the box is printed.” Rensler exited with a flourish, punctuating his commands with a loud march to the elevator. 'Click, clack, click, clack!' The sound of our doom.

“That man has no idea what he is doing,” said Ted, shaking his head. “If the six o'clock news mentions our product it won't be good for anyone.”

“Are we sure about it? Is there something we don't know?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Ted, as if it was obvious, “We don't know how many will die when they start taking this!” Ted turned his back to me, walking forcefully to the back of the office, picking up samples of “C” in green envelopes. He was trying to compose himself enough to actually do something. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw him slump. His shoulders dropped; Ted was shaking his head.

“You OK, buddy?” I asked.

“Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just peachy!” Ted stood up, squaring himself around and picked up the daily log. “I'm logging out, leaving a little early.”

“OK, Ted. You've put in enough hours to do that. Say hi to Alice.”

“Yeah,” said Ted, taking off his lab coat. “Tomorrow, same time.”

“You bet!” I replied, trying to be as light and casual as I could. I watched him go down the hall.

The pad caught my eye. There was a corner still attached to the top where the paper tore off. Ted had ripped a piece off and left a corner. My thoughts went back to my dream, to the paper with the missing corner.

I looked over the line of envelopes on the desk: colored envelopes with the active ingredient of each generation, concentrated for analysis. There were three green envelopes of “C” and one pink of “A”. The blue envelope was missing. I remembered my dream, Ted slipping that envelope into his pocket. A chill ran through me.

Returning to the pad, I recalled an old movie I saw on one of those sleepless nights, where the detective used a pencil to discover what was written on a pad. I took the pencil from the drawer and lightly ran it over the pad. There, in the impressions left by Ted's pen, was the note he had taken with him. “I love you and the kids.”

My heart went to my throat. I couldn't breathe. I steadied myself against the table. There had to be a way to stop him! I took the remaining envelope of Luna-A and put it into my pocket. I threw my white coat over the chair and ran to the nearest exit, my short-cut to the parking lot.

It was before rush hour and the traffic was still light. I figured Ted wouldn't be driving fast, but I was. My hands were shaking and there was sweat on my forehead. I couldn't think where the tissues were. The radio was on and a distraction. I switched it off and veered to the right, narrowly missing a car slowing to turn. I tore through the last intersection on a yellow light, beating the red by the skin of my teeth.

At Ted's house, I pulled up and turned the car off. Ted's Cherokee was already there. The quiet was thunderous. I could hear myself sweat.

Luna Nightmares

2009-07-02T09:44:00.000-07:00

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 4

Ted's Grand Cherokee was already in the parking lot early next morning.

“What're you doing here at this ungodly hour?” asked Ted, looking up.

“I could ask you the same thing,” I replied.

“Couldn't sleep. Thought I'd come in and make sure we weren't on the wrong track again. You?”

“About the same,” I said, trying to find something to look at.

“Too many voices in my head,” said Ted, returning to whatever he was working on before I came in.

“Me too. Is it warm in here, or is it me?”

“It's you. The air kicked on more than an hour ago.”

“You've been here more than an hour?” I asked, “How did you get in?”

“I got them to give me a key; I've been coming earlier lately.”

“But you're here when I leave.” I was wondering if I might not be right, there was something wrong with Ted.

“Not for long, I usually follow you out. It's just that we came up with Luna-A and Luna-B. Now we've got “C” and I don't want to be the guy who killed a bunch of subjects with three products in a row.”

“I share some of that blame, you know. And we're not alone here, we have a large staff of people, anyone of which could have discovered the flaws in “A” and “B” and didn't. You can't carry this all on your shoulders.”

“I'm not, Phil,” said Ted, getting up and reaching for his empty coffee cup, “I'm just trying to make sure we don't have to formulate a Luna-D.” Ted left for the coffee room.

In the trash, were two blue envelopes. Ted had been using some of the “B” samples. Had Ted been retesting? But we discovered what was causing the results in “B”. Why would he have Luna-B out?

At the end of the day, Ted seemed fine and normal. He even left at a reasonable time. Ted gave me a wave and ambled off to his Grand Cherokee. It looked like another world to me, his gleaming clean Grand Cherokee, knowing that he would go home to the beautiful Alice who would have dinner on the table. Two endearing children would run in to hug their daddy and the cares of the day would fade into oblivion without the use of artificial nerve-dullers.

I drove my aging wreck to the poor side of town where I nuked a burger and fries meal that didn't live up to it's advertising. Settling down in front of the television, I reached for the bottle of hooch, then stopped myself. No, three didn't do it, four certainly wouldn't. I would try my theory and have none.

Just before I toddled off to bed, I breathed a quiet prayer that Carol would fall in love and get remarried, then I could have my paycheck back and could move out of that lousy neighborhood.

The breeze through the window was just right, the bums were quiet and there were few cars at that late hour.

Then the dreams came. I saw the table, Ted's kids slumped over and Ted with his note, roughly torn from the pad at work and carrying it's chilling message. The blue envelope fell from his hand to the floor. My gaze followed the envelope to the floor. Then a strange cry entered the scene and I woke up to a siren passing; an ambulance going by. I turned and looked at the clock – little after three in the morning. I got up and went to the couch, turning on the television. There was nothing on, so I turned it off, laid back on the couch and drifted off.

Luna Nightmares

2009-06-25T09:40:00.000-07:00

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 3

Evening found me eating a ready-made meal with whiskey and water. The television show was one I'd seen before but I couldn't tell you what happened next. Finding a picture was tough and I could only get two channels in that neighborhood; it was the land that time forgot.

Outside the window the usual show was going on, shouting and shooting, sirens and horns; how could people live like that? Why did they stay? Why did I, for that matter?

I decided that I stayed because I couldn't find another place to live in that price range and got up to get myself a second drink. Trying one of my theories: I only had two whiskey and water the other night so that night I poured three. More is better, right?

