What Defines the 'Real Citizen'? Why Should We Care?

"In every government on earth is some trace of human weakness, some germ of corruption and degeneracy, which cunning will discover and wickedness insensibly open."

Thomas Jefferson, in 'Notes on Virginia'.


After my wife (at the culmination of her hundreds of hours of genealogy research), uncovered that a distant but direct ancestor- Jacob Jockel Brumbaugh (1734- 1816) - fought in the Revolutionary War (4th Co., Lancaster PA) , it now started to make sense why I have such an obsession with genuine citizens' rights, and why I so often take umbrage at our people being casually dismissed as "consumers" or "folks". (Not to mention our gov't not being forthright as to the truth about our history, such as in the JFK assassination) It is as if all the market forces on offer are arrayed to keep our citizen-active consciousness at the basest, most rudimentary level....of half -conscious cogs. The better to manipulate us.

This brings me to the concept of the "real citizen". Of course, most of our population regard themselves as true citizens to the core. But ARE they? I myself believe being a citizen means much more than voting at each opportunity or being able to recall several facts about the governing system, or naming one's reps or Senators.  It is, to me, a deep and almost tactile awareness of one's role in exposing the real workings of our system and how it often isn't living up to our justified expectations. So, what can we say defines or delineates the real citizen, as opposed to the wannabe?

First, the REAL Citizen contradicts by definition the hegemony of the market idiom embodied in the label “consumer”, just as he transcends the common denominator-ish put down of “folks” -  used to lump him with the non-aware, semi-conscious and comatose among us. The real citizen, in other words, perceives the interest of the commonweal over his or her own passing fancies, or hedonist pursuits. This necessarily will cause the Real Citizen’s values, principles to clash with market-capital values, or quotidian efforts to marginalize his worth.


Thus, the real citizen may see a clear need to reduce sprawl by imposing gasoline taxes - but the market will shudder. Or - to the same end - the citizen will seek to impose stringent zoning laws to inhibit adverse development (such as fracking) in his community, and again the market will quake.

The real citizen will also see a critical need for a national health service - given the millions that can't afford private insurance - and again the market will go ballistic as well as those its purveyors and PR-meisters have successfully brainwashed After all, the Neoliberal hucksters and their coercive markets want only profit, not the practice of genuine medicine.


The real citizen will see the need for the prioritizing of public or civic space above encroaching commercial interests in many venues (most especially media - perhaps imposing a tax on E-M spectrum usage for the corporate megaliths)- for which capitalists and the markets will squeal like stuck pigs.

The real citizen will additionally see the need for fairness in tax liability. So, he will pressure government to alter the existing tax burden - which is now 80% on wage earners as opposed to only twenty percent on corporations. To the same end, the citizen will pressure to abolish corporate tax havens - such as had been employed by Tyco Corp. in Bermuda. Merely hanging out a shingle to escape $400 million in tax liability, a scheme not available to the average Joe or Jane - who must also compensate for corporate tax escapes. Along with this, seeing fiscal or financial peril ahead, the real citizen will agitate for all existing tax cuts to be terminated, based on the belief that the long term fiscal health is more important than a temporary relief that will undercut future benefits when most needed. So, he doesn't buy into the malarkey of a "fiscal cliff" but regards it as transparent pap for the less mentally well -endowed.

Hence,  millions of real citizens - all pursuing the common interest and general welfare with equal diligence- are bound to be definitely something a capitalist –consumption society  (and its overseers) doesn't want, or need. Much better to satiate the bumbling, half-aware “folks” with umpteen distractions and induce them to spend (using the psychological brainwashing state of the Gruen Transfer- which disarms all conscious, cognitive centers in the classic market transaction).

Thereby, the  real citizen seeks to enlighten the sheeple among us who gravitate forevermore toward rank consumption, while being forced to ply the work-spend treadmill. The real citizen seeks to educate the uninformed "consumers" that  their work loads - to pay down on the consumption debt accumulated-  is devastating to their life quality, not to mention intellect.

Apart from that, we know politicians prefer consumers to real citizens - because the latter will tend to hold them to much greater account, citing the Constitution ad nauseam, as well as failure to uphold it and the general welfare. Real citizens are therefore “pains in the ass” since they reckon in leaders’ actual performance, not merely their vacuous 4-yearly promises. The real citizen also reckons in actual legislation passed – especially that which has been purchased by corporate campaign money - over laws in the citizens' interest.

