Thursday, January 30, 2014

NFL'S SUPER SHAME / CTE


















As we get ready for another super bowl, the NFL's super shame, becomes more obvious as former NFL player's brain injuries and CTE deaths keep piling up ~ for example there were 152 NFL concussions in 2013 with the majority being wide receiver and corner back positions and the obvious danger of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) proportionally increased along with the NFL's shame: Allen L Roland

A few nights ago I watched League Of Denial on Frontline and was amazed at the depth of the NFL's concussion crisis. Watch this hour long documentary on the hidden story of the NFL and brain injuries as well as the heroic story of Dr Ann McKee (Boston University) who has examined brains from 46 deceased former NFL players and found that 45 had CTE. Watch video ~

I have a personal interest in this story because my beloved twin brother Bobby died on August 17th of 2013 of advanced Parkinson's disease with  possible CTE complications from playing High School as well as College Football and Hockey.
Jason Breslow writes in FRONTLINE that High school football players are nearly twice as likely to sustain a concussion as are college players. The report also raised new concerns about just how far helmets can go to protect athletes from concussions. In May, FRONTLINE reported that as early as 2000, the NFL’s official helmet provider, Riddell, was warned that even a helmet that passed industry safety standards for protection against skull fractures and other severe head injuries could still leave a player with a 95 percent likelihood of receiving a concussion.




















To this I add comments from my High School friend and former High School Superintendent Jim Leonard who writes that .. " Last year, Massachusetts school officials reported 4,200 concussions in football alone.  If that had been reported for any other activity there would have been a tremendous outcry, but this information went almost unnoticed.  I am suggesting that school officials take a long and serious look at contact sports.  After all, the primary goal of public schools is to provide meaningful education not opportunities for life altering injuries."

Here's how CTE effects the brain and it's not pretty as compiled by Neuropathologist Dr Ann McKee from Boston University.













Stage One ~ No Symptoms
Stage Two ~ Rage, Impulsivity, Depression
Stage Three ~ Confusion, Memory Loss
Stage Four ~ Advanced Dementia

Less than three years since retiring, the legendary quarterback, Brett Favre, has become one of the most high profile players to acknowledge he has experienced health problems stemming from repeated concussions in the NFL ~ "God only knows the toll from NFL Concussions" Brett said.  See report ~

But I definitely know from a phone conversation with my twin brother about a year ago when I was sharing an indelible common joyful memory from our childhood years ~ and Bobby slowly interjected  "Allen, I don't remember anything.."

Allen L Roland

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com
 
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Thursday, January 23, 2014

AMERICA'S NUCLEAR RADIATION COVER UP 1946 - 1958 / BARBARIC RACISM





















Bravo nuclear explosion / Project 4.1 / March 1st, 1954

The Public Broadcasting Industry paid for and is now suppressing a documentary film "Nuclear Savage" that explored nuclear testing in the Marshall Islands 1946-1958 ~ that exposed Pacific Islanders to deadly overdoses of radiation just to send a message and get more data on killing and maiming people: Allen L Roland

The Republic of the Marshall Islands covers nearly a million square miles of picturesque islands, thriving coral atolls, and crystal clear blue waters …. undoubtedly one of the most interesting places in the world to live and visit and evidently to bomb.

It was a Pacific island paradise...  until the United States tested nuclear weapons and conducted secret human radiation experiments from 1948 to 1954.Experiments that would remain top-secret for decades....Until now...

















The U.S. Army performed nuclear weapons testing on Bikini from 1948 to 1954 and established a missile testing range in Kwajalein. On March 1st, 1954, the US Government conducted the BRAVO nuclear test (Project 4.1) which was 1000 times larger than the nuclear explosion at Hiroshima.

Project 4.1 is the study of the response of human beings exposed to significant beta and gamma radiation due to fall out from high yield weapons (nuclear bombs). In other words, the Pacific Islanders were treated as savages and guinea pigs so the US Government could send a message as to its military might and the effect on those who dare to oppose it.

