tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-111492972024-03-07T15:33:24.750-08:00KomanSenseDr. Koman is an award-winning novelist, sloganeer, neologist, and all-around <em>bon vivant</em>.Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.comBlogger58125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-19052359247491399282020-09-23T09:13:00.002-07:002020-09-23T09:57:34.080-07:00<p align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"> <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: large;">Seven Tottering Pillars</span><br />
<span style="font-size: medium;">Why the Coming Marxist “Color <span> </span><a name="_GoBack"></a>Revolution” Will Fail in America</span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Over the past two decades, a series of so-called “Color
Revolutions” have been organized to overthrow and collapse Eastern European governments
such as Ukraine (“Orange”) and Georgia (“Rose”). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>President Obama’s former ambassador to Russia,
Michael McFaul, formulated “7 Pillars of Color Revolution,” a list of seven preconditions needed in order to incite the type of revolution necessary to remove leaders. For some
deluded reason, McFaul and others in the Bipartisan Transition Integrity
Project (which is none of those things, except maybe a “project”) have convinced themselves that these revolutionary tactics will work on
Americans. This indicates the level of either desperation (all their other options
have failed to unseat Trump) or insanity (they think Americans are ignorant
sheep easily persuaded to clump individuals into simplistic categories of race
or income level) to which Trump has driven them.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal">This is bunk, and at the risk of giving McFaul and his ilk sufficient
time before the election to alter their plans, here are seven reasons why the
Seven Pillars of Color Revolution will not — and cannot— achieve their goals in
the United States of America. Each numbered item is one of McFaul’s “pillars.”</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">1. Semi-autocratic
regime (not fully autocratic) – provides opportunity to call incumbent leader “fascist”</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FAIL</b></span>: As much as these cheerleaders for
a coup try to label President Trump a “fascist/Nazi/worse-than-Hitler” tyrant,
the majority of Americans can see that he follows the Constitution and is actually reducing statist burdens (taxes, regulations) on Americans. We can also
see the fascistic/Bolshevik/statist/communist rhetoric <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and</i> actions of the Democrats’ KKK-inspired race-hate domestic-terror
criminal organizations such as AntiFa and Black Lives Matter™. Americans know
who are the <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">real</i> fascists using Brown Shirt
tactics to instill a climate of fear. Democrat governors and mayors have used COVID-19 to enact the most draconian, unconstitutional restrictions on their populace while turning a blind eye to — or even participating in — BLM™ coordinated
<span face=""Calibri",sans-serif" style="font-size: 12pt; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">unrest and disruption</span><style><!--
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">2. Appearance of
unpopular president or incumbent leader</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FAIL</b></span>: Again, using Big Lie techniques
to label Trump as unpopular belies his visible, palpable popularity, as can
easily be measured by the attendance at his rallies. The attempt by the leftist
lapdog press to make flag-waving, peaceable assemblies of Pro-American patriots
of all colors appear “threatening” or “white supremacist” is pathetic when laid side-by-side with images of
CHAZ/CHAD alt.statism zones, Democrat-run cities as protected havens for
homelessness, drug abuse, public defecation, arson, rape, and murder, and undisguised, <i>literal</i> threats to burn the nation to cinders if Biden does not get elected. Americans
made Trump popular — he remains so, despite the propaganda from movie stars
and academic weasels.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">3. United and
organized opposition – Antifa, BLM</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="color: red;"> </span></span><span style="color: red;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">C+</b></span>: Here the seditionists have had some
success. As long as the money flows from wealthy collaborationists who made their money
thanks to the freedom ensured by the Declaration and the Constitution, these organizations
will use Chinese-communist tech (WhatsApp, TikTok) to communicate and maintain
their cellular structure. The fact that sheep-like collectivists can take
collective action (more readily than can harder-to-organize freedom-loving rugged individualists) appears to give them the upper hand. But remember that a bunch of rugged
individualists repeatedly repelled the collective might of the British Empire, the
Democrat’s own Confederacy of slaveholders, the socialist/imperialist/fascist Axis
of Hitler, Hirohito, and Mussolini, and the murderous Union of Soviet Socialist slaughter
machine. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">4. Effective system
to convince the public (well before the election) of voter fraud</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FAIL</b></span>: The only voter fraud most Americans
are convinced will occur is on the part of the Democrats. Democrats have
opposed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">every</i> effort to reduce voter
fraud, such as Voter ID (in a country where ID is needed for everything, they
still push the “poor little old Black woman who can’t afford a free state ID
card” fiction), purging rolls of dead or departed voters, or banning the
practice of ballot harvesting. Americans know who has been enabling “the
graveyard vote” since the 1960s. Now Democrats intend to send ballots to everyone in
the phone book and take weeks to “count them until we win” (as Edward G.
Robinson said in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Key Largo</i><span style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">)</span>. What
could be more obvious?</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">5. Compliant media to
push voter-fraud narrative</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FAIL</b></span>: I was going to give an <b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">A–</b> to this, since the Democrat/Media/Academia/Elite/Deep
State coup-mongers do have <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">most</i> media
outlets in their pockets. However, with popular belief in the veracity of the
press at an all-time low (even COVID-19 has more supporters than CNN), it is
nearly impossible for the media to whip up broad popular belief that Trump and
the Republicans are responsible for <i>any</i> voter fraud or voter suppression when
we hear the Democrats promoting a violent military <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">junta</i> in a disputed election and threatening to burn down all our
institutions (literally, not figuratively) if Biden loses. Do leftists truly expect Americans to believe that they want to "save the sacred institutions of our democracy from Trump" by destroying the Electoral College, packing the Supreme Court, turning the Senate into a second House of Representatives, and granting statehood to Washington, DC? <i>C’mon, Man!</i><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">6. Political-opposition organization able to mobilize “thousands to millions in the streets”</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="color: red;"> </span></span><span style="color: red;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">D–</b></span>: Democrats and their socialist billionaire masters may have convinced themselves
that they can mobilize millions in the streets based on the few hundred they shuttle
from city to city to organize and incite riots with the aid of criminal gangs,
but the vast majority of 330 million Americans believe in self-defense and defense of others, not violent mob aggression against the innocent. They (the Militia that the Framers wisely enshrined in the 2nd Amendment) possess
roughly 393 million firearms in their homes (compared to 4.5 million for the US
military). The <i>soi disant</i> Resistance creates new gun owners every time rioters loot a business and
burn it to the ground, or a 20-something AntiFa hood beats an old woman on a crosswalk, or
a white girl on video screams racist epithets at a black police officer because
she earnestly believes that Black Lives Matter but Blue Lives don’t. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">Homes and businesses are the high ground. The streets are
wide open and indefensible. Riot organizers should confuse neither patience with
weakness nor silence with fearfulness. Americans have heard the ominous threats and seen the violent actions of America’s enemies — foreign <i>and</i> domestic — and know <i>who</i> surrounds <i>whom</i>.<br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">7. Division among
military and police</b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: red;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">FAIL</b></span>: Some-but-not-all of the upper
echelon/management of the military and local police <i>may</i> be elitist, politically motivated
creatures in Democrat strongholds such as the Left Coast states, New
York, and the Pentagon, but nearly all the grunts take their oath to defend the
Constitution and to protect and serve the citizens of the United States extremely
seriously. The attempt to create a schism between the military and the police
fails precisely because those who join such organizations were attracted to the
high moral values of those services. This is not like some other countries,
where people who join a corrupt military or police do so to use their power to
plunder or oppress. </p>
<p class="MsoNormal">No amount of “All Cops Are Bad Cops” scrawled on the walls
of burning police precincts will set the military troops against the police. No
accusations that our military forces are “storm-troopers” or “jack-booted thugs”
will convince police to fire upon the National Guard. After all, the seditionists in the Deep State have made it clear that they feel no obligation to obey their oaths or the legal orders of the President, so why on Earth should they expect the troops to follow <i>their</i> orders to buttress an anti-American revolution?<br /></p><p class="MsoNormal">And in the microscopic
chance that such a battle <i>might</i> occur, it will be simple for average Americans
(see Militia, above) to identify the aggressor and outnumber them 87 to 1. </p><p class="MsoNormal"><br /></p>
<h2 class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">The Collapse of the
Seven Pillars</b></span></h2>
<p class="MsoNormal">What socialists don’t understand — and have never understood
— about what makes America exceptional is that we are a nation of free-thinking, sovereign
individuals, no matter how much statism-loving Democrats and vapid RINOs may
have eroded our individual rights over time. A handful of Americans may be corrupted
by the politics of class- or race-envy promulgated by Marx/Lenin/Hitler/Stalin/Mao
and their handmaidens in academia, the press, and the Deep State. Far more
numerous, though, are ordinary Americans — even among our youngest — who
understand the importance of the individual, of each individual’s right to
self, to freedom, to private property, and to the <i>equal</i> liberty of others. That
has kept America strong and the Constitution in effect for nearly
two-and-a-half centuries. The desperate, violent thrashing of a dying
collectivist mysosophy may seem frightening, but it will never be daunting to Americans. </p><p class="MsoNormal">We’ve toppled these pillars before. And we can do it
again.</p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
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{page:WordSection1;}</style></p>Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-16488202457074868312019-03-31T08:39:00.002-07:002019-03-31T08:39:26.735-07:00<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>An <i>Unplanned</i> Life — A Movie Review</b>
</div>
<br />
The
current intellectual conceit is to begin a scholarly paper with a statement of
one’s biases, so here are mine: as many of you know, I wrote the novel <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/sk_trade.html" target="_blank"><i>Solomon’s Knife</i></a>, in which I proposed
fetal transfer (<i>transoption</i>) as a
solution to the pro-life/pro-choice schism over pregnancy termination. I wrote
it because I believe in genetics, so I believe that a fetus is something
unique: a recombinant DNA experiment in which a man’s sperm and a woman’s egg
mix together to create an entirely different individual. And — as a libertarian
— I believe in an individual’s right to life and self-ownership, which includes
both a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy <i>and</i> the right of a baby not to be killed. The only way to reconcile
this seeming clash of rights is to recognize that a woman has the right to <i>expel</i> the fetus, but not to <i>kill</i> it, just as a homeowner has the
right to evict a tenant but not murder him. And, on the other side, anyone has
the right to <i>rescue</i> that expelled fetus,
but not to <i>force</i> the woman to carry
it to term.
