Wild Target

Wild Target with Bill Nyys and Emily Blunt is lark of a movie. Best of British humor with bits of Pink Panther and even a Cleese parrot. A love struck older assassin with a mother concerned about his career. Gorgeous kleptomaniac girl who has no end of endearing expressions. I was laughing breathless. Like Lock Stock and Two Smoking Barrells, nonstop hilarious action.


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Divorce Therapy

While the present legal system is the principal cause of divorce in Canada, incompetent counsellors are a close second.

Routinely I hear of  married, separated or divorced  people who have gone to counsellors and it is clear in minutes that the counsellors have not been formally trained in the difference in technique, approach and interaction that separates individual counselling from marriage counselling. These individual counsellors due to their arrogance and ignorance are better termed 'divorce therapists'.  It would be better to go to a lawyer trained in mediation than to see a counsellor who is primarily an individual therapist.

In individual therapy a person comes into the therapist who asks 'what is wrong?"  The individual then goes on to tell the therapist of litany of complaints and the therapist helps the individual deal with these complaints.  The individual doesn't have a solution and is seeking help with their problem.

In marriages, the conclusion of one or both of the individuals when they see a counsellor is that the 'marriage" is the problem, or "the partner is the problem".  The visit to the therapist is more often than not seeking confirmation that divorce or homicide is a good idea.  By asking what is the problem the therapist often in one session consolidates the insurmountable nature of the problem and confirms the a priori solution.  The couples commonly don't return but one person does and here is the conflict of interest.  Individual therapists then see one of the couple for commonly one to two lucrative years having literally created an intellectual emotional adultery or agreed with the irate one that this one is the problem and needs a whole lot of fixing.

Consequently one of the leading schools of marriage therapy suggests at the very start to ask not what's wrong with the marriage but rather 'why did you get married and what was good about the marriage?"

Individual therapy is usually best done by individuals .  The best in marriage therapy usually work as a mixed couple.

Indiviudal therapists don't have to be married.

Despite the orthodoxy surrounding the industry of counselling it has been my rule of thumb to discourage people seriously from seeing unmarried marriage therapists and further not to see anyone with more marriage 'experience' than the therapist.  This requires a certain humility on the part of counselloers. However the fact remains that marriage is a journey and the issues that exist in the first couple of years of marriage may appear to arrise again at a latter stage. However just as the treatment for a food throwing 3 year old is different than for a food throwing 13 year old so are the different approaches to understanding marital problems at differennt stages.  A young person with a few years of marriage will 'think' they know what's going on with a 20 year marriage but they will be as wrong as a kid who can fix his bicycle would be if he thought he could fix the space shuttle.

Given that the legal system refused to uphold the state marriage contracts or the religious marriage contracts which had the statement 'in sickness and in health' among other lines, there really is no state or religious marriage contract in extant any more. The courts simply don't 'respect' the state or church by their behaviour towards those married in these institutions.  That's opinion but it's come from seeing 25 years of divorces here where the 'contract' wasn't worth the paper it was written on and the courts did all manner of things that would never have been accepted by any business man in contractual aggreements or any criminal state court in regards to contractual aggreements.

 

Hence it's a fact today that the only 'contract' that the courts actually call a 'marriage contract' and respect is their own 'brand'. This they call a 'prenuptial agreement'.  Clearly all those married with any other aggreement than a 'prenuptial aggreement' would be wise to get one as the 'marriage contract' and ring they have does not mean to the court what they probalbly thought it meant when they signed the original agreement before the minister or state official.

One of the approaches to marriage therapy is to ask the individual to get out the 'contract' they agreed to and review whatever problems they are having in regards to the supposed contractual arrangement they entered into.  Marriage therapists trained this way will then help the couple write a new contract and the marriage is renegotiated in light of new developments and desires as any business aggreement would be done. If a new contract isn't written at least the new interpretation of the old contract is added to the papers.

Most marriage therapists well trained and experienced don't 'get mired in the past' but offer a couple homework to observe how the couple completes this.  The whole experience of recriminations upon recriminations with the couple arguing in the office is highly lucrative for the counsellor but serves to confirm that the couples problems are insurmountable.

Any therapist who takes 'sides' is 'colluding' and acting out their own marital problems or those of their parents in the session. Marriage therapy requirest the objectivity of a judge whereas individual therapy requires that one be supportive on one individual.  The "patient" in marriage therapy is the marriage.

