Memory

I laughed when I heard the joke , “if you remember the 60’s and 70’s you weren’t there.” Alice Cooper who made his first four shock rock albums drunk and stoned and his next 20 clean and sober joked recently about reading celebrity autobiographies.”I was there and I know that they’re only vaguely true... the memories of then are more like a dream’
I just enjoyed one of many neurological and psychiatric podcasts I’ve been listening to on ‘constructive memory’ The last neuroscientist said the implications of the research are huge and should revolutionize the legal system. Unfortunately it remains 19th century in a 21st century world. Nothing was more trubling than to listen to the OJ trial handling of DNA evidence appreciating how scientifically outdated the legal system is regarding some aspects of evidence.The same holds true regarding memory and testimony.
There are state and trait factors affecting memory. Mood,  attention, group agreement, social acceptability, medication, drugs , marijuana, time of day and pre conception are all factors involved in memory. The basal ganglia affects attention as the hippocampus affects memory but short term and long term memory are also affected by neocortical and subcritical structures.
The reason I remember Beatles songs is as much to do with them being replayed endlessly through my life.
Retrospective falsification is the phenomena of consciously or unconsciously mis remembering events previously held true. The simplest near ubiquitous example are the post divorce claims “I never loved him. I never loved her.’ despite the obvious hard evidence of wedding children and photos and then the change of heart with anterograde ripples. It’s been said that after WW2 not one German could be found who said they’d supported the Nazi party. Even Peter denied Jesus until the cock crowed.
False Memory Syndrome was a term that arose when biological fathers were serially and routinely accused of infant rape and pedophilia not just for psychopathic reasons but based on the fallacies of emotional memory. Metaphors become reality and marketers like Goebbels knew even a lie repeated loud and long enough becomes the perceived truth. Individual memory is like the collective memory of history. There it is said the winner writes history. In the individual there are similar characters
Competing for the dominant narrative.
It’s all further complicated by research on time, causation and perception. The questions regarding time travel are complicated by the multiplicity of possible pasts. This are all sobering considerations to be considered in this latest mental health epidemic of memory and false memory. All this of course is occurring at a time when an aging population fears forgetting their car keys is a sign of dementia. Time really to study neuroplasticity and how that affects memory and read again the classic ‘The man who mistook his wife for a hat’

Gratitude Sunday

Thank you Lord for this day. Thank you for all the blessings you bestow on me, all those I see and acknowledge and all those I take for granted. Thank you for my family and friends. Thank you for Gilbert the dog and George the cat. Thank you for work and purpose. Thank you for health and study. Thank you for my continued interest in learning.  Thank you for my sense of meaning even if it may be arbitrary.

Thank you for the rain. I had planned to run this morning and the rain was just the thing to relieve me from that obligation. Help me to exercise Lord but not too much. I am so thankful for the venison barbecue last night. Thank you for the fine food and the television and couch. These are the things of Sultans and here I am blessed with the joy of entertainment and company. Thank you for walking the dog. i enjoy his excitement with every smell. The fragrances have been rich Lord. Thank you for for Costco and the Mall and all the stock of so very much and Amazon and it’s mail order supply such that I can access readily my needs. Thank you for a fridgerator full and cupboards full of food. I could survive weeks with just the bags of wild rice I bought at Costco. Thank you for toilet paper and soap.

Thank you for my being a winter Christian church person. Thank you for the summer vacation when I don’t feel so obligated to attend but still appreciate the sun and celebrate the Lord in Celtic majesty.  Celtic Christianity is always about nature, tradition and gospel.  Thank you for nature. Thank you for the greenery of this season and all the flowers and buds.  Thank you for my motorcycle. I have enjoyed wind therapy these last weeks. Thank you for vehicles that make otherwise tedious commutes more enjoyable knowing that the cars and trucks are reliable.  Remember the cars of young, the Baja bug that didn’t like the rain, the Rabbit that died, the van that stunk. I am so blessed today. Thank you Lord. And thank you for the high ceilings of my home and that I no longer have the mould and my breathing is better in doors . Thank you for the sunshine and spring. Thank you for the hope of camping and thoughts of fishing.  Thank you for trout and salmon.  Thank you for days without schedules. Thank you for people who respect your age and service. Thank you for experience. Thank you for reality. Thank you for people who are pragmatic. Thank you for those who speak from their experience and not from their beliefs. Thank you for my colleagues and teachers. Thank you for the fireplace. Thank you for propane and gas and diesel.  Thank you for electricity. Thank you for cell phones and radios and communication.