<br />
<br />
So
you can call me anti-abortion if you want, but the word <i>abortion</i> must be broken down into its two concepts: terminating a <i>pregnancy</i> and terminating a <i>life</i>. Since I also believe in science, innovation,
and human ingenuity, I believe that a technological solution to this impasse is
possible. In my novel, it was non-destructive surgical transfer of the fetus
from a woman who does not want it into the womb of a woman who does. Two
reproductive problems solved with one baby. Prenatal adoption. Transoption.
<br />
<br />
I’m also
compelled to offer a Spoiler Alert: stop reading here if you haven’t figured
out that the film I’m reviewing is anti-abortion and its main character goes
from pro-choice to pro-life by the end of it. Hope that doesn’t ruin the movie
for you...
<br />
<br />
Enough
of that. This is a review of the new motion picture <a href="https://www.unplannedfilm.com/" target="_blank"><i>Unplanned</i></a>, the story of how the based-on-real-life character Abby
Johnson went from being the 2009 Planned Parenthood Employee of the Year and director
of a busy abortion clinic in Texas(!) to a faith-based anti-abortion activist,
virtually overnight. Abby, played by Ashley (<i>90 Minutes in Heaven</i>) Bratcher, has had two abortions — one as a
teenager and one while married to a man whom she was divorcing — so she sees no
problem getting a job at the local Planned Parenthood clinic.
<br />
<br />
As
her job titles and responsibilities climb, she (and we) are gradually let in on
the secrets of the abortion industry: the ultrasounds that are used to
determine the size of the fetus (and thus the cost of the abortion); the standing
order that no one is to call 911 for any patient medical emergency (to avoid negative
optics); and the ultimate horror — which shocked and haunted the otherwise indefatigable
Abby (and which netted the film its unprecedented R-rating) — using ultrasound
imaging to guide the suction tube toward a 12<sup>th</sup>-week fetus as it frantically
and futilely attempts to kick itself away from the device’s deadly pull.
<br />
<br />
Chuck
Konzelman and Cary Solomon — the writing team responsible for <i>God’s Not Dead</i> and its sequel as well as
the cult-classic vampire movie <i>The
Insatiable</i> — team up to write and direct <i>Unplanned</i>. The film is superbly shot by Drew Maw and tautly edited
by Parker Adams and Dana B. Wilson. The score — by Blake Kanicka — deftly jumps
between extremes of tense, terrifying edginess that recalls (but does not
emulate) Bernard Hermann’s <i>Psycho</i> score,
and soaring warmth and even humor at all the right emotional pivot points.
<br />
<br />
A
standout performance from Robia (<i>Buffy
the Vampire Slayer</i>) Scott as Cheryl, Abby’s boss, takes her from passionate
supporter of a woman’s right to choose to a cold, calculating, bottom-line-obsessed dollar-chaser in the
eight-year story arc. Emma Elle Roberts and Jared Lotz portray abortion
protestors who are not angry, not accusatory, but ready to engage with Abby to
the point where they exchange daily greetings and discuss their simultaneous pregnancies
despite the vast moral and philosophical gulf that separates them. Tina Toner plays
a dead-in-the-soul clinic employee to understated — yet chilling — perfection. The movie is not without its
humorous moments, however, one of them being Cheryl having no problem with a pregnant
director of an abortion clinic: seeing Abby that way, she muses with a wicked
smile, will convince them that they’ll never want children.
<br />
<br />
Ashley
Bratcher’s performance as Abby, though, is the one that deserves the most praise.
It is a rare film of any kind that can play totally fairly with both sides of a
controversy <i>and</i> have an actor that
can convincingly inhabit two rhetorical extremes with equal aplomb. It is far easier
to create straw men (or — more appropriately here — straw women) to spout ignorant,
bigoted, or even nonsensical lines the writers set up for the protagonist to
knock down. Such films and novels rarely ring true and almost never change
minds. They are the stuff of propaganda. In <i>Solomon’s
Knife</i>, I tried to present the best arguments the pro-choice and pro-life factions
could muster regarding abortion and human rights. I did not expect to see such
even-handed treatment from faith-based, conservative Christian filmmakers any
more than I would a film made by secular progressive socialist feminist filmmakers.
But I sat in awed amazement at the fair-minded, non-judgmental treatment of Abby
Johnson in both phases of her life. (Admittedly, the screenplay was adapted
from her biography of the same title, so she undoubtedly provided the most
sympathetic portrait of herself at each point of her journey.)
<br />
<br />
It’s
easy to understand how a college-aged Abby could receive a pamphlet from an
enthusiastic Planned Parenthood advocate and have it all make sense to her in
an Our Bodies Our Selves cultural framework. We see her volunteer at the
organization that promised her it was working toward <i>reducing</i> the number of abortions by promoting contraception. Her
passionate defense of her choice seems natural and deeply felt, and the conflict
between Abby and her Christian parents, husband, and friends is evenly balanced
without caricature or specious reasoning on either side.
<br />
<br />
From
there, though, each step up in the organization comes with incremental
compromises and little self-deceptions that become bigger and bigger until —
when Cheryl announces that their new, 7,800 square-foot clinic will be able to
perform abortions seven days a week, up to the 24<sup>th</sup> week — Abby is
forced to realize that Planned Parenthood’s true goal is to ratchet up the
number of abortions as high as possible. Abortion, Cheryl fiercely tells her, is
the low-cost, high-margin product that pays their salary, their 401k match, their
health insurance. “Non-profit,” she declares, “is a tax status, not a business
plan.”
<br />
<br />
It
should come as no surprise that Abby bolts from this bottomless pit of death
and misery to join the opposition: the <a href="https://coalitionforlife.com/" target="_blank">Coalition for Life</a> and its <a href="https://40daysforlife.com/" target="_blank">40 Days for Life</a> prayer vigils. I’ll leave a couple of plot twists at the very end for you
to discover, with an “oh wow!” endnote that is the pro-family match of any closing-credit Easter egg in
the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
<br />
<br />
If
you wonder how anyone could ever work in an abortion clinic, maybe this refreshingly
balanced tale will explain how it can happen. If you are puzzled that anyone
could believe a tiny fetus is something more than a bit of tissue — that it is
an individual, genetically distinct human being with a right to life granted by
“Nature and Nature’s God” and defended by the Constitution — you might find
Abby Johnson’s sojourn illuminating.
<br />
<br />
Don’t
just plan to see <i>Unplanned</i>. See it <i>today</i>.
Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-10716189295014150142017-11-29T19:08:00.002-08:002020-02-03T17:02:19.570-08:00Pro-Choice / Pro-Life Intersectionalism<i>The following essay is part of a series of articles I wrote in 1991, called </i><b>Perspective Inversion</b><i>, long before blogs or even the World Wide Web existed. I’ve updated this two-parter with some recent research (which my being a Ph.D. </i><i><i>now </i>forces me to cite and reference…) and present it with an upgraded <b>Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Alliance</b> orthogonal chart. </i><br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>CHOICE vs. LIFE</b></div>
<br />
Both sides of the abortion battle are fighting for human rights. Pro-Choice people struggle to defend a woman’s right to control her body. Pro-Life people crusade to protect the life of the child within. It is this apparent clash of rights that has led to explosive confrontations and vicious opposition. The question, though, should not be whose rights shall be sacrificed to whom, but how can we protect the rights of everyone simultaneously. The conflict stems less from evil intentions on one side or the other than from the tragically flawed outlook that <i>abortion</i> is the same thing as <i>pregnancy termination</i>. It is not.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>WHAT EACH SIDE WANTS</b></div>
<br />
In order to reconcile these two warring factions, it is necessary to ask what each side truly wants. Pro-Choice advocates seek the unconditional right of a woman to end her pregnancy. The method to achieve this has always been abortion, or the intentionally fatal removal of the fetus. Pro-Life advocates assert that a “preborn” is a human being with full rights to life. To protect this life has traditionally required full-term delivery of the infant. Therefore, supporting reproductive choice <i>required</i> the death of fetuses, and protecting the lives of fetuses <i>required</i> forcing motherhood on women.<br />
Is this terrible choice necessary? Must a woman choose to kill or be enslaved?<br />
I believe that there is a radical new possibility: pregnancy termination <i>without</i> fetal death; freedom of choice for women and protection for the fragile lives they carry. A fusion of both rights.<br />
I believe that abortion is a moral dilemma that has a technological solution. To see what such a solution might be, though, requires that Pro-Choice and Pro-Life proponents both allow the scales to drop from their eyes in order to view the question from a new angle. A <i>perspective inversion</i>, as it were (that is, after all, the title of these articles).<br />
What if a means existed to remove a fetus from one woman and place it—still alive—into the uterus of another? Such a technique already exists on a primitive scale (it is called <i>non-surgical ovum transfer</i>). What if that fetus could be placed in an artificial womb or high-tech incubator? Or frozen cryogenically for later thawing and implantation? Would this not satisfy both the truly Pro-Life and the truly Pro-Choice? For such a solution to be satisfactory requires that members of both movements identify their true desires.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>PRO-LIFE OR ANTI-FREEDOM?</b></div>
<br />
The Pro-Life position comprises two sub-groups: a minority who merely desire that fetuses not be harmed whether or not a woman wants to give birth to it, and a (usually religiously-rooted) majority who demand the additional power to force the woman to see her pregnancy all the way through despite her objections. I believe that every woman has an absolute right to terminate her pregnancy at any point. Human rights are equal and reciprocal, though, and carry with them responsibilities. If a parent has no right to enslave her children—to force them to feed and protect her—then a child (or a self-appointed “spokesman” for a fetus) has no right to enslave its mother—to force her to feed and protect that fetus against her will. To demand forced motherhood — when there is an alternative — is indeed to demand slavery.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>PRO-CHOICE OR ANTI-LIFE?</b></div>
<br />
