Some people like to say “I gave at the office” or “I made my annual donation two months ago.” All this is good but leaves you far short of what you opught to be doing. The likelihood that you can’t help more than you are doing is slim to none. Just skip two meals per month in your favorite fancy restaurant and send the saved money to some place where it will be appreciated much more than your local restauranteur. Consider what just happened in South Sudan.

BRUSSELS/NEW YORK, May 16, 2013—The international medical humanitarian organization Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) today strongly condemned the deliberate damage and looting of its hospital in Pibor town, in South Sudan’s Jonglei State, which has left tens of thousands of people without access to essential medical care.

The hospital’s infrastructure was systematically damaged May 11–12 in order to render it unusable without major repairs. Therapeutic medical food and hospital beds were looted. The MSF structure is the only hospital facility for Pibor County, with the nearest alternative more than 90 miles away. The hospital’s closure leaves roughly 100,000 people cut off from health care. Many of them have fled to the bush amid conflict between the South Sudan Army (SPLA) and the David YauYau armed militia group.

“A special effort was made to destroy drug supplies by strewing them on the ground, to cut and slash the warehouse tents, to ransack the hospital wards, and even to cut electricity cables and rip them from the walls,” said Richard Veerman, MSF operations coordinator for South Sudan.

From January to March, the Pibor hospital treated 3,000 people and provided surgical care to more than 100 people suffering war-related injuries, including SPLA soldiers. Prior to the attack, MSF was forced to suspend activities in Pibor on April 19 because of threats and intimidation of staff and patients.

“The rainy season has just started and we know from previous years that malaria and respiratory diseases such as pneumonia will start to claim lives if there is no health care available,” Veerman said. In a report issued in November last year, South Sudan’s Hidden Crisis, MSF documented the devastating health consequences when people are forced to flee to the bush.

An MSF team was preparing to return and restart medical activities when the looting and destruction took place. It was the sixth time an MSF medical facility has been looted or damaged in Jonglei State in the past two years.

“It is unthinkable that there will be no health care whatsoever for the next six months for some 100,000 frightened and vulnerable people hiding in the swamps,” Veerman said. “Unless we can return to resume medical activities and have the freedom to move to wherever people need assistance, this unthinkable scenario may become the horrific reality.”

MSF urges the Government of South Sudan to meet its responsibilities to ensure full respect of medical humanitarian facilities and activities. MSF also calls urgently for assurances from all parties in the Jonglei State conflict that its medical teams have unhindered freedom to return to Pibor and the ability to reach out impartially to people in need of medical assistance, on either side of the conflict. Humanitarian and medical assistance is urgently needed in Pibor County and must be resumed in the coming days or weeks.

MSF works in Akobo, Nyirol, Pibor, and Uror counties in Jonglei State. The activities in all locations, including Gumuruk Clinic in Pibor County, continue to function, with the exception of the hospital in Pibor town and the MSF clinic in the village of Lekwongole in Pibor County, which was targeted and damaged in August 2012 and where insecurity and fighting have made access impossible for MSF.

Twenty bucks to help in this crisis would be very sweet. [And maybe again in two months]

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpBvKgL8Obo
www.samaritanspurse.org

and, of course, Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF)

Ernest Hemingway (or somebody else) once said those who have never seen a bullfight have no business criticizing the “sport.” [sic] I agree. The bloodlust and thrill of watching death cannot be exaggerated. I have never seen a bullfight but I know. I know because of my own spine-tingling episodes with killing and torturing. I think it is safe for me now to confess to my deeds that happened 65 years ago, especially since nobody can testify to what I did and most people will assume I am engaged in a lying boast. Here is what I did. I raped and tortured three girls, killing one of them because she pleaded loudly for her life.

