BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

When I was in Elementary School (40 years ago) my Fifth Grade teacher had a singular dislike for myself and my parents. I don't know why and looking back on it I still think she had a screw or 10 loose. She was one of those battle-axes who hated kids, hated her job and found one or two kids every year to crap all over. That year - myself and a boy named Jim Gillespie were it. This woman, an adult woman - purposely set me up (a 10 year old no less) to be taunted by my classmates and even left me at a school outing to wander 2 miles back to school myself... with no remorse. She stole things from my desk, hid them and watched as I dissolved in tears searching for them. She wanted so badly to give me bad grades but I was an honor student. Anything to break my spirit... what little I had at age 11. I have PCOS and one of the signs of that is precocious (early) puberty. Mine hit hard when I was 9. I had full breasts and pubic hair by 10. A couple of my classmates told this to th...

by Robert Krulwich and Jad Abumrad LISTEN TO THE INTERVIEW - CLICK HERE We all lie — once a day or so, according to most studies. But usually we tell little lies, like "your new haircut looks great!" And most of us can control when we lie or what we lie about. But some people lie repeatedly and compulsively, about things both big and small. In 2005, a study published in The British Journal of Psychiatry provided the first evidence of structural differences in the brains of people with a history of persistent lying. The study was led by Yaling Yang, a doctoral student in psychology at the University of Southern California, and Adrian Raine, an expert on antisocial disorders who is now at University of Pennsylvania. They expected to see some kind of deficit in the brains of these liars, Yang says. But surprisingly, the liars in their study actually had a surplus — specifically, they had more connections in the part of their brains responsible for complex thinking. Finding Liars...

By Marylou Barry Have you ever wanted something so badly that you would have accepted it from anyone, even if you knew that person placed absolutely no value on you, your family, your future, or your right to go on living? That's exactly what hundreds of single people are doing right now in Gaza, the southern coastal region of Israel that was ethnically cleansed of Jews and surrendered to Islamic terrorists by the Ariel Sharon administration four years ago. According to the Associated Press article "Hamas gets into matchmaking biz," Hamas's Tayseer Association for Marriage and Development in Gaza is now in the profession of introducing men and women seeking marriage partners. Tayseer, which handles the more mundane functions of the Hamas political/military outfit that runs Gaza, bills itself as the "humanitarian" arm of that terror organization – quite a turnabout for hoodlums whose only accomplishments to date consist of robbery, rape, kidnapping, murder an...

By Philip Rucker This is the place where the betrayed wife took her stand. As her husband's affair with an Argentine woman exploded onto the global stage and publicly humiliated her family, Jenny Sanford, 46, and their four sons sought refuge here at their large beachfront cottage on this lush island enclave outside Charleston. In marked contrast to elsewhere across the state, where residents remain riveted by the scandal of Gov. Mark Sanford's disappearing act and affair, Sullivan's Island is the cocoon protecting Jenny and the boys as they strive for normalcy. But it has also been the first lady's war room, where she has given her wayward husband a public thrashing. In the process, she seems to have drawn a new path for the aggrieved spouse of a philandering politician, an episode that has become something of a ritual in American politics. Outside the Sanford home, on Atlantic Avenue near the towering lighthouse, the cameras had disappeared this weekend. Kids splashed...

When you are told you have cancer, the diagnosis affects not only you, but also your family and friends. You may feel scared, uncertain, or angry about the unwanted changes cancer will bring to your life and theirs. You may feel numb or confused. You may have trouble listening to, understanding, or remembering what people tell you during this time. This is especially true when your doctor first tells you that you have cancer. It is not uncommon for people to shut down mentally once they hear the word "cancer." There is nothing fair about cancer and no one "deserves" to have it. A cancer diagnosis is hard to take and having cancer is not easy. When you find out you have cancer, your personal beliefs and experiences help you figure out what the diagnosis means to you and how you will handle it. As you face your own mortality and cope with the many demands of cancer, you may look more closely at your religious beliefs, your personal and family values, and what's mo...

President Barack Obama pushed urgently Thursday for passage of legislation to confront global warming, billing it as a job-creating machine rather than the costly "job killer" Republicans denounced. He telephoned wavering Democrats on the eve of what could be a historic House vote. Speaking in the Rose Garden at the White House, Obama said Washington must not miss the opportunity to work on cleaning the air, creating new "green" energy jobs and moving the nation away from its reliance on fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. The White House appeared concerned that momentum for the bill was slipping, though White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said that when it came time for a House showdown, "I'd bet on the president." Democratic leaders scurried to line up enough votes to get the bill passed. They enlisted former Vice President Al Gore, the country's most prominent voice on the urgency of addressing climate change, to make phone call...

