Friday, February 21, 2014

UNDERSTANDING EVIL-PART 1


During the last several months I have taken a decidedly different approach in my attempt to understand the behavior of Barrack Hussein Obama. Anger, which held the preeminent position in my responses to Obama's conduct as President of the United States has relinquished its stronghold, giving way to a more academic, cranial approach; specifically in the arena of psychopathology as it relates to one of the least understood conditions in the spectrum of human behavior and one I strongly believe permeates throughout the whole of Obama. Evil.

let me explain.  In college I conducted intensive research and produced papers analyzing and chronicling the lives of two of histories greatest tyrants, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. My research started with their respective childhoods, up to and through their ascension to power and ultimately to their deaths. And while it is not my intention to directly compare Obama to either character it would serve only to diminish and dilute my forthcoming points if I did not allow myself to acknowledge a common  behavioral trait which they all shared.  

The evil of which I speak is not necessarily the "evil" one associates with Satan. To directly associate the two would render this discussion so abstract as to become irrelevant. You may find mild religious undertones here but I refer primarily to behavioral evil, known in some psychiatric circles as "malignant narcissism". Malignant narcissism is generally associated with those who have an insatiable desire to control people, to make them controllable, to foster their dependency, to discourage their capacity to think for themselves, to diminish their originality and to keep them inline. They wish to avoid the inconveniences of life by transforming others into obedient automatons, robbing them of their humanity. These are traits I see in Obama. These were traits of the others as well. It is evil. 

The Malignant narcissist possesses another predominant trait that is a palpable characteristic of Obama. It is called scapegoating and it has been my experience while watching our Commander in Chief that he very frequently considers himself above reproach, so that when he is in fact reproached, he lashes out at anyone who does reproach him and will sacrifice others to preserve his self-image of perfection. Obama accomplishes this by engaging in projection. Since he sees himself as faultless when presented with any number of accusations relative to misconduct or malfeasance, he will invariably see these situations as someone else's fault. In layman's terms, he cannot perceive of himself as bad so he perceives others as bad. I believe this may explain Obama's abysmal foreign relations in that he is often dealing with world leaders (Putin) who have similar personality disorders but have much more experience using their condition as a political tool and weapon of control. And it this projection that eventually and consistently manifests itself in Obama's most critical flaw. The lie. 

It is not always clear to me why it is Obama feels such a overwhelming need to be untruthful in so many facets of his job. It might be that he is utilizing it as the ultimate projection in that he simply cannot tolerate the pain of self reproach and since I firmly believe he has a strong sense of right and wrong, he needs to lie in order to deceive himself as much or more so then his need to deceive others. It is my opinion that people lie when they are covering up something they know to be elicit. In other words, there is usually no need to hide something unless you know there is something that needs to be hidden.

Which leads to my first conclusion regarding the human being Barrack Obama. Most emotional healthy adults submit themselves one way or another to something higher then themselves. It may be God in any of its religious forms, it could be truth or love or even simply the demands of their own conscience. This component of the human soul appears to be completely missing in Barrack Obama. Obama's ego centric personality which looks at times to resemble a Messiah complex makes him, strictly speaking, actually less comparable to the sick minded sociopathic maniacs that were Hitler and Stalin and more along the lines of a Jim Jones or David Koresh.  

You could also make an argument that Obama's behavioral evil is nothing more complex then a combat technique against evils that he perceives as learned in various times throughout his formative years. From his Muslim teachings in Indonesia, to his anti- white, anti- American preacher here in the states where he attended church all the way to his relationship with domestic terrorist Bill Ayers. His intense efforts to hide so much of his past could someday shed light further on this premise should he ever allow the cloak of secrecy to be removed.  

I sometimes feel that Barrack Obama is a tortured person and he often leaves me with the impression that he has lost ownership of his own soul. Yet unlike other practitioners of evil such as Nancy Pelosi, who has a one way Fastrak ticket to the bowels of Hell, I believe Obama can save himself from himself. We are a forgiving people, and we ourselves are faced with decisions between good and evil on a near daily basis. We know the temptations and most of us believe we will be held accountable for our decisions in some way. Obama first needs to take one step down from on high because he doesn't belong there. He needs to embrace something bigger then himself and from what we have seen, the choices are endless.

Saturday, February 8, 2014

THE SKIN GAME


Mirrors and good lighting are not always the best things to have around the house, particularly if father time has clocked a few city miles on ones face. I am the current owner of such a face. It took many years of dedicated effort on my part to successfully bake my grill into this intersection of age, stress and fun in the sun. These furrowed brows, wrinkles and skin spots are permanent memorials; reminders of times past when track meets, triathlons and softball games ruled the roost and sunscreen was for Nancy girls. But that was then and oh how I now wish to have the face I had then, now..again, then. Anyway....... 

 I needed to wipe 10 years off this mitt. Recalling a past conversation with an attractive former female colleague who boasted flawless skin was my first step. She regaled me with tales of woe and disapointing results in her quest for a creamy smooth complexion, until she tried Olay brand skin cream products. She credited her impressive features to her daily use these products. I was impressed and persuaded. It appeared that my search for the epidermal time machine could be found in the land of Olay, which meant a trip to the skin care aisle at Wally World.
 
