Sweeny Todd, by Stephen Sondheim, Vancouver Opera at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre

I’ve seen several Sweeny Todd’s but this Sweeny Todd by the Vancouver Opera is by far the best.  Stephen Sondheim’s music is rockstar sensational and Jonathan Darlington’s musical direction is genius.  I loved Darlington’s opening performance the best.  Greer Grimsley, bass baritone, from New Orleans, plays Sweeny Todd and his performance alone was worth coming for. I’ve never heard such an incredible voice so perfect for this role.  That said, Luretta Bybee playing the pie lady Levitt  was so enjoyable to listen to and delightfully comedic.
Tenor Rocco Rupolo was equally a delight as the love struck sailor singing his heart out for Johanna Barker, played by soprano Caitlin Wood. I thought her first number ’shrill’ only to fall completely in love with her voice as it grew richer and warmer throughout the production.  The whole musical ensemble grew together this way crescendoing to a great finale.
Pascal Charbonneau’s tenor, as he played  Tobias was alive with character. I loved Karen Ydenberg’s soprano beggar woman performance.  David Curry, tenor, played Adolfo Pirelli hilariously and had an amazing voice that filled the hall with laughter.    Baritone Doug McNaughton played the evil judge so well that he really irritated me despite his masterful voice. Michael Barrett, tenor, played the horrid Beadle to vocal perfection.  Zacchary Reed Baritone sang immensely well in the part of Jonas Fogg.  I loved all the voices and all the costumes and all the acting and the ingenious set.
To a non opera going friend I said, Greer Grimsley’s voice is to opera what Wayne Goretsky’s stick handling is to hockey.  That good, my friend replied.  Yes, I said.  And Darlington is like the coach the Canucks needed to bring the Cup home.
As for the story, written by Hugh Wheeler, it’s rather tasteless, more like a fart joke than Steven King at his lowest. Hugh Wheeler clearly could have used editing by Monty Python. A vengeful barber slices the throats of his enemies and others rather indiscriminately while Mrs Lovett turns the corpses into pies for profit, selling human remains to the unaware cannibalistic masses. It’s as macabre as a Robert Picton Farm opera with Sarah McLaughlan  and Bryan Adams in happy pig costumes singing a Bare Naked Lady score.  Is someone in the VSO smoking BC Budd or are times so bad in Gotham Vancouver that the well heeled need this level of humour to continue their decadent businesses?

Hammans, Virgins, and Ice Cream, Istanbul, Turkey

                       