On the TV, the bad guy was taken down and the commercial came on. I turned the television off, then turned it back on but lowered the sound. I was on my way to get the second drink so I couldn't go to bed yet. I got a fresh glass, just so I could keep score.

With three empty glasses in front of me, I looked up to see that the host's monologue was a repeat; he told that joke before and to just as few laughs. I turned the tube off and fell into bed.

In my dream, Ted took a small envelope out of his shirt pocket and went into the dining room. The envelope was from the lab, blue like those that held samples of Luna-B. He opened the envelope and poured some of the powder into the glasses of iced tea. Ted had tears in his eyes. In his hand he held a piece of paper, white with thin lines and a ragged corner, torn from a pad at the lab. Across the paper he had written, “I love you and the kids.”

I woke up sweating to the sound of banging on the wall next to me. “You wanna shut up in there? People are trying to sleep!” shouted the guy in the next apartment. I held still, gripping the sweat-soaked sheets, hoping he'd shut up.

“It's not like when you live in a house,” I whispered to myself, “where you can scream in peace.”

After a few minutes of quiet, I got up to get a glass of water then returned to bed, looking at the ceiling, trying to think of anything to stay awake. I couldn't think of anything at all other than my dream and my own deplorable situation. I got up and turned on the television. A sexy woman was licking her lips inviting me to call her. She said she was waiting just for me. I laughed, “Not if you could see me,” and turned to the other channel. The late-late-late show was just wrapping up.

Luna Nightmares

2009-06-18T09:38:00.000-07:00

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Episode 2

Horns woke me. I was toppled over onto the couch; my neck and back were stiff. I got up and went into the bathroom, stubbing a toe on the way.

Standing in front of the mirror as the florescent bulb flickered to life, I looked myself over. 'Gees! I look terrible. No wonder Carol left. No, that wasn't it,' I told myself, starting my daily routine, going through the steps as if it mattered. 'It was the fights, the long hours, the second drink, then the third just to tune out the day. Then a fourth to tune out Carol, screaming how I promised her more.' I sighed deeply, picked up a razor and looked at it. 'Not much chance of me cutting myself badly enough to do any good. Might as well just shave.'

An hour later I pulled into the lot at Lunadyne, parking far away from the entrance, hoping no one would see me in a car I ordinarily would have traded two years earlier. The back stairs were rarely used and even more rarely swept; they had become my 'main entrance' so as not to be detected by co-workers I wanted to avoid. Only Ted was in the lab as I opened the door.

“Hi Ted,” I cheerily tossed over to him, already in his white coat and looking over the results of yesterday's tests.

“Hi Phil,” Ted said without looking up. “C might be the one. C seems to be testing like we hoped Luna-A and B would. If these preliminary results keep up we may have something.”

“Glad to hear it. That'll take some heat off.” I said as I busied myself with some items on the desk, trying to get up some excitement for the work. Ted nodded solemnly.

There hadn't been a lot of enthusiasm of late. Word came down that Lunaprex was falling off, people were starting to think of it as the 'old way' to handle depression. “Other brands are touting new cures to new stresses of life,” said the people upstairs in the rarefied air of the board room, “the public wants breakthroughs – Lunaprex is something they already knew about; It's yesterday's news!”

Luna-A, as we called it until Marketing could come up with a catchy name, was the answer. Fewer side effects and a stronger internal formula with a thinner, faster-acting coating made Luna-A a leading contender for the top slot in the anti-depressant race. “A” removed the highs and lows of life leaving a gray middle ground where nothing was very good, but nothing was very bad. It was like whiskey-and-water in a capsule.

There was only one problem with “A”; the subjects died. We couldn't tell what it was that made “A” deadly, because every autopsy result was different, thought the results were the same. After a dose of Luna-A, the subjects would convulse wildly and eventually beat themselves to death. It was ugly and very disturbing to watch. It was a wonder I didn't have nightmares about that.

Luna-B was much better. There were no fits, no convulsions, no beating of oneself to death. It was a breakthrough. “B” was testing well in the lab, then went to the animals where it tested well, then to human tests where one of the subjects simply dropped his head into his mashed potatoes. We went back to the lab.

We found what was causing it this time. One of the masking ingredients interacted badly with common foods, resulting in death. You could take Luna-B safely, you just couldn't eat. It was a disaster. Pressure was on from the board room upstairs to come up with a safe product.

Reformulation of “B”, avoiding the pitfalls of “A” brought us to what we called, naturally enough, “C.” When tests began, first in the lab, then on animals, it seemed to be working. Of course, no one breathed that sigh of relief until human test subjects took it without dying.

“Yes, this may be it,” said Ted calmly, not being one to get excited prematurely. “The first returns seem to be within acceptable levels.”

“You mean no one has died yet?” I asked, standing beside Ted looking over his shoulder at the results.

“Precisely!” said Ted. “Of course, we're still doing in-house lab tests.”

We both scanned the reports in silence.

“You up for a coffee?” I asked, once the report was fully digested.

“Yes, I'm ready for a coffee,” replied Ted, putting the report down and turning his attention to more worldly things.

The coffee bar was a long walk from the lab on purpose. We wouldn't want anything falling into the coffee, now would we?

“How's things?” I ventured.

“Things?” replied Ted.

“Yeah, you know, Alice, the kids, life in general.”

“Great! Couldn't be better. Alice is going to start photography classes now that both the kids are in school. They're doing great, seem to get on well in the school environment. All in all, life is good. The only cloud on the horizon is the Luna-alphabet problem.”

“Well, I'm glad things are good at home.” I was, in fact, glad to hear it. Of course, that meant that my dream was totally a projection of my own problems, but that was expected.

“And how are you, Phil. Adjusting OK?” asked Ted.

“As well as can be expected, but I could sure use a bonus.” Carol was financially draining me dry. She must have gotten advice from every divorced friend and sister she had. Carol had three divorced sisters, all full of spite and advice.

