Did Michael Jackson die of obstructive sleep apnea?

Because it takes six-to-eight weeks for toxicology reports to be completed, it may be that long before we have a definitive answer on the cause of Michael Jackson’s death. But there is one likely cause that I believe cannot be detected by autopsy: obstructive sleep apnea. And I think the combination of sedating drugs and obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) may turn out to be the cause of Jackson’s death — although I doubt that the complicating factor of undiagnosed OSA will even be considered by the coroner.

This is a shame because I think the combination of sedating drugs and OSA is what really caused the deaths of Heath Ledger, Anna Nicole Smith, John Belushi,  Judy Garland and Marilyn Monroe.

In obstructive sleep apnea, the throat collapses totally and seals the airway so that no air gets through to the lungs. People who witness this hear silence instead of the sound of breathing, then usually look to see if the sleeper has motions of breathing. When they see motions of breathing, they assume the sleeper is OK. Actually, they are watching the sleeper beginning to die. However, usually as the oxygen level in the blood falls, the brain sends a sharp signal to wake up, which causes the sleeper’s body to jerk and the airway to open. The opening of the airway is usually accompanied by the sound of a snore.

What happens when the sleeper with OSA is in very advanced stages of the illness, or has taken sedating drugs or alcohol, is that the apneas become so long or so frequent that the body’s feedback system based on the balance between the levels of oxygen and carbon dioxide in the blood causes the brain NOT to send signals to breathe. In effect, the brain has a procedure for shutting down the body in a sequence that ends in death. Apneas caused by the failure of the brain to send the signal to breathe are called central apneas. (BiPAP ST respirators can detect central apneas and prompt breathing, but there is no other treatment for central apneas.)

I would source everything I’m saying, but I’m late for an appointment and I know all of this because I have OSA and it nearly killed me and also my father. It’s been a long road back.

Obstructive sleep apnea is one of the top under-diagnosed conditions because it was only discovered in the late 1970’s in the course of research on sudden infant death syndrome. The treatment of a CPAP respirator was not developed until the 1980’s. And sleep research in general is still a very young field and the specialists whose fields treat conditions that may have their source in OSA or another sleep disorder do not read sleep medicine journals.

This is particularly a problem when it comes to the relationship between cardiology and sleep medicine. For example, the first research connecting OSA as the cause of idiopathic congestive heart failure was published in 1996. My father has this condition and I’ve gotten him an extra six years of productive life by getting his OSA treated with a CPAP, and later, BiPAP, respirator, plus a pacemaker in December 2008 at the age of 92.

Other heart conditions that research shows are caused by OSA are atrial fibrillation and intractable high blood pressure. If you’re wondering about the connection, imagine the strain on your heart when you continue to go through the motions of breathing when your airway has collapsed and is sealed shut. (I was going to ask you to try to breathe while holding your hand over your mouth, but it is possible that some people could die trying that experiment, so just use your imagination.)

Other conditions that go along with untreated OSA are migraines and a ferocious amount of joint and generalized body pain. (I don’t have research for the second one, just my personal experience. However, fibromyalgia may be caused by a sleep disorder associated with alpha waves occurring during deep sleep when they shouldn’t.)

The bottom line is that OSA can cause depression and a lot of pain, and doctors may treat those symptoms with drugs that depress the breathing center. In Michael Jackson’s case, he is reported to have had the painful condition of lupus and a variety of other aches and pains that required Demerol. If Jackson had undiagnosed OSA, then it is far more likely that ordinary doses of pain medications could have led to his death, especially if he was exceptionally tired for any reason, such as rehearsing for his comeback tour. (By the way, if Jackson slept alone that was another factor dooming him, because there was no one to notice his symptoms or complain about his snoring and haul him to a sleep specialist.)

The foundation for my speculation is that just before my own diagnosis of OSA, I was in some of the worst pain of my life. I took one Percocet and woke up after such a long apneic episode with so many symptoms of cardiac distress that I had to call 911. I spent three days in the hospital getting heart tests and an angiogram before heart disease was ruled out. The cardiologist was stumped. The answer came two weeks later during my sleep study when my symptoms of OSA were so severe the tech got permission to switch to titrating the pressure for my respirator the first minute he could.

