Susan G. Komen Foundation Buckles

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Yesterday, the Susan G. Komen Foundation cut off funding to Planned Parenthood ostensibly because it is in their set of standards not to give funding to organizations under federal judicial investigation.  Planned Parenthood is under such an investigation.

Just about every liberal group and organization came down hard on the Komen Foundation and they have now reversed their decision and will continue to give money to Planned Parenthood. 

I didn’t know money donated to the Susan G. Komen Foundation for breast cancer research was funneled anywhere else.  When I found this out, I immediately stopped being a donor or participator in any size, shape, or form.

There’s an interesting article by John McCormack in The Weekly Standard on Feb. 2, 2012: “After Lying About Providing Mammograms, Planned Parenthood Outraged That Breast Cancer Charity Cuts Off Grants“  

Here are some excerpts because I really want you to have clarity:

Last spring, Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards went on CNN and claimed that if Congress cut off funding to Planned Parenthood “millions of women are going to lose access, not to abortion services, to basic family planning, you know, mammograms.” But as pro-life activist Lila Rose documented in a video, Planned Parenthood does not provide mammograms. [It gives referrals.]

Remember this article was written before the Komen Foundation reversed its decision today…

This story is worth recalling in light of the news this week that the Susan G. Komen Foundation, one of the nation’s largest breast cancer charities, has cut off funding (more than $600,000) to Planned Parenthood. Cecile Richards wrote that the Foundation’s decision to “end its support of lifesaving breast cancer screening at Planned Parenthood health centers comes as a blow to women across America.”

But they don’t provide mammograms.  Everybody is lying.  And whether the Komen Foundation gives its money to Planned Parenthood or not, this amount is not going to hurt Planned Parenthood’s bottom line.  This so-called “non-profit” is worth around $1billion.  They claim only 3% of their services are abortions, but that is very misleading.

There’s another cover article in The Weekly Standard from 2007 titled: “Planned Parenthood’s Unseemly Empire“  by Charlotte Allen which is also worth reading.

One way Planned Parenthood massages the numbers to make its abortion business look trivial is to unbundle its services for purposes of counting. Those 10.1 million different medical procedures in the last fiscal year, for instance, were administered to only 3 million clients. An abortion is invariably preceded by a pregnancy test–a separate service in Planned Parenthood’s reckoning–and is almost always followed at the organization’s clinics by a “going home” packet of contraceptives, which counts as another separate service. Throw in a pelvic exam and a lab test for STDs–you get the picture.

They “bundle it.”  So a person going in for abortion gets all these other things as part of the abortion package and then Planned Parenthood claims abortion is only 3% of their services.  ‘We have all these other things that are happening.’  No, they’re all happening because of the abortion.

Probably the most egregious thing is Planned Parenthood’s looking the other way to statutory rape:

A large number, perhaps a majority, of underage teen pregnancies are not puppy love gone awry, but involve adult men who are significantly older than the pregnant girl. A study published in the journal Family Planning Perspectives in 1992 found that 62 percent of first-time births to teen mothers had been preceded by experiences of molestation, rape, or attempted rape, with the mean male-offender age 27.4 years. The Guttmacher Institute reported in 1995 that more than 40 percent of mothers age 15-17 had sexual partners three to five years older; nearly 20 percent had partners six or more years older.

So in 60% of these pregnancies, the partner was an adult! By the way, the Guttmacher Institute started out as an arm of Planned Parenthood. 

Planned Parenthood’s confidentiality principles can thus run squarely up against laws in every state, typically bearing criminal penalties that require health care workers to report suspected incidents of sexual abuse or statutory rape to law enforcement. In 2002, a Texas-based pro-life group called Life Dynamics launched a sting operation, hiring an actress to call more than 800 abortion clinics nationwide, including many Planned Parenthood clinics. She told the receptionists that she was a 13-year-old girl who needed an abortion, except that her boyfriend was 22 and she didn’t want him to get into trouble. The reported response at 91 percent of the clinics (including Planned Parenthood’s) was: Don’t mention your boyfriend’s age when you come in, and all will be well.