The politician, indeed, has reason to fear the real citizen given he's the real deal, the genuine No BS article, relative to his consumptive clone, or those who just fell off the turnip truck and whom the politico  dismissively refers to as “folks”. For the Real citizen is his worst nightmare come true: A thoroughly knowledgeable and critical individual who will not hesitate to cry 'foul' and even become pro-active when the need arises. And who will not shrink from asking hard questions when they need to be asked.   Other noteworthy hallmarks of the Real Citizen:  

1) The Real Citizen doesn’t need a ‘pledge’ or song to remind him of his duties and obligations – he knows his Bill of Rights and more importantly exercises them. (Use them or lose them!)

2) The Real Citizen understands that the flag is the symbol for the principles enshrined in the Bill of Rights – and to that extent cannot be placed above those principles. Hence, he requires no ‘flag desecration’ amendments to bolster his patriotism or make him feel better if someone else chooses to use the flag as the focal point of protest.

3) The Real Citizen - above all - doesn’t confuse the nation he loves with the corporatocratic, toxic SYSTEM which confers disproportionate power on corporations in relation to the PEOPLE. Only flesh and blood PEOPLE can have rights – not legal artifacts. And the government is supposed to be FOR and about real flesh and blood PEOPLE (also known as CITIZENS)  - not granting corporations carte blanche to ravage the country at will. (As payback for campaign contributions and other largesse).

The REAL citizen - by the above account- is absolutely essential to the exercise of a genuine democracy. For as Thomas Jefferson noted in his 'Notes on Virginia', to the extent the people's minds are improved they will hold check the worst excesses of government. (Which, he added, will always tend toward tyranny otherwise). If the people's minds are degraded (as they are by market values, consumption for its own sake and egotistical satiation of personal desires) they will become mere pawns or tools for a despotic government to wield any way it wants, such as willing cheerleaders for more wars.

Would that we had more Real citizens, as opposed to pretenders, as we now approach what is arguably the most critical election of the last quarter century.

Facebook's Share Price Collapse: What It May Portend

One of the main themes of discussion on this morning's  'Morning Joe' was the dramatic collapse of Facebook's share price - from just over $38 a share at its initial offering, to barely $20.04 yesterday at the close of the bell. It was noted that this amounts to a "$50 billion loss" in shareholder value, market capitalization. The bigger question is what it portends, but first one must come to terms with the underlying reasons for the collapse which are generally only briefly mentioned, and if one isn't paying attention he could miss it.

A big reason, maybe the biggest, is inability to translate the ubiquitous availability of Facebook into a steady, predictable income stream-  a consistent monetization if you will. Massively figuring into this is the fact that currently nearly 50% of users access it via mobile phone or blackberry. These media while convenient for users do not lend themselves for getting the users' eyeballs on assorted Facebook ads. For that matter, even desk top users are not really so inclined, or to use the words of one financial maven: "The only reason a person would click on an ad is if he's drunk".

The second reason is less known, or less widely known and has to do with 1 million new users added in the past year but most of whom are old (e.g. age 60+)  "farts".  In other words, the original youngish users' grandpas and grandmas only now feeling confident enough to risk being "friended" (or the converse). We know, from past experience (and this is a sad commentary on the balkanization of American intergenerational culture) that once a new fad or whizzbang gizmo comes onstream, it is abandoned as "uncool" when the oldsters latch onto it. The mathematical function is a low degree negative exponential like N = exp (-0.1x) where N denotes  total  original users + newbies, and x denotes the old farts added.

As to what it portends, if we are to accept the premises in Thomas Frank's chapter 'I want my NYSE' in his book "One Market Under God", we can look forward to a certain Wall Street imperative soon being applied to Facebook, and hence to its users. Ordinarily, for a 'brick and mortar' company, massive layoffs would be called for - similar to what 'Chainsaw Al Dunlap' did with Sunbeam USA in the 90s. Once Chainsaw Al sliced those U.S. jobs and dispatched them to Mexico - with rates of pay at barely $1 /hr, the "Street" smiled and all was well. (At least until the "Street" got miffed again and Chainsaw had to dispense with the Mexican operations as well.)