Thank you Lord for the sense of connection. Thank you for life and afterlife and the feeling that I’m not alone. Thank you for the We-ness.  Thank you for those who are developed souls and tell the truth and aren’t just driven by greed and selfishness lying for their nefarious purpose and falsely accusing others for personal wealth and gain. Thank you for those who are honest and have integrity by comparison. Thank you for the majority of people who believe in karma, retribution and the golden rule of do unto others as you would want them to do unto you. Thank you for the mature women and mature people of every race and culture who do not live their lives in blaming others and seeking fault and explaining themselves as victim. Help me Lord to overcome my own tendency to self pity and castastrophing.  Help me to remember thy will be done not my will be done. Help me to overcome the pointing finger.

Help me Lord to focus on the positive and not give attention to the negative. There are those who would streak on stage and those who would upstage and those who would shit on stage to get your attention. Help me to ignore them an focus on the good and righteous and all the creative people that are making life good for themselves and others. Help me look on the bright side and see the good when the bad is so obvious.  Help me to give attention to the healthy, like a surgeon, like an immunologist.  Help me to be more aware of the goodness Lord. Help me to see the law and order. Help me to pay attention to all the positives and blessings. Help me to lift my head. Help me to smile and laugh more Lord.

Thank you for happiness and joy and laughter. Thank you Lord.  Jesus Christ Son of God have mercy on me a sinner. 

Pregnant Doctor Delivers

Now that I’m older I have the true luxury of remembering. Those who died young didn’t know this.  As a physician I’ve been blessed to be present at so many pivotal, and one might well say ,sacred times.  I’ve heard countless stories and felt the lives of those who have come to me to share.

This morning, for no reason, these memories seem to rise up like that, I don’t even know of a trigger. Yet this one came to mind and I smiled as I so often do remembering work, the colleagues I knew and the patients who brought us together.

This occurred in a busy teaching hospital.  An obstetrics ward in the wee hours of the morning.  We were all gowned and masked.  We had these little paper booties that covered our shoes.  I remember them most.  The white walls and bloody red sheets. The laundry piling in the corner as all were needed for the work at hand. Later there’d be time but at that moment it wasn’t something we could think about.

“There must have been a power outage over the whole city 9 months ago,” the nurse joked.  

I was at the foot of the bed watching as the cervix dilated and the woman pushed. She’d been screaming for an hour before between contractions when the pain should be least. In addition the anesthetist had just given her a spinal block and begun to administer epidural analgesia.  She should be feeling less pain and be screaming less. If anything her screams had grown louder. 

 I’d asked the nurse about that, as an aside, concerned that something might be amiss.  She nodded to the door where a thoroughly terrified young man was there at the window peering in. He’d come to the little square glass then walk away with an older man comforting him.  I’d seen the older one put his arm around the younger man’s shoulder.

Then the father to be would pull back his shoulders, stand tall and return to peer in the little window.  There were tears in his eyes as he waited helplessly, overwrought I presumed with his inability to do anything but wait.   I’d been glancing out at him now and then while waiting, patiently, for the delivery to progress. 

While the anesthesist was speaking to the patient, the nurse was reviewing the continuous monitoring data strips.  In a low voice , beyond the hearing of the patient, who was either  listening to the anesthetist or screaming her lungs out, the nurse shared. 

‘That’s her husband and father,’ the nurse told me. “They’re old school Portuguese.  Our patient is okay but the more she screams the more the men will care for her and the baby after.  They’ll be helping her now for the whole of the coming year,’ she said smiling.  “It’s a good thing. It’s cultural. She’s going to be okay and she and her baby are going to get a lot of well deserved breakfasts in bed.’ She laughed.

I reflected on the aboriginal patients I’d delivered who’d been a different challenge. Their stoicism and silence had been the means to recognition in the family and  community.  As a doctor I had so much to learn about how people express themselves in sickness and in health.  I had to listen for the different cues that something which might be normal had changed to something that might be more concerning. The older nurses especially in Obstetrics were a wealth of experience and insight. Early days I felt like a hamster on a wheel forever playing catch up. 

I was brought back to the present, not by a fresh crescendo of screams but by the door bursting open and another gurney rolling in as it was pushed quickly  in place  by two sweating hurrying orderlies.   

“We’ve run out of anesthetists.” One said smiling as our anesthetist began to busy himself with the new arrival.  “All the delivery rooms are full and we’re  doubling up.”

I was suddenly very anxious. I was very new to this, only a few deliveries under my belt. My lady was almost fully dilated and here was this new lady well on her way by the rate of the her contractions.  

I think the older anesthetist could see I was concerned if not outright terrrifed.  He said, “Her doctor will be on the way. She was just delivering another lady before I came here.  If all else fails I’ll gladly help at your end.  I’ve been there many times before,” he laughed with the infectious confidence of maturity and experience.  My patient screamed. The other patient screamed.  The nurses eyes twinkled.  It was already a long night.