So the Susan G. Komen Foundation obviously siphons off money for all kinds of things like supporting Planned Parenthood, an organization that seems to be okay with statutory rape under the aegis of “protecting children.”  Protecting them from what?  Certainly not adult sexual predators!  It’s despicable how much of your taxpayer money the government uses to subsidize Planned Parenthood which supports this kind of behavior.  And every time they’re caught, they go, “Oh, gee. We didn’t know this was going on.  This is terrible.  We’ll stop it.”

I think it is abysmal the Susan G. Komen Foundation collapsed when types supporting it like Hollywood moguls, Democratic candidates, and liberals with money, all came down hard on them.  Why did they buckle?  Follow the money.  It’s all about the money.  It’s not about principles.  It’s all about the money. 

So a pox on the Susan G. Komen Foundation.  And a continuing pox on Planned Parenthood.

I’m sure all you parents really want your 14 year old daughters to have sex with adult men and get abortions at Planned Parenthood without you knowing.  I’m sure you’re all very excited about that.  I’m sure you’d all go, “I’m for it!”  Well, that’s what you’re subsidizing if you’re giving money to either of those organizations now.  If that’s okay with you, then send your money.

Preventing Suicide

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Suicide is one of the most horrible events that can happen.  It’s devastating to the people left behind and very sad that an irrevocable step was taken by a human being.  And you never know when it could happen.

From the National Institute of Mental Health: 

Suicide is a major, preventable public health problem. In 2007, it was the tenth leading cause of death in the U.S., accounting for 34,598 deaths. The overall rate was 11.3 suicide deaths per 100,000 people. An estimated 11 attempted suicides occur per every suicide death.

Risk factors include:

• Depression, other mental disorders or a substance-abuse disorder.  Often the substance-abuse disorder goes hand in hand with a mental disorder.  90 percent of the people who die by suicide have these two risk factors.
• Previous suicide attempt
• Family history of mental disorders or substance abuse
• Family history of suicide
• Family violence, including physical or sexual abuse
• Firearms in the home (the method used in more than half of suicides).
• Incarceration
• Exposure to the suicidal behavior of others, such as family members, peers, or media figures.

Suicide or suicidal behaviors, however, are not normal responses to stress; just because someone may have one or two of these risk factors doesn’t mean they are going to kill themselves.

Almost four times as many men as women commit suicide, with males using firearms 56% of the time while women use poisoning 40% of the time.

In 2007, suicide was the third leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24.  Most likely, suicide is due to existential issues: young people going from being a kid to an adult, or not having the maturity to deal with romantic, work, and transitional situations.  Some illnesses like schizophrenia tend to show up in the early 20s. And as with the general population, young people are more likely to use firearms, suffocation and poisoning over other suicide methods.

Older Americans are disproportionally likely to commit suicide.  The national average in the general population is 11.3 per 100,000 people.  Those who are 65 or older average 14.3 per 100,000 people.

When people call me who believe someone is just crying for attention, I tell them not to think that way. Most suicide attempts are expressions of extreme distress, not harmless bids for attention.  If a person who appears in any way suicidal, and you’re going to make an error, err in the direction of getting that person hospitalized immediately.

A type of psychotherapy I’ve talked about numerous times and is a major contributor to my perspective on helping people is cognitive therapy.  All kinds of studies have shown cognitive therapy has reduced the rate of repeated suicide attempts by 50 percent during a follow-up year.  Cognitive therapy helps suicide attempters consider alternative actions than self-harm.

If you think someone is suicidal – do not leave them alone.  Get them help immediately.  Call 911 or put them in the car and take them off to the psychiatric ward at a hospital. Eliminate any access to any tool than may be used in a suicide, like drugs, knives, guns, or rope…

One of the most horrifying things that happened to me as a psychotherapist was helping a particular married couple.  A colleague of mine was counselling the wife, and I was counselling the husband.  He was distressed for many reasons.  I learned he had a gun and I made a deal with him to get rid of it.  His wife confirmed he had done so.  He began to feel better and terminated our therapy sessions.  Sometimes when people start to feel better, it means they have put a suicide plan into place, and about three months later in front of his wife, he pulled out a new small caliber pistol and shot himself.  Ultimately, these things are uncontrollable unless you’re physically there and can call for help.

