BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

As some of you know already, I am going into the hospital and having surgery on Thursday, May 28, 2009. This blog will (I hope) be quiet until I am able to return. Your prayers are needed that what is going to be removed is all benign and that I get through this surgery with minimum pain and return home to my children in better health. I will say this surgery is related to my 43 year struggle with PCOS. Thank you... all.

by Tawfik Hamid Muslims can start with better Quranic scholarship. The film "Fitna" by Dutch parliament member Geert Wilders has created an uproar around the world because it links violence committed by Islamists to Islam. Many commentators and politicians — including the British government, which denied him entry to the country last month — — reflexively accused Mr. Wilders of inciting hatred. The question, however, is whether the blame is with Mr. Wilders, who simply exposed Islamic radicalism, or with those who promote and engage in this religious extremism. In other words, shall we fault Mr. Wilders for raising issues like the stoning of women, or shall we fault those who actually promote and practice this crime? Many Muslims seem to believe that it is acceptable to teach hatred and violence in the name of their religion — while at the same time expecting the world to respect Islam as a religion of peace, love and harmony. Scholars in the most prestigious Islamic institut...

The story that broke last year about the father, Fritzl, who imprisoned his daughter in a basement dunegon for 24 years and she had 7 children by him - as well as the sick details of his letting a few of those children upstairs - got my attention. I can't shake the horror of a father actually treating his own child in this way. I had a wonderful father. He had his flaws but inside he was a wonderful man who would never exploit anyone or hurt a fly. However, my other parent - was pathologically disordered. And my father (of blessed memory), my brother and myself were all changed forever from it. Wrapping our heads around these people there's only one explanation: Psychopathy aka Sociopathy. No empathy and maybe even no soul. The bad thing is guys like the above and scum like Scott Peterson, Osama binLaden and Honor Murderers make news. But, there are hundreds & thousands of them who may be next to you at the check out or in the cubicle next to you. Subcriminal who ...

by Aaron Klein Netanyahu clashes with White House on West Bank construction The Obama administration wants to abrogate a secret deal that President Bush made to allow Israel to construct homes in previously existing West Bank Jewish communities, WND has learned. "The matter is ongoing and is subject to current talks with the U.S. administration," said a source in Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's office. The source was referring to a 2005 deal Bush made with then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Israel can continue "natural growth" of West Bank settlements, meaning adding housing to current communities in that territory to account for growth in population. The deal was forged just prior to Israel's 2005 retreat from the Gaza Strip. It was confirmed by Sharon aide Dov Weissglas in 2005, and again last week in statements to the Washington Post by Elliott Abrams, a former deputy national security adviser to Bush who reportedly negotiated the arrangement. The ...

From THE REAL BARACK OBAMA by Procrustes There’s probably no more powerful a reminder of just how out of touch and clueless Barackistan HQ is than Organizing for America’s latest email directive issued by O for A’s David Plouffe — “June 6th: It all begins”. There was ZERO headscratching here at RBO HQ about the significance of June 6th. It just happens to be the 65th Anniversy of D-Day, the Battle of Normandy, June 6, 1944. So, is that what Plouffe is talking about? Hardly. Once again, POTUS and his faithful hord are deliberately tone deaf. And just what is the It that is to “begin” on June 6th, you ask? Well, here’s the email message: We especially like this part: We will look back on that day as the moment when the fight for real health care reform began in your neighborhood — perhaps even in your own living room. Hey, numbskulls, you just don’t get it, do you? FYI — The D-Day Museum in Portsmouth, England, reports on the human sacrifice from the battle: The Allied casualt...

A Relationship in Numbers As some of you who have read previous posts may know, I have been thinking a lot about numbers and statistics lately — what they mean, how they define us, and, more importantly, how they fail to capture what cannot be so easily quantified. In digging through research for my book proposal, I unwittingly came across the following statistic: The divorce rate in marriages where chronic illness is present is over 75 percent. (see http://www.mychronicillness.com/invisibleillness/statistics.htm. ) Now, I am not here to debate the accuracy of these statistics or discuss the methodology behind them, but they did make me stop and think. I was told recently I had a 75 percent chance of not having children on my own, so I approached this statistic with the same question: How do you know if you’ll be in that lucky 25 percent? Seventy-five percent of marriages where chronic illness is present do not last. That is an overwhelming number to me, and it might be misleading. Peo...