At that moment a very very large young female doctor burst into the delivery room and went to the side of the newest patient taking her hand, speaking kindly and calmly to her as she looked over the monitor.  

“You didn’t think I’d miss this for anything,” she quipped to her tired but smiling patient. “We’ve been planning this for 9 months.  Now we’re going to see that it was all worth it!:

The doctor was 10 months pregnant herself if she was a day.  Bigger than a house and nearly the size of a whale. She’d moved fast into the room but could hardly bend to speak to the patient.

Going to the foot of her patients bed she peered down and said to the nurse.  “Already crowning”.  To the patient, she said,   “ We’re doing very well.’ Not much longer now especially given how well your last delivery went. “

“Hi Charley’ she said to the Anesthetist. 

“Hi Annie,” he replied, in the tone of old friends.

“Good morning, Doctor, “ she acknowledged me kindly. 

Looking over my shoulder she saw that my patient was just beginning to crown too.. 

“Primip” she quearied,  smiling at my patient.

“Yes,” I replied

“This is Sarah’s second, could be a close match! ‘ she said looking at her patient and returning to where she could view her.  Turning to me she said, “I’m not going to say it’s a race but if this were Vegas they’re be laying close bets as to which child would come out first.‘ 

“Not much longer now , just a few more pushs Ladies.” She said to both.

It was clear that my patient was more relaxed now that this marvellous woman doctor had arrived, even if she was the size of a house and some at Vegas might be including her in the betting . 

The poor patient  was no longer dependent on me a young doctor obviously wet behind the ears. Her screams had changed  now to more like grunts as she pushed responding to the nurse who’d taken a position right beside her head , letting the patient  hold tight to her hand. 

“Here we go”  Dr. Annie said to her patient just as my patent  became fully dilated and the crown  began to appear.   There was no need for an episiotomy. Everything was going smoothly.  I reached forward as the baby came , cradled the  head, then the shoulders and the bum and finally the legs came too.. The nurse was there beside me taking up the baby in clean linen and, wiping off the amniotic fluid, then giving the beautiful little boy baby to the mother.  The placenta delivered. All the bits were there. The new mother was smiling beautifically, pleased with her little boy. I clamped and  cut  the umbilical cord.  

Normally the father would be invited into the room but with the two deliveries happening and the nurse being more aware than me she’d wheeled this bed out into the hall where the father and mother and family and in laws were all waiting to celebrate the new addition to their family. The nurse returned immediately to be there for the second delivery.  I stood by waiting to be of assistance, not knowing what else to do. 

Just as my lady was being wheeled out, with her baby clutched to her chest, the other baby was delivering.  I’d only glanced over to see the mountain of a pregnant woman doctor between the woman’s legs in stirrups.   She’d been leaning awkwardly forward , stretching out and over the mound in front of her  assisting the delivery.  Her arms had the vague resemblance to the Tyrannasaurus Rex but somehow she managed.   Lifting the baby into the air she exclaimed,  “It’s a girl!”  as she handed the baby to his mother.  

I was about to leave then when the lady doctor said, “I’d appreciate if you ‘d not go  just yet. “

“Sarah” , she said, “Congratulations, but if they don’t get me another bed I might have to ask  to share yours.  My waters broke in all the excitement of your delivery! “ She laughed. It was obvious thought she was  just a bit strained. 

The nurse with the strength of a Sumo wrestler and the speed of a jaguar  muscles  another bed into the room with my helping with the guidance.

 Sarah’s husband had joined her and the two were google gaga over the new baby as the two sweaty orderlies were moving the bed out of the room. I don’t even think they noticed us so caught up in love they were.

Dr. Annie was now  standing partially bent over grabbing hold of her thighs and Lamaze breathing as another contraction passed.  The anesthetist,Charley,  was right by her side. 

“I’m going to have to ask you to help me up on the bed,” she said, “ I don’t think I can stand much longer.”  Together with Charley I helped her onto the stool the nurse had brought forward.  Together we hefted her up onto the bed where she collapsed with a huge sigh.  Lying on her back she looked like an Anaconda who’d swallowed and elephant. I couldn’t believe how far along she’d been and delivered two babies that night before she was about to deliver her own. 

‘Could you tell me how far along I am?” she asked between panting.   Charley was establishing an IV.  The nurse  was spreading the jelly for the  ultrasound monitor.  The baby’s heart rate was suddenly visible and looking just  just fine on the screen.

I examined her then. She was fully dilated and just beginning to crown.    I said so.

