Ukraine's Dream of a Thousand Years

As a Ukrainian-American on my father's side and Ukrainian-Canadian on my mother's, I cringed at Vladmir Putin's outrageous lies about Ukrainian history. It was a relief to read author-journalist David A. Andelman's rebuke of Putin (CNN 2/22): “Putin's address manufactured a succession of events that bear little resemblance to the real, rich history of a powerful, independent Ukraine that for centuries dwarfed an independent Russia in importance, even size. The independent Ukrainian ethnicity dates back a thousand years...” Indeed, the Ukrainian Cossack (“free man”) Hetmanate was one of the earliest operating democracies. In the mid-1600s it fought against domination by its neighbor to the west, Poland. Polish kings used the Zaporozhian Cossacks to protect their borders, returning the favor with treachery and oppression. Desperate to get out from under that domination, the founder of the Hetmanate, Bohdan Khmelnytsky, signed a pact with Tsar Alexis in Moscow. This Pereyaslav Agreement of 1654 promised wide autonomy for Ukrainians. But treachery prevailed again. For the next couple generations the Russian Tsars used the Cossacks as soldiers and stole the Ukrainian grain, robbed its treasury, turned peasants into serfs, and used Ukrainian towns as a buffer against attacks from Turks and Mongols. Hetman Ivan Mazepa may have tried to balance Ukrainian interests with Russian demands at the Romanov court in the late 1600s, but mostly failed. He was dealing with Peter I (Peter the Great) who had outsize demands and ego. Another Cossack leader rose to the challenge. Peter Ivanenko Petryk went to the Crimea to raise Tatar troops for a rebellion against Mazepa. In 1691 Petryk wrote: "If you do not rise for your freedom now then you can be sure that you will lose it forever, that you will remain slaves of Moscow, and that there will be no one in the future to champion your case."   (Ukrainian Weekly, January 19, 1942, p. 3) Many Cossacks joined his cause. Hetman Mazepa himself hoped to use Petryk to reach an pact with Crimea and kick the Muscovites out of Ukraine. But when troop strength looked insufficient, he betrayed Petryk. “He not only withdrew his possible support but also denounced it and took steps to quell it,” according to Ukrainian Weekly. Ironically, Mazepa later rebelled when Peter I ordered Cossacks to perform unsuitable tasks and let the Russian army abuse Ukraine’s civilian population. He saw his chance when Russia was at war with Sweden, joining Swedish King Charles XII with 3,000 to 5,000 Cossack troops instead of going to the aid of the Russians as expected (October 1708). In the end, however, Mazepa and Charles together could not defeat the Russians at Poltava the following summer. The Cossack Hetmanate was abolished by Catherine the Great in 1765. Over the next 300 or so years the Ukrainians have tried to throw off one yoke after another. The Ukrainian yearning for freedom was expressed by the nation's most celebrated poet, Taras Shevchenko. In 1847 Russians sent him into exile and forced military service for writing the poems “The Dream,” “The Caucasus,” and “The Epistle,” which satirized Russia's oppression of Ukraine. My great grandfather, living near Lviv, Ukraine, was conscripted into the Austrian army during World War I. Then it was Nazis. First the Ukrainians welcomed them as liberators, then learned the awful truth. In 1932-33, Stalin starved nearly 4 million Ukrainians in an effort to quell their nationalism. Later the Soviet Union used the resources of Ukraine, often called the Breadbasket of Europe, stripping, pillaging and polluting the country. Because the Soviets kept their people captive, my grandmother was never able to meet her younger sister. The freedom that came with the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 was a dream of a thousand years.

TPP trade pact about to upstage democracy

By Diane Petryk
(first posted by Disinfo.com Oct. 1, 2013)

Imagine. While some of us are working to curtail fracking, assure GMO labeling, promote various green and buy-local initiatives, protect Internet freedom,  bolster  labor rights, enforce banking regulations, behind our backs our president, Barack Obama,  is working to make all those efforts moot.

I am not making this up, even if you haven’t heard of it yet.

It is the Trans Pacific Partnership trade pact, only the TPP isn’t just a trade agreement.  It slays safety regulations and labor protections, curtails communication freedoms, and re-writes domestic laws of the participating countries.  It’s been called a mass assault on democracy and the biggest, most sinister corporate power grab yet.

The reason you haven’t heard of it is two-fold.  All the negotiations, since 2008, have been going on behind thick closed doors and the major media outlets have apparently found it too hard to get a whiff and a sniff.  Or, they’re in on it. Why the secrecy? At least one Congressman, Rep. Alan Grayson, D-Fla., who did manage to get a peek at a draft, as long as he promised not to reveal its contents, said it must be kept secret or the people would never stand for it. But representatives of 600 major corporations, who are in on the negotiations, love it.

That’s because, according to Kevin Zeese, co-director of popularresistance.org, it gives major corporations  unprecedented power. Now, according to our U.S. Constitution, Congress has the authority to regulate trade, so why worry? Because, there’s a way to get around that and Obama is trying to use it. Just this month (Sept.), the President pressured Congress to grant him extra-constitutional authority, known as “Fast Track,” to complete the TPP without congressional scrutiny. “Fast Track” would have Congress voting up or down on the massive document without any power to discuss or amend any of it. 

This is an arcane procedure devised by Richard Nixon, according to Public Citizen’s Lori Wallach, “but that was when trade negotiations covered only real trade stuff.”

Wallach describes Fast Track as a “legislative luge run.” There have been trade agreements that underwent and survived congressional scrutiny, she said. “You only need Fast Track to shove something through Congress, something that is bad for the country.” She suggests all of us contact our Congressmen and Senators and urge them not to abrogate their authority over trade.  So does the Green Shadow Cabinet. People must do their own research on this because the major media outlets aren’t taking it on. There are sporadic articles, but where’s that New York Times or Washington Post thoroughness gone?

TPP is a profoundly important matter, but those who want it — think any old sweat shop proprietor up to an including Monsanto — have succeeded in keeping it quiet. A Google alert on the topic for the past three or four months has shown most reports are coming from the foreign press and obscure websites, with some exceptions. Last week (Sept. 19) TPP protestors dropped a banner from the Trade Building in Washington to protest the pact and its secret negotiations. The Post covered that – but didn’t really get into the issues. So here’s a bit of what they’re neglecting to say:

ANYTHING THAT INTERFERES WITH PROFITS WILL BE FORBIDDEN


TPP will vaporize any law that interferes with making money. You might want to label the country of origin of a food item, for instance.  Some Canadian beef got mad cow?  No matter. They won’t label it Canadian. That would cut into the exporter’s profits.   GMO? That would be discrimination. You like laws favoring U.S.-made goods? That would be a trade barrier. Prefer not to have your medicine from a foreign factory with lax safety standards. You won’t be able to know.  Food and medicine that would formerly be blocked for not meeting our standards will have a red carpet.

Obama originally wanted to exempt tobacco regulations.  Keep the warning labels. That has mostly gone by the wayside.  Nations can now argue about tobacco regulations that hamper sales. Doctors Without Borders has heard of TPP. Its members are doing the best they can to protest the plan. It promises to keep patents on medicines longer, which would make it harder to provide affordable drugs for impoverished countries and peoples.

One Michigan Congressman is working for a “Buy Local” law.  It won’t be enforceable. That would be discrimination against the far off producer under the TPP.  Who knows? Farmers Markets themselves might become illegal.

Zeese says the TPP is not about free trade, “it’s rigged trade.”  As he explains in this video, (http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?Itemid=74&id=31&jumival=10793&option=com_content&task=view) If you read no further, just watch this short commentary. TPP is designed to allow major corporations to dominate business, which will hurt smaller countries most.  It will enhance globalization-privatization at the expense of any public service model of government. Countries with laudable health care plans, like Japan, Australia and New Zealand, will be hard pressed to protect those plans. The TPP will ensure health care becomes only a commodity.

Still, most of the American and Canadian public doesn't know this deal is coming together. Some labor leaders have heard of it.  They say TPP will devastate an already devastated job market in the U.S.  Wallach pointed out that, in the latest round of negotiations, pressure is mounting for easy visas for workers to come to the U.S.   This will further deflate wages for American workers.  Jobs won’t have to be sent abroad for cheap labor –  the cheap labor will come to the jobs.

Zeese cites studies that show the TPP will deliver merely a 0.13 increase in GDP, while furthering the race to the bottom in wages. Ninety percent of American can expect to see their wages go down if the TPP happens, he says. I am sitting in Michigan where many of the flagship businesses and single proprietor stores I used to know are all boarded up.  Shopping centers are ghost towns.  Most of the middle class is gone. People struggle on ever lower wages and part time status, sans benefits.  A foreign employer could come in and make it even worse and under the TPP we would be helpless to protest.

Senator Elizabeth Warren, D-MA, holds that the pro-secrecy argument is specious. “I have heard the argument that transparency would undermine the Trade Representative’s policy to complete the trade agreement because public opposition would be significant,” she said. “In other words, if people knew what was going on, they would stop it. This argument is exactly backwards. If transparency would lead to widespread public opposition to a trade agreement, then that trade agreement should not be the policy of the United States.”

Grayson and Warren are Democrats, but this is a non-partisan issue. Republicans Michele Bachmann, R-MN, and Walter Jones, R-NC, have also spoken against the pact. It is hard to believe any thinking citizen without major corporate stock could see merit to the TPP.   We must have effective environmental laws, health and food safety laws, fight tobacco pushers, and the rest.

And, oh, I didn’t yet explain what TPP would do to Internet freedom, which is, after all, part and parcel of our essential Freedom of Speech.

In the US and Canada, elsewhere, too, probably, laws would have to change about copyright infringement. Currently we have laws that differentiate between private and for-profit use.  These would have to go.

Here’s the analysis of Global Trade Watch:
“Under this proposal, Internet Service Providers could be required to “police” user activity (i.e.police YOU), take down Internet content, and cut people off from Internet access for common user-generated content. Violations could be as simple as the creation of a YouTube video with clips from other videos, even if for personal or educational purposes. Mandatory fines could be imposed for individuals’ noncommercial copies of copyrighted material. So downloading some music could be treated the same as large scale for profit copyright violations. Innovation would be stifled as the creation and sharing of user generated content would face new barriers and as monopoly copyrights would be extended. The TPP proposes to impose copyright protections for a minimum of 20 years for corporate-created content. Breaking digital locks for legit purposes, such as using Linux, could subject users to mandatory fines. Blind and deaf people also would be harmed by the overreach, as digital locks can block access to audio supported content and closed captioning.”

Remember SOPA?  How the public outcry stopped this legislation that would have done similar?  Lets hope the same people are listening.

DISPUTES WILL EVADE LEGITIMATE COURTS

Disputes under this pact won’t go to court.  TPP people have got that rigged, too. The TPP creates an international tribunal. Its judges will be the lawyers and CEOS who wrote the TPP.  Everyone gets screwed– except the corporations and those people working for them. (And there will be disputes. Remember when, under NAFTA, the American firm Lone Pine Resources was set to sue Quebec for $250 million over the province’s fracking moratorium?)

As a taxpayer, would you want your money to pay out to an oil company or agricultural giant when it sues over expected profits disrupted by a health or environmental law? There’s more folks. If you want to look.