The Hamman is the famous Turkish Bath. They’re in every neighbourhood.  Some men go daily. According to Moslem tradition a man must be cleansed after sex before prayer. So the Hamman opens early.  All the handsome and happy men are lined up to get in the Hamman at that time.  The not so handsome and more unhappy men go any time in the day. I went at night.
The first gay movie in Turkey was called the Hamman.  I wasn’t too sure about the whole experience.
My guide Mehmet Tetik (www.turkishguides.org\tetik) insisted I go. He told me Mark Twain had even gone. Apparently he’d written an amusing story of his hamman adventure.  Mehmet told me I should read it.
I’m of an age where nudity and laughter mix without the help of Mark Twain. But I will read it.
Mehmet showed me the neighbourhood hamman and asked me next day if I’d been. I gave lame excuses.  So after a great day of touring mosques and churches and palaces he insisted he’d walk me down the the Hamman and introduce me.
Next thing I know I’m through the door of the neighbourhood Hamman and these men are talking rapidly in Turkish .  They’re laughing. Mehmet  is pointing at me.  More laughter.   Mehmet  says “I’ve told them you want the scrub and the massage and bath.  You just leave your shoes there and go up to the room with this fellow and leave your clothes up there. He’ll give you a towel."
The men are still laughing.
I know translators aren’t necessarily true to what they have said.  So I know what has really been said is:
“See this old skinny armed chicken with the big pig belly. He stinks like a foreigner. Do whatever you can to make him smell better. Also he’s a psychiatrist so he’s very uptight. He’s all in his head. All day he's asking me endless intellectual questions.  Then he tells me all about himself and his problem with too many wives and too little sex.  I just want to guide him. So please make him relax. He’s so uptight.  And another thing, he’s a Christian.. I’ve shown him all these mosques but he keeps wanting to look at the pictures the Greeks painted of this one Virgin.  These Christians only can talk about this one virgin in the past and laugh at us thinking of many virgins in the future.  I’ll never understand them. Allah be praised."
The men are laughing. I leave my shoes and put on slippers.
I go with one upstairs. Somewhere a call to prayer is being sung outside.  I notice for the first time it has  a dirge like quality.
I am shown to a room with windows.  I’m left with a towel. How can I undress in a room with windows? Is there no modesty?  What would Freud think of this?   I undress cautiously. I am not at all sure I like what I’m getting into. But now the smiling attendant  is back.  Again he is showing me, like I’m an idiot,   how to tie the towel around my waist. I still have my underwear on.  I leave them on. He wants me to follow him.
Downstairs a bigger swarthy man with muscles like Schartzenager takes me by the arm and leads me into the bath area. It is very hot.  Not just hot. Really very hot. I know it is supposed to be hot but this is hell hot.  Very hot.  And that’s just the entrance. There are all these little booths around the outside with white marble sinks a person could drown in. They have taps and the cubicles are open so  I suppose others can watch the Christian being tortured. Everything is marble so that blood would be easy to clean up.   The fellow has noticed I’ve slowed but happily encourages me to keep up.  A big marble slab in the middle of the room looks just like a butcher’s table.  I imagine these people are cannibals.  That’s why it’s so hot.  it’s soup hot.
He shows me into another  interior room, all white, like an asylum.   Already the sweat is bleeding out of me.  This is what the temperature of the sun at it’s core must feels like.  The man leaves me.  There’s a Mexican there. He has a high voice.  He is so happy. You can see the coocaracha bands playing in his head.  His eyes are sparkling like Jack Nickolson's in the Shining.  “Where are you from, “ he asks.  “Canada.”  “It’s cold there,” he says.  “Yes,” I say, the word ‘cold’ bringing to mind  ‘ice cream’ in my head. All I can think of now is ice cream.  I’m wilting rapidly like a Dalli clock picture. The energy is seeping out of me.   There are rivers of sweat pouring off  me. I am fast  a grape becoming a raisin. The very water in my body wants to escape this heat.  A man can’t live with this much sweat leaving his body. The Mexican is smiling. The coocaracha band keeps playing in his head. I’ve got ice cream and death images running through my mind.