“I thought as much, “ she said, between breaths and pants. “I called my own doctor before Sarah. If he doesn’t get here,  I’d appreciate you’d stay and assist. I’m rather occupied myself. “ She smiled and I could see Charley’s eyes twinkling as well.  I really was rather awkward and uncertain in those early years. I stayed of course. Never thought I’d do otherwise. 

“Of course,” I said. 

Her beautiful face was flushed and sweating profusely as another contraction took hold.  The nurse had given her her hand and she was squeezing tightly.

At that very moment,  another rather  tall doctor,  burst through the doors. He stopped abruptly beside the patient and said. 

 “I’m glad I’m not late, Annie. I hope you didn’t wait just for me. ” Another contraction came.

“Good to see you, Charley,” he said coming down to the end of the bed beside me. 

“All’s well?” He said, Charley, myself and the nurse nodding. 

I never was more happy to stand aside and let an older doctor take my place.

“I see a head Annie.  Shan’t be long.  Just another push or two if you don’t mind.”  Dr. Annie gave a powerful push and the baby’s face began to slowly appear, the obstetrician carefully guiding.

And sure enough, another baby girl was delivered that morning.  A lovely little girl.  Five fingers and five toes.  

Dr. Annie’s smile was as beautific as the other women’s.  Her husband came in as I began to make myself scarce.  Even as I was leaving, Dr. Annie, turned her beautiful eyes on me, and said,  “Thank you. ” Then her attention was all for her baby and her man.  I looked back over my shoulder at this wonderful family tableau knowing I had been blessed to be there this night. .  

I made my notes at the nursing stations surrounded by the doctors who’d been called in for this most productive night. 

 I will never forget that beautiful lady doctor 9 months pregnant delivering another woman’s baby before giving birth to her own.  That’s a memory I feel  blessed to have. Looking back I’m just thankful to have been there and thankful to have been of some service to all those amazing colleagues and patients and especially Dr. Annie.  Sacred times. 

Good Government

I am thoroughly in favour of good government. I totally understand and appreciate the need for leadership and beurocracy. I love that there are those people who will deal with the complexity of managing the vast mechanical organism of civilization with the aim of helping the most. I love democracy though know the value of enlightened benign dictatorships. Dictatorships like communist leadership are unfortunately rarely benign.

I believe that people can be individually and collectively be  wrong and the more wrong they are the more they will attempt to persist.  I think there are lessons to be learned from history and from my own life. I’m not a saint. Why would I expect others to be and why ever would I believe something like ‘ trust me I’m a politicians. ‘  History also teaches me that a few bad apples can ruin a whole country and turn it into the night mare religious dictatorship that is Iran today or the horrible nation of Venezuela, once so hopeful. 

There are major checks and balances in the world to stop Naziism and Communism, the fascists and the extreme left wing from ruling the world. Marxist ideologies  are terrifying as fascist one are, Stalin and Hitler happy to be allies though neither was trustworthy.   We have police and military and various organizations in place to reduce the risk of another WW1 or WW2.  We have a supposedly free media and freedom of speech and freedom of religion and freedom of association to help keep government serving the majority not a few corrupt cronies.  In Canada that’s supposed to be the rule but there is a major divide between the rich and the poor and there are serious double standards and extreme hypocrisy in place.

Being a whistleblower in Canada is not only unrewarded it’s highly dangerous. That said it’s not nearly as dangerous as telling the truth is in China or Saudi Arabia.   Yet speaking up against abuse of power and even responding as did Gandhi and others less disciplined have maintained the balance of power.

There is a fear that those who work will be disenfranchised by those who speak pretty and steal ugly.  There have always been con men and thieves.  We don’t want a government of conmen and thrives. Our parliamentary system is supposed to thwart this. 

There has been a movement away from parliament and government by the elected to increasing government by bureaucrats and courts.  Also individuals in corporations and protest organizations have felt right about taking the law into their own hands. There’s a sense that the police aren’t able to manage matters because they are undermined by the courts that increasingly are undermined by special interests. There’s the sense that the lobbyists are able to buy undue power in parliament.  There are similar concerns in other commonwealth countries and in the US.

All this may just be paranoia.  We have survived 1-2 years now of both Trudeau and Trump and never were two politicians considered more vile by half the population.  The country survives despite the daily complaints of the direst outcome.  We were told there would be war and we were told their would be economic collapse. There’s been a whole lot happening but mostly business as usual.  Obviously Pierre Trudeau moved Quebec into the centre stage of Ottawa and sidelined the English, the west and rural people in general.  Now Justin Trudeau continues the undermining of Canada as a whole using identity politics to divide and conquer playing everyone against each other like a Game of Thrones. Canadians are aborted en mass to be replaced by immigrants which Trudeau called ‘irregulars’ There is no law and order and in the US Trump is not supporting the EU Brussels.

