Supposition about why baby Gammy has Down syndrome

Baby Gammy is a 7-month-old boy with Down syndrome born in Thailand to Pattaramon Chanbua, a surrogate mother. He was ordered by Australians David and Wendy Farnell and has a twin sister named Pipah. When it turned out during Ms. Chanbua's pregnancy that one of the twins she was carrying had Down syndrome, the Farnells allegedly wanted the fetus to be aborted in the 7th month. The surrogate refused based on her Buddhist faith. After the birth, the Farnells took the non-disabled baby girl and returned to Australia.

Gammy remained in Thailand with Ms. Chanbua, his legal mother. She received no child support of any sort and claims that the surrogate agency even did not pay her the entire sum promised before. She had to quit work to care for Gammy but could not afford proper treatment when he developed pneumonia. At that point, she told his story to the world.

The case made an international scandal, especially after it came to light that the biological father David Farnell is a convicted pedophile who has served two prison terms for sexually abusing young girls. Some even speculated that the true reason for leaving Gammy behind was not his disability but his gender. Now, the Thai junta is cracking down on the country's commercial surrogacy business, banning a service for everybody because of the transgressions of a few and leaving in limbo hundreds of parents and babies currently undergoing the procedure.

Let me disclaim that, while I am disgusted to my bones by the Farnells, I have no sympathy to the surrogate mother, either. I see her as just another religious fundamentalist forcing her pro-life views on others. This is of course a minority opinion; most people lavish praise on Ms. Chanbua. Australian immigration minister Scott Morrison called her "an absolute hero" and "a saint". The latter qualification immediately reminded me of Gianna Beretta Molla, who preferred death to abortion and was officially made a Catholic saint in 2004. I'd wish that people stop turning women into role models for the "achievement" of carrying to term a pregnancy in situations where the most sensible choice (or, as in Dr. Molla's case, the only sensible choice) would be to terminate it.

However, the villain in Gammy's story is undoubtedly the father David Farnell. His wife seems to have accepted from the beginning the role of being totally subordinate to him. When media first reported that she is "Asian-born", some commenters immediately said that she must be a Chinese mail order bride ready to do anything for an Australian visa. I am sorry that I initially scorned them - they turned to be absolutely right: Mr. Farnell married Wendy in China, her country of origin, and then brought her to Australia. She knows about his past but says that he is a good man who has just made some mistakes as everybody does. So I agree with those who think that David, unwilling to be charged again for abusing girls outside his family, decided to produce an object within the family, married Wendy to use her as a cover and went ahead to obtain a daughter.

There is a technique called Ericsson method to influence the sex of the embryo by sorting spermatozoa before insemination. It is based on the difference in mass between sperm cells that will produce girls (carrying a big X chromosome in their nucleus) and those for boys (carrying a small Y chromosome). The success rate of gender selection by this method is about 70%. Now, look at the graphic below.

It is from Seidel & Garner's 2002 article Current status of sexing mammalian spermatozoa published in the Reproduction journal. Pay attention that the far right part of the curve is occupied by "aneuploid, e.g. trisomic spermatozoa". Actually, these are spermatozoa that have an additional chromosome and if fertilize an egg, will produce trisomic embryos. Of course, having an additional chromosome will increase the mass and, if the cell is an X spermatozoon, will bring it to the far right end of the curve for X spermatozoa.

There is, however, another opportunity not shown in the figure: if a Y spermatozoon has an additional chromosome, it will bring it to the far right end of the curve for Y spermatozoa... which will be pretty much within the median range for X spermatozoa! In simpler words, preference for X spermatozoa that will produce female embryos is expected to enrich the sample not only with X spermatozoa but also with abnormal Y spermatozoa made heavy by an additional chromosome. The latter sperm cells will produce male embryos with trisomy - an additional 3rd copy of a chromosome, e.g. chromosome 21 in Down syndrome. So I suppose that David Farnell may have used the Ericsson method to increase the likelihood of having a girl because he is not interested in boys. This led to selection of an X sperm cell that produced Pipah, and a Y sperm cell with an extra chromosome 21 that produced Gammy.

My "hypothesis" of course is on thin legs. It is not truly verifiable, unless some person engaged in the procedure opens his mouth. I guess, however, that if Gammy's chromosome set is studied, it will turn out that his extra chromosome 21 is of paternal origin, rather than of maternal, as usual. In a more general sense, I guess that using the Ericsson method to select females will result in a slight but statistically significant increase of the rate of male trisomic embryos.

Anyway, I hope that Australian authorities will keep an eye on the Farnells and find some justification to take little Pipah away from them. Ericsson method or not, a child is hardly safe in the home of a man with 22 child sex convictions.

Russia to USA: You are beating the Negroes!

Copying from the Aug. 15 report Ferguson riots play big in Russia, by Karoun Demirjian, in the Washington Post:

"MOSCOW — In the United States, days of rioting in Ferguson, Mo. over the police shooting of African American teenager Michael Brown are a troubling reminder of how deeply racial tensions still divide the country.

In Russia, they provide an opportunity, in this era of sanctions and new Cold War-style sentiments, to accuse America of being a giant hypocrite.

In the United States, “which has positioned itself as a ‘bastion of human rights’ and is actively engaged in 'export of democracy' on a systematic basis, serious violations of basic human rights and barbaric practices thrive,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Friday, in a special commentary on the situation in Ferguson. “We would like to advise American partners to pay more attention to restoring order in their own country, before imposing their dubious experience on other states.”...

The United States' problems with racism have long been a favored topic for Russians, dating back to the heyday of the Soviet Union.

During the 1920s and 1930s, Soviet leaders pointed to the existence of Jim Crow laws in the United States as a way of asserting the moral superiority of the Soviet Union. Racism, which was illegal in the Soviet Union, was deemed a systematic byproduct of capitalism.

In the civil rights era, especially, the Soviet Union used American anti-black racism as fodder to challenge the United States’ claims to leadership of the “free world.”

Soviet and modern-day Russia alike have had their own problems with racism as well, of course – to the point where Russia was recently rated by one publication as one of the worst countries for people of color to travel in..."


A commenter to the report asks, "If Russia is so great at treating its people of colors, then why don't all the blacks in the USA immigrate to Russia."


The linked report rates Russia as second worst country for black people to travel. It states:

"Black visitors will also have to be extra careful when they venture outside of Moscow into the rest of Russia. In a chilling warning, the Russia expert of  New Republic, Julie Ioffe, said, “There’s quite a bit of violence against people considered to be Black” in Russia... Ioffe warned that nowhere in Russia is safe for a person of color to visit, outside of Moscow’s city center...  

Ioffe was asked by a Black college student whether it is safe for an African-American to study in Russia. Here’s her answer: “Hmmmm, that’s a tough one. I think that, for the most part, you’d be okay — if you consider people glaring at you and cracking racist jokes okay. (Russians are, er, not the most tolerant bunch.) There’s quite a bit of violence against people considered to be black, which includes, in the Russian mind, people from Central Asia and the Caucasus. My advice is go, but stick to the city center and try to go to a bigger city like Moscow. (St. Pete is crawling with skinheads.) Be extra, extra careful and make sure the American Embassy knows you’re there. They have a special unit to deal with threats to American citizens, so you should report anything that happens immediately.”



I would ask the black college student in question, what is wrong with him, to even consider going to Russia voluntarily? If safe life is too boring for him, he'd better engage in some extreme sport.

Some beg to disagree with Ms. Ioffe that at least Moscow is relatively safe for blacks. The New York Times report quoted below, Moscow Journal; African Students' Harsh Lesson: Racism Is Astir in Russia, by Seth Mydans, is based on personal experiences:

"Mr. Diboi Kath, 23, is an exchange student from Cameroon, and like many other African college students in Russia he says he feels threatened by racist thugs every time he leaves his dormitory.

He has been abused, beaten and even shot during his five years at People's Friendship University, where about one-third of the students come from developing countries...

Racist attacks on foreigners here -- Asians, Arabs and especially blacks -- have been a continuing problem whose victims have included diplomats and American Embassy Marine guards as well as students.

Last year, ambassadors from 37 African nations appealed to the Foreign Ministry for protection for their citizens. Human rights groups have documented widespread harassment, often with the compliance or support of the police.