I casually made my way through the main thoroughfare of Sam Walton's retail empire, people watching as I am want to do and banked left into the skin care aisle, giddy with the excitement over the possibility of regaining even a portion of my lost youthful appearance. Giddiness however, melted quickly into an odd state of self consciousness as I located and stood before the massive alter of the Olay skin care display. I knew this feeling, I knew it well. The feeling that I was being watched, judged, and maybe somehow pitied by those who saw me standing there. This odd sense of conspicious psuedo guilt took me back to a hormonally charged 14 year old boy who would sneek into the magazine aisle at the grocery store to steal a look at Playboy magazine while pretending to read Madd magazine. Today, just as 40 years earlier, that same odd sense that I was surrendering to the temptation of my desires, cloaked in casual non chalance was here, along with a feeling of undeserved self indulgence that males from my generation were not to seek out. And just like the sneaky 14 year old, anyone looking at me immediately knew why I was there. There was no Madd Magazine to hide behind.

 But as it turned out I had much bigger issues before me now. The selection of skin creams was immense! The Olay brand product line dominated the entire aisle! In the grocery store there was Playboy and Penthouse and that was it! Self consciousness was replaced by dumbfounded confusion as I attempted to make some sense out of the situation. I had this eerie feeling that Rod Serling was in the next aisle over announcing my questionable decision to enter the skin care aisle and the unsuspecting life lesson I would soon learn from it....in the Twilight Zone.

The selections of Olay skin care products was overwhelming and nothing shy of ridiculous.There were Regenerist micro sculpting creams and age repair lotions with sunscreen. What exactly is being repaired? my age? There was anti-aging starter protocol creams. I need to follow a protocol in order to start? and wrinkle revolution complex creams( revolution sounds a bit drastic). What the ???? I saw microderm abrasion and peel systems, regenerating serums and night recovery creams. Oh my Gawd! I  need a cream to recover from using the other creams?!
 

There were daily effects moisturizers and smoothing creams. There were creams to counter other creams. There were creams and lotions for acne blemishes and age spots. There were creams for dark circles under the eyes and skin discoloration. I saw creams for facial hair! There were creams for fine lines, not so fine lines and full on wrinkles. There were creams for puffiness under the eyes and uneven skin.  Oh how I yearned for the smplicity of that picture of a nude woman with her nether parts just out of visual reach!( It was 1974 mind you).

I  became frustrated and a little flumaxed by this display of facial creams run amok. I stood there like a cigar store Indian(PC?), paralyzed by uncertainty. I could not differentiate one cream from another and the incoming mental fog caused my brian to vapor lock. Each time I mustered up the courage to look at the shelf it got worse. There were creams for oily skin and sensitive skin. Creams for dry skin and normal skin. There were even creams for combo skin types….oily/dry skin. Described as dryness in the cheek area and oily in the T-Zone area! The T-Zone area! Where is the T-Zone?  

It just wouldn't stop. There were creams for African American skin and creams for Latina skin followed by the entire scale of creams for all the aforementioned skin conditions as it related to their particular needs. It was endless……….Rod end this episode now! 

The onset of mental fatigue was challenging my previous commitment to address my facial issues. Too many choices with no clear cut direction can bring a man to his knees. I began to wonder if they still had Playboy in the magazine section. 

Exhausted and defeated, I sloughed away with nothing to show for my effort other than donating ten minutes of my life to Sam Walton. I aimlessly wandered other aisles, shell shocked and confused. How does one get started with this process? Should I begin with the anti aging starter protocol and move on to the revolution complex? Hummm. Is the microderm abrasion with the skin peeling system my best bet? And what about my T-Zone? I can't just ignore that! Additionally, my skin is uneven in tone, I have spots all over and my eyes sometimes have dark circles with puffiness. I need seven creams for that! Maybe if I just use the regenerating serum followed by the night recovery cream I can just side step the rest!  I wondered if the invention of the internet created this same type of problem for today's 14 year olds!

One of Wally World's finest approached me and asked the obligatory "May I help you find something" question. I could not help but notice her skin was splotchy and uneven, if not a bit oily. Her T-Zone had clearly been ignored and she was in dire need of a wrinkle revolution and quite possibly a full on peeling event. I responded with the equally obligatory guy answer to that irritating question and thought briefly about directing her to the same aisle I just fled. I held off. 

During my twenty minute diaspora around the store I saw a variety of other "experienced" people who, like me have obviously never availed themselves to the miracle of skin regeneration cream products. Like many of them, maybe I just waited too long to address the issue and the time is past. Like the Playboy magazine of the 70's, maybe some things are not meant to be regenerated. Besides, by my calculation I would have needed roughly 10 gallons of each skin cream, applied daily for several years at a cost of $250,000.00 to make the magic happen and by then I could be composting a worn garden at an eco commune in Portland. I think I'll just keep the lights turned down, avoid mirrors and read my gardening magazine. Thanks Rod.