Huge Hat Tip to Hotair. I can’t improve on the juxtaposition of an ancient multimillionaire parasite descendant of real producers condescending in the rawest bumper sticker terms to his political opposition — countered by a living human being who has actually felt the slings and arrows of life’s bare bodkin. Here:

Rockefeller should have felt shame. Did he? No. Progressives never feel shame. They’re all too damn stupid to comprehend simple logic, too infatuated with themselves to experience empathy, too lofty to see that virtue is not a function of their own godhood. They’re the quality. The rest of us are stinking, evil peasants.

Makes me nostalgic for Britain’s (when there still was a Britain, alas) sly understanding of what aristocrats were really good for.

I know. This happened more than a couple years ago, Dude.

But isn’t it interesting that the so-called party of the common man is now dominated by rich insiders who have no idea what kind of lives most common men lead between the incestuous power corridors of Washington and the gay bars of San Francisco?

I’m sure Hotair’s Allahpundit was most moved by Ron Johnson’s impassioned response to Rockefeller. I was most moved by Rockefeller’s subsequent response to Johnson. He’s not a sociopath. He’s a moral moron.

As all progressives in this nightmare era of American decline have become. Why I don’t keep up much with current events. When I don’t mention current affairs, it’s because they’re too ridiculously insane to be worthy of rational comment and too absurd to be possible of satire.

All I’d wish on Rockefeller is a good taxidermist. Except that I suspect he — and every other accomplice in this vandal regime — has already been stuffed with confetti made of shredded copies of the New York Times and posed in the museum of progressive paleontology like extinct creatures from an age no one should ever want back.

As I said. O in a nutshell. Emphasis on the ‘hell.’

How much sound and fury and high dudgeon has been expended on a mere name by those who profess to honor Native Americans?

You’ve heard tons of enlightened progressives wage a war against the Washington Redskins. Chances are, though, you’ve heard almost nothing about the war Washington, DC, is waging against the Native Americans they loudly claim to love. Here’s a brief intro.

Contrary to what you may have been led to believe, the United States has already tried its hand at a pseudo-single-payer system. The VA is one example. Another, albeit less highly publicized, is the Indian Health Service. (via WhiteCoat)

Based on an agreement in 1787, the government is responsible to provide free health care to Native Indians on reservations. And, as you can see from this scathing story from the Associated Press, that promise has not been kept.

The numbers don’t lie:

American Indians have an infant death rate that is 40 percent higher than the rate for whites. They are twice as likely to die from diabetes, 60 percent more likely to have a stroke, 30 percent more likely to have high blood pressure and 20 percent more likely to have heart disease.American Indians have disproportionately high death rates from unintentional injuries and suicide, and a high prevalence of risk factors for obesity, substance abuse, sudden infant death syndrome, teenage pregnancy, liver disease and hepatitis.

And, after Haiti, where in the Western hemisphere do men have the lowest life expectancy? It’s on Indian reservations in South Dakota.

I should tell you most of the (amazingly scant) reportage of the IHS crisis dates back to 2009, including this:

Recent accounts suggest the federal health service for American Indians on reservations is in crisis. Will President Obama’s stimulus plan and health care reform plans help?

A “Broken” Health Care System for Native Americans

On paper, the situation sounds good: Based on a 1787 agreement between tribes and the United States government, the U.S. has an obligation to provide American Indians with free health care on reservations.

But that’s not how it works, reports the Associated Press. Roughly one-third more is spent per capita on health care for felons in federal prison, according to 2005 data referenced by the AP. The system’s ineffectiveness has yielded a common refrain on reservations of “don’t get sick after June,” because that‘s when federal funds run out.

Does the age of the coverage mean that the beneficent Obama administration has solved the IHS problems it failed to solve in the VA? Uh, no. Typically, the O administration has made things worse.