Yet trains run and planes fly. There is running water. Hospitals are staffed.  There are wait lists. There are increasing doctors policing doctors with fewer and fewer doctors seeing patients and more and more patients complaining about the failure of the once great medical care system in Canada. But there are medications and breakthroughs and cures  and the system muddles along.  There may be 20 men and women doing the job of 1 administrator necessary with all the graft and corruption and duplication involved but the military industrial complex and the education complex and the business complex and the Health care complex all have their inherent flaws. The point is that the men and women in all these systems are serving some purpose even if it is as a useless seat filler. We are at least not in collapse or at war and despite the constant whine of the Global Climate Lobby the sky hasn’t fallen. 

I just worry they get in the way. like Bed blockers and all those people at rush hour who would be better employed driving at a different time. There’s all this irritating construction but it’s all keeping the goods moving in and out of the city. The roads and highways are all another complex that persists.

I’m critical of the waste and inefficiency and individuals who are ignorant and arrogant and drunk, stoned or dementing.  The point remains that the present government and system and beurocracy are managing things. I’m critical and know critics are generally the most useless. I’m in the midst of the work so I’m at least talking about things I know and seeing the mismanagement up closes nd real.  Yet today we’re still passing. Fail is when the whole shebang goes to hell in a handbacket like Venezuela and all the socialist/communist countries that couldn’t even let the people work and make sure their children were fed. FAiling is all the war lords and gangs and tribes fighting each other. 

There’s a lot that can be improved but its still needs to be said,government is good as it keeps the roads open, and violent crime continues to reduce.  There are simply so many things that government, the politicians, bureaucrats and leadership are doing extremely well. I want to acknowledge good government and the good people in government who are not being lead astray by bribes, ideologues or simple garden variety megalomania insanity. These are the wholesome ones who aren’t mislead by  the Agenda 21 recommendations of the incredibly corrupt and mismanaged UN.  I like that there are warehousemen driving motorized vehicles stacking food in the late night and early morning so that when I go to the grocery there are groceries there. I think all of this government, corporate, private and public is too often not acknowledged. I’m not presently being tortured or watching my loved ones get beheaded and yet to listen to Canadian media and American media all of are presently undergoing genital mutilation and flagellation and the world is about to implode because of poor government. The fact is my genitals are intact. No one is being beheaded in my immediate circle. The sun is shining. My neighbours are barbecuing. There’s no AK47’s being stacked in my Church.  It’s all pretty mundane and boring and frankly I thank our government and the bureaucrats for this.  Mediocrity needs to be maligned but really I must remember this is not so bad and things could be a whole lot worse. Personally I thank the Lord for this but believe God has a sense of humor and that’s why he has given us some of our present politicians.  

I’m really thankful for good government and good leadership and especially all the good people that make things work despite the stupid people in our midst. 

Contes Cruels, Firehall Arts Centre

It had been years since Laura and I had been to the Firehall Arts Centre. St. James Church which I attended for years was just across the street. There’s no excuse. We both said how much we’d liked the performances we’d seen.  Then last year we so wanted to go to the Chelsea Hotel production of Leonard Cohen’s music and songs. But it sold out immediately.   Thanks to the Turning Point Gala I was able to win tickets at the auction for the Firehall.   Laura was able to book our seats for tonight.
We arrived early enough to have appetizers at St. Lawrence Restaurant, this truly fabulous French restaurant with so much character we simply found a block away. I’d thought we’d get coffee nearby but this magnificent little morsel of divine cuisine and wonderful service magically appeared.  The duck pate is to die for!  Laura loved her mushrooms white cream sauce and pastry.  The waiter spoke French. The menu was French. I was taken back by the language and atmosphere to St. Boniface, Quebec City and even gay Paris. But there is no doubt that duck had flown in from  New Orleans. The hostess laughed to see my face light up and said she loved to see that expression of joy people always had when they had their first taste.  We are definitely going back for the main course. They were kind enough to rush our order and we were able to be at the Firehouse 5 minutes before opening.
Our gustatory senses and olfactory senses were sated .  Now we were about to have a sensational  visual and auditory experience.
Contes Cruels was written and choreographed by Serge Bennathan who is simply brilliant.  The dancers Josh Martin, Hillary Maxwell, Molly McDermott and Katie Lowen were individually and collectively original, talented, and really quite extraordinary. They moved so beautifully with such strength and form.  I loved the avant garde nature of the work.  The specific movements might have begun  in Europe before the war or between the wars,  in Berlin or Paris,  modern dance pushing the very edges of art.  Degas was fascinated by ballet. Matisse captured the beginnings of modern dance.  Expressive dance grew out of classical ballet into tonight’s 21st century creation with poetic appliqué and sound intertwining bodies.
The choreography of Serge Bennathan and the dance of Josh Martin, Hillary Maxwell, Molly McDermott and Katie Lowen  was truly gifted.      Shouts, rushing bodies, flow and abrupt changes like the northern spring break up released floods of emotion.  I found myself smiling laughing and frowning with the sheer emotion of the presentation.   Then  the sensitivity of a pas de adieux that touched the most vulnerable space between. And always these incredible bodies moving as if the four were gifted children or maybe migrating birds. At moments they were even humans and briefly angelic. The soothing words of poetry provided reassurance.      It was a black space made tactile by the lighting design of James Proudfoot.  Everything about the performance was memorable.
The audience exploded with applause and standing ovation. The dancers bowed and returned and bowed again.
Now Laura and I really want to go back to the Firehall for more. They have yet to announce next year's performances. It will be great too to see future projects of  Serge Bennathan, a Creation for Ballet BC planned for 2019.  The dancers will go on to great fame.
And yes, we will make the time and book a dinner before at the St. Lawrence Restaurant.

