BARBARA'S TCHATZKAHS

There is a reason why you are asked in court to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. It is because most of the time that is not what people do. Everyone lies sometime. There are many reasons to lie. Sometimes it is to not hurt someone's feelings. Sometimes a lie is for our own advantage. Some people lie in conducting business and in their personal lives. Most adults are aware of when they lie. Young children sometimes have problems telling fantasy from reality. When a 3-year-old insists that he flew to Mars this morning, he may not be lying on purpose. He may not even be aware that it is a lie. Children with good imaginations often take longer to learn what a lie really is. It is important to work with children to teach them about fantasy and reality, instead of punishing them for these kinds of beliefs. A pathological liar believes in the lies, at least at the time that she or he is talking. Their stories tend to be very dramatic. They often portray the ...

By REBECCA HARSHBARGER in NY and S.A. MILLER in DC   Rep. Pete King says President Obama's weak Mideast policy is forcing House Democrats to make the difficult choice of either supporting Obama or supporting Israel. "I hope they put our relationship with Israel above their relationship with Obama," King (R-LI) said yesterday. Flanked by Jewish community leaders at a press conference across from the United Nations, King rallied support for his legislation calling for the US to quit the UN Human Rights Council and its probe of the Israeli raid May 31 on a flotilla off Gaza. Not a single House Democrat, including the entire New York City delegation, would sign on to that resolution introduced by King last week. But King found Dems and Jewish leaders back in the city who also don't trust the UN council, which regularly bashes Israel. He was joined at the press conference by Democratic Assemblymen David Weprin and Rory Lancman, Rabbi Joseph Potasnik and Jew...

by Patricia Garrison The opinions expressed herein are those of the author, and not necessarily those of The New Agenda . How many times must females be killed because they are female, before we start decrying these horrific acts for what they are: hate crimes? Although gender is included as a category in the federal hate crimes bill signed into law last year, the recognition that women and girls are targeted and murdered solely because of their sex has yet to infiltrate our cultural framework or spark any sense of collective outrage. The media have yet to cover these crimes as acts of growing anti-women violence. Given the pervasive sexism in news and entertainment, that should come as no surprise. To be sure, our vulnerability as females is nothing new. At all ages, females are 90% more likely to be the victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, harassment and rape. While not all crimes targeting women can be classified as hate crimes, what does appear to be a serious a...

I address the victims of narcissistic abusers here. But this can warn their friends about how hurtful the stock responses to their pain are. (i.e. 'Get Over It, Move On, You Should Have Known, It Will Pass.. .') If you are the friend of an abused person, don't make it worse. If you can't say what comes naturally and honestly, it would be better to say nothing at all than to say what sounds right because it's politically correct. "He who angers you controls you." Baloney. That popular adage does not pass a basic nonsense check. Look, it says that if we want to be good boys and girls we must numb ourselves so that nobody can make us feel anything. Look again, it is exactly anti-logical, blaming the victim. It pathologizes you, the victim of the narcissist, instead of the narcissist. Stuff like this is my pet peeve. Where on earth does it come from? Once you start noticing how much political correctness is anti-logic, you can't help but wonder (with Ma...

Not with an abusive pathological, it doesn't! Simple Case of Bad Guy Attacking Good Guy by Kathy Krajco Did you ever hear the saying "It takes two to Tango"? That's a common saying here in the United States, at least some parts of it. But I'll bet every language has a figure of speech that means the same thing. It takes two to Tango: That's what you're supposed to say when gossipping about interpersonal problems between two other people. The only interest is in coming to agreement with your gossips on who is to blame for it. Because then you are bestowing judgement on people, and that feels good. The doctrine firmly to be believed is that, no matter what the bad guy did, the good guy is partly to blame. I think this is construed as (of all things) "fairness" = unfairly (arbitrarily) placing blame on a person without one bit of evidence - just this almost religiously held slogan "It takes two to Tango." As in the ballroom danc...

The truth the media doesn’t want you to see in a concise nutshell. MAJOR HAT TIP: DEBBIE SCHLUSSEL

I'm sick of it. The 'friends' who say they aren't "anti-Israel" but keep calling for the U.S. to condemn Israel. Now they won't admit THEY GOT IT WRONG. That "humanitarian" flotilla? WAS A TROJAN HORSE FOR WEAPONS & TERRORISTS. As one journalist said "Israel is the only country in the world NOT allowed to defend itself." Enough's enough you 'Social Justice' activitists. There is no such thing as Palestine. So -- Shut up and sit down! Look what Israel didn't do wrong By John Podhoretz No matter whom you ask right now, it seems Israel did wrong. Ask someone unfavorably disposed toward Israel, and you'll hear that Israel did wrong because its assassins opened fire without provocation on a humanitarian flotilla intended to relieve the suffering people of Gaza. Ask a friend of Israel, and you'll hear that Israel did wrong because it sent its commandos in the dark into a hostile crowd that did ...