But one thing sums it up: The TPP is an assault on democracy. If unelected trade reps and corporate bullies can re-write our laws and make new ones impossible, what’s next?  World government by multi-national corporations?  You might say we’re already there and we just don’t know it.  I don’t think we should give up without a fight.  “Never Surrender” as Winston Churchill once said.   If we do, no longer will we have the right to insist what’s right trump what’s profitable.

###

Here are some additional items to check-out: The Sierra Club's factsheet on TPP at http://www.sierraclub.org/trade/downloads/TPP-Factsheet.pdf and the following articles by Green Shadow Cabinet members:

“FDA warning:” The TPP is a threat to your health and safety
By Ronnie Cummins, U.S. Food and Drug Administration Commissioner

The Rule of Law demands corporations be subordinate to government
By Kevin Zeese,, Popularresistance.org

Why the TPP is all about corporate power, not trade
By David Cobb, President’s Commission on Corporations and Democracy

Control over food is at stake with the TPP By Mark Dunlea, Jim Goodman, Brian Tokar ~ Ecology Branch

TPP: Global nightmare for democracy, workers rights and the 99%?
Bv Ray Rogers, International Labor Rights Advisor to the President

TPP, Pivot to Asia, raise war risks in Asia Pacific region
By Foreign Affairs Branch

The Trans-Pacific Partnership would increase poverty
By Rev. Bruce Wright, President’s Commission on Ending Homelessness

With TPP, Obama has moved from transparency to secrecy, from human rights to corporate rights
By Richard McIntyre, U.S. Trade Representative

The Trans-Pacific Partnership: Another assault on human rights that must be opposed
By Ajamu Baraka, Public Intervenor for Human Rights

The Top Secret deal between 11 countries that will affect your life
By Lee Camp, Commissioner for the Comedic Arts

The TPP is bad for business By Sarah Manski, Small Business Administration

Laughter Cements Parent-Child Bond

By DIANE PETRYK


PLATTSBURGH — Vince Higgins was a spontaneous laugh-maker when his daughters were growing up.

"I'd be driving down the street with the girls in the back seat and I'd say, 'That guy in that car over there doesn't look very happy — maybe I'd better sing.' And I'd start to roll the window down.

"Debbie, (she was about 8) would moan, 'You're not going to sing,' and she'd slink down in the seat, and Becca (who was about 7) would dissolve into laughter."

And that was before the singing.

At home, the girls sometimes play-act — sometimes they were singers.

"Pretend you're introducing me," one daughter would tell her father.

"Pretend we have other names."

"Pretend we're making a TV show."

Vince would attach a Kleenex box to the top of the upright vacuum cleaner and make believe it was a TV camera.

Pretty soon, everyone was laughing.

LOST LAUGHTER
Higgins' daughters are grown up now, and many in Plattsburgh know him only as "that funny guy at the Cornerstone Bookstore."

He's the one who gives post-it-note encouragement badges and will dance or wear a funny hat, Groucho glasses, a superhero cape or pretend he's secretly from "Planet Z."

Higgins gives customers a bonus — a laugh, the fun of special attention.

A report cited by Susan Kuczmarski, author of "The Sacred Flight of the Teenager: A Parent's Guide to Stepping Back and Letting Go," says children, on average, laugh about 400 times a day. Adults do so only about 15 times.

Why do 385 laughs disappear? Burdens of adult responsibilities and parenthood often sap us of our senses of humor. But it doesn't have to be that way. Parents don't have to come home and be the stern toddler police, middle-schoolers' misery makers and teenagers' constant nag. The sting of a rule, task or disappointment almost magically goes away with a laugh.

"Children are immediately attracted to an adult who's a competent guide and funny — someone who can set guidelines with warmth and immediately segue into something ridiculous," said Anna Maravelas, author of "How to Reduce Workplace Conflict and Stress."

INNER TREADMILL
Scientifically, we know that two things are guaranteed to make us feel better in almost any circumstance: exercise and laughter. Exercise is easy — you can go to the YMCA and swim laps or get on a machine or just run up a few flights of stairs.

Afterward, you have an enhanced sense of well-being.

Laughter is your inner treadmill, according to Debbie Mandel, author of the new book "Addicted to Stress: A Woman's 7 Step Program to Reclaim Joy and Spontaneity in Life."

Finding laughter doesn't seem as easy as swimming or running in place, but it can be.

Use everyday experiences, Kuczmarski advises.

"I look at my 15-year-old son, John, as he kindly carries bags and bags of groceries and packages out of our car, and I say, 'I love you more than a bunch of bananas!' We laugh. He's still feeling the heavy load, so I add, "I love you more than two dozen oranges."

Higgins, also an actor and official "encourager," has studied a bit about human nature and what makes us laugh. He had a 25-year career in marketing and communications with major corporations, and he's done local and regional theater and one PBS movie. Laughter, he says, can come naturally.

"Start with yourself," he said. "Find something to laugh at in yourself first. Then just act a little bit silly.

IN AN INSTANT
"If your kids are in the Winnie-the-Pooh stage, talk slow and pretend you're Eeyore," he said.

"Do some simple magic tricks. You don't have to be a magician to please little kids."

"Do simple stuff. Funny faces. Make a move that's a little stupid.

"Go out and come back wearing a funny wig or hat. They'll laugh their heads off."

"To learn how to laugh," Mandel said, "observe your children playing with other children — see how easily they smile and don't stay angry for long. ... Play with their stuffed animals and dolls — have that tea party. And puppets work — put a sock on each hand, and you have puppets. You look funny to begin with wearing socks on your hands; the dialogue is up to you."

Laughter is the secret to that sometime elusive "quality time" parents and kids are supposed to have.

"It's a bonder," Higgins said.News

"Laughter is a powerful emotion adjuster. It lightens, soothes, even dissolves difficult feelings," Kuczmarski said.

Indeed, laughter now may make the difference later between older teens and young adults avoiding mom or dad and wanting to spend time with them.

The beauty of it is, laughter isn't something you have to make time for, like driving the kids to soccer practice. It can happen in an instant, anywhere, anytime.

If you drop a tomato at the supermarket and it goes splat, say: "Oh, change of menu: we're having tomato soup tonight."

"Opportunities for laughter are out there," Higgins says, "They're just cleverly disguised as problems."


###

Live Long and Prosper

this article was first published in the Press Republican, Plattsburgh, NY)


By DIANE PETRYK

PLATTSBURGH — Getting a
guy to notice you isn’t always
easy. You’re shy. He’s shy. What
do you do?

Renata Fromme, who got noticed and to
the altar, got help from
the Federation. At least in the
form of a Lake Placid Star Trek
Club member.

Here’s the data:

Renata, 18, of Queens, first
met Jean-Marc Di Battista, 21,
of Montreal, in a summer
library-skills class at
Plattsburgh State. They were
randomly tossed together as
partners in a homework
assignment, but Library 101 left
them in the Neutral Zone.

In the fall they were, by
chance, in the same public speaking
class. Their teacher,
Kathleen Duley, was scheduled
to host a pledge break at the
Mountain Lake PBS station. She
decided to make the trip a prime
directive for everyone in the
class.

Most students manned the
phones, taking pledge calls,
including Renata. From where
she sat, she had a good view of
Jean-Marc, filling in as a
volunteer camera operator.
(He hopes to go into broadcast
news. She’s majoring in hotel
and restaurant management.)
Renata said she was attracted
by his sense of humor. “And , to
be honest, that French accent.”

By the end of the day she knew
she wanted to see more of him.
But his hailing frequencies
weren’t open.

“I was too shy,” Jean-Marc
admitted. “I noticed she was
looking at me, but it didn’t click.”

At the end of the day, the
volunteers, which included
members of the Star Trek club,
went to the International House
of Pancakes.

Renata confided in Trekker
Cynthia Merrick.

Merrick decided to boldly go.
She came right out and said: “I
think she’s attracted to you.”

The rest is history.

Jean-Marc showed Renata
around Montreal. They visited
her parents in Queens. She
picked out a wedding dress.

They fell in love in a matter of
two months, Renata said.

She doesn’t think they got
there at warp speed.

“I don’t think we’re rushing,”
she said just before the wedding.

“Most couples go through an
awkward period, but we cut right
through that. The timing seems
right.”

Because they didn’t have a
church in common, and they
didn’t like the idea of a
courthouse wedding, they
decided to get married where
their attraction took hold: at the
Mountain Lake PBS station.

“And it was a great way to get
a free video of the wedding.”

The management of Mountain
Lake PBS said it hopes the
couple’s example will encourage
others to discover the benefits of
volunteering at the station.

Renata certainly understands
them. She always dreamed of
being a bride.

Saturday, Jean-Marc made it
so.
-30-

China's Real Olympics Over Sport of Hegemony

By Diane Petryk-Bloom

Lifestyle features that are filling the airwaves during lulls in Olympic coverage from Beijing have reported a fascinating fact: Chinese families that fled totalitarian rule and came to the United States are finding their children reversing the trend. Yes, some Chinese-Americans are returning to their homeland. They’re betting this will be the Chinese Century.

In the 19th Century, Britannia ruled the waves, presided over an empire on which the sun never set, and held the world in the grip of an uneasy peace. In the early 20th Century, starting after World War I and unmistakably after WWII, it was America’s turn to spread its influence and police many an international mess. In the words of Time/Life publisher Henry Luce, it was the “American Century.”

It is becoming increasing clear that the scepter is slipping form America’s hands. If we haven’t heard it hit the pavement yet, overextension of U.S. military forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, worldwide opprobrium, and daunting debt hint strongly that the clink is coming.

Which nation, if any, will pick it up? As this is written, Russia is stepping up it militarism against the former Soviet state of Georgia. Islamic people scattered across the globe, and out-reproducing the people of liberal western democracies, believe Allah is top god—and they don’t separate religion and politics. India grows in population and economic clout. China? Well no one is about to tell this nation of 1.3 billion to tear down its wall.

True, the Chinese do not enjoy democracy or personal rights as we know them in the west. But they have the freedom to make money now and that is fueling their enormous growth. If they are still restricted in many ways, their prison is so huge it almost doesn’t matter to them. We can’t expect them to overthrow their government. They are charging ahead as an unprecedented economic force.

Moreover, they may soon be staring down at us from the moon.

In 2006, China unveiled sweeping plans for lofting Earth orbiting satellites for a multitude of duties, expanding its human space flight abilities, and carrying out a multi-step program for lunar exploration

Future historians may have a laugh reporting that the US-Russian space race was won by the Chinese! For those who scorn such exploration for exploration’s sake, there’s the military advantage of the high ground to consider.

In fact, China nominated itself for world leader back in the 1990s. China called for “a new world order,” a new “peace” over which it would presumably preside.

Periods of peace imposed by a single superpower have often produced substantial benefits to nations roped into the sphere of influence of the overlord. Conquered, cowed, or allied countries have been able to take down their fortress walls, open up their societies, and concentrate on productivity instead of defense and warfare.

But there have also been considerable disadvantages for those who are squashed under the thumb of a megapower. The nation running the world gets to influence – or dictate – how its vassals think, govern, eat and speak. It has the privilege of sending troops into lesser lands at the slightest excuse – even a trumped up one if it needs what they have.

Life in those places can be quite cheap. The Athens of ultimate democracy – that of Pericles’ Golden Age – annihilated populations of entire city-states and razed their buildings to the ground when Athens’ leader felt such punishment was necessary to make a point. Cities in the Athenian League were allegedly independent allies, but woe be unto the ally that got out of line.

