Thursday, May 30, 2019
Monday, May 27, 2019
Friday, May 24, 2019
Memorial Day (Revisited)
I first put this post up in 2015. It never gets old. Take a moment this weekend to pause and remember...and honor.
This never gets old. The homecoming. Been there, done that. And it is so sweet. After a long or short deployment with separation from your loved ones, coming home has a special meaning. Whether you are on a routine training mission across the country, or on a combat mission on a remote and lonely battlefield someplace that was unknown to you until you stepped off the plane , or on a ship at sea on the far side of the world, coming home is something every service member has on his or her mind from the moment they get on the plane or cast off the lines. And the families at home are no different. They try to go about their daily lives doing all the routine things that consume their time, but the reality of their loved one being far away for some period of time is always there. And it doesn't matter what the mission is. If you are separated by deployment, the danger is always there. No matter if you're driving a truck on a military reservation somewhere in the U.S., humping a pack through dangerous lands, manning a MASH unit behind the lines, doing a routine job on an American warship, flying a routine mission of humanitarian assistance, or so many other jobs, the danger is always there. You could make a misstep and your time could be up in a heartbeat. That's why homecoming is so sweet. You're back in the fold with your loved ones. You can be a part of their lives again. And they can be a part of yours. It's the way we were meant to live. Together.
But this weekend we don't celebrate homecoming. For many, many families they won't ever experience that joyous homecoming. Too many will weep this weekend. Too many will yearn for their loved ones who will never return. So what can we, the living, do? We can honor them. We can think of them. We can pause and remember. Oh, we all know that it is also the first weekend of summer. There will be barbecues, parties, and fun family times. It will be a time to relax and get ready for summer. So have a great time and enjoy whatever endeavor that will come your way. But for a moment, just for a moment, remember those who have fallen to ensure our freedoms and those left behind mourning their loved ones who gave the "last full measure of devotion". And it doesn't matter what they were doing when they lost their lives. What matters is their service. We live in a secure nation. An island nation. We have generally not experienced the horror of attack or the threat of invasion on the scale of other countries around the world. We've had our Pearl Harbor and our 911. And those we're horrific. But think of the war-torn countries around the world. It's not that so many think it can't happen here....it's that so many don't even think about it. But there are those that have. And those that do. Those who recognize service above self. Those who are willing to give, to go in harm's way, to risk all. So take a moment on Monday. A quiet moment. Look around you. Hug your family. And give thanks.
This never gets old. The homecoming. Been there, done that. And it is so sweet. After a long or short deployment with separation from your loved ones, coming home has a special meaning. Whether you are on a routine training mission across the country, or on a combat mission on a remote and lonely battlefield someplace that was unknown to you until you stepped off the plane , or on a ship at sea on the far side of the world, coming home is something every service member has on his or her mind from the moment they get on the plane or cast off the lines. And the families at home are no different. They try to go about their daily lives doing all the routine things that consume their time, but the reality of their loved one being far away for some period of time is always there. And it doesn't matter what the mission is. If you are separated by deployment, the danger is always there. No matter if you're driving a truck on a military reservation somewhere in the U.S., humping a pack through dangerous lands, manning a MASH unit behind the lines, doing a routine job on an American warship, flying a routine mission of humanitarian assistance, or so many other jobs, the danger is always there. You could make a misstep and your time could be up in a heartbeat. That's why homecoming is so sweet. You're back in the fold with your loved ones. You can be a part of their lives again. And they can be a part of yours. It's the way we were meant to live. Together.
But this weekend we don't celebrate homecoming. For many, many families they won't ever experience that joyous homecoming. Too many will weep this weekend. Too many will yearn for their loved ones who will never return. So what can we, the living, do? We can honor them. We can think of them. We can pause and remember. Oh, we all know that it is also the first weekend of summer. There will be barbecues, parties, and fun family times. It will be a time to relax and get ready for summer. So have a great time and enjoy whatever endeavor that will come your way. But for a moment, just for a moment, remember those who have fallen to ensure our freedoms and those left behind mourning their loved ones who gave the "last full measure of devotion". And it doesn't matter what they were doing when they lost their lives. What matters is their service. We live in a secure nation. An island nation. We have generally not experienced the horror of attack or the threat of invasion on the scale of other countries around the world. We've had our Pearl Harbor and our 911. And those we're horrific. But think of the war-torn countries around the world. It's not that so many think it can't happen here....it's that so many don't even think about it. But there are those that have. And those that do. Those who recognize service above self. Those who are willing to give, to go in harm's way, to risk all. So take a moment on Monday. A quiet moment. Look around you. Hug your family. And give thanks.
