Kids Are Such Cutups

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We’ve all heard stories of the terrible things that adults do to children from time to time, right? From pedophile priests to child labor sweat shops many kids have a pretty rough time. In my small town I’m shocked at the number of crimes against children that are reported by our local newspaper. I suppose that the good news is, the paper is reporting because the perps are being arrested and prosecuted. But still, the willingness, no, eagerness of some adults to exploit children is sometimes shocking beyond belief. I’d like to share with you today one such case that is shocking and disturbing – even to me.

From The Sydney Morning Herald, this is the story of George Mukisa:

George is a survivor of child sacrifice. He was aged just two, playing football with his brothers, when a neighbour, John Otebati, offered to take him into town for sweets. Instead, Otebati, a witch doctor, took him to a nearby banana plantation and removed his genitals with a knife. In Uganda, children live in fear of child sacrifice, driven by unscrupulous witch doctors and their accomplices or fraudulent traditional healers who claim they can bring power, prosperity and money.

A report by the British charity Jubilee Campaign and Kyampisi Childcare Ministries last year described the crime as a “relatively recent phenomenon” that was not a part of traditional culture.

According to the research, “greed and a growing middle class in Uganda” have fuelled the demand for child sacrificial rituals, during which the youngsters’ organs, blood and limbs are used after they have been killed.

George survived that brutal day in February 2009 only because passers-by heard his cries and interrupted Otebati, who fled, leaving George in a pool of blood.

He was rushed to hospital where doctors used a flap from his forearm to perform penile replacement surgery.

“He’s a fighter. He’s gone through a lot of pain. He remembers vividly what happened to him even though he was so young,” said the founder and executive director of Kyampisi ministries, Peter Sewakiryanga.

When George’s artificial penis stopped working two years ago, a urethral catheter was inserted into his abdomen, which allowed him to pass urine. But he is an active child and the tube constantly became dislodged. It had to be painfully removed and replaced weekly – causing him pain and leading to dangerous infections.

In 2010 a chance meeting between Pastor Sewakiryanga – who was visiting Australia from South Africa to talk to politicians and church groups about child sacrifice – and Geoff Mitchell, an Australian professor of general practice, changed his life. Professor Mitchell was horrified to learn of George’s ordeal and approached a friend, a Brisbane urological surgeon, David Winkle. A week ago Dr Winkle and a plastic surgeon, Scott Ingram, performed a life-changing operation to re-route George’s urethra. They also revised previous reconstructive surgeries, to make George look completely normal.

Dr Winkle said the surgery was rarely done in Australia, but was quite straight-forward.

He was reluctant to claim credit.

“George is the main game here. What we did was just help out and it’s not really much at all,” he said.

The surgeons were assisted by an anaesthetist, who also donated his time. Church groups in Australia, Britain and the US covered the rest of the costs.

Professor Mitchell said the group was delighted with the results.

“Without this surgery, George was likely to develop chronic urinary infections, renal failure and eventually die,” he said.

Otebati, who goes by the alias Otenge, was sentenced to 15 years’ jail in November.

Lieutenant-General Kayihura, the inspector-general of the Ugandan police, said his force had “defeated” the threat of child sacrifice after forming a taskforce in 2009. There were 15 reported cases in 2009, nine in 2010 and seven last year, police statistics show.

These figures, however, have been criticised.

Pastor Sewakiryanga said there were hundreds of cases of missing children in Uganda, possibly linked to child sacrifice or trafficking, and they were not being investigated due to a lack of police resources.

As a result, the real number of victims was likely to be “considerably higher”.

George, who arrived in Brisbane with Pastor Sewakiryanga three weeks ago, is expected to stay for another month or two. They are staying in the Brisbane suburb of Corinda and when he returns to Africa, it’s hoped he will be able to live with his family.

He will never have children and, when he is older, will need hormone replacement therapy, which Pastor Sewakiryanga will facilitate through fund-raising.

But for now, George – whose surname means “blessing” in his native tongue – is looking forward to going to the beach for the first time and seeing a koala.

“He loves Australia. Often times he tells me ‘you go back and I’ll stay’,” Pastor Sewakiryanga said. “He loves the hot showers and wants to see koalas.

“His recovery is surprising everybody. He is talking and laughing and running and he even plays a bit of soccer.”

George has also made friends with local children, who raised the money to buy him a scooter. Pastor Sewakiryanga hopes they will stay friends for life.

General Kayihura said he was “grateful to Australia for your compassion and generosity, for giving such critical support to this innocent child”.

“It will certainly give [George] a chance to live a normal life,” he said.

