***** video. 10 minutes. Monumentally important. The science, very hard science behind Loving, behind serving the global neediest from the soul in solidarity. The gospel.

http://www.ted.com/talks/kelly_mcgonigal_how_to_make_stress_your_friend?language=en

Without Edward Snowden, Our System Could Have Failed

http://time.com/3851823/without-edward-snowden-our-system-could-have-failed/

Edward Snowden Calls Ruling On NSA Mass Surveillance "Extraordinarily Encouraging"

http://www.forbes.com/sites/katevinton/2015/05/08/edward-snowden-calls-nsa-mass-surveillance-ruling-extraordinarily-encouraging/

Government approves 900 Jewish homes in east Jerusalem's Ramat Shlomo

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Government-approves-900-Jewish-homes-in-east-Jerusalems-Ramat-Shlomo-402414

**** WATCH: The Israelis who drive Palestinian kids to the hospital

http://972mag.com/watch-the-israelis-who-drive-palestinian-kids-to-the-hospital/106528/

SPDF: MED UPDT, 050815 9pm. For the moment, out of the hospital.......

They finally released me about 5 p_m. The doctors are not hopeful that we have seen the last of this. Although they now think that these situations were exacerbated  by my 52 day hunger strike, they do not consider that a major factor. With the abdominal surgery I've had, the liver section, the colectomy, the appendectomy, the hernia operation.... There is a lot of scar tissue inside. And each episode, of obstruction, and I've had 6 or 7 in the last 4 months, increases the odds of the next 1 occurring. Could occur tonight, tomorrow, next week, next month.....

Feeling quite symptom free so far tonight. My spirits are very good. I think I am adjusting to a different, new normal for my health. Time to get back to work.

I hope and expect to hit the white house early early tomorrow morning and Sunday morning, staying until late evening. On capitol hill Monday through Thursday early until late I hope. Working to ease the life of it least 1 person in Palestine if I can.

SPDF: Next head of 'Civil Administration' said Palestinians are sub-human

http://972mag.com/next-head-of-civil-administration-said-palestinians-are-sub-human/106533/

ISIS-linked group claims responsibility for attack on Hamas base in Gaza

http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/ISIS-linked-group-claims-responsibility-for-mortar-attack-on-Hamas-base-in-Gaza-402504

SPDF: Medical update, Fri a.m. 050815

Please note: I mean my comments at the end about this hospital to be encouraging to the staff. But make no mistake, everything I said is exactly truthful and based on my for decades of experience both in and leading high performance organizations. this is not confidential and please share it widely. If there is any other way I can help please let me know.

One of the surgeons came in to speak with me this morning.  

They will be releasing me sometime this after noon.

Yesterday morning it occurred to me that two elements that I considered important about my situation I had never heard said back to me in dialogue with these wonderful surgeons. So I respectfully and politely took a moment to try and be sure that they were clearly registered in the minds of these brilliantly capable folks. And that's pretty much how I introduced the two points. 1. That the first incident of bowel obstruction occurred about 3 months ago. 2. That two weeks ago yesterday I completed a 52 day hunger strike where I took only about 100 calories per day and broth and/or tiny cubes of sugar so that I could complete the 20 to 40 block walks necessary for my unpaid lobbying work.

Based on my conversation this morning, clarifying these points, was time well spent.

By the way, aside from some symptomatic fullness that I experienced yesterday evening, my abdomen felt pretty normal during the course of consuming solid foods yesterday and through the night including through this very moment. 

 

To summarize the key points from the doctor this morning: A. they have no doubt and we mutually agree that I have had a whole series of between mild and complete intestinal blockages, doubtless due to the inevitable scarring from the surgeries that so far have saved my life, B. The 52 day hunger strike is likely a major factor in the distress I've had of the last two weeks. Their strong recommendation this morning, the first time I have received anything like this recommendation in all my doctor encounters the last two weeks, their strong recommendation is that I go extremely extremely extremely extremely lightly and carefully on food for the next two to four weeks. This wonderful doctor said, don't go have a hamburger today, don't have one for several weeks. Take it very very very very slow. As you have been, eat your meals very very very very slowly, don't have anything heavy, stop when you begin feeling the least bit full, don't hesitate to skip a meal or two, lots of broth, mashed potatoes....