Rome in the golden days of the Pax Romana crucified 6,000 rebellious slaves alongside one of its greatest highways, the Appian Way. The victims acted as writing, moaning billboards advertising the penalties of civic unrest.

Russia, when it imposed its version of peace on a good part of Europe and Asia in the 20th century, did without Rome’s theatrical flair. It systematically starved the Ukraine into submission, sent tanks into the streets of Prague, invented the Gulag for political dissidents and writers and artists and anyone else inconveniently vocal.

Even the United States, probably one of the most benevolent hegemons of all time, trampled on weaker nations and propped up vile dictators as long as they were against communism. It wreaked havoc in the Philippines, Cuba, and snatched territory from Mexico and Spain. Increasingly it has been hard to deny the adventure in Iraq was for anything other than oil and profiteering.

The lesson of these histories is simple. The tight grip of a monolithic superpower frequently allows average folks to go about their daily business without fear that they will be hauled off to unrevealed prisons for undisclosed treatment without legal representation -- or that any random vehicle or mode of public transport may explode at any time.

Islamic extremists have been trying to put an end to such security, but by and large we still have them in this country.

If we want to keep them, we need the central superpower to be us.

China disagrees.

The Chinese are calling for an end to “hegemonism” –the Chinese and Soviet codeword for domination of the world by a single power. Yet all the signs are that China is positioning itself to be the next great hegemon. China has been recruiting nations in South America, the Middle East, and Asia for what it has specifically told each of them will be the “new world order,” one that will put an end to the “gunboat diplomacy,” neo-colonialism,” and the “hegemonism” of an unnamed rival power.

That unnamed power is the United States.

What the nature of a Chinese-run global peace would be, we will have to see. Odds are it won’t involve peace and freedom for Tibet or Taiwan. It probably won’t make Japan or South Korea feel comfortable to be in the neighborhood. It won’t allow a parent to protest the construction quality of a death-tap school or a monk to worship freely.

Here’s what China is laboring on:

They have put big bucks into more than Olympic venues and displays. According to Jane’s Information Group, the world’s top gatherer of military hardware data, they are funding “leapfrog” military technologies.

The Chinese have long had a large nuclear arsenal mounted on some of the world’s most powerful Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles and packaged in sophisticated MIRVed warheads (MIRV stands for “multiple independently-targeted reentry vehicle” – a device that allows one rocket to carry a cluster of nuclear bombs, each aimed at a different city). But the Chinese count on this nuclear arsenal as a deterrent – a way of keeping the U.S.’s nuclear forces a bay.

In other words, they can afford to smile and nod while President Bush scolds them about human rights.

In reality, the Chinese know that America’s military ability to operate overseas is totally dependent on just about a dozen aircraft carriers: The Kitty Hawk retires this year. That leaves the Dwight D. Enterprise, Nimitz, Eisenhower, Carl Vinson, Theodore Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, John C. Stennis, Harry S. Truman and the Ronald Reagan. The George H.W. Bush is to be commissioned in 2009; the Gerald Ford is planned for 2012, as are two unnamed carriers, for 2019 and 2023 respectively.

But they could all be dust at China’s whim.

China’s ace is a missile designed to destroy every single one of these floating flight decks.

An expert at Jane’s Information Group says China’s ship obliterating cruise missile –code named SS-N-22, “the “Sunburn” – wa a dangerous aircraft killer in its Soviet version, capable of flying at supersonic speed just over the water’s surface and evading detection by following an unpredictable zigzag course while carrying a nuclear warhead.
With modifications made by the Chinese – whose experience in manufacturing consumer semiconductor devices has put them far ahead of the Russians in microelectronics –the missile goes into what the Jane’s experts call a “gray” category, That means it’s nearly impossible to detect and destroy.

China originally purchased at least 16 of the missiles from cash-hungry Russian sellers. Each is capable of delivering an explosive punch six times more powerful than the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima.

We do not know how many additional Sunburns the Chinese have manufactured, and we do not know what sort of upgrades the Chinese have made. We do know, however, that the Chinese started their own cruise missile program in 1977, reverse engineered the US Tomahawk missile in the 1990s, and had nuclear-tipped cruise missiles by 1995.

We also know the Chinese created one of the most advanced anti-ship missiles of the late 20th Century, the Silkworm (referred to by China as the Hai Ying-2), were working on a cruise missile with an astonishing 1,500-mile range in the year 2000, and at that point had long since perfected mass production of the devices, cranking them out in sufficient abundance to allow for high-quality exports to other nations.

No wonder Chinese military documents proudly announce that “the strategic superiority which can be claimed by the US is close to zero. It does not even enjoy a sure advantage in terms of foreseeable scale of war and the high-tech content which can be applied to combat.”

The Chinese initially installed their Sunburn strike weapons on two new Russian-built, Sovremenny-class guided-missile destroyers. Their next plan was rumored to be one of greater simplicity –building vessels roughly the size of a PT boat capable of carrying one Sunburn missile each.

Here’s where the Tom Clancy stuff comes in. By skimming the water and using violent end maneuvers that throw off defenses, Sunburn missiles have the capacity to put the U.S. military totally out of business in the western pacific. AT it’s current detection capability, the Navy would have to plot a response in 2.5 seconds. Impossible.

If it’s on which swimmer’s fingers touch the pool wall a fraction of a second before another’s, the eyes of the world are watching the wrong clock.

In other words, in 2001 China was capable of turning any soldiers, sailors, or pilots sent to Japan, Korea, the Philippines, or Taiwan into grounds meat. Chinese political and military leaders are not he least bit afraid that nuclear war would follow. They’ve leaked the word to Reuters that, to quote an unnamed “source close to China’s military”: “Americans can’t tolerate death.”

Says this Asian Deep Throat: China’s generals “look at your yellow ribbons for these servicemen and your casualty-free Kosovo and they think you don’t have the will.”

A 1999 document from China’s office of the Central Military Commission backs this up. “Our principle,” it states, “is (one of being) ‘willing to sustain major losses of our armed forces to defend even just one square inch of land.’ If the U.S. forces lose thousands or hundreds of men under our powerful strikes, the anti-war sentiment within their country will force the U.S. government to take the same path as they did in Vietnam.”

All through the 1990s and the first years of the 21st Century, the Chinese slowly and patiently intensified demands that Taiwan be returned to their control. China has also declared sovereignty over virtually everything in the South China Sea, an area rich in natural gas and oil…and an area dotted with landmasses six other countries call their own. The Chinese have bragged in their military documents that they have “conquering-all operational capacity.” With the Sunburn missile, they have the magic bullet with which to take what they want. But that is not the Chinese way. They are likely to advance on their prey with the same patience they showed in swallowing Hong Kong back in 1997 and Macau in 1999.

Weaponry is just one sign that China is increasing its potential for hegemony – its readiness for a global sway that sidelines the United States. China is eating America’s socks economically, too. According to some analysts—like those at the Japan Times—China’s economy is already the second largest in the world…and it’ sprinting fast to catch up with the U.S.’s China’s officially-reported Gross Domestic Product is almost twice that of the third-place runner-up, Japan. While the U.S> ran a trade deficit of more than $360 billion in the year 2000 alone, China pocketed an annual $84 billion surplus with the U.S> and another $24.9 billion surplus with Japan.

In other words, China has become an economic vacuum cleaner emptying the wallets of America and its allies. We’ve known for a long time that you could pick any shopping mall, discount store or local chain store in America and find evidence of our major dependency on Chinese goods. A staggering percentage of clothing, toys, and electronic devices on sale originate in China. Take away all items that say “made in China,” and the average America would be helpless.

But that’ just the beginning. China has made huge profits on export goods by doing what social theorists Jane Jacobs calls “import replacement” – cranking out items once made by Americans, Japanese, Korean, or Thai workers at a price no American, Japanese, Korean, or Thai can meat. The next step, as the People’s Daily says, is to “intensify the content of high-technology.”

Which means the Chinese want to out-sprint the U.S. in the race toward 22nd Century innovations.

The nation that holds the innovative high ground is usually the one that rules the world.

But what are China’s chances of actually outpacing Bill Gates and America’s other techno-leaders in the race toward next-generation wonders? Very good, indeed.

Green parties stoking fears of “Frankenfoods” and other new agricultural technologies are trying to drag Europe and the U.S. into the agro-past. Meanwhile, China has jumped enthusiastically into genetically modified seed use. A million Chinese farmers now grow genetically-modified cotton, saving $100 billion on pesticides and losses to insects and rodents, and giving china –th former land of famine—an increasingly potent agricultu5al export industry…one capable, in the words of Japan’s Agricultural Ministry, of “flooding” Japan with cheap vegetable imports.

The there’s optoelectronics—a $10-bilion business for the Chinese as of 2001, and growing at the rate of 50percent a year. And computer education—a million Chinese a year are learning to use Microsoft software and consumer software creation. Microsoft, which very seldom plants research and development operations on foreign soil, established a software R&D center in Beijing way back in 1998. Not to mention artificial intelligence—where one investor feels Guangzhou’s Hua Ling Group “is a step ahead of foreign scientists.”

Beginning in 2003 China began to capture the world’s semiconductor business. This allowed it to suck up foreign expertise in military and civilian semiconductor development and fabrication, then imitate, borrow and outpace it. Once the bait was laid out, the number of those who happily stumbled into the trap was remarkable. Motorola, which as of November 2000 had already seeded China with eight semiconductor design houses and at least one mobile-handset plant, announced that it would spend close to $2 billion on a new Chinese chip production complex. Japan’s NEC, the world’s fourth- largest chipmaker, built a $1.2 million chip plant in China’s Zhangjiang High-Tech Industrial Park. Meantime, investors from Taiwan and a variety of other international locations were building a $1.6 billion chip foundry in the same park.

In the early 1990s, 70 percent of foreign direct investment in the Asian nations went to Southeast Asian tigers and only 30 percent to China. By 2001, the tigers had been declawed and defanged by their Chinese neighbor, which swallowed 70 percent of foreign investment funds. Further dollars and high-tech investment will continue to flow in. One reason –the Chinese are graduating more students with information technology training than any other low-cost-labor nation.

“Their mathematics background is excellent. It’s disciplined and thorough in a way that you often can’t find in the west,” says Microsoft’s head of research in China, American-born Kai-fu Lee (one of many highly skilled Asians the Chinese have lured back to fuel the high tech climb of their homeland). But education and intelligence are not the only Chinese edge. By 2000, Intel had a $400-million flash memory assembly plant up and running in Shanghai and a research and development center near Beijing. Then when the world economy crashed in 2001, Intel defied logic and invested an additional $302 million. The money was used to expand a Shanghai-based Intel plant dedicated to the manufacture of Intel 845 chipsets for the Pentium 4 processor. The move was not so daft as it may have seemed.

While consumers in the rest of the world were up to their ears in computers and were snapping their purses shut, China’s then 1.2 billion buyers were expected to increase their purchase of PCs by 20 percent a year. In the long run, Intel, NEC, Microsoft, and the others rushing to build plants and other facilities in China may regret their eagerness. China steals the technologies of outsiders, and then becomes the outside-firm’s most ferocious competitor. The U.S. did this in the 19th Century when it sent industrial spies to England to ferret out the secrets of Britain’s top-secret industrial devices—mechanized weaving machines. Though it was illegal to take drawings or plans of these machines out of the U.K., Americans smuggled sketches and blueprints to New England and built their own mass-production textile mills. From the 1950s to the 1980s the Japanese did the same to the U.S.—gutting the consumer electronics industry and pummeling auto companies into a sorry state.