Murkowski “Incredulous” at Indian Health Service’s Failure to Fully Fund Native Health Clinic Contracts

“I Feel Like I Am Fighting the Administration” to Abide by Supreme Court Ruling

WASHINGTON, DC — Senator Lisa Murkowski today had a candid exchange with the Director of the Indian Health Service over the Obama administration’s continuing refusal to fully fund the contract support costs for tribal health care providers nationwide, saying she is “incredulous that we are still living through this” fight. Contract support costs are the operational costs of tribes to manage tribal health programs –including personal management systems, liability insurance, and facility support costs. Last year, the Supreme Court ruled in the case Ramah vs Salazar that tribes should be fully compensated to for the operation of self-governance contracts in delivering the promises of the Federal trust responsibility.

Murkowski also rebuffed President Obama’s recent comments at the White House Tribal Nations Summit acknowledging his administration is shortchanging native tribes but seeking answers. “I went to the summit to focus on what the President would say about Contract Support Costs. The President said ‘I hear you loud and clear and we need to find answers,’” recalled Murkowski in her introduction. (clip below) “We don’t need to find answers; I think the Supreme Court laid it out very clearly – full reimbursement must be provided.” [Any of this sound familiar?]

The tribes had to go to the Great White Father to beg reimbursement for contracted IHS services.

Yet the current Wiki article on IHS seems, laughably, to blame the continuing fustercluck on, well, guess…

A 2010 report by Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Chairman Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., found that the Aberdeen Area of the Indian Health Service(IHS) is in a “chronic state of crisis.”[8] “Serious management problems and a lack of oversight of this region have adversely affected the access and quality of health care provided to Native Americans in the Aberdeen Area, which serves 18 tribes in the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Iowa,” according to the report.

In 2013 the Indian Health Service was hit hard by sequestration funding cuts of $800 million, representing a substantial percentage of its budget.

News flash. The problems didn’t begin with the sequester. Again from 2009. They’re written in the history of another failed federal promise.

They’re written in the chronic under funding of IHS, and in its regulation heavy bureaucracy both of which give rise to the sobering fact that at 1,642 per 100,000 people, the death rate for Native Americans in South Dakota is the highest of any race or ethnic group in the U.S., according to 2007 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention numbers.

Here and across America, tribal people know they must be dying or about to lose a limb to get serious care. Otherwise, their stories are of rushed providers failing to test them for potentially fatal dis eases despite obvious symptoms, long waits in clinics without ever being seen, and credit ratings ruined when IHS makes referrals to specialists but then doesn’t pay for the care.

“To me,” said Tommy Thompson, emergency manager for the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe, “it seems like they’re hell bent to provide the cheapest possible health care at the expense of our people.”

Maybe one day the president will read about the real Native American crisis in the newspapers.

Or, maybe, passionate progressives can take care of everything by renaming the Indian Health Service? Aren’t words really the only things that matter?

P.S. Just found this. What I’d call perfect timing. 50 senators send letter to Roger Goodell asking Washington Redskins to change their name. Youse gots to have youse priorities. Does they’s care about them Injuns or what?

Patrick.

My mother died ten years ago. But she lived long enough to take back a slander that influenced my dog decisions for thirty years.

As I was growing up, the only breed she totally dismissed was the greyhound. I’m paraphrasing but her position was essentially that greyhounds are too stupid to be worthy of the name of dog. She had one as a small child. His name was Skeeter (?). He didn’t fit in somehow.

Over her long long life she had Irish Setters, multiple terriers, German Shepherds, and Boston terriers (then called Boston Bulls). She was devoted to them all, a fine mom to her many charges, one of whom may have saved her life after a car accident — one of those notoriously stupid Irish Setters, no less.

In her final, failing days, she still had Mandy, but Mandy was also growing very old. I took up residence with her, and Lady Laird kindly lent me her greyhound Patrick for company because my mother was in and out of herself by then.

Patrick made more of a difference than I did. My mother sat in her living room and the ever calm Patrick curled up in the front room, content to be no problem to me. But he acquired the habit of checking on my mother about once an hour. He was never a licker. He would just come and stand near her for a bit. She put her hand on his head for a bit. Then he would go lie down again.

It occurred to her she should have something to give him. We told her about Cheezits. So she asked for a bowl of Cheezits at her chair side. Same routine as before. He came to check on her, she laid a hand on his head, but with her other hand she grabbed a Cheezit and gave it to him, which he accepted gravely before retreating again. It was their thing.