I can’t stand it.  It’s exhausting.  I’m going to faint. I have no more water in my body. My brain is overheating. I need air. I stagger out of the room.  If only I can make it to the lobby. I’d leave my clothes but my wallet is there. Still I see myself running down the streets of Istanbul in just a towel and my wet black shorts. My black shorts are very wet like I've wet myself.
The very very big man is guarding the exit.   He’s smiling too. He sees me and concerned,  points to where the washroom is.  WC.  I don’t need a washroom.  I couldn’t piss if my life depended on it..  I have no water left in me to piss.  I need ice cream.  I need to escape.  After standing a bit in the WC hoping the man will have left and the exit will be unguarded I come out.  He’s standing there smiling.  He is showing me back into the furnace cauldron.   I am now even more convinced he’s a cannibal.  He wants his meat more marinaded.  The Mexican is still there smiling. Coocaracha bands are playing in his head.He’s in his native element. Meanwhile I am regretting every blizzard I cursed. What I would give for a hockey rink right now.  I can't stop thinking of ice cream.
I make another escape.  The big man is waiting for me.  This time he pulls me by my little chicken arm  along to one of the cubicles.  This is definitely  where the Turkish CIA water boarding takes place.  I have no secrets.  Except I’m wearing black underwear under my towel.  I’ve forgotten to take off my cross.  He sits me on the floor beside the huge sink. Then he fills a bucket and time and time again he throws water over me.
I think its very odd.  It’s humiliating. This is very peculiar. Another bucket in the face.  I’m a little angry. Another bucket over my head.  I don’t know if I should put up with this.  Humiliation. I’m sure it’s some form of humiliation technique.  That’s when he pulls on the Glove.  The Glove  is a real instrument of torture. It’s got nails and broken glass embedded in the mitt. He covers it with sweet smelling soap. Standing over me  he rubs and scrubs.  Huges strips of flesh are removed with each brush of his big hand. He shows me all the dead skin on his torture mitt.  I’m sure there’s live skin there too. I can see strips wiggling. I don’t understand why there’s no blood. He really scrubs my back.  I remember my mother doing this.  I don’t think I’ve remembered my mother scrubbing my back ever before.  For a moment I feel cared for and almost have peace.  Then he throws another bucket of water at me. This psychological torture coupled with flaying goes on interminably, repeated over and over again, bucket of water in face, scraping away skin, bucket of water over head, scraping away skin.  Turkish water boarding.  I’ll confess to anything.
Next he shows me a slab of marble against the wall. There’s a towel laid out on it and a bowl at the top. .  The bowl is just the right size to catch the blood when you slit a throat. The man must want me Hallal.  Hallal human! I lie down on my back.  I’m so weak.  All the water is gone from my body.  I am ready to die.  The man is obviously ISIS. I’m such a fool that I forgot to remove my cross. I just don’t see the scimitar.  Where’s his great sword! I’m been to the armoury in Topkapi Palace with my guide Mehmet and any minute I imagine the sword from the armoury, the biggest one I’ve ever seen coming down like a guillotine. I’d pee myself right now if I had any water left in my body.  I can see myself being beheaded any minute. Any minute now my head will go plop.  It will roll across the marble floor and my last thought will be  ice cream.
Now I am confused. He wants me to turn over and lie on my fat belly. Doesn’t want me looking in the face of my executioner.  Now I see what the bowl is. I lie on my fat whale belly with my face in the bowl. He’s put a towel across it.  No doubt this is meant to quiet my screams.
Thats when  he pummels me. Two handed hammering away at my puny flesh.  With his hands he hits me all over. He's tenderizing me.  I can’t fight back.  He’s too big.  I have no water in my body.  All I can think of is ice cream.