Similarly, the Pro-Choice position comprises two distinct sub-groups: a minority who want simply the right to terminate a pregnancy by whatever means are available, and those who demand the additional privilege of destroying the fetus. I suggest that a fetus—being genetically different from the mother—is a distinct human being, separate from the woman even though temporarily trapped inside her. The chorionic membrane is a barrier it builds between it and its mother and should be respected as a threshold no one has the right to breach with deadly intent. To demand a fetus’s death — when there is an alternative — is indeed to demand murder.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>WHEN RIGHTS COLLIDE</b></div>
<br />
I agree with the Pro-Choice camp that pregnancy is similar to trespassing. It is a woman’s right to determine if and when a fetus—whether originally “invited in” or not—has overstayed its welcome. She has the total right to “evict” the trespasser. Where I break with the majority of Pro-Choice people, though, is my belief that no one has the right to <i>kill</i> that trespasser when a non-lethal means of eviction exists.<br />
How can I support both a woman’s right to terminate a pregnancy and a fetus’s right to life? Abortion — by definition (“bad birth”) — results in the death of the fetus. Pregnancy termination, though, does not by itself require a death by abortion. Abortion is the sloppy, easy method of pregnancy termination. It is currently the <i>only</i> method of pregnancy termination because nobody has researched alternate, <i>non-lethal</i> methods. The reason for this is grounded both in ignorance and misguided self-interest.<br />
When I was writing a novel about this in 1987 (<b><i><a href="https://www.facebook.com/SolomonsKnife/" target="_blank">Solomon’s Knife</a></i></b>), I realized that non-technological factors had created a scientific roadblock to research in non-destructive pregnancy termination. Since the prevailing judicial opinion is that a fetus is not human if a woman does not want it, there is no medical impetus to develop pregnancy termination methods that would keep such legally non-human tissue alive.<br />
No one on the Pro-Choice side is going to rock the boat. Since women already have the judicially granted right to an abortion, developing an alternative might, in their eyes, confuse the issue. And though the Pro-Life side recognizes the humanity of the fetus, they are so overwhelmed by the horror of a million and more annual deaths that the only answer they see in the short term is to outlaw any and all pregnancy terminations and ban all research into birth control methods, including non-lethal ones. They can imagine no other alternative to abortion and feel that compelling the mother to continue with her pregnancy by force of law is a small price to pay to protect those incapable of protecting themselves. They are wrong. Killing is killing and slavery is slavery. To label killing “abortion” or slavery “maternal obligation” does not diminish the enormity of either.<br />
What neither side has fully realized is that technology stands on the brink of making the entire abortion controversy moot. <br />
<ul>
<li><b>Electromechanical wombs</b>—human incubators—are in development (Partridge, et al., 2017) that will allow fetuses to be brought to term without forcing motherhood on the unwilling. </li>
<li><b>Uterine transplants</b> —There has already been the successful transplant of a uterus from one woman (deceased) into a woman who was born without one (Ortiz, 2016). While this is not the same as a fetal transfer, one can envision this method or the artificial womb above being used to save the life of a very immature fetus in the event of the death or incapacity of the mother, where premature birth would not be an option. </li>
<li><b>Cryogenic techniques</b> already exist to preserve oocytes and embryos (Edgar & Gook, 2012) and it is not pessimistic to expect that the refinement of freezing techniques or the development of <i>nontoxic</i> cryoprotectants may someday allow for the successful freezing and revival of a fetus. This would allow a woman who may be unwilling or unable to be pregnant now to resume her pregnancy later or put it up for adoption by another willing recipient. Many women who rush into abortion regret their decision months or years after the irreversible act. A “fetus bank” would allow women a chance to reconsider, with the option of “birth abeyance” until later in life. </li>
<li><b>Fetal Transplant</b> — A woman who does not want to give birth at all could transfer her fetus to the womb of a woman who does, thus solving two reproductive problems at once and saving a life as a bonus. </li>
</ul>
In my novel, I call this medical possibility <b><i>transoption</i></b>, the option of transferring a fetus from a woman who, for whatever reason, does <i>not</i> want to give birth, into a woman who <i>does</i>, or into an artificial womb, or into cryonic suspension.<br />
Abortion prohibition, like any other prohibition, never worked and never will. Women have been, are, and forever will be forced to make hard decisions about pregnancy. If the decision requires the end of a pregnancy, women will seek it regardless of the legal risk or the mortal threat to the fetus. And babies will still die from abortion, legally or illegally. The only solution to this tragic choice is to find a life-preserving, rights-preserving alternative. This is a battle that will not be won in the legislature or the courts. It will not be won by bombing clinics or jailing protestors. This battle can <i>only</i> be won in the realm of medical technology. And I possess enough faith in humanity to believe that women—if given a choice—will freely choose life over death.<br />
Abortion kills the fetus, yet medical technology is reaching the point where a fetus could be removed from a woman who does not want to be pregnant and implanted into a woman who does, or frozen for later implantation, or brought to term in an artificial womb (Hamzelou, 2017). I contend that these are solutions both Pro-Choice and Pro-Life factions need but have not sought.<br />
Ironically, the greatest impediments to the life-saving solution of transoption are those who ought to be most pleased by its possibility. Certain Pro-Life advocates will reveal their true agenda if they denounce transoption as yet another interference in nature’s — or God’s — way. The possibility of saving lives is secondary to these people. They would rather make criminals of women by outlawing abortion than find a way to allow them the choice of <i>non-lethal </i>pregnancy termination.<br />
On the other side are the Pro-Choice advocates who fear that transoption would make abortion less attractive and thus rob them of their privilege of destroying utterly the contents of their wombs. They would rather have millions of women endure the guilt and doubt that accompanies abortion than seek a surgical technique that would end unwanted pregnancies yet still protect what many see as a tiny, defenseless human life.<br />
Once we have separated the two factors of fetal death and pregnancy termination, we see that there are not <i>two</i> groups in contention but, rather, <i>six</i>.<br />
On the <b>Pro-Life</b> side, there are those who would firmly oppose <i>any</i> form of pregnancy termination, even if the fetus’s life would be spared. These people are what I would call the <b>Anti-Choice</b> woman-enslavers. Their opposition to transoption reveals their true colors. There are Pro-Life proponents, however, who are opposed to abortion yet are profoundly troubled by the idea of using laws to restrict a woman’s freedom of choice. These people are nonetheless comfortable with the idea of adoption and might readily accept the concept of <b><i>prenatal adoption</i></b>, which is all transoption really is. These people I call <b>Mere Pro-Life</b> and would view transoption as a godsend.<br />
Among the <b>Pro-Choice</b> supporters are those who feel that if a woman does not have the absolute privilege of destroying her fetus, she has no reproductive freedom. To demand a dead fetus, though, when a pregnancy could be otherwise terminated is to demand the right to <i><b>prenatal infanticide</b></i>. Once again, their reaction to the concept of transoption reveals a secret agenda. Such people are the <b>Anti-Life</b> advocates of the “right” to bury one’s mistakes. The overwhelming majority of women, though — the ones who <i>actually</i> receive abortions — have always been troubled by the necessity of choosing between their freedom and their baby’s life. For them, the <b>Mere Pro-Choice</b>, transoption offers choice without guilt, freedom without death, and a way to change a pregnancy termination from a life-extinguishing to a life-affirming action.<br />
The most hideous position is what I call <b>Anti-Life/Anti-Choice Fusion</b>. These monsters would force a woman to destroy her unborn child against her wishes. These are the killers who administer government population-control programs in such tyrannies as Nazi Germany and Communist China and North Korea, where State-mandated abortions are one more category of oppression enforced at gunpoint.<br />
Both the Mere Pro-Life and Mere Pro-Choice factions who are troubled by their positions need only to discover the possibility of transoption to move toward the sixth position: the <b>Pro-Life/Pro-Choice Alliance</b>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-i369crzqz5LQg9FC35ZLCXZGnRFsldvM3ztDJetAtDiMWJcNt24KUwsOHHnBLHZJ_nQAaiuVWs-_2_v92AWNnNm4QznUpw_mtiwhbV3roTDxyqO1-cFfi15mbIsbSdPAI3c9/s1600/PLPCA+Graph.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="540" data-original-width="720" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj-i369crzqz5LQg9FC35ZLCXZGnRFsldvM3ztDJetAtDiMWJcNt24KUwsOHHnBLHZJ_nQAaiuVWs-_2_v92AWNnNm4QznUpw_mtiwhbV3roTDxyqO1-cFfi15mbIsbSdPAI3c9/s320/PLPCA+Graph.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
There is no contradiction between Pro-Life and Pro-Choice once the irrational advocates of Anti-Choice and Anti-Life are jettisoned. Pro-Life/Pro-Choice is the only position that consistently defends <i>all</i> rights of <i>all</i> parties to a pregnancy, no matter what their age or sex. Reproductive freedom and preborn life are <i>not</i> fatally incompatible but are <i>both</i> part of the spectrum of human rights.<br />
If the parties to the abortion debate wish to seek <i>detente</i>, I would urge an immediate end to any legal and social obstacles to research that might develop pregnancy terminations that preserve fetal viability. I would urge Pro-Choice and Pro-Life activists to lay down their prejudices and work together for a life-affirming, choice-enhancing, and rights-preserving solution. The price in human suffering and death we have paid for the past several decades has been far too high.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<b>References</b></div>
<br />
<div style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 3.0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: -3.0em;">
<b>Edgar D. H. and Gook, D. A.</b> (2012). A critical appraisal of cryopreservation (slow cooling versus vitrification) of human oocytes and embryos. <i>Human Reproduction Update 18</i>(5), 536–554. doi:10.1093/humupd/dms016
</div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 3.0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: -3.0em;">