“The failures were costly. Some of those test subjects had relatives who want to be compensated. I doubt there will be a bonus,” Ted said, wincing at his coffee.

“They were homeless volunteers – paid volunteers who signed wavers. Any family they had abandoned them years ago. How can they expect compensation?”

“That's the way the world works. People smell money and the third-cousin twice-removed-that-never-got-invited-to-Thanksgiving-dinner suddenly becomes a terrible loss to the family.”

Ted and I stood there, looking into our coffees and pondering the ways of the world.

Short Story Collection for Summer

2009-06-11T11:16:00.001-07:00

I've decided to release my three Short Story Collections for Summer. I will begin with the stories of the first collection, "Murder at Thompson Bog."

From the collection: Murder at Thompson Bog
Luna Nightmares
Episode 1

It began with a nightmare; it was one I couldn't shake. I could see Ted in his house, the house I had been to several times before, the house I used to live next to back when we carpooled to Lunadyne Corp.

In the nightmare, Ted is sitting in his kitchen looking at a piece of paper. It's white with lines, torn from a pad like the ones at work. A corner is torn crooked, as if ripped too quickly from the pad. The words are large and in block letters. Ted is crying. He picks up his drink and tosses it back, placing the empty glass back on the counter. Ted then walks back into the dining room where his wife, Alice, and two kids, Tyler and Spencer, are at the table with their heads tilted down, eyes open and staring at nothing, arms limp and spilled glasses ignored. Ted is crying and touches Alice's hand. He places the note on the table next to her and reels to the side, falling to the floor.

That was when I woke up, sweating and shaking. The clock said 4:13. The darkness outside confirmed that dawn had not yet broken. There were still voices coming from the 24-hour convenience store at the corner. Somewhere a siren grew louder, then stopped. I could hear a television through the walls. I sat up, turning and groping for a glass of water. It was empty. I sat on the side of the bed, trying to wake up enough to stand and get more water.

The dream haunted me even awake. Ted had killed his wife and his two beautiful kids. Tyler was in little league and king of third base. Spencer was a ballerina, precious even with a tooth missing. I smiled to think of them. Then shuddered to think that he killed them – only in my dream, of course, but still.

The siren picked up again. A car passed and lights danced across the dingy ceiling. I struggled to my feet and took the glass into the kitchen.

'What in the world could it mean, that dream?' I thought to myself. 'Ted loves his family.'

Who wouldn't? Alice was great! I should have done so well! When Carol and I were fighting over the house and other possessions I would sometimes look at Alice and wish I had met her instead.

Carol sold the house and everything in it, moved back to Omaha and that was that. Keeping her in the manner to which she had become accustomed was keeping me in a cheap apartment on the wrong side of the tracks. At least we had no kids to squabble over, but if I had met Alice and we had Tyler and Spencer, I think I would've been a happy man.

'So why would I dream that Ted killed them?' I leaned against the sink, turned the faucet and let the water run – it was still warm. The noise from outside the open window, a mix of sirens, dogs barking, drunks cursing and cars passing, even at four-something in the morning, seemed a fitting sound track for my life. What a mess I had made of it. And now I was having nightmares in which my best friend kills his family and then himself.

'But Ted is happy,' I thought, standing straight again. I held the glass under the spigot, filling it to the top. 'He has a good job – stressful, but still good. He's one of the top chemists at Lunadyne, one of the men who came up with Lunaprex, the leading anti-depressant on the market. He has a great life – there is no reason why he should do such a thing. So that's it.' I end the conversation in my head with the only answer, 'It's not Ted, it's me. I am reflecting my own disheveled life onto him in my dreams and in the process scaring myself silly. Am I going crazy? Is this the first sign of dementia?'

I drank the entire glass of water and held the empty glass under the still running spigot. I let the water run over onto my hand. It felt good. I wondered, was I drinking too much or too little lately. 'I only had a couple of drinks last night: whiskey and water, not large. Maybe I should go to three. Maybe I should go on the wagon. Either way, something has to change.'

The lights of passing cars played across the ceiling and wall as I walked to the couch. When the glass was empty, I put it on the table and stared into space.

The Economy is Bad, Kev.

2009-04-27T15:16:00.000-07:00

I heard it again this week: The economy's bad! And it wasn't on Jay Leno's show. It wasn't a joke. It was a reason to sit back and mope.
Look, my income got cut in half, due to the increased price of gas. But when gas came down, the budgets of the places I play didn't go back up, so my income stayed cut in half. Several places I used to play have dropped entertainment altogether, because it's one of the first things to go when “the economy's bad.”
I've seen it before. Every recession (depression, downturn, pot-hole) if preceded by someone getting on the news and saying, “Money's tight and people are scared.” And sure enough, money gets tight and people get scared. This always happens for a reason and the reason, I'd bet my bottom half-dollar, is so someone can make more money. If a bank goes under, someone buys it for a song and makes a lot of money on it. So how do you buy a bank for a song? Make it go under. The economy is in trouble because someone wants it that way to make a bundle – not worrying about the people who will go under in the meantime.
My last novel was about this. In Deadly Research, (http://tinyurl.com/cdhcab or as a Kindle at http://tinyurl.com/cbpfjp ), Jack Richmond discovers that the news is being manipulated so that a handful of people will benefit from every turn, while millions suffer. Of course, they try to kill him, but if they didn't it wouldn't be an exciting book, would it.
The point is, I wrote a book and I'm writing another. I've learned about eBooks and how to handle files and format a novel for the new readers out there. I am promoting that to people and am getting a response. Good things are happening, because I am learning and promoting.
So turn that frown upside-down and sing along with me: Early to bed, early to rise, work like blazes and advertise.

The World Changes Monthly

2009-03-09T13:48:00.000-07:00

Change? You want Change? Change we can believe in, change we can live with, a little spare change – any and all change, just for something different. There's a great line in “Paint Your Wagon” where the woman is about to be auctioned off to a new husband. One of the women says, “But you don't know what you'll get!” and she replied, “I know what I've got now!” Yes, sometimes any change is better that the existing scene.