Racist attitudes lie deep within the Russian psyche and are growing even worse now, said Aleksandr Brod, director of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, a private group that monitors discrimination. The driving force, he said, is the proliferation of white-supremacist skinhead groups, which enjoy widespread support and are fueled by nationalist political groups and publications...

''All this Nazi ideology gives rise to hatred of all non-Russians,'' Mr. Brod said. ''And so, many people even think skinheads are not bandits and hooligans but Russian patriots who are fighting for the purity of Russian society.''

As a result, he said, ''literally every week in Moscow and in other regions of Russia there are attacks by skinheads on members of minorities,'' some of which, he said, are fatal.

A suspicious late-night fire that took at least 42 lives at Friendship University three weeks ago has intensified fears among minority students here. A number of them -- particularly Chinese students -- have cut short their studies and headed home, fellow students said...

An attack can happen anywhere, Mr. Diboi Kath said, but some times and places are worse than others. ''Like the Metro Green Line,'' he said. ''If you want to die, you go there at 6 o'clock.''

National holidays and major sports events -- with their drunkenness and heightened passions -- are times to stay home, many students said. Mr. Diboi Kath said that although he loved sports, he had never been to a soccer stadium or a basketball game in Moscow. ''It's like a dream for me,'' he said. ''The cinema is like a dream. If you go to the cinema or to a stadium, it means you want to die.''


The report is old (from 2003), but I don't think anything has changed to better. We received a proof earlier this month. The image and quote below are from The Independent's Aug. 17 report Barack Obama's 53rd birthday marked with racist laser projection and banner in Moscow, by Kashmira Gander:

"As icy relations between the West and Russia show little sign of improving, protesters in Moscow marked Barack Obama's birthday by unleashing racist imagery in the city, comparing the US President to a monkey.

A YouTube video of the crude projection entitled “Obama “swallows” banana in Moscow” ashows “Obama Happy Birthday” cast in green laser across the US Embassy on Monday evening. 

The words are then followed by an outline of the US President wearing a striped party hat, as a banana enters his mouth.  

The Moscow Student Initiative - which describes itself as “an art group, a circle of common interests, activists, students, patriots,”- took responsibility for the stunt on VK, a social network similar to Facebook which is popular in Russia."

The incident reminded me of an old joke from the Soviet era: An American and a Russian brag about their homelands. The American says, "We are so free in the USA! I can stand in broad daylight in front of the White House and shout insults against the US President, and nothing bad will happen to me." The Russian replied, "Big deal! I can also stand in front of Kremlin and shout insults against the US President, and nothing bad will happen to me as well." To me, it is difficult to imagine that the racist spoiled brats who allegedly insulted Pres. Obama would dare to insult or even criticize publicly their own Pres. Putin, knowing what happened to the Pussy Riot girls and other critics.

Not that I am a fan of Barack Obama. I must admit that, hearing about the racist jokes in Moscow, I even gloated. To me, he will be remembered as one of the worst US Presidents in recent history; and I think that now he is reaping what he has sown, by his politics to be good and appeasing to all bad governments and groups worldwide and seriously hope that they would love America and him in return. If you appease bad people, they only despise you and attack you, interpreting your irrational goodwill as weakness.

At the end, let me return to one sentence from the Washington Post report: "The United States' problems with racism have long been a favored topic for Russians, dating back to the heyday of the Soviet Union." Back in those days, whenever one would point the advantages of the USA over the Soviet Union, Communists would reply, "Don't talk about this, you in the USA are beating the Negroes!" This "argument" was repeated so consistently that not only in Russia but throughout the Soviet block, "Why are you beating the Negroes?" became an idiom for an irrelevant and dishonest counter-accusation. Of course, today it is going out of fashion together with the very word "Negroes", due to political correctness. But we still remember it. And the nice people in Moscow will not let us forget it any time soon.

(Disclaimer: My own country also has an awful record of racism. But at least we are not as hypocritical as the Russians.)

Comparing Putin to Hitler

From John Schindler's article Here's What Can Be Learned From The Putin-Hitler Comparisons
, published at Business Insider's site.

"...My loathing of the bad Hitler analogy notwithstanding, you have to be pretty ignorant of the history of Europe in the 1930s not to be more than a little creeped out by the similarities between what Adolf Hitler sought in Central Europe then and what Vladimir Putin is seeking in the former Soviet Union, especially Ukraine, now.

In both cases, you’ve got a kinda-elected dictator who has successfully stoked powerful ethno-nationalism to remain popular, while bringing the economy back from the dead after a huge national defeat, and focusing attention on the fate of your co-nationals who have been cruelly left outside your borders by the last war.
To fix that, you employ diplomacy, espionage, military power, threats, intimidation, and by far your best weapon is the unwillingness of your (actually far more powerful) adversaries to confront you in any sort of serious way. They fear conflict; you do not.

Hitler thereby managed to pull multiple diplomatic-cum-military rabbits from the hat in the latter half of the 1930s, remilitarizing the Rhineland in 1936, occupying both Austria and the Sudetenland in 1938 without bloodshed, then taking over the rest of the Czech lands in March 1939, meeting no resistance, after having promised London and Paris that was exactly what he would not do.

Only following that humiliation did Britain and France begin to take the German threat altogether seriously, and when Hitler finally pushed too far and invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, at last encountering a victim who fought back, London and Paris had no choice but to declare war on Germany. Not that they lifted a finger to save their ally Poland, mind you.

In a not dissimilar vein, ever since his fiery speech in Munich in October 2007, where Putin informed the world how much he lamented the death of the Soviet Union while harshly accusing the United States of undermining global stability, plenty of Westerners have averted eyes from what the Kremlin has actually been doing. Georgia was invaded in August 2008, in a punishment expedition that allowed Moscow to demonstrate its continuing power, and the West did, well … nothing really.

Estonia was subjected to a serious cyber-attack that caused real pain and, yet again, this allowed the Kremlin to show it’s still there and will not be ignored. Again, the West didn’t do very much. The Obama administration tried its vaunted “reset,” an exercise in wishful thinking masquerading as strategy which history will judge harshly as the wrong policy at the wrong time, implemented by the wrong people.

That said, many Europeans were even more in the thrall of wishful thinking about the Kremlin than Washington DC, and the West did not really begin to pay attention to Moscow’s not-very-concealed agenda in the former Soviet space until this year, with naked Russian aggression in the seizure of Crimea..."

Author predicted Putin's aggression

I am looking at Valerie Pager's review of a book by Marcel H. Van Herpen, Putin's Wars: The Rise of Russia's New Imperialism (Lanham, USA: Rowman & Littlefield, 2014). Let me give an interesting quote from this review:

"The book, which Van Herpen finished writing late last year, ends with a quotation from former Czech President Vaclav Havel, who stated “I have said it so often: if the West does not stabilize the East, the East will destabilize the West” and is followed by Van Herpen’s commentary that “this is a warning that should be taken seriously” (p. 248). This comes during a section discussing Ukraine in 2013 and a prediction from Van Herpen that “if Ukraine were to opt for deeper integration into the European Union, a Georgia scenario could not be excluded, in which the Kremlin could provoke riots in Eastern Ukraine or the Crimea, where many Russian passport holders live” and could provide the Kremlin with the excuse it needs to intervene and “dismember the country” since they would be acting in defence of the “Russians” living there (p. 247)."

(Emphasis mine - M. M.)

The moral abyss of pro-Russian traitors in Ukraine

After occupying and annexing Crimea, Russia has launched full-scale war in Eastern Ukraine, using as excuse the wish of some of the ethnic Russian minority there to belong to Russia.

Some members of this minority proceeded to actual treason, raising arms against the pro-Western government of Ukraine, and Russia supplied them with military equipment and personnel from across the border. However, this became a huge PR problem for Putin when Russian equipment was used to shoot down a civilian Malaysian Airlines plane (MH17), killing all nearly 300 people on board.

While Putin and his supporters keep calling their opponents "fascists", it is they who have sunk to a moral abyss difficult to imagine. A civilian plane was mistakenly shot down in a war zone... and what happened later?

