My View

I have been saying for years that in my next life I want to come back as a co-host of The View. What better job is there than to come on TV for one hour per day, yenta about some topic of which I have no knowledge, and get paid megabucks. The incident that occurred last week with O'Reilly on The View demonstrates the foolishness of the PC morons who just cannot arrive at the conclusion that there is a worldwide Muslim problem. Every place they live they cannot live peacefully with their neighbors and the majority of conflicts on the planet involve Muslims. They cannot even live amongst themselves without belligerence. What other evidence do you need to come to the logical conclusion? To differentiate that it is only a Muslim extremist problem is an excuse to minimize the actual danger we confront.

I was born in 1963 to a father who escaped the onslaught of Hitler into Austria. I grew up in a period of relative calm after WWII. I was too young for the Vietnam war and most of my life there was no danger of war. I think I was lucky and I believe that for my children they will not have the comfort of a similar scenario. More countries are converting their oil into weapons and many of those countries are autocratic fanatical regimes. Is there any doubt at all that those weapons will be used at some point in the future?

It is sad to say but I think my children will live through very difficult times. Their freedoms will be curtailed and their lives' efforts will be to counter the forces of evil that are building. Survival will be their goal not individual pursuits of comfort, wealth, and pleasure. The complacency that my generation lived through was a fluke and reality is approaching rapidly.

My children and I discuss what they should do with their lives in terms of occupation. I hope that is the biggest challenge of their lives. Perhaps The View will be looking for a co-host but I think they are way to smart for those knuckleheads.

Letter to Glenn Beck

I have posted this letter to Glenn. For those of you who watch his show you will understand these themes. For those of you who do not listen or watch Glenn, you may want to give it a try. I'll let you know if i get a response.

Dear Mr. Beck,
I have been watching your show for the past year or so and I, like you, seek to find out truths. I have followed the conclusions you have reached during your intensive search for truth and it amazes me that those conclusions are tenets of Judaism present for hundreds of years. I do not mean secularized, watered down Judaism but the strict, orthodox variety. As we have recently passed our holiday season, the messages transmitted through our traditions resonate with the themes you discuss on your show.

Collective vs. Individual Salvation
Rosh Hashanah is our new year but more importantly it is our day of judgment where we are all judged as individuals. Yom Kippur is our day to try to atone for those transgressions we may have committed in the past year. We pray for our individual salvation. Although we try to minimize the exposure of our wrongdoings by praying for repentance as a group ultimately we are judged and evaluated as individuals. The climax of the synagogue service on those days is a prayer called Unsaneh Tokef. That prayer states: Like a shepherd inspecting his flock making sheep pass under his staff deciding their fate we pass as individuals before the almighty as he determines our fate for the next year. It is a very powerful prayer and I have included a link in English. http://www.ou.org/chagim/roshhashannah/unetanehtext.htm

Firm Reliance on Divine Providence
A week after the seriousness of those days we continue into the festive holiday of Sukkot. One of the primary requirements is for each family to build a Sukkah. This is a temporary hut built out of fragile components and we are commanded to spend a week in the Sukkah. People leave their sturdy houses and eat, learn, some sleep, and enjoy family and friends company. This structure is a physical representation of our belief that ultimately it is the almighty that protects and sustains us. We leave the “safety” of our homes and live in a flimsy hut which is only protected by the grace of the almighty. The sukkah represents our firm reliance on divine providence. If you have never seen a Sukkah just google it and click on images. I think you would be very moved if you spent time in a Sukkah.

Loss of Connections
Every week orthodox Jews are commanded to observe the Shabbos. We must turn off all cell phones, televisions, computers and nintendos. We cannot travel in a car or bus and thus we are stuck in our houses and within our local community. This forces us to join with our family and friends and connect with each other without all the distractions of modern life. The children all play with each other and build relationships while the adults connect both within the family and between families. Shabbos is truly a wonder of creation in terms of a day of rest, a day of spiritual growth, and a day of maintaining our connections.

I am not a Rabbi. I am a 46 year old physician who was dragged into this lifestyle by my wife. I struggle with faith but I recognize and cherish the wisdom and value of our traditions transmitted over generations. The tenets are eerily similar to those you have discovered in your search. I do not know where your quest will end but it wouldn’t surprise me if one day you will be building your own Sukkah.

The Next Bubble

I've been meaning to write about this for a while but other topics come up that I cannot resist, like maggots. I think that we are going to see a significant run-up in the stock market over the next few months and into 2011. Several factors are contributing to that sentiment.