Then the massaging begins.  Gentle long strokes. Any moment now I expect to be raped.  He’s just wearing a towel. I’m just wearing a towel. He’s beat me up.  He’s got scented soap and water.  I’m thinking now of ice cream and rape.  Then his hands are digging down to the bone. It’s gentle at first but it just about hurts.  I know he’s used to massaging men with big muscles. He’s  not calibrated his hands to weak academic tissue. I resist crying out. He presses my back down through the marble.  Each vertebrae of my spine separates. I can feel myself getting longer. I’m being racked and unpacked. All the carefully honed knots kneaded out of me.   Torture Racking.
Now he tugs on me and I realize he wants me to turn over. It’s a Charlie Chaplin silent move. I don’t speak Turkish .He doesn’t speak English.  He just moves me about like a slab of meat.  He lifts my leg like it was a twig and pulls it about forgetting I’m attached to it. Then he’s pulling each of my little toes. Im asking myself what did my little toes do to him that he’s twisting them and tugging on them.  He gives my stomach and sides a going over. Then he’s tugging on my ears and rubbing behind them. I’m convinced he’s “tut tutting’ just like my mother did when she washed behind my ears insisting I’d not done a proper job of it on my own.
Once all my joints have been separated and my muscles pommelled and kneaded like doe he takes me again to the little Turkish CIA water boarding rooms. He throws more water on me. Bucket after bucket.
Then he tells me with pointing and gesturing I must go back in the oven.  He’s blocking the way to the outside.  So to humour him I take his lead.  On the way he shows me my own water boarding cubicle and wants me to go in the oven and come out and throw buckets on myself and go back into the oven. I’m not making this stuff up! That’s what he wants me to do.  He wants me to humiliate myself. So I do it.
The Mexican is in oven. He’s still smiling. He’s still got coocaracha bands playing in his head. This inferno must make him feel like he’s at home on a nice sunny day. I’m overheated in seconds and out water boarding myself to cool off.  I’m about to escape but the big big man is at the doorway and he points me back to the oven. I think he just thinks I don’t remember his instructions. I go in and out a couple of times but then I see the man’s no longer guarding the exit.  I make my escape!
In the the lobby there are three other men sitting wrapped in red and white towels. Their heads are  wrapped funny  in towels too  Like a lady hairdressing party.  It’s something out of a Monty Python Egyptian skit. They ‘re just sitting there talking and drinking tea. Next thing I know, the attendant takes my wet towel  has  gift  wraps in dry towels. Maybe now I get raped.   My head is wrapped  funny like the other guys.  My underwear is still all wet underneath. I really think it’s better if you don’t wear underwear in Turkish baths.
I down a bottle of water the attendant gives me. Then I drink  tea.  We’re  all sipping tea and smiling.  They  were talking to each other but since I don’t speak Turkish they   just smile  at me like we all do when we’re with an idiot.   The tea is good too.  I can feel myself reviving.  When I have some strength back I climb the stairs and change to my outside clothes.  I stuff my wet underwear in my suit jacket pocket.
I go down stairs. I pay the attendant the 50 Turkish Lira.  The prices were on the door and Mehmet had explained  this . A turkish lira is about 25 cents.  I give a tip as well. I can’t believe that I’m going to be allowed to leave. I’ve not been beheaded, cannibalized or raped.  It’s almost a disappointment.    They all  smile at me.  I smile back.  I step outside.  I’m free.
As I walk along the street back to the Amber Hotel I realize I feel good.  I feel better than good. I feel better than I’ve felt in years.  I’m squeaky clean. I smell  good.  My body is moving  like a young big cat.  I’m a tiger.     I’m padding down the street.  All the normal tension is gone.  I actually begin to  think of Virgins. They don’t even have to be Virgins.  At the first cafe I stop.  I order  ice cream.  I’m happy. Really happy.   Sexy happy.    I even hear a coocaracha band playing in my head.