<b>Hamzelou, J. </b>(April 25, 2017). Artificial womb helps premature lamb fetuses grow for 4 weeks. newscientist.com [Web site]. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128851-artificial-womb-helps-premature-lamb-fetuses-grow-for-4-weeks/">https://www.newscientist.com/article/2128851-artificial-womb-helps-premature-lamb-fetuses-grow-for-4-weeks/</a> </div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 3.0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: -3.0em;">
<b>Ortiz, F.</b> (March 8, 2016). First U.S. woman with uterus transplant looks forward to pregnancy. scientificamerican.com [Web site]. Retrieved from <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-u-s-woman-with-uterus-transplant-looks-forward-to-pregnancy/">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/first-u-s-woman-with-uterus-transplant-looks-forward-to-pregnancy/</a></div>
<div style="margin-bottom: 0em; margin-left: 3.0em; margin-top: 0em; text-indent: -3.0em;">
<b>Partridge, E. A., et al.</b> (2017). An extra-uterine system to physiologically support the extreme premature lamb. nature.com [Web site]. doi:10.1083/ncomms15112</div>
<br />Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-23084927260510391072017-07-24T17:38:00.000-07:002017-07-24T19:16:37.065-07:00Republicans Must Return to Their Abolitionist Roots<style>
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<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">The total repeal of Obamacare is the only rational, consistent, and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">moral</i> course open to Republicans. Such
an action would follow the Abolitionist tradition that led to the founding of
the Republican Party. In 1854, former Whigs, ex-Free-Soilers, and a handful of
anti-slavery Democrats founded the Republican Party in the midst of a
burgeoning Abolitionist movement. The demand to abolish slavery was not nuanced
or couched in gradualist arguments. Slavery was a moral outrage, and despite
the Democrats’ protestations that slaveholders would lose the benefits of
forced labor and millions of slaves would be suddenly homeless and unfed, Republicans
abolished slavery. Every Republican in congress voted for the 13<sup>th</sup>
Amendment. Only 19 Northern Democrats did, and not a single Democrat voted for
either the 14<sup>th</sup> or 15<sup>th</sup> Amendments.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Republicans freed the slaves even though Democrats threatened — and ultimately
resorted to — violence, insurrection, and civil war. Democrats founded the Ku
Klux Klan to act as domestic terrorists. Democrats seceded from the Union. The
first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, prevailed against the Confederate
States, made whole the nation, and abolished race-based slavery for all time.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Democrats, though, never really gave up on the oppression and control of
blacks. Within half a century of their defeat, they had instituted odious Black
Codes and Jim Crow laws, placed a Klan sympathizer in the White House, re-imposed
segregation in the military and larger society, and — under the banner of
Progressivism — instituted a subtle, sly form of universal slavery called the
income tax. In 2010, Democrats continued their relentless progression toward
total control over the individual with a new form of involuntary servitude:
forcing every American to buy health insurance whether they want it or not,
need it or not, or can afford it or not. The Affordable Care Act was designed
to bring a sixth of the American economy under the control of the federal
government. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Obamacare is a noxious and moral outrage. It is odious to the
Constitution, to the free-market pillars of our nation, and to the individual
rights to property, choice, and self-ownership. Everything that was wrong with
health care before Obamacare was the fault of government control. The degree to
which the government interfered with the triadic relationship among doctors,
patients, and insurers was the degree to which the health-care system suffered.
Obamacare expanded to near-totality the harmful effects of government control
while almost entirely eliminating the few remaining ameliorating factors of
choice and freedom in health care. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Few think that the health care provided by the VA or Medicare or
Medicaid is quality health care, yet Obamacare was intended to bring the same
low-quality, high-cost, and cruelly bureaucratic health-care rationing to every
American — by force of law and pain of punishment. Obamacare was intentionally
designed to fail, to drive insurance and health-care costs so high and restrict
access so drastically that Democrats and the media hoped they could declare free
choice in health insurance dead and announce the dawn of single-payer, totally
socialized, centrally controlled health care — a goal of theirs since the dawn
of the Progressive Era a century ago.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Outright repeal of Obamacare — <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Abolition</i>
— is the only position every single solitary Republican should take. Slavery
was not “repealed and replaced.” It was not “reformed” or “fixed.” No
Republican wrung his hands over whether abolition would “negatively impact” the
cotton market due to the “uncertainty” created by freeing the slaves. No
Republican vacillated out of concern that newspapers might cover them
negatively for not “crossing the aisle” to seek a “bipartisan solution.” When
righting a wrong, none of these considerations matter — they are only excuses
to continue the abuses.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">If this were 1863, would Senator Shelley Moore Capito be arguing that
she “didn’t come to Washington to hurt people” such as slaveholders and their
families or to deprive blacks of the room, board, and health care they received
on plantations? Would she say “I don’t think it’s constructive to repeal a law
so interwoven with our [economic] system without having a replacement in
place”?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Would Senator Lisa Murkowski demand that a slavery-replacement plan be
considered at the same time as the 13<sup>th</sup> Amendment? Would she say
“the Senate should take a step back and engage in a bipartisan process to
address the failures” of slavery and use taxpayer dollars to bail out the plantation
owners to “stabilize the individual markets”?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Would Senator Susan Collins worry that emancipation from slavery would
“affect the most vulnerable”? Would she say “We should not be making
fundamental changes in… a program that’s been on the books for [hundreds of]
years without evaluating what the consequences will be”?</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Would Majority Leader Mitch McConnell put a two-year delay into the 13<sup>th</sup>
Amendment to allow time to find a bipartisan replacement plan for slavery? </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">No! All of them would have been drummed out of the nascent Republican
Party as gutless compromisers perpetuating the enslavement of millions. Consequences
be damned, the only solution to a moral outrage is its utter and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">immediate</i> abolition. Abolitionism is the
root of the Republican tree and its greatest strength. Abolition is absolute.
It cannot be disguised as anything else. Abolitionism defies all attempts to
compromise, appease, sell out, or betray. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Abolition must always be the first <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">and
only</i> position when Republicans and freedom-lovers of any stripe encounter a
moral evil such as Obamacare. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Abolish Obamacare. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Completely. </span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Now.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">_____</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormalIndent" style="line-height: normal;">
<span style="font-family: "arial";">Victor Koman is the author of several award-winning novels, including <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Solomon’s Knife</i> and <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Kings of the High Frontier</i>. His Ph.D. was conferred by Capella
University in 2016.</span></div>
Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-43555400103720011412012-07-23T01:29:00.000-07:002012-12-01T16:47:11.229-08:00Does Obama Accept Blame For Aurora?This article was originally going to ponder President Obama’s
off-the-cuff remarks in Roanoke. While revealing his belief that government is
the fountainhead of all opportunity, he also exposed the serious flaw of Statism:
if the individual is not responsible for his own success but is rather dependent
on the existence of the State, then why isn’t everyone successful? Obama
implied that teachers and roads and bridges and the Internet (all in his mind
government creations) are responsible for an individual’s success. So why isn’t
everyone successful?
<br />
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
In fact, if Obama’s sworn enemy, the 1% (who nonetheless
donate millions to his reelection), were truly successful only because of
government, then government has a 99% failure rate and should be abolished
immediately as a horribly wasteful experiment.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
That’s what this article would have been about. Then came
Aurora. A dropout from a doctoral program planned an elaborate solo terror
slaughter of a dozen people who did nothing to him but attend a midnight movie
that he decided to attack.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
The tragedy was immediately and cynically exploited by
Democrats such as Sen. Dianne Feinstein, who demanded gun bans--another failed
statist plan that leads to such disarmed-victim killing fields as Columbine and
Aurora. The counter-argument--that there weren’t <i>enough</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> guns inside that theater that night--barely gets any
coverage at all amid the cries to surrender essential liberties in the name of
illusory security.</span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
So now the question is this: if President Obama thinks the
State is responsible for the success of businessmen, is it also responsible for
the murders in Aurora? After all, the killer used the Internet to order his
ammunition and he didn’t create the Internet. Government research created the
Internet so that he could buy ammo on it. He didn’t invent ballistic armor--somebody
else made that happen. He didn’t pave the road that he drove on to the Century
theater--somebody invested in roads and bridges. He didn’t think up the
explosive devices on his own--government schools gave him the scientific
training and research skills to learn how to make bombs. </div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
If individuals are not responsible for their own success--if
the State makes individual virtue possible--then individuals are not
responsible for their own evils. The State makes individual vice possible, too.