I am copying below a report from the Sidney Morning Herald:

"MH17: Ukrainian woman allegedly posts selfie using mascara looted from crash site

A young woman in eastern Ukraine has provoked outrage by allegedly posting a picture of herself on Instagram using a mascara wand looted from the crash site of Flight MH17.

Yekaterina Parkhomenko uploaded a photograph on Instagram of her hand holding the Catrice cosmetic with the caption: “Mascara from Amsterdam; to be precise, from the field. Well, you understand.”

Russian and Ukrainian media said it could not be ruled out that the post was a fake, but that it appeared to be authentic.

Asked by another user on Instagram where the mascara had come from, Ms Parkhomenko replied that she had got it “from a looter acquaintance”.

The woman, who apparently lives in the village of Torez near the crash site and employed the username “zolotosya”, defended her actions saying: “I’m a separatist and after the recent events everything Ukrainian makes me feel sick and really infuriated.”

Other users reacted to the picture with emotions from humour to shock and disgust.

One, “annahurma”, replied to the post saying: “Good thing you’re not eating up the in-flight food ... or whatever else you could find there.” To which “zolotosya” replied: “Do you want me to send you some food too? And underwear? And faeces?”

Ms Parkhomenko’s Instagram account was deleted today after a storm of criticism on the Internet.

Poor treatment of the dead and their possessions at the site caused international indignation after the Malaysia Airlines crash on July 17, killing 298 people.

Mark Rutte, the Dutch prime minister, said he was “shocked at the pictures of utterly disrespectful behaviour at this tragic spot”. Ukraine government officials claimed that “terrorist death hunters” were collecting victims’ cash and jewellery, while a Telegraph correspondent saw empty wallets and open purses strewn on the ground.

The family of one British victim said yesterday that they had cancelled his credit card for security reasons."


Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/mh17-ukrainian-woman-allegedly-posts-selfie-using-mascara-looted-from-crash-site-20140726-zx723.html#ixzz39Uz7LZ6q

EU member state Bulgaria arrests opponent of Putin, may hand him to Russia

Let me first copy a report from the site of Standart daily paper:

"Nikolai Koblyakov, a political opponent of Russian President Vladimir Putin was arrested at Sofia airport. This was announced by Nova TV which stated that the arrest took place on Tuesday evening.

Nikolai Koblyakov is wanted by Moscow and has dual Russian-French citizenship. He has a Paris-based organization called "Free Russia".

The man arrived in the Bulgarian  capital on a flight from Paris and was arrested at the border entry.

"The Russian side has requested custody for a criminal offense committed in 2004-2005. What it is exactly about is unclear as the order is very general, "said the lawyer of the detainee.

It turns out that a Moscow court has issued an arrest warrant on Koblyakov last year, but he has not been detained in France.

On the website of Interpol Koblyakov is not in the red bulletin, the lawyer of the political opponent of the Russian president emphasized.

Koblyakov remains in custody."


Meanwhile, Koblyakov was released and is now awaiting the decision of the court about whether he will be extradited to Russia, as Russian authorities demand. He talked to media, and what he says is worth hearing. Below I am translating from the dir.bg site:

"The City Court of Sofia declared "groundless" the demand of prosecution to keep the Kremlin opponent Nikolay Koblyakov in custody.

He is a physics and law graduate of Moscow University and has lived and worked in France for years.
 
While he has different business activities, Nikolay Koblyakov is known mainly as founder of the Free Russia organization which has for years protested against President Vladimir Putin and in support of Russion opposition activists and political prisoners.

He wonders why, after Interpol has issued a warrant for him, he has been arrested not in Paris but in Sofia.


"...I can much easier be found in Paris where I live and work... But I think that the Russians still feel that in Sofia it is much easier for them to do what they want," Koblyakov said.




According to the Russian federal investigation, in 2004 Koblyakov allegedly conspired with the former CEO of Russian Stankoimport foreign trade company to snatch some trans-border assets of the company.

"Before I was arrested here, I did not know I was charged! Russians say they have sought me since 2012, and I have even renewed my Russian passport in this period... Everybody knew where I was. Apparently, Russian security services just waited for me to leave France and to visit a country in which they could bypass the law," says the opposition activist.



"...What I liked especially was - if I were in Russia, I would have been severely beaten or even killed. (Here), despite my views, Bulgarian police officers behaved in a quite professional way."

...Nikolay Koblyakov will remain in Bulgaria for at least 40 days more, until the process about his extradition is over."


I think the praise Mr. Koblyakov gives to Bulgarian police for not beating him is telltale for the reputation of EU member state Bulgaria, a.k.a. the "Trojan horse" of Russia in EU. I strongly hope that France and the international human rights watchdogs will press in favor of Koblyakov to eliminate all risk of extraditing him to Russia. There is now much talk on all levels about tougher sanctions against Russia. I think that there must also be a mechanism for sanctions against European countries if their eagerness to act as Russian puppets brings them to violations of common EU policy, human rights and international law.

Update: There is an online petition against the extradition of Mr. Koblyakov.

Wood-carved portraits

Our family has a sort of a new enterprise: creating wood-carved portraits and other images from digital photos.

This is me (top left is the original photo):

And this is my family when our elder son was born:

Update: This undertaking, however, turned out to be more art than business. Now, we have specialized in plasma cutting and metal spinning.

My former domain estimated at USD 1,700

My personal site is currently at www.mayamarkov.com, but its original domain name was www.mayamarkova.com. I have already written how I lost this domain or, rather, how it was snatched from me by my former host-registrar company. They abused their position and told me that I either continue being their client or say goodbye to the domain. I preferred the second option. My opinion was that blackmailers should be said "no" and that, if the content of my site is of any use and value, readers will follow it anywhere.

These days, I visited my former domain to see what activity (if any) was going on there. To my surprise, it was offered for sale for $ 1,695. This is much more than my monthly salary. Actually, even in "Old European" and other prosperous countries there are many full-time workers with monthly income less than this.

Like most people, I often have doubts in what I am doing and achieving. I occasionally need something to bring up my self-esteem, and this was a good boost. Someone is hoping to make $ 1,700 from my abandoned domain! Whoever they are, I wish them good luck :-). The world isn't full of people named Maya Markova, and I don't think anyone else would want this domain.

Spiritual paperwork

When a person dies, there are so many things to manage that relatives get up to their knees in paperwork. Some is normal - the certificate of death, the will etc. Some is extra. The saddest thing I remember is how my mother, about 20 minutes after she heard about my brother's sudden death, composed herself enough to tell my father that he urgently needs a visa to attend the funeral.

However, one thinks that the deceased at least has no more worries about paperwork.

Well, he does not do anything more himself, but in most cultures it is thought that something must be done for his soul, or it will have suboptimal fate. In Orthodox Christianity, the religion of my ancestors, it is believed that the soul roams in and close to this world for 40 days after death. On the 40th day, God decides where it will reside permanently: in Paradise or in Hell. On that very day, family members must hold a memorial service - as one priest wrote (unfortunately, I cannot find the quote right now), to try to influence God's decision and lean it to the wished direction.

After my brother's death, I did not care about any churches and services. And because it was known that my family was "that sort of people", a Christian friend of my father's reportedly ordered a service.

After my mother's death, however, I knew that friends and colleagues would like to gather together and remember her at the 40th day. And because there is secular funeral ceremony but no secular 40-day memorial service, I invited them to a church on Friday.

I could actually invite them to the cemetery and offer some food without calling a priest. However, I think that the cemetery is land of the dead and the living should avoid going there. Especially if they are elderly people that would just look at each other and wonder who the next would be. So I prefered a small church not far from my mother's home.

I have many times criticized the church and the clergy, and I surely will do it again in the future... so let me now state that I am thankful. I admit the church was there when I needed it, and although I have surely done some things wrong, nobody made me feel uncomfortable.

Update: A Christian friend of mine who had been guest at my mother's home wrote to me that she has taken care for my mother's name to be mentioned during the church services for 40 days. I was really moved by this.

Self-awareness

Two or three days ago, my 7-yr-old son, like his elder brother, had an existential insight. He asked,

"Mom, why am I needed?"

"Because you are a person," I replied.

"I am myself. And I am real," he stated with a smile.