Psychiatric Bio Ethics 2012

Ethics is defined as the moral principles that rule the conduct of a person, class or group.

eth·ics

[eth-iks]  

plural noun

1.

( used with a singular or plural verb ) a system ofmoral principles: the ethics of a culture.

2.

the rules of conduct recognized in respect to aparticular class of human actions or a particulargroup, culture, etc.: medical ethics; Christian ethics.

3.

moral principles, as of an individual: His ethicsforbade betrayal of a confidence.

4.

( usually used with a singular verb ) that branch ofphilosophy dealing with values relating to humanconduct, with respect to the rightness andwrongness of certain actions and to the goodnessand badness of the motives and ends of suchactions.

-web based dictionary

As is common with definitions, further words within the definition also need defining.

Hence:  the word moral.  What does that mean exactly. At first I think, simply that mean's 'right or wrong' but looking to Wikipedia I see my simplification met with a whole article on morality encouraging one to truly think outside the box of one's own limitted sense of the meaning of the word in today's society. (from wikidictionary)

Morality

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Appropriate" redirects here. For other uses, see Appropriation (disambiguation).

Morality (from the Latin moralitas "manner, character, proper behavior") is the differentiation of intentions, decisions, and actions between those that are good (or right) and those that are bad (or wrong). A moral code is a system of morality (for example, according to a particular philosophy, religion, culture, etc.) and a moral is any one practice or teaching within a moral code. The adjective moral is synonymous with "good" or "right." Immorality is the active opposition to morality (i.e. good or right), while amorality is variously defined as an unawareness of, indifference toward, or disbelief in any set of moral standards or principles.^[1][2][3][4]

The morality and ethics of my family, as a smaller unit in a greater community, might include the notion, 'don't kill what you don't eat', 'coupled with cannibalism is frowned on."  However as anthropologists have shown us, a family of  'cannibals' don't necessarily share this lofty notion but rather simply their lives by saying it is wholly permissible to kill that which you don't eat, eat that which you kill,  and indeed you can eat all but your immediate blood relations.

Further complicating this is the notion of "moral relativism', 'ethnocentricity, and power politics.  Einstein showed that the position of an object altered the nature of it's mass, velocity or time relative to another.  From this 'scientific hypothesis', arts students jumped to the conclusion that ideas were like the objects of physics and the position of a premise might well alter the positive or negative of a conjuction.  Hence to the moral relativists it might be okay to eat one's neighbour on bad days but not good days.

Ethnocentricm was the phenomena whereby a person perceived themselves and their culture as the centre of the universe and showed rather limitted understanding of their neighbours.  Marie Antoinette's "Let them eat cake' was such a statement of ethnocentricity that upset the French masses of history and almost restored cannibalism to that nation which had hopefully shook off that tendency hundreds of years before her reign.

Power politics suggest that while a variety of positions may exist for defining an action if a person has a gun pointed at their head and is being told what to do they are more likely to choose a solution appealing to their immediate master.  Marie Antoinette lost her head to a guillotine.

A principle is another 'slippery' word in what might otherwise seem a rather benign definition.

Wikidictionary has this to say about principle:

principle

[edit]English

Wikipedia has articles on:

Principle and Principle (chemistry)

[edit]Etymology

From Old French principe, from Latin principium (“beginning, foundation”), from princeps (“first”); see prince.

[edit]Pronunciation

• IPA: /ˈprɪnsɪpəl/, /ˈprɪnsəpəl/

• Audio (US)

  (file)

• Hyphenation: prin‧ci‧ple
• Homophone: principal

[edit]Noun

principle (plural principles)

1. A fundamental assumption.

   We need some sort of principles to reason from.

2. A rule used to choose among solutions to a problem.

   The principle of least privilege holds that a process should only receive the permissions it needs.

3. (usually plural) Moral rule or aspect.

   I don't doubt your principles; you are clearly a person of principle.

   It's the principle of the thing; I won't do business with someone I can't trust.

4. (physics) A rule or law of nature, or the basic idea on how the laws of nature are applied.

   Bernoulli's principle

   The Pauli Exclusion Principle prevents two fermions from occupying the same state.

   The principle of the internal combustion engine

5. A fundamental essence, particularly one producing a given quality.

   Many believe that life is the result of some vital principle.

   Cathartine is the bitter, purgative principle of senna. — Gregory.

6. (obsolete) A beginning.

   Doubting sad end of principle unsound. — Spenser.

[edit]Usage notes

Principle (moral rule) is often confused with principal (most important). Consult both definitions if in doubt.

The confused may care to remember that 'The principal alphabetic principle places A before E' as a reminder of the relative spelling.

[edit]Synonyms

• (moral rule or aspect): tenet

[edit]Derived terms

[show ▼]Derived terms

[edit]Related terms

• prince
• principal
• principality
• principled

[edit]Translations

[show ▼]fundamental assumption

[show ▼]rule to solve a problem

[show ▼]moral rule or aspect

[show ▼]rule of nature

The translations below need to be checked and inserted above into the appropriate translation tables, removing any numbers. Numbers do not necessarily match those in definitions. See instructions at Help:How to check translations.

[show ▼]

Note that the definition of principle gives rise to the need for translation of 'fundamental assumption', 'rule to solve a problem' and 'moral rule or aspect'  and 'rule of nature".