Her eyes lit up when he visited. He was so beautiful, so room-filling, so gentle, so serene. Her angel.

This is the greyhound soul. There are many sighthound breeds and varieties, but somewhere inside all of them is this combination of acceptance, quiet comprehension of human emotion, and uncritical love. They don’t learn how to fetch. You can bounce a nerf ball off their noses a hundred times and it never dawns on them to catch it. They don’t really play. But they love stuffed toys that have eyes and limbs. They like gathering them in and protecting them on their beds and couches.

And they also run like nothing you’ve ever seen, faster than every other dog breed and faster than any other mammal but the cheetah. Patrick once saw a squirrel across the street when I was walking him. He accelerated to full speed within the length of the leash. Only the adrenalin of terror at losing him enabled me to haul him in. Thought he’d dislocated my arm. Thankfully, he pulled up at the last possible second.

This is why there are sighthound variations. Speed and acceleration are useful traits for humans who want hunters, guardians, and competitive athletes. Scottish Deerhounds are the Incredible Hulk of sighthounds. Greyhound build but huge, overwhelming speed and endurance, heavy bones, and the strength to take down a deer in the open field.

Borzois, once called Russian Wolfhounds, are also built like greys but with hair long enough to thrive in Siberian winters, and the pack aggression to take down wolves.

Russians. Always strength in numbers.

Afghans. You think they’re sissies? They’ve hunted and killed in Afghanistan longer than anyone on earth but other born Afghanis. The hair? It gets cold in the mountains. The longevity of the breed? Fidelity to family.

You looking at me? I’m looking at you too. I can forgive. Can you?

There are Salukis. All the breed guidance tells you not to expect a close relationship. In them the greyhound reserve is transmuted to distance. But they have lovely feathers.

I understand. I just don’t care that much. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

And windhounds. People want smaller Borzois. Here they are. A new breeding experiment.

Pretty little things. Less muscle. More eeriness.

Two others I’ll point to today. Staghounds. A direct cross between deerhounds and greyhounds. They can run down coyotes. Not an AKC breed because they’re hybrids, not necessarily interbred to breed standards. Here’s some background.

Got coyote? Ice cream’s okay too.

And, finally, Doberman Pinschers. One of the most feared of all breeds. Fast, intelligent, beautiful, and loyal. But with teeth. Also definitely part greyhound.

Why do I mention Dobermans? Because some of our closest greyhound friends just replaced two prematurely mortal greys with this little guy:

I. See. You.

Where am I going with this? Sighthounds are distinct because they see. Us. All different kinds. That’s how we should be here. Not all the same but clear of vision. Not confused by all the myriad misdirections of our culture, politics, and media. I concede I’m part Doberman. That shouldn’t sever our familial ties. Faint hope?

Maybe. You tell me.

P.S. Apologies if any of this seems sentimental. Today is my dad’s birthday. He was born in 1922 and died in 1999. He thought the country was done way back then. Don’t you hate it when the old man was right all along? But I’m still his son. Just because the war is lost doesn’t mean you stop fighting. Fifteen years now. Sometimes I gasp for breath. Forgive me. What manner of sighthound was he?

Called the Lurcher. Not big but a relentless, tireless courser.

Happy Birthday, dad.

Boss talks a lot. I’m tired. And bored. I’m just a deerhound.

Lake seems to think this is a good idea. The “anybody out there” meme.

Me, I’m ready to decamp to Instapunk Rules. Being nice has run its course. Back to the long scrivers.

Lots of advertising kick behind the new F-type Jaguar.

But it’s a stocky little wallflower.

If it were a girl, you’d say lose the hips and we’ll talk.

The real thing is long gone.

Why the old ones are dying.

I could talk more. I did. WordPress didn’t like it. Enough said. They said. Why I’m dying too. I drove this car. You have no idea. Life today is a huge diminution of what it once was. But how could YOU know?

Even smart people have stereotypes.

Not starting a fight here. Jonah Goldberg is a clever guy and a good writer. But he doesn’t like the response to the cat beats dog video.

I have breaking news!