Labyrinth, the Turkish Movie (‘Labirent’)

When I was in Turkey I saw and exhibit in the museum for the decades of Turkish film.  I was impressed by the exhibit. Later I told East European friends how I’d seen all these films on display and what I’d seen was very talented.  They told me they loved Turkish films and that this is what they grew up on. Istanbul was the Hollywood of the East.

Well, Labirent (Labyrinth) was spectacular.  Tom Clancy, Tom Cruise, Angeline Jolie, and 007 all rolled up in one.  Made in Europe, mostly Germany and Turkey the back ground was incredible. Lots of those wonderful scenes of ancient cities.  The real find was the actors and actress.  Atimucin Esen played Fikret, the central character, the police spy operative in search of a terrorist cell.  What a great actor!  Melted Cumbul played Reyhan the partner who was not only deeply beautiful but also very intelligent and when she shot and fought there was a truth about it that’s not always present in the lipstick feminist Hollywood girls. Everything about the acting was real and human and meaningful. 

Tolga Ornek  was the director and did the screen play as well. It was so moving but in unpredictable ways. None of the stereotypical car chase sequences we’ve come to love from the west but fast paced foot chases and counter intuitive switches,with short rapid scene changes to maintain momentum. The car chases were there but different. Indeed everything was refreshing in the photography and angles.  The characterization was rich. .  I couldn’t help but think of the French Connection. It really was right up there with he best of thrillers and action movies. 

The subtitles were great but breaking up the film was the English dialogues when Fikret met with the English Intelligence head, Hugh Spencer played most believably by Martin Turner.  Yurdaer Okur was a really believable intelligent bad guy as was Altman Gordon playing Yousuf Zawas, the elder..

The plot was simple. Internet chatter, a leak here and a counter leak there, and a clue here and a clue there, all the while the hunt progressed with bombers going off and the action crescendoing to the big event.

The synagogue scene was so touching.  The children and family scenes all so moving.  It was heart rending at times but overall just a great French Connection type race against time.

Well done. I’m so impressed with Turkish film and look forward to seeing a whole lot more. The whole cast was great and deserving of comment but I’d  just say.  see the film.  Enjoy a great thriller. It was released in Germany in 2011 but is out on NetFlix 2015.  Great movie Two thumbs up!

Lying Women and False Sexual Harassment Claims

Herstaria, the political correct word for hysteria which containing the hated 'his' could no longer be used as it offended women. HERSTARIA by contrast is the present Public Mental Health Epidemic of False Sexual Harassment Claims. She "stars" as a 'faux victim'.  It has long been noted that 'false allegations of victimship ' is an insurance scam.

"Victimship' today may be more about 'influence' and 'attention' and 'services' than actual money. Andy Warhol did promise 20 minutes of fame for everyone and many of those long in the tooth are angry enough to feel they deserve it.

I am surprised though it has followed so closely on the last Sex Industry Mental Health Epidemic, 'infant rape.'  Merely  a couple of decades ago every infant or toddler involved in a family law custody trial was 'raped' with violent intercourse and no evidence of trauma.  Millions of men and children were savagely harmed by this epidemic that perhaps caused more harm than  the Ebola Virus.

Grandparents objecting to themselves being deemed dangerous to infants because their son had married a woman who put herself before the needs of the child began the investigations and studies that concluded in the well established 'false memory syndrome' and 'parental alienation syndrome' fairly ubiquitous at one time in the divorce landscape.

Cultural maxism and the Burocratic State were all for destruction of the family, tenets proposed early by Marx and Engles.  There must be only one god and that God must be  the State.