So while we can know the signs of what risk factors to look for, knowing what’s going on in the recesses of someone’s mind is tough.  But if suicidal behaviors are being demonstrated, get nervous and do something about it.  Don’t stand by thinking, “I don’t want anybody to be mad at me.”

5 Ways to Make and Keep Your New Year’s Resolutions

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Do you know that fewer than half of Americans make New Year’s Resolutions?

Of those who do make them, the three most frequent resolutions are about weight loss (no surprise there), exercise, and stopping smoking.  Also popular are ones dealing with better money management and debt reduction. 

Have you noticed they all have to do with self discipline?

Now here’s the not-so-good news:  one week after the resolution is made (on January 1st), 75% of those who make them have continued with them.  By the second week, 71% are still on board.  At the one month mark, however, only 64% of those who made resolutions are still working on them, and after six months, it’s down to only 46%.  While that’s less than half of the folks who started by making resolutions, it’s still something.  People are more likely to make permanent changes if they focus in on a concept.

The most common resolutions that show substantial success rates include consuming less alcohol, taking trips and vacations, learning a new skill, managing stress, and getting more education.  A little less substantial (but with some success nevertheless) are resolutions like doing more volunteer work, saving money, getting fit, and losing weight.

The resolutions with the least likelihood of success include quitting smoking, overcoming emotional issues or addictions, overspending and debt management.  People just don’t stick with these.

So, if you’re going to make New Year’s resolutions, here are five key points to know about making them and making them stick:

1. Keep them very specific.  “I’m going to lose weight.”  No.  “I’m going to lose 5 pounds by April.”  Make it specific.

2. Make them realistic.  You can wish upon a star but in real life you have to pick something realistic.  “I want to be rich and famous and powerful” would be more sensible phrased as: “I want to figure out a way to be more productive at work, and I probably can do that by getting in there a half an hour earlier.”  Again, keeping your resolutions realistic and focused.

3. Make them known.  When you just say things in your own head, nobody knows and you’re less likely to follow through.  That’s why, for example, marital commitments are made in front of community, family and friends, because you’re making a statement for everyone to hear.  So make them known.

4. Make them measurable by time.  “Every week I’m going to have 2 fewer cigarettes…drink 3 less drinks during that week…walk 2 more miles.”   Put numbers or dates on them. Put in deadlines.

5. Make them fun.  It’s not much fun if you’re obese and trying to lose weight, but you could make it fun if you made little pictures, like, “That’s what I used to look like; this is what I look like now…”  And you can have little pictures on the wall that you drew, showing percentages of weight lost.  Every time you see it, it’s very motivating.  So you can find a way to make resolutions cute and fun — you can. 

Summing it up: make sure your goals are clear and specific, do them in some kind of measurable time so you can actually measure progress, but the big thing is you’re either going to be master of yourself or a slave to your impulses.  You’ll either have discipline and commitment or you won’t and that’s a quality of character.  I know people don’t like to hear the word “character” –  they want to hear the word “addiction” because that takes out any issue of character; that means there’s nothing in your control.  We all know that’s bull.  Your character is what is measured by you following through on what you put your word to.

When Bad Things Happen to Children

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On my SiriusXM show recently, I spoke about the meaning of life, and then I got this email from Lisa:

I heard part of your program today and you read about the different thoughts about the meaning of life… I’ve been thinking about that, too.

As the mother of a child who is dying of cancer, like many of us, we are losing our faith in a big powerful “daddy in the sky” that hears our prayers. I’ve heard from Christians that “God doesn’t give you what you can’t handle” but I can’t handle this. “God gives you strength to get through it” – no, He doesn’t. I’m about to lose my mind… the pain is much too great to bear. I hear that this is God’s plan, or that God needs another angel. If he needed another angel, he would just take one, HE WOULDN’T TORTURE THEM FIRST! How could he PLAN to put a child through this kind of HELL? What good could ever come out of this?

