Tawni Tidwell is not as yet a household name, but she is the first Westerner to be certified in Tibetan medicine among Tibetan peers, by Tibetan teachers, in the Tibetan language. Ms. Tidwell, who has Native American ancestry from both parents, is now a Tibetan M.D.
Melvin Konner writes about Ms. Tidwell in the WSJ, noting that Dr. Tidwell is headed for a Ph.D. in anthropology at Emory.
Dr. Tidwell’s dissertation is a study of her own Tibetan training and the uniting of two cultures. Tibetan practice grew out of Tibetan philosophy, which focuses on health rather than on illness. Tibetan doctors use ancient plant-based pharmaceuticals and guidance on nutrition and lifestyle—plus evaluations of patients in their personal context—to encourage a balanced life. They also
have been open to supplementing their traditions with Western medicine’s high-tech ways.
Sophisticated research is exploring how Tibetan herbals might work. In a 2015 study, a herbal treatment for cardiac disease was found to alter the levels of hundreds of heart proteins. Clinical studies are ongoing, testing Tibetan approaches to diabetes and cancer.
The Tibetan tradition and its herbal medicines offer this inviting alternative to the typical Western approach: Learn to separate your pain from your suffering, and you might just be able to get on with your life without turning to powerful and potentially harmful drugs.
Read more from Dr. Konner here on this remarkable young woman, who explains to readers, “There is a difference between pain and suffering. … You may have to keep the pain, but that doesn’t mean you have to keep the suffering.”
In a decade, Cotton or Rubio or both might wind up in an analogous posture. But for the moment, the two are among the leading Senate representatives of a bellicose intellectual faction, which rejects everything Donald Trump stands for, and their selection would rip up the coalition he has cobbled together. Their ideas about foreign policy—no matter how much media power is arrayed behind
them—are failed ones, and are widely understood to have failed. Trump should do some ideological outreach with his veep selection, but Rubio or Cotton would be a bridge too far.
I like Mr. Trump’s initial list of Supreme Court candidates. Take note of the number of candidates who have clerked for either Justice Clarence Thomas or the iconic Justice Antonin Scalia.
Donald Trump has put a great foot forward with conservatives. Here is his foundation statement:
Justice Scalia was a remarkable person and a brilliant Supreme Court Justice. His career was defined by his reverence for the Constitution and his legacy of protecting Americans’ most cherished freedoms. He was a Justice who did not believe in legislating from the bench and he is a person whom I held in the highest regard and will always greatly respect his intelligence and conviction to uphold the
Constitution of our country. The following list of potential Supreme Court justices is representative of the kind of constitutional principles I value and, as President, I plan to use this list as a guide to nominate our next United States Supreme Court Justices.
John McLaughlin and Jim McLaughlin, Republican strategists and partners in the national polling firm McLaughlin & Associates, predict that the tightening presidential race will rest on the 26% group of voters who have an unfavorable view of both Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. “These voters are split virtually evenly, with
35 percent liking Clinton, 34 percent liking Trump, and 32 percent undecided. As we have been saying this year, winning ugly will still be winning.”
Messrs. McLaughlins are not aligned with any presidential candidate or super PAC. Read more in NRO here.
Hillary’s only path to victory relies on keeping Donald Trump’s negatives higher than her own. Because voters have known her in the national political arena for 24 years, and they have a firmer, more long-term opinion of her, it will be difficult for Clinton to lower her negatives without raising Trump’s unfavorable rating. This means she will be attacking Trump early and often, just as
she has in the primaries, using the media every day and airing millions of dollars’ worth of TV ads. This explains why just this week, Clinton-allied super PACs have hit the airways with negative ads attacking Donald Trump.
In the past month, however, Trump’s favorable-to-unfavorable rating has improved by 9 percent. His unfavorable rating dropped from 65 percent to 60 percent, while his favorable rating rose from 33 percent to 37 percent. Independents are unfavorable to Trump, 27 percent to 68 percent. Trump’s negatives eclipse Clinton’s negatives in her base: 83 percent of Democrats, 79 percent of
African Americans, 73 percent of Hispanics, and 67 percent of women dislike him. And Trump still has his share of negatives in his own base: Among Republicans, 28 percent see him unfavorably, and 39 percent of conservatives do. Eighty percent of undecided voters for president don’t like Trump; only 9 percent do like him.
Heavily tattooed Night wolves leader Zaldostanov, known as “the Surgeon,” intends to help “reassert the greatness of the Russian world.” The Night Wolves’ imposing lair in an old Moscow junkyard has all the air of a “Mad Max” movie set.
The Wall Street Journalunderstatedly informs readers, “The Night Wolves are no ordinary motorcycle club. They’re Russian nationalists in biker gear who have been a powerful force for whipping up pro-Kremlin sentiment. And they have an important patron in President Vladimir Putin.”
The public face of the club is Alexander Zaldostanov, who has been its leader since 1989. Zaldostanov, better known as “the Surgeon,” was once actually a surgeon. He worked at a prestigious institute specializing in post-traumatic facial reconstruction. Zaldostanov’s nickname also has to do with his skill at knife fighting, rumor has it.