But if you really want change, get into the new technologies. Twitter was once something my heart did when certain starlets walked down the red carpet. Now it's something I update regularly and everyone is on it. I have three MySpace sites, Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, Gather, Naymz, Reunion, Capture Carolina and Inside 919. I've canceled Tagged because it appears to be just a dating site and I married my date. It seems every month, another one jumps up. Once again, if we could just guess as to what would be the “Next Big Thing” we'd be millionaires. Well, not really. One has to have the money to back up such knowledge. Once I got a hot tip but didn't have any money to invest. The tip was regarding Viagra and the fellow who told me made millions. (Heavy sigh!)

In case you don't know, I write books. I enjoy writing books. But that's not all one does when one writes books. Once written you have to market them and that means putting them where people will see them. Having a web site isn't enough. Mine is www.jonbatson.com, incidentally. But no, it's not enough. Now you have to go digital as well.

So now as well as hard copy books, you can also download my books onto your computer as a PDF. That's Portable Document File, for those who don't know about them. That's what your Adobe reader is for. But wait, there's more! Want your book on Amazon as a download? You can, all you have to do is to translate it for Kindle to read. That alone takes an engineer's degree. But then there's MobiPocket – with it's own reader and it's own software and it's own jargon and it's own extensions. Microsoft has it's own reader and so on and so forth. Then there's E-Books, with it's free download reader onto your computer but, of course, they also sell a hand-held. There's special software to make those files.

I'm downloading all the software, learning all the file extensions, converting all the books and keeping track – somehow – of all the places my e-books are listed. Pretty soon, I'll have them on my web site, which means something else will have to come off my site, because there isn't enough room for everything. But you can buy my books in a number of different forms – including in Large Print versions on Lulu.com/jonbatson.

It seemed so simple when I decided to write a book. The daunting part, I thought, was writing the book. I had no idea how my world would change – and continues to change every month.

That part of life called Death

2009-01-29T12:10:00.000-08:00

Or, Hanging by a Chad in Flrida

As of Jan 7th, the plan was to take the 25th thru the 31st and drive to Florida. We would spend some time with my wife's uncle Richard and his wife, Kathy; then some time with my wife's aging and ailing mother and father.
By the 13th, Eileen's mother, Pearl, was hospitalized and Eileen had to drop everything and rush to her side. By the 19th, Pearl had passed away. Eileen asked me to come right down. That night, as I was packing, it snowed in Raleigh. More than 500 accidents clogged the icy roadways the following day, making my leaving highly dangerous. The following day was just as bad, as the roads were now covered with 'black ice,' making they twice as treacherous.
At noon on Wednesday the 21st, the sun had opened a small window of opportunity. I took it and lit out for the south land. Accidents and returning inauguration traffic made it slow going and it was just after 11:00 when I crossed the Florida line, still many hours from Pembroke Pines near Ft. Lauderdale. The Motel 6 was basic and no frills but got me out in the morning. I started out at 6:00 AM.
More than six hours later, I rolled into the cemetery with 20 minutes to spare before the funeral. Eileen was at her wits end having to handle the many details and her father. She was glad to see me.
I tried to remember who was who and was genuinely glad to see most of Eileen's family, though the day was a sad one. When you lose someone so close as a mother, it's hard to put into words how you feel, even when you know it's coming.
Death is part of life. It's the deal: this is Earth, no one's gettin' out alive. So you know that at the end of life, whenever that is, you meet death and that is the end of life as we know it. If it comes early, we are naturally shocked and feel cheated. If it comes after 80 years of living, it's not so much of a surprise.
It's the feeling of loss more than anything else. Certainly those who are left behind feel a loss. Pearl won't be around to make Green Beans with Almonds. Her husband, Len, depended on her. We called to ask how she was getting along. She thanked me for making my latest book in big print for her. She'll be missed.
At the end she was afraid. Talks with Eileen helped, but she was still afraid. It is Pearl's loss that is at issue here. Pearl lost her husband Len when she died. She also lost her daughter, her home, her friends and her body. she lost the sun in the morning and the moon at night, the rain and the breeze, the taste of lunch and the prospect of visiting her brother in Jupiter where he has a house on the beach.
We go berserk when we lose our keys. If we lose our laptop or Blackberry, we go ballistic. If I can't find my guitar pick I am inconsolable, and I have 40 or 50 - why should one send me into a dither? Because we hate the feeling of loss.
So here comes Death, and Death takes it all. You lose your very ability to communicate to those around you, because your body is gone. Your vocal chords, mouth, hands and eyes are no longer available. Your family and friends do not respond. It could well be this anticipation of total loss that creates a feeling of apprehension in those close to death.
There is confusion, too. Do I look for a light? Is there an angel waiting for me? Is Jenifer Love Hewitt there to help me? You may believe in Heaven or Valhalla, but do you have a coin for the boatman?
Eileen and I are rethinking our arrangements for that time to come. We are planning "Do-not-recessitate" orders and instructions for cremation, where to scatter the ashes and what to sing at the wake. I must remember to include a coin for the boatman.