Thursday, May 23, 2019
The Elephant Dance
I'm sure you saw the crazy back and forth today between President Trump and Speaker Pelosi. It was pretty raw and unprecedented. At least in modern times that is. Back in the "old days" it was pretty raucous, but in the last 100 years or so cordiality seems to have been the rule of the day between the Legislative and the Executive. But today it blew up. If you're not aware of the succession, the Speaker of the House is number 3 in succession. So she is pretty high up in government. But she's not number 1. And she has a hard time remembering that.
Anyway, 3 weeks ago, Trump, Pelosi and Shumer met to discuss infrastructure. They agreed to a 3 week delay to put plans on the table and get back together to "put some meat on the bones". And today was the day.
For the last several weeks and since the Mueller report dropped, the Dems have been beside themselves to figure out how to get Trump since Mueller couldn't. So they are going into full investigation mode. They are pulling out all the stops to overturn the election of 2016. They hate him and will stop at nothing to get rid of him. Simple as that. There are and will be for the next two years further investigations, hearing, subpoenas, and general harassment of Trump. I think the strategy is to bring everything to a halt so there are not successes and the chances of him slipping up and doing something stupid increases. Great way to run a country, huh?
Mueller spent 2.5 year, $35 million, had over 650 subpoenas, massive investigative power, and concluded there was no collusion with the Russians. On obstruction he left it to Barr but basically said there wasn't anything that was provable. So that is driving the Dems further over the edge. They put all their eggs in the Mueller basket and he came up with nothing. And let's face it..Trump is the kind of guy who will rub your face in it so he's been gloating. And that further pisses them off.
So before she goes down to the White House today, Pelosi says in a news conference that Trump is engaged in a "cover-up". Huh? I don't know what he is covering up. By all accounts the White House cooperated with Mueller to the nth degree. They gave them hundreds of thousands of documents and sat for countless interviews. But according to Pelosi he is covering up something. So she trots down to the WH and walks into a band saw. Now I don't know Trump's demeanor in a situation like this, but safe to say he was pissed and let her have it. Who knows how much he was really mad and how much of it was theatrics, but it got her attention. So then he came out and raised the bullshit flag. He clearly has had it and said no legislative cooperation until their contrived, redundant, wasteful, spiteful investigations stop. So she goes back to the Hill and tells reporters that Trump is unstable and needs an intervention. And then he comes out with a bunch of advisors who confirm he was angry but not ranting and calls himself a "stable genius". Ya gotta love it.
Of course, the media is sniffing Pelosi's butt the whole time and naturally takes her side. They push the "Trump is crazy" story and most outlets spun it that way. But it doesn't take a genius to see that these are to powerful politicians who are pissed and won't back down. But I think Pelosi is on pretty thin ground. She is walking a fine line between the impeachment idiots and the calmer wing of her party. She's trying to accommodate all and it can't be done. I don't know who will crack first, but my money is on Pelosi.
So it will continue. Don't know what the tipping point is, or if there even is one. Maybe we stumble along like this til the election. That would suck, but it's not out of the question.
Anyway, 3 weeks ago, Trump, Pelosi and Shumer met to discuss infrastructure. They agreed to a 3 week delay to put plans on the table and get back together to "put some meat on the bones". And today was the day.
For the last several weeks and since the Mueller report dropped, the Dems have been beside themselves to figure out how to get Trump since Mueller couldn't. So they are going into full investigation mode. They are pulling out all the stops to overturn the election of 2016. They hate him and will stop at nothing to get rid of him. Simple as that. There are and will be for the next two years further investigations, hearing, subpoenas, and general harassment of Trump. I think the strategy is to bring everything to a halt so there are not successes and the chances of him slipping up and doing something stupid increases. Great way to run a country, huh?
Mueller spent 2.5 year, $35 million, had over 650 subpoenas, massive investigative power, and concluded there was no collusion with the Russians. On obstruction he left it to Barr but basically said there wasn't anything that was provable. So that is driving the Dems further over the edge. They put all their eggs in the Mueller basket and he came up with nothing. And let's face it..Trump is the kind of guy who will rub your face in it so he's been gloating. And that further pisses them off.