Now it’s China’s turn. The Chinese already show signs of turning the tables on America in forward-looking fields. Take robotics, for instance. In 1988, the Shenyang Institute of Automation paid a firm called Perry Tritech in Florida a million dollars for an unusual package deal: a deep-sea robot, spare parts, and training in robot technology. By 1991, the Chinese had upgraded the undersea rover—a device that comes in handy for inspections of floating oilrigs and dams. In fact, they’d improved its qualities and lowered its price so much that they were able to sell their new version of the ROV (remote-operated vehicle) to several American companies. Intel China President Wee Theng Tan was extremely open about this form of techno-theft when he said proudly: “We (Intel) will continue to bring our leading edge technical and manufacturing expertise to China to help the country develop a leadership role in high-end value-added manufacturing technologies.”

But the real crunch will come when China takes advantage of its people’s ingenuity and respect for education by out-innovating the U.S. China—the nation that created the word’s first modern paper, first encyclopedias, first magnetic compass, first gun powder, and first cannon—held the high ground in technology from roughly 200 BC until 1600 AD. Now the Chinese are working hard to get back to the leading edge and beyond, moving into such fields as nanotechnology. A team of four scientists at Jiaotong University in Shanghai announced in 2001 that they’d created a micro-motor a quarter the size of a sesame seed. The device, they said, was smaller and lighter than any developed in the U.S., Europe, or Japan. It was exactly the sort of thing the medical equipment industry was looking for. In another area, telecommunications, Dr. Wei Chen—an American-born Chinese—started a company in china to manufacture and sell his pioneering wireless local-loop equipment. And the institute of Developmental Biology in Beijing is working on beyond-the-envelope genetic engineering.

Boast the writer of one 1999 Chinese document from the Office of the Central Military commission: “In the five thousand years of outstanding civilization, our country has commanded a predominant position in the whole world.” And they’re right. To the Chinese, dominance of the world’s economy would simply mean a return to the way things used to be. Balance of payments deficits between China and the West go back at least 2,000 years, to the days when the Romans nearly depleted the product of their Laurium and Pangaeum silver mines to pay for Chinese silk. Eighteen hundred years later, the Chinese delusion began—the notion that one could make vast sums of money by selling goods to China’s masses. This was a dream, a fantasy. China sold goods the world wanted—silk, porcelain (called “China” because it became a necessity in Western homes), and tea) another daily necessity in the British lifestyle). But the West had nothing the Chinese needed.

The balance of trade deficits threatened to drain the coffers of Britain and America until the puritanical Empire of Queen Victoria began an official policy of breaking Chinese law by selling and promoting opium from England’s Indian territories. Leading American families—from the Forbes to the Delanos—made millions smuggling illicit drugs into the Chinese market. When the Chinese, under Lin Tse-hsu, Yeh Ming-ch’en, and Hsu Kuang-chin, mounted several potentially successful internal wars on the drug trade, the West responded with the Opium Wars of 1839 and 1856. To be specific, Europeans and Americans used steam-powered gunboats to shove opiates down China’s throat.

To get an idea of how this felt to the Chinese, imagine what would happen if Colombia, impatient with America’s resistance to its export trade in cocaine and heroin, mounted a war against he U.S., won, forced America to legalize narcotics, then went on a mass-marketing campaign to put an addict in every home, a line of coke up every nostril, and a needle in every American teenager’s arm.

Despite this experience, the delusion that one could make millions selling legitimate goods and services to the Chinese continued. Douglas MacArthur’s father was dazzled by it in the 19th Century. MacArthur himself continued with it. What American automakers and other who made huge investments in Chinese joint ventures failed to realize was China’s new economic strategy fort he 20th and 21st centuries: Let the foreign barbarians build their plants; make sure those factories are under the control of Chinese co-owners; study the manufacturing machinery, organizational techniques, and patented technologies the Western investors so graciously provide; imitate them, improve on them, steal those under patent or licensing protection; then undercut the American and U.S. industries that had been foolish enough to offer themselves on the altar of sacrifice to the new China.

A lucrative practice. But the more significant payoff will come on the geopolitical side of the equation.

Chinas former President Jiang Zemin took a six-nation trip to the strategic backyard of the United States—Latin America—in April 2001,calling on Latin Americans to work with China toward building, to use his catchphrase, a “new international order” (the six nations were Uruguay, Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Cuba, and Venezuela). Jiang found enormous eagerness in anti-American Venezuela (where Chinese have invested $530 million and have interests in two oil fields), in Chile, in Argentina, and in Cuba, to which the Chinese are lending $400 million.

Meanwhile, Chinese power showed itself in many another international nuance. Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi put improving relations with China at the top of his international agenda when he rose to power in May 2001. Mexican President Vicente Fox visited Jiang in China that June. Fox was wary of the impact of cheap Chinese imports on Mexican industry. (In just two months –January and February 2001—China sold $465 million in products to Mexico but bought only $32 million worth of Mexican products.) Yet Fox felt it necessary to make a pilgrimage to Beijing.

By July 2008, the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington D.C.-based think tank, would conclude that the United States lost 2.3 million jobs to China between 2001 and 2007. Moreover, the report concluded that it’s almost impossible for American manufacturers to compete because of China’s “unfair trade practices.”

These include inadequate health and safety regulations for production workers, manufacturing subsidies from the Chinese government, child labor, an artificially low value for the Chinese currency, the yuan, and lax environmental rules that permit pollution far beyond what the United States demands of industrial companies.

Now you know why the Olympic cyclists found particulate matter in the air so severe some had to drop out of competition. Others donned face masks. Everyone’s lungs were being sacrificed for Chinese export profits. It’s just cheaper to pollute.

Now the Chinese are exploiting Africa as a market. The Chinese have built Africa’s biggest supermarket in Johannesburg, a power-generating equipment plant in Nigeria, and methane tanks in Uganda before moving on to solar and hydro power projects.

Cambodia’s Hun Sen has urged other nations to follow an anti-Taiwan, one-China policy to keep Beijing happy and deliver Taiwan into China’s hands. Only July 15, 2001, Jiang Zemin headed for Moscow, where he signed a friendship treaty. The Bush administration said it was not afraid of this agreement because China still needs the U.S. for investment and technology—meaning George W. Bush doesn’t see how this is letting China such America dry.

Meanwhile the Russians and Chinese entered a new era of energy cooperation in 2006 when they signed the Sino-Russian Good Neighborly Treaty of Friendship and Cooperation. In 2006.

Zemin also took his message of a new world order and “peace” led by China to the ASEAN states: Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Malaysia, Brunei, Singapore, the Philippines, and Indonesia, repeating that this was to counter the politics of some big world powers.

China has frequently railed against what it calls “encirclement,” but its diplomatic maneuverings seem carefully designed to encircle Europe and the U.S. Take China’s Islamic connection.

In 1999, Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak and Zemin signed an agreement establishing strategic cooperation. Reported China’s government mouthpiece People’s Daily, the Egyptian ambassador to China said Egypt “opposes certain countries which use the human rights issue to interfere in the internal affairs of China and other countries” and “supports China’s just struggle against power politics and hegemonism.” Meanwhile, the Chinese and Egyptian news media—both noted for their lack of free expression--engaged in active exchanges.

China is building “a special economic zone” in the northwest Suez. And China has close ties with the Palestinians. Far more important, China makes a considerable amount of money selling high-tech weapons—including nuclear and missile parts and instructions—to “rogue nations” like Iran and Iraq. China also had a hand in helping Pakistan build “the Islamic bomb.”

In one sense, this is reassuring. It shows that the Chinese can be as shortsighted as the U.S. From 1980 onward, the CIA and the People’s Liberation Army backed the Taliban in Afghanistan. China cooperated with the U.S> and Saudi Arabia in arming and training 50,000 militant Muslims from 30 countries for this “freedom-fighting” Jihad.

The Chinese joined America in giving Osama Bin Laden his troops, and sent 300 officers to train the mujahideen in the use of sophisticated weapons—like Chinese-made anti0tank missiles.

When the Taliban took over in 1995, support for it had been a bipartisan affair in the U.S., beginning in the carter Administration and continuing under Reagan and Bush. The U.S. helped build the very force that would come back to strike it on September 11, 2001. The resulting worldwide war of the U.S. and its allied against “terrorism” could theoretically weaken both the West and the Islamic militants and help hand world domination over to the Chinese.

Once the smoke of battle between Islamic wackos and the West has cleared, however, a bin Laden-style blowback could prove equally dangerous to Beijing. There is an extremely active jihad—Islamic holy war—taking place in China’s “wild west” province, Xinjiang. It is part of a widespread military and ideological campaign to take all Central Asia—including Xinjiang, Chechnya, Dagestan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kashmir, and Uzbekistan—thus “liberating” this enormous sweep of territory to be part of dar el Islam –the Islamic world.

The holy warriors’ fervor to make the entire world Islamic could easily go further than China’s border provinces and strike at the Chinese heart. China, with one fifth of the world’s population as a whole, also has the second-largest Islamic population in the world. The Islamic mujahideen that the U.S. and China trained and armed are idealists of the highest degree. They cannot rest until (their view of) justice and purity have been given as a gift to all the citizens of this world and that can only be done by imposing Islamic law—sharia.

Purity and propriety are only possible, they say, when a people has been freed from false idols and taught to worship the one and only god (Allah) and his one and only prophet (Mohammed). China, too, should be ruled by the laws of the Koran, they feel.

The jostling for position between China, Islam, and the U.S. is part of a standard hierarchical game that dates back to the dawn of life 3.5 billion years ago. It has involved in all forms of beings, from microbes to mammals. If an animal or social group doesn’t see an opportunity to move up, it lets the top dog rule without challenge. But if things change, if the alpha male begins to slip, weakened by age or battle, or if the underdog goes form puny adolescent to a muscular adult, or grows stronger by discovering a new source of energy or food, the inferior seizes the opportunity to knock the head honcho out of his number one slot.

The most overly belligerent underdog in today’s world is fundamentalist Islam. But China is working stealthily on the sidelines, perhaps waiting for its chance when Islam and the U.S. and its allies exhaust themselves in the battle.

Zemin summed up China’s goals this way: “The world is far from being tranquil. Hegemonism and power politics still exist and have even developed in the international political, economic, and security fields. The new “gunboat policy” and the economic neo-colonialism pursued by some big powers has severely undermined the sovereign independence and development interest of small and medium-sized countries and has threatened world peace and international security. China firmly opposes hegemonism and power politics and will never seek hegemony—that is a solemn commitment that the Chinese government and the people have made to the whole world.”

Any nation that buys that line is at risk.

###

Sex and the Circumcised

(the following article appeared in the book Everything You Know About Sex is Wrong, 2004)

By Diane Petryk-Bloom

Want her to TOTALLY want it, TOTALLY need it and TOTALLY love it? Want to have her thinking of you instead of thinking of England? Men who want more sex, listen up. She needs to like it better and she'll like it better if you realize what's missing – your foreskin.