Well, it’s certainly encouraging to know that plastic surgery can give this poor kid back his future manhood. Once again, good has triumphed over evil through a combination of love, kindness, charity and cutting edge technology.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Bleed, Collective Soul

Audio sound effect credits:

Freesound.org – “Percussions tribales Assam.wav” by grololo
Freesound.org – “slashkut.wav” by Abyssmal
Freesound.org – “scream little boy.aiff” by gntv

Beware the Devil’s Breath

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When I was a kid one of my favorite TV shows was the old Batman and Robin series from the 60′s. As a side note, I’d like to add that I’m not quite old enough to have seen them during their original run, but rather in syndication several years later. This was my first exposure to an exciting gay couple with lots of money and fantastic gadgets and toys. The story I have for you today reminded me of one of those old shows. I can’t remember the exact one. Nor can I recall which fiendish super-villian was involved, probably the lovely Ertha Kitt, but what does come to mind is a strange, potent material, blown in Batman’s face – not by Robin, but by the super-villian, that immediately put him into a zombie-like state. He was then captured, blah, blah, kaboom, pow… you know the routine if you’ve ever seen the show. Anyway, here’s the story as reported in The Mail Online:

A hazardous drug that eliminates free will and can wipe the memory of its victims is currently being dealt on the streets of Colombia. The drug is called scopolamine, but is commonly referred to as ‘The Devil’s Breath,’ and is derived from a particular type of tree common to South America. Stories surrounding the drug are the stuff of urban legends, with some telling horror stories of how people were raped, forced to empty their bank accounts, and even coerced into giving up an organ.

Demencia Black, a drug dealer in the capital of Bogota, said the drug is frightening for the simplicity in which it can be administered. Black says that Scopolamine can be blown in the face of a passer-by on the street, and within minutes, that person is under the drug’s effect – scopolamine is odourless and tasteless. ‘You can guide them wherever you want,’ he explained. ‘It’s like they’re a child.’ Black said that one gram of Scopolamine is similar to a gram of cocaine, but later called it ‘worse than anthrax.’ In high doses, it is lethal. The drug, he said, turns people into complete zombies and blocks memories from forming. So even after the drug wears off, victims have no recollection as to what happened.

One victim told Vice that a man approached her on the street asking her for directions. Since it was close by, she helped take the man to his destination, and they drank juice together. She took the man to her house and helped him gather all of her belongings, including her boyfriend’s cameras and savings. ‘It is painful to have lost money,’ the woman said,’ but I was actually quite lucky.’

According to the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology, the drug – also known as hyoscine – causes the same level of memory loss as diazepam.

In ancient times, the drug was given to the mistresses of dead Colombian leaders – they were told to enter their master’s grave, where they were buried alive.

In modern times, the CIA used the drug as part of Cold War interrogations, with the hope of using it like a truth serum. However, because of the drug’s chemical makeup, it also induces powerful hallucinations.

The tree is quite common around Colombia, and is called the ‘borrachero’ tree – loosely translated as the ‘get-you-drunk’ tree.

It is said that Colombian mothers warn their children not to fall asleep under the tree, though the leafy green canopies and large yellow and white flowers seem appealing.

Experts are baffled as to why Colombia is riddled with scopolamine-related crimes, but wager much of it has to do with the country’s torn drug-culture past, and on-going civil war.

Baffled? Really? If this thing would grow in Mendocino County, CA do you really think we’d need roofies anymore??

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Batman TV Theme, Crimson Ensemble

Baby, Take a Powder

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I’m sure that many of you, like me, take various supplements and vitamins to keep yourselves healthy right? My personal selections include daily doses of Vitamin D, Fish Oil and Turmeric, with the occasional Zinc and acidophilus thrown down the hatch for good measure. My favorite ‘supplement’ is red wine. After all, the results of a recent study on mice released in the May 1 issue of Cell Metabolism suggest that the active compound resveratrol could actually slow down the aging process by increasing mitochondrial function. But that’s all boring science, and not really what I want to discuss today. The story out this week that really intrigues me is about a natural supplement from China that allegedly cures all sorts of ailments, and South Korea’s heavy-handed response to the shipment of this useful and benign product. Here’s more from The Guardian:

South Korea has seized thousands of smuggled drug capsules filled with powdered flesh from dead babies, which some people believe can cure disease.

The capsules were made in north-east China from babies whose bodies were chopped into small pieces and dried on stoves before being turned into powder, the Korean customs service said.

Officials refused to say where the dead babies had come from or who made the capsules, citing possible diplomatic friction with Beijing. Last year, Chinese officials ordered an investigation into the production of drugs made from dead foetuses or newborns.

The customs service said it had discovered 35 attempts since August to smuggle a total of about 17,450 capsules.

The smugglers told customs officials they believed the capsules were ordinary stamina boosters, and were ignorant of the ingredients and manufacturing process. Ethnic Koreans from north-east China who now live in South Korea intended to use the capsules themselves or share them with other Korean-Chinese, a customs official said.

The capsules were carried in luggage or sent by international mail. They were all confiscated but no one was punished because the amount was deemed small and they were not intended for sale, the official said.

The customs agency began investigating after receiving a tip a year ago. No sicknesses have been reported from ingesting the capsules.

I can’t help but wonder if the powdered baby could, like my Turmeric, also be used as seasoning to make a delicious chicken curry?

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Gee Baby Ain’t I Good To you, Billie Holiday

Audio sound effect credits:

Freesound.org – “babycry01.wav” by pfly

Down the Wrong Pipe

Audio commentary available on the FlashCast Podcast.