The legal system rather than expanding it's paradigm continued to treat children as property with a bias that the mother 'owned' the children. Courts fell into three groups, reasonable adult judges with their own children trying to propose a settlement of conflict for the sake of the children and parents, old men easily manipulated by their biology and the desperate sexual wiles of angry women who found grandfather aged men were happy to chivalrously 'rescue' the 'little lady' even when the mother was extremely abusive or, anti male feminist judges, one woman judge finding some 350 consecutive custody cases against the father.

In enlightened countries, family law cases are dealt with by mixed gender tribunals and increasingly here in Canada, after 30 years of ruin and devastation, by mediation, first introduced in the US decades before Canada. There is  evidence of healthy progress in an institution not known for evolution except as political expedience.

Now we see  we don't hear about the rape of children in the media.  The principle reason was that it was found that the majority of cases noted in divorce trials were false.  Further there was major factual evidence brought forward of children being 'coached' through 'extortion' by their mothers and feminist counsellors.  The overt and quite rabid bias of the sometimes frankly psychotic women involved in these affairs was increasingly made public such that 'interviews of children' and "examinations' had to be recorded and video taped. Already by the late 90's I worked in the US with a paediatrician who had undergone 6 months of formal training in the examination of children accused of being sexually abused.  The profound negative psychological consequences of children who survived the decades of 'false memory syndrome' continues today.

Yet here we are again,mere decades later with countless women claiming to be drugged and raped and if that is  too challenging to suggest, sexually harassed, which all women have experienced dependent on the definition. While men were all collectively called 'rapists' by fanatic feminists today they're are all correctly called sexual harassers.  Masculinity is defined as 'toxic masculinity'.

The 'false memory syndrome' mental health epidemic lasted at most a couple of decades fueled principally by the 'legal lottery' and many good parents wanting to protect their children and finding as the military before them had, a good offence is the best defence.

As a family and marriage therapist I routinely saw that the 'key' was 'terms of reference' as 'who started' or 'who escalated' or 'who hit who' was never as clear as the comic strip media portrayed matters.  The fact remains there are likely a million books written about WWI with as wide variety of claims and explanations.  It's always easier to choose sides even if that is arbitrary. Standing in the middle or being moderate in any conflict usually guarantees that both the extreme right and extreme left attack you together.

Men in power and women in power would isolate and deny the problem reframing it as an individual concern rather than a systemic or Industry Wide or Nation Wide Epidemic. There's always more money in treating things individually and by sweeping matters under the rug. That this Sexual Mental Health Perversion has risen again in mere decades is cause for concern if only because it removes billions of dollars from positive advancement of society and transfers this energy and finances to the nefarious designs of the Legal Lottery.  Were this energy and money put into science, world poverty would have been cured and space ships would be on Mars.  Instead, like dogs and other animals we are inordinately interested in butts and genitalia.

The classic 'sexual harassment' study was called the 'water fountain' questionnaire. A questionnaire was drawn up with statements rated from "hello", to "would you like me to tie you up, spank you and have anal sex with you" range. Pictures of two groups of men were chosen, pictures from an Alaska men's calendar of firefighters I seem to recall, and a collection of pictures of 'dweebs' who were thought to be attractive to their mothers but likely none other. Finally a 'rank' was chosen for the men from office mail order clerk to millionaire CEO. The results of the study were that if you were a  millionaire CEO who looked like an Alaska Men's Calendar picture seriously nothing you could say would be deemed 'sexual harassment'.  However if you looked like a dweeb and worked in the mail room all you said including 'hello' was considered 'sexually harassing'.

Rather than be considered uniquely concerned about the 'extortion' and 'lies' and 'frank psychosis of untreated women" (especially those suffering 'retrospective falsification' eg he didn't marry me therefore he either raped or sexually harrassed me at least) the persecution of men and the destruction of families, reputations and careers,  untold number of men are in jail because of female psychopaths and sociopaths, I would argue that there is a secondary agenda associated with maintenance of 'class'.

Once I was involved with number of women who stalked men and were viciously angry and violent and extremely deceitful. One woman claiming a number of rapes put one man in jail through false accusation and caused another to be severely demoted and a third to leave Canada rather than face a costly trial with everything stacked against him. When she confessed there was no consequence for her except loss of the sexual weapon she'd wielded for years and certainly no compensation for the men whose lives she'd ruined.