In response to my question about under what conditions should I contact the team or return to the hospital: any prolonged severe pain of 1 or 2 hours or more, come to the hospital. Any symptoms that are less severe but suggest that the pattern of obstructions is continuing, call the surgical team and schedule an appointment to come in for a consultation.

.............

I went down to the hospital management offices yesterday and asked to speak to someone about a customer satisfaction issue. Quickly they made a representative available to me and we went into a private office. I spent the next 10 or 15 minutes documenting in every way I could why I perceived that this hospital is easily one of the best in the world, from the folks that cheerfully , promptly, professionally drive one in a wheelchair down to x-ray, the housekeeping staff, the nurses, the surgeons ( the Fishbein the Banovac team the Carol team... ), the Doc He cancer team that is the reason I am still alive, the kitchen,, radiology, the tech team, the emergency room team 2 Bless, 4 Main ( where I recovered from the liver section ) .... It is a breathtakingly wonderful collection of individuals and competence and kindness. The recruiting must be brilliant, and the management must be sufficiently good that it is not extinguishing the excellence of these recruits.

And the inclusiveness, breathtaking. Black, white, brown, yellow, Catholic, Christian, Muslim, female, male....

Universally respectful, professional, kind, courteous, competent....

Excellent communication. Excellent listening....

Accommodating, efficient....

This hospital is a testament to how things should be.

And all of this delivered to a homeless bum (as was Jesus before us) with tattoos on his face.

" as you do unto the least of these my family, you do unto me."

" they will know you by how you love."

" do unto others all that you would have them do unto you."

***** SPDF Day 52-15: Israel, the psychopathic nation. Is Zionism a collective personality disorder?

http://www.veteranstoday.com/2015/02/03/psycho-israel/

SPDF: Israeli-trained police invade Baltimore in crackdown on Black Lives Matter

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/israeli-trained-police-invade-baltimore-crackdown-black-lives-matter

***** Justice is love expressing itself. Dominic Crossan paraphrase. 15 years ago or so a....

Justice is love expressing itself. Dominic Crossan paraphrase.  15 years ago or so a Methodist pastor, an African American woman in an upper class white church that I attended, told me at a conference one time, James, you love justice more than anyone I've ever seen. I replied strongly, and respectfully, that I strongly disagreed. I said, it is not justice that I love, but people. 12 years later now I realize that we were both correct. I learned in a Dominic Crossan book on the man Jesus, the historical Jesus, that I read about a year ago. In the book, one of his later ones, possibly on the Lord's Prayer, he said something like justice is love expressing itself. I think that's exactly right. Brilliant. Monumentally important understanding.

***** From my most revered activist sister in Texas: Are you autistic by any chance?......

[ dear reader, if you have any expertise, or insights you feel highly worth sharing with me, please do. ]

From my most revered activist sister in Texas: Are you autistic by any chance?   ( she was responding to a really wonderful, really extraordinary, really insightful article I shared with some of you yesterday and posted on this site, and article if she really liked. 

http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/2015/05/wow-wow-wow-so-thats-it-about-me-huh.html )

My reply: Never diagnosed, but I have a long-held suspicion that I am somewhere on the spectrum.

What we consider social skills in this society, mine are absolute zero. I prize, I treasure, my interpersonal skills as it comes to problem solving, diagnosing, healing and helping, and when it comes to being self serving they are 0. The self-serving social skills we prize in this society are morally abhorrent to me and have been since my earliest memory. I was a straight C student all the way through the end of high school. I could not study the stuff they put in front of us. I could not. I could not. I could not pay attention to homework. I could not pay attention in class. Could not. Could not. Could not.....

But put me out in the woods? Put me in front of great art of any genre?.... and my peers are clueless, my peers are totally uninterested when I was young, or now, & I was totally absorbed, totally got it. 

As a young person, put me in a room full of low feeling, self absorbed, socially adept people, and I want to curl up and die from the agony of alienation and embarrassment from feelings of inadequacy. Now, I'm just totally disinterested and unwilling to waste one nanosecond on such things. Lol.  

Ask a young person, put me where someone is suffering, someone is unhappy, and I feel it, I empathize with it, I share it, I respond.  Put me in the presence of someone who is being persecuted, someone who is suffering injustice, and the agony is mine. Oh, I was pathologically selfish, but I could not not feel, the suffering of others, & I could not not respond.

