Wednesday, January 28, 2015

Truly, 'Satan's Spawn': Brandon Vandenburg



'Satan's Spawn': a.k.a. Brandon Vandenburg

























Vandenburg (above) condescendingly shook his head and at one point even rolled his eyes as he was declared guilty...

Vandenburg's father could be heard crying out as the guilty charges were read against his son; (note how he hugs the female who spawned the evil prince of darkness pictured above). Really? I can't believe you two would wish to show your faces or even acknowledge that this piece of pure garbage is genetically related to you. Yuk! I would hate to meet the rest of your family ... you know what they say, "The apple doesn't fall far from the tree"!


The jury saw surveillance footage showing the young lady (i.e., the victim) being dragged to Vandenburg's dorm room. Inside the room, Vandenburg switched on porn and encouraged Batey and two others to assault the woman with a water bottle and rape her. The jury was shown graphic cell phone footage of part of the sexual attack, which the men had recorded. Vandenburg then sent some footage to friends. One of the men, Brandon Banks, allegedly anally raped the woman with the water bottle as Vandenburg yelled, 'squeeze that s***', the video showed. Batey then urinated on her.' It wasn't just about sexual gratification and fun, it was about degrading her, humiliating her,' Deputy District Attorney Tom Thurman said in his closing arguments on Tuesday.

"The woman was then thrown in the hall  like a piece of trash by the man she trusted and dated, Brandon Vandenburg", Thurman said. "She's not a piece of trash" , he continued. 'She's a victim. Not an alleged victim. A victim. A victim that had the courage to take that stand and face her attackers. A victim that had the courage to come in here and fight for justice.'

A jury in Nashville, Tennessee found Brandon Vandenburg, 21, and Cory Batey, who turned 21 on Tuesday, guilty of aggravated rape and aggravated sexual battery.


Devil: [noun]: A perversely bad, cruel, or wicked person.



Devil parents: not entirely free of blame.





Tuesday, January 20, 2015

COULD YOU MAYBE HUM A FEW BARS?

SONG OF OURSELVES

In my honest opinion, your deepest ancestral roots are also your ultimate symphony of life. That said, how could one NOT wish to identify the panoply of genetic notes or simply hum the inherited melody...in essence, one's very own opus of UNIQUE DNA composition! My husband and I have come to appreciate ours: I'm basically 60% Northern European and 40% Eastern European, with an extremely tiny amount of Asian. He's approximately 55% Eastern European, 40% Southern European and 5% Northern European but also with an [equally] extremely tiny amount of Asian. But here's the kicker, his "Asian" is not my same Asian! Moreover, we are both totally lacking in Arabic and sub-Saharan African DNA. Shocking as it may seem, many apparent 'Caucasians' do have DNA profiles that include the aforesaid sub-types (including my maternal uncle's wife and she's a very pale, 100% natural red head!).


My highly inquisitive nature is such that if there's a skeleton 

or ghost in the proverbial closet, I WILL seek such an 

entity out!




Both my husband and I are members of the 23andme family. Interestingly, part of the 23andme information gleaned from an individual's DNA also allows for a list of associated surnames; these are culled from the inter-related top ten and further arranged by "most common to least common". The 1st and 2nd surnames germane to my DNA data are  Stack and Connell, respectively. The latter name I could understand as I WAS already aware that I had 2nd cousins with this surname...but the former(?), this totally threw me for a loop! Other prominent surnames in my list included Hay*, Hall, and Hamilton (also similarly astounding me a bit). No where on this surname list was my maiden name of Porter, nor the surnames from any [of my] more 'recognizable' family tree. But given that I thoroughly enjoy the pursuits of investigation and discovery, supplementary information a propos my genetic legacy is always most welcome and accordingly appreciated...



Stack
This is a rather famous Anglo-Irish name, even though the surname's factual origin is pre 7th Century Norse-Viking, a derivative of the term "Stakkr". Essentially, this is a name depicting a builder of Stacks (specifically 'hay stacks') and, in effect, really alluding to a prototype of agricultural contractor. NOTE: At first, I automatically assumed that the surname of Hay must share a similar origin, but it doesn't appear that it does.