2008 Wrap-up

2009-01-04T09:04:00.001-08:00

2008 was one heck of a year at the ol' Casa Batson for singer-songwriter-author-publisher Jon Batson and his “Marketing Maven” wife, Eileen.
Where to begin?? Well, it’s been 4 years since The Batson’s moved to North Carolina from Los Angeles.
Musical Notes
Jon has been and still is performing around the Triangle, Piedmont and coastal Wilmington at a variety of venues including the Festival for the Eno and the Carrboro Music Festival. His covers and original songs are all well received. In addition to performing, he also booked the weekly Summer Showcase at the Gulf Rim Café in Hillsborough, NC. Visit www.JonBatson.com
It seemed the election process would never end and Jon wrote a song in hopes that someone would understand what sort of change the country needs – “The Country Needs a Little Spare Change.” See it on YouTube.com. When the bailout took over the news, Jon couldn't stand the insanity of it all and put up another video – “I’m Movin’ to Wall Street.”
Jon’s monthly songwriting workshop, “The Song Doctor” for the North Carolina Songwriter's Co-op has been pretty popular. Several of the attendees have purchased “The Songwriter's Hook Book,” Jon's journal for songwriters. Both Jon and Eileen were very active in the Co-op’s Annual Songwriting Contest again this year year.
The Book Nook
Jon's Sci-Fi adventure, The Trasaron Chronicles, was completed in early 2008. His longest book thus far (471 pages) has been described by fans of the genre “ …as fast paced as any action thriller! I could scarcely wait to turn the page. Each time I was forced to put it down was pure agony.” This character driven sci-fi novel explores how a band of people survive on an alien world while making plans to recapture earth.
His first novella The Rands Conspiracy continues to be a favorite and is available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble and at select bookstores. Rands takes the reader on a Bourne-style chase as Josh and his development team run for their lives after creating an “experimental” spyware program for the powerful governmentfunded Rands Group.
Meanwhile, he took Honorable Mention for two stories, “Selfers” and “Smoking Bedpan” in the international Writers of the Future contest. Not bad, considering it receives thousands of submissions annually.
Jon jumped right in and began another novel and finished it in October. Nina Knows the Night, follows the adventures of Nina Richardson, a mild-mannered law school dropout who becomes a kick-butt heroine after innocently acquiring a metal case filled with military-like weapons. Determined to knock out the growing crime in her formerly posh urban, now run-down neighborhood, she discovers her superpowers to be her own inner-strength and purpose. Jon is seeking agent representation for this book, but isn't resting on his laurels.
November was National Novel Writing Month and novelists from around the world undertake to start and complete a novel (more than 50,000 words) in 30 days. Jon was finished by the 18th and took a couple of weeks to edit the finished work. It's called Deadly Research. Unpublished novelist, Jack Richmond, is given an assignment by a publisher: write a book that is relevant to our time. He begins his research for the book, not knowing his task is really an exercise in data gathering. Jack comes to realize the different leads he is following for the research all have a common thread. As the story begins to weave itself together, Jack and his girlfriend Teri find themselves the target of numerous attempts on their lives.
2008 also saw great changes in Jon's publishing company, Midnight Whistler. Once just a sleepy little music publisher handling Jon's CDs and a few songs that have appeared on TV (checks still come in from the song that appeared on Murder She Wrote). Now Midnight Whistler Publishers has expanded to include a nonfiction book, Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks,
Here's a blurb:
“In her latest book Walking Targets, education's whistleblower and best-selling author, B. K. Eakman points to an agenda that begins with increasing control by government of the childrearing process, luring parents of babies and toddlers back into the workforce with promises of paid day-care.” Visit www.MidnightWhister.com
Gleans from Eileen
No stick-in-the-mud couch potato, Eileen’s had a busy year. For the third year in a row she was on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Songwriters Cooperative (NCSC), Organizer for the NCSC Meetup site and Assistant Organizer of Coffee and Contacts: Power Networking for Women. She has delivered a number of talks in the Triangle area on a variety of subjects: Networking with Social Media, Marketing and PR, The Basics of Effective Communication and more. Her speaking schedule is filling up for 2009. Her business, Batson Group Marketing and PR, has expanded to include clients on both coasts.
They cover a broad spectrum of industries – technology, health care, consumer retail goods and services, non-profits, publishing and literary, music, fitness, and more. She provides newsletters, business cards press releases, book cover designs, social media advice, gift and incentive albums from Amway Global, etc. to help clients to be well known and remembered. In November she helped Suzanne Caplan pull together Celebrating Women 50+ event in Raleigh for the online site WomenEtcetera! Visit her blog at: BatsonGroupMarketingandPR.blogspot.com
Family Doin’s
Thanksgiving was a grand affair at cousin Vicki’s in Wallace, NC. Jon’s dad Clifton came in from DC and we all had a great time. Eatin’, talkin’, visitin’ with the family, horses and dog. Jon's sister, Glenna, got a grant and will be teaching in England. She spent most of 2008 globe trotting after moving her headquarters to Pittsboro with husband Patrick.
Jon’s dad, Cliff Batson is doing great at 84. He is considering selling the house he bought in DC near embassy row in the early 50's and moving down here to be with Jon and Glenna. Stay tuned for next year's changes.
Len and Pearl Drillick are doing well after a couple of close calls. Eileen went down to lend moral support and work a miracle or two. Len is 86 and Pearl's 39 – again. It runs in the family. They have no plans to move; they're happy in Florida. Eileen’s Uncle Richard and Aunt Kathi are enjoying their beautiful 3-story beach-front home in Jupiter and welcomed family for the holidays. They plan to sell the place and start their world travels. So, if you know anyone with a spare few million let ‘em know.
On Human Rights Day, December 10th, Jon had a birthday, asking Eileen, “Will ya still need me, will ya still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?” She said she would despite the hokey Beatles lyric reference. Eileen also had a birthday on the 28th, claiming to be 39 – again.
Jeremy Batson, wife Cathy and the five grandstars: Jacob, Jordan, Mira, Emma and Eli, are all doing well and had a great Christmas this year. They said that we had gone “way over the top” on gifts, but then again, that's the job description for grandparent, isn't it?
We had to say goodbye to Cousin Azalee Sain, who passed on this year. Azalee’s contributions and tireless energy supporting many charities here in Raleigh made her a force to be reckoned with. The write-up in the News & Observer truly captured her heart and was a wonderful tribute to her.
Sadly, Boots the cat also decided it was time to move on. His fans abound from the Freewinds Cruise ship to California to North Carolina. He was an entertaining social icon wherever he lived.
What’s Ahead
Both Jon and Eileen are looking forward to a fantastic 2009, so it's lucky there is one coming up. Keep an eye peeled for Jon's next novels, he has four outlined and plans to finish them all this coming year.
Music-wise, we are adding House Concerts to the schedule and Jon will be performing. See our meetup site at www.meetup.com/The-Raleigh-House-Music-Meetup-Group/
Eileen is resolved to spend more time promoting them, her clients, as well as her own business. Both have decided to visit family, exercise, lose weight, enjoy all that NC has to offer; to flourish and prosper spiritually and materially in 2009.
To paraphrase Grant Cardone, the recession describes an economic condition, not individuals!
Wishing everyone a prosperous year.
Jon and Eileen Batson
“Tomorrow's a play we're writing today. We can say what is to be
For a happier play, my own matinee, I'll Awaken the Dreamer in me”
~ lyric from “Awaken the Dreamer” by Jon Batson

Happy New Year!