My dog is quietly sleeping on the couch! That’s right, she is a warm puddle of furriness. Earlier this morning she rubbed up against me and asked me to feed her. Even weirder, when I asked her to sit, she didn’t. She just stared at me as if I owed her money.

My only regret is I don’t have video of this amazing activity. For if I did, I’m sure The Today Show and Good Morning America would lead with it.

I can only reach that conclusion given the global hysteria over a cat that attacked a dog that was attacking a small boy. What I mean is, if one cat out of a billion acts like your typical dog, surely when a dog acts like a typical cat, it should also be big news.

Of course, that wouldn’t happen. Why? Because we expect dogs to be dogs. Not all dogs are heroes, of course. Not all dogs follow commands. Some dogs even do bad things, like attack little kids in the driveway. But these are exceptions to our expectations. Every day some dog somewhere protects a member of his family. Every day a dog does amazing things when asked. Every day millions of dogs do less-than-amazing things like sitting or fetching or rolling over.

But here’s the thing: When a cat does it — BOOM — everyone applauds like finish-line huggers at the Special Olympics. Put a video of a cat fetching a ball up on YouTube and it will rack up views like notches on Bill Clinton’s headboard.

This hero cat is a celebrity now for doing exactly what you’d expect of a family dog.

You know what this is, right? It’s the celebrifying bigotry of low expectations.

I don’t mind giving this cat her due, though who among us doubts that her motives could have been less than pure? Maybe the boy was her protein-rich “rainy day fund” as it were, “Hey Dog, I’m saving the bald baby monkey for later!” Maybe the dog and the cat worked out this whole stunt in advance to make her look good. Who knows?

All I ask is you see things through canine eyes for a minute. How would you feel if you saw this fawning coverage of a cat doing a dog’s job as proof that “cats rule and dogs drool,” as Sally Kohn put it? It’s the story of the prodigal son all over. Dogs do the hard work of being mankind’s wing-mammal in this world, and all it takes for everyone to gush over cats is one (alleged) instance of feline heroism?

Read the whole thing. It’s pretty funny. But it’s also wrong. What he leaves out is that species do interact. People have made arguments that human civilization begins with the domestication of the dog. Co-evolution they call it. Dogs simplified hunting. Humans had more time to sit on their ass and think. Dogs were waiting for air-conditioning and McDonalds. Their patience was rewarded.

Also possible that humans learned altruism from dogs. Where else do you see a being willing to die for you with no possibility of an ulterior motive?

Cats are considered exempt from the dog-human bond. That’s just prejudice, even bigotry. If humans can learn from dogs, so can cats. Why I talked about the phenomenon I’ve lived that could be called dog-cat packs. Cats aren’t stupid because they don’t obey commands. They just don’t like commands.

Lots of the supposedly lower animals are smart. Dogs learn English words, sometimes hundreds of them. Cats learn tens of them, but they still have emotional intelligence. Crows and ravens learn no English words but they learn our faces and our rhythms and how to exploit our technological civilization. I won’t even get into the genius of rats and squirrels and pigeons, and raptors. We are surrounded by intelligence, by deep emotion, by the consciousness of the universe.

Should I be talking instead about the VA scandal or the lame speeches at the 9/11 Museum dedication? Well, how the hell would I know? Your silence is driving me to silence. I’m thinking I’ll hear another evocative Raebert groan before I hear from the crushed multitudes of the Obama Pogrom.

Suit yourselves. Grrrr.

By all means go gentle into that good night.

One thing cats have over dogs. Cats never submit. The smartest ones I know are nervous now.

Everybody seemed pretty surprised by this video. I wasn’t. My first impulse was to check that my feral Mickey hadn’t been moonlighting in Bakersfield. He wasn’t. He was on the couch downstairs.

Quite simply, he’s The Man.

I’ve seen exactly this move before. When we got Elliott, he thought he was going to rule the roost, as his foster mother warned he might. Mickey was already elderly, fat, and inclined to very long naps. Elliott was young and full of himself. Izzie was young and happy for a sparring partner. She’s always had a Bruce Lee thing going, lots of posing, angry cat noises, and plenty of slick moves. Mickey had handled all of this like Neo handled Agent Smith at the end of The Matrix, with bored slow motion parries. Elliott, on the other hand, waded into her like Mike Tyson, usually without damage. But then came a day when he got above himself, pinned her down, and had her by the neck. She was screaming. I leaped from my seat but I wasn’t quick enough to get to her before what happened next.