But since Facebook and its computer gurus is already labor efficient this will be as likely to occur as all the Republicans being beamed aboard an alien mother ship before the November elections.

More than likely then, Wall Street's honchos will insist Facebook forcibly monetize large parts of its user platform and interface ...if it wants to stay on the big boards, and not suffer demotion. Recall in the late 90s a number of companies were tossed directly off the DOW for not following through on directives to enhance shareholder value. Green eyeshade types at the time praised the turnover and the fact that "30% of the DOW changed hands on just one day".  Is this a good thing? We don't know - but it does make one question the validity of the DOW's (statistical)  behavior over time periods extending from before the change took place.

So this is maybe a heads up to Facebook users, that if you want to keep on keeping on with your social connections; you may have to pay a small price, or fee. Or more likely a specific monthly fee for some special aspect of the Facebook user interface used or accessed X number of times (Like the NY Times and a number of other sites now do).  Once that happens, the Big Boys on Maul Street may finally smile on Mark Zuckerberg and pals, and say - 'Hey, you can stay on....since your share values are now rising! Keep that P/E ratio soaring".

But we shall see!

Teddy Bear Invasion Upsets a Regime!

A couple of the 879 Teddy Bears parachuting into Belarus

The eight hundred and seventy nine teddy bears were strapped in for the flight of their lives. Ensconced in a small light aircraft, set to take off from Pociunai airfield in Southern Lithuania - destination: Belarus. The home of the world's "last dictator", President Alexander Lukashenko. The stunt, masterminded by two radical Swedes - Thomas Mazetti and Hannah Frey - was to accomplish two objectives: 1) show that Belarus airspace was not impenetrable, and 2) dispatch freedom messages in Russian and English (using small signs attached to the bears) as they landed.

The trick was parachuting them into a hostile territory while flying at an altitude of barely 50 meters, or 150 feet. Moreover, doing it for one and a half hours, enough time to allow all 879 bears to skydive into history - marking the first time ever toy bears have brought down two generals - one the nation's Air Defense Chief-  of this objectionable regime. (After denying the whole event, which transpired on July 4, Lukashenko - as photos were produced - eventually acknowledged it and fired two of his top generals on Tuesday.)

Meanwhile, all the landed teddy bears have been captured and impounded while the two Swedes have petitioned for their release. In addition, a young Belarussian photographer who captured the teddies as they landed has been imprisoned by the regime. He committed 'treason' by providing undeniable evidence that toy bears could penetrate Belarus' airspace . This despite the Air Defense Chief's claims the bears didn't really exist. They were a figment of western imaginations run amuck.

The two young radicals, who have more 'balls' between them than most of the Dems in the U.S. congress -especially after 19 have now voted with the Repugs to allow Bush tax cuts for ALL-  were a year in preparation for the event, including purchasing the 3-seater Jodel aircraft that carried the bears into enemy territory. They financed the $184,000 stunt using earnings from their work at a small ad agency.

Lukashenko, still red-faced from the embarrassment of invading teddy bears, has vowed to never ever let such a foul travesty happen again under his reign. He promises swift retribution for the culprits, execution of all the bears, and shoring up his air defenses and border alerts.

Meanwhile,. Per Cromwell, founder of Studio Total wrote in an open letter to the Belarusian president:

“You have spent 20 billions of euros on an air defence system that could not detect a homebuilt aeroplane with a cargo of teddy bears,"

Long live the Teddy bears!
.

Robert Samuelson: Perpetual Neolib Hack - Scolds Us for Our "Fear"

"....the depth and persistence of poverty in America is unique among developed industrialized nations. The gap between the poor and the rich is bigger. Mobility--access to the American Dream--is less.

Born rich? You'll more likely to die rich in the U.S. than in other countries. Born poor? You're likelier to die poor."