Most run-ups in the market are lead by a specific group of stocks that leads the market higher. The group that will lead us into the next bubble is anything to do with commodities or agriculture. It is an easy story line for the average person to understand. The population is increasing worldwide and there are limited resources. More of the human population will increase their standard of living and will demand more of those limited resources which will drive up demand and prices. Prices of food, oil, metals, lumber, etc. will all rise based on this demographic trend. Easy for the average Joe to understand, believe, and want to invest in.

Additionally it is easy for the average person to understand that the government is printing tons of money to support its spending. This will lead to future inflation which will also push up prices of commodities. It will also devalue the dollar so people will want to dump their dollars for something tangible.

Similarly, the dot com story was easily understood by the average person. Access to everything via the computer and internet. People saw this as revolutionary and loaded up the pick up truck with any stock that had to do with the internet. A bubble was created and people did not look at the underlying fundamentals. Remember the dot com period where taxi drivers were giving stock tips. That was the indicator that the bubble was ready to pop. When the stupidest guy on the street was buying that was the time to sell. Right now the average guy hasn't been buying commodities, yet. Additionally, there is no other asset class with reasonable returns and people will be looking to hop on the next "easy money play".

The smart money has already entered this market. It has already run up quite a bit and large profits have been made. But soon I think the stupid money will be entering as headlines keep stressing the record prices of gold, etc.. As the stupid money comes in prices will inflate beyond the fundamentals which will lead to bubble formation as people see it as an easy money play. As for me I have not invested in commodities but i think a commodity ETF or an agricultural ETF would be a wise move now. I think it has a long way to run. The trick is not to be greedy and get out when the taxi driver tells you how many gold coins he has accumulated.

Those Damn Maggots

So when you saw this week's title what did you think I would be writing about? Maybe the wealth redistribution of the current administration or the nanny state policies of the liberal democrats. Or was it the blood sucking lawyers or perhaps those parasites in our country that suck the system dry without producing anything. Well it is none those. I am actually writing about a patient so if you have a weak stomach (you know who you are) do not read any further.

At the beginning of the week I received a consult on a patient to evaluate a situation described by the nurse that when she was suctioning the patient see saw something crawling out of the patient's nose, It was sent to be identified and was determined to be maggots. FYI maggots are the early stage of flies similar to a caterpillar and a butterfly. So the fly lays its eggs in someone's nose and it develops into maggots which eventually become flies. Maggots feed off dead tissue so the eggs are laid on a corpse or rarely on dead human tissue such as a bed sore or cancerous regions which have caused tissue death. In fact, some believe in using maggots purposely to clean dead tissue in a would since they will rid the dead tissue and preserve the healthy tissue.

Well, I never treated a patient with nasal maggots so I googled maggots in nose. Believe it or not you can see videos of maggots being removed from peoples noses. I have pasted the links below if you have any interest. Isn't the internet great? When I went to see the patient I couldn't identify any more maggots in his nose and I suspect this was because his nose was healthy and there was nothing for the maggots to feed on so they left. So that ended my maggot consult.

I started thinking how much one would pay to have maggots removed from their nose. I think the insurance company would pay me less if I had to remove them surgically versus what a plumber would receive relieving a blocked toilet, although that is pretty important too. I think the exterminator gets paid more to spray my house and definitely the eradication of bed bugs would be more profitable. Come on, if you had maggots crawling in your nose is there any price I can quote that you would not pay to have them removed?

I was originally going to write about something else this week but I coudn't resist sharing this experience. I realize it may not appeal to some, so sorry. Enjoy the videos. (paste into tool bar)

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=87f_1249968683
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXzFDtxp-Vk

The Great Toilet Bowl of Essex County, NJ

I have the fortunate situation of living in Essex county, New Jersey, the county that contains that ultimate example of the American dream, Newark. Just last week I could have sworn I heard an enormous toilet bowl flush from that city as 100 million dollars were donated by the facebook guy and is destined to go down the Newark educational toilet. Newark currently spends $24,000 per student which is significantly more than most private schools. Yeah, like another 100 mill will make them geniuses.

Why can't these knuckleheads understand that it is not the money that is the limiting factor. Answer: Because it is too politically incorrect to assign the blame to anything but money, like poor parenting which is the root cause of Newark's educational disaster. And since government cannot fix poor parenting they just throw additional money down Newark's educational toilet bowl.