One of my earliest childhood memories is of my love for Lifesaver candies and how they almost killed me. I know, a bit ironic right? I was small, maybe 4 or 5 years old happily sucking away on my favorite candy when I somehow managed to partially inhale the thing. I ran to my Mom who was simultaneously talking on the phone and doing laundry. I pointed to my throat, all the while gagging and wheezing, in a near state of panic. Without missing a beat, my Mom said “Hang on a second Merle, I’ll be right back”.  She then laid the receiver down on the wet laundry and plunged her finger down my throat, using her long nail to hook into the demonic ring and yank it from my windpipe. “I told you to be careful when you eat those things” she said to me, then pickup up the phone and resumed her conversation with Merle.

Other than the occasional gnat or errant bit of outdoor flotsam that was the only instance I remember inhaling anything. And how my Mom knew what it was and just what to do has always been a mystery to me. I suppose if the Lifesaver had gone all the way into my lungs it would have eventually dissolved, all the while giving my breath a sick, sweet cherry odor.

This disturbing old memory came to mind this week as I read a similar story, only the roles were reversed and it was the Mom who sucked something down the wrong pipe. Here’s more from www.wtsp.com in, of course, Florida:

A Seminole Heights woman who moved to the United States from Cuba in 1994 got a pit in her stomach this past December when doctors showed her a dark spot on her lung.

But it turns out the pit may have been the problem.

Photo Gallery: Tumor actually a fruit pit?

For 28 years, Blanca Riveron suffered from a debilitating, nagging cough. Her breathing was labored. Doctors treated her countless times for asthma and pneumonia.

“It’s been horrible. My life had just been horrible,” said Riveron.

Five months ago, Blanca coughed up blood. Frightened, her daughter, Dayana, brought the 62-year-old to doctors again, and this time they found a mass in Blanca’s lung.

The dark spot, they suspected, was cancer.

“We have to do surgery and we have to start searching to find out what can be done,” Blanca says she was advised.

In tears, Blanca called another daughter, Melody, who still lives in Cuba. She told her about the sad diagnosis.

But then Melody reminded her mother of a story from three decades ago, when Blanca was eating a piece of fruit called a nispero.

Blanca had all but forgotten the story of the time she yelled to her children and accidentally inhaled a nispero seed.

“I told my daughter no, it can’t be it. It’s been 28 years – I mean it can’t be it.”

It was just too ridiculous, thought Blanca, that a pit could be the culprit after three decades. But a few weeks later, after a second endoscopy, Blanca was sitting at a traffic light, started coughing violently, and out it came.

The seed that had sat in her lung since 1984. Her coughing? Practically gone now.

“She’s even been able to blow up a balloon for my son. She had never been able to do that,” said daughter Dayana Noda.

In two weeks, Blanca will go back to the doctor to check her lungs again. But she’s already breathing so much easier that she believes in her heart it was the pit all along – not cancer.

The family calls it a gift from God, a second chance, a miracle.

“I can breathe, I can sleep. My life has changed completely,” said Blanca.

Blanca’s breathing may still be compromised somewhat, because part of her lung is damaged from the seed having been lodged in there for so long.

But the coughing, she says, is all but gone now. And she feels like a new person.

I suppose the very act of eating is always a bit of a danger, and many of you also probably have choking stories. As for me, I still have my hard candy fetish, but these days I stick to Altoids. After all, they’re quite tasty and so small that they couldn’t possible pose a choking hazard.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s this week’s Spot of Bother.

See You Outside

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I don’t mind telling you that when it comes to visual acuity, I’m as blind as the proverbial bat. If it weren’t for contacts and polycarbonate lenses I would be that guy with the coke bottle glasses, and probably a pocket protector just to complete the look. Since the third grade when I was first diagnosed with Myopia, annual trips to the optometrist have been a regular part of my blurry and distorted life. There’s really no one to blame for my nearsightedness other than my Mother, who’s vision was nearly as bad as mine. Dad, on the other hand has 20/20 vision and all that I got from him was my face and bad temper.

As a kid I spent lots of time outdoors, and still do. What does this have to do with Myopia you may ask? Well, perhaps nothing in my case but a new study just published in The Lancet medical journal suggests that children who spend the majority of their time indoors are far more likely to be wearing those coke bottle glasses. Here’s the story from Yahoo News:

Snubbing the outdoors for books, video games and TV is the reason up to nine in ten school-leavers in big East Asian cities are near-sighted, according to a study published on Friday.

Neither genes nor the mere increase in activities like reading and writing is to blame, the researchers suggest, but a simple lack of sunlight.

Exposure to the sun’s rays is believed to stimulate production of the chemical dopamine, which in turn stops the eyeball from growing elongated and distorting the focus of light entering the eye.

“It’s pretty clear that it is bright light stimulating dopamine release which prevents myopia,” researcher Ian Morgan of the Australian National University told AFP of the findings published in The Lancet medical journal.

