Hellmouth podcast recommends The Vision. The link goes straight to the podcast URL, and the review starts about six minutes into the podcast. 

Apparently the heroine of Green Stone of Healing(R) series has a lot in common with  Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

 Who knew!?

Ford Motor Company has developed a special key that worried parents can program. When their teens use this key to drive certain models of Ford automobiles, the car cannot go faster than 80 miles an hour and it cannot play the stereo at more than half volume. The auto also will not turn on unless all passengers fasten their seat belts.

Think of it as technology-enhanced “training wheels” for teen drivers. Those aged 16 to 19 are four times more likely to crash than other drivers.

Who could argue with using technology to keep kids safe? Technology – especially so-called safety technology – has demonstrated unforeseen consequences, however.

“We have never gotten the full benefits of any safety technology ever invented because people have adjusted their behaviors due to these technologies,” says George E. Hoffer, professor of economics at Virginia Commonwealth University. He was speaking to me back in 2007 when I was writing a column for a syndicate that is now The North Star National.

Hoffer has spent four decades studying and writing about what’s called “offsetting behavior” resulting from automobile safety features such as seat belts and air bags. His research has found that when drivers know their cars have safety devices, they tend to behave less responsibly behind the wheel. In other words, safety technology encourages them to be less cautious.

Another term for offsetting behavior is free will. As souls created and endowed with unconditional freedom, we will always find ways around anyone or anything presuming or purporting to save us from ourselves.

Here’s the fly in this ointment. If this magic key keeps teens from learning to make their own judgment calls behind the wheel, what happens when they finally drive a car without the high-tech protections? Will safer driving have become their habit? Or will they be so conditioned to having big brother take care of them that they remain unprepared to assume full responsibility on the road?

We’ll find out in a few years. 

When comparing male power to female power, think of the former as action and the latter as attraction. Another way to look at it: doing versus being. The yang and the yin. The light and the dark. The electric and the magnetic.  The push and the pull. The broadcaster and the receiver.

The two forms of power complement each other, but this male-dominated world considers only the male/push/electric form as legitimate. Female/pull/receptive power is derided as seduction or temptation, when it really is the basis for the experiences and people we all attract into our lives. The law of attraction rests on female power, not male. Perhaps that is why it is so poorly understood.

In other words, to act, we use the electric energy of the mental-spiritual half of self. This is the side of self we are most familar with. To attract or receive, we use the magnetic energy of the emotional-physical parts of our being. One side of self cannot do or be without the other, yet we venerate and elevate the mental-spiritual (the masculine) at the expense of the emotional-physical (the feminine).

We also need to understand what we mean by energy here. The energy we speak of is the energy of consciousness — thoughts, feelings, beliefs — known as the aura in metaphysical terms. This consciousness-aura energy is called kura in the Green Stone of Healing® speculative epic. Whatever the name, this energy is the essence of who we are. Even our physical bodies are energy in a form that we are capable of perceiving with our physical eyes. Other names for this energy are chi or prana.

So where does romance fit into this gender-power equation? Interestingly, romance is where the two kinds of energies, masculine and feminine, collide and mingle. That’s what makes romance so compelling and essential, especially to women. During a romance, a woman finally elicits emotional (and sexual) attention from a man who otherwise would ignore his feelings about her or anyone else (himself included) to focus his energies on action, usually competition, in business, sports, or elsewhere.

Men absolutely hate it that they are not immune to women’s attracting/receptive power. This is one of the fascinating dynamics of romance. But they cannot escape this kind of power because they also possess it, although not to the degree that women do, unless the man is gay or bisexual.

Moralizing aside, one of the reasons a non-hetero sexual orientation is so threatening to straight men is the extra degree to which attracting/receptive feminine energy is present in the aura of non-hetero males. Lesbians and bisexual women also possess a greater extent of male/push energy than straight females. This is not as threatening to straight men because they are familiar with this kind of energy and regard it as superior anyway.

To be female in this world has long been associated with powerlessness. Nothing could be further from the truth. Attracting/receptive energy is extremely powerful, but can also be misused easily and degenerate into manipulation.

Throughout the generations, the Green Stone of Healing® saga explores how female power is the missing link for true healing at all levels of self and in the world. It also examines how women’s greatest challenge is to accept their own attracting/receptive nature as legitimate power and wield it forthrightly to sustain their personal autonomy, and improve their own lives and the lives of those they love.