So if Obama wants the electorate to think that government is the engine of
success and he--as president--deserves praise for individual success, then he
must also accept responsibility for mass murders such as those in Aurora. If
not, why not?</div>
Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-55608215036709722532012-04-06T00:33:00.002-07:002012-04-06T01:52:16.048-07:00Marine Disciplined for Stating the Law?Marine Sgt. Gary Stein is facing <a href="http://dailycaller.com/2012/04/05/federal-judge-refuses-to-halt-separation-hearing-for-tea-party-marine/">separation hearings</a> for running the <a href="http://www.facebook.com/ArmedForcesTeaParty">Armed Forces Tea Party </a>Facebook page. One of the statements he made was that he would not obey an illegal order from Barack Obama. However, he is fully in accordance with both his oath to defend the Constitution against <span style="font-style: italic;">all</span> enemies, foreign <span style="font-style: italic;">or domestic</span>, and the <a href="http://constitution.org/mil/mil_attn.htm">Universal Code of Military Justice</a> section 16c(1)(c): <blockquote><p><i>Lawfulness</i>. A general order or regulation is lawful unless it is contrary to the Constitution, the laws of the United States, or lawful superior orders or for some other reason is beyond the authority of the official issuing it.</p></blockquote>The Founders recognized that an American's fealty should be to <span style="font-style: italic;">ideas</span> and to <span style="font-style: italic;">Liberty</span>, not to Authority. Any authority--even a president--is subservient to the central principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution and any order that contravenes those principles is invalid and need not, must not, be obeyed. This UCMJ section was taught to me by Lt. Skinner, who contrasted an American soldier's obligation to disobey illegal orders with the the lack of any such option for a German soldier in WWII. "I was only following orders," he pointed out, was not a valid defense for any member of the American military.<br /><br />Sgt. Gary Stein should not be forced out of the Marines for stating, promoting, and defending one of America's most fundamental concepts: that every citizen must learn, understand, and defend Liberty, even if that means defying the State.Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-77081954771660283382010-12-25T12:16:00.000-08:002010-12-25T16:47:43.059-08:00Post Office Cancels Santa<span style="font-style: italic;">[Merry Christmas, everyone! To celebrate the day, here's something I wrote in 1991, but is just as timely today...]</span><br /><br />I have a vice to admit. I collect stamps. Blame my father for introducing me to philately at an early age. I don’t have the full-bore habit, though, if you know what I mean by <i>bore</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. I’ll occasionally buy plate blocks when an interesting stamp appears. So when I heard that the Post Office (nobody </span><i>really</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> calls it the United States Postal Service) had issued a booklet of five different Santa Claus stamps, I eagerly rushed out to buy them.</span> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">These stamps are lovely, all right. They even tell a little story: Santa drops down the chimney, checks off items on his list, delivers the goods, waves at us by the fireplace, and flies away in his sleigh. What wonderful stamps with which to spread holiday cheer! I rushed them home to show to my 7-year-old. Her reaction was not the one I had anticipated.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">“Why do they have Santa on a postage stamp?” she asked suspiciously.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">“It’s Christmas,” I said in that bewildered parental tone.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">“You said someone has to be dead to be on a stamp. Is Santa Claus dead?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">That hit me from left field. I almost exposed the entire centuries-old Santa conspiracy by saying, “Well, honey, the law doesn’t cover fictional characters.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">“You mean Santa’s not dead, he just isn’t real?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;"><i>Aieee!</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> My mind raced. “No, muffin. I mean, uh. . .” She could tell I was concocting a whopper. “I mean the, um, pictorial representation of Santa Claus--who really is a real person living at the North Pole--is an imaginative interpretation by an artist. You see, it’s OK for the Post Office to print stamps reproducing artwork, and these are stamps made from </span><i>paintings</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> of Santa.” Did it work? Had I buffaloed my little impressionable one?</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Her eyes narrowed. “Every stamp,” she said in a sternly patronizing tone, “is made from artwork. Paintings of living people aren’t allowed either. The Post Office is either saying that Santa Claus never existed or that he’s <i>dead</i><span style="font-style: normal;">!”</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">I had to come clean with the kid. Here was an agency of the federal government undoing everything Jack Albertson had done in <i>Miracle On 34th Street</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> when he took the sacks of mail addressed to Santa Claus and delivered them to Jimmy Stewart filibustering in the Senate chambers. (Or did Stewart fly the mail to Paris with Donna Reed? I’ve got to stop watching those Stewart/Capra marathons.)</span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">I had to come up with an explanation. Maybe if I told her Santa had the misfortune to carry some gifts wrapped by Libyan elves. . .</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">“Sweetheart,” I said, sitting her down. “I want you to brace yourself for a shock.” She looked up at me with her large, innocent blue eyes. “You’re a big girl now,” I said, “and big girls have to face the truth, no matter how painful it may be.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Her voice caught in a tearful sob. “You mean. . .?”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">“Yes, Vanessa, the Post Office lied. The mean old postal commissioner, whose name, I believe, is Ebenezer-something, decided that if he couldn’t force everyone to give him an extra cent for each letter they mail, he would tell all the girls and boys that Santa was dead. Yeah, that’s it! And he didn’t get that extra cent, so he tried to ruin Christmas for all the little boys and girls. The newspapers are calling it Santagate. Garry Trudeau is drawing a few strips about it.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">She looked crushed, as if all faith had been stolen from her. She ran to her room, crying, “I’ll never ever believe in any federal agency ever again! And I’ll seriously question any statements issued at the state and local level, too!” Her door slammed. I heard sobbing.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">Feeling like the grandfather of all Grinches, I half-heartedly made some eggnog and sat in front of the fireplace, staring in gloom at the gaily decorated Christmas tree desiccating by the hearth. Nothing could break my mood.</p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">My wife finally consoled me by saying, “She may have lost her faith in the government, darling, but at least she still believes in <i>someone</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> who offers her something for nothing.”</span><span style=";font-family:";font-size:14pt;" ><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.25in;">That’s true! And he delivers overnight and never loses a package.<br /></p>Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-78305779423537003112010-12-11T09:37:00.000-08:002010-12-11T09:50:25.787-08:00The Yoga Studio -- Episode Three<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO4rMEGLc7McIB8yzKA4GvlulKcZYQ-2Nla2VxTm-wQ6dSxNfm5RR7FeSPcZCcp1Be28cri2z17Gkmgp5Hat8UIVeZDZFFwPiLgXM8OOK8fuxLCK0vZaVb4EwaL0Ylz2YQ1yjm/s1600/5176874119_5c5a4ebcb8_o.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 132px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgO4rMEGLc7McIB8yzKA4GvlulKcZYQ-2Nla2VxTm-wQ6dSxNfm5RR7FeSPcZCcp1Be28cri2z17Gkmgp5Hat8UIVeZDZFFwPiLgXM8OOK8fuxLCK0vZaVb4EwaL0Ylz2YQ1yjm/s200/5176874119_5c5a4ebcb8_o.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5549483491078195554" border="0" /></a><br />And the trilogy is complete! In this <a href="http://watchtheyogastudio.com/2010/12/09/episode-3-the-bus-talk/">episode</a>, Caitlyn (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0464524/">Vanessa Koman</a>) receives The Bus Talk from her boss Rachel (<a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm3868260/">Tiffany Chandon</a>). We've all received these pep talks before, but Caitlyn gives Rachel the backtalk we'd all like to spout. Look for the return of <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1177005/">Leandro Cano</a> as Bobby! (And look for Leandro on CSI: Miami this Sunday in the episode <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1739381/">Blood Sugar</a>!)Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-4655357381750677622010-12-11T09:00:00.000-08:002010-12-11T09:31:49.977-08:00The Yoga Studio -- Episode Two<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4OLM6Qijfnndk1cXjurbjeWFsK2jf1AwJD42N6FlaYCn5Lwwxs1_yxh9kJDcg4invsFEh-9eIHxjb504t2ovyrqn6GsiqYis4hGD67m7SDaywFJfc9etiuFQezFVbga-ceIGg/s1600/DSC04215.JPG"><img style="float: right; margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 112px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4OLM6Qijfnndk1cXjurbjeWFsK2jf1AwJD42N6FlaYCn5Lwwxs1_yxh9kJDcg4invsFEh-9eIHxjb504t2ovyrqn6GsiqYis4hGD67m7SDaywFJfc9etiuFQezFVbga-ceIGg/s200/DSC04215.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5549478678543790178" border="0" /></a><br />Vanessa and I have finished <a href="http://watchtheyogastudio.com/2010/12/02/episode-2-the-nerd/">Episode Two</a>! In this one, a nerdy guy (Rob Downs) interrupts Caitlyn (Vanessa) and Miss Laura (Allison Horack) and turns the Yoga Studio upside down with his Tolkienesque antics. Hilarity ensues. Never has a squeak toy been put to better use. And, yes, she globed the video.Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-73235835729068006302010-11-25T23:32:00.000-08:002010-11-25T23:49:58.745-08:00The Yoga Studio -- Episode One<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhj0gv1vOMCmgHNlT7e5X5-TA3bs0qeHSAoc03sDHGQdpEWtglEJe61DGO5jbgDIgmn9TX_GAlcACczSC60zepa71PhkX61_SduVYi4e5xQhuCZW112J3wyNL0ouwR7hiJle4O/s1600/YogaStudioCard.jpg"><img style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 130px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhhj0gv1vOMCmgHNlT7e5X5-TA3bs0qeHSAoc03sDHGQdpEWtglEJe61DGO5jbgDIgmn9TX_GAlcACczSC60zepa71PhkX61_SduVYi4e5xQhuCZW112J3wyNL0ouwR7hiJle4O/s200/YogaStudioCard.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5543762330046638642" border="0" /></a><br />I've been working with my daughter Vanessa on her new web-series <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Yoga Studio</span></span>, and the first episode is now on her <a href="http://watchtheyogastudio.com/">website</a>. I served as the Director of Photography (i.e., it was my camera and I refused to let go of it) and the Editor. Vanessa, though, was the real powerhouse behind the project. She wrote the scripts, hired the actors, filed the SAG paperwork (including Taft-Hartley for the non-union members), and directed each episode as well as starring in them. We've taped three episodes and they will all be posted between now and Christmas. I had fun editing them with iMovie and using iDVD to create DVD versions. Check it out at WatchTheYogaStudio.com.Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-33763153747760890142010-03-31T09:28:00.000-07:002010-03-31T09:43:25.434-07:00Anti-Capitalist Film Makes Cameron a BillionaireI finally -- reluctantly -- gave Jim Cameron, Regal Entertainment, and Imax my $16.50 to see <i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in Imax 3D the last week before it got booted out by Tim Burton’s </span><i>Alice in Wonderland</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> so that I could knowledgeably explain why I knew I wouldn’t like the film before I saw it.