Ah, what joy it was. I am afraid that if I revealed details, people would criticize me, insult me and, worst of all, try to put me in jail. Like Hemingway, I say that unless you have done it yourself, you have no business criticizing me. And to this day I have nothing but respect and admiration for matadors. It is with much sadness I have just learned that the sport is in decline. Animal rights advocates have been hot on the trail of bull breeders for five years, and bullfighting once the purveyor of much pleasure will soon be a thing of the past. In 2007 there were 3,700 bullfight festivals in Spain but this has shrunk annually to 2,300. It is a shameful time in Spain’s history. The region of Catalona has actually banned the great national pastime altogether. The economy is crumbling. Bullfighting is still a $3.3 billion industry, and I pray it won’t get lower because 10,000 people from matadors and breeders down to bullring workers and promoters desperately depend on the deaths of bulls so they can go on living. Juan Pedro Domecq, a breeder, says the the economic crisis is huge. Small breeders are being driven out of business and matador colleges are suffering, too. The big property boom in bullfight towns has burst. In somewhat odd language, the survival of the bulls is “killing us” says Mr. Domecq. Bullfight attendance is down 10% in just the last year, and bulls are living longer. To say, as animal rights spokespersons do, that that this survival trend is all for the good makes an anti-macabre joke of the matter.

What can be done to halt this spread of life? Nothing much, I’m afraid. Some people always preach education but where will that get lovers of corridas? Everything one needs to know to make an honest objective assessment is already out there. Sniff the hundreds of gallons of fresh blood and you will know all you need to know. Until I was ten years old, my mother prepared a pound of bloodied flesh for me twice weekly. So lightly did she cook the martyrs that I could hear them groan as I stabbed my knife deep into their flesh. Each stab yielded exquisite pleasure for me. How I miss those days!

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OLÉ1 This will help cure those lowlives who are not passionate about bullfights.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=endscreen&NR=1&v=jPE33jwbTy0

For the Ladies. CHRISTINA SANCHEZ! Magnifica. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-uxf3B22Ono&feature=endscreen&NR=1

I say, LOVE HER OR GET GORED!

GOOD NEWS! Suicide has taken over from car crashes and other accidents as the third leading cause of the permanent ending of the vital processes in cells and tissues, what the squeamish call being dead as a doornail. Only those two bores, cancer and heart disease top it. In 1999, suicide was mired in 8th place but it has made a respectable surge among those in the 35-64 cohort thanks to the worst recession in decades that wiped out stock market wealth, home equity, college savings and retirement funds – the principal evil-doers.

I know about these wealth subsidies only 2nd hand since I manage quite well, thank you, on my fixed $72,000 per annum plus the largesse of the ex-clarinet player who wakes up in bed alongside me nearly every morning. [She made her fortune on a money-saving clarinet scholarship to college plus 51 years of servitude as a (pardon the expression) professor of history, dedicated to enhancing the well-being of our youth. In fact, just last month, the powers-that-be boosted her income by $7000 over and beyond her normal yearly adjustment, for no better reason than that she is very good at what she does.]

In 1999 about 29,181 people (more or less) checked themselves out of life’s rat race but that number has grown to 38,364. Good news, indeed.

Men have led the charge by a ratio of 4-to-1 according to a man (a survivor) at the Suicide Prevention Division of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, otherwise known simply as SPDSAMHSA54271LLK3. [Like Tevye's staircase, SPDSAMHSA54271LLK3 has letters and numerals going nowhere just for show.] According to SPDS -please, you know the rest – men kill themselves in lieu of seeking therapy. They tend to suffer bouts of bipolar disorder, concentrating on the mania part of the pole. In short, they kill themselves because they are having too much fun. I know this problem very well from the inside. Last week, my wife forcibly held me down as I reached for my supply of strychnine. This was occasioned by a side-splitting joke I had just heard that was unbearably funny. [Aside to The Grim: Four friends of mine with the Ph.D. degree in psychology told me I don't understand the nature of mania.] I also don’t understand what the 4-to-1 ratio is. Is that 4 male wolves to each female pussycat? OR WHAT? I have also been told that men kill themselves because they have wives and wives tend not to have wives. Certainly sounds right, doesn’t it?