I hope my readers with symptoms like heart arrhythmias, chronic migraines, atrial fibrillation, intractable high blood pressure, idiopathic congestive heart failure, depression and hypothyroidism (yes! research suggests half of people with hypothyroidism also have OSA) will consider discussing their symptoms with a sleep specialist, especially if they also have trouble sleeping and/or daytime sleepiness.

Update, 6/29/09: The British tabloid The Sun has published a story based on leaked info about Michael Jackson’s autopsy results. He was 5’10” tall but weighed only 112 lbs., 1 oz., at death. His stomach contained only half-digested pills. His body was covered with needle marks from being injected with pain medication three times a day for many years. It is reported he  had been barely eating for months. I now think the most likely cause of his death was failure to thrive, or inanition, due to his use of painkillers and assorted health problems.

I'm pretty sure the Venus of Hohle Fels is a dildo

Venus of Hohle Fels, photo by H. Jensen, copyright by University of Tubingen
Ancient dildo and fertility goddess: the Venus of Hohle Fels (side and front views), photo by H. Jensen, copyright by University of Tubingen.

I was skimming Instapundit when a link about the discovery of the most ancient musical instrument caught my eye. I play the bassoon, which is still pretty much a medieval instrument because its keywork needs a modern re-think. The bassoon is a descendent of the ancient double-reed instrument, the shawm. So I’m interested in ancient musical instruments.

Anyway, I clicked to investigate, and I advise you to do so, too, so you see the photo — I’ll wait. OK, so it looks like a transverse flute because of the size of the hole the farthest to the left.

BUT, the story ALSO links another story about the fertility goddess figurine called the Venus of Hohle Fels. I’ve seen pictures of these things in books since the 1970’s but not with anything that indicated their scale until I saw a British documentary a year or so ago with a smartass presenter who thought it was hilarious to talk about the Venus of Hohle Fels’ rarity and value while walking along tossing it up in the air and catching it, over and over. (Grrrrr!)

Anyway, as I watched and saw the size and shape of of the Venus of Hohle Fels, a flash went off in my head: fertility goddess, my ass, THAT’S A DILDO! Or, more likely, a fertility goddess used as a dildo. The image does not have a head because if it did, it would not fit well in the vagina — it would hurt. The little bump where a head should be seems to target the uterus.

Insights like this are why we need more women in science.

You’re welcome.

Most tasteless memorial to Michael Jackson

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I didn’t come up with this one. I’ve been toying with the idea of popping it up as a quick post for several days. I heard on NPR that Michael Jackson had been found in his rented mansion not breathing and that he had been taken to the hospital and was in a coma. I didn’t buy the story. When someone is found not breathing they usually are gone and by the time the EMTs arrive they are seriously dead. But the EMTs will go through the motions until they get the body to a hospital for a doctor to pronounce death.

With all his money, Michael Jackson could not buy happiness, although happiness actually IS for sale now and is surprisingly affordable. I’ll be posting on where to shop for it in a week or so.

I do believe Michael was a child molester, but from the little I know about his life he never got to be a child himself and was treated harshly, to put it mildly. On top of that, I believe a cruel and rigid religion that invalidated him as a gay man able to mature in his own sexuality — which is the only way anyone matures — thereby foreclosed his chances of figuring out how to become the genuinely good man I suspect he wanted to be.

I do not condone any of the bad things Michael Jackson did and I won’t play his music or buy his albums. However, weighing the atrocities committed against Jackson versus the ones he committed, I find they are two sides of the same coin. Forced heterosexuality does more harm than good. And the man was abused himself as a child, emotionally and physically. I never thought I would feel this way, but I pray for Michael’s soul to forgive and be forgiven and to be cradled and comforted like the child he never got to be in the bosom of a loving God.

P.S.

Instapundit has more on the false hope that a home defibrillator could have saved Michael Jackson’s life. Brain damage starts four or five minutes after the heart stops because the brain is deprived of oxygen when the heart isn’t pumping to circulate the blood. That is an extremely small window of opportunity and it was probably shut by the time Jackson’s body was discovered and definitely shut by the time the EMTs arrived.

P.P.S.

Michelle Malkin also has compassion for Michael Jackson here.

P.P.P.S.