In obstetrics no obstetrician considers it a success if the baby dies and only the mother lives.  Similiarly the best marriage therapists consider success the couple and their marriage surviving. Too many smart counsellors cover their bets and claim they 'facilitate' divorce.  Divorces don't need facilitation and the lawyers are already to a very brisk business of facilitating divorce. They don't need counsellors to compete. If the marriage therapy isn't working it is wise to recommend that the couple see a lawyer, much as a surgeon would call in a coroner rather than continue to operate on a dead body or one of its parts.

For these reasons and more it is extremely wise if one is going to a marriage therapist to be sure they are not a divorce therapist.  Too often couples take their baby marriage to what they think is an obstetrician only too find to late they've been to an abortionist.

 

 

 

 

Thank you, Lord for our Pets

Thank you, Lord

For the pets who surround us

And give greater meaning to our lives

Who watch out for us as we watch out for them

Who cause us laughter and concern

And make our hearts smile

With the love of companionship

Keep these our friends this day safe

Help us make their world more rich and full

As you bring our worlds closer to you.

Thank you Lord.

The Social Network

I just watched this movie about the development of Facebook.  Wikipedia says that Mark Zuckerberg was born Jewish but now describes himself as an aetheist. Knowing God doesn't unfriend people I have no difficulty after watching this movie knowing why Zuckerberg has unfriended God.

It's a disturbingly sad statement on American business which seems to say that one must be a psychopath to become a billionaire. Is this true?

The Zuckerberg story is Duddy Kravitz but without the depth, intelligence or sophistication of that Canadian Jewish classic.

Despite the disclaimers about his worship of Baal and money, by  Zuckerberg , I can't help but think that any philanthropy done now by him would ultimately be for some financial advantage such as tax breaks.

The Olympian sportsmen Winklevoss twins, Cameron and Tyler  and their cofounder, East Indian Divya Narendra had developed the ideas and code for ConnectU, the Harvard University prototype for Facebook. The Winklevoss father, was Wharton School professor of actuarial science and author of mathematical text books. Tyler studied classical piano for 12 years beginning at age six while the twins self taught themselves HTML at age 13.

Mark  by all accounts except perhaps his own created a gucchi look alike but subsequently lost a lawsuit for some 100 million dollars to the original genius behind facebook.  Eduardo Saverin, the Brazilian jew and apparently the only 'friend' Mark had, provided all the start up funds for Facebook without knowing that  the idea was a 'rip off.  He was later blind sided by Mark who in an entertaining sleight of hand stole his principal share in Facebook. Not surprising at this time the company and it's senior members were involved in apparent cocaine abuse.  Eduardo lawsuit against his reptilian friend returned his name to cofounder and resulted in undisclosed millions of profit.

It's a sad statement for America that China doesn't even want to friend Facebook to be able to unfriend it.

The confidential court files were published in magazine 02138 and Facebook took court action to squelch them. The judge ruled against Facebook.  A Manhatten publication bought the Harvard related magazine and ceased it's publication.

Mark Zuckerberg was named Time magazine's Person of the Year for 2010.  He joined Hitler and Stalin who also were named Time Person of the Year.  .

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets Nest

We just watched the last of what has been well dubbed the "thriller of the decade' by the Daily Mirror.  I bought this Daniel Alfredson film in DVD Blue Ray combo at Costco for $24.  We'd watched, better still, been mesmerized by the first two episodes of th Stieg Larsson trilolgy starring Noomi Rapace as Goth Lisbeth Salander and Michael Nyqvist as journalist Mikael Blomkvist.  The movie was released in Denmark in 2009.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and The Girl Who Played with Fire are other two parts of the trilogy.  It is an amazing political intrigue with crime and drama and hope despite all odds.  Truth is stranger than fiction and the subject matter has come to light repeatedly too often in recent years in too many countries.