Mickey, sunk in sleep on the bed in the master bedroom (or so we thought), came tearing around the corner at full charge down the hall and absolutely blew Elliott up, knocking him a full two feet away from Izzie. Very like the video above.

Boom. All done. Pecking order established once and for all.

Two factors here, seemingly at odds with one another. Mickey is one of three ferals Lady Laird adopted at the same time, one boy and two girls. The girls never have become acculturated to human companionship. Mickey was braver. He thought we humans might have our points, even if he was born skeptical.

It took me two years to get him on my lap. He had a habit of fishing with his tail. The end would hook and dance like a fish lure, and so I grasped it and let it go immediately. He’d cast again with the same result. One day he just jumped up and settled his considerable weight on me, purring like a housecat. Which he’s done ever since.

We’re friends. For life.

The other factor is a household with multiple dogs and cats. They become part of a pack. Every individual relationship is different, but there is loyalty to the pack and its members. In this environment, cats become astonishingly doglike. They know and respond to their names, they visit and nuzzle with one another, and they worry about one another. Cats will alert you when a dog is in distress, for example. They are also jealous of one another for couch time, and their irritation is not expressed to one another but to you.

I’ve had evenings when Raebert, Mickey, Elliott, and Izzie all take turns needing to be on a lap on the couch. It’s the culture of the pack, of which we are also a part.

Mickey keeps a low profile, but in some ways he’s the most interesting of the bunch because he’s come the farthest. He was born a wild thing, but he has come to love us. This is no anthropomorphic fantasy. If we both leave to go somewhere for a considerable part of a day, he gets cross. He glares fixedly at you as if he were winning a staring contest. Not allowed. The pack is supposed to stay together.

If you’ve studied wolf packs, there’s an alpha dog and there’s also an enforcer. Raebert is the alpha. Mickey is the strong right arm, despite his gathering age.

In truth, Elliott is probably bigger and stronger. Doesn’t matter.

Raebert and Mickey don’t hang together much. No need. Two big gray icons ruling the roost.

If we had a little kid here, Mickey would absolutely have done what the cat in the video did. It’s just his style.

Pat calls them not cats and dogs but the “four-leggeds.” They’re conscious, make no mistake about that. They make their feelings known. And not everything is about food.

P.S. I’ve written about Mickey before, notably here and here, despite his insistence on remaining more or less incognito.

For a bonus, he’s also mentioned here, which I link because it’s funny, back when Obama screwups were still kinda sorta funny.

The gay lip lock seen round the world. Censored by me. While I still can. You know. Sam The Man.

Everybody’s seen the Michael Sam draft moment. I’m reminded of the old movie Speed. “Pop quiz, asshole:” If you’re the first openly gay guy drafted by the NFL, “What do you do? What do you do?”

Well, obviously, you confirm everyone’s worst stereotype by sobbing like a girl when the call comes and then you French kiss your boyfriend on national TV to drive home the point that you’re the first openly gay guy to get drafted by the NFL. Oh. And then you insist that you should have been drafted in the third round, not the seventh.

**********TIMEOUT**********

Need to explain the title. Lady Laird and I discovered an amazingly charming reality show about a troupe of competitive hip hop dancers from Memphis, Tennessee. Not one of those shows where you spend all your time laughing at the participants.

To the contrary. The show is called Bring It! And it’s funny, yes, mostly due to the stage moms, but also impressive and inspiring. This kind of dancing is intensely competitive, even confrontational given that contests end in “Stand Battles,” where two troupes dance in response to one another for multiple rounds.

The dancers range in age from about eight through eighteen, and they endure ferocious discipline, long hours, and a, well, Lombardi-type coach who knows her real job is building character, confidence, and a relentless work ethic. They’re called the Dancing Dolls. Here’s a sample of what young girls can do when they’ve been taught to dance in synchrony.

Here’s a glimpse of just how tough she’s prepared to get.