I was wrong about never being able to enjoy Michael Jackson’s music again. Recently I wrote how important the music of Cris Williamson and Meg Christian was to me personally in building my courage to be a lesbian in the 1970’s when that was far more dangerous than it is now. The people of Iran protesting the election fraud and fighting for their freedom have redeemed Michael Jackson’s music for me. Gateway Pundit has the story and YouTube video that they have adopted Michael Jackson’s song “Beat It” as their anthem.

Update, 6/28/2009: Writer Ian Halperin has an extensively researched story in the Mail Online (from the Daily Mail newspaper in the U.K.) on Michael Jackson. He reports Jackson was gay, but not a child molester:

I had started my investigation convinced that Jackson was guilty [of child molestation]. By the end, I no longer believed that.

I could not find a single shred of evidence suggesting that Jackson had molested a child. But I found significant evidence demonstrating that most, if not all, of his accusers lacked credibility and were motivated primarily by money.

Jackson also deserved much of the blame, of course. Continuing to share a bed with children even after the suspicions surfaced bordered on criminal stupidity.

He was also playing a truly dangerous game. It is clear to me that Michael was homosexual and that his taste was for young men, albeit not as young as Jordan Chandler or Gavin Arvizo.

In the course of my investigations, I spoke to two of his gay lovers, one a Hollywood waiter, the other an aspiring actor. The waiter had remained friends, perhaps more, with the singer until his death last week. He had served Jackson at a restaurant, Jackson made his interest plain and the two slept together the following night. According to the waiter, Jackson fell in love.

The actor, who has been given solid but uninspiring film parts, saw Jackson in the middle of 2007. He told me they had spent nearly every night together during their affair – an easy claim to make, you might think. But this lover produced corroboration in the form of photographs of the two of them together, and a witness.

Other witnesses speak of strings of young men visiting his house at all hours, even in the period of his decline. Some stayed overnight.

When Jackson lived in Las Vegas, one of his closest aides told how he would sneak off to a ‘grungy, rat-infested’ motel – often dressed as a woman to disguise his identity – to meet a male construction worker he had fallen in love with.

I am quoting this story because it clears Jackson of the suspicions of child molestation and also because it definitively states he was gay. I believe Jackson is an example of the torture gays endure due to being unequal in terms of civil rights and deliberately stigmatized for a being crime by religions. He also is an example of how that torture twists people instead of making them straight. Because Jackson became famous so young, and was a member of a church that disfellowships members who TALK to homosexuals (Margaret’s sister belongs to this religion), he had to hide his sexual orientation or risk losing his fame, fortune and family. To feel trapped into having to live a life divided and thwarted like that and constantly fearful of discovery is more painful than I can describe. It’s no wonder he took so many pain medications.

Yoo-hoo! Gay Democrats! Republicans now are the party of tolerance and equality and diversity — who'da thunk it?

It might seem counter-intuitive that I’m choosing today to announce to gay and lesbian Democrats that Republicans now have THE party of tolerance, equality and diversity. I am taking quite the shellacking over a piece of mine at Pajamas Media entitled, “My Blissful Gay Marriage.” Around noon or so, Eastern Time, it was dropping down the story column. Then I checked back around 4 pm and it had so many comments, along with the anti-gay-marriage piece it was paired with, that both were promoted above the fold again. (!)

I read the first 30 or so comments, which were mostly negative, and posted a comment linking my post here that has photos from the full span of my relationship with my late life partner. Then I decided to let the commenters work things out amongst themselves until tomorrow. But also, it was more nastiness and cruelty than I could stand after being up most of the night fixing some technical snafus here that had to be corrected before this story was published since they involved the photos of Margaret and me. (However, I am amused that comment-wise, I’m winning by about two-to-one, although that seems to be because more people want to, um, set me straight, as it were, than want to congratulate the other guy for his timeless wit and wisdom)

So, anyway, you’d think I’d be all in my foxhole, or depressed, or angry.

Actually, I feel elated and blissful.

What has me so elated is the Big Picture. While there are very vocal and hurtful people on the Right who insist that homosexuals should be second-class citizens and they propagate assorted libels and/or feel entitled to have the state enforce the tenets of their religion, I know that there ALSO are big shots on the Right — the biggest is Dick Cheney, but there are more — who do support equality for homosexuals, including marriage equality. The Big Picture is that we are having this discussion on the Right AND that pro-equality conservative and Republican homosexuals, including me, are included in the discussion.