<o:p></o:p></span> <p class="MsoNormal">Let me state that I am a big fan of Cameron’s films. I love the <i>Terminator</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> series and think </span><i>Aliens</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is the best of the four in that series. Whenever </span><i>True Lies</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is on, I have to stop and watch it. And, yes, I cried at </span><i>Titanic</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. But then again I cry at Muppet movies, so take it for what it’s worth. The man’s a brilliant master of visual storytelling. And that is the big reason why I am so upset with </span><i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. I knew that I would dislike the film as soon as I learned bits of storyline as the hype began last year. Aliens are the beleaguered good guys enduring invasion. Check. Earth people (specifically, </span><i>American</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Earth people) are the venal, rapacious invaders. Check. One man defies his people to save the aborigines. Check. Scientists always seek Truth and never twist their research for grant money or to please the government. Check. And businessmen will always opt to exterminate potential trading partners, have no respect for life or property, and are bereft of morality. Check.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Other reviewers have already made the more-than-obvious parallels with<i> <a href="http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/ckozlowski/2009/12/17/dances-with-wolves-in-space-camerons-avatar-gets-visuals-right-everything-else-wrong/">Dances With Wolves</a></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><i><a href="http://www.scene-stealers.com/general/james-camerons-avatar-disneys-pocahontas/">Disney’s Pocahontas</a></i><span style="font-style: normal;">, </span><i>Ferngully</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, and a bunch of <a href="http://blog.spout.com/2009/08/20/10-movies-avatar-unfortunately-resembles/">others</a>. And I’m probably writing this late enough that most of my coming points have already been made by others, but I think the problem with </span><i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is endemic in American culture, and highly damaging.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">George Lucas understood the importance of <i>removal from reality</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> in writing fantastic fiction. </span><i>Star Wars</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> originally took place “in the year 3000”, but moved to “a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away” not merely to make it sound more like the opening of a fairy tale, but to remove it from any connection with 20<sup>th</sup> Century Earth. In that way, the elements of the story become a template that can apply to any viewer’s outlook. What was the Empire? To one, it might be an analogy for the British Empire versus the Rebel Alliance of the 13 colonies. To another, it might be evil Corporate America vs. heroic union organizers. Roman Empire vs. Christianity. In other words, you can’t pin Lucas down to a particular current political viewpoint. He’s merely </span><i>for</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> liberty and </span><i>against</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> tyranny -- it’s up to the viewer to choose the analogues.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Cameron’s mistake (and I use the word advisedly, since <i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> is one of the <a href="http://boxofficemojo.com/alltime/adjusted.htm">highest-grossing</a> films of all time) is an artistic one: making a fantasy film too specific. </span><i>Star Wars</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and </span><i>Lord of the Rings</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> will be timeless because they are not bound to any specific historical matrix. James Cameron has chosen to plant </span><i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> squarely in a specifically 21<sup>st</sup>-Century American matrix. In other words, the ex-Marine mercenaries we see are obviously American ex-Marines; the corporate weasel is obviously an American corporate weasel; the native-loving scientist is portrayed by Sigourney Weaver, the same actress who played ape-loving Dian Fossey. This allows viewers only one template: the film is </span><i>only</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> an analogy to American corporate rapacity, American military brutality, and 21<sup>st</sup>-century environmental insensitivity.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">In <i>Lord of the Rings</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, one could look at the destruction of Isengard’s forest to build Sauron’s war machine as a critique of Nazi, Soviet, </span><i>or</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> American war economies (or insert your own government) having a deleterious effect on the environment. The choice was up to the viewer. It did not alienate anyone watching it (except </span><i>maybe</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> for foresters and arms dealers). </span><i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> alienates, making it less universal or lasting in its appeal (said, again, with a grain of salt, since it’s made a billion bucks plus my $16.50).<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Cameron protests that his film is not anti-military. Why, he purposely made his hero a Marine to show how the finest attributes of honor and defense of the weak enabled him to defy orders and slaughter his own people. In this, though, Cameron engages in several liberal conceits.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Liberal conceit #1: The highest form of patriotism is treason. This is the theme, too, of <i>Dances With Wolves</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. The liberal creed seems to be “My country, right or wrong. When right, to be kept right; when wrong, join the other side and kill as many of your countrymen as you can.” For all the horror we are supposed to feel at the callous way the Americans kill Na’vi without any awareness of their individual sovereignty (and certainly no discussion of their property rights), Cameron’s “Good Marine” Sully (and Costner’s “Good Cavalryman” Dunbar) had no compunctions about slaying his former comrades </span><i>en masse</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Are we supposed to cheer that massacre? I’m reminded of the brilliant deleted scene in </span><i>Goldmember</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> where the wife of the beheaded henchman receives The Call and has to tell her son that his father has died at the hands of super-spy Austin Powers. “No one ever thinks about the henchman’s family!” she wails. Similarly, we are not supposed to feel anything but satisfaction at the mass slaughter of all those other Marines. (OK, ex-Marine mercenaries, but Sully himself says there are no ex-Marines, so he’s killing fellow Marines, </span><i>Q.E.D</i><span style="font-style: normal;">.) (</span><i>Semper fi</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> indeed.)<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Liberal conceit #2: Native populations live in wise, eternal harmony with the land; White Americans relentlessly destroy nature for short-term profit. Right. Would someone like to explain why -- shortly after the arrival of humans in North America -- all the megafauna vanished? Chinese dudes cross land bridge, look at mastodons, mammoths, giant sloths, and saber-tooth cats, and say “Get in my belly!” (<i>pace</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, Fat Bastard). You could argue that they learned from their errors, I guess, but why aren’t Americans given the same indulgence? It took 10,000 years for Indians to learn to live with the land. Europeans have only been here 500 years or so (900 years for Vikings). What Cameron portrays as a Na’vi prayer acknowledging the Circle of Life (when killing an animal for food or self-defense) could just as easily be interpreted as the Na’vi version of liberal hypocrisy: acting all apologetic and spiritual (and believing it, of course, with all your heart), but still getting what one wants by killing. Hey, I didn’t hear any prayers to Eyah (meant to sound similar to Gaea or YHVH?) when the Na’vi were dispatching fighter pilots by the score with armor-piercing arrows. If the Americans prayed to Eyah while bulldozing the Tree of Souls, would that have made it better?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Liberal conceit #3: Only a white male newly minted liberal convert can get these disorganized, unfocused, superstitious ethnics to recognize the threat they face and only a white male neo-liberal possesses the wisdom and savvy to guide them into victorious battle (isn’t that how we lost the Vietnam War--a bunch of liberals telling the military how to fight?). This is the same conceit displayed by Kevin Costner in <i>Dances With Wolves</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> and (forgive me, Sarah Jessica) Matthew Broderick in </span><i>Glory</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> (the story had to have a white guy as the lead character to make it more “accessible”) (Hollywood code for “we want more than 12% of the population to see it”). This is the same messianic complex that leads liberals to think that they are the only ones wise enough and smart enough and pure enough to prevent destruction of the entire planet by car exhaust, the only ones who can end the business cycle by dragging us into socialism/fascism, the only ones who can tell us what to eat/drink/drive/smoke/read/think, and the only ones who can mobilize the masses to push for social change (which is why they don’t think the Tea Party people are </span><i>really</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> a grass-roots people’s movement and </span><i>must</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> be an evil corporate plot). <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">At least in <i>Return of the Jedi</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> it was the Ewoks’ own idea to run off and attack the stormtroopers, and they did it with their own skills, tactics, and weapons. They didn’t need Luke telling them what to do.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Was the decision to bash American business, slander the American military, and ignore the American conservationist tradition intentional on Cameron’s part, or is such self-loathing so endemic that it didn’t even occur to him that he was attacking the very corporate structure that made him a mega-millionaire, the military that has kept him safe both from communists who delight in slaying the wealthy and the <i>intelligentsia</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> after they have served their purpose </span><i>and </i><span style="font-style: normal;">from Islamic jihadists who delight in killing everyone, and the American inclusiveness that made Hawaii a state, preserving vast swaths of its natural beauty for location filming on </span><i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;">?<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I said sympathy for your enemies was dangerous. It’s everywhere, even in children’s films. When I saw the trailer for <i>How to Train Your Dragon</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, in which the young hero discovers that dragons aren’t the monsters his elders made them out to be (because naïve youngsters full of Hope and Change always know better than their elders, who actually may have experienced a few dragon attacks), I thought </span><i>Yes... that’s just what the dragons <u>want</u> you to believe...</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> Islamic terrorists love Americans who think that their jihad on the West is merely a reaction to American imperialism -- they are the current version of the “useful idiots” Lenin used so well to drag Russia into a tyranny worse than that of any tsarist.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I didn’t dislike the film <i>per se</i><span style="font-style: normal;">. Artistically, it was superb. Pandora looks like a fun world (if you can survive the Deathworld-like fauna). The plot is tried-and-true (some might say clichéd and worn-out). And Zoë Saldana’s left breast stole every scene it was in. But the anti-American, anti-business, anti-military, anti-reason sub-text turned me off completely. It was superfluous to the basic storyline; the villains could have been anyone. They did not have to be from Earth at all. (I recall the super-hit <span style="font-style: italic;">Independence Day</span> made the rapacious invaders non-humans and the heroes the US military.) They did not have to be capitalists at all. Didn’t fascists and communists invade the lands of native people and rape and pillage them? And wasn’t it, oh, I dunno, </span><i>American military men and women</i><span style="font-style: normal;"> who fought and died to liberate those lands? Who’s leaving Haiti after weeks of sweltering work keeping quake victims from dying, only to sail down to Chile to conduct more rescue and relief work? Would that maybe be </span><i>the Marines</i><span style="font-style: normal;">? Hmm. Odd thing for them to do. From watching </span><i>Avatar</i><span style="font-style: normal;">, I’d swear they’re supposed to go in there and murder everyone. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <span style="font-size: 12pt; font-family: Times;">And I don’t like seeing movies disingenuously engineered to give me that utterly false impression.