So before she goes down to the White House today, Pelosi says in a news conference that Trump is engaged in a "cover-up". Huh? I don't know what he is covering up. By all accounts the White House cooperated with Mueller to the nth degree. They gave them hundreds of thousands of documents and sat for countless interviews. But according to Pelosi he is covering up something. So she trots down to the WH and walks into a band saw. Now I don't know Trump's demeanor in a situation like this, but safe to say he was pissed and let her have it. Who knows how much he was really mad and how much of it was theatrics, but it got her attention. So then he came out and raised the bullshit flag. He clearly has had it and said no legislative cooperation until their contrived, redundant, wasteful, spiteful investigations stop. So she goes back to the Hill and tells reporters that Trump is unstable and needs an intervention. And then he comes out with a bunch of advisors who confirm he was angry but not ranting and calls himself a "stable genius". Ya gotta love it.
Of course, the media is sniffing Pelosi's butt the whole time and naturally takes her side. They push the "Trump is crazy" story and most outlets spun it that way. But it doesn't take a genius to see that these are to powerful politicians who are pissed and won't back down. But I think Pelosi is on pretty thin ground. She is walking a fine line between the impeachment idiots and the calmer wing of her party. She's trying to accommodate all and it can't be done. I don't know who will crack first, but my money is on Pelosi.
So it will continue. Don't know what the tipping point is, or if there even is one. Maybe we stumble along like this til the election. That would suck, but it's not out of the question.
Sunday, May 19, 2019
Friday, May 17, 2019
Thursday, May 16, 2019
No Easy Answers
The abortion debate is heating up like it hasn't since that fateful day in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was decided. I honestly don't remember any big hullabaloo when the decision was handed down. Of course, I was a young 23 year old guy with a wife and we had every intention of having children.
I wasn't sensitive to the plight of girls and women everywhere in the country who faced a terrifying choice if they found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Find an abortion doctor somewhere who would do the deed. And that was if you could afford it. And if you were sure it would remain a secret. And if you had at least some hope that the doctor knew what he was doing, had clean and safe equipment, and could handle any sort of emergency. But the truth is that many, many terrified young women didn't even think about those things. They just knew that they couldn't or wouldn't bring a child into this world. Or the other choice is to have the baby. And then another choice presents itself. Keep it or put it up for adoption. Both are difficult and heart wrenching decisions. The right one wasn't always made. Tragedy befell many young girls as their life was changed forever with that choice. I purposefully didn't include the guy in this part of the discussion because in those days the truth was that it was mostly on the woman. Not that it was right, it just was.
And then along came Roe v. Wade. It meant that the danger and agony that so many women faced was at least somewhat mitigated. At least getting an abortion became a relatively safe endeavor. But I'm sure it was emotionally draining. As a man, I obviously have trouble even commenting on it. The other thing it meant was that life was snuffed out before it got a chance. From an intellectual perspective I've mostly rationalized it from two perspectives. First, it's the woman's body, it's her choice. Second, and this is a real rationalization for me as I get older, is that if it's done early, it's not really a "viable human being". But what is "early"? Like I said, intellectually, I can rationalize all the good that comes from safe and legal abortions while squinting pretty hard at brutality of killing a baby. I know, I know, if you're of a particular mindset, it's not a baby. But...at some point it sorta is...
So as our population becomes larger, more boisterous, more attuned to social media, more coarse, more strident, more polarized, less caring, less attuned to traditional values, less religious, less family focused, things have changed. Somewhere along the line, as in so many other things we see everyday, we've all gone to our corners and moderate voices are drowned out by absolutism. Either you're for something or against something. And so it is with abortion. It is either the murder of defenseless babies by heartless women who don't care while colluding with a vile organization called Planned Parenthood or it's a woman's right to choose what is best for her and her body and her circumstances and the "fetus" is not a viable human so it is not killing, but aborting.
I didn't agree with Bill Clinton on a lot, but I think that his philosophy that he wanted abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare" was about as good a compromise as I could think of in what is a horrendously sad and emotional situation. But that was then. This is now.
I'm not a guy who blames Trump for every ill of society, but I do think that his personality, his combativeness, and his coarseness has contributed to this polarization that we see today. I won't get into why I think he is better than the alternative(s) on policy and so many other things, but I don't think as a leader he inspires us to be better. Because if you inspire people to be better, they not only want to emulate the leader's characteristics, but they respect his or her actions and philosophies. Clearly, about half of our population doesn't respect him. And the other half contains a lot of people like me who are disappointed at his impact on our culture. So people generally don't hesitate to take the most extreme position because that's how they see our leaders waging battles and either winning or losing arguments. And that's what they see in the abortion debate.