Yet the average primary school pupil in Singapore, where up to nine in ten young adults are myopic, spent only about 30 minutes outdoors every day — compared to three hours for children in Australia where the myopia prevalence among children of European origin is about 10 percent.

The figure in Britain was about 30 to 40 percent and in Africa “virtually none” — in the range of two to three percent, according to Morgan.

More than other groups, children in East Asia ”basically go to school, they don’t go outside at school, they go home and they stay inside. They study and they watch television,” the scientist said.

The most myopic school-leavers in the world are to be found in cities in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, Singapore and South Korea, where between 80 and 90 percent were affected.

Of these, 10 to 20 percent had a condition called high myopia, which can lead to blindness.

“Most of what we’ve seen in East Asia is due to the environment, it is not genetic,” said Morgan, contrary to the common belief 50 years ago.

The researchers, collating the findings of studies from around the world, stressed that being a bookworm or computer geek does not in itself put you at risk.

“As long as they get outside it doesn’t seem to matter how much study they do,” explained Morgan.

“There are some kids who study hard and get outside and play hard and they are generally fine. The ones who are at major risk are the ones who study hard and don’t get outside.”

The scientist said children who spent two to three hours outside every day were “probably reasonably safe”. This could include time spent on the playground and walking to and from school.

“The amount of time they spend on computer games, watching television can be a contributing factor. As far as we can tell it is not harmful in itself, but if it is a substitute for getting outside, then it is,” said Morgan.

He said ways must be found to get children to spend more time in reasonably bright daylight without compromising their schooling.

“It is going to require some sort of structural change in the way a child’s time is organised in East Asia because there is so much commitment to schooling and there is also a habit of taking a nap at lunchtime, which is from our perspective prime myopia prevention time.”

After considering this story for mere moments, I think I may have a solution to this problem. All the kids need is an app for their smartphone! One that they can hold in front of their faces that uses the phone’s camera to display the area directly in front of them. A virtual, superimposed she-male dwarf with thick glasses could then beckon and lead them out into the daylight, where they would most certainly go completely blind and burst into flames.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Miss Me Blind, Culture Club

The Three Second Rule

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When it comes to food, I have no shame. If I’m at one of my favorite restaurants and something happens to slip off the plate and onto the table for a second or two, no worries, I’m on it. First, I give a quick glance ’round the table to see if anyone is looking at me. If so, I provide a quick witty distraction and slealthily recover the tasty morsel and return it to it’s rightful spot on the plate. I’ve never been concerned about whether of not it’s safe to eat because everyone knows we have the three second rule, right? And hell, that applies to food dropped on the FLOOR, which is much much nastier than a restaurant table which I am quite certain is perfectly cleaned and sanitized between diners.

And, speaking of that old three second rule –  you know the one that states that if you drop food on the floor you have 3 seconds to retrieve it before it’s no longer fit for human consumption –  is that really even true or is it total BS? As it turns out, a group of researchers have tested the old rule and their findings may just surprise you. Here’s the story from The Mail Online:

Who hasn’t picked up a piece of dropped food from the floor, given it a quick blow and assumed it was still safe to eat?

To many of us, it is second nature to apply the age-old pseudo-scientific ‘three second rule’ on such occasions, telling ourselves we’re safe if the food hit the floor only momentarily.

The idea that food is not contaminated if it is retrieved quickly has been believed for many years – but there has not been extensive proof that this is the case.

Now though, the doubt is out as scientists have finally investigated the theory to discover whether the rule is fact or fiction.

Five food items were tested by Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) to see whether the three-second rule could be trusted.

Bread with jam, cooked pasta, ham, a plain biscuit and dried fruit were all dropped on the floor and left for three, five and 10 second intervals.

These were selected as they are commonly eaten foods and all have different water activity levels; a key factor in whether items will sustain bacterial growth in the three seconds before they are picked up from the floor.

After the study, the foods were examined to ascertain whether or not harmful bacteria found on the floor was then found to be growing on the dropped food.

The study revealed that dropped foods with a high salt or sugar content were safer to eat after being retrieved, as is less chance of harmful bacteria surviving on such items.

Eating processed food from the floor poses the lowest risk – one of its few benefits – given that it generally contains such high levels of sugar and salt.

Both the ham, a salty product, and the sugary bread and jam fared well in the test. When retrieved from the floor within three seconds, the foodstuffs showed little sign of bacterial growth.

The dried fruit and cooked pasta, on the other hand, showed signs of klebsiella after three seconds – a bacteria which can potentially lead to a wide range of diseases such as pneumonia, urinary tract infections, septicaemia and soft tissue conditions.

Biscuits proved to be a food relatively safe to eat after being dropped on the floor for three seconds, five seconds or ten seconds, due to their low water content.

MMU technical officer Kathy Lees said: ‘No specific organisms were detected on the biscuit, which has a low water activity level and low adhesion ability.

‘Ham is a processed meat preserved with salt and nitrates which prevents the growth of most bacteria.