And here’s a glimpse of the coach and her youngest students. She made mistakes in her own life. She wants to armor all the girls against those mistakes.

One more clip. You may think hip hop dancing is lewd. It’s a cultural distinction. The coach is adamant that she’s not teaching her girls how to be strippers and hookers. Here’s a Stand Battle against a troupe that does the spreadeagle thing. It’s called Stinky Diva because the Dancing Dolls mock their opponents for the spreadeagle thing. Even teenage girls know when too much is too much. ESPN, take note.

Last word before the end of the Timeout. Lots of competition among the Dancing Dolls. Lots of Stand Battles. They win, they lose. She cuts dancers from upcoming performances without ceremony. But there is never any sobbing or blubbering. They are learning how to take failure and come back stronger.

***********************

Where were we? Michael Sam. Actually, there were two stories worthy of note in his draft performance. First, his blubbering and sloppy exhibitionism. Second, the ESPN determination to run the footage over and over and over and over and over and over again, as if we — their customers — needed to be slapped in the face with their superior sense of what we should approve and admire.

The point is not original with me, but it’s still pertinent. When Tebow got drafted, he was mocked for his ostentatious Christianity. When Sam got drafted, we got mocked based on the assumption that we would be hatefully offended by his ostentatious homosexuality.

Why? Because homosexuality is suddenly cool. Not because ESPN is chock full of closeted queers. That would be slightly more acceptable. But gay people are a tiny minority. The desire is to rub our faces in it, to demonstrate their cultural superiority to the rest of us troglodytes. People like me who never watched Brokeback Mountain and never will.

It’s the same impulse that drives lib politicians to outlaw cigarette smoking everywhere while fighting for legalization of marijuana everywhere. Even though Patrick Kennedy (yes, those Kennedy’s) points out that no heroin addict ever started with a needle in his arm.

It’s the same impulse that causes the MSM to flat not cover the Gosnell trial, even though he’s probably the most prolific serial killer in the history of serial killers. Even Ted Bundy might have shrunk from sawing off a baby’s head on its way out of the womb.

What’s bad is good and vice versa. The tyranny I’ve mentioned before.

Gay guys are cool? Try these facts on for size.

The sometimes-deadly disease syphilis is exploding in the United States, with most of the increase since 1995 among men who have sex with men (MSM), according to a new report from the Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control (CDC).

As recently as 2000, researchers believed the total elimination of syphilis was within reach. The recent dramatic increases in infections, coupled with the observation that syphilis closely tracks with other diseases like AIDS, have the medical and scientific community deeply concerned. The CDC report considers “the increase in syphilis among MSM is a major public health concern.”

According to the report, “During 2005-2013, the number of primary and secondary syphilis cases reported each year in the United States nearly doubled, from 8,724 to 16,663; the annual rate increased from 2.9 to 5.3 cases per 100,000 population.”

The report also says that “men contributed an increasing proportion of cases, accounting for 91.1% of all primary and secondary syphilis cases in 2013.” Most of the increases came from men who have sex with men, which were responsible for 77% of cases in 2009 but 83.9% in 2012, what the report calls “the vast majority of male… syphilis cases.”

The report warns that the numbers in the new report are likely far less than the true number because only 34 states and the District of Columbia fully report sex of sex partners.

The report raises a particular concern about what it calls “co-infection rates.” “There are reported rates of 50%-70% HIV co-infection among MSM infected with primary or secondary syphilis…”

The notion of co-infection follows closely a report just published by independent researcher Dale O’Leary in the prestigious Linacre Quarterly of the Catholic Medical Association, found at the bottom of this article.

O’Leary reports that researchers understand the problems of health among MSM are now so vast and interrelated they are considered a “syndemic,” a linked set of health issues involving two or more afflictions acting in concert within a specific population. According to the medical literature, among MSM these would include diseases like syphilis, gonorrhea, and HIV but also such pathologies as partner violence, drug abuse, and psychological disorders. Treating a single part of this puzzle would not solve the whole problem.

