"The story of the surgery that made Ben Carson famous — and its complicated aftermath."

In The Washington Post. Excerpt:

Their mother would later tell reporters that they came home with the hope, instilled in them by the Johns Hopkins surgeons, that the boys might soon begin crawling, and then hit other milestones.... It soon became apparent, though, that the boys were hopelessly delayed, according to a 1993 interview with the Revue. Benjamin would moan occasionally, but Patrick remained completely silent; he had had a setback in the Baltimore hospital when he choked on a piece of food, going without oxygen for a short time. Years later, neither boy could get around on his own or feed himself....

When Freizeit Revue caught up with Theresia in November 1993, she said her children’s brain damage had destroyed her marriage. “Josef has never been able to cope with this blow of fate,” she said in the little-seen interview written in German and translated into English. She said Josef, who has since died, according to Theresia’s brother, became an alcoholic, lost his job, cheated on her and spent all their money, leaving her and the children to live “from hand to mouth.”“He never touched them,” she said. “He was appalled.” Unable to care for the twins on her own, she brought them to a home for disabled children, where they became wards of the state.

“The first thing I think of every morning is ‘today I’m going to get them,’ ” she said in 1993. “But then I can’t.” She said she had lost her faith in God. She remarried and had another child, and in 1993 was pregnant with another. “When we go for a walk with the children in their wheelchair, people look at me, as if I’m a monster,” she said. “I need this child. To heal. I still have to prove to myself that I’m not a monster.”

The highest rated comment over there is:

I'm not sure why people are so negative about this article. I don't like the guy or his politics, and I think he's nuts. But this article portrays a pretty brave doctor willing to take a chance to help two babies who would otherwise have had a miserable life. He gave them a chance at a better life. That it didn't work is hardly his fault, and the article doesn't paint it as his fault. Relax.

Second:

I don't see how this story in any way reflects unfavorably on Ben Carson. Some difficult ethical and medical decisions were made and the outcome was poor. Welcome to the real world where medicine often fails to live up to expectations.  In my opinion Ben Carson's surgical successes or failures have absolutely no bearing on his fitness for office. The fact that he is a Christian fringe fanatic makes him a no go for me. Ben comes across as dangerously unhinged when he shares some of his half baked theories.

"A Utah judge reversed his decision to take a baby away from her lesbian foster parents and place her with a heterosexual couple..."

"... after the ruling led to widespread backlash."

The internet worked.

"April Hoagland and Beckie Peirce of Carbon County said the baby they've loved and raised for the last three months will be removed from their home..."

"... and sent to heterosexual foster parents because a judge said the baby would be better-off."

The women, who are legally married and were approved as foster parents in Utah earlier this year after passing home inspections, background checks and interviews from DCFS, said the judge told them there was a lot of research that indicated children who are raised in same-sex parent homes do not do as well as children who are raised by heterosexual parents.....

Attorney Mandie Torgerson, who represents the baby's biological mother, said Johansen did not cite the research he referenced in court saying only that there are "a myriad" of studies that support his order....

UPDATE: "Utah Judge Reverses Order to Take Baby From Lesbian Couple."

"If I read it right, you start out scared to talk to women, you learn all these techniques and score a lot..."

"... and then... you meet this woman for whom none of it works and you fall in love and swear off your player ways."/"Yes that’s exactly it, " says Neil Strauss. "Obviously I was a journalist, this community [of pickup artists] already existed, and I went in to describe my experience of it. But because no one had even heard of this world, and the techniques, let’s face it, are so objectifying and horrifying, that the book became the bible of what it was trying to chronicle in a more neutral way. So I think all of a sudden there were these horrid ideas that people read about in The Game and ... The Game became the origin of those ideas...."

The supposedly reformed Mr. Strauss proceeds to blame mothers, saying that what he and Robert Greene ("The Art of Seduction") and Tucker Max all have in common is:

We all have narcissistic mothers. So what happened? What happens when you grow up with your identity being squashed by this mother who never sees you but only sees herself, is you grow up with a fear of being overpowered by the feminine again....

He's still overpowered, in his mind, if he needs to say that. Picture it. His mother exists, and he's telling the world she "squashed" him and only saw herself. Who's squashing here and who's only seeing himself?

Bernie Sanders made "a Kinsley gaffe—where a politician accidentally reveals a truth he did not intend to admit."

Says Katherine Mangu-Ward at Reason.com. What Sanders said was: "Every other major country on Earth, every one, including some small countries, say that when a mother has a baby, she should stay home with that baby."

Does Mangu-Ward mean that Sanders actually thinks the mother should stay home with the baby or did she mean to say it's actually true that the mother should stay home with the baby? If she only meant the former, didn't she make a Kinsley gaffe?

"She talks about not knowing who she is anymore because she’s just Mom . . . and then she goes and buys a 12-passenger van so she can do more carpooling for her kids’ activities."

"It’s kinda heartbreaking. Her complaints aren’t incessant, but when they do happen, it’s very clear that I’m watching stuffed-away feelings leak out — like she just can’t keep up appearances anymore."