-Blogger Ted Rall ('Our Suicidal Ruling Class')

It's a pity that WaPo columnist Robert Samuelson, he of the prime Neoliberal genes and memes, instead of regularly bloviating and spreading his economic crappola, doesn't read more material like Ted Rall's. The he would see why his daft, repetitive injunctions to "invest" ought to fall on deaf ears. But he doesn't so no surprise he's at it again ('Unprecedented Fear of Failure Is Still Controlling the Economy') scolding the rest of us for our "fear of failure" to trust our economic system to deliver. We ought to desist and part with these nascent fears (never mind derivatives such as credit default swaps are still unregulated and contaminating almost every financial instrument) and overcome our "shrunken confidence in the power of economics".

Question: WHY should we?

First, Samuelson doesn't remotely grasp the reasons for the laggard economy. He, typical of his Neoliberal, "free market" worshipping ilk, believe it all has to do with the rich top 1% hotshots. He believes they're all sitting on the sidelines - not creating jobs- because THEY are terrified of "uncertainty". No they are not! They are doing very well, living the high life on their 350' mega-luxury yachts, dining on caviar and whatnot as they ponder their hedge fund returns.

Counter that with the substantive take from a  REAL economist, Joseph Stiglitz, who does get it but whose views don't occupy half the column space or air time of a Samuelson. As Stiglitz observes in his Sunday 'Perspective' Denver Post article ('Inequality Hurts Prosperity in the U.S.'):

"Any solution to today's problems requires addressing the economy's underlying weakness: a deficiency in aggregate demand. Firms won't invest if there is no demand for their products. And one of the key reasons for lack of demand is America's level of inequality - the highest in the world."

Indeed, in earlier blogs I referenced the measure for assessing this inequality is the Gini coefficient, and ours now ranks next to that of Mexico and the Phillippines.  Stiglitz expatiates further:

"Since those at the top spend a much smaller portion of their income than those in the middle and bottom, when money moves from the bottom and middle to the top (as it has been happening the last dozen years) demand drops. the best way to promote employment today and sustained economic growth for the future, therefore, is to focus on the underlying problem of inequality. And this better economic performance in return will generate more tax revenue, improving the country's fiscal position."

Stiglitz then goes on to note that even tax cut crazy "supply siders" ought to comprehend that our inequality doesn't come explicitly from market forces. Instead, he pins the tail on "rent seeking" by those with the greatest resources and income leverage to game the rest of the system for THEIR benefit. In effect, their aim is to "increase the share of the pie THEY get, rather than increasing the pie itself".

Examples of rent-seeking include (ibid.):

- Corporate executives in the U.S. taking advantage of deficiencies in corporate governance laws to seize an increasing share of corporate revenue - enriching themselves at the expense of stake holders (and share holders!)

- Big PhrMA companies lobbying successfully to prevent the federal gov't (the largest buyer of prescription drugs) from bargaining for the lowest prices. Such a move for Medicare (like for the VA) would save over a hundred BILLION each year (Stiglitz estimates because of this comfy deal taxpayers overpaid by nearly a TRILLION dollars over the past decade)

- Mineral companies getting resources at below competitive prices

- Oil companies receiving billions in "gifts" each year through the continued Oil Depletion Tax Allowance (which JFK proposed terminating in June, 1963)

- Construction (by lawmakers - on the take via legalized bribery) of bankruptcy laws that give risky derivatives priority in bundling them in with innocuous financial instruments (to enable bailouts if the instruments and companies - liek AIG- hit the crapper later)  but which deny bankruptcy protection for the discharging of accumulated student loan debts.

As Stiglitz observes, all such rent seeking distorts the economy and further makes a mockery of the Neoliberals' favorite line of pap: that the free market works in all participants' advantage if they only acquire enough knowledge. Horse manure! The fact is, with specialized advanced info tips going to large investors, for example, the small fry investor is always at a disadvantage- as he is because of computer flash trading.

In reality, the "free market" is total horse shit, and a primary Neoliberal myth which alas, too many of our citizens (who'd laugh if you told them you observed a little green man crawl out of a spaceship) accept without batting an eye. The truth is we have no "free market" and probably haven't since the 1910s, or earlier. What we have are coercive -control markets manipulated by the largest multinationals, Wall Street imperatives (i.e. cutting labor to enhance productivity), and of course, wealthy rent seeker -assholes.

The free market is thus a construct of the Neoliberal Media and PR establishment which invokes such nonsense to spread false consciousness, so that those left with no jobs (shipped off to China, compliments of Bain) and no prospects will tend to blame themselves as opposed to the rigged economic system. There you have the fundamental attribution error. And THIS is exactly what the Neoliberal twerp Robert Samuelson seeks to spread.