2008-12-31T12:47:00.001-08:00

This is me wishing all of you a Happy and Safe New Year's Eve Celebration. May 2009 bring significant advances in all of our projects.
Remember the novel I was going to write in a month? (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) I finished it in 18 days. To be truthful, I had a lot of research on my hard drive already, so there wasn't a lot of extra stuff to do, just write and refer to something already found from time to time. What began as “Unfinished Novels” was later renamed as “Deadly Research” and turned out to be an exposé.
CreateSpace made all those who finished their novels a nice offer: a free proof of their book, free ISBN and listing with their page and Amazon. The proof copy looked so good that I took them up on their offer. The result is that my book is now available. See www.jonbatson.com for the link.
Yes, I did do an edit and correct before pulling the lever. Several friends read the book as well and made some observations. The usual errors were found and corrected.
The trick for 2009 is to deal with four novels, three that are print-on-demand needing promotion and one (Nina Knows the Night) that is still seeking representation, while writing the next one. There are four started at this point and deciding which to put attention on next will be my chore for next week.
Incidentally, I am wide open for an agent. I want to pitch my books to the movie industry as well as the publishing industry. POD is one thing, but a bona-fide publisher is a good thing to have. My book made into a box-office-smash is even better.
Happy New Year! May prosperity find you in 2009 and shower you with goodness.
Jon

A New Novel written this month

2008-11-15T07:52:00.001-08:00

Currently, I am in the middle of my novel, the one that gets written in a month. I'm at 37556 words out of 50000 so I am ahead of myself. That's pretty normal.

So if I haven't answered your email, or been to your show, that's why. I'm writing chapters as fast as I can just to get everything in that is in my head.

Who would like to see my novel? First chapter?

Jon

Novel Month

2008-10-20T09:18:00.000-07:00

First of all, let me say that I am in the middle of three novels. I don't know which I want to do next and so I am writing them all as the inspiration hits me. Inspiration comes at me from all angles, so I am also making random notes about future projects. So the natural thing for me to do is to take on more.

There is a site (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) which challenges authors to write a novel in a month, starting November 1 and ending on November 30. The novel is to be in excess of 50,000 words, or roughly 1700 a day. This includes Thanksgiving, which, if done right, would yield about five words before tradition drives one to the television set to watch the big game with loosened trousers. On Thanksgiving, even I am likely to watch the big game. But I digress.

My plan is to put all other writing projects to one side as of October 31st and to focus on a new project, as yet defined, for 30 days. I will probably outline where it is going, as that is my road map, but I will also write with abandon and let the story take me where it will. I will be posting my pages per day on the site, just to see how I am doing. I might post it as I go along as well, for those who would care to read.

December will most likely be “edit month” as I go back and correct all my gaffs, ramblings, misspellings and digressions.

Between now and the end of the month, I will be working on the three incomplete novels, sending out short stories to various people, pushing my recently completed novel, Nina Knows the Night, and promoting Walking Targets, the book I publish by Beverly Eakman.

In my spare time, I will work on my breathing.

No Place to be Lousy

2008-06-30T15:55:00.000-07:00

George Burns said it: “These days, there's no place to be lousy.” What did he mean?

Well, let's take a look at George Burns. He grew up in Vaudeville, honed his act in small towns in front of audiences of many or few, and grew into the part. He fell on his face, figuratively and literally, flubbed lines, forgot lyrics, got laughed off - or booed off - the stage and somehow survived. He developed a style that took him through the early days of Radio, performing with Gracie Allen.

Gracie herself was a Vaudeville veteran who developed her perfect air-head style. She was anything but in real life, a highly intelligent woman who was on top of every nuance of their act.

Sid Caesar, Art Carney, Jackie Gleason, Milton Berle, Jack Benny were all cast in that nightly fire.

Many comics, such as Lenny Bruce, Shelly Berman, polished their acts in the Catskills for vacation audiences for many years before they played Vegas.

The Beatles played many small, dingy pubs in England and Europe before they actually played someplace nice or got any recognition. I caught Peter Tork of the Monkeys at a small coffee house in The Village on an open mic night. There were three other people there besides me. I have also open miked with John Sebastian, Fred Niel, Richie Havens and Robby Basho. All of them honed their talents at open mics or pass-the-hat open stages.

But today, where can you go? Where, George, can one go to be lousy? George replies, “There's no place to be lousy.”

Many would-be performers today believe that they are a finished product, ready for stardom. After all, given the opportunity, the big stage, costumed dancers, hot band and lots of money and drugs, they could be a Brittany or Justin. If only the world would recognize their natural talent! It's so unfair!

No, actually, it's totally fair. Outside of the pre-packaged acts that the industry occasionally brings out, most entertainers are years in the making, doing free shows, open mics, songwriter-in-the-round sessions before half-a-dozen drunks week after week, attending workshops and showcasing everywhere they can get a piece of stage for the length of a song.

The thing I hear more than any other complaint boils down to: Nobody's making opportunities for me to show off my natural and completely stage-ready talent. That's right! It ain't happenin'.