On the Left, from the Democrats and liberals, I would get a whole lot of, “We support you, but not in any practical way, because our black and Latin constituencies hate you and want you dead and will leave us if we do anything in support of your equality. Maybe some day, some far off, ever-receding day — but right now, shut up, give us all your money and here’s our list of work you can do to advance the interests of people who are indifferent or hateful toward you. Because we have you trapped. Where else are you going to go? TO THE REPUBLICANS? BWA-HA-HA-HA-HA!!!”

Well, my dear angry lesbian and gay Democrats, you have my personal invitation to come on over to the Republican Party and fiscal conservatism. We homosexuals are so accustomed to having to create our own jobs and make our own way, we are the natural constituents of fiscal conservatism, anyway. And, as I pointed out in another post, Republicans understand marriage. We only have one thing to persuade them of — that our equality should be recognized by law. With Democrats, we have to sell them on marriage, first, and our equality second — but by then they’ve forgotten all about why marriage is so important, so it’s an exercise in futility. Read more here.

Another thing — conservatives and Republicans respect individualism — which, it so happens, we homosexuals have in abundance. The Republican party is your true home! Obama and the Democrats are just using and abusing you. Ditch them! Ditch them now! And come toward the light!

What Letterman is doing is mobbing, not humor — today's action to FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN targets sponsor Johnson & Johnson

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David Letterman’s attacks on Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her daughters on “The Late Show with David Letterman” on CBS on June 8 and 9, and his sham apologies on June 10 and June 15, are grounds for persuading CBS to fire him. He made degrading sexual remarks about Gov. Palin and joking about her daughter being raped in front of her. He played his insincere apologies for laughs and used them to throw salt in the wound. The bottom line is that his attacks were not only degrading to ALL women, but also were a warning to any politician he disagrees with that he will treat them — and their children — the same way. His behavior is sexist because his remarks were degrading and humiliating on the basis of female characteristics. What he did was bullying because he was humiliating an adversary who cannot fight back.

But what Letterman did also can be called mobbing.

Wikipedia cites the book Mobbing, Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace (p. 21, 2005) for the first use of the term being applied to animal behavior:

“In the sixties, the eminent Austrian ethologist Konrad Lorenz used the English term mobbing to describe the behaviour that animals use to scare away a stronger, preying enemy. A number of weaker individuals crowd together and display attacking behavior, such as geese scaring away a fox.”

Wikipedia notes that the Royal Society for Protection of Birds describes mobbing as it is done by birds:

Mobbing is a noisy, obvious form of behaviour that birds engage in to defend themselves or their offspring from predators. When a predator is discovered, the birds start to emit alarm calls and fly at the predator, diverting its attention and harassing it. Sometimes they make physical contact. Mobbing usually starts with just one or two birds, but may attract a large number of birds, often of many species. For example, a chorus of different alarm calls coming from the same tree is often a good sign of a roosting owl or a cat.

Mobbing behaviour has been recorded in a wide range of species, but it is particularly well developed in gulls and terns, while crows are amongst the most frequent mobbers. In addition to flying at the predator and emitting alarm calls, some birds, such as fieldfares and gulls, add to the effectiveness by defecating or even vomiting on the predator with amazing accuracy… [my emphasis].

Wikipedia notes:

Research into the phenomenon [of mobbing by humans] was pioneered in the 1980’s by German-born Swedish scientist Heinz Leymann, who borrowed the term from animal behavior due to it describing perfectly how a group can attack an individual based only the negative covert communications from the group.

… German, Polish and several other European languages have adopted mobbing as a loanword to describe all forms of bullying including that by single persons. The resultant German verb mobben can also be used for physical attacks, calumny against teachers on the internet and intimidation by superiors, with an emphasis on the victims’ continuous fear rather than the perpetrators’ will to exclude them.

… in workplace psychology [mobbing] narrowly refers to “ganging up” by others to harass and intimidate an individual.