How to know if a market is free or coerced? Charles Reich provided the test ('Opposing the System’, 1995, p. 22):

"A free market produces results that favor the health of society as a whole, because an essential balance is maintained. But in a coercive market, the balance is destroyed, the earning power of work and the standard of living of workers declines, and society as a whole is devastated while those with economic power gain an ever more unbalanced share of the nation's economic wealth"

This is exactly what we have with the top 1% controlling 57% of the nation's wealth, and 400 billionaires with the same monetary resources as 150 million fellow citizens!

Meanwhile, what is Samuelson's pathetic excuse:

"There is a loss of faith in economic ideas - and government policies based on them - driven by most economists' failure to anticipate the financial crisis and many subsequent events".

And why, pray tell, was there this 'failure of anticipation'?  This is Samuelson's and those "economists" blind spot! The failure to comprehend that at root the system we have is derelict and malfunctioning, since it serves only to expand the resources of the rent-seekers, gamers and others (big corporations and their lobbyists) by distorting the economic system via Pareto optimality. I am not going to go over that again but readers can access two earlier blogs which discuss this perverse system in detail:
http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto.html

and

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/06/modern-economics-its-evil-basis-pareto_13.html

Readers, on going through those, may also wish to see again the LIES built into our system which games millions of suckers each day.

Samuelson's role is imply to ratchet up those sucker numbers any way he can. My job is to try to stop that effect, and hope blog readers here will forward this info far and wide - to seed the counter memes.

This is after all, a memetic war, and it won't be over any time soon!

Medusoids on the March!

Image of the artificial jellyfish created by researchers at CalTech and Harvard University

Well, not quite a march of Medusoids, but how about one? The product, shown above, is actually about 1 centimeter (2.54 cm = 1 inch) across and was created by the researchers printing a pattern of protein (using cells from the heart muscle of a rat) onto a silicon (polymer) base.

The object was actually not to simply create an artificial life form, but rather to provide an active "living" substrate by which the action of a mammalian heart muscle could be observed. Hence, by understanding the action of the heart as a pump at the cellular level the researchers might better see how the action pertains to human heart disease. (For example, assorted arrythmias which still aren't fully understood).

In the case of the Medusoid shown, when set free in a container of sea water, its muscles could be jolted into action with a small electric charge to produce synchronized contractions allowing the artificial critter to swim. (Human heart arrythmias are generally triggered by one or more asynchronous contractions of heart muscle.)

Technically then, if synchronized action can be maintained in such an artificial form, then it is feasible that we can help design and build better artificial hearts.

The work, reported in Nature Biotechnology,  may appear to have been exceedingly simple- and hence taken a short time, but in fact it took nearly four years for Kevin Kit Parker of Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences along with John Dabri of Caltech and his Ph.D student Janna Nawroth to build Mr. Medusoid.

By the way, the name was chosen because jellyfish (like the 1/2 cm long 'Sea lice" in Barbados, which sting like holy hell) are sometimes called medusae because their tentacles resemble the snakes on the head of the mythical creature in Greek lore.

We the PEOPLE Are NOT "Folks"!

Obama needs to stop using the term "folks" in his assorted addresses!

"As president of the United States I call for that national effort. I call for it in the name of this nation which we love and honor and which we are privileged and proud to serve.

I call upon our people with absolute confidence that our comon cause will greatly succeed."

- Part of radio speech by FDR delivered in late 1940, preparing the populace for war.

"Substitute 'folks' for people, farmers, old men, and widows, and the relationship between the abandonment of dignified public speech and the degradation of the political process becomes clear."

- Susan Jacoby, in The Age Of American Unreason, p. 5

Ms. Jacoby is exactly correct in her perceptions, and if I see one more politico on the tube referring to an audience as "folks" I think I will clap him or her upside the head, well....at least figuratively! I am sick and tired of the use of "folks" in addresses when it's clear, as Jacoby goes on to note, it's a device to "make the speaker sound like one of the boys" and also to demean and denigrate speech and the political fabric. After all, if we are all just "folks" then our special interests that are unique to each of us vanish. Forget Social Security for the aged widows and widowers, forget affordable college loans for college students, forget disability benefits for vets! We become mere cogs to be manipulated in the Neoliberal Wurlitzer by the Neoliberal hacks and wonks.