And on questions of right and wrong, figures like Rosa Parks, Eleanor Roosevelt, Gandhi, King... my young peers were beyond yawning, beyond disinterested, and I was totally absorbed, totally feeling like I was paying attention to my real kin.

Put me out in the virgin forest, all by myself, hour after hour after hour, after day, after week... and I am happy as a pig in x.....

So, I don't know. Was I on the spectrum? Am I?

her reply, she has extensive knowledge on the subject:

you sound like you have a whole lot in common with my  late teen nephew.. Another thing he cannot do? He can't lie. If his life depended on a lie, he couldn't do it. Isn't in his nature. I always considered nephew a little Budda. And he never had a friend. zero social skills. ha

my reply:   that is really, really, really helpful to hear. I can and do tell small lies when I think it can be constructive in a situation. When I think it is destructive it is impossible for me, it does not matter the price I have to pay personally. Not possible. autism or not, the article I shared makes me think a lot of you. No?

by the way, never a friend. I never had a friend. well, sort of my dad. He was 1 trillion percent devoted to me, and I to him. Come to think of it, we probably had the same diagnosis, exactly. But up through high school, never a friend, and then my friend, he was the most socially skilled guy in school. I loved him dearly, and he and his family had some weird, deep, affection for me. But we were opposites, and have had no relationship since. And then I married the most brilliantly, highly, socially skilled person I have ever witnessed besides Bill Clinton. And that unleashed 27 years of solitary hell for us both. Lol.

another friend, trained in psychology, with extensive personal experience concerning autism replied:   

After reading about you and your experience as a child, I would have to say that you are not on the autism spectrum... You are however a truly compassionate person who was sensitive to his surroundings and not sparked by the teachers or family members to engage in social interaction or given the proper sensory input to maintain intrest. Environmental deprivation. You are amazing just as you are. I do wish things had been different for you as a young person!

my reply:   You are so wonderful to have read and reply. I pray that you read both those articles. The article on highly sensitive people, I don't recall ever reading anything where I felt so spoken to, so recognized. I say that in the context of your compassionate statement that you wish I had had a different childhood. That article on highly sensitive people speaks to the fact that those of acute aesthetic sensitivity, which is what I believe describes me young med and old, such people experience higher levels of pain than others, including isolation and solitude and loneliness, but they also experience substantially higher levels of joy, and that has always been my life. So, no, although I didn't understand it at the time, I feel so undeservingly blest with every aspect of my life situation. I never have envied anyone for quality of life ever

.

vid. 4 min. Gorillaz, released to the wild years earlier, reunite with their humans

http://www.godvine.com/family-reunites-with-gorillas-they-saved-12-years-ago-fb-gv--7113.html

SPDF: When the police start acting like a gang A journalist learns that if you photograph Border Policemen committing a felony, you’ll probably end up paying for it.

http://972mag.com/when-the-police-start-acting-like-a-gang/106515/

**** CRUCIAL.PLS READ. 'if Israel dropped its guns, not a single resident would be alive within days....... more

****  CRUCIAL.PLS READ. 'if Israel dropped its guns, not a single resident would be alive within days. If Syria, Hamas, the PLO, and Hezbollah droped their guns, there would be peace in the middle east.'  ( this comment from a high school classmate from the white, criminally elitist, Wall Street banker suburb in northern New Jersey, Short Hills, in which I was raised and indoctrinated to my life of sociopathic white overprivilege, exploitation, subjugation...  ).

MY REPLY.  'You are right.  I stand corrected. You make a good point.

That's why the white plantation owners in the south needed to oppress, enslave, subjugate the n******. That's why the white European colonists needed to exterminate upwards to 100 million native Americans. That's why the white Europeans in South Africa needed to so savagely oppressed the blacks, stealing their resources, stealing their land, from those non white savages. That's why the white Australians have needed to exterminate and opress the Aborigines. That is why you white supremacists needed to exterminate upwards of 100 million blacks in the Congo. It is why you needed Jim Crow in the south, and your oppressive, white racist police forces across the United States today.