</span><!--EndFragment-->Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-13393870395372083712010-03-31T09:15:00.000-07:002010-03-31T11:42:57.510-07:00Science Quibbles With AvatarScience quibbles: I’ll skip the bogus flying mountains except to say that if you grant the premise, you still have to explain how such small rocks can have huge waterfalls cascading off of them. Even if they were made of sponge, they’d drain in a few minutes at that rate.<o:p></o:p><br /><br />As someone who still owns every piece of glow-in-the-dark plastic from when I was a kid, I loved the phosphorescent night life. However... I think that the only time you would have “night” on a moon orbiting a gas giant would be when the planet is between Pandora and its star. Think about how bright our own moon is at night: when it’s full, you can read by it. And it only fills half a degree of the sky. From the look of it, Pandora’s gas giant covers about 60 degrees. Imagine that much starlight being reflected from a high-albedo cloud world -- it would be as bright as day.<o:p></o:p> <p class="MsoNormal">In the film, it’s stated that Pandora has lower gravity than Earth, and that would explain how the banshees can fly by flapping instead of soaring, but then one should be consistent: everything that falls would have to fall at a much slower rate of acceleration, yet it seems that everyone and everything falls at an earthly rate on Pandora (to be fair, it would be a much slower-paced film if they did that...). I did like the zero-G in the opening scene, though.<o:p></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One thing I expected to see but didn’t: after all the talk about how all the life on Pandora was electrically connected in a gigantic neural net, I was expecting the white male neo-liberal to be the one to figure out how to harness that power into a directed-energy weapon, with plasma bolts shooting from the Tree of Souls. <o:p></o:p></p> <!--EndFragment-->Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-9566442290339941792009-11-15T08:37:00.000-08:002009-11-15T09:05:57.784-08:00An Agorist Primer Now In Paperback!Just in time for ChristmaSolstiChannuKwanzEid, the paperback edition of <span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-style: italic;">An Agorist Primer</span></span> is now available from <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/aap_pb.html">KoPubCo</a>! <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kopubco.com/images/aap_96.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 143px;" src="http://www.kopubco.com/images/aap_96.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>The book is the same size as the hardcover <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/aap_hb.html">keepsake edition</a>, but is a third of the cover price (less, actually, because of our 20%-off Christmas Sale price). If you have wanted to read or give this amazing book but could not afford the price of the hardback, now is the time to order. Copies are at the printer and should arrive this coming week and will be shipped as soon as in hand. Give the perfect gift this season — the gift of liberty!<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://images.cafepress.com/product/37243207v5_150x150_Front.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 150px;" src="http://images.cafepress.com/product/37243207v5_150x150_Front.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />The book is not yet available on Amazon.com, but you can order it <span style="font-style: italic;">now</span> from the publisher. And don't forget our <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/merch.html"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Christmas With an Attitude</span></a> shop on CafePress! We have bumper stickers, t-shirts, and tote bags with snarky, in-your-face (well, in-everyone-else's-face) slogans. Check it out!Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-85387498517478833832009-11-10T11:03:00.000-08:002009-11-10T11:20:44.034-08:00Mere AmericansI don't recall that, during World War II, any Christians in the U.S. Army agonized about being forced to fight other Christians in the armies of Mussolini or Hitler, or of occupying Christian land where they were not welcome. I don't remember any Japanese in the 442nd worrying that they were fighting the Axis, of which Japan was a part. We were all mere Americans fighting enemies of America.<br /><br />In fact, I don't recall any Shiite Muslims having any compunctions about killing Sunni Muslims (and <span style="font-style: italic;">vice versa</span>) during the Iran-Iraq War (the "impossible" war among Muslims). So why would anyone in the press try to excuse the mass-murderer/traitor's actions by pointing to his fear that he would be forced to fight fellow Muslims? First, as a Major and a psychiatrist, he would never be fighting anyone, and second, he was a native-born American assisting American warriors in their battle against sworn and declared enemies of America. That should be enough for anyone in the Army. What he did was treason — pure, simple, and inexcusable. Motivation is irrelevant.Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-51267553847514640452009-10-24T23:13:00.000-07:002009-10-24T23:28:44.524-07:00Dr. K's Videobook -- Part One!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kopubco.com/images/secrets_96.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 155px;" src="http://www.kopubco.com/images/secrets_96.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Working right up to the weekend before I went in for my knee surgery, I recorded my videobook of <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/video/secrets.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">Dr. K's Sure-Fire Instant Weight-Loss Secrets</span></a> in High Definition. During my rehab and recovery, I managed to edit it in iMovie and upload it to YouTube (in three parts). The book is humorous (in case the title didn't tip you off) and I hope I've captured that in my role as "Dr. K." Here's Part One:<br /><br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/icCOGoploCI&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/icCOGoploCI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object>Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-15208546778208195372009-10-24T19:21:00.000-07:002009-10-24T23:13:04.775-07:00Goin' Cyborg -- Martin Caidin Would Be ProudCall it the advent of the .04 Million Dollar Man. This October (when Friday the 13th fell on a Tuesday), I was rendered unconscious with a Michael Jackson Propofol cocktail, taken into a darkened room, and masked men sliced my right knee open like a hock of mutton. Joints split, ligaments sundered, bone sawn, they implanted a titanium device inside my living flesh, making me 6% less human and beginning my slow assimilation into the Borg.<br /><br />Heck of a body piercing!<br /><br />Physical therapy is daunting, but there's no way I'm going to fail to gain the total range of motion allowed by this thing. I still want to hike the John Muir Trail one of these days!Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-77274535647596880362009-09-10T07:19:00.000-07:002009-09-10T07:28:32.507-07:00Hey, At Least He Didn't Throw His Shoes!Sure it was a breach of protocol to shout <span style="font-style:italic;">"You Lie!"</span> at the President as he prevaricated in front of Congress, but I thought it was a great liberal trait to "speak truth to power". Is it no longer acceptable to Question Authority? And is it not rude of a guest of Congress to lie as boldly as Barack Hussein lied to their collective faces?<br /><br />I say Joe Wilson has more guts in his larynx than the entire Republican minority has in its collective body.<br /><br />This <span style="font-style:italic;">should</span> have been the Republican response. It should be the response of the American People. Well said, Joe Wilson, well said.Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-66134917642181644062009-08-24T01:22:00.000-07:002009-08-24T01:38:27.718-07:00Secrets of Weight-Loss Revealed!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kopubco.com/images/secrets_240.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 388px;" src="http://www.kopubco.com/images/secrets_240.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Just uploaded my latest book to KoPubCo. It's a parody -- a first for me -- of weight-loss books: <span style="font-weight: bold;">Dr. K's Sure-Fire Instant Weight-Loss Secrets</span>. Check it out at <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/secrets_pb.html">http://www.kopubco.com/secrets_pb.html</a>. If it sells well, I plan to write and publish short humor books on other topical subjects. Remember, laughter burns 78 calories an hour!Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-13781426059030119872009-07-25T09:25:00.000-07:002009-07-25T10:59:01.801-07:00An Agorist Primer Available in PDF!In response to numerous calls within the agorist movement <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kopubco.com/pdf/An_Agorist_Primer_by_SEK3.pdf"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 140px; height: 209px;" src="http://www.kopubco.com/images/aap_240.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>to create a pirate Acrobat PDF edition of the KoPubCo hardback of Samuel Edward Konkin III's classic introduction to Counter-Economics, <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/aap_hb.html"><span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">An Agorist Primer</span></a>, KoPubCo has decided to undercut those attempts by releasing the <span style="font-style: italic;">free</span>, <span style="font-style: italic;">authorized</span> PDF of the complete book, available <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/pdf/An_Agorist_Primer_by_SEK3.pdf">here</a>. The PDF is created directly from the original InDesign proof of the hardback and is thus the authentic, correct, and complete electronic version. It looks great, prints out cleanly, and the primary link to use is below. Accept no substitutes!<br /><br />Use this link and image source in your own blogs and web pages:<br /><div style="padding: .5em; overflow: auto; width: 395px; height: 50px; background-color: rgb(160, 255, 255); color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: arial; font-size: 12px; text-align: left;"><br /><div style="width: 96px"><br /><a href="http://www.kopubco.com/pdf/An_Agorist_Primer_by_SEK3.pdf" style="text-decoration: none;"><img style="border: 1px solid; border-color: black; width: 96px; height: 143px;" src="http://www.kopubco.com/images/aap_96.jpg" alt="An Agorist Primer cover" title="An Agorist Primer PDF" /><br><br /><p style="text-align: center; font-size: 10px; font-family: arial, helvetica, sans-serif;"><br /><i>An Agorist Primer</i><br><br />by SEK3 <br> <i>FREE PDF!</i></a><br /></p><br /></div><br /></div>Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-42399197042390879462009-05-15T10:13:00.000-07:002009-05-15T10:24:25.143-07:00An Argument for Glass Ceilings in Politics?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/05/14/us/14pelosi-480a.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 398px; height: 211px;" src="http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2009/05/14/us/14pelosi-480a.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-10900073489849231202009-05-14T16:42:00.001-07:002009-07-25T10:12:51.320-07:00The Weirz on Video!Just found -- the best song by the greatest band you've never heard of! From over 3 decades ago, playing <span style="font-style: italic;">Jupiter Moon</span>, ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls: Estelle, Cathy, Pixie, Theresa, Maria, Joanie, Larry, Tom, and Mikey: <span style="font-weight: bold; font-style: italic;">The Weirz!</span><br /><br /><br /><object height="344" width="425"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/BHCpuVvzNu4&hl=en&fs=1"><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/BHCpuVvzNu4&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" height="344" width="425"></embed></object>Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-71753074049249550772009-05-02T20:19:00.000-07:002009-05-02T22:37:15.100-07:00Is Bea Arthur also Jane Ross?<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://entimg.msn.com/i/150/Movies/Actors2/BeaArthur_B25064_150x200.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 0pt 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 150px; height: 200px;" src="http://entimg.msn.com/i/150/Movies/Actors2/BeaArthur_B25064_150x200.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Bea Arthur is dead. OK, I can accept that, though I hesitate to say that when I was 15 I had a slight thing for <span style="font-style: italic;">Maude</span>. Can't explain it, but I recall that I responded to her regal self-confidence, snarky attitude, and... tallness. She'd have made a good Hera. So when other actors were interviewed about her death, Leonard Nimoy stated that he had met Bea when she had acted in an episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span> and that he remembered her as being a very nice person.