Three years ago Planned Parenthood was in the news for selling baby's body parts. It was a horrific and disgusting story. I wrote about it here. And it seems to me that this was the first time we saw arguments erupt into wars. PP took a lot of lumps. The fact that the government subsidizes them substantially and they are very active politically didn't help. But as I predicted, nothing happened. There were no repercussions. And then early this year the New York and Virginia legislatures passed laws that approve of abortion right up until the moment of birth. I wrote about that here. I'm pretty sure that these laws were pushed through by zealots. By people who put the "woman's right to choose" above anything else. They see their world through a particular lens, and it isn't one that recognizes life in the womb.
Now we see a few states like Georgia, Alabama, Missouri and maybe Louisiana passing laws just as extreme the other way. Not only are abortions in those states illegal after a heartbeat is detected, in the case of Alabama there is no consideration or exemption for pregnancy as a result of incest or rape. That, in my mind, is very extreme. They are not only thumbing their nose at Roe v. Wade, they are daring someone to take them to court. They obviously want Roe v. Wade relitigated and overturned.
When the last few Supreme Court judges were vetted in the Senate a key question was their view on Roe v Wade. These people are very smart and they reflected that Roe v. Wade is "settled law" and didn't go past that. So what will they do if a case challenging it comes before them. It's pretty much unknown but it's safe to say that they will not casually get rid of a law that impacts so many that's been in force since 1973. I know that in our 24-hour news cycle world, a lot of people want an answer yesterday. But that's not going to happen. It's going to take a long time for a case to wend it's way to SCOTUS. And when it gets there, the outcome is not certain. Remember the challenge to Obamacare and the surprise that came there?
So why write about this issue? It's easy to say it is what it is. Live your life. People are either for it or against it. But the thing is I don't think that's true. I think that when the average American considers the abortion issue, they realize there aren't any easy answers. It's trite, easy and formulaic to say you stand with Planned Parenthood. It's almost heartless to say that abortion is killing a baby and is never okay, no matter the circumstances. Heartless against a woman forced into making a terrible decision that is. I think and I gotta believe that most people think only the most strident zealots and celebrities and politicians, who are low-lifes anyway, are the only ones who make these soundbite arguments. And for goodness sakes, if you're in a field where you need to provide compassion, advice, confirmation or sympathy to someone facing this choice, don't lower yourself to soundbites. Listen.
So the zealots are going to get the headlines and try to drive the conversation. But I'm not buying it. I'm a thinking man. I know there are no easy answers and every situation is agonizing. I'm a Christian and believe in the sanctity of life and take the baptismal vow I spoke seriously when I said yes when asked..."Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?" For me, and maybe because I've got age and experience on my side, if at all possible I come down on the side of the small, defenseless human being growing inside of a woman. But that in no way means I won't respect and support the incredibly difficult choice that a woman must make in her life, in her time, and in her circumstances.
I wasn't sensitive to the plight of girls and women everywhere in the country who faced a terrifying choice if they found themselves with an unwanted pregnancy. Find an abortion doctor somewhere who would do the deed. And that was if you could afford it. And if you were sure it would remain a secret. And if you had at least some hope that the doctor knew what he was doing, had clean and safe equipment, and could handle any sort of emergency. But the truth is that many, many terrified young women didn't even think about those things. They just knew that they couldn't or wouldn't bring a child into this world. Or the other choice is to have the baby. And then another choice presents itself. Keep it or put it up for adoption. Both are difficult and heart wrenching decisions. The right one wasn't always made. Tragedy befell many young girls as their life was changed forever with that choice. I purposefully didn't include the guy in this part of the discussion because in those days the truth was that it was mostly on the woman. Not that it was right, it just was.
And then along came Roe v. Wade. It meant that the danger and agony that so many women faced was at least somewhat mitigated. At least getting an abortion became a relatively safe endeavor. But I'm sure it was emotionally draining. As a man, I obviously have trouble even commenting on it. The other thing it meant was that life was snuffed out before it got a chance. From an intellectual perspective I've mostly rationalized it from two perspectives. First, it's the woman's body, it's her choice. Second, and this is a real rationalization for me as I get older, is that if it's done early, it's not really a "viable human being". But what is "early"? Like I said, intellectually, I can rationalize all the good that comes from safe and legal abortions while squinting pretty hard at brutality of killing a baby. I know, I know, if you're of a particular mindset, it's not a baby. But...at some point it sorta is...