The Zohar says that when one is angry it is tantamount to idol worship. Why is a burst of anger judged so seriously? One who trusts and truly believes that G-d not only created everything but that He also is in complete control of every last detail of world events will not get angry. If something doesn't meet one's satisfaction one must accept because it is the will of our Creator. If something goes wrong it was caused by G-d. If someone is behaving in a way that upsets he or she is merely a messenger from the Lord. So if one reacts with temper one is in effect saying” I do not believe!"- Raymond J Beyda What makes narcissists switch into Mean Mode - Kathy Krajco If you have grown up in a home with a narcissistic parent (and perhaps also a narcissistic sibling) , this may be a revelation to you. Ask yourself what he or she was mad at you about the last time they made you feel like dirt. I bet you can't say. Think back. I bet you can't say what they were ev...

Before resting its recent case against Mohammed Momin Khawaja under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act, the prosecution presented Momin’s former fiancée, Zeba Khan, as the final witness via a video link from Dubai. Ms. Khan reportedly stated in her testimony: “You will not meet a young Muslim man in the world who is not angry about something. Anyone who watches the news, if he wasn’t mad then, a) there’s something wrong with him, or b) he’s ignorant.” Obviously, not all angry young Muslim men are engaging in violence — nor, of course, are all Muslims terrorists. But many terrorists are found to be Muslims. Ms. Khan’s remark purports to explain the linkage. It is perhaps no coincidence that Mr. Khawaja has Pakistani roots. In recent years, Pakistan has become a haven for al-Qaeda terrorists. For longer than that, jihadis have recruited Pakistani boys and men to fight in Kashmir and Afghanistan. These brainwashed men may be volunteers headed out to fight infidel “invaders” and “occupiers” of Mu...

Yet FauxBama still wants Gitmo detainees released into the U.S. population. Let us pray. The four men were ex-convicts who envisioned themselves as holy warriors, ambitious enough to concoct a plot to blow up synagogues and military planes, authorities said. But they were amateurs every step of the way. They had trouble finding guns and bought cameras at Wal-Mart to photograph their targets. One was a convicted purse snatcher, another smoked marijuana the day the plot was to be carried out. Muslims fueled by hatred of America and Jews, they spent months scouting targets and securing what they thought was a surface-to-air missile system and powerful explosives — all under the watch of an FBI informant. The four were arrested late Wednesday outside a synagogue in the Bronx, following a long line of homegrown, headline-making terror plots since Sept. 11 that never came close to reality because the FBI inserted itself in the earliest stages. The bombs they planted outside two synagogues We...

from the Black Agenda Report: "Since the first days of his administration, Obama has methodically erased single-payer advocates from the picture.” The president feigns amazement at popular demands for a change in the industrial world’s most expensive and dysfunctional health care system. "We're doing some stuff on health care because I think the country is geared up, businesses are geared up, families are geared up to go ahead and start solving some our extraordinary health care system problems," Obama fairly gushed, as if his own corporate-friendly proposals accurately reflect the public will. In reality, the Administration is engaged in an elaborate charade designed to sidetrack, possibly for decades, the most broadly supported idea in American politics, today: single-payer health care. Obama has gone to extraordinary lengths to suppress advocates of a single-payer or “Medicare for all” system, which polls have consistently shown to be favored by at least six in te...

Jewish settler leaders on Tuesday shrugged off President Barack Obama's call for Israel to halt settlement building in the occupied West Bank, saying Palestinians needed to "halt terror first." Dani Dayan, chairman of the West Bank settlers' umbrella organization Yesha Council, said he felt assured that domestic political support would allow settlers to continue to live in the occupied West Bank. "The Israeli electorate set a clear line for this government ... we have strong support in the new Knesset (parliament) and the things we hear among politicians certainly encourage us that if Netanyahu (halts settlement building) the Knesset will stand at our side," Dayan told Reuters. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu met Obama for talks at the White House on Monday and the U.S. president afterwards reminded Israel of its commitment under a 2003 U.S.-backed peace "road map" to stop settlement building in the occupied West Bank. "Obama's w...

How many times in my life did I hear those words? Usually attached to some depressive episode. Those words always drove me deeper inside myself, deeper into depression and triggered months of 'circular thinking' well known to those of us with PTSD and related depression. I grew up in a home where I was constantly reminded that I was not fitting in, not what was expected and not only unlikeable but probably unloveable as well. The verbal abuse grew physical but it was many, many years before I realized this was not the way every home was. I grew up loving people who were incapable of really loving me back. And that continues to this day; which is why I have turned my back on any other relationship -- ever. I took beatings at school and had no friends until I was about 17. I was shunned by just about everyone. My Drama teacher took me under his wing and slowly but surely tried to give me some self-esteem. I only had it when I was performing, though. My high school senior ...