These words were uttered by a male attacker as he raped Rosemary Trible at gunpoint, who had just addressed the-then taboo subject of sexual assault on her TV talk show.

Trible, the wife of former Congressman and Senator Paul Trible (R-Va.), is sharing her 35-year-old story of her assault and her long journey back to wholeness in the book, Fear to Freedom. At the time of her rape, she was the television talk show host of “Rosemary’s Guestbook” on WTVR in Richmond, VA.

She was inspired to write her story after her pastor asked the congregation, “What if you did not have to be so afraid,” and “What if you could help someone else not to be so afraid?” She put pen to paper about her assault, and chronicled the journeys from several other women about their similar experiences.

“Your ashes of yesterday do not have to define you today,” Trible says. “My hope is that the brokenhearted find hope that God’s healing power is transformational. His amazing grace has released me, and I have found the power of forgiveness and what it means to be reconciled to others.”

More information on the project can be read on www.FearToFreedomJourney.com

“Teenage athletes who play in multiple leagues and participate in sports year-round tend to overuse the same muscles and joints. The overuse could lead to serious injuries such as dislocated shoulders, torn anterior cruciate ligaments and ligaments usually seen more often in adults,” Dr. Thomas DeBerardino, an associate professor of orthopedics at the University of Connecticut Health Center says.

The doctor, who calls these injuries “a silent epidemic,” will be moderating a week-long conference about adolescent sports injuries in New Orleans. DeBerardino warns strongly against teenagers playing in competitive sports, one right after the other, without a chance to let their bodies heal.

“If you’re on multiple teams, that is detrimental to the overall health of their kids’ shoulders and knees. It comes down to being over-scheduled. Along with being over-scheduled, they’re overexposed and potentially injured.

“This increases risk of overuse and the adult-type injuries like stress and ligament injuries,”he says.

DeBerardino says it’s up to the teen and the parent to determine how much is enough. “Each parent and person responsible for the kid needs to pay attention. You don’t have to examine the kid. Ask them if they feel overwhelmed, over-challenged. When you need a break, you need a break.”

At the same time, Black Kern is about 10% and Hispanic Kern is about 5%, 60% of Kern County residents are self-reported “White”, but only half (50%) report “Not Hispanic”. So, if you’re thinking ‘gringo’ when you think ‘white’, those comprise a mere 40% of Kern County. “Black” or “African American” and not Hispanic is about 5%. Asian and not Hispanic is about 4%. Hispanics account for half of our number, whether they are the oft-described “Mexican” or the Zimmerman-esque “White Hispanic”, or whatever.

If Kern County continues to put “Hispanic” into their collective Racial Taxonomy (which they shouldn’t) than that group is currently the majority. Recently, the US Census announced that more than half of American babies are non-white. California’s residents have been more than 50% ‘minority’ for several years.

Undoubtedly, white Kern has higher numbers of college grads than the other groups (except Asians), but our low numbers are for everybody in Kern. We are ALL doing poorly. In fact, the county is the worst in California. “Kern County had not only the state’s lowest college-going rate overall, but also among the socioeconomically disadvantaged (31.7 percent), English learners (11.3 percent) and students with disabilities (12.9 percent).” http://californiawatch.org/dailyreport/college-going-rates-vary-widely-california-13121

So what to make of the fact that Bakersfield has the highest per-capita number of for-profit colleges and universities in the state? Contrary to the claims made by those bodies, they often do not serve their communities well. Students at for-profit institutions incur more debt than students at Public institutions; they graduate at lower rates than at Public institutions; student complaints about their institutions are investigated at a lower rate than Public institutions; they are under investigation by State Attorneys General around the country for various flavors of misconduct.

The worst news for Kern County? The for-profit colleges actively seek out minority and/or poor populations (like ours) and they do particularly poorly with THEM. They put such folk into debt more often than offer a leg up. They offer no degree more than even a two year AA degree for them. They put their satellite campuses handily into their communities in Leased spaces where they can easily pull up stakes and move on. They have no investment in the communities they blow through.

The argument can be made, to paraphrase Ronald Reagan’s oft-quoted maxim about government: “for-profit colleges are not the solution to our problem, for-profit colleges ARE our problem”.

