We are attracted to experiences that feel good and turn away from those that hurt, pleasure and pain. Both are driven by millions of years of natural intelligence.

For my sons, Memorial Day 2011

God Bless America blared from the flag waving Harley as boy scouts, soon to be men, marched between white lines. Memorial Day, a national glance inward to mourn the lives mangled and lost ‘serving’ freedom and civic liberty. I almost wept, not out of patriotic duty and honor but for the deep feeling of shame and betrayal that this and past pageants endure.

While I honor the ultimate sacrifice brothers and sisters have made through the ages, some urgent, some heroic and necessary, so many lives, however, have been mangled for reasons – that had they known – they would have wept too.

Responding to Touch the Future and National Institute for PLAY’s important PLAY SCIENCE DVD:

Creative play is the foundation for social-political freedom and liberty which is not possible when abnormal brain development is induces by a failure of affectional bonding in the maternal-infant –child relationship.

Depression, stereotypical rocking behaviors and compulsive stimulus-seeking behaviors, all produced by sensory deprivation to the developing brain

OPEN LETTER TO FIRST LADY MICHELLE OBAMA

ON THE HIGH RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN IMPAIRED BREASTFEEDING BONDING AND INFANT MORTALITY NOT ACKNOWLEDGED BY THE SURGEON GENERAL?S CALL TO ACTON TO SUPPORT BREASTFEEDING 2011; CALLS FOR WEANING AGE OF EVERY INFANT/ CHILD BE RECORDED AND PUBLISHED AS PART OF THE IMMUNOLOGICAL RECORD BY THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR HEALTH STATISTICS, CENTER FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION; AND ESTABLISH BY LAW THE GENDER EQUALITY OF REPRESENTATION IN THE CONGRESS.

The excess health risks associated with not breastfeeding are well known

13 February 2011

Hi Jim,
Just want to make sure you saw this study by http://linlab.med.nyu.edu/members.html Dayu Lin at New York University that corroborates your own studies and the work you have been doing for over four decades. Here is the Nature summary of the study: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v470/n7333/full/nature09736.html

Excerpt:
Immediate early gene analysis and single unit recordings from VMHvl during social interactions reveal overlapping but distinct neuronal subpopulations

The essay on my BLOG, titled Sarah Palin Stokes The Fire Of The U.S. Culture of Violence describes how the dimension of Political Conservatism becomes aligned with Violence and Political Liberalism with Non-Violence. https://ttfuture.org/blog/1181 and at
http://www.violence.de/prescott/letters/Palin_Culture_of_Violence_1.10.11.pdf

Paul Krugman has noted that there are Two Public Moralities, which reflect the Two Americas that have existed since the days of our Founding Fathers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/14/opinion/14krugman.html?pagewanted=print

These Two Public Moralities are rooted in the Pain and Pleasure experiences

America is a Culture of Violence. Assassination of our political leaders has a long
history in this nation. Abraham Lincoln, John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, Martin
Luther King, Jr. are in recent memory of this history and now we must add liberal
Democratic Representative Gabrielle Gifford, 8th District, Arizona, as a potential victim.
It is of more than passing interest that the victims of these assassinations represent the
liberal wing of America political thought and action. Questions must be raised as to the
origins of political/social conservatism in the genesis of these assassinations.

It is amazing that it takes an assassination and senseless mass murder to rile tolerant people. What follows are excerpts from today’s Climate of Hate by New York Times op-ed columnist Paul Krugman.

As David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter, has put it, “Republicans originally thought that Fox worked for us and now we’re discovering we work for Fox.”

Please understand – if there wasn’t an egger market for violence it would not appear in the script. While in India I discovered that at least one rape in most films was mandatory. Joseph Chilton Pearce was to be a consultant on children’s TV programming until the sponsor insisted on a steady stream of violence or there would be no show! That’s show business.

What follows connects the dots between a recent interview with Jerry Mander, activist and author of The Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television, today’s assassination attempt and a discussion on how politics have changed with Senior California Senator John Vasconcellos.

OK… Here we go.
Democratic Congresswoman Shot in Assassination Attempt

Appreciation is a way of life, much more than it is a holiday. Even the capacity and experience of appreciation is a profound gift. I’m sure trees and flowers in their way appreciate sun and rain. Each species shares its special reality. The experience of being human is truly one of the rarest in the living universe – and if we appreciated that, our unity and diversity each day, what a wonderful world it would be.