And yes, as you correctly assert, that is exactly why Israel today needs to imprison the rightful owners of the land between the river and the sea, those by nature, genetically, inferior, savage, godless Arab Muslims who demonstrated their subhuman, savage, evil, warlike, terrorist... nature by having the audacity to live peacefully with the 3% minority Jews for thousands of years in the land of Palestine, in their 500 villages, and their relatively advanced, civililized, peaceful, Godly, culture. It is why Israel needed to preemptively mount a massive terror campaign, Plan Dalet, in November of 1947, mount 30 to 50 atrocities including the rape of women, the summary execution of old men, pregnant women, children, such as in Deir Yassin, in November of 1947, expelling through terror and force 250 thousand of the native inhabitants against all international law, against the UN Charter that allowed for the creation of Israel, and against their explicit promises to the United Nations . It is why, among the population that unlike Europe had welcomed them as protection from the Nazis, it is why they needed to carefully and aggressively build military units in anticipation of the ethnic cleansing, incremental genocide, campaign that Ben Gurion engineered and preemptively launched in November 1947, and it is why every day since with ever increasing savagery, the white Israelis have needed to persecute, torment, terrorize, and terminate the Palestinians.

Unless you sociopathic white state terrorists oppress, exploit, rape, colonize, ethnically cleanse, mass murder , exterminate... the non-whites, they will kill you, you a assert, over, and over, and over, and over.... .

The only slight problem with what you say is that your argument is based on three things that are just ever so slightly questionable:

1. Ignoring that you white supremacists are the ones that actually do the mass murder, state terrorism, consummate deceit, consummate lives, unending exploitation, unending terrorism ,

2. It is not their behavior, the non-whites, but you're pathological rhetoric, insane, savage lies and propaganda about what the non-whites will do, that suggests that they would kill someone. Not their behavior. But hey, who's going to value their behavior over your lies, deceit, and propaganda. Of course what you whites say matters, and what they don't do, as inconvenient for us that may be, doesn't matter.

3. The non-whites ( any and every oppressed, occupied, population ) by international law have the right to resist by any and every means available the war criminality of you white, racist, bigoted, sociopathic, state terrorist colonizers, oppressors, exploiters,, robbers, subhumans... .

Have a nice day

SPDF Day 52-14: Israel Will Now Be Ruled by the Most Extreme Right-Wing Government in Its History

http://www.alternet.org/world/israel-will-now-be-ruled-most-extreme-right-wing-government-its-history

SPDF Day 52-14: Supreme Court allows state to replace Bedouin village with Jewish one

http://www.haaretz.com/news/israel/1.655145

Video. 3 minutes. Stop. Parkour. Just watch.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BgsrxU2lV0c&feature=youtu.be

SPDF Day 52-14: Thu 050715 Medical update. Surgery?

My awe only increases by the hour with the competence kindness and compassion of this extraordinary hospital.

The surgical team concurs that this is my 7th episode.

I emphasized with them this morning two factors that I was not sure I had clearly enough registered before: 1. The first blockage event was about 4 months ago, an 18 hour event that finally resolved itself, but the exact same pattern of all these more current events. 2. I made sure that they were understanding that 2 weeks ago today I ended a 52 day water only hunger strike(SPDF Stop Palestines Death Fast ).

It is clear to me that they have all of this in mind now.

It remains their near certainty, and mine, that these problems are a result of the unavoidable scarring that has occurred with my cancer surgeries.

I have just returned from another series of x-rays that they ordered.

I'm sure that I will hear from the team later on today.

I do not think any of us have yet decided what is in store now by way of treatment, how long I am in the hospital, the likelihood or timing of any surgery, etc. What the doctor did decide was to take me off of solids and put me back on a diet of nothing by mouth. The ivy has just been restarted with saline and glucose 

This is just conjecture on my part, but now that I think of it, nothing by mouth suggest to me that they may be thinking that surgery is something they have moved to a higher likelihood.

 We had been expecting that I would be released from the hospital this morning. Clearly that is no longer the plan. 

12 p.m. update:  The surgical team just came in and evaluated me.  The head surgeon wants me to go back on regular diet immediately. IV removed. It is not that they are doubting any of my symptoms. it is simply their judgment that we should give it more time and see if my system can learn to cope with the incoming food. I should receive lunch momentarily. I'll have dinner. a meal tomorrow morning. If all of that goes well then they will discharge me tomorrow and we will see what happens.  If and when there is the onset of another event then they have decided to administer a test that in time lapse watches the food go through my intestines so that they can better spot what is going on, where, more exactly.