An official over at NAASP [just forget it and don't ask what that means or I will tell you and then you'll be sorry] says that so far as middle-aged men are concerned “the safety net for working adults has a lot of big holes in it.” It’s “creeping erosion” according to an official over at IJCRCSP, which is a division of CDC. I suspect that one very good reason middle-aged men are killing themselves is that in order to get good jobs they have to be adept at learning acronyms. Obama is planning to increase the budget for mental health services by a couple million bucks. And you wonder why I can’t stand the guy?

I have often raved, (admittedly) quite out of control, against the medical industry [a.k.a. the self-described "medical profession"] and am aware that this hot-headed treatment of these maniacs gets me nowhere and certainly wins me no friends. Still, all I can say in my defense, and it is not much, I confess, is that I am ALWAYS RIGHT.

Now, a man with a more dispassionate approach has written a devastating critique of physicians in so far as they deal with dying patients. Jonathan Rauch is the man with good sense and Angelo Volandes, a 41-year old assistant professor at Harvard medical School is the hero of Rauch’s article. And what an article it is! If this article won’t help swing you over to my side, I really should give up. But, of course, you know perfectly well that, like Volandes, I won’t.

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2013/05/how-not-to-die/309277/

As people say, if you have time to read only one article this year, make it this one.

I speak as the president of the Gendin Idiosyncrasy Club.

I’m glad the Democrats went down to defeat yesterday as they continued their stupid, vicious quest for law and order. I want guns only in the hands of registered hoodlums and Mafia gangsters. I live in dread of gun-packing police who flaunt their weapons openly and I’m not crazy about rifle-bearing “sportsmen.”

Obama and his sycophants present their opponents as either irrational or in the pockets of the moneyed NRA. Bah! Obama himself and his weird followers are in pursuit of ducks, geese and deer…and proud of it. These creatures do not have a forceful lobby. The best that bears can do is to wear those funny placards around their necks that say, SUPPORT THE RIGHT OF BEARS TO BEAR ARMS. That won’t hack it.

I would be glad to give up my 2nd Amendment right to go packing in the dismal hope I will some day bring down some humans who trespass in my garden if those Democratic trespassers would be willing to surrender once and for all their hunting licenses. What’s that saying? Quid pro quo? I love mongrelized Hungarian.

Much as I love my little 6-shot 38 caliber revolver, it ain’t much compared to those heavy rifles you can buy at Cabella’s Store For Killing. I can make the sacrifice if the Cabella gang can do likewise.

Meanwhile, Kenya man, quit your bellyaching.

MONDAY’S GAMES AND FROLICS

Boston Massacre 3 dead.
Kabul, Afghanistan – 24 dead.
Mogadishu, Somalia – 38 dead.
Combined all-star team in Iraq – 61 dead, 271 wounded.

The major leagues are tough and the Boston Marathon just doesn’t have what it takes to make the Big Time. However, our prayers and well-wishing thoughts go out to all the victims and their families and especially to Michelle Obama and her two kids, Sasha and Malia, as they busy themselves grieving as proxies for all America.

Very shortly after the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers, aggressive comedians started to tell jokes about what had just happened. Their detractors groaned and and objected: “Too soon, too soon.” But was it too soon? Did we have to have a period of healing? I’m on the side of the comedians. It is never too soon. Nothing is better proof to the enemy of our so-called resilience than that we meet them so quickly and that we can stun them with our tough-minded responses.

Resilience can be shown in lots of ways. In my own feeble way it is via my strong objection to the saccharine sweetness of the Kenyan’s reassurance that we will get the evils-doers, make no mistake about that. In the meanwhile, he solemnly declared, our thoughts and prayers go out to the victims and their families.