And what are the UC and the CSU systems doing to combat this encroachment? Rewarding their heads with unprecedented largesse, pushing maintenance costs more and more on to the backs of students, and forming online classes that mimic the business models of the for-profits and have similarly abysmal graduation rates (CSU online’s grad rate today hovers around 20%). Fewer and fewer students are accepted into the California Public College system, once the world’s best, and hence are being pushed into the for-profit margins.

Education is just one more example of how the Conservative side of our country would have it: privatize everything in sight under the belief that private market forces encourage all kinds of efficiencies and cure the system – any system – of virtually all its ills. The problem, of course, is that the profit motive is a poor mechanism for legacy construction.

I understand some people have had good success with the for-profits. The average Kern citizen would probably be shocked to learn how many of its K-12 teachers have their Masters degrees from LaVerne or Phoenix. About CSU Bakersfield, they will say, “Yeah, but they have such huge classes,” or “Yeah, but they don’t work with their students,” or “Yeah, but they don’t schedule their classes often enough.”

I agree the Public system needs some reforms. Desperately. But even in its worst of times, it can also be said:

Yeah. But They graduate their students at something like two or three times the for-profits.

Yeah. But They have alumni who repay their loans at nearly two times the for-profits.

Yeah. But They don’t target minorities and low income populations with empty promises and high debt.

And most importantly: Yeah. But They have alumni who get jobs and earn more than those from for-profits.

As usual, the reality about higher education doesn’t fit the good vs. evil meme that so many would like use to describe the 21st Century. This is more complicated. This is the truth. This is Our Age.

Sibling rivalry is a green-eyed monster that raises its head in many families, especially when children are close in age. “Sibling rivalry is the jealousy, competition and fighting between brothers and sisters,” says registered nurse Kyla Boyse. “Problems often start right after the birth of the second child.

“Each child is competing to define who they are as an individual. As they discover who they are, they try to find their own talents, activities, and interests. They want to show that they are separate from their siblings,” Boyse says.

Many family fights with arise out of boredom and inattention., “Children may not know positive ways to get attention from or start playful activities with a brother or sister, so they pick fights instead.”

Happily, there are many ways to relieve stress and manage the situation.

Boyse says to not “play favorites. Try not to compare your children to one another. For example, don’t say things like, ‘Your brother gets good grades in math —- why can’t you?’

“Let each child be who they are. Don’t try to pigeonhole or label them.”

“Enjoy each of your children’s individual talents and successes.” Boyse advises. She also advises that you “plan family activities that are fun for everyone. If your kids have good experiences together, it acts as a buffer when they come into conflict. It’s easier to work it out with someone you share warm memories with.”

More importantly, parents should “set aside ‘alone time’ for each child, if possible. Each parent should try to spend some one-on-one with each kid on a regular basis. Try to get in at least a few minutes each day. It’s amazing how much even 10 minutes of uninterrupted one-on-one time can mean to your child,” Boyse says.

That’s what makes up that thin layer clinging to your furniture, tabletops and window panes. That’s what David Layton and Paloma Beamer, professors of environmental policy at the University of Arizona have found in their extensive research on household dust.

According to Beamer, there are even more components to the average “dust bunny.” “Dust is a hodgepodge of all sorts of things. It would probably be impossible to make a list of all the possible items.”

The researchers found that 60% of dust comes from outside, through windows, doors, vents and on the soles of shoes.

The fact that DDT is still in house dust is a surprise to most people, since the pesticide was banned in the U.S. in 1972. “Dust in our homes,” says Beamer, “especially deep dust in our carpets and furniture, is a conglomerate of substances over the life of the home and can provide a historical record of chemicals that have entered it.”

While this may come as disturbing news to some, researchers say not to worry. Just clean regularly, don’t smoke and eat at the table. It’s common knowledge that a cleaner home is a healthier home for those who live there.

Multiple-father type of family structures were more common among minority women, with 59 percent of African-American mothers, 35 percent of Hispanic mothers and 22 percent of white mothers reporting children with more than one father.

“To put it in perspective, this is similar to the number of American adults with a college degree,” the study’s author, Cassandra Dorius, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Michigan Institute for Social Research says. “It’s pervasive.”

Dorius’ study examined data from nearly 4,000 U.S. women who had been interviewed more than 20 times over a 27-year period.

Dorius says the findings are highly important in regards to the consequences to both the mother and her children. Women with children from multiple fathers tend to be disadvantaged compared to other moms. “They are more likely to be under-employed, to have lower incomes, and to be less educated,” Dorius says.