September is Childhood Cancer Awareness month. We wear gold ribbons, but only 3% of cancer research goes to childhood cancers. Does anybody care? Is the meaning of life only to do research on the “popular” cancers because they are the ones that will make money for the one who finds the cure? My son’s cancer is so rare that he gets the same chemotherapy he would have had in the 1980s… it doesn’t get researched.

Please tell me what the meaning of life is!

If you look at God as a “big powerful daddy in the sky that hears [your] prayers” and will give you what you want, and if you are a good person, you can’t help but be disappointed on a daily basis. That doesn’t seem to be the way it works. 

I know no other pain on the face of the earth that is greater than a parent having to see their child suffer and die.   I think parents would rather they suffer and die and trade themselves in for their kids.  So, this is the worst torture, but this is not a test of God.  That someone’s child or husband or wife or parent or friend gets ill and dies is not a test of whether or not there is a God.  There isn’t a test of whether or not there is a God — that’s why it’s called “faith.” To say that “I’m dubious about God” because my prayers aren’t being answered in the way that I want, is, in my opinion, never to have understood faith in the first place, but just to have played a social role in which you call yourself “religious.” 

There is no explanation for these things.  And, I agree with Lisa when she writes:  “If he needed another angel, he would just take one, HE WOULDN’T TORTURE THEM FIRST!….What good could ever come out of this?”  I like that answer of hers.  I think telling somebody this is God’s plan is a little obnoxious and I always thought it was.  It’s your assumption God is planning this.  You have no proof of that.  People go back to the story of Job and what he had to suffer and Abraham who almost wiped out his own kid until God said, “I see you really love me.  You don’t have to do this.” 

There are some important concepts and issues here.  When any of us says “I can’t handle this,” yet we make it through every day, we are handling it.  “Handling it” doesn’t mean it feels good or it’s easy; “handling it” usually means we are surviving it and doing the best we can.

I don’t understand all of the mass murders of the world — Stalin, Pol Pot, Germany, Japan. I don’t understand how that’s God’s will or God’s plan. It doesn’t make any sense to me, either.  And I don’t know how to put it together.  I don’t know how it’s God’s plan to have little children put in ovens and killed.  Or mommies and their children shot to death and put into a hole in the ground, naked.  I don’t understand how any of that is God’s plan.  So, I have no answer to that. 

This was not a theological thing where I was going to explain what life really means, other than there’s always been horror.  It’s like the horror films you see in the movies where there’s evil and someone in the church or somebody else finally squelches the evil and at the end you see the evil creeping up through the ground again. 

There is evil, there is disappointment, there is pain, there is everything.  So, ultimately, whether you really believe in God or not, we really need to hold on to each other.  There is something about touching the hand of another who corroborates your pain.  That’s why with parents in this situation, I always tell them to find other parents in this situation.  They will be the first ones to hug you and they won’t get tired of hearing from you like other relatives will.  It’s not they get tired, per se, it’s just they can’t do anything to help and it’s upsetting, so they don’t want to hear it anymore.  They are not being bad, they just don’t know how to fix it. They feel guilt and they feel uncomfortable and then they start feeling anger.  So, to go to people who have been there and done that is the way we hold on to each other.  Some people call that behavior the way God helps you go through things which are inexplicable. 

So, let’s not call bad things that happen “God’s plan,” because that hurts people.  God planned to hurt my kid?  You’re gonna tell me, there’s some higher power and I’m supposed to rise above that pain and say absolutely “I adore you?”  I think it’s a horrible thing to tell people.  I don’t think it’s good to tell kids God’s an all-powerful “daddy in the sky” who can do anything.  Well, then why isn’t he doing it for me?  I don’t like when people walk out of a bus that just been in a crash and they are alive and everyone else is dead and they say, “but for the grace of God.”  What the heck does that mean?  God intentionally wiped them out and kept you?