HOGWASH! Sickening hogwash. The word “will” can mean “resolve” or it can be used as a prediction. The president is either ignorant of the difference or chose to run roughshod over it. At best, he could have meant “We are resolved as a people to catch the freaks who blasted away at the Boston Marathon.” He did not have the guts to say that. No, indeed, he preferred “We WILL get the bad guys,” in the strongest sense of the term “will.” I coulld tolerate this standard obfuscation by the president had he not tagged on “…our prayers go out to all….” MINE DON’T. Millions of others join me. We don’t pray to a false SKYKING. We think that does more harm than good. Right or wrong, we deserve not to be ignored. When he is not mawkishly on parade, the president likes to proclaim there is plenty of room in a democracy for pluralistic values that include atheism. Every previous president was equally hypocritical. They are all false dogs.

The post-blast parade of VIPs straining to show they are the VIPS assaulted our intelligence and patience. Amazing to me is that Charles Schumer, the senator most passionate about being included in every photo shoot, was not there. Even he, for once, knew when to back off. A ton of others took their turns at the microphones to invoke God’s goodness. Other senators, other senators’ ex-sisters-in-law’s cousins, governors, et al, took a shot at the camera. Or course, forewarned is forearmed , so you can bet those cousins informed their ex-sisters-in-law that they were scheduled to have their three minutes of fame at whatever time they did manage to grab.

This is precisely the moment for good comedians to step in, and I hope they do. Gilbert Gottfried — where are you?

The federal sequester, (the across-the-board cuts in federal spending) that took effect March 1, is an assault on the Sixth Amendment right to counsel. The sequester is financially squeezing federal defenders. Consider what is happening in the Southern and Eastern Districts of New York, which comprise the federal trial courts for New York City and some surrounding counties.

There are 280 prosecutors against 38 Federal Defender lawyers, who represent approximately 40 percent of the New York metropolitan area’s federal criminal defendants. The sequester will slash the budget of the defenders for the next six months by 20 percent by forcing these 38 defense lawyers to take an average of six weeks of furlough, more than one day a week. The alternative was laying off one third of the lawyers. As of now, the prosecutors will take no furlough…. In the landmark case of Gideon vs. Wainwright in 1963, the U.S. Supreme Court unanimously overturned a notorious decision that proclaimed that only in capital cases do defendants have a right to state-appointed counsel. But now, what we assumed to be a Sixth Amendment right is subordinate to good old-fashioned MONEY. Are you really surprised?

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A GOOD DOSE OF DEATH

Amnesty International has released its annual compilation of capital punishment trends. Only 21 countries were recorded as having carried out executions in 2012, the same as in 2011, but down from 28 countries a decade earlier. It said at least 682 executions were known to have been carried out worldwide in 2012, two more than 2011, and at least 1,722 death sentences were imposed in 58 countries, compared with 1,923 imposed in 63 countries the year before….[Don't ask me how 58 countries carried out executions when only 21 are recorded as carrying out executions. Mathematics is a mysterious thing.]

The big slayers, as per usual, were China, whose total was not released, Iran 314, Iraq 129, Saudi Arabia 79. The United States trailed badly with 43. People were zapped, hanged, bludgeoned and poisoned for a range of crimes including non-violent drug-related and economic offences, but also for “apostasy”, “blasphemy”, and “adultery.” [Hell, nothing wrong with making these capital offenses.] India, Japan, Pakistan and Gambia, all of which had seemed to aboard the anti-death penalty bandwagon have now reversed course. An Amnesty official in Singapore said, “Every human life is precious”. This is downright WRONG but you get the idea which, in general, is that killing is bad business and we can get along just fine without it. It doesn’t do much good for the anti-death penalty crowd to exaggerate and wander into stupidity. Of course the case against killing is made easy by the insanity of the countries that rely on it. In Iran, four people were executed last June for “enmity against God.” This should make atheists of us all.

It’s mostly Islamic states that are committed to butchering but please don’t let that influence your good opinion of Muslim people. Do you want a scorecard? Sure. You can’t tell your butchers without them: In addition to the above champions of death, we have Afghanistan, Bangladesh, N. Korea, Indonesia, Ghana, Palestine (those sweethearts who would restrict the penalty to Jews, if they had the power to do so), Somalia, Sudan and South Sudan. Small fry trying to make names for themselves.