Mobbing is also found in school systems and this too was discovered by Dr. Heinz Leymann. Although he preferred the term bullying in the context of school children, some have come to regard mobbing as a form of group bullying. It is interesting to note that a German born doctor practicing in Sweden chose the English term “Mobbing” to describe this social phenomenon. As professor and practicing psychologist, Dr. Leymann also noted one of the side-effects of Mobbing is Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and is frequently misdiagnosed. After making this discovery he successfully treated thousands of mobbing victims at his clinic in Sweden.

In the book MOBBING: Emotional Abuse in the American Workplace, the authors say that mobbing is typically found in work environments that have poorly organized production and/or working methods and incapable or inattentive management and that mobbing victims are usually “exceptional individuals who demonstrated intelligence, competence, creativity, integrity, accomplishment and dedication.” [Emphasis mine.]

For the sake of emphasis, let me repeat the most important points:

  1. Mobbing is a form of bullying by a group to  harass and intimidate an individual.
  2. The intent is to drive away the individual.
  3. Mobbing starts with one or two persons sounding the call to alert the group to attack.
  4. Mobbing typically originates among groups “that have poorly organized production and/or working methods and incapable or inattentive management” — this doesn’t always define liberals and liberalism because they can organize grievances extremely well, but I can’t resist taking the shot.
  5. “… Mobbing victims are usually ‘exceptional individuals who demonstrated intelligence, competence, creativity, integrity, accomplishment and dedication.,”
  6. One of the side effects of mobbing for the mobbing victim is post-traumatic stress disorder.

What Letterman was mobbing and he did it to Gov. Palin, her teen-age daughters, to all women, and to both the male and female conservatives and/or Republican in the public arena with whom he disagrees. He can’t be dismissed as one individual trying to destroy just a few women because HE WAS TALKING TO AN AUDIENCE OF MILLIONS OF PEOPLE AND INCITING THEM TO BEHAVE THE SAME WAY TOWARD THE SAME TARGETS.

We must and can defend ourselves with a consistent, persistent campaign as described here (my “Fire David Letterman Kit,” part two) and here (HillBuzz on the importance of persistence) and here (www.firedavidletterman.com, a list of the sponsors and contact info) to GET DAVID LETTERMAN FIRED NOW. Getting David Letterman fired is our notice that the sexism, the bullying and the mobbing of Letterman and his ilk are career suicide — since they are not refraining from these tactics because they are wrong.

We must persist in persuading Letterman’s sponsors to pull their ads, convincing celebrity guests to refuse to appear on his show and informing CBS that the ONLY cure for their hemorraging money and prestige is to FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN!

P.S.

Hot Air has the latest scoop on sponsors that have dropped Letterman.

And Big Hollywood seems to have had the scales fall from its eyes regarding Letterman by the end of the week — or Eric Golub has, because he’s a long-time fan who is now saying, “Dave, You’re Fired.”

As Stacy McCain noted “On Relentlessness,” over at The Other McCain, yes, I am, and you will be, too, when we win this battle and you learn for yourself how good it feels to know you’ve gained the knowledge for life of how you can make the bullies stop.

P.P.S.

I just checked my e-mail and found the following e-mail from Michael Patrick Leahy of FireDavidLetterman.com stating that the focus on Monday, June 22, is on getting Johnson & Johnson to stop advertising on “The Late Show with David Letterman”:

Subject: Start Calling Johnson & Johnson first thing tomorrow morning 973-385-4370

Please rev up your phones and emails!

Tomorrow, (Monday, June 22, 2009) all day, starting at 8 am EDT we will be targeting Letterman advertiser Johnson & Johnson exclusively.

Here are the numbers to call and email addresses :

Johnson & Johnson (Listerine. KY Brand, and Aveeno)

Main Number: 1-888-222-0182 (Johnson & Johnson Healthcare Products)

Kristina Chang, Public Relations, 973-385-4370, kchang12@conus.http://www.facebook.com/l/;jnj.com

Steve Schonberg, Edelman PR, 212-704-4494, stephen.schonberg@edelman.com

Please be polite and respectful, but make your point:

Our message:

We are asking Johnson & Johnson to make a public statement on Monday, June 22, that the company is stopping ALL advertising on “The Late Show with David Letterman” immediately until CBS has held Mr. Letterman to the same degree of accountability to which the company held Don Imus.

Until Johnson & Johnson makes such a public statement, our message to them is clear. We won’t buy their products and we will make a point of going into every grocery store in the country and telling that same message to the manager of the local grocery store.