As you read this, at least 100,000 men (1) across America are taping, tying and tugging their penises to stretch new foreskin. Most lost their foreskins in infancy when they were circumcised, but somewhere along the line they discovered sex without a foreskin just isn't what nature intended.

In the uncircumcised man, the sexually aroused penis peeks from foreskin, then bursts full-out, sending ripples of skin back on the shaft. Those waves of stretching and retreating foreskin give the male one the most exquisite sensations in all sexual experience. That's because foreskin is the most important sensory tissue of thepenis. (2) Pleasurable sensations provided by a foreskin are "so incredibly great," in fact, that "no man should miss out on them," says author Jeffrey O'Hara, a circumcised-but-restored – as far as can be -- male.

That, in itself, isn't enough to motivate most men to worry about developing new foreskin. Here's what is: she needs it. It's the key to pleasuring your woman. Get it, get her more often.

Here's why: Circumcised men have lost considerable sensory tissue. Important nerve endings – gone. Some hate the idea. But many still say they have all the pleasure they can stand, so what's the problem? They have perfectly serviceable erections. They have orgasms and ejaculations. The problem is how they get there.

Researchers have recently discovered that the mechanism of arousal and intercourse is entirely different for the circumcised man and the foreskin-intact man. Whether or not a circumcised male has any problems, recent anatomical studies show his partner probably will.

In 1996, Dr. John Taylor and colleagues in the pathology department at the University of Manitoba, decided to assess the type and amount of tissue missing from the adult circumcised penis. (Incredibly, humans have been trimming penises since 2000-something B.C. (3) and no one had yet assessed the damage!)

THE RIDGED BAND

Taylor found an elastic-like band of mucosal tissue at the tip of the foreskin. He called it the ridged band (4). It teems with specialized nerve endings – similar to those on the fingers and lips.

The head of the penis, or glans, by contrast, and contrary to popular belief, is fairly insensitive. When the penis is relaxed, the ridged band narrows over its tip like a drawn duffle bag. Sexual arousal dilates the band, sliding it back past the glans and onto the shaft, where it rolls up and down during intercourse. The rolling and stretching stimulates the erogenous nerves in the band to fire off sensations of pleasure. (5)

From an evolutionary perspective, the object of sexual stimulation in the male is to build up contractions in the genital musculature. Kristen O'Hara, with her husband Jeff O'Hara, explains in her 2001 book, Sex As Nature Intended It, that it is these alternate tensing and relaxing actions that lead to orgasm and ejaculation of sperm.

They point out that Josephine Lowndes Sevely's seven-year study comparing male and female genitalia revealed highly erogenous tissue equivalent to the female clitoris is located in the core of the penis through the entire length of the shaft. Only the foreskin is positioned to stimulate it by natural massaging action. The circumcised man has to reach for equivalent stimulation in an awkward, unnatural way. Sometimes he has difficulty reaching orgasm. Other times he may not be able to extend intercourse more than a few seconds. In either case, his female partner suffers.

"It is important to understand how muscular contractions can bring on orgasm because the intact (natural) man and the circumcised man induce them differently," the O'Haras write. "… the means they use to create these contractions affect their thrusting movements and rhythms.

"The design of the natural penis indicates that nature intended for pleasure and orgasm to be induced by actions taking place mostly in the upper area of the penis. However, for the circumcised penis, the upper penis mechanisms and responses have been drastically altered and do not function the way nature intended. Consequently, the circumcised male is left to improvise alternative or supplementary means to attain orgasm. It is use of these odd varieties or orgasm-building (pleasure seeking) techniques that causes him to thrust much differently from the intact man, and which his female partner finds frustrating and disrupting to her pleasuring needs." And sometimes downright painful.

Marsha Goudreau (name disguised), a Michigan woman whose late husband of more than 20 years was uncircumcised, who later experienced sex with circumcised men, said she now knows her husband's foreskin was a blessing for both of them.

"The nice thing that happens is that the gliding back and forth stimulates the head of the penis without irritating it," she said. (6) "The shaft moves in and out of that glove, which pleasures the woman without painful friction. And if you're not having intercourse for some reason, the foreskin makes a hand job a lot easier."

In technical terms: "Mucosal surfaces of the glans and foreskin move back and forth across the mucosal surfaces of the labia and vagina, providing nontraumantic sexual stimulation for both male and female."

'BEST THING THIS LIFETIME'

This mucous membrane-to-mucous membrane contact provides natural lubrication necessary for sexual relations and prevents both the dryness responsible for painful intercourse and the chafing and abrasions which allow entry of sexually transmitted diseases, both viral and bacterial." (7)

Yet couples with a circumcised man need not despair. Foreskin restoration offers reparations. Recovered glans will soften again. Jeff O'Hara's message for circumcised men: "Restoring your foreskin is the best thing that's going to happen to you in this lifetime." Kristen's message: "From the woman's sexual perspective, the restored penis is virtually equivalent to the natural penis in every respect."

There are surgical and non-surgical methods of restoration. O'Hara opted for a graft of skin from his scrotum. It has the advantage of having muscle tissue able to provide that thrill of stretch upon erection. Non-surgical restoration involves pulling what is left of flaccid skin at the base of the penis when it is not erect, and exerting a tugging force to stretch it. Several simple devices have been invented for this purpose. (8)

One is simply taping drawn up skin with a clip applied to the end of the tape and tugging force applied by an elastic band around the waist. "It's cheap and works well enough," said David Steinburg (name disguised) from his home in the midwest. "While there's still a ways to go, there is no question that the regrowth of some skin has made a real difference in feeling," he said, "and I can only imagine what it must be like for those fortunate enough to have avoided circumcision in the first place."

Ron Low of Chicago thought taping lacked something in elegance, so he invented a cone-shaped attachment that pulls naturally after skin is inserted. Obversion, the tendency of skin to roll back, keeps it in place. Low said one can expect to add about one inch per year if the tugger is worn 12 hours a day. His progress with his TLCTugger is documented on his website TLCTugger.com).

Low said he's sold more than 2,000 with "nothing but positive feedback."

The Joy of Uncircumcising by James Bigelow, 1995, is the complete guide. (9)

Whatever method, the object is to restore enough skin to cover the head of the relaxed penis, or glans, such as happens naturally when the penis is uncircumcised. Complete coverage, which the O'Haras advise, allows the penis to maintain its naturally moist, softly-stiff characteristic. (The glans of the circumcised penis are continually exposed, and as a result, can become hardened or keratinized.)

While foreskin restoration can replace this protective covering, merely stretching the skin cannot restore the special orgasmic triggers and glands that were cut and eliminated. Especially the very sensitive frenulum. The frenulum is the connecting tissue of the foreskin and shaft. Structurally, it is similar to the frenulum that connects the tongue to the base of the mouth. In the same way that frenulum controls the tongue, researchers envison the penile frenulum controls thrusting. It's on the underside of the shaft, or on top of an erect penis when a man is lying on his back. It, too, is highly enervated, erogenous tissue.

"Often only a remnant of the frenulum is left after circumcision, if it is not also removed," says anti-circumcision crusader Marilyn Milos. "Many circumcised men consider it their 'G-spot,' but only because their 'G-area,' the ridged band and frenular delta, has been removed." (10)

During sex, there is a way to compensate for that loss, Jeff O'Hara found. "The ridged band of the foreskin and the skin of the nipples are comprised of the same specialized nerve tissue called 'rete ridges.' Nipple skin abounds with Meissner's corpuscles (erotically responsive touch-sensitive nerves), like those found in the foreskin and frenulum.

"When you have your partner twiddle your nipples during intercourse, combined with the increased pleasure experienced after restoration, I reckon that it heightens your sexual feelings to those experienced by the genitally intact man when his penis alone is stimulated during intercourse…During this activity, the levels of ecstasy are so magnificent, I don't feel cheated in any way, even though I'm missing the nerves of the ridged ban."

Sex as Nature Intended It came about after Kristen O'Hara experienced both natural and circumcised sex and tried to make sense of the difference. While happily married to Jeff, she came to realize that foreskin is what's missing millions of bedrooms across America -- bedrooms where sex is unfulfilling, uncomfortable and/or avoided. Her personal experience (11) and comparisons led to attempts to discover if she was alone in her feelings. She wasn't!

Surveys of about 138 women showed almost all women preferred the natural sex. It was the difference between not being able to get enough and "There, that'll hold you for a few days." Sitcoms spend a lot of time on male jokes about pursuing sex in the face of expected feminine refusal because it reflects the situation in the real world, she said. Women in their 20s are often gung ho, regardless; in their 30s, it's okay, she said, but much beyond that age their interest falls off with their lessening vaginal lubrication and the built-up resentment of sex that's been too often uncomfortable and unsatisfying.

Female partners of circumcised men become aroused, crave the sensation of penetration and enjoy orgasm just as much as partners of intact men. But they express dissatisfaction with the overall experience of sexual relations. Kristen was no different. She loved her husband and they were compatible, but their relationship wasn't good sexually.

"Our love lacked depth," she writes, "the kind of depth that exists when a couple has a deeply satisfying, exquisitely delicious, sensuous, sexual interconnectedness." Because sex with Jeff was annoying, even though desired, Kristen drifted back into her uncircumcised lover's bed. "During our rendezvous, I couldn't help but notice that his penis felt much more sensuous inside me; it felt infinitely better, deliciously better, indescribably better.

A PERFECT UNION

"In characterizing the differences… I would say the circumcised experience is like being repeatedly penetrated in an annoying way, even though simultaneously there is pleasure. And the penis feels too hard, almost foreign-like – you want it, but don't want it, at the same time, driven onward only in hopes of achieving orgasm, the sooner the better. Whereas, with natural, the vagina totally surrenders to the soft sensuousness of lingering ecstasy, as it hungrily caresses and lovingly responds to the erotic movements of the softly-stiff penis, and the penis adores and gently strokes the vagina in return.

"Like two halves of a perfect whole, each organ swoons and sighs to a passionate intermingling… "With no holding back, you TOTALLY want it, you TOTALLY need it, and you TOTALLY love it."

One explanation: Since the natural penis tends to stay more deeply embedded in the vagina using short strokes, it brings the man's pubic area in frequent contact with the woman's clitoral mound, allowing her clitoris to be pressure-pleasured more often, and at a consistent rhythmical rate throughout much of the intercourse experience. Not only does the circumcised man make longer strokes to stimulate his pleasure areas, he needs to pause, often outside the vagina, to let the nerve endings recharge.

The natural man's penis retreats into its foreskin, not having to withdraw from the vagina. Jeff O'Hara said you can witness the longer strokes and withdrawals in x-rated videos with circumcised men. In fact, he said, he watched a video made of John Bobbitt performing sex. Bobbitt is the man whose wife cut off his penis in a fit of rage. Doctors reattached the organ, but Bobbitt lost nerve connections.

He performs just like a circumcised man must, O'Hara said, "Pull out, rest, come in fast. Like pile-driving with punishing blows." Even if the woman can tolerate it, that technique precludes rhythmic build-up for the clitoris.

In her best-selling book, How to Have An Orgasm…As Often as You Want, Rachel Swift says a lack of consistent rhythm is one of the chief causes of a woman's failure to climax.

"If the pace is broken, so's the ascent to orgasm." Why do SO MANY women fake orgasm? Because SO MANY men are circumcised.