The USA is fiendishly trying to maintain its status as a big leaguer with its 43 executions: Texas (15) and Mississippi (6) lead the way but don’t count a few others out as mere pretenders to the throne. Awaiting their moments to die are 77 others in such hotbeds of common sense as Florida (22), California (13) and Pennsylvania (7).

Cuba, that godawful bastion of communism, does not have even one person under sentence of death. Don’t you just hate Fidel Castro?

The Battle of Gettysburg was the bloodiest and most pivotal battle of the American Civil War and it decisively turned the war in the Union favor. Joshua Chamberlain, a man of staggering ability as a diarist who would go on to be president of Bowdoin College and governor of Maine offered this (SG: abbreviated) account of the battle.

“But we can hold our spirits and our bodies so pure and high, we may cherish such thoughts and such ideals, and dream such dreams of lofty purpose, that we can determine and know what manner of men we will be, whenever and wherever the hour strikes and calls to noble action…Every pioneer and musician who could carry a musket went into the ranks. Even the sick and foot-sore, who could not keep up in the march, came up as soon as they could find their regiments, and took their places in line of battle, while it was battle, indeed. I long to be in the Field again, doing my part to keep the old flag up, with all its stars.

“But we had with us, to keep and to care for, more than five hundred bruised bodies of men, – men made in the image of God, marred by the hand of man, and must we say in the name of God? And where is the reckoning for such things? And who is answerable? One might almost shrink from the sound of his own voice, which had launched into the palpitating air words of order – do we call it? – fraught with such ruin. Was it God’s command we heard, or His forgiveness we must forever implore?….But out of that silence rose new sounds more appalling still; a strange ventriloquism, of which you could not locate the source, a smothered moan, as if a thousand discords were flowing together into a key-note weird, unearthly, terrible to hear and bear, yet startling with its nearness; the writhing concord broken by cries for help, some begging for a drop of water, some calling on God for pity; and some on friendly hands to finish what the enemy had so horribly begun; some with delirious, dreamy voices murmuring loved names, as if the dearest were bending over them; and underneath, all the time, the deep bass note from closed lips too hopeless, or too heroic to articulate their agony…It seemed best to bestow myself between two dead men among the many left there by earlier assaults, and to draw another crosswise for a pillow out of the trampled, blood-soaked sod, pulling the flap of his coat over my face to fend off the chilling winds, and still more chilling, the deep, many voiced moan that overspread the field.

“This struggle of an hour & a half, was desperate in the extreme: four times did we lose & win that space of ten yards between the contending lines, which was strewn with dead & dying. I repeatedly sent to the rear reports of my condition, that my ammunition was exhausted, & that I could hold the position but a few minutes longer. In the mean time I seized the opportunity of a momentary repulse of the enemy, to gather the contents of every cartridge box of the dead & dying, friend & foe, & with these we met the enemy on their last & most desperate assault. In the midst of this, our ammunition utterly failed, our fire, as it was too terribly evident, had slackened, half my left wing lay on the ground, & although I had brought two companies from the right to strengthen it, the left wing was reduced to a mere skirmish line. Officers came to me, shouting that we were “annihilated”, & men were beginning to face the rear. I saw that the defensive could be maintained not an instant longer, & with a few gallant officers rallied the line, ordered “bayonets fixed,” & “forward” on the run. My men went down upon the enemy with a wild shout, the two wings were brought into one line again. I directed the whole Regiment to take intervals at 5 paces by the left flank, & change direction to the right, all this without checking our speed, thus keeping my right connected with the 83rd Penna, while the left swept around to the distance of half a mile. In this charge the bayonet only was used on our part, & the rebels seemed so petrified with astonishment that their front line scarcely offered to run or fire—they threw down their arms & begged “not to be killed”, & we captured them by whole companies. We took 368 prisoners. . .

“The prisoners were amazed & chagrinned to see the smallness of our numbers, for there were only one hundred & ninety eight men who made this charge, & the prisoners admitted that they had a full Brigade.” [SG: Chamberlain commanded 20th Maine regiment at the battle.] This is great writing and inspires envy in all would-be writers.