Roger Cohen on European (lack of) solidarity

I have just read in the New York Times site an excellent op-ed by Roger Cohen, Poor Angry Magnetic Europe. It is so good that it made me forgive the primitive anti-Bulgarian hate campaign carried out by the same magazine several years ago. I am advising you to read the entire column, and now I am quoting parts of it below:

"BERLIN — Europe at the centenary of the war that devoured it is voting in elections for the European Parliament that will no doubt reflect the anger, disillusionment and boredom of people inclined to cast their ballots for an array of protest parties, many from the xenophobic right, some from the pander-to-Putin left...

In some ways Europe’s mood resembles America’s. Focus has narrowed and solidarity atrophied. Europe, like America, does not want to die for anyone else. It has turned inward, wanting its own problems solved, and damn the Libyans and Syrians and Ukrainians and whoever else may be making demands through their plight.

Anyone who believes the spread of freedom, democracy and the rule of law matters is a “warmonger.” The sharing economy is in vogue because it affords a better deal on a car ride or a room. Sharing politics is not because it may involve sacrifice for faraway people with strange names...

The European Parliament election coincides with a critical election Sunday in Ukraine, where Putin has created havoc by annexing Crimea, dispatching thugs to stir unrest in the eastern part of the country, and inventing a “fascist” threat in Kiev to conceal his own growing affinities with such politics (his beloved, much lamented Soviet Union of course allied with Nazi Germany in 1939 before Hitler tore up the pact in 1941; attraction to fascism is nothing new in Moscow).

On Kiev’s Independence Square, known as the Maidan, where Ukrainians died in numbers to escape the rule of an incompetent kleptomaniac backed by Putin, the European Union flag flies in several places. It is equally visible on surrounding streets. It is draped down the facade of the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. It stands for something important in Kiev, something that seems almost unimaginable to Europeans in the confusion of their bile: the glowing possibility of freedom and dignity and pluralism, the possibility of a normal life...

But Europe is suddenly full of what Germans now call the Putinversteher — literally someone who understands Putin, more loosely a Putin apologist. Europeans of different stripes see him standing up to America, incarnating “family values,” countering a loathed European Union, and just being tough. Germans in surprising numbers are discovering their inner sympathy for Russia...

Europeans would do well to lift their gaze from the small world of their current anger toward those blue and gold flags fluttering on the Maidan, the better to recall what freedom means and with what sacrifice it has been attained."

European fellow voters, think of Ukraine!

On May 25, EU citizens will vote to elect their representatives in the European Parliament. My vote will be dominated by considerations who will support the best policy with regard to Ukraine.

I am outraged that Russia is attacking other countries and grabbing land again, and EU is practically doing nothing. So I will vote for those who, in my opinion, will be most able to stand against Russia and to think long-term of European solidarity.

And I would advice you to consider doing the same, if you haven't already decided it. Forget your and your country's economic hardships, social problems, ethnic tensions etc. Because you at least enjoy peace and, when you go to bed, you know in which country you will wake up tomorrow. So let's think of Ukraine and not ask for whom the bell tolls!

I lost my mother

When my brother died 4 years ago, I feared that my mother would soon follow him. Happily, she proved strong enough to endure and somewhat recover. Although devastated, she still enjoyed watching her grandchildren grow, meeting friends, following the news, reading books. She never complained of her health, and I hoped she would have more years to live.

She died suddenly on Monday.

The day before, I had been with my sons at a dinner in her home. We did it every week. She always prepared much more food than we could eat and gave the rest in boxes, so that I would not need to cook the next day. Until her very last day, she always cared for her loved ones.

My friend once said the system with the boxes was nice but, as my mother was getting older, hopefully at some moment they would start to travel in the opposite direction, i.e. I would cook and bring food for her. My mother, however, dreaded the very thought of such reversal. She said, "I hope never to live to a day when my child would care for me." And she didn't.

Emerging citizen

This days, my 10-yr-old son is for a first time realizing in earnest that he will die. He has asked me anxious questions about this several times.

Because I do not believe in any afterlife, it is a bit hard for me to confront his questions. I tell him that all people die and that not death as such but premature death is scary (so he must always be careful when crossing the street); but when a person lives to an old age and has seen and experienced much, it becomes easier for him to part with life, he can even get tired of life.

Today, after inquiring about death again, my son asked another, unexpected question:

"Will the city also die?"

I reassured him that cities are not like individuals, they are not doomed and can exist indefinitely, as long as their residents maintain and protect them.

The question surprised me because I have never tried to explain to him what it means to be a citizen, and in our conversations about death I have never mentioned that our deeds continue after us.

Discussions on Ukraine in earlier generations of my family

When I read news and analyses about Ukraine, I often make the mistake to look also at the comments below the articles. It is sickening, because no matter what source and what language I am reading, most of the comments are strongly pro-Russian, pro-Putin. Has the entire world gone crazy?

Analyzing the current situation invariably turns to digging into history, WWII and beyond. What strikes me is the tendency of some pro-Russian commenters to present the Holodomor as a natural and likely unavoidable famine. Quite like the pro-Palestinian Jew-haters with their Holocaust denialism.

This reminds me of my maternal grandfather. I am thinking of him on this day every year, because his name was Lazar, and today in Bulgaria is Lazarovden, i.e. St. Lazarus' day (tomorrow will be Tsvetnitsa - lit. "the day of flowers", i.e. Palm Sunday). I have mentioned in an earlier post that he was a carpenter. My mother still has in her home some excellent furniture made by him.

Unlike my paternal grandfather Georgi, who was strongly anti-Communist (and logically was killed by the Communists within weeks of their coming to power in September 1944), my grandfather Lazar was a Communist until 1945. His life had not been easy. His father Pavel, while serving in the cavalry, died in an accident. As he was riding through a forest, his head hit a branch and he fatally fell from the horse. After that, his family was of course doomed to misery.

The general with whom my great-grandfather Pavel had been serving wished to do something for his children. He arranged for Lazar to be enrolled in a carpentry school. So my grandfather learned his craft due to the goodwill of this general. Unfortunately, I am not sure in his name; I think it was Rusev.

When my grandfather grew up, he left his village Priboy and moved to the capital Sofia. His brothers gave him money that gave him the opportunity to settle in the city; in exchange, he renounced his share in the family estate. Poverty and injustice were widespread in Bulgaria at that time (the 1920s and 1930s). So he started to think that there were defects deep in the core of this society. He was shocked when his best friend's sister, a factory worker, died in an occupational accident. The young girl's death drove him to Communism.

My grandfather married a woman named Rilka, from the village of Herakovo. Her father Vladimir was a farmer - well-to-do, competent and respected. Like most people with a position in society at that time, he was anti-Communist. Thinking of this now, I even wonder how he allowed his daughter to marry a Communist. When he and my grandfather were together, they often had hot arguments on political subjects.

The regular topic of controversy was the Soviet Union. Information about oppression and misery in Stalin's realm was readily available, but my grandfather Lazar dismissed it all as capitalist propaganda. This included all reports of the Holodomor. His father in-law, however, knew that it was true. Not only because his greater experience in life was giving him better judgement, but also because some Russian refugees had settled in Herakovo, and actually one of them was working for him as a farm-hand. Their testimony was reliable. (I do not know what happened to these people after 1944. It is known, however, that many refugees from the Soviet "paradise" were rounded up after WWII and sent to Siberia, where they generally had short life spans.)

After Nazi Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941, my grandfather, like many other Bulgarian Communists, took part in the Resistance (though not in armed struggle). He told me about going out at night to cut telephone wires of presumed military importance. Happily, he never fell under suspicion. Had he been cought, he would have been imprisoned, tortured and maybe even killed.

When Soviet invasion and occupation of Bulgaria brought Communists to power, my grandfather quickly saw his error and repented. He could no longer close his eyes for the ugly face of Communism - "the face of the Gorgon", as poet V. Svintila called it. In 1945, while many people were applying for membership in the Bulgarian Communist Party, my grandfather left it. However, he never became open and active opponent of the new dictatorship. The situation was clearly hopeless.

Now, grandfather Lazar realized that the anti-Soviet "propaganda" had been right all along and even underestimated the dire reality of Communist totalitarian rule. His regrets were made worse by the thought that he could and should have seen the truth earlier. He remembered e.g. how during the war he and two of his Party comrades visited a poor wagoner, hoping to win him for their cause. He angrily ordered them to leave him alone: "Get out of my sight! When you seize power, you will take my cart and my horse!" My grandfather later said, "And indeed, this is exactly what happened." He was sad for having made an error which the wagoner, poorer and less educated than him, had avoided.