Women know they're not going to climax the way he's doing it…and they're taking a battering. They might just as well fake it and hope he gets it over with soon. Often the best you can do with circumcised sex is pleasure the man and woman separately, in succession, rather than simultaneously.

"It was like we were using each other's body to masturbate against," Jeff said of his marital sex before he restored, "which is not the same as making love. Lovers totally abandon their individual egos, their individual awareness, and become a union of pleasuring."

Here's a sampling of comments from Kristen O'Hara's survey respondents:

My circumcised husband was totally engrossed in satisfying his own sexual needs; therefore, he pounded and banged as if he were having intercourse with a non-feeling person.

"It feels so good to have the feeling of a man's foreskin in my vagina…it glides easily.

Once a natural penis is in your vagina, you wish it could stay forever.

My natural partner kept more constant pressure in my whole genital area during intercourse. I felt like he was in sync with me… I had more time to relax, and I would always orgasm before it was over, so afterwards I felt content.

My sexual experiences with three natural men were extraordinary in the gentleness, sensuality and mutuality.

Natural men have a more laid-back approach. They don't seem to feel as rushed or pressed to achieve orgasm. They seem to enjoy the act rather than the resulting orgasm.

There is definitely more clitoral stimulation with natural. Sometimes it's (circumcised sex) too much work for too little reward. When it's over I think to myself, "thank God he finally came."

I have noticed that the vagina is much more accepting of the natural penis Once the head of the natural penis is at the opening of the vagina, it just kind of naturally slides in. I've often said to myself after one of these circumcised encounters: I would have been better off masturbating. With my natural man, I always glow after intercourse, but with circumcised men, I couldn't wait to get dressed and get away from them. I never glowed.

The visual effect of seeing an impending erection just starting to peek out of its foreskin is just so much sexier.

I never made the connection between this feeling of hostility and circumcised sex until now.

O'Hara's research was first published in the British Journal of Urology in 1999. Best-selling author Dr. Christiane Northrup (12) credits the O'Hara's research for helping her fully understand the reasons for the design of the penis and foreskin.

"I always felt that the male foreskin, one of the most richly enervated and hyperelastic pieces of tissue in the male body, is there for a reason, she wrote in an article for her newsletter, Health Wisdom for Women (10) Volume 8, No. 6, June 2001 "Until recently, I didn't know exactly what that reason was. But now thanks to Kristen O'Hara's well-researched book…I finally understand the reasons for the design of the penis and foreskin and how this design ensures optimal penile function, including the organ's ability to satisfy the female sexually."

"O'Hara makes a compelling argument that circumcised intercourse may frustrate the primordial subconscious that seems to know 'real sex ain't this way.'" Northrup writes. "She also suggested that each circumcised experience has the potential to build-up negative memory imprints so that over time, repeated sexual encounters with the same partner may lead to , negative feeling between the two that carry over into everyday life."

As an obstetrician-gynecologist, Northrup said, she performed hundreds of circumcisions. While she stops short of saying she regrets doing them, she does say it's past time to re-think the practice. She reported elsewhere that when she would tell parents at hospital-based childbirth classes that circumcision need not be done, her invitations to such classes were withdrawn. She quotes obstetrics colleague Dr. George Denniston, co-author of Doctor's Reexamine Circumcision:

"Circumcision violates the first tenet of medical practice: 'first, do no harm.' According to modern medical ethics, parents do not have the right to consent to a procedure that is not in their son's best interest. The removal of normal, important part of the male sexual organ is not in their son's best interest."

Jews, Muslims and a few other groups circumcise as part of their religious practice. But, as a nation, we do not allow parents to impose their religious practice on children to the extent that it does physical harm. Blood transfusions, for instance, are often imposed by court-order for children whose parents do not approve for religious reasons. Should genital mutilation (13) be any different?

From a world-wide perspective, the non-circumcised state is the norm for males. Most Europeans and Orientals do not circumcise.

Wrongful circumcision attorney David Lewellyn said he attended a conference in Padua, Italy last fall and told a 35-year-old Italian pediatrician that Americans circumcise about 65 percent of all boys. "You're kidding!" she said.

Although circumcision rates are dropping here, it is estimated that about 60 percent of all newborn males in America are still being cut. If you're an American male between age 25 and 45, the probability is very high that you were circumcised. Newborn circumcision rates in the U.S. climbed after World War II and peaked at about 80-90 percent somewhere between 1970 and 1980.

If you are older or younger, chances are still good that if you were in an American nursery you lost your foreskin. In our cultural acceptance of circumcising males, we keep company with countries like Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Somalia and the Congo. Some circumcise newborns, most do it at older ages, as part of religious practice. The United States is the only circumcising country that, generally, has no religious pretense. Circumcisions are usually performed on newborns in hospitals for aesthetic preference, hygienic theory or for nor reason at all.

Many parents simply acquiesce to circumcision when the physician offers it, without asking questions. "If it's offered, it must be recommended," seems to be the prevailing view. It's familiar. It's the accepted norm. Several groups, such as NORM (National Organization of Restoring Men), NOHARMM (National Organization to Halt the Abuse and Routine Mutilation of Males) and NOCIRC have formed to fight the practice, but it is entrenched. For many it's a matter of "like father, like son." Males who cannot accept that they are less than perfect, perpetuate the practice. "Recognizing male circumcision as a mistake reflects on circumcised males." (14) Others, doctors and mothers, may be in denial as well.

American's willingness to conform and disinclination to inquire deeply is another. Parents are usually unaware of the extent of the surgery. The amount of skin amputated results in the loss of about one third or more of the penile shaft skin system. Adult foreskin is about two and a half inches long. It's double layered, so when unfolded would be about the size of a 3 x 5 card, enough skin to hold millions of cells and nerves.

The often described "snip of skin" is considered a major amputaton by some. It is usually done without anesthesia. Milos, who first witnessed circumcision as a student nurse, went on to make a video of the operation and show it to expecting parents. She was told it was too much for parents to see. "Perhaps then," Milos responded, "its too much for the baby to endure." "We didn't learn anything about foreskins or circumcision in medical school," said Dr. Paul Fliess. (16) "I watched one, that was it." They were taught infants do not feel pain, he said, which has been shown to be an absurd notion.

Taylor and colleagues who discovered the Ridged Band, have also noted "the current tendency to eliminate the prepuce from anatomy textbooks."

How it became thus is no mystery. Circumcision got its first big jump-start in this country in the late 19th century when doctors decided masturbation was harmful. A boy with foreskin would have to retract it to urinate, so, they reasoned, he would be more likely to learn to give himself pleasure by self-manipulation. Cutting the foreskin off as a remedy became the rage. In 1888, John Kellogg, of corn flakes fame, wrote a book blaming masturbation for 31 ailments, and identified as symptoms of masturbation things like shyness and insomnia.

Soon, circumcision was advocated for infants to prevent, rather than cure, masturbation.Here are excerpts from medical journals of the late 1800's: There can be no doubt of (masturbation's) injurious effect, and of the proneness to practice it on the part of children with defective brains. Circumcision should always be practiced. It may be necessary to make the genitals so sore by blistering fluids that pain results from attempts to rub the parts (17)

In consequence of circumcision the epithelial covering of the glans becomes dry, hard…the sensibility of the glans is diminished, but not sufficiently to interfere with the copulative function of the organ or to constitute an objection... It is well authenticated that the foreskin...is a fruitful cause of the habit of masturbation in children... I conclude that the foreskin is detrimental to health, and that circumcision is a wise measure of hygiene. (18)

Great Britain joined in the masturbation hysteria, as did Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Those countries have since rejected arguments for circumcision as fallacious. Dr. Benjamin Spock advocated circumcision in 1946. He reversed himself in 1976. (19)

The British circumcision rate peaked at something more than 30 percent, then, by the 1950s, it fell dramatically. By the time Princess Diana gave birth to Prince William, it was less than 1 percent. Prince Charles was circumcised, but Diana insisted the young princes be left intact (20).

In her case, the fact that the National Health Service dropped coverage of the procedure probably wasn't a deciding factor. For the majority of the Brits, it may have been the biggest one.

By the 1930s, even those who ate corn flakes accepted that masturbation wasn't harmful, but by then circumcision was going strong.

Since Jews circumcised for religious reasons, some Jews promoted it for health reasons, too, applying to all, so Jews wouldn't be singled out by the practice.

Doctors latched onto the next promulgated theory: circumcision was more hygienic. After awhile claims were made for its cure or prevention of a host of diseases from epilepsy to insomnia. These arguments were debunked one by one, but circumcision still has its proponents. They often tout penile cancer and cervical cancer prevention as benefits of circumcision.

Penile cancer is exceedingly rare and preventing it is not a reason for depriving millions of their bodily integrity and sexual birthright.

Women with uncircumcised partners do not get more cervical cancer. Studies that have shown such links have been seriously flawed. (21)

Recently AIDS prevention has been suggested as justification for circumcision. This flies in the face of facts. The United States and certain African countries that circumcise have the highest rates of HIV infection.

Some wonder, might it not all come down to an innate human compulsion to mutilate, especially the sexual organs? Or a drive to control others' sexual behavior. Coleman reports on one American woman's suspicion that her inconceivable genital mutilation at the hands doctor might be linked to circumcision. Retribution?

Circumcision is known to harm the bond between mother and son. Does the circumcision approving parent ever think ahead to the day when the boy is seven or eight and wants to know what was done to him, and why? (22) Does the rise in circumcision in this country correlate with its rise in crime? These questions are being asked. It seems that we've gone through a century and a half of searching for a justifications for circumcision, seeing them debunked one by one, creating new ones and seeing those debunked.

Now we are waking up to the fact that circumcising has been damaging sexual organs, sexual performance and sexual relationships. But, in fact, this is something that has been known from antiquity. We just forgot it. In Marked in Your Flesh – Circumcision from Ancient Judea to Modern American, author Leonard Glick painstaking recounts the history of circumcision. It begins with Chapter 17 of Genesis. God makes promises to Abraham and puts forth the inexplicable requirement that "every male among you shall be circumcised." "You shall circumcise the flesh of your foreskin. And that shall be the sign of the covenant between Me and you. And throughout the generations, every male among you shall be circumcised at the age of eight days." Why? No one knows. No one single author wrote the Torah. The Bible includes the essential feature of the Genesis 17 narrative, but eliminates mention of circumcision.

Historically, one function of circumcision, for Jews, was that it identified with whom a Jewess may have sexual intercourse and therefore it served to preserve national identity. (23) Jews in the Roman Empire knew that others looked down on circumcision. Some did not have their sons circumcised and some tried foreskin stretching to restore themselves even back then.

The ancient Greeks and their Hellenistic successors considered the "ideal" prepuce to be long, tapered and well proportioned. Removing it was mutilation. (24) Philo of Alexandria wrote in the first century that circumcision served to excise "pleasures that bewitch the mind." He may have been the first to state that circumcision decreases sexual sensation, Glick suggests.

Later, in the 12th Century, Moses Maimonides, Jewish physician and community leader, wrote, with regard to circumcision: "One of the reasons for it is, in my opinion, the wish to bring about a decrease in sexual intercourse and a weakening of the organ in question…The fact that circumcision weakens the faculty of sexual excitement and sometimes perhaps diminishes the pleasure in indubitable."