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Just 3,400 years earlier, another great Joshua showed what he could do. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ks7fLAwzVxY

When you reach age 65 this game becomes one of your favorites, king of invulnerability that you think you are. When you are 80 it becomes distasteful. At age 90, there is a reversal and the game is absolutely fun. At that age, death expectancy become a game that holds little dread for you. That influences your bets. Let’s take a look.

When you are born, things are looking up. Out of every 100,000 live births, only 738 of your gang will die before reading their first birthday. Not bad. Not even 1 per 1000. Probability of dying is only 0.007379. You are tapped for life until age 75, March 15 (assuming you were born on January 1.) Actually, year One is a bad year. Things get better and better until age 10. Only 10 kids per 100,000 kick the old Oaken Bucket before reaching age 11. You’re scheduled to die at age 76.08. 99,065 of that old gang of yours (assuming your gang is 100,000 strong)are pretty hale and hearty). So when the Grim Reaper comes around and says, “What do you say, Pal? I can guarantee you 60 more years (to age 70 or you can take your chances), you kick the Bamboozler out the door because you know that 72,066 of that old Gang Of Yours will still be going along. The downside potential is not much. You will probably be alive at 83.7. The upside potential looks good. GO FOR IT. Don’t think twice.

Sure, soon enough, within 5 years, you learn from the boy sitting next to you that flies like bananas but time flies swiftly like an arrow and that powerfully influences your thinking. You resume the game when you are 60 years old. Will you or will you not take bets on your probable day of death?

Old Man Reaper comes around and says, “Sonny, you are getting on my nerves. Will you play with me or won’t you? I never cheat. I don’t have to. I own an HP-45 calculator I got as a present from Carly Fiorina and I trust my own life with it. Here’s The NEW DEAL. FDR should have taken it but the old schmuck, Jew-hater was too stupid and vain. He thought he could outlive other polio victims.

You know I’ll probably come to collect your bones in 20.92 years. You may think that’s pretty good but consider: 4000 of every 100,000 in your old gang, that you so fancily call your “cohort” have bitten the dust. More and more they are succumbing the Unpleasant Way – the Big C. Their last couple of years are not always fun. Sex with 16 year old kids has gone out the window ever since you turned 55. I sympathize with you. You’e attractive only to women your age. So, here’s the deal. Six good, almost great, months and then you are mine or youse tosses the dice and takes your chances. You may squeeze out 16.92 more years, maybe more. The upside doesn’t look good. Your bones will be creaking, your disposition will be worse than that of Sidney Gendin – and it don’t get much worse den dat. At 80, the old gang is rapidly disappearing. In fact, only 47,974 of your original 100,000 jerk “colleagues” are still holding the line. 16,300 of them will be dead within 5 years. They have dreams of making it past age 90 but only 15,722 of them will. Anyway, what would be the point? By age 90, your great grandchildren hate you and are counting the cash you will leave them. The food at SkyHigh Willow stinks to heaven and you won’t care much about events in Cyprus. Be smart. Come with me.

Are you confused? To Be Or Not To be, etc. That sort of thing weighs on your vacillating, sluggish proteins in your remnant of a brain. The Prince should have killed himself. The fish in Denmark is rotten and everyone was gunning for him. To coin a phrase, he was a dope.

BUT LOOK! Ted Drange is now 115 years old. His life expectancy is down to zero but it has been zero for the past four years. Back exercises, lots of walking, plenty of good Finnish/Scandinavian food, encouragement from his 75 year old grandchildren who want him to set a good example. Daily, they come to the weight gym where he works out and cry out in unison:

Go, Go, Go!

If you were Ted Drange, you’d be out of your mind to take The Grim Reaper’s offer. In fact, Ted has his own deal with the Reaper: “Stop bugging me and I’ll give you another 1000 years to be a nuisance to others. It’s a pretty good deal, too. The downside potential is higher than you think. the upside may disappoint you.”