By mid-1980s, when I was a teenager, grandfather Lazar was my only grandparent still alive. He already considered me mature enough to discuss political subjects. He often talked to me about pre-Communist Bulgaria, which he had struggled to reform. He was comparing it to the current Socialist Bulgaria, and the comparison was almost invariably in the favor of pre-1944. As I was listening to his tales, the lost Bulgaria of his youth, made beautiful by the golden aura of nostalgia, was appearing in my imagination. A dead and gone world was briefly resurrected, like the miracle of his namesake Lazarus.

The Socialist society, which had seemed indestructible for so long, was now showing signs of weakness. My grandfather was more optimistic than me. He said every year, "This autumn the Communists will fall (from power)!" Unfortunately, he died at age 86 in 1988, a year before "classical" Communism finally collapsed.

With Russia, the West repeats Chamberlain's errors

The text below is from There is no appeasing Russia's mad king at theweek.com, by former Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili.

In early March, the Russian Federation, after staging a referendum under Kalashnikovs in Crimea, proceeded to annex the region and laid the groundwork — according to Moscow — for "new political-legal realities," that is to say, a new Russian paradigm for a lawless world. As German Chancellor Angela Merkel said in her speech to the Bundestag on March 13, Russia is bringing the law of the jungle to the table. For those of us who have lived through Vladimir Putin's attempts to reverse the results of what he calls "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe" of the 20th century — the dissolution of the Soviet Union — what is happening in Ukraine is not unexpected. Nor does it mark the last act of the drama.

It should be abundantly clear now that Putin's initial plan of taking eastern Ukraine by mobilizing the Russian population there has failed. But that doesn't mean he's giving up. Russian strategists talked about a "weekend of rage" that could involve some kind of armed siege of government buildings in southern and eastern Ukraine. It happened — and if these local provocateurs and "self-defense forces" manage to hold these buildings as they did in Crimea, it might serve as a basis for further military intervention. Not that we should be surprised by this cynical playbook any more.

History can be a useful guide for politicians: first, to help prevent new disasters, and second, to help react to disasters that inevitably happen anyway, despite the best laid plans. And yet, plenty of politicians are making the same mistakes they should have learned from decades ago...

In Chechnya, tens of thousands of people were killed just to make Putin president and consolidate his power. Then, when the Colored Revolutions — and their successful reforms — became a menace to his rule, he invaded Georgia in order to kill this contagious model and again reconfirm his power. Now, as before, faced with eroding popularity in Russia, a shale gas revolution in North America, and the need for consistent port access to equip his allies in the Middle East, Putin attacked Ukraine and seized Crimea.
And yet, even with these myriad examples, the West continues to misunderstand or excuse Putin's aggression. These days, many pundits are busy with soul-searching, with one of the constant refrains being how the West overreached with NATO and EU expansion, and how it needlessly provoked the Russian bear. The conclusion they come to is that part of the reason for Russia's behavior, however petulant, lies in Western activism. It's a particular kind of intellectual self-flagellation and, for Putin, a reflection of Western weakness that only emboldens him.

Neville Chamberlain, when presenting the case for the great European powers to acquiesce to Hitler's occupation of the Sudetenland, argued that Europeans should not care about a "quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom we know nothing." I hear a lot of pundits now talking about the "asymmetry of interests," implying that Russia is entitled to annex neighboring countries' lands for the simple reason that it cares for these lands more than the West. Others opine that we should all get used to the idea that the Crimea is gone, and that Russia will never give it back. This is exactly what I was told in the summer of 2008 — that I should be resigned to the idea that a part of Georgian territory, then occupied by Russia, was gone for good.

But this logic has its continuation. As we know from history, the cycles of appeasement usually get shorter with geometric progression. Soon, the same pundits may declare — with their best poker faces on — that now Moldova is "lost," or Latvia "lost," even some province of Poland. And just because Russia is not in the mood to give it back...


Certainly, Moscow didn't seem to care much about the minority Russian populations in its near abroad — so long as they were comfortably ruled by corrupt cronies of the Kremlin. But over the ensuing decade, Georgia, Ukraine, and Moldova have learned to look to the West, not so much because of geopolitical priorities, but because people there aspire to a Western way of life that respects human rights and universal values...The basic facts are very clear. Russia presents the greatest challenge to international law and order since the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan. And even though the West has much greater superiority over Russia — both economically and militarily — than it ever had over the Soviet Union, today's leaders are reluctant to take advantage of this asymmetry...

Despite President Barack Obama's rhetoric, the West — particularly Europe — appears reluctant to impose tougher sanctions. Unlike during the Cold War, Western companies draw much more benefit from Russia today, and thus they too will have to pay the price of sanctions... The dilemma is simple: Is the West willing to pay this price now, or delay the decision and pay a much higher price in the future?...


Winston Churchill once prophetically told Hitler's appeasers: "You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war." Surely, we cannot expect modern-day politicians obsessed with polls and midterm elections to be Churchillian all the time. But at a minimum they should not want to go down in history as the Neville Chamberlains of the 21st century. And misreading Putin for the man that he is — and has always been — is at the heart of appeasement.

Some pro-Russian Crimeans already regret their votes

Supporting Russia is one of the choices that often are often regretted later. This is exactly what is expected to happen in Crimea. Some vulnerable people, like canaries in a coalmine, are already regretting.

Quating from Laura Mills' report Crimea side-effect: Addicts deprived of methadone (AP via Yahoo! News):

"Every morning, Sergei Kislov takes the bus to the rundown outskirts of this port city for the methadone doses that keep him off heroin without suffering withdrawal. Now that Russia has taken over Crimea, the trips are about to end...

Russia, which annexed Crimea in mid-March following a referendum held in the wake of Ukraine's political upheavals, bans methadone, claiming most supplies end up on the criminal market. The ban could undermine years of efforts to reduce the spread of AIDS in Crimea; some 12,000 of the region's 2 million people are HIV-positive, a 2012 UNICEF survey found.

After years of rapid growth in the infection rate, the Ukrainian Health Ministry reported the first decline in 2012.

Many have attributed that decline to methadone therapy...In Russia, which recommends that addicts quit cold turkey, HIV is spreading rapidly. According to the Russian Federal AIDS Center, the number of people registered as infected increased by nearly 11 percent in 2013...

In preparation, Kislov has already started reducing his daily intake of methadone by about 10 milligrams each week.

Although he voted enthusiastically for Crimea to join Russia, he didn't expect the methadone program to end so quickly...

Patients say that since the program started here five years ago, local doctors had been nothing but supportive of the therapy. They reassured recovering addicts ahead of the referendum that the program would be extended at least until the end of the year.

That attitude changed on March 20, when the director of Russia's Federal Drug Service, Viktor Ivanov, announced that the program would be banned in Crimea...

Even if the group gets permission from local authorities to extend the program, the Ukrainian health minister told local news agencies Monday that Ukraine would not be sending any more methadone to Crimea, and recommended that any addicts there move to mainland Ukraine if they wanted to continue their treatment.

For Alexander Kolesnikov, a 40-year-old who has now been in the group for four years, moving to Ukraine isn't a possibility. He's proud of being from Sevastopol and has an aging, diabetic mother to care for.

But while the two went proudly to the polls on March 16 to vote for joining Russia, they are now dreading how a return to life without methadone might affect them.

"One half of my mother's heart is for Russia — for example, she will get a higher pension and she'll have a better standard of living," he said. "But the other half of her heart supports me, and she doesn't want to see me in that state ever again.""

Let me first mention that I am filled with disgust to the Crimean voters mentioned in the report. I think that people like Kislov and Kolesnikov who have made such a mess of their lives should have the decency to abstain from voting. They have proven in a dramatic way their decision-making incompetence, and they should not go "proudly" to decide the fate of their country and their fellow countrymen.