This type of family structure, with children from multiple fathers can lead to a lot more stress for everyone involved, in part because the women need to juggle the demands and needs of more than one dad.

“Everyday decisions are more complex and family rules are more ambiguous,” Dorius says. “Families need to figure out who lives with whom and when, who pays for things like clothing, who is responsible for child support.”

Earlier studies that looked at women with children from different dads focused only on young or inner-city mothers. New data shows that this kind of family structure is found at all levels of income and education. The figures are frequently tied to divorce and remarriage and not just to single motherhood, Dorius says. Forty-three percent of the women with children with multiple dads were married when their first babies were born.

Women with low income and little education were also more likely to have children with different birth fathers. “While these women tended to be poorer than others to begin with, their whole lifetimes continue to be disadvantaged,” Dorius says.

The story continues, “Well, I asked how much, and she responded, ‘Only two fifty-it’s a great deal!’ I agreed to that, and told her to just add it to my tab.”

The story takes a turn for the worse. “Thirty days later, I received my credit card statement, and the Neiman-Marcus charge was $285.00! I looked again, and I remembered I had only spent $9.95 for two salads and about $20.00 for a scarf. As I glanced at the bottom of the statement, it said, ‘Cookie Recipe-$250.00.’ That was outrageous!”

The disgruntled shopper then lists a recipe for the cookies as revenge for being bilked out of $250, and tells everyone to e-mail the recipe to everyone they know.

Of course, the story isn’t true in the slightest.

It is in fact, a variation on an older story involving devil’s food cake bought at a restaurant as far back as the 19th Century! Neiman-Marcus has taken the e-mail hoax in stride, and offers the following recipe on their Web site.

2 cups butter
24 oz. chocolate chips
4 cups flour
2 cups brown sugar
2 tsp. soda
1 tsp. salt
2 cups sugar
1 8 oz. Hershey Bar (grated)
5 cups blended oatmeal
4 eggs
2 tsp. baking powder
2 tsp. vanilla
3 cups chopped nuts (your choice)

Measure oatmeal, and blend in a blender to a fine powder.
Cream the butter and both sugars. Add eggs and vanilla, mix together with flour, oatmeal, salt, baking powder, and soda. Add chocolate chips, Hershey Bar, and nuts.
Roll into balls, and place two inches apart on a cookie sheet. Bake for 10 minutes at 375 degrees. Makes 112 cookies.

“This is nothing more than CSPI scare tactics, and their claims are outrageous,” the American Beverage Association wrote in a statement released to the media.

“The science simply does not show that 4-MEI foods or beverages are a threat to human health,” the statement continues.

The Food and Drug Administration appears to be sympathetic to this sentiment. FDA spokesman Douglas Karas wrote in a statement that the FDA is currently reviewing the CSPI petition, but “it is important to understand that a consumer would have to consume well over a thousand cans of soda a day to reach the doses administered in the studies that have shown links to cancer in rodents.”

Soda manufacturers, however, need to come up with a solution. One of the options is to switch to a new, low 4-MI formulation of caramel coloring. Coca-Cola says they’re up to the challenge, and have already begun the change.

“The company did make the decision to ask its caramel suppliers to make the necessary manufacturing process modifications to meet the requirement of the State of California,” Diana Garza Ciarlante, a Coca-Cola spokeswoman wrote in an email.

Ciarlante insists that caramel coloring in all Coke products has always been safe.

“The fact is that the body of science about 4-MEI in foods or beverages does not support the erroneous allegations that CSPI would like the public to believe,” she writes.

Outside of California, no regulatory agency is concerned with protecting the public’s health has stated that 4-MI is a human carcinogen.

“Caramel color is now — and has always been — safe and harmless,” Ted Nixon, CEO of D.D. Williamson, the world’s largest supplier of caramel color says.

Nixon explains that in order to modify the caramel color to reduce the levels of 4-MI, scientists went back to the drawing board to change the manufacturing process.

“We did have to change these various inputs of temperature, pressure and the various ingredients we’re using in order to change [4-MI concentrations],” Nixon says.

JFK at Yale Commencement, June 11, 1962.

President John F. Kennedy walks next to Yale President Griswold on the occasion of the former's speech and Honary Doctorate.