If there was ever a good reason to get a plan together to get the U.S. out of Iraq in due time, the assault & rape of our women in uniform is a very good one. I am all for equality. I was born with a couple genetic problems that would have precluded me from joining the military. But my father, of blessed memory, was in the Army. My uncle, of blessed memory, was a Navy War Hero who was on a ship sunk by the Germans and spent some time in a military hospital after rescuing a number of men. My father in law, also of blessed memory, was in the Canadian Army and served in the U.K. during World War II, having done hand to hand combat with German soldier. There's a graveyard in Oxford, Mass. with gravestones with my last name on them - many of them fought as infantry and naval men during the Revolutionary War. I believe that while war is profane, defense is compulsory. And if you're an able bodied woman, who wants to serve their country via the military - I say - go for...

As a sufferer of chronic pain myself, I know that getting adequate pain relief is a huge problem. Abusers like Pumpkin-head Limbaugh have made it hard on all of us. I am going to my second pain clinic in 11 years and I have just about given up hope. In the last 5 years my pain issues have gotten so bad I can barely function some days. Chronic pain colors my thinking and causes profound depression and hopelessness in people like me. I refuse to take anything too strong or sedating. I am single mother and refuse to be drugged up around my children. I already take an SSRI for my PTSD and valium only when my PTSD is triggered. I take my Vicodin or Robaxin only on weekends when I can and must sleep.  4 years ago, after a traumatic incident, I was hospitalized twice with a tube down my throat to stop vomitting and esophageal spasms. The choice was - do we give her something for the PTSD or the spasms? Thank goodness that stopped though it was a long, hard road. Pain often ...

I will say, upfront, I have a connection to the Santora family. And yes, I think this is a bad idea. Insensitive, rude and inviting trouble for all parties concerned. NYers wage jihad vs. WTC mosque By Tom Topousis and Joe Mollica Angry relatives of 9/11 victims last night clashed with supporters of a planned mosque near Ground Zero at a raucous community-board hearing in Manhattan. After four hours of public debate, members of Community Board 1 finally voted 29-1 in support of the project. Nine members abstained, arguing that they wanted to table the issue and vote at a later date. The board has no official say over whether the estimated $100 million mosque and community center gets built. But the panel's support, or lack of it, is considered important in influencing public opinion. Holding up photos of loved ones killed in the Twin Towers and carrying signs such as, "Honor 3,000, 9/11 -- No mosque!" opponents of the proposed Cordoba House on Park Place called th...

While approval from the 50-member board is  not needed to build the center, the vote may indicate how residents of lower Manhattan feel about the idea. "The community board is a good barometer of the sentiment of the people in that neighborhood," said Manhattan Borough President Scott Stringer. "Many of the people on the Community Board are people who stayed in the neighborhood after 9/11, who had to rebuild this area," he said. "These are good people with good instincts." The board's 12-member Financial District committee unanimously voted in favor of the project earlier this month. "From my perspective, there's not a lot to dislike about the project," said Ro Scheffe, 59, a member of the committee who runs a communications firm and lives three blocks from Wall St. Foes - including some members of the board - argue an Islamic community center so close to Ground Zero is insensitive to the families of people who died on 9/11. T...

First, a warning! Any of you who find this subject triggering or upsetting, or have a problem with personal posts of a highly-charged nature - please scroll on by for the usual blog fare. However, its my blog and I'll post if I want to. In 7th grade my English teacher, Mrs. Fisher, asked us to write an Op-Ed piece on a current issue in the news. I'm giving away my age but I chose Roe v. Wade. Mrs. Fisher called my mother when I turned it in and told my mother that what I had written was A++ material but the subject might be too controversial for the small, right-wing town we lived in. My mother, in a moment of clarity, told her to "grade the paper on the English merits, not the subject." She did. I got my A++. Foreshadowing. I've had 2 abortions. I am not counting the clinical D&Cs I had to have because of my PCOS; which sometimes only let me have 2 - 3 periods a year. I had the latter to avoid cervical and uterine cancer. No these were abort...

I was here in NYC for 9/11. My ex is a 9/11 survivor. I vividly remember what this City was like in the week following this horror. I have been following this mosque story and I am horrified. Stunned & horrified. Religious Tolerance in the U.S. is a TWO-WAY street! Have we forgotten that too? Short on Allah dollars By ISABEL VINCENT, MELISSA KLEIN and TOM TOPOUSIS Last Updated: 2:22 PM, May 16, 2010 Dreams by a Muslim group to build a mosque near Ground Zero may not match its means. The ambitious and immediately controversial proposal to create the $100 million religious and cultural center does not seem to be backed by any cash. The American Society for Muslim Advancement, which proposed the center, has assets of less than $1 million, according to its most recent audited financial statement. A sister organization, the Cordoba Initiative, listed assets of less than $20,000 in 2008. Its tax filings do not disclose at least $60,000 in private contributions, a Post anal...