Yet, the moderately serene occupation of hay-stacking appears discrepant with the "Stacks" of later renown. Specifically, the Irish holders of the name, originally forming part of the English 14th century colonist rule, turned against England and were her brutal opponents in the Elizabethan Wars. On another note, this name is considered an early definitive surname: some recordings include Simon Stakke of Hampshire in 1244; in Ireland, John Stack was Bishop of Ardfert in 1588, while General Edward Stack lead the Irish Brigade (a.k.a.'The Wild Geese') in the Napoleonic Wars of 1792 - 1815.


MY NOTE: No wonder I love the Cotswalds!

 The other family surname of mine, Connell (or O'Connell), is an Anglicized form of the famous Gaelic clan name O'Conaill, meaning "strong as a wolf", and from the Gaelic siol cuin which translates as "descendant of Connall or Con." The name possibly derives from cĂș (con) meaning "hound" or "wolf," and gal meaning "valour." Of the three distinct O Connell clans that exist (i.e., these located in the provinces of Connacht, Ulster, and Munster), I know mine is related to county Clare in the province of Munster. My father's mother's side is from Cork, Limerick and Munster. My father's father's side is Protestant through and through and THEY were from Ulster, being post-plantation people originally from the Cumberland region of the British Isles.

**********************************************

On the other hand, my husband's top surname (by way of the 23andme data) is 'Goldstein' and this is the far and away front-runner vis-a-vis his complete surname list. Now, having known his late father, I'm not totally surprised. By way of background, his father knew of 'some' Croatian roots (he was raised as a Catholic) but, for centuries, Croatia belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire; it was only after World War I that it joined the 'new' Yugoslavia. The surname 'Goldstein' was not uncommon within the Austro-Hungarian empire either. Moreover, my husband's current surname of Grenn was actually a name derived from Gludowitz (sometimes spelled Gludowatz) and Krenn. His genetic [DNA] breakdown truly reads like a mini United Nations but with very strong contribution from the Carpathian mountain region(s) as well as Ukraine and Russia. What is interesting, though, is the moderately significant sprinkling of Finnish; yet, I would totally surmise that this has to be from his mother's father's side even though the Whyte surname was originally something like Bialyik.
However, through my own mother's DNA legacy, I am Russian, Polish, Lithuanian and Ukrainian with a minor amount of German (with some Ashkenazi Jewish), as well. But my biggest surprise was the inclusion of Yakut blood within my DNA profile. I would have totally expected Saami, but not these people!  In looking up their history, though, I've also arrived at the conclusion that the late Natalie Wood likely had some of this Asian sub-type in her history. Wouldn't you concur?

Yakut girl on left. Natalie Wood was born Natalia Nikolaevna Zacharenko


Our personal innate building blocks...what a fantastic story they truly are!


*Although Hay is now seen as a quintessentially Scottish name, its origins are in northern France, and branches of the family settled in England shortly after the Norman Conquest. 


Friday, January 16, 2015

NO! IT JUST CAN'T BE CALLED THE 'SUNNY SIDE' OF LIFE!


As a preamble to what will subsequently be opined in this blog, I want to strongly underline the fact that the few days leading up to my daughter's birthday usually have me thinking back to my incompetent Jokewood doctor, Dr. L*b*m*f*. Now, as fate would have it, I was already 2 weeks post-dates on January 8th, 1980 and had gained 50% of my very early pregnancy weight of just 90 lbs. Here is part of the problem: Dr. L. had forgotten how tiny I naturally was and never suspected that I was carrying a 10 lb. baby. This was a bona fide case of cephalo-pelvic disproportion and my bungling doctor was at a total loss. I would learn years later of his battle with alcohol and suspect that he was likely 'hung over' the night I went into hard labor. The truth of the matter is, however, that my first pangs of labor actually began on a Saturday and my daughter did not arrive [mid-forceps extraction style, no less!] until the following Tuesday. Yet my doctor simply failed to read the writing on the proverbial wall.

THE DREADED 'SUNNY SIDE UP' FETAL PRESENTATION

The worst possible thing that can happen in a 'posterior occiput' labor is when the water breaks (or is intentionally broken by medical personnel to try to hasten labor) and uterine contractions are both suddenly and rather dramatically enhanced; the baby's head automatically descends a little bit more, merely worsening the whole situation. Now, in order for the occipital component of the fetal skull to become anterior (as it must be for a normal delivery to take place), it is necessary for the infant's head to go through an extended rotation of approximately 180 degrees. (Normal rotation requires only up to a 90 degree turn). Moreover, if the baby's head descends too deeply into a comparatively undersized pelvis before any such rotation is effectively completed, the risk of a 'deep transverse arrest' increases, greatly reducing the chances for a successful vaginal delivery.