Please email me or message me here with the responses you receive from Johnson & Johnson. My email is michaelpatrickleahy@gmail.com .

We’re targeting Johnson & Johnson on Monday, rather than Kellogg’s for one very simple reason: Over the last 2 weeks, Johnson & Johnson has been the single largest advertiser on “The Late Night Show with David Letterman.”

Friday night, June 19, they ran spots for Listerine, KY Brands, AND Aveeno, and have been regularly running spots on Letterman since Wednesday June 10.

Kellogg’s ran a Mini-Wheats spot on June 11, and we know they didn’t run spots on June 12, 15, 16, and 19. We don’t have data on the 17th and 18th for Kellogg’s yet. So, for the time being, we’re giving Kellogg’s the benefit of the doubt.

Thanks for all your help on this important project!

Best Regards,

Mike

(Note: I fixed punctuation in Mike’s e-mail and inserted the full name of Letterman’s show.)

Mr. Cellophane looks right through them and never knows their names

Mr. Cellophane is visible to the women in his league, who pine because he looks right through them.

I had that thought quite awhile ago, but it came to mind again because I was listening to Samantha Who? in the kitchen just now while I was doing the dishes and actress Melissa McCarthy’s character, Dena, talked about her dog, Mr. Cellophane. I loved the cast and characters of Samantha Who?, especially Christina Applegate, who played Samantha; Jean Smart, who played Samantha’s mother; Jennifer Esposito, who played Samantha’s evil friend, Andrea; and McCarthy. The premise that an amnesiac can come back as a nicer person and have some cleaning up of her past to do was creative and poignant. Something similar happened to our veterinarian’s son, who was a very young child in the 1965 when we first began to bring our animals to be treated by his father. (What can I say? We live in a small town and are loyal.) He was a forest ranger and thus in the forest during a storm. A bolt of lightning hit a tree and a good chunk of it fell on him.

Ironically, I hear thunder nearby and it has just started to pelt down rain, so that’s it for now.

Oh, what a beautiful morning!

It was such a sparkling morning early this morning that I had my father sit on the porch to enjoy the view of the trees and clear blue sky. He is an expert birdwatcher and enjoyed seeing male and female cardinals fly back and forth across my heirloom tomato garden and perch on the deer fence, first on one side and then on the other. His favorite cat, Remington, a tuxedo puss, sat up straight next to his grandpa’s chair, with his chest puffed out, glaring balefully into the yard for any potential threat to his dear grandpa. My father has never in his life felt and been so loved by an animal, so every night when Remington attends him to bed he tells me, “I don’t care WHAT the preacher says, there’s a human soul in that cat.” I had the door open and could see them sitting together through the storm door in sociable communion with one another and the lovely scene before them as I passed back and forth getting all seven litter boxes scrubbed out and refilled with fresh cat litter.

It’s not quite the definition of bliss, but it’s a wonderful thing to KNOW you are happy when you are happy.

Or, as I used to say to Margaret — in my impression of cat language, which, according to me, seldom uses verbs — “Life good. Life good.”

In this meditation, we swat flies

I learned the Transcendental Meditation technique way back in February 1974 when I was in Ann Arbor at the University of Michigan. I’ll say more about its comprehensive benefits another time. Right now, I’ll say that my late life partner, Margaret Ardussi, was a highly respected TM teacher and that buying instruction in the TM technique was the best investment I’ve made in my life. I shudder to think what my life would have been like without it. (Notice I didn’t say “would be” — that’s because without the TM technique I probably would not have survived my 20’s.)

There are seven steps to learning the TM program, which was founded by Maharishi Mahesh Yogi. The first is an introductory lecture, which discusses the benefits of learning the technique for you as an individual and for society and the scientific research on these benefits. The second is a preparatory lecture, which discusses the origin of the technique and how it works. For people who decide to learn the TM technique, following the preparatory lecture there is a short personal interview with a certified TM teacher. In the fourth step, usually a day or two later, you are instructed in the TM technique.