<br /><br />Huh? I didn't recall Maude traipsing around in the 23rd century! She was not listed in IMDB as having been on the series, so I searched the mighty Web and found an article by Joseph Stevenson at <a href="http://www.answers.com/topic/beatrice-arthur-classical-musician">Answers.com</a> that stated she'd acted as "Jane Ross" in <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055380/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Rocket Attack U.S.A.</span></a> and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0145045/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Light Fantastic</span></a>. Sure enough, IMDB states that Jane Ross was in both those movies and played <a href="http://www.walterkoenig.com/gallery/pics/chek43.jpg">Tamoon</a>, Chekov's drill thrall, in <span style="font-style: italic;"><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0708466/">Gamesters of Triskellion</a>.</span> Rushing to my complete set of pre-remastering <span style="font-style: italic;">Star T</span><span style="font-style: italic;">rek</span> DVDs, I fast-forwarded to the scene where Tamoon enters Chekov's cell and talks to him.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.walterkoenig.com/gallery/pics/chek43.jpg"><img style="margin: 10px auto; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 250px; height: 188px;" src="http://www.walterkoenig.com/gallery/pics/chek43.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Chekov's reaction was similar to mine (I remember the same feeling from 40 years ago: <span style="font-style: italic;">is that a chick or a dude?</span>). Watching the scene, I noticed that her voice was even deeper, as if it had been processed or she was trying to sound weird. However, <span style="font-style: italic;">some</span> words sounded distinctly Arthurian in their inflection. In addition, her chin and earlobes matched<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/STGameTrisk.jpg"><img style="margin: 10px 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 260px; height: 195px;" src="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/STGameTrisk.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> photos of Bea Arthur. Jane Ross's nose, though, seemed sharper in certain angles than Bea Arthur's, though I only had more recent photos of Bea by which to judge (age adds cartilage to the nose). Bea Arthur is 5'9" and Walter Koenig is 5'6", yet Tamoon appears to be shorter than Chekov in the scene (he might have been standing on an apple crate). In this <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a2/STGameTrisk.jpg">photo</a>, she appears to be shorter, but she's in flats and he's in boots and she's standing further back than he. Nichelle Nichols is 5'5" and seems to be about Tamoon's height in this <a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2351383020_8830e79f06.jpg?v=0">phot</a><a href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2351383020_8830e79f06.jpg?v=0">o</a>, but she's in her Starfleet uniform, which included very sexy high-heeled boots. (Now if you want to talk about <span style="font-style: italic;">major</span> things, I <span style="font-style: italic;">definitely</span> had one for Lt. Uhura!)<br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2351383020_8830e79f06.jpg?v=0"><img style="margin: 15px 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 323px; height: 242px;" src="http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3039/2351383020_8830e79f06.jpg?v=0" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />It's important to note that IMDB is usually very good about attributing pseudonyms to actors. If Bea Arthur were widely known to be "Jane Ross", she would have been noted in her Bea Arthur <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0037735/">listing</a> as having been in that episode "(as Jane Ross)". However, the Bea Arthur and <a href="http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1026424/">Jane Ross</a> entries are not correlated in any way. In addition, there is a date of death for Jane Ross of 6/27/85. And she's listed as being born 10 years later than Bea. Interestingly, <span style="font-style: italic;">Golden Girls</span> premiered in 1985, so Jane Ross's date of death <span style="font-style: italic;">could</span> be an inside joke (i.e., no need for her now that Bea had a second hit series).<br /><br />So what's the story? Was Leonard Nimoy misremembering Jane Ross as being Bea Arthur? Was Answers.com mistaken? Bea Arthur <a href="http://www.geocities.com/beaarthurboulevard/beachat.html">denied being in <span style="font-style: italic;">Star Trek</span></a> in 2001. Was she lying to protect her opinion of her reputation? I haven't been able to locate the two old movies to see if Jane Ross (<span style="font-style: italic;">sans</span> thrall makeup) looks and sounds like Bea Arthur circa 1960-ish. I found a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Rocket Attack U.S.A.</span> on <a href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ROCKET-ATTACK-U-S-A-VHS-VIDEO-VGC-L-K-MEGA-RARE_W0QQitemZ190303744117QQcmdZViewItemQQptZAU_Movies_Movies_TV_Shows?hash=item2c4efcb075&_trksid=p3286.c0.m14&_trkparms=72%3A1205%7C66%3A2%7C65%3A12%7C39%3A1%7C240%3A1318%7C301%3A1%7C293%3A1%7C294%3A50">eBay</a>, but the postage from Australia is prohibitive. So until a local copy is available, the mystery continues...Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-76237815879780343892008-12-17T22:35:00.000-08:002009-07-25T10:12:21.226-07:00New Books from KoPubCoNarrowly in time for Christmas (and well ahead of Russian Christmas!), two new books from <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/">KoPubCo</a>: the libertarian classic <a style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.kopubco.com/aap_hb.html">An Agorist Primer</a> and the children's novelette <a style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;" href="http://www.kopubco.com/tloac_pb.html">The Legend of Anarcho Claus</a>.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kopubco.com/aap_hb.html"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 143px;" src="http://www.kopubco.com/images/aap_96.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Told with clear and concise prose, <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">An Agorist Primer</span> is exactly that <span style="text-align: right;">— a primer on all the important aspects of Agorism and Counter-Economics: how they work together to enable <span style="font-style: italic;">you</span> to free yourself and expand freedom to your friends, family, and the world!</span><br /><br />Samuel Edward Konkin III wrote <span style="font-style: italic;">An Agorist Primer</span> in 1986. A small number of Xerox copies were circulated to investors in the hope that they would finance the publication of a high-quality, hardcover edition. Though some money was raised, it proved insufficient to produce the book. Even though the photocopies bore text reading “First Edition”, it was meant to refer to the proposed hardback edition. This, then — the book now available in hardcover from KoPubCo — is the true first edition as SEK3 intended it.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.kopubco.com/tloac_pb.html"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 96px; height: 143px;" src="http://www.kopubco.com/images/tloac_96.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />And just for fun, there's <span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">The Legend of Anarcho Claus</span>.</span> Sam always loved Christmas. In both Christmas issues of <a href="http://www.kopubco.com/nlwcvrs.html"><span style="font-style: italic;">New Libertarian Weekly</span></a>, he wrote installments of the secret story of Santa’s rebel agorist son, Anarcho, who brings counter-economic toys to non-coercive girls and boys. I expanded the story into a full-length children's book that I hope will become a Christmas classic.<br /><br />Order copies now and get 20% off! More important, sales of these books will fund the publication of SEK3's unfinished <span style="font-style: italic;">magnum opus</span>, the appropriately titled <span style="font-style: italic;">CounterEconomics</span>. It will be quite an effort to take the book from typewritten manuscript to published book, first because it was indeed left undone at the time of Sam's death in 2004, and second because it contained very topical examinations of late 1970s/early 1980s events that supported his counter-economic theories. More on that as it develops.Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-17063257121803190322008-12-06T09:07:00.000-08:002009-07-25T10:16:05.310-07:00Mr. Science Fiction<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.komansense.com/blogger/uploaded_images/FM_27_1964-03_sm-751569.jpeg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 151px; height: 200px;" src="http://www.komansense.com/blogger/uploaded_images/FM_27_1964-03_sm-751552.jpeg" alt="" border="0" /></a>Forry Ackerman died Thursday, having heroically made it to his 92nd birthday Nov. 24th, despite pneumonia and congestive heart failure for which he had been hospitalized a few weeks before. I'll miss him. One of the first magazines I'd ever purchased with my own money was <span style="font-style: italic;">Famous Monsters</span> #27, March, 1964, the one with the Cyclops on the cover (yes, I still have it -- it's one of my prized possessions).<br /><br />I met Forry many times over the years, beginning in the mid 1970s at science-fiction conventions in Los Angeles. He was always the most joyous and polite of men (and that's saying a lot in fandom!), and when my daughter Vanessa was old enough to show up with me, he doted upon her like a loving grandfather.<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.komansense.com/images/vk03.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 300px; height: 289px;" src="http://www.komansense.com/images/vk03.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a> In the 1980s, I found out that he hosted Saturday tours of his Ackermansion and Vanessa and I made several pilgrimages to that sacred place.<br /><br />Forry has been disparaged by many fans for somehow sullying science fiction with his childlike enthusiasm and his coining of the term "sci-fi". I -- and anyone who ever leapt with joy at the arrival of a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">FM</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">Spacemen</span> -- declare otherwise. He did more to bring science-fiction to popularity than nearly anyone else. Without Forry, would there have been a Steven Spielberg or a George Lucas? Early influence is everything in human development, and Forry caught us all as kids, at our most malleable.<br /><br />His influence on generations will not be adequately gauged until decades from now. He has inspired innumerable people to enter the arts and sciences. He helped to build the future he wanted to see.<br /><br />As an atheist, he did not think he would "go" anywhere when he died. Many hope he's wrong, and that somewhere he and Wendy can hang out with Bela and Boris and all the citizens of the ImagiNation. <span style="font-style: italic;">Mi amas vin Kvari.</span>Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11149297.post-87901150020458546082008-11-04T22:32:00.000-08:002008-11-04T22:52:03.714-08:00RINOs Lose Big -- Conservatives Poised to Regain GOPJohn McCain's people may try to blame their embarrassing loss on Sarah Palin, but her nomination is all that kept the GOP from losing <span style="font-style: italic;">every single</span> electoral vote. The utter failure of McCain proves the futility of reaching across the aisle. Being a "low-tax liberal" didn't work Ed Crane and it didn't work for McCain. The RINOs are in full retreat and will no doubt now re-register as Democrats to be part of the winning team again.<br /><br />Here's hoping that flint-hearted, uncompassionate conservatives regain control of the party and run someone who would rather win the war <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> win the presidency.<br /><br />The good news is that now <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">all talk of America being a racist country will and must cease.</span> Barack Hussein Obama, President-elect, has put the lie to that century-old canard. We look forward to the disbanding of all race-focused organizations and all race-based quotas and criteria now that the final frontier has been conquered. Affirmative action has achieved the highest possible prize and is no longer needed -- America no longer sees color, and no longer needs to. Their considerable energies can now be focused on the most important goal for America -- a return to the Moon and the settlement of Mars and beyond (OK, that was <span style="font-style: italic;">my</span> audacious hope talking).<br /><br />Let's get behind our new President and keep him focused on America.<br /><br />Remember -- if you voted, you can't complain!Victor Koman, PhDhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13822341649298178792noreply@blogger.com0