Call it a sign of our polarized times. Even the ground hogs disagree.

According to Reuters, the venerable Punxsutawney Phil predicted six more weeks of winter today when he saw his shadow after coming out of his burrow. Phil has been at this for more than a century, so he has lots of practice.

Upstart rival Staten Island Chuck, however, did not see his shadow, in which case spring is just around the corner.

Of course, the actual groundhogs in question didn’t say a word. That was up to their human handlers. Animals are smart enough to keep their opinions to themselves, while we humans beings tediously blog on and on…

The Huffington Post’s Arianna Huffington struck a nerve in the American public when she suggested on Dec. 29 that we take our money out of banks that are “too big to fail” and put it into community banks or credit unions.

In other words, vote with our pocketbooks against the venal, corrupt institutions that caused the U.S. economy to crater and were rewarded with billions in taxpayer bailout dollars to save them from the consequences of their short-sighted greed and folly.

Welcome aboard, Ms. Huffington. We walked away more than a decade ago. We have two checking/savings accounts. One is with the Fort Worth City Credit Union, which my partner can use because her grandfather was a Fort Worth city employee for decades. We opened that account back in 1989.

A decade later, we moved our second account from Bank of America to a credit union serving residents of our small Texas town just south of Dallas. It was a minor pain in the keister to move the money. The satisfaction of blowing off BofA was priceless.

The BofA account did not start out at BofA. It began in 1981 at First National Bank, a Texas-based institution that, like most large Texas banks at the time, served consumers as an afterthought but really cherished commercial business. Then the 1986 oil crunch hit, and FNB became First Republic, merging with its statewide rival in a desperate bid by both parties to remain solvent.

The years passed. We watched as a larger regional player stepped in to acquire InterFirst before it swooned into bankruptcy. That regional powerhpouse was, in turn, snapped up by BofA. Along the way, customer service evaporated, fees for everything exploded, and we finally cried, “Enough!” and left in sheer disgust.

That was at the height of the 1990s dotcom boom.

We have never looked back. The service is great at both of our credit unions, and the one in our town, which deals with us on a day-to-day basis, knows our names, and refuses to deliver check refills to our home out of concern about identity theft. (Instead, the CU has the checks delivered there and calls us to come get them.)

Any money we subsequently earn will go into credit unions or small local banks. Once we pay off our credit cards, we will look hard at how to ditch plastic, too, and go all cash.

BofA never noticed or cared about losing our meager dollars. But if thousands and maybe millions of us make the effort to walk away, it will hit the big boys in the only place they can feel–their pocketbooks.

“Physician, heal thyself.”

–Luke 4:23

Now that healthcare employers take disruptive workplace behavior seriously, and a major survey has indicated that physicians cause the majority of it, what are they doing to change the situation?

According to Dr. Barry Silbaugh, CEO of the American College of Physician Executives (ACPE), one effective method is based on the engineering concept of high reliability. “This sticks more with doctors because they think like engineers,” he says.

“There is a fair amount of overlap between disruptive behavior and medical malpractice,” Silbaugh says, although he knows of no studies examining the exact relationship.

With lives and health on the line, the healthcare field is following the aviation industry, which several decades ago brought in the principles of high reliability to improve behavior among pilots and crew in airplanes, where lives are also at stake.

The ACPE works with physicians all around the country, teaching them how high reliability applies to the practice of their profession. “We try to emphasize the knowledge and behavior competencies needed by physician leaders,” he says.

The most dangerous time for patients is when they are transferred from one department to another, such as the operating room to intensive care, Silbaugh says.  “Doctors need to learn how to behave and influence people,” he adds. “They must let go of autonomy and become part of a team” that feels free to ask questions about patients and their care without fearing attacks or reprisals.

Another huge issue for physicians is admitting that they are not perfect, that they will make mistakes. In addition, Silbaugh notes, the obsessive-compulsive behaviors that may have helped them through medical school start to work against doctors in the real world of actual medical practice.

“Medical schools use too much humiliation as part of their training,” Silbaugh adds. He says that when he speaks to doctors, he talks about the baggage they carry with them, and always cites poet Maya Angelou, who writes that people never forget how we make them feel. Amen to that.

The real issue, however, goes beyond behavior, which is visible and measurable, and is therefore usually the focus of improvement efforts. Behavior, in its turn, arises out of our feelings about self and our beliefs. The baggage, in other words.