Inherrently then we see the beginning of a circular reasoning in the very definition of ethics and morality because increasingly as we dissect the parts we see subdivisions defined again by the part or whole already believed addressed.

At this point we haven't even got to the individual principles or the rules or morals that might be applied to a group.  As a fundamental assumption it might be advantage for cannibals not to eat their children.  But given the behaviour of fish this is not necessarily a rule of nature.

More importantly rules and principles and ethics have been shown to have a 'hierarchy'.  It follows from this that there is such a thing as 'first principle'.

Clearly the first principles of various philosophies are vastly different.  The deconstructionists believed that their first principle was that everything could be deconstructed however their critics demonstrated rather humorously that indeed the first principle of deconstructionism was that everything but deconstructionism can be deconstructed.  Faced with deconstruction the deconstructionist said 'this is our God and thou shalt have no other Gods but mine".  Opposing philosophers using the tools of deconstructionism deconstructed deconstructionism regardless.

Humanism has argued that 'man is the measure of all things'.  In contrast theism has stated that man is a product of the creator.  It sounds like a mute point but Gallileo nearly died for suggesting that the Earth revolved about the sun rather than vice versa.  To show a judge in his court that he is wrong is to face his wrath almighty when the infantile ego of a judge is fragile and easily threatened by opposing arguments. The same judge might be a rather pleasant and reasonable sort if met in the cafeteria of a psychiatric asylum.

Dr. Johnson, as quoted by Bob Dylan said, "steal a little and they put you in jail, steal alot and they make you king'.  As conquerers make the rules the rules serve principally to maintain the status quo and the reformer is anyone who is an enemy of the status quo.

The rules then of groups in a society serve to keep outsiders out and insiders in.  Indeed 'secrets' and 'changes of rules' serve to keep those furthest from power identified as such.  As one black feminist said, "we got your honky ass so tied up in knots you can't even talk about us without offending while we can call you whatever crackerjack chauvinist name we want to".    Cannibals by contrast to modern more complicated and refined society had less appetising ways of resolving disputes about 'whose in, and whose out' , the courtly questions that amused  King Lear and his daughter Cordelia.

Bioethics is the study of controversial ethics brought about by advances in biology and medicine. Bioethicists are concerned with the ethical questions that arise in the relationships among life sciences, biotechnology, medicine, politics, law, and philosophy. It also includes the study of the more commonplace questions of values ("the ethics of the ordinary") which arise in primary care and other branches of medicine. (Wikipedia)

I won't even begin to define these 'controversial' terms here or get into a discussion of what is ordinary to a schizophrenic homeless person as opposed to dilletante judge who only uses cocaine 'recreationally'..

Bioethics purports then to address the questions which a patient or physician might encounter and philosophise about.  Indeed philosophy itself is an arm chair monday morning quarter back profession that serves to 'criticize' deeds of others.  Ideally, with the assumption, even the fundamental assumption, that an ounce of prevention can save a pound of cure.  The study of bioethics might well equip a physician or patient better for their mutual dance with the reality of life and death decisions, a reality infinitely far from classrooms, court rooms and academic discusions which usually focus only on sex and money. .

Having studied logic in undergraduate school and learned the nature of rhetoric and fallacies in later education I personally found that it was immensely beneficial to have this knowledge for my own edification as it helped me appreciate the extent of illogicality among those who would claim to be most rational.  Indeed the field of psychiatry developed in some ways to explore scientifically the failings of philosophy especially the rationalist explanations of the day.

Psychiatry has been creditted with the invention of the conscious and unconscious.  Many philosophers remain as unconscious of psychiatry today as they are unenlightened by religions.   Philosophy has been called secular religion and ethics the rituals deprived of incense.