Why? Because, “These days, there's no place to be lousy.”

But there are a few places to be lousy, if you have the guts to go and be lousy. There's Open Mics, Songwriter Workshops and Jams.

NC Songwriters Co-op holds a Song Jam on the second Sunday of each month where you can play your song and get adulation, or not, from your fellow performers and songwriters. You might get a critique. But you can take it or leave it. You can go home and cry about it if you like, if you think that will help. We won't be there to hear you, so - don't care. But if you want a place to be lousy, in order to one day be good, the Song Jam is a place to start.

NCSC holds three open mics each month, go to the website, www.ncsongwriters.org, or open the Independent, there are open mics listed there on practically every night of the week. No one's stopping you from going to every one, it's an “open mic.” Sooner or later someone will notice you and make you a star. Probably later, because all your sooner time will be spent being lousy.

The open mic gives you a chance to play your song, watch the audience and see what kind of response you are getting. Taking a simple tape recorder and going over it later is helpful to some. Are you talking too much, laughing at your own jokes, nervously kicking the mic stand (sending booming thumps through the audience) or mumbling your words so that no one can understand your skillfully written song? Is your audience chatting through your set? Did you lose them from the start or in the middle of the second song? Did you spend your first song tuning? Was your song 25 minutes long, and you did four of them, taking the time from all the rest of the performers? Was your song 25 minutes of inner angst and who cares?

All of these things and more can be discovered while being lousy at Open Mic. So what if they say, “He's lousy!” If you keep doing it, in six months time, the same people will be saying, “He's great! I've been a fan since the beginning!”

NCSC also holds a Song Doctor Workshop on the third Sunday of the month at the Royal Bean coffee shop on Hillsborough Street in Raleigh. This is a chance to shake your song out in public and get real, positive and useful feedback. Each songwriter brings enough lyrics for the group (10 sheets will usually do) and performs the song unplugged. Just you and your instrument, unadorned, naked before the world. No amp, no effects, no back-up vocals, no chorus line. The others will listen and follow along with the lyric and you will get feedback on the good points of the song and those that would be better after a bit of thoughtful editing.

In a professional town, such as Los Angeles, where I have experience, some artists will bring the same song month after month, sharpening and honing until it is a smash hit and worth of spending the bucks to get a professional demo made. Such people will often bring a new song and knock everyone's socks off first go, because they have now learned how to craft a song.

So, I'm sorry, Mr. Burns, but you're wrong. Here in North Carolina, there are still a few places to be lousy. And like always, the one's you find there being lousy are the best performers around, because you have to go through being lousy to be good.

Advice from a fellow author

2008-06-11T09:43:00.001-07:00

On advice from a fellow author (who is published and better known than I am) I have taken my latest novel down from the serial format. If you were into the story already, write me at starlostchild@yahoo.com.
Make it a great day!
Jon

April Showers

2008-05-05T09:18:00.000-07:00

May the 4th be with you!

True story: Two years ago, in April, I was honored to be a Troubadour Musician at the Umstead State Park annual walk/run/bike fund raiser. The job was simple, to stand by the path the runners, walkers and bikers (non-motorized, of course) came down and to sing, making it a delight as they passed by. At the tented pavilion, I sang a song or two from stage, including “April Showers,” which, being April, seemed appropriate. Out on the trail, I sang many well-known songs, including “April Showers.” By Noon the event was winding down and I returned to the parking lot to put my guitar into the car. The moment I closed the door, it began to rain. The rain came down in drops as large as your fist and the tents raised up with the wind, then fell down with the rain. Tent poles buckled under the inundation of water. As I pulled out onto the street, I could not see two car-lengths ahead, the rain came that hard. The streets ran deep with rainwater, the gutters overflowed; it was the hardest rain of the year.

Last year, I asked if I could come and sing again; it was fun and I got a tee-shirt. I was told I could, but when I checked the calendar, I had already been booked for that day. Heartbroken, I went to my paying gig. I missed my chance to sing “April Showers” at Umstead State Park. What followed was a year containing the worst drought in North Carolina's history. I felt so bad.

This year, as soon as I saw the announcements, I volunteered. On April 19th, out on the trail, in my new Umstead State Park tee-shirt, I sang “April Showers” once again and that night, it began to rain. It wasn't the hard rain of two years ago; it was a soft, gentle rain. It rained for three days, then the sun came out and a day later, it rained again. It rained off and on for two weeks. The TV news has been hesitantly calling the drought over, especially since it is still raining. I have ended the drought, perhaps not single-handedly, but I had a part.

You're welcome.

In Memory of Azalee Sain

2008-04-10T10:22:00.000-07:00

Azalee Baker Sain died on April 4, 2008 at Mayview Convalescent Center in Raleigh of cancer following an extended illness.

Azalee was a person of many interests. She was a world traveler and an avid reader, but most of all she loved her work at the Raleigh Rescue Mission, the Salvation Army, and the Healing Place for Men and Women. She served on the boards of these organizations for several years and was always a loving advocate for the homeless and downtrodden.

Azalee was very proud of the fact that she was a member of the original North Carolina Friendship Force to Newcastle, England and a founding member of the Thomas Wolfe Society. She was a longtime supporter of the Thompson Theater and eventually the University Theater. In the 1960's, she was a Welcome Wagon Hostess and a member of the first Women's Auxillary at Wake Medical Center.

For fifty years she was a member of Longview United Methodist Church where she taught Sunday School, served on the Board and held many offices in the United Methodist Women. At the time of her death she was a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church.

Her career was with North Carolina Community Colleges where she was in charge of acquisition of library books for the system until her retirement. She had many friends throughout the state and nation in connection with this position.

Azalee's favorite saying and basic philosophy of life was, "YOU CAN'T OUTGIVE GOD". Although we will miss her, we know we shall surely see her again one sweet day.

That was from her obituary.