Doctors, nurses, and other healthcare professionals dishing out disruptive, possibly criminal behavior do so out of low self-esteem. They feel bad about themselves and are insecure, and take it out on those around them. They also play politics, jockeying for position and recognition. All at the expense of patients and colleagues.

How do we heal feelings? How do we even find them within ourselves to address them? The low self-esteem and insecurities that prompt disruptive behavior are often not available to our conscious awareness. We cannot fathom why we act the way we do. It just comes out and blindsides us as well as those around us.

The irony of medicine today is that having devolved into a science devoted strictly to the physical, there is little accounting for the mental part of self, and no place at all for the emotional and spiritual aspects of our being.

Yet if physicians (and the rest of us) are ever truly to heal themselves or their patients, they/we must finally include the overlooked parts of self that cry out for succor. The emotional and spiritual are just as real and valid as the physical and mental sides of self, or our behavior. Feelings and beliefs are powerful and important.

Yet medical science ignores and leaves behind this entire half of self, rendering healthcare incomplete and ever more costly as a result.

These medical “professionals” relegate notorious TV physician Gregory House to strictly amateur standing.

A recently published survey of more than 2,100 U.S. physicians and nurses reveals that almost 98 percent of them have witnessed serious incidences of unprofessional conduct that crosses into criminal behavior while on the job in hospitals and other healthcare workplaces.

The kinds of actions cited are not merely the snide remarks that the fictional House directs at colleagues, friends, patients, and other unsuspecting targets. The abysmal conduct includes groping a radiology technician while she was taking an X-ray. A nurse spreading false rumors about a new physician to get him fired or disciplined. One enraged surgeon tossing surgical instruments about an operating room and another shoving a nurse into a trash bin head first. A different physician telling a nurse, “You don’t look dumber than my dog. Why can’t you at least fetch what I need?”

The most common grievance from the survey: degrading comments and insults, which nearly 85 percent of participants reported they had experienced at their organization. Other frequent complaints included yelling, cursing, inappropriate joking, and refusing to work with one another.

Most of the survey participants (67.2 percent) were nurses, and 32.8 percent were doctors. While there were reports of bad behavior among nurses, most respondents, nurses and doctors, cited physicians as the primary source of the problem. While most (56.5 percent) said the incidences occurred either monthly or several times a year, 30 percent said they occur weekly and 9.5 percent reported witnessing problem behavior daily. In other words, more than one-third of surveyed healthcare professionals encounter poor behavior as a regular part of their workday.

This disruptive behavior negatively impacts patient safety and saps workforce morale, according to Dr. Barry Silbaugh, CEO of the American College of Physician Executives (ACPE), which conducted the survey. “It’s nothing new,” Silbaugh says about the conduct brought to light by the poll.

Indeed, anyone who has family or friends in the healthcare field has heard plenty of similar horror stories. I attended college with a registered nurse who graduated from the last nursing diploma class admitted to the profession. She was back in school to obtain the four-year degree that had been just been established as a requirement to become a nurse. It was the early 1970s.

My college classmate often regaled me with toe-curling tales about how she spent much of her time on the job trying to keep interns and residents from harming patients because of their inexperience and/or arrogance. Her view was confirmed by a good friend from later in life who is also a registered nurse and reported much the same situation. Both women are no longer working as nurses, which is hardly surprising.

Then there is the report from the hospital trenches about a different surgeon well known among his colleagues for temper tantrums. One time during a procedure he threw a scalpel. The sharp knife hit something and ricocheted back at him, slicing into his palm and ending his career in the operating room. Instant karma?

While the situation has festered for decades, it has taken on fresh urgency for several reasons, Silbough explains. The first is the current national emphasis on healthcare reform. Despite notable improvements at certain organizations, he says, the majority of healthcare systems still struggle with disruptive behaviors by doctors, nurses, and other medical professionals.

Another reason for renewed interest in solving the problem is a requirement instituted at the start of 2009 by the Joint Commission, the most highly regarded medical accreditation organization. Hospitals and other healthcare facilities must now show a written code of professional conduct to earn Joint Commission safety accreditation.

According to those who replied to the questionnaire, the fundamental issue behind much of the behavior problem is lack of respect between doctors and nurses. And there is good news in all of this. Members of the profession and professional groups like the ACPE are finally starting to talk openly about the problem and address it, instead of keeping it as healthcare’s dirty little secret. And there are actions that members of the healthcare field can take to reduce the problem.