In 2005, director Adam Horowitz started work on "Nuclear Savage," his second documentary about the American military use and abuse of the Marshall Islands.

As William Boardman writes in Reader Supported News ~ Horowitz has a contract with Pacific Islanders in Communications (PIC), which describes itself as "a national non-profit media arts organization" whose mission "is to support, advance and develop programming that enhances public recognition of and appreciation for Pacific Islander history, culture, and society."  Among its efforts to carry out this mission, PIC supported the production of "Nuclear Savage" with $100,000 passed through to Horowitz from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB). Horowitz delivered a completed, 87-minute version of "Nuclear Savage" in October 2011 - the same month it was nominated for Best Environmental Film at the Amsterdam International Documentary Film Festival. That was also the same month various public broadcasting officials started putting up roadblocks to keep the movie off the air, a delaying tactic that continues into 2014. FAIR (Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting) reported the story in detail as "Nuclear Stalemate" in Extra!

PIC summarizes the film this way: "Some use the term 'savage' to refer to people from primitive cultures, but nuclear experimentation pushed savagery to new levels. In the 1950s, the U.S. conducted 67 atomic and hydrogen bomb tests in the Marshall Islands, vaporizing islands and exposing entire populations to fallout. The islanders on Rongelap received near fatal doses of radiation from one test, and were then moved onto a highly contaminated island to serve as human guinea pigs for 30 years. Filmmaker Adam Jonas Horowitz spent 25 years collecting material - including original footage, archival clips, and unpublished secret documents - to create this unforgettable and ironic portrait of American cynicism, arrogance, and racism. Winner of festival awards in Paris, Chicago and Mexico City."



Here is the 8 minute trailer video which features Adam Horowitz describing America's most horrific and barbaric act of racism ~


“...racist thought and action says far more about the person they come from than the person they are directed at.” Chris Crutcher

Allen L Roland

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com
 
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net

Tuesday, January 21, 2014

WHAT MARTIN LUTHER KING Jr WOULD DO TODAY
















Martin Luther King was above all a truth teller, the ultimate whistle blower, and we can carry on his legacy by insisting on nothing but the truth and settling for nothing less than the truth. King was far more than a moderate reformer ~ King was a change agent who advanced strong policy changes that went against the grain of the nation’s corporate state, and insisted that  “only by structural change can current evils be eliminated, because the roots are in the system rather in man or faulty operations”: Allen L Roland

On Martin Luther King Day, I look for the real King, not the white washed image portrayed by the main stream press but instead the deeply concerned revolutionary who knew the real meaning of his Nobel Peace Prize ~ as Paul Street explains in Popular Resistance ; " Explaining why he had turned against the Vietnam War, King noted that “a burden of responsibility was placed upon me in 1964: I cannot forget that the Nobel Prize for Peace was also a commission ~ a commission to work harder that I had ever worked before for ‘the brotherhood of man.’ This is a calling which takes me beyond national allegiances …to the making of peace”  Read full article:

King today would be fulfilling his Nobel Prize commission and be working for the brotherhood of man, not Wall Street and the Corporate State ~ which is why we celebrate him today and this is what we should expect from fellow Nobel Peace Prize Laureate Barack Obama ~ and see little visible evidence of.

Watch this 7 minute video on If Martin Luther King Were Alive Today and reflect on this great man and his message ~

Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate ~ Only love can do that : Martin Luther King Jr

Allen L Roland

Freelance Alternative Press Online columnist and transformational counselor Allen L Roland is available for comments, interviews, speaking engagements and private Skype consultations allen@allenroland.com
 
Allen L Roland is a practicing psychotherapist, author and lecturer who also shares a daily political and social commentary on his web log and website allenroland.com He also guest hosts a monthly national radio show TRUTHTALK on www.conscioustalk.net