He adds: "The Sages, may their memory be blessed, have explicitly stated: 'it is hard for a woman with whom an uncircumcised man has had sexual intercourse to separate from him.' In my opinion this is the strongest of the reasons for circumcision. "…because his foreskin has been removed from him, and the power of his member has been diminished, he has no strength to lie with many lewd women. "Women who have had an opportunity to make comparisons, know quite well the difference between circumcised and intact lovers. But it's all for the best, since Jewish men don't waste time and energy trying to satisfy women sexually." Maimonides understood that the foreskin is a highly sensitive source of sexual pleasure. His words could be slid in between the comments of women responding to O'Hara's survey and no one would spot the 800-year gulf between them. Maimonides wrote:

"An attractive woman will court the man who is uncircumcised...and lie against his breast with great passion, for he thrusts inside her a long time because of the foreskin, which is a barrier against ejaculation in intercourse. Thus she feels pleasure and reaches orgasm first. When an uncircumcised man sleeps with her and then resolves to return home, she brazenly grasps him and says to him 'Come back, make love to me.' This is because of the pleasure that she finds in intercourse with him, from the sinews of his testicles – sinew of iron – and from his ejaculation –that of a horse – which he shoots like an arrow into her womb. They are united without separating, and he makes love twice and three times in one night, yet the appetite is not filled…

"But when a circumcised man desires the beauty of a woman, and cleaves to his wife, or another woman comely in appearance, he will find himself performing his task quickly, emitting his seed as soon as he inserts his crown…He has an orgasm first…She has no pleasure from him…and it would be better for her if he had not known her and not drawn near to her, for he arouses her passion to no avail, and she remains in a state of desire for her husband, ashamed and confounded, while the seed is still in her reservoir. She does not have an orgasm once a year…." (25)

Pro-circumcision pediatrician Dr. Edgar Schoen, Clinical Professor in Pediatrics at the University of California, San Francisco, (26) has lamented that some Jewish boys are now intact thanks to "some ill-advised back-to-nature movements." Foreskin might have been useful in pre-historic times, he says, when men where running naked through thorn bushes and brambles" but now is no more useful than an appendix or wisdom teeth. Compelling medical data much of it accumulated in the past two decades, he says, have "conclusively" shown that a boy circumcised as a newborn has multiple lifetime health advantages compared to one with an "intact" foreskin.

Even if the various health benefits touted by Schoen were true, and they are debated, medical ethicist Margaret Somerville says that wouldn't justify circumcision.

"A common error made by those who want to justify infant male circumcision on the basis of medical benefits," she writes, "is that they believe that as long as some such benefits are present, circumcision can be justified as therapeutic, in the sense of preventive health care. This is not correct.

"A medical-benefits or 'therapeutic' justification requires that overall the medical benefits should outweigh the risks and harms of the procedure required to obtain them, that this procedure is the only reasonable way to obtain these benefits, and that these benefits are necessary to the well-being of the child.

"None of these conditions is fulfilled for routine infant male circumcision. If we view a child's foreskin as having a valid function, we are no more justified in amputating it than any other part of the child's body unless the operation is medically required treatment and the least harmful way to provide that treatment. "(27)

Somerville said she once accepted circumcision without a second thought. After studying it, she came to the conclusion it is "technically criminal assault." "Once you decide that circumcision is not medically necessary, you take away the therapeutic intent. Take away therapeutic intent, and circumcision becomes an unjustified wounding."

Dr. Leo Sorger told ObGYN News readers circumcision, "removing normal healthy functioning tissue" violates the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights (Article 5) and the United Nations Convention of the Rights of the Child (Article 13). Schoen, unsurprisingly, also denies foreskin contributes to sexual pleasure.

What would he make of Maimonides?

JEWISH AUTHORS CITE HARM

Northrup: "I am not Jewish, (or Muslim), but I can assure you that many Jews are rethinking circumcision (I do not have any information about Muslims). As a matter of fact, two of the most well-researched and eloquent books on the harmful nature of circumcision have been written by Jewish men. I urge you to read Circumcision: The Hidden Trauma by Ronald Goldman Ph.D., (Vanguard, 1997) and Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy by Edward Wallenstein (Springer Publishing, 1980)."

Ronald Goldman can be reached at www.circumcision.org.info.htm

Restoring male David Steinburg is Jewish and despite his unhappiness with having been circumcised, he said he's not sure he could combat it for a newborn son in the face of family pressure.

"Many of the rituals of the Jewish community were developed as reminders of "separateness" and don't have any rationale otherthan ritual -- which is fine," he said. "I do think it would be healthy –but probably impossible -- for society to have something of a discussion about why keeping a foreskin is a good idea. But let's face it -- how do you get Americans to talk about sexual pleasure within the context of a newborn? It ties in too many things even open-minded people are squeamish about: parents don't want to think about their child's sexuality, especially that early on (if ever).

"And since it's too late for the (Jewish) father making the decision, there must be a reluctance to come to grips with the fact that his own experience may have been diminished by something his parents did before he had any consciousness at all."

"Someone must start," Jeff O'Hara asserts. As for Muslims – circumcision is not mentioned in the Koran. According to Islamic websites, "there is no compulsion to circumcision." (28) But Sami Aldeeb found otherwise. A Muslim lawyer based in Switzerland, Aldeeb would certainly call the circumcision he underwent at age 11 compulsive. Note his discussion of anger, terror, and thoughts of suicide:

"One of the issues rarely discussed in the topic of circumcision is the relation between its damage and the age at which it is done," he writes. "I was circumcised at the age of 11, during the summer break after 5th grade. "Growing through my childhood uncircumcised, gave me the opportunity to discover myself while intact," Aldeeb writes. "I was curious about my body and the changes that were happening at that age; so I became very conscious about my foreskin. I knew what circumcision was from an incident where a neighbor's kid (aged 10) ran from his circumciser, his brother who witnessed the circumcision through a window was terrified about how they tied his brother with a robe to the bed and about all the screams and blood.

"I asked about the circumciser, how he looked, I wanted to run away if he ever showed up at our door. I remember once my father jokingly telling me I will be circumcised, and my mother asking me why I did not want to have it done. I thought the subject would be brought up in front of me one day.

"The dreadful day came when my father told me I had to go with him for some tests at the hospital. I did not know what tests, but went along to acrowded local hospital. …Here a male janitor-nurse pulled open my hospital robe and made a quick mark on my penis. I was then given a shot and carried by that person to the operating table. The last I remember was a nurse arranging "things" on a tray. I never saw the face of the doctor as it took few seconds for me to go under full anesthesia.

"I woke up in a bed with my father beside me, he asked me if I knew whathappened, I pulled the blanket because I could feel the dry bandage againstmy raw glans. … I realized what had happened. …I felt stunned. I could not say a thing. Right then I thought about suicide.

"After I came back home I "surveyed the damage" and counted 10 stitches. My feeling was: now I am just like all of them.

"Years have passed and by the age of 16, I was having painful erections. The tension in the shaft skin used to make my erections very noticeable to me to the degree they cannot be ignored. They give me the sense that they have to be relieved or soothed. I confused the excessive tension on my frenulum with an urge for pleasure. At the age of 17 I severed my frenulum with a blade to relieve that tension. The tension was reduced, but the damage of the mutilation has become more noticeable.

"To show you how angry I was, I remember the day when my mutilator (doctor) died from a heart attack at the age of 44, on a nice summer day few years later.

"At the age of 33, I started to read about the subject on the Internet. I learned about foreskin restoration and tried a technique that worked for me. It was not the aesthetic results that I was looking for, it was the functionality, and that eliminated the premature ejaculation problem I had, just by having some loose skin during erection.

"Physiologically, the experience left me feeling mutilated, for no reason or benefit. It damaged the relation I had with my father, and affected myattitude toward my parents. It also affected my religious beliefs. The effort and pains thinking about the subject, reading literature, andattempting the restoration could have been better spent, if this has notbeen done. "

A few words about Islamic religion and circumcision. My understanding is that God created the human body in best image; why mutilate it? Islam prohibited practices that cause body harm, like tattoos; and prophet Muhammad himself did not undergo circumcision. At this day and age where we laugh at witch-doctors and feel sorry for children who were blinded at childhood to become good masseuse, we still give a wink about this topic." (29)

LAW GETS INVOLVED

In September 1996 the United States passed a law against female genital mutilation. Opponents of male circumcision are asking for the same. There is some tension with those who crusade against female mutilation, some of them believing male circumcision is much less harmful and fighting it less urgent. But circumcision opponents say all involuntary genital surgery is mutilation that should be stopped.

For now, we can expect that if legal prohibition comes, it will come first in Canada. Canadians are already being warned. In 1996 the Canadian Medical Association approved a code of ethics that instructs doctors to "refuse to participate in or support practices that violate basic human rights."

This suggests, Mark Jenkins writes, "that in the case of circumcision, parental preference should not override the child's physical rights to his body."(30) Canada's National Post newspaper, in February, 2001, reported the Association for Genital Integrity's preparations to challenge the ban on female genital mutilation in Canada's Criminal Code as being discriminatory against males, who are not given similar protection.

"Every day in this country a quarter of the boys that are born are having this procedure performed on them without their consent and without any medical need. We don't see why half of our society should be protected by a law and not the other half," said Dr. Arif Bhimji, a Newmarket emergency room physician.

In February, 2002, the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Saskatchewan warned physicians against routine circumcision of newborn male infants and, among many words, essentially told doctor who will perform the surgeon based solely on parental preference, to consult their lawyers! (31) In her book The Ethical Canary, Somerville, a Canadian, argues physicians who undertake infant male circumcision could be legally liable for medical malpractice (civil liability in battery or negligence), which can result in an award of damages simply for carrying out the circumcision, even if it was competently performed (and many are botched with resulting horror stories of physical damage and death.) They could also, as explained, be charged with criminal liability for assault.

In both ethics and law, a physician has a primary obligation of personal care to the patient (not the parent). In France, journalist Michel Orcel has pointed out the absurdity of arguing over Muslim head-scarf law when "ritual circumcision is still an elective amputation done on a subject who cannot resist mentally or physically."

He says Article 16-3 of the French Civil Code is perfectly clear: "The physical integrity of a person cannot be violated except in cases of medical necessity. The consent of the person must be obtained beforehand except in cases where the person's condition necessitates a therapeutic intervention to which the person is incapable of giving consent..." In this country, attorney J. Steven Svoboda, a former Human RightsFellow at Harvard Law School, recently founded Attorneys for the Rights of the Child. "Our position is that circumcision is medical malpractice," he explains.

"The medical profession, which has perpetuated this tragicdisfigurement of baby boys' genitals, will now be challenged by anorganization of legal professionals." The courts are considering many cases. Samples: On July 22, 1995, a jury in Montgomery, Alabama, found Jackson Hospital and Clinic guilty of negligence in a case where a newborn was mistakenly circumcised against his mother's wishes. The minor plaintiff was awarded $65,000.

More recently a Suffolk County New York teen won an undisclosed settlement from a hospital and the doctor who circumcised him . He sued because his mother's permission was obtained while she was debilitated by the effects of a Caesarian section and painkillers – a common scenario.

"Never again can someone say that a young man who is dissatisfied with his circumcision as an infant is being frivolous when he objects to his mutilation and brings suit to obtain justice," said Llewellyn, his attorney.