Some interesting statistical facts are 1. Women abuse children more often than men
                                                          2.  In divorce 50% of DNA of children show the father (who is still obliged to pay for the cowbird child) is not the biological father, never a surprise to the mother, but very often devastating to men.
                                                          3. Women historically marry 'up'.  Sexual harassment claims are a powerful means to get back at men who refuse to do for women what they demand or feel entitled to regardless of the relationship
                                                           4. Men in business commonly described sexual extortion as a common phenomena.  Locally 'if you don't give me $1000 I'll say you sexually harassed me' was the standard 'shakedown' fee.  Lawyers described it as the 'cost of doing business' and explained to a large extent the decline of a set of jobs and preference for the safety of admitted more irascible computers and robot alternatives.  A Texas study of male and female 'teen' gangs showed that boys extorted business by 'threat of arson' or 'violence' whereas female teen gangs used 'sexual extortion' to collect money.
                                                           5. The list goes on and is often discussed on the MGTOW, "men going their own way", a Utube network, a privately funded resource that obviously can't compete with the publicly funded propaganda sources such as Women's and Gender Studies Programs at University and the radical Feminist biased program of some political parties and CBC the public television radio show.  It must be noted because of the early death of men from the stress of work and personal sacrifice for women and family, wives and children have gained the wealth of the now dead. Women protected from the workplace lived 10 years longer than their partner and now control the wealth of Canada though they principally and hypocritically allow other men predominantly to manage it. This alone explains the increasing political grovelling. When women and men do the exact same job, as exemplified by the horrible agricultural workplace, they die at the same age.
                                                         6. Today's modern woman is no longer a 'wilted flower' of Victorian 'damsel' as they are a principal consumer of pornography, politically correctly called 'erotica' though best selling Fifty Shades of Grey was more wicked than most of female pilloried Hugh Hefner Playboy 'outrage'. IF imitation isn't the sincerest form of flattery, single old women in fancy race cars sport young men 50 years their junior as lovers. Female executives in mainstream women's magazines even write about the need for male prostitutions services for them while on business trips. And in Vancouver an over 50 year old prostute wrote a mainstream article blaming men for her nightly income being one tenth the 20 year old girls and feeling entitled to income parity. Meanwhile French Parisian prostitutes marched collectively against the unionization of their industry and many do not perceive themselves as "fallen women" but rather express the chosen benefits of the 'oldest profession'.  Despite this 'diversity' of opinion feminists insist women are all victims and all women are oppressed by men despite the fact that 'behind any great man there was a great woman' and to date Eva Brawn, the women behind Hitler, continues to be coddled by feminists.

Obviously there are women who are raped and sexually harassed legitimately but their cases are seriously sidelined by the Herstaria Epidemic.  Having treated women who came from other countries and were raped hundreds of times I have met women here who insist that they were as seriously injured by an unwanted man's 'look' as a woman gang raped repeatedly.  Seriously, it is now common for women to say that their 'emotional abuse' is worse than 'sexual and physical abuse.' The key to understanding this is the pure subjectivity of this claim and the demand for public resources with countless counsellors and psychologists listening ad infinitum to what one culture calls the 'princess syndrome'.  It's no wonder that my patients shot and stabbed and raped can't get to see a psychiatrist or get follow up care outside of the hospital admission.

The following are some of the leading spokes persons addressing this issue.

Chistina Hoff Summers, PHD
author of Who Stole Feminism, How Women Betray Women
and The War on Boys

https://www.amazon.ca/War-Against-Boys-Misguided-Feminism/dp/0684849577

Diana Davison, activist for the falsely accused

https://dianadavison.wordpress.com/tag/a-voice-for-men/

https://youtu.be/o1qN19P2nkg

Janice Fiamengo, Professor, University of Ottawa, The Fiemengo File

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XD65wnDGuTg


Jordan Peterson, PhD

https://www.facebook.com/vicenews/videos/974950379331579/

Camile Paglia

www.chatelaine.com/living/books/camille-paglia-free-women-free-men/

Naomi Lakritz is an example of a local case but there is also the Ghomeshi 
case where hundreds of women claimed the courts were wrong.  
The main position of feminists is that women should be believed
 when they speak of sexual matters.
 Indeed a senior female bureaucrat stated , "women don't lie about sex' . 
This was the same claim actually spoken and written in the epidemic
 of sexually abused infants when it was said 'children don't lie about sex'.  
The fact is lying is a 'skill' childrenten commandments 
'thou shalt not bear false witness' is alongside 'thou shalt not murder'. 



Lakritiz discusses how men are collectively guilty of sexual harassment in the epidemic and panic

calgaryherald.com › Opinion › Columnists 

It is hoped eventually appropriate compensation
 will be made for the last Herstaria epidemic 
and that soon compensation will be made
 for the real victims of this Harstaria panic.  

Then hopefully to paraphrase Ellen Degeneris
 we can get back to comparing what cars we drive.