From a question for the WaPo advice columnist Carolyn Hax, who gives what I think is an excellent answer (which includes something close to that rule of thumb of mine: the best test of what people really want to do is what they are actually doing).

"Can we blame the mother of Adam Lanza... Can we blame the mother of the Oregon shooter...?"

Asks Timothy Egan in the NYT.

What about the fathers? Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana said the Oregon shooter’s father, divorced and absent for some time from his son, was “a failure” who “owes us all an apology.” Fathers certainly have an equal responsibility. But it’s the mothers, in most cases, who know the names of their children’s teachers, who understand their deepest fears, who have a unique relationship.

Hmm. The "unique relationship" the mother has is a consequence of the father's failure. If the point is to stop future harm, then all causal factors matter.

But Egan is doing gender politics and advocating for gun control. He's getting the NYT reader's attention by beginning with something transgressive. He dares to blame the woman. But then he drives a wedge, the wedge that men have driven through the ages: There are good women and bad women.

A group, Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, was formed after the Newtown carnage. It’s a good counter to the creepy cultists of the gun culture. Their best appeal is likely to be one of reason to the hearts of fellow mothers, rather than to heartless politicians at the legislative level.

The bad women consort with the dirty men, the "creepy cultists." The good women have "hearts" — they are the wholesome bulwarks of goodness.

When a man makes an appeal to the womanhood of women, to the motherhood of mothers — be a good woman, be a good mother — that is patriarchy speaking.

"Having a prefabricated laugh at the expense of my own dear mother without provocation of cause is not my idea of gratitude for the interview..."

"... which took up 10 of more pages in your puerile smokescreen periodical masquerading as a songwriting litany! My mother is not a public figure to be satirized and ridiculed with silliness and malicious nonsense by some scurrilous little wretch with a hard-on for comedy!"

Wrote Bob Dylan in a letter — which he never sent — to Song Talk magazine.

The headline at The NYT is "Mother of Oregon Gunman Wrote of Keeping Firearms," but I think that's the 3rd most interesting revelation...

... in the article.

First is the additional reason to think that the now-dead murderer was autistic:

Laurel Margaret Harper... acknowledged having expertise in dealing with autism, saying that both she and her son — whom she never identified by name — had Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder... She... said she had “dealt with it on a daily basis for years and years”... “He’s no babbling idiot nor is his life worthless,” Ms. Harper wrote. “He’s very intelligent and is working on a career in filmmaking. My 18 years worth of experience with and knowledge about Asperger’s syndrome is paying off.”

2 days ago, here, I raised my suspicion that the young man was autistic.

Second is the fact that this woman, who advocated reading to an autistic child, for some reason choose as the appropriate reading material, Donald Trump's "Art of the Deal":

“Fact: Before my son was even born, I was reading out loud to him from Donald Trump’s ‘The Art of the Deal,’” she wrote. “And as for the ‘gesture effect,’ I was practically a mime. And now my son invests in the stock market along with me, turns a profit and is working on a degree in finance. His language and reading skills are phenomenal. I tell you this because it’s not too late for you to start helping your daughter.”

"How many girlfriends have you had?"/"0. Never had anyone."

"Well, it means I’ve never been with anyone, no woman nor man (nor dog or animal or any other).... must be saving himself for someone special... Involuntarily so."

“He did not like his lot in life, and it seemed like nothing was going right for him,” a law enforcement official said, describing the writings found at the crime scene. “It’s clear he was in a very bad state of mind.”...

[H]e lived with his mother, Laurel Harper, a nurse who fiercely protected him from, among other things, the neighborhood sounds of loud children and barking dogs. Once, neighbors said, she went door to door with a petition to get the landlord to exterminate cockroaches in her apartment, saying they bothered her son.

Here are some "new details" about Harper-Mercer, whose relationship with his mother reminds me of Adam Lanza's. That sensitivity to sound is suggestive of an autistic disorder, and Harper-Mercer attended The Switzer Learning Center, which deals with "learning disabilities, health problems and autism or Asperger's Disorder."

Sofia Camarena of Long Beach, California, told The Oregonian/OregonLive that she used to date Harper-Mercer's father. "I used to change Chris' diapers when he was a baby," she said.... "He was born with problems. He was hard to discipline. If you told him 'no,' he would scream like you had just hit him."...

There are a number of indications that Harper-Mercer had mental health or behavioral issues. His screen name on some social media sites was "lithium love." Lithium is used as a psychiatric medication.

"Lithium" is also a song title. Lyrics: "I'm so lonely but that's okay I shaved my head..."



"... and I'm not sad/And just maybe I'm to blame for all I've heard/But I'm not sure..."

Harper-Mercer was discharged from the Army 5 weeks into basic training for failing to meet "minimum administrative standards."

Harper-Mercer was born in the United Kingdom, stepsister Carmen Nesnick told CBS Los Angeles, moving to the United States when he was very young. He grew up in the Torrance area. His parents, Ian Bernard Mercer and Laurel Margaret Harper, divorced in 2006.

Note the erasure of the racial element. As The Daily Beast reported: Harper's father is white and his mother black.