Based in Georgia, Llewellyn's firm specializes "wrongful circumcision" and has handled about 20 cases, such as where the mother opposes a father's desire to have a son circumcised. "Doctors need to be sued," he said. "The only thing people seem to understand is lawsuits and money."

He believes it is women who need to take up this issue and defend their sons, he said.

"Fathers aren't going to do it because they won't acknowledge the wrong that has been done to them."

And the only way circumcision rate will be reversed, Kristen O'Hara contends, is to make people aware that women are the primary victims, since they are the ones who enduring discomfort, punishing blows, and lack of orgasm.

"The man suffers too, of course, because when women loseinterest in sex, men are deprived. And when it ultimately affects the love bond, and can lead to divorce, it's a tragedy for everyone."

Endnotes:
1. A conservative figure according to restoration activist Ron Low, Chicago.
2. Taylor, John, The Ridged Band website (http://research.cirp.org/abstr1.html)
3. The oldest documentary evidence for circumcision comes fromEgypt. Tomb artwork from the Sixth Dynasty (2345 - 2181 BC)shows men with circumcised penises……The examination of Egyptian mummies has found both circumcised and uncircumcised men. http://www.wikipedia.com/
4. Taylor, John, Lockwood, A.P., Taylor, A.J. "The prepuce: specialized mucosa of the penis and its loss to circumcision," British Journal of Urology, 1996, Vol. 77, pp. 291-295
5. O'Hara, Kristen and Jeffrey. Sex As Nature Intended It. Turning Point Publications, (Hudson, Mass.) 2002, p. 141.
6. See how the foreskin works in animation: http://www.circumstitions.com/Works.html
7. Human Sexuality: an Encyclopedia edited by Vern L Bullough and Bonnie Bullough New York: Garland Pub., 1994 p. 119-122.
8. Simple tape – a man stretches his shaft skin then tapes it in place and applies tension with a strap or string; devices such as the TugAhoy ( http://www.tugahoy.com/); RECAP method (recap_ez@hotmail.com) or (TLCTugger@Juno.com) Other options, surf
www.NORM-socal.org.
9. The full title is The Joy of Uncircumcising! Exploring History, Myths, Psychology, Restoration, Sexual Pleasure and Human Rights, 2nd Ed., by Jim Bigelow, Ph.D. Hourglass/pprbk. 1995.
10. She went on to found NOCIRC, the National Organization of Circumcision Information Resource Centers.
11. For more details see sexasnatureintendedit.com
12. Northrup is author of Women's Bodies, Women's Choices, 1998, The Wisdom of Menopause, 2003 and Mother-Daughter Wisdom, 2005.
13. O'Hara and others defend describing male circumcision as genital mutilation.
14. Goldman, Ron, Circumcision, The Hidden Trauma, How an American Cultural Practice Affects Infants and Ultimately Us All, Vanguard Publications, 1997, p 73.
15. For a complete discussion see Say No to Circumcision! 40 Compelling Reasons, by Thomas J. Ritter, MD, and George C. Denniston, MD. Second Edition. Hourglass Book Publishing, 1996)
16. Fleiss, with Frederick Hodges, has written "Nontherapeutic Circumcision Should Not Be Performed," American Medical News, vol. 38, no. 26 (July 17, 1995)
17. Angel, Money. Treatment Of Disease In Children. Philadelphia: P. Blakiston. 1887.
18. Jefferson C. Crossland, MD, "The Hygiene of Circumcision," New York Medical Journal, 1891. 19. Coleman, page 60. 20. Coleman, page 293.21. http://www.circumstitions.com/22. Coleman discusses the long-term psychological effects of circumcision on children and adults, p82-123.23. Glick, Leonard. Marked in Your Flesh, -Circumcision From Ancient Judea to Modern America, Oxford University Press, 2005, p. 29.24. Glick, p. 3125. Glick, p. 6726. Schoen's pro-circumcision website is www.medicirc.org
27. Somerville, Margaret A. The Ethical Canary Science, Society and the Human Spirit, Viking/Penguin Canada, Toronto, hardcover, 344 pages (chapter 8, pp. 202-219); or www.intact.ca/canary.htm.
28. http://www.islamonline.net/askaboutislam
29. Aldeeb's homepage: http://go.to/nonviolence
30. Jenkins, Mark. "Separated at Birth - Did Circumcision Ruin Your Sex Life?" Men's Health July/August 1998.
31. For more legal cases see http://www.circumstitions.com/Law.html

The following related essay is by Deane Jordan, author of 1,001 Facts Somebody Screwed Up and 1,001 More facts Somebody Screwed Up, Longstreet Press)

By Deane Jordan

Parents sometimes do to children things which if they did to adults would be crimes.

If one strapped down an adult, and then without anesthesia or his permission, cut off his foreskin, one would have committed several crimes: False imprisonment, sexual assault, and sexual battery are at least three. You also would have diminished his sexual pleasure for life, a damage he and his mate could sue over in civil court.

Yet when this same injury is done to an infant we not only ignore the violation of his rights and the permanent loss, we also make the false claim that it is good for him. It is as good as cutting off an eyelid, and as painful as skinning his finger alive and cutting off the fingernail. It is as rational and justified as cutting off a baby girl's nipples.

If medical benefits were the reason for involuntary circumcision it would have ended decades ago because years of research have shown it provides is no significant benefit to him or his sexual partner. In fact, quite the opposite is true. Thus, the most common medical assault in the United States is also the least justified.

It is difficult to find an argument for involuntary circumcision other than the only way to perpetuate the mutilation is to force it upon those who cannot say no. Indeed, given circumcision's persistence through history, it is rather clear that urge to mutilate is the one constant element whereas the unfounded justifications change with time.

Doctors used to claim it cured epilepsy. Now they say it is hygienic. Both claims are false. There is also the issue of denial.

Circumcising others is a way to deny ones own injury or the injury one has allowed to be done to infants. It is passing on the pain.

Of course, in the modern era, many parents allowed this amputation based upon the poor advice of their doctor. It is difficult to accuse parents with good intentions with this child abuse thus the real problem lies with the medical profession, which literally makes billions off this injury not only in the cutting but the selling the ill-gotten flesh for commercial research.

Financially, infant circumcision is a lose-lose situation. Very few actual complications arise from foreskins compared to the number of circumcisions done. Treating those few instances over a lifetime costs society far less than the millions spent on involuntary circumcisions year after year.

Morally, involuntary circumcision is reprehensible.

It is forcing onto someone something quite unnecessary and what he would most likely not choose for himself if he had any say.

Adult males rarely want to be circumcised, and most men on earth are happily intact. Ethically, circumcision is a violation of the doctor's oath to do no harm. The foreskin of an infant is not damaged, diseased nor life-threatening. Indeed, foreskins do not kill infants - millions healthily keep them ever year—but many infants die from circumcision every year.

Others have the ends of their penis damaged more than usual or have it completely cut off. This sometimes leads to total genital amputation and raising the child as a girl, but this has proven to be rather unsuccessful. These "girls" act like boys only without penises, such as urinating standing up and a strong dislike of things feminine.

Medically, little benefit is to be gained by involuntary circumcision.

The Victorian notion that the penis is dirty is the most often given reason for involuntary circumcision. Yet the fact of the matter is it is the circumcised penis that is more dirty. The foreskin-protected glans is soft and supple, kept that way by emollients secreted by the foreskin, emollients that also have anti-bacterial and viral components.

The soft protected glans forms a resilient barrier to invading germs. The circumcised penis however is not only unprotected but keratinized, giving it a gray, wrinkled look not found in the natural penis. Keratinzation leads to drying and cracking, creating places to harbor sexually transmitted diseases, and in fact circumcised men have higher STD rates.

There also may be a correlation between circumcision and cancer of the penis, but the opposite from what is often touted. The penile cancer is high in Israel where circumcision is almost universal because of the religion. It is low in Scandinavia where circumcision is extremely rare.

Further, foreskins have estrogen receptors and one cannot help but wonder if research will show if foreskins pick up estrogen from intercourse and if that benefits intact men.

Sexually, circumcision is the unkindest cut of all. It not only permanently removes some 20,000 nerve endings but also a ring of specialized pleasure cells where the inner and out fold of the foreskin meet. It also reduces blood flow through the penis often requiring corrective surgery.

The trauma of denuding -- removing a third or more of the penile skin—and the resulting keratinization-- forces more layers of dead skin on the circumcised glans, burying what nerve receptors that are left under more layers of skin. That lessens or deadens tactile sensations.

Day-to-day friction on the circumcised penis further reduces its sensitivity. The circumcised penis is numb compared to the natural one. And it may be this fact which accounts for the overwhelming dislike among circumcised men to use condoms. A desensitized penis wrapped in latex feels little, like kissing through a screen. It is more than ironic that an injury perpetuated by doctors under the guise of prevention is actually causing more disease. Rarely discussed but also important is how circumcision affects a man's sexual partner. The most comprehensive study to date shows circumcised men engage in more non-mainstream sexual activity than do their uncut brethren. They engage in more homosexual and heterosexual anal sex and in more homosexual oral sex. The theory given is that the desensitized penis leads them to engage in rougher sex to achieve physical stimulation, or said another way, so they can actually feel something.

During heterosexual sex the lack of a foreskin also changes how the penis pleasures her. Without the foreskin it is but direction friction in the vagina whereas the natural penis provides friction and moving pressure. The desensitized penis also reduces her ability to please him during fellatio.

Fortunately, the circumcision rate is dropping in the United States, mainly because of reports in the popular press rather than medical publications. It has gone from a high of some 90 percent in 1990 to under 60 percent today, one third on the West Coast. The tide has turned and in a generation or two the rates could be fairly low and confined to religious marking.

Interestingly, most women inherently know that infant circumcision is wrong, but it is often the misinformed circumcised father who demands the amputation. Fully informed parents rarely circumcise.

In fact, one group of nurses who began to inform parents of the detrimental aspects of circumcision -- including pictures of the procedure and wound—were forced to stop by doctors who complained they were frightening parents-to-be. They preferred parents be fed circumcision fiction.

Research also shows infant circumcision not only affects the mother child bonding but nursing habits as well. It also makes the infant more sensitive to pain. Circumcised boys have a lower threshold of pain than girls or intact boys.

Research shows the brain does not forget the intense pain of circumcision - many children lapse into shock while being skinned— so there may be long term neural behavioral implications among the circumcised.

While there has always been rape, research might show the circumcised rape more than the unmutilated.

There is little to be said for involuntary circumcision other than it is common. And no doubt those who are psychologically motivated to mutilate - not misinformed parents but advocates—will continue to invent spurious reasons to pass on the pain. And therein lies the truth.

Circumcision really has nothing to do with sex or hygiene. It is a willingness to injure a hapless infant, a willingness to force upon him what he most certainly would not choose himself, a willingness abrogate his rights and rob him of a say and choice over his own body.

Infant circumcision is primitive aggression perpetuating itself on the most defenseless among us.

Doctors have a duty, an obligation to protect their youngest patients from this injury. Unfortunately, many a doctor sill cuts for a buck then sells the flesh. That is fundamentally wrong. It is immoral. Circumcision is a mistake that lasts a lifetime.

(Deane Jordan is the author of 1,001 Facts Somebody Screwed Up and 1,001 More facts Somebody Screwed Up, Longstreet Press) ###