Polar Bears, The Arctic's Fearless Great Wanderers

Polar Bears, The Arctic's Fearless Great Wanderers, is Anthony Dalton's contribution to the2010 Heritage House Amazing Stories Series. As a fly in doctor in northern Canada, serving in Churchill I had many stories and close encounters with these majestic animals.  Anthony Dalton's book chronicles the very first encounters of explorers to the farthest reaches of the north. He tells stories of inuit and Europeans. He's even found tales from Siberia.  It's a great read. I'd met Churchill guide Mike Macri when I first went north with Dr HIldes.  It was fun to read Anthony's true accounts of people and places I knew.  The stories are frightening, macabre at times, and sometimes comedic.  Anthony does a marvellous job of sharing them in this great little book which I wish had been in my school library. it's certainly something anyone going to work in the north should strongly consider. 120 fast moving pages with a wealth of information as well as the latest ecological and protection data regarding the bear including discussions of the effects of climate change on habitat.. A superb read, I recommend it to all

Antisemitism

The trouble with antisemiticism, beyond being simply stupid, is that Jews are a highly divided people. Which Jews is one against.  For instance, my jewish friend is a poor jew. He only gets to sit at the back of the synagogue.  An antisemetic might well knee cap him because of his name and religous, ethnic alliance. The fellow knee capping my friend would be doing it  because a rich jew had done something to him. Some rich powerful jew had hurt him so he was going to get back at my friend.

Rich powerful people have more in common with each other than they do with others in their racial or ethnic affiliation.  Lawyers have more in common with other lawyers than blacks lawyers have with black washroom attendants.As a white Canadian doctor I have more in common with other doctors than I even have with white Canadian flower sellers.

Jews are divided by religion. There are secular and religious jews.  Should I hate religious jews or secular jews. As a Christian I have much more in common with religious jews than I have in common with those sons of bitches secular shits that are like non jewish sons of bitches secular shits.

Canadian Jews may have more in common with American Jews than I as a Canadian have with Americans however being Scottish Canadian I have more in common with people of Scottish heritage around the world than tribal jews have with highlanders.  Highlanders collectively consider all lowlanders, including jews, as inferior.  Jews might well consider us that way and demonstrate their ignorance of God's plan.

Just as there are Moslem Shiittes and Sunnis making it hard to hate all moslems since the two groups are as different as  Ashkenazi Jews are from Sephardic Jews. Ashkenazi's are as different from Sephardics, since Askenazi's are like New Yorkers and Sephardics being like Los Angeleians.  While it's easy to hate people from either eastern or western United States its hard not to like people from Wisconsin.

Among the secular jews there are pro israelites and anti israelites.  There are actually secular Jews who think that American jews should enshrine a part of Manhatten and compete with Israel for American militarial industrial foreign aid.

Among religious Jews there are three major divisions as well as slough of lesser divisions. The guys who dress funny to the western secular eyes are the "Orthodox".  They are not that disimiliar to Fundamentalist Christians or Jihad spouting conservative Muslims.  Politically they can be as off the wall as house burning Dukabors.  Spiritually though these orthodox and conservative religious sects of mainstream religions are often much more touched and deeply moved.  Miracles are more likely to occur in an orthodox setting than in a liberal religious afternoon coffee clutch of an Anglican church.

The American reform jews or British Liberal jews don't even believe a jew is a jew if they convert to another religion.  Leonard Cohen despite his jewishness might well be a buddhist by common law traditions. Jesus Christ started out a Jew and ended up a Christian.

That's the trouble with antisemiticism. You simply don't know which jew is a bad jew.  Peter was a jew and became a Catholic.  If antisemeticism said we should get rid of jews it might be safe to get rid of jewish plumbers but what about jewish musicians.

If a bunch of purpled eyed scaley blue and orange skinned people started killing white people I'd find a lot in common with other white people and skip the differences. I'd even see Ukranians and Irish as brothers in such a case.  War and survival like politics makes strange bedfellows.  I might even think natives and Italians were white and consider blacks just well tanned white if there were a whole lot of purpled eyed scaley blue and orange skinned people threatening me personally.

Locally when a rabbi raped a woman people who criticized him and the cover up were not 'antisemetic' any more than the catholics who objected to the pedophiles who infiltrated the catholic church, were anti catholic..  All Italians aren't mafia and all Japanese aren't Yakuza.  Neither are east Indians all members of the Brown Army or Chinese necessarily Maoists. The Chinese devils even confuse us by speaking two languages, mandarin and cantanose.  How can one be anti Chinese without knowing whether it's the short or tall Chinese that are problematic.

Anti semetism is stupid and lazy thinking.  I was impressed this week with the Egyptians.  They were specific. They'd taken the time to figure out that they weren't 'anti government', or 'anti authoritarian' but specifically said they were 'anti mubarek'.  I think anyone who doesn't like a jewish person should take the time and energy to be specific.   Mubarek of course tried to say that his critics were anti Egyptian but that's what tyrants say when they want to hide their dirty individual deeds in the group.

I personally am a fan of Einstein and think he probably had Scottish Canadian blood in him.