‘The cooked pasta had a slightly increased yeast count after five seconds and very low levels of Klebsiella  were detected at all contact times, three, five and ten seconds.’

The dried fruit also displayed Klebsiella after five and ten seconds and the yeast count was too numerous to count.

‘The bread and jam showed no bacterial growth after time on the floor, which can be linked to the high sugar content of the jam which makes it unlikely to support microbial growth.’

The university food sciences team who carried out the survey on behalf of cleaning experts Vileda also tested a used child’s dummy after it had been dropped on the floor and discovered growth of E. coli.

MMU’s Kathy Lees said: ‘The child’s dummy, which all our case studies admitted dropping on the floor regularly and then returning to their children, showed very low levels of E coli, Pseudomonas and yeasts.

Pseudomonas is an opportunistic bacterium which can potentially cause health problems in immuno-compromised people.’

Lindsey Taylor, of Vileda said: ‘Five mothers took part in the study and admitted dropping dummies and food almost daily and letting their children have them.

‘Our advice is to minimise risk and keep your floor clean by regularly mopping.

‘Mop heads need to be replaced every three months.

‘Ideally, floors should also be mopped once a day.’ (Yeah, right)

All case studies said they only embraced the three second rule when at home, with all admitting they would discard anything dropped on the floor when out in public.

The thing that is most fascinating to me about this study is the fact that the junk and fast food fared the best when dropped on the floor. But quite honestly, that’s really the bast place for it, don’t you think?

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Corn Bread and Butterbeans, Carolina Chocolate Drops

Audio sound effect credits:

Freesound.org – “Resturant Ambience Tandoori.mp3″ by digifishmusic
Freesound.org – “Blood Hitting Window.wav” by Rock Savage

Birds of a Feather

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Every Summer when I was a kid, Mom and Dad would take me on a fun-filled day trip to an odd little amusement park in the Blue Ridge Mountains called Tweetsie Railroad. The park is a wild west attraction complete with general store, saloon, kiddie rides, concessions, shows and of course the main attraction, the railroad. Tweetsie is an old steam-powered beast that burns coal and chuffs her way around the mountain. During the course of the trip, the train is ‘held-up’ by masked mauraders, running through the cars firing their guns and scaring the children. There are also Indians, of course. Wild savages in colorful warpaint with feathers flying as they terrorize the passengers as they slurp soda.

At the end of the trail, there is, of course, a gift shop. Here one could purchase facsimiles of the props and western wear that the cowboys and Indians wore as they terrorized you just moments before. I was always drawn to the colorful Indian headdresses and beaded vests. Sure, the cowboys were cool, and I had a few of those get-ups as well, but the Indian stuff looked wild and dangerous and that’s the stuff I always begged for. After all these years of admiring and appreciating the craftsmanship that goes into the tribal garb, I have now discovered two things. The first being that the beautiful costumes are still being used today in Native American ceremonies, and the second that the Eagle feathers that adorn many of the elaborate vestments have become quite the commodity and the way that they are now obtained is quite interesting. Here’s more from The Mail Online:

Each year the National Eagle Repository bags more than 2,000 dead birds and freezes the animals before delivering them to waiting Native American Indian tribes to use in religious rituals.

Eagles are sacrosanct for many tribes, and the National Eagle Repository provides them with feathers, wings and talons and, in some cases whole carcasses.

But the Indians’ demand outstrips the repository’s supply and there is a waiting list running to 6,000 requests for the animal carcasses or body parts.

Each year the repository receives about 2,300 dead bald and golden eagles, gathered by wildlife agents and others.

‘We just don’t have the supply. Our inventory is stretched,’ said Bernadette Atencio, supervisor of the program for the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The repository, located about 10 miles from downtown Denver, was established in the 1970s to meet the needs of American Indians but some don’t want to rely on it because it can take so long to get a bird, even as the population of bald eagles has largely recovered from the threat of imminent extinction.

Quality is another issue. The eagles sent to the repository can arrive in poor shape, sometimes little more than carrion and not suitable for rituals.

The Northern Arapaho tribe of Wyoming requires a ‘religiously pure eagle’ for its summer sun dance but spiritual leader Nelson White has said the repository has sent unsuitable decomposed eagles.

In November, the tribe filed a federal lawsuit saying its religious rights were being violated by the eagle regulations.

Last month, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service approved a so-called ‘take’ permit allowing the tribe to kill two bald eagles for spiritual purposes.

The tribe has since said it wants to negotiate with the government to kill more.

Micah Loma’omvaya, a Hopi anthropologist who works for the tribal government in Arizona, said his people see the eagle as a benevolent being that allows them to communicate with other deities. It also represents their ancestors’ spirits, he said.

‘Eagles are integral to everything we do,’ Loma’omvaya said. ‘Not just for ceremonies, but offerings with eagle feathers are made for fertility, rain, hunting – everything good in life.’

Loma’omvaya, who says his people have used feathers ceremoniously since ‘time immemorial,’ said repository birds sometimes did arrive in rough condition but that his overall experience had been positive.