I decided to use this quote as an inspiration for naming this blog because JFK’s observations about politics in his time sound so much like politics in our time. The fact that he spends time differentiating lies from myth – a distinction that you would expect children to understand – is a telling point. In politics, then as now, people have a strong tendency to demonize the other side. It is a good thing to remember that we have to deal with the myths more than any lies; the others side thinks the same of us and is does no good to just toss ad hominems back and forth. So we deal with understandings – and where these can be shown to be fallacious, hopefully there will be more room for compromise, if not agreement.

The rest of the context of the speech, however, underscores something singular about our age as opposed to JFK’s age. In this speech, he was allowing that even though past presidents had difficulties, they were based on simpler differences, or at least differences that were more easily defined. He mentioned “the national bank, the disposal of the public lands, nullification or union, freedom or slavery, gold or silver.”

“Today,” he said, “these sweeping issues have disappeared.” His conclusion? Since the sweeping issues have been taken care of, then in OUR AGE, we need to deal with the more subtle differences.

Little did he know that the beginning of the 21 Century would be marked by a revisit to most, if not all of those sweeping issues.

So even though his speech contains thought that we would do well to heed, it also makes the assumption that the things in the past that had been decided, or seemingly decided, would not creep back into the realm of public discourse.

Alas. They have. There are Tea Partyers who question the replacement of the gold standard, the national bank, the disposal of public lands, nullification or union. We have stopped discussing freedom or slavery,but many believe that the racist heritage of that institution still deeply divides us.

So: OUR AGE. Have we regressed? Was JFK wrong in saying these things were decided? In the 21^st Century is it true, as he said: “these old sweeping issues have largely disappeared. The central domestic problems of our time are more subtle and less simple. They relate not to basic clashes of philosophy or ideology but to ways and means of reaching common goals — to research for sophisticated solutions to complex and obstinate issues.”?

I think one of the differences between the Liberals and Conservatives in this country is that the left believed these things were done, while the right, at least the Tea Party right, did not – or could not.

The truth of OUR AGE is that we have not only plenty of new problems that need solution, but we also have to go over old solutions. Civil rights, equality, economic equity, as well as the ongoing issues of environment, foreign policy, poverty, immigration and “the national bank, the disposal of the public lands, nullification or union, freedom or slavery, gold or silver.”

In OUR AGE, we have to do it all. Why this is true, and how do we do this – all the while remembering the  basic Kennedian maxim: “For the great enemy of truth is very often not the lie — deliberate, contrived and dishonest — but the myth — persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic.”

I believe that in OUR AGE we are as divided as we have ever been. I will continue to try and address the problems we face in this blog as I always do – without demonizing my fellow Americans and by addressing myths moreso, or instead, of, perceived lies.

I devoutly hope that the few people who read my efforts appreciate them in this light.

The polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, or GQR found after the 2008 election that, “If not for the overwhelming support of unmarried women, John McCain would have won the women’s vote and with it, the White House.” Unmarried women voted for Barack Obama over Sen. John McCain, 70 percent to 29 percent, and cast 23 percent of all votes in that election.

The polling firm found that unmarried women last year continued to vote strongly for Democratic candidates, although a sufficient number of some unmarried women switched votes, and that helped carry many Republicans to victory. The Los Angeles Times cited a GQR analysis that all Republicans running won the vote of half of white unmarried women, up from just 39 percent of support from that group in the two previous election cycles.

“Unmarried women are the most economically vulnerable group, particularly if they have children. While there has been a lot of discussion in this recession about men and manufacturing jobs, it still is the case that unmarried women are the poorest. If they feel their concerns aren’t being addressed by Obama and the Democrats around the economy, it sort of makes some sense there was a decline,” GQR’s pollster Anna Greenberg explains.

Unmarried women are highly concerned about how much health care coverage they’ll receive … or lose under ObamaCare and about changes made to programs like Medicare and Medicaid.

Another issue of high concern is the future of Social Security, which more than 25 percent of unmarried women rely on as their only source of income.

Improved education as a path to economic improvement for their children, grandchildren and themselves is another “hot button” for unmarried women as 84 percent of single mothers lack a college degree.

Among unmarried white women, the firm found that the top two issues that irritated them most about elected officials in Washington were “too much political party bickering” and “too much spending, taxes and deficits.”

Unmarried women also will share with other voters a very personal, emotional reaction to whoever is running for office.

By sheer number alone, unmarried women have the power to influence America’s leadership course if they are motivated enough to get out and vote. Rallying their participation and support will be a challenge for candidates and advocacy groups.