As for Mr. Kolesnikov's mother, she shows us in pure form the ugly face of elderly egoism. What is her primary motivation for voting? To get "a higher pension and a better standard of living". For the same reason, elderly Bulgarians keep voting for the Bulgarian Socialist Party, although everyone knows that electing this party is a recipe for disaster. Obsessed with their pensions, selfish old people do not hesitate to doom their young compatriots to misery and nonfreedom. A surprisingly high number of retirees are happy to sell their souls for the equivalent of $ 5. Elderly egoism is a very serious menace for the future of all countries that have completed the demographic transition.

Let me finish by copying a comment to the report, by someone posting as Randy:

"Dude, you voted to become part of Russia and now you are complaining? Maybe you should have voted to stay as part of Ukraine. Given your choice, you would be facing this sooner or later. I don't know why I am having a problem giving you sympathy...  Many people in Crimea will soon realize that they have not exactly solved all their problems by joining Russia. Many things will, in fact, become a lot worse. Better get your visa so you can leave what you voted to create."

Dictators who attack other nations always oppress their own people, too

In recent years, Russia not only regained its image of a country attacking neighbors in order to grab land. It also became (again) a country where young women, mothers of infants, are jailed for years because of a protest song.

Now, we have new "achievements" of freedom of speech in Russia. Copying from Christian Science Monitor via Yahoo! News, A bit of satire in Russia earns a big backlash, by Fred Weir:

"A newspaper editor in Vologda had a simple question for President Vladimir Putin. Considering all that Mr. Putin has done in Crimea to protect the rights of downtrodden Russian-speakers there, won't he please consider sending troops to do the same for long-suffering residents of Vologda?

The open letter was tongue in cheek, of course. Vologda is a Russian city deep inside its country's borders and about 300 miles north of Moscow. And the letter wasn't even published in print: Roman Romanenko, its author, posted it to Facebook.

Mr. Romanenko, editor and part owner of Premier, a fairly mainstream newsweekly in Vologda, thought it might be thought-provoking to adapt the plot of "The Mouse that Roared" and ask the Kremlin to send troops to throw off Vologda's corrupt oppressors and free the Russian population.

"Our rights are very restricted, we suffer greatly," Romanenko's open letter to Putin says. "The occupiers who seized power here with the help of fraudulent elections do nothing to help the conquered population.... They lavish money on themselves, on their homes, offices, and private planes," while living standards, education, agriculture, and child care are collapsing.

"We will be very grateful to you [for taking action] and we guarantee there will be no danger of guerrilla war [against you] here, nor are there likely to be any international sanctions as a result.... We've heard about all the money you're going to spend in Crimea, and hardly dare to hope that you might do the same for Vologda region? Our region has become a debt pit, and we desperately need new bridges, roads, industrial development, new jobs.... With respect and profound hopes for liberation, the Russian-speaking inhabitants of Vologda," it concludes.

Vologda's governor, Oleg Kuvshinnikov, did not find that the least bit amusing... Mr. Kuvshinnikov turned the case over to the regional prosecutor, who is currently investigating the post, and Romanenko himself, for signs of "extremist activity and fomenting social, ethnic, and linguistic strife."

In case there was any doubt, Romanenko, reached by phone Tuesday, insists that it was a joke and he only meant to stimulate a bit of discussion among his Facebook circles in Vologda... But called into the prosecutor's office late last month, he found himself facing a battery of harsh and insinuating questions. For example: "Did you write it yourself, or did somebody else write it for you?" and "What social group were you targeting" with this appeal?"

The investigation against Romanenko is ongoing. If he should be convicted of "extremist activity" under new, recently toughened laws, he faces up to 6 years in prison. And that's no joke."

Wake up, Russians! As long as you sleep, you will be a plaything in the hands of psychopaths!

Second death

When a loved one dies, at first we can think of nothing else, and the memory of his face and voice is more vivid than the living people around us.

Then, as we slowly resume life, the memories begin to fade.

I know this is necessary so that we can continue forward, but I am unhappy.

Even his child who adored him will remember little of him.

I know that this is as it should be. The beginning of life must not be dominated by thoughts of death. It would be too heavy a burden for the long journey ahead.

But still I am unhappy. Oblivion looks so much like second death.

Why I hate Russia

I hate Russia because too many of its people are clueless and imperial-minded, unable to build a decent country for themselves and ready to sacrifice their lives to prevent others from living well.

I am sorry to say it but Russians are relatively harmless only when they are starving. As soon as Russian economy provides enough for armament and food, in this order, the "democratically" elected Russian rulers begin bullying and killing non-Russians to boost up their domestic rating, because nothing seems to make the average Russian happier and prouder than seeing non-Russians (preferably civilians) killed or oppressed by Russian troops.

In the Soviet era, we had jokes that Russians "think their borders are secure only if they are steadily expanding" and "feel their borders secure only if there are Russian troops at both sides at the border". These jokes are actual again. Five years ago, Russia attacked Georgia, snatched land from it and got away with it. Now, it is attacking Ukraine after Ukrainians rioted against the "democratically elected" Russian puppet president and forced him to resign.

I do not want to go into detail how ethnic Russians in Ukraine behaved as traitors and hailed as heroes the bloody Berkut anti-riot forces who had killed dozens of demonstrators. Now, Russia has occupied Crimea "to defend Russian speakers" and seems prepared to take all of Eastern Ukraine, much like Hitler in 1938 attacked Czechoslovakia to defend the German-speaking minority there. Below, I am pasting from Laura Mills' AP report without further comments.

"MOSCOW (AP) — Thousands marched freely through Moscow on Sunday in support of Russia using military force in neighboring Ukraine, while at an anti-invasion protest nearby dozens were detained...

At least 10,000 people waving Russian flags rallied in central Moscow. Some dressed in Soviet military uniforms and shouted slogans like "Fascism will not pass!" and "No to Nazism!" — evoking parallels with the repulsion of Hitler's troops from Ukraine in World War II.

But at an anti-invasion protest near Red Square, dozens of demonstrators — one of whom held up just a blank piece of poster paper in protest — were quickly detained by police. The Associated Press witnessed more than 50 detentions and spotted at least five police vans, which carry between 15 and 20 protesters, driving away from the square.

Since parliament gave President Vladimir Putin the green light to use military force in Ukraine late on Saturday, the Russian leader has defied calls from the West to pull back his troops, insisting that Russia has a right to protect its interests and those of Russian-speakers in the strategic Black Sea region of Crimea and elsewhere in Ukraine...

Russia Today claimed that 675,000 of Ukraine's population of 46 million had fled across the border to Russia, and showed the governors of Russia's western-most regions gearing up to accept the flood of refugees. State-owned channel Russia One showed what it alleged were cars lining up to flee the border into Russia — but the sign marking the border was actually for Shegini, a town on Ukraine's western border with Poland...

"We are one brotherly nation, we are all Russians in our souls," said Galina Kravchuk, a retiree at the pro-invasion rally who said she had lived in Crimea all her life but was visiting her daughter in Moscow. "Those protesters (in Ukraine) are hired. They are paid by the West and by America."

But among many at the rally, active support seemed paper thin. Many were delivered to the square by buses marked as city government property, and others confessed that they had been forced by their employers to attend.

"The boss forced us to come," said Elena, who wouldn't give her last name for fear of repercussions at her workplace. "Do you really think that all these people came here voluntarily? Never.""

Jesus Christ Emperor

Below is an authentic conversation with a 4th-grader after it is found out that he, to his teacher's utmost dismay, has written in a history test that Jesus Christ had been an emperor:
"What is an emperor?"
"A person who empers."
"And what does it mean - to emper?"
"To work as an emperor."

Ignorant fanatics doom their child to death and still try to pose as good parents

Ten-year-old Ohio resident Sarah Hershberger was diagnosed with leukemia (or, more likely, non-Hodgkin lymphoma). Chemotherapy was started, Sarah's tumors began to shrink and doctors estimated her survival chance at 85%. However, (surprise! surprise!) the side effects of chemotherapy were painful for Sarah, and apparently even more for her parents. Their best idea in the situation was to take her off the drugs and to use alternative herbal treatment to battle her cancer (!). The authorities intervened, and the parents together with Sarah fled the country to avoid forced chemotherapy. For more details, check Orac's blog.