He said that, while Hopis are allowed permits to ‘take’ live golden eagles, not having items from the repository would limit his ability to participate in certain cultural events.

U.S. eagle populations once numbered in the hundreds of thousands but were decimated by encroaching human development, unfettered hunting and the pesticide DDT.

The bald eagle, the national bird of the United States, dwindled to a mere 400 breeding pairs by the early 1960s.

The Bald Eagle Protection Act of 1940, amended in 1962 to include golden eagles, was enacted by Congress to save them from extinction.

Since federal protections were imposed to protect bald eagles, their population has soared to some 9,000 pairs, prompting their removal from endangered and threatened lists in 2007.

Other federal laws still make it mostly illegal to kill eagles, and it is also illegal for anyone to possess eagle parts without a permit, Native American or otherwise.

Meanwhile, some animal-rights groups are unhappy that the Northern Arapaho were granted the kill permit. Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, said allowing the killing of bald eagles was ‘unsettling’ and could lead to a flurry of kill permit applications.

Peter Reshetniak, director of the Colorado-based Raptor Education Foundation, denounced last month’s eagle killings as a ‘barbaric act’ and said tribes could use molted feathers from live eagles in captivity.

Hmm, I have an old garage behind my house and a couple of rolls of chicken wire. I think I may have just have the makings of a new home-based business.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Half Breed, Cher

Audio sound effect credits:

Freesound.org – “Gun-Pistol(one shot).wav” by Shades
Freesound.org – “scream girl 5 years 08.wav” by klankbeeld
Freesound.org – “NATIVE FLUTE FIGURE 02.wav” by sandyrb
Freesound.org – “slurping_then_an_ah.mp3″ by morgantj
Freesound.org – “Cinematic Eagle Cry” by thecluegeek

Holes to Hell

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Dante' & Virgil in Hell

Years ago while listening to the late night radio show Coast to Coast AM with Art Bell, I was first introduced to the legend of holes to hell; various openings that allegedly exist in the surface of the earth that seemingly connect us mere mortals to the dark and mysterious underworld. A listener had submitted a recording of what was reported to be sounds emanating from a very deep hole that was excavated in Siberia by Russian research scientists. Here’s a bit of that audio.

Although the legitimacy of that particular recording is suspect, it is pretty compelling. After all, history is rife with legends and references to various spots around the world that are indicative of man’s fascination with hell and the various ways to get there. A few examples include Hells Gates in Tasmania, Shimokita Peninsula in Japan, and St. Patrick’s Purgatory on Station Island, just to name a few. And now, new archeological research in Israel suggests the existence of another such dreadful place. Here’s the hole story from The Huffington Post:

It’s an ancient legend: Located in scattered areas of Earth are openings, doorways, gates, if you will, to some unseen underworld, also variously referred to as hell, Hades and Dante’s Inferno.

Researchers exploring the famous Twins Cave outside of Jerusalem have uncovered evidence of some pagan rituals, dating back to the Roman Empire, that suggest people may have believed the cave was a portal to this underworld.

Bar-Ilan University archaeologists found 42 clay lamps — dating to the late Roman period — in a 70-foot-long vertical shaft inside the cave. It’s speculated that the lamps may have been used in ancient rituals between the 2nd and 4th century C.E., to supposedly guide the Greek goddess Demeter into Hades to search for her missing daughter.

“In the ancient world, it’s tricky — if not dangerous — to try to assume that we know what the people really thought,” said Daniel Schowalter, a professor of religion and classics at Carthage College in Wisconsin.

“Even if there were rituals going on at the site, associated with the underworld, people probably knew that it was just a cave,” Schowalter told The Huffington Post.

The idea of some mysterious, menacing dark world of the dead has been written about for as long as humans have speculated about it. Even still, Schowalter says most people don’t understand the difference between the terms hell and Hades.

“It’s called the realm of Hades, where Hades is the king,” he said. “In Greek and Roman conceptions, it’s a different understanding than what Christians later developed in terms of hell as a place of punishment.

“Hades was the world of the dead — the place where the dead lived. The expectation was that when you died, you passed into a different form of life.”

Schowalter is the co-director of an excavation site of a Roman temple in northern Israel. He explains the early belief that when you died, “you went to live in the place of the dead, which is the underworld, a kind of shadowy place, which did not necessarily involve punishment, and you weren’t sent there because you were bad. It’s just where dead people went.”

But how would one actually reach this mysterious underworld realm?

According to the online edition of Israel’s Haaretz, “dark, deep pits or caves were considered gateways to hell and were often used for rituals dedicated to pagan gods.”

Numerous books, movies and television shows have depicted the dark, shadowy underworld. But is there any truth to the idea that an actual entrance to such a place may someday be discovered?

“My quick answer is no,” Schowalter said. “The more interesting thing is that people wanted to have contact with the world of the dead and they did somewhat extreme things and developed rituals in which they thought that they could try to do that.”

The whole idea that people in “hell” are being punished for various sins is, according to Schowalter, something that stems from a Christian re-interpretation of that material.