What's more problematic is that if the nurses or doctor(s) do not adequately diagnose this unfavorable fetal head position until far too late within labor, the only recourse may be to offer a para-cervical block or epidural anesthesia. You see, it is now virtually impossible for the mother to relax enough and permit the deep muscles of the pelvic floor to fully 'loosen up' and consequently allow the baby to sufficiently turn; and this is the ONLY way for a successful delivery.  And nothing in this world can prepare a mother for the severely excruciating and unremitting pain that accompanies labor when the baby is in an occiput posterior position.




However, the main tip-off of this potential situation is that the labor typically begins with short, painful, but 'irregular' contractions. This constitutes a warning sign of cephalo-pelvic disproportion; in the past, many women died from this unfortunate circumstance! Yet, this key sign is often shrugged off by incompetent medical personnel as "false labor."


In reality, it's that this type of labor is basically just not productive enough: the rather ill-fitting posterior head is not properly applied to the maternal cervix, even while the mother IS experiencing great discomfort! She is often sent home to wait for "real labor" to begin but is unable to sleep and often unable to eat, as well (because of the pain), sometimes even for several days. So,  adding to the stress of a painful back labor, we begin with a mother who is already exhausted! I have heard women describe the pain as "it felt as though someone were literally sawing the back of my body in half" or, "I couldn't even tell when I was having contractions because my pain was so excruciating!" All attempts to ease the pain will have little effect [without medication] and the labor is a very long and hard one.


 "Many midwives attending out-of-hospital births have not been taught to help correct a posterior presentation either and, despite their best efforts, are forced to transport the woman to the hospital while the mother is begging for pain relief, or after several hours of pushing have resulted in little progress, or a large caput succedaneum has now formed on the baby's head. Then, there is the mother who finally delivers her baby after a 36+ hour labor and is so fully exhausted by the ordeal that she has difficulty effectively bonding with her baby. What's more, the process of postpartum involution is frequently delayed by a protracted labor; furthermore, mothers may suffer from urinary tract infections due to the prolonged pressure upon (and swelling of) the anterior vaginal wall. Oh, did I fail to mention all those nifty lacerations?"

SAID BY A MIDWIFE: "I would love to see this picture changed. As a midwife, it is my goal to do everything that I can to help the mother to achieve an optimum birth outcome, to use my skills to alleviate unnecessary pain and suffering and to help a new family begin in safety, peace and joy".



Yes, it's a land 'down-under' where women go and make "thunder"

Monday, January 12, 2015

'Tulling' it LIKE it is...

This Jethro Tull  (February 21, 1674 - 1741) was most certainly NOT thick as a brick, given that he was highly instrumental in bringing about the British Agricultural Revolution. A true 'pioneer of sorts' [who never wore an aqualung, I might add], he perfected a more economically efficient horse-drawn seed drill in 1701 whereby seeds were sowed in neat little rows. Later, he also developed a horse-drawn hoe. Tull's farming talents were quickly implemented by the landed gentry, thus paving the way for the genesis of modern agriculture. This amazing revolution had great potential to guarantee the future success of agriculture as a whole.




But did he hum any catchy tunes
or ever whistle while he worked?

Play the flute perhaps?

















Imagine a virtual passion play down on the farm!

               ALL IN ALL, THOUGH, THE ORIGINAL WAS A GOOD TEACHER!



Thursday, January 8, 2015

VITRIOLIC BASENESS

...ends in its own

sordid soliloquy


Sorry, Charlie 



"Speech or publications that disparage or ridicule a person (or class of persons) based on an incontrovertible characteristic (e.g., race, origin, gender, sexual orientation, disability, age), or an occupation... or family/marital status... or religion (or lack thereof) must be firmly and fairly discouraged. Excluding blatant 'hate communication' in a very broad sense [from the otherwise positive attributes of free speech] would, more than likely, both cultivate and promote a far more inclusive, tolerant, and safer society".


L.P.-G.