So as our population becomes larger, more boisterous, more attuned to social media, more coarse, more strident, more polarized, less caring, less attuned to traditional values, less religious, less family focused, things have changed. Somewhere along the line, as in so many other things we see everyday, we've all gone to our corners and moderate voices are drowned out by absolutism. Either you're for something or against something. And so it is with abortion. It is either the murder of defenseless babies by heartless women who don't care while colluding with a vile organization called Planned Parenthood or it's a woman's right to choose what is best for her and her body and her circumstances and the "fetus" is not a viable human so it is not killing, but aborting.
I didn't agree with Bill Clinton on a lot, but I think that his philosophy that he wanted abortions to be "safe, legal, and rare" was about as good a compromise as I could think of in what is a horrendously sad and emotional situation. But that was then. This is now.
I'm not a guy who blames Trump for every ill of society, but I do think that his personality, his combativeness, and his coarseness has contributed to this polarization that we see today. I won't get into why I think he is better than the alternative(s) on policy and so many other things, but I don't think as a leader he inspires us to be better. Because if you inspire people to be better, they not only want to emulate the leader's characteristics, but they respect his or her actions and philosophies. Clearly, about half of our population doesn't respect him. And the other half contains a lot of people like me who are disappointed at his impact on our culture. So people generally don't hesitate to take the most extreme position because that's how they see our leaders waging battles and either winning or losing arguments. And that's what they see in the abortion debate.
Three years ago Planned Parenthood was in the news for selling baby's body parts. It was a horrific and disgusting story. I wrote about it here. And it seems to me that this was the first time we saw arguments erupt into wars. PP took a lot of lumps. The fact that the government subsidizes them substantially and they are very active politically didn't help. But as I predicted, nothing happened. There were no repercussions. And then early this year the New York and Virginia legislatures passed laws that approve of abortion right up until the moment of birth. I wrote about that here. I'm pretty sure that these laws were pushed through by zealots. By people who put the "woman's right to choose" above anything else. They see their world through a particular lens, and it isn't one that recognizes life in the womb.
Now we see a few states like Georgia, Alabama, Missouri and maybe Louisiana passing laws just as extreme the other way. Not only are abortions in those states illegal after a heartbeat is detected, in the case of Alabama there is no consideration or exemption for pregnancy as a result of incest or rape. That, in my mind, is very extreme. They are not only thumbing their nose at Roe v. Wade, they are daring someone to take them to court. They obviously want Roe v. Wade relitigated and overturned.
When the last few Supreme Court judges were vetted in the Senate a key question was their view on Roe v Wade. These people are very smart and they reflected that Roe v. Wade is "settled law" and didn't go past that. So what will they do if a case challenging it comes before them. It's pretty much unknown but it's safe to say that they will not casually get rid of a law that impacts so many that's been in force since 1973. I know that in our 24-hour news cycle world, a lot of people want an answer yesterday. But that's not going to happen. It's going to take a long time for a case to wend it's way to SCOTUS. And when it gets there, the outcome is not certain. Remember the challenge to Obamacare and the surprise that came there?
So why write about this issue? It's easy to say it is what it is. Live your life. People are either for it or against it. But the thing is I don't think that's true. I think that when the average American considers the abortion issue, they realize there aren't any easy answers. It's trite, easy and formulaic to say you stand with Planned Parenthood. It's almost heartless to say that abortion is killing a baby and is never okay, no matter the circumstances. Heartless against a woman forced into making a terrible decision that is. I think and I gotta believe that most people think only the most strident zealots and celebrities and politicians, who are low-lifes anyway, are the only ones who make these soundbite arguments. And for goodness sakes, if you're in a field where you need to provide compassion, advice, confirmation or sympathy to someone facing this choice, don't lower yourself to soundbites. Listen.
So the zealots are going to get the headlines and try to drive the conversation. But I'm not buying it. I'm a thinking man. I know there are no easy answers and every situation is agonizing. I'm a Christian and believe in the sanctity of life and take the baptismal vow I spoke seriously when I said yes when asked..."Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?" For me, and maybe because I've got age and experience on my side, if at all possible I come down on the side of the small, defenseless human being growing inside of a woman. But that in no way means I won't respect and support the incredibly difficult choice that a woman must make in her life, in her time, and in her circumstances.
Monday, May 13, 2019
Friday, May 10, 2019
Perfection
I see a lot of...ahem...cheesecake for lack of a better word as I cast around the net looking for odd, interesting or unique thinks to share on this blog. I rarely succumb to posting some gratuitous photo of a pretty girl. But something about this woman just struck me. So I just had to post it. I mean...she's almost physically perfect, at least from this photo. Now, I don't know if she can discuss geopolitics or economic theory, but outwardly pretty hard to beat. And with that reasonable and considered explanation...I'll probably still get in trouble!