Having read many books on bioethics, attended conferences and listened to ethics philosophers I have personally been impressed by their arrogance.  I have reflected on why these wordsmiths have so often sauntered with such surety and certainty when mortals such as myself quiver before the disease of nature, the tears of patients and the irrational politics of man.

So much of philosophy is an after thought that sounds so like the confabulations of the demented.  The bioethicists in a committee hide behind the collective unity of a group believing in the superiority of a committee decision themselves, never having studied the dynamics of 'group' behaviour or how even sunlight alone can affect trade on global stock exchange. Being a member of a committee makes it easier to plan parties and make shopping lists while others talk about you. Words like deniability and due diligence supplant such outdated concepts as accountability.

But one must tread softly before the fragile egos of philosophers today.  Administrations are toppling everywhere in the Dessert Spring that overturned the middle east and tyranny and it's Goebbels proponents are in terror screaming as Kurtz once did "the horror, the horror".  Kurt Vonnegut in his earth shattering novel Gallipagos has the world as we know it ending because of a random gene error on a strand of DNA and the tendency of politicians to eat so much, especially at lunch, that their decision making is severely impaired in the afternoon.

Psychiatry finally is defined:

Psychiatry is the medical specialty devoted to the study and treatment of mental disorders. These mental disorders include various affective, behavioural, cognitive and perceptual abnormalities. The term was first coined by the Germanphysician Johann Christian Reil in 1808, and literally means the 'medical treatment of the mind' (psych-: mind; fromAncient Greek psykhē: soul; -iatry: medical treatment; from Gk. iātrikos: medical, iāsthai: to heal). A medical doctor specializing in psychiatry is a psychiatrist.

What becomes excruciatingly tedious is that philosophers in general argue over the existence of the brain, routinely deny the existence of a soul, and certainly are not in any agreement about the existence of the mind. This leaves it impossible for them to agree on mental disorders, the very concept of abnormality, given the morality of the normal, and whether, what and when treatment is needed.   This is further complicated by Psychology that upstart branch of Philosophy which clincally can always refer dangerously difficult patient to a psychiatrist thereby passing the buck and like a committee escaping accountability while physicians and especially psychiatrists breathe sleep and eat accountability, the latter only if they are not a blood relation.

I was priviledged to study philosophy in the Elysium of Arts undergraduate years when universities were still relevant and had not been supplanted by private sector institutions. The philosopher I studied under contributed the most to writing of the Mental Health Laws of Canada.  He was a humble and wise man.  He knew little freedom though in his tenured cage and often seemed trapped in the class room with dubious students such as myself, when his true joy was to be alone in books and papers where he could play his Hessian "glass bead game'.  He liked me as well as he liked any human, I suppose.


Finally psychiatric bio ethics is limited by the stupidity or genius of the year 2012.  This is the year of the Chinese Dragon, two centuries at least since philosophers killed Jesus, long after Buddha ran away from Maya and Mohammed spoke for Allah.  No physician could heal the Healer's wounds.  Jesus was indeed told "physician heal thyself".  Socrates, pressaging Christ, drank the hemlock given him by the State committee. Buddha at least knew virgins galore, seeming a rather sated baccanalian, compared with Mohammed who still lusted for jehad.

The Mayan Calendar said the world would end in 2012. All hope lay with the Mars expedition, the Moon havin losts its romance. Fetus killing patriarchal Chinese Intelligence outsmarts sterile Matriarchal Western Intelligence still searching for the sperm of Wiki leaks founder Julian Assange, since Clintons was reclaimed from Monica's sweater.

War is daily imminent/eminent.  Israel threatens to invade Iran,  'the best defence is an offence'.  Political boundaries are membranous as ideas. Power dictates new philosophies and sometimes just sprays Febreeze on the old.  Cannibals are hungry.  In Canada we are facing austerity.
The latest "info entertainment" facebook video shows children armed with AK47's.

Hallelujah! Praise Plato and pass the ammunition.

So begins Psychiatric Bioethics 2012.