SPDF: Israeli defense minister promises to kill more civilians and threatens to nuke Iran

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/asa-winstanley/israeli-defense-minister-promises-kill-more-civilians-and-threatens-nuke-iran

***** SPDF: Why right-wing Christians are actively promoting genocide A leading Evangelical magazine is calling for the destruction of Islam. It's not the outlier we might like to think

http://www.salon.com/2014/10/07/why_right_wing_christians_are_actively_promoting_genocide_partner/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=socialflow

Reports: Israeli Air Force attacked in Sudan

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/politics-and-military/military/reports-israeli-air-force-attacked-in-sudan-13288

***** SPDF. Med Update. Houston, we have a problem.

At about 10:30 today they started me on normal solid foods. A normal, tasty breakfast. A normal, tasty lunch. A normal, tasty dinner. Since ending the hunger strike 2 weeks ago tomorrow I was extremely careful to be wise and informed regarding the process of gently enabling my body to switch from consuming itself to being able to consume food. In addition to the years of experience that I have with this, I did additional reading, and was sure that I was heading the advice quite well. And yet, as some of you know, whether related to the hunger strike or not, my body has been quite a disaster as it relates to my stomach and gastrointestinal tract since Saturday morning about 10 days ago. Friday night when the medical team inserted an NG tube in my nose was 8 days of four bouts of ever-increasing intense abdominal pain clearly a consequence of partial and then finally total bowel obstruction. Since Friday night, 6 days ago now the medical team has had me on IV fluids until about 2 days ago, then 2 days of clear liquids, and beginning this morning solid food. Their intention was to give my bowel the opportunity to totally totally totally decompress and our hope, our expectation, was that upon eating food as I begin this morning the problem would not reappear.

Well, it has totally reappeared. Despite being three times more careful than ever, eating extremely slowly, one meal over 2 hours, chewing extremely carefully and slowly, consuming plenty of liquids, avoiding high roughage food, taking great care to never reach the point of feeling full ... I have the same distension, the same early low level of pain, as has been characteristic of the prior four bouts beginning about 10 days ago.

My wonderful young nurse that has been with me most of the days called the medical team to inform them about 45 minutes ago and they are due to come examine me soon.

This is distressing, I admit it. And it is totally nothing in the scheme of things, Palestine, environmental Armageddon, the end of democracy.....

Yes, it is a great blessing that it is happening here at the hospital, and the medical team, surely they are due credit for keeping me this additional night in the event that there was something to see. Well, show number 5 has begun.

***** SPDF: WOW WOW WOW. SO THAT'S IT ABOUT CREATURES LIKE ME! HUH.

http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/beautiful-minds/2015/05/04/shades-of-sensitivity/

Israel's just elected justice minister, 1 year ago called for the extermination of Palestinians. democracy my effing ass. White supremacy, if not received, fundamentalist extremism, Naziesque....

http://electronicintifada.net/blogs/ali-abunimah/israeli-lawmakers-call-genocide-palestinians-gets-thousands-facebook-likes

DN! vid. "Kill Anything": Israeli Soldiers Say Gaza Atrocities Came from Orders for Indiscriminate Fire

http://m.democracynow.org/stories/15193

The Israel Project for Disinformation, Subjugation, and Occupation, So-Called TIP, Targets Amnesty International

http://www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials/2015/May/5%20o/The%20Israel%20Project%20for%20Disinformation,%20Subjugation,%20and%20Occupation,%20So-Called%20TIP,%20Targets%20Amnesty%20International%20By%20Stuart%20Littlewood.htm

SPDF: Malevolence can be the only possible motive for creating sonic booms over Gaza at the very time aid agencies, medics and other humanitarian aid workers are engaged in the monumental attempt to alleviate suffering in the blockaded territory.

http://chat2gaza.com/2015/05/01/gaza-a-living-nightmare-for-its-children/

By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons,” Trudeau contended, “Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that.”

http://www.alternet.org/culture/hebdos-dubious-pen-pals-privileged-conservative-pundits