I think we want to feel special like we feel to a parent.  God is some kind of extension of parenthood.  We sometimes don’t realize how cruel we sound.  So, here’s my frame of reference for all of this.  There are evil things people do because they are evil.  There are horrible things that happen just because there are horrible things that happen.  The human body has weaknesses and that’s just the way it is.  There aren’t cures for everything because we are not good enough yet to produce them.  It’s hard to get money for things only a few people suffer from – Lisa is right about that.

The bottom line is we’ve got to hold on to each other.  That’s the immediate salvation: to hold on to each other’s love, support, and kind feeling.  It’s irrelevant if bad things are happening or not.  The way to make it through life, I believe, is to really be compassionate and to be open to compassion.  That’s what helps you get through the things that are inexplicable and horrible.

Sleep Deprivation Can Even Make You Unethical

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An article in the New York Times about sleep said it’s a necessity, not a luxury. For a lot of people, it’s a luxury, but it turns out that it’s an absolute necessity on many levels.  And most of you are living in a state of chronic sleep deprivation, which is a really bad thing.

“Studies have shown that people function best after seven to eight hours of sleep.”  So it’s best at least to aim for seven.  Get this: In the last 50 years, “the average night’s sleep for adults in the United States dropped to six and a half hours from more than eight.”  Some experts predict that this is going to get worse, mainly because you folks permit yourselves to be distracted by emails, instant text messaging, online shopping, online porn…online anything.  That flat, little screen in front of you is robbing you of sleep.

Now, what does that mean?  Well I can’t blame it all on the fact that you’re doing the wrong things…you know, with advancing age (something I know nothing about yet), natural changes in sleep quality occur.  It’s not unusual for people, as they get older, to take longer to fall asleep….they tend to get sleepier early in the evening, and they tend to awaken earlier in the morning.  Much of the time  “is spent in the lighter stages of sleep,  less in the restorative deep sleep.  R.E.M. sleep, during which the mind processes emotions and memories and relieves stress, declines with age.”

There are some bad habits you have that can ruin your sleep also: 

• Not getting enough physical activity
• Not spending enough time outdoors (turns out “sunlight is the body’s main regulator of sleepiness and wakefulness”.  That’s hormonal.) 
• Crappy diet
• Sometimes “medications can disrupt sleep.”
• “Having a partner who snores.”
• Too much alcohol (it’s a nervous system depressant but, in fact, it disrupts sleep.)

And there are sleep-robbing health issues like arthritis that is painful, diabetes, depression, anxiety, sleep apnea, hot flashes…there are all kinds of things that happen that can disrupt our sleep.  But there are a number of reasons we need our sleep.  Restorative is at the top of the list.  Also, you look a lot more attractive when you’re rested.  Somebody actually paid to do a research project which in which photographs of people were taken when they had good sleep and when they hadn’t…and the research showed (I don’t know, did this research cost a million dollars?)  that when you sleep, you look better!  Really?  I love this kind of research – it’s a true waste of money.
 
Losing sleep also makes you fatter or at least fatter than you’d otherwise be.  Harvard looked at 68,000 middle-aged women, and followed them for 16 years, and “those who slept five hours or less each night were found to weigh 5.4 pounds more.”  This is a 16 year research project to get that answer?  Five pounds?  Two weeks of potato chips; we can do that.
 
Basically this is the case, because when you’re up later, you tend to nosh…munch, munch, munch.  You  could add a pound in two weeks.  So you need to get your sleep.  If you can take naps, they also help your brain function, and improve your energy, your mood, and your productivity. 

But I loved this tidbit from the Washington Post: “Sleep deprivation can make you unethical.”  Two business school professors did some research in sleep labs.  “They found that a lack of sleep led not just to poor performance on tasks that require ‘innovative thinking, risk analysis, strategic planning’- but also to increased deviant and unethical behavior.”  These people are ruder, have more inappropriate responses, and attempt to make money they haven’t earned.  They tend to cheat.  And the irony in this is that, in business, everybody gets so impressed if you’ve been up all night working on projects, papers, analysis, taking red-eye flights to meet clients…everybody considers you a hero.  Instead, companies should really be giving you sleep awareness training (If there is such a thing), because these workaholic cultures, without the restorative opportunities, actually “cost the U.S. economy some $150 billion annually in accidents and productivity losses.”  The percentage of folks “who sleep less than six hours a night has jumped from 13 to 20 percent” in the last 10 years.