Jacoby goes further (p. 4) in noting that the use of "folks" in political addresses "conveys an implicit denial of the seriousness of whatever issue is being debated".

Social Security reductions via "chained CPI? "Aw....c'mon, you FOLKS  can't be that interested in such an obscure topic! Let's talk 'bout the latest TV ads instead! Or....Homer Simpson cartoons!"  More generally, it is "symptomatic of debasement of public speech inseparable from a more general erosion of American cultural standards."

When did this "folks" crap begin? Jacoby pins it down to post -1980, when the avuncular clown Ronnie Reagan was elected and treated the populace - thinking and unthinking alike - as if they were just 'folks' in one of his cowboy -western flicks. "Hey, c'mon along for the ride, folks, it's gonna be a dandy!"

Let's reference Jacoby again (ibid.):

"Look up any important presidential speech in the history of the United States before 1980, and you will not find one patronizing appeal to 'folks'. .....In the 1950s, even though there were no orators of Lincoln's eloquence on the political scene, voters still expected their leaders to employ dignified if not exactly erudite, speech."

And one NEVER heard the word 'folks' in any address!

Why is it tolerated today? Why do we let politicians, including presidents, address us with the quotidian slapdown of 'folks'? Because by and large we've gotten lazy, lazy in our discernment of language and also accepting collateral language and the insidious manner in which it undermines the intellect, and discrimination faculties. (Which Jacoby also applies to the widepsread use of "troop" or "troops" instead of soldier, soldiers - as if we accept the mind manipulaters generic euphemism so we can no longer recognize we are talking about warriors. "Who lays a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Troop?")

Of course, once a debasement in meaning is accepted, however briefly, it contaminates other use of language and enables PR or propaganda manipulations. Thus, the Cubana Airlines Flight 455 wasn't "blown up" (e.g. by American-supported terrorists) but "crashed" (in CIA parlance), Returning our marginal tax rates to what they were becomes "tax increases", while the adoption of rational revenue streams to avoid future financial default - by sunsetting tax cuts- becomes a "fiscal cliff".   Giving banks multi-billions of taxpayer money becomes "bail outs".  And....a prolonged military occupation transmogrifies into a "war".

As Jacoby points out "In this continuous blurring of clarity and intellectual discrimination, political speech is always ahead of the curve..especially because today's media have the power to spread and amplify error."

The ubiquitous use of "folks" factors into this by reducing us all to the same folksy common denominator  - hence each of us morphs into a zero, an essential nobody or twit who just fell off the turnip truck. Hey, we're all just "folks"! Howdy, folks and how are ya?"

Advice to the pols: leave out the 'folks' bullshit, and stop patronizing us. We are the PEOPLE who actually put you and yours into power. Don't ever forget that, and that we the PEOPLE can also take it away!

How Many Men Will Get Prostate Cancer? Just About ALL - if They Live Long Enough!

This is what the medstats don't or won't tell you when they toss up vanilla numbers such as the "one in six men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer sometime in their lives". But like the old stock market statistical trope:  "stocks earn 10% on average every year"  that finance hacks trot out for their marks each year (ask those who've been in the market since 2001!) , it needs more parsing than a casual take would permit.

The "1 in 6" is based on an overall average, for men of all races, ages. It's much lower than in reality because so many guys die of other causes before being diagnosed with the big "PC". Factor in all those guys who conk out from strokes, or cardiac arrests by age 60 - or earlier- or die in auto accidents or of gunshots or whatever, and of course the mean stats level off.

Here's a more realistic takeaway as Dr. Steven Mason reported in his article in the Intertel Newsletter, 'Port of Call':

"If you're a 40 year old male, you have a 40% chance of having prostate cancer. At age 50 it's 50% at 60, 60%"

Unstated but which we can provide by extension, is that it's 70% if you're 70 or over, and as much as 83% if you're a male 80 or over. By 90.....well, you can extrapolate for yourself. Point is, a guy who lives long enough is almost certain, as one oncologist from Hopkins once put it, of dying from some other cause and not even knowing he had prostate cancer when he shuffled this mortal coil. Because most of them are slow growing.  End result? Nearly ALL guys who live long enough end up with prostate cancer ....but may not know they have it!

