This site is about faces and heroes, villains, and fools. I've looked at asymmetrical faces—due to cleft lips and palates often—a lot. However, I haven't written many blogs about villainous faces which often feature asymmetry. For that matter, I've given villains short shrift, favoring heroes. Villains are key. Villains are important in storytelling. Without villains, we cannot have heroes. If everyone in a story is good, it's difficult knowing whom to root for. This is doubly important for … [Read more...]
Kids charged as felons for bullying: Racism?
Back in May of 2016 about 100 parents, seniors and clergy marched in protest in Clayton, Missouri (near Ferguson). They didn't like an impending law that they felt would create a “school-to-prison pipeline.” They said that the soon-to-be enacted law that charges bullying as a felony targets young people of color.Bullying and racism.The protestors called for an end to out-of-school suspensions for students in every school district in their area. Their protest may've resulted in three St. … [Read more...]
‘Gone Girl’ still victimized by cyberbullying.
In this my first first blog of 2017, I will begin a process of including more topics about villains, apropos of the theme of this website. Today, I'm writing about a cyberbullying villain.Heroes, Villains and Fools.Of late, I've focused a lot on heroes, including unsung heroes who are facially-challenged or caregivers of such people. In the future, I'll try to write more about villains—especially those privileged ones who commit violent crime (murder) and nonviolent crime (fraud). The daily … [Read more...]
How countries rank re cleft lip & palate needs.
On a day when many of us see people around the world celebrating New Years on TV, I thought it appropriate to consider how cleft lip care resources vary around the world.There are many countries in the world where patients with cleft lip and palate cannot get access to specialized cleft repair. Flying surgeons and other types of cleft medical missions play an important role in providing surgical care to the areas of the world with limited resources. … [Read more...]
How can Santa make the Holidays happy? By delivering 3D printers for cleft lip surgery.
You may see Santa and his reindeer streaming thru the sky tonight or see them on those radar images TV newscasters use to chart his path from the North Pole. If so, let's hope that he's delivering 3-D printers which'll help countries around the world take better care of cleft lip and palate kids. 3D printers.What do I mean? Well, let me first describe how 3D printers work in case you're not familiar with this cutting-edge technology. According to one source, the first step in the printing of … [Read more...]
Has Trump really caused an increase in bullying?
This article by an editor at Reason.Com appears to be a fair, "let's-wait-and-see" assessment of the causes of the recent spike in bullying. That's why I'm posting it here in its entirety.Most of us are amateur social scientists to the extent that we know the difference between randomly selected subjects in a study and self-selected ones. That's the problem here.The author of the article, Robby Soave is an editor at reason.com.Explaining the spike in bullying."The Southern Poverty Law Center … [Read more...]
Cleft lip charity to benefit from Trump’s “Apprentice.”
Besides revelations regarding Trump's cabinet picks, last week saw news about his signature TV show, "The Apprentice." Trump plans to be executive producer of his hit NBC show which will be hosted by none-other-than Arnold Schwartzenegger starting January2, 2017.Many feel Trump should focus on the new job he won in his stunning election upset. But, there is … [Read more...]