A little twist to the story is that the Hershbergers are Amish. This is a loony sect of fanatics who deny technology. Cults of this sort are usually cited as religious freedom in action, but in reality only their founders enjoyed religious (or any other) freedom. Guess how much freedom you would have if you had had the poor luck to be born to such parents! Cult communities of this sort often seem cute from outside, with a show of pastoral happiness, until you have a closer look and discover that they are all tyranny and repression, especially of the weak, of women and children. All such cults survive by depriving their children of education and, hence, forcibly making every new generation unable to live outside the cult community. From Wikipedia: "They typically operate their own one-room schools and discontinue formal education at grade eight (age 13/14).^""

The politically correct, tolerant charlatanism of our era requires us to "respect" other religions, cultures and views, no matter how insane or how dire their results. This inevitably replaces normal speech with a Newspeak which hides the truth behind piles of meaningless words. Take the following quotation from the above cited report by A. Perez and M. Jaffe in Yahoo!News: "Sarah Hershberger and her parents oppose chemotherapy, and have been fighting the Akron Children's Hospital in court after the family stopped Sarah's treatment." Someone should informed these so-called journalists with one-digit (combined) IQ that a child of 10 hasn't the cognitive ability or maturity of personality needed to "oppose" a treatment or to "fight" in court. It is well known that a pre-teen child will "oppose" any treatment that causes any discomfort, even to immense detriment of her own interests. This is why children are not allowed to take medical (or legal) decisions. Such decisions are left to their legal guardians (usually the parents) in the hope that these guardians will stand for the child's best interests and will have enough brains to figure out what these best interests are, at least in simple situations such as dealing with a treatable and otherwise fatal disease. Unfortunately, this hope often turns false.

It would be at least partly understandable if the parents had said that they prefer their daughter to die than to pass through so much suffering, and they alongside her. After all, when the strain of parenting becomes unbearable, while not let the troublesome child pass away and concentrate on the other six children? What disgusts me ultimately is not even the parents' decision to doom Sarah to possibly preventable death, but their experimentation with alternative, herbal "treatments". This is a circus performed to convince others, and most likely the Hershbergers themselves, that they are good, loving and caring parents who do their best for Sarah. They may well convince themselves, especially if they (like most other religious fanatics) think they have a direct hotline for communication with God. When the girl's cancer, this "emperor of all maladies" kills her, they will say it has been God's will. They may even invent a reason why He has done this - e.g. that He urgently needed a new little angel. But all this spinning will not change the fact that they and not God are responsible for whatever will happen to Sarah.

Damn idiotic hypocrites! To Hell with them!

Examination strategy

If you are a university student, and if you have a problem with some particular exam (or a catalogue of exams), attempting time and again to pass it, but to no avail, always going to malicious professors who enjoy giving non-passing grades to intelligent students like you...

...If this is your case... then, why not try to study before the exam next time? Just for change.

(Thoughts after the "emergency" mid-semester exam yesterday, when we were busy with medical student geniuses trying to pass biology for 8th or 10th time and still unaware that cells have membranes, and viruses are not cells.)

Omniscience

Our civilization is more and more dominated by omniscience.


The telegraph, and later the telephone, allowed news - especially bad news - to travel at the speed of light. Indeed, sometimes we are lucky. The worst news I have ever received came with the incredible delay of 24 hours. So I have an undeserved, extra happy day.

If you happen to be messenger of omniscience, to avoid the dreaded phone call, you will go to deliver the news face to face if possible. If the recipients are your loved ones, they will greet you with joy (before they see your face), and you will realize that you are witnessing their very last happy moments. You will remember to tell them to sit down before you start talking, but you will have forgotten to bring any sedatives.

When we have to talk with others - especially children - about the death of someone they love, we wish we could sincerely say that he has gone to Heaven. But being omniscient like gods, we cannot find comfort in the blind hopes of religion. Knowledge comes at a price, shutting out of Paradise those who acquire it.

We have no choice but to find ways to live with omniscience. If you have adopted a child, you know it is best to tell him early that he is adopted. Otherwise, some "kind" neighbour will do this, just to demonstrate his omnipotence.

Or the truth will surface after a banal medical test. These tests are another realm of omniscience. If you suspect that some unwelcome condition could develop in you or your child, you in most cases can get tested. If the result is negative, you will be reassured. If it is positive... you "at least will know".

Nothing can remain hidden. We know this and, nevertheless, still try to keep some things secret. And when, predictably, the secret gets out, we feel miserable and cannot ourselves explain why.

First grade

Today is Sept. 15, the beginning of the school year and one of the sacred dates in Bulgarian education. My father remembers that in his childhood the date was indeed so sacred that even when Sept. 15 happened to be Sunday, teachers, kids and parents after church went to school to open the academic year. We are less strict nowadays, so because today is Sunday, summer was extended by a day and schools open tomorrow.

The video above presents the song First-grade (lyrics by Matei Stoyanov, music by Boris Karadimchev). The music and the pictures in the video are more important than the text, so I shall translate only the chorus:

We are saying loud and clear,
First grade is an awesome year!
"First" means also "best, most valued";
as first-graders we are proud!

Good luck to all first-graders (my younger son and niece included) and their families!

Modern heroes do not fear gender conversion

The prototypes of heroic behaviour come from the twilight of legends. Best known to us are the Greek legends preserved in epos and drama. What did the ancient Greek tragic hero fear most? He did not fear torture and death, or successfully suppressed any fears of this sort. He cared little about his loved ones and not at all about his community. What he feared was showing fear, and he dressed his fear in very specific words: to "turn womanish". As Leonard Moss summarizes in his book The Excess of Heroism in Classic Drama, heroes of Greek tragedies fear "gender conversion" - and so do those of Shakespeare.

Many people believe that every difference between today and once upon a time is necessarily progress. If you subscribe to their opinion, you can cheer the huge progress we have made. Today's people who are regarded as heroes in the West resemble the ancient heroes only by their lack of concern for their nation. Indeed, they sabotage its security and do their best to empower its enemies. The prototype of these heroes is Julian Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks. However, a better example is a former US soldier who provided classified information to the WikiLeaks and who was born and known as Bradley Manning.

Unlike the old heroes, this former soldier did not fear looking womanish. Manning not only repented for what s/he had done but, immediately after being found guilty and sentenced to 35 years in prison, s/he released a statement that s/he "considered herself a woman, had taken the name Chelsea Manning, and would seek to undergo hormone replacement therapy". Here is a case where the stupid politically correct gender-neutral expressions "s/he", "she or he" or "xe" are quite appropriate!

While Manning had had documented gender confusion for years, I agree with those who think that by this statement, s/he hopes to draw leniency. Today, Westerners are so concerned not to look homophobic/transphobic that gender-confused offenders often get only a slap on the wrist in situations that would put a straight offender in very serious trouble.

I may be old-fashioned but when talking about heroes, I prefer those egocentric, brutal men of old whose highest priority was to remain very much men to the end. I should read more classic texts and less news :-).

God punishes those who take medical advice from stupid pastors

Below, I am copy-pasting most of the Aug. 25 USA Today's report Texas measles outbreak linked to church, by Liz Strabo.

"Measles is making a worrisome resurgence across the USA, with at least 135 documented cases this year.

Measles, once a common childhood infection that killed up to 500 Americans a year, has been officially eradicated in the Western Hemisphere. For many years, the USA's few dozen measles diagnoses were "imported" cases in individuals who traveled from countries where the virus remains common. High vaccination rates largely halted the virus at the North American border. 

The country's safety net has become more porous in recent years. Although overall vaccination rates remain high, communities of like-minded parents who refuse immunizations for their children have been vulnerable to outbreaks.

The latest measles outbreak is in Texas, where the virus has sickened 25 people, most of whom are members or visitors of a church led by the daughter of televangelist Kenneth Copeland.

Fifteen of the measles cases are centered around Eagle Mountain International Church in Newark, Texas, whose senior pastor, Terri Pearsons, has previously been critical of measles vaccinations.

The outbreak was started by a visitor to the church who had recently traveled to a country where measles remains common, according to Tarrant County Public Health spokesman Al Roy.

Those sickened by measles include nine children and six adults, ranging in age from 4 months old to 44 years old. At least 12 of those infected were not fully immunized against measles, Roy says. The other patients have no record of being vaccinated. The 4-month-old is too young to have been received the measles vaccine, which is typically given at 1, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

"This is a classic example of how measles is being reintroduced," said William Schaffner, an infectious disease expert and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine in Nashville.