Every so often, those scary undead creatures of the night arise from their coffins and suck more cash out of the public, whose appetite for vampires and other paranormal creatures never dies.

We are hot and heavy into another wave of vampire culture, sparked by the immense popularity of the Twilight young adult romance novels and movie. There is the HBO series True Blood, other films or TV shows about witches or those with unusual abilities (Eastwick, X-Men, Heroes), and yet more vampire movies, such as 30 Days of Night.

Vampire camp is nothing new. During the 1970s, the undead novels of author Anne Rice were major bestsellers, and in 1979 two vampire films also made a pop culture splash. One was a comedy, Love at First Bite, and the other a remake of the 1897 vampire novel, Dracula, by Irish author Abraham “Bram” Stoker. Stoker’s novel came to the big screen again in the 1990s remake, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, while that decade also witnessed the long-running TV series, Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

So what’s behind this current fascination with things that go bump in the night? Part of the explanation, perhaps, is our utter disgust with last year’s Wall Street bailout. We the taxpayers know we are being bled dry by corporations that are “too big to fail” and their enablers and abettors in Washington, D.C. On top of that mess, state and local governments are only too willing to give huge tax cuts to businesses that face zero consequences for not living up to their part of the bargain. So we might as well enjoy some horror while we struggle with lost jobs, endless unemployment, sinking salaries, mounds of bills, and zip bailout from anywhere for ordinary working stiffs.

Beyond that, our mounting anxiety over Dec. 21, 2012, is also a factor in this latest wave of vampire/paranormal chic. The date, which is approximate, represents the end of a 26,000-year cycle on the Mayan calendar. Not that many of us really understand the actual significance of this date or what the Mayans intended when they ended their calendar on it. We’ve just heard about it from somewhere and presuppose that it means disaster. Call it Y2K glitch/millennium jitters, Part 2.

Enter Hollywood stage right; there are always megabucks to be made in exploiting fear. The film 2012, to debut on Friday, Nov. 13, appears from the previews to gob up destruction with all the outsize special effects that Tinseltown can throw on the big screen. Last fall it was another film called Knowing. Same theme: worldwide destruction depicted by high-tech wizardry, just a different big-name star.

The more pertinent question becomes, why do we invariably expect the worst? What’s in our psyche that leads us to assume that some date or deadline always spells disaster? As just one example, almost every human culture has a variation on a global flood myth.

Despite our so-called modern mindset, the religious meme of judgment day is just like those vampires: it never really dies and cannot be killed off readily. While only a minority still professes to believe in an actual Day of Judgment, the concept of doomsday still haunts most of us, even if we do not acknowledge it. That gnawing, deep-seated unease sets us up to fear the worst in the form apocalypses now framed in lay terms, such as human-made global warming destroying the planet. In this secular scenario, an outraged planet instead of vengeful deity assumes the triple role of judge, jury, and executioner.

Even when times are relatively prosperous, our deep-seated apocalyptic terrors still shake us to the core. The Y2K glitch was supposed to cause havoc with worldwide computer time-keeping when the year 2000 rolled around. Half a decade of media hype and millions upon millions of dollars in programming fixes later, Y2K was a bust. And all the related jitters and handwringing took place during the 1990s dot.com boom.

The apocalypse mindset may well be hard-wired into human genes. Perhaps we all walk around harboring distant, cellular-based memories of an era when our lives consisted of minute-by-minute struggles with the elements, large carnivorous animals, and hostile neighboring tribes.

A different slant: We have lived through such mass destruction before, and the possibility haunts our soul memories. These diverse explanations are not mutually exclusive even while appealing to very different views of human existence.

Most likely we will carry on, dreading our demise right up until our sun in the very distant future shrinks to a dwarf star incapable of supporting life on our planet or anywhere else in our solar system. By then our restless, curious selves will have built space arks that have taken us far beyond the confines of this solar system to new suns and new worlds.

We will still bring our fears and limitations with us, however, unless we learn to grow beyond them. Ultimately, Dec. 21, 2012 may have far more impact on inner change and growth than anything else. And that will be something to celebrate, not dread.

 Voting is now closed. Thanks to all who took the time to vote for The Vision, Book One of the Green Stone of Healing® speculative epic series.

“C. L. Talmadge is a name to watch for when looking for excellence in weaving a tale,” writes Long and Short Reviews.

The Vision was part of the 2009 Wake Up Celebrity Author contest.