Sunday, May 5, 2019
Thursday, May 2, 2019
Gender Hysteria
It seems that every time I turn around there is another crazy gender hysteria story. For the life of me I don't get why so many people are paying attention to the transgender thing as if it's a real thing. Simply put, it's mental illness and society should be treating it as such. Simply put, there are boys and girls, men and women. No amount of surgery, no amount of drugs, no amount of makeup, attire, or whatever will change that. I read that a Hollywood actress has an 8 year old who decided at 3 that he was a girl so she's raising the boy as a girl. I'm sorry, but that is child abuse. It's a shameful abdication of her role as parent. Instead of accommodating a 3 year old's weird request, she should be getting the kid some help.
The craziest thing is the controversy over men competing as women in athletic events simply because they "identify" as a woman. Seems like a cheap way to get a trophy. But who would really want it.
Now don't get me wrong. I can be polite to people with this mental illness. It's not for me to dictate to someone who wants to dress up as the opposite sex. But don't expect me to agree with it or accept it. Because there is no such thing. No matter how much wishing there is among some people for it not to be true, there are two sexes. Two. And once you're biologically determined to be one or the other, that's it.
Which brings me to the latest craziness I saw. I was in a place that will remain nameless today. It's an office with one bathroom. One. That means everyone uses it. Men. Women. Boys. Girls. Everyone. And yet as I approach I see a new sign. I mean, how stupid is this? And not that it cost all that much, but what a stupid waste of money. There's a lot I don't get as this world spins along. This is the latest that is right at the top of the list.
The craziest thing is the controversy over men competing as women in athletic events simply because they "identify" as a woman. Seems like a cheap way to get a trophy. But who would really want it.
Now don't get me wrong. I can be polite to people with this mental illness. It's not for me to dictate to someone who wants to dress up as the opposite sex. But don't expect me to agree with it or accept it. Because there is no such thing. No matter how much wishing there is among some people for it not to be true, there are two sexes. Two. And once you're biologically determined to be one or the other, that's it.
Which brings me to the latest craziness I saw. I was in a place that will remain nameless today. It's an office with one bathroom. One. That means everyone uses it. Men. Women. Boys. Girls. Everyone. And yet as I approach I see a new sign. I mean, how stupid is this? And not that it cost all that much, but what a stupid waste of money. There's a lot I don't get as this world spins along. This is the latest that is right at the top of the list.
UPDATE: Coincidentally today's WSJ had a great article that was about this subject. Check it out.
Standing Against Psychiatry’s Crazes
In 1979 Dr. Paul McHugh closed the sex-change clinic at Johns Hopkins. In the ’80s he testified against phony ‘recovered memories.’ He hasn’t given up the fight.
By Abigail Shrier
May 3, 2019
You might have heard this joke: A man in a car gets a call from his wife. “Honey, be careful,” she says. “A car is going the wrong way on the highway.” He replies: “It’s not just one car. It’s hundreds of them!”
If it were a psychiatrist joke, Paul McHugh, 87, could be that driver. A professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and a tenacious skeptic of the crazes that periodically overtake his specialty, Dr. McHugh has often served as psychiatry’s most outspoken critic. Either he’s crazy, or all the other psychiatrists are.
The best-known, and most controversial, decision of his professional life is newly relevant—and recently reversed. In 1979, as psychiatrist in chief at Johns Hopkins Hospital, he shut down the Gender Identity Clinic, which performed sex-change operations. In his view, the hospital had “wasted scientific and technical resources and damaged our professional credibility by collaborating with madness rather than trying to study, cure, and ultimately prevent it,” as he wrote in 2004. In 2017 the clinic was reopened as the Center for Transgender Health, performing what it now calls “gender-affirming surgeries.” Its medical-office coordinator, Mellissa Noyes, told me “the demand is massive.”
Dr. McHugh is again on the outs with his profession. He doesn’t mind: “I’ve been there before,” he tells me as we sit in his book-laden Baltimore home, a white-brick American Moderne in the leafy Guilford neighborhood abutting Johns Hopkins, where he’s still a professor.
His contrarian roots runs deep. He was a diminutive boy in the 1940s, when psychoanalysts had popularized the notion that physical deficiencies—including short stature—produced inferiority complexes, especially in boys and men. He became a prime candidate for the experimental growth-hormone therapies rising to meet the demand from anxious parents. But Paul’s father, a schoolteacher, decided against the treatments recommended for his son. Shortness wouldn’t be the worst problem he’d have to face, the elder McHugh reasoned. As it turned out, the animal-derived pituitary treatments were ineffective; the human-derived form sometimes carried the infectious agent that causes Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease, an incurable degenerative brain disorder.