“There was this desire to have contact — and it’s obviously still seen in our society today — where people will go to great lengths to try to understand what dead people would say to them.

“There were lots of different ways in which the ancient Greeks and Romans understood themselves connected to the gods, and they acted those out in rituals that took a lot of different forms.”

Although I think that everyday life itself offers up adequate punishment and hellish abuse for most of us, I suppose there could be some final destination of eternal torture and mayhem. Some awful place filled with disturbing creatures and screams of pain. In closing, I’d like to offer one last recorded example of hellish torment to provide you with the nightmares that you most certainly deserve.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Never Gonna Give You Up, Rick Astley

Audio sound effect credits:

Freesound.org – “Monster.wav” by Sea Fury
Freesound.org – “scream.wav” by analogchill
Freesound.org – “01205 shovel digging 2.wav” by Robinhood76

Condition Renders Gender Bender

Audio commentary available on the FlashCast Podcast.

Being a member of the LGBT community is tough these days. We homos have to be constantly vigilant and prepared for lots of potential problems that are just a creaking closet door away! There’s job discrimination, hate crimes, teen suicides as a result of bullying, gay bashing and diesel dykes blowing cigarette smoke in our faces while we order appletinis at the local bar. Then there’s the 7 foot drag queen in size 15 pumps whose bound and determined to get a dollar or two out of you if it takes 3 tubes of Mac lipstick woth of cheek kissing to pry the money out of your Calvin Klein boxer briefs on underwear night. It’s a tough life. Oh, and let’s not forget the bi-sexuals who in opinion are just plain, well, greedy. As if all of this isn’t confusing and taxing enough, a prominent neuroscientist is now telling me about another whole previously unidentified group of people who don’t seem to know what they are from one day to the next! Here’s more from The Huffington Post:

A graduate student of famed neuroscientist Vilayanur S. Ramachandran has found a group of men and women who report that their sexual identity can switch involuntarily to that of the opposite sex and back again. The transgender metamorphosis, these people assert, can occur several times a day and at inopportune moments. It is also accompanied by the sensation of phantom breasts or genitalia of the non-biological sex.

The research grows out of Ramachandran’s long-standing fascination with the study of body image and how it contributes to a basic sense of the self, work that has included investigations into the phantom limbs of amputees.

The preliminary study by Laura Case, Ramachandran’s student, raises the prospect of a new category of transgenderism. “Alternating gender incongruity (AGI),” the neuropsychiatric term the researchers have tentatively proposed, describes the involuntary change of gender identity, along with perceived phantom sex characteristics, a tendency toward ambidexterity and bipolar disorder, all signs that suggest a biological basis for AGI. (A related term, bigender, defined as blending or alternating gender states, precedes AGI.)

A paper published in the April issue of the journal Medical Hypotheses—“Alternating gender incongruity: A new neuropsychiatric syndrome providing insight into the dynamic plasticity of brain-sex”—found 32 respondents (11 anatomically female) on an online bigender forum that hosts about 600. Average age was 29. About a third of the respondents said that gender switching was predictable. A majority said they switched weekly and 14 said the transformation occurred once or more a day.

Some quotes from the paper:

—“I still have the same values and beliefs, but a change in gender is really a change in the filter through which I interact with the world and through which it interacts with me.”

—“If I’m in male mode and I see someone crying, I’ll think more along the lines of ‘Man up… while if I’m in girl mode I’ll think more long the lines of ‘Oh sweety!’”

—“I sometimes wake up thinking I have a penis,” says one female respondent, “or that I have no breasts…I usually end up in tears and I can’t get out of bed because once I get up I’ll know for sure it’s not really true and it’s just my mind playing tricks on me, so I just lie there and cry. It’s strange though because I normally don’t even want to have a penis.”

Medical Hypotheses is a controversial journal—it once published an articleon the nature of navel lint—and only adopted a peer review system in 2010. Yet, Ramachandran, Nobelist Arvid Carlsson and other science luminaries have served on its editorial board because of its stated goal of foraging for “radical new ideas and speculations.” Ramachandran published previously in the journal on phantom genitalia after sex-change surgery.

The “more research needed” refrain certainly applies to the AGI work, a concession the investigators themselves make. “These results are suggestive but not conclusive,” Ramachandran says. “We need to rule out the possibility that this is just a variant of dissociative identity disorder (multiple personality disorder) or the subjects are simply “role–playing.” Without the “smoking gun”- physical evidence in the form of fluctuating hormone levels or brain imaging data – we don’t know what we are dealing with. Its something we are currently working on.”

At the Cognitive Neuroscience Society meeting in early April, Case presented preliminary research that one nominal AGI subject who was anatomically male performed differently on cognitive tests depending on his gender state: when male, he did better at a targeting task (throwing darts) and he had a superior score on a verbal fluency test after a switch to the female state. It was inconclusive whether testosterone levels fluctuated with the change in sexual identity.

Case is now preparing to move ahead with a larger study of forum members in which she will conduct neuropsychological testing by telephone and examine hormone levels with saliva samples sent through the mail. The researchers are not ready yet to do brain imaging studies on the group, which is scattered throughout the country. Ultimately, that line of research would examine patterns of activity within each brain hemisphere that differ between sexes.