My second cousin Azalee was also the stern taskmaster who insisted that you be on time for Thanksgiving dinner. “We're going to start eating at 12:00. Not 12:15 or 12:30, 12:00. Be on time.”

She went regularly to put flowers on the graves of departed family members. In later days, I drove her to the town of Four Oaks, to the cemetery at Barbour's Chapel. Before we went to the cemetery, we would stop at the drug store where Bill Canady would make us a soda from the fountain, just like he has for nigh on to 75 years. Afterwards, she would insist on barbecue at the White Swan, where she knew the owner, who was also the mayer.

On those days, Azalee would walk slowly, mentioning that her body hurt but not so much complaining as explaining. She would say, “This growing old is not for sissies!” She never forgot to send a written thank-you card.

Azalee traveled regularly to Israel where she had a fellow who was sweet on her. She brought back tiny crosses made from the olive tree. There's one in her coffin and one hanging in my house.

When I gave Azalee a copy of my first novel, she insisted on paying me. As her house was one large bookshelf, it's a wonder she found room for my little book. And as she was prone to biographies and non-fiction, I doubt she read it. That's all right. I don't mind.

Her favorite artist was Al Martino and she asked me to learn a couple of his songs. At her grave site, I sang “Let's Get Away From It All” and “Fly Me to the Moon.” I know she's pleased.

The list of community projects, charities and organizations noted above does not begin to tell the story. When Azalee would find herself with time on her hands, she would find a good cause and go fight for it. She had a perimeter of small field stone erected around the Four Oaks City Cemetery. I drove her out to see the dedication. She suggested, started and saw completed the Healing Place for Women in Raleigh. There wasn't a good venture in town that didn't have Azalee on the board.

That sort of industriousness runs in the family. I for one am glad for it. Thanks, Azalee.

Song of the Midnight Whistler

2008-01-28T14:30:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my Blog. What occupies my mind, fills my eye and takes up 110% of my day is my publishing enterprise, Midnight Whistler Publishing. That is because a genius, Beverly Eakman, wrote a series of articles and I said, "You have to put these into a book!" So she said, "I will if you will publish it." We got it together and out in record time, even with all the updates and extra pieces she wrote for the book. Here is the press release:

PRESS RELEASE
New Book – Walking Targets by B. K. Eakman exposes how our educational system is driving a wedge between parents and children

Washington, DC, January, 2008 – Just released, Walking Targets: How Our Psychologized Classrooms Are Producing a Nation of Sitting Ducks is B. K. Eakman’s latest exposé of our educational system. This is a wake-up call for parents and educators alike. With over 40 articles covering Education, Family, Behavioral Science, Mental Health, Privacy, Political Correctness and Manipulation of Public Opinion the reader will come to see how educators and provocateurs are driving a wedge between parents and their children.

Walking Targets points to an agenda that begins with government-controlled childrearing and force-feeds young people a pseudo-education under the cover of "mental health," "safety," "jobs," and something called "lifelong learning." She shows how, under the cover of educational and mental-health testing, computer technologies popularly believed to be restricted to use in defense of our country, have been redirected for use in tracking the opinions of schoolchildren from the earliest years. She shows how psychographic techniques, once confined to market research, have been retooled for data-mining purposes.

“The hook to keep kids in school is lax dress codes, sports and entertainment even as the dropout rate continues to soar,” answered Ms. Eakman in explaining the book.

She went on to say, “I take issue with teaching methodologies whose primary purpose is to target the emotions rather than challenge the intellect. Teachers do not exist to strip away a parent’s belief system from children in their classrooms, and to then transmit ‘new’ values. Today parents are waking up to see children who are nothing like them – people they don’t know and who don’t even share what few values they have left.”

What people are saying:

Charles M. Richardson, Founder & Chairman of the Literacy Council in Long Island, NY

“Walking Targets is a devastating indictment of the pernicious partners intentionally sabotaging our education system. She correctly observes that one of the most critical casualties has been our diminished communication skills, compromising the nation’s ability to solve all its other problems.”

Arizona State Senator Karen S. Johnson

“Unlike most of the psychobabble that passes for advice to parents, this book hones in on the real problems with education today. No parent should enter the public school system before arming themselves with Walking Targets first. This book is the best parent guidebook there is on navigating the public school system.”

Richard L. Cutler, Ph.D., Vice-President, Univ. of Michigan, retired

National Association of Scholars, Michigan

“This book is terrific, insightful, provocative … a must-read for anyone who cares about kids and their education. Bev Eakman sees troubles ahead and tells us how ‘mental health’ devotees are taking kids down a fatal path to thought control.”

E. Ray Moore, Chaplain (Lt. Col.) USAR Ret., Director, Exodus Mandate

“Beverly Eakman astutely chronicles the psychological abuse taking place in the public-school classroom with impeccable credentials and incontrovertible conclusions. ... Walking Targets points to the ominous threat of government-controlled childrearing, the use of pseudo-education under the guise of mental health and lifelong learning as three means of controlling the beliefs of the population.”

Bruce Wiseman, US President Citizens Commission on Human Rights

“If you want to know who Big Brother is, what he does, and where he lives you need to read Beverly Eakman. She has been exposing behavioral psychology’s covert, attitude- manipulating agenda for more than two decades. Her current book, Walking Targets is no exception. ... If ‘Knowledge is Power,’ Walking Targets is empowerment at its finest. If we are to prevent our schools from becoming mental health clinics, it will be people like Beverly Eakman and books like Walking Targets that will point the way.”

This 301 page compilation of her published articles, capitalizes on the success of her three previously published books: Cloning of the American Mind: Eradicating Morality through Education, Educating for the New World Order, Microchipped: How the Education Establishment Took Us Beyond Big Brother and her workbook How to Counter Group Manipulation Tactics.

Walking Targets is just now rolling off the press, so it is not yet at the bookstores or some of the better-known online outlets. For fastest service at no additional cost, get the book directly from the printer through http://www.lulu.com/midnightwhistler, where it is now available for $24.95.