“I know my life would have been easier if I had had 4 or 5 more inches,” says Dr. McHugh, who now stands 5-foot-6. But his childhood experience taught him a lesson that helped make him a giant in his field: Sometimes psychiatry’s cure is far worse than the disease.
Dr. McHugh believes psychiatrists’ first order of business ought to be to determine whether a mental disorder is generated by something the patient has (a disease of the brain), something the patient is (“overly extroverted” or “cognitively subnormal”), something a patient is doing (behavior such as self-starvation), or something a patient has encountered (a traumatic or otherwise disorienting experience). Practitioners too often practice what he calls “DSM checklist psychiatry”—matching up symptoms from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders with the goal of achieving diagnosis—rather than inquiring deeply into the sources and nature of an affliction.
“I came into psychiatry with the perception that it had not matured as a clinical science in which rational practices are directed by information on the causes and mechanisms of the disorders,” Dr. McHugh says. “Every other medical discipline has that.” He still regards psychiatry as badly in need of “organizing principles.”
That’s putting it mildly. Psychiatry has fallen under the sway of a dizzying number of crazes. They include imagined ailments like hystero-epilepsy, in which people who didn’t have epilepsy supposedly acquired symptoms from those who did—and conditions exacerbated by mental-health professionals, like anorexia nervosa and post-traumatic stress disorder. Treatment has often been grotesque—think frontal lobotomies, insulin shock therapy and primitive chemically induced seizure therapies.
Psychiatric enthusiasm has also led to gross miscarriages of justice. In the 1980s, Dr. McHugh became a leading opponent of so-called recovered-memory therapy, in which psychoanalysts claimed to have discovered the latent source of patients’ multiple-personality disorder. Dr. McHugh believes multiple-personality disorder is a phony ailment and recovered memories are iatrogenic—a Greek word meaning “brought on by the healer”—implanted by the therapeutic process that purports to discover them. Often the fake memories were of childhood abuse, and Dr. McHugh traveled to Rockville, Md.; Manchester, N.H.; Providence, R.I.; and Appleton, Wis., offering expert testimony to exonerate wrongfully accused defendants.
Given all this, does psychiatry have anything of value to offer? “I think it really has helped demonstrate that mental illnesses are real things . . . that need to be studied, and can be treated,” Dr. McHugh says. “I think that’s a tremendous achievement.”
But what are those “real things,” and how should psychiatrists treat them? Those are critical questions for a field that routinely administers powerful medications and sometimes recommends life-altering surgery, while the relationship between the brain and its elusive alter-ego, the mind, remains largely mysterious.
Dr. McHugh argues that the treatment of returning soldiers for the liberally applied PTSD diagnosis is another example of iatrogenesis. Such diagnoses are far rarer among Israel Defense Forces veterans, who experience plenty of trauma. Israelis “know that you can get a terrible psychological reaction out of a traumatic battle. And they do take the soldiers out, and they tell them the following: ‘This is perfectly normal; you need to be out of battle for a while. Don’t think that this is a disease that’s going to hurt you, this is like grief. You’re going to get over it, it’s normal. And within a few weeks, after a little rest, we’re going to put you back with your comrades and you’re going to go back to work.’ And they all do.”
By contrast, American psychiatrists say: “ ‘You’ve had a permanent wound. You’re going to be on disability forever. And this country has mistreated you by putting you in a false war.’ They make chronic invalids of them. That’s the difference.”
Dr. McHugh graduated from Harvard Medical School in 1957, when many of the brightest aspiring psychiatrists poured their energy into psychoanalysis. During his psychiatry internship at Boston’s Peter Bent Brigham Hospital (now part of Brigham and Women’s Hospital), the chief of psychiatry gave Dr. McHugh a bit of advice that set the course for his professional life: If you want to make a real contribution to psychiatry, avoid psychoanalysis and study the brain.
Dr. McHugh spent the next six years training under some of the world’s best neurologists, starting at Massachusetts General Hospital, where he met his wife, Jean, a British social worker visiting the U.S. on a Fulbright scholarship. It isn’t hard to imagine what she saw in the brilliant young neurology intern, a nice Catholic boy with courtly manners and aquamarine eyes like sea glass.