If the researchers’ hypothesis holds, it would furnish an increasingly nuanced definition of sexuality. The Neuroskeptic blog, which wrote about the study, wondered what would have happened to the little-known bigenders before the advent of the term. The anonymous blogger wrote: “Would they have been identified as transgender? Maybe… but maybe not. Would they have had any label at all?”

The scientists expect that AGI could eventually be classified as a neuropsychiatric condition, which would point immediately to the deeper question of “the extent to which each of us is a multiplicity of genders, or even persons, co-existing in harmony.” If this research succeeds, AGI could ultimately help provide a biological rationale for the protean nature of the self.

I swear, all of this is enough to drive a gay guy bat-crap crazy. I think I’ll just stay home this weekend, put on my favorite Tammy Wynette wig, pop open a PBR and watch Glee. Those kids are so cute.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s this week’s Spot of Bother.

Musical credit:

Dancing Queen Remix, ABBA

A Shocking Predicament

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Ok, I admit it. While surfing the internet I have, from time to time, stumbled across a few websites in the internet’s red light district. Don’t even try and play the part of the offended innocent, dear listener, as I’m sure many of you have as well. While porn sites may be, um, interesting it the accompanying ads which often catch my attention. I’m especially fascinated by the stores that sell all sorts of interesting objects and contraptions designed for your personal pleasure. There’s one such device that both intrigues and disturbs me a bit. It consists of a series of wires, straps and electrodes designed to be attached to a man’s … well … you get the idea. Let’s just say electroshock therapy ain’t what it used to be. Well, it appears that a man in Rochester NY took it upon himself to place upon himself one such device of his own design and construction which in the end, provided him with the final release. Not only that, his widow is now quite a bit wealthier as a result. Here’s more from The Mail Online:

A widow who lost her husband to his penchant for auto-erotic electrocution has won a major battle in the courts.

Rochester resident Amanda Martin found her husband Paul, 35, lying naked on the floor in the couple’s basement in December 2008 after hooking himself up to a homemade electrical contraption.

Ms Martin was denied her claim for an accidental insurance award from his employer’s insurance, but a judge has just overturned that verdict and demanded that the Hartford Life-Insurance company pay more than $200,000 in total awards.

Ms Martin sued the insurance company after they claimed ‘Mr Martin’s own volitional acts caused to contributed to the injury which resulted in his death .’

Subsequently, Ms Martin was awarded $162,000 in life insurance benefits but denied accidental death benefits amounting to $81,000.

Police documents show that Ms Martin found her husband lying face-down and half naked in the family’s basement, shortly before they were scheduled to have a festive family brunch with their young daughter.

She saw wires wrapped around his blue arms and turned him over, receiving a shock in the process.

Emergency officials said that Mr Martin’s ‘homemade wire device’  ‘accidentally electrocuted him to death.’

Mr Martin, an electrical engineer, was a diabetic and suffered from erectile dysfunction, Ms Martin told officials, but their marriage was a happy one.

Mr Martin made the device by attaching a black power cord into a regular power strip and soldering on purple wires. One of the purple wires had a soldered bare loop on one end and the other had a handle. The loop at the end of the purple wire was ‘attached to his scrotum,’ police wrote, and he could turn the device on and off with the handle.

Though the police determined the death to be ‘accidental’ the Hartford Insurance company denied the claim.

Last year, a federal judge in Rochester sided with Hartford and also rejected Ms Martin’s suit, but she refused to give up.

Expert witness Dr Stephen J. Hucker, a forensic psychiatrist, argued that electrical stimulation is for enjoyment, not suicide.

‘The use of electrical stimulation to produce sexual excitement and orgasm has been known since at least the nineteenth century,’ Dr Hucker argued.  ‘Clearly their intention is to use the instrument repeatedly for sexual enjoyment and not to end their lives.’

Likening Mr Martin’s hobby to rock-climbing, Ms Martin’s attorney ferociously fought for his client.

Irving Pheterson asked the court whether anyone would say that a rock climber’s death from an accidental fall while climbing was ‘caused or contributed by an intentionally self-inflicted injury’ because, he argued, the rock-climber had suffered scrapes and scratches in the past.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, after evaluating all the evidence, declared that Mr Martin’s death was not the result of ‘intentionally self-inflicted injury,’ but rather ‘negligently self-inflicted injury’ and demanded that the case be re-visited.

After taking a long, hard look at this story my opinion in this … If Mr. Martin had used a little common sense, a few strokes on his keyboard and jacked into the internet, he would have found the relief which he was obviously seeking and the cost would have been much much less than funeral arrangements. $125.00 plus shipping, to be exact.

I’m Jeffrey Lynch and that’s today’s Spot of Bother.

Intro: Pierre Pressure, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Closing: Solace Interlude, The New Orleans Bingo Show
Hot Pants Explosion, B-52′s

Audio special effects courtesy of Freesound.org