Zaldostanov was born in Ukraine and spent part of his childhood in Crimea before studying medicine in Moscow. Despite his professional success in the 1980s, Zaldostanov gravitated toward the Moscow underground, riding around the city at night on a Czech-made motorcycle. “I had a parallel life… negative for the government, for the police,” Zaldostanov told Vice News in
a recent interview. “I was in the opposition then. We had our own club, and I was a constant participant in fights.”
As the Night Wolves grew into a major association following the collapse of the Soviet Union, Zaldostanov steered his club in a different direction than infamous criminal motorcycle gangs in the West, such as the Hells Angels. “We’re ready to fuck someone up, but not because of some drugs or something. We have different values. We’re for the motherland,”
Zaldostanov explained to Vice News.
The liberal Ninth
U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, is expected to rule soon on whether states can force firearm manufacturers to incorporate safety devices in their products. Here’s why smart guns are a stupid idea from Robert Farago:
“Smart guns” will never be foolproof – and you’re the fool
I don’t care how much you’ve trained for a defensive gun use. When the excrement hits the rotating air circulation device, you’re an awkward fool. For one thing, a massive adrenaline dump moves blood away from your extremities (a hard-wired reaction to protect you from bleeding). As the Rabbi puts it, fingers turn to flippers. Fine motor skills go bye-bye.
For another, your cognitive abilities (i.e. higher brain functions) go walkies. The idea of adding an extra step to the process of armed self-defense is inherently, not to say profoundly dangerous. (The main reason you should never carry an unloaded gun.) A “smart gun” that requires any additional manipulation — including precise hand placement — is potentially
catastrophic.
At least one potential manufacturer has developed a weapon requiring an access code for initial activation. Others have opted for systems dependent on a functioning watch (as above) or ring. The danger of a mechanical or behavioral malfunction in those systems is pretty obvious.
Most “smart gun” makers are working on creating guns with automatic user identification embeded in the firearm, usually relying on your finger or palm print. When you grab your gun the system recognizes you and “allows” you to fire the weapon.
Any gun-mounted user identification system would have to be lightning quick and 100 percent foolproof. It would have to work under all conditions, including temperature variations and in the event of a bad (i.e., poor or emergency) grip.
By the same token, a fingerprint or palm print recognition system will be defeated if you’re wearing a glove or your finger or hand is covered in a substance preventing recognition. A substance like…blood. Gunfights can be bloody affairs. Now what?
If you believe that a foolproof “smart gun” is a possibility, consider the fact that existing guns — machines which rely on simple, highly evolved mechanical processes — can and do fail. For example, I shot a Smith & Weson revolver where a basic mechanical lock seized up in the middle of a string of fire. Magazine failures are relatively common (the reason you should always
carry a spare).
In other words, guns already aren’t foolproof. No matter how well designed and manufactured, adding an electronic system on top of the mechanical functions increases the risk of a malfunction. Some people will be willing to accept that risk. You shouldn’t. You should take responsibility for your firearm’s security. Period.
As Hillary Clinton’s once double-digit lead over Donald Trump narrows to only three percentage points, according to the WSJ, it’s important to understand that voters for Donald Trump are doing more than just rejecting President Obama and his policies. Equally important is that they are rejecting “the brand of unprincipled ‘conservatism’ that marked the Bush years.
Conservatism is supposed to be about improving people’s lives and opportunities. Free markets and limited government,” writes Stephen Moore.
Sorry, the Bush years didn’t turn out so well for the middle class. Wages started stagnating around 2000.
It turns out that conservatives today — the tens of millions who voted for Mr. Trump, are challenging many of the worn-out orthodoxies of the party. No, we don’t want to be the policeman of the world. Yes, we are going to insist that Europe pay the cost of defending itself. No, we don’t think the federal government has
done anything to advance educational outcomes in America. No, we don’t want to let terrorists into the country simply because political correctness says we have to.
Is this “anti-intellectual?” No, it is common sense. I’ve been to Trump rallies. There are thousands of veterans who served our country valiantly. They are patriots.
Supporters have had to listen to holier-than-thou sermons from the people who shoved the biggest expansion in Medicare and No Child Left Behind down their throats. Under Bush, the Department of Education spent money at twice the pace of Bill Clinton; the Treasury Department wrote a $700 billion check to bail out financial companies; and Americans went into Afghanistan for a tragically failed attempt at
nation-building. How about passing the worst energy bill in American history? The one that regulates every electrical appliance in your home, from the light bulbs in your bedroom to the energy efficiency of your refrigerator.
As Mr. Moore points out, anyone can disagree with the priorities or even the values of those voting for Donald Trump. What is shameful, however, is to call them misogynists, bigots, anti-intellectuals and anti-science. “No wonder the grass roots thumb their noses at the Republicans’ intellectual leadership. They’re just returning the favor.”
U.S. District Judge Richard J. Leon issued an injunction prohibiting D.C. from requiring lawful citizens to show “good reason” before being granted a permit to carry a firearm, reports America’s 1st Freedom. Sticking up for your rights, Judge Leon found that the
D.C. law violated the “core right of self-defense”. He quoted the Supreme Court’s decision in D.C. v. Heller: “The enshrinement of constitutional rights necessarily takes certain policy choices off the table.” And he reinforced the right to carry for self-protection, stating that the Second Amendment “Is not limited to the home”. It would be nice if Rhode Islanders had their own Judge Richard J. Leon sticking up for them.