I had a patient a couple of months ago who worked in the Newark schools. He told me of a successful situation in Newark where a charter school removes children from their homes and puts them into boarding schools. These children have strict rules while in school. Limited TV if at all. Longer class hours and study periods at night. Large class loads. Mandatory curfews and healthy meals. These children excel dramatically. They outperform because they are removed from their homes and parents not because of additional monies. How sad that the only way for these kids to excel is to remove them form their detrimental familial environments.

Yes, there are kids in suburbia who underperform even with good parenting and there are kids in Newark who excel even with bad parenting. But overwhelmingly, the trends are that supportive parents who take an interest in their kids school work and stress the importance of their kids educational success translate into better learning and better outcomes.

No matter how many millions are sent to Newark, they will all go into the toilet until it is realized that the problem is the parents. It is not the money, or the building, or the number of smart boards. All it takes is a parent who cares and this is not something money can create.

Octamom and Darwin

I am completely disgusted after hearing that the Octamom, Nadya Suleman, has applied for welfare in order to support herself and her 14 children. If this doesn't demonstrate the absolute decent of this country into the abyss, I don't know what will. It is reprehensible on so many levels but the main one is the most politically incorrect to discuss (I cannot resist). The encouragement and support of the lowest segment of society to have multiple children which expands the DNA of the least fit into our gene pool.

For hundreds of thousands of years humans have evolved to where we continuously improve upon ourselves through the process of natural selection. Darwinian principles, the survival of the most fit, as harsh as it seems ultimately lead to a more evolved being. We have developed bigger brains and more intelligence which has been our strategy to increase our survivability. This continues to go on in parts of the world. In the last hundred or so years humans in "developed" societies have determined that they will subvert natural selection by not allowing nature to select out those least fit to survive. Governments have stepped in to ensure their and their progeny's survival. Since parents at the bottom of the socio-economic scale do not feel the pressure of the need to feed their children, (since government will), they are free to multiply without end or disincentive. These government programs have the unintended consequence of promoting the expansion of DNA into our gene pool of the LEAST likely to survive. I am not saying this is wrong policy just making an observation.

On the contrary, successful people, people with means, are more likely the intelligent segment of society. This segment has to support their offspring and may be disinclined to have multiple children as they alone are responsible for their necessities. This decreases the volume of DNA from the most intelligent into the gene pool. So we have a situation where the DNA from the most successful is decreasing and the DNA from the unsuccessful is increasing. We will not see the result of this experiment for many generations but I can assure you that it will have an effect. Draw your own conclusions.

Again, these are just observations. My feelings are that humans may try to outwit nature and its laws of selection but the power of Darwinian principles are too strong. Eventually we will be overpowered by those laws and again those with the most ability will survive. The Earth is not limitless in its resources and the population is increasing at an unsustainable rate. Eventually we will go through a natural selection and Octamom and her progeny will have to compete to survive not just apply for welfare and have the government take from me and give to her.

The Melting Pot, a Positive or Negative?

I wanted to expand a little regarding what I finished with last post. There is no doubt that the decrease in religious participation has coincided with a deterioration of cultural values worldwide and in the US in particular. Let me just explain that I am not a fanatically religious person. Yet I do believe that participation in a faith based community is important and especially so for the population of the US as compared to other countries. I will explain why.

Last post I discussed the culture of gluttony and overconsumption we now have. If we humans are simply a bunch of carbon atoms amassed into molecules, cells, and organs. If we are basically glorified gorillas which have evolved larger brains and walk on two feet then I can understand why we overconsume. It is a matter of Darwinian survival, every man for themselves. I will overspend, overeat, and overconsume because there is no incentive to care about my neighbor as he is just a competitor in survival. If we are to survive as a group we must find ways to interconnect.

This is where religion plays a critical role. It connects people to each other in a way that secular institutions cannot. It connects people to each other within their church, within their community, and within their faith both nationally and internationally. It also connects people to each other through the belief that we are all products of god's creation resulting in connections between religions. Being part of a faith based institution is not only about faith but more importantly about establishing connections between people.

In any other country where there is uniformity and everybody is Icelandic or Swiss or Russian there is an inherent connection between all its citizens. People would be less likely to overconsume at the expense of their neighbor. On the contrary, this country is formed by numerous disconnected groups. This diversity provides great advantages but also results in a disparate and fragmented society. In the US people overconsume without guilt because they are disconnected from their neighbor who may be negatively effected by their overindulgence. They do not see and do not care about their neighbor only about there own sense of entitlement. It is all about them, what the individual can amass, without seeing the larger results of their behavior. This individual disconnectedness is especially inherent in this country due to its diversity and why the need to connect through religious organizations is so critical to our survival.