Soul’s Code

Wonder why Congressman Weiner went weird? He might show skin but he is not comfortable in his own. Addicts never are.

BY MARY COOK, M.A., R.A.S. — Read TMZ.com any night about the most privileged people on the planet. Nic Cage is arrested for spousal abuse and public inebriation. Days later Cage’s son attacks his personal trainer. Meanwhile, Charlie Sheen is acting out again.

When our primary needs or desires in childhood are insufficiently gratified, we experience a deep and lasting sense of fear, incompleteness and inferiority.

Because it is difficult to contain fully conscious awareness of these feelings, defense mechanisms arise to dull, block or defensively glorify them.

We might adopt narcissistic or avoidant behaviors, or dangerous thrill-seeking practices, in order to distract ourselves from original fears.

Two new movies, Seal Team 6, and Catherine Bigelow’s next hit, invite us to look in a mirror.

BY DAVID RICKEY — Yes, Bin Laden was a very evil individual who masterminded much and mentored many. However, his death will stop neither the consciousness that breeds terrorism nor the historic causes that feed that consciousness.

The decision to bury Bin Laden’s body at sea within hours of his death demonstrates, it seems to me, a level of sensitivity that counters much of the insensitivity that lies at the root of the present pandemic of terrorism (although already there is conflicting opinion and criticism for this action).

While there will always be people who express their selfish anger in acts of aggression against others, the “West” — that over-encompassing term describing what we might describe as the “more enlightened” people in Europe and America — would do well to reflect on our own actions over the past 3+ centuries that have contributed to the anger in Africa, the “Middle East” and southest Asia that underpin the terrorist argument.

Confused morals: Is it wrong and barbaric to be glad someone – even Osama Bin Laden – is dead?

Murder could save top job: The US President receives praise, including from ex-presidents, for the death of the Al Qaeda leader.

In hindsight: Should the world have turned the other cheek?

Hey big spender: Researchers conclude size (of wallet) does matter.

Buried treasure: Six reasons why financial infidelity kills intimacy.

Survey says: Fool around, fine – but don’t lie to me about money.

“I had flings with over-sexed football players, a boss at a TV station — and now see them as fallout from sexual abuse in my Catholic home”

MARINA GIULLIANI (Read part 1 , 2 and 3 of this Soul’s Code excerpt from the book, Sins of my Faith) — Being sexually-pleasured as a young child meant I was always very uncomfortable in situations where using my sexuality to get my own way was not an option.

The thought of heading to a segregated Catholic high school was pure torment.

My sister Angela had chosen the school a year earlier, and I was stuck with it. Now four to five years of nothing but girls and nuns loomed ahead of me. I was completely disillusioned by all things Catholic, and I hated the boxed-in feeling of girly stuff.

In high school I’d soon be totally engulfed by both.

“One should not have to lose a child, especially in the violent manner in which mine was murdered, to learn the things that are indispensable to living.”

Linda White’s workshop at the Happiness & Its Causes Conference in San Francisco was co-sponsored by Soul’s Code.  A doctor of psychology, Linda specializes in restorative justice, and finding ways for victims and offenders to reconcile.

BY LINDA WHITE — It was November 18, 1986, and my mother’s birthday.  I had planned to spend the entire day with her, doing anything she wanted, since it was “her day.”  I awoke, however, not to that pleasant expectation, but to a phone call from my five-year-old granddaughter, Ami, telling me that she was home alone and she didn’t know where her mother was.

Can you inherit hate? The karmic question is tested in an HBO documentary about the most notorious public enemy alongside Bin Laden and Hitler

BY PAUL KAIHLA – A DEA agent once told me a story he heard about Pablo Escobar, the late founder and CEO of the Medellin drug cartel. Escobar saw an attractive woman in a Colombian hotel. He ordered his henchmen to do two things: kill the woman’s husband, and bring her to his room, where he raped her.

The tale may be apocryphal, and it appears in no public accounts. But what is in the public record thanks to multiple investigations and sig-int intercepts is that Mr. Escobar ordered: the assassination of 3 Colombian presidential candidates, as well as 100’s of cabinet ministers, judges, prosecutors and cops; the bombing of an Avianca jet that killed 110 passengers . . . it’s a long list of atrocities.

In other words, if you’re going to document a case study on the origins and transference of hate, violence and sin, Pablo Escobar is a cardinal candidate.

Childhood friends, then ‘tribal’ enemies, come to terms with a history of violence

BY DANIEL D. WOO — In 1960 when I was in 7th grade, a bunch of kids started the “Boo for Woo” club.  I was furious.

Our family moved to the United States in 1953 when I spoke only Mandarin Chinese and not a word of English.  The Geary Act extended the 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act until 1943 when the laws were amended allowing up to 105 Chinese immigrants a year.

We came into the US as political refugees and became citizens in 1963 under a special bill passed in Congress. It wasn’t until The Immigration Act of 1965 that the immigration laws were reformed allowing Chinese and other Asians to come into the United States in large numbers.

Our family wound up in a neighborhood in San Jose where there were almost no other Asians, a small number of blacks, and a few Hispanics.  The majority were predominantly white Protestants, and at my school there were also Catholics and Jews.

If trust is about truth, no wonder we find it more difficult to look into each other’s eyes than to have sex together

BY DAVID RICKEY – In Woody Allen’s latest film of dysfunction, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger, Gemma Jones’ character says, “My husband walked out on me for one simple reason. I was too honest with him. I refused to allow him to delude himself.”

Truth, lies, seeing, blindfolding . . . having too much of one, and too little of the other, can tip the scales in a relationship, destroying trust.

Trust is really a question of energy flow.

When I truly love you, my energy flows positively out toward you. When I trust you, I believe that your energy will flow positively toward me.

Multiple divorces don’t doom everyone to Britneyhood. At Christmas time broken homes, too, can be merry.

BY MICHELLE MORRA-CARLISLE – I wonder how many people feel cheated every Christmas because there is no fluffy snow outside, no cozy fireplace and no Tiny Tim. I must confess that I was down on my own family for years. If ‘A Christmas Carol’ had starred us, Tim and his siblings would have lived with Mrs. Cratchet and only visited Mr. Cratchit on weekends.

This is by no means a sob story. I am, in fact, about to brag about the Christmas I’m about to spend with my mother, husband, sister, stepsister, half-brother and his girlfriend, stepfather and stepfather’s first wife (stepsister’s mother). As my sister puts it, “all three of our parents are twice divorced.” Yet I challenge any nuclear family out there to have a more fun, more loving time than we will have.