Another takeaway: Nearly two thirds of all cases are diagnosed in men 65 years or older. Hence, if I believed the 1 in 6 bunkum, I'd reckon my chances of having it at only about that, or 16%. But the other stats provide the true odds for a guy my age - which translates to a better than 3 in 5 chance!

What about deaths? One man in every 36 can expect to croak from prostate cancer, according to ACS stats, but over 2.5 million who've been diagnosed with it are still alive and kicking today.

Why do so many of us older guys get it? Chalk it up to a combination of age (plain old cell deterioration, misfiring) and a collection of possible bad dietary habits (most cancer organization sites put the blame on "excess consumption of animal fat", i.e. in meats) and also factor in perhaps a 30% component contribution from the toxins (e.g. phthalates, PCBs, dioxin, chlordane etc.)  in our environment. The chemical -industrial complex would prefer not to talk or give attention to this, but make no mistake they have a role in it too, including the 28,0000-odd deaths that will occur this year from prostate cancer.

For reference in respect of the last, as Nina Baker (The Body Toxic) points out (p. 149), just a billionth of a gram of bisphenol A can engender harmful cell effects, mutations. And what is cancer after all, other than hyper-growth of normal cells owing to aberrant effects or mutations? Referencing risk-benefit studies from Canada, Baker goes on to observe (ibid.):

"Bio-monitoring studies of bisphenol A in human blood and tissue suggest that people are already exposed to levels that far surpass the current government reference. Humans quickly metabolize bisphenol A, so in order to account for the levels detected, people must be exposed to ten times more than the current acceptable intake level".


Well, am I trying to make excuses for consuming all those dozens of pounds of bratwurst, salami and other processed food (hot dogs, bologna etc.) over the years? Of course not! But I am not letting the chemical polluters off the hook either!

Another question people may ask is: Why didn't all those vitamins you took over the years help you avoid it? Who knows? Maybe they did - up to a point - but the toxins, e.g. absorbed from the water I drink (mainly from the tap) as well as encroaching fumes from neighbors' constantly spraying chlordane on their lawns, overcame the benefit.  Hell, I don't know! If I did I wouldn't have prostate cancer.

What about the tons of tomatoes (with their licopene) I've consumed over 60 -odd years? Hmmmmm......maybe I didn't wash them thoroughly enough so let some pesticide through. I don't know.

The bare fact is it's almost impossible in the realm of cell biology to trace one or even an assembly of sources as causes to a specific outcome, say cancer of the prostate (or liver, or pancreas, for that matter). Oh sure, medical mavens like the insufferable Dr. Mehmet Oz can wax on about the "need to eat less meat" (or keep portions to 3 oz. each)  and even hector us males to "adopt a Vegan lifestyle" - preaching incessantly. But even the great Oz was appalled when they did a televised colonoscopy on him (on 'NY Med') and he was informed he had a cancerous polyp that needed to be removed. "But I did everything right!" he whined to Dr. Richard Besser. Yeah, well, maybe some toxin got into your lentils c/o the chemical industry. Just don't be so preachy to us next time round, eh?

My point is that no one can specifically nail down at this time why someone - even the most religious Vegan and athletic type- will develop a polyp or a cancer and someone else won't. If we could solve that riddle we'd likely solve the riddle of life. But we're not at that stage and may never be.

For me, it boils down simply: you at some point cease the back-analysis and just deal with what condition you're presented with in the present. You halt the 'coulda, woulda, shouldas' and stick to doing what you can do in the present to make the unwanted interloper go away.....so you can have some life extension. Maybe not fifty years, but what your normal life expectancy would allow. (It costs money to live to be 100 anyway, 'specially if the austerity bunch backing Paul Ryan and their allied tea baggers whittle Medicare down to peanuts each year!)

Hell, after my treatment, maybe I'll even do what my fair doc keeps pressing me to do and become a Vegan like she is! (She even promised to give me some recipes.)   But I know as a born n' bred Milwaukeean, the brats and sausages will not be far from my mind.....especially when the Pack comes on the tube!