The HIV/AIDS infection rate alone is bleak. From 2008 to 2010 the new HIV infection rate grew 12%, from 26,700 to 29,800 cases reported. One in five sexually active MSM carry the AIDS virus, but nearly half of those don’t even know it. However, HIV/AIDS is not the only problem, as the new CDC report on syphilis makes clear. According to the Linacre paper, “MSM are far more likely to be diagnosed with other STDs, some of which have become resistant to commonly used antibiotics.”

The paper reports on a 2004 outbreak of something called lymphogranuloma venereum (LGV), considered rare in the developed world prior to 2003, which includes “tender, enlarged lymph nodes in both groins.” A 2004 outbreak in the Netherlands among MSM has led to its spread in the European Union and the United States almost exclusively among the HIV-positive.

Another linked pathology is Hepatitis C, “which can lead to liver cancer, can be [sexually] transmitted and is spreading not only among HIV-positive gay men, but also among HIV-negative MSM.” Human papillomavirus is epidemic and has led to a “dramatic increase in anal cancer among MSM, especially those who are HIV positive.”

Included in this particular syndemic, according to the Linacre paper, are issues related to mental health, including higher risks of “suicidal ideation, substance misuse, and deliberate self harm than heterosexual people.” According to the paper, even the Southern Poverty Law Center, an advocacy group for MSM, admits “that LGBT people suffer higher rates of anxiety, depression and depression-related illnesses and behaviors like alcohol and drug abuse than the general population,” though they chalk this up to “homophobia.”

Why don’t we care what ESPN thinks is cool? Because what isn’t cool isn’t. Sometimes what’s wrong reveals itself in the simple fact that it’s poisonous to life, health, and happiness. If you think you know better, Michael Sam, Bring It!

It’s A trailer. Click on it later.

Tyranny is the rule, not an exception. The assaults of tyrants or would-be tyrants are the rule, not an exception. (Laugh and cry at this. It ain’t just the Russians who live like this.)

That’s the real meaning of American exceptionalism. We had a moment — 200-some years in the sordid 5,000 year chronology of recorded history — in which one people organized themselves to address the constant antipathy between morality and power. “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s,” Christ said. The founders of our country added another sentence: “But if you can, keep Caesar in a box.”

We have all been the beneficiaries of that innovation. It’s doomed, of course. Caesar always escapes from the box.

Your children will live in a different world. Tyranny has returned, clothed as always in promises that it is the opposite of tyranny. As always, the tyrant definitions are polar reversals: weakness is strength, grievance is virtue, dependency is prosperity, sloth is entitlement, ignorance is knowing everything worth knowing, vice is liberty, passivity is wisdom, slogans are reason, baby murder is freedom, and loveless animal sex is sufficient consolation.

Sadly, most of you will lose your children, if you have not already lost them.

When social contracts get twisted into caricatures of what they were intended to achieve, everyone loses. What awaits is chaos, violence, confusion and endless loss, perverse obsessions, subjugation.

Where we are. Get your children ready. Your life is no guide to what theirs will be. Your moment will not be theirs. Theirs will be some variation of these movies.

The first is Hope and Glory, linked complete above. Brits in Britain during The Blitz. Still civilized but shredding slowly apart. Sometimes funny but not really. Sometimes inspiring but not really. Not what you’d hope for your own spoiled young consumers. Without you, how long would they last and how much would they remember?

The second is about a child’s life in a prison camp. More Brits, but sheared off from the root of their cultural tree of life.

The full movie is online here.

Finally, the fate of the defeated and deluded. Much closer to what our own young’uns are likely to experience. The survival fight of the barely conscious, striving mightily to understand what humanity actually consists of if it isn’t some pile of convenient unthought about platitudes.

This one’s on Netflix and it’s also available in 10 minute chunks on Youtube. Contrary to the intimations of the trailer, it’s not about sex. It’s about a desperate, only partially successful attempt to come awake in the face of grave physical and moral danger.

Brace yourselves. I know you’re not ready for this fight. Nothing has prepared you. The intoxication of your evaporating moment has made you believe that optimism can save your seed.

It can’t. And it won’t.

Shammadamma.

34 minutes long. By eminent director Werner Herzog. Guaranteed to save lives. It’s called “From One Second to the Next.”

Not nasty, not judgmental, just life saving. A little over half an hour. Might impress you too.