By Dana Milbank In his first daytime news conference yesterday, President Obama preempted "All My Children," "Days of Our Lives" and "The Young and the Restless." But the soap viewers shouldn't have been disappointed: The president had arranged some prepackaged entertainment for them. After the obligatory first question from the Associated Press, Obama treated the overflowing White House briefing room to a surprise. "I know Nico Pitney is here from the Huffington Post," he announced. Obama knew this because White House aides had called Pitney the day before to invite him, and they had escorted him into the room. They told him the president was likely to call on him, with the understanding that he would ask a question about Iran that had been submitted online by an Iranian. "I know that there may actually be questions from people in Iran who are communicating through the Internet," Obama went on. "Do you have a question?" P...

from the astute and on-point Deadenders: Here’s a guest post by Out of Hand Mary to tide you over till I get pissed off at something besides the driver in front of us. As deadenders has told us many times, “Both parties suck.” I certainly can’t argue with that. But, as Uppity Woman told us disenfranchised Dems after May 31, 2008, when many wanted to run Hillary on a third party ticket, there has never been a successful third-party bid for the White House. And that includes Theodore Roosevelt even after he’d already been president and ran on the Bullmoose Party.. Further, there is no national Independent Party. “Independent” designates something different in CA than it does in NY or FL. There is no Constitution Party. There is no We The People Party. And there is no national Woman’s Party. Maybe we can make these parties a reality in the future, but establishing a new political party takes tons more time and money than we have now. With obama and his Congress, our backs are up again...

It's getting tiring hearing the Global Warming deniers. Very tiring. All they have to do is engage their brains and step outside. However, I find most of these particular deniers so far off one end of the scale that they are unwilling & unable to listen. Nor will they admit being wrong or change their minds. ( I suspect some of these people work for power supplying companies, too) T hese 'it's a hoax'ers won't debate you or be rational in discussing it. While they have a right to their opinion, I have the right to not be treated in a rude or dismissive way. They can't even agree to disagree with you. And that - says it all about them. These same wingnuts turn on anyone who doesn't think or believe the way they do into "crazies, loons" or "chicken littles." When I was a teenager we had four seasons. Nowadays we really have TWO. Spring and Fall have become compressed and weather changes are becoming a body-slam from hot to col...

So wrong - so horrible and so profoundly sad. By JENNIFER FERMINO The young Iranian woman whose gruesome killing has become a rallying cry for the nation's opposition movement eerily predicted her violent death by gunfire -- but was determined to protest against "the injustice of it all," a friend said yesterday. As the violence continues to escalate on the streets of the embattled Middle Eastern nation, the beautiful philosophy student, Neda Agha-Soltan, 26, who had been engaged to be married, is being hailed as Iran's Joan of Arc. The government yesterday blocked a wake for her in a central Tehran mosque for fear that the outpouring of grief would lead to more anti-regime protests, her fiancé, Caspian Makan, told the BBC. "The authorities are aware that everybody in Iran and throughout the whole world knows about her story," Makan said. "They were afraid that lots of people could turn up." The 40-second video of Neda's death has not been aire...

from the always great UPPITY WOMAN: Rasmussen, June 21, 2009 : The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Sunday shows that 32% of the nation’s voters now Strongly Approve of the way that Barack Obama is performing his role as President. Thirty-four percent (34%) Strongly Disapprove giving Obama a Presidential Approval Index rating of -2. That’s the President’s lowest rating to date and the first time the Presidential Approval Index has fallen below zero for Obama Here is Rasmussen’s Trends chart . The index falls into a negative when the number of people who Strongly Disapprove outnumber the people who Strongly Approve. Expect to see Bo The Dog soon.

By Timothy Collins Not surprisingly Benjamin Netanyahu's heavily qualified endorsement of the two-state solution prompted scorn and ridicule from Palestinian and Arab quarters. In Israel, many considered the prime minister's offer of a future Palestinian state a generous one. But to characterise Netanyahu's endorsement of Palestinian statehood in his address last Sunday at Bar-Ilan University as either farcical or magnanimous is to miss the historic significance of the moment. Granted, Netanyahu vetoed both a Palestinian military and Palestinian sovereignty over its airspace, staked Israel's claim to an 'undivided'Jerusalem as its capital, and demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state. But seen in the context of Likud's ideological evolution over the past several decades - and notwithstanding Netanyahu's unwarranted reiteration of his belief that the West Bank and Gaza are part the Jewish peoples ancestral homeland - the PM's de f...

By JAMES KIRCHICK When Barack Obama was running for president, he vigorously reassured voters of his firm commitment to America's special relationship with Israel. Indeed, he worked to beef up his pro-Israel bona fides long before he even announced his intention to run. In a 2006 speech before the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Obama recounted a helicopter tour over the Israeli border with the West Bank. "I could truly see how close everything is and why peace through security is the only way for Israel," he said. In that same speech, Obama called the Jewish State "our strongest ally in the region and its only established democracy." During the primary and general election campaigns, Obama dispatched a stream of high-profile Jewish supporters to canvas Florida, and in a 2008 AIPAC speech, he went so far as to declare that Jerusalem must remain the "undivided" capital of Israel. For all the qualms that anti-Obama "smears" would dep...

Just DISGUSTING! What is it with guys who can't keep their pants on and everyone around them who wants to cash in? What a depraved society we are living in - far too much reality television! The husband of Sen. John Ensign's former mistress made "exorbitant demands for cash and other financial benefits" through an attorney, an aide to the Nevada Republican said Friday. In a statement, Ensign spokesman Tory Mazzola said the demands from an attorney for Doug Hampton were made within the past month. "The demands were referred to Senator Ensign's legal counsel, who is handling the matter going forward," the statement said. Mazzola did not name the attorney nor immediately respond to requests for additional details. Hampton's lawyer, Daniel Albregts, did not immediately respond to messages seeking comment. The FBI in Las Vegas and Las Vegas police said Friday they were not investigating the matter. Unconfirmed reports that Doug Hampton was pressuring En...