BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

By Yanki Tauber short/ cir/cuit (elect.): an abnormal, usually unintentional, condition of relatively low resistance between two points of different potential in a circuit, usually resulting in a flow of excess current. - Random House Dictionary of the English Language Do we love too much? Apparently we do. Many marriages fail for a dearth of love; an equal number are suffocated by an overabundance of the same. So desirous are we for connection, so hungry for communion with another human being, that we forget that for love to endure it must be complemented with an equal measure of restraint. So eager are we to give of ourselves to the one we love -- be it a spouse, a child, or a friend -- that we often give without consideration of the needs and desires of the recipient of our love. When passion is mitigated with a degree of inhibition, when intimacy is tempered with a modicum of reserve, love flourishes. But when all limits are betrayed, love burns out. A love relationshi...

First it was Dr. Laura, then Dr. Blowhard Phil, then media whore Dr. Ablow... now it's Dr. Drew... Yes - he ticks me off too. Sex Addiction rehab? You can't REHAB a Narcissist or Sociopath... because you can't rehabilitate something that was NEVER HABILITATED in the first place!! He's a moron... Dr. Drew enrages me. The way his whole empire is built on callous exploitation of the pain, suffering, and need of others makes me very suspicious of his motives and goals in treating people. But even more than that, his eagerness to observe people through tabloid reporting and unsubstantiated rumors and then make unfounded assumptions about whether they’re experiencing substance addiction or abuse issues and/or mental health issues is, frankly, repugnant. ... I saw this reported by the Onion AV Club and they respond so nicely I’m just going to quote them: Dr. Drew Pinksy, of Celebrity Rehab With Dr. Drew, Sex Rehab With Dr. Drew, and Dr. Drew’s Ol’ Fashioned Healing Vapo...

No Crisis Is Immune From Exploitation Under Bush By HILLARY RODHAM CLINTON Tucked away on the Cayman Islands sits Ugland House, an unassuming, nondescript building of modest scale and size. However, according to a recent report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO), this five-story office building is home to more than 18,000 corporate entities, nearly half of which have U.S. ties. In the past few years, the number of corporations flocking to places like the Cayman Islands to evade U.S. taxes has exploded. One of these companies, former Halliburton subsidiary KBR, has used offshore tax havens to avoid paying hundreds of millions of dollars in federal taxes. To no one's surprise, instead of cracking down on KBR, the Bush administration has rewarded the company in April of this year with a 10-year, $150 billion contract in Iraq. There appears to be no crisis, tragedy or disaster immune from exploitation under the Bush administration. The examples of the waste, fraud and abuse ...

By DAVID ROSEN It’s time for New York Governor David Paterson to sign the Safe Harbor Act for Exploited Children. The enabling bills have already passed both the state Assembly (A.5258-c) and Senate (S.3175-c), and now it is on the governor’s proverbial desk for passage. The act will end the widespread practice of arresting, prosecuting and incarcerating those 15-years and younger charged with prostitution. In addition, the Act requires the state to establish a variety of community-based services to help young people. These services include: “housing, diagnostic assessment, individual case management, medical services including substance abuse services, counseling and therapeutic services, educational services including life skills services and planning services to successfully transition residents back to the community.” This support is critical so that these children can reclaim their young lives. Traditionally, zealous police and prosecutors have used the fear of jail to not onl...

JUST WHEN YOU THINK YOU'VE HEARD IT ALL We're obsessed with sex in this country. And I mean sex. Not love. I have never ever gotten the "casual sex" or "just get laid" thing. Maybe its because I am female. Maybe its because I have an overload of empathy & compassion. And maybe because I respect others enough not to use them like sex toys or puppets. I'm no bra-burning feminist. I believe in equal rights. I believe many women are just as intelligent if not more so than some men. I don't judge by gender or sexual orientation. I also believe using prostitutes is equal to paid rape. Exploiting someone emotionally for sex is emotional rape. The whole thing doesn't compute with me. It's sexual violence and it's sick. But this? Stories like the one below make the sexual revolution look like a kiddy-ride. I have a couple ex-escorts would I help in my anti-abuse advocacy life. The things I hear never cease to amaze. Seemingly up...

ROVE RESIGNED? HAPPY HAPPY JOY JOY! I tried so hard not to do the happy dance here. We still have Chimpy and Dead-Eye Dick to contend with, and Rove has left the Administration with a mess in Iraq and an economy that's tanking to contend with. They can credit him with his exploiting the Religious Right and engineering voting manipulation. Now let's see if he gets immunity from the investigations currently ongoing. But this kind of slime always pops up some place else. Some other political garbage scow is probably in his sights right now. He'll "put his feet up in September and think about that"? Wow, do I smell a big, stinkin'. remorseless Destructive Narcissist ? Why, yes I do. Someone follow him out with the Febreze, please. Still, allow me a few moments of happy dancing. While I dance, read on: Top White House aide Karl Rove to resign at end of month Top White House political adviser Karl Rove, who masterminded President George W. Bush's politica...

The Big Lie of George W. Bush by Brent Budowsky It is repeated today by Republicans on the floor of the Senate and restated on this site, only yesterday, and it goes like this: The Democrats have an al Qaeda problem, and this war, which was started with the Big Lie that claimed it was necessary to defeat bin Laden, must be continued to promote the Big Lie that to change the policy would help the terrorists, when the exact opposite is true. How odd that the title of Al Gore's brilliant film, "An Inconvenient Truth," is used to repeat this falsehood, when Gore's brilliant book, The Assault on Reason, was the most sweeping and devastating destruction of this lie that created 3,600 Gold Star Mothers and allowed bin Laden to escape, regroup and gain strength. George Bush and John McCain will be proven right about Iraq? No, the only question left is how many must continue to die for the vile, wrong, self-destructive war and how far the Senate Republicans will go to let this...