So we become less ethical people and we don’t do what we have to do as well.  Other than that, if you don’t want to sleep, I suppose it’s just fine.
 
References:
 NY Times article 
Washington Post (5/13/11) article  

Some Doctors Turn Away Obese Patients

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Overcoming Life’s Challenges

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There are many people living with physical disabilities who lead truly inspiring lives. Some you may know in your own personal lives.  I want to share some stories with you and hope they will inspire and challenge you to live your best life.

Probably one of the world’s best-known high achievers with a disability is Stephen Hawking.  He’s an internationally renowned physicist/mathematician, who, at 35, was Cambridge’s first professor of gravitational physics.  He has written a best-selling book (which was later made into a film) called “A Brief History of Time:  From the Big Bang to Black Holes.”  He’s in a wheelchair and can hardly move any part of his body.  He has a mechanism to help him talk, but it sounds like something from a science fiction movie.  His body is seriously disabled, but his mind is not.  So, he’s committed it to using it at math.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt , the 32nd President of the United States, contracted polio in 1921, and was paralyzed from the waist down.  Refusing to accept his paralysis, he tried different therapies and methods to try to walk, and did master walking short distances using iron braces and a cane.  Men were men in that era, and he wanted to look strong as President.  He established a foundation to help others with polio and directed the March of Dimes program which eventually funded an effective vaccine.

My favorite and absolute heroine, however, is Helen Keller.  She was an American author, political activist and lecturer… She was also blind, deaf, and mute.  That sort of cuts out a lot of input when you’re blind AND deaf.  She was the first blind and deaf person to be awarded a Bachelor of Arts degree.  The list goes on and on.

So, what is it that makes a Helen Keller or a Stephen Hawking?  Or an Albert Einstein for that matter (he had a learning disability)?  How do they do it, and why do they do it?

I had a caller recently from a man who was 120 pounds overweight.  He had aches and pains, and couldn’t find motivation, or didn’t want motivation.  It’s not like you can “find” motivation – either you’re motivated or you’re not.  I believe those who “can’t” in actuality just “won’t.”  But how do you overcome tough, difficult and demoralizing challenges?  How do you just not simmer in self-pity or negativity?

Well, the first way is to motivate yourself.  Motivate yourself any way you want, but just do it.  

Next, calm down and take it slowly.  When you’re facing serious problems and troubles in life, you can’t panic your way through something.  You can’t think through a panic.  You need to find a way to do that.  Most people avoid challenges because failure is too embarrassing or uncomfortable, but when you don’t even face a challenge, that’s the biggest failure.  Trying something and not being able to do it well or not at all is not considered failure in my book.  It’s the beginning of success.  Failing can be frustrating and embarrassing, but so what?  

Third, simplify the problem.  Break it down into parts.  Do one thing at a time:  what went wrong, what are your options, and what could happen with each option?  Simplify each step.  One of the reasons people have trouble tackling tough problems is because they tend to make them complicated.  Keep it simple.

Finally, you need inner strength, because you have to do the best you can to maintain confidence and a positive outlook, because that’s going to ebb and flow.  Some people get freaked out when that happens, but that’s normal!

Last, but not least, is to learn how to live with a little bit of failure.  That’s how we learn.  That’s the only way to get better.

Interview with Dr. David Velkoff on Autism and ADHD Treatment

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So many kids today are getting diagnoses of some form of attention-deficit disorder, and their families are confused about the treatments that are recommended.  So I invited Dr. David Velkoff, the Medical Director of southern California’s Drake Institute (and an advertiser on my program) to sort through the options for ADHD and autism.  Dr. Velkoff is a leader in non-drug, behavioral therapies, but he also discusses the range of treatments available.  This is “required listening”  for those who have family members diagnosed with one of these disorders, and even if you don’t, Dr. Velkoff clears up a lot of misconceptions about treatment.  Listen to the interview.