The USA has had more than twice as many confirmed measles cases this year than all of last year, when there were just 55, according to the CDC. Flare-ups brought on by foreign travel have caused that number to spike as high as 220 measles cases in 2011.

New York City also has battled a measles epidemic this year, with at least 58 cases, mostly in close-knit Orthodox Jewish communities. City officials say the outbreak was started by someone who traveled to the United Kingdom which, along with Europe, has suffered large measles outbreaks in recent years. One of the New York children with measles developed pneumonia. Two pregnant women were hospitalized and one suffered a miscarriage, city health officials say...

Other vaccine-preventable diseases also have broken out in recent years, including whooping cough and mumps. Some whooping cough outbreaks have clustered around private schools with lax vaccination requirements, according to CDC studies.

Measles particularly alarms doctors because it spreads like lightning and kills one in every 1,000 people infected... The virus can infect people even two hours after a sick person has left the room...

At the Texas church, the visitor infected not only the congregation and staff, but the church's on-site day care center, according to an announcement on Eagle Mountain's website. Health officials notified the church of the measles outbreak Aug. 14, and the church sponsored a vaccination clinic Aug. 18. Eagle Mountain also scheduled a vaccination clinic Sunday.

All of the school-age children infected in the Eagle Mountain outbreak were home-schooled, health officials say. Texas requires children be vaccinated before attending school.

In an Aug. 15 statement, Eagle Mountain's pastor, Terri Pearsons, said she still has some reservations about vaccines. "The concerns we have had are primarily with very young children who have family history of autism and with bundling too many immunizations at one time," she said.

Young children are actually among the most vulnerable to measles, Schaffner says. Their tiny airways can easily swell shut. "This is a sadly misinformed religious leader," Schaffner said.

In addition to getting a measles vaccine, Pearsons recommends that her congregants take vitamin D to fortify their immune systems. Schaffner said there's no evidence that vitamins offer any protection against measles.

"Our children and even adults of all ages need to be immunized now to stop the spread of measles and prevent those potential complications," Pearsons said. "The disease is only shut down when all are immunized.""

I find the report so good that it hardly needs any comments. However, let me add a word or two.

My title does not mean that I really believe in God, let alone God's punishment. However, people at the educational level of Rev. Pearsons and her congregants often use these terms to refer to laws of nature and other causal relationships. So the title expresses the idea (not new in any respect) that humans have evolved to survive and prosper by using their intelligence, and those who have too little of it or deliberately choose not to use it are likely to suffer, as those vaccination refusers did.

Many of these people are still able to learn from bitter experience, as we see from Rev. Pearsons' last words. The sad thing is that all the information that could spare them from the bitter experience was readily available, they just chose to ignore and deny it. Many cultures define stupidity as seeing (bad) things only when they happen and learning only through suffering.

Rev. Pearsons also clearly shows that once a person builds a stupid Weltanschauung, he is likely, even after correcting himself at one point, to continue stupid actions at other points. The stupid pastor who recommended non-vaccination until an outbreak happened now acknowledges vaccines (good) but recommends vitamin D to fortify the immune system (bad). In the 21st century, even the most stupid and ignorant people should know that vitamins do not treat anything except vitamin deficiency. A person with adequate nutrition will not fortify his immune system by guzzling additional vitamin D. Instead, he may harm himself because vitamin D is not readily excreted or degraded by the human body. So those who continue to take medical advice from stupid pastors are likely to suffer further punishments by God.

Bulgarian protesters better economists than Prime Minister Oresharski

(Bulgarian readers can read this post in Bulgarian.)

While anti-government protests in Bulgaria are continuing, yesterday the Prime Minister Oresharski talked to journalists informally (no cameras and voice recorders allowed). Dir.bg (source in Bulgarian) reports about the event:

""All countries in crisis, such as Spain, Greece, Portugal and Italy are tightening the belts and this is leading to mass protests. In Bulgaria, we are relaxing the fiscal system, and the people are protesting. I do not understand this,"" commented Oresharski with surprise... He said also that his colleagues abroad cannot believe that in Bulgaria, at a time of relaxing the fiscal discipline and increasing the budget deficit in order to allow more social spending, people go out to mass protests."

Suprise, indeed! Protesters apparently have some economic background and do not want to roll down the slope to Hell paved with phrases like "relaxing the fiscal discipline", "increasing the budget deficit" and "more social spending". As good and enlightened citizens, they think long-term. While it may be true that in the long run we'll be all dead, these Bulgarians do not want to ruin their children's future in order to spend some extra cents today. And they cannot be bribed by social spending because they do not rely on government to feed them. In a word, they are better economists than Prime Minister Oresharski, who has a degree in economics. Eh well, I am exaggerating. I suppose that Oresharski is pretty aware what he is doing but has sold his soul to the devil.

While prospects for Bulgaria look grim, we can at least be proud that while we have a worse government than other countries, we have better protesters. (Turkey is our rival in both respects.) They do not want to live on the back of someone else (or of future generations) and do not believe in Keynesian pseudo-economic rubbish that austerity is bad. I keep wondering at our pro-government propaganda which has been repeating for almost 2 months, like a non-responding computer programme, that the present protesters (unlike the worthy proletarians in February) are working people with above-average income and education, residents of the big cities. This is an open admission that exactly the best, the nation's elite, are against you! But apparently today's rulers think the best part of society, and the only one with right to protest, are those unable to pay their utility bills and digital TV decoders and to support their children. This is because today's rulers imbibed too much Marxism in their young years.

Oresharski also said yesterday that he would "clear" some government agencies in order to cut expenditures from the inflated administration. This is the definition of arrogance, to say such a thing immediately after creating a new "Ministry of investment projecting" (yes, dear readers) which will have a building and personnel of nearly 900. Unfortunately, this new ministry is expected to do much more damages than its payroll and utility expenditures.

Too-actual quote by Ludwig von Mises

Bureaucracy by Ludwig von Mises (1944) is a remarkable book that I am proud to have translated to Bulgarian. Its Chapter V (you can read it here) contains a section titled The bureaucrat as a voter. I am citing it entirely, because I think it is too actual today and shows the cause of the dire political situation in Bulgaria (and likely also in Greece and other countries).

"The bureaucrat is not only a government employee. He is, under a democratic constitution, at the same time a voter and as such a part of the sovereign, his employer. He is in a peculiar position: he is both employer and employee. And his pecuniary interest as employee towers above his interest as employer, as he gets much more from the public funds than he contributes to them.

This double relationship becomes more important as the people on the government’s payroll increase. The bureaucrat as voter is more eager to get a raise than to keep the budget balanced. His main concern is to swell the payroll.

The political structure of Germany and France, in the last years preceding the fall of their democratic constitutions, was to a very great extent influenced by the fact that for a considerable part of the electorate the state was the source of income. There were not only the hosts of public employees, and those employed in the nationalized branches of business (e.g., railroad, post, telegraph, and telephone), there were the receivers of the unemployment dole and of social security benefits, as well as the farmers and some other groups which the government directly or indirectly subsidized. Their main concern was to get more out of the public funds. They did not care for “ideal” issues like liberty, justice, the supremacy of the law, and good government. They asked for more money, that was all. No candidate for parliament, provincial diets, or town councils could risk opposing the appetite of the public employees for a raise. The various political parties were eager to outdo one another in munificence. In the nineteenth century the parliaments were intent on restricting public expenditures as much as possible. But now thrift became despicable. Boundless spending was considered a wise policy. Both the party in power and the opposition strove for popularity by openhandedness. To create new offices with new employees was called a “positive” policy, and every attempt to prevent squandering public funds was disparaged as “negativism.”

Representative democracy cannot subsist if a great part of the voters are on the government payroll. If the members of parliament no longer consider themselves mandatories of the taxpayers but deputies of those receiving salaries, wages, subsidies, doles, and other benefits from the treasury, democracy is done for.

This is one of the antinomies inherent in present-day constitutional issues. It has made many people despair of the future of democracy. As they became convinced that the trend toward more government interference with business, toward more offices with more employees, toward more doles and subsidies is inevitable, they could not help losing confidence in government by the people."