Read Dick Young’s series featuring Cato Institute Chairman Bob Levy, co-counsel in the District of Columbia v. Heller case:
Over four decades ago, I met Cato Institute Chairman Bob Levy. Bob and I were both associated with a New York-based institutional research and trading firm. In recent years, Bob became chairman of the Cato Institute. Since then Debbie and I have become closely involved with Cato thanks to Bob and also to our friend and Cato co-founder Ed Crane.
Bob Levy was co-counsel in the landmark Supreme Court case, District of Columbia vs. Heller. In Cato’s most recent Quarterly Message on Liberty, Bob has provided a fact-filled, compelling argument for the Second Amendment. In my multi-part mini series, I want to share a few of Bob’s comments with you. The Supreme Court declared in both Heller and McDonald that the right to bear arms is considered a fundamental right. Regarding so-called assault weapons, Bob writes, “Criminals do not
typically use assault rifles. They use handguns. As assault weapons are expensive and very difficult to conceal. And even if they were to reinstitute the ban, (assault rifles), we would be unable to deal with the number of these guns already owned.”
Over four decades ago, I met Cato Institute Chairman Bob Levy. Bob and I were both associated with a New York-based institutional research and trading firm. In recent years, Bob became chairman of the Cato Institute. Since then Debbie and I have become closely involved with Cato thanks to Bob and also to our friend and Cato co-founder Ed Crane.
Bob Levy was co-counsel in the landmark Supreme Court case, District of Columbia vs. Heller. In Cato’s most recent Quarterly Message on Liberty, Bob has provided a fact-filled, compelling argument for the Second Amendment. In my multi-part mini series, I want to share a few of Bob’s comments with you. The Supreme Court declared in both Heller and McDonald that the right to bear arms is considered a fundamental right.
Bob writes, “There were 13,000 people murdered with a weapon in 2011. Of those, 1,700 were killed with knives; 500 were killed with hammers, bats and clubs; and 728 by someone’s bare hands. How many of those were killed with rifles—not just assault rifles, but rifles of all types? Three hundred and twenty-three.”
Here Mr. Levy lays out all the numbers required to send state governors and legislatures up another path rather than regulating the sale of so-called assault rifles, magazines and ammunition. Such debate, never mind action, is nothing but shameful political posturing, unfortunately fueled by the recent travesties. This is an open and shut case for anyone with a lick of common sense.
Some background on D.C.’s dirty tricks from Cato Institute here:
As a glutton for punishment, I occasionally turn on C-SPAN radio. House Republicans on the Oversight Committee put on a heck of a
show a week ago today.
The problems start right in the title of the hearing: “White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal.” So the House Committee for Oversight and Government Reform is now holding hearings on the “narratives” used by other politicians? Have they run out of actual
policies to oversee and reform, and now they’re down to narratives?
But if you jump the link there, you’ll see that it was really a hearing about the profile of Ben Rhodes in the New York Times a few weeks ago. Republicans on the Committee wanted to accuse Rhodes of producing and disseminating ridiculous analysis to sell
the Iran deal, but he wouldn’t show. Inexplicably, then, the Republican members invited three Republicans to the hearing with track records of selling their own misinformation–to sell not a nuclear deal and peace, but an easily avoidable war.
John Hannah, a scholar at the neoconservative Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, was an aide to Dick Cheney who was integral to the intelligence debacle leading to Iraq. He at least had the good grace to look sheepish at times. Hannah was joined by Michael Doran, a
scholar at the neoconservative Hudson Institute, who in a previous life was a Princeton Middle East professor who produced insights like this howler from late 2002:
defeating Saddam would offer the United States a golden opportunity to show the Arab and Muslim worlds that Arab aspirations are best achieved by working in cooperation with Washington.
If the editors of the Nation had picked a panel to appear before a committee about misrepresenting intelligence and American foreign policy, it wouldn’t have looked much different than this. For their part, Democrats on the Committee were quite happy to turn the hearing into the one they should have held in 2002 about the intelligence used to justify the Iraq War, teeing off on
Hannah in particular.
But perhaps the coup de grâce was left to a Representative from Oklahoma, Steve Russell. Russell, an Iraq veteran, opened his remarks to “take exception to the twisted narrative that our entry into Iraq was based on bad faith and false pretense.” He then went on to explain Saddam Hussein had the “technical capacity to build a bomb” and that he learned subsequent to his
service in Iraq that Hussein had stashed his nuclear and chemical materials in Syria, which is what Israel bombed there in 2007. Other members of the panel, and the witnesses, treated his speech as if he had passed gas in a crowded elevator, politely pushing outward and looking the other way.
It’s going to go on like this, forever. To Republicans, the Iraq War will always be prudent, brave, and based on the best reading of the facts. It’s somewhat ironic that the party still calling itself conservative has taken a fully postmodern view of truth.