Steps five, six and seven are are group meetings with all the people instructed on the same day. In the step five class, the TM teacher gives instructions and answers questions to ensure everyone is practicing the technique correctly. In the step six class, the TM teacher explains the mechanics of how TM works in more depth than step two because now he or she is talking to people who have experienced it. In the step seven class, the TM teacher explains the characteristics of higher states of consciousness and how they develop. (I’ll be writing posts about that.) Oh, and there’s a free life-time follow-up program, too.

A couple of the things people sometimes worry about when they first learn the TM technique is whether they can look at their watch while practicing the technique (yes, no problem) and how to deal with distractions.

So, back in 1974, when the teacher leading my follow-up classes was asked, “What should we do if there’s a fly?”

He smiled and said, “Maharishi says, ‘In this meditation, we swat flies.'”

It makes me smile every time I remember it. I can’t think why I keep thinking about it every time I’ve watched the news over the last couple of days, though.

P.S.

I almost forgot — the price to learn the TM technique has been temporarily reduced! And there are couples’ and family rates and student rates and senior citizen rates — really, I don’t know how the organization is able to function with such low rates.

I have absolutely no patience with people who complain that if TM is so good, why does it cost money, or cost so much money, or whatever. The original price of the TM technique was to be a man, give up all your worldly possessions, be celibate and join an ashram. THEN, hope that the guru leading the ashram knew the technique AND would teach it to you.

P.P.S.

The TM technique is effortless and very pleasant to do. It does not require you to sit a certain way. You do not have to change your diet. It works whether or not you believe it will work. It is unique among meditation techniques, which is explained in the second lecture. It is NOT a religion and does not compete with any religion. The foremost researcher on the effects of the TM program on the individual and society is Dr. David Orme-Johnson and he has letters about practicing TM written by people of different religions here.

P.P.P.S.

Tomorrow I will resume my regularly scheduled programming aimed at persuading CBS to FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN. I’ll also be writing a post explaining what mobbing is and why what Letterman is doing is really inciting a mob, not doing comedy.

Why what Letterman did was bullying, mobbing and hostage-taking — FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN!!!

The “FIRE DAVID LETTERMAN” campaign is making for some very strange bedfellows, indeed, what with the post yesterday by Rick Moran over at Rightwing Nuthouse praising my determination to GET DAVID LETTERMAN FIRED NOW!!!

I have to take my 93-year-old father to the doctor — relax, just to get some moles that are bugging him removed — so I have to make this quick. I made a comment at Rick’s and wondered what his peeps had to say about it. Turns out one of them — probably more — can’t figure out what Letterman did that was bullying.

Oh. My. God!

Here’s what I wrote:

Rick,

Thanks for blogrolling me! I cheered when I saw it! Re pissing me off tomorrow — right back atcha, my dear, right back atcha! XOXOXO!

#35: Ridicule on its face is a type of bullying. I’m shocked I have to explain to anyone that what Letterman did is bullying. ALL of it was bullying, except for the hostage-taking explained below.

Michelle Malkin’s piece on Letterman (search her site, linked on mine) included Letterman’s long rant developing the “slutty flight attendant” theme — THAT was bullying. And you know, I just realized, another thing that makes what Letterman did bullying is that Gov. Palin — and all of his other targets, this isn’t a victim rant — are powerless to stop him and do not have the access he has to create a mob and sic them on everyone he hates. So — now that I think about it — Letterman’s behavior is bullying, mobbing (Google it, it’s a word) AND hostage-taking. You read it here, first, folks (and I’ve put so much time into this I’m copying it to post on my blog).

Going after someone’s children flies past bullying into hostage taking, as I point out at my blog. It is notice to anyone courageous enough to take the battering that goes with public life that it will extend to their family members, too. For most people, the thought of exposing their children to attacks is horrifying. And that is the intent of the people like Letterman who do this: to destroy their enemies and drive them out of the political marketplace. It is an extremely effective technique. I got run out of the lesbian community in the 1990’s, as I mention in a recent post, because Margaret was assaulted at a conference when I was 15 or 20 feet away from her and couldn’t move fast enough to intervene. The reporter from a Baltimore gay newspaper thought nothing of the assault and did not — actually, refused — to report it. Margaret, my late life partner, was quadriplegic due to multiple sclerosis. So there isn’t anyone these loons are above attacking.

We must fight back. We must stop the bullying. We must start with Letterman. We must win. Instructions are posted on my blog.

Cynthia