He focused his research on the physiology of appetite—the brain’s regulation of food intake. He eventually discovered and named two receptors for the digestive hormone cholecystokinin. He wrote 162 academic papers, and the National Academy of Sciences credits him with being the first to “describe increased cortisol secretion associated with depression, an accomplishment that led to the development of a test to identify serious depression by physical means.” This work taught him how to conduct rigorous scientific inquiry—and led him to believe many psychiatrists weren’t engaged in it.
In 1975 Johns Hopkins hired him as director of its Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science and the hospital’s chief psychiatrist. Hopkins was famous for pioneering sex-reassignment surgery: In the 1991 film “The Silence of the Lambs,” Dr. Hannibal Lecter, played by Anthony Hopkins, refers to Johns Hopkins as one of the “three major centers for transsexual surgery.”
As department head, Dr. McHugh encouraged a colleague to conduct follow-up research on patients who had undergone sex-change operations. The results disturbed him. Although most of the patients “were reasonably satisfied with the change, they hadn’t any improvement in any of their psychosocial issues that were the whole reason for doing it in the first place.”
Worse, some of the patients became “suicidal and depressed and regretful.” There was not enough good evidence to determine before the fact which candidates for surgery would fall into either group. With no way to predict which patients would be hurt by the operations, Dr. McHugh decided he could not allow them to continue. He says shuttering the clinic was a matter of adhering to the Hippocratic Oath and the scientific obligation to ground conclusions in empirical evidence.
“Everybody should agree” that sex-reassignment surgery is “an experiment right now,” he says. “We’re doing an experiment. We have lots of publications that are telling us that the evidence base for these treatments is very low-quality.” There are “not enough subjects, not enough good results—not enough anything. Not enough comparisons . . . that would make it evidence-based.” He says the Institutional Review Board should oversee all such surgery. It doesn’t.
Dr. McHugh believes the Johns Hopkins clinic’s reopening was motivated by economic and political factors, not scientific evidence. The complicated operations are big moneymakers for hospitals. That the new department’s name uses the politically correct designation “transgender,” not the clinical term “gender dysphoria,” and refers to the surgeries as “gender affirming,” seems to support the view that the doctors have formally embraced transgender ideology.
Dr. McHugh does not believe surgery cures gender dysphoria. He thinks that condition, along with anorexia and body dysmorphia, is a “disorder of assumption,” characterized by an “overvalued idea,” or a ruling passion that “fulminates in the mind of the subject, growing more dominant over time, more refined, and more resistant to challenge,” as he has written.
In the case of anorexia, the overvalued idea is that it’s good to be thin. The primary goal of the psychiatrist ought to be to help the patient change behavior. The prevailing standard of care for sufferers of gender dysphoria—“affirmative care”—is the opposite: It calls for mental-health professionals to accept both a patient’s self-diagnosis of gender dysphoria and the corresponding behavior.
The possibility that Dr. McHugh is wrong doesn’t trouble him. “Either the plastic surgeons and the transgender psychiatrists are right and I’m wrong—and if that’s the case, they will have done a lot of good by opposing me, and I will have been a drag on the system—or the opposite. Suppose they’re wrong and I’m right? They will have mutilated thousands of children, and I will look good. Who do you think is sleeping better at night?”
In fact, both parties seem to be sleeping fine—separately. Most current Johns Hopkins medical students, Dr. McHugh says, won’t talk to him. “They think that my views must be motivated by hatred,” he says, sounding baffled.
Dr. McHugh says he never went looking for these fights, but that’s not entirely credible. He is animated, even joyous, when assailing his opponents. If doctors can claim to have a professional calling, this has been his: to rail against what he considers the foolhardy passions of his profession, steering straight for the eye of the storm.
He quotes from the final stanza of Matthew Arnold’s poem “The Last Word”: “Charge once more, then, and be dumb! / Let the victors, when they come, / When the forts of folly fall, / Find thy body by the wall.” The lines speak of a tension between the impulse toward righteous opposition and the knowledge that there is also a time to surrender.
Dr. McHugh turns 88 later this month. For a moment, he seems to consider abandoning the fight. Perhaps he guesses what I’m thinking. Perhaps it occurs to him that his adversaries will read this article. He says, “I hope I’m still standing when these forts fall.”
Wednesday, May 1, 2019
2 Americas
Saw this cartoon the other day and thought maybe it would be good for Friday Funnies. But upon closer look it's really not that funny! It really shows the gist of the differences that are on display on a daily basis. Its almost as if we've evolved into a Mars/Venus culture. And I'm not really sure how we go back!
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